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Do You Need to Be Single to Be Successful?

Entrepreneurial Backgrounds

Do You Need to Be Single to Be Successful?

Written by Jay Shapiro for Gaebler Ventures

There's no doubt about it, a new love interest can eat into work time and occupy your thoughts to the detriment of your business. But this is usually temporary. Or is it? Do you need to be single to be successful?

That new girlfriend/boyfriend of yours was not only really besotted with you, s/he was mega impressed by the fact that you own and run your own company.

That's great, it's nice to be appreciated and admired. And if you're really into them too, what could possibly go wrong, and how could the union harm your business?

If your new partner isn't and/or hasn't been in business themselves they will find it hard to comprehend your dedication. When they want to go out to dinner, you're still finishing up at the office. When you've planned to curl up together in front of a corny made for TV movie, your cell phone rings and it's a business call you simply have to take.

Resentment can quickly build up in such situations. Why didn't you email your partner today? After all, they argue, you're online dealing with business emails, what would it take to send them a little 'I love you' whilst you're at it?

It doesn't work that way. Any entrepreneur with savvy will know that when the work hat is on it is on firmly. Switch that for the 'loved up' hat and strange things happen to the thought processes. Instead of thinking product and customers services, you start thinking, presents and cuddling! Not good.

Does this mean that the only way to run a successful business is to be a single person? Let's hope not! We human beings are designed to partner – think of the success of matchmaking/dating websites and therein lies a clue. What most of us aspire to is a good loving relationship. But many of us want that good and loving partnership to be lived out against the backdrop of a comfortable lifestyle. What ensures that we attain the desired level of comfort, the dream lifestyle? Money. Money earned by your business.

If romantic distractions pull focus from business commitments then things need a rethink. It's not easy for an outsider to understand how dedicated you need to be to run your own company. And many partners, loving though they may be, might misinterpret the amount of time you spend on work commitments as a lack of commitment to the relationship.

Irrational though it may seem, some 'other halves' will view the extra time you put into your business as time that could be spent with them. It then becomes a work versus personal life scenario, and that's never easy to deal with.

So how can you combat this?

Opting to stay single simply because you want to run a good business isn't practical, nor would it be good for your emotional health. Ideally you'd be able to have both a lucrative career and a rewarding love life.

Balance is the keyword and no single area should be made a priority over another. If you really feel your partner is holding you back businesswise it's either the partner that's wrong for you, or, look at it this way, perhaps the business is too demanding per se to ever be truly successful.

Jay Shapiro is a freelance writer based in the UK. Jay has a particular interest in the emotive aspects of the entrepreneur's character. "Alongside the nuts and bolts of business, the character of the person is often the ingredient responsible for success."