099: How to Take Time Off As a Business Owner

1. Many leaders have a false sense of ego.

The business isn’t going to fall apart if you aren’t there! Too many might take a day or two, but they can’t fathom taking a week off because they think the place isn’t going to survive without them. What kind of company are you running if it’s going to fall apart if you’re not there?

2. Some people won’t let go of things because they like to feel important and needed.

That’s not healthy. It prevents you from being able to disconnect because you’ve created an environment where you’re needed. But the goal should be the opposite. Create an environment where the team doesn’t need you all the time, and put others in places to succeed.

3. Things that don’t get planned and scheduled don’t get done.

Many leaders have to put things on the schedule to make sure they take care of it later. Plan what it looks like to be on vacation, so you can be present for the people you care about while you’re gone.

Lisa Zeeveld on Instagram and LinkedIn

Tricia Sciortino on Instagram and LinkedIn

BELAY’s Accounting service

(02:44) LZ and Tricia talk about their favorite vacation. 

(05:20) What are the mental barriers that keep business leaders from taking time off?

(08:13) What are the external barriers?

(10:01) LZ shares many of the reasons leaders say they can’t take time off. 

(11:33) What kind of company are you running if your company is going to fall apart if you’re not there?

(12:31) Some people won’t let go of things because they like to feel important and needed. 

(15:41) What are some practical things leaders can do to allow themselves to unplug?

(20:02) Things that don’t get planned and scheduled don’t get done. 

(28:00) This week’s download is BELAY’s ebook about delegation, Delegate to Elevate. Head over to our website and download it now to learn about some healthy delegation strategies to help you as a leader.

Lisa Zeeveld:

And so I’ve heard and seen that a lot even within my friends who are business owners, they just get wrapped around the axle and it’s all about them.

Tricia Sciortino:

Yeah. I’ve definitely seen where somebody feels like the business will fall apart if I step out.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah, yeah.

Tricia Sciortino:

And that to me says a lot about somebody’s leadership.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Totally, yes.

Tricia Sciortino:

What kind of company are you running that’s going to fall apart when you’re not there? Who are the people that are surrounding you that the company’s going to fall apart if you’re not there?

Lisa Zeeveld:

Right.

Tricia Sciortino:

And we’re all just not that important.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. Honestly.

Tricia Sciortino:

I mean, we’re really just not that important.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Welcome to One Next Step, the most practical business podcast in the world. You’re now one simple tip practical tool and small step away from growing your business. One Next Step is brought to you, BELAY the incredible 100% remote organization revolutionizing productivity with virtual assistance, bookkeepers and social media managers. Accomplish more, juggle less. Modern staffing from, BELAY. And now to your hosts.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Welcome to One Next Step, the practical business podcast that helps you run your business so it stops running you. I’m LZ, and with me as always is my great friend, Ryan. Hey, Ryan.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Hey, LZ. I am so excited to be here today. One because of what we’re talking about, two, because it is a gorgeous day here in Atlanta today. And whenever you’re listening to this podcast or audience, I hope it’s a beautiful day for you too as well because today we have a special masterclass where LZ and our CEO, Tricia, are going to talk about how to take time off as a business owner, hopefully, so you can get outside and enjoy some of that good weather.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yes. This is such a great topic. So many leaders are putting in 110% and failing to take advantage of the time they need to rest and relax. Now that’s no way to live. It leads to burnout and unhealthy habits as a leader. So today, T and I are talking about why leaders have to take time off, why it matters both mentally and physically, and how to set up processes to tactically take vacation time without affecting the business and team.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Now, before we get started and jump into that conversation, I’d love to take a moment to tell our listeners all about BELAY. With modern staffing from BELAY businesses and leaders can focus on growth without the unnecessary overhead or learning curve associated with hiring and onboarding full-time employees. BELAY is the incredible 100% remote organization that is revolutionizing productivity with our virtual assistants, bookkeepers, and social media managers accomplish more and juggle less and get back to what only you can do, growing your business with modern staffing from BELAY. Let’s jump into today’s conversation.

Tricia Sciortino:

Before we get started, I have to ask you a question, a fun question for this, for this episode. Okay. So what has been the best vacation you have ever been on?

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah, that’s a really hard question only because I categorize my vacations by a relaxing vacation or an adventuresome vacation. I think that I’ve been blessed to travel a lot and so that’s a hard one to put on. I would say best beach vacation, I was really quite amazed with the Cayman Islands, and that’s one of the ones that we actually did together, we’ve been there together.

