Latest / Your Money, Your Rules | Financial Mastery, Wealth Mindset, Leadership Principles, Intuitive Decision-Making, Human Design / 219 | What I Learned Helping Dissolve My Family’s Business Partnership (Part 1 of 3)
Transcript
- 0:01Erin Gray: You know, I've been thinking a lot about business partnerships recently.
- 0:05Erin Gray: I've been involved in three very different, distinct business partnerships throughout my life.
- 0:11Erin Gray: And each one of them has taught me a lot about people, about money, about business, about relationships, and definitely myself.
- 0:18Erin Gray: The first was my family's construction business, where my dad and two uncles were originally the partners.
- 0:24Erin Gray: And then I came into that business that was already established, 30 years in the making, with years of history, business history, family dynamics.
- 0:32Erin Gray: And I came into, that was probably my first assignment, was to let my one of my uncles be released from the partnership and then reform or redesign the partnership to just have it be my dad and my uncle.
- 0:46Erin Gray: And so I became very involved in helping, that was my first task of helping them dissolve that partnership to then reform just a partnership between my dad and my uncle.
- 0:55Erin Gray: And looking back, I think one of the biggest things that I've learned is that just because you can see what's possible for people and the business and the vision, and that is one of my gifts, it doesn't mean that everyone else or other people involved actually see it the same way or actually even want what I see for that vision.
- 1:16Erin Gray: So I decided I'm gonna do a three-part series about what business partnerships have taught me.
- 1:20Erin Gray: And today I'm gonna start with my family's business, what I witnessed, what I learned, what I didn't understand at the time, what I see differently today, and how I approach my business partnership with my husband so vastly differently than probably I would have 10 or 15 20 years ago because I experienced all of these different partnerships along the way.
- 1:41Erin Gray: So let's dive in.
- 1:43Erin Gray: So I decided to do this three-part series because I've been thinking a lot about business partnerships.
- 1:48Erin Gray: I feel like I've come full circle, definitely with, you know, in the last couple of months and what my husband and I are creating in our tree service business.
- 1:56Erin Gray: And I have mentored several clients in dissolutions of partnerships or contemplating a dissolution of a partnership.
- 2:04Erin Gray: And I think that this is something that for those of you that might be in a partnership or have dissolved a partnership, I think it's a really important topic because I think it always ultimately comes back to us.
- 2:14Erin Gray: And so when I came on in 2009, I was 29 years old.
- 2:20Erin Gray: I didn't know anything about dissolutions of partnerships.
- 2:24Erin Gray: I didn't know much when it came to contracts and all of that, taxes and all of that kind of stuff that gets involved when you dissolve or break up, basically, you know?
- 2:36Erin Gray: And I came on my dad asking me, like, hey, come help me with a little couple of things.
- 2:41Erin Gray: It was very innocent and naive of come and help me.
- 2:44Erin Gray: I don't have anybody I can trust.
- 2:46Erin Gray: Come and work with me.
- 2:48Erin Gray: And that was my first assignment, if you want to call it.
- 2:51Erin Gray: My uncle had recently left in July.
- 2:54Erin Gray: I came in, I believe, in like August.
- 2:56Erin Gray: Like we basically crossed paths.
- 2:58Erin Gray: And when I say left, I don't necessarily mean that whole thing was already dissolved.
- 3:02Erin Gray: It just he was like, I'm done working here.
- 3:05Erin Gray: And to say that the dynamic between my two uncles and my dad was contentious is very kind.
- 3:12Erin Gray: It was a very upsetting, and there was a lot of, I think, betrayal between all three of them.
- 3:19Erin Gray: I think that it was very contentious.
- 3:21Erin Gray: It was, it was fraught with a lot of what we call lower vibrations emotions, you know, of anger and frustration and betrayal and hurt ultimately.
- 3:31Erin Gray: Like that's really where that comes from.
- 3:34Erin Gray: And so I came in to ultimately it was to help with the family business and to streamline some things financially, but I kind of, how can you not get thrown into this situation?
- 3:47Erin Gray: Because this is what kind of was the most poignant point or poignant part in their business life at the time.
- 3:54Erin Gray: It was unraveling my uncle, one of my uncles.
- 3:57Erin Gray: And to be honest or to share completely, he ended up going and creating the exact same type of business that they all did together a mile down the road.
- 4:07Erin Gray: So I think that there was a lot of anger there between all three of them.
