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For Better or For Work: A Survival Guide for Entrepreneurs and Their Families [Hardcover]

Meg Cadoux Hirshberg
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)

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Book Description

March 5, 2012
Discover how to build a successful business and follow your passions without sacrificing healthy family relationships to the financial and emotional rollercoaster that is entrepreneurship.


How does someone who is obsessed live peacefully with others who are not? That question summarizes the quandary faced by company founders and their families. To answer it, author Meg Cadoux Hirshberg examines the impact for better and for worse of entrepreneurial businesses on families and relationships, and vice versa.


Practically, this is a vital guide to navigating the emotional and logistical terrain of business-building while simultaneously enjoying a fulfilling family life. From the trials of co-habiting with a home-based business to the queasy necessity of borrowing money from family and friends to the complexities of intergenerational succession, no topic is taboo.


Psychologically, this book is a reminder that no entrepreneurial family trudges the hard trail of company-building alone. If you have embarked on such an enterprise, you and your spouse will find comfort and guidance in the experiences of others like you. Meg draws on the struggles and triumphs she and husband Gary Hirshberg experienced as he built Stonyfield Yogurt, and also shares powerful stories and insights from other families, gathered through hundreds of interviews.


For Better or For Work will remind you that the long hours and late nights spent on the business or with the family are worth the effort and will give you tools for making both endeavors successful.


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For Better or For Work: A Survival Guide for Entrepreneurs and Their Families + The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
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Editorial Reviews

Review

''[One of the] 12 Most Anticipated Business Books of 2012.'' -CNBC.com

''[One of the five] most influential, inspirational business books to be published this year...Meg Cadoux Hirshberg's goal is to instill hope in weary entrepreneurs and to help them better manage the difficult balancing act of successfully running both a business and a family.'' -Entrepreneur magazine

''This honest text...should help to navigate the dangerous pitfalls of allowing a business to come and squat in the midst of a family.'' -Financial Times

''An immensely beneficial, contemporary analysis of what makes modern-day working families really work.'' -Kirkus Reviews

''An indispensable tool. '' -Publishers Weekly

''Hirshberg's candid advice is not just refreshing but could prove essential to the success of a new startup...her hard-won lessons for relationship survival are worth more than a read-you might actually want to print them out.'' -Forbes Woman

''Hirshberg is writing about the elephant in the entrepreneurial room. Read For Better or For Work and you'll clear out a lot of that unspoken clutter between you, your business, and your family.'' -Small Business Trends

''Meg Cadoux Hirshberg has given us one of the best descriptions of the entrepreneurial experience that I have ever read. It is quite simply a marvelous book--beautifully written, unflinchingly honest, profoundly true.'' -Bo Burlingham, author, Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big

''Meg brings to life the craziness of entrepreneurship, and offers excellent advice for surviving the madness.'' -Ben Cohen, Cofounder, Ben & Jerry s Ice Cream

''I loved this book! I wish I'd had it when I was trying to start a business and raise my kids. It is wise and wonderful.'' -Eileen Fisher, Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Eileen Fisher

''My wife, Nancy, and I highly recommend that all entrepreneurial families read For Better or For Work. Knowing the reality upfront, you can prepare for it with eyes wide open.'' --Ron Shaich, Founder and Executive Chairman, Panera Bread

About the Author

Meg Hirshberg is a freelance writer, the author of the ''Balancing Acts'' column for Inc. magazine, a highly regarded speaker, and the wife of Gary Hirshberg, founder of Stonyfield Yogurt. Although it took nine painful years to become profitable, Stonyfield is now the largest organic yogurt company in the world. Meg has written two yogurt cookbooks and her writing has appeared in Yankee, New Hampshire magazine, and the Boston Globe magazine, among other publications.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 260 pages
  • Publisher: An Inc. Original (March 5, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0983934002
  • ISBN-13: 978-0983934004
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 1.2 x 6.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #553,839 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars
(33)
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I especially like Meg's writing style. Jon Schallert  |  9 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Must read for entrepreneurs and their families! March 29, 2012
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Being an entrepreneur is tough. Really tough. It hasn't just been challenging for me, it's been challenging for my wife and children. My wife happens to be my business partner, so perhaps this has been tougher than usual, but from what I've heard, for all entrepreneurs with families, the balance between our business and our family is challenging.
I met Meg Hirshberg three weeks ago at SXSW where she spoke with her husband Gary Hirshberg, CEO of Stonyfield Farm, a $300 million yogurt company and the second largest in the U.S. I met her after reading her book For Better or For Work and being really moved and inspired by the stories I read. I was further inspired after hearing Meg talk at SXSW. Inspired as a busy entrepreneur, but also really inspired as the spouse of an entrepreneur.
Meg wrote the book to share what she wished she had known and done before the many years of struggle while growing both a business and a family.

