This post is inspired by a fabulous book I just finished, Loving Frank: A Novel by Nancy Horan. This fictional history (my favorite type of book!) focuses on Mamah (pronounced “May-muh”) Cheney, the wife of a client of Frank Lloyd Wright who falls in love with him and then abandons her family to run off with the brilliant architect.
Mamah endures a difficult life faced with difficult choices that result from her loving a man so bent on changing the world of architecture and so flawed as to be his own worst enemy. SPOILER ALERT: Before the tragic ending (the ending is true, so not really a spoiler if you know anything about FLW; but this is a part of his life that until now wasn’t talked about much), the story incorporates bits of FLW’s rise to prominence (and intermitten falls from grace) as well as Mamah’s interest in the early roots of feminism.
I actually hadn’t thought about reviewing this here, but as I was about to finish, the following passage jumped out at me. This excerpt comes from a chapter near the end of the book where Mamah is trying to talk with FLW just before the opening party for the Midway Gardens, his first “public” building in Chicago.
She knew he didn’t need her advice. It took immense ego to build an enormous structure the likes of which had never been seen before, all the while assuring doubters that it would turn out brilliantly. But it took courage and vision, too. What he needed was her support, and she gave it without condition.
Sounds like an entrepreneur to me. So, my first thought on this was where I draw the line between business owners and entrepreneurs. If you leave a law firm to start your own practice, you are a business owner. If you leave a law firm and completely reinvent how law firms do business (like that firm in Boston banning hourly fees! It’s about time that somebody realized the billable hour structure benefits neither the firm, the attorneys or the clients – but I digress) then you are an entrepreneur. So, FLW who turned the world of architecture on its head – working with nature, not against it - qualifies as a bonafide entrepreneur.
Next thought – how tough it must be to love someone so focused on such a great quest. Any entrepreneur is going to spend a lot of time fighting the doubters and nay-sayers. My favorite response to people who tell me “I don’t see how you are going to make this plan work,” is “If it was so easy that someone like you could see it, then it would’ve been done already.” Which leads me to conclude that being an entrepreneur is really, really hard. And, I agree with Mamah’s statement in the book that it takes an immense ego to withstand the constant negativity.
Which brings me to my third thought. Perhaps the only thing tougher than being an entrepreneur is being the partner of an entrepreneur. Maybe it’s more than a coincidence that this topic came up in my post on How to be a Billionaire (where I noted that the author said one commonality between the billionaires was that they neglected their families) as well as in another Top Shelf review book, Rules for Renegades, where the author recounts a date with a very single-minded Bill Gates. Makes one wonder what Melinda must go through.
Hmmm. Maybe this is why I tend to keep my dance card empty. I actually had a life coach pal point out to me a few months ago that my work schedule (while my son’s in school and then late at night and on weekends) didn’t really allow for time to date. Assuming that I may have been missing out on something, I tried to go on a few dates. But the whole time I was thinking, “I could have been getting so much work done right now …”
So, what do you all think – what’s life like dating/marrying entrepreneurs? Does it work better if entrepreneurs date entrepreneurs? If so, has anyone launched a website for that yet? Just imagine. We could meet for coffee in Starbucks and share business plans. The only problem might be trying to determine whether you like the person or the business plan better?
The Bottom Line: Loving Frank is a wonderful book with insights into a great American legend, seen from the eyes of the woman who loved him. However, Mamah is not your average woman of the time period as she was an early feminist who frequently called FLW on his weaknesses, and that was what he loved most about her.
** Addendum — Seems I’m not the only entrepreneur with dating issues. Here’s an article from the Entrepreneur website that answers my question about dating sites for entrepreneurs!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 6:50 pm and is filed under Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.Leave a Reply
