make your vocation his public holiday. I think it’s one of the smartest business concepts I’ve come across. I learned it from a book called work is my game by Wallace E. Johnson, one of the founders of Holiday Inn.
One of the things that Johnson says in his book that I like so much is this: the secret to success is to work half a day. It doesn’t matter which half you work in; just make sure you work half days. Now, you have to take that in its proper context, because he’s not talking about a standard eight-hour workday. is talking about a day, the full 24-hour period from sunrise to sunrise, which means your “half day” lasts 12 hours. If that’s just holding you back, consider this: When you study all the great commercial successes, you’ll see that they were No achieved by people who dialed watches like most people. Average workers put in their 40 or 50 hours, but their real life exists beyond what they do for a living.
Well folks, the secret here is to put your whole heart and soul into your business. Just leave it all there. My best analogy for that is the farmer. Farming is not really a job that people do for money. Farming is a way of life. It is a part of who you are, and it is every cell in your body. It is what they live for; it is your entire identity.
When I think about blurring the line between work and play, I can’t help but think of the standard work mindset. It’s all about money for most of us, isn’t it? Most people naturally assume that’s what I do, too, because for the past two decades I’ve been “successful.” But they are wrong. For me, it’s all about the game. It’s about the excitement. It’s about the freedom. It’s all about the fun, the adventure of racing.
I’ve successfully blurred the line between work and play, and so should you. Find out what you’re really good at and execute it, putting all your passion into the things you really enjoy and do well. I often get up at five in the morning and start work right away. It’s around noon and I’m like, “Wow, it’s just been seven hours, and it went by so fast!” Sometimes that surprises me, and I wonder, What did I do? Simple enough: I got absorbed in my work. It became as enjoyable for me as any play. Your flow makes me feel alive. It’s fun. It is exciting. It’s interesting.
I have a little sign on the treadmill where I work out and it says, “Do what makes you feel totally alive.” That is What should a business be about? It’s not just about making money; that’s just a need, like breathing, and for me there is nothing more boring. Anytime you focus only on money, or anything else for me, you’re going to make the wrong decisions. That’s why you focus on the game, as a whole, and revel in the excitement, the adventure, of trying to build something substantial.
Try to do something you are passionate about and fall in love with your work. Do what makes you feel most fulfilled and spend most of your life in those areas, playing with what gives you the greatest sense of joy and satisfaction. For me it is marketing, writing, communication. It is everything that has to do with selling and developing business plans and strategies. Just don’t take it too seriously, or you’ll lose track of what really matters.
Now does that mean you should laugh at all your problems and just brush them off? Of course not! But this whole idea that being in business is like a prison sentence, where you have to keep your nose to the grindstone and it’s wrong to waste time, relax and have fun… that’s an old and outdated idea. value to set. aside right now.
Consider professional athletes, who offer the perfect example of blurring the line between work and play. They get paid to play… although it’s also a lot of work. It’s not an easy job being, say, a baseball player who plays 160 games a year from April to September. That also doesn’t count all of training and the playoffs. They work incredibly hard at it; these athletes are very fit because they stay active and train all the time. But they are playing.
Even more surprising, they are basically playing a child’s game. Casual baseball games are played every day in the US and around the world by the thousands. These guys do it for a living… and some are making millions doing it. That’s a classic example of getting paid to have fun. Your game is your job, and vice versa. They work hard at it, just like us entrepreneurs.
Now, don’t take this attitude too far, because to be successful in business, you have to take it seriously on some level. That doesn’t mean you have to let it give you a heart attack or a nervous breakdown. Don’t take it so seriously that you’re exhausted all the time, either. It’s okay to be exhausted from time to time, in the same way that a good game session or a good workout wears you out. In fact, that’s a great way to think about it: it’s hard work while you’re doing it, but you like the results you get from doing it.
Even if he loses sight of enjoyment in the heat of the moment, he likes to see what he’s earned and likes to keep score. You like to go on the scale to see how much weight you have lost or how much muscle tone you are gaining. It’s challenging, but it’s fun.
Businesses should be like this. Take it seriously and play to win, but remember it’s just a game and have fun playing it.