Tricia Sciortino:

Yeah, sound fun.

Lisa Zeeveld:

But yeah, it was just beautiful and the people were so nice and very relaxing. I would say best adventuresome one was a trip to Argentina. Not for the podcast, but I was almost certain I was going to die in the middle of nowhere. So that was the adventuresome one, and I actually had a t-shirt on that said, “Let the adventure begin,” and so I when was worried that I was going to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere and die, it was quite fitting to have that shirt on.

Tricia Sciortino:

There’s always a lot of wine to make up for it.

Lisa Zeeveld:

It was, it was, yeah. How about you? What would you say is your favorite vacation?

Tricia Sciortino:

Yeah. My favorite vacation was a girls’ trip I took with my daughters. Actually last summer, we went to Hawaii. And so for my daughter Riley’s graduation from high school, we agreed instead of having a graduation party or whatnot, that her gift would be a trip and she wanted to go to Hawaii. And so me, Riley and her sister, Hailey, the three of us ventured off and we had just the best time and we did all the Hawaii things, the luaus and the surfing and we rented a Jeep and we took the top off and all the things that you’re supposed to do in Hawaii and we had the best time. So that’s to me the most memorable vacation, it was fun.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yes. Yes. I remember all your beautiful pictures. It looked incredible.

Tricia Sciortino:

I mean, it’s a stunning place. Gosh, so stunning. Beautiful. Yeah, it was.

Lisa Zeeveld:

That’s awesome, I love that. Yeah. And you are an excellent example of the topic today because I feel like you love to travel and you definitely make it a priority. So I’m super excited for you to share with our listeners, especially those who run a business or who are in those high level positions who just don’t prioritize it like you do, so that’s going to be awesome.

Tricia Sciortino:

Well, thanks. It’s been a work in progress.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah.

Tricia Sciortino:

But we’re going to talk about it. We’re going to talk about the progress part, right?

Lisa Zeeveld:

That’s right, that’s right. All right. Well, I think that we have a couple of questions here. So what are the mental barriers that keep business owners and leaders from taking time off? So where do you feel like if we think back to your barriers, what did you struggle with the most?

Tricia Sciortino:

Yeah, I think I did, and I still hear it in our team today, is that most people have guilt that tells them they can’t step away because they have to be there for their team, they have to be there, the work has to get done, they have to be there and so there’s a lot of guilt or there’s a story we tell ourselves that we have to do it, nobody else can do it, and so I can’t go. And there were years when I felt the same way where I couldn’t take real PTO. PTO, we used to call it pretend time off.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yes, right.

Tricia Sciortino:

You might not be sitting in your office, but you’re not really off either because you’re still answering in an email or you’re still getting a text message or a phone call. But I think that to me is what I see the most is we put that on ourselves. How about you?

Lisa Zeeveld:

I think for me it has been I really love work. And so I’m going to take this in a little bit of a different angle and say I have to be okay with not being busy. And so even when I have the most supportive leader, i.e. you and I have a great team who supports me, I miss it. And so I find that I’ve had to have coaches and individuals speak into me that says, “I know you love it. What you don’t see is 10 years down the line when you’re burnt out because you just didn’t learn to take a break.”

Lisa Zeeveld:

And so I think that that might speak to a lot of our listeners out there who maybe do have a great team to support them, but they just can’t get out of it themselves because they might enjoy it. They might love what they do and they almost feel like they don’t have any outside hobbies or other things to kind of get their attention, and so they just naturally gravitate all the way back in when they need to learn to love how to read a book or watch a TV show or take up knitting or golf.

Tricia Sciortino:

Right. And you know me, I’ll be like, “Oh my God, I have to get a life so my backup hobby isn’t work.”

Lisa Zeeveld:

Right.

Tricia Sciortino:

That’s right. Or I’ll say I’m a recovering workaholic because an addiction to your job can be unhealthy.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yes. Yeah. And so I feel like for me, that’s been the biggest struggle is I just have so much fun doing what I do. But I do have to remember that it’s not sustainable and it’s not sustainable for anybody. And so finding other things that get me excited and pull my attention away from always working.

Tricia Sciortino:

Okay. All right. So those are the things mentally we tell ourselves. What about the external barriers?

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. External barriers. I mean, for me, I think it would be not having the right team.

Tricia Sciortino:

Delegation.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah.

