More Than A Side Hustle
More Than A Side Hustle
Five Ways Entrepreneurship Reshapes Family Life
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We challenge the myth of balance and share five honest ways entrepreneurship reshapes family life time, roles, kids, money, and the sting of success guilt.
We discuss tools and boundaries, including the “brick” that protects evenings, so the business serves the home.
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Rethinking “Balance” Between Work And Family
SPEAKER_00So we get this question all the time. How do you balance entrepreneurship and family? And honestly, that's the wrong question because entrepreneurship doesn't always balance with family. It changes your family forever. And nobody wants to talk about what it actually looks like, which is why we're here today.
SPEAKER_01So welcome to another episode of More Than Inside Hustle Podcast. My name is Janoka.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Anthony. If you're new here, what do we talk about on the podcast? We help non-tofers create more impact, income, and influence outside their jobs. And today we'll be talking about five ways entrepreneurship actually changes your family. Some good, some bad, but all real. And at the very end, we'll go through some strategies we're doing to talk about those things and help improve our family's lives.
Credentials And The Five-Changes Framework
SPEAKER_01And our credentials are we've built multiple seven-figure businesses, and over the past eight years, we've helped over 2,000 students create over$18 million in revenue. So I think we we know a little bit about entrepreneurship.
SPEAKER_00And we've been married for almost 10 years, and we have two kids. So balancing entrepreneurship, family, life, business, community, students, everything, everything in between.
Time Becomes Currency
SPEAKER_01So these are some of the five ways entrepreneurship changes your family. Now, there may be a lot more, but we're gonna stick to these five ways. Number one, time becomes currency. You know how they say time is money? That phrase is very true when it comes to entrepreneurship. How you're spending your days, what you're spending your energy on, what that looks like is very important because you have this newfound, if you will, freedom, but that doesn't mean you're not doing the work. Essentially, if you're not putting in the work, your business probably isn't growing, right? And so you hear that phrase as well that you leave a nine-to-five to now do 80 hours a week, 100 hours a week. Yes, that can definitely be the case depending on where you are in your entrepreneurship journey. So time is money.
SPEAKER_00And you start calculating your family time like a business sometimes. So, for example, like we've been doing live webinars, let's say, for the past two years at on Thursdays, Wednesdays, whatever it is, at the same time. Which means that that's at night time when we're putting our kids down to sleep. So that means at least once a week, you now become, and then that doesn't even include any community calls, any coaching calls, any support calls, business calls. You are now missing at least one night a week of you putting your kids down. Now you might be saying what's one night. Well, what's one night?
SPEAKER_01But one night for two years, or one night for a year, and that's at least one night.
SPEAKER_00There's you we've had weeks where it's been two to three nights a week.
SPEAKER_01And then you also people also assume, well, then you're an entrepreneur, you can do it anytime. But there's specific times that most of our audience is not available. Most of our audience are not entrepreneurs, so we have to cater to that, right? We just have to cater to our customers. We are running a business, so it's not so simple to say just don't do it at night, even as much as you think it would be, it's not always that simple.
SPEAKER_00And you can't just tell your kids, oh, we're we're out building your future. And you hear that all the time. It's like, oh yeah, you spend all this time building this thing for your family, then you have no family to actually enjoy it with because you spent all the time doing that thing. So that's something I'll be mindful of when it comes to this journey as well.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, time is absolutely money. The the time you do to act on something, right? When it comes to topics that things that you want to execute in your business, the longer you take, maybe the less money you're making for your business. It time, I mean, time is such a concept in general, but specifically when it comes to entrepreneurship, it is a necessity, and we value it a lot, and it should be valued a lot.
SPEAKER_00And it's always like this, this let me just do this one thing. You sent me this meme of this guy who was on his phone, and he just literally stopped. And he was just in the middle of a group. In the middle of anywhere. I don't know where he was. He's just in the middle of something, he just stopped and he was just on his phone, looking intensely at it, and it was like you could always tell when somebody has a business because whatever's going on around them, they stop and they focus on that one thing. He's on his phone, just looks like he's raised something. He could have been the happiest man in the world, but we didn't, we wouldn't know that. Yeah, but we knew that everything around him didn't even matter anymore into that moment. I recognize me doing that sometime.
