Focused - 218: Turning Down the Volume, with Stephen Hackett

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

Welcome to Focus, a productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm David Sparks and joined by my co-host, Mr. Mike Schmitz. Hello, Mike. Hey, David. How's it going? I'm doing really well. And we've got this guest on the show, this guy I've heard about but never really spent a lot of time with, Stephen Hackett.

Welcome to the show. This is weird. This is not our normal podcast together. Yeah. It's like an intersection of the universe or something, I'm not sure how to describe it, but having you both on at the same time, little weird for me, but also really fun.

It's like when the X-Men show up in the MCU, you know, what are we doing? Yeah, exactly. Or like when I was a kid, it was like the superhero hall of justice. This is the Sparky Verse Podcast Hall of Justice. Here we are. There we go.

Let's do this. Yeah, well, Stephen is on the show because he took the month of October off and did a full-on month-long sabbatical. And that's the kind of thing we're excited about here. We wanna talk about it. We wanna get the details, maybe inspire a few folks. So let's just hit it, guys.

Let's do it. You want to kick it off? Yeah, so Stephen, you dropped this on me pretty close to October. What was going on inside between those two years that led to the idea of a sabbatical? I mean, how long had this been cooking for you? Yeah, not very long.

And you were right to say that. I definitely let people know basically in September that I was thinking about doing this. It did come together pretty quickly. I mean, the shape of Relay's year is really busiest June through September. So we have in June and July, we do annual specials for our members.

And of course I cover Apple. So there's WBDC and like a lot of Apple stuff. If people listen to MPU, you know that we take several weeks to like unpack all the announcements. And then it's beta season, right? We're running iOS and Mac OS betas and our devices are restarting

when you're trying to call your mom, like lots of, lots of busyness in the Apple world over the summer. And then that flows into August, which is back to school. I have three school-aged children. My wife is a teacher, like August is very busy. And then September is childhood cancer awareness month where we as a network raise money

for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. This year, by the way, raised over a million dollars for the first time in the month of September. Totally bonkers. Yeah. Well, and also in fairness, you work on that very hard for like the six months preceding. Yeah, yeah, we start in March or April, and then it runs all the way through the fall.

And so the last several years, I've really been pretty, pretty worn out by the by the end of September. And I had I was feeling that pretty acutely this year and in September kind of had the idea for talking with some people about like, you know what, like an extended break might be good. And this year was kind of even more bananas because Relay, the network turned 10 years old and we did a live show. Both of y'all came to London with us and were part of the live show, which is really awesome. with us and we're part of the live show, which is really awesome. There's just a lot of stuff going on this year and I really felt like, you know, 10 years is a nice round number. The St. Jude thing is going really well. It seems like this is a decent time to take an extended break, but it did come together pretty, I think it was like mid September, like it was maybe even

late September. I didn't give people a lot of notice. So thank you, David, for being very kind and receptive to it. And yeah, so the shape of it was, I'm gonna take the month of October off from production. So no recording, no posting, no blogging, like just doing basically enough bookkeeping that we could pay people because, you know,

so we do still have a company to run and it is still a very, you know, behind the scenes, a pretty small company. And so I was around enough to do a little bit of admin work, but then other than that took basically the entirety of October away from work. And then that's kind of awesome that you did it, but I wanna even go back further.

When's the first time in your brain you thought, sabbatical, huh, maybe that's something I could do someday. Because I've never heard you talk about this. This is the kind of hippie stuff we do on this show. Oh, I know, yeah. Yeah, but you never struck me as the kind of guy who would do a sabbatical. Yeah, no, it took about 48 hours from having the thought to actually executing it. I guess it happened very quickly. I've got friends in the academic world or in the ministry world where

sabbaticals are more common. So I have people in my everyday life who do this on occasion, I have people in my everyday life who do this on occasion, and I've seen them do it, some of those people pretty up close, but never really applied it to what we do, right, as content creators, podcasters, writers, business owners, whatever our career is. Yeah, I mean, famously, being a content creator is like the guy I'm lost who has to type in the numbers on the computer

every six hours or whatever. You're always putting stuff out. Yeah, absolutely. And that's where I'm really fortunate to work with a bunch of great people. So Mac Power users and Connected just kept going. David, you had guests on MPU and the boys connected on their own, Federico and Mike,

but they also had some guests. And so my content output podcast-wise, I'm never alone, I'm always working with a team. Now, 512pixels, the blog that I've written for now 16 years, that did go quiet in October. No one else writes on that site. I've had guest writers on and off, in fact a little secret.

I'm actually planning a really awesome series of guest posts by a friend of mine. I think you may see the first one of those by the end of the year. But 500 pixels is basically a solo venture and so that did kind of get shuttered in October. I'm curious what sort of triggered this. You mentioned it was decent timing

with the 10 year anniversary of the network, but you also sort of mentioned that really busy time. What I was hearing, reading between the lines was you're feeling a little bit burnt out. So was this kind of like a proactive thing or was this a reactionary thing? Like I really need to take a break right now. I'm, I'm feeling it. Or were you just recognizing that I can't continue at this pace and this is sort

of a long-term investment in my ability to do this. I think it was more of the, of the ladder that yes, I was feeling a little, a little burned out, but I Do want to I want to do this as long as I absolutely can like, you know David you and I have talked about this like we want to kill over on zoom one day, you know, and so We being relay like we have built this company to be sustainable for hopefully a long time and I want to do this hopefully a long time. And I wanna do this for a long time.

And so while there were some acute reasons like just between the 10th anniversary and the St. Jude campaign being really hectic this year, there was some acute burnout, but I really kind of viewed it, especially once I was in October and kind of really away from work, my mind sort of shifted it, especially once I was in October and kind of really away from work, my mind sort of shifted to like,

this actually is a good preventative measure, right? That now that I've done this, I feel like I've got, I've let off the gas long enough that I've kind of been able to reset and to, you know, just to take that extended break. Because I think, I think like a lot of people who work for themselves or who, like you know, just to take that extended break. Because I think, I think like a lot of people who work for themselves or who, like you said, work in the sort of content business that we're in,

a lot of us are really bad at taking time off. And, you know, I've been on vacations, like I've taken, I've taken time away, but it's really hard to be fully off. Right, there's always someone in the network who needs something, it's just really just the two of us, even though we've got a good support team. Like, it's hard to really kind of break away,

and being intentional about that this time, I've viewed as like a really good proactive thing to like, okay, not only can you do this, and I think I'll be better at vacation in the future because of this, but if I want to keep doing this and like the pace really isn't ever going to let up like that June to September arc that's been that way for a decade and that will continue to be that way for the foreseeable future. And so kind of stepping away for a while felt like a

like a good investment like you said. So follow-up question then because you mentioned you have known people in ministry and academia who have taken sabbaticals and most of the people that I know in those those worlds have taken sabbaticals. It's like every five years you take three months off something like that. The cadence is pretty well known at this point. So what is the plan for this going forward? If it's somewhat of a, of a preventative measure, uh, I find it hard to believe that you're just going to wait another 10 years to

take another one. Have you thought about what the strategy is going forward from this? I've thought a little bit about it. Um, and I've talked to Mike Hurley, my partner at relay about it a little bit because it. And I've talked to Mike Hurley, my partner at Relay, about it a little bit, because I came back and I wanted to set a cadence. So I was like, what if each of us gets one of these every, you know, three years, four years, five years?

