Sabbaticals to me are different. People are really protective of that word, but I use it anyways.
It took me years for my partner to finally convince me to take some time off to just think. No obligations. No adulting. No phone. No social (except for this writing). No going out.
Just locking down and locking in. Creative time is an advantage - not enough of your competition is doing it.
I don't know if I'm going to continue doing it in the same fashion, but I've been here for just a few hours and the creative juice are flowing.
For me, having this time removes something that is such a severe roadblock for me when I'm in "flow" - that is being a human being. You have to do the dishes, take out the trash, clean up after yourself, worry about groceries, and bills. For this experience, I (with my partner's blessing) completely removed myself from being a functioning adult.
I only cared about business and innovation. I only cared about doing the work. This worked wonders.
Something I've never really considered is how big of an effect and cognitive load it takes to just be an adult. Even as much as acknowledging someone in a public space. When you are able to lock-in and focus only on thinking and creating, it can be an entirely different experience of work.
As a leader, I've always felt I needed to not only be ahead of my competition but that I needed to reach into the future and pull knowledge into the present. Confusing yet? Basically, I want to be Biff from Back 2 The Future II where he gets the almanac.
How do I get far enough ahead to bring some things into the present? How do I do it consistently enough so that no one has even a chance of getting close to us?
KnowCap is a category creator, but once it’s shown to be a profitable space, there will be many more who will have an advantage of capital and hindsight. The reason for this sabbatical is to minimize those two advantages as much as possible.
We'll see what happens, but my partner recently said, "in a few years...I think you'll look back and realize one of the exponential drivers of success came out of these next five days."
I guess we'll see if she's right, future me.