A vacation can be amazing, but if it is the only time that you
feel like you can breathe, something is off.
And so today in the All In podcast, we're going to talk
about how to build a life that you do not need to escape from,
why burnout keeps returning even after time off, and what
actually makes everyday life sustainable.
This is the All In podcast. You're going to want to tune in.
Listen for this whole thing. All right boys, all of us love a
little vacation time, but I think you ever had the
experience where you come back from vacation and you still feel
a little bit exhausted. Like when you when you feel like
you need a vacation from your vacation.
You come back from your vacation?
I feel like I still need two more days off before I go back
to work. Growing up, my, my family was
big on like vacations were just like jam packed.
And so like we would go on a trip.
Well, yeah, there weren't vacations, there were trips.
My family didn't go on vacation and go on trips.
And you come back and you're more exhausted than before you
left. Is that what you're talking?
About that's exactly. Acapulco.
Acapulco the beach.
Yeah, yeah. What was the last vacation you
went on, John Michael? Last vacation I went on was to
what is known as the Vatican City of Mexico.
Cancun. Yeah, we, we went together with
our, well, not just me and you, just to clarify, we went with
our wives and you happen to be there as well.
And then we went with our good friend Doctor Alec and and his
spouse Claire. And we had, we had a ball.
It was, we've been looking forward to that for a couple
years. And you know, that was a
vacation that I feel like we did the right way because I, I left
that trip and I was excited to get home.
Not because I was tired of laying out at the beach and
having a Margarita and spending time with good friends over
wonderful food and having wonderful conversation in a, in
an awesome resort. But more of just because I felt
like that vacation was meant for us to have great conversations
about how we can be better parents, how we can have better
marriages. It felt like a, a marriage
retreat, except there was the retreat was just being together.
And so when we got back, I was so excited to see my kids like
we were, we were on the plane, like looking at videos of the
kids like, Oh my gosh, I can't wait to get home.
I can't wait to get home. Is this the same trip that
Clayton's heart rate shot up while playing pickleball to Zone
5? That was golf.
The golf is a zone 2 square. And then you, you, you.
You had holiday hearts. I think it's so funny.
It's exactly. It's exactly.
I just think it's funny that it that's like a diagnosable
condition. That's what I think is funny,
that it's a diagnosable thing in that it happened at Cancun and
not like over like it makes sense over Christmas or
Thanksgiving. I.
Mean it was a holiday. Yeah, it was Cancun in November.
It's a holiday. It's always a holiday in Cancun.
So what do you think so that you know, this, this vacation for
us, I would agree with you, right?
We, we can't, we were doing the same thing.
I mean, we're looking at pictures of our kids on day
three of this thing, you know, just, you know, there, there is,
you know, a part of us that was longing to be back with them and
a part of us that still wanted to be on the beach in Cancun for
sure. But we also have experienced
coming back from vacations and we're exhausted.
So Jamaica, I'd like to go back to you here and just kind of ask
what was it about that vacation that felt restorative versus
perhaps other vacations that you've been on?
I mean, on a human level, I slept like 8 or 9 hours every
single night, which is the first time I've done that four or five
nights in a row and probably since this was before I started
having kids. What's so funny though is after
having kids, like I can't sleep through the night anymore.
Like even there when you know, it's we're in a giant king bed.
We had a great time the day before.
Like I should just be so rested that I can sleep through the
night. I woke up like two or three
times a night and it's always right around when the kids wake
up, like 2:00 AM and 4:00 AM, six AM couldn't sleep past 7.
So I think part of it was just like we rested.
We we didn't do a ton. We enjoyed good food, good
drinks, played some pickleball, which was a blast.
But I think on a higher level, having time outside of the
day-to-day monotony of the life of work and fatherhood and
husbandry, if that's a topic, if that's a word, husbandry.
It is a word, but not. With husbandry meant gardening.
I think it's to do with what does that have to do with
horses? Jamie, can you?
Jamie, Jamie, pull that. So I think my my husband Drew
was reinvigorated. Careful management, cultivation
of crops and livestock. Yeah, yeah.
