Lily 0:06

Imagine telling everyone who works for you that you're starting the entire business for a year. Not because the business is failing or because you've read out, but because every seven years you think you just stop working for 12 months.

Chris 0:19

That's what designer Stefan Stagmaster does. He started in 2000 and he still closes his design studio for a full year every seven years.

Lily 0:28

And here's the idea behind it.

Chris 0:38

In a new book, Big Time Off by DJ Didonna, he found that people who took sabbaticals described them as peak life experiences, on a par with some of the biggest events in their lives. They reported less burnout, more creativity, better relationships, and greater confidence to make changes afterwards.

Lily 0:56

So why do most of us wait until we're exhausted, made redundant, farmed out, or retired before we get ourselves permission to stop? That's what we're discussing in this episode.

Chris 1:07

Welcome to the Gen XD Exchange. I'm Chris Perkins, Gen X parent, now 50 something empty nester.

Lily 1:14

And I'm Lily Perkins, Gen Z Career Explorer. We talk and take on career choices, work, and like in general. So whether you're a Gen X parent trying to figure out midlife challenges, or a Gen Z young professional or student figuring out adulthood, you're in the right place.

Chris 1:30

So let me explain a bit more about Stefan Sagmeister. He's probably one of the most well-known and celebrated sabbatical takers. He runs a successful design agency in New York. He's done things like design album covers for the Rolling Stones and packaging for perfume companies. And he says he'd got a bit bored with the work he was doing and the work he and his team were doing had lost its originality. So he decided to take a year off. And for all of his staff with more than three years service, he guaranteed them their jobs back when he returned, but they'd have to do their own thing for a year. But he says the time off more than paid for itself in the ideas everyone had in that time and then the work they were winning when they opened up again. So he's done it ever since, every seven years. He's 56 now, same age as me, and I read about what he did, and I think I wish I'd done that. So we'll come on to talk about how you could, because planning ahead for you know every seven years, every ten years, I think is a realistic possibility.

Lily 2:35

Yeah, especially for designers. I mean it makes sense they would come back with a whole fresh mind of no ideas if you've been traveling or doing whatever. Yeah. But my understanding is that this isn't just a long holiday we're talking about here. Like how are we actually defining a sabbatical?

Chris 2:50

So in the book, DJ Didonna's definition is intentional extended leave from your job. Okay. And he identifies three components to it. So one is the duration, so it is a long period. Yeah. The second is intention, you do it for some specific purpose, it's not just a holiday. And the third one is disconnection. And he doesn't necessarily mean like off the grid, you know, not online, but disconnecting from your current life or your normal existence. So it doesn't have to be travel to the other side of the world, but you disconnect from what you've been doing.

Lily 3:26

From the routine. Yeah. That's the I think that disconnection part to me sounds like the part that's most appealing. That's why I'm really keen to get out and do a bit of a delayed gap year, have a big travel once I graduate, because I want to just break up the routine that I've been used to for coming up six years six years ago. Absolutely. Yeah. So does a gap would a gap year count as a sabbatical with that definition?

Chris 3:49

Well, in terms of duration, if you were away for a few months, it would. And it would I think it would certainly count in terms of disconnection. It's be it would be that intention bit in the middle. So what are you going to do to e explore different countries, different cultures, to maybe learn some new skills, you know, if you were volunteering as part of some project or experience what life in a different country or different continent's like, it's not just I'm going to take an extended holiday. It's like I'm going to do this. This is what I want to get out of it.

Lily 4:19

So I guess going the intention of I'm going on holiday to chill out and kick my feet up and do nothing, that wouldn't really that would kind of differentiate it from a sabbatical. You have some kind of like mission in there, I guess, for yourself.

Chris 4:31

Yeah, although not going straight into that. So we'll come on to talk about just decompressing a bit. So by all means, yeah, have some time off. But it's not just I'm gonna take a year to kick back, I'm gonna unwind a bit and then I'm gonna uh explore some other things. The book talks about most sabbatical takers uh recommend three months to a year, and ideally I think six to twelve months is the sweet spot to have enough time to explore something. And the sabbatical takers that Didonna interviewed for the book often say it takes six to eight weeks just to properly disconnect from normal life, especially if you're in your 30s or 40s, just the stress of a career, they say it takes that long to kind of switch off.

Lily 5:13

Yeah, if it takes you two months just to sort of feeling like you're at work, what does that tell us about what work's doing to our brains? And then, you know, when we take like a two-week holiday in the summertime, it's obviously not really sufficient enough to properly have that switch off time. You're right back to work afterwards.

Chris 5:30

Yeah, and I think most people in the middle of their careers feel that they go away on I know I do, you know, we go away on holiday, it takes me three or four days to kind of unwind from the stress of getting ready to go away. And then in the two or three days towards the end of the holiday, I'm thinking about what am I coming back to? What do I need to do? So you've only got a little bit in the middle. Whereas if you know you've got a big long stretch coming off, if you've committed to three months or six months or twelve months, takes the pressure off. Takes the pressure off. Exactly.

