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Michał Kóska

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Hello,

How many parents are here? :) I'm just curious.

Do you or did you have the same feeling? Sometimes I feel I'm afraid to take the 100% entrepreneurial plunge because I'm worried of my family's financial security.

Btw I'm 25 years old.
 
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@Andy Black, @ZCP, @tafy, and many more.

I'm not a parent and never want to be one, but if I were I would be more worried about NOT taking the plunge. If you're an entrepreneur, sooner or later you WILL provide your family with financial security. If you're working for someone else, you'll probably never reach true financial security and will always worry about your family's well-being (there will always be this nagging feeling that your family's financial situation depends on your boss and your spouse's boss).

In addition to that, you'll never have enough time for your loved ones, will miss seeing your kid(s) grow up, work-related stress will affect your family, etc. IMO, the costs of NOT being an entrepreneur are for a parent even worse than for people with no kids. Can you afford NOT to go all in when you think about these consequences?
 

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The bigger fear for me is missing them grow up while stuck in a time intensive job or business, it was after my first was born that I realised my slowlane business took too much time away from my family and for not enough reward, and thats when I found this forum and book. Dont get me wrong im all for working hard and putting the hours in to start and build a business that can eventually run without my involvement, but I wont miss the best years of my kids lives because you'll never get them back.

Regarding your familys financial security I think it depends on what business you're looking to take the plunge with and the time and money investment required, obviously if you were going to quit your job and invest all your savings into building the next facebook then yeah i'd be a bit worried, but theres many viable low investment businesses you can start and grow on the side untill you can afford to replace your employment income.
 

TeflonDon

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I am a parent, not yet a successful entrepreneur though. I do worry about things like this a lot, my way around it personally was to find other methods of income. I truly believe most people can find some way to make enough cash to live off if they get creative and are willing enough (hustling, odd jobs, etc). This frees up time once you get to the point that you no longer need a job, and I think as a parent time is even more important! Now I'm at the stage where I have put away an emergency fund to get us through a couple of months if need be (recently hit this), so any other funds are fair game to be used. Until I decided to implement this approach I would gather a couple hundred and use that to fund my venture's, but when it ran out there was nothing left. This way I feel secure that I have a little 'insurance', and I can use any and all remaining funds to push any future venture's.

Basically my old mindset was like: "I can afford x, so I'll use x and no more to try and turn a profit. Anything more is reckless."
New mindset is more like: "I have my 'insurance' sorted if things go really badly wrong, I can use anything else to try and turn a profit."
 
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Michał Kóska

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Thank you guys! Your insight are very helpful. You answered the questions that troubled me recently :)
 

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I think the last year on this forum actually helped my son at a younger age and see things from a different perspective than most kids. He supports it, and understand the "Why". If I dropped this pursuit now, he would be disappointed. Ha ha! He's been watching me going up to bat all his life. He's going to go as far as I go in life. By my example, he learns to move the mountains, and maneuver through the obstacles.

I suppose we look at each other as a team. We share information about success and usually he does move and take action because I do. It's kind of a funny thing when you have a kid. They do everything you do. So you can have a negative mindset and be fear based or positive and take risks.

My mission: I have a son behind me, leading the way for him to make it to the finish line no matter what age he is, and teaching him to be successful on his own and self disciplined. It's my position to take him where he will thrive instead of just survive.
 

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I just added it up - I spent more time with my kids over the last week than I did away from them working. So yeah, they can reap the rewards too.
 
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Weaponize

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Parent here... My fear isn't the financial future/security as I'm the one taking control of it's destiny rather than handing over that control to some company as an employee. My biggest fear is not spending enough time with the family. I've found I need to really be on top of my time management to make this happen, so far. As well, I need to have 100% buy-in from the wife (which I do) and her full support in order to make it all happen.

Great question!
 
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Michał Kóska

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I'm glad because my wife supports me mentally. Time-wise it is not possible now so we depend on our inlaws :) My son is 1.5 years old.
 

Jon L

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I'm a parent of two girls - ages 5 and 7. I am basically a freelancer right now with aspirations of building my business into an 'actual business.' My thought on it is that I want to teach my kids to go for what they want in life, and the best way to teach them that is to do it myself. There are two issues that I've run across:
1) not making enough money in my freelancing to provide a comfortable lifestyle for my family...I'm working on that one
2) spending too much time working. I have to be very intentional about stopping work and playing with the kids.

