551: How To Go On Vacation Without Your Business Falling Apart (w/ Few Employees)

00:00
You’re listening to the My Wife Quarter Job podcast, the show where I cover all the latest strategies and current events related to e-commerce and online businesses. today, my partner Tony and I are going to talk about how to take a vacation without your business falling apart. And this mainly applies to small businesses with few to no employees. But before I begin, if you haven’t picked up my Wall Street Journal bestselling book, The Family First Entrepreneur yet, it’s actually available on Amazon at 38 % off right now. My book will teach you how to achieve financial freedom.

00:27
by starting a business that doesn’t require you to work yourself to death. Plus, you can still grab my free bonus workshop on how to sell print on demand and how to make passive income with blogging, YouTube, and podcasting when you grab the book over at mywifequitterjob.com slash book. So go over to mywifequitterjob.com slash book, fill out the form, and I’ll send you the bonuses right away. Now onto the show.

00:54
Welcome to the My Wife, Put Her Job podcast. It’s actually been a while since Tony and I have recorded an episode because I’ve been on vacation and Tony has been dealing with a lot of stuff, which we’ll talk about today. I think the topic of today’s episode is basically how to go on vacation or deal with unexpected occurrences while you’re running a business or the advantages of having a business in this case. Yes. You just got back from the Olympics.

01:24
I did and if you guys think my voice sounds a little funny, it’s because I came back sick. I got sick on the last day. Too much fun, I guess. Just side note, he wasn’t competing, guys. He was just a spectator. I know you’re going to get that question. Yes, there’s no math events at the end of things apparently this year. There’s no math competition. When did you get back? Couple days ago? Couple days ago. I’m still a little jet-lagged, but-

01:53
If you guys don’t know me, I actually don’t particularly love going on vacation. When I tell this to Toni, she’s always rolling her eyes and whatnot. Because I’m happy with my daily routine here. I don’t need to escape, whereas my wife usually needs to escape. The problem with going on vacations is it really disrupts my rhythm, my routine. I end up getting a lot less sleep on vacation.

02:23
I have fun. Don’t get me wrong, guys. I have a lot of fun, but I was probably waking up at 6.30 every single morning on vacation because every single day was packed with stuff. That’s why I got sick, I think, honestly. Because you had to get up at the time that most people get up every day. Whereas I don’t usually get sick here. Yes, you didn’t have your daily naps. I have trauma, vacation trauma also. This year, we went on a cruise.

02:53
Every single year, as long as I can remember that we’ve gone on a cruise type of vacation, something horrific has happened while I was on a boat with very little internet That’s right. Bumblebee got hacked a couple years ago. I don’t know if you… I recorded this episode 10 years ago, but I used to love going on cruise vacations because of the lack of internet access. It’s the only place where you can truly disconnect

03:23
unless you pay an arm and a leg for internet access. The first year that happened, we got hacked. I was frantically trying to restore a backup from molasses of internet access. I know you then? Yes, you’ve had this happen multiple times on vacation where you’ve had something go wrong with the website. You’ve been unable to really adequately

03:52
address it from the molassically slow boat internet. Right. The last time we went on vacation also, the internet went out in the office because one of our credit cards got compromised and we had to cancel it and now it’s not going to access. Yes, we didn’t pay the bill. We couldn’t really restore it that easily from the boat.

04:18
I don’t even remember how we got by on that one. Maybe everyone used their hotspots or something. I don’t even remember. I do. It does feel like every time you’re on a cruise, you have a disastrous technical issue. Yes. Yes. Actually, I think one time you went on vacation and didn’t your employees get sick? You had one vacation where two or three, most of your staff got sick as well and you guys were gone. Yes. You’ve had a lot of-

04:44
I feel like that’s probably why you have the trauma because you haven’t been able to have a vacation where everything just runs smoothly while you’re gone. Well, this one didn’t run smoothly either. Our customer service person got bronchitis and lost her voice. Oh, no. She couldn’t take any calls and whatnot. We weren’t pretty lean as is. Not having someone answer phones. That wasn’t as stressful because this year the boat actually had pretty good internet access.

05:12
I will say because I was on a cruise earlier this year, the Wi-Fi on cruises has improved drastically from let’s just say 10 years ago. Therein lies the inherent disadvantage of that, of the cruise now. You can’t really disconnect. Yes, you have to make the choice. Yes. To like I’m not going to buy the package or whatever. Well, we bought the package. Yes. Just in case. I didn’t do any work on this vacation at all.

