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A common conundrum that entrepreneurs find themselves in is that of work-life balance.  Even more so is a life-timing balance.  Often we are financially unstable, working 80 hour weeks, failing and starting up again, and we continue to put off life saying that once we achieve “x”, then we will be ready.  The common ones are marriage, children, vacations and travel, family time, personal time (not work related), etc.  I find myself with this dilemma on a regular basis, and here I am preparing for my first kid, a baby boy due in February!  I’m excited and have simply had to put those worries aside and know that I’ll figure it out.  There’s always a way and it’s never as bad as you initially think. Sometimes you just need to make it happen!

Live life in spite of circumstance

Sometimes life must be lived regardless of what circumstance permits.  Vacations and family time can only be passed on for so long before it grows too late.  Entrepreneurship is consuming and, for those who haven’t realized it yet, LIFELONG!  Even when you achieve “x”, suddenly you see “y” and the battle continues forward.  You will NEVER have the “now, I’m ready” moment unless you simply make it, and make it today.  This doesn’t mean you live a completely irrational life but simply seek out a workable balance.  It may often feel to be a stretch but likely the office doesn’t even need you 80 hours a week and it could use a break to!

Inc magazine recently published an article that many may feel describes their entrepreneurial experience regarding this matter, here.  The author, Meg Cadoux Hirshberg, describes her experience with her husband as they battled urge to work too much and the challenges faced by thinking “when, then”.

The reality is that when you are entangled in an entrepreneurial life, there’s never a right time — for anything. There’s no right time, because there’s no time (and usually no money, either). For having kids, for buying a house, for getting a dog, for taking a vacation, for going out to dinner. Planning becomes difficult when income (if it exists at all) is insecure and savings are usually (to put it gently) unsubstantial. No matter how loudly private life calls out for investment — of time and of money — the business screams even louder in its demands for both. An entrepreneurial life becomes all about postponing — “When we break even…,” “When we get that contract…,” “When we hire that salesperson…” — ah, yes, that’s when our lives can move ahead.

She continues:

…There are personal opportunity costs to starting a business if it causes you to postpone making a life. This is especially true if family and business are young at the same time. Put off having kids too long, and you may end up with fewer than you wanted or none at all. Put off taking vacations and going out to dinner with your spouse, and you won’t create those memories and points of connection that glue a relationship and family together. Put off exercise, and you may irreversibly damage your health.

The Secret Sauce

So what is the solution?  What can be done?  Sometimes you take Nike’s advice… Just Do It!

Meg offers what they did:

My husband, Gary, and I had a young marriage and a young business at the same time. We learned early on to relinquish any sense of control over either one. In our personal life, we planned nothing at all. We had our first two kids in a rented farmhouse that was freezing and dilapidated. Our fledgling yogurt business, Stonyfield Farm, was a liability, not an asset. Our economic future was bleak. We lived in the country with very few friends around. We would stand next to the roaring refrigeration compressors to lull our colicky babies to sleep. It was chaotic and more than a little pathetic. Never mind paying for college — where was the money to fix up the baby’s room?

We took vacations we couldn’t afford and paid off the Visa bills for a year afterward. I remember making copies of the credit card statements for Gary and writing “HELP” on them in big letters, as if he could magically convert 50-cent yogurt coupons into cash for our minimum monthly payments. But we took those trips and did other things we could ill afford because we knew we had to keep living and squeezing as much joy from life as we could under the circumstances. We had forsaken any traditional sense of normalcy and had utterly abandoned any notion of security.

The article is excellent and puts entrepreneurship in perspective.  It takes a tenacity and almost a sadistic love for self-induced stress!  We all must be sick!  She goes on to state they don’t necessarily feel financially unstable anymore but the chaos never ends as there are continually loftier goals and possibilities that induce just as much stress and “overcommitment” as ever.  In fact, it just gets bigger! The risk increases at each level of growth.  It starts, “We need $10,000 for x that we currently don’t have”.  Somehow, you get it, you grow, you expand, you are successful and suddenly you find yourself saying “we need $100,000 for y that we currently don’t have”.  Of course, you find it, grow, expand, and say “we need $1,000,000 for z that we currently don’t have” and the cycle continues!!  There comes a moment when you must embrace your sick mind and realize it is was helps you get up each morning with a smile on your face. Check out the complete article again from Inc. here.

Well, I am finally willing to say:

“Hello Everyone, I’m Billy and I’m an Entrepreneur…”

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