It’s hard to believe.  A week-plus has already gone by since I hosted the Minneapolis contingent of Meet Plan Go, the national meetup for career breaks.  As I sit and reflect, I’m stunned by the way days disappear, by how much time an event like this can suck up, and by the passionate attention the audience granted to my panelists and me. 

About 80 escape artists showed up to network and share stories, but mostly to listen.  While I had expected a happy-hour vibe, folks were pretty darn serious—though certainly stirred.  The travel fervor was palpable.  And all three panelists were touched by the sincerity—and range—of questions.

Now it’s “jobs, jobs, jobs”

Times have changed.  In past workshops, the dominant questions (and answers) were about money, money, money.  Now, it’s jobs, job, jobs.  This downturn has chipped away at people’s saving accounts and confidence.  Wanderlust lives on, but fear of coming home to no work makes for a tight leash. 

As one woman exclaimed:

Of course I long to go away for six months.  But come home and begin again? I’m 55!  Who’s hiring me?” 

A money man who’s got it and gets it

I’m honored to have shared the stage with Ross Levin—whose book “Spend Your Life Wisely” just hit Amazon last week.  Ross tells happy tales of his own months away, from the simple college-student phase through the raising his twin daughters (now seniors in high school). 

By anyone’s standards, Ross has earned super-success.  But he’s enjoyed it too, while never losing sight of what matters.

As he explained in his introduction—which also appears on page 1 of his new book:

In working with hundreds of people over the years, there has been very little relationship between owning stuff and happiness.” 

Indeed, while jobs and money played their appropriate role in the Meet Plan Go conversations, we three wise panelists had to admit that we manage to travel most when least employed—and that the uber-trekkers we know are typically not rich or career-driven. 

Life is travel; travel is Leif 

Leif (pronounced “Life”) Pettersen rounded out our panel, and our guests couldn’t get enough of him.  No surprise there:  Leif is not only that rare person who makes a living as a travel writer—including for Lonely Planet—but he got there the old-fashioned way.  Which is to say:  

He sold his house, his car, and all his things—and bought a one-way ticket across the pond.  For four and one-half years, he moved through 40 countries.  40!  And by the time he came back home to Minneapolis, he was again gainfully employed as a writer and blogger, and ready to settle down again.  Well, sorta. 

Folks were fascinated by his resume, stories, and wit.  In a roomful of journey fans, he’s a real rock star.  When asked about the difficulties of language barriers, Leif can reflect:

It’s just not a big deal.  You learn the words and phrases need to know as you go, and you can always communicate with sign language, smiles, and pictures.”

The after-party

Naturally, the two hours went too fast, just like a good vacation.  Though the night officially ended at 9, some of us hung out, sipped, and nibbled til nearly midnight.  In those hours, I realized, yet again, we are not alone—as people’s passport memories (and futures) poured out…

• The out-of-towners.  The first three enthusiasts to arrive not only came early, but from far away—as in Des Moines, Ames, and Green Bay. 
• The bright newbie.  One woman, just out of college and bursting with excitement, flies off to Thailand for her first big trip in December. 
• The Brazilian.  One happy camper reminisced about his three months in Brazil—where the poor but joyful lifestyle had him playing foosball daily in the streets. 
• The disaster reliever.  Another gentleman sees the U.S. by working for FEMA, staying in an RV, and then hanging on afterward in a nearby, fun place. 
• The Yogi.  An energetic 68-year-old woman could school us all; she lives here for half the year, and then moves to Mexico to teach yoga during the winter. 

To be continued…

These people are my heroes, our tribe, and the reason I keep tapping away on this topic and tap-dancing away on BreakAways when the spirit allows and moves me. 

My heartfelt thanks to these new friends, to Ross and Leif, and to the three high-energy women—Sherry, Michaela, and Tara—who made Meet Plan Go happen. 

Until we meet again, happy sails…

Thanks to a burst of online buzz, our Tuesday, 9-14 meetup has moved to bigger quarters.  We’re now at a HONEY of a place, in Minneapolis by Nye’s.  Time is still 7 – 9.  We’ve also added a truly great guest panelist, Ross Levin, one of the best financial planners ever, author, and brain behind the “Spend Your Life Wisely” column. 

