Becoming (and Staying) a Multi-Hyphenate

Jami Furniss launched her first business, a full service marketing company called The Moxie Agency, eight years ago. From there, she founded a weighted blanket company and also went into business with a friend who was starting a restaurant. 

CEO – Entrepreneur – Restaurateur – Mom. It’s safe to say Jami pretty much does it all. 

While you might assume it’s difficult to run businesses that are so different from one another, Jami actually sees her diverse portfolio as an advantage. When she gets stressed out from examining spreadsheets, she can go sink her hands into flour at the restaurant. If staffing at one company is becoming problematic, hopefully it’s possible to refresh by taking a look at the other ones. During our conversation on the podcast, Jami shared some great tips for other entrepreneurs – and frankly, anyone who balances more than one thing – to stay grounded and avoid burnout as much as possible.

Try it yourself: 

• Set physical boundaries to protect your mental space. Especially since the pandemic, the line between many of our personal and professional lives has blurred significantly. Jami is very conscious of wanting to be as present as possible with her kids, so she makes a point to not do work for her businesses while at home. Instead, she might go to a coffee shop and sit outside while getting a few hours of work done or edit a graphic on Canva while sitting in the car alone waiting for her son to finish practice. Do you feel like there is adequate separation between your job and the rest of your life? If not, how can you create physical separation to allow your brain to take itself out of work mode? If it’s not feasible to stop working from home completely, can you set a rule to never do work in particular rooms (like your bedroom or perhaps the kitchen)? 

• Never let someone else tell you what you can’t do. When Jami first launched her company, she got a lot of negativity thrown her way constantly. As a solo parent, others thought she should get a steady 9 to 5 job… and they had no problem telling her so right to her face. A very similar thing happened when I first started to talk about my goal of climbing the Seven Second Summits. I now recognize that the people who I thought weren’t being supportive of my dream were really just worried about my safety. Their hesitation was based on love, but it still has to be taken with a grain of salt. You know yourself and your capabilities better than anyone else. 

• Take a moment to appreciate where you are. Jami is the first person to admit that she loves to work. Though she is running three businesses, she is also mindful about wanting to protect and really enjoy the moment she is in right now. Her kids are at a fun age where they get excited about some of the same things she does (specific movies, for example), and she knows they will eventually be off to college and her schedule will shift. What do you love about your life right now? How can you be better about appreciating it in the moment?