On Work and Family Balance

I have often been asked the question "how do you balance work and family?" And I have never really been able to give what I feel is a great answer.  This is partly because I have never had time to really THINK about this and how I actually balance work and family life.   But somehow I manage to do it.

As a single mom of three children it is particularly hard to do, especially with no family support in this area and a child with special needs.  So how do I manage family life while running a multi-million dollar business?  Priorities, sacrifice and a cohesive family unit.

But I can't take all of the credit.  I have also been blessed with very good children.  Maybe I had something to do with that, and maybe that was God's way of giving me only what I can handle.  But my children are, in fact, very well behaved and out of necessity have become very self sufficient children and I am proud of that.  We are a family unit, and family units pull together and all carry their weight.

But from a management standpoint I have had to decide what is a priority....such as fixing my children breakfast, taking them to school in the morning, picking them up from school in the afternoon, fixing a meal and sitting down at the table in the evening as a family.  Now, I said "fixing" a meal - that may take the form of Chinese take out or freezer food, but it also takes the form of home cooking when time permits.  These are my priorities, and my special times with my children to establish a sense of normalcy to our household. 

Sacrifice comes both on the personal level and the family level.  I have sacrificed sleep many years to get homework done, put my kids to bed and then "get to work" at 10pm until 2am.  Sacrifice comes when I have to leave my kids to travel for work for days at a time.  I had to miss a big event for my two boys when I went to LA to film Shark Tank and that nearly killed me, but my children and I are part of a unit and they have all felt involved in this business from the beginning.  They know how much FuzziBunz means to me, and to them, and to their future, so we all pull together and do what it takes to make our little family work.