SPEAKER_01That's a big thing.
SPEAKER_00That's why you sent it to me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Because I'm like, I just said your name three times. Did you not hear me?
SPEAKER_00Like, oh, yeah, let me let me just do this one thing. Let me just do this one thing.
SPEAKER_01I'm like, well, you need to say that. You need to stop what you do for a second and just look at it and say, give me a second, you need to say something. But when you're in the moment of entrepreneurship and you feel like you need to answer this question, respond to this email, get this out in the Slack, whatever it is, time is money. Time is money. And other people around you may not understand that. And I get even for us at times, I'm like, in this moment, let the money wait. Because I have a question, or your child is asking something, or whatever the case may be. So, yes.
Presence Tax: Phones, Memes, And Missed Bedtime
SPEAKER_00I remember being on vacation and this guy was in the pool, and I'm like, he's in a pool on his phone. And I'm like, how you even and he's not on the like taking pictures or videos. I forgot where he was at Cabo or something, but he's literally on his phone in the pool, like you could tell he was on a swimming, trying to have a conversation, trying to close a business deal. And he was like, Okay, I'll get back to you. I'll get back to you in about an hour. I'm with the family right now. It's like you're gonna leave the pool with the family to go take this business meeting. So time becomes money or becomes currency. So that's something that you want to think about. It time stops being emotional and it starts becoming transactional.
SPEAKER_01And generally, the first person that kind of feels that shift is your spouse. Number two, when it comes to entrepreneurship, is your spouse becomes your business partner, whether they want to or not. Now, for us, we are business partners, so there is no like whether you want to or not. But if you are doing it alone, I can't see how your spouse isn't involved in some capacity. And to me, it just like the things you have to say, the way that you may have to adjust your schedule, the things that um that you once were able to do, you may never be able to do now. So I don't know how I I don't even know if I want to speak on that because I don't know how that works without your spouse being involved. But I can just speak on with your spouse being involved. I don't think there's a line between family and business. It's very hard. Now there's times where I can be strict, and I say I because he would never shut it off. I can be strict and say we are not talking about business. However, almost every conversation is like a combination of business and entrepreneurship and family all intertwined, down to the activities for the kids that they're doing, gymnastics, music class. What are we doing at that time? Do we have a meeting? Then, you know, if we have to stay late with the other one, what are we doing at a time when it comes to our job? Which just is the way that you would probably do for your nine to five, yeah, it becomes the same thing here, essentially. The same thing. But the difference is that most of the times we have the flexibility to move the other thing for the family, right? Depending on what the situation is, or we have someone we outsource and have somebody in place that can help us or all peer or babysitter that can help us in the moment with the kids. But we are business partners and there's a very thin line or no line at all when it comes to business and family. It's really all integrated.
SPEAKER_00And I was talking to this couple, and the the lady was talking about she has a business with starting, wanted to start a business. And I asked her where her spouse was and what would be his involvement. And she was like, Oh, he's not gonna be involved, he's not into business of entrepreneurship. And I said, I would like to have him on a call because I want to explain the dynamics of an entrepreneur in a relationship, in a household. If you have a chore that your spouse is not into, let's say you like doing puzzles and your spouse doesn't. You do one puzzle, then it grows to a 100-piece puzzle, then it goes to a 500. Then you're doing a 10,000-piece puzzle in the living room and your spouse is always seeing that puzzle, they're gonna say, you know what, let me just help you. Let me just do this one piece. So it is always going to bleed into relationship and your schedule will revolve around what now becomes a dynamic of that household around the business. I remember us being on a was it Valentine's Day? And you literally took a customer call. Why was it a date?
SPEAKER_01Oh, before. And that's a very good example of how the business can bleed in. Now, this was earlier on in entrepreneurship where things would impact differently. I think now, eight years in, it would not be the same thing. But yes, um, definitely that's another way that it kind of bleeds into it.
SPEAKER_00And if you guys are in business together as a family, your how is your day conversation? You already know how the day was because that's like a status update.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00You already know how the day was because you were together.