Neither of those issues are showstoppers, though. I also picked a business that will allow me to be home most of the time. If I were an importer and spent months on end traveling the world doing business deals, that wouldn't be good for my family.
 
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hughjasle

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I'm a parent of two little ones and in my late twenties as well.

I am not sure what you mean by the 100% entrepreneurial plunge.

There are plenty of ways to get started on the entrepreneurial path before you start working for yourself:
Get a job doing what you want to do, get any random job and moonlight on the side, get a job that will teach you something that you can use later, get an education that will lead to whatever you want to do, get a high paying job and save money so you can survive for 6mo - year while you get your biz going, etc.
As for financial security, guess my mind works differently.

IMO, financial security is having the confidence in myself (skills and abilities) to figure out how to provide value in some form to make money no matter what is going on in the world.

I had to work hard to get myself and my family in the position to allow me to transition into working 100% for myself.

It's all worth it though. I have been traveling with my family for the past month. Life is good. I worked hard to get here. Having a family slowed me down a bit, but I still made it. It's all about being smart. Even if that means you make less in the short/long run.

But if I lost everything I had tonight, I now know that I have a supportive wife who knows how to circle and defend the wagons which allows me to "check out" so I can go out and kill it. It is because of that, I can let my family not only survive, but feast.

Family is my why.

You can do it and be wildly successful. Just get your head in the game. The plunge is just a mindset shift, not an employment shift.
 

Ramble On

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Like others have said here, just get started. My wife and I started our business 3 years ago working on it after-hours and weekends while still holding down our 9 to 5 jobs. We have 3 children at home and it was tough not getting to spend as much time with them. The upside is that they helped us in our business and learned some valuable lessons in the process.

Fast forward to today. We both work our business full time now and get to spend much more time with our children. We get to take them to school in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon. We now get to take them to the park in the middle of the day, go swimming, or just have fun. Something we would have never been able to do before. It's a great feeling.

On to your point of financial security. Stay at your job and build your business to a point where you know it is secure. That's what we did and now the possibilities are endless. The upside potential of our business is way more than we could ever make working for someone else. Make the commitment, put in the work, and you will never even think about looking in the rear-view mirror.
 
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Draven Grey

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I'm a parent of two boys, 8 and 17. The oldest had autism until 3 years ago (a whole story of its own, making entrepreneurship harder, but ultimately off topic). I've been self-employed for over a decade, with many businesses that had success and eventually failure for not truly meeting the CENTS model. I've been a marriage counselor, pastor, recording studio owner/engineer, non-fiction author, rock band success coach, graphic designer, online retailer, rock band leader, and now: a vocal coach, fiction author, and leader of a modern vaudeville group (three things that I learned to tie-in together very well).

"Financial stability" from a job proved to be a myth for me long ago. I've been much happier as an entrepreneur for sure. I also get as much time as I want to with my family. Financial stability comes when I stop chasing dreams and money, and start thinking more clearly with CENTS, chasing value creation, and letting go of things in which I obviously missed one of the components of CENTS. I'm more financially secure now than I have ever been. I control the income I make. Granted, it takes time to build up, but it also takes quite a bit more time and indifference to lose it all, unlike losing a job. Currently, it would take over 20 people firing me to lose it all, rather than 1 person letting me go.

I was a rock band success coach for 15 years! I coached bands all over the world, signed and unsigned. I was the very first rock band coach, and one of the top ones. It was a blast! However, the perceived need in the market isn't coaching, it's management, where someone else is doing all the work for the band. I still have an idea up my sleeve for revolutionizing that market, but instead decided to focus my expertise and efforts into my own group for now. Several of m other businesses failed for similar reasons -- I saw a true need and attacked it furiously, but the perceived need of the market was different than what I was doing. A couple failed due to lack of control. And I haven't executed the new idea yet because of the time it would take away from the perfectly good business I have in front of me right now.

Honestly, it wasn't until after I read TMF that all of the holes in my businesses were finally illuminated. I've had moderate success in just about everything I did, but I also ran them into the ground with my stubbornness, haha! My most recent, three-fold venture is tried and well-tested in just about every aspect, and fits CENTS extremely well. And to be completely honest, the vocal lessons are more of my way of freelancing for more immediate making ends meet. That side of things will fade out as the other two grow; both of which are extremely closely tied together, and have many other facets being worked on by others too.
 