You know, let's just pick a number. And I don't think we've settled on that. I am confident that this is something that he should do at some point. Like the benefits for me were great. I think he should do it in the future. I'm gonna push him to do that at some point, but I don't know what the cadence will be.

You know, I just don't know. And so we'll see. You know, in many ways, I've only been back two weeks. Like I was talking to my wife, Mary, about this actually yesterday, because I was telling her I was going to come talk to y'all. And she was like, have you processed your sabbatical yet? I was like, not fully.

We're going to do some of this live on the air today. But I think some of it's just going to take some time. And so I will do another one, I'm sure of it. But whether that's like on a set calendar, or you know, I get a few it. But whether that's like on a set calendar or, you know, I get a few years down the road and think, oh gosh, like maybe it's time for another one of these. I just, I'm not sure.

So I will, that is definitely like towards the top of my list of things to consider. And I just, I don't think I've landed on it yet. I do think that it'll be closer to two years than five, though. I think that's, that's long, five years is a long time to wait for something like that. Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking about,

you know, because your company turns 10, you get really introspective, right? Like, just think about the first five years of Relay and then the second five years of Relay, drastically different companies. Like, the amount of change that has happened in the last five years within our company is many times greater than the change we experienced the last five years within our company is many times greater than

the change we experienced the first five years. And so who knows what the next five years will look like, right? Like five years ago, we were just really doing our first St. Jude campaign. And now we've done it five times, six times, I guess, fifth year, six time, numbers are hard, right? It's like your 10 year old's not really 10, kind of existential math. And so who knows what the next, I mean, in five years, God willing, the company will be turning 15 and my high school students will be college age.

It's gonna be a totally different version of me and the company and everything, so who knows? And honestly, it's something I've thought about too, and really a friend of mine I had lunch with on my break kinda talked to me about this, was like, one of the benefits of working for yourself and building kind of what we've built is these sorts of things are possible.

And I should have said that many minutes ago. 100% I understand and know being able to do this is a massive privilege. That there are tons of people listening to this who their careers and jobs just don't afford this sort of thing. And other people, like we talked about, like academia and ministry,

there's other parts of the world and employment where it's basically built in expected like it's just a weird thing and so I fully understand that but being able to take advantage of it seems seems wise to me. I also want to encourage people to think though about how it might be possible because it does feel like one of those things like well you're fancy you can take a sabbatical there's no way that I could do that I have a regular job Yeah, I worked a regular job for a mutual friend where they had

Sean block where they have the regular Work cycles and so every eight weeks, you know, we're taking a week off and That kind of hits me as a mini sabbatical and I'm kind of curious I want to have you back after you've done a few of these that kind of hits me as a mini sabbatical. And I'm kind of curious, when I have you back after you've done a few of these, because maybe after the 15 year anniversary, we'll see what your cadence ends up being. But my experience with those eight week work cycles,

where you have to take a week off every eight weeks, the first time that you do it, if you are used to not taking a break, it feels like, finally I can breathe a little bit, this feels awesome, I should have done this a long time ago. The second one, when you're doing it every eight weeks anyways, it's like, that's a little early. Like I don't want to take the week off.

I have these projects that I need to get done. And when you're working for yourself, running your own company, it's easy to just let that dominate. Well, no one else is gonna do this. So I guess I gotta do this. And it's really like the third one where it really hits and you recognize like, okay, yeah, this is actually doing a lot.

That time off, it's really recharging me creatively. And when I come back, the stuff that I make ends up being a lot better but it's not till you get some reps in that you really start to see the value of it in that specific format anyways. Yeah I've always found Sean cycle with that really fascinating I mean I was the first editor in chief for this week set up like I worked for Sean for for Sean for a long time, but it's been a long time. It was before that was implemented within his company. And I think it is really interesting. And one thing for me going into this that was important was the amount of time. Like I could have taken two weeks off

and it wouldn't have been what this was. Like I really felt going into it like I need a month because again, not great at vacation. And I knew if it's a week or if it's 10 days, that's not enough time for me to get out of work mode mentally. And that really panned out. It really wasn't until well into the second week

I felt like, okay, this is actually a different type of time and Not just because I'm not in my office, you know podcasting and writing and stuff, but even just mentally like not thinking about work or Not sort of I mean you guys know this right a lot of people understand this like the sort of background cycles that your job takes up. It took a while for those to die down. And I was very pleased that I was able to do a month

because as I figured, it took a little time to kind of shift mentally into, okay, this is a different mode for a while, if that makes sense. Yeah, because I mean, that's really a different approach. I mean, a lot of people do these sabbaticals in the creator space, you know I'm thinking of Sean McCabe of like one week every X number of weeks So they're smaller, but they're more often and you just went in whole hog. I mean you took a whole month off

Yeah What kind of plan did you make going into it? I mean, a lot of it was sort of logistics based, as you may imagine, right? So making sure that on the work side, that things were gonna be taken care of by various, you know, either co-hosts or team members. And so spend some time working through everybody.

A huge component of this was Kathy Campbell. She's the, I'm trying to think of her official title. She's the community manager at Relay. And she does a lot of administrative stuff with us. And spending time with her, kind of making sure that she took, she out of, other than my co-hosts, took the most on when I was gone. And so logistically, just kind of making sure that she took, she out of, out of other than my cohost took the most on when I was gone.

And so logistically, just kind of making sure that things were gonna be fine without me. Part of that was the, in case of emergency break glass situation, which happened one time. And I kind of told everybody, was like, if the glass needs to be broken, it's gonna be Mike.

Like, you can send me messages in Slack, I will see them when I'm like doing the bookkeeping and I probably won't respond to them. But like, if something really rises to the level that it needs me, it needs to come from Mike. Like I'm gonna be paying attention to him. And it happened one time, we had actually a pretty nasty issue in the relay CMS and was able to get that resolved.

And I think that was important because not only does the company have to keep working without me, it also put my mind at ease, I found, of like knowing that my responsibilities were either on pause and that was fine for some of them or they were being taken care of and that Mike felt empowered to reach out to me if he needed me from a company perspective and knowing that like trusting 100% that he would make the right decision in that moment meant that I didn't

I felt free from checking in on things. I was like, well, if something really explodes, he's gonna call me. And sure enough, it happened one time and that was fine. And that was looking back on it now, again, it's just two weeks of hindsight. Things are gonna take me a while to process all this.

But in hindsight, I'm really glad I spent that time kinda getting those things set up. What was your initial reaction when they needed to break the glass? Was it, oh my gosh, I should have never done this? Or did you feel like this was, I took all the necessary precautions and actually the worst case scenario kinda happened,

so actually it wasn't that bad, we can do this again. Yeah, it wasn't a big deal. I mean, uh, when you build your own content management system, you're used to it, uh, interfering with your life in the worst possible times. So it's not, it's nothing new. Uh, it's a lot better than it used to be, man, in the early days, y'all, like the website would go down, like it would only go down like when I'm seeing down dinner with my family's like, well, I got to go. I got to go allocate some more servers or something. And so yeah, it wasn't a big deal at all. I was at home when it happened. And I was like, Oh, yeah, let me grab my laptop and like, we'll get it sorted out.

