Aaron Shelley Primed For Success

<p>&nbsp;Aaron has a BS in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA. He has<br>worked with small businesses and startups where he developed a unique systems<br>perspective on business and family. His work in the academic and business<br>worlds led him to understand how related our families and business dynamics<br>are. He and his wife have run the largest Irish Dance school in Utah for over<br>20 years. He has built multiple companies, consulted across multiple<br>industries, and helped raise $54 million as the COO of a technology company. He<br>lives in Utah with his wife and four children.&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>About Aaron Shelley&nbsp;</p> <p>It always seemed like my friends and I were primed for<br>success. I grew up in a suburban neighborhood and there were about ten boys<br>around that became my friends. We went to the same church. We went to the same<br>schools. We were all in the same scout troop. We played sports in the street<br>almost every day. We regularly played video games and board games together. Our<br>families all had about the same amount of money. We all had two parents in the<br>home. We were all living the American middle-class lifestyle.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>After high school, we all went our separate ways, and that<br>is when things started to go off the rails.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>Two years after high school, the parents of my best friend<br>John got divorced. I had spent hours playing at their home, jumping on their<br>trampoline, watching TV, and now with three kids still at home, they divorced.<br>A few years later, another friend’s parents got divorced. I had played board<br>games at their house almost every week growing up.&nbsp;</p> <p>So much for happily ever after.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>As we grew older, I went to college, got married, got an<br>engineering degree, got a business degree, had four kids and started a<br>business. One friend became a lawyer, got married, and then got divorced. One<br>had six kids, had serious health issues and worked a blue-collar job for a<br>logistics company. One started his own construction company and had four kids.<br>And one was sentenced to life without parole in prison for rape and attempted<br>murder of a twenty-year-old woman.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>Wait! What? I had become a little numb to the divorces, but<br>I was shocked when my friend went to prison for rape and attempted murder. A<br>failed marriage is one thing, but life in prison is completely different. Have<br>you ever had a friend do something so bad that you wonder if you even really<br>knew them?&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>How did we turn out so differently? We were all raised in<br>the same middle-class neighborhood, same schools, same activities, and yet the<br>outcomes of our lives varied so wildly. As a husband and parent to four<br>children, I became obsessed in trying to understand why families turn out the<br>way they do so that I could protect my family from these problems.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>At the time, I was forty years old and had just finished<br>work at a failed startup company. I was also working on another startup and<br>doing consulting. It was during this time that I finally found the answer to my<br>question. On one project, I was interviewing people with different family<br>structures for a professor that was writing a book on the relationship between<br>entrepreneurship levels and family. On another consulting job I was managing<br>all the processes, systems, and people at a small fulfillment company.&nbsp;</p> <p>This weird combination of researching family and managing a<br>small business at the same time led me to the insight that family and business<br>are actually very similar. Both a family and a business are a group of people<br>working together so they can survive and grow. Of course, there are<br>differences—like families usually being biologically related, unlike coworkers,<br>and parents’ inability to fire their children—but at a high level, families act<br>very similar to small businesses. I know you probably don’t believe me, and I’d<br>be skeptical, too. Business is always portrayed as being heartless and<br>uncaring, and no one wants a family like that. Just stick with me and let's see<br>if you agree or not.&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="https://thefamilyflywheel.com/">https://thefamilyflywheel.com/</a>&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/aaron.k.shelley">https://www.facebook.com/aaron.k.shelley</a>&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronshelley/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronshelley/</a>&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="https://podmatch.com/guestdetail/1675461897054x595969824867088800">https://podmatch.com/guestdetail/1675461897054x595969824867088800</a>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>