Every year, we plan a getaway with my entire family. No schedules, no stress, just pure intentional downtime. I found that studies reveal that taking intentional downtime lowers stress levels, boosts creativity, and improves sleep quality. Long term, people who take regular breaks are more focused, productive, and far less likely to experience burnout. Family vacations, in particular, strengthens relationships and creates lasting memories. Today, we're diving into how intentional downtime or vacations can transform your mental and physical health, boost productivity, and bring families closer together. Trust me, the benefits are worth it. I'm Joe, my pal right over there holding his brand new grandson. That's Kurt, and we are dudes in progress. Hello, Kurt.
Hey, Joe.
I guess congratulations are in order.
Yes. Very exciting weekend. I am.
It's great, man.
A new grandpa.
Congratulations, buddy.
Yeah, very exciting. So, so much fun. Can't wait to see him again.
So they're a few hours away, though, right?
Yeah, about. Yeah, pretty much 2 hours drive.
Yeah.
Up in massachusetts.
Are about 2 hours, 2 hours, 40 minutes away, depending on how excited I am to see him. Has depend is how far away they are, right?
Yeah. It was really painful. I'm not patient, as we've all declared. And driving 2 hours up to see him in the hospital on Sunday was pure torture. But we're going back up on this Sunday during the holiday weekend. As we're recording, it's gonna be memorial day weekend, and I am really excited. We're getting videos. They got home from the hospital today on Tuesday. And joe, he's got the biggest feet I've ever seen on any baby. We're just laughing. I had to call my son up because I finally saw a picture where this bare feet when he was going home, I said, I don't want to. I don't want to startle you, or, I'm not sure how you're going to take this, but, my gosh, he's got huge feet. But if that's the only issue we're dealing with, I'm okay with it.
That is so awesome, man.
I told him I got to teach him how to box out and how to play underneath the basket. When he gets bigger and older, I hope he grows into those feet.
It's all pretty exciting, man.
Yeah.
Congratulations, dude. I love being a grandpa. You know that, right? Everybody knows that. Uh, it's just, um, it's the great, great things about being a parent is eventually, if you're lucky, you get to be a grandpa. So congratulations.
One of the first things my wife said is we got to do that big Wildwood New Jersey, on the beach, vacation with all the family next year. We're saying little soon to take the little one to the beach or take them anywhere till he's a little bigger. But, yeah, I love those big family vacations.
You've taken your fair share of vacations in your life, haven't you?
I've made it a priority in my life. I've always felt. I think I've heard myself saying this here and some other places recently. Balance is really important. But I love vacations for lots of reasons, all the obvious reasons, and I don't ever want to lose sight. I always felt a little cheated if I'm overworking, like, I don't need to be overworking. I need to have that balance, and it's something I'm always looking forward to. I'm feeling a little bit neglecting right now. We've been waiting for this baby. I think my wife's not been in the frame of mind to talk about scheduling a vacation, but I gotta get her back in the frame of mind because it is something. I just. I love having that out there, planning for it, and have it out there as a something to look forward to.
Well, I've talked about vacations many times here, and you know how I feel about vacations. And I think most of, most of our listeners do as well. I do it intentionally. I mean, I. I have a plan where my agreement with my family is I'll take care of the place, you find a way to get there. And we've been doing that for years. And, in fact, I was talking to one of my kids over the weekend, and we were talking about taking the upcoming vacation that we. That we have planned to defuse island again this year. We went last year, and I said, listen, if you ever get sick of taking a family vacation with me, don't tell me, just lie.
I like that. That's good advice. No, I think even my older kids, yeah. I mean, they're getting. They're all almost in their throat. Two of them are in their thirties, and one's almost there. I think they do enjoy family vacations or being together, doing stuff together, which is a great. It's awesome. I'm glad that.
Do you have a favorite vacation that you've taken? Favorite family vacation?
Well, I mean, I do a podcast devoted to Disney World, but when my wife and I first met, and we were working with the same bearing manufacturers, customer service reps, there was a woman there who talked about a friend who owned a little motel on a beach called Wildwood. New Jersey. And I'd never. I love the beach. There's my wife, as I learned, as we started dating, and we went down there and Joe, we were just floored. If New Jersey gets a bad rap, I think people, you say, you get two different reactions from people when you say you're going down to New Jersey beaches for vacation, at least in Connecticut, one is, oh, my gosh, I love Wildwood, New Jersey, or why in the world would you go to New Jersey? But I've been. I can't say I've been all the beaches. I've been to California and Florida, and I just am so in love with Wildwood, New Jersey, and that beach. It's so huge. I can't even describe to you how much real estate there is from where the hotels are to where the water is. You got a lot of open space, plenty of room to spread out. It's long, too. Several miles long, just on that piece where we go in Wildwood Crest, they call it. And you just walk and walk. And they have a huge boardwalk for. There's always something to do if you're. I mean, the New Jersey boardwalks are famous for the rides. They have roller coasters, water parks, mini golf, restaurants, and the wildlife. It's one of my favorite vacations, the one we did when my parents went, my sister and her husband and my nephew. My kids all went, that was. And I have a friend from college, and his family went, that is probably the one we look back on. Still have pictures from that. The fondest.
