Uncommon Freedom

Mastering the Balancing Act: Thriving as Parents and Entrepreneurs

• Kevin Tinter

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Balancing the demands of parenthood with the challenges of entrepreneurship is no small feat. How do you build a successful business without sacrificing precious time with your children? In this episode, Kevin and Bekah Tinter dive deep into the art of integrating family life with entrepreneurial pursuits.

Drawing from over 13 years of experience as couplepreneurs and parents, the Tinters share practical strategies for creating a strong family culture while growing a thriving business. They discuss the importance of being intentional, active parents and how to avoid abdicating your role as your children's primary teachers and mentors.

Kevin and Bekah offer insights on:

  • Creating a family culture based on your core values
  • Investing quality time in your kids, especially in the early years
  • Allowing children to experience consequences and develop their own identities
  • Involving kids in the business in age-appropriate ways
  • Managing guilt and setting healthy boundaries between work and family life

Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur with a growing family or just starting out on your journey, this episode provides valuable tools for pursuing your own family's version of uncommon freedom. Join Kevin and Bekah to learn how to build a business and a family life that support and enrich each other!

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Speaker 1:

Hey there, uncommon Freedom Fighters, kevin Tinter here with my incredible wife and co-host, becca Tinter.

Speaker 2:

Hello, in today's episode, we are diving into the challenges and triumphs of being both a parent and an entrepreneur, so we're going to explore strategies for managing limited time and energy, ways to involve kids in the business while encouraging their own passions, how to create an intentional family culture amidst the demands of work, and the importance of support systems and honest communication.

Speaker 1:

All right, so we're going to draw from our own experiences We've been doing this for over 13 years together now, as entrepreneurial parents and the insights we've gathered from others on this journey. We'll share practical tips and honest reflections to help you navigate this unique balancing act If you're ready to chase uncommon freedom in both business and family. Keep listening, friends.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so we are going to weave some important things in from your book, and so we want to talk about being intentional, active parents and not abdicating our role as teacher. We realized that part of being an entrepreneur is delegating and finding people to come into our household or places for our kids to go to be managed at different seasons of our business, to give us some time freedom, but we've never wanted to basically abdicate the role of being parents or mentoring them on their our core values and the things in life that we think are the most important.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, we've had a childcare help actually for quite a while.

Speaker 1:

Um, you know it started off with just a little bit kind of more like babysitting type stuff, uh, and then you know we have, you know, nanny or a nanny, and you know we've had, you know, different nanny roles through the years. But one thing we've been always very cautious about is we don't want the nanny raising our kids. I mean, we still want to see our kids. We still actually a lot of times we'll divide and conquer. You know you'll do something and I'll be with the kids, or I'll do something and you'll be with the kids, with the kids, or I'll do something and you'll be with the kids.

Speaker 1:

We try to use the child care help for mundane tasks that aren't super relationship building types of things, because the reality is even a lot of those mundane tasks number one, there's bonding that happens when you do them with the children and even things like driving, like for us, the pickup line. I don't know we never had to deal with this in Oregon because we walked our kids to and from school, but the whole pickup line here in Arizona is actually a big mess at the vast majority of schools and you can spend 20, 30 minutes waiting to get through it, and so that is not relational time.

Speaker 2:

No, it's not relation. You're not talking to other parents. Exactly, you're not talking to your kids.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you're not supposed to be on your phone because you don't want to run over one of the little kids.

Speaker 2:

So that is something that we're kind of eager to delegate for the most part to a nanny, because, especially, we've lived about five to 10 minutes from school, so you're not getting into great conversations on the way home anyways, and typically we save that 30 minutes, we get stuff done, they come home, come inside and we get to see them and connect with them then Absolutely, and so being intentional active parents to us, I mean, I think you can be active both in your physical body, so being active and doing things with your kids playing games, getting out into nature, jumping on the trampoline, swimming and also active and intentional in that we are the most responsible for how they are turning out, not culture, not teachers, not the church, and so it's taking those usually inconvenient opportunities to course correct whenever necessary.