05:41
outside of just making sure the wheels didn’t fall off. Let’s switch gears to you before we finish up with my story. You’ve been going through I have not been on a vacation. It’s not vacation, but it’s hell, right? It’s a disruption. Let’s just say that. I sold my house at the end of June and bought another house, but the house I purchased is in line with most of the houses that I’ve purchased over the last several years, which needs a complete gut.

06:11
job. This house actually for the first basically three weeks, four weeks, I lived in an Airbnb or a hotel while the house was getting the major stuff done, like flooring ripped out, refloored, walls ripped out, ceiling, everything. We took the house down to the studs and now we’re it back together. part of the story here, which you had to move out of your existing place and fix that up. Yes. Well, I mean, we-

06:43
The existing place, we did the staging fix-up, right? We fixed all the cosmetic stuff. Well, you fixed up an entire bathroom. Yes, we renovated a bathroom. That doesn’t seem like a big deal when you’re renovating an entire house. Okay, so in the short span of time, I to say it was like three months, maybe even less. No, it was about five weeks. Yes, you had to decide to sell that house, fix it up, find a new house, decide to get a gut job again for

07:11
Some crazy reason and then fix that enough so that you could actually move in your entire family pretty much except for two kids, right? Yes. It’s weird because I’ve moved a lot being an ex-military spouse. The moving part is pretty old hat. The renovation part, this is the third house that I’ve done this with in the last 10 years. Definitely there’s a familiarity to it.

07:38
But what I will say is that over the past 10 years doing this and working from home all three times, I have learned a lot about how to maintain your business dealings while you have absolute chaos going on behind you. And that is what we’re talking about today. I’m sure we had different methods. I feel like your situation is always worse than mine. Because you always roll your eyes at whenever I complain about anything.

08:07
When you’re complaining about being at the Olympics. I am brushing my teeth in the laundry room because that’s the only working sink in the house. Before we get into the guts, my idea of vacation is we do a lot of stuff. I’m not a lie on the beach type of guy, but I do like to sleep in and start my day whenever I feel like it. The problem is when you’re on a family vacation and you want to

08:37
so-called get your money’s worth. Yes. Because we had a different event signed up every day. When we were on the cruise, we had to get up early to get off the boat to hit our excursions. You end up getting a lot less sleep than you normally do. Yes. To me, there are two types of vacations because I have done, I do both. I am definitely, I can lay on the beach and do nothing and read 16 books. I have my usually yearly track where I read 16 books in a week and that’s all I do.

09:07
But then there’s the other type of vacation, which you just got back from, which is the, you know, going to new places or new experiences where you don’t wanna sleep in because you do wanna get up. Like when I did my trip two years, well, was it two years ago now? Yeah, when we went to Europe, like we were up every day at 4 a.m. because we wanted to hit all the spots and then we would come like take a nap and then go back out. So it definitely was, you were tired, right? Because you’re just.

09:35
You’re like, listen, when am I gonna be in Prague again? I need to see all the things because I probably won’t come back here ever or in 10 years or whatever. you definitely feel this pressure to get your money’s worth, right? Get up, get going. And then if you don’t do that, you’re like, I’m in Italy and I’m in bed? No. Exactly. I need to be at all the things right now. yeah, but see, I think, and this is definitely,

10:05
I don’t, this is going to come across wrong. I think you need both vacations. I think you need the vacation where you do the adventure, go do stuff, you know what? It doesn’t have to be in another country, right? Just maybe you visit another part of your state, like where you’ve never gone before and you’re going to new things and maybe museums or outdoor activities. And then I do think everyone needs the, I’m just, whether you just go to the hotel down the street and like, I’m going to sit by the pool for two days and do absolutely nothing and not check my computer. I think people need to do both.

10:35
Because I don’t think you get rested from the first one at all. And I’m not complaining about this at all, but like my whole eating routine got messed up because I had pizza. Oh, I had the best pizza in Italy. So I had it like when you text me that I was like, I’m going to block your number. And then I had gelato every day and I’m thinking to myself, oh, man, like when I get back and I’m not working out. So like when I get back, I’m going to have to like go on a strict diet, work out like crazy, whatnot.

