Question 2: Holidays (7:28)

HARVEE: I love it. Grossly simplified, but that’s actually the power in the process. It’s very cool, let’s go onto the next one then, which is one of my favorite topics. What was the Holidays button there Ben?

BEN: Yeah, yeah, I got reminded of it this morning actually. We want to work out, throughout the year, planing around the seasonalities in your business, when are you going to take your holidays? Something I have been guilty of is actually not looking after myself and what that turns into is low health. Health is the first thing to go which means then that has the effect on your mind and business performance as a result. Holidays is putting yourself as a priority. A time where you switch off and focus on you and your family. What Harvee and I did, was blank out some dates in our calendar and where we want to go on those dates, to treat ourselves and to yeah, just have some time off the business.

HARVEE: Very good. Where are you heading in March for?

BEN: Yeah, for Stevie and I’s first anniversary, we’re heading to Italy. We booked the flights just before Christmas and I’m super excited for that.

HARVEE: Yeah, I’m happy for you too. It’s a priority, we’ve got to make it happen. I’m just coming down off of very good high of a month off in December, last year and I traveled around my own beautiful country, New Zealand, in the South Island and it was just magic. Again, as Ben described, it’s your own way to sharpen the axe, as they say in terms of becoming a greater person and more fulfilled and complete. Also, a mentor of mine, who I used to work alongside, he had a very strong mantra where he always believed that it was really important to take four annual holidays, no questions asked, of at least two weeks per trip. He had his unique cycle of locations that he went to. In addition to all the really logical justifications, not that you might need many for holidays, he said as a business owner, what was really important is again, an opportunity to get out of the way for the rest of the team and to recognize where the gaps in both his team and recognize the gaps in his systems within the business.

When he came back, he saw where the problems were and were able to fix that. Whereas if you’re always there and always, for lack of a better word, in the way, there’s not opportunity for people to step up and make decisions in your absence. If you were looking for any more reasons to prioritize holidays in your life, then there’s some more additional ones for your business. Very cool.