September 2023 3rd: Clearly separate business and hobbies
People often say, "You should get to the point where you can call your work a hobby," or "You should turn something you enjoy into a business."
Certainly, it would be nice to be able to do something fun and passionate about as a job. Everyone would rather do something fun than something they don't want to do or hate. There's nothing better than having fun and getting paid by customers for it.
But that doesn't mean you can mix business with hobbies.
Business deals with customers. From a customer's perspective, if they are paying money, they want the job to be done professionally and properly. Customers will leave people who have a low-motivation approach to work, such as doing it as a hobby if it's fun, or not doing it if it's not fun.
"Get to the point where you can call your work a hobby" means that you should work that hard. This does not mean that you should work as a hobby.
Even if you do it as a hobby, if you turn it into a job, unpleasant and painful things will happen. It's not uncommon for people to find themselves unable to continue doing something because they think, "It was fun when I was doing it as a hobby, but now it's no longer fun." Many people who turn their hobbies into jobs and fail are because they have a naive attitude toward work. It would be difficult to satisfy customers with a hobby-level work style.
Make a clear distinction between business and hobbies.
When you confuse business with hobbies, it's easy to cut corners in strange places. It may be okay to do hobbies only when you have fun or when you feel like it, but that's not the case with work. If you're keeping customers waiting, you can't afford to slack off. If you cut corners in odd places, you will receive complaints from customers. What is acceptable for a hobby is often not allowed for business.
If you confuse business with hobbies, you'll be easily swayed by your emotions in strange ways. Business requires calm and objective judgment. We must be careful not to act based on our feelings and beliefs about likes and dislikes. If it's a hobby, you can make decisions based on likes and dislikes, but if you make similar decisions in business, it can lead to big trouble.
In business, you must pursue profit. If you continue to do things that are not profitable, your business will no longer be viable. If management has a lot of leeway, it may be okay to include some hobbyist elements, but the manager's hobbies should not cause business to deteriorate.
If you don't have a clear line between your business and your hobbies, it's easy to get stuck in your work. In order to achieve better management, it is important to clearly separate business and hobbies.
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