Lily 5:57

Yeah, so I was curious as to where the concept of a sabbatical came from. So to get into the language side of it, the word actually comes from Hebrew sabbat, which means to cease or rest, and the agricultural tradition of allowing fields to lie fallow every seventh year. Then Harvard introduced the first formal academic sabbatical policy in 1879 for academic staff to rest, study, do original work, do their own thing, whatever. And then it kind of became a norm in academia quite quickly. So Sagmeister's one year and seven isn't actually a new idea at all when you think about the farmers that were doing it back in the day.

Chris 6:38

Yeah, I think it's a very common thing in academia, but now we're seeing it more in business. There aren't many companies that I'm aware of that offer paid sabbaticals. That's still unusual. There are some, so companies like Adobe, Deloitte, Intel, they offer them. But in the UK in particular, I think it has become more common for companies to have a career break or an unpaid leave policy. So you can take an extended period of time off that's unpaid and you're you're guaranteed a job back. Usually you're not guaranteed the same job, but they'll take you back. So it's not like you've got to quit your job and then find another job when you come back. So I would definitely suggest when you're looking for like a proper job after uni, you look for companies that at least offer that career break policy if it's something you want to take them up on at some point.

Lily 7:26

Yeah, and then if the Adobe or Intel or whoever the other ones who said where I want to, you know, hit me up and offer me leave, paid leave as well, that would be fab.

Chris 7:35

Yeah, there is a qualifying period. It's not like you can start and then in month one say, Can I take six months off? You yeah, you've got to be there for like three years or five.

Lily 7:44

No, that makes sense. But I think especially when we talk about Gen Z and having squiggly careers and no one really following that same career ladder, like the same way previous generations have done, I think it makes sense that you've at least got these unpaid leave policies coming in. Because for Gen Z, I imagine a lot of us will want to go down the sabbatical route.

Chris 8:03

Well, you could be looking at a 50 plus, maybe 60 year career. Yeah. I mean, who wants to work all of that time without some breaks in between beyond just like a summer holiday?

Lily 8:15

Well, I've seen a lot in the news about a lot of my generation have kind of just sacked off saving for a pension completely and basically will be implementing something similar to this, taking longer holidays or sabbaticals. So Yeah.

Chris 8:27

While while you've got the energy, maybe before you start a family, while you're healthy and are able to do things that you couldn't otherwise do in your 60s or 70s or 80s, definitely. I'm glad you're thinking that way. That's that's really good. I think a a key thing I took from the big time off book is a lot of the people he interviewed were saying the sabbatical took them. They didn't choose to do it, but they'd maybe been laid off or had a health scare or a relationship had broken down and they felt they needed to make a break. And he goes on to talk about rather than be a victim of circumstance to a certain extent, decide when you're gonna take it. And if it's several years out, you've got time to to plan.

Lily 9:09

Yeah, I guess taking a sabbatical, taking the time out for yourself before you really need it can act as a preventative measure, and you're not I also feel like if you were really burnt out burnt out and stressed, then having to plan your your year-long holiday, like see what you were saying about for even just the brief summer holiday, the s the few days at the start where you're stressed about having to just get unpacked and plan out your itinerary and stuff, like yeah.

Chris 9:33

Because the usual routine for for most of us is work, holiday, work, holiday, work, holiday, work, holiday, work, burnout, stop. And it just makes sense to design in some longer periods of recovery, you know, if you're going to be working for several decades. So I really liked it. Another comment that uh Didonna makes is that sabbaticals should be for the betterment of well people. So it's something that enriches you. You're already in good health, perhaps, you know, in enjoying the way your career is progressing. It's not about rescuing someone if they're they're broken, it's building in that time to recharge. And I think the Sagmeister example is a really interesting one that he says he does better work, they've won better clients every time they restart because of all the new ideas they're coming back with.

Lily 10:23

Yeah, and they're gonna have the rec ethic and the energy and motivation to carry out those ideas as well. Yeah. I guess for you as well, you're moved to California in a way. Would would you class that as a sabbatical? Because you didn't have a job lined up when you moved. Did Mark?

unknown 10:39

No.

Chris 10:39

No, neither of us did. So we moved out to California in September 1999. And what drove that is we had both graduated and gone straight into jobs when friends of ours had gone off traveling. So we'd been working for like six or twelve months as they started to come back with all these amazing stories and pictures of where they'd been, and we were super jealous, thinking it looked amazing. Because we were in a small flat in Sterling doing fairly low-paid jobs, and we thought if we don't do something now, we'll always wonder what if. So we should give it a go. So we saved up enough money for four months to get us through to the end of January and moved to California. No jobs, no apartment lined up. We were fortunate, obviously, that my godmother lives out there. Uh so Sandy and her husband Lee agreed to put us up until we found an apartment of our own.

Lily 11:32

At the mothership.

Chris 11:33

But exactly. But we were pretty much making it up as we went along. We didn't have a plan.

Lily 11:38

That's crazy. Were you scared? I can't uh obviously you've got Sandy and Lee's to touch down in, but apart from that, you kind of are floating around on your own. So what was your mindset for you both going into that?

