Entrepreneurs need to get a life
Every small-business owner wants to be a financial success, but most would balk if they knew the eventual price could be their health and happiness.
Unfortunately, that’s the bill that comes due for too many. Swamped by endless to-do lists and juggling multiple roles, business owners typically can’t seem to find enough hours in the day to get it all done. Meanwhile, time for family and recreation, personal growth and fitness -- the reason many entrepreneurs quit their day jobs to start a business -- is often sacrificed along the way.
“A business is supposed to give you more of a life, but what I find for a lot of our clients is that it’s sucking the life out of them,” said Louis Barajas, a financial planner on a mission to create an economic revolution for the underserved working class by helping them make smarter financial choices.
More than 70% of his small-business clients, most of whom are Latino, have been divorced at least once despite the value they place on family, he said.
Barajas used the lessons learned over 17 years of working with clients to create what he believes is the solution. He outlines his plan in his second book, “Small Business, Big Life: Five Steps to Creating a Great Life With Your Own Small Business” (Thomas Nelson), due out this month.
In it he advises small-business owners, and those who aspire to own their own businesses, to step back and focus on the kind of life they want to lead, not on what product or service they want to sell.
Without a life blueprint based on one’s values and responsibilities, and a method to check one’s progress in living up to those values, entrepreneurs don’t have the guidelines they need to make business decisions that support their ultimate goals for personal happiness and health, Barajas writes.
He also pushes the importance of the nuts and bolts of running a small business, particularly the business systems he finds woefully lacking in most new or small companies.
The author’s goal is to help individuals in underserved communities and beyond learn how to build a business that will allow them to achieve financial dignity, including the ability to buy health insurance, pay bills on time and set aside money for a rainy day.
For many in the working class who have little formal education, starting a business is their only hope of achieving financial security, Barajas said.
His other message: A small business should be able to operate eventually without the founder and become an asset that can be sold or passed on to one’s children.
“Most people don’t create businesses; they create a job for themselves,” Barajas said.
The Irvine resident and father of three can attest to the toll extracted by starting a business without a balanced life plan.
Born in Boyle Heights to Mexican immigrants, Barajas attended UCLA on a scholarship and received his master’s in business administration from Claremont Graduate University. He ended up in an ocean-view office at accounting firm Kenneth Leventhal & Co. in the 1980s.
In 1991, he left his high-paid job with the blessing of his wife and opened an accounting and financial planning business over a seafood restaurant in his old East Los Angeles neighborhood.
He expected to be welcomed with open arms.
On the contrary, Barajas barely made $12,000 his first year, sometimes slept in the office to save time for his business and paid his first administrative assistant with funds from his credit card.
Within a few years, he was divorced and at odds with a business partner over the direction of the firm. His partner wanted to continue to focus on accounting and bookkeeping services. Barajas had begun to spend more time in outreach, teaching free workshops and trying to address the cultural potholes that he believed derailed his clients’ efforts to achieve financial security.
His first book, “The Latino Journey to Financial Greatness: 10 Steps to Creating Wealth, Security and a Prosperous Future for You and Your Family” (HarperCollins, 2003), was an outgrowth of what he learned in the first decade of his business.
Today Barajas is remarried and runs two small businesses in Santa Fe Springs. Louis Barajas Wealth and Business Planning employs seven and serves primarily Latinos -- families, professionals and entrepreneurs.
A second company is the vehicle for his books, financial planning materials, workshops and national speaking engagements.
Last month, Barajas spoke about Latinos and wealth at Harvard University. He spoke at a retreat Monday for the Financial Planning Assn., a trade group whose board he sat on for two years, about the different business model required to succeed in underserved communities. And he’ll speak at a BookExpo America breakfast in New York next month to promote his new book, which will also be released in Spanish.
Barajas knows that healthy small businesses have a positive economic ripple effect, creating jobs and supporting local communities. For underserved neighborhoods, the positive effect can be vital.
His book seeks to persuade readers to learn the power of “big picture” thinking coupled with solid business operations.
Once blueprints and visions are in place, Barajas believes, small-business owners will have an easier time reaching his first goal for them: to build enough cash flow to eventually hire a team or pay to outsource as much of the business operations as possible. That help is important because it will allow a business owner to devote more time to nonbusiness goals and help build equity that can eventually be sold.
Barajas, who fills his book with stories and humor, also includes an appendix on what he calls “The 22 Temptations of a Small-Business Owner” that cautions against actions such as working longer to overcome business challenges or bringing in unnecessary partners.
For more information about his strategies, go to www.louisbarajas.com.
Barajas has tried to take his own advice to heart.
“I now am home at 5:30,” he said. “I take a month off every year and last night I was at my daughter’s softball game.”
