Mixing business and pleasure
Today I met up with someone I knew from social media who happens to have some very similar ideas about what we want to do.
She asked if I could come find her in between work in a kind of fancy part of the city. A while ago the place would have made me really uncomfortable. Most restaurants there are way out of my price range. The cashier kind of smirked when she saw me pull out cash, apparently everyone uses their phone or credit cards for payment there.
I sat down and she immediately got talking about a business idea. I listened carefully because her idea is really good and she has a lot of insight.
Eventually she seemed a little uncomfortable and asked me very bluntly "Are you stoned?"
I laughed.
"No. I'm not stoned. This is me."
"You just seem so relaxed."
Relaxed? Is that strange? Well I suppose it is in her world, in the center of the city. She, herself was very relatable and fun to talk to.
"I love your ideas and you seem like someone I would really love to work with. Let's get to know each other a bit first though. We still don't know each other and what you are talking about is a big commitment. Let's take it one step at a time.
"Yeah, you are right. I'm just sharing my ideas with you, we don't need to jump right into it."
And so we continued our conversation. I tried my best to be open and honest but inevitably had to keep my guard up to a certain degree.
I realize that for most people, business is business and pleasure is pleasure. I cannot function that way. The reason why is that I want to trust everyone I work with and align our interests. The only way to do that is to get to know who I am working with on a personal level. If I don’t like the person, it will inevitably get in the way of the business and if I do like them, it would be unnatural not to become friends.
There are surely some exceptions to this but when it comes to making big commitments, new plans, building something together, I feel we need to be friends or at the bare minimum have a decent understanding of each other.
There are many ways which we could screw each other over with this. If we become a real team, there will be no incentive to do that. If we see this as a convenient arrangement though, there is very little to stop us from stealing each other’s ideas and going behind each other’s backs. Even the desire to be a good person might not stop us from behaving that way if we worry that they could do that to us.
This is one reason why so many people go out and do terrible things to each other, they don’t even take the time to align their interests and make sure they are on the same person, if the other person is in a healthy mental space, what their priorities are and how they may act in different situations. Getting to know each other before we commit to anything is how we heal our social and business life. More understanding and trust will clean up so much negativity from the world and this is one of the ways we build it.
Trust is something that is built, not given. So I want to get to know her more and see if we can build something together that will help both of us achieve our goals. It all depends on how well we can understand each other.
I was working with a core team member of a tribe here (can't say who or what tribe, playing nice) and in a DM, as we were collab'ing on a thing, I was kinda joking around, asking him where he was from, and etc, nothing too serious, just social niceties and banter like we do here, you know? And he abruptly cut me off and said 'This is business, and I don't like to talk about personal things'. Ouch. Needless to sayI haven't interacted with him much since, and in fact ignored his ask for help for something because i was like, well, I don't mess with people who can't be at least a little personal and friendly!!!
I feel like this is so much that is wrong with society. It's something that scared me away from regular working people for a long time, because it's actually quite a normal attitude. "Are you friends with your coworkers?" "They are just coworkers" "Do you like your job?" "It's a job..."
Sure you can get to the top being an asshole and feeling that life is all just unpleasantness until you get to the top, but then you have to constantly watch your back and you are forever on the defensive. Or you can just be chill, find win-win situations and make good stuff happen.
@whatamidoing
I think I understand your point of view of liking feeling sympathy and having kind of a common picture where the project should heading to. I share your opinion that way a lot.
and ^^ I just saw a sentence you used to comment my power of trust post. and yes of course trust is something that is built. but also our attitude how we get on something is important (you seem to be a relaxed person who likes take life with joy and work is a part of life, so why not have healthy space there too.)
I was a bit confused about your answer there because I had the feeling you were talking about a different side of trust. I was talking about not worring about people who are close (so we built up some trust already) and maybe "failed" sometimes because the worry is taking more energy than trust which is giving energy to the person.
I don't know if I could answer comprehensible. ^^ But I'm happy for you, you might found someone who fits with your ideas.
In a world where being so busy you don't have time to sleep is the ultimate in "being productive" and being relaxed is conflated with laziness I'm completely unsurprised she thought you were stoned XD
I think you have the right idea when it comes to picking business partners to work with and I also have zero idea why business and pleasure "should" be separated but I've never been able to compartmentalise XD
I can't believe I'm even thinking of doing business. It might not turn into much at all, but it's a fun thing to think about. People have been asking me if I was stoned since I was a kid, and I was rarely ever stoned. I was high though :-P
I can totally relate to this. I'm curious what kind of business this is about but I'm sure you will share more on it in the future.
P.S. I liked the "are you stoned" part. You tend to ooze this kind of vibe indeed haha
discord!!!
@whatamidoing, Decent understanding, for sure that is really Important Point because most of the times people jump in as soon as hearing about the Business Ideas 💡 without any proper understandings and at the end of the day rushing situations can punch us so hard. Stay blessed.
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Oh man, I've been there. and I got so so so screwed hah
Experience is the Real Boss. 🙂