Speaker 2:

So we do delegate the authority to the babysitter or nanny if they're taking care of our children and we're not inside the home, or if we are inside the home and they're fully in charge. But even as we've trained some different child care people some of them do it really well, some of them still need us to step in and what we want to make sure is our kids aren't, you know, turning into spoiled brats because we haven't had that ability to follow up and kind of hold to the values that are important to us, even while having having someone help us out.

Speaker 1:

And one of the best ways for us to maximize time with kids is if we have a travel, a business travel event that only requires one of us.

Speaker 1:

We have tried to take and it's been me normally taking the boys, but almost every chance I get, instead of going on a trip by myself, which would be far more relaxing, I try to bring the kids with me, and as I talk to other parents who are entrepreneurs and they've had experiences like this, there's just so much quality time that happens when you're traveling with a child.

Speaker 1:

You're having conversations to and from the airport, if you're flying, potentially on the flight, you know, at a hotel or wherever you might be lodging, and just over meals, and it's just that one-on-one time is almost always very positive, and so that is one thing that I would recommend that everyone does. Obviously, if you're traveling with your spouse, then you're probably not going to bring the kids, but if you are going solo, pull your kids out of school, if you can, and spend that time with them. It's a really quality time and to the kids it's like a vacation. It might not be to you, but to the kids it is definitely like a vacation, and it really teaches them what it takes to run a business.

Speaker 2:

So how to relate to people, how to properly greet people, how to handle customer service issues, how to handle stressful situations, how to be grateful for things, how to up level your environment, basically, and associate with people that are helping you to become better versions of yourself, how to speak in public, how to manage finances there's just so many things that can be tied into having your kids come alongside while you're working your business at home or away. So the next thing is to create a strong family culture based on your values, and for us, we really decided early on in our parenting journey what do we want to be known for and what do we want to accomplish? Not be known for like famous because we have somehow shared something with the world, but more of what kind of kids do we want to? What?

Speaker 1:

kind of adults do we want to launch into the world? Yeah, the people who know us. What are they going to say about us when we die? How?

Speaker 2:

do we want to launch into the world? Yeah, the people who know us. What are they going to say about us when we die? How do we want our kids to launch into the world? And there's a lot outside of your control as a parent. I think most people know that, especially if you've gotten to the teenage years. But you can imprint for a long time things that matter, that will maybe agree with culture and maybe not, and so it's really important that you take the time to do that as a parent and an entrepreneur.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think a great little way to think about this is do your kids have this kind of understanding that tenters do X and tenters don't do Y and it's not like a rule thing, but it's like when you identify with, when you have that identity, you realize, okay, like we do, we do this and we don't do that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and some families, I think, do it really really well. I would say we do it average. In other words, we haven't like repeated that mantra or phrase with our kids a lot, but we have a lot of conversations about integrity, honesty, patriotism, stewardship, things that hopefully our kids are catching right now because, again, most things are caught versus just being directly taught. And the other thing is to be authentic, both at your house as well as when you're away and with people I know. My kids have often said you know, sometimes I have angry voice and then answer the phone and I have nice voice which pretty much any adult can pull off, but at the same time we want to be the same kinds of people in front of a crowd as we would be in our home, and that, maybe, is something that we all still need to work on.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, all right. Invest quality time in your kids, especially in the early years.

Speaker 2:

Yep, We've talked with other couples and families and seen in our own life that kids spell, you know, connection with T I M E. So I think we've worked diligently through the years to read to our kids, to play games with our kids and obviously we've talked about dating them before. So just having an intentional one-on-one time with each child at least once a month.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I wrapping up listening to a book called Raising Spiritual Champions by George Barna and I highly recommend the book, but in it it just really reinforces the importance of character building and value impartation when kids are young as far as like worldview. And it's just one of those things where sometimes I think when you're building a business, it's like, well, we're going to put in the hard time now so that when they're teenagers we can take vacations and life can be good. And I understand that you need to prepare for the future, but there's a minimum amount of time and effort that you need to put into not saying do just the minimum. But what I'm saying is don't cheat your children when they're young.

