You Have a Leak

I used to dread the week before a vacation.

The mad dash to tie up loose ends, the late night scramble to get everyone packed, and the promise to yourself that you’ll deal with the rest when you get back. 

Then the release! A few days where responsibility lifts and I actually exhaled.  

Then the return.  Early mornings, late nights, and the same nagging list waiting right where you left it — plus everything that piled up while you were gone.

I was reminded of this when a client of mine shared that he came back from a four-day retreat completely re-energized. Thirty-six hours later, it was gone.  The retreat had refreshed him. It didn’t fix what was draining him.

Sound familiar?

Here’s what I’ve come to believe…

Rest isn’t the problem and rest isn’t the answer. 

Because if you step away from an energy leaking system and come back to the same energy leaking system, rest is never going to be enough.

Vacation is not the fix. But it might be your best shot at finally seeing what needs fixing.

What Distance Actually Does

We just got back from a trip to celebrate our youngest son’s high school graduation. National Parks like Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Salt Lake City.

The colors of the Grand Prismatic Spring were otherworldly. Geysers belching smoke against the blue sky. Buffalo roaming in Wyoming. The wide, deliberate streets of Salt Lake City and the pioneer stories of how it all came to be.

For a few days, my brain had a completely different job. Discovery. Observation. Wonder.

And something interesting happened on the way home.

I started seeing my business differently. 

Not because I had been thinking about it. Because I hadn’t been. 

The distance did what months of being inside it couldn’t… it made the invisible visible.

That Clarity Has A Shelf Life

The routine moves fast. Within days of coming back from the vacation, the fresh eyes fog back over and you’re running on the same tracks as before.

So when I got home, instead of diving back in the way I always had, I used the perspective while I still had it.

For months I had been meaning to fix the system I use to document client sessions. Those notes are invaluable! But the process of getting them written and sent was a steady drain on my battery. I knew it. I kept avoiding it.

Here’s the honest part: I lack tenacity. 

Once a session is over, I am ready to move on. The prospect of sitting down and working through a fix felt like too much for a normal week.

With a clear head and more focus than I felt in weeks, I taught myself how to automate the steps.

It took the clarity of stepping away to finally do the thing I’d been circling for months!

Vacation Nirvana

The dream isn’t just rest. It’s coming and going with ease knowing the business keeps chugging away while you’re away.

One of my clients just spent a week at a spa in Tuscany. (Nice, right?)

She came back to a business that was running smoothly, a team that hadn’t needed her, and an inbox that wasn’t an ambush.

That didn’t happen by accident. 

She had done the work: identified the leaks, plugged them, built the systems, and set the expectations. Her absence didn’t leave a gap because she had closed the gaps long before she boarded the plane.

That kind of freedom is what fixing the energy leaks actually buys you. Not just a better vacation… a different relationship with your business.

💡Your Turn

When you get back from your next trip, give yourself one day before you’re fully back in it. And reflect.

What’s been draining your battery that you’ve been too busy to fix? Start there. Just one leak.

Use the juice while you have it.

That’s how the vacation actually lasts.

Here’s to coming back better,

Laurie