- How to stay in love with your entrepreneur in a crazy start-up world
- Foreword
☆ What is the opportunity in this?
- For Better or For Work: A survival Guide for Entrepreneurs and Their Families #book
- “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.” - Brene Brown
- For a business to survive, the entrepreneur has to be all in, or the business doesn't stand a chance. The intense focus required by this passion project, aka the business, can be in conflict with the entrepreneur's passion for their intimates.
☆ What is our motivation? Why are we doing this?
- An entrepreneur often perceives stressors as positive challenges. The spouse, not so much.
- Introduction
- Those who choose to be with entrepreneurs invite things into their lives they may never have wanted: financial instability, uncertainty, stress, and the nagging sense that they are always playing second fiddle to the greater lure of their partner's business.
- Our willingness to see everything that comes our way as a chance to learn and grow and try something new could be all we need to keep ourselves grounded and our relationships thriving.
- Part 1: Market Research
- Chapter 1: Meet the Entrepreneur
- One of the top reasons company founders give for starting up is that they do not want to work for someone else.
- The typical business owner actually earns 35% less over ten years than he would have earned working for someone else.
- One reason why money- or status-driven entrepreneurs won't succeed is that they tend to make decisions that are bad for the business in the long run—though perhaps good for their own ego, image, or bank account in the short term.
- Is the entrepreneur motivated by money, fame, or a desire to change the world?
- Only those who want to change the world will persevere through the great challenges of building a company.
- “The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning—to create a product or serve that makes the world a better place.” - Guy Kawasaki
- Entrepreneurs consistently report higher job satisfaction and overall happiness than those employed by someone else.
- Business founders work significantly longer hours and report higher levels of stress than those who work for someone else.
- It takes remarkable people to support the creative, independently minded, can't-help-themselves entrepreneurs we love.
- Chapter 2: Meet the Start-up
- Two classic characteristics of start-up life: uncertainty and going it alone.
- These are some of the things that don't typically exist in start-ups, at least in the beginning: paychecks, health insurance, job descriptions, assistants, business phone lines, office space, office supplies, tech support, reimbursements, vacation days, sick days, comp time, delegation, boundaries, work-life balance, timelines, guarantees, and answers.
- There is nothing about the start-up life that is predictably linear.
- If you can't communicate a clear vision or goal, then their spouses can't get on board.
- Chapter 3: The Entrepreneurial Life
- It is normal and expected for entrepreneurs to work ridiculously long hours.
- Being an entrepreneur is out-of-this-world stressful.
- “Stress is what arises when something you care about is at stake.” - Kelly McGonigal
- Eustress is stress that is good for you. Eustress invigorates you, pushes you to achieve a goal, and often leads to feelings of fulfillment.
- Distress leads to anxiety, impaired thinking, and illness.
- What causes us to feel eustress or distress is not the specific stressor, but our perception of that stressor: Is it a positive challenge or a negative threat?
- Human beings are not built to be under high degrees of stress, nonstop, for years on end.
- Stress is as contagious as the common cold.
- Chapter 4: The Entrepreneurial Relationship
- “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community.” - Mark Zuckerburg
- Even small decisions like choosing what to wear or deciding what to eat for lunch take too much mental energy.
- The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload by Daniel Levitin #book
- “Satisficing is one of the foundations of productive human behavior; it prevails when we don't waste time on decisions that don't matter, or more accurately, when we don't waste time trying to find improvements that are not going to make a significant difference in our happiness or satisfaction.” - Daniel Levitin
- If you don't genuinely buy into this journey, all the effort and sacrifices that will inevitably be required of you will be a tricket straight to resentment purgatory.
- Resentment is the persistent feeling that you're being treated unfairly—not getting due respect, appreciation, affection, help, apology, consideration, praise, or reward.
- Resentment doesn't help because it adds emotional strain without spurring us into action.
- Strategies to curb resentment are proactive communication and intentional time spent together.
- First Things First by Steven Covey #book
- You need to make time for things in life that are important but not urgent.
☆ Understand your greatest needs and greatest stressors.
