Imagine....
trying to blend a banana smoothie without a lid on it while trying to cut even slices of cheese with a spoon as your 6 y.o. and 4 y.o. are playing zombie-chase inside the house at full volume.
That's a pretty good description of a regular day in the Stirling household.
From the moment I wake up anywhere between 5 and 6:30 am (my kids are my alarm clock) it's go, go, go - all the way until the last kid goes to bed around 9 pm.
At 9 pm, I have about enough energy and motivation to catch some Youtube or Netflix. It's my guilty pleasure.. but the truth is I just CBF (can't be f%$#ed) to do anything productive after about 9 pm. My mind is just mush.
Oh how having kids, working full-time as a teacher, and having a wife working full-time kills a solo-preneur-dad's dreams.
Things used to be so much different. I love internet marketing. I love having peace and quiet in front of the PC. I used to be able to sit in front of the PC for 5 hour stretches pumping out work on my 10 year old Windows 7 powered Dell PC late into the night. It was so satisfying. Up until a few years ago, that's almost all I did.
What happened?
Well two major things happened.
1. In 2014, a friend and fellow teacher was moving back to Canada and he offered for me to take over his small private English school. And being the opportunity seeker that I am, I said yes. I thought I could run my internet business at the pace I had been and run the school at the same time. I was wrong! I grossly underestimated the amount of time and energy needed to run an English school! All of a sudden I went from teaching 10 hours a week to 30 or more.. AND I had to do all the non-teaching, administration work which took another 10 hours out of my week. Good-bye dreams of Internet millions! (for now). The good news is that I have a manager to handle (most of) the admin stuff and a handful of new teachers to replace me. I'm still doing the lion's share of the teaching though.
2. In November 2015, my wife gave birth to our 3rd child (a daughter) AND just 4 weeks after, she (my wife, that is.. not my baby girl.. lol) started working full-time (M - F, 8:30 to 5) at her father's company because two people had resigned suddenly. No more stay at home mum to do all the housework and look after kids while daddy works.
So where did that leave me?
With about enough free time to pick my nose and take a crap each morning.
Mornings are a rush to get ready for the day. Mum and the kids have to get out by 8am. After which I have a handful of chores to do before I leave (clean the bath, do the dishes, pick up clothes and toys) at 9 am (usually) on my 4o minute commute.
My days at the English school are also non-stop. Lots of back-to-back lessons. Lunch breaks are 30 to 40 minutes. Lots of messaging and emailing my manager, other teachers, students etc.. that suck up time. If I'm lucky, I get 1 hour to jump online a day but it's hard for me to make a 1 hour block productive (I try to get an email out to my subscribers/customers).
I come home, eat, bathe, get kids ready for bed. 9 pm rolls around. I'm dead.
How about Weekends? I teach on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings and nights too. The rest of the time, it's Daddy play time because Mummy usually has to go grocery shopping or run other errands on weekends.
Where's the ME time?
I have Mondays free. I love Mondays! Between 8 am and 5 pm, it's Stu time! Yippee! But not so fast.. vacuuming, picking up toys, dishes, cleaning the bathroom.. sometimes cooking curry for dinner. Half of Daddy's day off has gone into making sure we don't live in a pig sty.
I think I joined Steemit.com on Wednesday, when I opened this tab with the intention to write a post. It's now Saturday and I'm finally getting around to writing it. What progress!
Enough time to build an Internet Empire?
If I could exist on 4 hours of sleep a night, then yes. But the reality is, if I really tried, I could commit 1 or 2 hours a day to my internet business. But for me, it takes me about 1 hour just to get in some kind of groove before anything productive happens. (I need to work on that.) Ideally, a 3 or 4 hour block is what I need to get some solid work done.
For now, my energy and focus is going towards my English school. It is definitely not glamorous and I don't know any millionaire English school owners, but it does have it's positive points. I am the boss. I can get away from home (and family life) some of the time. And most of the time, it is enjoyable chatting with people and helping them learn English.
So why am I telling you my story?
I know this sounds like a big whinge.. 'oh poor me' .. type post and I should just 'suck it in'.. but that was not my intention. Admittedly, it feels good to let of a bit of steam!
But I imagine there are other dad-preneurs out there with similar struggles to mine.
This Guy is a LOSER!
If you're a 19 y.o. kid reading this, you'll be thinking "this guy is a loser" and will probably leave a smart remark in the comments section.
But if you're 30 or 40 something, tired of the daily grind, trying to keep a balance in your life while holding your last bit of sanity together with caffeine, Pantera turned up loud in the car and netflix, you might be able to relate to myself and this post.
The positive is that even though my life isn't 'perfect' as I see it in my dreams, I love my life. It's hard but it's also rewarding. I love my wife and kids. They are everything to me.
I have already accomplished a LOT. I am hard on myself but I sometimes look at what I've accomplished already. I have a LOT to be grateful for. My family, my business(es), my house... I've actually got quite a lot going for me when I look at it!
But I am still hungry (greedy?), for basically, more freedom. For myself and for my wife. That's what I miss most about my pre-2014 life. I could choose the time and location of where I worked and even lived. The pinnacle of our life was living in Okinawa in early 2014 for 2 months.
It will be like that again. Because I have TENACITY and can ENDURE almost anything (already endured 11 years of marriage).
I have a 5, 10, 20 year plan.. even a plan for retirement.. so it's just a matter of playing it out.
My passion lies in the world of online marketing and business, so in the near future, I'll be back working online again, continuing from where I left off on my path to internet millions!
To finish off, here's one of my favorite motivational videos. It's very fitting for me as I live in Japan and understand the way of life here.
Stuart Stirling
Links - My Neglected Internet Marketing related blog
My FB profile http://fb.me/stuartstirling
