Taking 6 Weeks Away From My Business And The Effect It Has Had

I'm coming out the back of a 6-week break from work and I wanted to follow-up on my first post and share what's been a significant experience. SPOILER ALERT: This isn't a globe-trotting adventure of rainforests and Buddhist temples. I stayed at home. It's been more of a mental journey and a sort of realisation. If you can't be bothered to read my first post, the summary is I own a company. I was extremely burnt out. I took 6 weeks off.

And sorry if this feels like extended bullet points because it is. I'm heavily dyslexic (or neurologically diverse for those in the know) and it's just how my melon's wired. I do notes!

When I wrote the first post I was 2 weeks into my 6 weeks off. I didn't write it at the beginning because I honestly didn't know if I'd stay the course. It was at the end of the first 2 weeks that I realised I absolutely would take the whole time and needed the entire 6 weeks. In fact, in the end, I needed exactly 6 weeks. It's strange how your mind and body know exactly what you need, we just ignore it most the time because of things we consider to be a bigger priority.

The first post I wrote ended up with 80 comments on LinkedIn, which at first was super motivating, but very quickly had the adverse effect. Like so many times in my life, anxiety came along and turned what should have been a positive start to the 6 weeks, into 2 days or crippling doubt. People were making some epic suggestions, like swimming with sharks and buggering off to Thailand to learn kickboxing and these all sound amazing but sent me into a huge panic. "If I don't achieve some huge adventure would people see this as a failure?" "Would anything less than an epic Bear Grylls style trip make me look boring and someone that's wasted a chance of a lifetime?" It took me 2 days to finally calm down and realise, it honestly didn't matter what I did and that people wouldn't judge me. What mattered was I did what I wanted and the got the result it was hopefully going give me. This wasn't a short-term fix. I needed a long-term solution.

Over the 6 weeks, I fished once, played golf once and took a trip to Peterborough to catch-up with a pal. And that was kind of it for the "me time". I'm not someone that can relax for long but this wasn't a revelation, I've known this about myself for a while. I quickly jumped into small projects and as we were halfway through renovating our new house, there was an abundance of small projects to get stuck into. I'm crap at DIY and wasn't allowed near power tools but I repurposed an old table, put up shelves, got to know the fine people of B&Q more than I ever expected I would and found other micro projects to keep myself occupied. "Idol hands..." and all that.

Now, the thing is, I've always considered myself to be a good dad and a decent husband because I'm physically there more than most. For the last 7 years, I've owned a business and this allowed flexibilities. I was with my wife a lot during the pregnancy of our first child, and I've watched both my kids grow-up so far. We've had long holidays in the past and I've been able to be on hand when needed. I considered this to be doing well.

When I started the business, my mentality was that I needed to think about it 24/7, and I'd feel guilty and panicked if I wasn't. That's not just me, that's most business owners I've spoken to. You're constantly bombarded with stats on how most new businesses fail and that was always at the back of my mind, so I'd need to be thinking about work, even if I wasn't working. It's that "island of one" mentality and it's something I'd never shaken off.

About 2 weeks into my break, without really knowing I was doing it, for the first time in a long time, my mind wasn't on work. I put this down to 3 things;

1) Our team is AWESOME. I've known for a while they can flourish without me there, and I wouldn't have considered this amount of time off if they weren't. I had absolute peace of mind walking into this.

2) I had something else to focus on, ie the new house.

3) I have an incredible wife who is super smart because she knew this is what I needed for a very long time and she knew she couldn't tell me what to do (she has tried in the past), I had to find my own way, but she was there to keep me on track.

We'd have breakfast together as a family. We did the school run together. Myself and Lois would work on things around the house together, grab lunch, take a trip to B&Q and be back in time to pick up the kids. We'd spend the afternoon with them rolling around on the grass, making tents and creating stupid games and play until they fell asleep. We'd open a bottle of wine and laugh and joke and smile. I've done all this before but my mind was never further than a few seconds away from thinking about work. The further along the 6 weeks went, the less I'd think about work and more I'd just be in the moment. Not all the time, but progressively more and more and as it turns out, my family is pretty awesome people to be present with. Who knew?!

