Around about the year 2000, Elon Musk was CEO of Paypal.

He took leave to go on honeymoon, and whilst away his management team approached the Board to have Elon removed as CEO.

He cancelled his honeymoon and flew home, but by then it was too late.

The Board asked him to resign.

Afterwards when asked what lesson he’d learnt, his reply was, “Never go on holiday.”

His successor CEO, Peter Thiel, went on to negotiate an IPO and an eventual $1,3billion exit to eBay, making Elon very rich.

Elon used these monies to become a rockstar tech entrepreneur (SpaceX, Tesla, etc).

So maybe Elon’s original reflection on lessons learnt was wrong.

Maybe the lesson learnt was, “Go on holiday.”

Everyone needs a break, even it means a long break.