SPEAKER_01Because if you were in the nine to five, you would be telling the person what the coworker did, the boss did, the other person did. And in entrepreneurship, you are the coworker, the boss, the janitor, everybody involved. You're all of you wear all the hats. So, yes, and those conversations become like a business meeter or something, and then we have to tell ourselves, like, okay, no, we're about to watch a show. Like, let's cut it. It's 10 o'clock at night. What are we talking about here? We had all day to have these discussions. What are we talking about here? So that's another point. Your spouse becomes your business partner. In this case, we want it to be that way, but even if they're not, they will be in some capacity. You see, people say, like, we interviewed a student and she was running the business on her own, but she was like, Yeah, her husband was helping with this, and the grandparents was watching the kids, and the aunts and uncles started to help to come to the clean in. It becomes a family. It became like just a thing. And I think that's the that can be the fun and exciting part of entrepreneurship that it's your business and you can do what you want. It doesn't have to be the norm of what we were taught or what we know. Also, that can be hard to cut it off. Yeah, I would say.
Spouse As Business Partner
SPEAKER_00But then you have the ability to bring in other people into the journey. You can't bring in your friend or family or husband or kids into your job, right? But you can do it when it's your business or when you're building a sidehouse or whatever you're doing. So now you have the ability to bring other people into your world who actually can impact what you're doing. So it doesn't just have to be you doing everything by yourself. And I know some people feel like, well, you don't want to mix friends and family. I know you're a big component of that, of not mixing friends and family, but it is definitely possible. If you got the right friends, you got the right family who wants to support you and guide you and even contribute to what you're doing. Now, you obviously got to grow outside of your media circle. I was talking to another person. Yeah, I was talking to another person. She's like, Yeah, my my top team members are, you know, my my aunt and you know, two cousins. And I was like, what's the goal for them? She's like, Yeah, I would love to get them out the business. I'm like, why? She's like, because I don't want to have my business rely on just family if they have other things they really want to do, which is not this. And I'm like, oh, that's a perfect reason to get them out the business and find people that you don't know in order to help you grow it. So starting off is great, bringing friends and family, getting them involved, but it's going to happen naturally too. That you talk about it, if you love it enough, if people see your excitement around it, people are gonna ask you, how can I support you? How can I help you? What do you need help in? And it might be free labor for you.
SPEAKER_01The third thing that we have of ways that entrepreneurship changes your family is your kids learn a different normal. Now that is so, so true. I think, well, we live in a society now that people work from home. Growing up, that wasn't really a thing. So that's different for most kids, right? They yeah, if your child is growing up with seeing you working at home, that's a normal to them. Um, and the same thing with ours when it comes to entrepreneurship. I think one time I was doing a contractor role and I was leaving the home. So I told Alani, our oldest, like, I'm going, I'm leaving to go to work. Go to work. Yeah, I remember that. She's like, Why? Why are you not going upstairs? Why are you not staying home? Like, what what she's asking all the right questions because all I do is work from home, right? That's all she knows. That's all she knows. Or when she comes home from school, generally, like I'm done, I may be done with work or whatever I'm doing in the office. So if I'm sitting in the office, it's different for her to see me sitting there because usually when she walks in, I'm not there anymore, right? Your side of it, how does she like view you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so kids see everything. Kids don't I know the quote is like, do as I say, not as I do, but that's not real. Your kids are going to do what they see you do and forget what you say. So, for example, us doing this podcast, Alani used to come into the room and she said, Hi, people. You podcasting podcasts, podcasts. If I'm on a Zoom call, she's saying hi, people, because she knows the fact that we're talking to people on the other side of that camera. And that could be a good or a bad thing. She understands how we work or she knows for a fact that daddy's working. If I'm on my phone, daddy's working. If I'm at my computer, daddy's working. I actually hate it when she says that. Even if I am working.
SPEAKER_01If you're in if he's in this office in this room, she just assumes that he's working.
SPEAKER_00I could be in here reading the book and she's like, oh, daddy's working. And I hate that because when you leave the I guess it would be the same thing if a dad leaves the home for eight hours a day.
SPEAKER_01And well, she may not notice because she's in a school eight hours a day.
SPEAKER_00So she don't know, she doesn't comprehend what work looks like outside of what we do.