So not a big deal at all. And I didn't really have any expectation that that would or wouldn't happen. I was like, you know, if you need something, you can, you can get me. Uh, part of that is the trust that Mike and I have in each other as partners and honestly as close friends. Uh, but also like we've been doing this a long time. And so, uh, I have a lot of faith in the systems we have built. And I knew that if it, if it rose to that level where he felt like he needed me, that he needed me, needed me right he wasn't gonna do it casually and It wasn't gonna be something I'd be like, oh gosh, come on man. It's just over here, right like You know what I mean? Yep. So what else went into your sabbatical?

Strategy you mentioned like I'm not you can send me slack messages I'm not gonna see him Mike is the only one who can get a hold of me So just kind of from a technological perspective you're logging off of slack Mike can messages I'm not gonna see them Mike is but you couldn't interrupt yourself. Like, did you not set foot in the pod cabin? Did you log out of the work account on your Mac? Like, what were the details here for you to actually disconnect during your sabbatical? Yeah, so there were several aspects to this. The first one was physical, that like my office, the pod cabin, it's a separate structure in my backyard.

And I don't hang out out here. Like, I come out here to work and I don't, sometimes like I've said this before, but like if my wife has friends over and they're like hanging out in the living room, if I've got something to do for work, I may come out here and get some work done. But if I'm just gonna like watch a movie or something,

when she has friends over, I'm gonna do that in our bedroom. Like this is not hangout space for me. And so I didn't come out here. I came out here to water my plants, you know, several times. I didn't wanna come back and like my plants all be dead. That would have been sad. I would have been like, oh no, I murdered you. But so part of it was that physical separation.

And that is a byproduct of that. I've been really strict about that for a long time now. Like, you know, I've been in this space seven years, six or seven years, no, eight years now. And so having that separation already was good. On the tech side, that was a little bit more complicated. It was like, I don't do what some people do, or have like a separate work phone and personal phone, although I have considered that in the past. Um, so on my iPhone, I turned off notifications

for Slack and discord, which are my two sort of talkative work applications, uh, turned off my work email on my phone completely. So I just disabled those accounts in the iPhone settings and actually rearranged my home screen on my phone. So Slack, Discord, Notion and Timery, which I use for time tracking, those were off of my home screen during the month of October.

Now, they were still there, so I could go get them if something had come up. So not having those on my home screen was really, really quite nice. On the Mac side of things, I actually set up, I have an M1 MacBook Air that I just have for beta testing in the summer and so I left my work MacBook Pro just like on my desk and I had the MacBook Air set up with just

personal accounts like if I you know doing personal email or like photo management and stuff during the break where none of my work apps or accounts were on that machine and so really separate and And so really separate. And you know, that took a little time, but I found it really beneficial. So confession time, how many times did you get sucked into the work stuff? How many times did you go into Slack or Discord? Oh, no one will even notice that I'm here. You're just kind of kind of lurking. Or were you able to resist the siren song of work completely?

Mostly. I mean, you know, in the the beginning it was a little bit harder and towards the end I was pretty itchy to get back. And so, a little bit, but really I was out of them the vast majority of the time, especially Discord, which our members are in, and I love our Discord, it's my favorite place on the internet, but I was like, I can't get sucked in here.

And so really that went pretty well. Were there any holes in the strategy? Anything that you would do differently in terms of establishing those boundaries for the next one? You know, I'm not sure. I think not being in my email was good. I think I sort of underestimated how much time it would take to catch up when I got back.

It basically took a full week. I didn't feel like I was back on sort of a regular schedule until the second week of work because there was a lot of just catch up stuff to do. Now, a lot of that email, I also learned like, oh, actually very little of this is important in the moment. And some of those things in my inbox have been handed off to other people. And so I, you know, like our membership support, Kathy now takes care of, uh, sort of the first

line of defense, but they still come to my inbox because it's set up as a, as a mailing list. It's like, you know what? I can actually probably just build, set a rule up and get them shuttled into their own folder and then I can go look just set a rule up and get them shuttled into their own folder and then I can go look at them if I need to. And so I still have some tweaking I wanna do there, but I think dealing with the inbox

was sort of the most time-consuming thing when I got back. I'm glad I didn't look at my email when I was gone, again, outside like a little bit of bookkeeping I had to do. Like, let me go find this receipt, right? Or let me go see what this, you know, when this invoice got paid or something. But I think, I think the biggest lesson there for me is next time, like, try to design the first week back to have a bit more on-ramp time. Because I started my first week back, I was like, okay, bam, like, recording three shows and like back fully, you know, in production

mode and I think I needed a little bit of warm up time. I was actually going to ask if you found the transition back to be difficult or if it was just I've been away from this stuff so long and I really enjoy what I do that I was I can't wait to record these shows again. Yeah, I was super wait to record these shows again. Yeah, I was super excited to be back. I mean, the difficulty was just like, sorting through the inbox, you know, I marked,

I mean, I love you Discord, but I marked the whole server as red. I was like, I can't, the bajillion messages, like, you know, I didn't even catch up on like the administrative channels in there that we have as moderators, like, you know, trust the moderation team to make the right decisions. I'm not going to relitigate things that happened when I was gone. And really the same in Slack. You know I pay attention to a

couple of things but you know I'm in a lot of channels like I'm in the focus channel in Slack really just to be available if you all need something. And I was like you know what clearly all this stuff went fine without me I I can walk the whole thing is red. And so being kind of judicious about that, I think was good. But yeah, I was excited to be back. I was excited to be back on the air. I was excited to be writing.

And it was a real joy to come back to it and kind of find my flow pretty quickly. It didn't feel weird, you know, getting onto Zoom the first time. In fact, MPU with David, that was the first show I recorded when I was back. I was like, yeah, this is just how it's always been. Like, let's go, you know?

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go to squarespace.com slash focused to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash focused when you decide to sign up to get 10% off your first purchase and to show your support for the Focus Podcast. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of the Focus Podcast. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of the Focus Podcast and all of Relay. One of the things I wanted to go back to though was

before you took the sabbatical, you got a month off ahead of you. I know in my mind, I would be thinking about, well, how am I going to use that month? I mean, is it just me? But that seems like something I would be like really thinking about before I left. Yeah, I think things fall into two categories here.

I had a list of things sort of around the house or kind of in my life that I wanted to do while I was on break. So probably the biggest one was like, I wanna build a shelter for our firewood. You know, it's just been like stacked up along the fence and it gets wet and like, you know, we want to fire up the fire pit and everything's gross.

And so that took, you know, several days and was a pretty big project. So I had some stuff like that of like, there's some things that, you know, kind of bigger tasks that I just want to get that, you know, kind of bigger tasks that I just want to get done, you know, sort of just in life. But I also had some things like, you know, I want to spend some days where I'm not actually doing anything, right?

Like, I don't want to be busy every day. There are going to be days where like I get up to help take the kids to school. And I come home and like, you know, if I want to watch a movie or take a nap or read, like having real downtime. And I was able to pull that off as well. I ended up leaning more into that. Like there were things on my to do list that I did not get done. And that's totally fine. Like they will fit into weekends or whatever.

