11 | How & Why I Took a Month Away From My Business To Travel
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Episode Show Notes
As I’m sat here writing this, it’s been around 4 weeks since I did anything even remotely business related. I took an unplanned business break, and it was one of the best things I’ve ever done! Keep reading to find out how and why I was able to take a month away from my business.
In this episode, we’ll be talking about:
Leticia’s first experience travelling while running an online business
The expectations vs reality of solo travel
Why she decided to take an impromptu month away from business rather than working while travelling
Lessons learned and how she’d prepare for future travel as an entrepreneur
Links & Resources Mentioned:
Episode Blog Post
For those of you who follow me on Instagram, you might know that I spent the last month travelling around Bali. It was my first ever solo trip and I had decided to take this trip with the intention of working while I travelled and basically live in Bali for a month - I intended to get involved in the nomad community there and I was basically taking the trip see if I want to move to Bali next year.
This episode is going to be a bit of a life and business update. I’m going to talk to you about my travel adventure, the expectations vs reality, why I suddenly decided to take this month away from my business completely rather than working while I travelled and how I would prepare myself to travel in the future based on what I learned from this experience.
My expectations.
One of the reasons behind this solo trip was to see if Bali is somewhere I would like to move to in the future and continue to build my business there. But the main reason that I took this trip was because I’ve had a lot happen in my personal life this year, which some of you may already know about but I’m not going to go into here, and I just needed a change of scenery. I needed to take this trip for my mental health and just to prove to myself that I could do it.
I had originally planned to travel to a few different places in Bali, get to know the country, stay in these coworking/coliving guesthouses and network with other digital nomads who were kind of doing the same thing as me.
The reality actually ended up being sooo much different, which in hindsight I am very thankful for, but I hadn’t really planned for…
Vs the reality.
When I first got to Bali I had booked a hostel that I’d seen on TikTok and the way this TikTok video had portrayed it was as a great place to co-work and meet other nomads. Perfect for the type of trip I was taking.
What I didn’t realise was that this video was made many months earlier, during the pandemic, when Bali was a lot more dead than it is now. This place actually turned out to be a massive party hostel, and I thought… “alright, I didn’t necessarily come here to party but I’m in this hostel for 3 nights so let me just embrace it.”
At this hostel… in just 3 nights… I met so many amazing people. People I ended up spending the rest of my trip with and travelling around Bali and all the different islands with.
These weren’t necessarily the types of people I was intending on spending my time with while I was there. They weren’t nomads, most of them were backpackers travelling Asia, or they were in Bali for an extended holiday. So how they were planning on spending their time in Bali was a lot different to how I had imagined that I would be spending mine. But as I spent more time with these people I realised that actually, maybe I needed something different out of this trip than I initially thought…
Instead of making this a working holiday, maybe I just needed some time off to explore and have fun and enjoy some time away with no commitments - especially after going through such a difficult year.
So after the first week, I made the decision to stop working (aside from supporting my private clients, of course) and just enjoy this month away and go with the flow and I will say right now that I think this was the best decision I could have made.
Taking time off.
I know that not everyone is as fortunate to be in my position where they can, just like that, decide to take a month away from their business. I know a lot of service providers and coaches are working to client deadlines and they have commitments they have to show up to.
But one thing I always wanted from my business, and I’ve spoken about this heavily within my content on this podcast and over on Instagram as well, is that I wanted to build a business that gives me freedom.
I didn’t want to be tied down like I would be if I were in a 9-5. I wanted the freedom to take time off when I need and not have to worry about it, which is why when the guilt came up and the question of “should I really be taking this time off?” I was able to shut it down straight away because I was able to remind myself of why I started this business in the first place.
It’s one of the reasons I stopped offering 1:1 mentorship in the traditional sense with scheduled calls and instead communicate with my clients exclusively through Voxer… because it gives both myself and my clients that freedom to be able to do what they want and not have to worry about being present at a certain date or time to hop on a call… because things happen and things come up that we don’t expect and I want my business to continue to thrive in those situations and I want to help my clients do the same!