See. Gardening and of course it's,
but I think there's a, there's a term in the for profit world
that talks about time working on the business versus working in
the business. Working in the business is time
where you're, you're in the day and day operations of just how
do we move things forward. Working on the business is
taking a step back to evaluate just how how you're doing.
And so for us on that trip, it felt like, like I said, a
marital retreat where we were not working in the family the
day-to-day of of groceries and diapers and and school and
commutes, but working on the family from far away.
And I think the value of a trip like that is you get to take a
step back. And when you take a step back,
you see things more clearly because you're not in it, but
you're looking on it from the outside.
So I think those factors are just just played an awesome
role. Yeah.
What about you, Jose? Have you had an experience like
that in recent years? Yeah.
Or maybe the opposite. No, obviously recently, no.
You had a baby moon, right? Yeah, we, we, I like to my wife
and I, I like to make fun of her 'cause she would always she used
to say you never take me on vacation.
We've been married for a year and we went on a honeymoon and
on 2 trips. I'm like, what are you talking?
About 3 trips in the 1st. Year of marriage and she like
you never taking me on vacation. Like you're out of control.
But actually all three of them for very different reasons were
amazing. We, our honeymoon went to Italy,
which I was actually really terrified because I thought I
wanted to go to the beach and like just lay on the beach in
Cancun. I'm.
Going to be honest, I was surprised that you went to Italy
for your honeymoon. Yeah, just didn't.
Strike me. You didn't strike me as an Italy
guy. I, I didn't want to come back
tired, but I, I think we, my wife and I talked about our
expectations beforehand. We actually did a really good
job and then later we we went to a friend's lake house, so I
don't know if that was a vacation, but we were there for
like 3 days. That was also really Restful.
Just y'all or it? Was us another couple?
It was it was us and three other couples so great, which was a
lot of fun. And then later, I don't want
people to think that we just travel a lot for fun, right?
All of these, there were some we pulled some strings together,
but other one we had a friend that got married in Charleston.
Fun. And Mimi and I met in South
Carolina. We had some connections in South
Carolina and so an old friend that we knew let us borrow a
little house that they that they own.
All three of them were very different.
What was Italy doing things? One was a lake house with
friends and another one was just my wife and I doing nothing in
Charleston. But all of them were super
restful. And I think, you know, I, I'm
not, I read a lot of books, but I don't like business books,
right. So I don't think the same way
that you do working on the family versus in the family.
Yeah, I think for us, it's just connecting like that's what's
Restful. It's just can we connect?
That's it. That's.
You know. In Italy, we were able to
connect, we were able to do things, we were able to laugh.
We did things with the Vatican, with the museums.
We also went to a spa in Florence that was like super
sketchy that we found on like you.
Know. But it was great.
And then, you know, same in Charleston.
We like went to the beach one day and got rained on.
It was, we were able to laugh and like have a lot of fun.
We went to like all of our favorite restaurants from when
we both lived in South Carolina. So it was just like again, we
were just connecting with each other.
Y'all met the Pope, right? We did Pope Francis.
Yeah. How was that?
It was interesting because. You have to wear.
Your tux and.
Wedding dress. They just changed that.
I don't know when they an. American Pope, baby, let's go.
But whenever we went, it was Pope Francis and you just had to
be wearing a suit and a white dress and didn't have to be
specifically. And what we ended up not doing
that a, because I, I rented my wedding tux and then I didn't
want to pay for a whole other bag for my, for his wedding
dress. So I just wore like a normal
suit that I packed. And then when we were there, we
went to, I think Zara and just bought her like a white little
jacket and skirt. What do you do?
Do you just you wait in line and you come shake your hand.
That's it. Yeah, pretty much the whole
thing is like you have to get tickets and it's kind of like a
lottery and you win it. And then you go pick up the
tickets. And then you show up day off
first Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday audience.
You show up in the morning and the Swiss Guards will like keep
an eye out for people in like wedding dresses, right?
And they'll they'll pull you out like, hey, are you here for the
thing, for the blessing for the newlyweds?
You're like, yeah. So then they take you like kind
of around all these people. And then you end up being like
at the front, like at the steps of Saint Peter, and you sit on
one side and you sit down. They just kind of like keep
sitting people down so. You get chairs now.
