Today, Debbie Weil brings DJ DiDonna on the show to talk about sabbaticals, first cousins to gap years. DJ  is a graduate of Harvard Business School, co-founder of a socially-conscious financial tech company, and now, an expert on sabbaticals. Like a lot of young entrepreneurs DJ was burned out after working flat out for seven years. So he took two sabbaticals: one to make the famous, 900-mile Shikoku Pilgrimage in Japan. And another to hike and motorcycle across New Zealand.

Then he founded The Sabbatical Project to explore how and why sabbaticals lead to positive outcomes for working professionals. The goal of the project is to make corporate sabbatical policies more mainstream. He’s collaborating on academic research on the topic with Matt Bloom, a former Notre Dame professor who runs WorkWell Research.

As noted, a sabbatical is a close cousin to a gap year or timeout and DJ has lots to say about the psychological benefits of taking a timeout, whether it’s voluntary or involuntary. 

What they talked about

• The difference between a gap year and a sabbatical
• A forced sabbatical vs. a chosen sabbatical
• The most surprising things that happened during DJ’s sabbatical pilgrimage in Japan
• Why we need research on sabbaticals – the results provide incentives and encouragement to companies to offer sabbatical options
• One surprising discovery of the research: a phenomenon called functional workaholism
• The courage it takes to take a sabbatical or a gap year and the importance of exemplars
• Why Debbie and her husband, Sam Harrington, decided to take their Gap Year After Sixty
• DJ’s book proposal, aptly titled Time Off Well Spent
• The importance of retrospection and hindsight, during and after  taking a sabbatical

Mentioned in the episode or useful:

• DJ DiDonna
• The Sabbatical Project
• DJ’s 2019 Tedx Talk: Time (Off) Well Spent
• Shikoku Pilgrimage in Japan
• LenddoEFL
• Even a “forced sabbatical” can have profound benefits by DJ DiDonna (Quartz At Work, April 6, 2020)
• The Sabbatical Project Dispatch (DJ’s newsletter)
• Work Well Research with Matt Bloom
• Making Sabbaticals Mainstream, Harvard Business School podcast with DJ (March 2019)

University sabbatical programs for older adults

• Notre Dame Inspired Leadership Initiative
• Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative
• Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute

Previous podcast episodes about taking a timeout

• Seth Godin on Taking a Gap Year, Changing your Mindset and Why he Isn’t Pausing (The Gap Year Podcast S2-Ep21)
• Chip Conley on the Future of Travel, the Journey Within, and Hitting Play After the Pause (The Gap Year Podcast S2-Ep23)
• Kim Klaft on.a Global Gap Year and Living Without Regret (S2:EP17)

Photo credit: Cynthia Cendreda