Why Parenting Is One of My Business Pillars

"How do we balance being a parent and raising, you know, in my case two boys and also being a grandparent, right? And having a grandchild and whatnot. How do we balance that with building a business?"

That question is one of my pillars. I call it parentpreneurship. It sits next to building and next to ethics in what I teach, and people are sometimes surprised it is there at all. Business content usually leaves the family out.

I put it in on purpose. Here is the one idea: how you parent is not separate from how you build. The way your business is built decides how much of you is left for your kids.

Business asks a lot. Parenting asks more.

"Business requires a lot of you, as you know, personally. But parenting requires just as much if not more."

Most business advice treats time with your kids as whatever is left after the work is done. Hustle now, rest later. Build the business first, then you will have time.

That math does not work, because the business is never done. There is always another launch, another client, another fire. If your kids get the leftovers, they will get leftovers for years.

Calling parenting a pillar is how I refuse that math. A pillar is not what you do when you have time. It holds the structure up. Take it out and the rest does not stand.

If you have been asking yourself whether you have to choose between the business and your kids, read Business or Kids Is the Wrong Question. The short answer is no, but the business has to be built for it.

Kids need things a business cannot delegate

"If I don't dedicate the time that I need to dedicate to make them feel safe and loved and, you know, heard and all the things."

Safe. Loved. Heard. None of those can be outsourced. None of them can happen in the five minutes between calls.

Your clients can learn from a course. Your team can run a process. Your automations can send an email at midnight. But your kid feeling heard requires you, fully there, for real stretches of time.

That is the whole reason a parent should care about how the business is built. Every part of the business that can run without you is time handed back to the part of your life that cannot run without you.

Look at your week honestly. How many hours did your kids get with you when you were not also checking your phone? If the answer makes you wince, that is not a parenting failure. It is information about your business.

A family belongs in how you talk about business

Some people think a founder should keep his family out of his business message entirely. I understand that. Privacy matters.

But leaving the values out makes the advice incomplete. If I teach you how to build a course, a launch, and a sales system without telling you what it is all for, I am teaching half the lesson. Most experts I work with did not start a business to be busier. They started it to have more say over their time. For a lot of them, that time is for their kids.

So I talk about being a parent the same way I talk about ethics. It is a standard the business has to meet. If a strategy makes money and takes the time my kids need, it is the wrong strategy for me. It might be the wrong one for you too.

The same goes for marriage. I write about that side in Being a Husband While Building a Business, and the principle is identical. The people at home are not the audience for the business. They are the reason for it.

Build the business around the pillar

Here is the practical part. If parenting is a pillar, then the business has to be designed to protect it.

Put your kids' time on the calendar before anything else goes on. Not as a nice idea. As a block you do not move.

Then look at what keeps breaking into that block. A client who needs you live every week. A sale that only closes on a call. A question you answer by hand fifty times a month. Each one is a piece of the business that could be built to run without you.

You do not have to fix all of it at once. Fix the one thing that pulls you away from your kids most often. Then the next.

Here is a simple way to find it. For one week, every time work interrupts time that was meant for your kids, write down what it was. Not how you felt about it. Just what it was. A client question. A sales call. A tech problem. A launch task.

At the end of the week, look at the list. Most parents find the same two or three things over and over. Those are not random. They are the parts of your business that only work when you personally do them. Each one is a candidate for a system: a recorded answer, a product that sells without a call, an automation, a process someone else can run.

And be honest about the other direction too. Sometimes the interruption is not the business pulling at you. It is you reaching for the business because it feels easier than being fully present at home. That is worth noticing without judgment. Kids can tell when you are in the room and somewhere else at the same time.

The goal is not a perfect week. It is a business that stops asking for the time your kids need, so that when you are with them, you can actually be with them.

Why this pillar is part of Freedom Builderz

Freedom Builderz was built so people do not have to die without sharing their gifts. Everyone comes here with a song to sing, and we get to build the stage. For a parent, that stage has to be built so it does not need you every hour, because a business that needs you in every room takes the time your kids need to feel safe, loved, and heard. That is why parenting sits next to building in everything I teach.

If this landed and you want the plan for building something that does not need you in every room, start with the Playbook.

Frequently asked questions

What is a parentpreneur?

A parent who is also building a business, and who treats both as real responsibilities instead of letting one quietly eat the other. The word matters less than the decision behind it: your kids get protected time, and the business is built to fit around that time rather than the other way around.

How do parent entrepreneurs balance business and family?

By building the business so it does not need all of them. Balance through willpower rarely lasts, because a business that only earns when you are working will always pull you back. Put your kids' time on the calendar first, then design how you sell and deliver so it works without you in every hour.

Can you be a good parent and run a business?

Yes, but not by accident. Business requires a lot of you, and parenting requires just as much, if not more. Both can work when you decide in advance what your kids get from you each week and build the business around that decision instead of hoping there is time left over.

Should entrepreneurs talk about their families in their business content?

Talk about the values, not the private details. Your audience wants to know what you stand for and what your business is built around. Sharing that your family shapes how you work is honest. Your kids' names, faces, and stories are theirs, and they can stay that way.