Entrepreneurship is a way of seeing the world and living life. From the moment you decide to take this path, almost all aspects of the personal and family environment must adapt to the dynamics it represents. Nothing in it is conventional as the venture itself is not. And it is not without importance, given that any aspect related to the entrepreneur's family environment is as valuable for the success of the task as the quality of the project itself. This does not mean that family reality is not decisive for the development of any other trade, but in the case of entrepreneurship it has unique peculiarities.
The family dynamics of a person serving in the Armed Forces is not the same as that of working in a Bank, or that of an oil engineer and a school principal. The trade determines the way in which personal and family life is ordered and works. On the other hand, it is not the same to interpret these realities from the point of view of the person who does the job and from the family circle that supports it.
Every person who achieves his goals in professional life and considers himself successful and at peace with himself has had to be able to maintain a delicate balance in his family interests. Success is not a state that is built from "outside to inside", it is a goal that is achieved starting from the deepest and most intimate corner of people. On the one hand, if the individual does not feel good about himself and with those around him, he will not do it with all the things he has managed to accumulate, on the other hand, if this intimate and private balance has not been previously consolidated, it is much more difficult to own act of achieving what you want. Success is made up of dozens of battles that take place every day and must be overcome every moment. Success is actually written with a lowercase “e”,Because it is a process of many small victories that build the great. This whole process begins with the person, the family and the close environment, always from "inside out".
In this task, the Entrepreneur must face a situation that differs from those faced by people who dedicate themselves to other trades, including those who have a "very particular job" such as the case of a firefighter or a missionary. The Entrepreneur must interact with a solid structure of cultural conventions that have always conditioned the education and training of people.
Most societies today educate people about certain economic and financial values deeply rooted in particular concepts and customs. These societies emphasize the virtue of security, homogeneity and the predictable; on the one hand, the “security” provided by a conventional education, a job, a professional career, one's own home, retirement, etc., on the other hand, the risk of “doing something different” and, finally, the benefit of acting in accordance to what “you already know works”.
Societies train people around these values from within the family. This is not a phenomenon that has the institutional action of colleges or universities as paternity, it is the parents, relatives and close friends who impart the doctrine first, and from there they form mental structures that condition the actions of people throughout their lives. Facing this is much more difficult than can be assumed. The Entrepreneur has more difficulties in this regard than those who choose to be fishermen in rough seas or pilots of fighter jets.
Society understands "trades", it is clear that the system works by the fact that each one of us does something of what is needed, from the bricklayer to the person who cleans the sanitary drains, including the Bank employee and the Surgeon. Society is understood as a "meritocracy" around the trades that are practiced to keep it active. A firefighter or a policeman does not necessarily have a low-risk job, but it is a necessary job and society understands and supports it.
The same does not necessarily happen with the Entrepreneur. What type of trade is this and where does it fit within the framework of daily needs? How is it inscribed on the margins of history and customs? In most societies until just fifty years ago, businessmen constituted a “special class” of citizens who owed their position and prerogatives to inheritances that were passed down through generations; In this he did not necessarily apply the paradigm of "trade", rather that of "class difference".
If this structural state of things represents a problem for the Entrepreneur himself, it becomes more serious when the family environment that surrounds him has been educated and formed in those molds. Precisely for this reason, the class of aristocrats-entrepreneurs of yesteryear formed and consolidated families within the same circle.
The task of the Entrepreneur is developed in the far reaches of what is established by the patterns of that conventional education that society imparts. The Entrepreneur does not necessarily practice a "trade" that establishes a clear division between personal and professional activity, does not have a job, is not always subject to a traditional education, does not seek to develop a career of merit at work, does not have as its central objective Investing in your own home does not mean that the outcome of your working life is subject to the payment of a retirement. All this notably breaks the molds of the cultural and idiosyncratic structure that surrounds it.
There are not a few cases in which this barrier must be overcome early and with difficulty within the maternal family, and the complexity is greater when it comes to forming a new family. Obtaining satisfactory results in these tests does not depend on others, it is the sole responsibility of the Entrepreneur, a function that involves the general ordering of life and the routines that comprise it.
Here are some important recommendations to keep in mind:
1.- No one chooses the family in which he is born, but the most important decision that exists in life is to determine with whom a new family will be formed. If this premise has a universal application, how much more important is it for the Entrepreneur
If in the couple there is not a minimum of compatibility in the understanding of the "entrepreneurial" life, the conditions are not favorable from the beginning and can become more complicated as time passes.
For the Entrepreneur, the factor that determines the security and prosperity that he will achieve in life is not found in his environment, it is located “between his two ears”. The task of the Entrepreneur is not only aimed at achieving his own security and prosperity with what he creates, but is also aimed at allowing other people to achieve that status thanks to what he does. He ends up not only being responsible for his own children, but also for the people who collaborate with the undertaking and, consequently, for their children. Becoming aware of these particularities is not easy for the Entrepreneur or his family.
There will be people who will be "honestly unable" to process all this and they do not constitute the appropriate company that the Entrepreneur needs to make the trip.
2.- The Entrepreneur must understand and must assume that the family aspect is a vital element for it to achieve its purposes
Possibly it is not correct to affirm that without an ordering of family interests, entrepreneurship fails, but it is completely correct to assert that the degree and quality of success are closely related to it. The "lone wolves" do not work in the undertaking, they lack the energy and the necessary motivation to go far.