I don't know if I can pick a favorite, but I can pick the most significant, I guess you would say. And it was those first couple big family vacations, not, not with the whole family, not when they were grown up, but as kids before, when we could finally kind of afford a really nice vacation. And we did it at, in Panama City Beach, Florida. And we stayed at a place called the sun. The sunglow or the sunburn. No, the sunbird. The sunbird. And to this day, I remember so much about that vacation. I remember flying kites on the beach with the kids when they were little. I remember building huge sand castles. I remember my youngest daughter diving in the pool by herself and swimming by herself without any kind of help. And she was only, like, two years old, and it was just such a good time. And I remember those first couple vacations where we just had a blast. And since then, we've made it an intentional event every year through the family vacation. And we've had to make sacrifices, right. We've had to scrimp and save at times and, and plan and, you know, go cheap where we could go cheap and save where we could save and be as frugal as possible. But there's ways to make it happen, Kurt. Yeah, there's ways to be able to afford some downtime. I do believe that it's, it's a choice. Even if you, even if you just need to go a couple hours away somewhere in a little mountain cabin or in a go tent, go go tent camping for a long weekend, you can find a way to take significant time with your family. And what I was surprised, and I guess when I look back, it shouldn't be a surprise. I was surprised at all the benefits that study after study after study shows about taking vacations and taking intentional downtime. And we're going to cover those today, Kurt. We're going to cover the mental health benefits, the physical health benefits, the productivity benefits that you get from taking vacations and time off, strengthening family bonds. And then we're going to talk about a couple tips for effective downtime and taking vacations. And I'm really going to lean on you for that. Kurt, I don't know if you knew this or not, but there's two types of vacations that I'd like to talk about. But, but you are a vacationer extraordinaire. In fact, I don't know if you know this about Kurt, but he and his wife run a travel agency. It's Disney focused. Surprise. In addition to his podcast, they, they run a travel agency, very successful travel agency at that. And so I'd like to talk to you about some tips about taking intentional downtime. Is that fair enough?
I'll do my best.
A couple big organizations, the Penn foundation and psychology today, as well as connections wellness group, have done some really large studies on the benefits of taking a vacation. And what they found and what I know and what you know as well is taking a vacation is one of the best things you can do for your mental health. Research after research shows that stepping away from work significantly reduces stress and anxiety. Man, I can speak for myself when I'm on vacation and my brain releases dopamine, I feel happier and more relaxed and just not a worry in the world. And that's intentional. That's why we take vacations. But did you also know that vacations help decrease depression symptoms?
Dont doubt it. Id love to see studies proving it.
Yeah. From the connections wellness group, a study found that vacations can significantly reduce depressive symptoms and are more effective than passive leisure activities. Its just a great reminder, Kurt, that taking time off isnt just about having fun. Its about taking care of your mind, taking care of your soul, taking care of your thought process. It's about just releasing yourself.
I think the most important part of this, and I've been thinking this as we're ever since we started recording on this topic, is if you've got time off, you need to leave the work behind. However you go about doing that, maybe you got to get. Get some things and buttons tied up. You got to have some backup. It might take you, you know, a good part of your year to make sure you got people who are backing you up. You just want to leave work at work when you take this vacation. That's my best advice I can give.
I would love to take that advice, Kurt.
Well, I know you're not good at that, but listen to me. I'm telling you.
What do you do about a guy like me? This is my claim about working on vacation. When I work on vacation, I take. Maybe if I'm gone a week on vacation, four of those days, I'll probably spend early mornings after my walk and coffee and downtime and all that other stuff. Half hour, 45 minutes, checking emails, making sure everything's moving in the right direction to see if any big customer problems have come up, make sure all my people are, if there's any issues there. And it literally takes a half an hour, 45 minutes tops. Nobody else is, I'm awake. Everybody else is sleeping. So I don't feel like I'm taking time away from them. And my reason for doing that is I feel like it makes the rest of the day go better because now it's not nagging me at the back of my mind. You think it's a cop out?
I think it's a bunch of crap.
Yeah. Figured you'd say that.
Yeah. My. I mean, my thing is, if I do have something that is dangling and. And they need me in this room and might we kind of work this both ways when they're out, if there's really something that we could stop a real problem happening, we'll do it. But it's. It's got to be bad, right? It's got to be critical. Other than that, we don't. We don't look at work when we're away.
