325. Leadership: The ROI of Rest: Why Breaks Make You A Better Boss

If you've been feeling like you're always going, always behind, and tackling a to-do list that literally never ends, this episode is for you. 

We're joined by The Planner's Vault COO Gina Johnston for a candid conversation about a lesson both Megan and Gina had to learn the hard way: the ROI of rest.

In a world that praises the hustle and a culture that makes us feel guilty for slowing down, Megan and Gina unpack why taking breaks isn't a luxury - it's a leadership strategy. They get real about what it's like to run on fumes, the toll that decision fatigue takes on high achievers, and how to build in more margin without losing momentum.

This is a much-needed reframe, offering powerful insights and actionable takeaways to help you reset your nervous system, protect your energy, and come back to your business and life as a better, more present leader.

In this episode, you'll learn about:

• The profound impact of decision fatigue on your brain and body.
• Why "doing it all" and being constantly busy can actually limit your business's growth.
• The emotional toll of always being "on" and how it leads to burnout, resentment, and a depleted mental state.
• The importance of a pattern interrupt to break out of unhealthy habits and cycles.
• The surprising way your "hustle culture" can put pressure on your team and lead to their own burnout.
• A simple litmus test to know when you are in a low-battery state and in need of rest.
• The ROI (return on investment) of rest and why your next big idea won't show up in survival mode.
• Practical, bite-sized strategies for rest, like creating a Monday and Friday "buffer," and the power of getting out of your "natural habitat."

Episode Timestamps:

• 00:08:00 – The stat on daily decisions and the profound impact of "decision fatigue."
• 00:10:00 – How we use our phones to avoid rest and the cycle of doom-scrolling.
• 00:12:00 – The consequences of making big decisions when running on fumes.
• 00:15:00 – The human, shared experience of feeling stuck in "quicksand."
• 00:22:00 – The truth about why we're so anxious and depressed in today's fast-paced world.
• 00:26:00 – The "low battery mode" litmus test for knowing when to rest.
• 00:28:00 – How an intentional weekend away was the catalyst for Megan's second business.
• 00:30:00 – The power of a pattern interrupt and getting out of your normal environment.
• 00:32:00 – Modeling healthy boundaries for your team.
• 00:37:00 – Practical, rapid-fire examples of rest for different types of people.
• 00:41:00 – The challenge for you this week: finding a way to take an intentional break.

Feeling the pull to pause and realign? Join me October 27–30 in Ocean Isle Beach, NC for my Restore & Realign Retreat, only a few spots left! Reserve yours here: https://www.theplannersvault.com/restore-realign-retreat-application

For Real on Social Media: 

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forrealwithmegan/ 
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ForRealPodcast

Hosted by Megan Gillikin, For Real is presented by The Planner's Vault, and is produced by Walk West.

Feeling the pull to pause and realign? Join me October 27–30 in Ocean Isle Beach, NC for my Restore & Realign Retreat, only a few spots left! Reserve yours here: https://www.theplannersvault.com/restore-realign-retreat-application

Creators and Guests

Host

Megan Gillikin

Wedding Industry Coach + Founder of The Planner's Vault

Producer

Jason Gillikin

CEO and Executive Producer at Earfluence

What is For Real: Life, Leadership, & Unlearning?

For Real is a top 1% podcast for high-achievers who look successful on paper but feel like they’re one group text away from burning it all down. Hosted by Megan Gillikin - serial entrepreneur, business coach, keynote speaker, and recovering people pleaser - this show explores burnout, boundaries, identity shifts, and the brave act of unlearning who you thought you had to be.

With unfiltered conversations, “I thought it was just me” moments, and just enough humor to keep it from feeling like group therapy, For Real is your permission slip to evolve.

Formerly Weddings for Real - and glow-ups look good on us.

