September.

If you’re a Mom (like me), or a biz owner (like me), or a wife of a biz owner (uh, like me…again), this month inspires a shift, internally and externally. Like January, there’s a sort of “time to get down to business!” battle cry from the core of my being - a big check list of to-do’s to handle. For example, since I have to pack lunches now, I can’t put off grocery shopping and continue to present Goldfish, a cheesestick, and an apple as an acceptable meal. (Mostly because I don’t want my 2nd grader’s teacher to report me the Bad Mommy police.)

Brushing the sands of the summer beaches off my legs and strategy notebooks, I become much more aware of the clock and the calendar. A vague sense of upcoming workshops, traveling plans, and holiday events creeps into my consciousness. I know the wistful starry nights are getting shorter and colder, and soon leaves will do their cameleon-like color show and then fall gracefully to the ground, begging to be raked and thrown over the edge of our lawn toward the neighbor’s yard, ha ha.

And as I settle into this new phase of the year, checking in on where we are in our business, with our revenue projections, with this ever-fluctuating economy, with client projects, and in our development of products and services designed to help solo professionals, other “imperfect-preneurs” and determined business owners, key members of mission-driven organizations, and global brands reach their Ideal Audiences with powerful social marketing and success strategies, I can’t get the below quote out of my head. It keeps popping into my brain, demanding attention, reminding me to STAY THE COURSE, THINK BIGGER, NEVER GIVE UP, and BELIEVE in what’s possible for those of us with a message, mission, and vision bolder than most are willing to embrace or admit.

So I figured, HECK, I better share this amazing quote by Marianne Williamson, the one that keeps coming at me like a yowling pre-schooler demanding attention, on our blog. At least then, when it bolts into my brain to announce itself, I can say, “Hey- I heard ya. I shared it on my company’s instant publishing platform. If it needs to get to someone else’s brain via me, I’ve done what I can to help!”

So, here it is, from me to you:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

by Marianne Williamson, author, speaker, spiritual teacher
from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles

Please, by all means, if YOU’RE one of the people who was supposed to read the above quote, or this blog post, let me know in the comment field, and/or by all means re-tweet it. Not only will you make my day, but I’ll be able to justify the crazy voices for next time. Thanks!

(Getting this message to you, if it’s the thing you need to hear at the time you need to hear it, makes me feel POWERFUL BEYOND MEASURE, too. And that’s the dang point, ain’t it? Defeating that pesky fear of inadequacy in order to make a positive impact in the lives of others!)

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Have you ever paid to sleep?

It sounds ridiculous, I admit. But last week, Allen and I made the bold decision that $12 was a bargain for one hour and 45 minutes of mid-day shut-eye.

We had been pulling weird hours already, trying to fit in a chunk of time before our 6 year old went off to his first grade world, and then again after our 14-month-old had his bath and went to sleep. Of course, there was the working chunk in between, too.

On a Wednesday — which was not an unusual Wednesday in the course of our Married-With-Biz life — we found ourselves spinning wheels, bleary-eyed, and simply lacking steam of any kind. To look at Allen was to see some version of Forrest Gump on valium, and I know I didn’t look much different.

The clock had just struck 2:00pm. Our youngest son, Declan, was in daycare, which he goes to 2-3 times/week. Our oldest son, Joe, was due to get out of school at 3:05, and one of us usually picks him up from school at that time, or else gets him at 3:25 at the bus stop.

Did I mention we had been putting in crazy hours?

Anyway, we had a bold insight. What if we called the occasional after-school sitter, and had her pick Joe up from school…simply so we could squeeze in a much-needed  - *gulp* - NAP???

In some parenting circles, this is nothing short of blasphemy. For the guilt-ridden (like me), this is a ticket to The Bad Parent Hall of Shame. However, that day, I simply didn’t care. Sometimes, you just have to throw in the towel. We had arrived at said time.

Those of us who own our own businesses sometimes forget to take advantage of the “perks.” Maybe it’s because of the unshakable residue of our former 9-5 lives, or the voices of friends, family, and associates who’ve openly shared their views of what a good work ethic looks like, how napping in the middle of the work week is LAZY…

Or maybe it’s because of our own fears of inadequacy. Often we’re beholden to the idea that if we don’t constantly push ourselves during our limited windows of opportunity (i.e. when the kids aren’t pulling at our legs, when laundry and dinner and household amusements aren’t tugging at our attentions), we’ll sink like a lead lemming with cinder blocks on its feet. After all, if WE don’t suck it up, take up the slack, make things happen, inspire opportunities, invent miracles, dig our heels in and crank up the heat, who will?