Yeah, you do get chairs, which is nice.
That's helpful. And then you just sit for the
next hour and a half or two hours, and then the Pope will
say something. And then it I, I think our
experience was maybe a little different.
Like we just had some friends that just went last month.
And that was very different with Pope Leo that speaks English
because we had Pope Francis. So it was the audience.
And then afterwards, Pope Francis at this point was very
ill. And so, you know, he's in his
wheelchair and he came to, like, meet us.
You know, I shook his hand. And, you know, I tried to say
something in Spanish because I he speaks Spanish, Martina.
But it was it. There was just like, not much
conversation happening. You don't.
Know if he heard you, you just
kind of. And I was like, well, I, I, I
shook his hand. Did did you think about what you
were going to say beforehand? For sure.
What do you what do you try to say?
I, I think I was super in my head of like, should I do
English or Spanish, right? But it's just like you're
thinking. You're thinking, and then he's
right in front of you. And then I love you, I'm going
to say. Hey, how are you?
Hey, you like me? You missed a great opportunity
to give him an all in koozie. What are the secrets?
The third secret. Is.
It real. Do you guys have like your own
book of secrets, like Nicolas Cage?
That's great. You you overthink it, but when
you I don't even know what I said, it's like kind of when you
propose for sure, you know, you think about it for so long.
It's. Days you have it nailed and do
you guys? Remember what you said.
I don't remember what I said when I proposed.
I don't. I I do, but you do.
Yeah, I do. I I had it.
I kept it short. But anyways, yeah, it's, it's
not a weird experience by any means.
It's just kind of like surreal because it happens, you wait for
so long and then it happens so quickly, you know, and there's
someone that takes pictures for everyone.
I can't wait to get around, man. We're going.
We're going for a 10 year wedding anniversary.
Oh really? That's great.
And. In three years from now?
Yep. I'm a planner man 2029 is going
to be a great year. That'll be great, yes.
Can't wait three years away. Countdown the days.
Yeah, we had a great time because at the audience we sat
next to Marco and Julie. Marco's from Milan.
Milan in Spanish, it's Milan, Milan, Milan and Julie is from
Paris and. Beautiful because sound like
they're very. They're the most attractive
couple we've ever met. They're definitely not
listeners. They're too cool.
We. Do have that one listener in
Kenya? Yeah, shout out.
Shout out Kenya. Huge in Kenya.
But yeah, they were just amazing.
And they now both live in Rome. They obviously not married
because they were sitting next to us, but they gave us like all
these recommendations of like places to go and things to.
Do that's really cool. That's like locals and
attractive, cool locals too, you know?
I know the spots. Yeah, I know the spots.
So, so we've, I, I think we've identified that what makes a
vacation Restful is that there's an opportunity for connection.
And all of us, I think shared stories, you know, about going
on vacations with our spouses, connection with our spouse.
And then, you know, there's friends involved in a lot of
these, you know, different stories.
And so connections with friends as well.
Do you think you would describe a vacation that's not restful as
a vacation where there's a lack of connection and that's what
makes it unrestful? I think the vacations that I
look back on that weren't restful, we're frankly either
one of two things and sometimes both at the same time. 1 is
being around with people, being around people that aren't
restful for you. It's like I've taken some trips
with, you know, certain groups of people in my life where it
feels like work to be around them and you're on vacation and
you're trying to relax, but the whole time you're thinking about
how to engage that person in conversation.
And it's just not, it's not a space where you feel like you
can just kind of breathe a little bit.
The second thing, which if you combine these things make for a
rough vacation, is just a jam packed schedule of activities.
And, and for some people, maybe that's their idea of a great
vacation. But for me, I like to have a
couple things we're going to do, But my life is so regimented in
real life that to go on a vacation and to be like, hey, at
8, we're doing this. At 9:30, we're doing this.
At 11, we're doing this at 1:00 PM we're doing this that feels
like real life, but just on a vacation.
So like when we were in Cancun, we had no plans.
And it was wonderful coming from a life where, you know, my every
30 minutes seems to be calculated and scheduled into my
outlook to go where it's like the only thing to do today is
eat 3 meals outside of that, that's all.