SPEAKER_01Right, because for her, like the weekends aren't necessarily the weekends. I mean, she's not in school, so that part, but then we still do work on the weekends, which is not normal for most people. Most nine-to-fivers are not taking their home work home and doing stuff on the weekends. Their weekend is their weekend after five o'clock on Friday, it ends and then going from there. But things are a blur when it comes to entrepreneurship. So either you look at it as like, well, my child is seeing me build something, which they they don't understand at anyway, at this point, or you look at it as like, oh, my child always sees me work. And so you have to figure out what is it that you want to prioritize, which I I always believe in balance, right? There's nothing wrong with your child seeing you work on a weekend at night here and there. However, making it the full norm is where I have the issue of it, because I'm like the point of entrepreneurship is to be able to kind of do some of the things that you want to do and not always be locked into having to do things the way that we were taught to do it. The kids are definitely consuming, and their definition of what work is is gonna be completely different from the way that we grew up at work. Like I was at, at least in elementary school, like I was at a babysitter until like 8, 8, 30, 9 o'clock at night because my mother was getting her master's program. Like that's just what I knew. After school, I was going somewhere else. That that's just what it was. That won't be the case necessarily for our kids. After school, maybe they're doing other things, but this is like an entrepreneurship is just a normal for them. And when they see other kids or experience other things, it may be a whole like, oh, I didn't know that people go to work every day or leave the house every day to go to work.
SPEAKER_00So we went to her school and it was like what 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning. And I think I was like, I think I asked you the question like why do they think that we could just come up to their school at 10, 11 o'clock in the morning?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I that's the same question.
Blending Roles And Family Support
SPEAKER_00And me, I was like, I'm there, and there were other pairs there, but I'm like, why did they think we just had the ability to just get up and go to her school? Because for us it was normal. It's like, okay, cool, we're not gonna have no meetings during that time. But it is definitely we're gonna go, but it was like, why would they have a meeting at this time if they know most people at work? And then they had another show later in the day, and I was like, So you're asking people to come up twice in one day during working hours. But for Alani or Maya, they wouldn't know. It's like, well, we're there for everything. We're there to the meetings, we're there for the show up, we're there for the pickups, for the drop-offs. And that's us another pro that it gives you as well is that it does change your family life. But another positive is that your kids are always going to see you. You just got to make sure you're intentional about being around and then being able to schedule some of that work stuff around it. So that's another pro. And then on the money side with kids, that's super important too, because as you're an entrepreneur, you this is number four. Yeah, entrepreneur, number four, money converse, money conversation changes everything. So even with your kids, we're introducing them to not just you work to make money, or is that your my thing is like your ideas can create income. Your systems, your process, your thoughts, your your brilliance can create income. So I don't say something like, oh, you have to work in order to get paid. I'm like, what can you do or what can you share, or what can you like whatever it is, what can you be creative around to generate income? So for us, that's the type of conversations we're trying to have with our kids, where it's not like, oh, you gotta, in order to get paid, you have to work. When I grew up, that's all I know. More you work, the more you get paid. And that's not even the case because you can't work 24 hours a day. So your income is going to be limited by the amount of time you could work, by the amount of hours you could work. So, like, what ideas can you generate that can help you make income? So it changes the way the dialogue around money happens too when it comes to entrepreneurship and family.
SPEAKER_01And then just along those lines of that, I think like what you can afford versus what's a good investment. Now I won't say we're like a very strict, strict household, like, oh, you gotta invest every single penny that comes in, but just little things of a piggy bank, or yeah, we can afford this, but can we wait on this? Some type of delayed gratification, like show it, and it's hard because our kids are pretty young. So I won't say that we're showing them the ups and downs of everything because they can't understand it. But we're still learning like what that looks like when it comes to entrepreneurship and letting our kids know the balance of it all, right? Having our kids have an understanding, and maybe just even of a different way, like you know, I feel I always say that I feel like people go the exact way of their parents or the complete opposite way of their parents, and so kind of letting them know both sides of a nine to five or having money this way and what it looks like. So money conversations do change everything, but they hear I mean not them because they're too young, but like we have those conversations about 529s and investment accounts and what we're doing to prepare, which is not to say that you can't do it with a nine or five because you absolutely can, but I think that it just looks different and conversations are different when you're doing entrepreneurship.
