The Power of Taking Time Off: Why Entrepreneurs Need to Unplug

0:00I love my children. That was a lot. We all kind of agreed that that was a lot of just closeness. So, yeah, no, but it was good. But, you know, there was a good lesson in it. It's what I wanted to talk about because also while I was gone, our mutual business partner, Richard Lender, he also took a vacation.

0:26hey everybody welcome to another episode of the business launch podcast with the returned from extended vacation perhaps even a sabbatical ryan dice and myself roland fraser ryan welcome back thank you yeah i didn't think about it as a sabbatical um but definitely a good vacation yeah 30 days um like to do it every year and um this year was no was no exception i think it's important, but it was great. Really, really good time. You should do it sometime. I am an off-peak liver. So the fact that we are recording this in the middle of the summer and you took your vacation during the busy travel time for me sounds like my nightmare.

1:05So I'm going to wait until it's nice and cold and clammy in the fall or the winter and take it when nobody else wants to go anywhere and I'll be all by myself. That's my sweet, happy spot. Yeah. When the kids were younger and they weren't in school and we could do that. It was awesome. Now that I've got like school aged kids, it's just, there's no way. And now that my oldest is in college, like, cause I was thinking like, oh, they'll get older and then we'll get to do it. It's like, no, no. Then like they're in college and they have even less. Four years from now, you might be able to do it maybe in 20 years or we just start doing it without them.

1:38But no, it was great because this year, you know, Emily, my wife and I, we, we basically took 10 days, just us and then you know I was I was back and then we did time with with the kids so it was kind of like two vacations over it um a couple of years ago we did 30 full days as a family traveling everywhere I love my children that was a lot um we all kind of agreed that that was a lot of just closeness um so so yeah no but it was good but you know there was a good lesson and it's what I wanted to talk about because also while I was gone, our mutual business partner, Richard Lender, he also took a vacation.

2:21His was considerably abbreviated. It was just five days. But for him, like that was the first real vacation he's taken in, I don't know, like years and years and years and years for a variety of reasons, not because we're just like, you know, evil villainous, like you're not allowed to take vacations kind of people. And he came back and we had a conversation that was such a good reminder to me. And where it came from is I can't tell you how many conversations, and maybe you've had it as well, that I've had with business owners who are burnt out. I mean, they're just like super burned out. And they're telling me all about how their business sucks and it's broken.

2:56And they're thinking about shutting the whole thing down or selling it or just basically throwing a pipe wrench at the whole thing and blowing up large chunks of the business to make it smaller. And we're going through talking about all this stuff. And invariably I've got to where I ask him now one question. I was like, cool, we can talk through all that. But one question first, when was the last time you had a vacation? And almost every single time they look at me and they're like, I don't remember. And it's just amazing to me how restorative, just taking some time off, like some real time off is.

3:37And so I thought it'd be good just to talk about that. Cause I think if there's one group, you know, that doesn't take enough time off, it's the people who supposedly are doing all this stuff to maximize their own freedom so they can take the most time off. And that's business owners and entrepreneurs, the people listening to this. So, um, anyway, what's your, what's your take on that? You got any thoughts? ever wondered how some people build real wealth through acquisitions while others just sit on the sidelines well i'm here to tell you it's not about luck it's about having the right system the right deals and the right guidance and that's exactly what we give you in the epic deal fast track if you've been thinking about buying a business but you keep getting stuck whether it's finding the right deal structuring the financing or negotiating with sellers you are not alone Too many people waste months, even years, just thinking about acquiring a business while the real opportunities pass them by.

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5:52No fluff, no wasted time, just real deal making from people that are actually out there doing deals right now. I'll see you there. Yeah. I mean, I think you have to, and I think that the work will definitely expand forever in your business to fully take up all of the time that You will allow it to take up. And so you have to not let your work schedule bully you. You have to set your boundaries and set the time that you are going to carve out. And you have to do that intentionally because it's never going to be the right time. There's always in an entrepreneur's life something happening, something really good that you want to see through or something really bad that you kind of are stuck dealing with.

6:36But in my experience, tomorrow comes every single day and you can have had your vacation or not had your vacation. And the people that I see not taking them, you know, I mean, they burn out and ultimately it's the worst thing you can do to yourself, your family, your business, your friends, you know, that, that is to me just like a critical, absolutely, you know, you've got to, it's, it's, you know, not negotiable that there's going to be a vacation, uh, and time down. And even, you know, like, like a day a week, you know, I think it starts there that work will bleed into your weekends and cup and take all of your evenings and weekends and early mornings, if you let it and people will too.