- She wants to stick around despite the challenges. I am a decent human being who loves you but just happens to be consumed with a business, so it makes sense to fight for your relationship.
- Part 2: Due Diligence
- Chapter 5: Knowing Yourself and Your Partner
- The root issue is often your own.
- She felt a particular need to prove that she could keep up with her dream-big husband.
- Chances are you struggle with something—and that something will be triggered, possibly to epic proportions, by the stress of being with an entrepreneur.
- One key pattern associated with the development of a close relationship among peers is sustained, escalating, reciprocal, personal self-disclosure.
- The more stress people get under, the more their time horizons narrow, the less far they can see into the future. They do not see the natural consequences of their actions.
- Developing a details love map is a significant part of emotional intelligence. A mental file cabinet where we track everything important to our partner: his or her likes, dislikes, pet peeves, past experiences, fears, hopes, goals, and more.
- Love maps, so long as we continuously update them, help us stay intimately connected with our partners regardless of the swirling, unpredictable challenges that come our way.
☆ The 36 Questions That Lead to Love
- Entrepreneurs change at a much faster rate because we always have to make very broad moves very quickly.
- Workaholism is an obsessive-compulsive disorder that manifests itself through self-imposed demands, an inability to regulate work habits, and an overindulgence in work to the exclusion of most other life activities.
- Healthy workers know when to close the briefcase, mentally switch gears, and be fully present... Workaholics allow work to engulf all other quarters of life.
- Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud and John Townsend #book
- We all have something positive to contribute to our beloved entrepreneurs and their start-up adventures.
☆ Why did you first fall in love with your partner? What characteristics and qualities most attracted you? What are you fondest memories of your relationship?
☆ Chapter 6: Knowing Your Relationship
- “It's going to get better soon.”
- The false expectations he kept setting ended up being far more painful than if he had come right out and admitted, “It's going to stay really hard for another few years. I don't know when my schedule will get better.” That would have been excruciating to hear, but at least I would have been better prepared.
- A basic problem in our relationship: we had mismatched expectations of one another.
- Entrepreneurs often, but not always, marry their opposites.
- 15 areas of your relationship (Rate your level of satisfaction 1-10)
1. Shared Values
2. Commitment to Each Other
3. Communication Skills
4. Conflict Resolution Skills
5. Intimacy/Sexuality
6. Spirituality/Faith
7. Money Manangement
8. Appreciation/Affection
9. Lifestyle
10. Recreation
11. Decision-making
12. Parenthood
13. Household Chores/Gender Differences
14. Careers
15. Balancing Time
- Scores of 8-10 show that you're happy with those areas of your relationship; scores of 4-7 indicate where your level of satisfaction could be improved; and scores of 1-3 point to areas of high dissatisfaction
- Take note of scores that differ by three or more points
- Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling (or disengagement and avoidance)
- Couples spend year after year trying to change each other's mind—but it can't be done. This is because most of their disagreements are rooted in fundamental differences of lifestyle, personality, and values.
- While it is always a good idea to address our personal shortcomings directly, we shouldn't expect to fix all the things that are amiss in our relationship.
- If something is less than make-or-break for you—an annoyance more than a fundamental concern—it's actually best if you can learn to let it go.
- Anyone who has experienced a severe sprain or broken bone knows that overworking the point of injury in an attempt to help it heal or grow stronger will only make it worse. Instead, functionality is regained by strengthening the healthy muscles around the injury point and investing in the well-being of the overall system.
- Friendship is a mutual respect for and enjoyment of each other's company.
- Getting the Love You Want by Dr. Harville Hendrix #book
- Write down a list of ten specific ways in which he or she likes to be loved, and ask their significant others to do the same. After exchanging lists, each partner should take as many opportunities as possible to honor the requests of the other.
- Don't keep score.
- Love languages: words of affirmation, quality time, giving and receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.