Megan: [00:00:00] Welcome to episode 325 of four Real, the podcast about life, leadership, and unlearning. I'm your host, Megan Gilligan, and I'm so glad you're tuning in. Now, today's topic is one that's near and dear to my heart, and I know it's going to land. If you've been feeling like you're always going, always behind and tackling a to-do list, that feels like it literally never ends.
And before we dive in. Whether this is your first time tuning in or you've been hanging out with me for a while now, I just want to say thank you so much for pressing play and letting me join you today. This show is all about having honest conversations about what it really looks like to pour into yourself, continue to evolve and be willing to unlearn the outdated lessons and beliefs that no longer serve you.
And today's conversation is one I know so many of us need to hear. We're diving into the ROI return on investment of rest, and why breaks [00:01:00] actually make you a better boss and leader? So if you've been running on fumes, feeling guilty for slowing down, I've been there, or just wondering how to build in more margin without losing momentum.
This episode's for you. Let's jump in.
You are listening to for Real, the podcast where we get honest about life, leadership and unlearning all the outdated beliefs that are holding you back. I'm your host, Megan Gilligan. I'm a serial entrepreneur, speaker, business coach, recovering people pleaser, and your unfiltered guide through the messy middle of growth, the part that nobody posts about on social media.
Inside each episode, we dive into the habits, mindset, shifts, and hard earned lessons that help you build a life and a career you actually want while letting go of everything that no longer serves you around here, we ditch perfection. We talk [00:02:00] boundaries, burnout, breakthroughs, and we call out the BS that keeps you playing small.
So if you're craving deeper conversations, much needed, relatability, and full permission to evolve into your next level, you're in the right place. All right, let's get into it. In today's episode, we're talking about why rest isn't a luxury. It's actually a leadership strategy, and I'm excited because I'm not diving into this one alone.
I've brought on one of my favorite guest. So joining me today is my right hand gal, my COO of two businesses that we've built together. Gina, and if you've been around for a while, you've likely heard her join me on past episodes or you've heard me mention her. But she has been such an integral part to building two businesses together, and she brings her own leadership lens and dialogue to these conversations, which makes them even better.
So Gina, thanks so much for being here. I'm so happy to have you join me.
Gina: Thank you so much. I'm so [00:03:00] glad to be here. And honestly, this is one of my favorite topics too. It's one that you and I both have a lot of experience of learning and growing. Um, and I really think it's a great time. So we're reporting this, you know, what is it?
It's September. So in the fall things are crazy. I've heard so many business owners and leaders out there saying this exact same thing of, I can't rest. I don't know when to rest. How do I rest? So I'm excited we're talking about this.
Megan: Yes, yes. We know this firsthand from our own experiences, and then I agree in so many of the conversations with clients that I do coaching with, this comes up as well.
So here's what I wanna do with today's conversation, Gina. I want to talk about what really happens when you find yourself running on fumes. I also wanna talk about what rest can look like. When you are so, so busy, because let's be honest, I don't know that there's anyone listening to this that isn't feeling the weight of being busy, especially as [00:04:00] you mentioned with us recording.
You know, right now in September, we're just heading into one of the. Busiest times of the year for business owners and then just for living with all of the holidays in front of us.
Gina: Yeah. If you're starting to listen to this episode and you're laughing to yourself thinking, ha ha, they're gonna tell me how to rest, just wait.
Well, we've got you. We understand it's a challenge and there's some work to do, but we've got some ideas for you.
Megan: And I will be the first to admit this lesson around rest is one that I have had to navigate learning the hard way, not just once, but honestly a few times over the 15 years that I've been an entrepreneur.
And for me there were absolutely seasons where. Early on in my business, I thought the answer was just to continue working later and pushing harder. There were definitely seasons [00:05:00] of hustle, which I know, you know, anyone listening to this that has started a business knows what that looks like. There were seasons where there was not enough sleep.
There were seasons where I was balancing, you know, being a new mom and running multiple businesses, and I look back on that. Time in my life. And I know that like there was something that was like a point of pride for me in being so busy. It was, it spoke to my inner achiever. It said that, you know, I was building something successful, but I can also know now with wisdom and reflection that so much of that.
Exhaustion and stressed out energy that I brought not only to myself, but also to my team. And you were, you've been part of, you know, two teams that we've built businesses together. I know that that [00:06:00] honestly limited the ability to grow the businesses in the ways that I wanted to. So. Talking about rest when it feels so, so hard for high functioning achievers.
Mm-hmm. To actually feel comfortable leaning into. I really want one of the takeaways from listening to this to be like no rest is not just like, oh, that would be nice, or I'll do that when things slow down. It is absolutely essential to having a healthy business and a healthy you.
