Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
-Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
There is no doubt in my mind that I was born an entrepreneur into an entrepreneurial family. Growing up, money was often stretched in our household. My parents hired me to do jobs around the house rather than giving me an allowance. My mom, a first generation daughter of a Czech immigrant, grew up in the blue-collar suburbs of Detroit. My father was raised for the first ten years of his life by his maternal grandmother and worked with his relatives, who were sharecroppers, in cotton and tobacco fields in rural North Carolina. Both graduated from college and worked hard to establish a middle class lifestyle for us. It was important to them that I understood the value of a dollar. There was no sense of entitlement in our household. As an adult, I am grateful that I was given such a value system.
While still in elementary school I hired myself out as a babysitter and did odd jobs for my neighbors to earn spending money. When I was young my mother ran a home daycare while my father ran a business and worked full time for the federal government. Together they owned three multi-family homes in our town and rented 10 units. In junior high school I thrived during times of fundraising and was always a top seller of candy bars and magazine subscriptions. In high school, I was inspired to start a magazine featuring my classmates writing and artwork. I enrolled my best friend in creating this with me and got the backing of the English and Art departments to promote it. One problem. No money in the school budget to publish the magazine. (This was back in the day before e-zines...) I convinced my friend to canvass downtown on our spring break to sell ads to local business in order to fund the project.
Since college I've undertaken numerous entrepreneurial endeavors. Some have been successful and other have been, well, learning experiences. I'm an entrepreneurial junkie. I follow highly successful entrepreneurs like many follow celebrities.
About six months ago some difficult decisions had to be made about my business and my family's future. For reasons too numerous to go into here, we made the decision as a family that we would homeschool and I would be “at home” to support our family. (For more, go to
Heart of the Matter Online for two blogs on the topic.) To say that it was a big adjustment would be an understatement. To say that all had gone smoothly would be untrue. However the positive outcome must be credited to context. Context is key.
I appointed myself
Chief Dream Officer of the family business, the business of being an extraordinary family. I am not a stay-at-home mom or a work-at-home mom. I am a domestic entrepreneur. This is different from being a stay-at-home mom with a side business or being a work-at-home mom with a dedicated office. I've tried both and failed miserably. It's all about approaching the ongoing co-creation of the family in the spirit of entrepreneurship.
I love what
Wikipeida has to say about being an entrepreneur.
An entrepreneur is a person who has possession of a new enterprise, venture or idea, and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome. ...Entrepreneurship is often difficult and tricky, resulting in many new ventures failing. The word entrepreneur is often synonymous with founder. Most commonly, the term entrepreneur applies to someone who creates value by offering a product or service, by carving out a niche in the market that may not exist currently.
So, notice, there is nothing in this definition about profits or a business or building wealth. It is about taking accountability for moving a venture or an idea forward, for carving our a niche and taking risks.
Recently I picked up
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families by Stephen R. Covey at the library. According to Mr. Covey,
every family needs three basic things to be successful.
- A clear vision of their direction.
- A flight plan.
- A compass.
It struck me how that is the basic structure of a business plan. It is also the heart of the plan developed during the Chief Dream Officer training! I had an "ah-ha" moment. I've been applying my business background and entrepreneurial zeal to my family.
Our
mission statement is
“To create an extraordinary family in which each member feels valued and appreciated as a unique individual.” Our
flight plan includes spending quality time together, homeschooling, and maintaining a simple and fulfilling lifestyle. We have
specific criteria against which we can measure our success while conceding that we will be off track 90% of the time.
As for my particular role, I am the CDO for the family. I serve as the holder of the dream – our mission statement – and am charged with family resource management to forward our venture toward the dream. My husband and son (and the little one on the way) serve as the board of directors. They voice support or opposition to the work I'm charged with carrying out. They also make sure I have the resources I need to carry out my work. My husband, son, and a few carefully selected friends are my biggest resource; my Board of Advisors and performance coaches. I am a domestic entrepreneur, manager, and technician as Michael Gerber outlined in his book,
The E-myth. I organize and manage the many moving parts of our family system for maximum efficiency, enjoyment, and results. This is similar to what I did in the businesses I have created or managed.
