15 at 5 #15 How Vacations are Actually Productive

What is going on? We are back, 15 at 5. A few weeks off, we were in Italy, so we're back now. And, um, very fitting, the subject is how vacations are actually productive. We went on vacation, we thought it was productive, so I wanted to make a quick little segment about that. Um, I'm actually still in Italy, so it's 11 o'clock here, but you know, we're still getting after it. A little tired, but we're gonna push through it. Zay, what's going on?

Nothing much. Yeah, Italy was a pretty phenomenal time. Oh yeah, great.

I like Zay. My mom likes Zay. She's like, I'm gonna start calling him Zay now.

Nice.

Is that— don't your friends call you Zay? Some, yeah.

Yeah, like family. Yeah, you have to get the end to call me Zay.

That's good. Um, yeah, so how vacations are actually productive. So this, this vacation honestly changed my mindset on vacations in general, um, because since I started this business, or since we started the business 2 years ago, I've really just been the type of guy that wants to just put his head down and work, like, and just not take breaks. I thought of vacations as, like, lazy. Like, not lazy, but I was like, it's like this hustle mentality of, like, I built my business for 3 years, never took one break, never took one weekend off, you know what I mean? It's like I never took any vacations. So that's kind of what was in my head about vacations, and it's like, I don't need them. But I realized I do need them. Um, but I think there's 3 main things of how I guess vacations are productive. I think the first thing is we can, we can talk about each of them, but first thing is to recharge, right? Just in general, right? Preventing burnout, doing all that, um, is recharging. I think too, specifically for us, um, with the business, is to see where there's holes in the business, right? As we go away, like, right, we go away, we thought we had some systems in place that were going to work. Maybe they didn't work as well as we thought they were going to work. Um, whether it's some administrative, administrative stuff or leads coming into the system, maybe we thought that was going to work better than it did. Um, and I think the third thing is self— is just self-reflection, right? Time for reflection. Being away, um, and I made an Instagram post about this, but about really asking yourself like the big questions, right? Like, you're on vacation, okay, well, I really— I want to get into this real estate thing a couple years ago. How is it going? Like, is it everything I thought it would be? Like, Um, is the workload good? Is— do I still enjoy it? Um, and then other things like thinking about your social life and thinking about other aspects of your life, like asking yourself, this is how I thought it was going to go, am I enjoying it? Did it end up going this way? Do I need to make any changes, any pivots? So those 3 things I think, um, I want to touch on. So what do you think about, um, the first one, recharging? How, how did this vacation help you recharge? And what do you think, like the benefits of that are and how important do you think that is?

Yeah, I think all those are very important. But yeah, recharging, definitely pretty vital because it also gives you a chance to step back in the sense that it kind of gives you the energy because you can, I guess, when you grind a lot and then you kind of burn out, you don't want to burn out. So it lets you kind of step back and able to kind of fill up your cup in a way, which is pretty awesome. And also kind of gives like the idea of like, I think it's just good to do something different too. It gets you out of the routine. That's another thing, recharge, because then kind of like from my perspective is coming back to work, I'm like 100% in the sense that like I was kind of getting burned out a little bit, but then recharged, not like enduring the Italy experience. It kind of gave me, I was like motivated to get back to work. So it was like interesting to kind of have a break. It was pretty long break, but it was good.

Yeah, talk about that real quick. You said breaking the routine. You mentioned that before. I think that's key.

Yes, breaking the routine is pretty vital in the sense that it makes time— I think time, just perspective of time, things go slower. So for example, if you're just doing the same thing every week, then it's very easy just to like, when you look back on what you did, it all kind of gets consolidated. But if you kind of have these vacations or little breaks and do something different, then you kind of have checkpoints of when you do look back. It kind of makes basically perceive your past as longer. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's kind of my—

when you're like, obviously when you're in the routine of things and you're going through your days, I noticed that too. Like throughout my weeks, like my weeks just fly by because I'm getting up and doing the same thing. Wake up, I go to the gym, I do my work, I eat dinner, I go to bed. You know, it's just like boom boom boom boom boom. It's like Groundhog Day. Um, but then when you're on these vacations, things are kind of like scrambled a little bit. Like you're doing random things throughout the day. The days just seem longer. Um, so why is it again that the days seem longer when they're— when it's like, uh, not your normal schedule?