11:04
I don’t know. I’m just a guy of routine, I think. I think that’s what the inherent issue is. Yes, you love your routine. And the other thing about those types of trips are is that you go, you do all these things, you have all these adventures, you come home, you’re actually fairly tired, and then you still have all this extra work to do. So you come home not feeling great. You’re like either getting sick or just exhausted and need like three or four days to catch up on sleep. But you also have

11:30
a week’s worth of work to catch up on as well. So then it’s like even more stressful. So the question is, and I get this comments all the time because people think that running your own business, you just sipping my ties on the beach and you don’t really have to worry about things. I was actually chatting with a close friend of mine about this because I went to a reunion party of it was actually my buddy’s 50th. It ended up being a reunion and people are like, oh, wow, you run your own business, you’re your own boss and that sort of thing.

12:00
What I told them was, it’s true, we do have the freedom. Right now with layoffs, I don’t know if you heard, Intel just laid off 15,000 people. Oh, wow. Now. All my friends were affected here. It’s true, you’re in control, but unlike a day job, my brain actually does not really switch off that easily from day to day. I’m always thinking about stuff. Whereas when I was working a day job, as soon as I was out of work, I didn’t think about anything related to work. I’ve never had a day job.

12:29
It’s hard for me to, I I worked jobs in college, right? But when I left the restaurant or whatever, when I left, I used to work at Claire’s, the earring store. You better believe I didn’t think one bit about earrings when I was not at work. It was just like I was living my best life not working until I had to go back to my shift. I see that with my kids now, right? They’re friends with all their coworkers. They hang out with people they work with, but when they’re not at work, they’re not worried.

12:56
that the restaurant’s busy or that it’s too slow or that they’re out of something. They don’t care because it doesn’t affect them in any way. Yeah. So in your case, you decide that you’re going to sell this house and then decide to buy a new one. What are some things that you do to manage all of this? I’m actually curious myself. Yeah. I’m going to put a side note in here. If you’re thinking about selling your house, do it right now. The market is peaking.

13:21
And that’s one of the reasons why I made this kind of what seems like a pretty rash decision to sell my house is that I really think that the market’s gonna turn in the next maybe six to nine months. But they’re gonna drop interest rates in September. They are gonna drop interest rates, but you can always refinance your house. Like you can’t always get top dollar for your house, right? And there’s the argument that if interest rates lower, people will pay more and all that stuff.

13:48
The inventory issue is what’s happening right now is there’s still not a lot of inventory. And so if you have a house that is move-in ready, and this is basically nationwide outside of hotspots like where you live, Austin, Texas is not experiencing this, but overall, if you have a house that people can literally walk in and go, I can put my furniture in here tomorrow, you’ll sell your house in less than a week in most parts of the country in certain price points.

14:18
The houses that aren’t selling are fixer uppers, things that need a lot of work, really, like not in bad shape, but very dated. people have kept it up, but they still have the same carpet from like 1992. And so I had been watching the market for about six to nine months, kind of like knowing that I was gonna put my house on the market in the next year or so. And I just felt like if I don’t do it now, I’ll probably lose out on six figures.

14:46
in profit from my house. that’s kind of what made me do it so quickly, because I felt like probably in the fall we’ll take a turn as far as the price that you’re gonna get for your house. So if you’re thinking, actually one of our friends just found this, basically just realized that this was happening where he lived and he’s listing his house in the next week. moving out of the state. I’m like, that’s crazy.

15:14
But yeah, so that’s a little side note. If you’re on the fence, this is a really good time to still sell as a homeowner. So yeah, so the thing that I have learned over doing this is that you have to embrace the fact, like I’m a pretty routine oriented person as well. Not quite as structured as you are. Because there’s always random stuff that happens to you. There’s no routine. I’m much more flexible than you. OK, yes. OK.

15:40
But I like to work from like eight to five. I don’t wanna work at 7 p.m. I don’t wanna work on the weekends. you know, I’ve gotten much, the older I get, the much less that I wanna do anything outside of like normal working hours. And what I realized was that sometimes you have to give up that routine to make the compromise, right? So.

16:03
One of the things in this new house is that we have electricity, but a lot of the electricity is shut off due to all the renovations that we’re doing. And we have literally wires hanging from the ceiling, right? So most of the house has no lighting, except for the lamps I bought on Amazon on Prime Day that are run with extension cords so people can see in the bathroom. Like the bathroom has no lighting, right? And so the house is very dark.

