Travel for Success

09/03/2026

Routine is useful.

Until it isn't.

We need routines. They create consistency. They keep things moving. They eliminate unnecessary decisions.

But routine has another side.

You can become so accustomed to the way you operate that you stop questioning it.

Same drive.

Same office.

Same meetings.

Same people.

Same problems.

Same solutions.

Eventually, something can become normal simply because you've been looking at it for too long.

I've noticed this repeatedly when I travel.

I can be wrestling with something at home or at work and not see an obvious answer.

Then I'm sitting somewhere hundreds of miles away and suddenly think:

Why are we doing it that way?

Nothing magical happened.

The problem didn't change.

My perspective did.

I got outside the environment where the problem had become normal.

That idea became part of the foundation of Travel For Success.

You don't necessarily need a two-week vacation halfway around the world.

Sometimes you need enough disruption to break the pattern.

A road trip.

A conference.

A few days working from somewhere different.

A weekend away.

Anything that makes your brain stop running the exact same program.

Routine makes life efficient.

But don't let efficiency become autopilot.

Every once in a while, ask yourself:

What have I stopped questioning simply because I've gotten used to it?

The answer might surprise you.

09/02/2026

Nobody tells business owners this when they're starting out:

Eventually, everybody wants you to make a decision.

What should we charge?

Should we take this client?

Can I approve this?

Which vendor?

What should we do about this problem?

Can you look at this?

Do you have five minutes?

Individually, none of those questions seems overwhelming.

Put hundreds of them together and something happens.

Your ability to make good decisions starts declining.

That's decision fatigue.

And I've learned over the years that one of the dangers isn't necessarily making an obviously terrible decision.

It's making the easiest decision because you're tired of deciding.

Or postponing something important because you don't have the mental energy to deal with it.

Or continuing to do something the same way because changing it requires more thought.

That's another reason I've become protective of opportunities to get outside my normal routine.

Distance gives me a chance to stop reacting and start thinking again.

Sometimes I return with an answer.

Sometimes I return realizing I was asking the wrong question.

And sometimes I realize there shouldn't have been a decision waiting for me at all. Someone else should have been empowered to make it.

That's an important distinction.

I wrote quite a bit about perspective, delegation and stepping away in Travel For Success because they're connected.

If every decision in your organization eventually lands on your desk, you don't just have a time problem.

You may have a systems problem.

And sooner or later, you're going to feel it.

08/30/2026

If I could tell my 30-year-old self one more thing, it would be this:

You have less time than you think.

Not in a depressing way.

In a motivating way.

When you're 30, another five years doesn't sound like much.

Then somehow you're 40.

Then 50.

And you begin realizing how quickly the chapters turn.

I've spent decades building businesses, negotiating deals, traveling, raising a family, making mistakes, winning some, losing some, and figuring things out as I went.

I'm still building.

I'm still ambitious.

There are still things I want to accomplish.

Probably more than ever.

But I've stopped believing that enjoying life is something you're supposed to postpone until you've finished building it.

Because you're never finished.

There will always be another opportunity.

Another transaction.

Another project.

Another goal.

Our honeymoon reminded me of that again.

Those memories weren't something that distracted me from success.

They're part of what success is supposed to be for.

That's one of the deeper messages behind Travel For Success.

Yes, strategic travel can make you more productive.

It can improve creativity.

It can build relationships.

It can make you a better leader.

But there's something bigger.

Your life is happening while you're building your business.

Don't miss it.

If I could tell my 30-year-old self anything, I'd tell him:

Work hard.

Build big things.

Take the risks.

But don't keep telling the people you love, "Someday."

08/29/2026

**This part of *Travel For Success* almost didn't make the book.**

Because it wasn't really about travel.

It was about control.

And if you've owned a business long enough, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about.

We tell ourselves:

"It's faster if I do it."

"I know how I want it done."

"The client expects me."

"I'll delegate it when things slow down."

Sounds reasonable.

Until ten years later and you're still doing things someone else could have learned nine years ago.

I've been guilty of it.

Travel helped expose it.

You can't truly leave if you're unwilling to let other people make decisions.

You can physically get on an airplane, but if you're answering every call, approving every decision, and solving every problem, you never actually left.

That's not a travel problem.

**That's a leadership problem.**

And that's why I ultimately kept this idea in the book.

Leaving forces you to confront control.

It makes you decide what genuinely requires you and what you've simply refused to release.

There's a big difference.

The goal isn't to become irrelevant to your business.

The goal is to spend your time doing the things where your experience and abilities create the greatest value.

Everything else?

Build the system.

Train somebody.

Delegate it.

Then let them do their job.

Sometimes you have to leave before you discover how much you've been unnecessarily carrying.

08/28/2026

One thing readers keep telling me about Travel For Success has surprised me.

