As you may know, I was out of the country this month to visit my daughter who lives in Taiwan. It was the first time I’ve ever really been out of my business. Yes, I’ve taken a trip to visit family or had a “vacation” periodically, but I’ve never really done work while I’ve been gone. In the past, I’d log into e-mail each day so if there were issues my staff could send me a note and I could respond. I’d scan through messages to see what needed to be handled so the rest of the day could be dedicated to my family.
This time was different. I talked to my staff about how I wanted to spend the time I had with my daughter and experience her life. With the 16-hour time difference, the 8 hours my office is open just happened to be the 8 hours that I’d be sleeping, so it wasn’t conducive to me being able to communicate quickly anyway. I left them with the authority to handle any situation, and only e-mail me if there were something they were unsure how to handle. I gave my e-mail address and checked that each day just in case.
Thankfully, there was only 1 thing they needed which was a code Intuit required to verify something through QuickBooks online, and all I had to do was quickly log in, find the code in e-mail, and send it to my staff. The rest of the time I was gone (2 1/2 weeks) I was not reading e-mails, writing blogs, doing client work, or writing social media posts.
What a great time I had in Taiwan! I not only enjoyed my vacation, I realized that my staff is capable of running the show (deep down I knew they could, but I’d never given over 100% control). Can you relate? I am so thankful for the team I have, and I look forward to taking more vacations and letting them handle anything while I’m gone.
