475 | What Happens When Leaders Dare To Take Time Off?

Chris LoCurto 0:00
What happens when leaders dare to take time off, unplug and rest? That is coming up next?

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks, I hope you're having a fabulous day, wherever you are, I hope you're not stressed out. I hope you feel somewhat rested. today's show, we're going to be talking about you, we're going to be talking about what is it like to actually take time off now if you're the kind of leader who is always plugged in. I remember there was a time in my my early years that if I went on vacation, if I went on a week long vacation, it took me three or four days to stop being plugged in, which left me with just you know, a couple of days left on my vacation when I finally actually got, you know where I wasn't plugged in. If you're the kind of leader who can't let go. If you're the kind of leader who can't delegate if you're the kind of leader who can't find the off button. Now, when I say the off button, some of you might go Oh, I I know exactly where that is. Do you really? How many times do you spend nighttime, emailing yourself messaging yourself messaging other people working through problems in your brain? If that's happening, then guess what? You're struggling with that off? But have you ever been in any one of those places that I just mentioned now, we all have? Here we are in the middle of June. And if you're like most leaders, you are still at the office with no vacation planned or no vacations on the horizon. Most leaders don't feel like they can like they deserve or that they can even afford to take time off. There's all kinds of reasons like Man, there's just too much work. I get it. There's a lot to be done. I get it. I understand that. A lot of leaders think I'm too important to leave, right? I'm such a vital part of my business. Of course you are I get it. Or there's many leaders that just have too little confidence in their team. Again, I understand all of these. Here's the deal, though, you must take a break. Before you break. Let me say that again. You must take a break before you break. And before you take a break before you break, we're gonna take a break. So we're gonna come back right after this.

Joel Fortner 2:47
Hey, it's Joel Fortner. Here, I'm the vice president of leadership development on Chris's team and I oversee our Next Level Mastermind business coaching program. Most business owners and leaders lack a clear path to succeed in business. They question whether they're making the right decisions if they're focusing on the right things to really grow their business. If this is you, you need a coach in your life. coaches help you make better decisions, navigate uncertainty lead more effectively, and grow your business without sacrificing your life and your family. In their first year, our clients typically see an average of 67% increase in gross revenue, and an average of 138% increase in net profit and regained hours of time. Our clients stay in the program for three and a half years simply because of the results they get. So if you're ready to run your business at the next level and see the growth you've been wanting, then visit Chris accardo.com/mastermind. Again, Chris accardo.com/mastermind today.

Chris LoCurto 3:48
So if you're somebody who's not taking a break, if you're somebody who's not detaching if you're somebody who's not zooming out, if you're not somebody who's seeing the forest, you know, etc. Then guess what that's going to result in it's going to result in you being a leader who is overburdened? Who has too much on your shoulders. I think probably everybody who's listening to this, or at least a great portion of the people who are listening to this right now can understand that can actually relate with that of feeling overburdened or feeling overwhelmed. Like there's so much stuff on your shoulders. And folks, I'm telling you, I teach this stuff for a living. And if I'm not careful, I can end up there. We've got a ton going on in our lives right now.