Gina: Exactly, and a lot of us speaking to your high achiever self and we start these projects or we have these ideas and some of us are just in that hyper focus mode and or you know, we pack on so much and there's just no light at the end of the tunnel, but.
At the same time, you know, you said it exactly of like you have to build in these moments of rest, and we're not talking [00:07:00] about going on vacation for a week and forgetting everything Like that would be great sometimes. Right? But we're talking about building in some intentional times. Putting white space in your calendar to just have that moment to breathe, have that moment to be able to step away and say, let me just clear my head, brush my eyes off, and come back to it with a clearer lens.
You know, we're gonna talk about it during this episode in all different capacities, but really what I think I want everyone to listen to is. It doesn't have to be these huge time suck rests that when you're achieving, like you're that high achiever and you're just like, I need to go, go, go. Or I can't stop until this is done, or else I'll never come back to it.
It's building in those small brain breaks. Right. Even my son talks about it all. He's like, can I do a brain break? I need, I just need to do something else for a second. Yeah. And then I can come back and, and be more focused on this. Did you say brush your eyes off? Brush my eyes off. You know, like you wipe your eyes off, brush your eyes.[00:08:00]
We talk about it in the morning. I'm like, we gotta put my mommy's eyes in. 'cause I wear contacts, so it's like, where's mommy's eyes? There we go. Yes. You know the thing, who knows?
Megan: I know, and you know, something that you said and something that we kind of talked about before we hit record on this episode is we're in a day and age where the number of decisions that have to be made within a day, whether you are working within a business or you are running a business, like the decision fatigue is so, so real.
You know, I think you have a stat that you shared with me before we hit record that I would love to mm-hmm. Kind of set the tone when it comes to where does this exhaustion come from and why am I feeling like even just deciding like, what am I gonna wear today or what am I I going to make for dinner?
Or, you know, what time am I gonna go to bed? Like, what, when am I gonna do my laundry? Mm-hmm. Like, why are we so [00:09:00] depleted
Gina: that mental. Strain, right, of making all of these decisions. So it was a stat that I had had read and it was, I think the average adult makes about 35,000 decisions a day. 35 insane thousand.
Let's just pause for a second. Think about that. How many. Decisions. These are big decisions. These are are little micro decisions that you make every single day. And think about the strain that that puts on your, your brain, your mental capacity. Mm-hmm. Just the pure exhaustion. It's like, no wonder we get to the end of the day when it's quiet and you're just like, I can't do one more thing.
Like I just. I need to shut my eyes. Um, or I just need to be in silence. So, you know, for some of us, we talked about this, it's fall seasons coming up, there's holidays, maybe if you have children, they're finally back to school. Thankfully my son is, he's a track out kid or a year round kid. So we're tracked in some days, tracked out others, and it's a little different.
But still you're back to school. But there's still decisions. You have to deal with that, right? Like are they going on [00:10:00] field trips? What are they gonna have for lunch? What are they wearing? Is it Spirit week? Is it, we just had a fun run fundraiser. Yeah. So it's all these different things that you're having to decide on, and it's exhausting.
Megan: Yeah. You know, to your point, you say you get to the end of the day and you're depleted, but. I'm just gonna call myself out as well as likely the majority of people that are listening to this, and that is like, yes, we're exhausted. We've made our 35,000 decisions for the day, and then our way of chilling out.
Is not resting like we are doom scrolling on our phone. I was gonna say scrolling on the phone. Or we're sending each other like 35 reels that, you know, we feel are relatable to being exhausted. You know, it's funny how we're exhausted and then we want our friends and family to know that we're exhausted, but we don't just say it.
We have to send it through a funny reel instead. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Gina: But then, I mean, even think about it too, right? Like. [00:11:00] You're doom scrolling and, and if you are a business owner or you are someone that manages either a social media or something and, and you do see that, it's like how quickly do you work that back into your business?
Oh, for sure. And your job or whatever you're responsible for. And it's like, what am I doing?
Megan: I know even the doom scrolling is work, right? Because I know for you and I, sometimes I'll see something and I'm like, oh yeah, this is how I feel. But also, could we work this into our social media strategy? This could
Gina: resonate.
We could just rework this and talk to it about business. It's great. We got it. Yes.
Megan: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So we've talked about like we understand where the exhaustion is coming from and you're making these small decisions, but let's put on the hat of someone in the seat of making big decisions. So they're deciding, okay, am I continuing with this service offering?
Am I going to move forward with this marketing strategy? Are we going to continue down the path of opening up this next location that's on our radar? So these [00:12:00] become. Bigger decisions that require more mental energy and bandwidth. And when you are constantly running on fumes, right, so you've got that short fuse.
Mm-hmm. Maybe your judgment in making decisions is not so great. Perhaps your sleep. I know for me, like I can tell such a difference on the nights where I stay up too late and I am looking at my phone or I do get distracted, and then the next day, like my energy that I bring to that day, the patience that I have with myself, with my kids, my partner with you, like it's all a little bit, yeah.
