Why Your Best Ideas Show Up When You Don't

A couple of weeks ago, I told you I was off to The Barnsdale hotel and spa with my MacBook left firmly at home.

This never sits well with me and, full disclosure, the way I got myself to leave it behind was the thought of it getting wet or damaged, not that, oh, you know, it's not actually surgically attached to my fingers. Reading this back, I sound like a mad woman, don't it? I'm leaving it in though, because maybe you have felt like this too and I've never been one to shy away from the blunt truth of entrepreneur life.

As if this nonsense wasn't bad enough, the whole 3-hour drive to Rutland, she was at it again — that voice.

You'll get there and immediately wish you'd brought your laptop. You'll be twitchy by lunch. You'll end up checking your emails in the spa loo like you're smuggling contraband.

And, I wouldn't have believed it myself if I wasn't testing it, but I realised on the drive that I was actually bracing myself for rest to feel like withdrawal. As business owners, we tend to assume the business will wobble like unset jelly the second we look away. We treat stepping back as a risk to be managed instead of a decision to be trusted.

We hear it all the time: 'You need to slow down', 'just have a day off', 'have a bath' (this one used to make me want to literally scream 'yeah, no problem cos a frigging bath is ALL I NEED TO MAKE THIS DEADLINE DISAPPEAR') … Well-meaning advice from well-meaning people but also people who tended not to run their own businesses.

Logically I know all the above is good for me, of course I do. But I also have commitments, deadlines and bills to pay. This was the pink thread running through my thoughts on the drive south because if we know this, and yet we feel like we can't make the time because (insert any one of a hundred reasons here) what's happening to the business? Are we all just meant to suffer until something good happens and we deem the suffering worth it?

Logic would say so, but I don't need more logic, I need evidence.

Then I arrived at The Barnsdale, and it was as if the Universe said 'you wanted evidence, here you go'. The sun was shining; the space was picture perfect and the suite so stunning I'm genuinely amazed I'm not writing to you from a very extended stay. As I sank into a wood-fired hot tub at dusk, with the stunning English countryside rolling out in front of me, surrounded by nature and gardens full to the brim of colourful roses there was not one distraction, ping or ding within reach. I felt something shift. Somewhere around late Sunday afternoon, the noise in my head went quiet. Not gone but, kind of, turned down. Like this place had finally found the volume button I'd been jabbing at for years.

And I didn't check my emails once.

As it turns out, clarity doesn't arrive when you chase it round the desk at 11pm. It arrives when you stop.

When I got home, I shared some of my personal experience and thoughts about this over on Threads. The response was both unexpected and well... wild. Hundreds of you. Women I've never met, hands in the air, saying me too, I'm in, I need this more than I can tell you. And that's all I needed to set this experiment in proper motion with a name and everything… We're calling it The Rest Test.

And because the Universe loves a laugh, guess what happened when I did check my emails on Tuesday? Turns out The Female CEO was given an award. I've been named Leading Women's Leadership & Visibility Businesswoman 2026 (UK) by Acquisition International. (Cue me, reading the email twice, then a third time, in case it had been sent to the wrong inbox.)

I won an award for visibility in the exact days I deliberately made myself invisible.

Rest, it turns out, isn't the reward you get for doing the work. Sometimes it IS the work and I'm starting to understand the difference in my body, not just my calendar.

And maybe that's the whole point. Maybe the showing-up that actually gets noticed is the kind that comes from a founder rested enough to mean it.

So here's my promise to you, in writing, no take-backs: I'll report back honestly. No filter. No highlight reel. No pretending I've cracked it when I'm actually three emails deep at 11pm on a Tuesday. The good weeks AND the weeks I fall flat on my face (I will).

The outdoor pool and sauna did not bankrupt me.

The emails waited.

The world kept turning.

We won an award.

The Rest Test continues.

Before I go, I'd love to hear from you if you want to follow along and how you would like to hear about it. I've thought about reels, TikTok video (even though I feel about 400 years too old for TikTok) or perhaps just here, now and again in these conversations. I'll also be writing a column for The Female CEO Magazine. 

Until next time.

I believe in you (always),

Tricia Scott is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the multi-award winning The Female CEO — a global platform, magazine, and community dedicated to helping women build confident, aligned, powerful businesses.

A startup mentor and multi-company director, she’s spent the past decade helping women move from overwhelmed and isolated to empowered and intentional.

Most days, she’s juggling her MacBook, her next big idea, and a very necessary caffeine supply. Connect with her at thefemaleceo.com.