Decompression for a small business owner

Thinking about it for a while on holiday in the Komodo islands, Indonesia – there are parallels here for being a business owner. Especially a sole business owner.

If you don’t have a business partner to look after your work while you’re on holiday, it’s very tempting not to take a holiday. The needs of a small business are huge and as you grow, the downside is, those needs seem to expand almost exponentially than revenue!

I have never seen a group of individuals that work harder than sole business owners. And I’ve worked in some very big international law firms.

The sheer amount of stress, the responsibility of staff, constant financial stressors, the ATO, accounting and book-keeping, the unknown, the sleepless nights, the early mornings, the late nights, constantly thinking how you can market your services better, keeping up with new technology and issues with existing software, management, supervision, client maintenance and endless satisfaction, resolving any disputes, being “switched-on” all the time, events, networking, sales, process, procedures, policies, business education, planning, strategy, product testing, monitoring, pivoting, reading, research, constant prioritising, hundred miles an hour….and doing the actual work….oh and did I mention – staff?!

When you think about it, our bodies are not used to this type of stress and certainly not for a prolonged period of time. When it’s your “baby”, the hard and long hours don’t seem to feel as tough as they would be if you were working for someone else. But, the catch is, they’re actually harder on your body than you think (or perhaps are willing to admit…), and different types of stress affects different people in different ways.

We need to take a break, to give our bodies, minds and souls a chance to rest and recover in order to keep performing at near peak performance – which our businesses appear to require. In diving, they call it “off-gassing” – you take surface intervals between dives (and now and then a day or two off diving) to allow your body to process and expel the gas in your body and stress so that you can continue to dive.

The same goes for business, there is a reason why weekends were created.

If you’ve worked even just one 80 hour week, you’ll know why. If you’ve worked a row of weeks at 60h or more, you’ll know why. And if you’ve only worked a 40h week and it feels like you’ve worked a 80h week – you should know it’s time! Business overwhelm is another really great sign to take a break. Your body and mind will literally shut down when it has reached its capacity. For me, I feel physically exhausted and need to get horizontal and hit the pillow. There are plenty of warning signs but we probably choose to ignore them and “crack-on”. Most times it happens without warning.

The worst part of this holiday is that being remote, and being out scuba diving every day – there is very little Internet. The best part of this holiday – there is very little Internet. It’s a double-edged sword you see? For the first few days I had separation anxiety from my business. Can the business survive without me for a day/few days/week? What if something urgent comes up? If my staff suddenly need me and I’m not there for them? Guilt levels at maximum, high fear-of-missing-out (FOMO) too.

But soon, I ride out these irrational thoughts and I can actually feel the stress and cortisol fight/flight adrenaline-type stress hormones leaving my body and my blood pressure drop. Unfortunately, you can’t feel the gasses being absorbed in your body after diving. But you sure can feel it when your stress levels drop. You get quality sleep (unless at 5am you have a loud speaker-driven call to prayer wake you up, or a brood of roosters cock-a-doodle-do-ing outside!).

A lot of people find they have great creativity when they are on vacation because they are able to let their creativity loose without distractions. They find moments of clarity and new ideas that wouldn’t have come to them otherwise. Creative writing (e.g. this article) seems to flow suddenly like a waterfall and people report a renewed sense of purpose in their business, as opposed to having your head on a grindstone all day. Lots of studies have been done on the lack of quality of decision making when in highly stressful situations as opposed to thinking calmly and rationally in a composed state of mind.