Edition 111 – Get Out of Here!
In the 1982 hit song “Hard to Say I’m Sorry”, Chicago’s Peter Cetera’s opening line was “Everybody needs a little time away”. He was stating the case for people in a relationship to spend some time apart, so they truly appreciate each other and what they have together.
In my opinion, the relationship that most family business owners have with their business is pretty much the same. I’ve long advocated for people to get far away from their businesses when they are involved in long term family business planning.
I’m currently working on a truly exciting project with one of my long standing clients. They’ve established a new business, separate to the one that they roll up to every day. They are looking to turn their industry completely on its head and offer an alternative in terms of high quality, professional training that is unmatched anywhere in Australia, and quite possibly the world.
We’ve been working on this project for a bit over a year now. When you have a business that consumes enough of your day-to-day as it is, plus have some other extra curricular activities that fill your spare time, there is not much time after tucking the youngsters into bed at night to devote to developing this exciting opportunity.
We’d tried a few things over recent months:
- Blocking out time in the work day;
- Setting days aside to work from home;
- Setting other days aside in a completely different environment.
all devoted to helping create the opportunity and space to put down on paper the content that had been swimming around in their heads for goodness knows how long. Some of it worked. Most of it didn’t. Hence, the development of the idea crawled rather than sprinted along.
We needed a change of plan. We needed this couple to get radical. We needed them to get far away.
So, they got out of their business and headed for one of Australia’s most luxurious resorts for 4 days and 3 nights. They went super high end so they were looked after impeccably whilst they spent a few days together to write the creative content that is going to change the face of an industry. They went uber luxury so they could immerse themselves in completely different surroundings whilst they worked hard at putting together highly technical material. They knew they had to work hard, and wanted to feel rewarded by staying somewhere special whilst they did so.
What was the result, I hear you ask? Put simply, astounding.
They smashed over what they had to do in double quick time. Plus, they realised they had to do extra work to make the end product what they needed it to look like. Guess what? They smashed that as well and designed not just one piece of content, but two, substantial bodies of work.
By being away, they cleared their heads, eliminated the distractions of the day-to-day and focussed purely and solely on the task at hand.
Up until that point, it had been like two separate craftsman each moulding their respective works of art. By getting out of their normal environment, it enabled them to work collaboratively and build a much more robust end product.
The final result has turned out amazing. There is a launch of the exciting new concept towards the end of this month. They’re now set to go on their new business venture which, in my opinion, will help each of this couple to fulfill their professional life purpose once it is rolled out. They turned an idea into reality all by getting out of their environment and heading somewhere both remote and luxurious that enabled them to foster their sense of creativity.
This Week’s Tip
“If you have an idea in your business that has been bouncing around in your head for three months but not ended up anywhere, why not book a week away, somewhere very nice, to focus on getting the idea down on paper? It could end up being the best money you have ever spent.”