We’re told to never mix business with pleasure. Is that really the best paradigm today?

Our answer: it depends. However, we think that it is a good idea with a few exceptions.

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Be careful

There are times when it’s risky to mix the two. One obvious example is getting involved romantically with a co-worker. You really have to be careful here. It can come back to bite you.

You also have to be careful if you go into business with, go to work for, or hire friends or family.

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For example, it can really be tough to work with your spouse.

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Wait a minute, Mary-Lynn. I’m not sure I like the direction this conversation is heading.

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It works just fine for us, but I can’t tell you how many people have told me they could never do what we do. We’re together almost all the time. It’s great, but it does present its challenges.

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You have to be aware of that and do what works best for you. Mary-Lynn can’t get enough of me so it works out well for her!

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Work is play

If your work isn’t pleasurable, then don’t do it. Work can be work or work can be play. If you love your work, it’s like not working at all.

You’ll be more productive doing work you love. You’re more likely to rise to the top of your field if you do work you find pleasurable.

Fun people

If you work with people with whom you don’t enjoy working, work with other people. Life’s too short. Build relationships with people who you like to be around.

You may retort that you can’t control who your co-workers are. We understand. However, if your company is large enough, you can choose who you spend the most time with when you’re not on-task. Hang with people who are positive, forward-thinking, and fun to be around.

Travel

We often mix business with pleasure when we travel. Even if it’s just sneaking away for some sight-seeing for part of the day, it makes the whole thing more fun.

Mixing business with pleasure creates synergy – the bigg idea behind bigg success. Keep both worlds at the top of your mind simultaneously and find synergies between work and play. It will help you reach bigg success even faster!

How do you mix business with pleasure?

We’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below, call us at 888.455.BIGG (2444) or e-mail us at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com.

It’s been a pleasure to visit with you about business today. Thanks for checking in!

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Please join us next time when our good friend, Jim Bouchard – the Karate Guy – talks with us about how to think like a Black Belt. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00457-081109.mp3

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(Image in today's post by murielle)

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When it comes to money, the author says that a gentleman would never:

• Borrow from a lady

• Borrow from a man without collateral and a plan to pay it back quickly

• Discuss money

• Discuss his possessions or their cost

• Name drop about his rich friends

___

I think the idea that a gentleman never borrowed money from a lady shows that we are living in different times. Many women are financially independent today and willing to be angel investors. It’s when you don’t pay someone back, male or female, that it becomes rude.

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Money talks. Should you listen?

Why do we feel the need to talk about, or show off, what we have? We all know people – be it co-workers, family members or friends – who like to talk about how much they make or how much something cost. We really liked the author’s final quote: “There was once a day that we did not try to keep up with the Joneses – because we didn’t know what the Joneses had and no one knew what we had.”

Materially possessed

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I recently saw a picture of people standing line. It made me think of the pictures we saw from the Great Depression. Back then, people stood in line to get a little soup or bread. The picture I saw recently showed people waiting in line to buy a Blackberry Storm!

___

Why is it so important to have the newest phone? Because we get our identity from our possessions.

We’re not saying that it’s bad to be an early adopter; we need them. The question is, and only you can answer it, “Is it best for you to be an early adopter?”

It may be. Your career may require you to have the newest phone. That’s a good reason. However, buying one just to be able to show it off to our friends … not such a good reason.

Just say “No”

It’s not a good reason because it leads to an ongoing problem. If that’s really the reason we’re doing it, we’re going to have to keep buying over and over again.

It becomes like a drug and we need our fix.

“I want it. I want it now. I want people to know I have it.”

A void check

After we admit that we’re doing this, we have to ask ourselves why – what’s the underlying reason? You see, we buy because of how we feel about ourselves.

We’re spending money to fill an emotional void.

We’re showing off our latest acquisition to cover up our real feelings. When we do this, we just create a bigger problem.

Getting it in balance

That problem is – we end up with a weak balance sheet. We want a lot of assets and few liabilities. The result of our spending is few real assets and a lot of liabilities.

Millionaires do the opposite. They focus on building up their balance sheets by buying assets with real value and keeping their debt relatively low. That’s not determined by how much we make or what we buy. It’s based on how much we save and invest intentionally.

Shhh … be very, very quiet!

We do that quietly. Perhaps nobody knows but us! But that’s the beautiful thing about it – we know!

In the last few months, we’ve relearned how incredibly important it is to have a financial safety net. We have to build up an emergency reserve. It’s not a sexy thing like a Blackberry Storm or a new car. It won’t get your friends excited. In fact, you probably won’t even talk about it because it’s so boring. But it sure will come in handy in the future.

You can also quietly get out of debt. We like to show off what we just bought, but we don’t talk about how we maxed out our credit card to buy it. So we put out a false identity, which doesn’t help us feel better about ourselves, because down deep we know the truth. And that truth does not set us free!

Don’t worry about what your friends and neighbors think you have. Take solace by knowing what you’re doing to have all you need and then some!

