Do You Need to Recharge Your Battery?

Click on the print above to see the entire Story People collection

by Skip Cohen

While I'm generally off the topic of business on Sunday mornings, there's another variable today. For the first time in at least ten years, I took the last week off, and it was for two reasons. First, we were heading to ClickCon, and while I usually always have posts in my stash, I chose to shut things down for this trip. Second, I was approaching burnout, and while I talk about recognizing when you need a break, now and then it's tough to walk the talk with my own advice!

Then, as I sat down this morning, feeling recharged and ready to get back in the game, I got an email from the crew at Story People. Sheila and I are both big fans, and we've got six of their prints framed on a wall in our home.

As I read the "story," it hit me - this last year was a year of growth. While the transition was often the result of dealing with the pandemic, we grew regardless.

We learned to find other ways to keep in touch with friends when physical proximity was off the table. We found things to smile about when at the time, things seemed the bleakest. And when it came to getting back in touch with people and traveling to Chicago for ClickCon, we discovered the pure joy of time with old friends and making new ones.

One of the biggest reasons you should attend every conference you can, is to recharge your battery. And that's exactly what this last week did for me. So, while I essentially shut down the blog in terms of new content - it gave me time to simply appreciate what a fantastic industry we're all a part of!

When we launched this blog in 2013, my buddy Scott Bourne told me to trust him and not do anything until he published a specific tweet, but he wouldn't tell me what it was. He had 100,000 followers at the time - today, over 200,000. He ran, "Skip Cohen is back!" and included the link to the new blog the next day. The response ranged from people checking out SCU to "Skip who?" to "What do you mean he's back? I just talked to him yesterday?" to "Where did he go?"

Well, here we are eight and a half years later, and after hundreds of podcasts and thousands of posts, once again, "I'm back!"  And I'm so pumped up for so many good things coming over the rest of this year!

There's my message - recognize when you need a break. Accept that even when you're feeling a little burned out, you're still growing, and never underestimate the power of your friends to help you get back on track! Take the time to recharge when you need it.

Wishing everybody a terrific day ahead and time with the people you appreciate the most. Don't forget those eleven-second therapeutic hugs. Most important of all, remember that growth happens fastest outside your comfort zone!

Happy Sunday, everybody...or Monday to those of you on the other side of the world.

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