But so I did have some some things of like, you know what? There's certain people like I wanna have lunch with or catch up with. Again, some things around the house I need to do. But also that downtime of like really kind of just being a bum, like that's okay too. And so being able to pull that off was nice. Yeah, I know that with respect to like planning timeout,

Sean, who's been on our show a few times, we'll have to reference some of those and really is into these sabbaticals, talks about the fact that you really shouldn't have like a plan for everyday. The point of a sabbatical is to not have a plan really. Yeah. And I think you actually,

cause I was asking you those questions before you took it and it sounded to me like you kind of had that. You had like time plan to just not be working and available to the kids and to your family and yourself. And like, I know you, like building a firewood storage unit. Like that's the kind of thing. Cause like for me too, that's very therapeutic.

Like just sitting there and making something. And I totally felt going in that you had the right idea. So I guess the question would be, did it work for you? I mean, when not only did you not get interrupted by work, but did you feel like you were able to be kind of whimsical and on the moment during your month off? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there were several times where like,

there was one day that, you know, my brother and I just sort of with the drop of a hat, like we just had lunch together. And you know, we do that sometimes, he works for himself as well. But, you know, someone's like, well, I got a show on Wednesday, can you do Thursday? Oh, I can't do Thursday, what about next Monday?

It's like, he was around. And I was like, hey, let's just go get a burger and like hang out. And so there were definitely days where, sort of that fluidity was really beneficial. A couple of days in there, one of my kids was homesick. And that falls to me as the parent who works at home anyways, it's not a big deal at all. But it was like, oh, I don't have a podcast.

Like, you know, sometimes if I got a kid home from sick, or like the other day one of my kids had a unplanned dentist visit, you guys know this as parents, right? They're like, oh, my tooth hurts, I gotta go to the dentist. And they were feeling pretty banged up after the dental appointment. So I kept them home the rest of the day, but I had a show to record as like,

hey, I gotta go do connected. You know, you can watch a movie while I go do that. And I don't love that. Like if my kids are homesick, you know, usually I'll take my laptop, work in the house, be available to them just so they don't feel like they're stuck in the house by themselves. And so that was nice too, right?

There was some like family stuff to be able to take care of. And so yeah, I'm actually very happy with the balance of all of that. And I think that I really, I mean, my list of like honeydew items was, you know, it wasn't fully complete, but I'm happy with that, because I did have those days where like, there's nothing going on. Or like that day, my brother, we had lunch and he came over. Like I had those opportunities to,

to really kind of just make the decision the morning of, like, well, what does today feel like? Today's, does today feel like the day to pressure wash? You know, two days it was yes, a bunch of other days it was no, and that's fine. Yeah, so how much structure went into that? Did you have a general list of, well, during this sabbatical, I'm going to power wash the house and do all the fall cleanup.

I'm going to build the firewood holder, or did you go into it with a blank slate and you're just like, you know what, I think I'm gonna build a firewood holder today. Yeah, I mean, so I had a list that I had kind of written out of some things to do and yeah, there wasn't a lot of like, okay, this is the week I'm gonna do X or Y. You know, one of the things like, you know, I had, you know, talked to my dad about this, like, hey, you know, at some point in October, like,

I love to go fishing together. And so he, a couple of days before, like talked to my dad about this, like hey, at some point in October, I'd love to go fishing together. And so he, a couple days before, was like, hey, let's go this Wednesday. He's like, great, I can do that. And so I really tried to keep it as flexible as I could, and that was nice. Where do you think the sweet spot is there for you though? Because you mentioned, you told your dad ahead of time,

I wanna go fishing with you during October because I'm assuming you're if you were to ask you why you know, I've got this sabbatical plan So I've got the flexibility in order to do this So I feel like there's there's got to be a fine line there between you know These are the things that I want to schedule because they are important to me It's kind of the whole ethos behind the Focus Podcast is we're purposely ignoring certain things that aren't important for us right now. But also if you just do whatever you feel like maybe some of those things don't happen. I think my personality would

probably tend to go into a sabbatical. Oh this is gonna be great I'm gonna get all these personal projects done. And I feel like that's probably not the right approach either. Yeah, I mean, I think to a degree like having, I'm a person who likes structure, right? And so like the, I'm gonna wake up every morning and just like put my finger in the air and see which way the breeze is blowing.

Like that's weird, right? Also telling my parents I was gonna take a sab morning and just like put my finger in the air and see which way the breeze is blowing Like that's weird, right? Also telling my parents I was gonna take a sabbatical also really weird like they don't I don't think that really landed with them the way it landed with you know Like this audience or my friends who have done it before Oh trust me there are people in this audience that aren't so cool with it either. Yeah. Yeah. No, I know Yeah, email somebody else about that, please. And I'm just kidding, you can email me anytime. So yeah, I don't know, like some stuff, yeah,

required a little planning in advance, but other stuff didn't it? And I just tried to kind of hold every day kind of loosely, if that made sense. Yeah, so what is the difference in in your opinion between a sabbatical and a vacation? I think you're kind of hitting on on it, but I just want to dig a little bit deeper here, whereas a sabbatical feels like it's a little bit less planned.

A vacation, you know, if you're going to take your family to Disneyland, there's a whole lot of planning that's going into to that So other than the length, what are the the differences in your opinion between a sabbatical and a vacation? Yeah, I think that I think the big thing is those those open chunks of time where there's there's nothing planned And you know, it's hard for me also to separate vacation from family. I know that's not true for everybody. But it's true for me, like I got three kids and I live in my hometown, so we have family like, you know, go the beat, you know, we've done like the family beach trip and all that stuff. And so the sabbatical was different for me,

at least in that there was a lot of solitary time. And I know some people when they're on vacation, it's solitary, but for me that was a distinct difference that I felt almost immediately. In fact, the first week of my sabbatical, my kids and wife were all on fall break and we didn't go anywhere. Like, you know, we had just been to London

and it was like our travel funds are tapped out for a while. It's like, you know, we had just been to London, it was like our travel funds are tapped out for a while, it's like, you know, we're just gonna stay home. And so that first week felt more like vacation, because the kids were home, you know, we did sort of like normal like fall break stuff with them, but then they all went back to school and I didn't go back to work. And that's when it sort of shifted for me,

of like, there's an element to this that is, I'm on my own. And I think also there's a level of introspection and like, I would not be on y'all show after a trip to the beach, right? Like it's just a vacation. But when you really step away from work in a more meaningful way, and you can sort of frame it with this term sabbatical

that comes with a certain level of like reflection or thinking about your career or your company. And so that to me is a, is another, another big distinction. So maybe that's the, the place then to kind of talk about the, the feeling side of this and what this sabbatical did for you as you're coming back into to work. I mean other than being refreshed from some some time off, you know, how do you how do you feel about this? What did the sabbatical do for you? do for you? Yeah, I did not have any sort of like

mountain top like experience about my career. So I spoke to somebody in my life about it who is sort of in that academic ministry world and who has taken sabbaticals and actually had one this year. And so I sought him out. I was like, Hey, like I'm doing this. Like what, what would you say to me? Right. Like I'm doing this. What should I know? And he does something that was really interesting to me. He was like, at least in his circles, in the academic circles, people take a sabbatical and they have like a big goal.

