What made my vacation so great (and how to replicate it)

I recently spent an unforgettable week at a dude ranch with my family to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. This trip turned out to be my favorite vacation ever, and you may be surprised to know why.

In today's Two-Minute Tip, I share one of the biggest factors that made the experience so great and how we can implement it in our daily work and personal lives. Let’s dive in!

P.S. Here’s the link to Red Horse Mountain Ranch in case you’re interested. I can’t recommend it enough! Our youngest daughter told us not to get her anything for her birthday next year—just take her back to the ranch :).

• Read the video transcript

  Well, many of you know that just a few weeks ago I had the opportunity of spending an entire week away at a dude ranch. This was with my family celebrating my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, and it was an incredible experience. Honestly, every part of it exceeded my expectations, and I think it's safe to say that it is my very favorite vacation that I've ever gone on, and for a number of different reasons, one of those reasons being something that I don't think anybody would guess, and that is that there was no cell reception on this dude ranch. No cell reception!

  I learned that there would be no cell reception just a few days before we went on the vacation, and I have to admit a little bit of panic set in imagining not having any connection while we were there, but it ended up being the greatest gift and it impacted every part of the experience. We were undistracted, we were so present with each other and with the thing we were doing in that moment. It enabled us to just really enjoy and be focused through every part of the experience.

  And if you're like me, this is hard to replicate back at home and at work. We are constantly distracted by the buzzing of the phone, by the to-do list, etc. And so I want to encourage you and challenge myself to attempt to replicate more of this in my daily life.

  And so what that looks like for me is one practice that I already am pretty diligent about that is turning notifications off on my computer and my phone before I go into any meeting so that I'm not hearing buzzes or rings that distract me and I'm able to be fully present. I also do a quick brain dump before I go into a meeting of anything you know, to dos, etc., that are running through my mind. I write those down so that I can have them out of my mind when I'm meeting with the client or with the individual.

  And then at home. For me, what tends to be the most effective practice is if I actually put my phone in a separate room. If it's close to me, I am too tempted to peek to see what new email came in or text message, etc. So actually physically removing it so that I can be fully present with my kids and my husband.

  I'm curious what you might do to help kind of replicate this discipline of being fully present with whoever we are with and eliminating distractions. It's time that we make some really intentional shifts here.