A founder took a summer vacation to Italy in 2016 and worried his business would suffer. While he was gone, his company matched its best revenue year, proving his team could run without him. The trip taught him that stepping back actually helps a business mature.
I'll tell you what changed our life was in 2016 or '15, my wife goes, why don't we spend the summer in Italy? And I was like, man, I have a business. That scared me when she first said it. It triggered— I could still feel it in my gut right now. And I was like, okay. So I went to my firm. I was like, hey, the summer of 2017, I want to go to Italy. So we need to build this where my kids will be old enough that they can remember the trip. I just want to like— And man, it changed our lives so much because We go on the trip, there's no agenda. We swim in the pool, we play cards, we have a meal, we start drinking cappuccino. And, the day that we got to the villa, the trees are lined in the street and they touch at the top. So, it's like you're in a tree tunnel. And then, you pull up to the gates and they open up and we pop some champagne and we're in the pool and it's like a fairy tale. And, it took me about 2.5 weeks to just get fully to the place where I was just wake up, Didn't feel like I needed to do anything, could take it easy, could be totally cool with that leisure, felt like it was worthwhile activity, go up and have a 4-hour dinner. And it was just like so much time consecutively with my family and it changed us forever. You know, it just totally, it made the business mature and grow because I wasn't there every day. And so they had to figure things out without me. And we made as much money that year than I made any previous year. So it didn't actually slow the business down. That was the crazy thing.