Speaker 1:

From that time, that character building, that value impartation experiences, you know, and for us it's typically one of us is almost always putting the kids to bed and our routine is, you know, reading the Bible with them, reading a fun story with them and actually finding a lot of different age-appropriate children's Bibles that are fun. And I found that it really has actually developed my knowledge of the Bible because I'm reading through it over and over. I mean, gosh, I've read, you know, obviously not the full version of it, but we've read through the Bible more times with our children than I ever have on my own and it's amazing what that's done for my own knowledge. But just having those routines you know we try to typically put our kids to bed and wake our kids up, though we feel like those are two important times.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. And then again, you know so commonly in households and it's temptation for us as well it's like to go towards TV or shows in the evening and a lot of times it's saying hey, let's play a game first. You know, let's have quality time together before we just do a side-by-side activity or before you veg out and I go in a different room. So just having those intentional connection times and sewing into the relationship and then letting kids experience consequences, and be their own people and then letting kids experience consequences and be their own people.

Speaker 2:

I would say this is something that we have been pretty strong about. As a mom, I can tell you it's really difficult at times because there's just a nurturing side of my heart unless I'm super ticked off that the nurturing side of my heart would love to rescue, would love to nurture, would love to fix. And having a strong father is helpful, especially raising boys.

Speaker 2:

we'll see how it is when you get around to evie, but um that's why she has a mom, especially in these teenage years, you know, just to really allow nature to take its course. You know we, we didn't say to our kids no, you can't climb trees when you're little. We were like, if it's reasonably safe, you can do it, and then just understand if you fall and get a broken arm it's going to be a bummer and you're not going to be able to play on your basketball team yeah and that was kind of how we handled things when they were younger, and then the consequences have gotten bigger and the uh.

Speaker 1:

We've had to let them grow up on their own a little bit yeah, we have, and I think one of the other common things I see of couplepreneurs is they many times have this desire we're going to build this business and our kids are going to take it over, and it's great if they do. But the reality is certainly in today's world, very few people follow in the career footsteps of their parents, and so just because you built this business, it's really not reasonable to assume that your kids will automatically take it over certainly not all of them, and family-run businesses, especially the more family members you put into it, are very difficult. So I think that's another area where it's really important to let your kids be their own people we have. I mean, we've talked about the benefits of what we do with our kids for over a decade now, but we have never put any type of pressure on them. I think they would even agree with that.

Speaker 1:

And it was actually pretty cool because a couple I don't know a week ago or so, I was having a conversation with one of our kids and he was actually expressing some interest in what we do and um, you know, he's not there yet from an age standpoint and some other things, but it was pretty cool and it was just like yeah, I'll share with you whatever you want to know and I'll teach you if you want to do it, but just to still not have any hope or identity tied into my child. You know, continuing what we're doing.

Speaker 2:

The other thing I think we see with a lot of couplepreneurs is, if their business allows them to create wealth in a different way than they were raised, then the next tendency is to spoil their children, to basically give their kids everything that they didn't get shoes, clothes, new cars, trips, things like that. It's a difficult temptation because, just like our Heavenly Father, you know, as an earthly parent, I like to give good gifts to my kids. Just like our heavenly father, you know, as an earthly parent, I like to give good gifts to my kids. But we have been working on being really aware of this and and basically teaching our kids listen.