And I think when you have an overly packed schedule with
people that you find somewhat difficult to be around is a
recipe for a vacation where you feel like you need a sabbatical
when you get home. It's a great point.
I think one of the things that we, you know, talked about with
our friend Alec when we're come back from Cancun was just that,
you know, if I could go to Cancun every year of, of my life
for the rest of my life, I think I think that I would.
That's probably not going to be, you know, an opportunity that we
have on a, on a yearly basis. This is, you know, a big, a big
trip for, for all of us. But what we ended up talking
about was, you know, at this stage in my life right now
where, you know, I've, I've got three boys, you know, 55 and
under, Honestly, the last thing that I want to do is plan a
pilgrimage to go to Europe. Now, you know, going for your 10
year anniversary, that's, that's going to be, that's a milestone
where you're doing something really, really special.
But, you know, for the most part, on an annual basis, even
if it's just honestly, I would want more than the weekend if I
could do, you know, 3 or 4 full days, that would be amazing.
But an opportunity just to step away, you know, with my wife and
perhaps, you know, another couple or two and just be quiet
and wrestle. That's what I want in my life
right now when it comes to when it comes to a a vacation.
I think for me, when I step away, I need a longer period of
time. It's like 4 or five days, kind
of like the perfect space because it takes me till day 2
in the afternoon of the trip to really enter in.
Day one is like kind of the halfway house between a vacation
in real life and day 2. You're starting to come out of
the fog of the hustle. And then by the afternoon of day
2, you're like, all right, I'm here.
But if you have a three day trip, which sometimes that's all
you can do with kids, But when you have a three day trip, by
the time you're entered in, you're already packing up the
Airbnb to go home. So having a trip long enough to
where you can relax and and decompress and still have most
of the trip ahead of you, it's like the perfect schedule.
Yeah, that was a take away from that trip for us was for my wife
and I, we need to schedule something like this on an
annual, on an annual basis. You know, it doesn't have to be
going to Cancun, but we got to be able to step away for a
number of days where we can, you know, decompress and just and
just be with one another. And I think scheduling vacations
like that on an annual basis, if that's something that's possible
for you, it might not be possible for everyone, you know,
to do a trip like that to Cancun.
But even if it's just just stepping out of your normal
everyday routine for a couple of days to get away and create some
space, I think it's something that is really healthy for, you
know, a rhythm of life, you know, and so we've got our, our
daily rhythms of life. We have our weekly rhythms of
life, monthly, quarterly. And then in part of our annual
rhythm of life is, you know, I want to be able to step away for
a couple days and, and be with my, and be with my wife.
And so there's, you know, there's an idea of, you know, I,
I don't want to have a life that I feel like I need to have a
vacation from. Like, Oh my gosh, I just need to
get away, like, blah, blah. I want it to be not something,
not a vacation where I'm escaping from my life, but a
vacation that's, you know, not just about, you know, sharpening
the saw so that I can enter back in, but just a part of my life.
And So what do you think, you know, that those vacations have
been so restorative for us, But when it comes to building a life
that you don't quote UN quote need a vacation from what is
that? That's that's a question.
I think that's come up. I've actually seen it on some
like like YouTube short videos. You know, I think it's like AI
don't know. When I was prepping for this, I
I saw it online. There's like all these little
YouTube shorts of like building a life you don't need a vacation
from. What does that mean?
What does that look? Like I think it looks like
creating repeatable rhythms in your day-to-day life that allow
for you to have these little mini vacations in the midst of a
day, in the midst of a week. So what I mean by that
practically is when we were on that trip in Cancun, we, my wife
and I looked back at just kind of our rhythms of life now that
we were, you know, stepped away from them.
And we were recognizing that we were really looking forward to
this vacation, like a lot like maybe even more than we should
have. And we were, we were living that
way because it felt like our life at home was unmanageable in
its schedule. And the thing that we identified
is particularly our evening commitments.
So there was weeks where we had an evening commitment every
single night. So it would be like Monday
night, I had a dad's group, Tuesday night, I let a Bible
study, Wednesday night, Emily went to a mom's group, Thursday
night, I went to something, you know, for spiritual formation.
