Joe Casabona: Before my last vacation, I was telling people how I wasn't bringing my laptop with me, and the predominant response was, “Wow. Good for you”. As if it's completely unexpected that one wouldn't bring their laptop on vacation, because that is no longer the norm. People work on their vacations. We sadly live in a culture that glorifies hustling and always working and always being on, and I hate it. That's not why I started my business. And that's why I'm excited that we get to talk to Maegan Megginson today. She is a licensed therapist and holistic business mentor, and she's been preaching the good word of sabbaticals, which are different from vacations, but we're going to get into that mindset that we don't need to work all the time.
And so in today's episode, you're going to learn why sabbaticals aren't just for academics with tenure. We're going to quiet those limiting beliefs that you can't take a sabbatical, and then we're going to get into the finer details of exactly what goes in to taking a sabbatical.
I wanna thank Maegan for her time. She's an absolute delight, and this was a fantastic conversation. You can find everything that we talk about in the description below or over at [streamlined.fm].
Welcome to the Streamlined Solopreneur, a show for busy solopreneurs to help you improve your systems and processes so you can build a business while spending your time the way you want. I know you're busy, so let's get started.
Alright. I'm here with Maegan Megginson, a Holistic Business Mentor and Licensed Therapist, and I'm super excited to talk about this topic because it's something I've been thinking about for a long time.
Maegan, welcome to the show.
Maegan Megginson: I'm so glad to be here, Joe. Thanks for having me.
Joe Casabona: Thanks for coming on.
So let's dive right into it. What's a sabbatical? I thought that was just like a thing college professors took as soon as they got tenure.
Maegan Megginson: Yes. I'm, I love that you started with that because I thought that for a long time too. I thought sabbatical was this, like, I don't know, prestigious, pretentious thing that only fancy academic people got to do.
And I realized, from a place of personal desperation, which I'm sure we'll talk about, that actually sabbatical is for everyone and that small business owners in particular can really benefit from a sabbatical practice.
So, sabbatical root word, Sabbath. Sabbath means to rest. I like to think of sabbaticals as extended time away from our business to experience deep rest, to really reset, recharge, reconnect to ourselves so that we can show up for our business from a place of clarity, purpose, intention, and being well-rested.
I find that people who do sabbaticals regularly are able to operate much more sustainably than people who are on that hamster wheel going, you know, a million miles a minute 24/7 until maybe one day they can retire.
So, sabbatical is really a way to step off of the hamster wheel and give your body a chance to reset so that you can be your best self for your business.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And I think that's really important to think about. You know, I feel like since the pandemic, there's been a countercultural movement against hustle culture, but we still see people saying, like, yeah. You gotta hustle in your twenties and work really hard or whatever. But, like I think of our our energy and our bandwidth, like a rubber band, and, like, stretching it and stretching it, will eventually make it snap. But, like, maybe, like, taking that sabbatical will let it, like, reset a little bit. Right? And then you'll get, like, full elasticity.
Maegan Megginson: Yeah. Yeah. The sabbatical is a chance to come inward, and I like the image of the rubber band. Yeah. What are we pulling against, and when are we relaxing and resting? And then there are seasons where we are really exerting. We're putting a lot of effort out into the world, into our creations, and then there are seasons when we need to come inward and we need to reflect and rest.
Winter is a great example of that. Just thinking about the cycles of nature. Right? Winter is a natural time in nature when everything goes inward. The energy goes underground. The bears go into hibernation. It's important to remember that as business owners, we're not separate from nature. Right? There's not that there's not that much different between Joe and a tree. We share a lot in common and we have to find ways as business owners to create energy cycles inside of our businesses. Periods where we can rest, periods where we can step forward and grow. And I think of a sabbatical as a really powerful way to practice seasons of rest inside of my business.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I love that. I would just say, like, if you wanna know my age, you don't have to cut me open. I'll just tell you my age instead of you having to count my rings.
So, but, when we talk about this sabbatical taking a break, I think there's probably, like, a bigger cultural thing too that's like, I went on vacation, and I didn't bring my laptop. And I got a number of people saying, like, oh, good for you. And I really feel like the appropriate response is, why would you bring your laptop on vacation? Right? But it's not that. It's like, oh, wow. I can't believe you're gonna go, like, a week without having your laptop in front of you.
Maegan Megginson: Yeah. It's kind of shock and awe. Shock and awe and sometimes projection too. I think sometimes people feel a bit resentful when they see us taking extended time away to rest and then they put that onto us in ways that can feel weird. Oh, good for you. Good for you that you, like, got to take it's like, I'm sorry. You're being sassy with me right now? Like, what is this energy exchange between us?
You're right. I wish we lived in a world where rest and prioritizing life were the default, but we don't. We live inside of capitalism and patriarchy and white supremacy, and these are all oppressive systems that have conditioned us to think that we have to hustle and we have to just work our asses off forever so that we can prove our worth, prove our value to the world.
Doing something like an unplugged vacation or a sabbatical or a long weekend where you just close the computer and don't think about work, these are acts of resistance truly. And, people around you are gonna have a response. But just know that you are modeling for other people, that resting and caring for yourself as a business owner is a really healthy thing to do that everyone has access to.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I agree wholeheartedly. I wanna share one story, and then we'll kind of get into how you started on this path towards being a sabbatical advocate, a sabbadvocate. No. I don't think that's gonna work.
Maegan Megginson: We'll workshop that later. Yeah.
Joe Casabona: We'll workshop that later. Yeah. But I remember the first, maybe not the first, but one of, like, the bigger vacations I took when I still had a full-time job. My first day of vacation, I landed on the plane. I had some time. I checked my phone, and I saw an email from my boss. And it said, Joe, if you have some downtime, and I didn't, I don't even know what the rest of that email says. I deleted it. Like I was like, I can't believe your, I can't believe this. Right
And, like, the same thing has happened, like, when I was on paternity. Like, my company was, generous enough to give me like, paid paternity. And, a project manager put a meeting on my calendar during that leave. And I was like, hi. I don't exist. Like, I don't exist until April 9 when I come back. And they're like, but, like, the but we need and I'm like, don't exist. You can't need anything from somebody who doesn't exist.
