Lead In 30 Podcast

Why the Smartest Leaders Disappear Every Summer

• Russ Hill

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Ready for a science-backed permission slip to disconnect this summer? Discover how Harvard's longest running happiness study proves that getting completely off the grid isn't just good for your wellbeing—it's critical for your leadership effectiveness.

Drawing from his personal experiences volunteering at camps and preparing for family houseboating trips, Lone Rock Leadership co-founder Russ Hill breaks down exactly why intentional disconnection creates more impactful leaders. The evidence is compelling: people who regularly disconnect to spend quality time connecting with others show higher happiness levels, faster stress recovery, and greater perspective on challenges. Most importantly for professionals, they return more emotionally available to their teams, more creative in their thinking, and less reactive under pressure.

The key isn't just taking time off—it's how you spend that time. Connecting deeply with others, whether through volunteering, family vacations, or community service, activates neurochemical responses that enhance wellbeing and cognitive function in ways mere rest cannot. Through river rafting adventures, hiking expeditions, and campfire conversations, Russ illustrates how these experiences create the perfect environment for personal recalibration and clarity.

This episode provides a practical three-step process: genuinely disconnect (no emails or Slack!), prioritize meaningful connection with others, and use the mental space to reassess your priorities and values. By creating a twice-yearly rhythm of disconnection and renewal, you establish natural 90-day implementation cycles that transform both personal effectiveness and team culture. Whether you have three days or two weeks, this practice might be the most valuable leadership habit you'll ever develop.

Ready to transform how you lead through intentional disconnection? Listen now for the research-backed strategies that will make you a better leader in the second half of this year—and help your team thrive too.

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The Lead In 30 Podcast with Russ Hill is for leaders of teams who want to grow and accelerate their results. In each episode, Russ Hill shares what he's learned consulting executives. Subscribe to get two new episodes every week. To connect with Russ message him on LinkedIn!



Speaker 1:

Well, it is summertime. For most of us, that means vacation season. What Harvard's longest running study says about why you've got to get off the grid and let your team off the grid? What does it do for you? The data is crazy.

Speaker 2:

This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill. You cannot be serious. Strengthen your ability to lead in less than 30 minutes.

Speaker 1:

So I am in the middle of my summer getaway, which I do every year. If you've listened to this podcast for a long time, you know that in the summer and at the end of the year, between Christmas, around Christmas time through right after New Year's I get off the grid. I'm very intentional about it. I've done it for gosh 20 years, 15 years I've had this routine. So and what I want to talk to you about today is why I do it and what the research shows. Like, don't just go with what I think, don't just go with what you think might be good, but actually look at the data. What does science show us about why you've got to encourage your people? You've got to be supportive of them. Getting away that family vacation potentially, depending on how it goes for you or them, that family vacation, or that volunteer weekend at a summer camp or a trip internationally where you're volunteering, or whatever it might be, the data shows it has a profound effect on your ability to do your job well. So let's talk about that. Welcome into the Lead. In 30 podcast, in less than 30 minutes. In each episode, we give you a framework, an example, some research, a best practice, something that's going on in our working in this leadership lab for you to consider, for you to think about implementing, to help you more effectively lead others, because nothing has a more profound effect on your life than your ability to lead others. I'm Russ Hill. I make my living coaching, consulting senior executive teams at some of the world's biggest companies and at growing and developing leaders and mid-level leaders in organizations as well. You can find out more about our firm, lone Rock Leadership, at LoneRockio. Lonerockio. Okay, so at the time I'm recording this this month is just crazy. For me it is every year and I'm very intentional about it and making sure it happens, but in the moment it's pretty crazy and I'm recording this right in the middle of it.