Yeah, I'm culture vacation. I got a big vacation coming up. Actually, as we're talking, I'm on vacation right now, and as I look at the calendar, when this is coming out, I'm probably on my way back from Portugal, my wife and I are taking a extended vacation, just her and I. And, uh. We'll see. We'll see how I do.
Don't you have an out of office message? I'm out. Talk to my boss?
I do.
What's the problem?
I'm a bit of a control freak.
Yeah, there you go.
Let's move on.
We. We ain't gonna agree on that one.
Well, I agree with you. Here's the thing. I agree with you, buddy, but it's. It's just really hard for me. And the big excuse I make is.
Try it.
Uh, is that. Yeah, I will. The big excuse I make is that little half hour, 45 minutes just helps the day go better for me.
I hope you're so busy you don't have time. Cause you're gonna be in Portugal, right? You don't know. You're gonna be in another country. You gotta be looking around and knowing what you're doing. You don't have time. It's not like you're sitting on the beach.
Well, we're staying very close to a beach.
Let's go. Yeah.
Still, we're going to be busy. We know that there's definitely mental health benefits. I really like the idea of it decreasing depression symptoms and taking time off and getting out of your head and getting out of your daily routine and breaking maybe some bad mental loops that you're in by being away from your everyday, your everyday life that may be contributing to exasperating depressive symptoms, because there's some. There's. There's some physiological issues about depression that we don't want to ignore. But there's something to breaking that pattern. And I really. I really do buy into this idea that there are significant mental health benefits by taking a vacation.
I like your third point, which I didn't think of. Increased resilience that you can overcome, challenges you're building. Resistance, resilience and life skills like learning how to say, no, I'm on vacation. Don't bother me. Gone fishing.
We've passed that one.
Oh, God.
Beyond. We're moving. We're moving on.
Just saying. It's in your bullet points.
How about physical well, well being and the physical health benefits of taking a vacation? Can you see any, as you think about vacationing? Can you. Can you see any physical health benefits to taking a vacation? Kurt?
I like I'm cheating ahead. Better sleep quality. You should be able to sleep better. Just relax, because we are going 100 miles an hour most of the time. Slowing down it take doesn't it take a couple, you know, in all honesty, it takes a couple of days. I like to kind of slow it down the last couple of days before I go on vacation. Like, don't take on any big projects. I'm already putting up that wall, like, I'll be on vacation. So I'm letting everyone know I'm not taking on anything big right now until I get back after vacation. And people are usually pretty good. But definitely, I love going on long walks early morning on the beaches. That's one of the things. Even when I'm in Disney world, I get up early. I love the mornings in Disney world or at the beach, because the world hasn't really woke up on vacation. Everyone else sleeps in, and I get that beautiful quiet time in the morning.
Yep. I read in one of these studies that regular vacationing, intentional vacationing, and intentional downtime can reduce heart disease by 30%.
That's incredible.
That's huge, isn't it?
Yeah, I can. Yeah, it's all that tension on your arteries and stress, for sure.
So when I think about being on vacation, the last thing I think about is being physically active. But when I reflect on, on vacations, I am more physically active on vacation than I am at home. Even though I'm out of my, any kind of regular walking or exercise routine. I don't have the YMCA here and all those, all those places, but I still get up early when I'm on vacation. I still take a morning walk most of the time. We're engaged in physical activities. We're swimming and walking from place to place and just doing things actively, even if it seems like a non itinerant vacation. We're still more. I'm still more active on vacation than I normally am. Isn't that interesting? I didn't realize it until I read this. I read these studies that, that you are more likely to engage in physical activities when you're on vacation, exploring new places, going. Going to new events. Even if it's. Even if it's walking to a. Yeah, I don't know, a mountain. You know, you go, you go to the lighthouse down the road or whatever it might be, or the local zoo.
Or a day in the sun, riding the waves on a boogie board in Wildwood, New Jersey. Let me tell you, you're going to sleep good that night.
It'll wear you out.
Dude, you're still riding the waves. Yeah. In your sleep, you're still riding the.
Waves, swimming in the ocean. I mean, there's no better workout than that.
I know. It. I love, I love it. Yeah. And Disney World. 30, 30,000 steps. Let me tell you, you're exhausted. I sleep like a rock. I'm in bed. My wife laughs because I, I'm a pretty sound sleeper anyway, and she usually has a hard time getting to sleep. I mean, we get into the room within 15 minutes, I'm out.
You mentioned, you mentioned this before, and it's long term. It's, it's, it's not just that moment from being worn out. The sleep benefits are long term, far after you return from vacation. Psychology today said that after vacations, people sleep better for weeks and sometimes months after a vacation.
Oh, that's fantastic.
Part of that is you've released some of that stress. Part of that is you may be physically worn out. Right.
I mean, when I get back that first day at work, I like to ease into it a little bit. The stress of the, hopefully things have been going well while I was away, and I can. Yeah. Kind of slowly get into the pace of the day to day.