Maegan Megginson: So, I love that you held that boundary. Uh-huh.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And they were really important to me. Right? Because in my younger days, well, my relative younger days because I was those were younger days too. But, you know, I have seen and subsequently was, like, taken advantage of for, like, being that, young upstart, go get them sort of thing.
You know, when I had a girlfriend and wife and kids, like, my priorities changed significantly. So what led you down the path to advocating that people take sabbaticals?
Maegan Megginson: The year was 2018. I'm just kidding. I'm not gonna tell you the story like that.
Joe Casabona: But I was here for it. I was here. Right?
Maegan Megginson: Yeah. I know you were like, oh, let's listen to this tale.
So, way back in 2018, which feels like 15 lifetimes ago, at this point. We've been through so much since then. But 2018, I was in the process of growing my first business. So, I started my career as a licensed therapist and reached that point where I was ready for something more. I was ready, my ambition was kind of busting out of the shell.
So I decided to start a group practice, which is like an agency, basically for therapists, hiring other therapists to see clients within the business container I had created. And I figured out pretty quickly that that wasn't the best business model for me, but at that point, I was in it. You know, some cost fallacy. Like, I was too far into it to back out of it.
But there were so many things that weren't aligning for me energetically. I was really feeling a lot of stress. I was on the precipice of burnout, and I could feel myself really just like on the edge of, well, like, I was just about to pass the point of no return, and I was worried that the point of no return would be burning it all to the ground.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Maegan Megginson: I didn't wanna get to that point. So I had the idea. I was like, I think I need a sabbatical. And I was like, that's so weird. Like, what even is a sabbatical? And I'm not a professor, and do I get to do that?
And I just knew intuitively, it was calling to me, like, you need to step away. And this isn't a decision you're making because, like, it's you're going on a you know, you're not going on a great vacation, like, you have to do this for your health.
So I did. I stepped away, for it was five or six weeks. That sabbatical, it was over the holidays, so that was a little bit complicated. I don't recommend doing your sabbatical over, like, Christmas or New Year. But I did it over that time, and it was so profound, the experience I had. I had never in my life up to this point stepped away from my obligations entirely for an extended amount of time.
And that space really allowed me to slow down, care for my body, kind of get myself back to a healthy baseline, and then start reflecting on what's going on here. Who are you? What are you doing? What do you want? It's an opportunity to reorient yourself to your life, and then by extension, you get to reorient yourself to your business.
And when I stepped back into the business after that sabbatical, I really had a deep sense of knowing what changes I needed to make to make it work better for me, of knowing kind of the direction that I wanted to head professionally myself. There was just so much information I had access to now that I didn't before. And I knew that the sabbatical practice, it needed to become a staple in my life as a business owner.
And since then, 2018, I've taken a sabbatical almost every year. And now it's a core part of my business as a holistic business mentor is working with small business owners, supporting them through the sabbatical process.
And I just witnessed, Joe, like, over and over again, magic happens when people give themselves permission to step away and meet themselves in a really deep and meaningful way. So now I just, I want it, I want it for everyone because I think as human beings, we deserve to have seasons of winter inside of our businesses.
Joe Casabona: And, like, as business owners, like, part of the reason like, it's almost like if we had full-time jobs and we had, like, four weeks vacation, we would take them because we'd have them or we'd lose them. But, I don't know. I started my business owner to have or I started my business to have more freedom.
And so a core part of that was, like, making it so I don't feel like I'm chained to my desk because that's counterintuitive to why I started.
Maegan Megginson: Yeah. I know. And it's I think about this and talk about this with my clients a lot. I often ask my clients in our first sessions together, take me back in time to the day you decided to start your business and, like, paint the fantasy for me. What did you imagine life would be like? Why were you making this big courageous leap into entrepreneurship? And it almost always has to do with I want more freedom and flexibility in my life.
And then, sadly, freedom and like freedom and flexibility are, like, the first things we give up when we start running our business. They're the first things to go when rubber hits the road. So I do think of sabbatical as an opportunity to really claim that no, no, I'm doing this. I'm working for myself. I'm holding the risk of owning this business so that I can do things like take paternity leave, give myself a sabbatical. Whatever it is, I need to live a well-balanced life, my business is going to pay me to do that.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And something else you said that I think is really important to repeat, because I would feel like I would definitely stack Christmas vacation with a sabbatical, is
Maegan Megginson: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Don't do it over Christmas or New Year's. Right? I think, like, the inclination is like, hey. No one's around anyway, and I'm probably gonna take a bunch of days off there. Right? So, like, what I feel like I probably just answered it. But, like, why not? Why not combine Christmas and New Year's with a sabbatical?
Maegan Megginson: Well, I think it's helpful to think about sabbatical and vacation as two totally different things. And often, the holidays coincide with more of like, a vacation time off. Right?
So when we're taking vacation, we have an agenda. Right? We're we are our vacations usually involve other people, and we have lots of plans. We have an agenda. It's gonna be a pretty high energy output when we go on vacation.
Same thing around the holidays. There's a lot happening. We've got a lot of social obligations. Great. We need vacations. We need that kind of social recharge. We need those joyful experiences. But that is totally one eighty different from a sabbatical.
Sabbatical is going into the cave, hibernating, being quiet, being alone, finding solitude, reflecting, doing, you know, healing activities. So when we try to overlap the two, you know, when we say, like, I'm gonna take a sabbatical, and I'm sure we'll talk about this, but I recommend four-week sabbaticals for people who are just starting with this practice.