SPEAKER_00And money stops being survival, and then it becomes more of the strategy. How do you use your money to create strategy for future wealth? So, like we talk about we talked about ROI earlier. It would be like, remember that conversation we had about what's the ROI on the bags?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I don't live my life on, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So, for example, it was like instead of you buying this luxury bag, can we invest that into our business to help us generate more income? And then your point was along the lines of everything doesn't have to be an ROI being invested, investment. And I broke down the difference between the prices between the the bags that she bought. And it was like one bag is you've you've worn it so much, the ROI is there. But this other one, it was like uh I don't I want to mention the price, but you wore it like twice. And I was like, if you think about the price of that bag, the average average time that it's worn is worth this amount.
SPEAKER_01So I mean you're paying-body goes through life that way.
SPEAKER_00No, no, that's just the mindset that you get when you start thinking about your money a little bit differently. It becomes, like I said, less about survival, more about strategy. So I broke, that's how I broke down the conversation. It was like, all right, well, how much is this bad bag worth? And how much is it, what's the cost per wear? And your cost per wear was pretty high because you don't wear it much. Those things can affect the family mentally and emotionally if you come from a background of I don't want to say scarcity, but you didn't have an abundance of money. So you're always thinking about what if or the next thing, and you're always trying to figure out how we can get a return on investment. So that's more of a therapy conversation, but it is definitely possible.
Kids Learn A Different Normal
SPEAKER_01And then number five, success guilt becomes real. So, what do we mean by that? Winning doesn't erase the question, it amplifies it. So once you reach to a point, I think where entrepreneurship, you're always chasing and it never ends. And what I mean by that is you have this vision of what you have goals, right? Of what you're going for in anything and anything in life. But when it comes to money and entrepreneurship, it's your livelihood, right? So you're like, I need to always be making money. There is no, I mean, just the reason why we work. We just always always want to make money. You don't work for free. You don't work for free. So you always want to make money, but it relies on you making the money. And I think that that puts a different type of pressure, a little pep in your step, if you will, when you're a full-time entrepreneur. And some of that kind of some all the stuff that we discussed, some of that gets relayed into your daily life and becomes can become an issue with something. So, for example, when we talk about like you'll becoming real, one of the things that in this new year I decided that I feel like there's always a lot of pressure maybe on Anthony as a man, as a household, to always be bringing the money in at all times. So he has to be on at all times. And that's why I'm always on my phone. That's why we that's what you spoke about before, as that pressure then goes into the family. So I bought him something called a brick, right? And with that, it kind of bricks your phone, meaning it stops your phone from being able to do certain apps, whatever apps you put in there that you don't allow it to touch. So now at certain times, when five o'clock, five to eight, whenever you're spending time with the kids, the phone is bricked. Or in the morning, the phone is bricked. To force him, you can say, well, just put your phone down, put in another room. Sure. But this forces you, because you gotta go to the brick to then like be able to use your phone again, it forces him to just kind of all right, that's everything is gonna be okay, right? No matter what goals we're striving for this week, this month as a company, everything is gonna be okay. I can then relax and have time with my family for a little bit and then get back to the business. And so just that success guilt, that continuous thing that people that we all face, I think sometimes, but some more than others, that's a way that we kind of or I forced into play for him to be able to put a stop to it, if you will.
SPEAKER_00And one thing you you mentioned was those milestones. So you can make all the millions in the world, but you start missing certain milestones. The whole point of it, we stop even enjoying certain milestones, and it's like always what's next. You see those, and I'll get to the brick in a second, but you see those entrepreneurs who've made millions and billions of dollars on their deathbed, and they're like, they're like, I wish I spent more time with my family, or here's how entrepreneurship was with my family. And then at the end of the day, on your somebody was like, if you actually sat down and wrote your obituary out, what would it read? How much of it would be about business? In entrepreneurship or your job or what you did, what would be the things that people really stood there and read and heard and thought about about you? You were a great, this is a great business family. They did amazing things, and it was like, okay. But after that, it's like, how are you as a person? How'd you show up for your family? How'd you show up for your kids? Because again, having all the money in the world, if your family's not there, none of it really matters. So going to the brick, and I think, and I I told you, I love the idea of you thinking through that. And and I think everyone should have some form of this. I even said you should have one too.