- Chapter 7: Knowing Your Priorities
- 18 common priorities from which to begin assessing what is most important to you: family
1. Health and fitness
2. Spirituality/faith
3. Positive impact on society
4. Making use of talents
5. Personal growth
6. Spouse/partner
7. Family
8. Security
9. Wealth/savings
10. Time for leisure and relaxation
11. Friends
12. Independence
13. Stimulating/rewarding work
14. Professional growth
15. Influence and power
16. Income
17. Prestige and status
18. Where you live
- My priorities: family, health, making use of talents, personal growth, positive impact on society, security, spirituality/faith, spouse/partner, wealth/savings
- The top six are “essentials”; the middle six are “nice to haves”; and the bottom six are “non essentials.”
- We can't put our best energy into all or even most of these priorities at the same time.
☆ What are my six essential priorities in the next two years or so?
☆ What are your medium-term goals in each of these priorities? (The most effective goals are specific, measurable, and attainable.)
☆ What are the practical implications of these goals on your two most limited resources—time and money?
☆ Priority, goal, time/money required to meet goal
- You're only thinking about the next two years, not the rest of your lives.
- You may need to postpone something you care about, or one of you may feel like she is being asked to sacrifice more than the other.
- One of the trickiest balancing acts in romantic relationships: taking care of yourself while also selflessly loving your partner.
- It's important not to sacrifice everything for the sake of his or her dreams.
- Who will define this family more? How come he or she is not doing what I want? Whose money is it?
- “Don't do things that will build resentment.”
- If you want children, when do you want them, if you have them, how many do you have, how old they are, what special needs they might have.
- In 2015, babies cost a family $233,610 up until the age of 18, or about $12,978 a year.
- Elderly parents can cost $500 per day and assisted-living facilities can cost thousands of dollars a month.
- Money is often the most pragmatic lens through which to consider what matters to us.
- What is important enough to me that I am willing to pay for it? And how much is it going to cost me?
- Am I ready and willing to commit my energy and financial resources to starting a family or buying a home at a time when my income is highly uncertain?
- If you or your partner enjoys the finer things in life and would be fairly miserable without them, then the entrepreneurial path may not be for you. Sacrifice is always going to be part of the package, at least for a while.
- The sense of teamwork is especially important for entrepreneurs and their significant others.
- Chapter 8: Knowing Your Role
- Conflict that is fueled by spouses happens more frequently than you might think. And it's one of the worst things that a spouse can do to his or her entrepreneur.
- Scientific studies have consistently found that married people tend to be healthier than single individuals.
- Two character traits that frequently get entrepreneurs and their businesses in trouble: arrogance and a need to control everything. They don't ask for help and drive away those who could help. They take on far more than they should, including things that they don't have the appropriate expertise in.
- Providing accountability and developing character will give his company a better chance of succeeding.
- If I am being too resentful or pessimistic, if I am pulling away from him or not providing the support he needs, I want him to tell me.
- Part 3: Strategic Planning
- Chapter 9: Developing Trust
- In a committed relationship, trust extends far beyond the question of sexual fidelity. We want to trust our partners with our emotions, our finances, our time, our children, our social interactions, our home, our belongings, our memories, and more.
- Trust leads to security and safety in a relationship; it's the gateway to meaningful communication and intimate connections.
- Lies we tell ourselves are among the greatest barriers to a healthy relationship. “I like everything about you” and “We like all the same things.” It is only when we acknowledge our differences, and even the things we don't like about each other—and still remain committed that our relationship can grow.
- Tell Me No Lies: How to Stop Lying to Your Partner—And Yourself—in the 4 Stages of Marriage #book
- Couples lie to preserve their relationships, but it's those very lies that create dissent and leave the partners feelings stagnant, isolated, and alone.
- Both partners have a role in encouraging honesty. For every liar, there is a lie invitee: someone who doesn't want to hear the truth out of fear, anxiety, or insecurity.
- Life with an entrepreneur may very well feel like an unending series of betrayals, as our beloved chooses his or her company over us time and time again.
- It's not just about your partner earning your trust by keeping appropriate boundaries and honoring commitments; you also need to demonstrate your trust of your partner through your willingness to be open, honest, and vulnerable.
- When do I trust my spouse and when don't I?
- What kind of parameters do I need my spouse to set around work relationships, work hours, or travel?