- 4:12Erin Gray: And I remember kind of sitting back and thinking about, I may have not had the language back then to describe this, but I just remember thinking there's a lot of hurt here, and we're acting from that place of hurt versus doing our work and meeting our needs and then responding.
- 4:31Erin Gray: And what do we actually want to create from that place?
- 4:35Erin Gray: So at the time, what I believed about people, about business, and mind you, I didn't use the language that I use now, but it was very much so abundance-based.
- 4:47Erin Gray: I remember we were getting because I didn't know about non-competes back then.
- 4:53Erin Gray: I didn't know about the contracts, I didn't know about courts, all of that kind of stuff.
- 4:57Erin Gray: And I remember asking my dad at that point, why don't we just go focus on what we do best?
- 5:03Erin Gray: Because we were one of very few in the state of Texas that actually had a certain part of our business that we operated in.
- 5:10Erin Gray: And I said, very few people know how to do this.
- 5:12Erin Gray: Why don't we focus on this and expand this and grow this and focus our attention and our energy there?
- 5:19Erin Gray: And I don't remember exactly what my dad said to me, but it was definitely along the lines of, you know, he was really angry and upset with my uncle and what my uncle had done.
- 5:30Erin Gray: And because it wasn't just, hey, I want to leave, it was some maneuvering for a year in the background without my dad and my other uncle knowing and setting up shop.
- 5:40Erin Gray: And to be fair, there probably wasn't honesty between all three of them, right?
- 5:43Erin Gray: Like, was there conversations that were had?
- 5:45Erin Gray: Were there hard conversations that were had?
- 5:47Erin Gray: I obviously I wasn't in the room, or Nora was I privy to that before I came on.
- 5:52Erin Gray: I just came on at the end of when the dissolution was happening and we needed to take care of this.
- 5:57Erin Gray: And I just remember thinking, like, we're spending so much time and energy and money and resources and employees, you know, because the employees had to go to court as well.
- 6:08Erin Gray: And I just remember thinking like we could be better using our time and our energy of what we actually wanted versus focusing on what we don't want.
- 6:18Erin Gray: Now, like I say, with everything is nuanced, everything you have to run it through your filter.
- 6:22Erin Gray: So I'm not saying that, you know, if someone is taking you through the ringer to just, oh, put a happy smile on your face and deal with it.
- 6:29Erin Gray: And I also think that you have to really go back to what is the energy that I am in when I am taking this action.
- 6:36Erin Gray: And I don't know if my dad and my uncle had what I call clean energy and neutral energy in what they were doing.
- 6:43Erin Gray: So I do know that I believed that there was plenty of business for both of us, meaning my uncle that went off on his own, as well as my dad and my uncle's business that I was operating in.
- 6:53Erin Gray: And I just was very perplexed as to why we couldn't just focus on what we did so great and focus on the customers and focus on what we wanted to grow versus focusing more on that scarcity and lack mindset.
- 7:08Erin Gray: And, you know, when I came on, obviously I'd come from financial planning.
- 7:12Erin Gray: So even though I had worked with small business owners in that realm, I hadn't worked with them in the sense of contracts and non-compete, and I don't know if we did NDAs or not, but you know, the dissolution and the back and forth and how it works to dissolve a partnership and what are the tax implications of that?
- 7:33Erin Gray: And how does all of that get rebuilt in the way that you want it to be built now with this new partnership?
- 7:40Erin Gray: So all of that was a learning for me and a fast track of like how things work from that dissolution standpoint.
- 7:48Erin Gray: And I think, you know, that's very 3D, like what I didn't understand then.
- 7:52Erin Gray: But I think also from the emotional and the energetic standpoint, what it really did show me is that if you aren't aware, if you aren't doing your mindset work, if you aren't taking care of your emotions and seeing where did you have a play in this, that people really do let sometimes allow their emotions to drive the show versus feeling and processing the hurt that they felt, right?
- 8:17Erin Gray: And I'm not saying that we're not supposed to be hurt or, you know, if you're the one that is getting told, hey, I don't want to be in a partnership with you anymore.
- 8:25Erin Gray: I'm not saying that that's not part of the process.
- 8:28Erin Gray: What I am saying is that we do have a responsibility, all of us, to see where did we have a part in this?
- 8:36Erin Gray: Where did we not own our responsibility or our mindset when it came to this partnership?
- 8:42Erin Gray: Where did we let things slide so far to where it got to the point of being so frustrated that the only option you thought was out?
- 8:53Erin Gray: And maybe you still would decide to leave, even if you know you do all of the mindset work.
