Does your downtime make you a better business person?

Does your time taking a walk, or sitting by the beach making you a better business person?
Does your daily Zen-out time meditating make you a better thinker or more centered?
How about your refreshing road trip experiences, or your time chatting with friends?

Many business bloggers seem to think it does.

Imagine how you would be if you never had any fun and you just glued yourself to your computer. Your eyes would start having flashes, your health would go to hell, and you would go crazy. Man was not designed to just work, work, and more work. And man cannot live on bread alone! Studies have shown that people who work too much or sleep not enough have lowered efficiency at work, and make worse decisions. But, people who apply themselves at work, and then refresh themselves regularly will make better use of the hours that they do spend working.

Putting refreshment aside, how about inspiration? Sometimes inspiration comes while you are taking a walk. Or you’ll talk to someone and in the middle of that chat you’ll have an ah-ha moment where your next huge business idea comes from. Meditating can clear your brain so the next big business idea will have room to come in. A long road trip will leave you coming back in a completely new state of mind ready for new thoughts as well. Reading what other people are saying can be a huge source of inspiration in business as well, although they probably write in a way that is more targeted to a general audience rather than to your specific needs.

As entrepreneurs and CEO’s we are responsible not only to work, but to come up with new ideas. We need to solve serious problems. We need to think quality thoughts. The difference between a business person who makes $100,000 per hear and 10 million per year is not the hours they put in. It is the quality of their decisions and their inspiration that make the difference. The higher quality business person makes decisions so good that they revolutionize entire industries — or in Steve Jobs case — entire species!

So, work hard, and then take that trip, talk that talk, walk your walk, and Zen your um… what rhymes with Zen? Hmm. Okay, and Zen your universal entrepreneur consciousness! These things will make you a better business person. Sometimes it is good to think about business when you are on a long trip. Since you will be in a different environment, the thoughts will be different which could be critical to finding the right ideas. Or sometimes it is better not to think about business, but to think about other things. When you come back to the office, you will have a fresh slate to work with.

On a final note, sleep is not properly understood by human beings. Your mind does amazing things filing your thoughts while you are sleeping. You might come up with your best idea ever while asleep. It could come in a dream. Or your guardian angel might transmit an amazing thought to you while you are snoozing. It has happened to me more than once!

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