And when you try to take a four-week sabbatical and say, I'm gonna take I'm gonna take a two-week vacation at the end of the sabbatical. It's like, well, then actually you're just taking a vacation. And you're not gonna really feel fully satisfied with either experience because you're blending two things that don't fit together.
So, the holiday season is just an example like that for me, at least the holiday season isn't a naturally introspective time. It's more of a busy meeting, social obligations time. So do yourself a favor and don't try to piggyback one on the other because it's just not gonna feel as good as if you really separate them and treat them as two different things.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. It's almost like saying, like, I want pizza and I want a chocolate fountain, so I'm just gonna dip my pizza in a chocolate fountain. Like, that's not gonna taste good. As a New Yorker and an Italian, I would strongly advise against that.
Maegan Megginson: I mean, like, would I try it? Yes.
Joe Casabona: I mean, yeah. I would try it for sure.
Maegan Megginson: I would try it, but yeah. But it would probably be kinda weird. And yeah, where I wouldn't fully enjoy the chocolate. I wouldn't fully enjoy the pizza. Never the two shall mix, and that's okay. Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. As an aside, I almost said pineapple and pizza, but I know that some people will be very mad at me for that.
Maegan Megginson: So, you immediately lose 40% of your listenership. They're like…
Joe Casabona: Right. So chocolate, normal greasy cheese pizza dipped in chocolate. That's, nobody wants that.
Maegan Megginson: Okay. That's weird. Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Okay. So this is really good. I agree wholeheartedly. I always feel like I need a recovery day when I get back from a vacation.
Maegan Megginson: Right. Exactly.
Joe Casabona: And, like, we're taking our kids to Disney World at the beegginning of May, and…
Maegan Megginson: Oh, man.
Joe Casabona: I just time-stamped this. Sorry, everybody. But, like, I'm, like, mentally preparing myself for what that's going to be. And it sounds like with a sabbatical, you should almost be a little, I don't wanna say bored. Maybe bored is not the right word, but maybe it is. Like, you should have a lot of downtime.
Maegan Megginson: Yes. Bored is a great word, honestly. I think as a society, you know, we live in the information age. We live in the overstimulation age. We have forgotten the medicine and the magic of being bored. You know, being bored is a crucial element of the creative process.
And as business owners, we are inherently creative people. We are creators. We are creating things in the world. We we even if you don't feel like an artist or you don't identify as an artist, I'm gonna say you are an artist. You are creating a business. And being bored and having time to just sit with your thoughts in solitude and silence is a crucial part of the creative process.
I also want people to experience the magic of timelessness. Right? To experience in your body, like, not knowing what day it is and having nothing on the calendar and having no one expecting anything from you and really just being able to get to know your nervous system and your creative energy in a more free flowing intuitive way, that is such a rich way to learn more about who you are. And the more you know yourself as a business owner, the more you're going to be able to create a business that is a true reflection of you.
And the more our businesses become reflections of who we are, the less we're going to struggle with burnout. So it all fits together.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I like that a lot. I've stolen a page out of Bill Gates' book, and I've done, like, think weekends, right, where I go to an Airbnb and whatever.
Maegan Megginson: Love that.
Joe Casabona: But, I mean, that's just a weekend, and Bill Gates is super rich. I can I can hear listeners through the echoes of time saying, that's great. But, like, I'm a solopreneur. I have coaching clients. You know, I sell courses. I can't just disappear for a month. Right. What would you say to those people?
Maegan Megginson: Oh, I have a lot to say to those people. First of all, I get it. I get it. I've been there. I'm a solopreneur too. I'm the only breadwinner in my family. It all hinges on me and has since 2016.
Joe Casabona: Wow. So real strong argument, by the way, because, like, my wife is a nurse and so, like, her our health care comes from her and, like, she makes a bad half. So, like, very strong argument happening here.
Maegan Megginson: Yeah. I and I, it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I realized, like, I should share this part of my story because it's like really this is really important that you can do this as the primary breadwinner or whatever your story is, you can do this.
So let's take a couple of steps back. What would I say to people who are really in that resistant place? Yeah. First of all, I wanna say I get it. I get where you're coming from. I want to acknowledge that it does take financial privilege, time privilege to be able to do something like take an extended amount of time off. That is all true.
And also, you have that privilege as a small business owner. That is the trade off. Right? Why do we not work for somebody else? Why do we not have a 9-5 PM? Because we want freedom and flexibility in our lives. You have that freedom and flexibility. I believe that small business owners have an incredible opportunity to create massive social change because of the agency that we have over our time and our energy.
The next step, then, is just getting a little bit strategic about how you can organize your finances within your business to support you taking time away. And four weeks. I know four weeks at the moment might sound like a crazy amount of time. But if we really zoom out and think about your entire life, four weeks is a drop in the bucket. Most people aren't even gonna notice that you're out of the office when you're gone for a month. It's not really that much time.
I really like four weeks because I find, for most people, it takes about two weeks for your nervous system to really settle down. Takes about two weeks to kind of feel through all of your anxiety and all of your stress and all of your worries. It's your, all of that kind of yucky hard stuff is rolling through your nervous system, and it takes about two weeks to really move that through and settle down. And then the next two weeks are when you get to relax into yourself and really be introspective and reflective and ask some really big questions. So that four-week marker is effective for a lot of people.
Now, if that feels like a crazy, unreasonable place to start, do whatever feels accessible to you. Three days? Cool. One week? Fantastic.
This, at the core, is about intention. How much intention am I bringing to the time that I'm taking away from my business? And if you can only swing three days, a long weekend to get started, beautiful. If you infuse it with intention and the intention being to step away, to breathe, to slow down, to be with yourself, I guarantee you are going to learn something new in that experience that sets you up for success in the future.
