This past April was the beginning of a whirlwind for me with work and family. My real estate and building businesses both saw increases in customers and my wife’s business saw a dramatic increase as well. The month literally flew by. Along with the increase in business we hosted our annual Easter Egg Hunt with approximately 100 kids in attendance and 2,500 eggs. My oldest daughter also turned six and had an amazing tea party birthday. Looking back on April I am not sure how my wife and I made it, but we did and actually we are better for it. Below are some lessons I learned and relearned during the past month. I say relearned because we all know the basics of what to do in life, we just don’t fully embrace the lessons until we truly need them.
1. Eggs Don’t Stuff Themselves – This simple lesson is ASK FOR HELP!
Last year my wife and I stuffed all the eggs for the Easter egg hunt, approximately 1,500. This year our schedules did not give us much time to get it done especially with 2,500 eggs. Call in the moms. My wife had some of her great friends stop by and they worked their little bunny tails off and did in a few hours what would have taken us a week of evenings. Don’t be afraid to reach for help. There is no shame in it. Ask for help with your business and family. People are more willing to help than you may think. I will add this caveat, if you find yourself in constant need of help to sustain, then you may need to rethink some things in your schedule or what you are taking on. Enlisting additional help should get your through a period or advance you forward to where you can hire help.
2. Set it, focus on it, get it done – Short term goal achievement takes great effort.
My wife sells Thirty-One (cool hand bags and organizing equipment) www.mythirtyone.com/oakleycortez She is really good at this business and is growing a great team. In April her team needed to sell over $15,000 worth of merchandise for Oakley to win a trip the Mexico. I had never seen my wife so focused. She booked a ton of parties and sold a lot of merchandise and personally produced over a third of what was needed. She rallied her team of a dozen plus women. She reached the goal and will be heading to Mexico. If you have a short-term goal you are working on, you must stay focused on it and do the hard work. It requires a sprint of effort and few other things (See lessons 3 and 4). Of course some-times it requires a half-marathon, wait for my next post.
3. Spousal Support Is a Must – Lean on each other when needed and push each other forward when needed.
Since we both are involved in the parentpreneurial journey my wife and I often have conflicting schedules and goals. It’s not uncommon for her to have a party scheduled on an evening and for me to have a ton of paperwork to do or contracts to write etc. No problem except for the little girls who kind of like us around and food with their meals. If felt like there were several times I would come home and we would kiss each other in the doorway as she was heading out. There was a lot of tag teaming going on. I knew that it was going to be a busy April for her. I just didn’t know mine was going to be as busy. I was completely aware of her goal and had to make a commitment to support her in it. I had to shift some more of my energies to focus on the house and kids. There were times where it was a struggle in my business and I got behind. That is part of the struggle with business and kids. If I got frustrated, I would remind myself of how much she has supported my efforts and that the chaos of the moment has a purpose (that last part is worth rereading). When you get married you agree to support each other. It amazes me when I hear of marriages where the couples don’t really know whats going on with each other or even seem to care. I am extremely proud of my wife and feel great for doing my part. I must admit that in the midst of the chaos I wasn’t always so great. I’m glad she really loves me.
4. It’s okay if it doesn’t get done (at least right away) focus on the priorities.
Things are going to slip when you have a lot going on. Things are going to slip even more when your family has a lot going on. In prep for the Easter Egg Hunt the house looked like the Easter Bunny had exploded in the living room. During my wife’s and my tag team approach weeks the house was no better. We had an eminent threat of a tea party forcing us to get the house clean. I am a big fan of the eminent threat approach. When you have no choice you get it done. We got most of the house clean with the help of my wife’s parent who came in for the impending tea party. After the tea party which was awesome it looked like a pink nuclear bomb exploded with girly fallout. It has taken a while to recover. When you have a lot of major things to get done you have to put your energy into them. Get help on the small things and if they don’t get done then they can wait. It’s not an excuse to forgo responsibilities. If it takes a few days to do dishes or if you have to eat out, it’s okay. During spurts stuff happens. When a ship is in a storm the deck is not getting mopped. Give yourself grace in the storms. Give your spouse and kids the same. Not sure how, see next paragraph.
5. High Frustration Equals Low Patience and Visa Versa.
There is not doubt that crazy schedules, lots of priorities, tiredness, hard work, and those delayed small things can add up to frustration. During April my wife and I experienced the hangry thing several times. My love meter is at low when my frustration is high. It’s during these time that the kids usually tend not to listen, so I may have to speak a little louder than normal. I really do my best to not push frustration on my family. It’s really hard sometimes. This is where grace towards one another is huge. The antidote to frustration is love. I have to remind myself how much I love my family and they deserve the best of me. I recently heard the acronym HALT. When you are Hungry Angry Lonely and Tired you need to halt or you may hurt those around you. During the chaos times take moments to gather yourself. Find a release that calms you down such as exercise, a nap, or reading. My wife and I have a rule, only one of us can be frustrated at a time. This way we can relieve each other. When the leadership in the family is all frustrated the kids have no one to turn to and instead they turn against both parents. Find a way to fill your love meter up and lessen the frustration of the chaos. I did get to a point of asking myself why I was frustrated and then saying “is this really worth getting angry over?” More often than not the answer is no.
Busy times are part of the journey. Learning to get through them is essential. You will experience burnout if you can’t learn to manage these seasons. The great thing is that with each season like this in my life I get better and managing them. Chaos strengthen character.
Joseph Cortez 