Chris 11:50

Yeah, we'd we'd rented out our flat in Stirling, I think for six months. So we knew, well, we can't come back to our flat for six months. We're gonna have to figure out something. Only had four months worth of money when we were out there. I think it was really exciting the prospect of going. But when we arrived, I think the enormity of it hit us the following morning. We both woke up and burst into tears.

Lily 12:14

No, it's like I never knew that.

Chris 12:15

This is really scary.

Lily 12:17

Yeah.

Chris 12:17

So yeah, it it really hit us once we were there.

Lily 12:21

I didn't know that happened, but that's how I would feel as well. We were like, oh shit. Yeah, a long way from family, you're not having to be like, not only you can call your mom and say you need to come and pack me up, I'm scared.

Chris 12:33

Exactly. Yeah.

Lily 12:34

So what did you how long did it take you to for both of you to find something? And in that period between, what were you actually doing if you weren't working? Just chilling out?

Chris 12:45

Well, lots of the activities of kind of establishing ourselves out there. So uh getting a driving license, it took us six weeks to find an apartment, sign the lease, and then we went to lots of yard sales and garage sales to furnish that, which was quite fun. We didn't start looking for jobs at that point because you needed an address to be able to apply for jobs, all of that kind of stuff. So the day today, it was a bit of a holiday to start with. There was some fun stuff in there, like going to buy a car. So I'd always liked Volkswagens. I was thinking of buying a little Volkswagen golfer, and I remember Lee saying, You don't want to do that, you need a proper American car. Why look for a Mustang? And I thought, okay, that's pretty cool. Yeah. So we didn't take much convention. No, no, no. And it was an old ropey one, so it wasn't hugely expensive, but it was a fun car to to drive around in. So yeah, it took us a while to get established. And then uh it was early January. We both started working about the same time. So we were getting nervous in the run-up to Christmas, thinking like if we don't land something pretty soon, we're out of money and we've signed the lease on this apartment. We're pretty stuck. So that was quite motivating to sort things out.

Lily 13:55

So obviously, you were doing all this when you were younger, like you said, you had FOMO and you were like, if not now, when? And I think you've had conversations here and we've had conversations about like what you guys are gonna get up to in your retirement and things. But in the run-up to your retirement or after your retirement, I'm curious if you would make the same decision now if you plan on jetting off with mum anywhere at any point.

Chris 14:16

I think if money was no object, we would consider a property abroad to spend some time in a warmer climate than Scotland. Yeah. That would be quite nice. Realistically, that probably won't happen. I think what I did take from it, because we we came back after a year and then started thinking about starting a family, and and you came along and then Charlie. I think what it really impressed upon me is I would recommend to anyone to spend some time living in another country.

Lily 14:47

Yeah.

Chris 14:48

For all sorts of reasons. Just the the the cultural experience, the get outside your comfort zone, do something different, it was absolutely worth it for that. So, yeah, spending time in another country, well worth it. Whether we can do that in a retirement, I don't know. I don't think we'd want to leave Scotland permanently.

Lily 15:02

No, fair enough. Yeah.

Chris 15:03

But being able to go somewhere warm in the middle of winter is quite attractive.

Lily 15:06

Well, it's just nice if you think about that first morning where you guys were crying, and then after the year, all of the experience that you gained. And I guess when we talk about the whole disconnection and the intention, and then what was the other one?

Chris 15:18

Uh duration, intention, disconnection. Yeah, so duration it was.

Lily 15:22

We checked all the boxes.

Chris 15:23

Yeah, it was four months until we kind of got jobs and and settled in, but we were away for a year. But then also the other big thing, you know, we wanted to answer this question about what if we chose to move back to Scotland, we kind of committed that's where we wanted to start a family, that's where we wanted to be, to be close to family and friends. So it it absolutely served its purpose in that respect. If the intention was find out what it's like to live abroad, we experienced that, and then we realised we wanted to be back in Scotland, and we've committed to being in Scotland ever since. So yeah, it was great.

Lily 15:57

So we've spoken about the possibility of you doing it in the future, and we spoke about California, but have you ever had any other opportunities throughout your career to have another sabbatical?

Chris 16:07

So I did have one actually, um what would kind of count as a sabbatical, and I kind of feel I wasted it. Oh, really? So when I was 38, I was headhunted to go from one company to another, and I was headhunted by a competitor. So the company I was leaving invoked a garden leave clause, which is where they pay you for a certain amount of time to stay at home and do nothing, to sit out in the garden, basically. So you are detached from what the business is doing and client conversations and you don't know what the numbers are, so it's a period of time, so you're you know less of a threat when you go to the competition. Yeah. And my boss at the company that I was joining knew I couldn't start for three months because I was on garden leave for my previous employer. I remember him saying to me, Chris, you may never get this paid time off in your career ever again. Use it wisely. And if I think back now, I can't remember what I did in that.

Lily 17:05

Really? Yeah. Oh gotin'.

Chris 17:07

I spent the time at home. You were five, Charlie was two, so I probably spent a lot of time at home and would have really, really enjoyed that. But we didn't do any big trips. Obviously, mum was working, we had the two of you, so it was mostly at home.

