What Real-Life Travel Teaches You About Running Your Business

Welcome to Beyond Product Management, where we look beyond the day-to-day of product work and we focus on the real stuff that fuels your career. I'm Heather Miller, your host. I'm also the CEO, co-founder, and product management strategist at PDRM Consulting, where I help product leaders, entrepreneurs, and business owners step into the strategic, visible, and impactful roles they deserve. Whether this is your first episode or you've binged them all, I am so So glad you're here. I have a conference next month we're sponsoring. We'll have a table and I will be fully on, high energy, meeting people, doing the thing. And I love it. That's my people. And also, I don't have a solid plan yet for what comes before or after. We might add days on. I might snag my husband or a kid to come with me. We might make it a family trip. A month out, genuinely no idea. And this summer we'll also be doing college visits with my family, which is not a vacation, but it is travel. And it's the kind of travel where nobody needs Heather the CEO, they just need mom. Today's episode is about that, the messy, real, beautiful version of stepping away and what it can actually teach you about your business. When you let it. So let me tell you about my summer, because I think it's going to resonate with a lot of you. In June, I have a conference in Charlotte, and we, PDRM Consulting, is one of the sponsors, which means I'll have a table and I'll be representing and I'll be on, and I genuinely cannot wait because it is a fantastic group of people and I love that kind of energy. Walking in, connecting with people, talking about what we do, why we built it, who we serve. And that is my people. That's fun for me. And then this summer we're doing college visits, which is a very different kind of trip. There's no table. Nobody is handing me a name tag that says Heather Miller, CEO. I'm just a mom in comfortable shoes walking around campus. Trying to figure out if this is the right place for my kid while not letting my facial expressions show. And here's what I've noticed about those two experiences. In Charlotte, I'm performing— not in a fake way. I'm fully present. I'm engaged. I'm doing the thing, but my brain is in output mode. I'm giving. I'm connecting. I'm representing. On a college visit, my brain goes somewhere completely different. Nobody needs anything from Heather, the CEO. Nobody is asking about revenue or roadmaps or product strategy. And in the quiet, in the space where I'm just a mom watching my kid try to figure out their future, some of my best ideas show up completely uninvited. And I think that's the whole point of today's episode. There are two modes that every founder lives in, and I want you to think about which one you spend most of your time in. Mode 1 is in the business. This is executing, responding to emails, putting out fires, showing up to meetings, running your team, doing client work, posting content, being on. This mode is absolutely necessary. You cannot build a business without it. And honestly, a lot of us are really good at it. But here's the problem with mode 1. When you're inside it, you cannot see around it. You're too close and the details are too loud. Mode 2 is on the business. This is the 30,000-foot view. It's where you step back and ask, is this working? Is this the right direction? What am I missing? What does the plan actually look like from the outside? This is where strategy lives, and this is where clarity comes from. And you almost never get here by trying to get here. You don't schedule a meeting with yourself and arrive in Mode 2. Doesn't work that way. You get to Mode 2 by stepping out of Mode 1. By creating distance, by going somewhere physically, mentally, emotionally, that gives your brain permission to stop executing and start thinking. Travel does that, even imperfect travel. College visit travel, a conference with a sponsor table. If you build in a few extra days and let yourself breathe, the question isn't whether you can afford to step away. The question is, can you afford not to? Because if you never get into Mode 2, you will be busy forever without ever being strategic. And busy is not the same as building. I want to walk you through what a college visit actually requires because I realize somewhere between campus tours and glossy brochures and my kid asking Does this feel right? This is exactly what I do with my clients in a strategic intensive. The questions are almost identical. Let's not tell him that. You don't actually show up to a campus blind. You read about it, you look at fit, you look at what they're known for, what they offer, whether it aligns with what your kid actually wants. In business This is market research and competitive landscape. Before you build anything, before you make a big move, do you know your landscape? Do you know where you actually fit? So many founders skip this. They're too close to their own idea to zoom out and ask, is there really actually space for this? Who else is doing this? What makes me different? Step 2: You show up and see if it matches what you imagined. The brochure is always beautiful. The campus tour, always