Shorter, and I've said this before, but there are certain seasons where, or maybe it's just days at this point where you feel like. You have this to-do list, you have all these things. You have your to-do list of little things like, okay, I need to get back to this client. I need to respond to this email.
Mm-hmm I need to pay this bill. But then you have [00:13:00] like that bigger picture list of like, alright, I want to finally shift the way that we're pricing our services. Or, I have been talking about making these tweaks to the website for the last six months, but I never have the time to do it. And for me it can feel like.
You're moving, like you're moving forward, but it's moving through quicksand. I wanna speak to someone that. Is feeling that as they're listening to this, and I just want to really remind you that while it may feel that you're looking at everyone else's highlight reels and vacations that they're taking and the new client that they booked and all the things, like so many people, especially where we are right now in the world in this time of year.
And everything that people have on their plates, so many people are in a place of struggle, are in a place of overwhelm or in a [00:14:00] place of anxiety. And, you know, it takes me back to one of the most, you, you, you and I were together, um, yesterday doing a coworking day. Mm-hmm. And we were stepping back into 2020.
We were talking about the overwhelm that came with where we were with. The way we were showing up for clients, um mm-hmm. Specifically, like the planner's fault had just been launched. I had a, another business with team members. Uh, schools were closed, so there was like, I had three children at home and I just remember like that quicksand feeling was like I was trying to move forward and I had so much.
Of an inner critic for why I couldn't get more done in a day. Yeah. I really wanna make sure that like someone listening to this that is kind of going through that phase of life where it's like, gosh, I have all these things and there's so much shame and there's so much inner critic that one of the [00:15:00] best things that I think you can do for yourself is just realizing like, man, this is a human and shared experience, and there's gonna be seasons where it's really hard and it does feel like that quicksand.
Gina: Yeah. I feel like most humans in general too, they fall back on what is comfort, whether it's a good comfort or a bad comfort's. Mm-hmm. It's what they just know. What is it the saying? It's like the devil you know is the be better than the one that you don't, right? So it's like, yes, you have all these decisions, you have all these wishes and these big goals, and you maybe set them at the beginning of the year and you're like, yay, I'm gonna do all this.
But then you fall back into the weeds, into the everyday life and the cycle and it's human right. We have to figure out ways to disrupt that. Disrupt it in our everyday life, in the cycles that we go through each and every day. And then in that bigger picture, right? What can we do to kind of create a wall for ourselves that we hit and say, wait, stop, pause, check in with yourself, check in with your body, check in with your goals.
Like do you even still want them? Or are the decisions that I'm making, are they [00:16:00] going towards truly where I wanna be? It's so easy to fall back into those ways, and especially when there are, I mean, you just said like 2020 was a huge year for a lot of us. There was so many changes that happened. There are gonna be those seasons, and hopefully that doesn't happen ever again.
But there are gonna be hard times where either you are in that buildup phase or mm-hmm. You know, you have a bigger project coming to mind, so there is gonna be a little bit more hustle involved. There's a. Your to-do list is never ending. There's always gonna be something to do. You can always put something on your to-do list, right?
The intention of actually saying, I'm gonna actually put rest, whatever that looks like to you, but I'm gonna put that on my to-do list, so I'm gonna put that five minute break in between my calls. I'm gonna put that, you know, whatever it is. The little walk around my block, it got to a point for me every spring season, for the most part.
It was every April. I remember I would always come to you and I'm like, Megan, I'm done. I quit. I quit. I can't do, I can't do this anymore. I'm just, I'm done. I have clients [00:17:00] constantly texting and calling me. I have, you know, the team always needing something. I have, um, like working all of these events on the weekend and I love it.
It's, you know, it's. What I wanted to do, but it was just back then we, we didn't fully understand that it was okay. It's okay to say, hold on, I just need a minute. Like, no, I'm not gonna be available to you 24 7. I am gonna deliver the best service that I can deliver, but that doesn't mean sacrificing. My, my state of mind, my body, my whatever to make that happen.
And I can't be the best me if I don't take these moments for myself to rest or to just reset where I'm at. It is shameful to say like, I'm gonna be a bad leader, or I'm gonna not provide the best client experience. But I would challenge that and say, reframe it. Right? What are you. Giving to others, to your team, to your partner, to yourself when you're running on those [00:18:00] fumes.
Mm-hmm. You're not giving your best self.
Megan: Yeah, man, there's so much that you said there that I kind of wanna go back and touch on a few things. Mm-hmm. One, you talked about how it's so easy, easy to stay in a place of comfort, but unhealthy, exactly like these habits, like this, this habit of working late every night, or this habit of being available to clients when you really should have a boundary, or you did have a.