16:29
And it’s not a house with a lot of natural light. So the lighting is actually really important. So what I was start when we first got this house, what I was doing was trying to keep my nine to five work schedule and then going to the house at like four thirty in the afternoon and trying to work on the house in the dark. And I’m like painting in the dark and trying to realize. And I’m like, this is dumb. Like, I can’t see anything. I’m having to bring these like.

16:53
construction spotlights in, they’re 100 degrees, so the house is hot, it was just a miserable experience. And so one day I woke up and I was like, I’m just gonna go to the house today and work. And then I’ll work tonight when I get home, when I get back to the hotel. So I went and worked for six hours in the daylight, when it was really bright, the house had a lot of natural light coming in. And then I left and came back and worked from three to seven on work stuff.

17:21
not my ideal thing, not something that I like. I don’t love working till 7 p.m. You know that I’m not an evening person, but I also knew that I got way more work done on the house from, you know, nine to three in the the daylight than I did trying to do it from four to, you know, eight o’clock at night. So I just flipped my schedule. And I think as long as you’re doing that and you can remind yourself this is not forever, like I’m not going to be doing this for the next two years. This is literally two weeks of my life that I need to like

17:51
you know, get on the struggle bus. And then as I’ve talked about this before, I always reward myself, right? I always have to have this like, okay, I’m gonna work from three to seven and then we’re getting margaritas. Like I had to put something at the end of that to like get me through it. Cause it’s like, it’s hard work like doing construction labor. Like I was like, I’m too old for this now. Like I used to be able to do it no problem. Now I’m like every part of my body hurts. So it’s like, okay, so what can I do that…

18:17
we’ll make, okay, we’ll all go meet up with one of my kids or we’ll go do something fun. Like I always put something at the end of the day where it’s like, oh, we’ll watch a movie. So that, you know, when I was like, I don’t wanna do this anymore, I was like, nope, you you promised yourself, so you’re gonna get through it. And I found that flipping my schedule, what’s weird is nobody noticed that I wasn’t working during the day, like my clients. I was, I had my phone, I was always available, but they had no clue that I wasn’t working from nine to three, that I was working from three to seven or three to eight.

18:46
And so was like, you know, that’s the pro of having your own business, right? Is you can do that sort of thing. You can just work from three to eight for a period of time. And it really doesn’t upset anything. And in some ways you’re more productive because you’re like, hey, I’ve got to be really focused from this time because I’m not really getting a full day in, but I’m going to be laser focused during the hours that I do have.

19:11
I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about a free resource that I offer on my website that you may not be aware of. If you are interested in starting your own online store, I put together a comprehensive six day mini course on how to get started in eCommerce that you should all check out. It contains both video and text based tutorials that go over the entire process of finding products to sell all the way to getting your first sales online. Now this course is free and can be attained at mywifequitterjob.com slash free.

19:40
just sign up right there on the front page via email and I’ll send you the course right away. Once again, that’s mywifequitterjob.com slash free. Now back to the show.

19:51
So the way I deal with it is different, mainly because I don’t have these sudden things that happen usually. But I always have like a huge buffer. And I guess the advantage is I don’t really do any client work. So I don’t have to be on call per se. So in preparation for this vacation, I knew that I needed about three weeks worth of content. I just, four weeks out, I just created one extra piece of content.

20:21
every week. Yeah. And but I always have a stash of stuff. So in theory, like if anything bad happened, I’d probably be OK. But the way my mind operates is like my buffer, like I want to keep that topped off, too. And I get stressed out when the buffer gets. that’s your problem is you don’t understand the buffer is being used as it should. You get stressed that the buffer is like.

20:47
depleting, even though the buffer is supposed to be at some point depleted, that’s why it’s the buffer. Exactly. And right now I’m at a depleted buffer and I do not like it. Yes, I know. So here’s the other thing, because I do a little bit of that as well. And I will say I thought I would struggle working from the Airbnb in the hotel because it’s like, you know, there was a bunch of us. was my literal I think we did a podcast. My desk was in the middle of the living room. You know, it was a little bit chaotic.

21:16
But what I found was when I was at the hotel or at the Airbnb is I got a ton of work done because there was literally nothing else for me to do. Like there was nothing to do with the Airbnb other than make a meal, you know, like other than making food. You weren’t going to do that. Yeah. No, I definitely was not making food. was like, what can go in the microwave? No, but and it made me think about like, I think if someone’s really struggling with productivity or maybe needs to like really get ahead.

