Stay at home Dad time is a very special time. It is the time that most Dads and quite a few Moms miss out on. Stay at home Dad time starts from the moment you wake up, or your kids wake you up, until around 5:30 or 6pm. From then on until the kids are in bed is “regular Dad” time. I make sure my kids are in bed at around 8 – 8:30 pm, so that leaves about two solid hours of time. In my opinion, NOT enough time for regular Dad time!

And yes, being a stay at home Dad means you are at home or with your family all day long! To me, that’s the whole point. It is to be there and have the experiences that Mom usually tells Dad about when he gets home, like: “Macy took her first step today, I wish you were here to see it!” There are certain things that I would much rather experience first hand. My family is one of them.

Yesterday, I asked this question to my Facebook friends: “If you were a stay at home Dad, what would you do today?” One lady got upset because I didn’t ask about stay at home moms, another was grateful her husband isn’t home all day right now and one guy told me that he would be getting “thrown up on and (with more profanity) pooped on. Hi ho, Hi ho it’s off to work I go.” It’s amazing to see the different perspectives and priorities others have in their lives. For the most part, it was a negative perspective.

Sure, anyone can be a stay at home Dad, especially if you have yourself a “sugar Momma” right? She makes the money and you stay at home with the kids. I sure hope you can live with yourself! It’s one thing to have the ability to stay at home and another to have the ability to be a stay at home Dad making CEO level income.

So right now, two of my girls are in school, my one year old is napping and I am working. Instead of my girls coming home from school and having to wait for their Dad to get home from work, I am here at home eagerly waiting for my kids to get home from school. It is a very good switch.

I wake up every morning on my terms, not on a time clocks terms or an employers terms, MY terms. If you can understand what it would be like to have every day as a Saturday, do it. Except, when you want to go to the pool or to a popular spot, there’s nobody else there. They all have things going on and here it is in the middle of the week for you. It’s so refreshing.

The purpose of writing this post is not to brag in any way. It’s to educate you of a completely different lifestyle that most people will never realize exists. It just involves stepping out of the norm, or what everyone else expects you to be doing for a living, and into the creative. That’s all it takes!

Today I received a phone call from a friend telling me that my kids school was in Lock Down. There had been reports of a man wearing a trench coat, carrying a gun, walking around the school grounds. Needless to say, I dropped what I was doing and headed to the school. I live about two blocks away and was there in no time.

My intent was to check my two girls out of school and bring them home. So I pulled into the parking lot, got out of my car and started walking towards the front doors of the school. About half way there I was approached by a police officer decked out in his tactical gear asking me what I was doing. I told him that I had heard about the guy with the gun and wanted to check my kids out of school. He informed me that they were not letting anyone in or out of the school until they could verify that the area was secure. My immediate reaction was to get angry and throw a fit. They were my kids and I wanted to check them out of school right then. Instead of putting on a scene, I knew that there were about 20 to 30 police officers surrounding the school, my kids were safe.

I simply asked, “Well how long will it take for you to verify that the area is secure?” He told me that it would take about 30 minutes to an hour. So I said, “Okay! I’ll be back in 30 minutes!”

I went home, just furious at the possibility that this could happen here, at my childrens school. If you are a parent you can imagine the thoughts that would be going through your head if this had happened to you. 30 minutes later I showed up at the school, I asked the same police officer if everything was secure and within a few minutes they made the decision to allow students to leave.

The principle was almost in tears. I was the first and only parent there to pick up my children. The second person there was a reporter from the local newspaper. The office wasn’t even getting flooded with phone calls yet. I checked my kids out of school and they are home with me now. That is the safest place for them to be, right here with me!

I can tell you this much, I am glad that I have chosen to work from home. Whether it’s a school play, swim lessons in the summer or a potential disaster at school, I am always there!

I am a stay at home Dad, and I am glad I am! Don’t ever get so caught up in your own life that you forget what is most important in the lives of those you love. It’s you!