SPEAKER_01I agree. Um, if they want to sponsor this, I can I could uh benefit from it.
SPEAKER_00And if they want to sponsor this as well, but just as an example, you let me just give you an example. So our my phone is unusable from 8 p.m. at night to 8 a.m. in the morning. So you might say, well, you're sleeping most of that time. Let me give you a breakdown. So our kids go to bed around 7, 8 o'clock. So my phone is unavailable now from 8 to I go to sleep around 10, 10:30. So that's like our time as a family. Me and Janok were watching TV. My phone's unavailable. I'm sleeping, but you know, sometimes you roll over, you check your phone, you're checking emails, you might be nothing comes in overnight that I need to be checking. Nothing comes in overnight you need to be checking in for your family. But now I don't have the urge. Oh social media, you be scrolling all the time on social media.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So now I can't even check social media. So my phone, if I'm up, it doesn't even matter because my phone is unusable. So now I go to the gym. Here's another reason why it's important to have that block or that brick version of your phone. Because now I'm in a gym at 5:36, 6 to 7 or so. I'm just working out. Listen to a podcast. I can't scroll social media anymore. I can't check Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, email, nothing. I can only listen to a podcast and work out. My workouts have become shorter and more intense in that time frame. And then our kids wake up at 7. 7 to 8, they're in the house. I don't have my phone because I can't use it still. So now I am intent, I'm attentive at the breakfast table with the kids. They come home at 5. 5 to 7, my phone's actually still bricked, which I gotta change because sometimes we go out. But five to seven, my phone is bricked as well during that time. I don't even know if you noticed, but it's unavailable. That forces me to be present with the kids.
SPEAKER_01So and the good thing about it is that you can't just turn it off. Like you have to take your phone to the bricks. So if you leave your phone at home and you're out, you you're kind of you just can't use it, essentially. Um, which you may be like, oh, that's scary, but it's not. You just more, you're more cognizant, you're more in the moment, you're more making sure that you don't miss the moments that you are working for. That's the whole point of entrepreneurship to kind of have that freedom and do the things that you want to do for your family, build the wealth you want to build um for your family. Build all these things. And if you're not able to be in it, then it's kind of like what's the point? Like, why am I even doing this? I could go back to traditional nine to five with no problem and have the same outcome if I would like. But if entrepreneurship is the route that you're going, if you're trying to build these things for your family, your legacy, so on and so forth, and just making sure you're more intentional about it. And that's the whole reason that I was like, Oh, this is this is actually perfect.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you don't want to get to the end of the road and ask yourself, was it all worth it? And it hits different when you're successful. So, you know, we're all still working through these things. You may be an entrepreneur, but you should know how it impacts your family so that you can look out for these things too, because we're still learning, we're still growing, we're still evolving as people, we're still we're still changing as humans to find out what's the best route for us to manage business and family, so it's not impacted. It's always going to be together if you're doing it together, but you want to make sure it doesn't impact you negatively. So these are some things that you could look out for, some things that you could learn from, some things that you could grow from. And these are things that we've learned along the way.
SPEAKER_01And by the way, you can click the link for the break if you want it.
SPEAKER_00You can click the link in the bio in the description.
SPEAKER_01In the description, excuse me, of Anthony's link because it's been a game changer so far and it's been almost exactly a month of using it.
Weekends Blur And Flexible Parenting
SPEAKER_00And if you guys, and if you guys want to check out, we appreciate you guys being here. And if you guys want to check out on you guys want to learn about other things we're doing, or you can start a business, learn different income streams, you could click one of these links above here, or you could check out our bio to learn about more of who we are and what we do. You could check us out at cleaning businessmasterclass.com. If you want to know how to start a remote cleaning business without cleaning houses, you could bring your friends, your family, your kids, your spouses, and uh they could be involved as well.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for listening and come back another time.
SPEAKER_00Peace.