Are you working FOR the weekend (go ahead sing it, you know you want to…) Or, like so many on this Labor Day weekend – you are working on the weekend?

For anyone who is in retail, chances are this is an “opportunity weekend” for the business to “make” the sales needed for the week, month, quarter or year to break even and hopefully, to be profitable.

Are you the business owner offering sales and discounts with the hope that customers will come in to your store, excited about the offers you promoted (via e-mail, Facebook or OMG print! Do we really still do this?) and spend. Spend. SPEND!

For those who own their own business, is there ever truly a weekend? Or a vacation for that matter? Does it ever end? If it doesn’t. Well, then, why are you doing it?

Are you working on the weekend – not just for today – but for a better tomorrow?

I hope that you are, and while you are at it, that you are enjoying the “todays” as you have them.

Is it ok to work “all the time”? I think the answer is YES – but only when you do have at least some level of flexibility to take a break when the business allows you to slow down, take a breath, ignore e-mail (never!) and do nothing?

My hope is that you have this. What I think of as the best of both worlds…

That you work hard, maybe not taking weekends or holiday breaks except that you have free time here and there, to go:

• to the school play dress rehearsal on a Wednesday morning
• take a long lunch with an old friend
• meet up with a colleague you used to work with (not to “network” but just to catch up)
• shopping (when no one else is shopping)
• home early to enjoy an early dinner, a concert or your kid’s soccer game
• make an elaborate dinner like you don’t normally have time to do

While the rest of the time the schedule is always go. Go. GO!! It is only so that you can have a future filled with lazy days on the beach, eating out and enjoying cocktails at 2PM (or, perhaps you’d rather hike / sail / motorcycle / RV-it cross country – “roughing it”. Whatever, it’s your choice…)

Yes, whatever you like to do and want to do in the future is why we do what we do… even on a holiday weekend.

And, in the future, when you are ready, that you will have built up enough equity to do what ever you want to do all the time.

I certainly don’t want you to be working FOR the weekend when that day comes.