Small Business Owners and Sabbaticals

Cedric Blye commented recently about the challenges of small business owners taking sabbaticals. “How can a one-man-show/sole proprietor with a growing business that needs nurturing reap the benefits offered by a sabbatical?” he asked.

No doubt, while small business owners have more control over their time, they also have unique challenges with sabbaticals. In Escape 101: The Four Secrets to Taking a Sabbatical or Career Break Without Losing Your Money or Your Mind, authors Dan Clements and Tara Gignac discuss the ins and outs of leaving a small business behind. They themselves have taken numerous sabbaticals around the world, including Mexico, Central America, South America, South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and more. And they’ve done it all while juggling mortgages, kids, jobs and businesses.

Consider this: Are you a business owner or a job owner? In other words, as a free agent, are you really just the proud owner of a job, independent though it may be? Or do you truly own a business that you’re, hopefully, building in such a way that it sustains you even without your day-to-day presence? After all, what good is being a free agent, if you’re not really free to do what’s most meaningful to you?

In Mark Hayward’s blog, he shares excerpts from a conversation he had with Clements. Here’s what Clements said: “The biggest surprise in our sabbatical experiences has been how much our businesses have grown as a result of leaving them. It seems counter-intuitive, but leaving your business forces you to make that transition – to find good people, and implement systems that allow your business to run and flourish in your absence. I can say, without a doubt, that our net wealth increased as a result of taking extended time off.

The first part of getting away from your business, though, is right there in your question: ‘… there is no one who will run it like I do.’ It’s not easy, but getting over the idea of having to do it all yourself is really the first step. Like most of the great things in life, the work starts on the inside. And of course, you tend to discover that there are things that other people really can do better than you.

The best part for business owners is that when you return from sabbatical, all these changes that you made in order to escape are still in place, and that lets you spend more time growing your business while still keeping great balance in your life.”

Just as employees in a company with a sabbatical have to prepare a work coverage plan before they depart, small business owners, too have some planning.

When I took a sabbatical and went sailing in the Caribbean, I discovered that the people who lived the cruising lifestyle were not all self-made millionaires with fancy yachts. In fact, few of them were so lucky. Most were average people who had planned and saved. Many had limits. Some (like us) had to end it before they really wanted, because they ran out of money and had to return to land lives. Others were barely eeking by, living on boats without basics such as refrigeration, waiting for wind instead of using gasoline, and even anchoring long enough to get a job and earn enough to move on to the next island, where they’d find work again, so they could keep sailing.

My point is this: There are hundreds of ways to make a sabbatical work, if you really want one. What’s your way?