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EPnews -- from The Entrepreneurial Parent
a work-family resource for home-based entrepreneurs
@ http://www.en-parent.com
January 24, 2001
Lisa Roberts, Editor:
epideas@en-parent.com
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Please forward to a friend, or recommend it to your favorite
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---> Subscribe TODAY: EPnews-Subscribe@egroups.com
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_______________CONTENTS_______________
- ... The Funny Things EP Kids
Say & Do
- ... Publicity Opportunity for
EPs
- ... EP Expert Essay: "Let's
Talk Dreams: Auditioning Your New Year's
Resolution" by Sarah Edwards
- ... EP Expert Article: "Advice
from A-Z: What is the Legacy You are Leaving
Your Children?" by Azriela Jaffe
- ... Making Money Matters --
Surveys Needed
_________________________________________
Do you find EPnews useful?
Please forward to a friend, or recommend it to your favorite
Web site or
e-zine. Thanks for your support!
---> Subscribe TODAY: EPnews-Subscribe@egroups.com
<---
For easy reading, simply print
out this newsletter.
Editorial Note: EPnews is distributed
the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of every
month, and monthly during the summer. The Entrepreneurial Parent
web site
(en-parent.com) is a hub
of community and career resources for
Entrepreneurial Parents -- come visit often. Welcome all new
subscribers!
___________________________________
THE FUNNY THINGS EP KIDS SAY & DO!
Submitted by EPnews Subscriber,
Joi M. Lasnick of myparenttime.com
(mailto:MTDesigns@aol.com):
My daughter asked her daddy,
"Why did you take that photo?" Her daddy
jokingly responded, "I threw it away...burned it..."
My daughter questioned
him -- "Well which is it? You threw it away or burned it?"
:-)
=================
Why work at home? So you can
hear the funny things your EP Kids say
throughout the day. Share with the EP Community something your
child said or
did recently that made you smirk, giggle, or LOL. Send your submission
to:
editor@en-parent.com
And if you need a stockpile of
smiles to get you through your EP day, check
out Grace Housholder's heartwwarming "The Funny Kids Project"
at
www.funnykids.com. On
those stressed-out EP days, you'll be glad you did!
___________________________________
PUBLICITY OPPORTUNITY FOR EPs
Brad Cope, a writer for Family
Money magazine, is looking for women who run
home offices that fit into one of the following categories:
1) Best limited-space home office
2) Best limited-budget home office
3) Best family-friendly home
office
4) Best high-tech home office
If you feel you've got the office
for him, please send photos of your home
office and a short paragraph about why it fits into one (or more)
of the
above categories. For e-mail submissions, you can reach him at
bcope@mdp.com.
For regular mail, it's Brad Cope, Family Money, 125 Park Avenue,
15th Floor,
New York, NY 10017. The deadline for receiving entries is Wednesday,
Jan. 31.
Good luck EPs -- especially for
No. 3 (c'mon guys, one of you can do it!!)
___________________________________
EP EXPERT ESSAY
"Let's Talk Dreams: It's
a Good Day!"
© 2000, by Sarah Edwards
Fulfilling Life
by Sarah Edwards
author of The Practical Dreamer's Handbook, Finding the Time,
Money and
Energy to Live the Life You Want to Live
The past few weeks at our house
have been an amusing reminder of just how
much we take for granted every single day.
Our Winter forest was hit by
a single-digit cold spell and is still covered
with about 16 inches of awesomely beautiful snow. This sudden
change was
exciting and exhilarating - at first.
Then our furnace went out and
it took days to get someone to drive our
winding icy roads to come fix it. Once this brave soul got here,
he didn't
have the right parts, which had to be special ordered. So we
huddled in
layers of sweaters around our wood burning stove and strategically
placed
electric space heaters until the glorious warmth of our heat
returned.
Then our water pipes froze: we
had no water. It seems the crew who had come
the week before to plant our living Christmas tree had unplugged
the heat
strip that keeps the pipes from freezing. Thanks to our friend
and neighbor
Ed, who has lived here many more years than we, the problem was
eventually
identified and solved. Water flowed once more.
Then came the rolling black outs;
our electricity went on and off all day and
night. (Boy, is it dark with no lights!) Thankfully we'd had
the foresight to
purchase a generator, but to our dismay, it kept overheating
until, after a
round of urgent phone calls, our dear friend Ed rescued us again
by
installing another vent in the structure he'd built last Spring
to
enclose the generator.
