In this episode, I talk about the importance of why your business needs you to take a holiday – to dis-engage from your business and be in the moment. I also share 4 key benefits why you need it, how to plan it, and tips on how to do quick check-ins on your business while on holiday.
Believe me, you really need it.
Important Links Mentioned in the Show:
Angela Henderson Active Business Facebook Group
Angela Henderson Facebook Business Page
Prefer to read Why Your Business Needs You to Take a Holiday? Here’s the transcript:
Hey there, you’re listening to the ‘Business and Life Conversations’ podcast. My name is Angela Henderson and on this show we talk about improving your business, life or both by having amazing and rich conversations with brilliant guests. Who will inspire you and who will give you tips and tricks to help you grow both in life and in business.
Hey there guys and welcome back to another episode of ‘Business and Live Conversations’ with me, your host, Angela Henderson from Angela Henderson Consulting. Today is just going to be just a quick podcast but an important one for all of you that are in business and or just in life in general. Today I really want to hone in on why your business needs you to take a holiday. So sit back, enjoy the ride and get ready to listen to what these benefits entail and how you can incorporate a holiday into your near future. Here we go.
Today my little catch up with you guys and episode is all about why your business needs you to take a holiday. It’s got me thinking over the last few weeks, people are aware that I’m heading to Bali for two weeks and they’ve been asking questions like, “Well, why can you go away for two weeks? What do you do to go away for two weeks? I haven’t had a holiday in years.” And I thought I’d share with you guys, again the importance as to why your business needs you to take a holiday.
Now, when I talk about holiday, I’m not talking about that you guys need to have eight week holidays or even one week holidays. A holiday can be defined as any way that’s going to help you to get some sort of benefit for yourself, your business and your family. So it might be a short jaunt down to, I don’t know I’m in Brisbane so, so it could be a weekend away down to the Gold Coast. But whatever it is, it’s an opportunity for you to be able to actually disengage from your business and just actually be in the moment.
I ask you, as I talk about this, when was the last time you felt the sand between your toes? You sat with a beer in your hand or a coffee in your hand and you listened to the ocean? You watched your kids play? Yeah, when was the last time you did that? Is it important to you? Is it something you’re longing for? And if you’re sitting there and going, “Yes, yes and yes” then I encourage you to listen on because I think that it is so important for you to identify and figure out a way to get you on that holiday.
There’s an interesting stat I found, as I was researching for this particular check-in and what I found was a study in 2015 by the company, Xero over here in Australia. They surveyed more than 500 small business owners and they found out that more than half found it difficult to take time off, with almost 40% preferring to work through the summer holidays. I mean, wow! That, more than half, more than 40% preferring just to work through the holidays? So that’s 40 out of every 100 people are basically going, “Eh, I’ll just work. I don’t need to create memories with my kids. I don’t need to rejuvenate, I’m just going to keep on working.” Which again is a staggering statistic to say the least.
Now, my next thing is the benefits. There are hundreds of benefits I could talk about but there’s four key benefits that I want to talk about of why your business needs you to take a holiday. Because these benefits far outweigh you continually to plug away at your desk space.
Benefit number one, relationships. It gives you an opportunity to not only regroup with family, friends potentially but more importantly yourself and this is something that is so often missed by people that are in business. Relationships can start to actually deteriorate and they can become far and wide and you lose friends sometimes because you’re so obsessed about your business. Your kids, listen they want to stop playing with you at times, or they’ve made their own play because we’ve been too busy. So benefit number one is being able to have the opportunity on holiday to rekindle with relationships, both your family, friends, yourself. Whatever combination that looks like for you.
Benefit number two of having a holiday away, is that you get, you’re more productive and you’re more creative. It’s, you’re plugging away for 14 hours a day, some of you guys and I know this because you guys tell me this. And it intrigues me because the longer you work, the less productive you actually are. By going on a holiday, you’re resetting the way that you work, your actions, your behaviours and all that because you’re actually forced to unwind and so because of that, benefit number two is that you’re more productive and creative. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been playing with my kids and in the moment with them and then walking along the beach later hand in hand and these beautiful creative notions come to me about what else I could be doing in my business. Things I never had the opportunity to think about because I was too busy plugging away at the keyboard. So benefit number two is productivity and creativity.
Benefit number three, and again for those who have been following me for a long time – you will know I’m all about health, both physical health and mental health, and so going away on a holiday is hand-in-hand. You’re able to sleep longer and your body needs sleep in order to heal, in order to actually be productive and have those capacities to run the business that you need, efficiently and effectively. Health is so important but it’s also important from your mental health side of things.
