Balancing a job and a business. Can it work?

For many, building a business is a life long dream but how do you do that if you rely on a job that provides for your family?  Do you jump in head first and quit your job and put it all on the line?  Or do you continue to work your job and then work your business during the nights and weekends?  This is a question many of us have faced.  It’s a question I continue to face today with my own business.

Since I’ve put it all on the line before to work my dream of running my own business AND eventually failed, I’ve decided to grow my current business slow and steady.  Well for some (and definitely me) maybe too slow and steady because I am still stretching to cover monthly expenses after 3 years.  Nevertheless, I cannot call my self an entrepreneur if I cannot see past my credit card bills and working long hours into the night if I cannot persevere through it all and continue to develop new plans and work it.

“Anything great is not easy!”  Guy Pineda  (at least I coined the phrase to my employees)

Can it work?  I know it will work!  It must and I won’t give up until I am a major success.  And I feel it coming.

What are the things you need in order to maintain an almost 24/7 work life style?

1. Motivation – You must have a reason to keep on keeping on!  Make sure you know what you want and where you want to go.  Maybe you want to prove to yourself you can do it!  Perhaps you want to give all you can to your family so they do not need to go through what you have.  Know your reasons and let them keep you going.

2. A positive attitude – You have to be able to roll with the punches and realize everything happens for a reason.  Have peace with this and you will not get down in the dumps when you loose that client, miss a payment on your credit card, make a big costly mistake, not get paid for a job or the tons of things that can bring you down and derail your focus.  By happy for the good and bad for you learn from it all.  Focus on the positive because you will gain nothing by focusing on the negative.  Heck, when you focus on the negative, more negative things happen.  Focus on what good and good things will come.

3. An incredible support system – For me, this is my wife.  I would absolutely not be where I am and experienced what I have if my wife wasn’t supportive and understand.  But don’t take it for granted like I have in the past.  You may just lose it all.  Work hard but work even harder to keep your family happy and healthy.  Your success and riches will mean nothing at all if you have no one to share it with.

4. Continue to innovate – Don’t let you lack of time prevent your growth.  Use all your time wisely to learn and contemplate your next move.  Explore and dive into new areas to see how you can use them in your business.  I know this is where you may say, “How do you do that if you work during the day and night?”  Well, my friend, although I work at full blast at my job I spend my 2+ hour round-trip drive everyday to get tons of work done.  Or even listen to videos from my phone.

5. Continue to learn from everything – I’ve learned all I know from only my experiences.  And I continue to do so today.  I learn so much from people I meet, tons of resources on the internet and more.  Partnered with my learning is my drive to improve everything.  So I learned photography but I continue to perfect my skills and push my limits.

6. Multi-task – My daughter calls me mister efficient because I am always working on more than one thing at a time.  So, I’ve also disciplined myself to doing thing quickly and efficiently.  No muss no fuss!  But, don’t ever think that my being able to complete something fast means I sacrifice quality.  HELL NO!  Additionally on multi-tasking, I gotta say my world change with a smart phone!  Get it, use it to its full potential and allow it to do more for you so you can take on more.

7. Find solutions – As entrepreneurs, all types of challenges arise everyday and we need to handle them or we lose time, money or more!  Look at your situation at all angles and perspectives and find a win-win situation.  At the very least, take your challenges head on only good can happen.

8. Don’t give up!  I know there are a lot more things involved in keeping you going on the path to your dreams but, whatever you do, don’t give up!  Success is not easy but it is attainable.

So, I’ll cut it short here because I need to get back to work.  You should too… on your dreams!