We’re so pleased to have Ross join us.  Of course, he will answer questions and offer guidance about money—which is ALWAYS the #1 reason people don’t take BreakAways.  But even better, he also has many wise things to say about making your work for you (versus vice versa).  And reaching goals and dreams.  To wit:

Most of us already have the objects that we really need. Years from now, we will be talking about the family trips, not the living room couch. Be it a camping trip or a vacation to Europe, it is the experiences that stay with us.”

Check out this columm, for example.  He so gets it!  He’s also a great speaker, and jolly guy.

Hope to see you on September 14th.  Details are here!

Last Saturday I chatted on the radio with travel guru Rudy Maxa. The conversation went so well that he invited me back for more.

I’ll be on the air again THIS Sunday, August 29, around 4:10 CST.  The show takes place on CBS’ KFWB News Talk 980 in Los Angeles (and supposedly streams on the web).

Rudy says we’ll have about 7 minutes to tell tales and talk story about travels, sabbaticals and career breaks.

I’m also hoping to give listeners a heads up about the September 14 MeetPlanGo event. As you may or may not know, I’m hosting the Minneapolis MeetUp.

Find us!  Join us!

BREAKING NEWS!  

Legendary travel guru Rudy Maxa (of public TV and radio fame) has invited me to join him to talk sabbaticals and career breaks on his nationally syndicated radio shows this weekend. 

If you’re where his wires cross, please tune in!  

“Rudy Maxa’s World with Christopher Elliott” is a two-hour travel talk, interview and call-in show that’s broadcast every Saturday morning from 9 to 11 CST. To ask Rudy or Chris (or me!) a travel question or make a comment, call 800-387-8025.

• I expect my slot on the Saturday morning show will be at about 10:10 a.m CST.
• You can also listen to a rebroadcast of the show on Sirius/XM Radio at 9 pm Saturday night on Channel 152.  
• Sunday I’ll be participating in Rudy’s hour-long, call-in show on CBS’ KFWB News Talk 980 in Los Angeles from 4-5 p.m. CST.

In addition to answering listeners’ questions, Rudy delivers the latest take on travel news, his “Deal of the Week,” and interviews with travel personalities (like me, I guess!)  For live, real-time streaming of the show visit KFWB.com.

I’m looking forward to getting on the air to spread the good word, especially in anticipation of the upcoming MeetPlanGo Minneapolis MeetUp on September 14.  

Thanks, Rudy! 

Maybe it’s the stupid economy.  Perhaps the 20-somethings are stirring up the hype—since they’re still idealistic (and largely underemployed).  Could be the sad but true fact that folks don’t take their vacations.  Or maybe work just keeps meaning less while sucking more energy and time.  

Sabbaticals are OUT; Career Breaks are IN  

Whatever the reason(s), the big buzzword of late for the BreakAway crowed  is “career break.”  I like it.  The “career” thing sounds so responsible, job-centric and American.  Suddenly a Sabbatical is NOT just a lazy, hazy escape from reality. 

After all, most of us are not professors or preachers with God-given, endowed Sabbatical rights, right?  And those professions are just so tweedy, stilted and last-millenium anyway…

No matter what your profession or POV, this recent Huffington Post story suggests that a Career Break may look great on your resume.  Impress your next boss.  Show that you’ve got initiative and guts.  Prove that you’re a worldly rock star, if only on your lonely planet.  Author/blogger Patty Hodapp encouragingly writes:

Getting out from behind your desk and into the world will not only give you invaluable life experience (and probably several stories to share with coworkers around your next office water cooler) but also it’ll make you a more hirable and more desirable addition to any office. Guaranteed.”

Worry not; after conquering the big old world, you can always come home to a bigger cubicle.

Or is it that dreams won’t die?   

Careers are critical, don’t get me wrong.  I intend to take mine (or should I say all 55 of them) very seriously any day (or year) now.  That motivation surge will strike, like lightning.  I can’t wait. 

Meantime, methinks that this “Career Break” movement may be plopping the horse before the cart.  I mean, do we really crave a professional pause or six months in Spain?  Are we infatuated with vocation or is our heart simply calling for vacation? 

But I get it.  Career Break.  You can fix it later.  I’ll even start using the new lingo, and have eagerly agreed to host a Career Break seminar in September. 

But forgive me if, from time to time, I pick up my guitar and play Johnny Paycheck’s “Take This Job and Shove It,” followed by Lenny Kravitz’s “Fly Away.”

