Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Sabbaticals
336 Plays3 years ago
Socrates is reported to have said that “An unexamined life is not worth living”. Although he was nonetheless sentenced to death after the trial in which this was part of his defense, we do still believe there is something to this thought. It’s hard to see the big picture when you’re knee-deep and consumed by just trying to live out 10 pixels in the corner. And sometimes your pixels get turned upside down (kind of like the Fresh Prince) and disoriented and you’re not even sure what the big picture is and if it’s the one you want. Often, it’s rest and perspective that solve the challenges that fortitude and giftedness cannot seem to conquer.
This week we’re talking about the benefits of taking a sabbatical. As a society, we value time and money, and intentional rest feels like a waste of both. But this perspective risks prioritizing the presence of action over genuine progress and the accrual of wealth over its use for good. To examine our life and career, to see it for what it is and what it could be, you need the space to sit outside of it, to intentionally rest and assess. In this episode, we’ll cover what it means to take a sabbatical, when you should take one, and the kinds of things you would do during one. Plus, how successful people we know have used a sabbatical to their advantage in taking the next steps to an uncommon life.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'The Uncommon Life Project'
00:00:04
Speaker
Everyone dreams about living an uncommon life, but how we define that dream is very different for each of us. And for most, it's a lifelong pursuit. Welcome to the Uncommon Life Project podcast. We're going to introduce you to people who are living that life or enjoying the journey to get there. We're going to also give you some tools, tricks, and tips for starting or accelerating your own efforts to live an uncommon life.
00:00:29
Speaker
A life worth celebrating and savoring. Please welcome your hosts, Brian Dewhurst and Philip Ramsey. Hello and welcome everybody to another episode of the UncomiLife Project, where I'm your host, Philip Ramsey. And I'm Brian Dewhurst. Oh, welcome back. It feels good to have your voice back on the mic. Let's go. Checkity, check, check, wreck, wreck. Thanks for tuning in. We're super excited. It's Brian and I. Here we go. We're back, back in the saddle. It feels like Batman and Robin a little bit.
00:01:00
Speaker
I don't, I take it I'm Robin. I'm okay with that. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. I feel like that's probably a better analogy. Robin, you just don't want to be Robin. You know, you don't. He's younger and more acrobatic. That's true.
00:01:14
Speaker
Maybe I'm Robin. Thanks for tuning in. We have a great show today
The Importance of Sabbaticals and Rest
00:01:19
Speaker
for you. We're going to talk about, I think a topic that a lot of people miss or they are ashamed to do, or they think that that's not, that's definitely not part of the society of what they think they're going to do. Right. And we're talking about a sabbatical, resting. Resting.
00:01:37
Speaker
changing and transitioning is mainly what we're talking about. But I think it's probably a good concept for pretty much any place, any part of life, resting. And I would say in America specifically, that's almost looked down upon or shame or guilt or whatever it is. You just don't feel like you can do it.
00:01:55
Speaker
So I have a friend, I should say, I have a cousin that adopted two children from Ethiopia. And they go over there from time to time. And he said, it's the craziest thing, Philip. He's like, it's Ethiopian time. And I'm like, well, what's that? He's like, well, people say, well, let's leave in 20 minutes. He's like, maybe an hour and 30 minutes later, we'll leave.
00:02:16
Speaker
Now think about that in an American setting. That doesn't happen. That ain't flying. Especially with Philip Ramsey. I'll tell you that right now. Heads would be rolling.
00:02:26
Speaker
And so maybe I'm caught up in this culture, but I do feel like Americans in general hurry. They are quick, they're fast, they just go, go, go, go, go, and you kind of get used to it over time, and that's your new normal. So what we think is very important, what we have seen in the past, is when somebody is going to, or about ready to, jump off the proverbial bridge of safety of their old job, consistent paychecks, and they're gonna jump off into this uncommon life,
00:02:54
Speaker
We feel like the best people that we've seen have done what, Brian? Had a period or a gap. They've had space to collect themselves and think and process new information to make a more informed and better decision. Right. Which sounds so counterintuitive, especially when you're like super eager to jump. But taking a step back,
00:03:22
Speaker
And relaxing and like really trying to process what's going to happen. What does this look like? Who's affected? Right. And I think the term sabbatical, you know, the way I think about it is in more in a corporate setting where you're taking like two, three, four, five, six weeks off.
