How to Lead Your Family Like an Entrepreneur

Nurturing a business is a lot like nurturing a family

Thierry Ascarez
Forge

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Credit: sorbetto/DigitalVision Vectors

ToTo me, being a dad is entrepreneurial. The similarities between running a family and running a business are endless: You’re coordinating a team with different needs, talents, and schedules toward a common goal. You don’t know what’s ahead of you, but you know that it’s exciting and that you want to build toward it.

In both entrepreneurship and being a dad, there is great adventure, risk, and, hopefully, profit. You don’t know what’s going to happen, how it’s going to happen, or even when it’s going to happen. Whatever does happen, giving up is not an option. But the profits you reap — human profits — will be worth much more than pecuniary profits.

As a father of three and CEO of a startup, I think of myself as a dadpreneur. I’ve come to recognize how the two demands on my time and energy overlap and differ. While at times these forces seem to be in competition, they can actually fuel each other. By default, if you are successful with your family, this will give you the balance and peace of mind to be successful in your professional life.

I’ve found several helpful strategies for balancing life as a dadpreneur. (And while this is my own personal method as a dad, I believe it works for mompreneurs as well…

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