Work will wait, my friends.  In fact, it never goes away.  But you can!

Over the past 2 weeks, “Yoder & Sons,” a column by a WSJournalist and his boys, has been pondering whether Father & 14-year-old Levi should get “crazy” and take a 6-month fantasy trip.  Most readers say “Go!”  So does this father—and his son—and I submit this photo as evidence enough. 

My son, you see, loves to fish.  So imagine his ecstasy when we were strolling seaside on the island of Grenada and a bunch of brawny fishermen demanded that he scramble down the breakfront and help them haul in the nets.  He likes school too.  But this stuff just don’t happen—not even in World Cultures class. (Here’s his version of the story, on his blog.)

In this case, Steve & Levi Yoder are kicking around the idea of a tour studying the history of Western Civilization, paleontology and things.  That’s a bit more ambitious than fishing during our island-hopping adventure last year.  Still, the same thing will happen.  Total strangers will surprise them and, metaphorically, time and time again, snag them in a unimaginable net. 

Those pictures will be worth 1,000 days in school.  As one woman with some serious Sabbatical experience wrote,

These journeys cannot be compared to a week here, two weeks there.  They are life-changing, relationship-building, memory-sharing, character-challenging adventures.” 

After two BreakAways with my children (and two without), I can only emphatically, wholeheartedly agree.

• BUT:  Some Say Stay Home.

Of course, not everyone encourages the Yoders to chase their dream.  One glum soul called Steve’s “dangerous odyssey” “outrageous,” and stated,

Your wife should have you declared incompetent.” 

Ouch!  I guess that makes a lot of us hopeless.  But don’t ask this inept dad:  Ask my children.  They seem to love love where their parents “incompetence” takes them. 

• Will Yoders Go?

So far, Steve’s being poker-face Yoder.  But I bet they’ll get their getaway.  He’s playing the Deathbed card, after all: 

On my deathbed, will I be glad I was prudent — saved money, paid the mortgage — or will I have a twinge of regret that I didn’t take my last remaining teenager on a quixotic odyssey?”

You’ve got a great job, Mr. Yoder.  One of the best.  Many of us are jealous.  But while some of us may not have your career success, we somehow manage a journey with a son around the world.   Homeschool two kids through the Caribbean.   Take one whole year off before the offspring arrive.  And never, ever regret those choices. 

We even pay the mortgage and keep the pantry full.  Somehow. 

• Go!  Go!  Go! 

So I’ll join the cheerleading chorus and assert that this is, literally, a once-in-a-lifetime alignment for Dad and Son to see the world, experience history, and bond nonstop.  And as for Mr. Yoder’s career, methinks this trip would only increase his knowledge, perspective and occupational capital. 

About son Levi:  Don’t wait too long, Dad.  The boy in that fishing picture is already many pounds and inches older.  His voice has changed.  Peachfuzz is emerging. 

If it’s difficult to escape now, it’ll only become moreso.  You’ve already seen one son grow up fast and disappear to college.   Now’s your chance to stop time and haul in some nets together.

Remember Sundays? Back in the day, Sundays were a time for sleeping in, singing at church, brunching out, catching a game on TV, sneaking a nap, and enjoying Sunday supper—a peaceful prelude to the busy week ahead.

WAY back in the day, the Christian and Jewish traditions mandated that one day per week be set aside for cessation from work.  The modern-day “weekend” evolved—a fine upgrade, rather like a two for one.  But does the pace really slow down any more? 

These days? Not so much.  The freeways were packed the last two Sundays; the Mother’s Day jams were anything but sweet.  Seems like few folks slow down for Sundays anymore. 

Sundays have also become fair game for kids sports (games, tourneys, practices—even over the dinner hour and into the evening).  Lots of  productive people use Sunday night to prep for their work week.  And ‘round here, many neighbors use that evening to mow, leaf-blow, and catch up on their yard labor. 

But all is not lost.  The parks are often packed with happy picnickers.  The smell of bar-b-que floats in the air.  And in the land of 10,000 lakes of leisure, the pontoons drift by with families and friends all aboard. 

If you’d like to take back your Sabbath, just do it.  Unplug your digitalia, hop on the hammock with a good book, and cook up a simple, healthy feast.  Heck, try going to a place of worship for God’s sake. 

