Do you work all the time? Does you small business have you running circles morning, noon and night?  Guess what? You need to take a vacation.

As small business owners we’re often reluctant to take time off. Why? Because we think our business is going to crumble the minute we leave. Hopefully you’ve setup some systems to help with that, so let’s talk about 3 reasons you should get away periodically.

Take a Deep Breath: Dude, you need to catch your breath. Superman is only real in the movies. You’re not him. You have got to get away, take a deep breath (better if you take more than just one), and regain your focus. It’s amazing what a little breather will do for you energy when you get back in the game.

Regain Your Creativity: If you’ve been slugging it out on the ground for the past six months, ignoring everything else, there’s probably a pretty good chance your creativity has taken a hit. Why? Because you don’t increase creativity by staying in the same environment. Why do you think writers head for the beach, the deserted lake house or the mountaintop cabin to knock out their latest work? Because places away from home and office offer new things to see, smell and touch. Regain your creativity by going somewhere new.

Your Health: Look. Life is really too short. How fast do you want to end it? Me? I want to be around for a while. I learned a couple years ago that if I burn it from both ends around the clock and year-round my health took a hit. I was exhausted, my weight went up, I felt like crap even though I told myself I didn’t. Take care of yourself. There’s only one you. We want you to be around to see the fruits of what you’ve built.

So find some time to get away. Make it at least two days (uh, Saturday and Sunday?) and get out of town. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Take a vacation and come back ready to kill it.

Yeah, yeah I know it’s a silly picture. But someone recently told me I needed to use more pictures to grab YOUR attention.  So here we go.

I was working on a presentation earlier today and I was trying to narrow down the common reasons why a lot of small businesses fail.  The one I kept coming back to was that the so-called entrepreneur gets in the way of his/her own success.

Literally it’s like they’re peeing on everything they’ve built.  How do that they do that?  Let’s explore:

1) Failure to Delegate: A lot of small business owners are afraid of delegating because they think if anyone else does the work they’ll get it wrong, the customer will be lost, then the business will die. You’ve either heard it or done it, “Nobody can do this thing as well as I can.” Well, maybe it would be better to break down that task, come up with a system/checklist so any monkey (no offense to all my monkey readers out there) can do it. Why do you want to do everything? Learn to delegate tasks.

2) Failure to Look Around: Being a small business owner can be hectic, crazy, insane, exciting, etc… It’s easy to get so caught up in our daily routine that we fail to look around and A) see what’s going wrong, and B) see how we can improve things. Make it a part of your weekly routine to step back and see what’s working and what’s not. Then, come up with systems that help you fix and improve.

3) Failure to Aim Higher: Success is great. Sometimes continued success can be daunting. I’ve recently talked to some entrepreneurs that are at the point where they need to take their business to the next level…but they’re scared. They’re scared of hiring employees, scared of increased inventory, scared of more time, scared of everything.  Don’t let your fears keep you from growing. Build your business incrementally and take baby steps. Nobody says you have to be the next Apple tomorrow.

So again, don’t pee on everything you worked so hard to build. Make sure you aren’t getting in the way of your business’s success.  Take a systematic approach, get outside help and push on through. And use the restroom before you leave…

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I’ve been really busy lately and have finally found time (or was it the fact that we scheduled it a year in advance) to take a vacation.

I never think I need one, but boy did I need one. When you’ve got a brain and imagination that goes a mile a minute you need time to unwind.

Funny thing is, while unwinding my brain works in other ways.

As we’re walking thru the wonderful Magic Kingdom an idea for a fictional novel starts to take hold.

No it’s nothing about going kamikaze on parents that hold up the line. In fact, I’m not even going to tell you what it’s about yet.

Point is, I felt a sudden itch and I needed to scratch it.

So, what to do?

I decided to write instead of nap. So while my wonderful wife and kids were napping after a morning of fun, I got on my laptop (I can’t wait until I can just use my iPad).

The words started to flow and before I knew it the kids were waking up and I had 3,000 words done. Sweet!

So what’s the moral of the story?

If you find sudden inspiration, don’t wait! Find a piece of paper, boot up your laptop, just do something.

Don’t lose that magic you felt the moment inspiration came.

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Episode 3 of "Mind Your Business"

Today's topic: Brainstorming

Enjoy!

P.S. We'd love your questions for upcoming episodes.  Shoot 'em to me!