Last week, I sat on the beach with sand in my toes, wind in my hair, the ocean roaring in my ears, and a margarita in my hand.  I spent a 10 day vacation with my family, my cousins and my friends hanging out, playing cards, walking on the beach and generally relaxing. For those of you that know me, relaxing is not my area of expertise. In fact, I rarely take vacations. After I flew back to town, I realized that my synapses were firing on all cylinders. I have a renewed interest in interviewing and was completely excited to be interviewing all week for multiple clients!

The fact remains that people need time away from work, even when you own the company, like me. Some of my clients get really excited when a candidate will tell us in an interview that they NEVER take vacations. I actually think that this is a negative. Inspiration rarely comes to someone sitting in their office answering emails. Inspiration comes from experiences and usually those come after office hours.

As a nation, we are not good at taking vacation anyway. We feel that we can’t get away, we can’t unplug or we might miss something. I think we actually miss things when we DON’T take time off.

So, when your employees want to take vacation time, praise them for it. Say thank you. Then ask them what you can do to help facilitate their vacation time so they are not performing work while away. Not only will they think that you are the greatest boss ever, but they will come back recharged, renewed and inspired. Your business will benefit, and therefore, so will you. Maybe then you can take some time off too.

I am back in the saddle doing the work that I love because I had a fabulous vacation. I am inspired and working on new ways to teach you how to interview better. And in addition to that, I have a killer tan!