Speaker 1:

So I just got back from a week in Colorado, um, volunteering one. I spend a week, at least one week, some summers it's two weeks, this this summer it's one. Uh, volunteering at our church camps and so the camp that I've and my wife does it as well, and so she was gone the first week that school was out here in Arizona volunteering at what we call girls camp. So it's for all the teenage girls like from 11 years old to roughly 18. Basically, it's a little bit, almost pre high school to through high school, okay, and they go off in the mountains and they sleep in tents and do all kinds of activities, from repelling to um to uh, what we call the tough mudder, which is like this tough challenge. You know where you got to dive into the ice, cold water and crawl through the mud under the tent and scale the. You know the, the walls and all this sort of stuff, and you're timed and you're you're racing against other teams and it's just brutal. And so my wife volunteered for that for a week.

Speaker 1:

She came back and then I went with a group of more than 50, um up to Colorado. We drove up there and we went river rafting, something that I've never done Like. I finally got to check that box, one of the boxes that I've wanted to check for a long time. I've never done it with all the outdoor camps and all the activities that have been involved in over the years. Somehow the river rafting never made it on the list, and so, but now I've checked that box and it was absolutely amazing. I mean, the water was freezing cold, holy cow.

Speaker 1:

We were all so excited to get back to 105 degrees in Arizona. Like you all can take that 40 degree water in your rivers in Colorado. I mean, it's beautiful, stunningly beautiful, but there's a reason nobody's swimming in that water. We're here in Arizona, we're used to. Literally we've got like what is it? It four or five lakes. People don't think of any water in arizona, but we've actually got four or five lakes that surround are around the phoenix metropolitan area and uh, and so we own a boat, we're boaters and we're out on that water a bunch and the water in our lake is like 78 to 82 degrees. It's crazy, crazy warm and um, and we love it that way. So when we get in 40 degree water, we're like, whoa, are you joking? Anyway, um, the camp was amazing.

Speaker 1:

We also did a hike that had a 2,600 foot elevation change is absolutely insane. My calves were on fire and I wasn't sure my heart was going to be able to, to, to, um, survive the, the altitude change and uh, and anyway it was. It was so amazing. We volunteered on a farm, got all these teenage boys out there pulling weeds and uh, snakes coming out of the, the, the, the grass, as we're helping this uh community farm that provides food to, uh, to, to those that otherwise might be hungry. In southern Colorado it was just, and then at night, we sat around the campfire and we, we, we talked about life and all kinds of things, and these, these boys that I volunteered with, were asking all kinds of questions, about spiritual things as well as emotional things, as well as career and growth. It was so amazing, and so many of you do things like that too, and I'm going to get into the data in just a moment, but I just want to tie this into the bigger picture of your desire to grow, your desire to be successful, your desire to have a great lifestyle and to positively impact others and make an impact in whatever industry you're in, and grow your career and help lead a team and all that sort of thing.

Speaker 1:

This idea, this principle of getting off the grid, is absolutely backed up by science. And it's hard because we've got so many things going on, like right now in our company. It's crazy how much stuff we've got going on. Yet I'm going to be consistent with that. I've got to get away, and the members of our team, they've got to get away, and I don't mean like take time off and then go be on your cell phone answering emails the whole time. No, you've got to be able to get away and you want to work with clients and others that allow that. Now, you know you aren't going to have clients. You're like, yeah, it's all right If you don't. You know you're not around for a month. No, the organization's got to back each other up. But this idea of fully, you know and you've got to model it right this idea of getting off the grid completely, you've got to model that meaning you're not responding to tons of emails, you're not in Slack, you're not in Microsoft Teams, you're getting away.

Speaker 1:

That is, people want to work for a boss that does that and that allows them to do that as well. So I'm going to share with you just a little bit of the data. And, by the way, so I told you I was in the middle of it, so I just did the volunteer camp for a week. So much planning, so much work went into. That just requires an enormous amount of effort and it pays off. It pays off tremendously, but it's hard work getting ready for that and I used to work, for when I was in the media business I worked for a broadcast company that had what they called mad hours, mad hours, mad, making a difference, and so they gave us 40 hours.