I oversee, manage, and am chiefly responsible for the following:
- Administration: creating and managing our operating budget (household expenses and liabilities), accounts payable (pay bills), accounts receivable (track paychecks, reimbursements, and other payments), strategic cash reserves (long term and short terms savings accounts), capital improvements plans (long term savings for specific projects), procurement (all household purchases), investments (retirement plans and others), contract and vendor management (insurance contracts, loans, household service providers), track cash flow and generate reports as needed
- Facilities: property and fleet maintenance (housework, car maintenance, “mom's taxi”, coordinating rides and ride shares, serving on our condo association as a trustee, home renovation project development)
- Information Systems: Information Technology (manage and maintain all household electronics, including internet, cable, landlines and cell phones) , Information Systems Management (systematic communication around child care, work schedules, and creating the processes which lend to communication), documentation (process documentation, photos, videos, scrapbooks, blogs)
- Human Relationships: Education (classes and more), management training programs (getting family members developed to take on oversight and accountability of specific aspects of programs), benefits management (registration, selection and utilization of employee benefits from husbands work), recreation and travel (planing fun downtime at scalable levels – daily and weekly opportunities) personal time (time off!), personal development (personalized training and support of resources for each family member), wellness programs (healthy eating, daily exercise, stress reduction), corporate retreats (family vacations) and planning days (weekly check in meetings, quarterly mission status review), events management (planning and oversight of birthdays, holidays, family and friend gatherings)
- Program Management: Project “Extraordinary Family”, Spiritual Relationships and Religious Worship, Homeschooling
- Special Initiatives: Yoga Instruction, our family business, D's Masters Degree, Homeschooling blogging
This is the context I set for my work in my family. Primarily, I oversee and manage all the “back end” administration and support such that our family can focus on our main work together – creating an extraordinary family life. That is not to say I do all the work. I am chiefly the big picture person. I always consult with the resident chief expert, my husband. He is a fabulous technician in many areas. Many times he sets the vision in certain areas and then I conduct the research and development around that vision to create a proposal or feasibility study. We then decide together whether or not to pursue that option or look for a better fit. I actively train my son to take responsibility and initiative in his own sphere of influence. It is never too young to start to groom an entrepreneurial mindset and to build in him confidence as a leader! I feel blessed that I can be of service in these diverse areas to my family in a meaningful way. I put to use every day every skill I developed in the different jobs I've had or the difference businesses on which I've worked. This is by far the most demanding adventure I've ever been on. Best of all, it is a journey where everyone is winning, including me!
Being a self-transformer has been the most profound and rewarding work of becoming a domestic entrepreneur. Setting this context for my work has brought into focus for me the importance of self-care. For example, while it is possible to be sleep deprived and to deal with professional colleagues, I dare you to try that as a strategy while homeschooling a preschooler. You last about an hour. I don't want to show up as grumpy and impatient with low energy with my family. So, I have had to become extremely disciplined about getting appropriate rest, eating enough throughout the day, spiritually recharging every day, delegating when needed, asking for help and creating an endurance programs for myself. A wonderful book and program is
The Power of Full Engagement; Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. Most importantly, I've had to become proficient at saying “no.”
I am deeply grateful for the support and encouragement of the Dream Factory Community and the Chief Dream Officer training. I credit both these incredible resources with empowering me to make a graceful transition in my life. I am delighted to report that I am happy and fulfilled with the life I have created. I am a successful “whole person” rather than a person who has a list of accomplishments behind my name. To my knowledge, I am the first self-declared full time Domestic Entrepreneur of the DFC. I hope I'm not the last! I am here to encourage others.
If you want to be successful as a whole person, not simply have areas of success in your life, the DFC could be a tremendous resource.
Creating an extraordinary family is not the work of an individual family member or of the family unit itself, but of an entire community. It takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a community to support a family.
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