brad garland's stream

Entrepreneurs: Is there a 'success to family' pendulum?

As those of you that keep up with my random thoughts (i love you all btw) you can tell I'm very much on an entrepreneurial kick lately but it's an important aspect of my life that I haven't had the chance to often share. I often find myself running pretty solo with most of my friends due to the fact that they work in a corporation or business but don't necessarily understand the risks/decisions/fears that someone owning a business go through. But I digress to my current thought.

In my last post I talked about family. Today, I want to think about the entrepreneur herself. It is often discussed in business books and in seminars on what it takes to be an entrepreneur and to succeed at starting a business. Stories of 80-hour work weeks and late nights are the norm to be "successful". Based on those readings, there appears to be a diametrically opposed sentiment stating that one that starts a business you either choose a successful business or successful family life but never the two shall meet. Is that the case? Does someone, in today's connected world, have to sacrifice the time from the people that are the reason you try to build a successful business?

Can't wait to see your comments. Sound off! Success or family?

Filed under: entrepreneurs family success

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Entrepreneurs: Its also about the family

In my recent post about the differences between the lifestyle and high growth entrepreneurs, we discussed what strategies are used to run both types of businesses. Either way, however, those strategies have to be implemented by people and sometimes entrepreneurs take that point for granted. Businesses are a support system of people employed (and not employed) by the company and are often bigger than we realize. Normally I'd say that we have 15 employees in our organization but that's not everyone effected, see below:

15 employees

10 couples

12 children

All of these people are supporting or being supported from our business and that's something an entrepreneur can also be proud of. Many times we forget that fact. Be thankful for the extended families that you have.