MBA1444 How To Minimize Stress When Traveling For Business

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Hey oh. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar the business podcast your business relies on every day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online. And in today's episode you will learn how to minimize stress when traveling for business. This is a question I get asked a lot and something that I really work hard on. So I decided to share what works for me in this episode. Traveling business period can be stressful. You're out of your comfort zone. You're constantly trying to meet deadlines, whether it's making a flight or making a connection or getting up and making sure you're at that conference or at that meeting on time. It's usually go, go, go, lots of content you're trying to absorb, things you're going to bed really tired, you're not particularly eating well. All this stuff causes stress and a lot of entrepreneurs I know have really reduced their travel and don't go to as many conferences as they should because they of this stress, the stress while traveling. So in today's episode I'm going to give you a plan to reduce stress big time. And these tips, they really work but you got to follow them to the T and I'll show you why. You'll feel totally in control even if you're traveling for a week or two. Even longer, you'll feel better, you'll have more energy, and you'll reduce the risk of getting sick while traveling, which is always a pain. Can't wait to get into this one. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. So let's jump right into it and make sure we minimize all your stress. When it comes to traveling for business, the first step is, you guessed it, planning. This is critical, and you want to do this as early as possible. I always say it's good to plan a minimum one month before the day of travel. If you could do it earlier, that's even better. But what you want to do here is you want to make sure everything is taken care of and planned out well before you travel. Planning is going to reduce the most amount of stress for you. Now, if you don't have an EA or a VA to help you out, that's okay. You can do all this by yourself. But of course, if you do have an assistant or a virtual assistant or an executive assistant of some sort, they can help you do a lot of this legwork. So the first thing is very obvious. You want to book everything you need to book to do this trip. So you want to book all your flights, your tickets, you want to your accommodations, and any ground transport that you may need. That's not going to be easy. Some cities, there's no Uber. Maybe you need to book an airport shuttle, things like that. All your transport accommodation needs to be taken care of well in advance. Why? Because things sell out. Things really get stressful when you have no options, especially when the conference that you're going to, for example, has a group rate. Often if you go to a conference, they have some sort of code that you can use for the hotel that it's being hosted at. But that group rate is only for a certain number of rooms, and it can sell out. And you're going to have to pay the higher rate of the hotel if you want to stay there or look at other options. Again, the earlier the better. Book them in advance. The other thing is that you're going to save a lot of money when you book early with your flights, your accommodations, everything in between. Now, once you have all your flights and your accommodations booked, you want to put them in one place so they're easy to find when you're traveling, when you're on the day of travel, when you're moving around when you want to reduce stress. Now, the old fashioned way, and it still works, is to drag all these email confirmations, these itineraries in a folder in your Gmail so you can open your phone, you can just open that folder and they're all in one place. I guess that's not the real old fashioned way. I mean, the real old fashioned way is to print them off, right? But in this day and age, you don't need to print off, you can just use your phone. So that's one option. The other option is to use an app called tripcase. I've used Tripcase many times and it's really, really cool. And basically what you do with tripcase is you forward your itineraries, your bookings, to a specific email. You have like this unique trip case email that you send to you for these itineraries to them. And the app will bring in all these itineraries and put it on the app in your profile so that you can just open up the app and see everything in order. Actually, all the flights and the accommodations and the cities are going to. It's pretty cool. Another tip, when it comes to your flights, make sure that you do everything you can. You know, you buy any extra luggage you need to buy. You reserve your seat so you know exactly where you're sitting and you have no stress when it comes to that. If you have some special communication you need to do with the accommodation, like you have a special requirement, like the number of pillows you need or the type of bedding you want, or maybe it's an Airbnb and you have some special instructions you need to get into the place, get that all sorted well in advance before you actually take off. Once you have your flights and your accommodation, it's time to lock in your calendar. This is critical, and this is the step most people forget or they don't do. And it actually makes your life so much easier when you travel. And this is to book your whole trip, not just the places you're going, but to book everything you're doing every day in your calendar. This allows you to kind of clear your mind and you just follow your calendar. You don't have to worry about what's next or what you're supposed to be doing or trying to figure things out on the fly. So literally my calendar will say the dinners I'm going to, the people I'm meeting up with, everything in between. So that means all that has to get organized if I'm going to meet up with some local Friends in a city that I'm have a conference at. I'm going to go ahead and make sure I get that all arranged and reserved and a table booked and everything well in advance. What you want to do is you want to reduce all thinking, all decision making when you're traveling by booking every portion of the day in your calendar, you know exactly what you're doing. There is no decision making, there's no hiccups. And of course, people might cancel and that's just free time for you. Great. No problem. I'm a big, big fan of this because I hit the ground and I know everything is done and planned for and I don't have to make any decisions. It's fantastic. It's like going on a guided tour right now. I don't recommend this. Generally when you're going on vacation for a holiday, it's good to have some, you know, flexibility and just kind of get lost a little bit. But when you're traveling for business, you want to reduce stress and be as efficient as possible. Next, don't forget to put your autoresponder your vacation mode on your email. Let people know that you'll be slow to respond. Hey, a lot of us, when we travel for business, we're on a plane for 10, 15, sometimes even longer, 20 hours, making connections. That's a day. So even if you plan to hit the ground running and answer all your email when you're there, you're going to be out of commission for a few hours or a whole day sometimes on that flight. Give, give yourself a little bit of leeway. 48 hours when you're going, 48 hours when you're coming back. Because when you come back from a trip from business, you might want to take some notes, kind of share your information with your team, whatever it is, and allow yourself a little time to recover by setting a autoresponder on your email or vacation mode, saying, hey, I'll be slow to respond to email in the next 48 hours. I'll be back in action on this date. That's all good. It sets up expectations and it reduces stress on your end because you're like, oh, I don't need to jump on my email. But while I'm on the plane or as soon as I touch down. Next tip. Many people do not do this. I really love staying in places when I travel that have a gym in the actual hotel or in the actual building or at least walking distance, like a gym that I am a member of. Exercise is your friend when you're traveling long distances, especially long distances, because, hey, the best thing you can do when you land is to get a workout in, get your body moving, get the blood circulating, you'll sleep much better and you'll feel refreshed. Exercise is your friend, especially when traveling. It's going to give you a boost of energy and it's going to allow you to be more productive. It's going to reduce stress as well. So incorporate in that calendar when you're going to exercise every day or maybe every other day. But the point here is that let's get some exercise while we're there and make sure there's no excuses. There's a gym in the building, a part of the hotel, or it's close by. Next tip Food I highly recommend you organize your own breakfast. I actually don't like going to places that have breakfast included. I want to go to the supermarket the day I land and get my breakfast items. You know, we get our breakfast items together and make sure that we have a solid breakfast, a healthy one with fruit, with quality coffee and have plenty of water in the room. Some hotels, you know, their options are just atrocious sugary cereals and scrambled eggs that came from a box. No thank you. You need a good start, a healthy start. Make sure you get some healthy fruits, some vegetables you want to grab some juice, some yogurt, some nuts. That's going to make you feel great and it will push you till lunchtime. Also, get your greens in. When you're traveling, make sure you're eating vegetables, even if it's just ordering a side salad. When you're eating lunch or dinner. It's going to help you feel better and give you more energy and give you those vitamins you're losing because of all the travel stress. Be gone.