Lily 17:21

And three months does kind of fly in as well. You would kind of you would feel like you've blinked and it's over. I mean, I would like three months off work paid, don't get me wrong, but that's not an awful lot of time to pack honors in. Yeah.

Chris 17:31

Do you have a any memory of me being around more when you were five years old? So that was maybe just as you were about to start school, or maybe you were just in P1?

Lily 17:40

Yeah, I must have I mean, I guess it depends on where in the year it was, but I don't really remember much from being five anyways. And that can't have been the same time. I remember you helping me with my homework a lot, like and that turning into a lot of screaming matches, but I feel like that wouldn't have been one at the time. So no, I can't remember anything specific, unfortunately.

Chris 18:02

Uh you know, I could have used that time to learn another language, always wanted to learn Italian. I could have done it then. You know, I didn't really use it for any purpose.

Lily 18:10

Did you do any Italian in that time? Or did you know? Because I remember you having Italian CDs in the car at one point, and that must have been later, didn't you?

Chris 18:16

Yeah, because that was after we'd done so we honeymooned in in Italy, uh so sort of fell in love in uh with Italy then, and we'd been to Italy for a couple of family holidays since, and I did start to kind of dabble in trying to learn Italian then, but like three months without a lot else to do, that would have been the perfect time to do it, and it just didn't occur to me to do anything. So I regret not following Michael's advice because I should have made more of that time and I have never had an opportunity like that again, apart from lockdown, obviously, but no one was well, I wasn't getting paid in lockdown, and that was a different set of circumstances. So, yeah, if for anyone who gets a period of garden leave, treat it like a sabbatical and do something intentional with it.

Lily 18:56

Well, let's go through that now. I want to know for my future reference, what makes a good sabbatical? Let's go through how you know I actually think this is something that I will implement, and I want to know for each kind of phase, like let's say I'm doing a year if it's traveling or working holiday or whatever, I want to know like what's up, what I'm doing.

Chris 19:15

Yeah, how to how to make the most of it, how to do it well. So I would say the first thing is don't turn it into another productivity project. And you know, I don't have to worry about that.

Lily 19:24

I definitely wouldn't do that.

Chris 19:26

Right, okay, fair enough. But you definitely need to detox, you know, this idea of taking a few weeks to decompress and sort of switch off from everything. And I think for the kind of alpha ageiva types, that's really difficult because especially if you're quite far into your career, you've been conditioned that you just have to work hard all the time. So it's difficult to switch off.

Lily 19:46

Yeah, you would definitely have been the person to sit down on day one and make a spreadsheet called like sabbatical objectives, like all the skills you're gonna, all this stuff you would have turned it into another mind map or something.

Chris 19:59

I didn't do that at 38, uh but I've learned that lesson. I would do it now, but no, you definitely need some time to switch off. Then there is the the disconnecting, and I think from you know these interviews I was reading about a lot of people regret checking in with work, keeping an eye on email, agreeing to take the odd call. You just need to switch off completely disconnect. So no LinkedIn or anything, just like nothing, you know, even just a one-hour team call once a quarter. It's amazing how much that gets your mind turning again about work stuff. So you just need to let all of that go. And then I'd say the third thing is explore and experiment. Don't go away with a plan that's in set in stone, but just have some idea as to what you want to do, but be really opportunistic about it. So travel, you might stay longer in one place than you expected. You might want to you might discover a project that you want to volunteer from, you might want to learn something that seems really useless or silly, but who knows when you might make your business when you come back, who knows, whatever. You might want to do some physical work if that's very different to kind of desk-based work that you've done before, or just try something you'd embar you'd be embarrassed to tell people about back home. But you're on your own, on a sabbatical, you don't need to tell anyone. So you can just do some crazy stuff. I think you have to approach it with quite a playful frame of mind.

Lily 21:28

I was gonna say, I feel like adults don't when you think about how much you play when you're a child and how that part of your brain is like constantly firing and you're constantly trying all these new things. And like that's just something you don't do when you get into adulthood. Yeah.

Chris 21:44

Yeah, we don't we don't play, we don't experiment enough. So it's not doing something with the objective that this is gonna help me get a job when I get back home, or this is some kind of hard skill that I want to master. It's just kind of have have fun, e experiment. And I think a a lot of people that do that kind of thing didn't realize how that would then change their trajectory or change their thinking when they got home because they'd experience something completely different. And then I think the fourth element, which is really important, is that you have to synthesize everything you've experienced as you're coming back, but don't start two months before the end of the sabbatical applying for jobs and going back on the the job boards. You you just have to trust that you will figure something out when you get back. So maybe about 10% of the time before you come back is focused on, you know, what job opportunities are there, reconnecting with some of your network connections, all of that kind of thing.

Lily 22:43

Yeah, it's like a gradual change instead of all of a sudden your head's back in the books. Yeah.

Chris 22:48

And thinking like, what do I want to bring back into my normal life at home from everything I've learned on the sabbatical? And again, I Stefan Sagmeister says his business has evolved into something completely different every time he's come back from sabbatical from integrating things from other cultures. Local art has influenced designs that they've done, all of that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Lily 23:11

Yeah. Amazing.

