The other night I talked about the five people you surround yourself with. Tonight, let’s talk about the most important one: the person you choose to have in your corner for the long haul.
I’m walking a little later than usual tonight. Jon and I went to dinner, and apparently all of coastal Florida decided Wednesday was the night to eat out. First restaurant, an hour wait. Second one, gorgeous view, still a bit of a wait, and then the kitchen was so backed up dinner took forever. Who knew a Wednesday could be that busy? Anyway, here I am, a little behind, so I’ll keep this one shorter.
I want to build on something I talked about the other night: the five people you surround yourself with. That ramble was about finding your people as an entrepreneur, other go-getters, other risk-takers, other visionaries who actually understand you. Tonight I want to back up and talk about a different one. The big one.
Who do you choose to spend your forever with?
Thirty-one years
I chose Jon when I was 15. Fifteen. And has it always been easy? Absolutely not. Have there been ups and downs? Every kind. I’ve shared before that around the seven-year mark, I actually asked for a divorce. Obviously we didn’t go through with it, because here we are. And “here we are” is now thirty-one years into this thing.
Thirty-one years. I can barely wrap my head around that number. I don’t feel like I’ve been with someone for thirty-one years, though I also genuinely don’t remember my life before him.
I was a baby when we started dating and a baby-baby when we got engaged. I know that now because I look at my own son, who’s the age we were when this all started, and my stomach drops a little. And it makes me see my parents completely differently. In the moment, I thought they were being so unreasonable, they weren’t thrilled about their teenager settling down that young. But now, as the parent of a teenager myself, I see it: they still supported me. They gently said “maybe don’t settle down quite so early,” and then they backed my dreams anyway. That’s a hard thing to do as a parent, and I didn’t appreciate it until now.
The person who has to support your crazy
Here’s where this comes back around to you.
If you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you have to choose a person who supports your crazy. And I don’t just mean a spouse. It could be a friend, a business partner, anybody. But this field has a lot of ups and downs, and so does any business, cleaning, home service, whatever you run. There are a lot of days you want to give up. And those days are hard on the person next to you too, because they can’t fix it.
If you’ve got a partner like mine, he wants to fix everything. Which is wonderful. But sometimes there isn’t a clean answer, and I don’t need it fixed. I just need him to listen while I talk my way through it out loud. And Jon is so good at that. He supports every wild idea I have. He builds the things I need built. He fixes my employees’ cars when they break down. He is not my business partner, and yet, he is absolutely my business partner.
That’s what you’re looking for. Whether it’s a spouse or a friend who’s walking this road with you, you want the person who can sit in the hard day with you without needing to solve it.
Both kinds of days
There are days I want to throw in the towel, and there are days he thinks I should throw in the towel. And on both of those days, one of us tells the other they’re crazy, that we’re way too far in to quit now, and that we’re going to ride it out and see what it becomes.
That’s the whole thing, really. So let me ask you what I asked myself tonight, somewhere between the slow kitchen and this walk.
Who do you have in your corner? Who’s really supporting you? Who loves your crazy?
I hope you’ve already found that person. And if you haven’t, maybe it’s time to start looking. It doesn’t have to be your soulmate. It can just be the friend you can call no matter what. It matters more than you think, for your business and for your head.
Because like I said the other night: you become the people you surround yourself with. I’m a supportive person, and I’m supportive of other businesses, because Jon has always been that for me.
Choose well. And then hold on.