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To share with you when it comes to Traveling and reducing stress, and that has to do with packing and your clothes. One of the most stressful things is overpacking, having too many things to choose from to wear. Plan your outfits, plan what you're going to wear every day, whether you're going to mix and match. When you pack, don't just dump a whole bunch of stuff in your suitcase and be like, I'll figure it out when I'm there. The less choice, the less stress. Also, if you're traveling a long distance, if you're getting on a plane for more than four or five hours, there's no reason to be uncomfortable. Wear comfortable clothing and change when you get there. If you're going to a business meeting or a conference, I always like to hit the gym, then take a shower as soon as I land so I can feel refreshed, and then put on my clothes, you know, and of course, ditch the plane clothes. If the place you're staying has laundry, that's even better. I like to wash that stuff up because you can get kind of dirty in the plane. But be comfortable on the flight. You know, you want to make sure that you make things as easy as possible for yourself. Also, leave plenty of time for you to be at the airport so you don't stress out about your flights. You can always get a few things done. Catch up on some emails or messages at the lounge or in your gate when you're waiting for the flight. No problem. Now, I just mentioned lounge, and this is my final tip. If you're not a frequent flyer or don't have access to lounges because of your credit card or your status or something like that, I highly recommend you check out the paid lounges at the airport. If you're getting at the airport early, you have a long connection. A lounge environment is relaxing, is a lot better for the nerves. It allows yourself to have a meal and maybe a drink and a coffee or something like that, and it's a nice environment to get some work done. There's actually a membership for airport lounges around the world, like hundreds of lounges called Priority Pass. Party Pass allows you to go a certain amount of times a year to a lounge. Some are really fabulous and fancy, and some of them are pretty decent, you know, okay. But it's a nicer, quieter environment than the gate. It may be worth the investment if you travel a lot. If you travel once or twice a year, probably not. It's probably even just better for you just to pay that one off fee, whether it's 30 or $40 to enter the lounge. The way I see it, you may spend $30 snacking and munching and having a lunch and a coffee at the gate. So you might as well get the environment and you know, the fast WI fi and all that stuff. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. If you love it, you hear Leave us on itunes rating and review. I'd love to hear what you think of the show. And don't forget to hit subscribe. It's the only way to get access to over 1400 lessons from the $100 NBA Show. Hit subscribe on whatever you use to listen to. Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, Apple Podcasts, Overcast. We're on them all. Do that right now. Before I go, I want to leave you with this when things get tiresome or stressful when you're traveling for business, one of the things I try to do that helps me is to reflect for a moment and just have some gratitude to say, like, hey, a lot of people would wish to be able to do this, to have the opportunity to, you know, see different places and go and travel the world or travel around the country to do what they love. I got nothing to complain about. And that puts things in perspective again. And all of a sudden a whole bunch of weight and stress just dissolves. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode Q and A Wednesday. I'll see you then. Take.

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