Like they're going to come back with a book written or a pitch for a book, or they're going to go off and yeah, it's on sabbatical, but really they're honing a talk or working on plans for a research project. The sabbatical is a way to break away from your daily work, but you go and kind of do other special work. And that was not my goal. Like I wasn't coming back with a big project or anything. But he said, when people, when that's their goal,

or when they think it's gonna be like this big experience and it doesn't happen, they come back depressed about it. I was like, well, I don't want to do that. And so I really was mindful about like, I may not have any like huge thoughts about my company or career when I come back, right? This may not be a sort of like, you know, the stone tablets on the top of the mountain

kind of moment for me. And honestly, it wasn't. Like I did not come back with, oh gosh, I have this plan to like revolutionize the way we do this or that, or hey, I'm gonna, you know, end two of my shows and go do this other thing, right? Like nothing, nothing? Like nothing, nothing drastic, nothing big really occurred to me

in that time. Now, part of it is I didn't set aside time on purpose to really go down that road, right? This was not one of, David, I know you've talked a lot about this, you and I have talked about it. I've done it to a degree. I know Jason Snell and others have done it.

You've done it. Y'all, I think I've both done it. This was not one of those like, I'm going to go think about my work and like talk to all my coworkers and like step through what I do for a living, you know, piece by piece. I didn't build that into this on purpose and maybe if I had I would have come to some bigger realization But when I came back the overwhelming feeling was I'm excited to be back. I like what I do I'm happy with the balance that I've struck and in the different parts of my job and I just feel really well rested. I'm ready to get back to it. And so

It really wasn't a big, you know, this eye-opening experience and coming back with all this change. And I'm really happy about that. You know, I'm not sad about that. I'm not discouraged by that because I think it tells me that, hey, you're actually in a pretty good place

with the way things are structured. And it looks like it's gonna be 10 years to get here, right? Things were not good for a long time in the way that I had things structured and my responsibilities across various projects. But I'm happy with it now and I still feel happy with it, which I'm thankful for. Yeah. I think you don't need that big revelation I think you probably if you wanted to you could use a sabbatical that way The one that you heard you were kind of talking about with the the ministry in the academia version of this

It's it's almost like not a break from work, but it's a different work mode. Yeah, and I think that's kind of counter the objective that you were after when you Went into this and probably works against at least people who do what we do for content creation. You just need some time to unplug and recharge a little bit. So I don't think that's necessarily a good or bad thing. It's just a different objective as you went into it, right? Yeah, yeah, like this person I sought out,

he has written books on sabbaticals, right? Like he's gone away into like a, you know, literally like a mountaintop cabin, like come back with a book. Like that's incredible. And maybe one day I'll be there and like, but that's not what this was. It's not what I wanted it to be.

And that's fine. Like I wanted his opinion based on his background, his experience with it. And so for me it was, yeah, my goal is not to go write a book, but the lesson I took from him was like, it's also okay that I don't come back with some sort of big grand plan to, you know,

upturn a bunch of things. Well, I mean, just talking to you beforehand, I just got the impression you'd been on a treadmill for 10 years and you just wanted to catch your breath for a little while. Yeah. And I think it sounds like you kind of did that. But I could see where that sort of space or margin

opens up insight about your life. Not saying you did like the full retreat thing and reviewed all your roles and all that, but just like, just being away from it all would grant you insight that you wouldn't get when you're in the middle of it every day. Did you feel any of that as you were taking the month off? I mean, I think for me,

like looking at all the roles, like that's a very intentional thing. And yeah, so it didn't really creep in even. It was much more about, like you said, kind of getting off the treadmill. I liked that a lot. Getting off the treadmill for a little while. And at some point, probably soon,

I will go through that exercise because it's been a while since I've done it. But it didn't sort of happen organically either, if that makes sense. I would argue the fact that that didn't happen is an argument that everything is in pretty good shape. Yeah, that's my takeaway as well. So I actually wanna dig into that a little bit.

I know you mentioned you're gonna go through a process and reflect on this after you've had a little bit more time. I know you're a big day one user, so that's probably where it's gonna happen. But if you're cool with it, I'd love to dig into it a little bit on the show. Got a couple of reflection questions, just kinda curious. Your response is off the top of your head. Having done this, what was the best part about your

sabbatical? I think the best part was just my day to day can be hectic, right? I'm on a couple of shows. I run this company with Mike. I help manage a discord server. I also haven't talked about it also in the last year joined our friend underscore Davis Smith's company as Director over there and so I can have a lot of roles and I bounce between those roles all the time and probably more than I should. And taking a break from that was, it was just very nice. It was just very nice to kind of have everything slow down

for a while. And that was something that like, yeah, I was like, oh yeah, like I'll take some time off and like, but I didn't really appreciate, I think, until it was happening. And even now, just sort of like turning the volume down on all of that was really pretty nice.

And I think because my days are relatively fractured in terms of the things I work on and where my attention goes, getting out of that mode took a little while, but it was beneficial. And coming back, if there's been any change in my day-to-day, it's been that I'm trying to do less of that context switching. And so, okay, like today, right, we have this,

we're doing Mac Power users. Like I have a big project I'm working on with Underscore. I'm not gonna do that, I'm not gonna work on that today. Like that will be probably Thursday when I don't have any shows. And so trying to align my days a little bit better where I'm not moving between those contexts as rapidly or as frequently.

And so we'll see how that goes. I don't quite know what that looks like yet or where it lands, but that was the biggest thing I think, was just like dialing that hectic nature of my work down a bit. Nice, I like the the term you used of turning down the volume, and that was sort of, you sort of answered a different question that I hadn't had on the list, which is like the lessons that you learned from this. Any other lessons that you learned from the experience that you want to apply? I think there was a good reminder that I'm really fortunate to work with a really great team. My co-hosts on my shows and Kathy and Kerry and Jim, like Mike, all the people behind the scenes

at Relay, our moderation team like it was a good reminder. They're all very good at what they do. And that while I'm a valuable member of those teams, and I think they all were glad that I was back that I can be more, I can do, I can be more trusting of their decisions and that I don't have to be as involved in every single thing as I have been historically. You know, a lot of that comes from Mike and I started this company, it was just the two of us for a long time.

But things like the membership support, right? Like she's, Kathy's done a really good job of it. That's, that should not be a surprise, it's not a surprise. Kathy's very good at many, many things. But it was a good lesson for me of like, you know what, I could take my hands off of this and focus my time on other things. And so there's nothing big in there.

I feel like it's a bunch of smaller things, but the overall sort of gist of it is like, I'm very fortunate to work with a good team of people who are all very good at what they do, and I'm very fortunate to be a part of that. And it also means that I can just let them run with their things, and that's totally great. I think it's really easy to convince yourself

that you're essential to everything. Yeah. No matter what it is you do, right? I got this, I fell into this trap when I was in the law firm. I still live in this trap as Max Sparky. You convince yourself that, oh yeah, I have to be there. But when you get a reminder that things can work without you, I think you give yourself some grace that way.

It's like, oh, okay, well, I'm important, but the wheels will not fall off if I don't do this thing today, or they don, well, I'm important, but I'm not, like, the wheels will not fall off if I don't do this thing today, or they don't need, you know. It's hard to explain, but I think once you, if you can internalize the fact that you're not the linchpin of everything, you give yourself a little less pressure. Yeah.

That actually leads to another question I have, which is how does it feel to know that you're maybe not quite as important for the network or the shows that you are part of as maybe you thought because I think everyone who creates in some way shape or form You know the business is you you make this stuff and so you tell yourself this story that I'm essential for this I can't take a break. Well, you did take a break and in a business where you know If people are expecting to hear from Stephen every week on on these shows, you know How in the world is he going to do that?

