Power of Play
Power of Play
Learning to Get Into Vacation Mode with Kelly and Amanda
In this episode of Power of Play, Amanda and Kelly discuss the difficulties that many entrepreneurs face when traveling and how to overcome them. It can be very hard for many entrepreneurs of all types to leave their work mindset behind when going on vacation. It often takes a couple of days for someone who has been working non-stop to get into vacation mode.
Kelly and Amanda offer different advice on getting into a vacation state of mind. It can be helpful to get into the correct mindset regarding your destination, so Amanda suggests reading books, watching movies, or even making a playlist of local music related to your trip. A very important step of getting in a vacation mindset is taking time to think about and enjoy your packing. Shopping for clothes specific to your destination can help get you excited for your trip and get your mind off work or other stressors.
Once you start to realize that you need a vacation, it can sometimes be too late. It’s important to know your rhythm because it can be so difficult to get into a vacation mindset when you are in a crisis mode. Amanda and Kelly recommend identifying your “vacation persona” and giving yourself permission to shut down your mental chatter.
On day one of your vacation, it is important to do something completely different from your everyday routine and disrupt your daily pattern. Doing this allows your brain to readjust and lets you focus on enjoying your vacation instead of stressing about work to be done.
Check out Largay Travel at https://www.pleasegoaway.com/
Connect with Kelly
Email - kelly@theentreprenewer.com
Website - https://www.theentreprenewer.com
Complimentary Free Trip Planning Guide - https://www.theentreprenewer.com/free-resources/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/EntreprenewHer/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/the_entreprenewer/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyclements/
Connect with Amanda
Email - amanda@largaytravel.com
Website - www.pleasegoaway.com
Schedule a complimentary 15-minute Travel Specialist Consultation - www.pleasegoaway.com
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pleasegoawaytravelcompany/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/virtuosotraveladvisor/?hl=en
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-klimak/
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Speaker 3:hello and welcome back to the power of play. This is your host, Amanda climax, and I'm here with my cohost Kelly climates. Hi everybody. Hi. All right. We have the wonderful pleasure of being able to record in person today. Kelly's here visiting. She has a speaking engagement tonight with the entrepreneur organization and I'm really excited about that. Me too. I love being with the entrepreneurs. It's just great conversations, great breakthroughs. It's can be a great night. Yeah, and one of the things we're talking about tonight, it's couples and I think it's such a great topic because often, especially with busy entrepreneurs, we find that their spouse is somebody who, or significant other is somebody who's in the background, but is the one supporting the entire ecosystem that provides that springboard. And that's why I started really integrating the spouse because it didn't make any sense to keep pouring into the entrepreneur and his or her growth and leaving the spouse out of the equation, you know, it was exacerbating that growth gap. That's why I have such a high focus on the spouse. And obviously vacation is one of the ways that we can get the entrepreneur and the spouse back online back on the same page. But we were talking and one of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs on vacation is their mindset. It's hard for them to get into vacation mode. Their brains are just wired to keep going, going, going. And so today we're going to talk about some strategies to disconnect some rituals to get into vacation mode so that the couples and even, you know, the entrepreneur can get reconnected to themselves, to each other, to family. Absolutely. And one of the things for me, I know as a entrepreneur myself and as a travel specialist, a lot of times we're providing tools that help someone get into that mindset. And I will tell you from my own personal experience, my husband and I took a vacation in November of last year. We cruise down the Mekong river with AMA waterways and had this great experience. But what was interesting was it took us two days to get into vacation mode. And for those of you who are busy during the day, have families have really big responsibilities regardless of what they are. You know that feeling where you're moving in a million miles an hour in your daily life and when you get on vacation, it takes you a little bit to get into that mode of slowing down, relaxing, getting into where you can embrace the experiences we're creating. Absolutely new. You bring up the cruise and it reminds me of one of my clients was talking about a vacation and he went on a cruise as well and he realized that, you know that muster drill where you have to go and get your life jacket on and blah, blah, blah. That early part of the vacation, he said, it pissed me off so bad. It took me until Tuesday to realize I had wasted two more days on just being angry about this muster drill and how to flip that switch. And I, you know, I liked his recognition that he had to flip the switch. It's an ownership, it's a surrender. It's a willingness to