If you want to learn more about Sabbath traditions and rationales, pick up “The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time” by Judith Shulevitz—who has given the notion a lot of thought as culture critic for the New York Times, and asserts…

Our schedules are not the only thing the Sabbath would disrupt if it could.  It would also rip a hole in all the shimmering webs that give modern life its pleasing aura of weightlessness—the networks that zap digitized voices and money and data from server to iPhone to GPS.”

If you don’t have time to read—not even on Sundays—check out Shulevitz’s four-minute interview with everyone’s favorite talking head, Stephen Colbert.

By the way, have you ever noticed that Colbert does not do his show on Sundays?

Now and then, a Sabbatical story comes along that is too good to pass up, and too good not to pass along. 

Meet Todd Babiak.  Todd is a writer based in Edmonton—on a year-long BreakAway with his family in Paris.  He’s having a gas, as this article describes.  He’s also finding that sabbaticals bring surprises. 

• France can be uncouth!

Babiak’s latest book is called Toby:  A Man.  It’s about an etiquette commentator for a TV station.  (Now there’s a job with few openings!)  After studying manners for so long, Babiak decided to do a year in Paris—in hopes of landing in a place where civility truly is alive and well.  Well, is it?  He answers…

 Vulgarity is global now; we can’t get away from it.” 

• Peeing on main street

Babiak tells the story of walking his daughter to school one morning, only to pass by two men peeing on a building amidst a busy street.  Now, anyone who’s spent time in Europe knows that such practices are common.  Still, it can be a buzzkill to pursue a course in grace, and instead experience coarseness. 

• Babiak has the last laugh

Our Sabbatical seeker is eating it up though, as one tends to do in Paris.  His faux blog, Tobyaman.com, features the commentary and Q&A of the uber-refined Toby—who is “suing” Babiak for writing that unauthorized biography.  It’s full of hilarity on many levels. 

Clearly, Todd Babiak and fam are having a great time, even if the French manners ain’t what they used to be.

Best of all, they still have five months to do Paris—public pee and all.  Enjoy!

Good news:  Author Dan Pink has a new book coming out on 12-29-09. Better news:  He’s taking an interest in Sabbaticals!  That gave me courage enough to invite him to visit BreakAway, and he kindly did, responding:

Glad you liked the Sagmeister post, gladder still you hipped me to your website. It rocks. I think you’re on to something big. (In fact, I write about this trend in my upcoming book.)”

Sagmeister, of course, is the world-famous graphic designer who closes his shop and takes a year off every seven or so—and generated quite a buzz when he preached about it during his TED conference appearance earlier this year. 

Mr. Pink may be one of the most in-demand thought leaders of our time, but he still found time to talk about what we’ll soon be reading—and Sabbaticals too.  Thanks, Dan! 

BA:  Your last book, A Whole New Mind, seemed about what the world needs now.  Would you say your new book, DRiVE, is more about what individuals need now?

Pink:  I actually never thought about it that way, but I think that’s not a bad way to put it.  One way to think about it is the last book was about the what of work. This book is more about the why—why we do what we do.  But there are a lot of lessons in this for individuals—about how they can find their own motivation, and maybe even set up a context that allows other people find their own motivation.

BA:  You describe that it’s time to move beyond the “carrot and stick” approach of work. What some of the new motivators—and can employers provide them? 

Pink:  We tend to think the way to get better performance out of people is carrots and sticks; we sweeten the reward, or stiffen the punishment.  That’s true for some things.  But science shows that for creative conceptual tasks, those sorts of motivators don’t work very well, and often have a whole array of collateral consequences. Sure, we need baseline rewards.  If people feel they’re not getting paid fairly, then there’s not going to be much motivation.  But once you get past that baseline level of compensation, it’s not even about fairness or massive amounts of money.  It’s about fair pay.  Money ceases to be a motivator, and in fact can be a DE-motivator.  So the goal, in many ways, is to take the issue of money off the table. 

The real motivators are things like autonomy, mastery and purpose.  Autonomy means the ability of people to direct their own lives—to have control over their time, technique, and team.   Mastery is the desire to get better at something that matters.  As for purpose, that’s serving something larger than ourselves.”

(more…)

photo by Kirk Horsted

I did my best thinking when not under pressure…. I had all sorts of fears that we would lose clients, be forgotten or have to start from scratch. And none of these fears came true. ….it is a simple time-planning event. I put the plan in the agenda, work out the finances and tell the clients.”