How I traveled for a month and worked only 1 hr/week

I have a secret to admit. I recently spent a month in India, Italy, and Mexico Can't view this email properly? [View in Browser]() [Podcast Newsletter Header Final.png]() {NAME}, I have a secret to admit. I recently spent a month in India, Italy, and Mexico...and I didn’t tell you. In fact, nobody on the internet knew. While I was gone, my business kept running. My posts on social media kept going up. Even my podcast went live every single week. Part of my Rich Life is being able to travel for long stretches at a time, eating amazing food and staying at beautiful hotels. So in today’s email, I’ll share my favorite parts, including: - How we saved ~$40,000 on flights - How I chose the hotels - How I spent 1 hour/week on my business while traveling for one month --------------------------------------------------------------- Offer for IWT readers: 10% off Methodology gourmet meal delivery Methodology gourmet meal This newsletter is sponsored by Methodology. If amazing food is part of your Rich Life, it doesn’t get better than this. Methodology is a meal delivery service using Michelin-quality ingredients. [Get 10% off your first order](). --------------------------------------------------------------- How the business ran while I traveled for 4 weeks - I didn’t travel much until my late 20s. I always used to think that my business would collapse if I went anywhere for longer than a week. What a limiting belief. - I finally took a two-week trip to Southeast Asia and I was hooked. - Over time, I practiced traveling for longer and longer. Each time I came back, I would debrief with my team on what worked and what didn’t. I would delegate more and more, we’d refine processes so my coworkers had ownership, and we’d proactively plan to get certain things done before I left. - I now travel for months at a time. I typically check in for one hour per week while traveling. My team does an amazing job creating, producing, testing, posting, growing, and monitoring everything in the business. - I have a pre-meeting before I leave where we outline what success looks like, what kind of communication I expect, and their lines of responsibility vs. where I need to be looped in. (For example, if they sign a $100,000 contract...I need to know. But for almost everything else, they own it.) - Key coworkers send me updates so I can stay in the loop, but I almost never reply while traveling. I want them to have the trust to use their judgment and make good decisions. - This time, I gave one of my coworkers a specific budget so she could use it to pay any problems away. If she needed a specific resource, I didn’t want her blocked, so I gave her the budget and the authorization to use any/all of it to keep growing. She did an awesome job. Convenience - Convenience is one of my [Money Dials](), or things I love spending money on, so I’m obsessed with using money to create more convenience in my life and travel. - Each time I take a long trip, I try to dial in my nutrition/training a little more. This time, I sat down with my assistant ahead of time and mapped out days when I would be able to work out. There were days I knew I wouldn’t be able to work out, but for the days I could, I wanted to have everything ready. She located gyms and gave me multiple options. - Honestly, it all went great...until our clothes didn’t arrive in Italy. That meant no workout gear = when things started to go off track. Then food poisoning (see below). We came back feeling a little off track, but also knowing that we’d get back into our routines and be back in a couple weeks. - I also had a few things shipped ahead (e.g. protein powder, certain clothes) so I didn’t have to carry all of them. - We hired an outside firm to book our flights with points. My wife is a [personal stylist]() and I run IWT, so we both accumulate a lot of points. We used [() (no affiliation, they just did a great job) and I estimate we saved about $40,000-$50,000 on flights. When we came back and did a debrief of how much the trip cost vs. how much we planned, this made a huge difference. - I use the [Tripit]() app for all flight tracking info. - We had one flight where the connection was too tight and our bags didn’t make it for 2 days. In the past, this would have been devastating. This time, it was just a little annoying. We went out and bought new clothes, then we made a note in our Travel SOP that our international connections should be at least 3 hours. I shared that with my assistant when I got back, so now it’s part of our new process. - All of this psycho convenience stuff helped me focus on what mattered—spending time with my friends and family and the new cities we were visiting!! Hotels - I love luxury hotels. To me, they represent the highest levels of hospitality and design. I don’t get sponsored or gifted these stays—I pay personally and I share what I love on my [Instagram account](). - In India, we stayed with family, but for the wedding, we stayed at the [Oberoi Delhi](). Oberoi is one of my favorite hotel brands in the world. Another time, I’ll share some of the most amazing experiences we’ve had staying at their hotels. - In Noto, we stayed at [Q92](), a great boutique hotel run by the Quartucci family. Our room was beautiful, like staying in a museum. - In Lake Como, [Passalacqua](), which is currently rated the #1 hotel in the world, though nobody really takes that list seriously. We’d never been to Lake Como before and within 5 minutes of arriving, we instantly understood why people love it here. The property is truly dazzling, but honestly, we didn’t have a great experience here and I wouldn’t go back. It wasn’t about getting food poisoning (not their fault), but rather poor service everywhere: from the front desk not thinking ahead to the staff not communicating with others to the servers forgetting orders. At this price, you expect everything to be perfect, and it wasn’t. Ramit in Lake Como Last month in Lake Como - One big lesson: Not every time is going to be great. If we stay at 50 amazing hotels and 1-2 aren’t great, that’s fine. I wish we’d had a better experience, and we won’t go back to Passalacqua, but we fell in love with Lake Como and we’ll find another place for next time. If you have questions about traveling, write me back! I’ll answer more on Instagram. [Signature] P.S. This week on the podcast: “We’re $520k in debt—and he hid it from me” Check out my fascinating conversation with Cassandra and Aldo [here](). [Podcast]() [Programs]() [Podcast]() [Netflix show]() [Books]() [Website]() [IG]() [in]() [X]() [YT]() Was this forwarded to you? [Sign up here](). [Unsubscribe here](. 548 Market St #89946 San Francisco, CA 94104-5401