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The whole purpose of a vacation is to get away. To not only be somewhere else entirely, but to think about something else entirely. Work should not be on your mind. Period.
But the reality is that most entrepreneurs end up taking a "fakecation", if they take any time off at all.
Listen to this podcast episode to find out what the definition of "fakecation" is, and why it's time to institute a No Fakecations Allowed policy
Let's be honest: building a company from nothing is incredibly hard. It has been for me. I started my entrepreneurial journey at age 8. Yep, you read that right....8! Since then, I've started, run and sold multiple businesses with no partners and no funding. All my life I've had to build something from nothing, and that's what I've gotten really great at - tenacious, creative and extremely smart strategy coupled with hard work. Welcome to The Do What Is Necessary podcast—I’m your host, Andrew Moon.
Listen in as I share all the mistakes I’ve made and, more importantly, what I’ve learned from them, with no fluff, and no rose-colored glasses. The Do What Is Necessary Podcast is a show where we cut through the toxic hustle and grind mindset and dig into what it actually takes to start and grow a “calm business”. Calm is family first. Calm is more independence. Calm is sustainable practices for the long term. Calm is joyful. Running a calm company is a choice.
I’ll be giving unfiltered advice every week, 10 minutes per episode each. I want you to walk away from this podcast with the mindset and tools you need to be successful.
This podcast is for entrepreneurs, side hustlers, and busy professionals with a short attention span (like me)—you’ll get quick-hitting, actionable information in every single episode. If you give me your time, I promise it won't be wasted. Now let's get to work!
When someone takes a vacation at
your company, yourself included.
It should feel like they
don't work there anymore.
You should be encouraging
them to go completely dark.
Turn off their computer, delete
outlook from their phone.
Don't check in.
Go away for real, be gone.
Be off your grid.
The whole purpose of a
vacation is to get away.
To not only be somewhere else entirely.
To think about something else, entirely.
Work shouldn't be on your mind period.
But the reality is that most entrepreneurs
end up taking what I call a "fakecation".
If they even take time at all.
When was the last time you
actually got to disconnect?
I mean, for real.
Not for a weekend.
But for weeks.
When you didn't feel any guilt or
urge to check in and check up on work?
Very few entrepreneurs can
claim that such a thing.
Nowadays, that's a tragedy, in my opinion.
But it's also a recipe for burnout.
Fakecations puts you on
a leash, just like a dog.
You're liable to be yanked back and pulled
into work at any time at any moment.
We all start our business with
the idea that we'll be able
to get the time off we need.
That's supposed to be one of the
key benefits of having a business.
Time off isn't much of a
benefit if you never get it.
It becomes more like a crappy loan with
terrible terms plus interest and worries.
And I think it's time enough is enough.
Just because you own a business
doesn't mean that your company
should be entitled to all of your
nights, weekends or your vacations.
That's life time.
Now true emergencies are an
exception, but those should only
happen once or twice a year max.
When your company acts like it owns all of
your time and your, your employees time.
This breeds a culture
of neurotic exhaustion.
Everyone needs a chance to
truly get away and reboot.
If your employees are denied that, or
you deny yourself that, you're both
going to end up tired and resentful.
I promise you.
Now clearly time off is necessary,
but only if you can take it without
preoccupying yourself with more work.
So, how do you do that?
How can you do that as a
committed entrepreneur?
Let's talk about five steps
that have helped me to create
a no fakecations policy for me.
And hopefully some of
these tips can help you.
Step number one is to make a plan.
If it's not on my calendar, I'm pretty
likely not going to ever get to it.
So I encourage you to pull out
your calendar right now in whatever
form that is, and mark down your
vacation, your next vacation.
The more you intensely plan your vacation.
The more likely you're actually
going to follow through.
You need to schedule that time off
weeks or even months in advance.
And then tell everyone, you know,
in and out of your organization that
you're going to be taking a vacation.
Spreading this actually does two things.
First you'll be prompted to actually
follow through on your commitments
because the last thing we want to hear is,
"Aren't you supposed to be on vacation?"
And the second, everybody around you is
going to develop plans for your absence.
For example, one of your partners
or your admin can start charting out
the responsibilities that he or she
plans to take over while you're gone.
Set the expectation that
you're going to be completely
unreachable except for emergencies.
And chances are your team will
follow through on those expectations.
And chances are you will too.
Tip number two, delegate or postpone.
I look through all of the
things that are on your task
list, your ordinary day to day.
Uh, responsibilities as well as
any emergency situations that
might pop up while you're gone.
And then make a decision to either
delegate those to somebody else
or postpone the action altogether.
To delegate, designate somebody
on your team to take care of all
of those tasks in advance, so they
know what they're supposed to do.
If things are unimportant.
Maybe they can be handled whenever
you get back from vacation.
Delegated tasks require no worry, because
you've left someone else in charge.
You freed up the brain space that
you need to actually be on vacation.
Step number three is you
need to actually disconnect.
Now disconnecting seems
like a simple step.
But it's one that we're
all guilty of neglecting.
When you're on vacation, you need
to disconnect from the world.
Turn off your phone.
Disconnect your internet and try not
to turn on anything that could distract
your attention that could take away your
attention from actually being on vacation.
Because if you have things
on, we all know how that goes.
You're going to be sucked
back into worrying about work.
It's almost unavoidable.
If you have your phone on.
Or if you have email.
On your device, whatever that
is, iPad, iPhone, whatever.
Now if there is an emergency.
You've got somebody that can
either handle things for you while
you're away or worst case scenario.
You give them the phone
number to your hotel.
But again, that's only
if things are truly bad.
Tip number four, establish worry time.
If you.
Think about trying to disconnect.
If you find that even while
disconnecting, you can't help,
but worry about your business.
Try to refocus your efforts so that
it's only a certain period of time
each day while you're on vacation.
For example, you might designate
between 12 and 1:00 PM.
as your worry time.
Where you just kind of check in the
emails and make sure everything's okay.
And everything's going okay at work.
But as soon as one o'clock hits, You've
got to pull yourself back away from that
screen and focus on enjoying yourself.
This compartmentalization strategy
doesn't work for everybody.
And I know it's going to be harder for
some myself included, but if you find
yourself worrying, no matter what,
this strategy can actually mitigate the
effects of taking that time off and being
able to have that work-life separation.
My last tip.
Is to practice and scale.
Some entrepreneurs will undoubtedly
find themselves incapable of taking a
truly relaxing, worry free vacation.
They're are natural born worriers.
Or they care too much about
their businesses to let
them go even for a few days.
If that sounds like you.
Maybe practice taking worry free
vacations by starting small, and
then maybe working your way up.
Start by taking a half a day off.
And following the same rules that
I've mentioned, in this podcast.
Once you become comfortable.
Taking a half day off, maybe take
a whole day off a single whole
day off work every once in awhile.
And from there you can scale
to two day, three day or even
week long vacations and more.
Like anything else you'll get
better with practice and experience.
But you've got to start somewhere.
With these strategies that we've
talked about today, you should find
it easier to take time away from work.
Without being bogged down by worries.
It takes real effort.
It takes real effort to disconnect
your mind from work, especially
if you're an entrepreneur.
But if you want to avoid burnout and
avoid hating your business at some point.
We need to maximize the potential
for happiness and satisfaction
by taking a real vacation.
And not have a "fakecation".
Hopefully this podcast episode has
helped you learn of maybe a few
steps to implement a no "fakecations"
allowed policy for your company.
I'll see in the next episode.