and life you love.

Last year I had a life changing carb craving. Specifically I wanted a croissant. And my

first thought, I should walk around the corner to that cute little French bakery that I’ve

been always meaning to try. It’s one of those places that you probably have in your

neighborhood where you walk by a million times but for whatever reason, you never go in.

So I walk over and as I’m getting up to the door I notice this little white piece

of paper on the glass door and it says this: “Closed due to vacation.”

Now, typically when I go to a store and it’s closed, I’m usually like whomp whomp, but

this time I was actually like, “OMG, closed due to vacation? It’s a revelation! This

is a party!”

There was no disappointment. In fact, it was super inspiring to me that someone could close

down their entire business for an extended period of time just for vacation. So nobody

died, they weren’t going out of business, it wasn’t renovation. Nope, they just wanted

to take time off.

So, I got so excited by this idea that I forgot I even wanted a croissant, I ran home, called

up my team, and I told them, “We are closing down at the end of the year for 2 whole weeks,”

and we did it then and guess what, we’re doing it again right now. We’re closing

down for the next 2 weeks.

Now you’ve got to get, this was a pretty big move for me. Doing stuff nonstop is pretty

much in my DNA. I mean, I’ve been working consistently since I was 10 years old. Yes,

I’ve taken vacations, but this idea of completely closing down your entire company for an extended

period of time, that’s pretty radical, at least for me. I mean, I know they do that

kind of stuff in Europe, but I’d never really seen it done here.

And in this digital age and since I run a digital company, I feel like there’s this

ever growing pressure to always be on and always be responding and always be engaging

and always be creating something new. But the truth is, from my point of view, this

always on, always pushing, always going, it’s really a sickness and over time it can destroy

you. It can destroy your health and your creativity and your relationships and everything. And,

I mean, when it comes to your team, it can burn them out and take them completely out.

And the more experience I have in this world, the more I see that personally, my soul craves

down time, it craves play time, it craves time completely just off the grid.

Now, if you're anything like me and you're super passionate about what you do, even just

the thought of taking significant time off can feel scary. I mean, after all, let’s

say you take yourself off the grid and all of a sudden everybody forgets about you or

you miss out on some huge opportunity or, goodness gracious, your competitors get ahead. (No~~~)

But here’s what I learned when we shut our whole company down for 2 weeks last year:

it was the best thing we’ve ever done. Everybody, including myself, came back so refreshed and

rejuvenated and the entire team came back with new ideas to take the company to the

next level.

I’m telling you all of this because I want you to remember two important things. First

up, great things happen when you unplug from technology and you plug into your real life.

Now, as much as I love technology, and I really do love it, I have learned it is vital to

take time to just let yourself be. Because if you’re constantly listening to the noise

of the world, it’s impossible to hear the whispers of your soul. What’s that? My soul

just told me that’s a tweetable.

Now, if you're thinking to yourself, “This sounds great, Marie, but I can’t take 2

weeks off right now,” or, “I can’t take a whole week off,” that’s completely fine.

But ask yourself, can you take 48 hours off? Or maybe just one day?

And number two, the whole point of this episode is this: you get to write the rules in your

business and your life. Question everything that you think you have to do, really challenge

those assumptions. Do you have to be on Twitter, especially if you don't like it? Do you have

to work on Mondays? Do you even have to wear underwear?

But seriously, do not undercut your ability to craft a business and a life that you truly

love. So now I would love to hear from you. What’s one thing you wish you can do in

 your business that you think you can’t do? And what would happen if you truly challenged

that assumption? As always, the best discussions happen after

the episode over at MarieForleo.com, so go there and leave a comment now.

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Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams because the world needs that special

gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching and I’ll catch you next time on MarieTV.