The world does not revolve around any 1 person! Why can people not understand that simple fact?
I feel like no one understands the concept of flexibility or its importance. I think this lack of understanding is partly due to lacking the ability to prioritize tasks and people.
This is my rant, does anyone here have similar feelings?
I think that these are necessary abilities and skills if you are going to be successful in this industry. Many of the people that I deal with are pretty good with these two issues. I think this is a result of completely open lines of communication. Good communication is when you are precise and frank with people. This allows for expectations and relationships and to be managed effectively.
I just started in this business full time a little over a month ago. I put 80 hours a week in for the first 2 weeks. I’m extremely motivated and I’m in the middle of starting a lawn care and property management company, rehabbing two houses and I just made offer on house. I didn’t mind doing this and really enjoyed the work, but it really put a heavy strain on me and the relationships that are important to me; family, friends and my girlfriend. I recognized the problem and have decided to make a conscious effort to apply what I do with my business to my personal relationships; to communicate better, manage expectations better and manage my time better. If I continued at that pace, 80 hours a week, I would burn out in a few months. I saw it beginning, so I have decided that I will put in no more then 60 hours of work into it every week and make my relationships more of a priority.
This has resulted in a big improvement in my relationships and myself in the last 2 weeks. However, my family, friends and girlfriend still don’t fully understand that the world doesn’t revolve around them, no matter how much they or I would like it to. :banghead It aggravates the hell out of me! I’m willing to make sacrifices in order to succeed, I just feel that my family, friends and girlfriend do not understand and only support me if it doesn’t take away from the time I spend with them. Do you guys have similar feelings? How can I explain it to them so they will understand? Any advice? I can’t imagine doing this if I had kids. I almost feel as if I have many of them in my family and friends lol. :anon
Thanks,
Matt
P.S. I have similar frustration with the fact that the people around me don’t understand the concepts of Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
Matt,
When you’re self-employed, your family and friends can think that you are at their disposal. After all, you don’t have a job to go to and you don’t have specific hours that your boss makes you work. In reality, while this can be a nuisance, that is one of the BEST things about being self-employed. You do have the freedom to work whenever you want and to always be there for the important things in your family’s life.
Unfortunately, you’re not at that point. It will likely take a few years to get your business up and running. You just need to let your family know that you will be sacrificing for the next few years and that the sacrifice will result in a great payoff for the rest of your life.
Good Luck,
Mike
It took me a while on this one. I have a very close family and when they all found out what I was doing, it was on! Tons of phone calls from them during the day, always asking for help with this or that, and of course don’t forget all the judgements… “You don’t have a real job, it must be nice to have all that freedom, I wish I could do what you do” blah blah.
I like what you say about communicating and managing your expectations. Obviously communicating to your family and girlfriend that at this point in your career you have to work alot to have success in this business. It may take a while for some of them to understand and some of them probably never will. Maybe if they see how important this is to you eventually they will show more support. It has only been 1 month.
Good luck to you and I enjoy reading your posts! :beer
You guys are exactly right. They think that I have all the time in the world and can always answer my phone just because I work for myself. I treat my work like a business and they don’t understand that. If I call them while they are at work, they can’t answer the phone, yet they expect me to drop my work and answer just because I don’t have a boss. I keep trying to explain it to them, but they just don’t get it.
I think that one of the problems that I am facing is that my family, friends and girlfriend are only looking at the short term effects or whats going on right now and are failing to look at the long term effects or big picture like I am focused on.
As a side note, my family consists of my mom and my grandma. They have a much lower risk tolerance and live for the short term, always shopping, never saving or investing. My grandpa always encouraged me to do this and now that he is gone, I’m feel like I’m on my own.
Uh oh Sullivan… slippery slope you are looking at. My wife is my life and business partner. Does she shop? Hell yeah! But she also thinks about long term wealth building. Don’t alienate the women in your life yet, give them time, show them proof this works. I’m sure you’ll do great. :beer
Very slipperey indeed and potentially dangerous. How long did it take you to show your wife proof that this works? Or did she show you?
We actually learned together…
I struggle with this myself. I am completely alienated from some people in my family because they tell me that they are not important enough to me. I am trying to become a self employed investor mostly due to the values and beliefs that I must accept when I work for someone else. I like the people that I work with, I like the work that I do, but I am surrounded by earn and spend, big hat no cattle types. If all I had to do was go to a barbeque with these folks, it would be fine, but I have to explain why I don't just go to my job, earn my money, put 6% of my income into a 401k and spend the rest of my time living a life of leisure.
That's not what I want.
[b]"I'm willing to make sacrifices in order to succeed"[/b]
Those are your words, Matt. Read them. If you surround yourself with people who do not share that value, I predict that you will regret it. Imagine if you did have children and your mother-in-law criticized you as a parent because you work too much. You don't spend enough time in front of a $15,000 plasma screen TV with your children. All you want to do is play Cash Flow for Kids and persuade your children to help you build your business. All the while, your mother-in-law never accomplished much with her carreer, her finances....
[b]"I'm extremely motivated..." [/b]
quotes from
THE MILLIONAIRE MIND:
At the age of twenty-six and twenty-nine, respectively, my husband and I leased a run-down, full-service car wash with $5,000 we borrowed from my husband’s parents.…thirteen years later, they sold the business for $750,000…Most car-wash owners (including my husband and me) are probably beter off than our college-educated, professional customers. The sacrifices are definitely worth it long-term.
RICH DAD’S RETIRE YOUNG RETIRE RICH
I would not be rich today without my wife, Kim, as a best friend and business partner…You may want to ask yourself how many people around you are holding you back financially and how many are pushing you ahead financially. When it comes to money, your relationships can be important sources of leverage.
ANN RAND ATLAS SHRUGGED
Money is made possible by the men who produce… When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others…Your wallet is your bank statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money.
FORWARD TO THE TRUMP UNIVERSITY 101 SERIES
People often ask me the secret to my success, and the answer is simple: focus, hard work, and tenacity.
[b]How can I explain it to them so they will understand? [/b]
On behalf of those of us who do understand, Thank-you.