Speaker 2:

For a second generation, millionaires are very rare. In other words, someone becomes a millionaire, makes that kind of income, and then they pass it down to their children, who've been raised with a spoiled attitude, lack of work ethic, and then they blow it and it ends up ruining them and the and the legacy does not live on, and so our goal has been to pass along not generational wealth, but generational mindsets and legacy mindsets about stewardship, about giving, about tithing and teaching them the things that, honestly, we learned early on that have helped us not just create wealth but, uh, live it out in a way where it doesn't own us, you know yeah, and actually is you kind of look at just the societal decay that we're living in right now?

Speaker 1:

yeah it was interesting. I was listening to dennis prager, who I have tremendous amount of respect. He's just a very wise person and he was talking about the fact that the greatest generation, which is, I believe, the world war ii generation, was. You know, they were called the greatest generation for a reason, but one of the interesting pursuits of that entire generation was I want I don't want my kids to have to work as hard as I did. I want my kids to grow up with all the things that I didn't have and as a parent, on the one hand, I understand that, but what we're seeing is that we actually created a lot of softness and, um, almost spoiled people.

Speaker 2:

And there's the saying right, uh, good times yes if you have it hard times, create good men good men yes anyway, we, we need.

Speaker 1:

We should have figured the quote out hard times create strong men yes strong men create good times. Good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times well done and so I really believe that we are in the hard times part of that cycle right now partly created by weak people and and, yes, our kids have a lot and they've experienced things that so we tried.

Speaker 1:

The way that our kids are spoiled is through experiences, some of the travel they've been able to do, right um, but as a general rule, if we fly you and I fly first class, our kids fly coach and there might be this temptation and you know what you can do whatever you want. We're not trying to be judgmental here, right um, but what we know is that when our kids graduate, they're not going to have the money and we're not going to be paying for first class airfare for them, and what we don't want to do is create this wet their appetite, for we want to wet it so that they're driven to want to salt the oats yes, but we also don't want to create this expectation that, oh, um, I should be flying first class every time I fly and, um you, um, you know, I should be staying in the nicest hotels versus the holiday inn, or something like that.

Speaker 2:

I know a lot of friends whose kids have nicer clothes than I do and it's like I. It's interesting Again, everybody has their own way of doing things and you know we don't know everyone's individual scenario, but you are setting them up for a lifestyle that if they can't, they can't afford it unless you're planning to fund their life for a very long time or they happen to just walk into something or you give them your wealth. But it just is interesting. So many of those kids have barely had jobs. They're getting handed nice cars, nice clothing and again, are they learning to budget really? Are they learning what it takes to run a household from some of those decisions? And so for us it's been like, hey, here's your clothing budget, and if you blow it all on a really nice something, then that's fine, but you may be out of underwear or you can start to be discerning with your money and obviously the more you make, the more freedom you could have. But a lot of society right now is just broke at a higher level, unfortunately.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely so what this all boils down to is to pursue your own family's version of uncommon freedom. So for some people, uncommon freedom may be, you know, more heavily in travel, might be more heavily in lifestyle things, it might be more heavily in giving and, you know, doing family mission trips and things like that. Hopefully you're finding a balance. But you know our version of uncommon freedom is going to be different, and so the key is figure out what are the values, what are the priorities that you have, and go build your life, go build your business so that your family can achieve what your version of uncommon freedom looks like.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so we have some questions from that our potential listeners might have. So number one is how can I make my limited time with my kids really count? Because we know that in anything you're going to be juggling and we don't talk about balance so much as we talk about counterbalancing and living more of an integrated life, because we just found that there's no way to, there's no real way to balance. You can't have everything get the same amount out of the pie. Not everything is going to get 20% or two hours. It's basically going to be, you know, counterbalancing and living more of an integrated life. But, babe, how can people make their limited time really count?

Speaker 1:

Well, I think one of the tips that I've heard for years is to just spend time with your kids. With running errands, like, if you have young kids, it's very tedious, but that is something where you can do it by yourself. And if you do it by yourself, you're gonna be a little bit faster, but there's really no other added benefit to it. And so if it's gonna take you 20 minutes to run an errand by yourself or 30 minutes to run it with your kid, spend the extra 10 minutes and bring your kid along. There's conversations that happen, it's just. I think that's one of the most basic ways for us to maximize our limited time.