Chris 23:12

My suggestion to you, Lily, is you should plan to take a six to twelve month sabbatical every seven to ten years for the rest of your working life.

Lily 23:24

I think I might take that suggestion up, to be honest. That sounds pretty good.

Chris 23:29

And it probably sounds like a bit of a fantasy at the moment in terms of like how would I make that work? Yeah. But if you think you could have a 50 plus year career ahead of you, why would you save all of that freedom for your 60s and 70s? You know, enjoy some of it as you go, sort of sprinkle it in that career.

Lily 23:47

Yeah, I've always thought that. I of I feel like I am pretty sensible with my money and putting away for the future, but I do kind of think there's, you know, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, and then you've got like your entire retirement fund just sat there and you didn't do anything.

Chris 23:59

So is it yeah, it's this idea of borrowing time from retirement, not waiting until you reach retirement age to then do all the things you wanted to do, because who knows if you'll get there and and you might not be healthy enough to to do it.

Lily 24:14

Yeah. Well, if I need an app to get through a 24-hour day as it is, I dread deciding what I'm gonna be like when I'm 70. Yeah. I'm not I'm not gonna be climbing up the Great Wall of China and all the rest of it when I'm retired, gonna do that much.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

Yeah.

Lily 24:28

So this all obviously sounds great to me. I'm all for it, but I would like to know how people are funding this because it does seem like six to twelve months is a long time to not be working. What's the plan? What are what's recommended here?

Chris 24:43

It is, you know, when you graduate, you're probably not in a position to take six or twelve months off straight away. You might just take some time to go traveling. So this is about planning for seven to ten years from now, and that's quite a long runway. So funding the first one would be the hardest. Yeah. But my suggestion would be if you tried to save 10% of your income into a sabbatical fund and you did that for ten years, ignoring any kind of returns on how you'd invested that money, you would have accumulated the equivalent of a year's salary over the course of those 10 years. That would be enough to survive on. Particularly if you went to countries with a lower cost of living.

Lily 25:28

Yeah. And then if you've got a place, if you're going and living somewhere else and you put your place on Airbnb or whatever.

Chris 25:34

Yeah. So if if you have a a property, you can rent it out, that generates some income, covers the mortgage. But it let's say you have that saving plan for up to ten years. For the first one, the key thing would then be to not spend all of that money and start from scratch next time round. Yeah. If you spend half of that money, you leave the other half invested to earn interest for the next seven to ten years, and then you know this compounding effect. Yeah, that money would be sitting there growing for 10 years, as well as the other savings you'd be putting in, and then seven to ten years later, you've got a pretty healthy fund and you keep going like that. So over successive cycles, you're increasing your earnings. You can maybe save a bit more. The remaining capital's compounding, it makes future sabbaticals easier to fund. The earlier you start, the better.

Lily 26:26

Yeah, and I guess for me, like I could maybe start off with like a six-month holiday and then do it eight months the next time, whatever. But also if I wanted to start off with a less expensive first sabbatical and maybe take the time completely off of the first few months and then go and do like a working holiday somewhere. So then I've got some income coming in to kind of supplement it a bit. Yeah. When you take into account the compounding, I guess that would be if you're doing every seven to ten years, that would be manageable.

Chris 26:54

Yeah. And if you think if you were going to do this every decade, money you're saving in your twenties, by the time you reach your forties or your fifties, that would be a nice little nest egg. Yeah. And the temptation would be to, or you know, put that into property or, you know, spend that money, you know, doing something else. But I think this is about taking the time out and having some experiences you you wouldn't otherwise have. You know, people talking about sabbaticals being peak life experiences, seeing some places you would never otherwise get to that are off the beaten track.

Lily 27:27

And at that spirit, Gen Z is never retiring and we might get hooked by bosses.

Chris 27:31

Yeah, you may as well enjoy it while you can. I think you are fortunate enough to have another route because of your inheritance from granddad, you're in the fortunate position where you may be able to own a property fairly early on. So once you're on the property ladder, what I'd suggest is you don't keep trading up with bigger and bigger mortgages. You think any money that you make from a property that appreciates is buying you time instead of buying a bigger house, or you you buy something as a project and do it up and add some value, and then you can maybe borrow a bit against that uh added value, but you've got the property as an asset to kickstart it. So you you improve a property that you've bought, as you said, you rent it out while travelling, that covers the mortgage. You could sell the property, and the money you've made could part fund a sabbatical and the rest could be invested, so it's a deposit for when you come back. Well, the other thing to consider that we've done for a few holidays is a long-term home exchange.

Lily 28:34

Yeah, I'd love to do one of them.

Chris 28:36

Free accommodation. And there are people on the home exchange sites that are looking for two months, three months.

Lily 28:41

That would be amazing.

Chris 28:42

And you know, that's yeah, it could be amazing accommodation in some wonderful locations and you don't have to pay for it.

Lily 28:48

Yeah, I'm really, really keen to do a home exchange at some point because I remember doing them when we were younger on family holidays. And it just means that you could stay for longer. So that kind of solves the issue of for you guys in California, you could have gone out there and if you didn't have um Sandy and Lee's place, if we didn't have the mothership, you could have potentially done that.