This all came, of course, right
after Paul broke his ankle, which meant with
six inches of ice under a top layer of powered snow, he couldn't
go outside
past the front porch until Dan, another dear friend and neighbor,
came and
shoveled (or should I say, hacked out) the driveway for us.
Meanwhile, I discovered a new
aspect to my personality that I now refer to as
Tough Mountain Mama. I hauled wood, lugged trash to the recycling
center over
icy roads, it slung it into giant bins, tinkered with generator
and furnace
settings, dragged a tank of defroster into the freezing dark
night after
night to melt away newly forming sheets of ice from our freshly
shoveled
driveway, and learned about why one must always have a pair of
those ugly,
perpetually dirty work boots and gloves on hand for whatever
emergency arises.
By last week's end, if all went
well, we would drive to Bakersfield and Paul
would get a walking cast on his ankle. The night before that
long-awaited
morning arrived, he said with an air of hope and anticipation
in his voice,
"Tomorrow will be a good day if we wake up to discover we
have heat, water
and electricity!"
And so it was a good day. When
we returned from the hospital that night, we
were greeted with the warm glow from the light on our front porch.
Paul
walked up the steps, crutch free, and we entered a warm and toasty
house
where we promptly put on some water for a nice cup of tea.
Least we forget, that Citibank
commercial has it right: the best way to get
rich quick is to count your blessings!
Hope you're having a good day.
Copyright Sarah Edwards, 2000
______________
"We are each the parents
of our dreams, so we must support them as best we
can until they can support themselves."
The Practical Dreamer's Handbook, Finding the Time, Money and
Energy to Live
Your Dream
by Sarah & Paul Edwards
Come enjoy the Simple Good Life
with us at
www.simplegoodlife.com
===========
Sarah Edwards is our EP Home
Career Selection Expert and the author of "The
Practical Dreamer's Handbook, Finding the Time, Money and Energy
to Live the
Life You Want to Live." Let's Talk Dreams is a weekly column.
Sarah wants to
hear about your dreams and the difficulties you're having in
creating them.
E-mail your questions, comments and ideas at www.practicaldreamer.net
and she
may answer or address them in future columns. Sarah and her husband
Paul have
written a dozen books on working from home and self-employment.
They have
over a million books in print. You can read more about them at:
http://en-parent.com/Experts/exp-edwards.htm
___________________________________
EP EXPERT ARTICLE
"Advice from A-Z: Saying
No to Volunteerism"
© 2000, by Azriela Jaffe
A working mother running her
own business asks for advice:
"How does a solo entrepreneur
design his or her company's family leave time?
As a self employed person with four children, I feel like I am
constantly
agreeing to volunteer at the school and yet it eats away at my
billable work
time. If I wrote up my own employment rules it might help me
say no
occasionally."
That's an interesting concept
-- structuring your workday expectations as if
you weren't the boss, so that you had an easier way to say "NO"
when a new
committee begs for your help. The only problem with that approach
is that
there is no real way to enforce the rules -- what are you going
to do, put
yourself on disciplinary warning if you don't obey the rules?
It might end
up being a nice concept on paper, but ultimately a weak tool
to implement.
Shift the focus from writing
your own employment rules, to spelling out what
your business goals are, and what you need to do to achieve them.
Working
mothers often become self employed because they desire more flexibility
with
their
time, so they can be more available to their families. It will
likely rub
you the wrong way and defeat that purpose by structuring work
rules too
rigidly. Then you'll be "breaking the rules" and feeling
guilty about it.
When there is a conflict between
work and family, the self employed women
often puts inordinate pressure on herself to drop her work and
be there for
her family. That's the reason she's self employed, right?
If you were working in a job,
you'd be comfortable saying NO to many of the
school volunteer projects that come your way, right? You'd reveal
that you'd
love to, but your boss won't give you the time off, and you can't
make the
commitment. Or, you'd explain that even though the committee
only meets at
night, after working a full day and then taking care of children
in the
evening, you're short on extra energy for committee work.
The problem you have is not that
you are missing work rules, but that you
feel guilty saying no to all that is asked of you. Somehow there
is a
perception that your work should be flexible enough to accommodate
anyone who
needs you, especially something that relates to your childrens'
schooling
which pushes the guilt button even stronger. "You're self
employed, you set your own hours, and you weren't there for the
PTO meeting?
What kind of mother are you?"
Being self employed has come
to translate for you as being constantly
available to your family's needs, and putting the children's
school needs
first, with work taking the back seat. And yet, why are you working
in your
business? I'm sure there's an element of personal satisfaction
in it, but I
bet a good deal of your labor is to take care of those four children
of yours.
