There are conflicting opinions about whether you should combine or separate business and personal lives. No matter which camp you generally stick with though, it’s very important that you don’t let your business suffer because of unrelated matters such as accidents outside of your business or issues outside of your professional realm.
A few examples will illustrate why you should keep a boundary between business and personal activities. If you get in a car crash, can that affect your business life? On a logical level, it shouldn’t. But if you don’t have separate financial accounts and insurance for business matters versus personal matters, it can get fuzzy very quickly. And what happens when you make a bad decision personally and have to file for bankruptcy?
Will those private decisions affect the financing for your business? Again, logically, they shouldn’t, but still, there is the matter of credit and credibility. Lastly, it’s crucial that you don’t bring your relationship problems to work. If you’re in a psychologically bad space because of your personal relationships, you need to be able to keep that entirely separate from your business decisions. Otherwise, it is impossible to be consistent with your professional behavior.
Car Crashes
Getting into a car accident creates financial, medical, social, and legal issues. If the car accident happened when you are not on the clock, should any of those consequences bleed into your business endeavors? The straight answer is that it absolutely should not make any difference at all. Unfortunately, if you don’t have the appropriate separation between your business and personal life, something like a car accident can start to create ripples of consequence inside of your career.
Personal Bankruptcy
Do you know what the differences are between claiming personal bankruptcy and claiming business bankruptcy? They are hugely consequential because depending on the type of business that you own, there are lots of different liabilities involved. It’s imperative early on when you get your business license that you make sure that you understand where your personal and professional liabilities diverge. This way, one bankruptcy does not necessarily affect the other parts of your life. Especially if you have employees that work for you, you need to know where you are protected as far as financial backing goes.
Relationship Problems
It can be challenging to separate personal issues from business concerns, especially when it comes to private relationships. Troubles with your partner or your family life can easily make it so that your business decisions are not as logical. You need to be able to step away from issues to maintain appropriate professionalism. When you see coworkers making bad business decisions because of trouble at home, you know you don’t want to be viewed from the outside in that same light.
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