After 3.5 years of grinding through startup life, consulting gigs, and endless client calls, I finally did something radical. I took a real vacation. Not the kind where you sneak in emails at breakfast or take "just one quick call" from the hotel room. A complete, total disconnect.
Yellowstone was the perfect choice for this experiment in actually relaxing. There's something about watching Old Faithful erupt that puts your startup stress into perspective. The geysers have been doing their thing for thousands of years - they don't care about your Q3 projections or that bug in production.
The most surprising part? The world didn't end while I was offline. My clients survived a week without me. The business kept running. It turns out that being indispensable is mostly an illusion we create for ourselves.
I spent my days hiking through landscapes that looked like alien planets, watching bison traffic jams, and remembering what it feels like to think about absolutely nothing work-related. The mental clarity that comes from true disconnection is something I'd forgotten existed.
This trip taught me that burnout isn't just about working too many hours. It's about never giving your brain permission to fully power down. When you're always partially engaged with work, you're never fully engaged with anything else.
Moving forward, I'm building real vacations into my calendar as non-negotiable commitments. Not because I need to escape my work - I genuinely love what I do. But because the insights and energy that come from true rest make everything else possible. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is absolutely nothing.