Chris 29:07

We could have done a home, but we needed the except I'm not sure everyone wanted to. No, but we needed the rental income from the flat to, you know, kind of cover the mortgage and cover some some costs. It is just important to say at this stage, we are not giving financial advice. So this is all like a conceptual framework, so we can't take any responsibility for the tax implications and investment returns and inflation.

Lily 29:30

Or if someone if you get someone mental and you swap houses with and they completely wreck your gaff, that's nothing to do with it.

Chris 29:35

Well, yeah, you're insured against that. But no, please don't take us as as financial advice. But the idea is there are ways to kind of fund that sabbatical.

Lily 29:43

So you spoke about it a bit there when you were recommending not necessarily constantly trading up and up and up for bigger and bigger mortgages. I think it's interesting because I feel like the society we live in, everyone's always trading up to accumulate a bigger house or a nicer car or whatever. But when you think about factoring sabbaticals into your life, you can kind of convert wealth into life experience rather than constantly looking for a flashier car or even like a new phone or a bigger house. I think that's an interesting, I don't know, philosophical question about the difference between generations. I can see this being a big thing for Gen Z, definitely.

Chris 30:24

Yeah, as in not wanting to have all of the trappings of a successful life instead having the time and the experience.

Lily 30:33

Yeah, definitely.

Chris 30:34

Yeah, definitely.

Lily 30:35

I think that's a common when I've talked to friends and stuff, that seems to be quite a common idea between all of us is like, why are we bothering to like half of us aren't gonna get on the property ladder? Like, what's the actual point? Why don't we go out and have experiences rather than things?

Chris 30:51

Yeah, which is great because I think for Gen X, we were mostly all following a template which was get a good job, buy a house, start a family, you know, really traditional, conventional career stuff. Yeah. And then the inevitable comparison, like, am I doing as well as my neighbours and my friends? And sometimes feeling you need to keep trading up. And every now and again, when someone did quit the rat race, move to somewhere more remote, it's really odd. Often it's perceived as quite a strange thing to do, whereas it should be.

Lily 31:25

Yeah, it's like you're removing yourself from society, like you're like an outcast or whatever.

Chris 31:29

Yeah, and you don't we don't need to consume so much and we don't need to accumulate stuff. And actually, you get to midlife and uh a lot of people are fed up accumulating and they're trying to edit their lives down. Well, if you kind of keep a lid on it to start with, you're in a much better position financially, hopefully by not a lot of debt and not a massive mortgage, and you've got more options, you've got more flexibility.

Lily 31:49

And lighter suitcases, because one thing you guys know about if you think about your um the weighing that we do before we go on holiday, and then also the fact that you have boxes from 2019 when we moved house, sat in the garage that you've still not unpacked.

Chris 32:02

So in a literal sense, we can all do with a bit less our lives. But I think that says something about how strange the design for our working life is or or where it has been. It's like work for decades, take a short holiday, get straight back to work. We are all waiting for retirement to come round, and and who knows what we'll be able to do then. It might not be healthy enough to enjoy it. So I'm all for you and your generation thinking, no, I'm gonna take a different approach.

Lily 32:29

Yeah, definitely. I think it would also be interesting to address the barriers that people might face if they're planning sabbaticals and things. Because as much as it's uh on paper, it sounds easy enough to put away 10% of your salary and do this and do this. I feel like I feel like it does so still sound a bit like a luxury for a lot of people, yeah. Especially for my generation, like you're not getting onto the property ladder, you've not got the option of doing a house swap or renting out your property. Like, what are the barriers and how can we address them? Yeah, sure. So, like the most basic one that comes to mind would be someone can't afford it.

Chris 33:08

Yeah, I totally get that. And I don't think many people could lay their hands on six months' worth of income and suddenly take off. But we've talked about planning for something seven to ten years from now. Yeah. And if you set out with the intention that in 2036 you want to take six months off, it's gonna guide your decisions. Maybe you won't take fancy holidays. I maybe you will look at where you can make some savings in your outgoings to be able to squirrel some money away to have a sabbatical fund. So yeah, very few people can afford it straight away. But I think if you plan for it, we're talking about a long enough horizon where you might be able to do something. And maybe it isn't six months or a year the other side of the world. You can still have a sabbatical in the UK or wherever you live. It's just about kind of disconnecting, doing something intentional, but also finding maybe somewhere you want to go where the cost of living is a lot less. You don't need to replicate your income here to live just as well or close to it in some other countries.

Lily 34:14

That makes a lot of sense. And when you factor in the time, it does seem more manageable. But I think another thing, like for me, I'm imagining coming out of UNA, maybe taking some time off traveling for a bit, getting into a job, it almost feels as if it would be like a step back to be in a job or a couple of jobs for however long, and then having to turn around to my boss and say, Oh, by the way, I need to go away for a year. Like, is that a thing? Are you allowed to say, I'm away now? I'll be like, Can I have my job waiting for me? How do you navigate that side?