A man was walking down a street. It was a very nice street with all kinds of shops, restaurants and people. It was the most prosperous street in town and this certain man was having a fantastic time. He was headed to a restaurant he had heard about and lunch time was approaching. Well, before eating the best meal he would ever have, he looked at a wall down an alley, and read something someone wrote. It said, “This is the worst street in the world. Don’t eat the food, it’s the worst food you will ever have and it costs way too much!” Well, naturally, the guy decided not to eat at the restaurant, which is also the choice that most people would make. Only very few actually go into the restaurant after reading the writing on the wall. These very few are the people that enjoy the best food and will continue to return to the restaurant regardless of what someone else says, because they know first hand and create their own opinions. It turns out, the guy who wrote that comment on the wall, which is graffiti, lives just below it in a cardboard box.

The internet is a wall full of graffiti from people who have been offended, found fault, found what they thought were greener pastures or just plainly quit. That’s why it is there. They can’t blame themselves for their own failure. That would be crazy right?! So they make their blame public by using the internet.

I mean, someone could walk into paradise and still find something wrong with it if they were looking for it. Right!? Thus is life. As an example, I live near Phoenix Arizona. I’m not saying that Phoenix is paradise okay, but when it rains, it cools off the entire town, and for a brief moment, can be paradisical. It only rains a few times a year there and people were actually complaining about the rain, wishing it would stop. This is proof that people will complain about anything, regardless of what a blessing it is.

Ten times out of ten, the guy to listen to is definitely not the guy who moves from one opportunity to the next, hoping that it will be better than the last. And ten times out of ten, the ones to listen to are not the bums writing graffiti in forums. The ones to listen to are the people who have created success. It just makes sense! You just have to ask yourself the questions, “Who do want to become like?” If you want to be a graffiti bum, take advice from the graffiti bum. If you want to be outrageously successful, take advice from the outrageously successful. Simple!

I eagerly await the day when the majority of the people take the advice of someone successful over the opinion of 30 people who are not. Following the majority has never been the way to create success in life. Otherwise, everyone would be outrageously successful. If you are following the majority, chances are, your results are just like the majority, average! Ask Albert Einstein if he followed the majority, Abraham Lincoln, Michael Jordan. There a leaders and there are followers. A follower, is not a leader.

It turns out, the restaurant owner in the story decides to leave the statement on the wall that deters so many people and is glad it is there. Why? It’s because he now gets the perfect customer. The customer who is loyal and returns often and tells all his other loyal friends about this great restaurant. The statement on the wall keeps out the ones who would have found fault, even in paradise! It keeps the ones out that are “wishy-washy” in their decisions and jump from one thing to the next. It keeps out the ones who are terrified to experience change. It keeps out the followers of the majority. The graffiti bum has actually done the restaurant owner a huge favor!

You, the one reading this, might be the one who bases decisions on what the graffiti says. If it is you, I hope you are enjoying “average!”

Choose to be the one out of 30 who can see past the graffiti and the bum living below it, who was the author of it.

Everyone starts a home based business for their own reasons. For some it’s for the nice home, the fancy cars, the gadgets and the nice clothes. For others it’s for the time freedom. Some people may just want to start a home business to do something different than what they are currently doing or just to get away from their job. Every single individual has their own reason. This reason, is unique, and powerful and is the fuel behind their success. It is the reason they will either fail or succeed. If their desire to obtain this “reason” is strong enough, they will succeed.

The purpose of this post is not to educate you all on the will to succeed. It’s to discuss the importance of having a reason, and knowing when you have obtained your reason.

To give you a quick example, our reason for starting a home based business initially was to make money. At least we thought that was the main reason. We had a mortgage staring at us in the face, bills that were piling up and a shortage of income to make all our ends meet. But once the money started coming in, we found out our true reason. We could have gotten a second job to make ends meet, but we were looking for so much more. We were looking for the lifestyle, the lifestyle that would allow us to spend more time together.

