The Untold Story of the Entrepreneur's Wife: How to Permanently Exit Your Old Norm & Thrive in Your New Entrepreneurial Lifestyle

By Amy Stefanik and Kevin Harrington

The Untold Story of the Entrepreneur’s Wife guides entrepreneurial couples to permanently exit the “norm” and thrive in their new entrepreneurial lifestyle.

When people talk about entrepreneurs, they always talk about the entrepreneur’s journey and their climb to the top with all of the pits and peaks that create their hero’s journey. But they rarely speak about the entrepreneur’s family and their efforts and struggles on the road to success. There is a false belief that says being with an entrepreneur is highly desirable and that being the wife of a business owner is glamorous and exciting. Sure, it has its perks. But the truth is, entrepreneurs’ wives are sometimes forced into a life of singularity and loneliness, and they are in need of a roadmap to navigate the unique hurdles that come along with that life.

In The Untold Story of the Entrepreneur’s Wife, coach Amy Stefanik shows her perspective that being an entrepreneur’s wife is not all doom and gloom to entrepreneurial couples. Entrepreneurial families learn how to harness the Unmistakable Entrepreneur Mindset to lay the "Fort Knox" Entrepreneurial Family Foundation and build an Unshakable Entrepreneurial Marriage. The most valuable lessons are not discovered on the highest mountain peaks, in the good and easy times, but in the valleys. Amy shares her tools with entrepreneurial families for when they find themselves in the valley and helps them transform “married to the business” to “the secret weapon” to becoming an unstoppable entrepreneurial power couple!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642790818

Book preview

A MINDSET SHIFT

1

IN THE BEGINNING

OUR STORY STARTED like many others when Matt and I were introduced to one another by a mutual friend that happened to be my neighbor. At age twenty, I’d just gotten out of a long, somewhat tumultuous relationship, and so, at the time, I didn’t want to get into a serious relationship. A Florida girl my whole life, I’d grown up in Lakeland, a city west of Orlando once known for its citrus crops, first planted by the earliest settlers in the mid-1800’s. It was a place where people were often born and raised, and they married one another and started their own families, an area where everyone knew everyone.

Originally from Ohio, Matt was twenty-one and a college basketball player. He had come to attend the University of South Florida in Tampa, about a half-hour’s drive from where I lived. When we first met, it was a bit awkward. But as Matt talked about his desire to get into real estate, I became intrigued by this northern guy’s visions for his future. It was my first glimpse that Matt wanted to be an entrepreneur.

The next weekend was our first date, a group date really, and Matt and I joined friends for dinner and drinks. I found myself drawn to the good-looking, dark-haired guy that was so different from the boys I’d grown up around. The more he talked, the more I realized Matt’s visions were much broader than the hunter-type outdoorsy guys I’d known. I loved his energy and the way he saw the world as a huge place filled with opportunity for anyone willing to get a piece of it. Although I couldn’t identify it at the time, Matt had an entrepreneurial mindset, and as handsome as he was, I was especially drawn to his positivity and his desire to succeed. It was like he recognized the endless possibilities that awaited him, if only he worked for them.

When we first met, Matt and I both lived in apartments, and we each had a roommate. I also had a sweet one-year-old daughter, whose father I had married as soon as I’d graduated high school. Divorced for just six months when I met Matt, I was a young, single mother, much to the chagrin of my traditional parents who would celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary a few years later. Mom and Dad felt that marriage was ‘for life.’ Although I’d known my daughter’s father since we were both thirteen, everyone agreed that I’d made an error in judgment when I married him just after high school.

As the youngest of their seven children, Mom and Dad were concerned for my future as a single mother, but they were equally enamored with their granddaughter, a constant fixture in their lives. Raised in a strict Christian family, my values were instilled at a young age and reinforced throughout my life, and I knew I’d raise my daughter in the same way. Maybe those values were the catalyst for my decision to leave my husband when I didn’t like how our relationship began changing. Whatever the reason, I was glad I did since it led to the opportunity to date Matt.

The more I knew him, the more I liked him. After six months, Matt and I decided to live together in Sarasota, located on the southwestern coast of Florida and at the southern end of Tampa Bay. About half the size of Lakeland, Sarasota is an area known for cultural events, beaches, and resorts. It is also home to the famed Ringling circus family’s palatial mansion that stands as testament to the American Dream. Little did I know that Matt and I were on the cusp of building our own version of the American Dream