In Love and Business

Couples in a loving relationship may find their way into a scenario where, as they are growing, changing, and expanding, they find themselves seeking self-sufficiency as they allow for more abundance in their lives by inviting entrepreneurship to join them on their journey. While financial opportunities abound, we all love the idea of doing what you love and allowing cash flow to be created doing so, how can this affect the relationship in love and business?

When your career is outside the home, it’s easy to come home, disconnect from the daily routine, unwind, and relax because there’s a clear separation between work and home. For the couple who is engaging in business together, this can be more of a challenge as you are undoubtedly going to be engaged in the work of running your business as it is part of, or overflows into, your home life.

As you may have guessed, these people find their way into my practice as they pursue their desires as they have proclaimed, “I want to do something with my life.”

Here are some ideas to successfully navigate your relationship in love and business.

1 Love Comes First

You must remember that while you may be partners in business, you are partners in love first and foremost. Your love has priority over all business activities. Make this your primary component in your values as a couple.

No matter what comes up, your partner comes first. You each must have the faith and assuredness that you have each other’s back in any situation, circumstance, or challenge you might face.

2 Create Space for Business

If not physical space, then at least emotional space. Create a state of consciousness where you conduct business matters and have discussions about the detail regarding business. This space does not need to remain completely devoid of romance, as there can be room for free-flowing, but keep your sacred love space separated (no heavy business details in the love space).

When your energy needs to be focused on business challenges you can go to this place and dissect all the components and examine the details without the fear that this might encroach upon your love space.

3 Trust

You need to trust your partner impeccably, but also you need to trust your business. You need to allow the business to be a tool, a vehicle, to teach you, to encourage growth, and expansion in just the right way that is perfect for you and your partner.

Being in business together can create many opportunities for learning, growing, and expanding together. Trust that all is in divine order.

4 Listen

Listen to your partner as well as that still small voice from within. Your partner, as well as your higher self, will often have unexpected clues to opportunities or obstacles that you might be unaware of or unable to see from your vantage point in the business trenches.

Be open and willing to listen, even if at first blush the idea or concept presented might be incongruent with your current thought processes. Don’t just listen to the words, but look through the eyes of love for the deeper meaning, try to hear the underlying message which might be trying to alert you about a particular opportunity or obstacle.

5 Review in Love

After you’ve had time to focus on business in the business space (remember, this doesn’t have to be physical space) you can retreat to your sacred love space. Agree to leave the heavy details behind, relax, and review the events, just as if you’d come home from work to discuss your day.

In this safe and sacred space, you might be given insight that could not be seen from the business space. Here, new ideas, dreams, and desires for the business may emerge, as well as an increased capacity for creative problem solving from this alternate vantage point.

6 Celebrate

If not at the end of every day, then certainly as often as possible celebrate. Make it a part of your strategy in love and business, relax, or go out to dinner, take a day trip, or whatever suits your fancy to celebrate wins (even the most minute ones) and take time to enjoy the goodness of having the freedom to be your own boss, set your own hours (and remember, this is a business expense).

You are entering a new phase and higher quality of life. If you can survive and maintain a high love vibration, health, wellness, and as much peace of mind as you can manage, you can enjoy true freedom, including financial freedom, if you remain in love, open and undeniably supportive of each other throughout this process.

Business and Romance

Covering a wide variety of complementary skills, occasionally my clients will seek me out for alternative types of counsel to augment our regular regimen. For instance, Edward was a business consulting client working on building his manufacturing business. When he started working with me, he was a single father raising three children in junior high and high school spending his free time building his business, had a modest factory with half-a-dozen employees and was working his plan to expand the business.

As Edward’s business began to grow, he was able to hire managerial staff which gave him time to seek out his life partner and soul mate. He made the acquaintance of Laurie, a social worker who captured his heart. As they began to court and move toward marriage, Edward asked if he could make some regular appointments to work with me in a pre-marital coaching capacity? I agreed and started to meet with Edward and Laurie.

business-and-romance-love-and-success

Relationships are not unlike a merger of companies or corporations, in that you are combining resources and working together for a common goal. So it is imperative to exercise due diligence in determining whether the merger is complimentary and has the strength to have a high probability of achieving success over the long-haul while satisfying the parties involved.

While Edward found Laurie’s profession to be acceptable, he sought her out as not only a love interest but also as a business partner.

Although Laurie had a nice state job which she felt compelled to stay with until retirement, she had a secret desire to create her own public relations agency. Of course Edward encouraged her to practice her PR skills on his company with the possibility of hiring her so that she need not continue to work for the state.

It turns out that Laurie discovered she had gone through life seeking to do what other people expected her to do. She got good grades and went to college for her parents. Early on following graduation she got a good job at the state, also more for her parents than herself, though she was satisfied with both her career and her income earning ability.

But what she wanted for herself was to give birth to children and her business. Two important desires that Laurie had put on the back burner for the sake of accommodating others, while Edward was more interested in her working with/for him and not interested in starting over as a father.

The couple ended up parting ways. Edward found a more suitable mate and later married, while Laurie resigned from her state job, took a sabbatical and returned to start her own business. She has since married an attorney with whom she has co-created a new family while they fully share familial responsibilities and support each other’s independent careers. Laurie loves her business so much that she says she can see her helping authors, artists and businesspeople spread their message while expanding their reach and raising their income-earning capacity for the rest of her life.

While working for the state, Laurie’s goal was to retire; now she loves what she does so much that she has no desire to retire. She says, “If I had all the money in the world, I would still be doing what I do to help others.”

Laurie had found her life’s purpose and embracing it using her unique skills and abilities enabled her to achieve a higher quality of life filled with the family, love and happiness she always wanted.

Who says, “You can’t have it all?”

Some people live a life of compromise, self-sacrificially denying their own wants, needs and desires for others, while a few individuals are awakening to discover who they really are and what they really want seeking an alternative path to achieve their highest and best.

Who are you?
What do you want?
How much better does it get?