Let's talk about boosting productivity. This is something near and dear to my heart, and I know it is to you. We always talk about how to be more productive and why we need to be more productive and tips on being more productive. I think one of the, if I were to name the top three things to make me more productive and to make somebody more productive is to take time off. I would say that's one of the top three things to make yourself more productive. I'm telling you, as a leader or a manager, encouraging your team to take time off can be one of the best decisions you make for your organization, for you, for them and the entire organization. You need your people. And this is, I've had discussions with the people who report to me about taking time off because somehow it's a badge of honor. I'm not, I'm not. I haven't taken a vacation in six months or I haven't taken a vacation in two years or whatever it might be. And I force my, my people, the people that report to me, to take time off. And it's funny, I don't, I don't follow my own advice because I tell them to completely unplug. Just, I don't want to hear from you. Yeah, but do you know why? And it's almost selfish, it's almost self serving, because I need them to be creative. I need them to be focused. I need them to be energized. And the only way I'm going to get that is if they take time off on a regular basis, so it's very important to take time off. It's. It's one of the most surprising benefits of taking a vacation is that positive impact it has on productivity. They return to work renewed with energy and focus. Again, they're more creative, Kurt, and their problem solving skills go way up. I love to schedule meetings after everybody's been on vacation. Right after. During those late summer months, maybe September or so after everybody's been on vacation, because everybody just seems more creative and more energized and more ready to solve the problems of the business. And that's supported by, again, studies from the Penn foundation in psychology today, I think.
You ever kind of think of things you want to do when you get back to work while you're on vacation? Yeah, I get kind of thinking of, hey, what could I do to improve things when I get back in the office? When I'm thinking of, you know, you get that subconscious mind working a little smoother when you got some time off and you're reflecting on things and, yeah, I want to get back to doing whatever it is that you want to improve on. I was thinking, we recently doing a show on Walt Disney, and he had a nervous breakdown, was what they called a nervous breakdown. Just overworked, burnt out. And when he came back, though, really creative time in his career after he got things taken care of from being just burnt out. That's, if you've gone that. That far, you really overdone it.
Right. And again, it's. It's not a badge of honor to not take time off. It's a myth.
Yeah. I like how you say you encourage it, too, with your people, even though you're not smart.
I'm not good at it.
Yeah.
I'm not good at it. But I do force the issue with us.
Good. I require the right thing to do. Yeah.
Yeah, I agree. I agree. It is. That is. It is the right thing to do. You know, we talked a lot about in the beginning of the. Of the show about family vacations together. And if you want to strengthen your family bonds, if you want to pull your family together, take a big, large family vacation. Now, I happen to pay for the place that we stay, either the condos that we stay in, if we're on the beach, or the large house that we might stay in. I'm blessed right now in my life to be able to do that, but I'm also intentional about it. There's places throughout the year that I don't spend money. So I so I can make sure that I do this. So it's, it's how I choose to, that's the investment I choose to make in my life and in my family. But if you want to strengthen your family bond that you're in your family, not only your immediate nuclear family, but, but your extended family, your grandkids and your, your sons in laws or daughters in laws, even your in laws, you know, I've taken my in laws on vacation with us. That does something magical to strengthen family bonds. Spending uninterrupted time. I don't believe, Kurt, that quality time exists because quantity time is quality time. You can't get. You can't strengthen a family bond on 15 minutes a day of, quote, unquote, quality time. Quality time is quantity time. So when you have uninterrupted, untimed, unscheduled moments, and you can really only do that when you're on vacation, when you've created that environment, it really builds stronger relationships and creates lasting memories. Like I said, I take a family vacation every year, and I wouldn't have it any other way. These trips and these vacations that we take are invaluable to my family.
And don't let Clark Griswold be the model. He tried. I love him. He tried, though, didn't he?
That's funny. He had good intentions.
He had great intentions. It just all didn't work. Seemed to work out. But I think they'll never forget that vacation, how long they live. They'll never forget that time they went to Wally World. Yeah. You know, I was thinking, too, in terms of putting importance with, even with my Disney world. I said to my wife and I one day, we said, you know what? We're buying into the Disney vacation club, which is a timeshare. And it's a significant investment at a time. I mean, is there ever a time, a good time to make a big investment like that? We thought about it for ten years. The kids were, we knew around the corner they were going to college, so we had that looming down. But, boy, what a great investment. We did a. When we first bought it, we stayed right next to Magic Kingdom in a brand new tower building called Bay Lake Tower. We had a two bedroom suite because we just bought into the vacation club, and it was our 25th wedding anniversary. And we brought all the adult kids, their girlfriends and other friends, and we all stayed there. It housed nine of us.
Right.