00:03:43
Speaker
And I think when you look even like in the Bible, we talk about the Sabbath and taking just a day a week off, I think there's different measurements of how you could do this. But the theme across those different measurements is it's important to rest. Right. It's important to just take a break. Let's just talk about this as the adults. We just don't have a summer.
00:04:10
Speaker
We don't. And the closest thing that I could think of for an adult summer, are you ready for this? No. Okay. This is what I think. I think the closest thing that adults have to summer is in between jobs.
00:04:26
Speaker
when you just put in your two weeks notice to your last career or job or whatever, and you're waiting for the next one, but you're still getting paid. Like maybe there's a two week window there. How freeing is that? Like you know that there's nothing on your to-do list. Like you know you don't have to do anything for the two weeks, but you know you're getting paid. So that's helpful. That's kind of taken care of.
00:04:45
Speaker
But to me, those two weeks, and again, I haven't had this forever for a long time, but that to me is the equivalent of a child's summer as an adult is like, you don't have any responsibility. You have time to rest.
00:04:58
Speaker
take sabbatical, unwind, connect, refocus, engage, and get ready to get back on the horse again. I don't know if that's true. So let me quick, if this is your first time listening, I think there's a lot of people that listen to our 100 episode, by the way, and I'm getting a lot of feedback. Good feedback. It was awesome. If you haven't listened to it, it's a really fun show to maybe go back and listen to to start the uncommon
00:05:22
Speaker
Journey your uncommon life project starting gate and then you can kind of figure out which ones you want to go listen to from there But so who are we what
Role of Uncommon Wealth Partners
00:05:31
Speaker
do we do? Like I get I love what I do every day So I'll let you talk and I know you do too, but it comes from a different perspective. So yeah, give it to me well, I think we try to help people in that transition in that gap or
00:05:46
Speaker
I think a lot of times we get people that are down a path, maybe want the path to be different and they don't know how to organize their capital or their finances to that new path. And then sustain that new path, you know, cause it's challenging. And especially I think business owners or entrepreneurs or executives, you know, it's just, it's a lonely at the top.
00:06:09
Speaker
Really is. And so I think a lot of times, you know, we're that sounding board from a business decision standpoint or personal decision standpoint, capital decision standpoint. One of my friends, he always had the term power moves, you know, like you got to make power moves. And I think we attract people that want to make power moves.
00:06:32
Speaker
and they just want a co-pilot of like, am I crazy? And then how does this fit my overall plan? Like I have a wife and kids and I don't want the whole thing to burn down to the ground. And so I think we are that support system, that foundation, that sounding board to like, this is how it fits. This is your risk. This is your risk tolerance. This is how we're going to mitigate those risks. This is the upside.
00:07:00
Speaker
And this is the downside. You know, help you make the power move. So that's what we do at Uncommon Wealth Partners. And I feel like I'm the more of the number side of all of that and you're more of the relational side of all of that. And it's so true. It's fun. Right. So true. So that's what we do at Uncommon Wealth Partners. So we get to sit down with people every day and help them achieve or put boundaries or a plan together to achieve what they've always thought or dreamed of and got excited about.
Managing Risk and Financial Planning
00:07:27
Speaker
And then make sure there's a cohesive plan. So I love sitting down with talking to people cause there's always, if they're married, they're two people. They're one marriage, two people. And a lot of times you have one of those two people who want to jump off the bridge, the builders, the creators. Uh, and then you have the other person of like, Hey, I just wasn't grown up this way. Like I'm really nervous. Right. I love working with those two people.
00:07:53
Speaker
because it is, it's important that everybody feels excited about the next stage, whatever that is. And normally the person back on the bridge, uh, seven feet from the edge, like I'm not getting anywhere close to that rail is more excited to like, Hey, I can help support you, but I just want to make sure there's guardrails in place that if we know if things are not going well, you know, we'll know something's awry pretty quick.