They don't necessarily need convincing that they should travel more.

They need permission to step away.

That's a very different problem.

Business owners are especially guilty of this.

We convince ourselves that being needed is evidence we're doing something right.

The phone rings constantly.

Employees need answers.

Clients want us.

Problems eventually find their way to our desk.

And somewhere along the way, being indispensable starts feeling like success.

I've learned to look at it differently.

If I can't leave my businesses for a few days without everything falling apart, I haven't built freedom.

I've built dependence.

Leaving town every six weeks forced me to confront that.

It made me delegate.

It exposed weak systems.

It showed me where I was unnecessarily involved.

And perhaps most importantly, it reminded me that there is a life outside the businesses I'm building.

That's what I think some readers are responding to.

Travel For Success doesn't tell you to abandon your responsibilities.

It challenges you to build your life and business so you're not imprisoned by them.

There's a big difference.

If you've been telling yourself, "I can't leave right now," ask yourself another question:

What would have to change so that I could?

That question might reveal more about your business than you expect.

👉 amazon.com/author/jimcarmichael

Follow Jim Carmichael and explore their bibliography from Amazon's Jim Carmichael Author Page.

08/27/2026

Maybe you don't need another productivity app.

Maybe you don't need another planner.

Maybe you don't need to wake up at 4:30 in the morning.

Maybe the problem isn't that you're not working hard enough.

Maybe you've been looking at the same problems from the same chair for too long.

That idea changed how I approach business.

For decades, I've worked hard.

I've built companies.

Negotiated real estate transactions.

Led teams.

Invested.

Consulted.

Traveled for business.

Made plenty of mistakes along the way.

Eventually I noticed something I couldn't ignore.

Some of my most productive periods consistently happened before and after I traveled.

So I started paying attention.

Eventually, I intentionally began leaving town roughly every six weeks.

And the pattern continued.

Better ideas.

Clearer thinking.

More energy.

New relationships.

Better delegation.

More perspective about what actually mattered.

That's why I wrote:

Travel For Success: How To Increase Productivity By Leaving Town Every Six Weeks.

It's not a book about taking more vacations.

It's about intentionally changing your environment so you can return to your business—and your life—with a different perspective.

I just returned from my honeymoon and watched the principle work again.

If you've been working harder and harder but feel like something is missing, I'd like you to read it.

👉 amazon.com/author/jimcarmichael

Then tell me whether it changes the way you look at your calendar.

Follow Jim Carmichael and explore their bibliography from Amazon's Jim Carmichael Author Page.

08/25/2026

Here's something every business owner needs to discover eventually:

Your business probably doesn't need you as much as you think it does.

That's a good thing.

I just returned from our honeymoon.

While I was gone, I wasn't sitting beside my team telling them what to do every hour.

And somehow...

Business continued.

People made decisions.

Problems got solved.

Clients were taken care of.

The world kept turning.

Years ago, that would've made me uncomfortable.

Today, it makes me proud.

Because one of the biggest lessons travel has taught me is that delegation isn't losing control.

It's building capacity.

If your business collapses every time you leave town, you haven't created freedom.

You've created dependency.

Travel exposes that very quickly.

That's actually one reason I recommend leaving periodically.

You discover where your systems are weak.

You discover who can make decisions.

You discover where you've become the bottleneck.

And occasionally you discover something even more important:

The people you've hired are capable of more than you've allowed them to do.

That's a lesson I discuss in Travel For Success because I had to learn it myself.

A successful business shouldn't trap its owner.

It should eventually create freedom.

How long could you leave your business today without worrying about it?

08/24/2026

**I haven't posted much over the last week or so.**

There's a good reason.

We got married, and then we left for our honeymoon.

And yes, the guy who wrote a book called *Travel For Success* actually put his own advice to the test.

I stepped away.

Not perfectly. When you own businesses, you're never completely disconnected.

But I wasn't sitting at my desk.

I wasn't following my normal routine.

I was spending time with my new wife, seeing different places, meeting different people, eating way too much good food, and allowing myself to simply experience life for a while.

And something familiar happened.

**I came home ready to work.**

My head is clearer.

I'm thinking about some things differently.

I have ideas I didn't have before we left.

And I'm genuinely excited to get back after it.

That's the entire premise behind *Travel For Success.*

I don't believe we were put here to spend our entire lives working so that someday we can finally start living.

I believe travel and time away can actually make us better at the work we return to.

I've seen that pattern repeat in my own life enough times that I wrote an entire book about it.

This trip was obviously more personal than business.

But the result was the same.

**I left. I lived. I came back better.**

Now it's time to get back to work.

And I have a feeling the next six weeks are going to be pretty productive.

08/22/2026

That was a great unplugged trip. Feeling supercharged to get back and get at it!