A boundary that you set, but you don't uphold of when you're able to meet with them or have calls with them and things like that. And I think that it's really hard to break those habits. And you know, we've talked about this before, but in shifting out of what you have done, maybe for. Years, maybe for decades you, you're gonna have some fails there.
Right? Yeah. Like you're gonna have some setbacks where you go back to your old ways and you have to, you have to reset from there. Mm-hmm. And you talked about setting these, you know, big New Year's [00:19:00] goals and like, here's what I want to achieve and I. Did this for so long and felt the effects of setting goals that I really almost like set myself up to fail that.
One of the things I've talked about on this podcast in past episodes over the years is to reset my brain and my nervous system and my unhealthy habits. I like to almost. Put multiple restarts to the year in. I love that. Whether it is, you know, a quarterly, like, okay, I, I said these were my major goals for this year.
How am I doing three months in and, and do I need to pivot? And then when I get to this next quarter, what does that look like? And what does mm-hmm. Rest and reset look like throughout the year instead of like these broad sweeping goals that
Gina: mm-hmm. Perhaps
Megan: I may not even be connected to by the time I get.
To the end of the [00:20:00] year. Right. Something that you said, I don't remember what it was, but something triggered, um, me around the idea of pushing through even when it's hard, right? Mm-hmm. So we talked about the pandemic. You know, you talked about you being in a place of like every April you'd wanna quit and, you know, we can laugh about that and joke, but the reality is.
I was a burnt out boss, like I was a burnt out leader, and that meant that I wasn't serving my team, you and the other members on the team. Well, and I wasn't serving myself well. I wasn't showing up as you know, the mom that I wanted to be. And there's a lot of grief and regret I think sometimes, whether it's.
Business owners or just as someone that like continues to carry a lot, which, you know, Gina, I would look at you and say like, although you're not technically a business owner, like you are a leader and you are [00:21:00] someone that like carries a lot and can, you know, can handle a lot, but when life gets really hard, I think we're quick to say like, well, there's no time to be.
There's no time to wallow. There's no time to be sad. Right. There's no time to, I was gonna say, and
Gina: then you add the whole like therapy session on top of that, right. Of Yeah. The, you know, if you're not in tune to your emotions, you do, you suppress a lot of that, those feelings and those, and then you become resentful and then, you know, it's a whole storm of other emotions that come up and happen.
Yeah.
Megan: Yeah. And I think that goes back to, it's like if you're not prioritizing. Care for yourself. Rest awareness pauses. Then unfortunately, speaking from deep lived experience, it is. A fast and furious track to burnout. Resentment, overwhelm. Mm-hmm. Emotional mental [00:22:00] depletion. I saw something, I actually shared this on my Instagram stories yesterday.
This post said, humans were never meant to be this busy. And that's why everyone is anxious and depressed and it's, it's funny.
Gina: Yeah, it's funny, but it's also like, it's like we talked about this yesterday. It was like, ha. Yeah. Okay. True. Hit me right in the heart.
Megan: I know. And then one of the other things, I've said this for at least 10 years, it comes up on my memories.
You know, often it's that it's that meme or whatever you wanna call it, I don't remember what it's called, but it's the thing that says, adulting is saying, but next week things will slow down every week until you die. Right? Like, let's just be so, so guilty of saying that so many times. Yeah. Things aren't gonna slow down unless you intentionally make a plan.
Like we are living in the most fast-paced 24 7. Mm-hmm. You know, we have access to news from social media to like [00:23:00] 3,000 thousand different news sites. You've, I mean, there's just so much coming at you. Yeah. You, you're not going to have next week slow down. No. Unless you are the one. Putting your foot on the brakes, so.
Exactly. Yeah.
Gina: Exactly. There's, I mean, I, I think you're the one that calls me out on that the most of like, yeah, next week I'll be able to do that for sure. My, my week looks a little slower. And then next thing you know, next week comes and you're like, wait, how did all these meetings come up on my calendar?
Or Yeah, how did I get volunteered to do this with my kids' school? Or whatever it looks like. So I think it is, it's truly like. What can you build in now, and we talk about this a lot in our coaching sessions and some of our masterminds and pop-up boardrooms of what can you take right now, look at the next three months, build in those intentional times of just like blocking a day, blocking a couple of hours, where can you add that white space or that time for you to reset or.
To just have off [00:24:00] or whatever that looks like for you. But it is that intentional pause, right? That it, you have to set yourself, your future self up for success. And we've started, you know, we've, we've been doing this for a little bit now, but it's always funny because we go back and we're like, yay, thanks.
Pass me like, thank you for letting me have this rest. Yes. But there is, you know, I also so saw something and it talks a lot about the physical exhaustion and the mental exhaustion. And we may have some partners, or there may be some people out there that their job or their hobbies are very physical.
It's the heavy lifting, it's the digging, it's the, you know, you're standing on your feet for a long day. You can physically feel that, right? Like your muscles are tired, your body aches. You may have need just food or hydration to like help you. Mm-hmm. Bounce back from that. But that mental exhaustion. Ooh, it's tricky.
Megan: It's, yeah,