So many parents rarely see their children due to their work. They are not the primary influence in the lives of their children. After missing eight months out of the first year of my oldest daughters life, we made a decision to change. We weren’t about to see our children grow up without us.

Now that I look at my life, I have everything I set out to get by starting my home business. Amy and I were sitting on the back porch, reflecting on some of our goals and thinking of the life we have created for ourselves. The youngest was down for a nap, and Amy brought up our main reason for getting started with this business opportunity. It was to bring Daddy home, to make the income to support our lifestyle and to use that income to travel the world and enjoy each other. We have obtained all that we came here for. Anything we do beyond that is extra and adds to our main reason.

Four years ago when we made the decision to get started, to leave the job and to create our new future, we really had no idea how sweet it would really be. Now that we are living it, it really is that sweet.

Living your reason, your ideal life, is not a difficult thing to do. It just involves making a big choice….and then following through with passionate consistent action. And trust me, it’s a lot closer than you think…..and has always been within your grasp!

Sometimes, working from home can be a struggle. What? Did I just say that working from home can be a struggle? I must be out of my mind right? I mean, you don’t have to get up early, go to a job, take orders, work for a wage, deal with corporate politics, worry about employees, leave the house and miss out on your children growing up. There are a ton of perks and very few negatives about working from home. It has been a huge blessing to my family and I. We love it.

Let me share an example with you of something that can kill your work day progress. Her name is Macy. She is just over one year old, she loves her Dad and I love her, but she cries when she can’t have Dad. Also, I have Kyla and Saydee who are seven and five who also require Dad’s attention. Saydee is not in school yet and is a bored hyper little girl. She can only color, play Wii, play barbies, jump on the trampoline or ride her bike alone for so long before it isn’t fun anymore and she is back to being bored. Kyla gets home from school mid afternoon and is excited to be home and is ready to go do stuff. All of this is why I work from home, I love it. But, if I let it distract my work day, it can be very damaging to my success.

Now, for me, I have to designate a period of separation from my kids in order to be effective. I can’t be holding Macy and type on the computer at the same time. Some people may be able to pull this off. My wife is actually a very talented one hand typer and is probably faster one handed than I am with two. I just can’t do it.

So what we do, is we have an office. A room where I can escape from the kids for a few hours to work. We have established some rules around this office time so that the kids know that I am working and not to interrupt. We made it fun for the girls and helped them make a sign for my door. They know that when the sign is up, Dad is working. It’s kind of funny, I get reminded at least twice a day what the sign means when it is turned one way or the other. They take ownership in the rules. Now, does this work 100% of the time? No! But is sure does help.

I usually work from 2pm to 5 pm every day, Monday through Thursday. Fridays I work in the morning for about an hour. That’s it! The important thing is that my wife and children know when I start work and when I finish work. I have my DMO (Daily Method of Operation) established. There is no frustration of not getting that chance to get some work done because it is planned into my day. I don’t ever get to the end of my day thinking of all the things I have to get done because I never had the opportunity to do it that day. Three hours of focused, uninterrupted work is better than 8 hours of unfocused mediocre work.

If you are a single parent with children at home, plan to work around your lifestyle, not settling for excuses of why you can’t do it. Plan to do it. Work during nap time, before they wake up, after they go to sleep or while they are away at school. Make it a priority and it will happen. It just has to be planned in.

There are some days where all I require is my phone and people to talk to. Those days we are most likely out on the road living the lifestyle. Other days, I am marketing to find those people to talk to. Give and get!

Honestly, there is no comparison to the lifestyle I enjoy. No other business opportunity on the planet can even hold a candle to this. I love my life and have complete control over my time, whether with children or without. They are definetely not distractions, they are not a burden, they just love their Dad. Every time I go into my office, I go there because of them. I am always home while most Dads hardly ever are, and I will never take that for granted.

What other methods have you found effective in managing your home life while working from home. Your feedback is appreciated!