Plan Your Trip Like You're Going to the South Pole
You can be away for weeks with one phone, come back to a business that ran without you, and book the next trip with confidence.
By James Schramko · Updated November 2026
You have a trip coming up, and you already know how it will go. You'll check messages at breakfast, again at lunch and once more before bed, because you can't tell what's happening at home.
I get asked all the time on calls: what do I do before I go away?
What I Used to Come Back To
Back when I had a job, I worked for a psychotic boss at one point. I'd go away for two weeks. By the time I came back he'd upset most of the team, fired a few people, hired a couple more and changed half the systems.
I think he might have done it as a sport. Either way, coming back to work caused me a massive amount of stress.
The Polar Bear
Once I sent a client a stuffed polar bear I bought on Amazon. He had an overseas holiday coming up, and I wanted something to remind him of what I'd told him.
I'd told him to pretend he was going to the South Pole to stay in an igloo. Communications would be extremely limited. Before he left, he needed to think about what would break while he was away, what decisions would need to be made, and how the team would reach him if they had to. He would take one phone, and all the team could do was send an SMS.
That way, instead of worrying about the business all the time, he knew that unless an SMS came, everything was under control.
He took the holiday and came back. The business hadn't melted to the ground. He felt a tremendous sense of relief, and much more confident about taking holidays in the future. That mattered to him, because being able to take holidays is the main reason he wanted his own business in the first place.
Before You Go
Give yourself the same South Pole test, and write your three answers down.
Then write the brief you will leave the team, in one sentence they can remember. Mine is: if they believe it is in the best interest of the business, I authorize them to make the decision, unless it is extremely hard to reverse and has dire consequences if it's wrong. I travel overseas multiple times a year, to places like the Maldives, Europe, the USA, Japan and the Philippines, and run the business from my phone on that brief.
Tell the team they can contact you in an emergency, and only in an emergency. Tell them they are unlikely to hear from you most of the time.
When you get back, look at the decisions that were made without you, and at where anyone got stuck because there was no system or they didn't feel confident making the choice. Go through it with them, or build the system, before the next trip.
Self-Diagnostic
On your last trip, how many times a day did you check messages?
What would your team do if the only way to reach you was an SMS?
Could each of them tell you, in one sentence, which decisions they can make without you?
When you last came back, did you look at the decisions made without you, or did you just catch up on email?
What To Do This Week
Put your next trip in the calendar. Write down what will break, what decisions will come up, and how the team reaches you in an emergency. Write your one-sentence brief and say it to the team. Book an hour for the day you get back to go through what happened.
Quick Reference
- Plan the trip as if you're going to the South Pole with one phone.
- Know what breaks, what decisions come up, and how they reach you.
- Let the team make any decision that is in the best interest of the business, unless it is extremely hard to reverse.
- Emergencies only, through one channel.
- When you get back, look at where people got stuck and fix it before the next trip.
Going through what happened while you were away, and what to change before the next trip, is work I do with owners in Mentor.