let go, to be in vacation mode number one. So we'll talk about that, but I also want to talk about the pregame strategies, the planning and protecting that time. And then you know, some pattern interrupts that once you get on vacation to really get you into vacation mode faster. Let's start with pregame. Amanda, you have some great strategies that you do for your clients to help get them ready for a vacation before they even leave. Yes, and I think it's important to remember that when you are taking the two days to get into vacation mode, it potentially could be two days lost on vacation. Not because you don't have activities planned or things going on, but if you're not in the mindset to really enjoy those things, it is almost like a Buller. The first two days when Gary and I got on the ship, we were like, Holy cow, this is slow paced. How are we going to do this? And then once we got into that mindset, we were like, I like this. Like I needed to rest. So while we do a lot of times with people to get them into that mood, the mode, I'll suggest movies that they could watch. Like if for my clients that are going to East Africa, I'll send them maybe out of Africa with some popcorn and maybe a bottle of wine so they could sit and really like start to embrace the imagery of Africa, the music, the things that really bring you into the experience of a Safari. And another thing is books. Sending someone a book on the destination, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, you could have some really fun kind of mental exercises before you even get onto the plane. I think that's really important. The other thing is packing. It's one of those things like when you're going to Hawaii, everyone's in those dorky Hawaiian shirts. And I say dorky only because my husband has one. They are, and my husband has one in his closet that honestly other than Hawaii, you would never wear that shirt anywhere else. But just by pulling those clothes out your summer clothes when it's the middle of winter shopping for clothes, the linen pants that you may never wear when you're going locally to something that also gets you into that mindset. So taking the time to really think about what you're packing and then enjoy the packing. I just took my family to Costa Rica and getting rain gear and getting all of the different things so that we could make sure that if we were hiking in the jungle we had the right shoes and things like that. Kind of brings you into that mindset and helps you to kind of pregame the journey that you're going to have. Totally. It's always a littlest things that make the biggest difference. It might be like a great playlist from local music, whether it's reggae or local hits of where you're going to start getting that feel. Like you said when you're packing and having that in the background or local cuisine or something like that. Even a playlist on Spotify or something like that can totally like bring you into that mode. Playing the Jimmy buffet music in your kitchen a week before you go away to the Caribbean. So you're getting that Island feel. Yeah. And the other thing too, when we talk about mindset, cause I know it's so hard for most entrepreneurs to really shut it down and turn it off. But the thing is is like we all have different personas, right? And if we're going into a really big meeting, we can channel a new persona, whether it's our high activated salesperson or problem-solver, whatever it is, and we can channel a vacation persona. We prepare for big meetings, we prepare for the annual conferences. We have all these ways that we prepare for big events in business. And I think really identifying the vacation persona and channeling that to get into vacation mindset is crucial. We can give ourselves permission to shut it down. That is an internal game. We've proven that we can do it in business and I think the real challenge is proving that we can do it on vacation by shutting that mental chatter down. One of the ways I think we can do that is like on the very first day having a pattern interrupt, so doing something very differently than you normally would in your life, whether it's having a massage scheduled day on a vacation or a great hike or a great meal, whatever it is, but having a distinct pattern interrupt to shift you into vacation mode and I think that that's something that you do have to consciously decide. I mean the funny thing is that could I have begun my restful relaxation recharge on day one? Absolutely. I would have had to do it with intention because when I got on I didn't have that intention. I was still strung out from my meeting. I had been traveling, I was in a completely different mindset. But when you do prepare your brain the way you would prepare for an important meeting, a presentation just like you do in your business, if you're doing that personally, it makes all the difference. Another great thing is when you do that collectively with your loved ones, it really ignites this sense of excitement. Similar to today's our bathing suit shopping day. Like we're going to go out with the kids and we're going to all find bathing suits today. We're going to choose what playlists we're going to listen to on the airplane, whatever it may be, packing games. I know we have a whole suitcase. When I travel with my family, I have a whole suitcase that is filled with games, so whether it's UNO cards or pass the pigs or whatever it may be, we have games so that when we're sitting in the airport we're able to just pick up a deck of cards and play games. On this latest