how to be a good parent AND entrepreneur

Summary

entrepreneurs love to say they’re doing it for the family. their kids never asked them to. that’s the line that rearranged my thinking when I was still in the Air Force watching guys deploy in the name of their families.

1. there is no off switch built into entrepreneurship. the boundary between work and family is one you draw yourself. nobody else will draw it for you. if you do not draw it, work expands into every hour.

2. the calendar tells the truth. open it up right now. count the family blocks. count the business blocks. if the story those numbers tell does not match the story you tell at dinner parties, the kids see it. they always see it.

3. being family-focused means saying no to business opportunities that promise growth and money. if you cannot say no to any of them, you are not family-focused. you are using your kids as a justification for the version of yourself you want to be anyway.

compartmentalize like a job, even though it isn’t one. when the day ends, the laptop closes. when the weekend starts, the slack notifications go off. align your actions with your stated priorities or stop stating the priority.

Transcript

introduction to balancing parenting and entrepreneurship

The most impactful business is the business that genuinely improves another human, a better human business. And to grow a business like this, you have to continually improve yourself. This podcast is a documentation of that thesis, scaling businesses and also personal growth. My goal is for you to shortcut this journey.

So if you’re ready to try hard, subscribe. If you like what you’re hearing, please share and enjoy. Be a good parent and an entrepreneur. It’s oftentimes not doing the work and saying it’s for them. It’s actually not doing the work just to be with them. This is the better human business podcast. I’m Jerred Moon and the question of how do I balance parenting with entrepreneurship comes up all the time.

How can we actually juggle these two things? Not like it’s some impossibility, but what entrepreneurship tends to do to most people is it just can consume your brain. It takes over your ideas, your thoughts. It moves away you being present and in the moment. And we have all of these fears, anxieties, ideas, everything’s just running around in our brain all the time.

discussing the constant pull of entrepreneurship on personal time

And oftentimes entrepreneurs struggle with having to deal with that, to organize these thoughts, to compartmentalize things. And having been on both sides of this, I have not always been an entrepreneur. I’ve had a regular job. I was in the military, basically worked a desk job at the end of my career.

And it was a lot easier in those formats to compartmentalize, to say, Hey, this is work time. And then this is my off time. And when I’m off, I’m fully off. And what I realized when I was an entrepreneur was that is a lot more challenging. It’s a lot more challenging to think that way. You can’t, I mean, you can have a day off, but it’s very hard to be like, Hey, I’m just completely off.

I’m not doing anything else. We can work around these things as entrepreneurs. It’s not like we’re always in this boat. You can combat, you know, with some, combat these feelings and thoughts and really focus on being a good parent. But I’ll never forget when I was in the military, I was a brand new lieutenant and I got to sit in on this kind of like a mastermind event.

lessons learned from military leadership on truly being family-focused

And so it was the entire base met at this offsite location. And it was the wing commander, which is basically like the CEO of the base, right? He was there with all of his top people in charge. And I mean, I was basically a note taker. I was just showing up because I was a brand new lieutenant. They didn’t have anything for me to do yet before my actual like duty stuff started.

So that cool you can come, but it was really interesting to be in the room, but I’ll never forget how uncomfortable it was when one of the, one of the colonels in there called out everybody for saying that they were family focused, but not actually being family focused. And it was very awkward and uncomfortable.

And that’s because a lot of times in the military, family is very important to people in the military, but the mission kind of by default almost always takes priority because you can’t ever really say no to the mission to the United States of America to put your family first. You’re not ever really in that position.

tips for integrating family time into a busy entrepreneurial schedule

If you are truly needed by your nation, that’s the military and how he was kind of calling people out was like, not in that mission level, like, you know, in the defense of our country, it was just, you guys say over and over that family is first, but never do your actions show that thing. And you know, it was, it was good.

Like everyone took it well because he wasn’t talking about like the big picture stuff. He’s talking about the little, the little stuff, like working too long, working on the weekends, having people come in for weekend shifts when maybe it wasn’t necessary. He was talking about the smaller things and how people weren’t really focused on family.

And that always stuck with me because if you ask any person in that room, they would have 100% said family comes first, you know, cause a lot of them were, were family, family focused individuals, love their families, no doubt about it. But in reality, when you, you know, actually look at their schedule and how they prioritize things, it was always mission first, family second.

the importance of reflecting your priorities in your daily schedule

And that’s kind of the nature of the job sometimes, but I’ll never forget that because it made me start to really think about things. And I’ve always kind of thought about that in entrepreneurship is like, yeah, if you ask me any day of the week, what comes first job or your family, a hundred percent, I’m going to say family, but then I have to review, do my actions actually lead me down that path.

