• About
    • Meet Joel
    • The IMPOSSIBLE Shirt
  • Speaking
  • Giving

IMPOSSIBLE ®

Push Your Limits | Do Something Impossible

  • Home
  • Impossible List™
  • Blog
    • Archives
  • Gear
  • Apps
    • Running + Fitness Calculators
    • Move Well – Mobility Exercises
    • Cold Shower Therapy
  • Podcast
  • Events
  • 777
You are here: Home / Fitness / 48 Hours of Nothing

48 Hours of Nothing

October 9, 2022 By Joel Runyon 1 Comment

I went to a Getaway House for the first time in a few years a few weeks ago to do a quarterly retreat.

I’ve been meaning to do a quarterly retreat and planning process but I seem to find a way to get out of it.

Working hard is easy enough for me, but taking a step back to plan out the lay of the land has always been a struggle.

Going during the week drops the Getaway pricing from like $400-$500 on their peak weekends (crazy talk) to roughly $108/night. They were running some special, so I took another 20% off that.

It came out to $200 for 2 days or 48 hours of focus – essentially inexcusable for me not to plan something along these lines at least every quarter.

When I showed up – I had this large grandiose outline of how I was going to plan out the business for the quarter, prioritize different projects, and do a bunch of activities outside in nature in between the activities.

Instead, as soon as I showed up – it started raining.

And aside for a few strategic hourly breaks – it basically rained for the entirety of the time I was there.

Instead of my intricate itinerary, I ended up:

  • Making a pizza over an open fire during a break in the downpour.
  • Reading $100 Million Dollar offers by Alex Hormozi.
  • Sleeping 9 hours / night
  • Making s’mores
  • Drinking a lot of pour-over coffee (Kuju is legit)
  • Reading Principles for Dealing with a Changing World Order
  • Sleeping 4 hours in the middle of the day to the sound of the rain.
  • Plotting a new IMPOSSIBLE compound in the future

Instead of my intricate itinerary, I did a lot of…nothing. 

But it was astoundingly productive to intentionally do nothing.

And as I got away from the day-to-day incoming agendas – the next steps for work got really clear – like a water in a river clearing up when you stop muddling your feet in it.

Instead of running through a checklist, planner or quarterly workshops, the clarity made things simple:

  • I made a couple specific small goals on one business.
  • And I made a big, ambitious dream a few years out.

So that’s what I’m going to do. 

There’s a lot of other things I can tweak & optimize (more on this later), but the more I sat with all the business and opportunities – it came down to one thing that really mattered.

And it matters so much so that if that metric is achieved – everything else does not matter. 

So I’m working on that – and that exclusively.

Impossible Sleep is now live on amazon (check it out here).

We have a new clean energy product dropping soon.

We have more versions of the sleep product dropping soon.

There are more things to do and there are lots of important metrics across the board, but there’s one main thing.

-redacted-

But it didn’t come from a detailed itinerary, planning notebook or workshop. It came from sitting alone, doing nothing (intentionally) and just letting the space clear.

Most of the time you already know what to do. You just have to get quiet enough to listen.

Then, go do it.

…

If you want to do a getaway house retreat – I recommend it. You can save $25 here.

Tweet
Pin
Share
0 Shares

Filed Under: Fitness

About Joel Runyon

I started IMPOSSIBLE to push myself to try to live a life worth writing about by pushing my limits, living an adventure & telling a great story by doing the impossible. You can get free updates in your inbox via your new favorite newsletter, free fitness training tutorials, and see all my businesses at Impossible X and our philanthropic efforts at Impossible.org

Comments

  1. Kari says

    October 11, 2022 at 9:16 pm

    I do the retreats too and also have big plans for organizing, planning, and just being creative in general.

    And I also end up doing things like making S’mores and taking naps.

    I think our intuition knows we need a place to relax and let the ideas flow to us naturally, so it lets our brains believe we are going to have some massive productivity weekend ahead of us… whatever it takes to get us there. 🙂

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

the-impossible-shirt

Hi, I'm Joel Runyon


I created IMPOSSIBLE to help people push their limits by taking on impossible challenges and living a good story.

Follow @joelrunyon

My I recently finished running 7 ultra marathons on 7 continents and raised nearly $200k for Pencils of Promise. Read more about my story here.

Subscribe & Listen To The Podcast

How To Start A Blog Walkthrough

how-to-start-a-blog-guide
impossible abs

no-excuse-workout

cold-shower-therapy

The 777 Project

777-project

THE IMPOSSIBLE FAMILY

  • IMPOSSIBLE • Blog + HQ
  • IMPOSSIBLE Fitness • Tutorials & Training
  • IMPOSSIBLE Podcast • Podcast
  • IMPOSSIBLE X • Businesses
  • IMPOSSIBLE.org • Giving
  • IMPOSSIBLE Gear • Apparel + Supplements

"How To" Guides

  • How To Start A Blog: The Definitive Guide
  • How To Start A Podcast: The Definitive Guide

Looking For Something?

About The Impossible Shirt

IMPOSSIBLE®

  • Impossible X®
  • Impossible.org
  • Impossible Gear™
  • Impossible Fitness ®
  • Impossible Nutrition ®

RECENT

  • Building Calluses
  • New IMPOSSIBLE Gear is Here (End of Winter Drop)
  • The Tao of the Gym Bro
  • If you’re lacking vision, try asking this question…
  • Creative Debt

Inspiration

  • An Unexpected Ass Kicking
  • How Bad Do You Want It?
  • The Iron & The Soul
  • The Only 2 Real Excuses Why People Refuse To Take Cold Showers

We Built a School! (2012)

impossible-pop-school

And We Built 7 More! (2017)

777-project

| Copyright © 2023 | Built on Genesis & Hosted By BlueHost | Affiliate Disclosure | An Impossible X Company

IMPOSSIBLE®, the IMPOSSIBLE® logo, IMPOSSIBLE HQ®, IMPOSSIBLE X®, IMPOSSIBLE Nutrition®, and IMPOSSIBLE Fitness® are registered Trademarks of IMPOSSIBLE X LLC.

The IMPOSSIBLE List™, Push Your Limits™, and Cold Shower Therapy™ are trademarks of IMPOSSIBLE X LLC.

Join Our Newsletter!

Stay up to date with our newest podcasts, latest deals and special offers! We announce new content every week so be sure to stay in touch.