- Here are some examples of agreements that you might ask your entrepreneur to make. The more specific and measurable you can make these statements the better.
- When I need to work late, I will...
- I will set these parameters with friends, colleagues, and business partners of the opposite/same sex:
- When ____ happens with the company, I will let you know right away.
- When I am traveling, I will call home ____.
- On the weekends, I will do ___ with the kids.
- Examples of agreements you might make:
- If I am feeling neglected or resentful, I will let you know by ___.
- If I need more time to pursue my own professional or personal interests, I will ___.
- I will set these parameters with friends, colleagues, and business partners of the opposite/same sex:
- I will be responsible for raking care of the kids when ___.
- I will continue to support your pursuit of this business as long as ___.
- I will reserve ___ in my schedule as our date night.
- If something in our house needs major repairs, I will ___.
- If you are tempted to approach agreements as a weapon to call out our significant other for the slightest misstep, your loved one will likely reciprocate. At that point, you are no longer partners but have become adversaries.
- The agreements should be dynamic and change with the relationship.
- Steps to building trust:
1. I understand you: I've taken the time to understand what your values are.
2. I appreciate you: I appreciate what you value. I will show this appreciation through affirmation and recognition.
3. I have your back: I have your best interests at heart and can articulate that in a way that is meaningful to you. I understand your fears and insecurities, and will do what I need to do to help you feel safe and loved.
4. I will tell you the truth: I will not deceive you or keep things from you. I will be honest and open about the hard truths.
- Healthy conflict is good for a relationship. It means you're working through issues that need to be addressed—but you're doing it in a way that strengthens your bond rather than harms it.
- If you've made the effort to understand your significant other's perspective, he will likely want to return the favor.
- Chapter 10: Maintaining Communication
- Making Marriage Beautiful: Lifelong Love, Joy, and Intimacy Start with You by Dorothy Greco. #book
- Our family cultures had so deeply shaped our preferences, biases, and beliefs that we reflexively judged anything different as wrong.
- Entrepreneurs are a little more allergic to being told what to do. Invite your entrepreneur into a collaborative problem-solving process instead.
- Productive communication is especially difficult for individuals who are stressed, angry, or fearful.
- Talk through your basic schedule and day-to-day responsibilities.
- Sharing household chores is the third most important factor of a successful marriage, behind faithfulness and a happy sexual relationship.
- Having one pleasant, positive conversation with each other helped both partners feel more connected and less lonely. They even fell asleep faster that day.
- Now You're Speaking My Language: Honest Communication and Deeper Intimacy for a Stronger Marriage. #book
- Check in on a daily basis while traveling.
- Share openly and respectfully; listen to one another attentively and graciously; commit to increasing out understanding of one another; provide input and feedback that is for the betterment of our partner and our family.
- Your partner's thoughts, emotions, and ideas are as valid as your own, and should be treated accordingly.
- How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving #book
- 3 step process for working through conflicts or challenges:
1. Addressing: you and your mate commit to bring up all your concerns rather than covering them up or disregarding them.
2. Processing: talk through what happened and its implications.
3. Resolving: develop agreements on what needs to change or what could be done differently.
- Another step-by-step process
1. List the facts of the situation, which can be verified by both parties
2. Explain your opinion or story about this to help contextualize why this is important to you
3. Describe your feelings about the situation
4. Name your part in creating this dynamic
5. Name your big want in specific, actionable terms
- Clear articulation of what is bothering me, why it matters to me, and what both of us could do to make it better leads to responding in a meaningful way.
- Active, reflective listening: Be fully engaged to hear what your partner is saying without becoming reactionary or defensive. You want to be able to reflect back to her what you heard, so she knows that you understand.
- When your mate is feeling emotional, it's particularly important not to offer solutions or rationalizations, but simply to allow him to be heard.
- Consolations and desolations. Recent experiences that invigorated us and those that drained us.
- The more you practice communicating in healthy ways with each other, the better you'll get at it and the more it will benefit you as a couple.