Tricia Sciortino:

Or the inability to be able to.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. So mentally you’re like, “All right, T, LZ, I got you. I know that I have to get out. I’m doing it.” Mentally, they got it, and then they look around and they’re like, “Yeah, there’s nobody there. Who am I going to give this to?” So.

Tricia Sciortino:

Yeah. So I totally agree. It’s really, really hard to disconnect even if you’ve gotten through all of the mental barriers or maybe it pairs with the mental barriers, you’ve told yourself that you should, and you can take the time off and you’re going to disconnect for all the reasons you should, you still feel like there is work for you to do.

Tricia Sciortino:

It is your work, and there’s literally nobody else able to do the work and maybe it’s time sensitive so you can’t defer the work. So it’s like something is due when you’re supposed to be off, and literally it’s the thing you do and you’re the only one who can do it.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. Yeah. I tend to think though that that’s the easiest one to fix.

Tricia Sciortino:

Me too.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Right. Because you just have to find the right people. The things that stop you mentally, I mean, that’s going to take coaches, that’s going to take some counseling, that’s going to take a little bit more work to get you over that part of it, but yeah, external, it’s hard. And you and I have been there. I mean, especially when you’re growing an organization and you’re watching your margins and you’re trying to figure out what you can do yourself, it’s really hard when to know is the right time to add team members, which we have a podcast episode on that too, but it’s hard to know when to add team members because you got to unplug, you have to be willing to pull yourself away.

Tricia Sciortino:

Yeah. Well, so that leads to the next part of this conversation or question, if you will, is that we work with a lot of leaders both internally and clients and awesome vendors that we get to partner with, and what would you say are some of the things you’ve heard other leaders share, whether today or in the past about what’s preventing them from taking the time off that they should?

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. I mean, not to be redundant, but I do think it goes back to the things that we’ve talked about. I also think that there is this underlying belief that you can only do it or you are the best at it. I think there’s a little bit of ego that I have seen with entrepreneurs when I’ve talked with them. Like, “It’s my business. I own the business. Is it going to fall apart if I’m not there?” So not thinking of it from maybe an employee executive kind of perspective, but somebody who’s like a true business owner, I think their ego gets in their way is what I have seen.

Lisa Zeeveld:

And so they might be okay taking a day or two, but the idea of actually taking a week off or two weeks off like a sabbatical, they can’t fathom it because they just are like, “This place isn’t going to survive without me.”

Tricia Sciortino:

Yes.

Lisa Zeeveld:

And so I’ve heard and seen that a lot even within my friends who are business owners, they just get wrapped around the axle and it’s all about them.

Tricia Sciortino:

Yeah. Yeah. I’ve definitely seen where somebody feels like the business will fall apart if I step out.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah, yeah.

Tricia Sciortino:

And that to me says a lot about somebody’s leadership.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Totally. Yes.

Tricia Sciortino:

What kind of company are you running that’s going to fall apart when you’re not there? Who are the people that are surrounding you that the company’s going to fall apart if you’re not there?

Lisa Zeeveld:

Right. Yeah, yeah.

Tricia Sciortino:

And we’re all just not that important, honestly. I mean, we’re really just not that important.

Lisa Zeeveld:

No. And the future growth of your organization can’t depend only on you. I mean, there’s a lot of other stuff that we could talk about. I mean valuations, and if you have an exit plan or you’re thinking about your legacy, I mean, I hate to break it to you, but at some point you’re not going to be here. And if you want your business to be here, you’ve got to start letting it go, and you have to start trusting other people to execute on your vision.

Lisa Zeeveld:

And if they’re not able to execute on your vision, then it goes back to what you said, you’re a poor leader because you’re not communicating what the vision is, what the why is. Why are your employees there? Why are they doing this every day? You have to be willing to communicate and communicate it well so they don’t forget it.

Tricia Sciortino:

Yes. And then I would say from a leadership perspective, and executive perspective, I have seen people kind of in the same vein, not let go of things because they like to feel important. They’re important because they are needed and they want to be needed by the business or the team. So they don’t delegate something, they hold onto it and keep it for themselves and say, “I am needed to do this thing.”

Tricia Sciortino:

And maybe I see that because we work with a lot of women and women have maybe this desire to be needed and to help and to serve, but we want to be needed. I’ve seen leaders who won’t let things go because they feel like they’re important because they have to do the thing. And so then they may feel important, but then also it just prevents you from being able to disconnect and take time off because you’ve created an environment where you’re needed.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Right. Yes.