Speaker 1:

So this was back when I was a salaried employee of a corporation. They gave us 40. Many of your companies do things like this. If you don't, you've got to try, you've got to develop something like this. It's so valuable. It made a huge difference for me. So making a difference was 40 hours that each employee that was full time and had been on the job for I don't know how long six months, a year, three months, I don't remember what it was where you had earned this and then you got paid. It was like paid vacation, but it was different than your vacation time. You had to get it approved and it could be. You could use eight hours. It could be five days spread out over a year, where you're volunteering at your kid's school or at a, at a church or community thing or whatever it might be, and you're getting paid as if you were at work. Or, in my case, I would use that making a difference week for the camps that I go to, and then your vacation was separate than that. I thought it was a brilliant idea. I love when companies do something like this. Not only do they encourage you to get away, but they actually pay you for the time. That's a strong statement about what they want people doing in inside their organization giving back to the community. So we just did that.

Speaker 1:

Now I'm off on a family about to head off on a family vacation. This is where we go. We go on a houseboat with several other families. We get completely off the grid. We do that for a week. We tend to do it two weeks a year, one week in the summer and one week in the fall and we go to one of the most amazing, beautiful places in the entire world that I want none of you to go to, because it doesn't need to be any more crowded, and that's Lake Powell. It's actually a location where our company is named after Lone Rock. That's actually a place is at Lake Powell and it's a special place. Lake Powell is for all three of the co-founders of our company. We've all taken our families there. It's all been a tradition for us. We do it separately and um with different people that we live around, friends of ours and um, and so it's just a a a place that is so significant to us that we named our company after it. Um, okay, so I'm getting ready to go on that family vacation.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk about the data. The longest running study around happiness and fulfillment in the world is at Harvard, and Harvard's been engaged in this study for more than 80 years. It initially started with a group of several hundred young men that they were tracking with a group of several hundred young men that they were tracking, and then it expanded over the years, over the decades, to their partners and spouses and their descendants, and so it's called the Harvard Study of Adult Development. You can chat, gpt it, look it up and dig into it, and there's just tons of interesting findings around this and I'm going to connect it to getting off the grid here.

Speaker 1:

Here are a few of the findings of this long term academic scientific research around people feeling fulfilled. So one of the findings is that time with others not just resting, but actually spending quality time connecting with others restores your mind and body. This is what they found People who regularly spend intentional time away with others, on a trip or in service in the community. They reported higher levels of happiness, faster recovery from stress, greater perspective on personal challenges. And what the researchers say is this could be short getaways with family, friends or you're volunteering with others.

Speaker 1:

Doing that actually acts or serves as an emotional reset button, which we all know. We know how that feels right and so we're intentional about it. But there's actually academic research on it. And the second thing that's interesting about? Well, there are lots of aspects, so I'm just going to highlight three real quick from this study. The second thing that's super interesting is that these experiences with others lead to longer lasting positive emotions.

Speaker 1:

The study found that people who did new things with others, like what I just did I've never been river rafting, never been to Southern Colorado, this area that we went to that when you're doing these new things and you're building these casual connections, you have stronger emotional memory than those who simply took time off and stayed at home. So traveling, exploring, serving, volunteering with others, it increases dopamine, ox, oxytocin and it increases the likelihood that you will come back with a greater sense of purpose. You know that, right, I mean, I always. It's so valuable to break up the routine. I come back and I'm like, oh man, why have we been doing this that way? Why am I doing that? I need to mix this up, I need to do that differently, and so you're. You just feel lighter, you feel more grounded when you you come back. The last thing that I'm going to highlight coming out of this study that I think is really important for us to think about, as it ties to getting off the grid in the summer, is that harvard, after decades of research, after decades of gathering data, they found that people who intentionally disconnect from work to engage with others are more emotionally available to their teams. They're more creative, they're less reactive. There, you guys, I got pages and pages of data from this study and there's a bunch of others that you can find again. You can use an ai tool, you can google it, you can do whatever. There are books written about this.

Speaker 1:

My, I guess my call to action, my point in all of this is what's your, what's your getaway? Some of you are you've still got kids in school. They're like a few places in the country most of us at the time I'm recording this and we're pushing this episode out Our kids are out of school. The uh, the vacation season is underway and listen, we've still got quarterly numbers to hit. We've still got monthly metrics that we've got to deliver on. We've got projects that underway. We've got priorities. We've got all of that.