Speaker 2:

I would also say you know, there's an adage that was passed along to us that we have shared many, many times with many, many people, and that is presence is not the same as proximity. And so, you know, in a world where we work from home, we can be working a lot of the day. We don't necessarily have office hours, we're not clocking in and clocking out. It's really important, with your family, to be able to determine which situations are just proximity and which ones should be presence.

Speaker 2:

And proximity could be like your kid, your daughter is coloring. You know our, know, our daughter is coloring, doing a puzzle. I'm sitting next to her and I'm working on my social media posts or following up on messages or sending emails. But if she and I were agreeing to play a game and I'm answering messages on my phone in the middle of the game, then it feels like a break in trust, because she was expecting me to be present and now I'm really just in proximity. So that's I a way as well that you can just be aware of the time. It doesn't necessarily have to be a huge amount of time, but the quality of the time will matter to them.

Speaker 1:

All right, let's talk about some age appropriate ways to involve your kids in business, and I absolutely love this one because actually there's potential to really take advantage of some tax savings with this one. If you can, if you have the right business structure, talk to your accountant, your attorney, whoever is appropriate for you, but you might actually be able to put your kids on payroll at a very young age, and we'll just share that. You know, we have all four of our kids on payroll. They do a lot of different things for us in the business Social media. You know. Basically they're models for social media branding and things like that. They help us set up events. Something that can be done at a very young age is, if you send out either a referral card or thank you card or anything like that, or a Christmas card or a Thanksgiving card, have your kids help you stuff the envelopes, put these stamps on if they don't come pre-stamped, or anything like that. Those are things that you can have your kids do for you. We talked about this. If you're hosting any type of event in your home, they can help you set up, tear down, clean up garbage and things like that Something else that all my kids do, except for our youngest, is I still reconcile personally all of our credit card accounts.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I could delegate it. It really helps me to have situational awareness on where we're at with our finances. So it doesn't take me a lot of time. But I have each one of my kids take turns helping me with those different things and it's amazing because they see what some things cost and they're like, wow, it's creating this appreciation for the value of a dollar, or what little value a dollar has these days when they they, you know, when we're checking off something that they were a part of, and they're like, wow, I didn't realize it costs that much. So that is something I really recommend as well.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and how do we handle mom and dad guilt from not being present enough? Well, number one I think we've recognized there's seasons in our life and seasons in our business. There was one season that we refer to in our business called the crazy season, when we were specifically planning to bring Kevin home and we knew we had to work really pretty hard six days a week, and we did not ignore our kids. They were around. I would say they have no memories, probably, of us not being present during that time, but we use childcare. We were very strategic. We actually cut a lot of our stuff out to make sure that we could fit work in, but we also just said, hey, we're building for the school and this is what we're doing. We're bringing dad home, and because we were in that season, we were willing to give up a lot less free time than we might normally want to protect, and so that was one thing is just knowing the seasons we're in.

Speaker 2:

The other thing is working from home means we see our kids for a lot of little things, and so I was expressing this on one of my social media posts.

Speaker 2:

But a lot of the things for me are the hellos, the goodbyes, the check-ins. It doesn't really take a lot of time. Some kids don't want to spend every minute with you Most kids actually don't. They just want to know that you're there if you need them and that you care about what they care about and that you're interested in being available to them, and so you know when someone's love tank is low, then you absolutely need to notice that and stop what you're doing and kind of plan to pour into that. And especially when we travel, I would say we also counterbalance quite a bit, like if we've been gone for a week we don't come right in and jump back into work that next day or that the day that we come home we plan family activities and and really we also tag team. So I feel like our kids are getting one of us most of the time and I would say today's world, self-care.