We could walk to magic kingdom from the really where the contemporary is, where this vacation club building was built. What a great time but you're right. I mean, especially when they're, when they're little, you're, everyone's running around in different directions. You're going to activities. There's never quantity or quality time. It seems like to just have great conversations. I just remember everyone really enjoying those times. And we made it a priority, just like you, Joe. We put a big investment there and it's, you know, I just had my 35th wedding anniversary yesterday.
Congratulations. Awesome.
Oh, we didn't mention too, your birthday was the same day as my grandson.
How about that, huh? Very cool.
That was fun. I didn't realize. Yeah, I saw the facebook posts and it just happened. John was born the same day as you.
Never forget my birthday. And I'll never forget little John's birthday. Right?
That's right.
That's very cool.
But, yeah, so much great times have been spent both at the beach and at Disney World because of the importance we put on everybody being there. And as they get older, you think, hey, teenagers, they don't want to go on vacation with their parents. My kids always enjoyed, they have great memories of all these places.
Yeah, mine too.
We were looking at pictures before John was born. The family got together for the baby shower, and it was all families. And we had all these pictures from when Kate and my son Harry were kids. There was a picture from Wildwood with him. Just him. It was just the three of us. And on the boardwalk playing this arcade game that we always have laughed about because he was so much fun, laughing and smacking those big hammers where you hammer the alligator as they come up or whack a mole.
Whack a mole.
Sure. We'll never forget those times. And same thing. My kids jumping in the pool, learning how to swim at the pool at the, at the resort.
So, yeah, yeah, about, about family vacations. Somebody might be listening right now and say, yeah, Joe, Kurt, you might be able to afford to do this every year and take your family on vacation, but you don't know my situation. And I'll say this, I'll bet you I do. Because even, even young, as a young family, we scrimped and saved. And I would have rather, I would have rather drove old beat up cars and keep those old beat up cars running on the cheap than to sacrifice my family vacation. We, you know, we coupon and cut corners where we could and cut expenses where we could, everywhere we could. I did with this intention in mind, knowing that this nice family vacation is coming up.
We did too. We did too.
You can find a way, I hope.
So I understand the thought, what you're saying, too. But we certainly, we didn't do a lot of extracurricular activities or eat out dinners. We brought our lunches. We, we did everything we could to make that time down at the beach at, when they were really little. And then our Disney world time, too, was, uh, was a huge priority.
It's very interesting that you said that, because I remember one of my kids saying, you mean we're going to a restaurant while we're on vacation? Yeah, because we did the same thing. We bought food, we packed and we ate, and we. And we do it still now. We, we do. We go grocery shopping when we're on vacation and load up the refrigerator, and we still, we still kind of do it on the cheap that way. We rent a condo that has a kitchen and a grill full. A full kitchen and a grill and all that stuff. So we can cook it. So we can cook at home. But what, but we also eat out a couple times when we're on vacation now. But the first time that we. That we ate out, my kids couldn't believe it, really. Wow. You know, because we found a way to do vacation and take that time off, uh, uh, in an inexpensive way. And, and not eating out is one of those ways.
The. The guys that own these places that we stay, we say over the years, different ones changed. They sold or whatever, but a lot of people would be going out almost every night to dinner. We'd see them going. And we're getting the grill ready next to the pool. Yeah, you guys are grilling out. They used to give us the, the lighters, the fire starter lighters, because we were the ones always using the grills.
That's funny.
But quite honestly, you know, part of that was save money, but the other part was that we really couldn't find a restaurant that we really liked. There was always, like, tourist traps. There was nothing, really. We finally did find one place, and that was the one that we go to every time. It was called the lobster house in Cape May. And that was a really unique and fun place where they had three different styles. You could do takeout, you could get wholesale and retail fish market, and then you could go out on the docks where all the boats came in, have fried fish or broiled seafood and crabs and like that. So it was a really fun place to go. And we kind of liked that. That was kind of our thing. We did it like, we kind of got into a routine, too, because we got familiar with things, but that certain days were the bike riding certain days, we're going down to Cape May. Someday we'd go to this restaurant, but everything else was laying around the beach, looking back at the room.