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah, so that's really it's fun for me to be able to take two people and then put a cohesive plan together that both of them are excited about not a lot of people can do that also to know that we have all the traditional tools at our disposal But it's very rare that we will lead with those right because we want to make sure that people are excited about where they're going understand, you know the goals that they have in front of them and
00:08:43
Speaker
And I've always told people, if you don't know what you want, we're not a good fit. Because we're not going to be the ones like, oh, this is what you should do. Which I think 80% of advisors out there are like, well, you need to start with this. And it's a product. That's not where we start. Couldn't be further from where we start.
00:09:01
Speaker
That's appealing to you. We'd love to talk to you. I think there's a lot of people out in the fringes who are like, what are these guys doing? How are they doing this? And then how do you move forward? So I think maybe quickly, this is how we do it. We feel like a financial plan is the starting point for everybody. If we don't know what the goals and what you get excited about, we can't really start the financial plan. Therefore, we're not probably going to start it.
00:09:22
Speaker
we charge $1,000 just to get on board with the financial plan. After that, and that's about three or four meetings that we usually take people through. One, to find out what they're excited about, what kind of tools and products or things that they have in their disposal, and what they've accumulated in the past, maybe old 401ks, Roth IRA,
00:09:42
Speaker
savings accounts. And then we kind of put something together. Brian is usually the tip of the spear of trying to figure out what does that plan look like? If these were our goals, how would I try to achieve it with the amount of money that they have amassed over the history? And then we try to put something together where we sit down with the client after that, say, hey, this is what we think you should do given your goals.
00:10:02
Speaker
That usually takes about four, probably four meetings. After that, then we just say, hey, what do you want to do? And we'll give you recommendations if we're not going to use an account in the past that you had at old 4K. Hey, here's an idea. This is how we can manage the money. This is how our philosophy works. But at the end of the day, like what we really want to make sure people know is like, this is all of your money.
00:10:23
Speaker
So use it to help you achieve what you want to achieve instead of a masking this until you're 69 and a half or 59 and a half where you can retire and then you can get at it. We would say, hey, it's still your money. We just got to be strategic on how we use it. Okay. That's the done for the commercial for uncommon wealth partners. We're back the uncommon life project. Uh, and then when we do sit down with somebody, this sabbatical is so healthy and we haven't done a good job. I don't think it's a, as a firm talking about it.
00:10:52
Speaker
But the people have done the best, have done it themselves. So what do you think naturally people are kind of gravitating to this like, I need to reset, unwind and try to find out like what's important to me.
00:11:06
Speaker
Well, I think in a lot of cases, um, from just the theme and like the conversations we've had on the podcast, it's those life events, you know, either losing a job, you know, unvoluntarily or voluntary.
Corporate Sabbaticals and Personal Experiences
00:11:21
Speaker
You know, we've had a lot of people sell a business, take some time off, regroup. We've had, you know, I know Intel corporation, they, I think it's like every seven years you work, you have to take a month off.
00:11:32
Speaker
We just had another client who, you know, has a really fast-paced growing business. He took a month off around a baby being born. Um, so I think that was more of a paternity leave situation, but again, super healthy. Right.
00:11:49
Speaker
It's never said, I've never, we've never had a conversation where it was like, Oh, I wish I wouldn't have done that. That's a great point. And I think it's the proverbial, you know, like, you never hear the person on their deathbed of like, Oh, I wish I would have worked more, you know.
00:12:05
Speaker
But it's hard to implement that in the moment or to build in the space to do it. I think in a lot of cases it's a really strategic decision and it's very counter-cultural. Very rarely have we seen the sabbatical done when they have lost their job. Would you agree with that?
00:12:29
Speaker
Yeah, like when there was something that happened made it downsizing and stuff and then they've lost their job For whatever reason would you think it's still important for those people too? I think so. I think it's I think it's harder, you know, it's like uh You know when you're the one
00:12:47
Speaker
that's being left, it's hard to be like, oh, no, I'm cool with that. I'm going to chill and take three months off and regroup. And it's more like, no, I want to prove them they were wrong. I want to find a better job. I want to, I need to, you know, like you didn't go out on your terms, right? You know, versus somebody maybe like selling their company that like, no, I'm going out on my terms. Here's the terms of the deal. I got a package and I'm going to chill for 30 to 90 days. That's a good point. So.
