I am guilty of this of what Prof Cornwall defines.  So do millions of Asian entrepreneurs, and even now entrepreneurs all over the world. .  For many, business is the way of life.

I even called my blog the business driven life.

Business defines who we are, and your enterprise defines your place in the community.  It defines the respect you get from your peers, and what you do is most intimately analyzed during your school reunion, and in every encounter.  Your ability to be reached becomes your passport on whether society can work with you or not.

But luckily, the environment, the culture and the technology can harm or cure you.  In this era where technology makes it harder for you to separate your life from your work, you can look at it as an opportunity….  In short, the poison, as the chinese say, can be the cure.

Similarly, people complain that they never have a vacation — when they take time off to travel, they have to spend half of their time answering calls and emails.  But on the other hand, look at it this way — without the ability to check your emails anywhere, or do your work anywhere, would you been able to take time off in the first place?

So we are now in the era, whether you are an entrepreneur or mainly a salaried employee, we all need to adjust and thrive — for all of us, the work is your life, and the other way around.  We have to be able to relax when at work, and we should be able to work when we are off…..  So far, I see no better way to cope - or thrive than to change our mindset.

It is inevitable, ( this upseting of work-life balance), but adapting properly can be a way to become even better!

The Entrepreneurial Mind: Is Passion for Your Business Enough?

We have seen others fail at retirement. Lee Iacocca could not stay retired as a corporate executive (noun). Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan could not stay retired as athletes (noun). For all of them, what they did for their work defined who they were as people.

Careers can do this to us. If we are not careful, they can consume all that we are. And what gets lost?

Our families, our friendships, and even our souls.

If we are to become all that we were put on this Earth to do, we have to temper the temptation to become consumed by our work. We need to resist becoming the noun of what we do for a living.

Work hard at being a spouse. Work hard at being a parent. Work hard at worshiping God. Work hard at being a friend. Work hard at being a good citizen in your community. And yes, work hard at your vocation.

None of these alone can fulfill our humanness.

One of the risks of using nouns to describe what we do in our work is that it can reinforce the tendency we all have to get carried away with our work. I loved starting a growing businesses (most of the time, at least). I love teaching and writing. It is indeed a blessing to love what one does for a living and joy the hard work that goes along with it. But, with every virtue there is a vice looming in the background. Although hard work is a good thing, it can be taken to excess and become a vice if it keeps us from all the other things we should be doing with our lives.