LIFE-TRANSFORMING THINGS I LEARNED FROM MEN-Part 4

This is the 4th in a series I began on April 15. Feel free to scroll down to find those other 3 posts (as background for this one).

IN MARRIAGE #1 (1979-1995)
My first husband Pete: In the 15 years I was married to my grad school sweetheart, I learned a lot about men, myself, and relationships. Being married, of course, I learned a lot about what love and commitment really mean. But, the most-valuable lesson Pete taught me was this: I have what it takes to be my own boss and run my own company. As with the grad school experience, being self-employed was something I’d never considered. I’d worked in two corporate jobs after school and saw myself as a “team player”—not an entrepreneur.

But, when Pete left his corporate job a year into our marriage to open his own audio-visual production company, I got a firsthand look at how to start and run a business, do the marketing needed to attract clients, and handle the accounting, tax, and financial aspects involved with being an independent contractor. And he had enough faith in my abilities to ask me to be his business partner—a huge self-esteem boost, I must say, at age 30. I assisted him with many of the above-mentioned tasks as part of the company we ran together and learned the ins and outs of operating a small company. Even more valuable, though, was what I learned about surviving the inevitable ups and downs and ebbs and flows of being an entrepreneur in fluctuating economic times.

Since I’m still an entrepreneur (now running two businesses), what I learned from Pete serves me very well today too. But it was truly life-saving back in 1995 when I left our marriage and became a single income earner again. When you’re self-employed and don’t know when your next paycheck will come, you learn to be not just flexible but also innovative, patient, and resilient. The most important things I learned were to NOT worry about cash flow and to always have a backup plan. Everything would eventually work out if I just kept networking, working hard for my current clients, contacting potential clients, and maintaining a positive outlook. And, if things didn’t work out, I’d find a full-time job.
P.S. I never had to look for a full-time job. For 16 years, things have worked out just fine.