So meet yourself where you're at, but also if you feel like you're in a place where you can tolerate a bit of a challenge or a stretch, I encourage you to aim for that four-week sabbatical. A lot of people have to plan it a year in advance, especially if you have a business model that involves a lot of your time like, day to day. Right? You have coaching clients on retainer. You have a fill-in-the-blank. You have things happening that require hands-on attention on a day-to-day basis. You don't have, like, lots of passive income coming in, etcetera. You're gonna have to plan in advance.
Really get clear with yourself though. Like, how far in advance do you really have to plan? If you have to plan it a year in advance, great. If you can do six months, better. If you can do three months, awesome. You probably really need the time now.
But be realistic. What is your monthly overhead? This is where we can start thinking about it financially. What's your monthly overhead, including what you pay yourself? That gives you a financial target. You now know how much money you need to start saving up so that when your sabbatical month comes, the money is there. The bills are paid. Your paycheck is the same. That's what I want for you on sabbatical. I don't want you to take an unpaid sabbatical unless you have a partner who has a great job. If you can afford to take an unpaid sabbatical, take it. That's awesome. I've never been in that position. Right? I personally haven't been in a position where I could do it unpaid. So I have to plan financially in advance so that when my sabbatical comes around, all of the expenses are covered.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I think this is a really smart thing to consider, because we're not just saying, like, go off and do a sabbatical right now. Right? We're saying, like, plan for it.
Two things came to mind while you were talking. The, so I mentioned, I think, before we started recording, Stephen Hackett of Relay.fm took a sabbatical last year, and one of the things he talked about when he came back was exactly what you said. Like, it took him about two weeks to settle in.
Maegan Megginson: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: And then he had, like, two really good weeks of, like, big picture thinking and doing, you know, like, being with his family. Undistracted and not worrying about, like, what's happening in Slack.
The other thing that I would say is, I know this is different for everybody. But for me personally, I built a business where, like, you know, we don't, you know, I don't have the codes. I don't have the nuclear codes. I don't, if I disappear, like, a business isn't gonna crumble. No one's accidentally including me on a signal thread, you know, for OPSEC or whatever.
So, I purposefully built that business. So that I could possibly step away and, like, you know, the world's not gonna crumble if I'm gone for a few weeks.
Maegan Megginson: Yeah. Yeah. And even if you do something that you feel is really important. Well, everything we all do is really important.
Joe Casabona: Mhmm.
Maegan Megginson: The world's a big place. We all matter. But like you're saying, I doubt anybody listening to this conversation has the type of business where someone's life is going to be in jeopardy
Joe Casabona: Mhmm.
Maegan Megginson: If you step away. I think some of the core fears here, and I'd be curious what, like, some of your fears are too, Joe, around this. I think some of the core fears about stepping away are becoming irrelevant. Right? I think a lot of people think, oh, but if I step away, if I'm if I'm not on social or if I don't publish a newsletter, if I don't go to the networking event, people are gonna forget about me. You know, some new trend is gonna come in and I'm gonna miss the boat and I'm gonna be behind and I'm never gonna be able to catch up. I think that the fear of becoming irrelevant is big for a lot of people.
And another fear I've hear a lot for service providers, people who work primarily with 1on1 clients, is if I “disappear”, which I wanna talk come back to that in a minute, the disappearing. Like, if I disappear for a month, like, all of my clients are gonna disappear too. Nobody's gonna wanna come back and continue working with me. I'm gonna have to start from scratch.
And those, so those are two of the fears that I hear most often. The irrelevant piece, like, let's just call BS on that. Like, no. You're not gonna it's one month. No one's gonna know you're gone. No one's gonna care. Like, people do not care about us or think about us as much as we think they do.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. It's very like I'm the main character thinking. Right? like everyone thinks they're the main character in their own story.
Maegan Megginson: Yeah. And in your story, you are, but not in everyone else's story.
Joe Casabona: Right.
Maegan Megginson: Right. You are like maybe tertiary at best for, like, most other people. Most people aren't gonna notice that you're gone. Or if they find out you're gone, they're gonna be cool. They're gonna be like, cool. That's awesome.
Joe Casabona: Right.
Maegan Megginson: Okay. I'll just talk to you literally two weeks from now. No big deal. So you're not gonna become irrelevant. Maybe if you disappeared for three years, okay, that's a different conversation. But we're just talking about one month. Not a big deal.
The client fears. Most people I talk to who have this fear really are holding this frame of, like, I'm gonna disappear, and then my clients are gonna feel abandoned or they're gonna go find some other provider. I'm not gonna have any client.
I'm like, well, the problem with that thinking is that you're not disappearing. Like, you're gonna give your clients so much notice that this is happening. And what I find for myself and for the clients, the business owners I work with who are doing a sabbatical, is that most clients are actually insatiably curious when they hear you're taking a sabbatical. They're like, what? What is that? How do you do it? What does it mean? They're happy for you to be taking time off, and what you're doing is modeling for your clients that, like, this is something you can do too.So you give people plenty of notice, and you negotiate with them before you leave about your relationship together.
So if you're on a retainer with a client, for example, you negotiate ahead of time to say, okay. We're gonna pause your payments for the month of December. We're gonna pick back up in January. Will some clients decide that they don't wanna come back? Sure. Maybe a couple. But I have never spoken to anyone who's done this, who has come back from sabbatical, and, like, every client has disappeared. I just don't. I don't think that's really how it works.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I mean, if you're, if you have a good relationship with your clients. Right? It's, I've had some coaching clients who didn't need me for a month. Right? They paid the retainer, but, like, we didn't meet. Right? And so I think what you're saying is really, really important. A month is not that long.
Maegan Megginson: Right.
Joe Casabona: January really, like, proved that I've done a good job setting up, like, my automations and systems, which we'll talk about, like, how do we do it, and I feel like I would implement a lot of automations.