If you’re lacking sleep, more than likely it’s a key indicator, people start to become anxious, they overthink things. And then if you’re working 14 hours, the burn out level is so high which then can potentially lead to depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts etcetera. Benefit number three for taking a holiday is clearly your health.
And benefit number four is perspective. Perspective, “Do I really need to be working 14 hours or can I scale that back to ten hours and have the other four hours to be with my family every single day?” You gain a whole new perspective when you can back away from the busyness of 14 hour, ten hour, eight hour days. Now some of you might be thinking, “Well that’s really lovely Ange. I don’t have the funds to do this.” Or, “How am I going to plan my staff etcetera?” I call B.S. because if anyone wants to make anything happen, you make it happen. For those of you that don’t think it can happen, well this particular session that I’m having with you guys isn’t going to benefit you because you’re going to make up a million excuses.
But for those of you who have been nodding there, listening to this going, “Yes, I actually need to get it together. My health is impacted, my productivity and creativity is impacting, my relationships are impacting.” You’ll walk away and you’ll start to think about how you can actually implement taking a holiday, again, whether or not that’s a day, two days or two weeks like I’m taking away in Bali. But in order for that to happen, again, it’s not rocket science, you’re going to need to plan this. You’re going to need to be able to plan in advance, is what I also say. If you’re going to take a holiday, plan it six months out, eight months out.
But what I have found when I used to work in mental health is that if you’ve got a light at the end of the tunnel, so you’ve got a date that you’re going, you can keep going. You know the light is coming at the end of the tunnel, so plan in advance. Make sure you let your clients know that you’re going on holiday, set up auto responders when you actually leave, train your staff, all those things. Yes it’s going to take a little bit of work but at the end of the day, you’re going to have a holiday and exactly what you need.
One of things that I do say is, if you leave your business for long periods of time, you’re going to come back to chaos. There are certain things that I’ve done over the last eight years of running my business with Finlee and Me and now with Angela Henderson Consulting, because I don’t want to feel that overwhelm when I come back from holiday, when I’ve just been calm and zenned out and in the moment. What I have is an agreement with my family, is that in the morning we wake up, we go to breakfast together and then my husband takes them back to the hotel room where he sunscreens them, gets them in their swimmers and I’ve got 30 minutes to do a quick check-in with emails or any crises that have been happening.
I can tell you, again, productivity level – I’m refreshed, I’ve had sleep, I can crank out more work in 30 minutes than I probably can in a four hour day because I get sucked into Facebook. I’m not on Facebook, I’m at my laptop in a coffee shop, again listening to the ocean. Crank it out and then I’m done, that’s it and then I walk into the hotel room, I get my bathers on myself, I sunscreen up and I’m with my kids and husband. Now my kids, because they’re still little and they burn enough energy for the cows to come home, they will then be in bed normally for seven, seven-thirty. Like out cold to the wind and my husband, who’s a fisherman by trade, is no longer but by trade he is, he’s in bed for seven-thirty also because he’s normally had too many cocktails. I’m not a huge drinker and so for me is, I’m with them until seven-thirty and then I sneak out, go back down to the lobby for about 30, 40 minutes, sometimes an hour if I need to. I crank out what I need to do and I’m caught up.
Naturally I’m still in touch with what needs to go on with the business but I’m setting boundaries around that so that when I arrive back into Brisbane, everything is awesome. It’s amazing because I’ve been able to still keep up. I’m not saying that you need to completely disengage from your business because, again, you’re going to come back to probably a huge amount of stress. Check in 30 minutes of your business in the morning, check out at night.
Your business needs you to take a holiday right now and for those of you who are in denial or don’t think it’s going to benefit you, I promise you, hand on heart that this will help your business grow, be productive, realign and some of the other things not only for your business but for yourself and your family. And if you haven’t done it, step one – just book a night away somewhere, just a night away. And if you’re only going for a night away, keep the damn laptop at home. I’m going away for two weeks, it’s a lot, so the longer you’re away, the more you still need to be in contact with your business. But if it’s a night away, seriously put the damn laptop away, embrace being with your kids and it might actually feel really odd that you’re having that much time with them, or really odd to reconnect with your family or even your best friend but I promise you, you need it! You genuinely need it!
That’s my little pep talk today for all of you out there listening and I hope that even if one of you listeners out there today make a step towards planning a one night holiday, a two night holiday, whatever – I know that I’ve helped one of you guys out there today.
Alright guys, this is Ange from Angela Henderson Consulting and I look forward to connecting with you guys all again sometime soon. Have an awesome day no matter where you guys are in the world. Bye guys!
Thanks for listening to the ‘Business and Life Conversations’ podcast with Angela Henderson on Why Your Business Needs You to Take a Holiday, www.angelahenderson.com.au.