curated. When you walk in, does it feel right? Does the reality match the vision? In business, This is product market fit. We talked about it last week. You can have the most beautiful pitch deck and the most compelling offer on paper, but when real clients show up, do they get it? Does it land the way you imagined? Are you solving the problem they actually have or the one they thought they had? This is something I look at at every strategic intensive. Not just what the founder believes about their business, but what the market is actually reflecting back. Step 2— or Step 3, you ask hard questions about fit, not just prestige. The most prestigious school is not always the right fit. The biggest program is not always the right program. You have to ask, does this fit the specific person? This specific season of life, these specific goals. In business, this is where so many entrepreneurs go wrong. They chase the flashiest opportunity, the biggest client, the loudest trend without asking, is this actually the right fit for where I am and where I'm going? Fit is a strategy. Choosing the what's right over what's impressive. That's a decision, and it takes clarity to make it. Think about the most prestigious school. If that was the case, everybody would want to go to an Ivy, right? But that's not everybody's dream school. If I think about when I was applying to school, Yes, I had a few reach schools, but there was one school that I applied to that I said I would only go to if I got into one specific program. I wouldn't care if I got into their regular program because it didn't matter to me. See, at the time, and I've talked about this numerous times on the podcast, When I started my college career, I assumed I was going to go to medical school, and I applied to Northwestern in Chicago in their program that was meant to give you your undergraduate and your medical degree in a bit— a quicker program. I think it was 6 years instead of 8, I think is what it was. And I would only— the only way I was gonna do Northwestern, which is not an Ivy but is known as a prestigious school and is known as a very good medical school, is if I could get into that program. I did not get into that program. Now I will say it also hinged upon me taking SAT 2s, and I took that one day after getting— or two days after getting my wisdom teeth out. Not the smartest move on my part, but it was unavoidable. But all that to say is that what is the right fit at the right time, at the right— for the right person is something we all have to choose. But fit is a strategy. We can't choose just what's impressive. We have to choose what makes the most sense. I will never regret my choice of university. I got the best education for me. Step 4: You don't commit on the campus tour. You go home, you talk about it, you sleep on it, you ask how it feels a week later. In business, this is execution capacity. Not every opportunity is the right next move. Your job as the CEO is not just to see opportunities, it's to sequence them, to know what you can actually carry right now. One of the things I help my clients see in strategic intensives is not just what's possible, but what's possible right now given their team, their capacity, their season. Because chasing everything is the fastest way to build absolutely nothing well. I'm doing it this— for my kid this summer, walking campuses, asking the hard questions, but not giving my opinion, which may be a little different than what I do with my clients. Sitting with what feels right, and I'm doing the exact same with my clients. The questions are almost identical because building a life and building a business both require you to know who you are, where you fit, and what you're actually ready for. Okay, I want to be transparent with you about something because I think it actually illustrates everything I've been talking about this episode. This summer, while we're doing college visits, I have toyed with the idea of doing what I've called VIP strategic intensives with some clients. I'm bringing my client work on the road with us, and I want to tell you why, because it's not what you might think. It's not because I can't unplug. It's not because I'm grinding. It's because I built this business intentionally I didn't leave a corporate career because I hated it. I loved what I built there. I left it because I wanted something more. I wanted a business that moved with my life instead of fighting against it. I wanted to be present for my family, and I wanted to be at the college visits and still serve my clients at the highest level. I wanted to stop feeling like I had to choose one or the other. Doing a strategic intensive while I'm on the road with my family isn't hustle culture. It's integration. It's what it actually looks like when your business works for your life. And honestly, being away from my normal environment makes me sharper for my clients, not less. I'm in mode 2. I can see more clearly. I bring that into the room with them. That's the version of entrepreneurship I'm building, and it's the version I help my clients build too. So let me tell you what this actually looks like, because if you've never worked with me before, I want to make sure you understand