Grow Your Business by Getting Away From It

In his book “If Aristotle Ran General Motors” Tom Morris defines “True Success” as “Doing what you love to do, doing it with whom you like doing it, & doing it when you want to do it!” I’m excited that I believe I’m finally on that path.

It’s the eve of my third vacation in the last 12 months. It will be five weeks in total, and that doesn't include the 4-day rest, relaxation and planning retreat I took last August, or the two weeks I took in the first six months of this year on other business related retreats.For the first 2 1/2 years of my business, I took virtually no time off. My business growth, and income from my business was slow to grow.

About 15 months ago I began a new two pronged approach to improving the growth of my business, and improving my personal life by -

1) taking time off, totally shutting down and getting completely away from anything business related (no business or personal development books or magazines, no laptop, no e-mail, no cell phone calls to check voice mail, etc.), and

2) physically getting out of my marketplace and going away on either a private business planning retreat, or a retreat with others in my profession for brainstorming and Masterminding.

My business revenue's will have grown approximately 100% in the last 15 months, and my net income from the business will have grown 130%. Can all of that business, sales revenue growth, and personal income be attributed to just taking time off? Certainly not.

It is also a result of consistently doing the right things to build a business for almost four years (October 1st will be my 4 year anniversary).

However, this is what taking that time off has done for the growth of my business and even more importantly for the growth of my personal life:

1) Provided me with a process for re-energizing my mind, body and spirit that has allowed me to return with a fresh outlook and approach to my business;

2) Provided me with unstoppable confidence in the direction of my business;

3) Provided me with a rewarding and fulfilling personal life which has deepened my relationship with my wife and family;

4) Allowed me to explore and experience things in this world that I was forever too busy to notice or even care about before (such as hiking in a Hawaiian volcano, kayaking on the Hudson River and Acadia National Park in Maine, reading American history biographies, and much more to come)5) Allowing me to create a balance between my business life and home life that is so much more healthy.

Am I where I want it to be yet? No, certainly not. But, I’m working towards it and realize that the key to creating the ideal balance between business life and home life will only come if the vacations and retreats continue. I've learned they provide the valuable fuel and focus to make it even better next year.

Try it for yourself, I guarantee your results will be similar.

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