When I put in place a waiting list for my company’s services, I didn’t have any expectations that it would work, or even be useful.
In fact, quite the opposite: I had a large number of misgivings.
Every time I thought about it, in the months before I actually needed it, I went down in to the Dark Side of possibility. It was completely silly, and unnecessary, and really on the Other Side of Abundance And Positivity.
But in the past three weeks, it’s become an absolute blessing.
You see, it wasn’t until I stepped out of the company for a period of extended leave, and felt the joy of doing so for the very first time, that I realised how necessary is that list!
I say that having been approached to provide more services in the past three weeks than I have in the past eight months.
In a couple of cases, I’ve referred people out. That’s entirely because their timeframes haven’t matched, and they had goals attached to the work. But by far the majority of folks are happy to wait.
They all go into the waiting list.
Having been out on leave now for a week, I’m starting to find my cadence slowing down.
I still feel compelled to check emails daily. But that is fading, slowly. Give me another week and I’ll be completely at rest.
You know this feeling, I’m sure.
It’s that thing where you’re still spinning at a thousand miles an hour for seven or 14 days when you stop. Then you chill out. Then everything is a different colour when you go back.
The trouble is, few business owners ever take even that much time off.
They go on holidays, start to slow down, and then go back to work before they’re properly rested.
Taking extended leave - minimum 4 weeks at once - is critical when you’re an entrepreneur. It gets my goat that nobody insists on this. You have to understand that when you’re 80% booked up, that really is at capacity; that creativity and new thinking requires space; that you have to have enough time to wind down as well as to rest.
Elite performers, you might be surprised to know, spend 50% of their time resting.
Is it any wonder that so many companies are mediocre?
My accountant said to me this week:
‘Very few business owners do maternity leave as well as you.’ He made the comment after chuckling at my autoresponder. (You’re welcome to send a bogus email to me, if you’d like to see it.)
What I replied was:
‘Few business owners ever take a weekend, let alone extended leave.’
And he had to concede that I was right.
You know, if you read authors like Mike Michalowicz then you start to feel like you can’t take extended leave until you have systemised your beast. You need staff. You need all these things.
You don’t.
All you need is the ability to live while you’re not working.
So you either save the cash, or you have a baby. (Haha, kidding! - though in a welfare state, it’s a good reason to have a break!) Everything else you can problem solve in ways that do not require five years of your life.
The challenge is that it requires courage, willingness, and creativity. If you have the first two but not the space for the third, you will always be stuck in Business As Usual.
If any of this resonated with you, reply to let me know what it was and why it hit home.
And in the meantime, I have to advise you that pretty soon I’ll be taking a break from sending this to you. It’ll be for maybe eight weeks. If you don’t hear from me one week soon, go to the pub and have a drink in celebration… and then send me a selfie! ;)
~ Leticia Mooney