Quarterly retreat benefits are easy to underrate until you skip one. I am writing this on Day 1808 of my daily barefoot-style running streak, on my last day in Spain, and I leave with more clarity than I arrived with.

I am at Desert Springs Resort, just outside Almeria. I won this trip at a charity fundraiser, and I was fortunate to win it. The place is very comfortable. Before anyone thinks a retreat needs somewhere like this, let me say it does not.

What a retreat actually is

The word sounds expensive. It sounds elitist and out of reach. I do not think it is any of those things. A retreat is stepping away from what you do every day. It could be a few days with relatives, a night or two camping, or a few days at home where you stay away from your working environment. The location matters far less than the distance from your normal routine.

I try to do one every quarter. Some are small. Some are bigger. The purpose stays the same. I take stock of where I was at the last retreat, where I am now, and what progress I have made. Then I ask myself two questions. Am I doing the right things? Do I need to change anything?

Why you cannot do this on the go

When you are in the day-to-day, you are too involved to judge it. Every task looks urgent. Every problem looks like yours to fix today. You get busy, and busy feels like progress.

Without a planning session you can end up doing the wrong things at the wrong time. You make less progress. You get frustrated. You start to feel like a hamster on a wheel. I have been there. Stepping back is what lets me see the bigger picture, and the bigger picture decides where my effort should go.

This does not only apply to work. It applies to personal life, relationships and health too. Anything where you are not sure you are heading the right way is worth a few days of distance.

Honest about how I feel

I am not leaving relaxed and certain about everything. I travel home tomorrow, and I feel a little anxious about what I am going back to. Several things in my entrepreneurial life are at an early stage. Some are not as systemised as a more established business would be. There is catching up to do.

What has changed is that I now know where I am, how far I have come, and what I need to do differently. Anxiety about a list of unknowns is heavier than anxiety about a list I can see. The retreat turned the first into the second.

A marketing funnel I did not expect

Something else caught my attention here, and it is a useful lesson for anyone running a business.

The development has around 400 units. Most were sold to older owners, and from what I gather, only about 10% are lived in permanently. The rest are holiday homes, and many owners choose not to rent them out. So the resort is never crowded. The golf course is of a professional standard, and qualifiers for the DP World Tour are played there. There is always capacity, so the experience stays high quality.

Here is what interests me. I understand the company behind this donates stays like mine as prizes for charity auctions and similar events. Those events reach people with the means to bid. Even where the prize raises only enough to cover costs, the company still gets what it wants: people who turn up and spend a few days in the place.

Then the sales office is right there. The available units are advertised around the resort. You spend a few days thinking how good it would be to come back every few months with friends and family, and the price looks affordable. There is no hard sell. Everyone I spoke to followed the same path I am on. They came for a golf weekend, enjoyed it, enquired, received offers and discounts, and ended up owning a place.

I will be honest. The people I travelled with and I came close to making an enquiry ourselves. I decided against it. I prefer to see somewhere new each time, and a holiday home does not fit what I want. For people who value familiarity, safety and security, I can see exactly why it works.

What I took from it

Two lessons, and they connect.

First, step away on a regular schedule. A quarterly retreat gives you the view you cannot get from inside the work. Without it, you stay stuck in the day-to-day and never know whether you are going the right way.

Second, look hard at your own marketing. This business reached the right people in an unusual way, and the customer felt like a winner rather than a target. I would encourage you to ask where your ideal customer already is, and whether there is a more creative route to them than the obvious one.

How this ties to the mission

My daily running is the same principle in a different form. One run a day sounds small. Over 1808 days it has added up to 14,190.09 km, with 25,884.91 km still to run of the 40,075 km lap of the world. Consistency does the work. A retreat is the pause that checks the direction while the consistency continues.

Every episode is part of a fundraiser. I am working towards raising £1M for children's causes, and the more people who see the vlog, the more we can raise. That is why I do this every single day.

If you have a retreat planned, or you have been putting one off, pick a date this week. If you want to follow the run, subscribe to the vlog, and tell me in the comments how you step back from your own day-to-day. I reply to every relevant comment.

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/rkpXgNQ5iu4