Unfortunately, that merciless, can-do/must-do/go-go-go attitude catches up to us. It’s downright exhausting.

Fortunately, turns out the perfect antidote takes one hour and 45 minutes, and costs just 12 bucks.

For those of you feeling sloggy and groggy these days, wrapping up your 2008, prepping for your 2009, beautifying presents, playing Santa, spreading holiday cheer to everyone in our contacts list, heed the words of the late, great Janis Joplin and “Get it while you can.” Give yourself the gift of a $12 nap. It’s the fastest, cheapest way to feel merry, bright, and mighty again…and it may even remind you of the oft-forgotten blessings of owning your own biz.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, December 20th, 2008 at 10:33 am and is filed under Married - With Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Thanks to the fab folks at Acorn Creative for freshening our WordPress blog with an injection of new code! (Okay, so they updated us to the latest version - I’m stretching out the metaphor well beyond what it was made for.)

And here’s the photos I promised, of me working on a client’s online marketing strategy in the Kokatosi game room…

…and our campsite. After I packed it in and left the game room, Lani and I went out in a two-person kayak and had our weekly business meeting on the lake, drifting as close as possible to the loons floating and diving in the water.

Ah, business. Ain’t it grand?

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Married - With Business, Microenterprises R Us. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Eight years ago today I was waking up to “Going to the Chapel and I’m gonna get married” from my CD alarm clock. You were my destination and prize. Eight years later, you still are.

In some ways, eight years doesn’t sound like a heck of a long time. Sure, it’s two presidential terms. It’s enough to give Michael Phelps time and opportunity to earn himself 11 gold medals. It contains bull and bear markets, real estate booms and busts.

But…

When I married you, there was no iPhone, no Facebook, no tweeting, texting, or Netflix. Back in the day, we had hard-coding HTML and these things called jpgs. We wrote in journals - made of real paper! We went to all the hot movies and watering holes in Santa Monica, Westwood, and hip joints throughout Los Angeles. We played and dreamed in our 1000 sq. ft. two-bedroom apartment. You commuted to your post-MBA bank auditing/financial analyst job(s) and volunteered at the Brentwood Library, while I wrote author biographies, took on any freelance gigs I could nab, and did my thing as a sub in the LA school district.

A lot has changed over the last eight years. Still, in the midst of everything, in the living of the every day, it feels like a veritable blip.

Somehow, while we got rid of our debt and stashed cash away for our “big move” to New Hampshire, while we planned for (and had!) our first child together, while we lined things up so we could be official content vendors for Mattel from 3,000 miles away, we’ve pulled off a few miracles together.

• We made it through the incredibly steep Vail pass during the pitch-black of night, in a giant moving truck, in the wrong gear. (What was with all that smoke, huh?)
• We found an interim, off-season condo rental for $350/month (everyone said it couldn’t be done!), so we get our bearings in our new state before we found and bought our first home.
• We incorporated our biz on January 2nd, 2004, saving us from ever having to take a corporate or desk job again.
• We learned how to parent and juggle and trust each other enough to decide to bring a 2nd beautiful angel into this world.
• We continue to laugh and challenge each other, learn and grow together in the face of fears, fluctuations, challenges, chaos, and tragedies all around us.
• We, somehow, NEVER run out of things to talk about. (How do we do that??)

Eight years later, and I’ve got stretch marks and “Rubinesque Voluptuousness” that didn’t exist on our Wedding Day. You’ve seen me at my horrifying, screaming worst. We’ve stirred up, um, unexpected emotions in each other that haven’t been easy to contain (again, I’m sorry about the butter knife incident), and we’ve muscled through the ups and downs of being married business owners - sometimes with grace, sometimes with pure, stubborn will power, and occasionally with nothing but an overtired “Eh, whatever.”

As you know, I think about our past, present, and future a lot. And the truth is, I wouldn’t change a thing. I think we’re exactly where we need and deserve to be. We’ve made a ton of incredible friends and contacts along the way. We’ve pushed ourselves to learn more, be better, and manage without the benefit of regular sleep or schedules. We’re constantly open to new opportunities. We never limit ourselves, and we continue to write our own story in this world. When we hit those succulent, wide-open spaces of clarity, possibility, and creative collaboration, we know in our hearts we’re doing the right things, we’re still “in the game,” and there’s no one else either one of us would rather be with than each other.