Tricia Sciortino:

Which ideally the goal for my seat is to create one where you’re not.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Sure.

Tricia Sciortino:

So it’s going the wrong direction.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Totally.

Tricia Sciortino:

Create the environment and the team that doesn’t need you, that’s great leadership, right?

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yes, yes. And if there’s anything that your ego is going to trip you up on, don’t make it that people need you, right. Sit around and go, “Hey, look at me, I’m a great leader because I delegated and I trust people and they’re able to do it without me,” and celebrate that. Right?

Tricia Sciortino:

Yes. I mean, I take great pride in the fact that I could take a week of vacation and the machine runs without me. That gives me pride that I can step away and say, “Didn’t miss a beat. I took a whole entire week’s vacation, I didn’t worry. I was able to disconnect and everybody did their thing the way they were supposed to do their thing and I’ll just get caught up when I get back.”

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah.

Tricia Sciortino:

That to me is winning, yes. That is winning.

Catherine Bowman:

So one of my favorite things is getting on a zoom call. And a couple of times I’ve looked into the eyes of some exhausted and tired leadership. I implemented really a focus for my clients on delegation and had one leader in particular who just held it all in. I said, “Let’s start with delegating and doing that from a financial perspective.”

Catherine Bowman:

And so we built his budget and his chart accounts around what ministry head is going to own this? I challenged him to not look at the nitpicky line items, to just look at the overall budget for a couple of months and he quickly became relieved of that stress.

Catherine Bowman:

And that was a huge win for that client. I remember talking six months later and he was not the same person he was six months ago, and it was a win-win for both of us because I could do my job and his people could do their job. And then he could do his.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Their story can be your story too, and all it takes is one next step to get started. You shouldn’t have to do everything, and with a BELAY bookkeeper, you don’t have to visit belaysolutions.com today to start accomplishing more and juggling less.

Lisa Zeeveld:

What are maybe some practical things? Because I feel like you’ve done a great job, like I said, in the beginning of building it in, right, and I feel like you are a fantastic planner. And so there’s actually some tactical things that I have seen you do even in the seasons where maybe mentally you weren’t quite there yet because maybe we didn’t have the team thinking back 10 years ago, I feel like you had done some things tactically or practically that started to get you to that point of where then your mentality of, “Hey, let me unplug,” was able to finally catch up with each other.

Tricia Sciortino:

Yeah, yeah. And I know you have a great story as well, but yeah, for me, I was really the typical storybook executive who was working too much, burning myself out, burning everything at both ends of the table, not taking real PTO. At the end of the year, I was throwing away PTO because I wasn’t using all the time. All the horrible things y’all listening hear me, I’m talking about you, I was there. And I got to the place where I really hit a wall. And I remember my boss at the time, I’m just saying, “Oh my God, I’m so overwhelmed. I’m exhausted.”

Tricia Sciortino:

And he said, “I mean, you’re literally doing this to yourself, I am not telling you you should be working all these hours, you have to learn to put up boundaries. I am not applying this pressure on you to work all this, you need to find your boundaries.” So it was that then you marry that with the lifestyle that my husband likes to lead, and you know this because you know Paul.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yes, yes.

Tricia Sciortino:

My husband always says, and this has been quoted a few times, “We don’t live to work, we work to live,” and he says it all the time.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yes.

Tricia Sciortino:

And he’s like, “Your life is not your work, your work supports your life.” You have it backwards. And so between those two things, those were the catalysts for me to go, “I have to make a change.” And so I immediately just started putting a plan together and saying, “Okay, what are my goals?” And my goals were use all your PTO. I mean, that’s the goal. Use all your days, you’ve earned them, they’re given to you. Why would you not use them?

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yes.

Tricia Sciortino:

So now still today I have goals like don’t lose any of my days, use them all. And so even today as we sit, I mean, I have most of my PTO planned for the entire year because my goal is to not lose any of it and I should use it all, that’s goal number one. And then the second goal was when I’m taking that time to actually be present in that time.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yes.

Tricia Sciortino:

So don’t fake work, don’t take pretend PTO. It happens. One of the things that I’ve done that has helped me, and I know you do this as well and other leaders is I don’t always take a full PTO day, I’ll take a six hour PTO day. Because if I’m being honest with myself, I’m probably going to check email twice for an hour throughout the day sometimes. And setting a goal to use the time and then setting a goal to actually change how I use that time mattered, and then the last thing for me that very practically helped me is that as I was trying to wean myself off of work was turn off all of my notifications everywhere.