Speaker 1:

But if you want momentum, if you want your team to be charged up and ready to go for the second half of this year, get off the grid, get away. Some of you have already done it, like you've done it in the last few weeks and you've gone on this trip or that trip, but getting away, and then I would, I would strongly encourage you on during that time to volunteer to, to go to a camp, help with somebody, help with some project out there. It could. It could be tied with the church, it could be a community group, it could be, um, certain industry work, it could be anything. I know, um, we've got some friends that are heading off to. I know we've got some friends that are heading off to. Multiple. We've got multiple friends are heading to different countries and there it might be a parent volunteering with one of their teenagers and they've signed up months ago with a group and they're building a home or a community center in Africa or over in Haiti, or doing this or doing that.

Speaker 1:

You don't think you come back from that as a better employee, as a better leader, as a more strategic thinker. You don't think you're you're. You're sharper and stronger and more capable of leading what we need to have done in the second half of this year. Of course you do, and you want your team to be able to do that too. I'm not telling you anything, you don't know, I'm just reinforcing it. And this is that, that annual message for you to get away.

Speaker 1:

So a couple of tips. So number one, it's just get off the grid. Get off the grid, get away. Take time off. I don't care how big the project is, I don't care how far behind you are as an organization or a team in delivering whatever we have. And it might just be three days this year instead of a week or two. You might need to shorten it a little bit. I'd, I'd advocate you still need to get the week, but but you know you do what you need to do and let your team do that. And if they're and if they don't have a lot of time off, give them some time off, figure out a way around that policy or that system and let them go volunteer, let them go do something. You don't think that's going to create loyalty for you as a boss to encourage that. And so number one is just take that time. Make it a priority in the next month and during the summer season, at least here in the US and secondly, be very intentional about connecting with others during that time.

Speaker 1:

The Harvard study and all these other studies don't say, oh, if you take time off, you're going to be so recharged no, that doesn't say that. That's not what the data points to. It says connecting with others, this group of teenage boys that I volunteer with, and their adult leaders and their dads and others that were on this trip, the relationships they built with each other, that we, that I, built with them. You can't do that in volunteering here and there You've got to, you've got to have long and there You've got to have long road trips, you've got to have days together. The phones have to be away. We make it a rule, you know, and these boys, these teenagers, are so good about it. I saw no phones for a full week. You know how hard that is for the adults and the leaders.

Speaker 1:

Do you know how much more it made us present when people aren't sitting around a campfire out their phones or playing you know, brawl stars or whatever? No, we were all present. We were deeply involved in conversation, we were listening to each other, we were hiking out there and like barely barely breathing and then river rafting who's going to even be able? On the rivers we were on, how could you even check your phone or do? Whatever you're? You're just, you're totally filled with adrenaline as you're raging down this, the, the, these rapids, so, um, so the second point is connect with others during that time, whether that's your family, whether that's a group of friends, whether that's a group you're volunteering with, whatever it might be. Ask questions, be present, give of yourself.

Speaker 1:

Then my third, my third challenge to you during that time, whether it's three days a week, two weeks, whatever it might be for you this summer, my third item would be calibrate your life. What's most important to you right now? What are the values that you hold? What are the things that are at this stage of life, during this period, right now, not five years ago, not 10 years ago, not 10 years from now, but right now, in the stage of life you're in right now, what do you value most? Is it being challenged, like growing and trying new things? Is it making more money? It's a financial goal, like really increasing your level of compensation? Is it starting that side hustle or that business? Or is it growing on the org chart, moving up, having more responsibility, a greater impact potential in the organization.

Speaker 1:

Is it changing? What is it? Is it freedom to not be stuck in all of these meetings and to just be a prisoner of the invites that come your way in, whatever organization you're in? Is it setting a new strategy really good and good at strategy, versus just being tactical in your work? What is it that you value most right now? That's most important to you, and so spend part of that time away. It might be around the campfire, might be sitting on the beach listening to the ocean, it might be during that hike in the Aspens and the pines up in the mountains. It might be any of those things. I just want you to spend some time quiet, when there's some quiet, thinking about that. Where am I at? How satisfied am I? What needs to change? What tweaks? I'm not talking about.