21:46
find a hotel room that’s on like discount points or you know something like that and just go whole away for like two days. It was, I was shocked at how much work I was able to get done when there was literally nothing else that I could be doing. Because it’s like when you’re at your house, there’s always something, right?

22:05
something’s broken, someone’s at the door, this and that. Like there was just literally nothing to do. I mean, I felt a little bad for my kids. I mean, they all work and have stuff going on, but like there was like, this is like a very boring summer for them. It’s like, hey, you can either rip out carpet or, you know, play on your game thing, whatever. So I found that like during the times that I was working in that, like such an isolated environment, I got a ton of work done. And as soon as I moved over to the house where

22:33
You know, as soon as I walk outside my office doors, there’s literally a thousand projects. So much harder to stay focused because all I’m thinking about is, well, if I take like a 10 minute break, I can like patch this whole and like, you know, get this ready and maybe I’ll call the electrician or I’ll check on the septic. It’s like when I was at the hotel in the Airbnb, there was really nothing else to do. And I found myself just like.

22:58
I got so much work done that I actually had a ton of a buffer when we came over to the house. I was able to do more at the house because I had built up such a buffer. I started doing, and this is more of like a long-term plan, is delegating more of your stuff to the people who work for you. This is always hard for me. You have to go into it with a long-term perspective. Yes. You have a really hard time delegating.

23:26
No, I don’t actually. I just go into it thinking that it’s going to take a year or more. I just feel like you don’t trust people. Well, I don’t trust people with code. Well, yes, we know that. Yes. I don’t even trust myself with code. I actually made a big change right before the vacation. Okay, that’s General’s like, that wise? I’m like, no, no, it’s all good. I ended up reverting it actually right before we left.

23:54
Mainly because I know how complex it is and I’m not gonna let someone who’s not skilled, actually even someone who’s skilled probably, because you have to read all the crap that I wrote, right? And I’m not exactly the most organized coder either. So anyway, so what I did was I started just delegated little things and I usually leave about probably six months to do this.

24:20
in preparation for when I have to go on a vacation. Because we go on one major vacation a year. You don’t think so? I think you go on two. don’t count volleyball going on vacation. So the biggest thing this time was that we’ve been doing printing for Bumblebee. And these printers have been fragile. In fact, one of the printers is down, went down right before. So we ended up just training up one of our employees right before. what I did is I just filmed the

24:49
crap ton of video, every last little thing and then had them watch it and then we went through it a couple of weeks before. Now that’s one thing that I don’t have to worry about ever again, hopefully. You just have to go fix the printer. You to go fix the Every time it breaks down. Every time it breaks down. You know what was really upsetting about this? I talked to a friend, he was like, hey, he runs a business and he was like,

25:18
Oh, yes, I go on vacations all the time. I don’t even have to think about it. I have my employees just do everything. I’m like, well, this guy runs a 200-person company. I’m at the other end of the spectrum. I actually don’t want to manage 200 people. Although, you remember I messaged you while I on vacation. Yes, you did. Maybe this 200-person company is the right way to go. Yes. I was like, no, it’s not. Not for you. It’s a trade-off though. Yes.

25:47
I think you have to decide upfront what type of business you want to run. If you want to run something that’s going to scale to something really large and you’re trying to grow and sell it at big multiple, then you’re going to need a lot of employees. You’re not going to have a break for six years. Or longer. This guy’s owned this company for 10 years.

26:12
But he’s probably now to the point where he can take a vacation. I guarantee he wasn’t taking a lot of vacations in year two. It’s funny because it’s funny how short of a memory you have because I remember in the beginning when he was getting this off the ground, he was in danger of going bankrupt, running out of money, having to get funding and stuff. Yeah. And that had to have been very stressful. He didn’t mention any of those things. But yes, you’re correct. Now he’s at a point where it’s all good. Yeah. And he just had to rub that in as I was talking about.

26:43
But getting over that hump is hard. Yes. Running a 200-person company is not for everybody and a lot of people screw it up and don’t have success. They don’t get the right people. We know a lot of people who run companies and we’ve had friends who have people take money from them and basically swindle them or aren’t doing what they say they’re doing or they lose all this money on different things.

27:08
There’s two sides to that. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. There’s risk to all the different businesses. I think the biggest thing for you though, as your friend and someone who’s watched you take a lot of vacations, is that you have to learn to be okay with something just not happening, not getting done.