Speaker 1:

The pendulum on self-care has probably swung too far towards the self-care direction and there's a lot of parents who probably spend a little too much time in self-care from the standpoint of hobbies and interests and things like that. Or, you know, I'm just decompressing watching tv or I'm just decompressing, you know, scrolling through social media and be cautious about that. Like, the beautiful thing about parenting, is it it? You can't be a selfish parent. You cannot be a good parent and be selfish. And we see this. You know cultural swing of oh, you know we're going to be double income, no kids, you know, and you know, not no judgment, but it changes you when you become a parent and it makes a less selfish society as a whole.

Speaker 1:

And so being willing to say yes, you do need to take care of yourself, you need your sleep, you need to have. You know, if you're as a guy, I need some guy time. But it doesn't mean I need to play golf on Saturday and Sunday. Like, I'm very intentional, I almost never play golf. I have twice in the last month and it's probably the only two rounds I'll play all year on a Sunday and one was Father's Day. As a general rule. It's like I spend.

Speaker 2:

I do it when it's not taking time away from the kids, so Absolutely, and we will tell you that parenting is the hardest thing we've ever done, but also the most rewarding. I mean, I love those kids fiercely and it really helps me understand the heavenly father, because you can love someone fiercely and also still be annoyed, disappointed and even ticked off at times. So it has given me a whole new perspective on what it means to have unconditional love from my heavenly father. Okay, what boundaries are important to set between work and family? So I mean, for one thing for us that works really well is that we each have work days that are designated.

Speaker 2:

So, you know, in general I work Mondays and Wednesdays, kevin works Tuesdays and Thursdays. That doesn't mean we don't actually get work done on those days, but if the kids are in school, we have a lot of time to do things during the day and we are more responsible for dinner, evening plans, coordinating with childcare, getting them off to school in the morning, and so that allows us each to have, you know, half of the week freed up to work hard and the other half to be much more present with as parents. So that's one way we draw boundaries. We also just have a lot of discussions about what we can commit to and what we can't commit to in different seasons. And if it can't be both of us, can it be one of us? So the question a mentor told me one time was how can I?

Speaker 2:

yep instead of just saying I can't do that, it's like, well, maybe I can't do that, but also, how can I do it? Like, maybe I can do it at a smaller portion or less often, or just one of us can be a part of it, but not necessarily both of us yeah, probably another thing that I think is really important is just the no phone zone at mealtimes.

Speaker 1:

oh my, my gosh. I think you know we're all guilty of this. But don't bring your electronics to the table. Turn the TV off. Make mealtime a sacred time for the family. You know, even with our busy, you know, when we're in some busier sports seasons, we still end up having a meal together several times per week, which is wonderful and it's chaotic, but it is such I mean, the research is out there that meal times family meal times are incredibly important. So I would say that is one thing that everyone can do and I highly recommend that we all do that.

Speaker 2:

And also just planning, like family experiences or trips, where you're just unplugging for a day or a week. And you know, I would say we don't fully unplug for a week when we travel to do family experiences, but we don't need to work as much as we normally would, and so it allows us to have some really intense family time. Again, it's like we're refilling the cup and then I would say, in my opinion, it drains out fairly slowly, just based on our everyday life, and then we refill it up again quite a bit. So it's not ignoring our kids when we're back home, away from vacation, but we have some very intentional time where we go deep and I think we create a lot of roots during that season and that allows us to do some watering through the in-between seasons. That lasts a lot longer than if we took one vacation a year for one week and that was it.

Speaker 1:

If you use that cup analogy and you know the reality is, when you see your kids acting out uh Dr Kevin Lehman is great talking about this Like when they're acting out, that means their love tank is empty, um. But when you do intense family activity, whether it's a day at the lake, um, or you know a day at a water park or whatever it might be for you guys, your family, or it's a trip, we're like we're fire hose filling the cup and the drain goes typically much slower, and so we find that we get a lot of ROI on, you know, those trips and the. You know some of the fun things that we do together and it really buys us a lot of margin where the rest of the time we really do divide and conquer quite a bit. I've taken the kids to the lake twice this year and it's just been me with a couple of the kids and it's actually been awesome.

