I’m no exception. In fact, I could be the poster child for overwork, stress and anxiety. I can’t help myself. I want a lot. Not for myself. I have just about everything I need, and I don’t need very much. Starting a business is a bit like having a baby.But, I’m not the only one I care about. There are others, and I want a lot for them, too. I want the best I am capable of providing for my family, and I want a lot for the people who have been with us for all these years. And, then there is this crazy industry and all the people involved in it. I want a lot for them, too, and why not? Everyone I know in this industry works more than hard enough to deserve the very best of everything, which includes a little R&R every so often. What’s wrong with that? Not much, really. Just the fact that most people in this industry don’t think they are worthy of what they have worked so hard to accomplish. Or, they haven’t created the necessary infrastructure required to allow them to leave without penalty. Consequently, they won’t take the time off. They don’t think they’re entitled to it or they think they just can’t afford it in terms of either the time or the money.I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Particularly, while I was stressing about my vacation – the vacation that just was.I guess there is another reason as well. And that is the project that has consumed every spare moment of my time over the past five or six months. It’s a commitment I made that prompted my wife, Lesley, to take matters into her own hands and plan a vacation, informing me that if I even thought about bringing along my notebook computer or anything else that might be even remotely work-related, I would do so as a single, male adult. And, that brings me right back to the subject of vacations and R&R.By the time we were actually ready to go and it became clear that her warnings were not merely idle threats at all – but were in fact deadly serious – I had moved thoroughly and completely into the project I mentioned just a moment ago. The work I was doing before Lesley quite literally pulled the plug on the computer was focused on assessment, appraisal, evaluation, planning and action: everything you need to do to create the kind of infrastructure required to allow you to get away from it all, physically, mentally and financially. This can be accomplished through a process I call ‘decision tracking,’ a process that begins by identifying each individual point at which there is a clear and critical choice to be made and continues with tracking the logical consequences of those choices. It’s about resisting
the plaintive cry of
e-mail, cell phones and telephone messages from home or from
the business.When you are talking about R&R, the first of these critical choices is who will be the master. Will you work for your business, or will that business work for you? That may sound simple enough, but try it on for size and see how it fits or feels. See how very difficult it can be to confront that kind of a choice or the consequences that logically follow.You see, starting a business is a bit like having a baby. In the very beginning, there isn’t much else as needy or dependent upon you for constant care and attention as a newborn. In many ways, a new business is no more capable of sustaining itself without your total commitment, attention and support than an infant is. But, like a child, that business can become fully functioning and self-sufficient, capable of rewarding the person or persons responsible for giving it life with a life or lives of their own, filled with the rewards that only a mature and successful business can deliver.The problem is that all too often, parents are unwilling or unable to let go. These parents create a ‘child’ so needy and so dependent, it cannot function without constant intervention and involvement, a ‘child’ incapable of functioning without them.
How does something like this happen? Why do we let it happen?I suppose there are lots of reasons, and I’m all too familiar with most of them. Perhaps the most compelling of these has more than a little to do with the addiction most good technicians suffer from – the one rooted in the ‘endorphin rush’ experienced after solving that difficult, if not impossible, problem no one else could conquer. A sensation that is not very different from the rush that accompanies the successful handling of any crisis: the rush that comes from successfully juggling the constant barrage of problems and questions that puts you at the very center of the chaos.It feels good to be the one to find the fault or solve the problem and better to be needed. It feels great! And, no one knows that better than a good technician or mechanic. That is, after all, what we do. Or, at least, it’s what we try to do. We’re so addicted; most of us would rather go down in flames fighting a problem than take advantage of whatever help might be available. And, that is where the correlation between behavior in the service bay and behavior at the service counter begins. It is that same fearless, almost foolish perseverance and determination that gets translated into a somewhat less than effective philosophy of management. And, when it does, it really isn’t a philosophy of management at all; it’s a blueprint for failure, or at least a detour away from success.So, the answer to our first question is really a mandate to create a business that will clearly work for us and not become just a place where we can go to work. Although, the effective execution of that mandate isn’t always as clear. It brings with it more questions and more decision-tracking questions, such as: What exactly do you want out of your business? Where is that business in its development? Is it still in its infancy? Is it approaching adolescence? If it is, is it able to provide at least as much for you as you have sacrificed to give it? What will you have to do to prevent your dream from becoming a nightmare? What will you have to do in order for your business to give life to your dreams? And, ultimately, what will you have to do in order to make it all happen?We have to first accept the fact that there are two very different kinds of R&R.These are all questions that can and will never be answered while you are exhausted from and buried deep in the everyday challenges of running your own business. Those problems tend to be unyielding, unrelenting and immediate. They are almost better left to the subconscious to be considered when you are relaxed, rested and able to concentrate for more than a customer-and-a-half. And, frankly, for most of us that’s just not going to happen at the shop.
I don’t know about you but by the time I’m ready for some time off, I’m generally wrapped so tight that three days just won’t do it. It takes that long just to unwind and relax a little. That is why this concept of time off, time away, is so critical for you and for the business you have created. But, once again, it’s a matter of choices: Can you get away? Will the place be there when you get back? (Don’t worry, it will. You aren’t that lucky.) Can it run without your constant attention to every detail, every decision? What have you done to create the infrastructure required to allow you that kind of freedom? Or, will you have to just close the business down completely for a week or two in order to take the time off you need to recover and renew your commitment to yourself, your family, your business and your dreams? And, please, don’t suggest that this is impossible when there are so many shop owners who have broken the code and figured out how
to do it.What is it all about, then? It’s about being away for a week or 10 days at a time without thinking about the business at all, at least not consciously. It’s about remaining oblivious to any other roles or responsibilities, even when you are convinced it is impossible. And, it’s about resisting the plaintive cry of e-mail, cell phones and telephone messages from home or from the business. It’s not thinking about anything constructive, productive or meaningful until you were comfortably seated on the plane settled in for that all-too-short flight back to home and the realities of everyday life. More than that, it’s about new answers to old questions: answers capable of breaking the chains most of us have forged for ourselves, even when you really weren’t even aware that you were working on breaking them. My brother stopped using the term ‘preventative maintenance’ a while ago. He started referring to each of the required or recommended maintenance services necessary to keep a vehicle running the way it is supposed to, the way it was designed to, as ‘productive maintenance.’ I thought about that on the way home from this vacation, and I’ve decided that he’s right. I used to think about vacations in terms of preventative maintenance: something required to prevent a breakdown. It’s not. A vacation is ‘productive maintenance’ for your body, your mind, your business and your soul. It is recharging your batteries when they have become a little “sulfated.” It’s removing the sludge and the residue that builds up over time and inhibits clear thinking and performance: the film that builds up on the inside of your windshield that clouds your vision and makes getting to where you need to go more of an adventure than it needs to be.But, in order for a vacation to be any of that, we have to first accept the fact that there are two very different kinds of R&R. The first kind of R&R is generally accepted to mean ‘Rest & Recreation.’ But, in order for that kind of R&R to occur someone has to create a structure that makes it possible for the second kind of R&R to exist, the kind of R&R that represents ‘Removal and Reinsertion,’ the kind of R&R that lets you take yourself out of the everyday operation of the business and then lets you reinsert yourself back into the flow of that business without significant disruption, disturbance, annoyance or interruption. In other words, as if you had never left in the first place.