7:20Um, and not, you know, some of them are annoying, like the person that we fired today from, um, from Epic. Um, and some of them, we fired a client. Oh, a client. Okay. Okay. Good. And so I like, I like LRT. Yeah. And, and, uh, and some of them are unintentional, just, you know, like, like just they're needy or, or, um, or just you've made yourself available. And it's funny. I had a conversation with my wife last night, um, about, uh, about our dog, uh, because our dog growled at her when she picked the dog up. And I said, she doesn't get to growl at you. And I know you've talked with your wife about this, not to draw a parallel between our dogs and your kids, but kind of there are kids too.

8:03But, um, but you don't get to do that. You don't get to talk to your mom like that. You don't get to growl at your mom. You, you know, like you've got to set time for you. And she said, thank you for doing that. I don't ever do that. I never, like I'm always, I need to do these things. I'm like, yeah, you have to create the time for yourself. And I feel like entrepreneurs are terrible at that, that you've just got to carve it out. And if you don't carve it out, it will get filled up. So it has to be an intention that you have now to say, I'm going to take my weekend. I'm going to take my evening from this time.

8:37And I'm not saying don't work an and more. But if you do it all the time, you will absolutely burn out. So, um, you know, I'm going to take time off in September before our big event. Um, and then I will be off peak out of school. Uh, but I'm going to take it and it will be not the right time to take it. And there will be all kinds of reasons I shouldn't and all kinds of opportunities that I might miss out on. And certainly, uh, some fires that I could assist in spraying foam on, But the fact that I'm not there, tomorrow will still come. My life will still be good. And it will be good without those opportunities and without those fires fought.

9:19But it will be a recharged version of me that's excited to go into our big thing. Right? And so I think - I want to come back to what you said about like the fires and the timing, because I think that's important. You know, kind of lived that this most recent time, as you all know. But I love what you said about there's always going to be a reason not to do it. You have to carve it out because as entrepreneurs, we are trained to see problems. We're also trained to see opportunities, which is why if you say I will take a vacation when I get this thing done, When I get this piece done, when I get to this point, then I'll finally have some freedom.

9:57Then I'll finally have some extra time. No, you won't. And the reason you won't is because as soon as you solve for that, you will see something else. And like you said, you'll see another problem or you'll see another opportunity. And for us, they're kind of indistinguishable from one another. It's just that's the work that we do. So, yep, you got to put it on the calendar. You got to carve it out. These dates that I took have been on the calendar for over a year because every single year in December, but between Christmas and New Year's, my wife and I get together and we block off time. And then we go out again halfway through the year and we put out and we do this basically on a rolling two year basis.

10:34When are we going to be doing these vacations? Because frankly, if you're going to be taking some of these vacations at peak time and you want to stay in the best places, you have to book them sometimes 18 months in advance. So this stuff has to be booked and it has to be planned. And for that reason, it was planned. And you and I both know that, and we don't need to go into the details yet. Maybe when we're on the other side of some of this stuff, we can talk about it. but it's safe to say that this last month was not the best time for me to be gone. Right. It was one of the toughest months across some of our different businesses in, in the portfolio.

11:16I mean, it was a really hard time. If there was ever a time probably in the last couple of years for me to say, you know what? I wish you probably not go. This would have been the time to do it. But to push back on that too, right? What would you have done? That didn't get done. And that's exactly it, right? Because to that exact point, I now know, like, I think the riot of 10 years ago would have said, honey, we can't go. It's just too much to go. And she would have been disappointed. Obviously, the kids would have been really disappointed. I would have been upset. But I would have felt like this heroic martyr who still wouldn't have gotten anything done.

11:56I just would have been more burnt out, frustrated. And this is important. I would have resented the business. I would have resented the business. And so would my wife. So would my family. And so then that's when again, burnout happens. Burnout happens when you run out of options and you get super hyper resentful of the business. So what do we do? Took the vacation. What happened? World kept spinning. Everything was just fine. And by and large, I mean, not to get into details on everywhere we went, but we were in Yellowstone for like a week and a half. There is no internet in Yellowstone. Not like the wifi is bad.

12:36Like there ain't none. We were off the freaking grid and yet things were fine, right? Things were fine. The systems held, the people did what they were supposed to do and everything was fine. So yeah, it's, you're never going to find the time if you don't set it and that it's never going to be the right time. Any other kind of general observations? Yeah, I do think we should make a distinction because it's easy to sit where we are in our business careers and with the teams that we've put together and say, nothing would have happened any differently had you been here because it wouldn't have. And not that you aren't an integral part of the businesses that you are, you know, still an operator in, but, um, you have teams.

