087: Why Taking Vacations will Make you More Successful

Last week my wife and I took a vacation to Turks and Caicos. Turks and Caicos is in the Caribbean close to Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and the Bahamas. It is a beautiful country with many islands, but only 30,000 people. I love vacations because of the time I get to spend with my family (no kids on this trip), time I get to relax, and because vacations help my business become more successful. On this podcast I talk all about why your business needs to be set up so that you can take vacations, and why vacations are so important.

I see many business owners who are the business, they have to constantly be involved for things to run. They are afraid to hire help because of the cost, they are afraid to give up control, and they don’t have the time to make big changes. To have a successful business it must be able to run without you. When you are not working in the business constantly, you have time to look at the big picture and make decisions that will make you more successful. Vacations are a great time to clear your head, relax, and let ideas come to you.

How to create a business that can run by itself

The easy part is saying you need to have a business that will run without you. The hard part is actually implementing that plan. I have some of my businesses set up to run without me, but not all of them. My real estate team can run without me, and my rental properties run without me. I have 15 flips going at the moment and I am very involved in the flipping business. Even my flipping business could run without me for a period of time. I am still the main source for finding deals, and sourcing financing. My project manager Nikki can handle working with the contractors, design, expenses, and she is getting better at finding deals. While I was on vacation, I got three of my flips under contract (including my high-end flip), I sold a flip, and I got a flip under contract! It was a very active week and I only had to respond to a few emails and make a call to my bank to send some wires while I was gone. My blog is not even close to running without me, but it would still survive just fine if I took time off. While I was gone I wrote articles before I left and scheduled those to run while I was gone. Plus my team manager Justin can help run blog activities while I am gone.

It was not easy to get to a point where my businesses would not run without me. I slowly hired more people, slowly let go of control, and slowly trained people to do things the right way. The more people I hired, the more successful I became because it freed up my time to pursue other activities. If you have a business now, and you are really far away from it running by itself, set some goals. Figure out when you can hire someone, what work they can help with, and how that will improve your business. Just hoping things change in the future will not do much good, you have to make a plan and follow through with it.

Parting thoughts on vacations and success

The more free time you have, the more time you have to come up with new ideas and implement new techniques. You also have more time to be happy, and reduce stress. It becomes a snowball affect where the more time you free up, the more successful you will become, and the happier you will be.