trip that we took to Costa Rica, it was so fun because in the evenings there wasn't any nightlife. We were on an expedition ship with Linblad and what was great was the expeditions. The day are amazing. The speakers are amazing, but we really wanted to interact with each other on a really deep level. So when you're going up on the deck and you're bringing out the cards or the game or something like that, you do help that mindset of I'm playing, I'm playing with my family. Something just occurred to me. I think one of the most important things in property, like there's micro prep that we do for each trip, but I think if we look at our calendar and get the trip booked before it's too late, you know, a lot of times when I find like it's kind of like being hungry. By the time you realize, God, I'm really burnt out. I need a vacation. It's almost too late. Yes. And then it takes even longer to recover. Or if you have a standing rhythm, like I know I need a girls' trip every quarter, or I know I need a couples get away every six months or a year. But knowing your rhythm in advance so that it's not too late, because when you're in crisis recovery mode, it's even harder to get into that vacation mode and turn off the mental chatter. So I think planning in advance and having a standing rhythm where you know, players coming up before your burnt-out yes. Helps you get into turn it down. Yeah. One thing that I've done with my family religiously is we spend new year's Eve at a different location around the world. Sometimes it can be local. It doesn't have to be someplace far away, but in recent years it has been far away. And so last year we were in Costa Rica. The year before that we went to Iceland. The year before that we did Scotland. So we're always kind of looking, you know, it's funny because the most expensive time to travel of course, are your holiday periods, but if you look at destinations that are not necessarily the peak destination, if you're not going to Cabo over Christmas or new years, that festive rate, that's double the cost. But if you go to Europe or Northern Europe, even when we went to Iceland and those types of things, those areas can be less expensive. So we always plan it that that's going to be part of it. This year we're doing a river cruise. Over new year's Eve and I'm really excited about it because all of the hoopla, the Christmas markets will have died down and we're going to be able to enjoy those cities without the big crowds and be able to enjoy time together. We don't care. We don't need to sit on a beach. For us, it's not critical, but I think when you do plan further in advance and aren't scrambling the week before April vacation and going, let's pick up and leave, and then you have the stress of it being more expensive, you have the stress of we didn't even get to enjoy the anticipation, which is part of the journey itself. It makes all the difference. I think that allowing yourself that advanced time is part of the benefit of the vacation. Yes and it allows you also to prepare yourself mentally and enjoy mentally so that when you get on that trip, you know in advance, okay, I'm not going to like the muster drill but when I'm going to do is that night right after the muster drill I've got a spa appointment and I'm getting a massage and that's going to be my trigger to switch over from, boy does this piss me off sitting in my life jacket and the heat too. I'm sitting in the spa, I'm having a drink, whatever it may be. That's kind of transitioning you to that vacation mode. Super important and you know it's finding the rhythm that's right for you. You might need individual trips, you might need voice trips or girls' trips or whatever it looks like, but just really getting proactive about identifying that and you talked about the river cruise that you're doing for new years and that is open, right? We are going to be, we're going to be posting that on. Please go away.com and that is going to be something that is available for a select group of people because we have a limited amount of space, but it's very reasonably priced. We've got some great experiences. We're going to be actually traveling with the owner of UMMA waterways. One of the owners, Gary Murphy, who is a dear friend of mine, he actually did the cruise last year and loved it and so when he and I were talking about what do you do in this year for new year's Eve, he said, why don't you come with me? It's the AMA Magna, it's their newest ship. We're going from Germany to Budapest. We are going to be in Vienna over new year's Eve, so it's just fantastic. I'm so excited about that and I love that you're opening these up because you obviously work with a lot of entrepreneurs. It brings like minded people together. My kids love it when we do group travel because it gives them somebody else to play with besides just mom and you know, I like it too because I get to connect with other people. It's a great way to expand family trips. Absolutely. So I love that you're making these available to our listeners, so if you're interested in that, head on over to get your name on the list for that one. Absolutely. We've got a lot planned. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Thank you so much, Kelly. I'm so excited about what we have going on. We are spreading the word that the power of play is pretty darn powerful. It's so powerful. Thank you so much for helping me describe that. You're welcome and remember, guys, please go away. Have a great day.
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