The great thing is I don't feel overburdened. Why do I not feel overburdened? Because we have specific things in place that help us not to get overburdened. So you can feel overburdened, you can feel burnt out. Too much time spent in the trenches will cause you to feel burnt out. I actually have worked with some amazing leaders with amazing businesses. that because they spent so much time in the trenches, they got to a place where they didn't want to do the business anymore. And the crazy thing is, when we just got them to spend some time away from it, they came back refueled, regenerated, ready to go, ready to bust it, right? How crazy is it that if you do not take enough time away, you might find yourself feeling burnt out on something that for at least a decent amount of time you loved, you felt good about you enjoy doing. Many folks can many leaders can feel trapped. They can get tunnel vision and a kind of a sense of never getting ahead, they can feel they can feel distracted, that there's too much going on to pay attention to everything. They can feel dysfunctional, that there's so much stimulus going on, there's so much happening without rest, that it actually produces dysfunction. Now, Forbes had an article on mental health leaders on on specifically on leaders mental health. And here's one of the quotes that they said when people feel stress, anxiety or depression. They release brain chemicals like cortisol and adrenal cortical Tropen, which exacerbate malaise, which think of that as increased restlessness. When they are chronic. At the same time, blood flow is reduced to the frontal lobes, causing people to have fewer ideas, and to struggle with decision making as well as logical analysis. Folks think about this for one second with me. Just one second. How many times have you been stressed out? Have you been stuck? Have you been feeling dysfunctional? Have you been feeling overwhelmed when you couldn't come up with an idea? You know, those times when you're trying to explain something to somebody, and it's been a stressful week, and you're like, I can't even get my brain to function correctly, I can't get my brain to work, right? How many times have you ever experienced that? Well, there could be a really good reason. And that's you're not taking the time to rest leaders must protect themselves from this kind of stress and learn to combat it effectively. So we're gonna go through three different areas. The first area is leaders get a fresh sense of clarity and focus. So you must take your focus off of the business routinely in order to see the business clearly. Now one great thing that my wife and I do we actually honor Sabbath, we actually do not Well, let me not lie here, we work our butts off to not work, we will take a full 24 hour period Friday night through Saturday night. And where we do not focus on work. Now I'm saying we do not let me be honest with you, we actually have to catch each other and hold each other accountable. Because one of us or both of us has a really good chance of actually working on work without working on work. If you get what I'm saying sometimes we'll even just be creative in the process. And it sucks right back into focusing on work. We've got technically five businesses now that we're focusing on. And so it makes it where it's not difficult for us to be sitting there and our brain gets pumping, because we're not focusing on the things that we need to which is the rest and time with God and time with each other and you know, all these good beneficial things. And we can find ourselves getting sucked back into, you know, spending time looking at creative, being creative or focusing on work, when we do not do that. Which is a good portion of the time. When we do not do that. It is incredible. I cannot say this enough. It is incredible, how rested. We feel. It is incredible, that when we get done with that time period, how ready we are to face the next week, how ready we are to go ballistic to make things happen. It's amazing to me, not only physically, there's definitely the physical benefits of not working, resting, and spending time with God. But there is spending time with family. But there is a spiritual blessing that comes with it as well. Our spirits feel refreshed, we feel incredible. So you have to take time to step back. And by the way, we're people who have a really good understanding of like God put that in place that we're supposed to actually stop and rest in focus because of the outcome because of what it does for us. It teaches us and shows us that our productivity is not our greatest worth. Remember, business is what you do. not who you are, there's so much more to. So leaders need to take a step back from the day to day, you got to spend time not focusing on the day to day, you have to take a breath of fresh air and clear your mind. Sometimes I have to just walk outside and go for a walk. Sometimes I have to go put myself in a place where I'm not thinking about work. We are, you know, we got a lot going on at the ridge as we're trying to prepare this to be a place where we move the business, we bring events, we do all kinds of stuff up here. And there are times that I completely disconnect, from my phone, from email from computers from people, and just spend time not working on those things. And it is amazing to me I do I come back to a phone that has some text on it some emails and stuff like that, of course I do. But because I put other things in place, it's not overwhelming. And the great thing is nothing was an emergency. Because we have a phenomenal team who's busting it and doing a great job. I don't have emergencies waiting for me. Instead, I get to spend time clearing my head thinking process or not even thinking sometimes I just like to crank some music up, jump on the skid steer mini excavator and go, you know, knock some trees down or do something. So sometimes you have to stop and take a breath of fresh air and clear your mind. You have to take a moment to separate yourself from the grind. Now, you've heard me say this, I believe you? Well, it depends. We got a lot of new listeners, let me just say this, I do not agree with the hustle concept. I'm not somebody who believes that you need to go fill up 20 hours of your 24 hour day hustling. I don't think there's anything that's that important that you need to go run yourself ragged into the ground. Now, let me say this, there are plenty of times that we have to bust it, there's plenty of times that we you know, if the ox is in the ditch, we go get the ox out of the ditch, there's plenty of times we work hard, there's plenty of times we get things done, there's plenty times we have to put in a lot of hours to get things done. The difference is the hustle the grind. That is taking you're almost every waking hour in plugging some level of work into it. It's causing you to go ballistic for the name of what money come on. Success fame. Come on. Think about it. How many people do you know that go ballistic running themselves into the ground that Goat Man it was worth every penny, it was worth every second it was worth every bit of my energy. You just don't write unless there's somebody who's selling the idea of it, and making lots of money off of it right?