00:13:18
Speaker
And a lot of times those people have a severance package right could do it could do it I wonder if there's some kind of like fear that like, okay I gotta then figure out the next paycheck, right? When is that coming and I've got a deadline of three months for my whatever it is right two weeks. Whatever. Yeah, huh? So but I think I think even too when you look at like
00:13:39
Speaker
you know, some of the top entrepreneurs in the world are the most successful people in the world. I know even like Warren Buffett talks about this even. You know, like he reads four hours a day. Obviously,
The Value of Slowing Down and Reflection
00:13:52
Speaker
he's got a lot of money. So he is built in the time to do that. But just the importance of slowing down and really collecting yourself and then taking massive action.
00:14:03
Speaker
you know, okay, that period of time is over, whether it's an hour a day or a day a week or a month a year. Now I'm focused, and I'm gonna go really channel that energy and focus into something. Okay, so brought up a great point. What do you do in a sabbatical?
00:14:25
Speaker
What makes this sabbatical successful? I don't think I've ever taken one either. Well, from our experience talking to people. Yeah, I think it's traveling. It's been a prevalent, you know, like getting out of your normal situation or your normal circumstances and surroundings. So changing the status quo. Okay. I think it's, you know, just maybe this is obvious, but like not working, like legitimately not working or trying to work.
00:14:53
Speaker
I think it's like maybe to say it a bit differently. It's like letting things come to you as opposed to like you trying to figure things out. Okay. And then I think there's obviously a aspect of reflection, journaling, like
00:15:13
Speaker
you know, truing up, so to speak of like, what, what did I enjoy about that previous experience and what didn't I enjoy and how do I pursue more? That's good. You know, things that are aligned with the way I made. Yeah. Okay. How do you know when you need to take a sabbatical? You kind of mentioned like in your day to day job, like you've never taken a sabbatical. Like, how do you know that you're ready to take a sabbatical?
00:15:37
Speaker
I, that's a good question. I don't know. I don't know that I know personally, but, um, I think those life events are an easy answer, you know, kids being born, um, people maybe passing away or jobs coming to an end. Um, I think for me, when I kind of think about it in terms of like, when I was in Deloitte and I was in consulting,
00:16:03
Speaker
I just, you know, the Jumanji drum beat was just loud. I just was so tired of traveling. I was just exhausted. I really kind of just hated the work at that point. It had been several years and just the minutia and the detail of different things. It was just kind of like, you know,
00:16:21
Speaker
breaks grinding, you know, and the pads are worn down and you're like, I pretty much need to deal with that right now. It was kind of like that. So I think if you're having those types of moments, I didn't really take a sabbatical
00:16:34
Speaker
you know switching careers to get into this career, but in that sense of man something's majorly wrong like I know there's a shift that needs to be made and Giving yourself the space to make it I think but by the time I I think you consider I did almost have like this about gotta take you know basically it took me a month to pass on my tests and
00:16:58
Speaker
you're not really working, so to speak. My father-in-law had passed away unexpectedly, so I took about three weeks off trying to just shore up the family and grieve and handle that process. And so I think there was definitely a space of, yeah, really not working. There's some other major things I needed to handle, but creating that space to handle those things and recalibrate
00:17:26
Speaker
Right. Okay, so this this begs the question like Especially when we go back to the first part of the podcast like I think as Americans we really push people hard And even bigger corporations are trying to do more with less and so that usually falls on people and you may be relating because uh Jody doesn't work here anymore and you
Work-Life Balance and Societal Pressures
00:17:49
Speaker
have all her responsibilities like what what like
00:17:52
Speaker
So but you don't get paid more either. Thank you, Eric, for keeping working. You know, like that doesn't feel great. So how do you build because we're creators and I feel like people who listen to the show kind of have like the Jumanji drum beat that Brian always says. I love it. And we're creators. We're called to create at least the people that listen to the show. Maybe not everybody, but it does seem for us. So how do you create something that like you feel like is sustainable for you?
