Happy Father's Day to all the great dads out there!
For me personally, fatherhood has changed my life like nothing I could have imagined. It changes your perspective from, what do I want to do today, to great memories can I have with the family. My main life goal is now to ensure the health, education and happiness of our children. The best day for me is having the kids enjoy the days on the water here like I did as a child. Campfires, kayaking, boating, swimming and fishing are some of the things that bring a smile to the kids faces like no other. Summertime is really family time.
Scott and I are both dads to a couple of small kids that also happen to be best friends. This helps us talk about everything together like business, kids, sports and other passions we may have.
Running a business while raising small children can be a constant balancing act. There is a perception out there, that small business owners have an excess amount of time and money. They must be making millions of dollars to enjoy the good life. The reality is 99% of small business owners success only comes with the amount of hard work their team produces. Lots of issues arise every day in every aspect of business, funding, production, staffing, marketing, accounting and product development. As these issues occur you have to prioritize and problem solve as fast as possible. Sometimes this means missing out on some quality time with your family. Other times it means working late into the night when the kids are asleep or early in the morning (like i write this now).
Time is really the only thing we cannot produce but we can manage it as effectively as possible. Here are some tips I have acquired for time management with working families with kids:
- Have your kids engaged in your business. It teaches them new ideas/concepts and the fundamentals of creating a business. It shows them hard work ethics at a young age to become successful in life. We have even had our kids build up some speakers and they coloured themselves.
-Technology allows us to be "connected" 24/7 so that when we are on the road we can always be connected. At the beach with the kids you can still check emails or other issues. The challenge is to make sure you stay engaged with your kids and put down the phone as much as possible. I struggle with this one even sometimes.
-Take the breaks. Go on vacation during the summer time. In Canada, our summer is only ~10 weeks of decent weather so ensure you have some dedicated time with the family. This year we will have to postpone due to Covid but we plan on doing a mini vacation locally if possible. Even camping in the backyard is always a good way to do something different.
-Hustle at home. Your partner is going to help support you more than ever as your business grows so help around the house with all the daily tasks like cooking, cleaning, dishes, etc. Traditional lines of housework do not need to apply. I personally love to cook so it's just another passion for me and if you're feeling burnt out take a night for takeout.
So this blog post will be short as it's time for me to have breakfast with the kiddies. Let's see what they made for me :)
As a bonus to all the great dads here is a special promotion code. "DAD" for $100 CND off per speaker.
Happy Father's Day.
Ben and Scott