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Your Personal Responsibilities: a.k.a. You Can’t Make Two Things Your Number One Priority

ONE OF THE MOST DYNAMIC FACTORS in your life is who and what you are responsible for at different points in time. That’s why the “R” in FIRED-UP stands for Responsibilities, meaning your timing as it relates to your current priorities. Responsibilities are something that entrepreneurs often don’t give enough weight to when making the decision to start a business. It is also an area where you really need to be honest with yourself. No blowing smoke up your own behind, okay?

Following are a couple of questions that you should answer honestly, or else you will be doing yourself (and those around you) a disservice. As you respond to these questions, including the subquestions underneath each, it will help you evaluate your responsibilities. In doing so, remember that two things can’t simultaneously be your number one priority.

Two Questions to Ask Yourself

1. Am I ready and prepared for, and wanting the responsibility of owning a business?

Having a business is like having a child (one that never fully grows up). You are the one responsible for it, no matter what happens. This is something that is going to take a lot of your money, time, and “blood, sweat, and tears.” When something goes wrong, you need to fix it. When the security system is tripped at 3 a.m., you have to go to the store and attend to it. When a customer has an issue, you need to deal with it. If responsibility isn’t something you are great with (think: consistently forgetting to water the plants, take out the garbage, or pay your bills on time, multiplied by a factor of a hundred), then business ownership is realistically not a good fit for you.

To make your business grow, you need to nurture it. You need to dedicate a whole truckload of time, money, and effort to it. Out of all the things you have going on in your life—including your family and friends, hobbies, and other pursuits—is your business going to be the most important to you? Are you ready to be responsible and make your business a top priority in your life?

2. Who am I responsible for?

It is hard to answer these questions on priorities without taking a look at who you are responsible for. Often you aren’t alone, so you need to determine who else feels the impact of your decisions, such as your partner, spouse, and kids. Not only are they affected by your monetary decisions, these individuals are competing for your time and attention. If you have a family, you need to figure out what happens financially if you can’t provide for their needs (or more likely their wants) because your money is tied up trying to make the business a success. You are not only risking your assets and future, you are also risking theirs. You may be willing to sacrifice now for a potential payoff later, but are they?

There is often more on the line than just your salary, which brings up a lot of important questions that relate not just to you, but to your family as well, such as:

• What if you lose your entire initial investment?
• What if you use your house as collateral or to guarantee a loan and then lose your house?
• Will starting your business mean you have to use your child’s education fund? If so, is that fair to your child?
• What happens to your family in the worst-case scenario?

We all want to think that we are going to win, but what happens if you lose? You need to be as realistic about the downside as you are optimistic about the upside, especially pertaining to how that downside impacts those you are responsible for.

Sometimes starting and growing a business doesn’t jeopardize your entire savings, but rather it requires smaller sacrifices and change from your family. A lot of people don’t like change, especially when it is preventable. Your family may be accustomed to a certain lifestyle—new clothes, yearly trips, trading in their cars every few years for an upgrade—that you will no longer be able to afford. If things go awry, the financial impact could have an emotional impact on your family.

What if you have to tell your child that he can’t go on his class trip because you need the money to buy a new computer for your business? How will that make you feel? How will that make him feel? What importance do you place on that impact? Or perhaps your wife now has to drive a station wagon with wood paneling circa The Brady Bunch instead of a shiny new Lexus SUV. Is she going to be happy about that, and if not, how does that affect the whole family? Can you be happy if your family isn’t?

There are other effects on you and your stakeholders that happen when you have to prioritize your business. When you have to take care of your business, even if the driving force behind it is to provide for your family, it usually means more time spent away from family. Is your significant other strong and supportive enough to be able to run the household—without resentment—while you focus on your business? How will your kid feel when you miss every one of his baseball games, or can’t attend her ballet recital because you are focusing on this business? Time is a more precious resource than money, and while money can accumulate over time, our available time just keeps decreasing; there is no way around this.

You need to ask yourself honestly if now is the right time to start a business given your other responsibilities, priorities, and stakeholders in your life. While I am not suggesting that you let anyone hold you back, you do need to know who else is a stakeholder. And I am not suggesting fake responsibilities like the mom who wants her son to be a doctor instead of a Jani-King franchisee. That is just your mom putting her dreams on you; you are not responsible for that. I am talking about your partner, spouse, and children. Or maybe an ill parent that needs you to care for her. These are real stakeholders.

Not Right Now versus Never

Realizing that your current responsibilities and priorities make starting a business ill-advised right now does not necessarily mean that entrepreneurship is never right for you. It may simply mean that it’s not right for you right now. It is a whole lot easier to bet the farm when you are the only person who owns the farm, or if the farm isn’t required to pay for your child’s education or your mother’s chemotherapy. When you evaluate your timing for entrepreneurship, think of what is at stake for the other stakeholders in your life and evaluate the risk and reward from their perspective as well as yours. As bad as you will feel if you lose the farm, you will feel even worse if your child hates you or your wife divorces you for screwing up their futures.