So the the family. The family benefits and fam. Family strengthening and family bonding benefits are undeniable. I loved these studies by Penn foundation psychology today and connections wellness group. As we explored. The mental and health benefits are undeniable. The physical and health benefits are surprisingly there. That took me by surprise. I always knew that boosting productivity was a significant part of taking a vacation and significant reason to take some downtime. And my whole life, this has been strengthening family bonds through vacations have been important to me, and we've just found a way to do it. The benefits of intentional downtime and taking a vacation are undeniable. Let's talk about a couple tips for effective downtime and for taking. For taking a vacation, there's two things that I would. I would say about vacationing, and we've done both. Either we do both while we're on vacation, or we have separate vacations where we do these things. And the two types of vacations that I would invite you to explore is one to take time to explore and learn. Plan a trip to a new place. Learn about different cultures. Step way out of your comfort zone. This is part of going to Portugal is this is. We're stepping way out of our comfort zone, and we're going to a place we've never been. They don't speak English as their national language. Now, I'm sure a lot of people there speak English, but this type of vacation can be really enriching and rewarding and help you grow and stretch yourself and learn. I like that kind of vacation as well. I'm not an itinerant vacationer, but I will take some time during these trips to find a new place, to learn different cultures, to step out of my comfort zone just to make sure that I have a really different experience. Then there's the type of vacation that we've. We talk a lot about the time to decompress, just take a break, to do nothing, do no thinking, do nothing. Relax. Unwind. Spend time with the people who you love and the people who love you. Have a couple drinks if that's your thing. Reconnect with yourself and your family. And we didn't talk a lot about that, about reconnecting with yourself. Those quiet walks on vacation are important to you, aren't they, Kurt?
Oh, yeah. I just really love that quiet, quality time, for sure. By myself. Yeah. Reading. Spend some time with a book. Yeah.
So most of your vacation experience, Kurt, is with Disney. And as I said in the beginning of the show, you. You run a very successful Disney focused travel agency. Try to take those experiences and expand beyond that. What kind of tips would you give to people traveling to create an effective, memorable vacation?
The biggest tip in interviewing lots of people that I've ever heard, and it comes up every time I ask my audience for tips when they come on my podcast to talk about their trips, what is that biggest tip? And it always comes up. And I think it's definitely true for Disney World, but you think you can apply it to anything, and that's especially if you're going somewhere where you've never been before. You got to have a plan. You got to do some research. Don't go at it totally blind, because I can't believe this, but people do this, and especially they do this at a place like Disney world where, unfortunately, it's quite complicated and you're going to be disappointed. So you got to have a plan, but you gotta be willing to veer off that plan or have a plan B. So you gotta be kind of a little bit Zen like, you know, we've always said, have the bones of your plan. You don't wanna have every last second plan that you've gotta be from here to, you know, you don't wanna create stress by being. To point a, to point b, and. Cause you gotta build in a little bit of slouch time there, a little buffer time in between. I think that is the most important advice I could give anyone going to Disney World, or I think I already said that to you. When you're going to Portugal, I asked you, do you have a plan, Joe? Have you been doing some research? I hate for you to show up and not have a good plan, but I think you do have a good bones of your plan.
Kurt, I know you said this before, and you mentioned it earlier, but, you know, what are the one of the funnest parts about going on vacation is planning the vacation and looking forward to it. In fact, I don't know where I read this research. It wasn't in these three studies. But the longer you have before you actually go on vacation, the longer you have that you know you're going on vacation before you actually go on vacation, the more you enjoy your vacation.
Yeah.
Because you have all that time leading up to it. It's part of that fun and excitement and looking forward to it and thinking about all the things you're going to do and how relaxed you're going to be and sitting in the sun and drinking a margarita or walking on the beach or hanging out at Disney or whatever it might be.
It's a huge part of my fun. I joke around with people at work all the time. If you're having that stressful time, something's really not going well. I use my vacation thoughts to really help my mental health, for sure. And I'm joking with people. Don't worry, you know, a week from now, I'm not going to be here, so whatever. And they all know that I talk it up big time. If we're just shooting the breeze. Hey, I just planned this trip. It's going to be this date and this is where I'm going. So, yeah, it's, it's a big, it's a big thing. And people get. It's amazing how people don't plan for a lot of things, but I really seriously think you just have fun with it and you don't have to be crazy. Definitely planning a year out. I know if you're doing up something fairly significant that you've never done before. And my wife and I always talk about Disney World because you could actually get a better price if you plan a year ahead because the rates will go up the next year, it might be similar to other places you go. They're just going to raise the prices. So hook it ahead of time. Lock in a price if you can. But that's an advice that I think works for all of these kinds of things.
Before we go into our win for the week, our resource and our quote, there's one thing I want to say about vacationing memories are better than stuff. Now, many of you have heard me say that lots of time, especially if you've listened to my podcast, Simple Joe. But they are sell your stuff if you have to, have a garage sale, get rid of it. Or intentionally don't buy that stuff that you think you're going to buy next year. And take some time off with the family. Spend time with the people who love you and the people who you love.
Yeah, I love your advice. We agree on that. And I'll just add, you talked a little bit about this with your families. Getting an education outside of school is some of the best education you're going to get. And I, I can remember being so grateful because as a kid I didn't have the means to do some big things like go to Disney World or go to Florida. I was very grateful. I thought about the kids that come down here and see this place or wherever you go to see the rocky mountains or to see another country or see another big city, and to just expand their beliefs of what is possible, I think, is an education. You can't teach in school. And it was for me. I went down to Disney World and I went, oh, my gosh. I can't believe one person and their imagination and their creativity and their. Their work created this place. It blew my mind. I had the same feeling when I went to New York City. Like, look at these buildings. But I get that. I get that overwhelming feeling a lot of times and appreciation when I see new people, new cultures, experience new things.
