You know you shouldn’t feel guilty.
After all, you built your real estate business to increase free time, decrease stress, and spend more time with the people you love…
…not to throttle your freedom and flexibility.
Still, you can’t help but think…
“I should be working.”
“If I don’t do [business task], no one will.”
“I’m the only one who can do [business task] the right way.”
Or even “What will my team think of me if I take too much time off?”
And those thoughts are enough to either make you work during vacations with your family or even resist going on vacation in the first place.
But that’s not the kind of person you want to be.
You know it and I know it.
You became an entrepreneur so that you could spend more time doing the things you love and less time trying to pay the bills.
But it’s not just you that’s struggling to take time off.
It’s every entrepreneur.
It’s not a you problem. It’s an Entrepreneur problem.
It’s no secret.
From titles like Genius in Madness? 72% of Entrepreneurs Affected by Mental Health Conditions to Mental Illness May Plague Entrepreneurs More Than Other People. Here’s Why (and How to Get Help), the internet is a-buzz with stories of anxious entrepreneurs.
Here’s a few stats regarding the general mental health of people like yourself.
- 30% of entrepreneurs struggle with depression (vs. 15% of everyone else)
- 72% of entrepreneurs have some sort of mental illness.
- 29% of entrepreneurs struggle with ADHD (vs. 5% of everyone else).
Not only is entrepreneurship often attractive to people with certain mental health conditions (ADHD and Bi-Polar, for instance), but it sometimes even aggravates those and other mental health symptoms.
And it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
Entrepreneurs worry, after all.
We worry about growing our business
We worry about supporting our team.
And we even feel guilty about taking a vacation.
Entrepreneurship is exhausting, demanding, and exhilarating all at the same time.
Now, if you’re feeling burnt out, if you’re tired, if you’re ready to throw in the towel, here’s what I DON’T want you to hear me saying:
“Now is the time to give up and get a 9-5 job.”
I’m not saying that at all. Actually, I’m saying quite the opposite.
I’m saying…
“Now is the time for you to build a business that serves you…
…to stop trying to do everything…
…to accept that you’re better off with the right people backing you…
…and that you’re a better, happier person when you’re not perpetually exhausted.”
Because the only way that your business will survive is if you survive, if you don’t burn out, if you are happy enough to keep on going.
Which means sometimes, you need to take a damn vacation. 🙂
Not just for your own sanity, but because doing so might actually help grow your business.
Let me explain.
Why leaving for a while could help your business grow.
Look. You could keep doing what you’re doing.
If you want to.
You could keep working 12-hour days, hustling to grow your business, and fighting through constant bouts of stress.
Heck, if you’re a single person with few family-obligations, then maybe that even sounds fun.
But for the vast majority of us, we’re just going to burn out after a few weeks or months.
And that’s not just conjecture. Research by Harvard Business Review found that entrepreneurs who balance work and play harmoniously burn out far less than their perpetually working counterparts.
“While these entrepreneurs said they often felt totally taken by their work, they also allowed themselves breaks from it and had more flexibility. Moreover, they felt that their entrepreneurial career allowed them to live a variety of memorable experiences and to reflect on the qualities they liked about themselves. Overall, these harmoniously passionate entrepreneurs were able to balance their job with other activities in their lives without experiencing conflict, guilt, or negative effects when not engaging in work. Consequently, we found that those entrepreneurs had a significantly smaller chance of suffering from feelings of burnout.”
Which leads us to the first reason that taking a break from your business could help your business grow: you won’t burn out.
After all, it’s bad for business when you work yourself into an exhausted stupor.
It’s far better when you manage your time such that you consistently have energy to invest in growing your business.
The second reason, though, is just as important.
Namely, that when you take a vacation from your business, you have to delegate and automate processes. You are forced to create a business that can keep running without you.
Why does that help your business grow?
Because automation and streamlined processes create momentum naturally – things happen faster and with less effort – and momentum is what grows businesses.
Don’t believe me?
Just consider what happened to Tim Ferris’ business when he up-and-traveled the world for 15 months…
Tim Ferris, for instance…
Here’s the story recounted from a writer over at Inc.:
After running BrainQuicken for a couple of years, [Tim Ferris] was bringing home about $40,000 a month and working nonstop seven days a week. He realized it was making him miserable and resolved to remove himself from day-to-day operations as much as possible, automating or outsourcing everything. He started with a plan to spend four weeks in Europe to clear his head and wound up traveling the world for 15 months. His business continued to thrive without him. When he returned, he kept the company on autopilot and started the process of writing about how he had managed to take back his life.
If memory serves me, his business actually grew from $40,000 per month to $70,000 per month while he was traveling – all because he left for a while.
Might that happen for your business?
Delegate, automate, then vacate…
Delegate everything you can. Automate everything you can.
Then get out.
At least for a while.
Doing so will give you more energy for working when you come back, it will teach you that you don’t need to always be working, that your business can and will survive without you…
…that you can be the beneficiary of a business that runs itself.
(Hiring an acquisitions manager and using Call Porter will work wonders to automate 90% of your business)
Remember, the survival of your business depends on your own mental health and on your own ability to delegate and automate.
So take care of yourself first, then your business.
Your business (and your family) will thank you for it.