Taking breaks in business is crucial.

While most peeps love the idea of a break, entrepreneurs typically suck at actually unplugging.

Why?

Yes, we love what we do, but I think the deeper reason is that we don’t actually know who we are once we step away from our biz.

And this is scary to us.

But actually detaching from biz makes you a better biz person and a better human being. AND makes you more client attractive. AND you get so many ideas once you bring open space into your life and your head. AND I could go on and on …

Do you know Philippe Starck?

If you don’t, you should.

He’s a prolific designer (I own some counter stools he designed!) and I invited him to keynote a design conference back in my event producer days.

My counter stools designed by Starck – ooh la la!

When I invited him to speak, I couldn’t believe it when his agent told me they couldn’t get the invitation to him for 2 months because he was on vacation for that amount of time. I mean, we were offering him a hefty 5-figure speaking fee for a 1-hour talk. Couldn’t he just look at the invite and check his calendar?

No, not until his vacation was over.

Incredulous at the time as a little corporate worker bee, now I totally get it.

He needed space to conceive of his newest creations. Space away from calendars, details and decisions. Space away to simply BE and ENJOY all he had worked for. Space to wander and rest and explore and be quiet.

And so do you.

How to make it happen:

• Out of office email: Set this up while you’re away so people don’t expect a response from you. Exhale now. How great will it feel to be off of email for a bit?!
• Team plan: Communicate with your team how long you’ll be away and ensure they are clear on project status and how to reach you in an emergency (and what actually constitutes an emergency).
• Social media: You can preschedule posts to go out while you’re away. I’ve been using a new, kickass tool called Edgar that schedules all of my fab content.
• Clear the decks: Get all the big stuff out of the way so you can TOTALLY unplug. It’s worth it! Leave your office space ORGANIZED so when you come back, you’re actually excited to dive back in.
• Boundaries and expectations: Communicate to your clients about your time away. Give them a heads-up so they can prepare on their end.
• Systems: If you have your systems nailed, it makes taking breaks SOOOO much easier. I’ll be teaching you about rocking your systems to get known online on my free training.
• Promotion calendar: Build your vacation into your marketing calendar so you can work around it like a pro. You can still have promotions scheduled during your break. Just ensure you have someone overseeing things while you’re unplugging.

Book your next trip now. Where will you go?

xoxo

PS – Oh, Philippe Starck did end up accepting my invitation to keynote.  That event was the most successful, profitable design event I produced in my 5 years working on that event. He remains one of the most prolific, creative minds I’ve ever seen take the stage. Fucking brilliant!