What you have to understand is, if you don't separate yourself from the grind, you're separating yourself from other things. The old saying is so incredibly true. Every time you say yes to something you're saying no to something else. How much of that is your family? More importantly, yes, there's something more important than your family. How much of that is separating yourself from God? Go read Ephesians, four, five, and six. Find out how God lays out the importance of relationships. I'll just tell you, he's the number one. He should be your number one focus over everything else. The number two most important relationship, listen to me parents, listen to me, your spouse, not your kids. Your spouse needs to be the number two most important relationship that you have. Not your kids. There's a whole lot of disgustingness going on out there where people are putting their kids over their spouse. And that's just that's hard. That's not the way God wants it. And let me tell you, when those kids leave, you're gonna find out how much of a mistake that was. The number three most important relationship is your kids. They do come next. Number four. And again, if you understand Scripture is that work relationship for the business owners that your team members for the team members each your leader is your business owner. Listen, the person who puts food on your table should be a very important relationship for you. And vice versa. Right? So if you ever want to show somebody that they don't matter to you show them that somebody else is in there we call them relationship circles in the circle ahead of them. Guess where we usually put God about seven circles outside. Even though we said we don't if you don't spend too time separating yourself from the grind. What you will find is you separate yourself from the more important things in life. True Focus comes from gaining perspective, fresh perspective, from a healthy distance. Number two, leaders get a fresh dose of inspiration and ideation you cannot, cannot ideate Well, when you're closed off within your own four walls when you're in this

High Castle, when you're in this, you know, place where it's just you running like crazy making things happen, getting things done or believing that you're getting things done, because you're you're going crazy trying to create or move things around. You can't ideate Well, I know there are some folks that say oh, my gosh, the high pressure causes me to come up with some of the best ideas for a period of time, I'll agree with you keep going and see what happens. Keep doing it and see what happens. I don't know anybody who staying under long term pressure continues to have phenomenal ideation. Nobody, what I see is, again, burnout, what I see is again, dysfunction. So you have to get out into the real world where things are actually happening, not staying stuck in your one little space entrepreneurs are some of the biggest failures at this. I know so many entrepreneurs that come through strap planner come through our Next Level Mastermind group, you know, that just really don't care to be around people. They love work. They want to just keep working and they don't realize that they actually need to be around people. Yes, yes, yes. Entrepreneurs, especially you Heidi's, let me say that again, in high seas, you actually need to be around people isolation sucks. When you're isolated, you're stuck with your own thoughts. Oh, I do really well, Chris, I know what you're telling yourself. I've been there myself. But when you actually again, go to any business owner, who's been through next level life or has been through strat plan and has discovered this and ask him on the backside. Hey, what happened when you started spending time with other people and you know, cutting down some of that work every single time you'll get the same response. That it was refreshing that It energized them, they didn't have to go spend tons of time with with other people probably needed to spend more time with their families first. But when they would get out and spend time with other people, what they would find is is on the buildup, like let's say it's the guys that are girls night, right? On the buildup, it was like, oh gosh, I don't want to do this thing. And then they get they're like, oh, this was such a blast. It's such a good time. That was actually really fun. I need to do more of that. That tends to be the response. I need to do more of that. So look for and expect inspiration all around you. Yes. Even in your flip flops. If you're on the beach. Yes, if you're in your snow boots, sitting in the snow on on a chairlift in ski boots. Look around for inspiration. One of the best one of the questions that we asked during next level life is what is life giving to you? And that's one of the things that people go I don't I don't know what that means. I don't understand that question. And my answer is always the same. There's lots of things that bring me joy. There's lots of things that you know, I choose to be happy about. But some of the things that bring me life that give me life, when I go back home to the mountains in Tahoe, and walk through the woods that I grew up in, when I go breathe the air, when I go stare at the lake when I go smell the amazing smells of the plant life that are around when I see the pine trees and the pine cones, and I wonder this there's this fabulous thing back up at 7000 8000 feet when you're looking at these dark green pine trees against this incredible blue sky the colors it's just something that I can sit and stare at for the longest time when the sun's going down and the pine trees look like the spears that are just you know poking into the sky cutting into the sky. It's just beautiful. It gives me life. There's never a time that like especially if I go intentionally to rest to just spend up not go ballistic not go plan 17,000 things but to go to rest there's never a time that I don't come back with more life inside of me right? So there's many times if you look around you you can choose whether if for you maybe it's sitting on the beach for you. Maybe it's a You know, four day weekend, fishing, I don't know, maybe it's a four day weekend reading, I don't I don't know, whatever it is, you've got to find those times. And then while you're there, allow that to inspire you, when we come back. The third benefit to leaders who dare to take a break, might actually surprise you.