The responsibilities of the venture begin in the closest family circle. This is initially worth more than the idea or vision of the Business. It is necessary for the Entrepreneur to first gain internal understanding and support to then work with external aspects. The more cohesion there is at this point, the stronger the project will be in its development.
3.- There must be an important level of commitment from the family circle to entrepreneurship
In some cases, the family explicitly shares the tasks of the undertaking and this guarantees much more commitment, but if this is not the situation, the family circle must at least be made fully aware of the task to be undertaken and periodically informed of its development. This is essential for the unfavorable situations or cycles that the Business faces (a fact that will also happen more than once), moments in which the strength of the commitment is a decisive factor.
4.- Life at home must be carefully ordered
Entrepreneurship, at least in its initial stages, is almost an extension of the home and family, the care and attention it requires is very similar to this one. It is a situation similar to that of a house that receives guests for a long period of time: routines change, there are more details to attend to, customs must adjust to the situation, etc.
Family life intermingles with that of entrepreneurship in ways that are not comfortable and that nullify that healthy division between work and home life.
Since the fact is inevitable, the basic ordering of life requires more effort and maturity on the part of family members. It is convenient to establish moments and spaces in which interests completely unrelated to those of the Business are shared, leaving the house whenever possible, avoiding frequent visits to the workplace, etc.
In the case of other trades, it is the dynamics of these trades that define the order in the home, usually with certain work schedules, specific days, concrete possibility of activating and deactivating the work focus, etc. For the Entrepreneur the situation is different, it is he who must determine the system of living at home, adapting it in the best possible way to the dynamics that the Business has and without this ending because it affects domestic interests.
5.- The budgets of money for the support of the house and the family must be very flexible
It is frequent that the enterprise does not provide income that can be considered “fixed” for family expenses, in many cases it will not grant any income and in many others it will “demand” them. Life at home must adjust to this reality and this can only be achieved by adopting very flexible mechanisms for forecasting income and expenses. This sometimes takes the form of "organized chaos" or "controlled disorder" but it rarely resembles the pace that can be achieved in another type of trade. Sometimes it will not be possible to pay some obligation and in others it will be necessary to cut some service or expense.
These are unorthodox realities for existing cultural patterns, so their treatment is not reserved for anyone either. There are people simply unable to delay the payment of an obligation and have to bear the claims that arise because of it, or divest themselves of something as naturally as they had when acquiring it.
Although it is true that entrepreneurship can provide family income as few wages could, it is the conditions at the opposite extreme that are often ignored.
The work of undertaking has an inherent set of costs and this is one of the most difficult to bear.
6.- The “own house” is an investment that is considered from the financial point of view
Popular understanding and culture in this regard lack flexibility. This is a very sensitive issue within family interests. The “own house” is traditionally associated with the fundamental safety factor of the family, while for the Entrepreneur it can only be a case of financial evaluation.
Taking into account that things in the venture can go wrong or take much longer than expected to become favorable, the decisions made regarding this investment cause serious fractures in the family. Everything is conditioned by the value structure on which the process of education and training of people is based, and it is imperative not to ignore it.
A similar case is that of own house or other family assets that are used as collaterals (or guarantees) to generate financing that the Business needs and that is why they are placed at risk. In cases of failure, they constitute blows of the highest impact on the family, and the only way to overcome them is in the quality of prior understanding and the level of tolerance that has been built to support business activity.
It is good that the Entrepreneur is clear that the Business is an Asset and as such constitutes the best alternative to protect the patrimonial interests of the family, but it is essential that this same conviction, and what it represents, be transmitted to all members by a means of patient and loving guidance.
7.- Always be prepared for Failure
Success is the product of a significant sum of failures, if these do not occur either.
If anything can ultimately qualify the very nature of entrepreneurship, that is Failure and everything it carries with it, from frustration to deep grief. The Entrepreneur is not an expert in achieving success, he is an expert in overcoming failures.
The feeling of loss associated with failure can be very hard for the family, so you must always be aware that it is an event with a specific probability of occurrence. Nobody likes to fail or lose money, but this is a fact closely related to the activity that has been chosen. It is difficult, and yet precisely because of this it is so valuable. Nothing extraordinary is achieved in life by doing ordinary things, easy things are done by everyone, but it is precisely the difficult and painful things that ultimately provide the greatest benefit.
The Entrepreneur understands all of this from the moment he makes the fundamental decisions, but it is his responsibility to make the necessary efforts so that the understanding extends to the family, who will ultimately end up feeling the most complex effects of the decisions made.
8.- The Business should not be managed with the criterion that it is a family asset
Since it takes shape, the Business is an entity independent even from the Entrepreneur himself. If it were not thought in this way, the most basic criteria of economic development would not make sense. The interests of the Business are greater to the Entrepreneur and of course to his family. The Business is due to the clients it serves, the people who work in it and the economic dynamics it generates. The Entrepreneur may be the owner of the Business but this is not an extension of himself.
In order for the healthy development of the Business to lead it at some point to become a business organization, this rule must be respected from the beginning.
Entrepreneurs who manage their Business with the criterion that it constitutes a family heritage and a possession that transcends even the limits of generations, condemn it from the beginning.
Nothing prevents the Entrepreneur, as owner or shareholder, from freely defining his interests in the Business, but he must always do so considering that what he created is beyond him and in essence does not belong to him. In this way, it will ensure that the Business evolves and is not punished by the momentum that current markets have.
Without the participation of families, businesses rarely succeed, but when they become a family “possession” and not a cell of economic performance, they also do not have a long life.