And I could see you know going into this maybe you feel like I'm not sure this is gonna work because people are used to hearing My voice I'm not gonna be there. It's not gonna be the same thing You know, but as you you shared already, it was successful without you. So walk us through how you're reconciling that. Yeah. I mean, on one hand, it's really, like I said a second ago, it instills a sense of thankfulness that I get to work with the best people in this industry. It's a little humbling too, right? Because part of me thinks like, oh, I am the linchpin to everything I do.

This is not true. And it's never been true, but it's a good reminder of it. But I think another big angle on it is there are things that my career and company have given me, like the flexibility to work at home, and like if I've got a sick kid and I don't have a show, like I don't have to be in the office, like I can just tell everybody,

okay, I'm gonna step away for the afternoon. And I think a reminder of that is really good, because this year in particular, with the 10th anniversary and St. Jude being the size that it was, like, and in particular this year because we had both of those things, so a little inside baseball, the beginning of the year Mike Hurley and I realized we can't do it all. Like, we both can't do the 10th anniversary show and St. Jude in terms of planning and logistics. And in particular

that became clear because the 10th anniversary show was in London planning and logistics. And in particular, that became clear because the 10th anniversary show was in London. I don't live in London, Mike does. And so we made a decision in January that Mike and Adina, his wife, who did so much to make the show possible in London, that they're gonna handle the 10th anniversary show and I'm gonna handle the St. Jude campaign.

And then after the show is done, Michael come in at the last minute, get caught up to speed on what we're doing with the campaign and the podcast and everything. And so this year in particular, there was a lot of stuff that was just on me that he and I would do together throughout the year on the St. Jude campaign.

And so it's easy to kind of get, for that thinking to kind of infect all of your work, oh like because I'm the decision maker in this I'm the only decision maker in these other things and that's just not true it's not the way that we work it's not really the way that I think but it was a good reminder that this is a team effort and that we can and should work collaboratively and that we can and should work collaboratively across the board. And so being taken out of that process for a while when I was really the kind of the key voice in a lot of things this year, I'm glad for that.

It was a good reset for me, a good reminder for me that I get to work with some great people and that we as a team are really strong and kind of taking me out of the driver's seat for a while was a good thing. What was the hardest part of the sabbatical for you? I mean, from a content perspective, the week that Apple just released a bunch of new Macs,

I was pretty itchy. I was like, no, I haven't talked about new Macs on the internet in like 20 years. Like, let's go, you know? Especially a new Mac mini, so adorable. So like, that was actually, like I kind of had it set on my hands. I was like, nope, like you're taking the time off.

Like, you know, I watched the videos when they came out, when they announced those machines. And so from the content perspective, that was the hardest. I think in the behind the scenes stuff, just really knowing that, you know, our moderation team and the Discord was still working every day. Like I enjoy that group of people a lot

on our moderation team, and we make decisions together as a moderation team. And I missed that. Like I missed that teamwork and discussions we have there kind of behind the scenes. But also it's good to step out of that stuff. And it was good for me that I sat on my hands and like didn't talk about the new adorable Mac Mini

until a couple of weeks later. Was there anything that really surprised you during the sabbatical or after you know as you are still reflecting on it but any surprises? I think the the month went by much faster than I had thought it would would and you know part of it isn't some people ask me I think actually David I think you asked me like are you gonna travel you travel? Are you gonna go to the woods, right? And like part of me really wanted to, but the way our lives are structured, because my wife's a teacher,

like I help with kid pick up and drop off. Cause we actually have three kids in three different schools, which is not ideal, but it's the situation that we're in. They're all in the right places. It's fine, but it's just hectic. And so I was still capped, like my beginning and end of my day. I was still in the school pickup line.

Right. And so that limited me a little bit in terms of what, you know, like, otherwise I think I probably would have gone out of town for a couple of days. And it's like, you know, go to a state park and go hiking for two days or whatever. And, uh, I wasn't able to do that, which is totally fine. I'm not, I'm not complaining. There is no sabbatical from dad. There's no sabbatical.

That's right. Um, nor should there be, uh, but that. Meant there was enough structure to my day that is, that is similar to the workday. Like my workday starts after I take our youngest to school. And then I pick him up and we come home. My wife comes home with the other two kids. And like, we, you know, usually once everyone's home, I go back to work for a little while. And so there were still enough of that sort

of residual structure that the month still went by pretty quickly. And I had, I mean, that shouldn't have surprised me, but it honestly just did. I was like, oh yeah, like there's still enough structure in my day. Like this doesn't feel like it's a slower pace of time, even though I'm not at work, if that makes sense.

And then the last question that I've got for you is, if someone is considering a non-traditional sabbatical, what advice would you give them? What advice would I give them? I would say be intentional on the front end about some things you want to do. Like for me, right, I had my list of things around the house, but I also knew that I wanted time where I just wasn't doing anything, right? Or like, if the mood struck me to go on a bike ride at 1pm, like go do that. And so having like giving yourself the freedom to be flexible with that time,

but also like, yeah, there are some things I'd like to do. I think that's good. I think if I, even though it was very rushed, like I made the decision pretty quickly and then a week later I was off, even within that week, right? Like I had the conversation with my friend that I shared earlier who's done this before. Like find somebody if you can,

who you trust, who's experienced this and talk to them about it. But I think the biggest thing is just like, be willing to like, you know, kind of like what my friend said, like, at the end of it, like be, you know, be willing to let go of those plans as things go on, right? Like if you're gonna go on a sabbatical to go write a book

and the book doesn't happen, like, that's okay, right? If you, you know, like one thing I had thought about going into it is like, I really like October to be a month where I'm really focusing on fitness. And I had a little bit of an injury in September and it really limited that. You know what, that's fine. Like it's a little frustrating

but it didn't ruin the month for me, right? Like, so forgiveness and grace with yourself and how it goes, I think, is important too. Because I do think it's easy, I think it would be easy to come back from something like this and really be like, well, that was, you know, it wasn't as magical or like, it wasn't the spiritual or like, you know, thoughtful experience I thought it would be. And being really hard on yourself about it, because you have taken time away from work and you've put extra work on other people.

And so I think some grace and forgiveness with yourself and the process is probably the most important thing. Have you had any surprise benefits of taking a month off now that you're back? Hmm, I don't know if there are surprises, but I think the things I've talked about like a reflection on my team members and Feeling rested kind of getting off the treadmill for a while and then the work that I'm continuing to do on like trying to limit my

Sort of the hectic nature of my workday. I think all those things are good and will continue to unfold over time Do you think it? Did it benefit you more or less than you expected? I think more. I think in particular, like, you know, a couple of weeks afterwards, like I continue to keep thinking about, you know, things that that happened or side effects of it that have been that have been positive. And so I'm very, very happy I was able to do it. I will do it again at some point, you know, the shape of that or the time of that is to

be determined. And again, like forcing this upon my business partner, if he'll do it, I think will be good. He's not there yet, but I'm working on him. I think it's beneficial. I think if you can pull it off, there's a lot of upside to it. And it's something I'm very, the longer I go from it, the more and more thankful I am that I was able to do it.

And just be able to step away for that amount of time is a special thing. And just being grateful that I was able to do it at all is a big part of it. This episode of Focus is brought to you by Indeed. We're all driven by the search for better, but when it comes to hiring the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search, match with Indeed. If you need to hire, then you need Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors according to Indeed data and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast.