Hey, folks, a couple of years ago, I was visiting with a client. And the CEO said to me, Chris, we're not going to hit our goal. I asked him what he meant. And he said, We're gonna miss our three year revenue goal coming out of strap plan by a few months, I didn't realize it at first, that he was having a little fun with me by saying they were about to triple their company in less than three years. How freaking awesome is that? Folks, these are the kinds of results that businesses get by coming through our four day strat plan event. On average, we find $2.1 million worth of revenue in the next 12 months that the company was not planning on. And this event is for all sized businesses. If you're small, medium, or large, it works for every single business, because it's not industry specific. It's about gaining all the information about all the things inside of your business that are holding you back from success, and then giving you a plan and a process on how to walk that out and be successful in your business. By discovering the things that are holding you back, it helps you get to all of those goals that you've been planning on for a long time. So if you're ready to get the perspective, you need to solve what's holding you and your business back. So you can grow faster than you need strap plan. To learn more, go to Chris locurto.com/strap plan. That's Chris locurto.com/strapline. So the third thing that leaders experience, when they dare to take time off is litres relationships, get a breath of fresh air, believe it or not, your relationships need you to disconnect at regular intervals as well as routinely for proper breaks your relationships, I need you to disconnect if you want a better relationship. So another thing that we will do during next level life is we will have people you know craft a letter to God saying the things that are between them and God Now, not every single person who comes through as a believer, we have folks that come through who are not believers as well. But, you know, for we still have people craft this letter anyways. You know, it's it can be to God, it can be whatever. But we what we want to show people is is that there are so many things that you've put between you and God, if you have ever realized that your relationship is never going to be the best it possibly can, until you surrender the things that are between you and God, when you realize that all of a sudden, if you actually surrender those things, then it all of a sudden grows your relationship like crazy. So if you do not believe me in this, if you don't believe that your relationship is going to be refreshed. Ask your spouse, ask, ask your spouse, hey, they might actually be shocked and give you I don't know what I would do. Ask your spouse, hey, how would it be if I just, you know, started backing off from the intensity that I have with work? What do you think would happen to our relationship, just see what he or she says? Just see what they would expect to see what they feel like they could count on it that happened or what they can anticipate when it comes to your presence and participation, which you may find. You may not like your answers, they might say I don't believe you can do it.

