I've mentored too many solo practitioners and small firm owners who are laboring mightily for their families and whose families do not support them emotionally.
Here are some of the reasons and what you can do about them.
Inordinate Fear of Risk
Not everyone has the same risk tolerance. Moreover, if you don't have all the information you tend to overestimate risk.
In the chart shown in Figure 2.1, which I use with corporate clients, you can introduce to others the idea of your current position (status quo) and the relative risk and reward of your venture, idea, or initiative. The problem of risk is that there is usually no counterbalance. Certainly a risk of −5 accompanied by a possible reward of 12 is not worth taking, unless the risk can be mitigated. But a 14 benefit with a −2 risk is well worth it.
This kind of visualization will help you with family and conservative others (attorneys, bankers, accountants) to understand the difference between prudent risk and gambling. It also provides the ability to exploit the benefit (move from 13 to 14) and mitigate risk (move from −3 to −2) with some intelligent planning. Investing in a $50,000 conference center may make no sense emotionally, until you realize that last year you made $300,000 in conference revenues but had to spend $150,000 on retail conference space.
FIGURE 2.1 Risk/Reward Ratio
Time Demands and Loss of Attention
You have to offset those occasions when you miss dinner, or miss a dance recital, or even miss an anniversary with those when you can be at an afternoon soccer game, take a long weekend vacation on impulse, or provide an extraordinary anniversary gift.
When I first began traveling (without benefit of modern technology and remote flexibility), I was on the road 80 percent of the time. I had two personal goals in that regard: First, I wanted to keep reducing it,5 and second, I wanted to compensate for it. My kids, when I missed grammar school events, became accustomed to telling their friends I was in California or Florida or London, but also were quite proud to point me out on the sidelines during an afternoon soccer game or morning field trip. I wasn't there all the time when other parents were, but I was often there when other parents weren't.
It's never good to miss special days and special events. But these days on the calendar are meant to represent something far greater than a period of time passing, and it's that personal and loving experience that needs to be celebrated, no matter when that is.
And we've all now learned how effective remote work can be, especially in advisory roles. I'm writing this in September 2020, and I haven't been on an airplane since early March, which is my longest consecutive span of not flying since 1972, when I entered this profession!
Dueling Careers
Consulting demands time, especially to grow a thriving practice. If your significant other also has a career, then the two of you need to make common adaptations. You need to outsource! Hire help to mind the pets, watch the kids, clean the house, pick up the cleaning, mow the lawn, water the plants, and so forth. If a dual income isn't sufficient to hire the resources that working couples require, then there is something wrong with the dual income.
Dual careers shouldn't become dueling careers. Look for ways to substitute for the mundane (cleaning the yard, painting the house) while safeguarding the sacrosanct (taking vacations, quality time with the kids, walks on the beach). This can't be a zero‐sum game, where one benefits only if the other sacrifices. Both have to invest to reap the dividends.
But it makes zero business sense to spend $50,000 in child care when it compensates for one spouse making $40,000 on the job. The kids will grow and one can go to work then, but the kids' youth can never be recaptured.
Part of emotional support is eschewing the martyr's approach. The humorist George Ade observed once, “Don't pity the martyrs; they love the work.”
Not everyone is in a relationship, of course, which makes it even more important to have an emotional support structure and proper resources. While other consultants can provide this, beware of too much commiseration (“Don't worry about losing that business; we're all losing business right now”). You want people around you who can tell you when it wasn't your fault and when it was. You want people who can help relieve the strain and pressure, but who can also demand accountability and responsiveness.
In short, you need trust. Remember: Trust is the honest‐to‐God belief that the other person has your best interests in mind.
Find those people who can be empathetic (they understand your position) but not sympathetic (they share your feelings and position, and therefore tend to be lost in the content). These resources may change as your business grows and/or as you mature. You will certainly outgrow some of them. This can be a very lonely endeavor if you aren't able to share the pressures, ask intimate questions, and filter unbiased advice. Try to find people who don't have a personal agenda, and include a cross section.
Don't accept all feedback as accurate or valid, but look for consistent patterns and feedback that is supported by evidence and behavior. Most important, never accept unsolicited feedback, which is almost always provided for the sender, not the recipient. If you listen to random suggestions, you'll be the ball in the pinball machine, being tossed and bounced by every arbitrary object in its path.
That just winds up being painful.
The Gospel
The myth about feedback is that it's always valid and worth considering. Listen only to those you respect and whom you ask. That discipline will save you years of grief.
Here's why I've been so focused on your support system.
Your success is at the confluence of the three paths shown in Figure 2.2:
1 Market need, which you identify, create, or anticipate.
2 Competency to deliver quality work and results.
3 Passion to accept rejection and move through obstacles.
If you find market need and have passion but don't have the competency, you'll lose to the competition. If you have competency and passion but can't identify need, you have a story no one wants to hear.
If you have market need and competency but no passion, you have a nine‐to‐five job. And that's an environment most of us have fled from.
Your support system is the engine room for the passion. You need those fires stoked on a continuing basis. Some of us are better than others at providing the passion independently, but at some time or other we all need the support, the structure, the empathy.
At the point where those three lines cross you have the potential for a powerful brand.
Without passion you will be worse than lonely, and poorer than unsuccessful.
You'll be unfulfilled.
FIGURE 2.2 Where Do These Paths Intersect?
Two Available Structures
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