You are being a "good mother"
when you volunteer your time for a child's
school, but you are also being a "good mother" when
you work to provide those
same kids with the clothing and food they need to attend that
school!
Since you seem to be a woman
coming from a place of guilt, I'm concerned that
work rules might just exacerbate the problem. What will you tell
someone who
asks for your assistance? "I'm sorry, my work day does not
finish until 4
PM, and I am not allowed to take time off during the day?"
It won't feel
genuine.
Try setting up this kind of work
rule system for yourself instead. Figure
out how many billable hours you need in order to meet your monetary
goals.
Now, add ten - fifteen hours to that to address the marketing,
bookkeeping,
sales, and other activities that go into achieving those billable
hours.
So, for example, let's say you
need to work 20 billable hours a week to bring
in the $2000/month your family relies on. Add to that 15 nonbillable
hours
of working time. That brings your workweek to 35 hours. That
means you're
going to be in trouble keeping your income commitments if you
work 30 hours
and volunteer ten hours. On the other hand, if you have 40 available
hours a
week, you've got five hours a week to volunteer your time. (Don't
forget the
time absorbed in bringing children to and from after school activities
as
well!)
When you are asked to volunteer
for "one more thing", if it feels like too
much, answer honestly: "I am already volunteering on a number
of projects and
I'm committed to a number of business projects as well, so I've
reached my
quota for volunteer hours. If a volunteer project ends and some
time frees
up, I'll be sure to let you know."
When you feel guilty because
your young son or daughter looks at you with
pleading eyes and says something like, "PLEEEEEAAAAAZE,
can you come to my
school and help us with our spaghetti dinner fundraiser?!!!!!!!!",
you can
honestly respond: "I'd love to. I wish I could take off
from work every time
I felt like it. But guess what. See those sneakers you are wearing?
Enjoying the food in our refrigerator? I have to work, even when
sometimes
I'd rather be with you."
Pick and choose the volunteer
activities that give you the greatest
satisfaction. Keep your calendar free enough to say "YES"
to what you really
want to do, but full enough so that you can easily, without regret
or guilt,
say "NO" to what you don't really want to do, and what
you really don't have
the time for.
The next time you have a guilt
attack, ask yourself: "Would I be feeling this
way if I worked in a job for someone else?" You are self-employed
- emphasis
on the word employed!!!!!
Azriela Jaffe is our EP Relationship
Expert and the author of eight books,
including "Create Your Own Luck, Eight Principles of Attracting
Good Fortune
in to your Life, Love, and Work." She can be reached at
azriela@mindspring.com,
or http://www.azriela.com.
To subscribe to her free
online newsletter on creating luck, or on entrepreneurial couples
and
families, mailto:azriela@mindspring.com.
To read her EP Q&As, go to:
http://en-parent.com/Experts/exp-jaffe-QandA.htm
____________________________________________
MAKING MONEY MATTERS
Being available to your kids
and managing a career under one roof sounds to
many like the best of both worlds, but without pulling in some
kind of income
what's all the effort for? Making Money Matters!
Want to spread the word about
YOUR business in EPnews? We need more EPnews
Subscribers to profile -- so let's hear how YOU earn your keep
as an EP! Just
copy the questions below, hit Reply to this email, change the
subject heading
"MMM Survey," and answer the questions. Thank you!!
1. In a 2-3 sentence statement,
explain what your home business is about,
including your target market and "mission statement."
2. What are the most popular
products and/or services you sell? How much do
you sell them for (or what's your hourly rate), and how did you
find the
right price/fee schedule for them?
3. What are *your* favorite products
and/or services? Why do you like to sell
them?
4. Tell us a bit about your marketing
campaign. When did you start noticing
your first sales (after which marketing technique), what marketing
efforts
have you noticed yield the greatest results, and how do you make
your first
contact and subsequent sales (via online, phone, fax, mail, face-to-face)?
5. Any additional comments are
welcome.
_____________________________
CONTACT/SUBSCRIPTION INFO
The Entrepreneurial Parent, LLC
is not engaged in rendering legal or
financial advice. If expert assistance is required, the services
of a
licensed professional should be sought.
This newsletter may be redistributed
freely via the Internet. Re-publishing
of separate articles for your print publication needs approval
first; write
to: Roberts@en-parent.com
for permission.
© 2000, The Entrepreneurial
Parent, LLC
Editor: Lisa M. Roberts
POB 320722, Fairfield, CT 06432; http://en-parent.com
Ph/Fax: (203) 371-6212, Email: office@en-parent.com
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