- Chapter 11: Setting Boundaries
- “No need to ever tell an entrepreneur to slow down or take time off. It's like trying to teach a pig to sing. It just wastes your time and annoys the pig.”
- An entrepreneur's unwillingness to slow down or take time off can have serious ramifications—for him and those closest to him.
- Having healthy boundaries allows us to know who owns what in the relationship.
- Questions:
1. What attitudes, emotions, behaviors, and consequences am I experiencing because of my significant other's business and its impact on our lives?
2. Objectively speaking, which of these attitudes, emotions, behaviors, and consequences do I need to own? Which of these do I have some measure of control over?
3. Which of these attitudes, emotions, behaviors, and consequences do I want to change?
4. What are the specific and practical things I can do to change them?
- Boundaries for the entrepreneur: time, physical space, finances, and business relationships
- Setting boundaries with time:
- When you will normally end the workday/come home from work
- When you won't be checking email
- When you won't be taking phone calls
- When you can be fully present to your partner each week
- When you can be fully present to your children each week
- How often you will travel in a month/quarter
- The maximum length of a business trip
- How far in advance you will notify your partner of an upcoming trip
- When you will take time off (with no work at all)
- Which holidays and special occasions you will prioritize
- Setting boundaries with physical space
- Which parts of the house will be used for work
- Which parts of the house won't be used for work
- Which parts of the house will remain screen-free at all times
- How much storage is available, if any, for business-related supplies
- What other places will remain work-free (friends' and relatives' homes, the beach, at restaurants, etc.)
- Setting boundaries with finances
- Your monthly household budget
- The minimum monthly income needed for the family
- How long you can go with no or limited income from your significant other
- Setting boundaries with business relationships
- How much you will socialize with business colleagues and partners outside of work, and in what way
- What limits you will set with colleagues of the opposite/same sex
- Encourage the entrepreneur to finish a work task or write down a brief plan for how he will complete a larger task so he can be more present, and the time you spend together can be richer.
- Couples can maintain a strong relationship by spending just six hours together each week through intentional partings, reunions, end-of-day debriefings, appreciation, affection, and a weekly date.
- I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me and I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
- For someone to be the best entrepreneur and manager he can be, he also needs to be the best spouse and parent he can be.
- An unhappy founder is an unproductive founder.
- Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time #book
- Chapter 12: Staying Intimate
- Impulsiveness, curiosity, openness to new experiences, low constraints, and tendency to fantasize that help entrepreneurs succeed in business also place them at an 8 to 10 percent higher risk of addiction, infidelity, and divorce than the general population.
- Intimacy is affection, expressiveness, sexuality, commitment, compatibility, autonomy from parents, minimal conflict, and healthy self-identity.
- Love, Sex and Staying Warm: Creating a Vital Relationship #book
- You can start with simple but intentional acts, such as asking your entrepreneur how her day was or cooking her favorite dish or giving her hand a squeeze.
- Time apart and well-developed individual identities are among the most important ingredients for a healthy sex life.
- Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence by Esther Perel #book
- Real giving is when you give to your spouse not what you want or need but that which your spouse wants and needs.
- Love is contagious. When you give genuinely and consistently, your spouse will reciprocate.
- Treat your partners as well as you treat your customers.
- You will do better at work if your home life is stronger and your business will benefit from the resilience of your relationship.
- There's plenty of research on humans demonstrating the link between sexual activity and markers of well-being and success.
- Sexual activity has been linked to improved physical and mental health, as well as healthier lifestyles (better diet, more exercise) and higher self-esteem and confidence.
- Individuals who had sex four or more times a week earned 5 percent more in wages than those who didn't; those who weren't having any intercourse made 3.2 percent less than their sexually active peers.
- Part 4: Building a Team
- Chapter 13: Investing in Yourself
- The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron #book
- “I would rather you take your time to find what you are meant to do instead of jumping into something because you feel like you need to work.”
- Most people are afraid of leading separate, independent lives and therefore cling to family ties and fantasies of love, which offer the illusion and false promise of connection.
