So I Married an Entrepreneur.

When people find out that my wife and I work together at the business we own, we get a lot of: “Wow…I could never work with my spouse.” To be honest, I am not as involved in the day to day of the business as I use to be.   But the first seven to eight years?   There was a LOT of together time.   And it didn’t always go well.   We had much to learn about business, ourselves and how to forge a functional relationship.   One of my particular challenges was that, well, my wife tends to be a Type A person. What the heck is a Type A?  Let’s get into that a bit before moving on.   What the heck is a Type A??   My favorite source of info, Wikipedia, explains it this way:   The theory describes Type A individuals as outgoing, ambitious, rigidly organized , highly status -conscious, sensitive, impatient, anxious, proactive, and concerned with time management . People with Type A personalities are often high-achieving " workaholics ". Th...

That’s the famous line from A League of Their Own- “There’s no crying in baseball!” (Screenplay by Lowell Ganz and Marc ‘Babloo’ Mandel…I would kill for a cool middle nickname like that).   What makes the line so great is that while Tom Hanks is shouting it at one of the female ball players, she’s blubbering away right in front of him. I was brought up with the mantra that men and boys don’t cry. Ever. When the family dog died?   Not a tear. When I got the snot beat out of me by the mean kid down the street?   Zip. So, it took me by surprise that for my lovely, Type-A wife, there was, indeed, crying in business. I was even more shocked that at times, earlier on in the business, as we encountered extremely difficult times I found myself walking to the parking lot outside the business, weeping. If this has been you, Ms. Entrepreneur, don't feel alone.   The Emotional Toll When we started the business, we were pretty ...

A child of the 1950s and ‘60s, I grew up with a fundamental attitude that men were superior.   It only made sense to me.   Men where the heroes of the movies and TV shows I watched. Men were stronger; especially my dad, who as a powerfully built carpenter was like Hercules to me. Men ran the government, they reported the news, they fought in wars, they brought home the bacon…I mean…just look how amazing men were!   And I was blessed to be one of them.   My sister will probably even tell you I was smug about it. So, when I went off to college and got serious about making something out of myself, I didn’t really consider women to be my competition, or even my equal, really.    I grew up with stuff like this.  Really. Just pick one. They are all crazy.  My guess is a lot of my peers felt the same way.   We joked about our status as men.   We kidded each other about it (“Don’t be a pussy”).   In an...

B usiness conferences have been a part of my life in the working world.   Seems that every year I find myself attending either a large national or regional conference.   Up until recently they were always male-centric. The men in the suits at the podium spoke to men in the suits in the auditorium.   There were some women mixed in there, but they behaved like the men expected them to.   They used ‘he’ as the pronoun when speaking in generalities.   It was like they were pseudo-men dressed up as women. I didn’t realize this was the case until the company my wife and I own became a women certified business (which is not an easy certification to achieve) and we started attending women owned business conferences.   I remember my first one…the annual national conference of WBENC, the largest certifier of women businesses in the U.S.  I was in for a lot of differences. The ratios were entirely flipped: a few men were mixed in with more t...

I fell in love with a no-fooling, died-in-the-wool, nothing-is-going-to-stop-me woman entrepreneur.   We married without me fully understanding what the consequences of being married to a type A, workaholic, emerging business woman were.   Frankly, these traits didn’t fully manifest until after we formed our union.  That's my wife, Kelly.  Cute and smart. Our adventures in business over the years, and our affiliation with other women business owners has affected my view of the difference in the sexes and made me consider the limitations regarding attitudes we all are taught or learned as societal norms.   Before getting into our particular experiences and my take on our life together, I think a story bares repeating here, for context on some foundational beliefs of the roles of men and women.   So, let’s go back to the story of the first American to receive a patent. Why start here?   You’ll see. In 1715 i...