Yes, it’s often scary. Yes, we could learn how to manage our stress better. Yes, sometimes we need to step back and put things in perspective.

For the most part, though, I must tell you I’m proud of us, and I’m grateful for our choices. This is fun with you. I love being your wife, business partner, and the mother of your amazing, healthy, blessed children.

When I think of you at the end of that long aisle, beaming, looking so handsome in your tux, with the 3o+ foot stained-glass showcase window behind you, I am thrilled to know what “eight years later” has brought us.

We’re living our dream, honey. It’s a funky, quirky, imperfect, amusing, powerful, potential-filled rodeo of a dream, but we’re living it with wild abandon, nonetheless.

Thank you for being my co-pilot on this wild, wacky adventure. I love you. Happy Anniversary.

Love,

Wifey

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 11:11 am and is filed under Married - With Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Well, Boys ‘n Girls, here it is. January 6th, 2008.

One year ago today, I wrote a gigantic blog post about this day, the word “Epiphany,” and how “Epiphanies, Inc.” came to be the name of our business. (In fact, this is a dynamite example of yet another reason why I love blogging so much: It serves as an easily searchable database of your own personal and biz history, rants, musings, etc., so when you wake up at 4:44 am and decide to take advantage of the quiet and blog about the meaning and history of the word “Epiphany,” you can discover you already did the exact same thing one year ago today, link to that post, marvel at the fact that 365 days have passed in a blink of an eye, and move on to some other yet-to-be-determined riff on the day.)

In addition to it being the Day of Epiphany, and “Little Christmas” in Ireland, and Armenian Christmas, and the Rastafari movement’s celebration of the birthday of beloved Ethiopian Emperor (1930 - 1974) and religious symbol for God incarnate Haile Selassie, January 6th also marks the day:

• Joseph, son of Emperor Leopold I, becomes King of the Romans (1690)
• Samuel Morse first successfully tests the electrical telegraph (1838)
• Mother Teresa arrives in Calcutta to begin a her work amongst India’s poorest and diseased people (1929)
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address (1941), which inspired the the famous “Four Freedoms” paintings by Norman Rockwell (one of my very favorite artists and “A-Ha Yourself!” masters!) AND a monument of the same name
• Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the right leg by an assailant under orders from figure skating rival Tonya Harding (1994)
• Joan of Arc (1412), Khalil Gibran (1883), Earl Scruggs (1924), and Rowan Atkinson (1955) were born
• Louis Braille (1852), Dizzy Gillespie (1993), and Lou Rawls (2006) died

(I nabbed all the above from the lazy person’s go-to information source, Wikipedia.org. If you’re dying for the complete list of things of note that happened on January 6th, check it out here.)

In other words, it’s a day loaded with meaning for us, and thus a perfect day to reflect, project, process, and rejoice at the exquisite and beautious chaos of it all. 

Allen and I incorporated Epiphanies, Inc. with the state of New Hampshire four years ago, almost to the day (January 2nd, 2004, to be precise. Or so Allen tells me. I like to reinvent history and say it was January 6th, just for synchronicity of it.) So far, it’s been quite a ride.

We’ve had victories and defeats. We’ve struggled and soared. We’ve had big, ugly fights we thought would certainly jeapordize our marriage — but now, looking back, we know they made us stronger and forced us to learn how to communicate better.

We’ve balanced parenting and moving from the West Coast to the East Coast and first-time home ownership with learning everything we can about marketing and online communication tools and successful business strategies.

Last year, we:

>>> Released our first four info products out into the world

>>> Attended the Global Marketing Summit in Myrtle Beach, SC

>>> Made a bold ‘n very smart move and got an office outside of the home

>>> Landed a quote in a feature article on Forbes.com

>>> “Shared the stage with Adam Urbanski” at his reknowned “Attract Clients Like Crazy” Boot Camp

>>> Were among the the featured presenters at MicroCredit-NH’s Entrepreneurial Exchange Day 

>>> Were invited to be a guest on Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman’s (aka “The Blog Squad”) Blogging and Beyond radio show

>>> Got a blogging article published in an awesome book loaded with expert advice on writing and how to market your writing talents

>>> Were invited to lead a workshop at the 24th Annual Governor’s Conference on Volunteerism  

>>> Celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary (!!!!! Wahooo!!!!)