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Need to hire? You need Indeed. Our thanks to Indeed for their support of the Focus podcast and all of Relay. I'll tell you, Stephen, if you had come to me in September, somebody had come and said, one of the people you work with closely is going to take a month-long sabbatical

to recharge his or her batteries. Tell me who it will be. Steven Hackett would have been very low on my list of people, because I know you. You drive forward hard and you're busy and you got a lot going on. So when you told me you were doing it, it surprised me, but delighted me at the same time. And I love hearing your story. We've had multiple guests on the show, as I was alluding to earlier. Some of our listeners get tired of us

talking about these things, but I do think that for a focused life, you need introspection, you need some margin. And forcing it on yourself with a sabbatical seems to me like a dandy idea. And you, like every other person who's come on the show to talk about it, are singing us praises. We've never talked to somebody who said, yeah, you know, didn't really do that much for me. So it's really great hearing that

you've gone through this. And I thought it'd be fun to go around the horn here. And you've already answered this question for a little bit, but let's talk a little bit further. I mean, how serious are you about doing it again? And, you know, there's the theoretical, I'll do it again someday, versus the practical, I'm going to plan on doing this in X days, or months, or years. Where are you on that spectrum?

I mean, I agree with you that like, it should be something that if I do it again, if you just say, Oh, I'll do it again one day, then it honestly won't ever happen or you do what I did. And you just like rip the bandaid off and surprise everybody. Um, my thought initially was like maybe a three year cadence. I think five is too long. Uh, and something about three just kind. I think five is too long. And something about three just kind of struck me as the right answer.

I don't really know why. Sometimes life is just that way. I do think the time of year for me, I think October is ideal because it's at the end of the St. Jude campaign and there's usually some Apple news in October, but the end of the year and the beginning of the year are very busy in the business, right?

We have our membership sale, which is actually going on right now. Giverelay.com, go get 20% off annual membership to Focus. See what I did there, I plugged your membership. Thank you, appreciate that. That's good, it's great, y'all do a great job with it. So having October, I think is sort of the ideal time for me, but I think three years is a good number.

I've kind of made myself a task for in one year to look at that more closely. And, you know, we'll see. So this is 2024, so maybe October, 2027. Cause I do think a regular cycle is useful. And again, modeling this on people I know in the academic worlds or in the ministry worlds, that's how it often is, right?

It's you get, some of them get like, X number of weeks a year, or it's, hey, every X number of years, you get this amount number of weeks a year, or it's hey, every X number of years you get this amount of time off. So I think something regular like that sort of jives with me, I think. Yeah, well there's a lot of ways to do it, right? Yeah, absolutely.

You look at the way Sean Blunk does it versus the way you're doing it or a college professor. I used to work with this guy who would, he would never take vacation. But then in the summer for like June and July, he would take every Friday off as a vacation day. And like that was technically allowed in the company we worked for.

No one liked it. I was like, what are you doing, man? Like, you know, we've got stuff to do. And so I also thought about that a lot of like, there's also wrong ways to do this or ways that are not as useful. I don't know how much benefit that guy got for having eight three-day weekends.

I mean, clearly it worked for him because he did it for years, but I tend to think bigger blocks of time more and frequently probably make more sense for this sort of thing. Yeah. And there's something to that. There's a certain amount of time before you can fully unplug. And if you make it too short by the time you get unplugged, it's time to replug in. Yep, absolutely. Were you surprised at all about the reactions from the people who were affected by you taking your sabbatical and also kind of the timing with it or was it just generally positive support for for this and how does that kind of influence you thinking about doing them in the future.

It's like what David said, like really you? Like there was some of that. I think I've developed a bit of a reputation for kind of always being on, which is what it is. But everyone to a person was extremely supportive of it. People who like, right, like David, like you had to do a lot more work because I was gone. And you were the, you actually the first person I talked to about it outside of Mike and Kathy. And you were like, Yes, go do it. Like, you know, like I will take care of this for you. And everyone was like that and very supportive,

which is so awesome. And again, so thankful for it. The moderation team, other people within relay, like everyone was like, yes, go do this, this is important, this will be good for you. There's probably a lesson there, I think there's a lesson that I am paying attention to that people were surprised. We're like, really, you're gonna go do that? And so that's something I'm thinking about too.

If I've developed this reputation within the company of always being available and around, is that what I want? That was really useful for a long time because we were starting this thing out, but we ain't starting this thing out anymore. This has been going for a long time. And so even sort of changing that is something that I'm thinking about.

I thought it'd be fun, Mike, for you and me to answer the same question. Where are you on sabbaticals, Mike? I mean, we've been talking about this on this show with guests for a long time. I don't think either one of us have actually taken one, though. Or have you? Yeah.

I don't think you really have. Not officially, no, which is a little bit to my shame because my words for the year or systems stabilization and sabbaticals, cause I wanted to build this into the regular cadence. Uh, well, I guess I'll, there's probably a, an episode in this at some point, but, um, when I left the day job to go independent as a curator, I had this idea of how things were going to go. And it took a lot longer and was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.

The life of H.Q. Launch went great. So, yeah, I feel like I've kind of gone through it now. But I went into this year thinking like, I'm going to build these these systems and one of those systems is going to be regular time off via these sabbaticals and they're on my calendar but I have successfully executed exactly zero of them. I do have a forced one coming up at the end of the year though, which I'm hoping to kind of use that as a jumping off point for this. I don't think I'm going to take a whole month off like you

did Stephen, but I want to build in these regular breaks. I don't know I'm gonna take a whole month off like you did, Stephen, but I wanna build in these regular breaks. I don't know if it's every eight weeks. I don't know if it's once a quarter, but I wanna regularly take a week off where I don't think about work, which is gonna take some thinking ahead, making sure podcasts are recorded, ads are taken care of, newsletters are prepared,

stuff like that. But my wife's brother and, brother and sister in law, which our whole family kind of lives in the same area. So my parents are here. Rachel's mom is here. Her extended family is here. My extended family is here all within roughly 30 minutes of, uh, of where we live. Uh, with the exception of her brother and sister in law, who, I don't even know how long ago it was. I think it was maybe three years ago.

They decided they were going to move to Hawaii. So props to them for making that big change. They love it. But the, instead of, you know, a five minute walk to go visit, go visit them. Now we haven't really seen them in in in a couple of years. They are flying back They have a couple a couple daughters my nieces who are 18 and graduating high school this year So they're flying back over Christmas and we're gonna have like a family graduation party for them and Basically when they're here our regular agendas are being thrown out the window when we're going to hang out as a family

They're going to be here for about two weeks and I kind of know the dates that they're going to be here Obviously, we're not the only people that they're coming back to see so we have to kind of be flexible with what their their plans are but Essentially my approach going into this is kind of the sabbatical approach where I'm not going to really plan anything I'm going gonna be available and we're just gonna spend as much quality time with them as we we can. And that is sort of a forcing function for this. You know I've gone into the winter breaks previously thinking, well I'm gonna take a break from work. I always end up working. I get an idea. I get inspired. I go create videos or write content. And so this is

gonna kind of be an opportunity is kind of how I'm thinking about this to practice this. And I don't know exactly what that's gonna look like going into to next year. I do have a regular version of this which is not necessarily a sabbatical like we've talked about here with the personal retreat stuff. And I'm purposely kind of not talking about that because I don't really view that as a sabbatical. It's a different type of thinking about the work. And yeah there is a you know a life reflection aspect to that as well but I do that every quarter that's you know that's ingrained

at this point. I'm hoping the sabbaticals can become that way as well. I recognize the importance of them. I've had experience with it working with with Sean. You know, I've realized and felt the benefits that come from this. The only thing that is preventing me from doing this is me at this point. So I really feel like now that Life HQ is out the door and we've got some of those there's still some systems that need to be built and things like that, but It feels less urgent now. So I feel like this is actually pretty good timing for reconsidering my sabbatical strategy well, I think you hit on something important there and something that I'm definitely thinking about moving forward is

Even if you're if it's vacation family's in town for a holiday, you're at the beach, right, with your kids for a week, even being more intentional about that time is important. And I'm definitely somebody who struggled to take time off. If I'm at the beach with a bunch of family, like as an introvert, I only have so much gas in the tank for some of those things. But thinking about how can I use that time more intentionally, right?

