Written by: Mary Pitman, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I was invited to write this article for Brainz Magazine and, like the Tenacious D song, this is just the tribute, not because that was the Greatest article in the world but because I didn't really say what I wanted to and it has already been submitted so it's too late to swap it out now. My brain has been whirring ever since submitting and asking figuring out how I could have followed the original path better. In the article, business can be interchangeable with job.
1. Have you ever left your partner in bed at 3 am to do a business-related activity?
What do you do when you wake up at 3 am and can't get back to sleep? Me, I head to my office and start working on an article that is nearing its deadline date…or at least that's what happened this time. Other options I have turned to in the past include creating new marketing materials (posters, ads for social media), collating new leads in the CRM software, and watching a training webinar on automation or music licensing…you get the idea. I have a friend whose mantra is “Business First,” but this seems a bit much, even though it seems automatic to me.
2. Your partner knows about your business but you spend more time thinking about your business than about your partner (even when you're together)
The relationship has become a bit of a loose menage à trois. Your partner knows you are working on your business and you try to include them whenever and however you can but your partner still wonders what it is you do.
I don't know about you but I have invited my husband along to networking events and training days in order to include him and help him understand what I'm doing a bit better but coming out of these events, he still seems a bit lost, and wondering “Who the…?”, “What the..?” and it can sometimes give me more reason to keep them so that never the Twain shall meet but at the same time, my relationship with both my husband and my business has an impact on the other and the business can be a wedge or a bridge.
3. You can't give yourself ‘time off’ because that is when you get your best ideas
Before I was even married (22 years before), I had a hint of this one but I was reminded of it on a recent cruise.
Basically, I couldn't switch off, I was overseas for three weeks visiting friends and experiencing life, supposedly. It was the mid-year break on the course I was doing and even just the change of scenery brought a flood of ideas for an event we had 9 months to put together – sponsorship positioning, promotional ideas, even artwork. Sure, it kept me from being bored but was it pulling me away from the experience and adventure in a new and exciting land?
More recently, my husband and I went on a cruise. We took some movies (which came in handy the first couple of days because we had some rough seas) and I also took my laptop where I had downloaded some training webinars so I could keep ‘up to date’ with all the business stuff while we were away. Was it so wrong? We still went to the gym every morning, walked over 10,000 steps each day (on and off the ship), went snorkeling, and ‘out’ for dinner. I even had karaoke events on all 7 days.
4. You have a home-based business and you sneak off at every opportunity to be with it
Technically, your partner and your lover live in the same house, and this can sometimes be awkward (for some reason, the C&C Music Factory song, Things That Make You Go Hmm) comes to mind, they seem to get along but they sometimes have conflicts of interest. I have had many times when I have gone out to dinner, for example, and have thought “I need to call so-and-so” or “Something or other needs to go up on the Website”, like, now!
It feels a bit like the old days when we had answering machines with a loudspeaker you could hear through the whole house and a pet owner would call and leave a message for the pets who suffered separation anxiety, just so they could hear their owner's voice. I never did this but I have seen it on TV.
5. After dinner you disappear into your office to be with your business
After dinner, you ‘pop into the office’ to respond to emails, make client calls, or otherwise just be with your business. Denise Duffield Thomas talks about bending her schedule so she could provide a service for all her clients in all their time zones but it was burning her out.
A couple of years ago, I used the guise of it being ‘me rime’, so I could listen to my favorite podcast uninterrupted. It was that but I was also taking notes and compiling ideas to put into my courses and programs 🤔
6. During family activities and events you find a quiet place to contact leads or make new marketing materials
Again, is it a bridge or a wedge?
Back on the cruise, even though it was just the two of us and we had a balcony room, my brain just wanted to be occupied and activated, so it found ways to use the balcony to make new lifestyle promotions using the backdrop of sand, sea, and even the ship a couple of times. Was I cheating myself of the experience? Maybe. But if I got frustrated because words weren't coming out right, I could just put the camera down and soak up some ocean.
I also used an extended family event (cousins, aunties, uncles) as the backdrop for some other promotions. I figured, in the long run, the success of the business gives me more opportunity to spend more time with these folks anyway, so what's a few seconds of video? I'll usually make my way through the myriad of conversations taking place and contribute however many cents are necessary before I remove myself because I know I'm not missing anything that will rock my world. If I don't have any creative ideas to contribute to either my business or conversation, that's when I'll step away and stare at a campfire or participate in eating or sleeping or other free time type activities.
In completing this article, the Bon Jovi song Bed of Roses, where he says “As you close your eyes. Know that I'm thinking about you. As my mistress, She calls me to stand in the spotlight again” comes to mind and remembering that in every relationship there are three entities: yourself, your partner and the relationship itself…and it is just as true with your business.
Well, I hope you have been info-tained with this small intrigue and depending on the perspective you take, can see where you might be cheating on yourself or your partner with your business (or enhancing the relationship with both).
Mary Pitman, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Mary Pitman coaches elite athletes to perform their best on and off the field and court. After spending a lifetime of being picked last for sports teams, she decided that no more children would succumb to that fate by developing the Whole Player Model. The motto for her business, Fitness Alliance International is 'Be the Strongest link.
