Happy Friday! Anyone else going to buy a bottle of bourbon and just watch football this weekend? No okay…
Whatever you’re doing, I hope you can relax and detach from work.
I wrote an article that was published this week in The Post Grad Survival Guide. These guys have denied my stuff more times than I can count.
Go to their page here and hit the clap button (you can clap more than once). That would help me out so much. Maybe I’ll get invited to write again, who knows…
Overwhelmed by Work? You Don’t Know How to Spend Your Free Time
No Really, You Should Take A Year Off
I should’ve taken a year off after college.
Instead, I graduated on May 10th, 2015, and started busting my ass in corporate America by June 15th.
What can I say! I came from the Michael Lewis generation: a swell of millennials enchanted by business and finance after reading The Big Short, Liar’s Poker, and Moneyball. I planned to collect my fortune quickly, and not waste time along the way.
I remember feeling sorry for graduates who didn’t have it all figured out. The kids who took off to Europe or road-tripped across the US visiting all the national parks. “Those poor saps.”
I was wrong.
There’s utility in taking time for yourself; to travel or do something that makes your peers scratch their heads. Not a quantifiable utility, but a fountain of wisdom forever affecting your life’s experience.
It’s like when Hemmingway called Paris a “moveable feast.” It follows you wherever you go.
Here’s what I mean:
You need the space to sharpen your world perspective.
You need time to rest, observe, and explore what you really want.
Find the space to sharpen your perspective
At 25 years old, Jim Koch was a rising star and a favorite son at Harvard Business School, where he pursued a joint JD and MBA. You can imagine his parent’s shock when their young prodigy dropped out of school and joined Outward Bound, a wilderness guide and outdoor education program.
Everyone expected a 6-month to year-long sabbatical—enough time to shake out his psychotic lapse.
Jim had other ideas. For the next three and a half years, he lived in the wild leading hiking expeditions and teaching people how to repel down cliffs. He even had a stint in British Colombia, an ecosystem with notoriously ruthless flora and fauna. To work in BC means your job is to ensure nobody dies.
“I didn’t want to make decisions that would bind me for the rest of my life,” He told Guy Raz on NPR. “Also realized that there are only things you can do in your twenties, that if you don’t do them, you will never be able to do them.”
To most young professionals, present company included, the idea of taking three and a half years away from your career’s advent seems immature. There’s a perceived risk that we will never recover. But there’s also an upside. Subconscious benefits to your mind, character, and spirit.
Jim’s world perspective grew sharper. The wild taught him how to slow down and how to fail. It also taught him the irrelevance of corporate anxieties compared to unforgiving mother nature. He developed a rare lens and saw things that would blow right by most people.
About ten years later, Jim would make another decision that made his parents heads’ spin. He quit his six-figure executive position with the Boston Consulting Group and founded the Boston Beer Company, later renamed to Samuel Adams. One of the most successful American beer companies ever.
Use the time to rest, observe, and reflect
Winston Churchill also took a break from public life. A decade-long hiatus lasting from 1929 up to the start of WWII. Churchill suffered a humiliating defeat that pretty much exiled him from parliament. He had a few opportunities to come back but decided to rest instead.
Lucky for us, that turned out to be the right move.
While Europe watched the rise of fascism, Churchill spent the 1930s in his garden painting landscapes, writing in his bathtub, and consuming every chicken at Chartwell’s. But most importantly, Churchill paid attention.
He was one of the few politicians anywhere who dissected Mien Kampf and called it out for what it was: the ramblings of a madman.
When Hitler finally struck Europe, Churchill was ready. He had studied the enemy and had the stamina for a long fight.
A lion called from a mighty slumber.
Prophets must be forced into the wilderness
Imagine if we allowed ourselves to take the time and space to rest and explore what we really want. How would this alter our life’s decisions?
Churchill later wrote about his time off. He said, “Every prophet must be forced into the wilderness where they undergo solitude, deprivation, reflection, and meditation.”
Perhaps Jim Koch read Churchill and took it literally.
Or perhaps leaders share a knack for getting outside of their comfort zone, for taking a deep breath before the plunge of battle.
So go ahead, take some time away from your career and do something wild. It may just be the most important thing you ever do.
Thank You and Please Share with Your Networks!
Thank you for reading the whole damn thing! If you liked what you read and find it valuable, please share it with your social media feeds and help get the word. A little love goes a long way.