Gina: it's so tricky because from the outside, people are like, yeah, they look great. They're fine. Yeah. But on the inside you're like, I, I am [00:25:00] dead inside, basically. Yeah. Well, and you can't, it's, it's not always easy to recognize.
Megan: No it's not. And I love this analogy 'cause I use, I actually was talking to, uh, my oldest daughter, Emma.
She's 13 and she's in her last year of middle school. And she came home, um, I'm trying to think. Oh, she came home. She had missed an assignment already. It was the first week of school. And she was spiraling out, spiraling out. Like she was really struggling, like the emotions were big and I was trying so hard to not.
Over enable, right? Mm-hmm. Like I needed her to be able to problem solve and figure this out. But one of the things that I told her was I was like, Hey, I get it. Like this is one of those moments where, you know how on your phone when it goes to like below 20%, it says low battery mode. And it's like certain parts are going to stop working now, right?
And everything feels bigger and harder. And more [00:26:00] difficult to overcome, and I saw her in that like low battery moment. Mm-hmm. I think as adults, oftentimes we don't have someone to see us in our low battery moments, especially my business owners like you are, you are the leader. You are the one that is supposed to spot the low battery moments in your team members or family members, loved ones.
And so being able to spot your own. Low battery moments is really important because we don't wanna get to the point where like, you get to shut down mode. Right, right. That's, that's the burnout, right. I would say, I was just thinking of this as you were talking like a great litmus test for someone listening to this that is like, okay, I'm hearing you.
Yes, yes. But where, where, how do I know? Mm-hmm. I would say one of the best ways that I know when I'm in a low battery state and I am needing a rest and a [00:27:00] reset, is imagine. A new inquiry comes in, right? Like this would normally be an exciting thing. You would be like, yes, yay, new business. This is great.
But if you see that new inquiry come in and you're like, uh,
Gina: and not because it's a bad inquiry, just it inquiry.
Megan: Yeah, that means you're a bit overloaded. Like you're in a place where like you might need, you're like, no, one
Gina: more thing.
Megan: Don't give me money. No, that is a big red
Gina: flag.
Megan: Yeah. It's the exchange of money for the energy that you just don't have. So, Dina, I wanna get into, you know, some of the.
Actionable things that mm-hmm. Someone listening to this can do. And I also want to hold space for rest, might look different for different people. And I'll tell you something that I've talked about here on the podcast before Gina, you know about this. But back in 2019, I. [00:28:00] Did something that I had never done before, and that was I took my business owner brain that had all these big ideas and things I wanted to bring to life, but I knew I wasn't taking action on, and I got away for a weekend.
We went three hours away. We rented an Airbnb. I had. The best time, like we were staying where we could go out and cuddle baby goats and we could, you know, go visit wineries. And we did those things. But I also had the space to take a look at like all the ideas I wanted to bring to life and have the capacity and bandwidth and discernment to think through those ideas.
And one of the coolest things from that time was like, that is what built. My second business like that. It was that weekend that I came back saying like, oh, I'm gonna build this membership, this educational membership. Mm-hmm. It's something that I still do. It's something that, you know, you and I host these workation retreats for women business owners, but it's [00:29:00] something that I still do separate from the ones that mm-hmm.
We are hosting where I take them myself. Uh, you and I have done them together before, and. If you are in a space where that's something you could, you could consider, whether it's a night away, two nights away, that to me is a game changer.
Gina: Absolutely. And I encourage anybody to consider it. Again, it goes back.
I can hear people say, when am I gonna have time to take? Mm-hmm. Three nights away, two nights away, even one night away. When can I do that? Challenge yourself to build that in. It might not be right this second, but can you build it in early next year, later this year, later next year, whatever that looks like.
Because one thing that I take away, not only from the ones that we host with everyone, it's the same. I hear a lot of the same things. It's getting out. Of the environment that you're in every day. And this was true for me. Um, we did an episode on like team locations and what that looks like. And one of the, you had asked [00:30:00] me a question of like, what's your biggest aha or biggest takeaway?
And it truly, for me was getting out of that day-to-day, getting out of my house, getting out of my city and my town that I live in every day. And I'm familiar with things. And again, falling back into the habits, the habits that I created for myself here. And disrupting that and saying, now you don't have a house to have to pick up or do laundry or go run grocery errands, or you know, now you're not running into somebody on the street that you know, or whatever that is.
And it was getting me out of my day to day, not having to be the one to do. Bus stop pickups or you know, kid drop offs or whatever it looks like for you. Yeah. It's that, it's
Megan: that pattern
Gina: interrupter, right? Yeah. And just getting out and being able to have that space, like you said, the, being able to just kind of clear your mind from some of those.
Mundane tasks that you're always there to do when you're at home or in your normal space. And you know, getting [00:31:00] out of that and opening your mind to other things, other creative thoughts, or being able to work on those big picture items. So I think that's one of the biggest takeaways. For creating this space for yourself, whether it is a one night or a couple nights, um, whether it's three hours away or if it's a couple states away, um, whatever you need and whatever works for you.
