How I juggled running a Hollywood ad agency from home with a newborn
By: Brian Meert
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Productivity, Entrepreneurship, Beyourself

After watching the virus spread across the nation and the government mandate to shut down non-essential businesses, I was forced to close the office at our Facebook Advertisemint agency in Hollywood and work from home while bringing up an attentive newborn baby girl. I thought it would be a struggle but it turned out to be one of the best experiences of our lives.

1. Have Gratitude

Every day, my wife and I will sit and talk about 10 things we are grateful for, trying not to mention things we’ve already said in the past. This helps us stop for a minute and identify the good things that are happening in life during these storms. This includes good health, a home, food, parents, electricity, warm showers, and the list goes on and on. We have so many blessings, and during crazy moments, it’s often easy to forget all the good things you have in your life.

2. See the Positives

Before COVID-19 hit, I was working 10 to 12 hours a day. I would begin work at seven a.m. and return home at seven or eight in the evening. Always pushing the business forward, always working towards completing another goal. When COVID hit, business slowed, and I no longer needed to commute to the office. I suddenly had an enormous amount of time to spend with my newborn baby girl. In the past three months, I’ve seen her smile and giggle. I’ve sung to her, walked her around the block, read books to her. Because of COVID, I’ve been able to spend more time with her. The first five months have flown by, and I would have missed almost all of those precious moments had I continued on my normal work schedule.

3. Seek Help When Needed

There are a lot of Government programs, such as unemployment and stimulus checks, and business programs, such as the PPP, EIDL, and Main Street Loans. All of these programs were built to help provide assistance during difficult times. My advice is to spend the time to get familiar with these programs and understand how they can work for you. I recommend using these funds to help create opportunities or build something that will help you generate income in a COVID-19 world.

4. Prepare for the Worse

Although I’m an optimistic guy, I really think things are going to get worse before they get better. This means you have to be honest with yourself about your situation. I’ve sold a lot of things around the house on Craigslist and Legto that I no longer need or use. The team moved out of our office building, now working from home. I’m simplifying expenses and preparing for a long term COVID-19 scenario. You need to have an honest discussion about where you are financially and how to live within your means.

5. Use Your Time Wisely

COVID has given us one thing: time. It’s almost awkward how much time we now have. Are you using this time to learn a new skill, work out, apply for jobs, or are you using it to watch Netflix or play video games? This time will come and go, and most likely when COVID-19 is over, we’ll wonder how we utilized the time. My wife and I used our extra time to create a new brand of products to sell on Amazon. We signed up through seller central then ship the products to Amazon warehouses, where they handle all the logistics. It’s one less thing to worry about, and we’re generating additional income.

6. Spend on What Matters the Most

We had expected to reach out to family and friends to ensure the village helped with raising our daughter. However, with COVID-19, we were limited with exposure to friends and our parents, who work in the health and hair care industries; meaning, they were both around people all the time. This meant it was us with the baby all the time. It was rough. To cope, we eventually reached out and found help in the areas where we needed it most. With friends and family out, we had to pay for a nanny who had been quarantining heavily to help us during the day. We had to give up several things, including our car, to help in the areas where needed to get through the situation.

7. Simplify

It’s important to help simplify your life. Focus on the things that make you happy. Spend time with your spouse and your baby. Find ways to simplify by letting go of things that took a lot of your time but didn’t result in happiness.

Brian Meert, CEO of AdvertiseMint (https://www.advertisemint.com), a Facebook Advertising Agency, Author of The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising (https://amzn.to/38oMA9D) and Host to Duke of Digital Podcast (https://www.dukeofdigital.com).