I cannot agree more, Kurt. Memories are better than stuff, dude. So how about your win for the week?
What do you think? My win for the week.
I know this one.
John Benjamin Stone is my win for the week. We were talked about. It's quite amazing. Healthy, doing well. Got home today. My son has been fun, sending me lots of pictures. They're doing great. Everyone's really excited. It's fun. I was, you guys, I had quite a weekend, too. Went to the Neil Young concert. Not to try to put that in comparison with my grandson. I was laughing about it because I was looking so forward to this concert and bought tickets long time ago, knowing it might. I mean, I knew he was coming in May. Luckily, didn't come the same day. But I. To me, Neil Young's such an iconic performer that I've loved. I said to my daughter, he's right up there with, like, Jerry Garcia, Bob Marley, John Lennon. He's like an icon for me. And so to see him in person was. Was awesome, but. And then to have my grandson born, I was. I was barely. My eyes weren't even open. My wife sticks the phone in my face. We didn't get home that late. It's not too bad. But she goes, look it. There he is. So it's quite a weekend.
Well, my win for the week, I have changed at the last second. I celebrated my birthday this past weekend along with your grandson. We celebrated our birthdays at the same time. And wow, what a weekend. I took a group of handful of teenagers from my church to Kings island on Saturday, and we hung out there all day long. And it was super busy. We rode just a handful of rides, but had a great time connecting with these kids and hearing their stories and just. Just being there for them. Right.
How many kids?
Just four kids.
Oh, yeah.
Four kids.
That's easy.
So just. Just a small group of kids and just. What a blast. And then Sunday, my, my dad daughter and my son in law took me and my wife to a place here locally, just across the river in Kentucky called Hofburgh House. And they brought our lunch. They brought our lunch and my other two daughters were there and my grandkids were there. And that was a blast. And then I ended up taking my two oldest grandkids to Kings island for the day. And that was just, I can't tell you what a good time it was in the Saturday before I took my, my youngest grandkid. And I think we talked about that to Kings island. That's, that's my real win for the week. But I'm going to throw in one more. And you talked about this a little bit. I did have a significant win at work. I was able to wrap up several small items and tasks, those little needling things that you want to get done before you go on vacation. And it's the vacation that I'm on right now. So rest assured, I've got all that done. I've got all that tucked away. And I'm hoping as you're listening to this, I'll be able to, I'll be able to report next, next episode that I really did take down time and I did little to none of checking email and engaging in work.
I tease you a lot about that, but I'm proud of you. Yeah, that's good. I love that. That feels good when you can leave with a great conscience, but boy, oh, boy.
Congrats, Kurt. I know you're a, you're a proud grandpa. And Grandpa is the best thing ever, dude. It's the best thing ever. So, so happy for you and your wife and, and your son and his, his wife and that beautiful John Benjamin Stone. Welcome to the world.
He's super. He's gorgeous.
Yeah. Big feet, though.
Big hands, too.
How about your resource hack that you got for us this week?
He grows into him. I put a bunch down. We just talked about. Have a plan and be willing to change the plan. Be flexible. That was one of my resources or tips. Disney World. I don't, I've never talked about Disney World on this podcast. If you're going to somewhere that's really complicated, like Disney World, get a travel advisor. Like the traveling tiaras. There's my plug for my wife and her good friend Judy. They can help you. And there's no charge for you to go to Disney World from your travel advisor. Disney pays that as a compensation to the travel advisor, so you can do that. And a book. That is fantastic. The unofficial guide to Disney World. It's really thick. Don't let it intimidate you. You can pluck out things that you need, but just with those two resources, you could get a plan, a nice, flexible plan to go on a complicated place like Disney World.
So you're being a little unassuming about the benefits of the traveling Tierras, the travel advisors that really, your wife and her friend run, but you're a significant part of that, as well. I don't want you to discount your role in the traveling Tierras, but, wow, they do a bang up job, man. If you have a plan to go to Disney World, just look. Just go to Google and look up traveling Tierra's travel advisors. I'm telling you, you won't regret it. They really do a bang up job and will help you plan your vacation from beginning to end. So you're a little unassuming about it, Kurt, but I don't want this opportunity to go by without really. And you've never, we've never talked about it on this show. They really do a great job, brother.
Thank you.
Yeah.
And I think if you can, even for your trip that you're doing to Portugal, if you can find somebody who's done it before, pick their brain. Yeah.
Yeah.
If you can collaborate with someone else on something that you've never done before. Yeah. Check out the podcasts and the YouTube videos and all those things. Take your time. Plan it well in advance, but find someone who's done it before and, and you can really get. We've got a great Facebook group. You can ask questions and you'll get fantastic responses in our Facebook group.