But I, I think it's one of the, the biggest things that anyone could do for themselves to create those bigger moments of reset.
Megan: Yeah, I love that and I, I wholeheartedly agree. I have been outlining this book that I'm gonna write, and it's almost like there's some sort of boundary around my house that I cannot seem to write this book in my house because there's just too much to be done or too many things that I can, you know, tackle that.
I will postpone the writing, but when I get out, when I get away, that's where like the creativity comes back, that reset, that excitement comes back. And so if [00:32:00] that resonates with you and that's not something that you've done, I would highly encourage you to consider it. I truly can look back on the last six years of business ownership and say some of the.
Biggest moves. The boldest decisions that I've made have come when I get out of my, mm-hmm. I guess I'll quote natural habitat and it, it affects the leadership of how you show up if you're leading others too. Because Yeah, if you're business owner and you are exhausted, and you are stretched thin and you are not able to support mm-hmm.
Your team members because you can barely support yourself. Yeah, that has long-term effects. Mm-hmm. Because as business owners, as bosses, as leaders, we set the tone and if you have come to find yourself in this like 24 7 hustle grind mode, then. Your team is likely feeling the pressure to match that as well.
And I know that the leader that I am [00:33:00] now is a complete departure from the leader that I was, and you and I were joking before hitting record on this episode how it used to be like it was commonplace that we were. Texting each other every single night. We were, you know, talking about client things. We were sending emails.
It was, it was just an, we were always available to mm-hmm. Each other. I didn't have the boundaries. So it was clear that like I set that vibe or environment for the team and I want someone listening to this to know that. Those people that are on your team, they feel the pressure. Even if you've said like, well, don't worry, like you don't have to work at night.
Mm-hmm. Or you don't have to be available. They feel the pressure to mirror what you model. Right. So if you're always on, then your team absolutely feels pressure to do the same. And that is a quick way to lose team members, to have team members that are experiencing [00:34:00] burnout. And Gina, I think you and I.
Can look back to that season of building the business, and I'm so grateful that, honestly, you stuck with me when I was in hustle mode to help us get to this place of, yeah, we don't text on the weekends. Like if I text you, we don't. It's becausecause. You're sending me a picture of your kids out and about or, you know, we, we've created these boundaries in this space, so it is possible to get out of hustle and into a more aligned, healthier environment.
Gina: It absolutely is. And, and it's funny 'cause I like, as we're sitting here talking, I'm reflecting back to those times and I just remember laptop open on the, and life was a little different then too, right? Like I, at that moment I didn't personally have any kids and so I was able to work a little bit later at night and I think it goes back to saying, everyone's gonna be different.
Maybe you are better. Working late at night, but, and so maybe it is the mornings that you wanna take off to go have your workout time or whatever you wanna do, but I just remember sitting there and it was [00:35:00] like, we were always texting, or I was emailing a client and now I'm like, well, I'm just falling asleep on the couch.
I'm like watching, watching a Netflix murder documentary. And it's, it is, it's so different. And I think there were a couple shifts that we personally made. Within our relationship because we were, we were close as friends. 'cause I had been with you for so long, but we were also close in a business and business partnership sense.
And we had to separate those out too. And I think it, it really was like creating our boundaries of saying, Hey Megan, like, I like now that I do have young kids, or now that you have kids. Like, so I think, you know, we had to create our own boundaries with each other of at night. If you do have something urgent on your mind, because working for you late at night at that point in your life maybe was easier.
We had different channels to drop those into. So I think going back a little bit, to your point of as a leader or as a business owner, being able to have that rest and stepping out [00:36:00] to determine, you know, what is that path forward, gives you that clarity to then lead your. Your team because when you are in that state of chaos and you're just in the grind in the day to day and the, all right, let's do this, let's do this.
Yeah, it does. I think some of, some of your team may say, peace. I'm out. Like this is not for me. Some may try and keep up because this is truly what they want and this is what they think that this industry is about. Whatever industry you're in, and they're like, okay, this is what I need to do to get to this place.
It does. It can, it can lead to their own burnout. They also are looking to you as a business owner and as a leader saying, where do I go next? What are we doing next? And you're over there thinking like, God, I don't know. Like we're just gonna keep going. So I think when you can take those moments away and those bigger moments away are ideal, you can.
Come back with such more like focus and clarity of what the direction of your business, of your roles personally and your team members' roles, what do [00:37:00] those look like? Yeah. Sometimes that's where
Megan: the fog gets lifted. Mm-hmm. And you're like, wait, why is this person doing this thing on the team? It would make so much more sense for this to live with you.