27:31
I know that’s like, your face is like that doesn’t compute. No, trust me, stuff gets dropped on the floor all the time. Yes, it does. Maybe a video just doesn’t go out. Yes, no, I can’t do that. I know you can’t. That I can’t Yes, I know. That’s the thing that I feel like as entrepreneurs, it’s very hard to just let something drop that’s that big.

28:00
Obviously, we all drop stuff all the time. It’s not like we’re all just checking every box every day. I think sometimes it’s better for your mental health and your sanity to take that break and let big stuff drop for a week or two, you will recover. No one has missed one YouTube video and been like, then my career was over. It just doesn’t work that way. One blog post not going out, one TikTok not being published.

28:30
It’s hard to think about, but I think that there might come a point where it’s okay to just take a break. I think about driving back to the Olympics. Let’s talk about Simone Biles, right? Was in the Olympics in what, 2016? Are comparing me to Simone Biles? Let’s not get crazy, no. But she did really well in 2016, and then she goes to Tokyo. She drops out of the Olympics, right? She just mentally.

29:00
for health reasons, her mental health was not, she was having physical problems. was vertigo. Yes. She got to the point where I feel like dropping out of the Olympics is like, that’s a little more important than missing a YouTube video. That’s huge. She had an excuse. She couldn’t balance. It’s different. It’s not different. I lost my voice. Right now, I’m sick. Yes, you’re sick. I got back and I’m

29:29
I have this huge queue of things I need to record. I couldn’t record anything. Yeah. You have an excuse. It’s easier that way. It’s but you’re looking at this wrong. OK, go on. I’ll let you finish. Please, please give Steve your feedback at the end of this, guys. What I’m saying is she was not all she wasn’t able to compete for a variety of reasons. And she will say it was primarily mental health and her mental health affected her physical health.

29:58
And she’ll say, she’s had many interviews about this. And so to say like, hey, I am literally at the most important moment of my life, right? I’ve worked my entire life to get to this point and I’m gonna step away from it and I’m not gonna do this in the middle of it, right? She was in the middle of competing, right? And she was like, I’m out. Like, I think sometimes as an entrepreneur, you have to know when to say, I’m out. I need to step back, refocus.

30:26
get healthy, get mental clarity, whatever it is. Because so many times as entrepreneurs, we’re like push through, push through, just do the next thing, get it done, hustle. We have all this like, which is one of the reasons why people become successful, right, is they are able to push through. But at some point, sometimes pushing through isn’t what’s best and sometimes saying, you know what, it’s okay to miss something, it’s okay to take a little break, recenter yourself and then start over again. Look at her, she came back, she’s amazing.

30:56
what the most highly decorated gymnast of the US of all time. Like, I just think that we can you can learn something from it’s OK to step back and miss something. I think that’s a bad analogy for me because my life is kind of like a vacation. Right. I don’t usually push myself to the max. That’s true. You don’t. Right. I don’t. Everything I should do that I’m doing should be maintainable forever. Yes. At a pace. And it’s a slippery slope. This is what I want to say. So I went on my vacation.

31:26
and I have this very rigid eating, I’m low-carb and everything. I was like, ah, I’ll just have a whole pizza pie. We’re in Italy, whatever. Oh, I’ll just have a little gelato. And pretty soon I’m eating that stuff every day. Once you break out of your routine, it’s hard to get back on. It’s like an addiction. For you, because you’re so regimented. I can go to Italy. I’ll just eat okay when I get home.

31:56
I’ll just work out like a madman when I get home. But then you putting it off, putting it off, putting it off. It’s a slippery slope is all I’m saying. Well, for most people whose life isn’t a vacation, whose regular life is not a vacation, I think it’s okay to take the break and let something slide and get out of your routine in a little bit. Now, if you have the personality type where if you

32:25
get out of the routine, it’s like an alcoholic, right? If you are alcoholic for real, you cannot have alcohol, right? Because one drink of alcohol and you’ll be back to drinking all the time. You don’t have the ability to moderate that in your life, right? And it doesn’t have to be alcohol, can be anything. It could be food, right? It could be sweets, it could be sugar. And there are some people that are like, I don’t eat sugar because when I get a little bit of sugar, then,

32:55
I just want to have sugar every day. I’ve got to have something. I’m drinking six Dr. Peppers, whatever. Whereas like for me, like sugar’s not a weak spot for me. don’t like, I’m a carb person all day long, but sugar, like I’ll eat a brownie and I will not eat another brownie for six months and I won’t think about eating a brownie for six months, right? Like that’s not a problem for me. But you send me to Italy, I only pizza all the time forever and I’ll want to come home and find the best Italian pizza place in town and I want to eat there every day, right? So it’s like, you have to know what your weakness is in your routine.

