Prime (noun)
the state or time of greatest vigour or success in a person’s life.

Hi, I’m Jason. This is where I share openly about the challenges, insights and lessons from my own journey. My hope is that these thoughts spark reflections that help you navigate your own path to living better and leading better. 

Jason Leavy
Founder

Prime Perspective:
Personal Reflections on Leadership and Growth

"It is not a pause in the action. It is the moment where all the noise I've internalized - about productivity, urgency, performance - meets the silence I've neglected. It is the action.”

- Jerry Colonna

How To Waste Your Vacation

As summer unfolds and your thoughts turn to the holidays, I wanted to share my thoughts about this precious window of opportunity for you.

I’ve been reflecting over the past few days on this insight from Jerry Colonna. Jerry, founder of Reboot.ai and a coach I deeply admire, captures something essential about this season that goes far beyond superficial ‘work-life balance’  thinking.

In essence, I believe it’s about the importance of agency and intentionality - the value of having a clear sense of purpose during this period and understanding what you truly want out of it.

Don’t confuse this with productivity, as I’m not urging you to be filling up your holiday time with activities through a misguided notion that this is what constitutes action. What I’m saying is to avoid the temptation of going into it on ‘auto-pilot’ and going through the motions.

Fight, Flight Or Fill?

Context: you’re almost certainly heading into this period in what neuroscience tells us is your nervous system’s ‘sympathetic’ state - that ‘always-on’ activation mode. Try and stay in that high-performance mode for too long and burnout beckons. What you need is to engage your parasympathetic nervous system like a brake, allowing you to shift into a state of replenishing and recharging.

Your vacation is a huge window of opportunity in that regard, but this window only delivers its full potential when approached with intentionality.

This year marks the first time in three years that my wife and I won't be heading to Defected music festival in Croatia. In 2023 and 2024, these festivals were everything we loved - amazing weather, quality time with a wonderful group of friends and dancing on beaches under the stars. 

Science will confirm the benefits of sun, dance and social connection. 

But life is about trade-offs.

Coming back from those festivals, we felt exhausted - mentally and physically. The hedonism. The lack of sleep. The very thing we loved in the moment was leaving us depleted rather than restored. So this year, we've consciously chosen a different path - time in nature, reading, reflecting.

I think this is why Jerry's quote really resonated with me at this time. I realised I’d increasingly seen my summer vacations as that pause in the action from a hectic ‘always on’ corporate career, rather than seeing the true opportunity that time presented.

Discipline Is Freedom

Former NAVY Seal Jocko Willink talks about how discipline is freedom. And I think this is especially true for this precious window of time.

What do I mean by that? It goes back to you having agency over your decisions:

• The discipline to take that morning walk instead of scrolling through emails. 

• The discipline to be present and engaged with loved ones instead of staring at your screen. 

• The discipline to actually try that new experience rather than defaulting to killing time at the bar. 

I want to be very clear on 2 things here:

• Do what works for you - this isn’t about me preaching because I somehow feel I’m more virtuous now (believe me, I still spend too much time on my phone, it’s the definition of a work in progress!). This is about me urging you to tune into that ‘data’ from your body and mind and lean into it - if lounging by the pool and drinking wine every day fills your cup and you come back to work feeling great, then go for it. However, if you’re going through the motions because it’s the easier path than trying something new, I’d suggest it’s time to switch things up.

• Remember that choosing to rest is an action, not an inaction - we live in a world where you are bombarded by distractions. It’s why seeking silence can initially feel so uncomfortable. Resist the noise and focus on yourself and the ones you’re with. The rest of the world can wait. 

Your Mission

As you head into this precious window:

1. Remember you have agency over your choices, so be honest with yourself about what actually fills your cup and pursue them. 

2. Make trade-offs that honour both what you love and what you need. 

3. Think about the opportunity cost of blowing through your most precious commodity - time.

4. Experiment! Do that thing you’ve always wanted to do. 

5. Have fun - as a leader, you’re ‘on stage’ performing a role nearly all year round. That can weigh heavy and I believe it’s vital you feel empowered to shed that burden for a limited time. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to those around you.