Special Ops with Emma Rainville

Episode: How to Unplug as a Founder: Let Your Business Run While on Vacation

Date: August 26, 2025
Host: Emma Rainville

Episode Overview

In this episode, Emma Rainville explores the crucial (and often elusive) ability for founders to truly “unplug” and let their business run smoothly while they step away. Speaking from personal experience, Emma discusses her journey from being unable to take a real vacation without constant interruptions, to creating an autonomous team at her company, Shockwave, that enables her to travel for weeks at a time with full peace of mind. The episode provides actionable insight on building self-sufficient teams, the mindset shifts required, and practical strategies for empowering employees — all designed to help founders trade their self-imposed "jobs" for genuine business ownership and freedom.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Litmus Test: Can You Truly Step Away?

• Foundational Problem: If you cannot walk away from your business for six to eight weeks without it falling apart, you haven’t built a business – you’ve built yourself a job.
• Emma’s Rule: “By the time your business hits about three [years], you should be able to walk away for six to eight weeks without the whole place burning down.” (00:19)

2. Emma’s Hard-Learned Lesson (Vacation Story)

• Personal Anecdote: Despite planning her dream vacation for two years, Emma found herself fielding daily work calls, even for trivial matters like approving a banner.
• Key Realization: Her absence exposed dependency issues and lack of empowered decision-makers on her team.
• Quote:

  “Every single day I got a phone call from one of my employees. Every single day I was on vacation. I could not take one full day and not do something for work.” (02:28)

3. Diagnosing and Solving the Dependency Problem

• Team Evaluation: On return, Emma critically assessed each team member’s capability and reliability, leading to some tough but necessary personnel changes.
• Emphasis on Reliability: The focus shifted to building a team she could trust with decisions and workload.
• Creating a Culture of Safe Failure:

  “I got really intentional about never getting mad when they had a mistake… As long as they did a little bit of due diligence and took some time to think it through, I wouldn’t [criticize].” (05:39)

• Accountability, Not Excuses: Mistakes are okay, repeated mistakes or excuses are not.

4. Empowering Your Team to Make Decisions

• Intentional Hand-Offs: Clearly defined what decisions each team member could make in Emma’s absence — “and it’s very little” that she withholds.
• Ownership and Responsibility:

  “The more I put things in their wheelhouse, the more responsible they got and the less mishaps we actually had.” (09:26)

• Process for Building Autonomy:
  • Assign deliverables fully to capable team members
  • Back them up on their decisions, only intervening in rare, pre-defined circumstances
  • Use post-mortems as learning (not punishment), asking questions like: “How could we have done this differently?”

5. The Transformation: A True ‘Unplugged’ Vacation

• Year-Over-Year Results: After shifting her team and approach, Emma spent a month traveling Europe, working only 4 hours in total.
• Results in Trust:

  “Both times they didn’t really need anything… It was wonderful.” (12:58)

• Real World Application: For her next trip to Iceland, she didn’t even buy Wi-Fi, trusting her team to handle things.

6. Lifestyle Reflections & Norms

• Work Rhythm vs. Societal Norms:

  “I don’t conform to the 9 to 5 Monday through Friday thing… If I feel good and I feel inspired to work, I work. If I don’t, I don’t.” (16:15)

• Custom Schedule: Emma often works 300 days a year but takes time off as needed, including extended breaks.

7. Action Steps for Listeners

• Playbook Offer: Emma invites listeners to the Visionary Vault at specialopspodcast.com for her “5-step guide in turning your business from a trap to freedom.”
• Key Takeaway:

  “If you haven’t built yourself a business, then it’s probably time to really start thinking about how to change that.” (17:47)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Business vs. Job:

  “If you can’t unplug and reset and take time to yourself because you own a business, you didn’t build a business, you built yourself a job with a fancy title.” (00:06)

• On Team Failures:

  “You don’t achieve anything great without first failing. And so as a team, we’re never going to achieve anything great if I never allow them to fail.” (05:20)

• On Empowerment:

  “If your team builds a funnel and they come to you for every little decision… who’s the best person to make the decision? The person who built it. Right?” (10:09)

• On Sustainable Freedom:

  “I wish this for all entrepreneurs… If you haven’t built yourself a business, then it’s probably time to really start thinking about how to change that.” (14:54)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–03:00 — Introduction; story of the vacation-turned-work-trip; early lessons
• 03:01–06:30 — Realization and aftermath: Revamping the team and culture
• 06:31–11:00 — Letting go: Empowerment and decision-making in practice
• 11:01–13:00 — One year later: The unplugged European trip; measurable improvement
• 13:01–16:30 — Philosophies on work-life fit and business-life integration
• 16:31–End — Action steps, encouragement, and free resources for listeners

Tone & Language

Emma is candid, no-nonsense, and motivational, peppering insights with personal stories and direct language. She’s both encouraging (“I wish this for all entrepreneurs”) and challenging (“If you can't unplug... you didn't build a business”).

Actionable Resources

• Visionary Vault: Free guides, checklists and courses available at specialopspodcast.com
  • “5-Step Guide: Turning Your Business from a Trap to Freedom”

This episode offers a forthright, step-by-step account of transforming a leader-dependent operation into a self-sustaining business. Emma’s approach is practical, tested, and designed for founders eager to gain real freedom and operational excellence.