Yeah.
So my resource is a website called vrbo. Vrbo. And I think it is@vrbo.com. dot. It stands for vacation rental by owner. We've been using Vrbo for years. It's a great, dependable, safe website for finding a place to stay on vacation. We look at, we look at Vrbo all the time. We plan this vacation off from Vrbo. We found our places that were staying on Vrbo, and they really do the best they can. I wouldn't say the best they can. They do a great job at protecting, protecting their renters, protecting the people that book through them. They are very clear on guidelines and costs. You know, before you hit click what the costs are going to be. You know, you know that the, the reviews are real reviews from real people, and they leave the negatives in there as well as the positives. So you really know. And they don't please them at all. They don't, they don't take a negative review at all. Off. Unless it's, it's just malicious, right? Untrue, malicious. But, but they do a great job. Verbo, I'm sure you've heard of it if you've traveled around at all, but it stands for vacation rental by owner. But I think it's at vrbo.com dot. Just type in Vrbo. It'll take you right there.
I've, I've heard of it, but I've not heard people give a nice explanation of it like you just did, you know, again, someone experienced who's done it before.
Yeah. You just go on there. You go on there. You type in where you want to go, when you want to go. It'll list all the places you can filter by, number of people going, the amenities you want, number of bedrooms, whether you want to be on a beach, whether you want to be in the mountains, all this stuff. I mean, you can filter as much as you want to filter and you'll end up, you know, you got to be careful with your filter. If you filter too much, you'll only, you won't have many choices. But we type in our filters and, you know, we may end up with 20 choices that meet our, meet our criteria, and now we just go through the reviews and start making a decision. They really do a good job. Vrbo, great resource.
Especially you're checking all kinds of different things, like price too, right?
Absolutely. Absolutely. Let's wrap up with some quotes.
Yeah, I guess I give a little extra win for a week. I give a little extra resource and tips and, you know, I had one quote and then I saw another one just before we started recording that literally liked, but my daughter has this on her car. She's a big fan of this writer and the stories that he's written. Not all those, not all those who wander are lost. J. R. R. Tolkien.
That's one of my favorites. I see him, I see it on t shirts, I see it on bumper stickers. I see it all over the place. I didn't know it was junior or Tolkien.
By the way, lord of the rings.
Quote, every time I see it, I'm like, man, that just feels good because it's true. Take some time to wonder. Just take some time to go and wander. I love it.
I love it.
Great.
I like to walk a lot, so I really relate to this one.
Yeah.
And the other one, this showed up on my Facebook feed just before we got on one of my Facebook friends. Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel. Yogi Berra.
I love his stuff.
I never heard that one before, but it just fit perfectly for our talk on vacations today.
And when you're traveling, Kurt, if you come to a fork in a road, take it. Take it. Another great Yogi bear.
Probably good luggage. Yeah, that's the frugal. The frugal in him is saying that.
I guess mine comes from Ann Lamont, Anna Montana, Christian writer. She does some really good, deep introspective work. But I love what she said. It's just, it's just a truth, right? Think about this, especially if you're, if you, if you mess with computers, almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes. Including you.
Yes.
We tried to reboot our computers just by unplugging it. Right?
It's so true. Yeah, the tech and me loves this one. And the personal part of me, I had a. Was it this past Sunday? I mean, sometimes you just gotta unplug for a Sunday. Like, I was just, just tired, you know, I felt like doing nothing and. Yeah, all right, this afternoon I am unplugging and I felt so much better getting up Monday and getting things going again.
Yeah, unplug it. Almost everything you work, almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. So let's learn to unplug, man.
Love it.
Joe, Joe, I love this conversation. I love talking to you about vacations and how important vacations are. So I like this. I like this talk, man.
It was timely because you're going on vacation and summer's coming up. Start planning your vacations. Guys, I got to take my own advice. I got to get something out on the books.
Perfect. Our website is dudes in progress.com. dudes in progress.com. you can reach us at dudes in progress.com dot. That's our email address, dudesudoods in progress.com dot. If you want to find out more at the show, visit the website. If you want to talk to us, send us an email. We would love to hear from you. If you want to find out more about our coaching services, we'd love to talk to you about that as well. Well, as we move forward, you don't have to have a perfect vacation, Kurt. You do have to plan for it, but you don't have to make it perfect. Just make progress. Progress, even on vacationing, is better than perfection. So just keep moving forward.
Yeah, you gotta relax. And I'm so excited for your vacation next week. Joey, I hope you have just an awesome time, and I can't wait to hear about it when you come back. Maybe that'll be a show for us. Let's do a trip report with Joe on dudes in progress when he comes back from Portugal.
Yeah, that'll be very cool. See ya, pal.