Fire Your Relatives. Scare Your Employees. And Stop Whining! an article by Kermit Pattison

"It's not the economy, stupid, it's you" so says George Cloutier in the article by Kermit Pattison.  According to the article George Cloutier is the chief executive of American Management Services and has recently published  a book titled "Profits Aren't Everything, They're the Only Thing".  In the article Kermit Pattison paints a picture of a cut and dry, compassionless approach to business.  Things along the lines of "fear is the best motivator."  I think the part that struck a chord with me was when the interviewer got to the part of his book covering family.

Q. You say, "Love your business more than your family." What does your wife think of that?

A.Well, she loves me, but I'm not sure she would always agree with that.  I'm not saying don't love your family.  But if you don't love your business as much as your family, your  probability of success is very much lower. Sometimes you just have to put the business ahead of family considerations.

They interview some more and talked about how he has been married three times sporadically over a 63 year period, with no children.

Q. One might argue it's easier for you to take these hard-line positions because you haven't had to balance family considerations.

A. I would be the first one to say it probably is easier.  But the reality is, if you're not fully  committed and prepared to sacrifice what many of us would view as the traditional family role, you have a much higher probability of failing in a small business.

As harsh as it sounds, I can say from my own years of experience how true these statements are.  I can also say, that through the years David and I have figured out how to make it work.  David called today a little stressed about an approaching deadline and I realized that I have been demanding more family time from him than usual.  Sometimes it is necessary to demand a little extra, but a little extra family time always seems to have unfortunate results for his workload. In our home business usually (read: always....but David hates it when I "speak in absolutes") comes first.  It's very much a "if you only worked 12 hours today, you only worked half a day," type of environment.  When people ask me where David is, the answer will always be: working.   I realized today that I have to do better standing on my own.  As a woman married to a workaholic you have to find the balance between drawing them out of work, and not hindering their work.  You must always be supportive, because they are already under enough stress as it is. I've come to realize that it's important to not be a contributing factor to that stress.  My job is to help him succeed by being supportive in countless ways.  Don't get me wrong, I'm no door mat, and if you knew me, the very thought is completely laughable....my husband would be in hysterics.  This is what I signed up for when I married my wonderful Husband!  He is a entrepreneur and I help him live his dream, in return he helps me live my dream of being a stay at home mom with three beautiful children.  Plus he is the nicest, sweetest, most thoughtful husband anyone could ever ask for.  We help fulfill each others' dreams! Sometimes he says silly things like "When we (we would be him and his business partner) sell the business I will settle down and we can start traveling.  HA! That always makes me laugh because as soon as he sells this business, he will just start another one. It's who he is, it's what he lives and breathes. I know his ultimate dream is to become a venture capitalist. One thing I have is Date Night.  My husband makes date night a priority and we have date night every Friday night without fail! Sometimes I feel like an alien creature sitting in Relief Society.  I feel like my marriage has tempered me into a completely different metal than the other women sometimes. We are all women made of metal of course....I just feel like my metal is of a different sort. I don't have any relatives to fire or employees to scare (now where are the kids?....it's fun to scare them!......), but I can always stop whining!