Or like, oh, thank you for sharing that. Like, you actually hate this thing that you've been doing for two years now, so we can move this to someone else. Well. Gina, I want to, you know, we're wrapping up this episode and I'd like to take a couple minutes to just rapid fire back and forth, like what mm-hmm does.
If it's not multiple days, what can smaller chunks of rest look like for two different humans? And can you share something that rest looks like for you now, and then I'll share one as well and we'll go back and forth.
Gina: Yeah. So my, I have in my neighborhood, I have a block and it's exactly 10 minutes, half of a mile.
And in between any calls or even just if I don't have meetings and I'm just con like working on a landing page or working on whatever it is, I set a timer and I take a 10 minute break. I go walk my dog around the block once. He gets his [00:38:00] exercise. I get my vitamin D if I can, or I'll do it on my walking pad.
I try and give myself some lunch breaks and I remember them right. Uh, but I put my, I leave my phone. I have my offices downstairs in my house. My kitchen is upstairs, so I leave the laptop. I leave my phone and I just go upstairs. Another thing, when we talk about. That disruption of environment. I also leave different environments.
So the nice thing is for us, we have that luxury of being able to work from wherever. I can't always work from my house. I can't always work from my office. So I go to my local library, I'll go to a coffee shop. I'll even go to a park and just sit outside if it's a nicer day. So I have to constantly be moving or I just, I get stagnant.
I need that reset and come back with fresh eyes to then. You know, start again. I love that.
Megan: Um, a few of mine, so I, a few years ago restructured my calendar, so my Mondays [00:39:00] are more admin, you know, behind the scenes work. My Fridays are blocked out as well, and I. Unofficially have that marked as like personal.
So if I need to do doctor's appointments or things like, that's a great day for me to go have lunch with my girls at school. Um, but I block those two days out so it's a easier entry into the beginning of the week and an easier exit out of the week. So my Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are the days where I'm doing client meetings, coaching calls, podcast recordings, et cetera.
That's worked really well for me 'cause it helps me ease in and out of the week. We're coming off of, honestly, probably the best summer that I've had with my kids and that was because I told you like I was very upfront. I was like, I'm not gonna do a lot this summer. I'm gonna be, don't schedule me
Gina: for anything.
Yeah. I was like, I was just
Megan: blocking weeks and weeks off. And yes, I did some calls, I recorded some podcasts, I did some meetings. But it was light and it was exactly what I wanted and what I needed. And that, you know, may be for you, it may not be for you in [00:40:00] whatever season you're currently in. I also do something similar to you.
So Gracie, my dog, she's behind me normally all day long on all my Zoom calls, but I do I in between when I have five minutes or 10 minutes, I go out in the yard, I run around with her, I throw the ball. Sometimes we'll go for a walk and it is, it's great for her. It's great for me. And. I said I wasn't gonna talk about this, but it is, it's that twice a year, finding the time for myself to get away out of my environment and tackle those big picture ideas.
Mm-hmm. And in past podcast episodes, I've talked about how I keep a pinned note on my phone that's like future of business ideas to bring to life. And that helps me. Take all the things that come to me when I'm out on a walk or traveling somewhere or in the shower, I put it in there and that means like if it's important enough that when I get to the time away that I wanna bring it to life, then I will
Gina: start small.
We are all about small action steps, so start small or just build it out into [00:41:00] the future. So future you can. Thank you.
Megan: Mm-hmm. Gina's coming with the tough love
Gina: today. I love it.
Megan: I love it. Well, as we wrap up, something that I want you to remember is that the ROI, as we talked about at the beginning of this episode, the return on investment of rest, it's so real.
It comes in better decisions. It comes in you being a better leader and being able to support your team more when you allow yourself permission to pause, permission to rest, and. Your next big idea is not going to show up when you're in survival mode. That I can guarantee you. So my challenge, the challenge that Gina and I have for you is to.
Find a way to take an intentional break this week, whether it's a daily five minutes, whether it's something that you pull out your calendar and you look ahead, you know, two, three months or the beginning of next year, and go ahead and carve out that time to give yourself the. Ability to rest and also to [00:42:00] get excited about your business and creative again, and if you're craving that bigger reset.
Well, I have good news. This is exactly why we host our Workation retreats that we've hosted since 2021. These retreats sell out every year, and as Gina and I are recording this, this is the first year that we've decided to do it a little bit differently and we have two spots left. So. This is for you if you're looking for that intentional pause and you're wanting to get out of your own way and step into what's next.
If you wanna check out the details for that, I will link the signup page in the show notes and we will be in Ocean Aisle, North Carolina at the end of October this year. We would love to have you join us. Thank you, Gina, for being my co-host today. Love having you.
Gina: Thank you. I always enjoy having these conversations.
Bring in the tough love.
Megan: Yes, always, always. [00:43:00] And thank you for listening to this and spending time with us today, and until next time, keep unlearning and make sure that you give yourself the rest that you deserve. I'll see you next time.