13:25And so one of the important things for everyone is like, if you are a solo, it is very difficult for you to leave because your absence, the impact of your absence will be significant compared to Ryan's absence. Like literally Ryan had people in place that were able to deal with the things that had to be dealt with. and if you hadn't done that, we would have had no sales basically that month. Like if you were a solo in the business, uh, in particularly in scalable and you were gone and what happened, happened, it's very likely that we would have had no income that month. Um, and I mean, we have recurring and stuff like that, but like no, no new income.

14:10How about that? Um, and that might have created a situation where there would have been a loss. So the fact that you have a team and you have people and you have capable people that can basically, even in a crisis, manage it and fight the fires that you're not fighting is a luxury that you have when you're not a solopreneur. solopreneur. So for those of you who are solopreneurs, it sucks that when you are gone, you are going to lose the income that you can't generate. And if you don't have other people, like if it's just you making the money, then that's a trade-off that you'll have to decide about.

14:53But it's also to me, a really good reason for you to get an operating system in place and duplicate yourself and get yourself above the business so that you are not the person who's doing all of the work. And so like, you still have to take the vacation. The impact on your business is going to be dramatically more if you're solo than if you are us, right? Or in a bigger company. But, but it still has to happen because you still only have so much to give and And the business will demand all of it if you allow it. So I think the biggest thing is, to me, it's like the metaphor is the business doesn't get to growl at me.

15:33When I pick up the business, it doesn't get to growl at me. I'm sorry. It doesn't get to talk back. It's going to behave and do as it's told. And the business is there to serve me, not vice versa. Right? My dog is there to be my trusted friend and eat all my food and take more medicine than I ever thought a dog could take. But I am not there to serve that dog. I'm just not. Right. That's so. So I think it's, you know, that's that's the big thing. The business doesn't get to growl at you. You've got to carve that time out. And and it's hard to do because you'll tell yourselves all kinds of stories about why you can't.

16:10But they're all fairy tales and none of them are true. So I think that that's my big thing. Yeah. So, I mean, I love that. I think that's a good kind of trend. Like, so why? Because I was thinking about this. If somebody is wondering, well, okay, I get that I should take a vacation, but, you know, why? Like, why is it good? And I think the first point that you made there is a big one. I think it's a good tangible reminder. It's a signal that your business exists to serve you. You're not living to serve the business. I think all too often we are we're told as entrepreneurs that we need to have these like mission centric businesses where it's all about the mission and it's all about the vision and we need to be willing to just die for the business.

16:53It's like, you know who propagates that idea? Investors and bankers and the freaking media who want a good story and want a good return on their investment. That's who propagates that idea. No actual business owner thinks that that's how it should work. OK, you started this thing because you wanted more for yourself and those you love. You were willing to work harder and take a greater risk. Therefore, it's there to serve you. And when you say, no, no, no, screw it. I'm going to take some time off. That is you setting appropriate boundaries and reordering the universe how it's supposed to be ordered.

17:29So I think that's the first big thing. The second big thing that I noticed that I forgot about, I forgot the impact of this, but it's sort of like if you've ever done a fast, how it kind of resets your taste buds, you know, and you're like, I don't know that I necessarily need to add that back in. It's amazing what a habit reset it is when you take a vacation. Like I wake up kind of around six, whether I want to or not. It's just sort of, you know, what I do. but you know there are plenty of days on vacation where I'm like I don't have to get up I'm gonna go back to sleep and so I did and then like in general I don't get on social media like I don't get on Instagram and like doom scroll but there are a couple days I'm like let's see what all the fuss is about and I'd freaking doom scroll reels for an hour you know and just do that and I remember doing that for about a week and realizing well you know not probably not a week for a few days realizing this kind of sucks.

18:26What do I want to do? And it's funny. There were, there's definitely certain things that I was doing in the mornings that I thought were productive that I'm like, I don't really need to do that anymore. I don't miss that. I know that there were absolutely certain, um, like newsletters. And there were certain things that I felt like I needed to keep up to date on that I did not miss when I had stopped reading them. So, I mean, a lot of it was in and around my consumption habits. A lot of it was, I mean, there were, yeah, most of it was around kind of what I was reading. What I had stopped doing was writing, you know, was kind of creating.

19:12I hadn't left any space for that. And so I started kind of adding some more of that back in. But, you know, I kind of had taken away all of the joy of, you know, let me just go and look at what's happening on social for a little bit. Like, I kind of like doing that. Let me go see what's going on. And, you know, with all the freakazoids on Twitter, let's just see, like, that was kind of fun. And I actually would get some interesting ideas from it. You know, that was good. I'm going to add that one back in. So I think the important takeaway, though, is the habit reset and the opportunity to just sort of re-underwrite your habits, re-underwrite your life.