And that’s the question I have for anybody listening to this is sure you say family is first, but is it actually, and here’s some things that you want to keep in mind kind of as you, as you work through this as an entrepreneur or, you know, if you’re a parent and an entrepreneur, first thing you have to know is they never asked for anything that you’re doing.

And I’m talking about your kids. They never asked for anything that you are doing. They don’t care if you’re successful. They don’t care if your business makes an extra $10,000 next month. They never asked for any of that. They probably, in all honesty, have never asked anything from you in the regards of that has to do with wealth or success or financial security.

closing thoughts on ensuring your actions align with your stated priorities

You might want those things for your family and you’re doing them for, you’re doing things for your family, but they never asked for that. Okay. They never asked for the sacrifice. They never asked for any of those things. And you honestly have to remember that because we can get, you know, we, people can really become a martyr, you know, in this sense of like, ah, yeah, I’m working the 12 to 14 hour days.

I’m doing it for the family. I’m doing it for the family. Like, yeah, but they didn’t ask for that in all honesty. And you know, you might be doing something and building something for your family, but at the same time, you could be burning all the bridges with your family to where you’re not going to have a family if you continue down this path.

So just remember that they never asked for any of this. So don’t use them as an excuse when you’re maybe pushing a little bit too hard. And the next thing is if family truly comes first, I’m not saying that you should only ever focus on your family, right? It’s like, you know, what do you do? You’re supposed to sit around and just hug them all day and not like nobody lived their life and not do any work.

No, you need to do your work. You need to be efficient, but you need to be willing to do anything for them. If you start to see stress fractures in relationships or you’re not being who you want to be with your kids, you start to see these things. You need to be willing to say no to revenue, no to opportunity, no to certain things to focus on your family.

And this might be different than what you’ve heard in the past. A lot of how a lot different than how other entrepreneurs might view it. But this is just how I view it. I am willing to say no to things to focus on my family. Like, for instance, when I was running into three fitness and we’re gaining a lot of traction and steam, I was asked to speak a lot, travel kind of like a traveling circuit, like gyms wanted me to come.

I’ve done speaking events for the Department of Defense, and I’ve done these things before, you know, so bigger opportunities I’ve taken. But I said no to more than I took because my kids were very young at this time point and I needed to be home. And so just traveling wasn’t something I was going to do.

I had to say no to these opportunities. Yes, it would have meant more income, more networking, more relationships. The business probably would have grown a little bit bigger, faster, something like that. But I had to say no. I was actually willing to say no because it didn’t fall within my guidelines of wanting to be there with my family and support them.

So be willing to make those sacrifices. And because if you burn everything down to the ground and you have this really successful business, was it worth it? You know, was it really worth it? People who never asked you for things, the kids never asked you to work harder. They never asked for more money.

They never asked for more success. All they want is you. All they want is your time and for you to be there with them and to hang out with them and to do things with them. So you really need to think about those things. So are you willing to actually say no to some opportunities? Not all opportunities.

You still need to grow the business. Again, I’m not saying we just sit around and be a family because that would be a fast track to poverty, right? It’s balancing all these things together. How can we do these things together? But here’s what I found. The effort in good parenting as an entrepreneur is not doing the work and saying it’s for them.

It’s oftentimes not doing the work so you can be with them. So that could be, hey, if you want to work and grind 12 hours a day, maybe you back that up to eight or you do it at different times so you can still spend that time with the family. You have to prioritize them first if they’re actually a priority.

Show it. Look at your calendar. Look at your daily activities. Are they actually a priority? And that’s what I honestly think is so telling is your calendar can convict you. It can convict you of anything. Like if we were to take you to court, I’ve always had this strong belief that your calendar can convict you of who you think you are and who you actually are.

Because if you say family is important, pull up your calendar. Let me see it. Work’s important. Pull up your calendar. Let me see it. You say fitness is important. Pull up your calendar. Let me see it. Let me see what’s on the calendar. Your calendar can convict you of who you actually are, not who you think you are.

So if you think you’re some person who’s family first and then your work second and I’m really into health and fitness and all these things, it’s like, cool, show me your calendar. Show me that’s the truth. And then I’ll believe you. But if you just say those things and you think that’s who you are, but your calendar doesn’t actually convict you of that, it doesn’t affirm that you are that person.

You might want to take a harder look at the activities you’re doing on a daily basis and try harder.