Happy 40th Birthday

I can’t believe I’m 40. It seems like just yesterday I was envisioning what my 30-year-old self would be doing. Back then, anything past 30 was old. And here I am. Forty years old, fifteen years of marriage, four kids, a dog, a business, and many other details that have accessorized my life until now.

My children have pivoted from tiny toddlers to interesting young adults who continue to surprise us with their interests and personalities. With their growing independence, I find myself with time. Not the kind of time where I could travel for a month, but time to build the dreams Heather kept all those years when I could barely use the bathroom by myself.

And the outcome ? I help female entrepreneurs eliminate messy, chaotic financials and tax-time anxiety, with organized and maintained business and personal financials that provide valuable information using my Garden and the Greenhouse framework.

Doesn’t that sound amazing ? Yet you wonder how much work is required to get from here to there.

Let me ask you a question. Do you enjoy cooking dinner ? I found a statistic stating 36% of Americans cook at home daily, and of that 13.7% of those have a strong passion for cooking. That means 23% of families that cook daily DO NOT have a passion for cooking.

Why is this relevant to our finances?

My family cooks at home almost daily and I do not have a passion for cooking that involves specific time frames and palette specifications.

But my cooking gets them to the dinner table. A moment in our day to reconnect – reminding us that this is the most important place in our lives right now. Your family, your life. Without these moments of conversation, understanding how we can support each other would be very difficult. 

In our businesses, addressing our financials feels mundane, monotonous or as Tabitha would put it – boring. Just like cooking dinner. But your business finances provide valuable data for decisions that move you towards your business dreams and goals.

As Elizabeth Gilbert says in her book, Big Magic:

I recently read a fabulous blog by a writer named Mark Manson, who said that the secret to finding your purpose in life is to answer this question in total honesty: “What’s your favorite flavor of shit sandwich?”

What Manson means is that every single pursuit – no matter how wonderful and exciting and glamorous it may initially seem – comes with its own brand of shit sandwich, its own lousy side effects. As Manson writes with profound wisdom: “Everything sucks, some of the time.” You just have to decide what sort of suckage you’re willing to deal with.

With that being said, for most of you, the shit sandwich of being an entrepreneur is managing your books. But avoiding that shit sandwich is like never looking at your checking account and wondering whether your mortgage or rent got paid.

Cooking dinner for me is often a shit sandwich. But it’s one of my favorite flavors because that sandwich gets my family to the table where the best of my life happens everyday.

If you’re feeling frustrated with a plan of action for your business or personal finances, I invite you into my zone of genius where we can create a digestible plan together. 

Send me an email or leave a comment below with your biggest financial frustration.