- “A relationship cannot be expected to fulfill all our needs; it only shows them to us and makes a modest contribution to their fulfillment.” - David Richo
- Entrepreneurs don't want to feel much dependence at all. They are itching for independence and freedom, to be their own person doing their own thing.
- Trying to build your life around someone who has no desire to be pinned down, controlled, or beholden to another will only set you up for a world of hurt.
- Having an absent partner is not the worst thing in the world. It can be a blessing too. You can come to the point where you can say, ‘I've really learned to love my alone time.’
- The less you expect from the other person, the better it is.
- Emotional well-being gas tank: You've got to fill yourself up 90 percent. Then your partner can top you off with 10 percent. If you expect your partner to fill up most of your tank, you're going to be running on empty.
- Ideas: listen to music, do something new, art, brainstorm what to do next, learn a skill, volunteer, faith group, exercise, walk, go to the beach, watch a movie, read, spend time with friends, journal, meditate, coffee, pray
- Chapter 14: Asking for Help
- I liked their bat signal of call, hang up, call again. He would drop everything even if it was a professional agreement.
- Her family background and expectations of herself got in the way of her asking for help, even when she was desperate for it, Cheng-Ling Chen, wife of Andy
- You need to be empowered to ask your mate to step up—no matter how crazy busy or stressed out he is—when you need him to provide more support.
- Help is not coming. Get back to work.
- The first step toward getting help is to acknowledge that you need help and are worthy of receiving it.
- What stops us from asking is the fear of being vulnerable, the fear of rejection, the fear of looking needy or weak. The fear of being seen as a burdensome member of the community instead of a productive one.
- Mayday! Asking for Help in Times of Need #book
- If you did not have to do this activity, would you still choose to do it?
- How did you handle childcare for Madison while she was young? Like before she started school?
- People can't read your mind. You'd be surprised how many people are thrilled that you're asking for help.
- The responsibility to know your needs and to form them into specific, achievable requests for your significant other is yours.
- Raise red flags only when things are really bad and there will be a commitment from both of us to really look at this.
- Chapter 15: Getting Involved—or Not
- Love & War: Finding the Marriage You've Dreamed Of #book
- For a couple to be able to work together long-term, both partners have to feel strongly about the business, about doing it together, and about living an unconventional, unpredictable life.
- Part 5: Scaling Up
- Chapter 16: Establishing Goals and Deadlines
- S.M.A.R.T. goals: Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
- Three categories of goals: business goals, quality-of-life goals; and business entry and exit goals.
- What are her milestones? What is she trying to achieve in three months or six months with regards to production or sales or revenue?
- Some business goals and deadlines:
- The business should be able to secure funding by ___. This funding will sustain operations for ___ months/years.
- The company will begin generating revenue by ___.
- The company's next major product/service/offering will launch in ___.
- The company will have ___ customers, or ___ in monthly revenue, by ___.
- The business will hire ___ people in the next __ months.
- The business will become profitable by ___.
- The stretch goal for the company is that it will achieve ___ by ____.
- The ideal exit plan for the business is ___, by ___.
- “Writing goals down says you believe it's attainable.” - Henriette Anne Klauser
- Quality-of-life goals are related to health, finances, family planning, and professional pursuits.
- Quality-of-life goals:
- We will stop investing personal money in the business after ___ months.
- Your entrepreneur expects to begin collecting a salary of $___ when ___.
- Once the product is released, your entrepreneur will take off ___ days for vacation.
- We will live in a smaller home and pay $___ in rent for ___ months/years.
- When our household salary reaches $___, we will both sign up for a gym membership.
- When the baby is ___ months old, we will hire a nanny so I can work or pursue other interests.
- Business exit goals:
- If $___ in investment is not raised by ___
- If the business is not able to bring in $___ in revenue by ___
- If the business is not able to break even by ___
- If there are fewer than ___ customers
- Chapter 17: Sustaining the Entrepreneurial Life Together
- Most entrepreneurs never really stop being entrepreneurs.
- “Retirement means doing what I want to do.”
- Your significant other will have to pour huge amounts of time and energy into her venture.
- Your significant other will experience times of particular intensity that require long hours and frequent trips. But such intensive times should be occasional seasons, not a way of life.