Like you said, we're gonna see this family, they live a long way away now, I wanna be really present with them. That's really good. And that's something that I'm going to be taking forward from this of like, you know what, there are times where, you know what, the phone goes in, do not disturb,

and I'm just hanging out with my brother-in-law, and work will be there when I get back. That's important too. What about you, David? I was hoping you'd forget. You gotta do it, man. You gotta do it. You know, look, I got on the treadmill in 1992

when I started practicing law, and I really haven't got off. And so I keep saying I'm gonna do something like this. I have never actually done it. This past year, I put a bunch of sabbatical blocks on the calendar, and one week, Jeff's like, hey, are you sabbaticaling this week? It's on the calendar. And one week Jeff's like, Hey, are you sabbaticaling this week? It's on the calendar. I'm like, Oh, yeah, that was the thing I was gonna do. But

I never did it. But the I think that selfishly I should do it. I think that it would probably make the stuff I make better. And, and my goal, like your goal for relay is to still be doing this stuff in 10 years. And I think there's probably some need there. Like, you know, to me, I know exactly what I would do. I would wake up every day and go out to the wood shop and make something pretty, you know?

And just not do any of this stuff for a time. But I don't really know the context of it. And I guess that's part of the reason why I haven't done it is I haven't decided what that means. Like, do I take like a month off? I don't really see myself starting at that level. I think what I would rather do is take like four weeks off over the course of a year, something like that, if I could.

Another like thing I have to let go of is, I've never missed an episode of any podcast that I make. Like, something like 1,200 episodes between this show, Mac power users and automators, I've never missed. And I think I just have to be comfortable and just miss one. Yeah, Mike and I got you covered, man. Yeah, I know you do. No, I get it. I get it though.

Yeah. I totally get it. And I've been a lot less precious about that than you have been, but that's a streak, right? You have that ingrained now. And so I totally understand that that's a hard thing to move away from. Yeah. But the show would go on and maybe I'd be better when I came back. And honestly, like I have a weird, like I used to use the lawyer thing as an excuse,

not the client. But now I don't have that as an excuse, but I still after two years haven't done it. But in fairness, I've been, I've made a lot of adjustments in my life and I'm kind of getting that figured out. But I'm getting to a point where if I sat down and looked at the release schedule for the year, I could probably find two or three weeks in there where I could say, you know what, let's just plan on that.

After this thing ships, after we finish this webinar or after whatever, this point in the year, I could take a week and Steven and Mike and all the other people and JF and all people in my life would pick up the slack and it'd be fine. And, uh, uh, but I still haven't done it yet. I I'm going to, you guys have, have got me thinking about it again. So I'm going to really sit down and, and ruminate on this, but I

would like to find space to do it. And honestly, I kind of feel like I can't keep making shows where I tell people how good they are if I've never done one myself. And I think for me, the benefit would be to do several over a period of time. Like the idea of waiting three years, Steven, for you to do it again seems nuts to me.

Like I'd be like, yeah, maybe you need to do that more often. Three years is a long time. Yeah. But, you know, I think I'm more along the Sean McCabe line of like, he does like, was it seven weeks and then one off? I don't think I can swing that now, but I bet I could find two or three weeks in 2025. Like, okay, after this, you know, to me,

a lot of us centered around Field Guide releases and stuff like that, but like there are times where I could get away with it. Like we were just talking about this yesterday, me and JF, because he's taken the last week of the year off, totally makes sense. JF, if you don't know, is the guy who does a lot of the background editing and he like gets stuff published

for me and stuff like that. He does like a lot of the background editing and, and he like gets stuff published for me and stuff like that. He does like a lot of the stuff that I don't want to do. And he's taking a week off. He's like, oh, you got to take the week off too. And I'm like, no way. I've got like a new product to feel good, you know, coming down the pike. I'm going to be working that week.

And, and when I was hearing myself say it, I sounded like such a jackass, you know what I mean? It's like, you know, it's like, yeah, I really actually should find a way to get some time off and just like, and there's a difference between time off to do a retreat. When you do a retreat, you're just changing hats. You're actually working pretty hard actually if you do it right.

And then, you know, there's the family vacation, which is great. And in fairness, this last year, I actually had a lot of vacation because of various things that happened in my life. But next year's not gonna be like that. We don't have much vacation. And I would like to selfishly get a little time

where it is just me to dink around and cut some dovetails and garden and do the stuff that I like without feeling the pressure to get something new out the door. Yeah, yeah, I think it'd be really good. I would definitely encourage both of y'all to explore that. I think there's something about the business that we're in, I think more for the two of you than me a little bit,

but when you're making things for a living the way that we do, you put a lot of yourself into it. Even just making jokes about Macs on Macedon River. There's a lot of, when you are in production for a living, you pour a lot of yourself into it. I know firsthand those field guides and the courses that y'all do, like you pour a lot of yourself into it.

And a very wise friend of mine once told me that you cannot give what you do not have. And I think there are times like you need to step back and unplug and even if you've got a nine to five, being on vacation and really being on vacation can meet those needs too. Actually going to the beach and leaving your work phone on your kitchen counter and not taking it with you.

Whatever that looks like for you is important because we're not, we all need rest. We all need time to unplug. And it's very easy to think that doesn't apply to you. I definitely have been guilty of that. It's for other people. I love working. I love what I do.

What I do is important to me. I can do it forever. You got to step away sometimes. And so I would definitely encourage y'all to explore that in the coming year. All right, well I think on that note, let's wrap it up before I get, if I get tempted to make some kind of commitment,

which historically I will not fill. But I am going to think about this and try and figure something out. Between the two of you and JF and other people in my life, I think it'd be a good thing. I mean, I'm sold on the benefits. I do think that like everything gets a little better if you give yourself some margin and space.

But it's just, you know, I think having been a lawyer so long, it's really hard to walk away from things. I don't know. Or maybe it's away from things. I don't know. Yeah, definitely. Or maybe it's just my personality, I don't know. But I definitely, I see the benefit of it. Either way, we are the Focus podcast.

You can find us over at relay.fm slash focus. If you want to join, become a supporter of Deep Focus, we'd appreciate it. That gets you the ad for Extended Origin of the show. Today we're gonna be talking a little bit about bringing mindfulness into our daily practices. Stephen's got a couple interesting ideas I can't wait to talk to him about.

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