Chris 34:44

Well, that's the career break policy we spoke about earlier. So if the company offers a career break, which may be like three months or six months, it might not be a year, but you could take that and they have to offer you a job when you come back. The alternative is a bit of a leap of faith, which is I'm gonna quit my job, I'm going away, I don't know what I'm gonna come back to. But you just have to back yourself and you think I'll have learned things, I'll have amazing stories to tell, I'll have developed in new ways that I wouldn't have done if I'd stuck here. And the job market is so crazy at the moment, there's no guarantee if you think, well, I'm worried about leaving my job, you might get booted out at any point anyway, from a length or from automation. So the jobs here aren't secure. And yes, you do have to trust you'll figure it out when you get back. And that is a big risk, but there are plenty of examples of people who've done it. And I think if you plan far enough in advance and you've got some good transferable skills, you'll figure something out. Or you find something while you're away that is this great breakthrough, and you think, Oh, I never knew this existed, this is what I want to spend my time doing.

Lily 35:53

What was that thing as well? It's in that twent that 20-something book you gave me where she talks about not like life currency, a life experience, but she's talking about how she was interviewing for all these jobs, and because specifically because she had been away traveling and working in this camp and like had this actual life experience that made her more desirable as a candidate.

Chris 36:13

Or just more interesting. So Meg J, the defining decade book. Yeah. So she was a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist, but she'd kind of it was like a sabbatical, she'd gone off and done outward bound for a year with groups of American kids like in South American jungles. And when she went for interviews to try and land a research post, she didn't have a portfolio of research to talk about like all the other candidates. But all the people interviewing her wanted to know these really senior academic psychologists were like, Did you ever have kids jump in a river full of crocodiles? Or like, what would you do if you lost one of them?

Lily 36:50

Yeah, I'm pretty sure she said that's like basically all they asked her about. But she did well.

Chris 36:55

That's the sort of that those so those are the benefits that I think people don't factor in from a sabbatical. You will have some really unique experience. That actually makes you a really interesting job candidate when you come back. Yeah more so than if you say, Oh, well, I've just been doing the same thing for the last five years.

Lily 37:10

And the same thing as all the other candidates as well.

Chris 37:12

Exactly. Yeah.

Lily 37:13

I think as well, I I guess if you're someone who's been thinking about like a career change, having a career transition as well, that would be a good time to factor sabbatical in the middle. Like if you're if you're leaving your job, if you're switching something up, like just go for it.

Chris 37:27

I don't know what I want to do, but I'm gonna travel or or take some time out and experiment. Yeah. And you'll hit upon something you wouldn't have figured out otherwise.

Lily 37:37

So if we're supposed to be doing this every seven to ten years, I guess for a lot of people you have to factor children into the equation as well. So what's the script with that? Are we taking kids away with us?

Chris 37:49

Well, having kids doesn't rule it out, it just kind of changes the design. But what an amazing experience if you are a small child living in another country or traveling or meeting different people and even just having a full six months or a year, whatever, with your parent or parents to do things. Yeah. So imagine like if if you had a three-year-old when you decided you first wanted to to go away, and they have some amazing experience with whatever you decide to do and all the time they get with you. And then maybe when they're ten, you take another break and do something different. Yeah. And then when they're 17, you do it again. Yeah, I you think about what that child has experienced over the course of their childhood with three amazing experiences in addition to whatever they've done in their home country. It's amazing for them, and yeah, more time for the parents to have with the kids, and it just means a bit more logistical planning to try and figure it out. But you know, they have children in other countries, everyone manages, you you figure it out as you go to some extent.

Lily 38:52

Yeah. I think for me, like possibly apart from finances, the main barrier that I'm thinking about is like if I was pretty established in my career and was doing well and wanted to take a sabbath club, I'll be thinking, what is this gonna do to my career when I come back? Like I know you touched on it briefly, but kind of we do devote our lives to our work, unfortunately. Yeah. And if you aren't lucky enough to be in the position where you're really passionate about what you're doing, or like you kind of worry what's gonna happen if you leave and everyone else is left to like run loose, like I feel like that would be pretty much the major concern.

Chris 39:30

And I think that is a genuine fear, you know, this idea that if I go away for a year, will everyone else have moved ahead of me? That's that social comparison thing that we have to get over. But equally, you know, people, as you say, are very devoted to their careers. But if you give yourself a window with a bit of flex, say seven to ten years, if the seven years is seventh year is coming up, you think actually I'm in a really good place career-wise, I've got an opportunity to get a promotion or make a bit more money, which I can bank for a couple of years and then plan on going away, you can make that work. But equally, one of the things sabbatical takers talk about all the time is the fact that what they experience from doing it makes them so much more resilient when they come back. If you imagine the prospect of quitting your job, maybe moving to another country where you don't have anything lined up, yeah, and then coming back and having to start again. If you manage that, and pretty much everyone does, how confident would you feel in your ability to do that again? And if you think back to the life transitions episode we did, uh, where we talked about life quakes, everyone's going to experience those life quakes. If you've built this resilience and confidence, knowing you can move to another country, survive without any grand plan, maybe survive on a lot less income, come back and pivot and do something different.