But, January was crazy for me. Like, I took the first week off because it was part of kids' school. Like, they because New Year's fell on a Wednesday, the school just decided, well, we'll pick it up on the sixth. And then there were snow days, and then I traveled for a conference, and then I caught the plague that ravaged the school.
And then there were more snow days. So, like, as far as, like, working hours in January, I had 20 at best. Wow. Like, and I wasn't horribly behind. Like and no one was like Joe, where are you? Right? Yeah. People were like, Oh, I'm sorry to hear that you were sick and traveling and snow. So, like, a month is not that long.
Maegan Megginson: Totally. It's not that long. It feels long because you've been working probably since adolescence.
Joe Casabona: Right.
Maegan Megginson: And we're conditioned as workers post-industrial revolution that time off is something we have to earn, and it's something that we get in little tiny doses.
So we really do have generations of conditioning here that tells us four weeks is an astronomical amount of time to take away from your job. But when we zoom out and look at everything in context, like we're doing right now, we can see that that's dumb. And four weeks actually isn't that long, and everything's gonna be okay.
And there's no better gift you can give to your clients or to your business than taking time to recharge your batteries and really deeply reflect on what you wanna create with your business moving forward. You are better for your clients if you're gone for a month and you come back recharged than you are if you push through burnout.
Joe Casabona: Mhmm.
Maegan Megginson: That's when you'll lose clients because you're not doing a good job as a provider.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And it was like, that's so apparent if you hop on a call and you're, like, on the verge of burnout and you're unprepared and, like, you can't think clearly
Maegan Megginson: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: It's so, I felt that recently. Like, I didn't make enough time in my week and, like drop-off ran long, and there was a sinkhole, and there was traffic. And so, like,I got into my office.
Maegan Megginson: That's pretty weird.
Joe Casabona: Into my office. Yeah. Everyone was okay, luckily. I think it happened, like, overnight, and it was just, like, being repaired. But like, rolled into my office as soon as this call was starting, and it was so obvious how unprepared I was. And, like, I think I made it up to the client. Like, I sent them, like, an extra-long video and did it, but, like, that's a bad feeling.
Maegan Megginson: It's terrible. Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Like, I'm a teacher. My goal is to teach, and I did it so ineffectively.
Maegan Megginson: I don't think we don't talk enough as business owners about how bad it feels when we know we're not delivering. Like, that feels so bad to know client after client that, like, they are not getting my best. I'm not getting my best. My best doesn't exist right now because I am so crispy. I'm so burnt out.
Yeah. And then the shame that we feel, and then the anxiety that we feel, and then we get caught in a spiral where we start wanting to avoid our work because of how bad oof. No. I'm just that's a no for me, and I want everyone to know that you don't have to feel that way. You don't have to stay stuck in those negative spirals. You can step away. You can take care of yourself, create something better.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Which, by the way, those spirals, like, I've been in like, that, I've had those spirals sometimes where it's been, like, six weeks, two months where I'm just, like, in a funk, and I'm not doing my best work, and I don't even wanna try to find client work. And so, like, when you think, oh, wow. Burnout could cost me two, three, or four months. One month is like an investment to prevent the rest of that time from slipping away. Right?
Maegan Megginson: Yeah. Especially if you're still paying yourself that month while you're away. It's like, what do you have to lose here? Nothing.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Maegan Megginson: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Okay. I'm convinced. Hopefully, the listeners are convinced.
Maegan Megginson: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: How do we do it? Right? We talked a little bit about figuring out our financial overhead and having a discussion with clients, but like, the main questions that I'm thinking about are, like, how offline am I? Am I gonna come back from sabbatical to an email inbox of, like, a thousand when I try to keep it to, like, four? What's it look like, practically speaking?
Maegan Megginson: Great question.
So, my structure for sabbatical follows the same structure that I use as a psychedelic facilitator. So, I've worked with psychedelics for myself in my journey and have learned so much from the process of using plant medicines around how we prepare for an experience and how we integrate an experience afterwards.
Here's the connection point. Psychedelics create altered state experiences. Maybe you've heard that term before.
Altered state experience is just a way of saying that your consciousness is in a state that is not normal. It is different. It is drastically different from the regular flow of your day-to-day life. And one day, I realized, years after I had been doing sabbaticals, I was like, oh my god. Sabbaticals are altered state experiences. They are extended altered state experiences. You don't even have to do psychedelics. You can if you want to, but you don't have to. Like, the sabbatical on its own is an altered state experience because you are creating a drastic change in your regular state of consciousness by removing yourself from your normal working environment.
So when I made that connection, I realized that the best thing we can do to have a positive experience on sabbaticals is to give ourselves structure. So I think about sabbatical in three phases: preparation, the actual sabbatical experience, and integration.
Preparation is everything you are going to do before your sabbatical begins. And this is when you're gonna answer those questions that you just asked, Joe. What is my structure going to be for sabbatical? How online or offline am I going to be? Where am I going to be? You get to answer all of these questions. I do recommend being totally offline from any place that triggers your brain to think about work. Absolutely, I recommend no email.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Maegan Megginson: No email. The second you get into your inbox, oop, your brain's thinking about work again. But you have to set your own boundaries with this. When I'm on sabbatical, I, usually find somebody to do, like, a weekly inbox check for me just to make sure there's no, like, emergencies in the inbox. That helps calm me down.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Maegan Megginson: I feel a little less stressed, a little less worried about it because I know somebody's got their eye on it. But you have to set your own boundaries. So think about what kind of experience you want for yourself.
And I also want you to think pre-sabbatical about what kind of support you might need during your sabbatical. Some people have never spent time with nothing to do. You know, they've never just, like, met themselves in this way, and it feels really scary. So what do you need? Do you think you need to be meeting with a therapist during this time? Do you want a coach? Do you want someone like me who's helping you actually move through the sabbatical experience? Do you want a sabbatical buddy? Maybe a colleague who's doing the sabbatical alongside you? What kind of support do you need to feel contained and really held during your sabbatical experience? Make your own rules. That's where we begin.
