Business Blog: I'm on vacation (a postcard from France)

Quick heads up: this isn't a normal issue.

I'm writing you from somewhere in the south of France, in the middle of my annual 30-day vacation.

No checking emails.
No Zoom meetings.
No checking in at the office.

So if you're new here and you were expecting a fresh framework or a step-by-step breakdown this week, I owe you a small apology.

That's not what today is all about.

But don't archive this email just yet, because what I have for you is even more timely and useful.

First, instead of writing something new, I went back and pulled three of my favorite past issues. All three directly relate to what most owners are wrestling with right now, at the exact midpoint of the year.

Here’s your reading list while I'm gone…

1. The 3-5-1 Quarterly Sprint Planning Method

We're days away from the end of Q2, which means the annual plan you built back in January is comically out of date.

So instead of dragging that dead plan into the back half of the year, this is the issue where I show you how to replace it with a quarterly plan that actually maps to reality.

It's the exact “3-5-1 Method” we run inside our own companies every 90 days, and you should read it before you set your Q3 priorities.

The 3-5-1 Quarterly Sprint Planning Method →

2. The 30-Day Vacation Test

This one feels appropriate given where I'm sitting.

And look, I get it… a lot of business owners hear "30-day vacation" and assume it's only possible because the business is already big. The truth is, it's the other way around…

The vacation is both a test and a forcing function. The moment you commit to being gone for 30 days, every system you never built and task you never delegated comes screaming to the surface.

This article lays out exactly how to prep for your own “30-Day Vacation,” and why it’s worth doing even if you never actually take it. (Although you should. You really should.)

The 30-Day Vacation Test →

3. How To Determine Your Company's "Right Next Thing"

There's something about this stretch of the year that turns calm companies into chaotic companies. Half the year is gone, the plan is in the garbage, everyone's busy, and no one knows what the heck they should be doing.

If that's the vibe in your office, you’ll want to read this one first. It's the process I use to cut through a hundred competing fires and land on the single “Right Next Thing” the company should implement NOW.

How To Determine Your Company's "Right Next Thing" →

One last thing (before I get back to doing nothing in particular).

While I was wandering the streets of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence earlier this week, I came across this graffiti scrawled on the side of an old electrical box:

"They call us dreamers, but we're the ones who never sleep." - Graffiti from a back alley in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. (Photo credit: Ryan Deiss)

I don't know who wrote it, but I know they were talking about us…

…the founders, the artists, the builders. The people who see things that aren’t there and then bring them into existence.

But never forget that the whole point of building something that runs without you is that, every once in a while, you actually do get to sleep.

The dreaming doesn't stop.

You just stop being the only one awake enough to carry it forward.

And that’s the real goal.

See you back in your inbox next week.

-Ryan

Ryan Deiss
Co-Founder and CEO, The Scalable Company

P.S. If you want to see the systems that let me leave my business for 30 days without checking email, sitting in meetings, or worrying about what's happening back at the office, that's exactly what we build with our clients.

Click here for the details on what we do and how we work.

P.P.S. Funny thing about Saint-Rémy…

Most people have never heard of it, but almost everyone has seen it.

It's the village Vincent van Gogh imagined when he painted his masterpiece, The Starry Night, while looking out his asylum window.