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The number of business owners and entrepreneurs are increasing. In our current economic climate, this is a very telling narrative. Understandably, people want to be in control of their future.
There are currently around 5 million entrepreneurs and business owners in the UK alone and an impressive 1.4 million couples run a business together. We find this staggering and equally inspiring & motivating.
These 1.4 million pioneering couples have been aptly named ‘Copreneurs’
Romantic relationships face all kinds of challenges. Just living together in a relationship is one thing, building a family together is another, and for those building a business as well can be all-consuming, overwhelming and cause major strains leading to burnouts, break-ups and broken businesses.
So these power couples must ensure their foundations of communication, connection and creativity are top-notch.
Especially considering that 60% of new businesses fail in the first 3 years.
So, what’s needed?
Think about this, as a business owner or entrepreneur (or even a busy professional) you are in a relationship with your business. Your business is a living entity reflecting parts of yourself that you need to address in order for the relationship to thrive.
Any self-limiting beliefs will be amplified in the business.
It’s simple psychology
For example, if you hold a subconscious belief that you are only worth a certain amount of money, that will become the upper limit of the income of the business.
So without a doubt, any entrepreneur or business owner needs to do their personal development, AKA their ‘inner work’, to transform self-limiting beliefs and habits.
As a couple, being in a relationship with a third entity (i.e. the business) means there are now essentially three of you all reflecting and interacting with each other in, oftentimes, unknown and uncertain ways.
So, with this in mind, there are some fundamental factors that if not thought through and regularly refined, you, your partner and your business will drift apart and have issues down the line, if not already.
And although these 5 ‘mistakes’ and their remedies are important to romantic couples in business, they will very much apply to almost any partnership in business and in life.
Mistake #1
Not having morning check-ins and evening check-outs.
Every single day!
This is so important and has been the number one sanity saver in our relationship and our business.
Our morning check-in only takes 10 minutes.
That’s 2.5 minutes each, on the clock, of uninterrupted sharing where you’re at, how you’re feeling, any concerns or challenges that you’re facing at present and any needs.
The other person simply listens and acknowledges, no fixing or advising.
We then take another 2.5 minutes to ensure we are clear with our day ahead, our plan, our goals and what we’re doing.
Same again for closing the day. 5 minutes each to share; what worked, what we want more of, what we will focus on tomorrow, how we each are feeling, what has been achieved, celebrating goals and victories; the big, and especially the small stuff!
Of course, you can adapt it to suit your specific needs and time schedule.
The benefit of this small, simple check-in is to give space to, and normalise, any feelings and concerns. Sometimes simply sharing where we’re at, feeling seen and heard in our process is enough. This also builds a ton of trust especially when active listening and sharing honestly are practised.
Mistake #2
Not having agreements regarding the way you communicate together.
These are agreements that have to be discovered on the journey. You won’t know until you find out what is and isn’t working.
We’re all different, we’re all wired differently, and we all have our own neuroses and conditioning when it comes to triggers in other people’s words and behaviours.
At Wholehearted AF we have learned a lot about each other and how best to support our communication with each other. Here are a couple of examples to give you an idea of what structures we’ve put in place:
We agree to ask “can I ask a question about [insert context]?”, if the other person is in a flow state with their work. This is respectful and much more helpful all around preventing unnecessary frustration of being interrupted or not having their full attention.
When giving feedback on each others’ work, we agree to focus on positives and agree to ask open, spacious questions in order to explore other ideas rather than jumping in with “I don’t like this”, or “this needs to change” comments.
We’re all different and we all have our preferences. Being genuinely curious about how best to navigate communications together will be a helpful practice to implement.
The evening check-out is a perfect time to name things that have arisen during the day. A helpful framework is “when you said/did…, I felt…”.
A progressive, always-learning attitude will ensure you’re staying open-minded to change and learning new ways to best support each other.
Mistake #3
Not working towards your strengths.
May sound obvious, right?
Look at it this way; in every dynamic, in every duo, in every partnership, in every friendship, intimate or professional there exists a co-creative flow state.
You need to find yours. Be curious and explore what working dynamic works.
At Wholehearted AF, we know we are in a co-creative flow state when we’ve set a time for focused work together, we’ve defined a goal, we’re staying open and curious, writing and bouncing ideas off each other, time feels warped and we even lose our sense of self. Most importantly we feel energised by the work and we have a great sense of progress.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes a lot about flow states in his book ‘Flow – The Psychology of Optimal Experience’.
Mistake #4
This is something we call – Professional infidelity
You may know that feeling when your partner shares something with a friend or family member about your business, your vision or plan, and it doesn’t feel okay.
That’s because there hasn’t been consent. Consent is fundamental to building trust.
At Wholehearted AF, we ensure that we only share information about what we’re up to, in a way we have both/all agreed upon and consented to.
This way our business remains sacred.
Mistake #5
Not taking time throughout the day to play.
Of course, Wholehearted AF lives and breathes playfulness. The power of play resides in its ability to change our nervous system for the better.
An 8-hour day can stack up a lot of screen time, this can frazzle our nervous system. If we allow it, we may take our emotionally & physically dysregulated selves home and be good for nothing other than collapsing on the sofa and vegging out.
Sometimes that’s okay, but it can easily be avoided if we break up the day into manageable chunks.
At Wholehearted AF we created our ‘Mid Day Play’. This is a short interval, approximately 10 mins, halfway through our day when we take a break and do something spontaneous and playful.
This is where neuroscience becomes practical
10 minutes of switching off and being playful will regulate your nervous system and when you’re done, you can resume your work with more energy, focus and capacity to be effective.
The secret here is to engage in something that shifts you out of work mode. Resting for 10 minutes away from the screen can be helpful though likely keep you in a mental ‘work-mode’. Doing something playful that engages you will have more of an impact.
Try juggling, or a card game, something as simple as Snap. It’s amazing how something so simple, so childlike can shift your state so quickly.
And there you have it.
All 5 mistakes (and what you can do to remedy them) listed here speak directly to the kind of working environment and culture that is conducive to growth: personal growth and business growth.
You want your business to provide you with the lifestyle you want, right?
By being aware of these mistakes and how to remedy them, you are more inclined to intentionally build the culture you want to be part of every day.
When your business expands and you need to hire staff, they will be joining a culture that is thriving. People-focused businesses are the future.
For more information about how to implement new ideas for building connection, confidence and playfulness into your business practices, please get in touch with us, we love to help.
