My husband and I celebrated our 30th year in a home-based, tourism business in 2020 and up until this year I did not know why people thought that was any great achievement. It has always seemed simple to me, this is our life, and it’s just what we do.
Lots of people will have an opinion on how you should do things but our “system” kind of evolved out of respect for each other and because we were both learning business. I remember feeling uncomfortable when a friend came for a coffee at 10 am one morning and hubby was still in bed. She got cranky with that idea and started being louder than normal. She thought I should be cranky at him for slacking on a weekday too. I was a bit conflicted at the time but it dawned on me that it wasn’t any of her business and she was making a very uneducated assumption.
He’s a night owl and after having dinner with and putting the kids to bed he’d worked on bikes well into the wee hours. I get up with the birds or rather the kids and get them off to school! How lucky are we to be able to live our lives in sync with our natural body clock. I mean, isn’t that one of the treasures of being in business for ourselves?
Further to my first three tips on working with your spouse in my first piece on the topic, here are some more insights into achieving both success and harmony.
4. Define your direction and normal
To survive in business together you have to know why you are there and which direction you are travelling in and what is going to be your acceptable normal. Every adventure has a map and both of you have to be finding treasure along the way otherwise you will be easily confused by the criticism of friends who don’t understand and just want you to be “9-5 normal”.
5. Hire someone smarter
I actually had someone smarter than me tell me how to create the map, I can’t take that as an original idea nor can I take the idea to hire the smart people to do the right jobs in your business but I can say from experience what a difference it makes when you do it!
Trust me, if you are sitting there doing your BAS and finding every excuse to be distracted and just feeling shitty and confused about it all – go find someone who likes doing it!
Have you ever noticed that the things you are good at are easy to do! Spend your time in those jobs and get smarter people to do the other stuff. It will reward you in so many ways.
6. Maintain your own identity and hobbies
It took me a long time to realise that every time I felt dissatisfied and disillusioned by the business were the times that I had let it completely absorb me.
I joined a business woman’s club and it made me realise how important it was to have outside hobbies and people. The ladies inspired me individually and professionally and they reminded me that I was in fact female, being in a male-dominated career can do things to a lady and it was really nice to spend time with professional women.
When I am happy, I am creative and use my powers for good instead of evil and the business is easy again. It’s all well and good for people to say that you have to be passionate about your business but you have to replenish that in other ways too.
Renae Kunda, Co-founder and Director, Cape York Motorcycle Adventures