___

___

We’re grateful that you read our post today. Please check in tomorrow when we’ll talk about night moves. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00281-120808.mp3

Related posts

Your Emotions and Your Money

Squirrels, Nuts and Business Cycles

6 Easy Steps To Financial Freedom

Getting Aggressively Passive: Creating A Passive Income That Sets You Free

(Image by isouthpawi)

___

___

When it comes to money, the author says that a gentleman would never:

• Borrow from a lady

• Borrow from a man without collateral and a plan to pay it back quickly

• Discuss money

• Discuss his possessions or their cost

• Name drop about his rich friends

___

I think the idea that a gentleman never borrowed money from a lady shows that we are living in different times. Many women are financially independent today and willing to be angel investors. It’s when you don’t pay someone back, male or female, that it becomes rude.

___

Money talks. Should you listen?

Why do we feel the need to talk about, or show off, what we have? We all know people – be it co-workers, family members or friends – who like to talk about how much they make or how much something cost. We really liked the author’s final quote: “There was once a day that we did not try to keep up with the Joneses – because we didn’t know what the Joneses had and no one knew what we had.”

Materially possessed

___

I recently saw a picture of people standing line. It made me think of the pictures we saw from the Great Depression. Back then, people stood in line to get a little soup or bread. The picture I saw recently showed people waiting in line to buy a Blackberry Storm!

___

Why is it so important to have the newest phone? Because we get our identity from our possessions.

We’re not saying that it’s bad to be an early adopter; we need them. The question is, and only you can answer it, “Is it best for you to be an early adopter?”

It may be. Your career may require you to have the newest phone. That’s a good reason. However, buying one just to be able to show it off to our friends … not such a good reason.

Just say “No”

It’s not a good reason because it leads to an ongoing problem. If that’s really the reason we’re doing it, we’re going to have to keep buying over and over again.

It becomes like a drug and we need our fix.

“I want it. I want it now. I want people to know I have it.”

A void check

After we admit that we’re doing this, we have to ask ourselves why – what’s the underlying reason? You see, we buy because of how we feel about ourselves.

We’re spending money to fill an emotional void.

We’re showing off our latest acquisition to cover up our real feelings. When we do this, we just create a bigger problem.

Getting it in balance

That problem is – we end up with a weak balance sheet. We want a lot of assets and few liabilities. The result of our spending is few real assets and a lot of liabilities.

Millionaires do the opposite. They focus on building up their balance sheets by buying assets with real value and keeping their debt relatively low. That’s not determined by how much we make or what we buy. It’s based on how much we save and invest intentionally.

Shhh … be very, very quiet!

We do that quietly. Perhaps nobody knows but us! But that’s the beautiful thing about it – we know!

In the last few months, we’ve relearned how incredibly important it is to have a financial safety net. We have to build up an emergency reserve. It’s not a sexy thing like a Blackberry Storm or a new car. It won’t get your friends excited. In fact, you probably won’t even talk about it because it’s so boring. But it sure will come in handy in the future.

You can also quietly get out of debt. We like to show off what we just bought, but we don’t talk about how we maxed out our credit card to buy it. So we put out a false identity, which doesn’t help us feel better about ourselves, because down deep we know the truth. And that truth does not set us free!

Don’t worry about what your friends and neighbors think you have. Take solace by knowing what you’re doing to have all you need and then some!

___

___

We’re grateful that you read our post today. Please check in tomorrow when we’ll talk about night moves. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00281-120808.mp3

Related posts

Your Emotions and Your Money

Squirrels, Nuts and Business Cycles

6 Easy Steps To Financial Freedom

Getting Aggressively Passive: Creating A Passive Income That Sets You Free

(Image by isouthpawi)

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___

When I was a DJ working mornings, I had to be to work at 4 a.m. It’s hard to call your boss that early to tell him you won’t be in, even if you are sick!

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Here are the real reasons people played hooky, according to CareerBuilder:

#1 – they didn’t feel like it
#2 – to relax and recharge
#3 – to go to the doctor
#4 – to catch up on sleep
#5 – to run personal errands

Look at that list. Does that tell you how much pressure we feel in our day-to-day lives? Is the only way to remain psychologically healthy by playing hooky?

We also found it interesting that 10% of the time people play hooky is actually work-related. They don’t want to attend a meeting. They need some quality time to work on a past due project. They want to avoid a confrontation with a co-worker.

Companies today are trying to do more and more with less and less. That means you have fewer co-workers. Your day off may leave them in a bind. So try to plan for your time off. If you feel yourself feeling overwhelmed, talk with your boss. See if you could work a little extra for a few days to get a day off. Everyone will be much better off if you’re upfront.

As a boss, do everything you can to honor your employee’s request. If you know you can’t give him or her the requested day off, offer an alternative. Employees today prize flexibility. It’s one of the best things you can do to retain employees who give their best.

Excuses, excuses

CareerBuilder also compiled a list of some of the most unusual excuses employers heard in the last year. Here are three of our favorites:

“I hit a turkey while riding a bike.”
We wondered if this was really a way to save money on Thanksgiving dinner!

“I donated too much blood.”
We found it hard to believe that any blood bank would take too much blood. Maybe this person ran into a vampire!

“My wife burned all my clothes so I have nothing to wear to work.”
So, here’s a question – how is this person going to get out of the house to buy the clothes he needs? We hope he’s not our neighbor!

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I remember one of my managers telling me about an employee who wasn’t at work. It’s my favorite excuse ever. This guy worked hourly and had already used up all of his personal days. He said he was so stressed out by his lack of money that he just couldn’t come into work! Guess what – he got more stressed out!

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What’s the worst excuse you ever heard?

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00260-110708.mp3

Related posts

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(Image by wilhei66)