It becomes a bit of a badge of honor saying I haven't had a vacation in 20 years. I hear real estate agents say that. And I never am impressed by that. Or they say I work through any vacation. Another one is I've never taken the day off. I really think that your body and your mind, your business, your relationships, your health and your everything will be better if you take vacations.
Let me explain why. Your body is designed, not be running a marathon from when you are born to when you die. Your body is designed to run a series of sprints. We do not go days on end with no sleep, right? We get up. We are awake anywhere from what 16 to 18 hours a day, right? And then we sleep and our body is out cold for a period of time. Okay, and then with meals as well, we eat right, we fill our bodies with food. And then we go for a time without food. We're designed to be sprinters, not marathoners. It's cliche to say life's a marathon, not a sprint, right. Life is not designed for us to never take a break our bodies are designed to turn off and turn on.
So if you're not taking vacations, you're actually sabotaging your own success and your own happiness. Now, what do we mean by a vacation? I mean, you actually have systems in place to where you can turn it off. I know that's really hard for some of you, I know it's hard for me. Yet, I would encourage you to go somewhere where you don't have cell service at least once a year. Maybe that's on a cruise ship. Maybe it's way up in the mountains. Right now I'm headed right now over to Central Oregon, where my oldest four children I will be hiking, we're definitely going off the grid.There will be no cell service and I'm going to turn off my phone. I'll have autoresponders on and people in place to catch urgent matters that come up. I know that when I come back, I'm going to be better, I'm going to be stronger, I'm going to be invigorated.
There's no shortage of people who give their all literally their all to their career. Under the guise of I'm doing this for my family but if they lose their family in the process then they're left to be alone. Or those people that do it all to get the life that they want. What if then they don't have the health to actually enjoy it?
I want you to take a vacation, even if it's vacation at night. Ricky Carruth one of my mentors talks about how he turns it off five o'clock every night. The only reason he doesn't is if he has a very important listing or showing appointment, but his office work all the other stuff, he turns off. Find a way to take time off so you don't give up those things in life that matter more than business like health, your relationships, your spirituality, your purpose in life. It could even be having your evenings be free from work, or a weekend now and again free from work. These practices will make you better and your business will be stronger. Of course there are urgent times where you have to be on and you have to take care of clients who may be coming in from out of town.
The takeaway that I want you to have from this is for you to schedule your next vacation right now, if it's not already on the books, then you need to schedule it. You need to schedule your vacation so that you become your best self, so you don't miss out on those things in life, that you work so hard for.