Maegan Megginson: Does that make sense, or do you have, like, more questions about that?
Joe Casabona: No. I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, so you don't want it to feel like solitary confinement. Right?
Maegan Megginson: No. Not unless you want that.
Joe Casabona: Right. Right.
Maegan Megginson: Sometimes I want that.
Joe Casabona: Sometimes I want that. I know. I tell, when my daughter says she's bored, I say I would kill to be bored, and then I think I could kill and be bored in prison. Like, less than ideal, though. I'd miss a lot of people.
Maegan Megginson: Yeah. Less than ideal, for sure.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. But, I I like the, I like that you kinda get to design it. I had a couple of thoughts around implementation. That's where my brain always goes.
Maegan Megginson: Love that.
Joe Casabona: So when I went, we did a two-week honeymoon when my wife and I got married. We're a good Catholic couple, and so we figured this would be our last big trip before kids, and we were very accurate with that prediction. But I didn't bring my laptop. I didn't even bring my primary phone. I brought, like, a burner phone, essentially. And so, like, I had a friend, you know, I managed websites at the time, and I'm like, hey. If something like, you've got the keys to the kingdom, if something goes down, you'll be shocked to learn that nary a single email about someone's website came in those two weeks. I'm like, how'd it go? He's like, nobody said anything. And I'm like, great.
So I like that. I thought, you know, I get some, like, email newsletters and stuff like that, but our devices, depending on how much you wanna have your device, allow us to draw pretty strong boundaries. So, like, I have like a personal focus mode on my iPhone where I only see my personal email. I would probably want to avoid that too. I've just, like, given my email address out to so many people. And so, I like what you said about having someone, like, check in on the inbox every so often.
And then, yeah, disconnecting feels like a really hard thing. Right? Like, I'm a news junkie. I have, in the last three months, we'll say, reduced my news intake. So I only get, like, the broad strokes. But, like, I also have friends who text me, can you believe this? Or my dad's like, can you believe that? And I'm like, I'm actively trying not to even think I should believe this.
Maegan Megginson: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: So I think there's, like you know, as far as how do you communicate, like, my parents are boomers. Right? And I obviously would wanna talk to my parents in that month, but, like, how do I communicate with the family and friends and, like, hey. I'm going on sabbatical. I'm really trying to, like, reduce my news intake or reduce my work intake. Like, what does that look like, or am I overthinking it?
Maegan Megginson: Well, it sounds like you just did it. Yeah. I think you're over, I think you're overthinking it. I think you're overthinking it with the disclaimer that if you are a person who's not setting boundaries in your life right now, let's be realistic about how many boundaries you're gonna set before you go on sabbatical. Right? Boundaries are, it's what's your relationship with boundaries overall in your life right now? Would it be totally weird and out of the blue for your friends and family to have you say, hey, I'm doing this thing. Here are my boundaries. Here's how you can support me during this time. Are they gonna be like, what? What are you talking about? Okay. Then, you know, we might wanna start a little bit smaller than that.
But if you're someone who does have a practice of telling the people you love what you're up to and what you need, then what you did was perfect. I'm taking a sabbatical. Here's what that means. Here's what I'm doing. Here's how you can support me during that time.
So I really like in lots of things in life, sabbatical in particular, framing boundaries for the people we love as here's how you can support me. Right? It's not just like, here's what you are and aren't allowed to do. It's Joe, here's how you can I'm doing this thing. Here's how you can support me. I'm really gonna try to spend the week being pretty unplugged. So you can support me by not sending any news articles to me during this month.
And I really appreciate that in our relationship, we can talk about current affairs, and we keep each other plugged in. I really like that about our relationship, but for this month, that's a hard no for me. Can you support me by not sending me any news articles next month?
And it's like, get you in on it. You know? People who love us love being a part of our healthy lives. So when we can ask people for their support and then be really clear about how they can support us, usually, they're down. If they're not down, I might encourage you to just think about whether or not that relationship is actually serving you in a broader way. But most people who love you are gonna be down to support you in ways that you ask to be supported.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Very, that's really good affirm>? It's a reaffirmation. That's probably the right word. Because I think it's, like, hard, like, you know, we get we let our insecurities get the best of us a little bit and say, like, you know, oh, my dad's 72. He's gonna be like, sabbatical? What?
Maegan Megginson: Yeah. And he might.
Joe Casabona: Right. And he might. But he would just like when I started my business right out of college, he was like, Business? What? But he still supported me. Right? So…
Maegan Megginson: Exactly. Exactly. A lot of people aren't gonna understand what you're doing because so few people do this in our culture. So few people take extended time away. That's why I like to frame this as an act of resistance against our culture at large, that when you are taking a sabbatical and you are then telling the people in your life that you're doing this, you're gonna get a lot of confused stares. You know, what? Why are you doing that? Some people might even push back. They might be sassy with you.
You're Teflon. You just let it wash right off of you. You are doing something drastically different, and people, when they see you doing it, are gonna have to, like, adjust their whole world view to make room for the new reality that maybe people like them and like you can take extended time away. So just be ready for that. Be ready for that.
This is also why I always say don't sabbatical alone. Don't take a sabbatical in isolation because this is a crazy experience that most people in your life are gonna have no familiarity with. So be really clear about the support that you need. Who do you need in your corner? Is there a community of business owners you can lean on who are having similar conversations like this?
This is why I started my podcast, because I was like, we need to have touchpoints as entrepreneurs with more people who are having these sorts of out-of-the-box businesses, we don't feel crazy. Right? We need to know that we are supported by people who get what we're doing.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I think that makes a ton of sense.