Tricia Sciortino:

So my phone, I don’t get email pop still to this day and it’s been five years. I have no email notifications on my phone, I get no slack notifications on my phone. Sometimes I’ve deleted my email from my phone.

Lisa Zeeveld:

I remember that. Yes, yes.

Tricia Sciortino:

I was like, “I am deleting my email from my phone on vacation because I have to force the disconnection.” So yeah, those were things tactically I’ve done, and it’s like any other new skillset. Once you figure out how this works, it’s like an awesome working muscle, then it’s easy. So now I know how to really do it. That’s my story. How about you?

Lisa Zeeveld:

No, I mean, I think it’s all the things you said. I think it’s the intentionality behind it. I think it’s going in with a plan and I think it’s scheduling it out because things that don’t get planned and don’t get scheduled, don’t get done. And so if you’re like, for me as a CFO, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m going to see how tax season turns out and if it looks like I got a week in there, it looks like I got a day in there, then I’ll just go ahead and put it in.” Instead of starting to sit there and go, Okay, well my daughter’s a senior this year, so hey, I know this is my last spring break that I kind of have control over, so spring break is not a great time for a CFO, let’s be real. It’s right in the middle of when everything happens financially. But for me it’s important.

Lisa Zeeveld:

And so I started to plan what it looks like for me to be gone during that time period because I owe it to my daughter to be present, I can’t get that time back with her. And so I owe it to her to be present and so I started planning that long before we got to where we are now where it’s a month away. And so that intentionality and that planning helps you set it up so that when it does come, and it’s a lot harder to cancel something than it is to schedule something.

Tricia Sciortino:

Especially on your child.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yes. Right.

Tricia Sciortino:

No. That’s a no.

Lisa Zeeveld:

No, no, no, no, no, no. So I find that scheduling things in advance, you just mentioned it, you’ve got yours all scheduled throughout the year. I don’t have that, but I do try my best to think about it ahead of time so that number one, I can let my team know. And then mentally it helps me get prepared to kind of walk away, because again, I shared at the beginning of the episode that I like what I do and I want to be involved and I want to hear what’s going on because I think BELAY is amazing.

Lisa Zeeveld:

And so it starts to help me mentally get prepared that, “No, no. You’re going to work on what you want to work on, things that are beneficial for you and your family and your health.” And so I think intentionality goes a long way. Putting deposits down on things also helps because then you’re going to go…

Tricia Sciortino:

You’re financially committed.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Right. Financially committed always helps, people don’t want to lose that money to do that. And then an accountability partner. I’m fortunate that not only do I get the opportunity to work for you, but you’re also my best friend. And so you’ll keep me accountable as well my husband and other friends that I’m surrounded with about, “Hey, you’re not looking too good. Have you taken a vacation recently or what you got planned?” I think that that is good tactical advice, even your executive assistant.

Tricia Sciortino:

You’re looking like you need a massage.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yes. And not be offended by it. But that’s one of the things I created for Kate and I is an expectations kind of document when we first started working together and that’s one of the expectations that I have for her is that she keeps me accountable for things, my goals and my hopes and dreams and all those things that I share with her that she can come alongside me and keep me accountable for that.

Lisa Zeeveld:

And so I think that if you think about the mental blocks and getting over those and the external blocks, really the practical advice is you got to schedule it and got to find someone to keep you accountable for it.

Tricia Sciortino:

Yeah, yeah. And your executive assistant is the best one. I mean, my Cameron will yell at me legit if I am working on a day that she knows I’m supposed to be on a PTO. If I send an email, I will get a text message, “Why are you in your inbox? You’re on PTO. I will handle your email.”

Tricia Sciortino:

I’m afraid of her at this point. But the intention is that she’s making sure I am not getting sucked in to the things that I… To your point. I have a response and so I feel like giving one even though I might be sitting on a beach and I should not be responding. And here’s the last thing I want to say about PTO also before we get into an actually super awesome bonus question here at the end minute, but what I was going to say is that you don’t actually have to have something planned to have PTO because I’ve heard people say, “Well, I don’t want to waste my time and I don’t have a trip plan so I don’t know when I’m going to use it. We’re not going to afford to take all these vacations, so I’m not going to use it.”