- 8:59Erin Gray: But at the end of the day, the energy that you come from is very different than coming from those lower vibration emotions of feeling anger and betrayal and frustration and things of that sort.
- 9:10Erin Gray: And maybe it's the sensitive person in me, the one that reads the room and can tell who's upset and who's like that is a gift that I have.
- 9:19Erin Gray: But one of the things that I didn't understand is how we could let money and business dictate or destroy relationships.
- 9:28Erin Gray: Like Christmas has changed.
- 9:30Erin Gray: You know, my grandfather started this business and some of us didn't go to Christmas anymore because they couldn't stand to be in the room with another person.
- 9:38Erin Gray: And I just was always so curious and fascinated by that, why we would let something, when you really scan out and you look at the big picture, why we would let something like money and business destroy or dictate what the relationship moving forward was.
- 9:54Erin Gray: I know that it really impacted my grandma a lot.
- 9:57Erin Gray: It really hurt her that, as she would say, her boys, because there were three boys, my dad and two uncles, that her boys couldn't get along.
- 10:04Erin Gray: And I'm not saying to sweep things underneath the rug.
- 10:07Erin Gray: I'm not saying that, you know, when you have a partner who's not pulling their weight that it that you're responsible for them.
- 10:12Erin Gray: That's not what I'm saying.
- 10:14Erin Gray: And also, how can we dissolve if that's what we're choosing to do?
- 10:17Erin Gray: How can we do that from the most loving place?
- 10:20Erin Gray: Like, I don't know if love was the center of all of the decisions that were made.
- 10:26Erin Gray: And I think the thing that I took with me and understand at a deeper level now, and obviously I'll, you know, my next episode, I'll talk about my business partnership with my business partner that I ended up leaving, is that it's really important to embody this work, to do your mindset work, to do the emotional work.
- 10:46Erin Gray: I think everyone is a mirror.
- 10:47Erin Gray: And so when we are having triggers with our partners, that's showing us something within ourselves.
- 10:54Erin Gray: Now, don't use this to gaslight yourself because that's kind of how I used to take this, you know, knowledge or wisdom.
- 11:00Erin Gray: And I would be like, okay, well, there's something, there must be something wrong with me.
- 11:03Erin Gray: If you're one of those people who's like, there's something must be wrong with me, that's not the case.
- 11:08Erin Gray: It's not true.
- 11:09Erin Gray: And also I think that when we, when we are having someone just like a marriage, right?
- 11:15Erin Gray: Business partnership is like a marriage.
- 11:17Erin Gray: When we have someone that is creating the experience and we are feeling some emotion, there's something there that we need to look at.
- 11:26Erin Gray: You know, maybe for me, I had to understand that I was giving my power away to other people.
- 11:32Erin Gray: I was letting them drive the bus when really I needed to be driving the bus.
- 11:36Erin Gray: I was not owning my brilliance and my gifts, and I was thinking someone else did it better or whatever.
- 11:43Erin Gray: So I think the things that it taught me about money and business and people and relationships is that when we are hurt and we don't do the mindset and the emotional work, we act from that place of hurt and we want to hurt others versus recognizing where's the gift here, where is the silver lining?
- 12:04Erin Gray: The how is this actually happening for me, for me to transcend, for me to elevate, for me to develop, versus it's happening to me.
- 12:13Erin Gray: And I think also, too, what it taught me is you have to be willing to have hard conversations and hard, you know, in that realm, like I'm air quoting, but like whatever hard feels like.
- 12:22Erin Gray: It's more so of a feeling, right?
- 12:24Erin Gray: What are the conversations that you're avoiding having?
- 12:27Erin Gray: Do you even have boundaries?
- 12:28Erin Gray: Do you even have set, you know, what your partner's supposed to be doing and what you're doing?
- 12:32Erin Gray: And if you do, and you're either not meeting them or they're not meeting them, are you actually having those check-ins and conversations?
- 12:39Erin Gray: I think a lot of times what happens is we don't want to feel uncomfortable or we don't want to feel those emotions that we're feeling in our bodies.
- 12:47Erin Gray: So we don't have the conversation.
- 12:48Erin Gray: And so then we kick the can down the field or down the road, you know, and we don't address those things that need to be addressed.
- 12:55Erin Gray: And it's in those conversations that we're having that there is growth there, that there is growth for us and it's growth for them.
- 13:03Erin Gray: And are we willing, you know, I always come back to are we willing to have conversations about what we're feeling and what we're thinking and where the partnership is going.