- The commonality that academically and professionally successful individuals share is actually grit.
- “Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years. And working really hard to make that future a reality.” - Angela Duckworth
- Most of us don't learn the lesson that without proper pacing, you open yourself up to depression, exhaustion, and illness until we extend ourselves to the limit and then hit bottom—hard.
- The secret to enduring such a high-octane career is to delegate responsibilities and empower others. The entrepreneur needs to know exactly what he is good at and be willing to delegate everything else to those with greater capacity or capability.
- Have a coach or mentor you can call and ask about opportunities to evaluate what is worth our time and energy. the outside, more objective perspective of a wise and trusted individual, who has likely seen these patterns in the behaviors of others, is so valuable.
- Pacing doesn't just happen. It requires planning and deliberate choices. Try to put a hard stop on your workdays. Make sure you have a least one day a week in which you're not working. Say no to opportunities that would require you to overstretch yourself. Prioritize rest and comfort and leisure when you can. If you have a little extra space to breathe, use that space to breathe instead of filling it up with new activities. When you go on vacation, make sure it's actually a vacation.
- Be willing to learn and adapt.
- Chapter 18: Growing with Your Entrepreneur
- “He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.” - Lao Tzu
- “The most important factor is not whether we are currently ecstatic, but whether we are currently growing, and whether we trust that we will grow in the future, and whether we believe our partner is growing too.” - Susan Quilliam
- One of entrepreneur's greatest strengths is their ability and willingness to try new things or to approach a problem from multiple perspectives.
- Are you willing to embrace the process of being sharpened, or are you going to fight it or run away from it?
- Everything, whether a success or failure, progress or misstep, is an opportunity to grow.
- It's important to give and receive feedback, not to operate out of assumptions, and be willing to ask questions.
- If we are unwilling to deal with our shortcomings today, we will have to deal with them another time. They're not going away until we intentionally make the decision to try to learn and grow and change.
- Remember to be especially kind to yourself and your mate when you are undergoing a season of personal development.
- Look at everything as a learning opportunity.
- The best antidotes for resentment are curiosity and wonder.
- When we're feeling resentful and stuck, we only see what we have lost or don't have, rather than what is possible.
- The context of a difficult situation can shift dramatically if you are able to focus less on the challenge itself and more on the opportunities available to you.
- Part 4: Exit
- Chapter 19: Surviving Failure
- 90 percent of new ventures end up failing, and the typical entrepreneur endures 3.8 failures before hitting upon a successful venture.
- It's wise not to wait until the company's bank account is down to zero before deciding to close it.
- No matter how wonderful a business, it's not worth sacrificing your family's financial future for it.
- How we perceive and respond to the circumstances around us is one thing we can control.
- Separate the venture from your personal identity.
- “Failure leads to the greatest success, which is humility and learning.” - David Brooks
- Chapter 20: Surviving Success
- “Scarcity brings clarity.”
- “As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.” - Barry Schwartz
- More money doesn't produce proportionally more happiness.
- Having a lot of money can fundamentally change your character, and usually for the worse.
- Money is a valuable tool, but like any tool, what matters most is how we choose to use it.
- Figure out what matters most to you and how you would want to use your increased wealth.
- Keeping as many things constant in your life as possible will only help in that adjustment period.
- A majority of people derive more satisfaction and happiness from purchasing experiences rather than things, and from spending on others instead of themselves.
- You and your significant other will probably need to depend on one another more than ever to act as the sandpaper to one another's egos, gently nudging each other toward greater maturity and groundedness.
- Success can be fleeting and fickle.
- Conclusion
- Accept your entrepreneur, warts and all, and accept the kind of impact the start-up life will have on your existence.
- There are plenty of things you can do to make things better for your family.
- The spark can come back 10 years after your first child is born.
- There can be a value in defaulting to staying.
- It can get better if we're willing to keep trying.
- Nothing that is truly worthwhile is ever easy.
- There is enough time for both of you to do what you love. There is enough space in life for both of you to flourish.
#UseTwos ✌️
Use code “baller”