Aaron has a BS in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA. He has
worked with small businesses and startups where he developed a unique systems
perspective on business and family. His work in the academic and business
worlds led him to understand how related our families and business dynamics
are. He and his wife have run the largest Irish Dance school in Utah for over
20 years. He has built multiple companies, consulted across multiple
industries, and helped raise $54 million as the COO of a technology company. He
lives in Utah with his wife and four children.
About Aaron Shelley
It always seemed like my friends and I were primed for
success. I grew up in a suburban neighborhood and there were about ten boys
around that became my friends. We went to the same church. We went to the same
schools. We were all in the same scout troop. We played sports in the street
almost every day. We regularly played video games and board games together. Our
families all had about the same amount of money. We all had two parents in the
home. We were all living the American middle-class lifestyle.
After high school, we all went our separate ways, and that
is when things started to go off the rails.
Two years after high school, the parents of my best friend
John got divorced. I had spent hours playing at their home, jumping on their
trampoline, watching TV, and now with three kids still at home, they divorced.
A few years later, another friend’s parents got divorced. I had played board
games at their house almost every week growing up.
So much for happily ever after.
As we grew older, I went to college, got married, got an
engineering degree, got a business degree, had four kids and started a
business. One friend became a lawyer, got married, and then got divorced. One
had six kids, had serious health issues and worked a blue-collar job for a
logistics company. One started his own construction company and had four kids.
And one was sentenced to life without parole in prison for rape and attempted
murder of a twenty-year-old woman.
Wait! What? I had become a little numb to the divorces, but
I was shocked when my friend went to prison for rape and attempted murder. A
failed marriage is one thing, but life in prison is completely different. Have
you ever had a friend do something so bad that you wonder if you even really
knew them?
How did we turn out so differently? We were all raised in
the same middle-class neighborhood, same schools, same activities, and yet the
outcomes of our lives varied so wildly. As a husband and parent to four
children, I became obsessed in trying to understand why families turn out the
way they do so that I could protect my family from these problems.
At the time, I was forty years old and had just finished
work at a failed startup company. I was also working on another startup and
doing consulting. It was during this time that I finally found the answer to my
question. On one project, I was interviewing people with different family
structures for a professor that was writing a book on the relationship between
entrepreneurship levels and family. On another consulting job I was managing
all the processes, systems, and people at a small fulfillment company.
This weird combination of researching family and managing a
small business at the same time led me to the insight that family and business
are actually very similar. Both a family and a business are a group of people
working together so they can survive and grow. Of course, there are
differences—like families usually being biologically related, unlike coworkers,
and parents’ inability to fire their children—but at a high level, families act
very similar to small businesses. I know you probably don’t believe me, and I’d
be skeptical, too. Business is always portrayed as being heartless and
uncaring, and no one wants a family like that. Just stick with me and let’s see
if you agree or not.
https://thefamilyflywheel.com/
https://www.facebook.com/aaron.k.shelley
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronshelley/
https://podmatch.com/guestdetail/1675461897054×595969824867088800