Here are seven lessons I learned from For Better or For Work, a book I very highly recommend, for both entrepreneurs and their families.

1) Turn off the smartphone. Make time every day for your spouse and children, time completely uninterrupted by emails and other notifications. It doesn't always have to be a lot of time, but it does have to be uninterrupted.

2) Prioritize each other's communications. Respect each other enough to put the other at the top of the queue on any given busy day.

3) Take family vacations. No matter how difficult it may seem to find the time or money, find it. It won't make or break the business and it might make the family a lot happier.

4) Befriend other company-building families. For me, Entrepreneur's Organization has been a lifesaver in helping me meet lots of other CEO's and their families, people who know from experience what the roller coaster ride is like.

5) Take frequent inventory. Ask each other how you're doing in balancing work vs. the relationship. And even ask the kids how you're doing and what you can do better.

6) Give each other a voice. The entrepreneur is used to being a boss, and needs a voice at home. But the spouse of an entrepreneur absolutely needs a voice in business decisions that may affect the family as well.

7) Make family dinners a priority. Find time to all sit together in an electronics-free zone, listening to each other and talking (mostly) about stuff besides the business.

I learned these lessons and so much more from reading For Better or For Work, many of which applied to me as an entrepreneur, or spouse of an entrepreneur, but many of which also applied to me as a businessperson, husband and father.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars This is a book for everyone! February 16, 2012
By AmyV
Format:Hardcover
This is a wonderfully readable book about relationships, life and work. Meg Cadoux tells the stories of families in business, but her stories are anything but business like. This is a must read for anyone who is in a family business, anyone who is thinking about starting one and, frankly, anyone at all.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Helpful for non-entrepreneur families too! March 27, 2012
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Very insightful! I'm not an entrepreneur or married to one but I found the book helped me understand what that world is all about. I also think the advice transcends the entrepreneurial family and often applies to the rest of us too, maybe just in lower doses! I highly recommend this book for anyone trying to balance a demanding work life with a rich family life. Told through her own stories and those of others, the author makes her points without a professorial tone or clinical jargon. Well worth the read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST for both business dreamer and their partners
http://iamsocialjustice.com/blog/book-review-for-better-or-for-work-a-survival-guide-for-entrepreneurs-and-their-families-by-meg-cadoux-hirshberg/

I belong to a group of... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Jessica Pettitt
5.0 out of 5 stars JUST IMPRESIVE
I had to take the time to write how impressed I am with this book. I have read books about how make a business successful but never one that taught me how to deal with emotions,and... Read more
Published 4 months ago by anibal
5.0 out of 5 stars I wish I had this vital guide when I started my business 14 years...
This is a must read for any entrepreneur -- and the people who love them. I really appreciated the myriad of stories about other entrepreneurial families and how they make it work. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Lisa D. Landry
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential guidebook for balancing work and family
Business journalist Meg Cadoux Hirshberg's article "Hitched to Someone Else's Dream" appeared in the September 2008 issue of Inc. magazine. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Rolf Dobelli
4.0 out of 5 stars For Better or For Work
Excellent book for start-ups in particular as it relates to the Entrepreneur's family. A must read for someone contemplating starting their own business.
Published 10 months ago by Frank
5.0 out of 5 stars Must-have book for entrepreneurs!
What a joy to read this book and follow along with Meg and Gary Hirshberg and their story of Stonyfield Yogurt! Read more
Published 11 months ago by Wendy Hanson
5.0 out of 5 stars Its about time...
Entrepreneurship is one of the scariest lives one can endeavor upon. There's the life that the entrepreneur him/herself will accept as the "price to pay" for typically an... Read more
Published 13 months ago by JPak
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for aspiring entrepreneurs!!!
This book truly tells it like it is! I recommend it not only to those contemplating the leap to entrepreneurism but the established serial entrepreneur and everyone in between! Read more
Published 13 months ago by 600 lb gorillas
5.0 out of 5 stars This book is a must read!
This book is so insightful. My husband is an entrepreneur and I gleaned an incredible amount of wisdom that has already made our relationship stronger and my connection with his... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Brit
5.0 out of 5 stars The Writing
The other reviewers have explained how profoundly this book will impact your life. I'd like to praise the writing. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Ted Pearlman
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