I came to the realisation that there's a difference between being THERE and being PRESENT. And it took me a while to understand that difference, but here's using my own experiences to explain it; Taking a holiday abroad but getting stressed about work the whole time isn't being present. Taking the kids to the park with one eye on your email isn't being present. Going out for lunch with your other half and taking a call halfway through because it's a "big client" isn't being present. Being present, in basic terms, is not being somewhere else, mentally. And for as long as I can remember, mentally, I've always been at work. My daughter didn't know me being present. She knows the work me that's taking a break from work for a while. My son knew the guy that's fun SOME of the time and has a phone to his face MOST the time. My wife commented at the end of the 6 weeks that it was nice to have me back after so long. It's like one of those movies where there's a twist at the end and then the whole film feels different all of a sudden. Realising that I'd never been truly present with my family put a new filter on the last 7 years. Not a bad filter, but just different.

And look, I'm not shitting on the last 7 years and I'm not shitting on anyone that finds themselves in this situation. Starting a business can be a lonely, soul-destroying place. Trust me, I know. I don't regret the time I've put into building it, but working with this 24/7 mentality has been a necessary evil, but I've finally realised that it isn't necessary, for me, anymore.

Once I had that lightbulb moment, I started to make a conscious effort to be mindful and see how far I could go with it.

- I started to meditate. If any of this post has sounded at all familiar, leave this post and go download the Headspace app. It's meditation for the modern world and holy crap has it made an impact. These are headphones in, sitting up, 10-20 minutes sessions. Melanie Hayes put me onto this a while back and to be honest, it's sat on my phone like every other diet/exercise/wellness/get on top of your finance app, but finally embracing it and it's made a significant difference. Starting the day with a clear head really gives you an advantage.

- Always saying yes to my kids. I realised quickly that my kids would rather play with me than do anything else in the world. That's a god damn responsibility. They'd rather play with me than watch a tablet or build lego in their room alone. I used to make time for them like they were a client scheduling a call. And I don't anymore. I'll now drop anything I'm doing to play with them. It's exhausting! And sometimes I don't have time to do the dishes or reply to an email because of it and maybe it does mess with other things, but in the grand scheme of things, what's more important? I'm fully aware I've got a window of opportunity because there'll come a point they don't want to hang out with me anymore, so more of a reason to say "Yes" now.

- I appreciate what's around me. Small things; A meal. A beer with a mate. Going to the gym. My folks visiting to say hello. If it's something that makes me happy, I try to remember let myself be happy with it. Life moves fast and the things we love can go away quickly. A guess it's an appreciation of the journey and not just the destination. Our house is a great example. I was getting super frustrated at the time it was taking to finish the building works. It's liveable now but far from finished, but rather than get stressed about the stuff we still have to do, I'm just happy for anything that gets done that day. I'd come home and another sink would be working. I'd focus on the new sink we could use rather than the everything else that we couldn't.

In the same way that I didn't want to write this at the beginning of the 6 weeks for fear of not seeing it through, I also didn't want to write this at the end of the 6 weeks, because who isn't going to feel great after 6 weeks off? The acid test was always going to be how I felt after diving headfirst back into the working world. Now, I've been back for 2 weeks and in that time we've hosted 2 major events, which would usually have me pretty twisted by now, stressed and feeling pretty crap. But honestly, I'm feeling pretty great right now. I'm way less stressed. I've carried on with the meditation and that's allowed me to be present at home when I'm at home. I can detach from work, which has never happened, and in doing that, I don't carry the stress from work home with me and compound the issues. With a def son going through speech therapy, building a new house and a daughter starting junior school, there's enough to focus on there, so having the divide has made a positive impact on my home life. My relationship with my wife and kids has never been better, and that's everything.

In work, I'm finding myself to be a lot calmer and less reactionary. If things go wrong I find myself taking a step back and having time to really consider the best course of action, rather than slapping my hand on the desk or swearing. I also feel I've got a far wider line of sight. I know I can be very tunnel focused at times, but I don't feel that way anymore.

And finally, what I'm really excited about is giving the team a chance to find their own mindfulness. We run a very relaxed operation but it's still an events business, which is one of the most stressful jobs you can do. And although we're don't beat up the team to work to a bursting point, it doesn't mean they don't push themselves, so it's important that we do what we can to help maintain their mental health and find their balance. I have some ideas. Possibly for another post.

So that's it. If you found anything useful here, amazing. If you think I'm being a self-righteous twat, that's fine as well. It's all about balance. :-)