And then Friday night we had we had maybe a couple or a family
over and it just felt, it felt exhausting.
Because you go to work, you come home, then you have to leave,
throw the kids in bed real quick and then go to the next
commitment. And so one of our takeaways was
we need to pare down our evening commitments, still be generous
hopefully and investing in those around us.
But we need probably 2 nights a week at least Monday through
Thursday that we have just for us.
And I think repeatability as the family continues to grow and
kids have more activities in the evening and stay up later doing
homework and things like that. I don't want to be gone four
nights a week like those are times where I want to be
available in home. So All in all, I think finding
those those opportunities in the week to be able to create
repeatable rhythm so that you don't need a vacation every
couple of months to recenter. You know, I think my, my life,
it everyone's life is different at different stages, but in in
our current stage for my wife and I building a life that you
don't need vacation from just looks like are we, if we are,
how do I phrase this? If we are actually being present
to the things in front of us that that, then we won't need a
vacation from them. And what I mean by that is like
when I'm at work, I'm at work, but when I'm not at work, I'm
not at work. When I'm hanging out with
friends, I'm hanging out with friends, but when I'm hanging
out with my wife, I'm hanging out with my wife and I'm not
half working. I'm not half right texting.
I'm not half this. Whenever I'm present to the
things in front of me in the in it's right setting.
I don't know how else to say that I'm kind of finding what
I'm trying to say as I go along that that I think that's when I
feel like fulfilled. And that's when I don't feel
like I need to get away to like just rest.
But what if I actually just find like if I find a way to make it
restful for me to get off work and get my kid to stop crying
and put him in the stroller and go and walk, you know, and then
come coming back and like, like finding, choosing to find like
something joyful about helping my wife cook.
I hate cooking. My wife loves cooking, right?
But and then like as I grow in that, and again, this is my
stage of life might be a little more different because we don't
have one kid. Like that's I think where we get
into a rhythm where we don't feel like we have to get a way
to, to reset or to recenter because we're, we're entering 2
things in front of us and in their proper setting.
Well, and I think what you're identifying is like a vacation
can't make up or reset for months and months and months of
over commitment and misaligned priorities and a busyness.
It it, it doesn't wash away those things.
It actually just creates a space where you feel like you have no
commitments, but then you jump right back in and that vacation
actually didn't change anything. It was just a momentary breath
to re enter back into a life that of chaos that that probably
isn't sustainable or healthy. It's.
Almost like the vacation becomes a mini retreat in a sense, a
mini examination of how am I looking back over the past year
and how how am I living my life and what do I need to change in
order to to make it, you know? Better.
That's the proper vacation, Absolutely.
Because I think some of the things that you said, John
Michael, it's none of the things that you named were bad things
like you named a dad's group, you named your Bible study, you
named, you know, your, your wife's Bible study and, and
mom's group you named, you know, investing in friendships and
investing in the, in the community.
All of those things are objectively good things.
It was just that you were doing them at a, at a pace and at a
rhythm that, you know, we're exhausting you without even, you
know, without even realizing it. And so being able to step away
and identify those things in your life that you perhaps
you've over committed to. I think that, you know, we need,
you know, we, I think we talked about this frequently on the
podcast, but we need, we need rhythms, we need routines.
We need morning routines and evening routines and weekend
routines and Sunday routines. You know, we need, we need
rhythms for our life so that there's some sort of
predictability and sustainability to our life.
But I think another part of routines as well is that you
need to createspace for, for spontaneity as well, you know,
because what we're not trying to say is like, Hey, you like,
you're right. Your life needs to, needs to be
so, you know, regimented, you know, and, and disciplined that
you always know what you're doing, You know, one week ahead
of the time. There needs to be room for, you
know, just a spur of the moment thing with the family, you know,
or a spur of the moment, you know, hey, we're going to, you
know, we're, we're done with dinner a little bit early
tonight. So we're going to watch 2
episodes of Blue with the kids, you know, and snuggle him on the
couch and just have a good time instead of always prepping to
run out the door for the next thing.
I think that you too can find the the joy that you found in a
vacation in the rhythms of your life.