I know we're coming up on time. Your show is called Deeply Rested, so I'll link that in the description below and over at [streamlined.fm]. So that was prep. Let's talk about experience and integration. Right? Like
Maegan Megginson: So these…Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Oh, I was gonna say, like, when I hear like, when I hear sabbatical, I think like, my ideal sabbatical would be like a cabin in the woods.
Maegan Megginson: Love that. I love a cabin in the woods if that's in the cards for you. You can also just do it from home. Yeah. So this is, again, one of those places.
Joe Casabona: More realistic for me.
Maegan Megginson: More realistic. Yeah. And maybe budgetary, whatever. It's like this is another one of those places where your financial constraints are going to help you decide what this experience is like for you.
I haven't yet done a sabbatical where I have left my house. I do love that vision. I'm a maybe, I'll do that next winter, like Cabin in the Woods. Love that.
You can do it at home. Right? You don't have to go, you don't have to make it fancy. But during that preparation phase, you're going to decide what your structure is, what your rules are for yourself, what your intention is. So that is key. You have to have an intention for your sabbatical. That intention is gonna be your focus point because we don't want you just to have four weeks where you feel totally aimless.
Joe Casabona: Mhmm.
Maegan Megginson: That's not super helpful. So your intention might be to recover from burnout. It might be to get clear on my next direction. It might be to really understand why my work isn't feeling fulfilling for me right now. It could be anything, but like, pick an intention and clarify it and then hold on to it. I want you to touch it every single day while you're on sabbatical. Think about it, create art about it, write about it, talk to friends about it over coffee. Like, that intention is gonna guide you through that four-week experience.
And then we get to integration, and this is the most important part of the sabbatical experience. The most important part of a sabbatical is what happens when the sabbatical is over. Because if the sabbatical ends and you jump right back into the life you were living before, and you don't take time to really weave what you learned from sabbatical into your actual life, it will all be for naught. And I don't want that for you because that really sucks. You have to integrate.
So when I'm coming back from sabbatical, I like to schedule a week that's really a light-touch week in my business. Like, that week, really, I'm just cleaning out my inbox, taking time every day for integration. So I'm really writing down and thinking about what do I wanna change? What needs to be different? What did I learn during my sabbatical that I don't wanna forget? What's important to me now that I need to weave in to the infrastructure of my business moving forward? This integration week is your time to really crystallize and clarify what changes you are going to make because of what you learned on this sabbatical.
And then that integration continues literally forever. Right? Forever moving forward, you are always integrating what you're learning about yourself into your business, and you have to make sure that there is time in your schedule to do that work. Right? We get burnt out because we're so busy that we don't have time to pay attention. You have to have time in your business to pay attention to how you're doing, to what you need. Gotta have that creative space to think of new ideas and to be able to make changes. That is all part of the sabbatical integration process.
Joe Casabona: Really, really love this. Because first of all, it's like there's no one right way to do a sabbatical. Right?
Maegan Megginson: Correct.
Joe Casabona: You know? Li you said, I would not, I mean, like, any if I were to take a sabbatical, right, my gut instinct would be don't go down to my though my laundry room is next to my office, so I'll have to pass by my office.
Maegan Megginson: Same. Same. Close the door.
Joe Casabona: But, you know, yeah. Yeah. I have three small kids, and so I'd wanna be there and more present for them. And so it's not like I could completely remove myself from the day-to-day life of that stuff. But if I'm, when they're at school, happily, they are all in, like, full-time school now.
Maegan Megginson: Love that for you.
Joe Casabona: Thank you. You know, when they're in school and my wife is at work, you know, I can see myself. I have, like, a shed, some man cave. I don't know if that's, like, an okay term still, but I call them an okay.
Maegan Megginson: I think that’s okay.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Alright. Cool. Cool. Cool.
Maegan Megginson: You're a man, and you have a cave. It's your mancave.
Joe Casabona: I'm a man and I have it. Yes. That's right. And, like, you know, yeah. Exactly. So, I probably spend a lot of time out there, so it'd have to be summer months. But, I would really do a lot of not in front of my computer thinking about where my business is, what my goals are for or maybe that's not right. Right? Am I, should I not be thinking about business at all?
Maegan Megginson: I like going into my sabbatical with just one intention.
Joe Casabona: Okay. Okay. And that makes sense.
Maegan Megginson: Then I allow myself to be surprised by where my energy shows up. So, there are some sabbaticals when I don't think about it once. Like, what I really need is a break. I need to not think about it. And that's the magic of boredom that we talked about earlier, trusting that even when you're not working on your business or thinking about your business, your subconscious is doing a lot of work on your behalf.So just because you're not thinking about it actively doesn't mean that your whole system isn't working some stuff through.
But I've had other sabbaticals, Joe, where I feel like so juiced up about my business that, like, I'm just an ideas factory. And it's like, coming through me and I'm writing it down and I'm brainstorming. So, permission granted to be flexible with yourself. What we wanna make sure is that you're not doing anything because you feel like you're supposed to.
Joe Casabona: I see.
Maegan Megginson: Right? I don't want you to feel like you're supposed to do a big brainstorm on your business during sabbatical. I want you to give yourself permission to just be and to notice with no expectations, with no to-do items on my checklist. What naturally rises to the surface for me? And then give yourself permission to trust that flow and see where it takes you.
Joe Casabona: Gotcha. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. You know what? As you were talking, I was reminded of an episode of 30 Rock. Have you watched 30 Rock?
Maegan Megginson: A little bit. Yeah. Not all of that.
Joe Casabona: Okay. So, like, there's one day where, like, Jack Donaghy, Alec Baldwin's character is putting in his office. And, Liz Lemon, Tina Fey's character, come in and says, is this what you do all day? And he goes, I'm working, Lemon. It doesn't look like it, but I'm trying to solve a big problem. And so I'm mindlessly putting. Right? And this is, like, very, really, that episode really stuck with me.
