Your job isn't your family.

Your job isn’t your family. Your family is your family.

When I was younger, all I wanted was a crew of creative and talented folks all caring about our work as much as me. Then we hired a couple super-talented people who also had a healthy sense of boundaries.

It was eye-opening. They worked hard and did good work, but they had no desire to stay around for a Friday afternoon (or Tuesday afternoon) beer. They weren’t sending late-night, “isn’t this cool?” emails. The culture they responded to was the culture of self-reliance (Rule #1 was get the job done. We didn’t care when it or where it was done as long as it was done on-time.) They didn’t respond to the “family” side of the culture.

It was so healthy. The older I get the happier I am I was taught that lesson. Doing good, meaningful work is good. Working hard is good. Working with people you like is good. Replacing family with work is bad.