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Mass

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What a excellent topic.

I feel that Im in the same boat as you so to speak. The question that I ask myself which makes everything real and inspires me to keep grinding is;

"What do I want to teach my kids about life?"

The way I see it, we have 2 options.

Option One: They get tought that the traditional 'Slowlane' is the way to go and we can watch them spend their lives making someone else rich while missing out on being able to live life to the full. We let society mould our children who then inherit societies values and beliefs that will be pushed and pushed to them by School, Teachers, Media and then watch as they slowly transform in to another sheep in the herd.

Option Two: We show them how life can be, but doing so is going to require discipline, hard work and sacrifice. By showing them how life can be we open their eyes to their true potential and give them the oportunity at a early life that we were unaware of.

My personal view is that I'm nearly 30 now, I have one 4 year old son and a daughter on the way and nothing hurts more than leaving my wife a child every day to go to work to only see them for 15 minutes (if I'm lucky) when I get home. I don't know about you lot but I didn't have children so I couldn't see them. My children are the reason I am searching for answers and it is amazing what a huge motivation they can be.

Just my 2 pennies worth :)
 

ZCP

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You are at a perfect time. When he is napping, you work. When he is up, you can be in his world. You do not get 'first steps', 'first words', etc. a second time.

The time I spend with my boys is far more important than a few dollars......
 
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Michał Kóska

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In what context, exactly, would you be comfortable to jump 100% with the plunge?
@AndrewNC For me it is knowing that I have a business with the future. I know I won't be able to tell that not starting any business. Currently I'm trying some business ideas to see where it will take me. I'm still employed by someone else so I can pay my bills and my family can eat :) I don't need holidays in Bahamas and Benz in the garage now :) I always wanted to be a business owner and this is what I strive for.

I see a lot of gold and precious advise in your responses guys. I really feel more courageous to take the action. I need to work on switching the mindset. Sky is not the limit, right? (Richard Branson) :)
 

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Very interesting thread.

Do any of you who have made this work (i.e. working for yourself / having a successful business) with a young family have any tips to deal with the lack of sleep or general exhaustion?

Especially when you may be working a 9-5 initially. Once you do the family thing after work, where do you find the energy? Based on the fact that sleep deprivation is probably the main thing with young kids. It's almost impossible to get a solid nights sleep without interruption.
 

TeflonDon

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Very interesting thread.

Do any of you who have made this work (i.e. working for yourself / having a successful business) with a young family have any tips to deal with the lack of sleep or general exhaustion?

Especially when you may be working a 9-5 initially. Once you do the family thing after work, where do you find the energy? Based on the fact that sleep deprivation is probably the main thing with young kids. It's almost impossible to get a solid nights sleep without interruption.

I was lucky in this regard in that my partner has always dealt with the children through the night, so couldn't say on that front. I should also point out again that I don't have a successful business at this point, but I have reached the point where I don't need to work a job. Having said that I still need to put a fair bit of time in to earning, and also have other time commitments, so time is always short. First step for me was reducing the sleep I need gradually, and I'm still working on this. I want to get it down to 6 hours a night. I figure if Arnie could live and be healthy and happy on that much, then so can anybody else.

The main tip I could give you though is maximize the time that you do have. If you're reading books, have one with you at all times. Then if you're waiting on somebody for a few minutes, you can whip it out and read a page. Same for articles, I load them up on my phone on home using my wi-fi, then read through them in the dull moments of my day. Even on the toilet I read, in the shower I listen to occasional podcasts and videos, between sets at the gym I'm either learning or working on something. If I wasn't, it would be time wasted standing around. Efficiency is a big motto for me, using all those spare minutes here and there really adds up. Also our children are usually in bed for 8-9pm depending on the day. From that point on I have a few hours solid to invest until I go to sleep.

One final point - don't burn yourself out. If you need a break, take it. I've tried to push through continuously in the past, and feel that after a point your productivity takes too big a hit for it to be worth it. If taking a ten minute break makes you 10% more productive over the next two hours, it's worth it. If a two day break will revitalise you to go hard for a couple months, do it. Be honest with yourself though, don't use it as an excuse. Only YOU can decide whether you really need it or not.

Apologies for the long, rambling post. I seem to struggle with being concise.
 
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