I didn’t have any pre-scheduled commitments and that was a huge factor that allowed me to take that time off. The second thing that allowed me to take that time off without too much worry was that I already have backend systems and funnels set up so that if the unexpected happens and I have to disappear for a while, I still have leads going through those funnels and a way to make sales without having to physically having to show up and do that work there and then because I’ve already done it in the past and put it on autopilot so it continues to work for me in the background.
So that is how I was able to take this time off so suddenly - because I had already prepared for an event like this.
Lessons I learned.
The next thing I want to talk about is how I would navigate this if I were to do it again, which I actually am planning to do very soon! In February next year, I’ll be going to Thailand and then exploring more of South East Asia for a few months so I’m very excited about that!
And, of course, after having this experience I’ve realised that when I travel, I do just want to explore - I don’t want to have too much of a commitment that I feel like I have to miss out on things or not fully experience what I’m going there to experience…
With that being said, I also want to make sure that I am still growing my business and that it’s able to support me during the months that I am travelling. So a few things I have taken away from this experience and plan to implement when I travel next is…
1. TO BATCH-CREATE PODCAST EPISODES ALONG WITH ALL SUPPORTING CONTENT
This is actually something I partially did before this trip. I had all my podcast episodes recorded, but I hadn’t created all of the supporting content - so the blog posts, the Instagram posts, the Reels, the Pins… all of that I had planned to create on a weekly or biweekly basis while I was travelling.
I already knew before I went that this probably wasn’t the best decision, but I thought I’d have a lot more time to myself than I actually did when I was there… and, again, I wasn’t hanging out in the nomad communities like I thought I would so I wasn’t going to the coworking spaces and spending as much time on my business as I had predicted, which again is absolutely fine and I’m actually extremely glad that I did end up having a different experience, but it meant that I didn’t have the time to create all the supporting content.
Now, I could have made time in the evenings or taken one day a week out to do this, but I didn’t really want to do that. I could have also published the podcast episodes without any supporting content, but again, I didn’t want to do that. If I am putting effort into recording an episode, I want to be able to properly market and promote it. So that’s why I decided not to publish any more episodes for the next few weeks.
Knowing what I do now, for my next trip I will be making sure that I properly batch-create all of my content, not just the episodes themselves. I’ll also be travelling for a lot longer so I’ll have to make the decision of whether I want to keep the podcast going through the entire trip or if I want to make this a seasonal podcast and take a break from production while I travel. That’s not something I want to make a decision on right now, but as I get closer to the time, I will do what I think makes the most sense for the position I’m in then.
2. I WOULD OUTSOURCE MORE
Going away this time, I had my VA who helps me out with various tasks a few hours a week. But when planning to travel again, especially for a longer trip, I’ll definitely make sure that I hire a team to support me as I travel and do the things I don’t necessarily want to do, or find difficult to do, whilst travelling such as scheduling content, organic engagement, creating graphics, keeping up with Pinterest and so on…
So that’s definitely something I will be making sure to prioritise.
3. I WOULD PLAN EFFICIENTLY FOR MY TIME AWAY
I didn’t really want to plan any launches or big events in my business during this trip because I didn’t know what would happen, and that worked out well because of course I ended up taking time off that I wouldn’t have been able to if I had planned or was in the middle of a launch.
However, I know that I’m going travelling in February now and I know that I will be travelling for a few months at least, so I am going to need to plan some launches during this time…
Actually, need isn’t the right word because my business will still continue to operate with the backend systems and funnels that I’ve set up, as it did during this trip, but if I want to continue growing then launching is something I will want to consider… and maybe making improvements to those funnels I have set up and perhaps even investing in paid ads to increase the amount of traffic and people I have coming through those funnels.
So that is something I will look into over the next few months as I prepare my business to travel.
———
I hope you enjoyed this little life update and the insight to what I’ve been up to over this past month, and I hope you’re able to take value away from my first experience with travelling while running a business and learn from my takeaways if travelling is something that you’re considering in the near future and you’re wondering how that will affect you as a business owner.
Obviously everyone’s experience is different and what I personally needed in this season of my life is unique to me, but these lessons are definitely something I’ll be taking away as I prepare to travel next year and I hope that they can help you in some way.
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Hey! I’m Tish!
I'm a marketing mentor for ambitious entrepreneurs who want to create more time, freedom & profit in their online business, in a way that feels good to them!
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