33:24
So if your weakness is if I don’t get up and exercise every day, if I don’t do it first thing in the morning, I’m not going to do it. Then even when you’re on vacation, hey, get up and do something right. Like maintain some level of that routine, because you know that if you get out of it, you won’t be able to restart it. But also at the same time, moderate, have fun, find the things that you need to withdraw from, relax from and make sure you hit that, too. Yeah, I mean, it’s yeah, I guess everyone’s different.

33:53
For me, everything that I do, I don’t feel like it’s forced. I can maintain whatever I’m doing for a long time without massive strain. That’s why I don’t really ever feel burnt out. When was the last time you- The only time I’ve ever felt burnt out, think, is with Seller get me started. Yes, Seller Summit. The book? The book, yes. The book was an anomaly that was worth it in retrospect, but I probably won’t do it again. Yes. Thank God.

34:22
I can’t live through another book from you, that’s for sure. That was the hardest I think I’ve ever worked since college. No joke. Something that has zero monetary gain, nothing. Hey, but it’s on your bookshelf. It’s on the bookshelf, that’s all that matters. I’ve got my 200 copies. That’s what put me over the top. That’s right.

34:51
I’m giving them out as my neighborhood welcoming present. I don’t know what the key takeaway of this episode was really. It was more of like a venting episode, I guess. I think the key takeaway is that people do need to take breaks. Whether you work a nine-to-five or you’re an entrepreneur, I think breaks are really important because I do think, the other thing is I feel like in America especially, but our entire identity is wrapped up in what we do.

35:21
I’ve noticed this like because I’ve met a bunch of new people because I moved to new neighborhood, right? So I’m meeting new neighbors and like they always like the first things they ask you are like, so what do do for a living? Right. Like what do you like? That’s that’s like it’s not like, well, what do you do for fun or like how many dogs do you have? Or, you know, that kind of thing. It’s like, what do you do? And then I’m like, oh, good grief, I just work on the Internet. I never ask anyone that question. But have you but you have to admit that that is a very common is a very common question. It’s correct. I’d rather not get into it. But yeah.

35:50
I don’t ask anybody because I don’t want to say what I do. Exactly. I teach people how to make money on the internet. Oh, sure you do. I’m not a total shyster. I feel like especially if you live in America, so much of your life is tied into that. Who are you? What do you do? As opposed to all these other components of most people’s personality, one of the things that I love about our course and seller summit,

36:19
is that we meet people and we get to know people on such a deeper level and we find out that they’re way more than just their store or their website or their YouTube account, right? We learn about them and what they like to do and their personalities and we know that Christina’s got a million pets and she’s always got a bird on her shoulder and we learn all these things about people, which is really way more who they are than just the fact that she’s an attorney, right?

36:46
That’s very little about her personality to me. Like she’s so much more than that. And so I feel like it’s important to step away from work and develop those other parts of you as a person, whether it’s doing little mini vacations in your area or taking big trips and exploring totally different cultures and places, doesn’t really matter. But I think it’s important to step away from work so that you are like a more developed human. And then as entrepreneurs to not

37:14
step away and have nothing but like guilt and stress about the business that you believe is completely falling apart when you step away from it. Whereas I need a vacation from my vacation. I’ve been sleeping really well since I’ve gotten back. I’m impressed that you actually go meet your neighbors too. They’ve all come and met me. Really? Wow. Yeah. It’s a very little friendly area over here.

37:44
Yeah, just, think, I agree though. Like the vacation you took was a trip. It wasn’t really a vacation. Vacation to me is where you sit by the pool and people bring you fruity drinks and you yell at your kids to put sunscreen on. Like that’s a vacation. And then a trip is exploring and adventures and you usually come back way more tired than you left. Yeah. But either way, I hope this episode has given everyone a perspective of

38:14
of what goes on behind the scenes. mean, it’s not, I don’t know, it’s not always rosy and there’s definitely pros and cons.

38:25
Hope you enjoyed this episode. Now I’m finally recovered from my illness and happily sleeping in my own bed. For more information and resources, go over to mywifequitterjob.com slash episode 551. And if you’re interested in starting your own e-commerce store, head on over to mywifequitterjob.com and sign up for my free six day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening.