[The following is a guest post from Piers Alexander, an entrepreneur and author. Many thanks to Piers for such an insightful contribution! – Andrew]

This is the age of plural lives: more and more people are stepping away from conventional job roles and single-word descriptions of themselves. On social media, everyone is a “slash something”: painter/accountant, historical reenactor / mom / blogger.

As a kid, I always thought I’d be an author, and nothing else. But life takes you by surprise sometimes: instead, I built a successful career as MD and CEO of different media businesses and then as an entrepreneur. But the idea of writing books never left me.

So at the age of 28, I read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way (if you haven’t, do it!) and realised I needed to write, no matter the cost.

At 33, I sold my business and wrote a novel, but the money ran out; at 36, I risked everything I had to become a startup investor and writer. But also a time traveller: writing seventeenth-century historical adventures means lighting a candle, immersing myself in the period of my story, taking leave of today.

I loved my new, plural life. Switching from the meditative joy of writing to the gutswooping drama of starting up two new companies. I’d never felt so alive.

But it came at a price: I had a fourth role that I let slip. I’m married to a singer-songwriter and author, Rebecca Promitzer, and it became a big challenge to be a husband as well. Quality time became a text or a five-second chat between projects. It was ungentlemanly; it was tough.

So now I’m working on it, day by day, and here are my five tips for creative entrepreneurs, artists, or anyone else whose personal journey butts heads with the love of his life.

1. YOUR CREATIVITY COMES FIRST

This is pretty counter-cultural: we are educated to be chivalrous and self-sacrificing, to put marriage and family before our own needs. Well, we should certainly be ready to do so – but mostly we have to put our own authentic desires and creativity first. Want to start a business? Paint a mural? Volunteer? Does putting your dream off indefinitely really serve your loved ones?

You can’t live through your loved ones all the time. Put on your own oxygen mask before you help them, and the help will be better and longer-lasting.

And it is gentlemanly to create. As Socrates said, “The poet is a light and winged and holy thing.”

2. GET READY TO BE MISUNDERSTOOD

We English are particularly fixated on what people do for a living, and uncomfortable with complex answers to that question. Is one of your roles really a hobby? Are you letting down your wife and family by stretching yourself? Is it acceptable to be more than one thing?

I’ve learned the hard way that you have to be honest with people. I was accidentally outed as an author on Twitter by a business colleague – and that was incredibly helpful. My entrepreneurial life and my writing life are now much more meshed, and that gives me more support.

3. BUILD TIME CASTLES

One of the hardest things about living a plural life is that your different roles tend to merge. If you work at home, as I do half the time, it’s hard to focus on what’s really important. You have to be absolutely ruthless about building a time castle for each role: I write before 10am, sitting in a different seat and often in different clothes to my other roles. Then I’ll put on my suit and go to the office – I organise my business meetings around two full days a week to create momentum and focus.

BUT: sometimes you have to just open the castle doors and let your lover in. Or your friends and family.

This is a tough paradox. To create, to self-actualise, you have to put yourself first, before your family and your lover and your friends.

But right now, in this moment, while the sun is shining, you have to be willing to put it all away; to lose that perfect line; let it all go and picnic by the lake. Otherwise what kind of life would I write about?

4. BE HONEST ABOUT RISK – WITH HER AND WITH YOURSELF

Risk-taking is the essence of creativity, the lifeblood of enterprise. She may well have chosen you for your ability to take chances and embrace uncertainty; but you have to temper your risk-taking with better communication.

In our marriage, I took risks with our shared assets that I didn’t share fully with Rebecca. Win, and you get away with it; lose, and you both lose. So I am learning now, one day at a time, to talk about risks and money with Rebecca, who has a really sharp business mind.

As a man, I tend to look for the big hairy risk on the assumption that big hairy rewards follow. This is a classic male conceptual error, by the way: some big risks are just stupid, and have almost no upside. As my entrepreneur friend Keith says: you do it just because you want to conquer a new land, not because the new land is necessarily fertile. So ask your partner. You don’t have to agree!

5. CHAMPION, DON’T COMPETE

It’s pretty tempting to cast yourself as the hero in your Renaissance Gentleman fantasy, with your partner in a supporting role. But the reality is that she is living a plural life too – everybody does. You will need to really believe in her dreams and goals, and help each other with the boring business of making it happen.

It’s not glamorous; and of course you are creating the possibility that she will be a lot more successful than you.

This is surprisingly confronting: our masculine identity is so tied up with protecting women that we can be very hostile when it’s clear they don’t need us to do that. We’ve had some outstanding marital battles on that topic.

So get creative. Admit your plurality. Make your plans. But sometimes – and I admit I find this incredibly difficult – you have to put down the life plan mindmap, switch off the Internet, and just go hang out with her. 

Piers Alexander is an entrepreneur and author of the historical fiction novel The Bitter Trade; he is married to author-songwriter Rebecca Promitzer.

We’ll send you the latest article every Sunday. Click here to get Fierce Gentleman in your inbox.