My Mum.
I asked her to proofread some early versions of my books. And she helped craft some social content a long time ago.
Ultimately, Mum doesn’t work with me any more.
BUT.
I learned some extremely valuable lessons about clearly communicating, team expectations and dealing with mistakes.
The good thing about working with my Mum, is that she’s very patient. And, because she’s my Mum, she just wants me to do well.
So she’s almost expecting me to make results.
Long and short, she tolerated a lot more of the mistakes I made, than anyone else ever would.
It was like a great practice run.
But should you work with friends or family?
The old adage is about never mixing business with pleasure.
But if anyone’s family is like mine – family isn’t always a pleasure and can feel more like a chore. Lol.
And yes, money has almost certainly caused more arguments and rifts in families and friendships than anything else.
But I’ll tell you that I’ve also been taken to court over money by contractors, customers and employees.
It’s not family or friends that causes divides. It’s personality.
There are family members I’d LOVE to work with, and others where we know it’d be a toxic combustible mixture.
Most of the time, I do work with friends. Or they certainly become friends after a while.
I love the idea of running a family business, where I have a few people in my family working with me.
I love the idea of my friends working with me too.
But I have to boil it down to “are they right for the business and am I right for them?”
I even did a day long interview and a 3 day trial with one family member, just to see if we were a good fit.
And, it turned out that we probably are a good fit.
I was open to awkward feedback and I know they were too.
But that should be no different to anyone else you work with.
If they’re the right person, they’re the right person.
