How Solo-Entrepeneurs Can Take Guilt Free Vacations - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

How Solo-Entrepeneurs Can Take Guilt Free Vacations - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career You are reading this while I am with my wife on a beach in Belize. It’s our first vacation (or “holiday” as the Europeans call it) of 2014. As a solo entrepreneur vacations stress me out. If I’m not connecting with clients and prospects I’m losing touch with my business and may not have one when I return. So, I plan accordingly and make sure everyone gets touched the week before I leave and I schedule re-connection appointments for when I return. Think about how much more productive we would all be if we worked as diligently every day as we do the days before we head out on vacation. Why don’t we do that? Because there is no sense of urgency. The lack of urgency in our day-to-day business allows distractions to creep in. I’ve noticed this even when there is a sense of urgency around certain deadlines that have to be met. I’m sure you have, too. But, not when we head out on vacation. We keep our heads to the grindstone, churning it out and clearing our desk so it can be stacked with new stuff while were away, right? I also have to admit I do not shut down 100% on vacation. I can’t. There is just too much for me to monitor when away at this point and that’s okay. My laptop comes with me and I check/respond to emails and respond to voice mails every 48 hours or so, taking a couple of hours out of my vacation to do so. This saves boatloads of stress, and allows me to relax even more while away and be able to hit the ground running when I return. My wife and I schedule enough “alone time” on our vacations so that we can fill it any way we want and this is how I apply some of mine. I’m writing about this because I think we get into thought patterns with rules for how things “have to be” that limit us and create more stress in our lives, instead of doing what is reasonable and helps. Last year I was able to generate significant revenue for my company offering virtual trainings through teleclass series and webinars. It just so happened that one of my series fell during a week we were on vacation. The “show” had to go on. So I took two hours out of my eight days to deliver a webinar from the general manager’s office of the resort we were at. My clients were served, I was pleased that I was able to keep my promise to them, and my wife got some extra alone time. Everybody won! It was a great vacation as despite all that “work” I was able to read two non-business books during that week, (the only rule my wife requires of me when I’m away “no business books only pleasure reading.”) Bruce, a biography about my rock and roll hero Bruce Springsteen, and The Gone Girl, a best selling novel. On this vacation I’m reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and The Hunger Games. I know, I’m a little behind on my fiction titles. See you next week!