Speaker 1:

For some of you, it might be a wholesale thing, like, okay, it's actually time to leave this organization. It's actually time to go get that degree, or to go get that degree, or to go get that certification, or to have that conversation with my boss, or to take that course, or hire that consultant or that coach, or to whatever, find that, mentor, whatever, or connect with those people and network a lot for the next three months. So I know what the next stage is, whatever it is three months. So I know what the next stage is, whatever it is. Write it down. I'm telling you, you will unlock so much brain power If you sit down with this thing called a sheet of paper, a notebook and a good old fashioned writing utensil a pen or a pencil, a marker.

Speaker 1:

Sit down and write. What are your thoughts, what do you desire? What's most important to you right now? What's out of sync? What needs to change? What adjustments? What are you doing that's working really well, that you need to keep leaning into. Who are the people you need to be spending more time with? What are the habits you need to develop or lean into more? It could be work related, it could be spiritually related, it could be physically related, it could be any of that, and then, when you get back on the grid, make that happen.

Speaker 1:

That's, and your period of focus is the next 90 days Q3, at the time I'm recording this. You're going to come back. It's not over the next six months, it's not between now and the end of the year, it's not over the next year, it's the next 90 days. Make it happen. Whatever you wrote down, whatever you thought about, while your brain is really engaged, while your emotions are are, are where they need to be, then come back and make those switches, make it happen. Don't get stuck back in the routine. And then you're going to go work on that for the next 90 days. Develop those habits, make those changes, make those adjustments. Then you're going to lean further into it in the next nine days after that. And then guess what? We've got, 180 days from now, the same thing, because we're going to be at Christmas time, new Year's, all that and you're going to do the exact same thing. You're going to take a week away, you're going to take three days away, you're going to take two weeks away, whatever it might be, whatever's appropriate for you, and you're going to do the exact same thing. And then you develop these six month periods where you're calibrating. You're getting away, you're, you're, you're. You get the idea right. Getting away, you're, you're, you're, you get the idea right.

Speaker 1:

I can tell you of all the different habits, of all the different techniques, of all the different things that I've learned over the years, what I'm teaching you in this episode, which some of you think is soft, and maybe you've already paused or hit next by now because you don't want to think about getting off the grid. That's not a priority for you. Yet You're okay. Well, you're missing out.

Speaker 1:

I'm telling you, of all those things that I've heard, that I've seen, that I've tried this is insanely valuable.

Speaker 1:

It's the most fulfilling aspect of life, in my opinion, when you, when you develop this cadence and, for me, the way it works for me, and it won't be appropriate for all of you, but I'd, I'd urge you to this cadence and, for me, the way it works for me, and it won't be appropriate for all of you, but I'd, I'd urge you to consider it.

Speaker 1:

It's two weeks during the summer, at least two weeks, and two weeks in the winter, and, and you might put a couple of days in between the two weeks, um to to, like I'm doing right now.

Speaker 1:

I've got a little bit of time where I'm getting back on the grid to you know, make sure everything's good, connect with our team, look at what I need to do with clients and whatever else, then boom right back to it again, and that requires effort because I've got so many things on my to-do list right now I need to lean into, but I just know that I'm going to be so much valuable to our team and our clients with this next week of connecting with family.

Speaker 1:

Last week it was the volunteer group. It was the group these teenagers that I volunteer with at church, and it was unbelievably fulfilling. Unbelievably, it made me such a better person. And then this next week is with family, with those that I love the most and who I'm closest to, and my kids, my spouse, some of our closest friends off the grid, just in one of the most beautiful and stunning places on earth, and it will be amazing it always is, and I'll come back with some lessons from that. Anyway, I hope that I've got you thinking, I hope that this is helpful and I hope you'll act on whatever has been going through your mind in this episode of the Lead in 30 podcast.

Speaker 2:

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