Not dwelling on the negatives of regular business travel

I recently took a clean sheet of paper and rather than dwelling on the negatives of regular business travel, I started to consider all the good things that can manifest from being a business owner that spends a fair amount of working life at no fixed address:

1.) You generate your own energy autonomously and you don’t need be constantly anchored to others and their energy to be motivated.

2.) You’ve broken away from the growth restraints of your business being anchored to a smaller geographic market to open up business opportunities as far as you are prepared to reach for your business, and by doing this you are exposed to even further opportunities.

3.) You are leaving home base each time for a defined reason and traveling to achieve a specific outcome. Your goal is to get the job done for your business and for your clients, so you can return to home so this breeds a desire to succeed and execute well on all levels.

4.) You are generally able to organise yourself and others in advance to prepare for when you are on your mission. You become acutely aware of the resources and preparation needed before you step out the front door on the way to the plane.

5.) By luck or design you’ve recruited staff to be the right pieces in your puzzle to work in your business. The right people don’t need to be micro-managed and are empowered to achieve the outcomes required by the business without constant supervision and they thrive in their patch as a result.

6.) You’ve developed a business culture, processes and internal communications strong enough that your staff know what’s expected and can communicate with you while you are not around.  You actively work to remove or shine a light on the shadows in your business model so that employees acting like passengers have no place to hide or go under the radar.

7.) If your staff truly see themselves as an important part of their team, and you’ve properly explained the mission, you don’t need to be physically present every day of every week for them to be contributing to the company’s success while you are not geographically present.

8.) Your sporadic office attendance creates the environment for people in your greater team to make both mistakes and brilliant decisions (hopefully disproportionately in favour of the good calls ), so they can learn, and improve your business as a result - they can seek your guidance if they need it but get the space to evolve the business beyond your own expectations of what you thought was possible.

9.) Your clients will hopefully realise that you are there for them when they need you, and your willing to put their mission ahead of your normal life routine to deliver on your promises.

10.) You make every moment away from the ones you love and care about count. 

11.) You are working to deliver the life you want for your core family, and you are doing it as fast as you can by expanding your footprint and not anchoring your life to a fixed geographic address. Your ultimate goal is to permanently join in the life that you are trying to create beyond today.

I think the key to all of this without breaking yourself or those around you is not tipping past the point where you become more used to being away from home than at home. The most important thing is that you can’t keep raising the bar beyond what you’ve agreed with your support teams both personally & professionally once the goals have been reached. To do this means it was never about achievement of the goal to join in the life that you are trying to create, and it’s been more about satisfying your own ego.