I took a 2 week vacation.  No work emails.  No work meetings.  Solid sleep.  Active everyday.  Read 10 books.  Spent time with family.  Got a lot of sun.  Golfed everyday.  Amazing. 

Bill Gates takes one week every year to seclude himself.  He just reads books and articles.  He pauses from the everyday chaos of work to make sure he is taking a step back and seeing the bigger picture.  I thought this was pretty intense for awhile, but have come to highly respect it and think it is almost needed in this day and age. 

We can get our head so down into the details that we lose sight of what's going on around us.  Are we adjusting to changes in consumer behavior?  Are we seeing something far off that could be a great opportunity for us?  Are we slowly getting into unhealthy habits?  

A lot of things that happen to us personally and in business happen in very small increments.  Ads slowly become less effective.  We slowly put on weight.  We slowly get less and less sleep.  An employee slowly becomes less and less effective.  Without taking time to pull your head up and see these things allows bad things to slowly get worse and worse.  

I remember we had FB ads running that worked really well.......at the beginning.  I got busy and didn't check performance as regularly as I should have.  After a few months I looked and saw that we were VERY unprofitable with the ads.  I felt like a total idiot for letting that happen.  Life took me away from really important details.  

I started taking a trip to get away every 3 months.  I found it relaxing and it also reset me.  COVID times have changed that, but this past trip was a reminder on the importance of pausing and resetting.  

I am back with more energy and many ideas on how to improve Sloane and what I do for my day job.