Building My Business with My Daughter by My Side
When I had my daughter, I made the choice to quit my program management role at Amazon to be with her full time. She had many unexpected Occupational and Physical Therapy appointments, we had two elderly dogs, my husband was traveling often for work, and I was overwhelmed. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and often think back to when I would use Microsoft Publisher's tools to make brochures or flyers for a pretend business, so I thought maybe this was the time to think about it and create some flexibility for our family.
It started as Hire Possibilities - consulting with job seekers and hiring managers to help them improve their job interview skills, and that has been a blast. This year, I decided to expand the business to include handy services when my favorite handyman of over ten years retired and I knew I'd need to find someone just as trusted to work with (and that his other customers would too!).
When I first started my business, I did it as I do everything - cautiously and carefully crossing everything off the list. My daughter didn't see it. I started getting a lot of questions like "why don't you work?" while I was elbow deep in dishes in the sink. I was seeing societal conditioning through my daughter's eyes - my labor was also invisible to her and it became more and more important for me to explicitly show her all of the things I do day in and day out.
Now, with Hire Possibilities Home, she is thrilled that someday I may have the skills to be a "handy woman". When I pick her up from school, she asks me what I did while she was there and I tell her about all of the tasks needed to run the business. I tell her about the amazing handy people I've found and have been working with. She helps me put stamps on postcards to tell Seattleites about the new business. And today, she decided to draw me an advertisement storyboard for the business - pretty fun (the only issue I have with it is that she has ME screwing things in in her second picture - my skills are not quite there!):
This makes me excited. Not only does she see more of the work I'm putting into everything I do, but she's learning how I do it. She's watching me make mistakes and learn from them, without giving up. She's just as excited as me to provide handy women (and men!) with more opportunities so they can have flexible schedules and have time with their families. When she was little, "construction worker" was one of the first jobs she wanted to have (as well as teacher, mom and singer), and she never thought twice about it because no one has ever told her she couldn't do it if she wanted to. While we have a ways to go, this feels like a big step up from growing up in the '90s. I'm excited to keep going and see the progress we're able to make with Hire Possibilities Home 5, 10 or 25 years from now.
Are you also excited about supporting women in the trades? Reach out - I would love to partner with you and build community together!