Enjoying Your career My business is my hobby,' someone tells you. 'I wish I could make a living from my hobby,' you may think. 'It sounds ideal.' Yet according to Sue Cole, a management expert, there can be both advantages and disadvantages for those who combine their hobby with their career. 'There's a real possibility that your hobby becomes less attractive when it's your job. But also quite a few people who make their hobby their career become too enthusiastic and forget about the basic principles of business,' she says. 'For example, someone may think: 'I love cooking. There aren't enough restaurants in this area. I'll start one up.' And they go ahead without establishing how many customers they'll need each day or what income they'll require to cover costs. That can be a recipe for disaster.' Richard Campbell, however, has made a success of it. A keen amateur singer with a passion for travel, he first became involved in organising musical tours as a university student. On graduating, he joined a small student travel company, Sunway Travel, as a tour leader. Thirteen years later, in 1993, he bought the business and repositioned it to focus entirely on musicians, both amateur and professional. It was a successful move and Sunway Travel now arranges worldwide travel for 80% of Britain's classical musicians. Despite the size of the business, Campbell still enjoys touring with orchestras. 'Musicians are usually delightful to travel with and you visit wonderful places.' It can get stressful though. 'They assume it's normal when everything goes right. If something goes wrong, they look for someone to blame, and they can be quite unreasonable and bad- tempered, especially if they are worried about meeting their contracts for the rest of their tour.' Campbell explains that things haven't always been easy. 'Sometimes the company didn't perform. as well as I'd expected. There were difficult times and I had to learn to cope with the stress. However, we've now got to a level where my staff can run the business on a daily basis and all I need to do is keep an eye on things.' Campbell recognises that he could have earned more in another line of business. 'Travel generally doesn't pay well. I have friends in other professions who are very highly paid.' But he has no regrets. 'They envy me because I am reasonably well paid to do something that I love doing.' What does Sue Cole say about people whose businesses are their hobbies?