2020 has been a rough year for nearly everyone. Some clients have hit business goals, but most made modifications to simply survive through this time. Freedoms have been taken away and our businesses and personal lives have been put through a stress test.
During this holiday time, it is a time for us to take all the effort from our business business to focus on the most important business we have, the business of showing up and being present in our personal relationships.
This year has seen divorce, suicide, addictions, and illness all on the rise. Personal relationships are falling apart. Some of my own relationships have come close to becoming frayed to the point of becoming irreparable. Seems to be so much focus was on the health and survival of my professional business that the personal business became neglected because of the failure of taking all the knowledge we have on how to build a business and have failed to apply it to our family business.
During the holiday season, we can work on our family business by doing the following:
1) Cultivate relationships – we invest into our own development and the development of our team. We can take the cultivation of ourselves and team and apply it to our family. We can take time to watch programming or take a course together with our spouse to help our marriage, help us be a better husband or wife, a better parent.
2) Be present – We spend time with our team putting together a holiday party, investing our time into their lives to help improve culture. We can do this in our homes by building something with our children. Take them with you as you go out shopping, visiting people in the community. Spend time in the kitchen with your spouse and bake cookies. Play games.
3) Ask good questions and listen with purpose – we carefully listen to our team members and clients to make sure we direct our team and clients. We should also purposely listen to what our family members say so we can get to know them better. Develop a list of questions to take on a date that are fun and allow us to understand the other better, whether a spouse or child. Many times, the best time to ask questions is while doing at the same time such as playing games, baking cookies, going for a walk.
4) Invest in others – the best investment we make with our business are the lives we influence for good whether with our time or finances. We invest in the causes and purposes we care about and our employees care about. This is part of the purpose of our business. We can do the same with our homes. Take time to invest in the lives of someone who needs help or encouragement, together as a family.