>>> Were asked to moderate a call for Melanie “The Entrepreneur’s Success Coach” Strick’s Ultimate Wealth and Success Circle monthly resource teleseminar

>>> Led three killer workshops for MicroCredit-NH, including: Brainstorm + Brand = BOOM!, Creating Added Value, and Plugging in Your Marketing Power Tools

>>> Were interviewed by Ali “The Ezine Queen” Brown as a success story on one of her teleclasses boasting attendance of 2000 other coaches, consultants, and small biz owners

>>> Became parents for the second time (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), and learned how to blog while breastfeeding

>>> Attended PodCamp Boston 2, and met David Meerman Scott , author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR

>>> Attended Fall Von 2007, the premier IP Communications trade show, to help VIP client Iperia manage their exhibition

>>> Finally got life insurance AND upgraded our health insurance to a premium plan that makes us feel like we value our family’s safety and well-being

>>> Submitted 15 original articles on www.AhaArticles.com (our affiliate link to article distribution service SubmitYourArticle.com), and were bestowed the honor of “Expert Author” status on EzineArticles.com

>>> Laughed a heck of a lot more than we did in 2006 (!!!!!)

>>> Posted 10 ADD Info Summits on everything from article marketing to social media

>>> Saw my little brother get engaged, buy HIS first house, and get married (!!!!!)

>>> Made nearly 3X as much money as we did in 2006, doing nearly everything with radical imperfection 

Wow. I had no idea how much we’d done. No wonder we’re pooped.

To think, before I had the striking idea to actually scan through our blog archives to see what the heck we’ve been doing these past 12 months, I could only remember the giving birth and getting life insurance thing. Crazy and crazier.

All this month we’re carving out a solid success plan for Epiphanies, Inc. for 2008, so we can get over this feeling that we’re thriving — as a business AND as a married couple — by accident.

It’s a little scary and intimidating and more than a little overwhelming, this “planning” thing. It’s also fun and fascinating, and we’re excited to make 2008 the year we finally:

1. Create a plan TOGETHER
2. FOLLOW our plan
3. Reap the rewards of our focused labor, including (but not limited to): More fun, more free time, more income, more overall prosperty, fewer headaches, less confusion, more confidence, and MORE SUCCESS TO EVERYONE AROUND US

So, on this Day of Epiphany, here’s mine:

Progress is more easily recognized and revered over time (say, over a 12-month period), than it is when you’re trying to find it at the end of a long day, when you’re collapsing into bed with your husband/biz partner and wondering where the time went, why it seldom feels like anything’s getting done, and how the heck you’re going to tackle the never-ending to-do list of life and business the next day, and the next, and the next…

And for a bonus EPIPHANY, I’ll say this:

I love, love, LOVE my gorgeous, talented, brilliant, kind, benevolent, wonderful, sweet, caring, loving, patient, extraordinary, creative, thoughtful, funny, fair-minded, courageous, and utterly fearless husband/biz partner!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 9:56 am and is filed under Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Allen and I have had our hands full during the last six weeks or so.

Business has been flowing in like the tides during a full moon (thanks to Acorn Creative!). We just had a beautiful baby boy on October 5th who likes to socialize with us at all hours of the night. My brother got married three weeks ago, which was a glorious event all its own. Allen was in Boston for six days for clients and trade shows and podcast camps.

Plus, we’ve had to learn how to get mega points in the awesome adventure that is Lego Star Wars, because our 5-year-old son is ADDICTED, and had to buy Boba Fett at the Cantina in order to continue with his important mission of saving the galaxy from the evil Emperor.

So, it’s with less guilt than usual that I admit we’ve slipped a bit on our own marketing efforts. Our ezine has fallen off the schedule. Articles and press releases keep getting postponed. Website updates don’t quite hit the top priority list. It’s tough, because being consistent and strategic with marketing is what we preach to clients, workshop attendees, readers of our blog, and the world in general.

But something happens this time of year, every year, that makes us loosen our expectations. No, sadly, it’s not the loving preparation required to ramp up for the holiday season.

It’s FANTASY FOOTBALL.

This is Allen’s third year in a league that’s gifted us with the thrills of victory and the agonies of defeat more times than I care to mention. (Why are running backs so inconsistent?! Who knew field goal kickers could make or break a season?!)

But Allen’s interest in this supremely odd social and cultural addiction of the male species is not only understandable but encouraged. According to a new book, Why Fantasy Football Matters (And Our Lives Do Not), “U.S. businesses lose $200 million in productivity each football season because employees are managing their fantasy squads instead of working.”

Unbelievable, ain’t it? 