Maegan Megginson: I love that.
Joe Casabona: And so, yeah, maybe my intention is just, like, consume content outside of my zone of genius. Right? Like, read more books that I wouldn't normally read or something like that, and then kinda see where my brain takes me.
Maegan Megginson: I love that. That's brilliant.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Which is I've lost my morning reading time because of the dog that you're talking about before. Longtime listeners will know that we got a dog and…
Maegan Megginson: it's been dog. Complicated.
Joe Casabona: Yes. Yes. So, I mean, that, man, makes me wanna take a sabbatical in a few months, if I can tell you.
Maegan Megginson: And also permission granted to change your mind. Right? So, like, maybe you because that's happened to me a bunch of times, where I start the sabbatical with the intention to, you know, read a bunch of books. And then, as I'm relaxing into the space, I realize I have zero desire to read those books.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I don't really feel it.
Maegan Megginson: I don't really feel like it. So if that happens, if whatever you thought you were gonna do, if you have to push or force it, surrender. Let it go. Ask you. Be like, okay, interesting. That obviously wasn't actually what I needed. Can I just go for a walk and just kind of ask myself, well, what do you actually need? If it's not what you thought, what might it be instead?
And listen, this is the practice on sabbatical. You were, you are practicing listening to yourself, and it's really hard to listen to ourselves in the busyness of our day-to-day lives because there's so much noise, you know, literally and figuratively. There is just noise coming at us from every single direction, and it's really hard to hear. It's like trying to hear someone whisper in your ear when you are, like, in the middle of a rock concert. You can't hear. So when we're on sabbatical, you are giving yourself space to be in silence so that you can hear with, you know, no questions asked. Like, you can hear the voice of your own intuition. So trust that once you're there and you're taking deep breaths and you're listening, you're gonna know exactly what to do.
Joe Casabona: That's great. That's great. It should be frictionless. That's something I always say. Like, if you need, if you lik,e you said, if you are forcing yourself to do something, then that's not in the spirit of the sabbatical. And I like that because sometimes I don't feel like reading. And sometimes I feel like watching Friends because I've watched it a thousand times.
Maegan Megginson: Do then do that.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Awesome. This has been amazing. I feel like we covered a lot of ground. Is there anything that we didn't cover that I should have? That's I've run through my list.
Maegan Megginson: Let me think. No. I think we covered a lot of ground. I think I'll just circle back one more time to say, like, if this vision feels a million miles away for you. Right? If you're like, this sounds great, but it's not for me. I can't do it. I don't have the money. I don't have the time. Whatever the resistance is in your mind, I really I honor that and respect that and encourage you to start wherever you can start. And if that's a long weekend where you try some of these principles, you set the intention, you have the experience, you give yourself a day of integration afterwards, start there, see what happens, prove to yourself that you can do this. You can make this fit into your life in business. Work your way up gradually to the full four-week experience. Meet yourself where you're at.
Joe Casabona: I like that. And I'll just, like, I'l almost said double click, and I hate when I say that. I like that. I don't like that. I will reinforce that by saying, I think it's easier for me to visualize because I've taken, like, the think weekends. And so I can see what that looks like. Even, like, last night, I was sitting at my dining room table, and, like, I hadn't been as productive because I had, like, a doctor's appointment. I just started going to the gym again. And I was like, okay. I gotta work. And I'm sitting at my dining room table. Kids are in bed, pen in hand, staring at a blank page, going, what am I, like, what am I doing right now? And I just, like, closed my notebook and I went to bed. Like like that, I'm like, I'm willing myself, and I don't even know what I'm willing myself to do here.
Maegan Megginson: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: I just feel like I’m supposed to do it. So, listen to yourself. I love that.
Maegan Megginson: Listen to yourself.. Also, Joe, I just have to say I've never heard anyone say I'm gonna double click that before. And personally, I like it, so I think maybe you should keep it in the rotation.
Joe Casabona: Alright. Sweet. Good to know. I just like I always think of like it's like it as not my mouse that I currently use. It's like the mouse that came with, like, the gateway computer that had, like, Windows 98 on it. Maybe I'm, like, dating myself now, but, yeah. Alright. Cool.
I'll thank you for, I'm gonna double-click that. Appreciate it. I'm gonna double click that. Amazing.
Maegan Maganson, thank you so much for joining us. If people wanna learn more about you, where can they find you?
Maegan Megginson: Thank you for having me, Joe. This was such a great conversation. I'm also very excited to learn more about automation from you because I feel like that's a place where we can really make sabbaticals more accessible, too is more automation, and that's a weaker spot for me. So I'm thrilled to learn more about that from you.
And, yeah, if you listened all the way through the sabbatical conversation, first of all, thank you. I'm so grateful that you took the time to listen to this conversation. That alone is such a testament to how you want to care for yourself more. And that's such a gift.
And if you want more conversations like this about the intersection of well-being and entrepreneurship, I would love for you to check out the Deeply Rested podcast, where we talk all about this and a whole lot more. And you can also join the Deeply Rested newsletter at deeplyrestednewsletter, sorry. [deeplyrested.com/newsletter].
Joe Casabona: Awesome. Now you're gonna have to go and buy the domain [deeplyrestednewsletter.com].
Maegan Megginson: Yeah. I shoot. Oh, that's not a bad idea. I'll do that.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Right? This, I won't, I promise I won't buy it, and you'll buy it when this goes live.
Maegan Megginson: Thanks, Joe. That's right. Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Amazing. Well, I will link to all of that and everything we talked about in the description for this episode. You can also find all of the show notes and every episode of the Streamlined Solopreneur at [streamlined.fm].
Thanks so much. Maegan, thanks so much for joining us. I really appreciate it.
Maegan Megginson: Thanks for having me.
Joe Casabona: And thank you for listening. And until next time, I hope you find some space in your week.