00:18:20
Speaker
in perpetuity. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think you and I are wired differently in that way. I feel like you've approached things more sustainably than I have. Yeah, I think we're still, I'm personally still trying to figure that out, you know, of
00:18:41
Speaker
Right. I think it's a big part of, you know, saying yes to so many different things. Right. And the ability to say no. Yeah, I do think that's true. And I know that we're wired differently. But now that I know how I'm wired, I can't say no to people.
00:19:00
Speaker
You ready for that yet? So, okay. How do you then work with your personality to figure out? Okay. Philip can't say no. So if you're a listener right now and you called me and asked me to do something, Hey, I need somebody to help me move next week. I'd be like, all right, I'm in. Uh, so there's that kind of exposed, but how do you then create something that you know, your personality, so you don't have to change your core DNA?
00:19:20
Speaker
Because I feel like that's what a lot of people try to do. And at the end of the day, you're just not going to do that, man. You're going to have to adapt. Mine is like, I just don't say no. So what we've done, and I'll just answer this because I'm going somewhere with this, is I've had to figure out how to delegate and delegate well. And the best part about delegation is being OK when people drop the ball.
00:19:43
Speaker
Listen, I know I can't do it all and I appreciate that people are trying to step up and help all my yeses Maybe and so delegation clear delegation communicating clearly of what does the what does success look like? Here's what I think I would do. Do you need any more training? But i'm hiring the right people or we're we're hiring the right people or you're hiring the right people To then get that in advance of the paul and what i've found is
00:20:10
Speaker
Although there's times where things aren't done the way that I would have them done, but when I take a step back, it's way better than what I have whatever created. And for me, that's sustainable. It's not trying to change me. It's like I would never think about taking a sabbatical other than maybe taking a vacation, which is I think wise because I can't wait to get back and just delegate because I just said yes to do anything. So, OK, back to this. So do you think a vacation can be a sabbatical?
00:20:39
Speaker
I think so for sure. Oh, okay. I mean, I think it's a form of a sabbatical. I guess I'm going to die. I think it's like, you know, the Sabbath is a day, you know, and I think it's like, you know, taking five minutes a day to, you know, just pray or meditate or just block out the noise. And then, you know, that five minutes to an hour every morning that a lot of people talk about.
00:21:05
Speaker
the Sabbath is one day out of the week, and then, you know, a vacation is one week out of the year or month. So I think there's different, that's what I was kind of alluding to earlier, I think there's different
00:21:18
Speaker
time segments of this talk and discussion and building them in sustainably. I think for Intel it's yeah like one month out of every seven every time once you pass seven years of work at Intel they force you to take a month off it's something like that. So yeah you know it's relative to seven years.
00:21:37
Speaker
So in a day is relative to a week. So anyways. No, I think that's wise. It's just interesting when you start talking about this because it's so counterintuitive than what I think society is telling you. Stop. Relax. Who are you? You've never been on a deathbed thinking like, I wish I could work more.
00:21:56
Speaker
And I think you see a lot of companies we've talked to, you know, they just shut down their entire business, like that two weeks around Christmas to New Year's, you know, that last two weeks of the year. They do it for their employees. Yeah. And it's like, that's cool. You know, that that's kind of a company wide initiative. And unfortunately, being in the business of money, you know,
00:22:20
Speaker
It's harder to kind of just you don't just shut down your entire business, you know Obviously there's like bank holidays and you know, the stock market's closed certain days totally It's like having like a restaurant being the only restaurant you can go to and be like, yeah We're gonna shut our doors for two weeks. Like yeah, i'm hungry, right? Well, and there's the risk of people not coming back, you know of like, oh, I didn't feel good right so it's interesting, um, but it does seem like
00:22:47
Speaker
you know, a lot of the stories that we've had on the show.
00:22:51
Speaker
there was a sabbatical or a time off that was very impactful to that person. I agree. So back to I think that when I first started changing my mindset a little bit was when I read that your world class assistant by Michael Hyatt.