Obviously, you can’t fight this phenom, so you might as well join it. I just hope Allen makes it into the playoffs this year (and become the underdog who takes home the imaginary trophy!!!). The smile on his face is well worth the tens of thousands of dollars lost to productivity and abandoned marketing efforts, and I say this without a scoonch of sarcasm.

C’mon Allen - WIN THIS THING!

Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business | 1 Comment »

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 10:56 am and is filed under Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

You know, you may be more successful than me. You may be better looking than I am. Heck, you may even know how to use your universal remote control without whimpering or collapsing in a helpless heap of technology-induced angst.

But have you ever tried to click-clack a quick blog post whilst a small human being is suckling at your bosom?

Ha! I thought not.

This blog post, for me, sums up the core challenge of Lifestyle Entrepreneurs, or married business owners, or, in our case, both. Because while it’s certainly attractive to focus on the perks of owning your own business - an (allegedly) flexible schedule, optional showering, making your own rules as you go along…and changing them as fast as you make them, to name a few - the truth is, most of the time, the logistics are ridiculous.

You gotta do what you gotta do.

Allen mentioned a couple of posts ago that we just had our second child. He’s a beautiful angel named Declan Frederick Voivod, born October 5th. Hs already traveled to the top of a mountain via a chair lift, danced with his momma at his uncle’s wedding, gone apple picking, and soaked in a sunset over Lake Winnipesaukee.

He’s also taken me right out of the working game.

Emails keep coming in. Opportunities arise. Time ticks on by, and I definitely have some work to do. But none of it’s life and death, and I’m in a New Baby coma, which is severely limiting (nay, eliminating altogether) my productivity.

Allen, God bless him, is keeping all the day-to-day fires in check. Bills still need to be paid, invoices need to be cut, work has to get done. My poor husband is taking care of it all. He’s positively sleep-deprived and has done more loads of laundry in the past three days than I’ve done all year, yet he’s keeping everything afloat, while I sit in various places around our house and let this hungry little fellow of ours drink in the sweet nectar of life.

In the meantime, one of our cars has decided to make starting an optional feature, while the other one has requested we get it a new transmission. Our laptop is on our kitchen table, next to our 5-year-old’s kindergarten worksheets and, of course, our lovely breast pump. Dirty diapers adorn each and every trash recepticle around our home. Our dog is bitter about getting a demotion in the family’s priority tree, and is demonstrating his displeasure by tearing to shreads all of his “indestructible” chew toys.

It’s insane, I tell ya. Juggling life and parenthood and business and the pursuit of happiness. It’s maniacally, uncategorically INSANE.

And I know this because I’m reaching over my new baby’s body while he eats, poops, and sleeps (seemingly all at the same time), just so I can capture the insanity in a blog post.

Why?

Because the preservation and exaltation of this insanity is what makes this whole married-with-biz thing worth the price of admission.

(By the way, the photos above were taken by my extraordinarily talented friend, Michelle Goodearl. Check out more of her incredible work at www.MichelleGoodearl.com!)

Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business | 1 Comment »

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Sometimes owning your business can distract you from other, um, more pressing life matters. More often than not, those other life matters eventually decide to press back - on your uterine wall or bladder, for instance - until you give them the props they deserve.

So here’s the official announcement on our “A-Ha!” Blog:

A-Ha! I’m 34 weeks pregnant!

For those of you not swimming in the amniotic fluid of pregnancy’s finer details, that means I’ve got about six more weeks to go before something flailing, squinty, and prolific in poopage comes out of my body, one way or another.

Allen and I couldn’t be happier about this upcoming event, and our nearly-five-year-old son is revving up to be the world’s best big brother.

However, as spousal-preneurs who depend on each other to advise on, produce, and tag team projects, planning, and workload, things can get a little sticky.

First of all, there’s no deadline more real and less forgiving than the one attached to an umbilical cord. It WILL happen, you CAN’T ignore or extend it, and once you pass it, you WILL NOT be able to go back to the way things were.

For married business owners, that means we still have to:

Generate revenue, make clients happy, plan for the upcoming weeks, months, and years, BRAINSTORM new and better ways to bring in income, make clients happy, and plan for the upcoming weeks months, and years…and we have to do it all while brain damaged, sleep deprived, and obsessed with bodily fluids and functions - both baby’s and mother’s - that don’t make for polite dinner conversation.

It wasn’t until a week or two ago that Allen and I finally stopped ignoring my ever-growing midsection and started hyperventilating. Where are we putting this new human being? Should we buy him clothes? How old does he have to be before it’s safe to spike his breast milk with Lunesta? 

