Why you should take your work home with you
There’s an adage that you shouldn’t bring your work home with you.
But what about the good stuff?
What about the leadership skills, the core values and the lessons learned?
I believe you can use the tools you have as a leader to create an articulated set of values for your family to live, work and play by, and that there is value to doing so. Here’s how we do it in my home.
Practice gratitude.
I can’t start this list without covering one of treetree's core values: gratitude. After all, a value like this links to everything in life.
A few years ago, I started using The Five-Minute Journal to help me overcome a funky season of life. This journal uses the science of positive psychology to improve happiness, by focusing your attention on the good in your life. Doing that "formally" with the journal makes it more likely that I notice the small, good things in life as they happen throughout the day.
I'm on my third one and have incorporated my five-year-old son, Bennett, into this daily practice. He adds something he is grateful for to the mix and we get to write it down. It's a fun way to end the day, and only takes five minutes. Promise.
We practice gratitude in the treehouse, and we definitely practice it in the Apfelstadt house.
Lay out your values.
After ten years in business, we recently reviewed treetree’s values. The exercise gave me a craving to put down values that my husband, Chris, and I align on at home.
I noticed that we frequently say things to our kids like, “Apfelstadts keep their promises.” “What do Apfelstadts do?” “Apfelstadts are helpers.”
Using “Apfelstadt” like a team name teaches our children that they are part of a community and this is how our team behaves. It gives them a sense of belonging and identity. Bennett and Rowe will come home and say, “I was a helper at school today because that’s what Apfelstadts do!”
So, we chose words that feel like our personal and family beliefs and got writing.
Our core family values are now in chalk marker in our kitchen—right in plain sight of all guests so they know what we tolerate and what we hold dear. Rather gossip than be generous with your love and kindness? Not in this house.
Remember, this doesn't have to be a huge thing. Don’t feel like you have to spend hours agonizing over every word. I just wrote down what we’re triggered by and what we say to our kids every day, and now, Chris and I are using a much more consistent language that the kids can latch on to.
If you need a little help getting started, Psychology Today gives 10 tips for holding a weekly family meeting:
Keep it up-beat.
Don't try to control participation.
Encourage every person who lives in the home to join the meeting.
Be creative with the meeting space.
Give everyone a chance to lead/record the meeting.
Be creative with the agenda.
End each meeting with a fun experience.
Help each other resolve any issues.
Consult a therapist when necessary.
Remember that it's never too late to become a family.
Hold an annual meeting.
Now, this is more of a leadership meeting as opposed to an all-hands-on-deck meeting. Chris and I have an annual meeting that we jokingly call the "Apfelstadt Incorporated Annual Meeting." As two entrepreneurs, it feels natural that we would run (parts of) our marriage like a successful business, too.
We’ll go to a space outside the home, set goals and a vision for the upcoming year, review what worked and what didn’t the year before, look at finances and dream. We thoughtfully make decisions for the year ahead that put us on a path toward where we want to be as a family.
Those sessions have been critical. Two entrepreneurs moving a thousand miles an hour? We must know we’ll have a couple hours to sit and discuss one topic and make decisions. This is also when we book where we’ll take a family trip that year. It’s when we decided to take the month—yes, the whole month—of July off for travel every year. (More on that in an upcoming post.)
When we take this 30,000-foot view, we’re able to ensure that family comes first and then build everything else around that.
Be real.
If something hard is happening in my personal life, I know I can share it with my treetree team.
Similarly, when something challenging is happening in the businesses, we don’t shy away from sharing it with the kids in a way that’s appropriate for their age. We help them understand both good and not-so-good things happen at work and that’s okay. We don't tiptoe around describing what’s happening in the business. I look forward to when they are old enough to help us think through business problems at the dinner table and imagine how they might act or respond. We're trying to develop strong intuition, smart strategies and compassion.
If something tough happened, I can tell my kids that the day was really hard. Chances are, I'll have trouble hiding it. And it feels better to be real. Or, if I have a big day ahead, I can say, “Mama is feeling nervous. I have a BIG day at treetree. Wish me luck!” Because we talk about it, the kids understand Daddy's "busy season" and count down the days until he can join them again at every bedtime each week.
Staying present helps me bring my whole self to every situation, whether I’m at home or at the treehouse.