- 13:13Erin Gray: And in order to have a partnership, if you decide you want to stay, in order to have a partnership the way you really want to, there has to be complete honesty and authenticity of who you are and what you want and what your partner or partners do.
- 13:28Erin Gray: And even though I've had, you know, this experience with my family's business, and then I had and I left my business partnership, and then now I'm in with my husband in our partnership, talking to so many other people that were in either family businesses or lots of attorneys that I used to work with, they were in partnerships.
- 13:46Erin Gray: And there was this common thread.
- 13:47Erin Gray: It was this, I don't want to actually have these harder conversations, or it's almost like keeping the peace, which is a very subtle way of people pleasing.
- 13:56Erin Gray: And so I would encourage you to think about if you are in a partnership, where are you people pleasing to keep the peace?
- 14:02Erin Gray: And what is that actually creating for you and inside of you?
- 14:06Erin Gray: You know, when I after working through all of that dissolution of that partnership and then going into my partnership with my previous business partner, the way that I approached it and what we set up as our LLC and the way that I approached business after having the experience with my family's construction business was that opposite side, right?
- 14:32Erin Gray: I had that contrast.
- 14:33Erin Gray: I saw what occurred in my family's business, the dissolution, the pain that it caused, all three of them, the frustration and the anger that they felt, the missed Christmases, the strain.
- 14:46Erin Gray: And, you know, no one's responsible for how anyone feels.
- 14:50Erin Gray: And also, like I said, I know that it was upsetting to my grandparents that they had created something and that three humans couldn't peacefully decide to move on, that came from that place of frustration and anger.
- 15:05Erin Gray: And I think that it really molded how I set up the business with my previous business partner.
- 15:11Erin Gray: And I was cognizant of like I wanted it to be a win-win if we ever decided to not be in business anymore.
- 15:18Erin Gray: And I think that in that regard, seeing that side in my family's construction business was a helpful experience because then I got to have the other side of like, what did I actually want when I created it with my previous business partner?
- 15:33Erin Gray: And when I think about like, because I've had several clients who I've helped work through dissolutions of partnerships, ironically, not ironically, but I'm always asking them like, what is their energy that they're moving from?
- 15:48Erin Gray: Is this coming from love?
- 15:49Erin Gray: Is this coming from responsibility and owning your part in this?
- 15:53Erin Gray: Is this coming from because sometimes the answer is I'm people pleasing and I need to stand up for myself.
- 15:58Erin Gray: And sometimes the answer is I'm really upset and I'm wanting to do these things because I'm hurt, right?
- 16:04Erin Gray: And that I don't know what that would be for you.
- 16:07Erin Gray: That's why I'm always like, you have to check in with your body, you have to see how you're feeling.
- 16:11Erin Gray: That is something that I think that is really important to always be checking in with is like, what is the energy that I'm coming from?
- 16:17Erin Gray: So I feel like I've come full circle now that I'm partners with my husband.
- 16:21Erin Gray: Next week on the podcast, I'm gonna dive into my experience with my business partnership, what I learned, what I thought about going in, and things that I probably would have done differently moving forward, or had I, you know, had to do it again, what would I have done differently?
- 16:38Erin Gray: And then how it ultimately has shaped how a partnership with my husband now.
- 16:44Erin Gray: And I see how I had to have each of those other two experiences to be where I am now.
- 16:49Erin Gray: And I think that if you are someone who is experiencing do you stay, do you go, I would encourage you that nothing needs to happen quickly.
- 16:59Erin Gray: And when we are trying to rush something, it is because we are trying to feel a feeling and we can feel that feeling right now.
- 17:06Erin Gray: If you're frustrated and you want to feel peace, you get to feel peace even if you have a partner, which I think that was really hard for my uncles to wrap their heads around because that was something that I often talked about with them of like, you don't have to feel anger.
- 17:19Erin Gray: You know, that is a choice.
- 17:20Erin Gray: I know sometimes we don't think it is, and it always is.
- 17:24Erin Gray: We always get to choose how we feel.
- 17:26Erin Gray: So I would encourage you to take your time to think about the impact for you, to think about the impact for them, and what would love do?
- 17:35Erin Gray: What would be the energy of love and compassion and curiosity, and let that shape and navigate how you make your decisions.
- 17:44Erin Gray: So I'll see you in the next episode.
- 17:46Erin Gray: I'll talk about my business partnership, how I got into it, what all occurred during it, and the pivotal moments, and then what I learned to then be able to shape where I am now.
- 17:58Erin Gray: Okay, I'll see you in the next episode.