I think that just— yeah, the biggest thing is just change. Something to compare it to. And I think a lot of change makes things feel longer. There's a lot of unknown. For example, I don't know, when I were— when we were there for 2 weeks, I thought I was gone for like 2 months because like literally we did like 7 tours and a lot of things were different. Like everything, every day was different. Um, so when a lot of things are different, it just gets you out of the routine. You're not doing anything really normal. So I think you're— it's the way you perceive it when you look back. Uh, there's a lot of change. I think change is the answer though. That's what Makes it different.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think the time away— I'm gonna skip the— I'll go to the business one last, but time away gives you the opportunity for reflection. I think that's huge. And it goes on to another point you always talk about, which is sculpting, not grinding. Talk about that. Sculpting, not grinding. What does that mean?

Yeah, so grinding is like head down. I think a better way to describe it is sculpting first. So sculpt is when you're like, for example, you're sculpting a statue, which we saw a ton of statues. Sculpting is when you do your work and then you look back to see what's it looking like, your work. And so I think looking back is pretty vital. So for us, we use the term sculpting rather than grinding because you grind, but then you never actually see the results of what you're doing. So sculpting is another way of saying, hey, grind, like do the work, but take a step to look back to see where, how far you've come, basically do that reflection.

Exactly. That's like where the vacation, that's like the sculpting, right? Because you're taking a step back. Because like, say we just worked for whatever, 5 months, right? So now we're taking 2 weeks off to step back and sculpt, right? We're asking, like when I said those questions, right? Do I like where the business is going? Am I happy with it? Do I like who I'm hanging out with in my social group? Working out enough, all these things, right? Those are like sculpting questions because you're looking back on those previous months and being like, is this where I want to go? Versus the grind mentality would just be like, grind for 2 years, don't even pick your head up and look at what you're doing, right? Would you say that's accurate?

Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah, just taking time to look back, which is pretty vital.

Yeah. Um, what are some of your biggest takeaways from the vacation? Do you have any like specific Breakthroughs, specific examples, any realizations? I had a couple.

One was like, honestly, I want you to go first 'cause I think there's a lot of overlap. I'd love to hear yours first.

One of them I had, which I kind of knew, but I don't know, something hit me. Hit me on top of Pisa, dude. I was sitting on the top, remember I was sitting there entering in my Notion at the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, just an inspirational place. But the business being the means to the end, like it's not the end, it's the means to like, like the wholesale business. It's like the heartbeat. It always gives us money and stuff. It's always solving a problem in the marketplace, but it's really a means to the end. What is the end? The end is either traveling or it's experiencing life, right? But like for the past 2 years, it's been like business was the end, right? Probably at the expense of my social life a little bit, maybe a little bit too much. But business was the end for me, but it's not. It's the means. It's a tool. It's a tool, just like money is a tool, right? The business is a tool that solves problems for people in the marketplace, but also puts money in our pocket. But I think I need to focus on the end, which are the fulfilling things in life, right? Which are experiences, right? And relationships. I think those are the two most fulfilling things you can focus on in your life. And the business is the means that allows you to do that, right? The business is the means that allows us to go on these experiences. Like, it allows me to still be in Italy right now., right? It allows me to go out and meet incredible people and build new relationships. It just, I don't know, gives you freedom. But I think that's the biggest one.

Yeah, and another thing going off of that is, for me, a takeaway is something to look forward to as well. It's like when you have something basically when you're grinding or, yeah, basically grinding, and then when the opportunity to sculpt and take a step back, I think just having something to look forward to is pretty pretty vital. So, and I think for both of us, like, going on a trip, it's pretty, pretty awesome. So having those experiences, uh, it's pretty great.