what a Strategic Intensive is and what it isn't. It's not coaching. I'm not your hype person. I'm your strategist, and there's a difference. A Strategic Intensive is focused one-to-one deep dive into your business. We look at where you are right now, honestly, clearly, and without a filter of what you wish things look like. We look at where you want to go, and then we figure out what is actually standing between those two things. Not what you think is standing in the way, what is actually standing in the way. And then we build a roadmap, a real one, with clear priorities, clear next steps, and a sequence that makes sense of where you are right now, not where you'll be in 2 years. You leave knowing exactly what to do next and why. That's it. That's the whole point. I offer these in 3 formats: 90 days, 6 months, and 12 months, depending on how far out you're planning and how much support you need to stay on track. This summer, I'm offering a VIP format. Which means you get my undivided attention. No distractions, no divided focus, just me fully in it with you face to face. That's the difference between the VIP and our normal. Normally we do these virtually. For VIP, we are going to do them as a full day session where it is one-to-one in person. Here's something I want you to sit with. Most founders treat summer like a holding pattern, like nothing real happens until September. They slow down, they coast a little, and then September hits and they panic because Q4 is suddenly right there and they don't have a plan. I want to flip that for you. Summer is actually one of the best times to do this work, not be despite the slower pace, because of it. When things quiet down around you, you can finally hear yourself think. You have space to look at the plan without the noise of a full calendar drowning out everything else. You can make decisions from clarity instead of urgency. The founders who use this season intentionally, who pause, who plan, who do the strategy work now, are the ones who fall into fall— walk into fall with direction. They're not reacting to Q4. They built for it. That's what I want for you, and that's what strategic intensives this summer can do. I want to leave you with 3 things. These aren't lofty concepts. These are things travel, even imperfect, unplanned college visits, have taught me about running a business. Write these down. 1. Constants clarify. When you travel, you cannot pack everything. You have to choose, and in that choosing, you figure out what actually matters. Your business works the same way. Most founders don't have a strategy problem, they have a too many good ideas problem. Travel forces prioritization, and so does a strategic plan. What would you have to leave behind to move faster? And what are you packing that's just weighing you down? Number 2: New environments break old assumptions. You think differently in a new room. You notice things you stopped seeing at home. You ask questions you forgot to ask because everything became background noise. And this is why founders who never leave their routine— not because they're not working harder, but because they're working inside the same assumptions they've always had. A new environment breaks the pattern. You don't have to go far. A coffee shop, a conference in Charlotte. Go find a new room. Number 3: The best ideas come when you stop chasing them. Nobody has their best ideas in a meeting. They have it in the shower, or on a walk, in the car on the way to a campus visit. Clarity isn't forced. It's created by space. The founders who are always grinding, always in execution mode, never give their brain the conditions it needs to actually think. Your summer, even the messy, unplanned, figure-it-out-a-month-before version of it, can be that space if you let it. Here's what I want you to do this week. Not a big assignment, just one thing. Find the stolen moment that's already in your summer. The drive, the waiting room, the airport, the porch after the kids go to bed. The moment where you're technically away from the business, even if you're not on the beach somewhere. And in that moment, don't scroll, don't check your email. Just sit with the question: if I could see my business clearly right now, what would I notice? That's it. Just sit with it. And if what comes up is too big to sort through alone, if you realize you've been needing someone to sit with you in it, that's what Strategic Intensives are for. This summer, I have VIP spots available and I'm bringing them on the road with me. The link to learn more and get on my calendar will be in the show notes. I would love to work with you. And even if you don't want a VIP spot, we can still get you on for a regular Strategic Intensive. Thank you for listening to today's episode. I hope this gave you permission to step back, look at your business from a little distance, and trust what you see when you do. I will have ways for you to connect and learn more about Strategic Intensives in the show notes, and I'd love to hear what travel, even the unexpected kind, has taught you about your business. Find me on LinkedIn or Instagram, and thanks for listening to Beyond Product Management. I'm Heather Miller. See you on the next episode.