Raylene my wife, our little man Cooper, our dogs and Raylene’s in-laws (not to mention Raylene’s sister, random relatives and about 5 other dogs..) They have property on Murphy Lake in the Cariboo, in what I think is officially called “the middle of nowhere”. In fact, it’s the land of “no” .. no electricity .. no vehicle access .. no phones or cell service .. no running water .. no internet. Raylene calls it “Camp Hardway” because if it ain’t the hardway, you don’t do it. Dragging buckets of water from the lake to wash dishes, chopping wood, and churning your own butter. Okay, no butter churning, but lots of manual labour. Put it this way — you have to take a canoe ride across the lake to get to the land. Picture me, my wife, my son, my 3 dogs, my sister in-law, HER 2 dogs, and a week’s worth of supplies all loaded into the canoe. Now that’s living, eh? We’re unplugging from the world to enjoy a week of relaxation and hanging out with the family. It still seems to confuse everyone that to me, reading business books IS relaxing to me, but I’m looking forward to it. Anyway, doing this kind of ‘retreat’ from your daily busy-ness is critical to recharging and getting clarity on the important things you need to be focusing on. When I tell people that they HAVE to take time off and relax, just to spend daydreaming and thinking, most people freak out because they say they have NO time for that. “If I take time off just to THINK, then I’ll fall even further behind on my to-do list!” The truth is, most wealthy people are successful in part because they DO set aside time to think, plan and relax. If you’re burnt out and exhausted all the time, you just can’t perform at a level of excellence. For years, I’ve used a great analogy about this process of taking down time and relaxing. Imagine you’re riding a bike, and you’re trying to get somewhere as fast as you can. If you lose any time, you’re going to be late, and you’ve gotta get there immediately. You look down and notice you’ve got a flat tire. The problem is, you don’t have time to stop and get off the bike to fix it, because if you do, you’ll lose MORE time and fall even further behind. Well, the reality is that riding on a flat tire makes the ride VERY difficult, and you have to exert a lot more effort to get the same result. You go much slower because of the tire. If ONLY you would get off the bike, fix the flat and then get back on, you’d be able to ride WAY faster — but, you tell yourself you don’t have time for that. This is what most people are doing when it comes to taking time off. They keep telling themselves they don’t have time to relax or get away, and in doing so, they keep riding on a flat tire. If they just carved some time out, decompressed and relaxed, they’d be able to recharge themselves and become WAY more productive. The summer is a particularly good time to think about this, because most people have the opportunity to take some time and enjoy warm weather and fun things to do. Are you riding on a flat tire that you’re too busy to fix? If so, my recommendation is to take a few days off and GET AWAY from all the busy-ness you have in your life. If you actually commit to doing this and enjoy the time while it passes, you’ll be amazed at how much more focused and productive you become!]]>