I am coming into the second week of my at home chill-out vacation. I have turned off all my blog tracking and am trying to ignore my label business. In the past whenever I went on vacation I took http://www.label-land.com with me. My business is very portable, so it was very easy to keep on-top of it while vacationing. The downside though is I haven’t had a complete break in almost 5 years. After a week of not really dealing with work, I can honestly say I am beginning to feel refreshed.
As a business owner/entrepreneur it is incredibly difficult to just step away from my business. My business depends on me and I depend on my business. The two biggest challenges in taking a complete break are;
I don’t work I don’t make money.
I’m the boss and the employee, I don’t get paid vacations. It is always an expense.
What if I miss a great opportunity?
Being a global online business, people are always inquiring about my products. What if a blow a great opportunity because I didn’t respond to a time sensitive email or phone message?
I realized that though these were valid concerns, they were solely based in a short term view, and a mistaken subconscious perception that success happens through random luck.
Though in the short term taking a vacation can be a financial burden, in the long term, the powerful effects of revitalizing your mind and body will help to take your business success to greater heights. Taking a vacation is like cross training. Cross training allows you to work the full range of you body’s capabilities, it helps build strength, endurance and flexibility. Think of working non-stop as only power lifting weights. Though you will have great short term strength, you will not be able to last long, and you won’t have the flexibility to adapt to the constant changes.
With regards to missing out on in the moment opportunities. Yes there are stories where a person has made that one deal that made him an overnight millionaire, but it is probably more rare than winning the lottery. If you run your business with the hopes of success based on random luck, you are as foolish as the person who spends $40/month on lottery tickets. If you have built a quality business, then time will show your success, not luck.
I highly recommend taking vacations. I say vacations because two weeks a year is not enough. The optimal would be up-to an hour a day, once a week, and two weeks a year where you actively stop thinking about work.
I heard about an accounting or law firm in New York that is highly successful. The firm takes is Sabbath (day of rest) very seriously. They are completely unreachable from Friday afternoon until Saturday night. You cant call, email or page them. Their business grows strongly even though their competitors are reachable 24/7. When some of their clients were interviewed on the topic, the clients stated that the strong level of commitment that the firm has in sticking to their sabbath, is the same level of commitment that the firm dedicates to their clients. Furthermore they felt that this day of rest were the employees of the firm stop thinking about the office helps to keep them fresh and creative.
