Last month was a big deal in my life on April 25th my lovely bride and I celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary. What a blessed life we have had, a terrific family, grand kids, good health, some amazing friendships and business is good.
We went away for 14 days, a holiday/anniversary celebration. We cruised from Italy to Greece and back to Italy. Normally on vacation I work a couple of hours a day, in the morning, stay in tune, keep up with what’s going on but not this trip. I decided I was taking zero technology with me, no phone, no iPad, nothing work related. Lisa had her phone and iPad for emergencies and she did have some work to do, not much but some. It allowed us to be able to FaceTime with the grand kids as well. I almost backed out and took my stuff. For weeks I was telling friends and business colleagues what I was doing, going off the grid I said. Some laughed at me, they said I could never do it, some said good for you, others said good luck!
Before leaving I was talking with an industry friend and let them know I thought I was going to take my stuff just in case. I would leave it shut off and if I really needed to connect I could. He said “Really, do you think your that important that your business or people can not survive without you?” Of course it could and of course they could, I knew that. I also don’t think I’m that important.
The technology stayed home, I made the right decision. The trip was amazing but what made it that way was total relaxation. I read, I jotted down ideas and thoughts BUT not one email, not one phone call about business. Not being distracted allowed me to pay attention to the important things. It was amazing.
I prepared well before I left, my message on my phone was clear about who to contact as was my out of office reply on my emails. Upon my return I took one full day to catch up on all correspondence. Once I deleted all the trash there were 500 emails for me to deal with. I was 7 hours working on them, not bad really considering I was gone for 14 days. A small price to pay to have piece of mind and a really relaxing vacation with Lisa. I highly encourage all of you to try this. You can do it, You deserve it!
While away, I read an absolute gem of a book, Married My Mom, Birthed a Dog by Allison Graham. We had just recently hired Allison as our keynote speaker for the National Recruiting and Retention Symposium. The Symposium was a hit thanks to all the hard work of our TransRep team and Chairman, Charlie Charalambous of ISB/MEE Global. Allison was loved by the audience, I would endorse her work as keynote speaker any time.
Don’t let the title fool you, this book will help you, regardless of who you are, what level your at in your career, who you are as a person. This book will help you professionally and personally. It will remind you of your blessings in life, help you think of your allies, who you need in your life, the importance of your professional and personal social circles, your emotional intelligence, your emotional awareness, why you don’t want to live in the past, who your influencing, who is influencing you, losing the word busy in your vocabulary, controlling your schedule and the list goes on. I highly recommend it.
I also recommend you understand that your not that important, you can take a vacation and leave your work and technology behind. If I can do it, so can you. I am looking forward to more vacations off the grid.
