Caleb and got together in 1996.

22 years later (in 2018), we finally had our first trip together. We went to Vegas.

This was three years into my business and it was really hard to get away.

I worked at the airport, on the plane, in the hotel room, and from my phone in between taking us-ies on The Strip.

I swore that the next trip we took would be “laptop free.”

Yet, this was me 👇 two years later, on our 20th wedding anniversary. Standing in the rental car line, laptop out, trying to get “just a few things” done before we got to the hotel. “That’s when vacation time really starts.” I told Caleb. “Waiting in line doesn’t count.”

But of course, it didn’t end there.

Before going to the pool at the hotel I had to finish an email to someone. Before heading to dinner I had to check in to make sure everyone had what they needed for the project we were in the middle of. Almost every night of that trip, I ended up back on my laptop.

This was only our third trip together ever and each of them had one thing in common: I couldn’t put the laptop away.

And it was my own fault.

Back then, I didn’t have a good process for how to take a vacation. I’d never had one before so I didn’t know what I needed to do to make sure I could be 100% away.

It took some trial and error to get the process down.

I had to plan to take time off. I had to make sure I reduced my workload in the weeks leading up to my vacation so I didn’t have to scramble so much before leaving. I had to define what an emergency was to my clients and my team. I had to give my team some autonomy to handle certain situations without me. I had to make sure my clients knew to contact my assistant if anything came up.

If you're still struggling to be away from your business, even when on vacation, if there's always an email to reply to, a question to answer, a decision to be made while you're trying to relax by the pool, that's a symptom of a bigger problem.

It took me three trips and over 20 years to figure out that my inability to unplug wasn't about discipline. Trying harder to leave the laptop closed (or even at home) was never going to fix it.

When a business is built around the founder — their judgment, their knowledge, their skill, their decisions — then stepping away isn't actually an option. There's no "unplugging" when everything still runs through you.

Now I prep team members (and clients) when I go on a trip. As a team, we make sure there’s nothing that's going to need me while I'm gone and I communicate with my clients to let them know I'm away and unavailable. I also tell them who to go to on my team if there’s an emergency (and if my team can't handle it, then they can reach out to me if it’s an actual emergency). I don’t need to be involved if my team members can do it.

Once you have structure in place with clear autonomy and a chain for who handles what, that’s when vacation can actually mean taking real time off sans laptop.

"I'm a solopreneur," you might say. "I don't have a team member to handle things while I'm gone."

Well, Reader, that's even more reason to have a process in place. You want to make sure you give yourself enough time to finish anything that absolutely has to be done before you leave, including setting up your out of office message.

As long as your clients/students/customers know you'll be away and when they can expect you back, they'll be fine. And you can always give them a back-up way of contacting you if there's an emergency (just be sure to define "emergency" before you leave).

So tell me, do you struggle to leave work at work? When was the last time you left your laptop at home? Where did you go? Hit reply and let me know!

xo,
Sandra

Ps - Later this month, I'm opening doors to Scale Society, a group program for founders who are ready for their business to finally flow and be able to run without them being the driving force behind it all. Spots are limited to 12. Get on the waitlist here to be first in the door.

Pps - I don't know why we went to Vegas. We don't gamble, barely drink, and (at the time) didn't have money for shows 🤷‍♀️