19:50You've got a shot in an opportunity to do that. And we all saw examples of that during COVID. You know, that was the ultimate habit re-underwriting opportunity. And some of us took advantage of it. Most of us just fell right back into, you know, what we had before. This gives us the time to do that. But I'll tell you, man, the biggest benefit that I get from it is after about two weeks of not doing anything, not thinking about anything, I don't know what happens. It's like the creative floodgates just open. This vacation, not exaggerating, I wrote a book. I wrote a book in about two weeks. And it's a book that has been floating around in my mind for over a decade.

20:40And it just in two weeks, it was like, boosh, because for two weeks, I was able to clear the mechanism, I was able to clear out kind of all the stuff. And I think what people underestimate about rest and about vacation is rest is work. you actually are more productive when you take some time off you know when you when you rest and the last like week of my vacation i actually got more work done than i would get done in a typical month but it was fun work it was enjoyable work i didn't feel like you know it was unrestful or anything like that it was like my brain was like you need to get this out so that's great Right.

21:23Well, I love the, and I'm looking forward to hearing about the book. I love the process that you go through to set your, you know, your time, the, that you schedule a time that is every year, the time that you set out the next year's blocked out sacrosanct dates that are going to be time off. Do those have to, for you be travel or are they also like, can you do staycations and not find yourself reconsumed by work? Is that something that works for you for like people that maybe either don't like to travel or afraid to travel or don't want to? Yeah. When we block off the dates, we don't know where we're going to be going.

22:02And very often, we don't go anywhere. And so for me, it's just important to say, these dates are when I'm not going to work by default. Now, sometimes stuff happens, right? And so those dates do get taken up by work. But my role is they can be like my break time. And I do this intro week as well. It can be expanded. It can be multiplied. It can be moved. It just can't be deleted. Yeah. So if I've blocked off a week for vacation and that something comes in work-wise to take that up, maybe we had to move an event or something like that. Fine. I can move it, but it can't be deleted. But yeah, the location when we block them off is generally unknown and irrelevant.

22:48And there's plenty of times when, yeah, it's staycation. It's not about where you go. It's about what you do. And ideally what you do is as little as possible. Love it. I like it. Yeah. I think that it's definitely something that has made my life more rich and fulfilled and happy and makes, like you said, makes me not resent my work. I'm actually happy about the work that I do, but I sure as heck wouldn't want to do it all the time. And, um, and I think from your family standpoint and your relationships and just your own brain comfort ability to see things differently, you know, they say that, that when you're not actively thinking about a problem is very often when the problem gets worked out the best.

23:29And so even taking the time off, your subconscious is still going to be working on the challenges that you might be facing in your business. And you might find that that rest period actually becomes some of the most productive problem solving time that you have because of how our brains work. So I think it's really, really a good idea. And anything else before we sign off that you think you'd like to leave people with? Yeah, I would just say if you're in that like state of extreme burnout, and I know, I know plenty of people who get there who are there right now. Before you do something drastic, take at least one week off to would be better.

24:08I found 30 days to be the sweet spot. 30 days for me gives me a good week to wind down two weeks, frankly, to get almost like sick of being on vacation. And then I wind up doing work the last week. Like, so that's why it's sort of the perfect amount of time for me, but I do intentional focused, um, deep work. So I like 30 days minimum take a week, two weeks straight. And I'm, and I mean, no meetings, no slack, like try to, you know, try to try to just golf. The worst thing that'll happen is your business will completely implode. All your worst fears will come true. And this thing that's burning you out, you'll get to start over again.

24:50Right. And frankly, there's a lot of business owners right now who are playing in their mind, the quitting fantasy of maybe I just want to blow this whole thing up. Well, screw it. If it's that bad, step away for a little bit. Maybe the whole thing blows up and it makes the decision for you. It probably won't happen. Okay. It probably won't happen. But if you step away for a couple of weeks, what you will find is number one, renewed energy in the work that you do. You'll find what you said, solutions to problems that you've been wrestling with because you've been staring straight at them for way too long.

25:26And you may very well just fall in love with your business and your work all over again. And you may wind up finding that it's the most productive couple of weeks that you have all year long. So I cannot recommend it more highly. Take a freaking vacation. I love it. Well, there you have it. Hopefully this was helpful to you. If you found it so, please share it with a million friends and then we will increase our viewership by 1 million. And if you didn't keep it to yourself and we'll see you next time on the business launch podcast.

26:15I'll see you next time.

26:29Finding the right deal, structuring the financing, or negotiating with sellers. You are not alone. Too many people waste months, even years, just thinking about acquiring a business while the real opportunities pass them by. The Epic Deal Fast Track is not another course. It's actually an implementation program, and it's designed to get you from the idea to the acquisition in just 16 weeks or less. We work with you one-on-one to help you find, fund, and close your first or next deal. And once you do, we're going to plug you into our elite Epic Board community so that you can keep scaling through acquisitions.