SPEAKER_02 40:59

We wear it out, yeah.

Chris 41:00

Yeah, that gives you a huge amount of strength to draw on for whatever comes at you in future, whether you're traveling or not.

Lily 41:07

Yeah, fair enough. Okay. Yeah, I guess you just have to weigh up the risk of taking it versus never taking it. Like if you can if you can spare the three years, you know, if you've got a promotion coming up, if you've got a really important project, and you can push it back a little bit and find a time that works better for you. But I think you're right. I think leaving that, not taking that opportunity and missing out on all of the the growth that would come from it would be a flop.

Chris 41:36

Yeah, it might feel scary, but there is definitely upside. I think for Gen X, the biggest barrier is thinking, well, what if it's too late for me? You know, I'm thinking I'm 56 now, I'm never gonna get the opportunity to to do it again.

Lily 41:51

Yeah, I was kind of thinking that when you're talking about it. It makes me sad that you've not been able to do this. This is something that I want to do, and I don't want yourself to just wait till you're retired and then like I feel bad for Gen X now.

Chris 42:03

Well, you know, the plan mum and I have is to do something at 60, like the big road trip or you know, a big journey. So maybe coming out of full-time work, but still doing something to earn an income we can work more flexibly with. Yeah. But we don't have the opportunity to do this again and again. Hopefully, we'll be retired and we can enjoy our retirement. But perhaps the concept of a sabbatical just changes how we think about retirement. So it doesn't have to be full-time career stop and then one long period of retirement. Yeah. It could be full-time career, break of three months or six months, do something part-time or start a business or something to generate a bit of income, which gives us some additional money to fund another long trip or doing something. And you can still, you know, phase it in over what hopefully would be maybe like a 20-year retirement. So it's looking for more flexibility, reduced commitments. Selectively, you can still do some paid work, so it's sort of retirement-ish. So it's maybe a slightly different setup to you, but I think Gen X can certainly factor this into what they could do over the next few years before full-time retirement. And the sabbatical principles still apply. You still want to do something meaningful, create some space, disconnect periodically. I think that's healthy for everyone. Yeah, definitely. And and explore and experiment.

Lily 43:30

I mean, I think that sounds a lot more fitting for you, anyways. You were never gonna do work, retire, stop. Like when we talk about well, when we talk about your spreadsheets and things earlier on, you'd be finding ways to optimize your retirement and keep yourself busy. So that sounds like that would work for you. That makes me feel better.

Chris 43:48

Thank you. So, Lily, if you made a decision now that you were definitely gonna take, say, six months off in six or seven years' time when you turned 30, what would you start doing differently now?

Lily 44:02

Well, I think this has definitely inspired me to put some money away into a pot for a sabbatical. Because I think, as I've said throughout this whole conversation, I think for Gen Z, this is probably the way that we can milk the most enjoyment out of life. Yeah. And I certainly don't want to be waiting around until I'm old. Like I say, I need a nap to get to the day as it is. I'm really gonna struggle when I'm retired. So I think putting money away now and then also knowing me, probably start planning. Like if I am going away, I need to start planning my outfits and my packing and how I'm gonna transport all my hair tools about now as well. I think seven years will probably be enough time. So those are the two main things. But no, on a serious note, I definitely want to start putting some money away into a little pot.

Chris 44:48

And the beauty of having that length of time is small amounts now will grow over time. So it doesn't have to be you know, it don't have to break the bank with like just living off baked beans and not spending any money going out, but being a bit more sensible and just saving 10% if you can manage it. Yeah. And you know that's gonna give you a decent fund to tap into seven, ten years or just automating it on payday.

Lily 45:12

Yeah, you can a little chunk.

Chris 45:13

Put it away and leave it there. Yeah.

Lily 45:15

Definitely. And for you, I guess you've said you're not going to be taking a sabbatical between now and when you retire, but I want to know how you plan on creating the opportunity to have that intention, exploration, and disconnection in the the last bit of your working career.

Chris 45:31

Yeah, I think mum and I are already forming a plan for when we turn 60, which is four years away. Yeah. And wanting to do something. And I think this idea, this conversation, is now starting to inform how we could do that more regularly. So maybe every five years or so, you know, for those kind of big milestones at 65 and 70, what could we do that was sabbatical-ish? That's what I think we might start planning for. So I think that the challenge isn't for for both uh generations, it's not can I take a sabbatical, but it's like, how can I make it work somehow with the with planning? And when you weigh that up against what's the cost of not doing it, that can be really motivating in terms of yeah, actually, I do want to make sure that this happens in a few years' time.

Lily 46:25

Yeah, it gives you a bit of a kack up the bum. Yeah. I'm gonna go and set up a monzo pot when I get off this call and call it sabbatical.

Chris 46:32

Excellent. So if this topic has got you thinking, we would love to hear your feedback. Give us a rating or review in your podcast app or send us a message with what you think about the idea of taking a sabbatical.

Lily 46:46

And if you have any plans to do one and where you're gonna go and what you're gonna bring with you.

Chris 46:50

Absolutely.

Lily 46:51

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Gen XD Exchange.