Remote Work and Assistance
00:23:05
Speaker
That was revolutionary for me. Like one of the probably the most powerful books I've ever read, given my personality might not be for you, but for me it was because I didn't realize that there was people out there that could help me advance the ball and the things that I really like to do.
00:23:20
Speaker
and then organize my life in a way to make sure nothing falls through the cracks and hold me accountable to my word, which is like liquid gold to me. So anyway, so that to me is like, sometimes you just have to be honest with yourself about who you are and where you're at
00:23:40
Speaker
in your career, in your life, in your vocation, all this stuff, and then understanding when to like, I gotta push pause. And then in that pause, having enough wherewithal of just really resting.
00:23:55
Speaker
One of the you look at the stress of the last two years and COVID and just everything we've been through as a society. And I was just at a conference and they kind of talked about I think it was called the great transition just like how many people left their job and how
00:24:10
Speaker
difficult it is. I mean, we're hearing a lot of business owners talk about how difficult it is to hire people right now. And you know, people getting hired like in Boston from a company that's in California because they can just stay in Boston, or you know, Iowa and
00:24:27
Speaker
There's just quality people all over the country now and as employers you kind of are in this competitive like Geography doesn't dictate employment. I guess is what i'm trying to say, right? And so how do you structure benefits in time and work within your organization to support people? You know with this with this idea of having more freedom of time and downtime and
00:24:52
Speaker
That's a really good point because you always say like the newest benefit is freedom and like, what does that even mean? Well, for us, we, we have like 10 99 contractors that work with us and now they're, we're, they're only probably employment ish or like paycheck. But what does that mean? Well, we can't tell them when to work.
00:25:09
Speaker
and we can't tell them, like, vacation or whatever. So to me, ultimate freedom. Now, we need things done, and they need to get it done, but we can't tell them when to get that done. To me, it's very freeing. It seems like it's working really well for us right now. Why not for us in the future? But to me, it's great, because one of the people that helps us, she does all of our paperwork, she is going to a conference today. And instead of asking for that off, she just let us all know, hey, Friday afternoon, I'm gonna go on a conference, so if there's anything you need from me,
00:25:37
Speaker
Let me know. Guess what we all said. Have a blessed. Have a great time. So like there is freedom in that. Yeah. And it seems like there's more and more people that value that in this great transition that everyone's talking about. I would love maybe in three years or two months or today.
00:25:54
Speaker
If they thought the grass was greener on the other side of the fence and now what they would say being in that job for a while, it'd be interesting. I don't know if they know that yet. I don't know if that's statistics out there yet, but it's coming and I only say it this way. The grass is always greener in somebody else's yard.
Reflections on Sabbaticals and Listener Engagement
00:26:13
Speaker
So it's just human nature. So anyway, back to sabbatical. I think it's important. We've seen it be important. And if you've been a long time listener of the show, one, thank you. And then two, you know that the sabbatical is important, that people do get clarity in rest. I mean, that's all I got.
00:26:36
Speaker
I think that's all that needs to be said. I love it. We nailed it. That doesn't happen all the time. Well, thank you for listening. We're grateful for you. And I need to tell you something, Brian. We got our hundredth review. Come on. I know. It's been a long time going. It was it was at ninety nine for.
00:26:55
Speaker
like six months months of definitely probably whoever it was out there we owe you steak dinner or something right i don't know how we'd ever know that i don't know how we're going to get to 200 at this point but we're going to keep going i don't know either but i never thought we would get to 100 actually yeah the hundredth episode in the hundredth review was
00:27:15
Speaker
Monumental yeah, it was magical. This is what I was gonna use but interesting enough That it happened on our hundredth episode like right around that time, right? Which is good. So if you can find the review Button and leave a comment. We'd love to hear from you and we thank you for your support Yeah, you even listen to the uncommon life project. I've been your host Philip Ramsey and I'm Brian Dewhurst Thanks for tuning in until next time go be uncommon. I love it. Talk to you later
00:27:43
Speaker
That's all for this episode of The Uncommon Life Project, brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.