THEY say that entrepreneurs don’t do days off.

It’s supposed to be mine before a holiday from my Liverpool-based property agency business but I enjoy working.

I can’t take my focus off property headlines, my phone and the opportunity to engage daily on a business footing.

Like colleagues around me in all walks of business life, I enjoy the social aspect of people and am very much a fan of the Chinese culture of networking, ie, make friends then do business.

That said, I also do enjoy family life and have to acknowledge that a grounded family man makes a good businessman.

My work as chairman of a community leisure trust in the region keeps me fulfilled in relation to what I see as my corporate social responsibility in giving something back.

I’ve got another year of events to oversee on behalf of the business which is in place to help more people become more active more often, providing a shortfall where the strain from the economy has affected families.

Back on the property market and it is a little like media too in that if you take your eye off it, you might miss something.

I met a landlord recently with a large north Liverpool portfolio because I was on message when perhaps I should have been relaxing, phone off and settling for better work/life balance.

We live in exciting times in 2012, because it has never been easier to engage with like-minded professionals via social media and other micro blogging platforms and some of the Linkedin groups I’m involved are far from noise.

Rather, you have to be switched on to the right ones and you can create very useful introductions.

Some people argue that to be an entrepreneur, you have to have tremendous self-discipline.

Well, I definitely learned that throughout my former Thai boxing career.

The discipline in business usually comes from both a need and a passion for what you do though. Ask the most successful people in the usiness world and they’ll tell you that the money just came while they got on with what they were good at.

I also get asked a fair number of politically-biased questions connected with my business life (especially when I’m out networking across the region), mostly in relation to previous, current and future generations’ attitude to work.

Despite our city centre presence and portfolio, we also have an office in Seaforth and I am from a modest background on the outskirts of Merseyside and that’s partly why. I personally don’t know any other way apart from wanting to get up early and do well with my day.

Positive thinking and keeping your nerve might be clichés but they are invaluable lessons in life whether you’re just starting out or still striving like myself because it’s what makes you tick.

John Bullock, chairman of City Lets in Liverpool