Hats
I recently did a training with my business coach, Trina Gunzel. During the training she discussed the many hats that entrepreneurs wear. I wear many throughout a week including mom, wife, farmer, insurance agent and business owner - just to name a few. I often am told by others that they are not sure how I manage to do it all. The answer is simple - I don't and you don't have to either.
I prioritize what is important each day and rely on others to help me. I am blessed to have a husband that I work alongside of each day on our farm. We sometimes divide tasks between ourselves and our employee based on the what needs our utmost attention. That could mean adjusting water lines for baby chicks first thing in the morning and then shifting our focus on fixing equipment that has broken or needs maintaining. In my role as an insurance agent I work with sales producers and directly with clients to write and renew insurance policies. I always ask the sales folks and clients for need by dates because this helps me to run my desk more efficiently.
As a parent, I am fortunate enough to send my daughter to a private Christian School during the day where she spends her days learning and socializing with other children and the staff. My Mom is a saint and is always willing to lend a hand to pick her up. My sister occasionally watches her on days that she is off of school even though she has 4 busy little boys of her own. Sometimes, little farmer E pitches in by feeding the cows or picking up large trays that we put out in the chicken houses as the chicks get a little older. When I have an important zoom meeting or an impending deadline, Farmer E takes her for a ride in the tractor or on our golf cart. She might be 5 but she is well on her way to knowing how to cut and bale hay. I am fortunate to have a father-in-law, who often helps my husband harvest corn or beans in the fall; works on equipment that needs repair and helps to round up the cows back up after they have escaped from the fence.
I rarely grocery shop in person - thank you Instacart and Walmart grocery pickup! To be completely transparent, there are some weeks where my idea of cleaning is just running the vacuum over the floors and wiping down the countertops. You don't even want to see how large my stack of items to enter into QuickBooks are either. Some nights we eat chicken nuggets, mac & cheese without the veggies or we eat leftovers - and that doesn’t make me any less of a good mom and neither are you!
No matter how many hats you wear, you cannot and should not do it all. I don't always have it all together and you don't have to either. All you can do each day is your best and as I have learned over the last few years, your best will sometimes look different. Embrace all the parts of you including the imperfect, the messy, the authentic. Some days you have to divide and conquer your 'to-do' list and other days you have to just say to hell with the 'to-do' list.
