By the time you are reading this, Andrea and I will be somewhere between Adelaide and Broken Hill on the first leg of our road trip to Longreach & Caloundra.  We are doing something I have been encouraging business owners to do over many years — we are taking a proper holiday to disconnect from the business. Over the next three and a half weeks, we will become grey nomads in our motorhome, completely disconnecting from the business.

And to be honest — I found disconnecting much harder in practice than when advising others to do so!

Over the years, my coaching conversations with exhausted business owners always generate the same responses when I suggest taking time away to disconnect from the business:

“I can’t leave the business for that long.” “What if something goes wrong?” “My clients need me.”

Sounds like you?

The irony isn’t lost on me. Here I am, preaching the importance of disconnecting from the business, yet when I began to plan to be away for a month, I started telling myself it is not going to be possible.  Even writing this, I am mentally working through everything that could go wrong when I am away even though I am committed to going.

As a business owner, I built my business from nothing. My business feels like an extension of myself — my responsibility, my identity. The thought of stepping away from it triggers every protective instinct.

When business owners tell me the same thing, my response is: Your business won’t fall apart during the time you will be away. In fact, it might just surprise you with how well it runs without you hovering over every detail.

I am sharing this because accountability matters.  If I am going to coach business owners about the importance of genuine time away to disconnect from the business, I must model this behaviour

So this is my commitment to you (and to myself): From 8 to 31 August, I will explore Queensland’s outback and the Sunshine coast with Andrea. No blogs, no coaching calls, no “quick check-ins.” Just two grey nomads discovering and enjoying what Australia has to offer beyond the business world.

Given I am taking this step, I challenge you to reflect on your own relationship with taking time away from the business. When did you last take a proper holiday — not a long weekend, not a “working remotely from the beach” trip, but genuine time away from your business?

Ask yourself: What’s the worst thing I imagine would happen if I were unreachable for a week? How much of that fear is reality versus needing to feel indispensable?

If these questions make you uncomfortable, it is time to start planning for time away from the business.  Start by accepting the business will survive without you and that your health & well-being is one of the most important assets of the business.

My key message to business owners is the best thing you can do to achieve business success is to prioritise your health & wellbeing.  As Simon Sinek puts it so eloquently “You have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others.  You can’t give what you don’t have.”