An image that I will never forget is when I told a friend that I was going to take a short sabbatical. It was almost as if an electrical shock went through his body as he repulsed against it. I was really surprised. It was 2019 and for 10 years I had been on a burn schedule, often working 55-60 hour weeks. During that period of time, I lived in no less than seven countries and travelled countless many more. I loved, loved, loved what I did and so it did not feel like work to me. His belief was that it was a waste of time and there was so much more to do. Yet, looking back, I was wearing thin.

Up to this point, I must admit that considering the concept of a sabbatical was foreign to me because I had several ‘goals’ that I wanted to hit before I drew a line in my current work portfolio. That’s the problem with a big goal when you give it all you have. You see the completion of that goal start to appear and yet there is another one is right behind it, then another goal behind that one, and it never ends, so you never stop and look at the horizon. The realisation of this hit me at a profound moment when I was on the deck of our cabin in Colorado and after a bit of time visiting with my son Jordan about life, he looked at me and said ‘dad, I think you need a sabbatical’. It was completely out of the blue, but I immediately knew he was right.

So, we began to plan and socialise the concept, hence a less than enthusiastic response from a few friends. Yet, I knew it was one of those things I knew I needed to do, just as much as the goals that I had in my life prior to that. We started to make big plans. We set up a sabbatical support team and a coach, and then structured some weeks to have some rest, recreation, study and exploration. I had stacks of books I wanted to read and journals full of notes from the years that I wanted to go back over. I also hoped to finally improve my French. I thought maybe I might even get a couple of weeks where I could just tie flies and fly fish in the mountains of Colorado.

I still lack adequate words to describe of what hit us next. Within days of starting our sabbatical, we had a fire where we lost most of our most precious possessions which we had put in storage. Undeterred, we headed to England to carry on with our plans, thinking we would be back in Colorado by summer. It was only about six weeks later that the entire world went into the first extended lockdown for Covid – so we were stranded as international travel came to a sudden stop. Through Covid, our son’s health continued to seriously decline and I lost a number of family members to the horrible disease, including my father. I did not make it back that summer to fish. Devastated, I began to wonder who in the world would pause their careers to start a sabbatical at a time like this?

I could go on. Like our possessions, our sabbatical dream went up in smoke and it turned out to be one of the loneliest and darkest times of my life. Yet, it turned out to be one of the most clarifying times and I am not done understanding the profound effect it has had on me. It has become a catch 22. Would I want to have a sabbatical like this one again? Absolutely not. Yet because I did, I have treasures that I would not trade for anything in the world. In my sabbatical I did not just look at the horizon, I wound up looking deep within myself.

After we started our sabbatical, my daughter Hannah captured the moment in a newsletter which I will cherish forever as she soulfully wrote about beauty of barren trees and empty fields of winter to describe this season of our lives. Yes, there is beauty in barren times. I could have soldiered on to my next set of goals and assignments, but even in calamity, my sabbatical became a deeply productive time.

What triggered me writing this blog? Tonight while reading Standford Innovation Review, it highlighted a belief I now have about sabbaticals. They are not for everyone and I would not impose a set time frame on which to have them, but I can say that even a disastrous sabbatical can yield results far beyond the few months that you put into them.

More is not always more, especially when you lose a lot.