They might say oh my gosh, I've been waiting for this for a long time. I think it'd be a great discussion for you to have with your spouse, even with your kids, oh my gosh, there's so many parents that don't that think that their kids don't want them around. You know that the kids are busy with other things. Your kids, believe it or not, would take more of your focus time. They take as much as I could get and so do you feel like things are a bit stale at home? Take a break, spend time spent quality time at home you don't have to even go anywhere. What if you just spend quality time at home? Heather and I love to just actually spend time sitting out among our animals just driving around the property. Just you know going and looking at I don't know different flowers or you know, going and looking at the way that the water creates the creeks on the property There's all kinds of things that we love to just go spend time together with. All right, we do run very hard. But what we've discovered is, is that if we don't stop, and focus and rest, then we are actually pretty frustrated. We find ourselves going, I don't feel rested, we have to stop. We literally say that from time to time. I don't feel rested. We need to stop right now. Rest. Just be us just spend time so that we can we know what's going to happen where we know that we're gonna have a full on week, we're gonna go crazy. But spend time at home. You don't have to go anywhere. I will say that I had a fabulous time with my wife recently. Because for my birthday, she flew us on up to Connecticut. And we went to a Kenny Loggins concert now. Yes, I may be aging myself right there. If you've never seen him in concert. I hate that I've missed decades of him and concert because it's phenomenal. We've now seen him twice in concert. And he's just great. It was a great time for us to get away hear something that's funny. We, we flew up the day early. Well, it's funny to me. We flew up a day early concerts, not until the next night. And we found ourselves sitting in the hotel room in the morning, not doing anything we literally laid there at both of us were like, I feel guilty. It was like, Yep, so what, you know, we're like, what do you want to do? Do you want to go to the ocean? Do you want to go, you know what you want to do, we could go tour some museums or something, which I don't, we've never been big museum tours. But we could go do all these kinds of things. And both of us just kind of sat there and went, this is actually really nice, not doing anything. And so on the morning of just a regular day, instead of being productive. We just laid there. We sat there we talked, you know, we really didn't do anything. So it was actually very nice. So expectations, limitations, boundaries, etc, are healthy and vital to your relationship, you just need to discover which ones you need to do. So disconnecting is difficult, but necessary, here's the clincher in order to be fully present fully engaged, and actually pleasant to be around.

You may not be so pleasant. I have caught the times when I've been super, super tired or super, you know, overwhelmed that all of a sudden, I'm just, I'm not pleasant to be around. Right? We used to travel so much. So many weeks of the year that I found, if I didn't take four days off a long weekend, then I just was upset, I found myself just being frustrated, because I hadn't recharged. So you just might not be that pleasant to be around. You might not be pleasant for your family, your team, your business. So then you must fully disconnect from your job, your team your business, right? It needs to be scheduled, it needs to be on purpose, it needs to be something that you look forward to let it be a reward. Now, I'll be honest, I don't get crazy hyped up until I'm usually disconnecting from work to go do that happy thing, right. And that's somebody who spends a whole lot of time focusing on Oh, I'm going to be on vacation. Why? Because I love what I do for a living. Right? I love what I get to do. So I'm not actually looking at the time of vacation as a UI, I'm getting away from something I hate. You may though, you may not really enjoy what you do for a living. So it's a great thing to be looking forward to the future, right? Either way, when it's time for me to disconnect ili disconnect. I can disconnect in two seconds, right? It's something that when it's like, Okay, I'm done with this, disconnect, focus, you know, go relax, go do whatever, I can disconnect pretty fast. So here's what I want you to think about you can and even your spouse can endure a lot when there's an end in sight without that stress is incurred at intervals with interest. Think about that. When you do not get the breaks, stress is incurred with interest. Right? It compounds over time it gets too heavy quickly. You need this. Your team needs this. They need you to do it. They need to do it as well. Your family needs us so leader, take a break. Do it make it happen schedule. It doesn't have to be tomorrow, but it has to be something that gets you out of all the stress. Well folks, hopefully this has helped you today. As always take this information change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and join us on the next episode.