Speaker 1:

We've had an amazing time and you've been actually staying back to do some work and some other things. But we just did a short trip a few weeks ago, actually staying back to do some work and some other things, but that, but we're getting. You know, we just did a short trip, you know, a few weeks ago where it was amazing. It was very simple, didn't cost much and we just had great family time.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. Let's talk about some research insights that we want to highlight. So first is time management is critical. We've even said it's less about I mean, it is about time management, but even more so it's about energy management, which means we have to prioritize and allocate our time carefully as couplepreneurs. Easily we can allow this to get out of whack, but it can be done.

Speaker 2:

What I like to say is you can live in the both, and it doesn't have to be an either or it. Also, research says that you need to involve your kids early on in age-appropriate ways to build skills and relationships. Our kids have been growing up in this business for 13 years, and so it's been really fun to see the things that have rubbed off on them. I mean, just the other day our middle son said something that he noticed about us. Oh, it was about driving, but basically he was saying he has caught a lot of things because we are the type of parents that teach skills along the way. We don't just make comments or make their life easy. You know, we actually look for ways to pass along skills to them, and so he was saying he's caught a lot of that and he does a lot of personal development reading.

Speaker 1:

Actually, and actually I will brag on our oldest son, who recently purchased a car, and he was like you're going to negotiate, for this is this is what I think you can get it for. You're going to do the negotiation and I'm confident that that a very small percentage of 17 year olds in America would have the balls to pick up a phone and negotiate the way that he did and you know, he saved himself about $800.

Speaker 1:

and it was pretty darn cool. But that's just because we've involved them in so much of the day-to-day operation of our business.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and even our 13-year-old, who has been working just a basketball job, has just been showing up on time budgeting his money, you know, understanding the commitment that he makes, and so I think there's just a lot of those things that again are caught.

Speaker 1:

We're sharing the wins.

Speaker 2:

by the way, We've got plenty of failures but we also want to respect our kids, and so we're not going to list out all of the failures that either we or us have them have had at this immediate moment. Okay, and then create support networks and communicate openly about challenges. That's huge. I think we've been discussing communication quite a bit in these last few episodes.

Speaker 1:

Stay, adapt, adaptable, have contingency plans for family and business. Everything's going to change and understand that balance ebbs and flows. Some seasons are harder. Yeah, I think just realizing it's not going to be constant right, that you're going to have seasons and we talk about counterbalance, is really important.

Speaker 2:

Yeah we even gave. I mean, our goal is, when we see something coming, to look ahead whenever possible, to get ahead of something that's going to be challenging, and even to have conversations with each other like, hey, this next six weeks is going to be a lot on our plate. I remember last fall we had a lot going on and we basically sat our kids down and we said, hey, the next four weeks are just nuts. We didn't plan it on it being this way, but things have gotten added in and piled on. We're going to do all these things and then we're going to have a break for the holidays and so just get ready. It was a pretty rare level of busy for us, but we just gave the kids a heads up and, honestly, it went pretty smoothly because they weren't surprised by it and also because we try not to run at that level day in and day out.

Speaker 1:

So All right. So balancing parenthood and entrepreneurship is no easy feat, but it is possible to thrive in both realms.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. We want to just do a quick recap. Entrepreneurial parents must be intentional with time and priorities. They need to involve their kids in the business while encouraging their own growth. So we've had examples of that that we've shared with you. Create a strong family culture aligned with your values, build support systems and keep communication channels open. And, for heaven's sakes, give yourself grace, because balance is a constant work in progress.

Speaker 1:

By staying intentional, involving your kids and relying on your support network, you can navigate this tightrope with grace. For more insights and resources, visit our website at beckandkevcom.

Speaker 2:

Until next time, keep chasing uncommon freedom in business and family.