My friend DJ DiDonna returned to The Courageous Podcast this week.
DJ is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard, the founder of The Sabbatical Project, and the author of the soon-to-be-released book Big Time Off.
If you’re like me, the concept of signing off for a sabbatical sounds dreamy and unattainable.
Why is that?
Because I suffer from…
Answer the email.
Take the meeting.
Push through burnout.
Keep climbing.
Keep producing.
Keep proving.
In his past life, DJ burned out building his fintech company.
It culminated in his sabbatical that included walking nearly 900 miles across Japan.
On the episode, DJ shares that roughly two-thirds of sabbaticals are unplanned, triggered by things like layoffs, burnout, illness, caregiving, or life disruption.
One meaty takeaway from our show:
Don’t wait for the crisis to create the pause.
If two-thirds of sabbaticals are forced, then many people are not choosing the reset.
The reset is choosing them.
That is the warning light.
Full disclosure: I wrote this a week ago.
Not from a sabbatical.
Not fully unplugged from a mountaintop.
I wrote it before leaving for vacation.
While a vacation and a sabbatical are not the same thing, some lessons still apply.
Sometimes courage is putting the laptop away…
and letting the inbox wait…
So you can be fully present with the people who still crave your time before the world takes the rest of it.