Tricia Sciortino:

And I said “you don’t have to be taking a trip somewhere to be using your time off.” I mean, a lot of my time off is used for I’m home, I’m taking a day because I’m having a self care day. I’m getting my nails done, I have a hair appointment and I’ll do it on a Thursday instead of on a Saturday. So that my Saturday I can just be home relaxed with the family or doing something fun. So I think not to let it ride or roll or be forgotten because you don’t have some vacation trip planned. I mean, staycations are honestly even more relaxing and rejuvenating and refreshing than a vacation that could be stressful and flights and travel and family and all the things.

Tricia Sciortino:

So I say marry your time with the staycation time, just days off to do life. Go shopping, see a girlfriend for lunch. And so I do a handful of those where I just put time off where actually, I mean, I’m not going anywhere, but I just need to get caught up on life stuff.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. No, that’s a good point and definitely shouldn’t be missed because I’m in agreement. I was thinking the other day that I remember 2020 and had spring break. Yeah, it had to be a spring break plan for my kids, and of course that’s when we had the shutdown. And so I ended up painting my screened in porch.

Tricia Sciortino:

Yes.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. And it’s time to be painted again, and I’m like, “Oh, but I did it in a whole week,” right, because I had to paint the floor and move everything out the way, and I’m like, “I need to take another week of vacation to paint the porch.” But I was like what a gift that was that I had that time to do it, and it would not have gotten done had I had to cancel my plans and my vacations. But to me that was really sort of a wake up call that I needed to do that more often because I think we’d all agree, weekends are not long enough and they get full of plans and things and it’s really hard to protect the time where you can just shut off and get things done, get errands done. Like you said, go visit a friend for lunch.

Tricia Sciortino:

Go do life things on a Tuesday.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah, on a Tuesday. Gosh, shopping on a Tuesday? That is glorious.

Tricia Sciortino:

The only lady in HomeGoods, I don’t know what’s better than that.

Lisa Zeeveld:

That’s right. Starbucks and HomeGoods, I might feel like I’m in heaven.

Tricia Sciortino:

Perfect Tuesday.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Hot chocolate Starbucks, let me clarify. I’m not a coffee drinker, so it’s hot chocolate, which is like dessert in a cup and home goods so.

Tricia Sciortino:

Especially with the whipped cream.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Oh, I know. Only every once in a while do I allow myself whipped cream? Oh my gosh, this conversation has been so good. Both Tricia and I are going to hang around a little while longer. You guys know this because we have been putting together some amazing bonus content for you.

Lisa Zeeveld:

After this interview, we’re going to answer one more question and it’s going to be about the pre-vacation sprint that many people find themselves in before taking time off. You absolutely don’t want to miss it. In order to hear the clip, you need to subscribe to our email list and we’ll send you a link to our bonus content, or you can always visit onenextsteppodcast.com where you can find the link in our show notes.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

LZ. That was such a good conversation with Tricia. I particularly loved your advice about putting deposits down on a trip so you have financial incentive to actually go. That’s a real life hack.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Thanks, Ryan. I’ve done it once or twice to motivate me. I mean, nobody wants to lose a deposit, right? I always love masterclass episodes with Tricia, but I think my favorite takeaway was in the bonus content. So listeners, make sure you catch that. Now, as you know, Ryan, every week we offer One Next Step for our listeners. This week, we’re offering BELAY’S delegation ebook, Delegate to Elevate. Head on over to our show notes page to download it now to kickstart your delegation journey.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Well, thank you so much for tuning in for today’s episode of One Next Step. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe on Apple Podcast or follow us on Spotify, you can find us anywhere podcasts are found. And if you’re ready to start accomplishing more and juggling less go belaysolutions.com.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Join us next time for more practical business tips and tools to help you advance your business one step at a time. For more episodes, show notes and helpful resources, visit onenextsteppodcast.com.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Join us next week for an important and meaningful Masterclass episode with BELAY’s own Tonia Benas and Beth Thompson. They’ll be sharing BELAY’s journey of building a culture of diversity and inclusion, as well as discussing why this is such an important topic for any company. Here’s a quick preview….

Beth Thompson:

Two of our top core values are God and team. And we truly hold to the idea that we’ve all been created in the image of God and therefore we all deserve to be valued. Additionally, if companies want to attract and retain top talent, it is absolutely, incumbent on us to focus on inclusion and belonging. And the thing is if you achieve that level of engagement, you’re not going to have to worry about retention because if your employees can bring their authentic selves to work, they will naturally be working from a place of strength.