There’s a corner in our attic with a bunch of baby stuff in it, but I have no idea what’s there. Allen has wanted to bring it all down many times, but I keep telling him we need to finish all the household projects we’ve been putting off for the last 3 1/2 years before we invite more chaos into our happy yet humble living space.

Soooo…

We’ve knocked down walls, painted  and re-carpeted rooms, made several trips to Goodwill, reorganized medicine and linen cabinets, become basket converts, shifted all big-boy toys from bedroom (soon to be shared) to playroom, transferred most of our home-office files and furniture to our newish out-of-the-home office, and created a guest room for anyone who wants to sleep at a house alive with the precious cacophonies of a crying newborn.

And somehow, through it all, we’ve managed to make more money by the end of June of 2007 than we did in all of 2006. That’s not to say we’re not paying for some of the next-level investments and “learning it the hard way” misadventures of last year, but we’re definitely making progress.

We’re proud and grateful that we’re still in business together.

More importantly, we’re still married.

MOST importantly, we’re proud and grateful to be HAPPILY married.

When we said “I do!” nearly seven years ago, we had no idea it would involve as much as it has come to involve. Who does?

Money, kids, home repairs, personal hygiene vigilance, insurance policies, quick-fix casseroles, payroll taxes, holidays, lawn mowing, Pokemon, office space, play dates, and pillow talk involving marketing lingo…

Honestly. We had NO idea.

In retrospect, that’s the biggest blessing EVER. Which is probably why we’re just getting around to admitting we’re close to the launch of Baby Boy #2.

If life has taught us anything, it’s that we’ll figure it all out along the way. And no matter how challenging the “figuring out” part can be, we prefer to do it together.

Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business | 5 Comments »

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 7:02 pm and is filed under Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Great news we forgot to blog about - seasoned freelancer Dale Buss found a bit of our advice for spousal-preneurs worthy enough to include in the following feature article (way back in February) for Forbes.com:

• How to Run a Business With Your Spouse

AND in the complementary “in pictures” segment:

• The Do’s And Don’ts Of Co-Preneurship

Here’s the winning excerpt: 

Next tip: Involve trusted third parties in the business, especially the finances. The quickest way to marital perdition is to get mired in money matters. If you must, designate one partner as chief financial officer. Better yet, delegate all accounting and tax matters to a professional. “Since we hired a third party to keep us on track and honest about budgets, cash flow, performance targets and so on, we’ve crossed divorce off our list of things to do,” quips Lani Voivod, co-owner of Epiphanies, a marketing consultant in New Hampshire.

It’s true, too. For us, 2007 is SOOOOO much better than 2006, and we know a lot of it has to do with the changes we’ve made in our approach to finances. It’s still all a big ol’ learning process, but it’s a lot easier to learn together when we see steady money coming in, and yelling isn’t a part of our “Financial Fridays.”

For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business (and get creative AND effective with your own marketing efforts), sign up for our ezine, “The Inciter,” at EpiphaniesInc.com!

Posted in Married - With Business, Press 'n Such | No Comments »

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 8th, 2007 at 10:20 am and is filed under Married - With Business, Press 'n Such. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

You can learn a lot about yourself from your bathroom. Especially from the reading materials hanging around near your commode.

On my way through our downstairs powder room - which connects our laundry room with our son’s tornado-struck play area - I caught a glipse of this spatter of magazines, just waiting for one of us to entertain ourselves during our next home office pit stop.

Seeing this strange mix of potty fodder designed to entertain and inform pseudo WIRED, ENTREPRENEUR PARENTS with GIANT aspirations and a soft spot for guy pulp (GQ’s Lindsay Lohan spectacle) made me realize just how divided our attentions are these days.

Mingling life, love, parenting, and business is no easy task. But boy, it makes for a diverse reading library!

(By the way, if you haven’t checked out Wired mag lately, you gotta give it a try. This month’s “Get Naked and…” issue is all about “Radical Transparency” as a business success strategy for CEOs and minions alike. March’s issue was all about our entertainment “snack culture,” where everything we consume - from videos to music to games to information - is in tiny, mini, micro, and “bite-sized” content pieces. The articles are always good ‘n hip and right on target. Oh, and they’re interesting and fun, too. :-D)

For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business (and get creative AND effective with your own marketing efforts), sign up for our ezine, “The Inciter,” at EpiphaniesInc.com!

Posted in Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business | No Comments »

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Entrepreneur Diaries, Married - With Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.