Like we've, you know, we've had a couple podcasts now where
we've been kind of touching on like a similar thread of not
fleeing from responsibility, but entering in.
And I think what's cool about this thread is it feels, it
feels organic in that, you know, a lot of these past episodes,
you know, as they've been building on one another, last
two or three have been threads that we're talking about on the
podcast because they're threads we're discovering in our own
self discovery of our lives. And so we're kind of speaking
about these podcasts as a honestly a self reflection of
our own experiences. I think those create the best
conversations because we're not just talking about topics.
We're talking about things that we are discovering today, a
month ago, two months ago. And I know when I leave these
podcasts, I get home and I'm like, I kind of like want to
tell Emily about the things we talked about because I feel like
we need to apply these things in a much better way than we have
been because we just talked about it.
Absolutely. So a question I have again, you
know, we've, we've talked a lot about, you know, our, all of us
are, are driven in different, different ways.
I would say that each of us are, you know, ambitious in our lives
about, you know, maybe about similar things, about different
things. But I think we're all, you know,
driven people almost to the point that, you know, it can be,
it can be detrimental, you know, to a point.
And so, John Michael, when you were come back from that
vacation and and you know, you're, you're someone that
you're a community builder. You know, you, you love
investing in in friendships. You know how you have these big
goals, visions and dreams. And some of those are about your
family. Some of those are about work.
Some of those are about, you know, the friendships that
you're building. And all of those are really good
things. Making the decision to step back
from a few of those things and not chase, not not be building
something in the evenings. And I'll be trying to not trying
to do something or accomplish something.
This How do you is that not settling?
Describe that to us like it, you know, you're like, oh, there's
all these good things and I'm not going to do them anymore
because I need more me time. You know, how do you, how does
it, how do you balance that? What's funny is I felt so much
confidence on the trip that that's what I needed to do.
And then I got back home and I was like, I don't really need to
take a step back. I'm, I'm good, I'm fine.
But then I luckily I journaled about it.
And I'm not, I'm not a big journaler, but I did take time
to write that down on the trip because I knew that would
happen. I knew I would get back and I'd
be distracted by the commitments and I needed to return to the
place of confidence that I had and frankly, like a conviction
that I had. And honestly, what I did is I, I
called up a couple good buddies here in Denver and I just shared
with them kind of the fruit of that experience, like, hey, I'm
going to take a step back. Here's why I'm taking a step
back. And I shared with him what I
received, probably honestly a grace I felt like I received,
which is that desire to do that. And I was so scared that they
would respond with like, are you you backing out on us?
Like we started this, we started this together or we really love
to have you here. And instead what happened was
exactly the opposite where it was like, that's crazy.
Like I've been feeling the same thing, but I just kind of put a
finger on it. And now that you said that, I
think I need to take a look at my life and see what we're over
committed to. And it was really cool.
And I think the the value of risking a friendship there was
outweighed by the value of gaining more intimacy in the
family. And you know what?
I think the risk I took was if guys weren't OK with that, then
those just probably aren't the type of man I want to surround
myself around if they're not supportive of of those
decisions. And I'm not making myself a
hermit. But I'm just taking that
opportunity to say, hey, for right now in this season as
we're expecting the next baby, I need to take a strategic step
back here. And the value of saying no, you
know, creates more and more opportunities to say yes to
things that matter. I.
Think that was very well said John Michael.
What are yours monologues? It's about time I got a little I
got a little love from y'all with my monologues.
It's been tough recently. I think ultimately what we're
trying to do is we're trying to build a life that we're not
trying to escape from. It's one we're we're we're
strategically committed to the things in our life that are
good, but not to the extent that they become detrimental and
prevent us from resting well and taking a step back even in the
ordinary rhythms of daily life outside of vacation time.
And so if this made you think, man, maybe I need to slow down a
little bit, man, I need, maybe I need to, to rethink what my
daily, weekly, monthly, annual, you know, quarterly structure
looks like. Share it with a friend, like
subscribe, talk about it with your buddies.
Do what John Michael did and go out on a limb and invite someone
else to to think about these things as well.
This is the All in podcast. We're all in on vacations.
We're all in on vacations that you don't try to escape from
your life from. And we're all in living your
life.