Running a school is physically and mentally (even emotionally) a harrowing business.

Schools are relationships.  Relationships with mothers, students, neighborhood and even other businesses around you.  You need to be able to manage yourself, your emotions and your visible commitment to your environment.

I know of couples running schools, and I have no idea how they manage it.  My wife, in the very beginning, was a part of my business, but I quickly asked her to focus on other things.  Luckily, she does have another occupation and her own career to take care of.  One seldom hears of couple CEO’s as it were, mostly due to all the additional strain running one puts on your relationship.  Just Imagine.

When the partner becomes a manager, you simply don’t get a break from each other.  You are in each other’s hairs for everything.  You bring the business home.  At least with my employees, I can draw a line the moment they finish their work, but your partner?  Where do you draw the line?

On the other hand, I am slightly jealous to those who do pull it off.  Who find a way to make business and family intertwine seamlessly.  When two people like that can work in tandem, the results must be fantastic. Sometimes I do wish my significant other was there just to give that little boost to my operations or even strategy.  That little extra edge it can give to a business to make it work at a higher level.

I think the problem lies with me being more of a conflict oriented person.  Unable, at the beginning, to consider that there are other ways of doing exactly the same thing.  One can be so singular focused on how they want things to evolve that one forgets that there seldom is just one way of doing things.  You also need to ask yourself that question.  You might imagine being an open-minded, communicative person, but are you really?

When you run a business, sometimes decisions simply need to be taken, and the responsibility lies on your shoulders.  That makes it even more difficult to try and look at things from a different point of view, or even consider other options. Sometimes, your energy levels, or even your time, is so limited, that just considering another option hurts you physically, and it is easier just to maintain your idea rather then changing it, giving in to change.  After a consecutive 12 hour per day workweek, time after time, breaking free from a certain “pattern” of thinking is not that easy.  You need to give yourself time to think about what you are doing.

Every Friday morning, when I write this blog, and the main reason for me to write this blog, is to just let my mind wander and try to take a step back from the day to day operations and hurdles.  See if I’m not doing something inefficiently or ineffectively.  I can honestly say that just by making my mind wander about a certain topic, a new, simpler way floats up.  You might want to do the same, once you run a business.  Stop thinking for a few hours about the mothers and the kids, the lesson plans, the revenue, the costs, the van…  Just think about a topic and imagine how it could or should be.

Of course, getting anything changed also has to go through the people that work with you.  I often make my decisions on a Friday like that.  When I then present the changes I want to see, the first reactions are always, “Do you really think so?”, to which I then try to explain why I came to that conclusion.  The problem is those people also have a set mind on how they want things to be done, and honestly, aren’t we all a bit lazy to do just that little extra thing?  It often takes me another week to get the changes implemented!

Good luck with your endeavors.