Yeah, 100%. So stepping back, what else specifically? Do you have any specific examples you can remember?

Oh, stepping back?

Um, no, no, just stuff like realizations like that, like I had that maybe, or maybe I guess just some key takeaways from the vacation. You've shared a few, but anything else, like personal or professional, that the time away allowed you to reflect on and realize?

Yeah, so one was, I guess one thing was just style in general, though. Italy, Italian style, that was a big thing for culture. There's a lot of things coming to my head, but style just came to my head right there. That was definitely an interesting thing, like how style is just super key, I guess, to that Italian culture. Which is really interesting. What would you have to say about that?

100%. Yeah, I think that's just the part of being cultured, like going to other cultures. It's almost like being here too. I realize how nice it is. It is very nice here. It's beautiful. But in a lot of ways, it's not as advanced as the US. Makes you realize, like, dang, the US is ballin'. They have their stuff together, you know, just top of the line everything, whether it's medical Hospitals, medical care, just to like having the convenience of Walmarts and all that stuff. Like, you don't have that here, so you got to go to the different marts. Um, but it's crazy how, how advanced the US is. But yeah, I think style from the Italians for sure. Uh, that's just a cultural thing. But yeah, there was well-dressed people. It was so good.

Another thing too, I guess, is like taking things for granted, right? When you do a different experience, take a lot of things for granted. Uh, like I don't know, not having to pay to go to the bathroom. That was pretty huge.

Yeah, that's—

you have to pay to go to the bathroom, which is questionable, but that's how they make money, tourists, whatever. It works for them. But that's just something. It's just cool, like the little things that you just around here you don't really think of, but sometimes super different in another place.

Yeah, yeah. I think, yeah. So I think just to recap, I think the 3 biggest things of like how vacations are productive, for one, they allow you to recharge, recharge your batteries, right? Prevent burnout, things like that. Um, oh, where the holes are in our business, we didn't really touch on that, but, um, I think there's too many holes. We had— we were cranking leads as we were going, but it more just showed us that like we're still working in the business, you know, like we couldn't walk away and not do anything. We still had to work. Um, still had to work a little bit every day, which is fine, but is what it is. It's part of the business, right? It's growing. It's— you start here Um, and ideally in 2 years we go on vacation, we don't have to do anything. We'll just check back with the sales manager in a couple weeks and we'll have a few deals under our belt. That's the goal. But yeah, so recharging, right? Um, seeing— I'd say, I say the 2 universal ones for everyone is recharging from no matter what you're doing, whether you have the corporate job or you're doing whatever job you're doing, construction or real estate, right? It's recharging. And I think the biggest one is the reflection, and that's the sculpting versus grinding. I think that's the best quote take away from this is make sure you're sculpting your life, you're not grinding away, right? Don't just put your head down and do things that you're told and then pick your head up in 10 years, right? Take those times on vacation not to just be mindless, but to take that mindlessness and reflect on, um, the different things that are going on in your life. But that's pretty much it. You keep it brief today. Um, let us know in the comments what we should talk about next week. I think I'm gonna have I don't know who else. I'm going to have someone on to talk about short-term rentals coming up next month in August. A few people in mind, but I think that will be valuable for the people. Anything else from you, Isaiah?

Yeah, I can suggest a few on that. But yeah, overall, vacation is pretty great and lets you take a step back, which is awesome, and it's a different experience. So big fan. But yeah, overall, great stuff.

Yeah, overall great stuff. And yeah, you don't have to put your head down for 3 years and never take a vacation in order to be successful. So good stuff.

Yeah, and I guess another thing to know is doing it at the same time too. You could always just like be traveling and working as the business, but why not do it at the same time? That's your end. Why not just do it at the same time, which is like, I don't know, it's possible. So why wait?

Gotta challenge. You gotta challenge what's possible, you know. You can't just accept everything everyone tells you. But all right, we'll see you guys next week.