I sat on my patio watching the yachts drift across the bay, and for the first time in months, I wasn’t thinking about what I should be doing. I was just… being.
No email drafts running through my head. No strategy sessions playing on repeat. No guilt about taking time away from my business. Just me, the ocean breeze, and the uncomfortable realization that I had forgotten what peace actually felt like.
This is what a soft reset looks like when you finally give yourself permission to practice what you preach.
I’m LaKisha Mosley, founder of The Soft Simple CEO™, and I teach women leaders how to build businesses without burning out. I talk about rest, regulation, and sustainable leadership all the time. But in November, my body sent me a very clear message: talking about it wasn’t enough anymore. I needed to live it.
So I booked a trip to Hyatt Vivid Grand Island in Cancún through Gladly Travel. And what happened there changed everything.
What Does a Soft Reset Actually Mean?
A soft reset is different from a vacation. Vacations are about escape—getting away from your life. A soft reset is about returning to yourself.
It’s intentional rest designed to recalibrate your nervous system, restore your energy, and reconnect with the version of yourself that exists outside of productivity metrics and performance anxiety.
For me, this soft reset was about three things:
Permission to stop performing. Even on vacation, many of us are still performing—for social media, for our teams, for ourselves. This trip was about dropping the performance entirely.
Space to feel without fixing. Leaders are trained to solve problems. But sometimes we need space to simply feel what we’re feeling without immediately strategizing how to fix it.
Proof that rest doesn’t equal collapse. My biggest fear was that if I truly rested, everything would fall apart. I needed to prove to myself that choosing peace doesn’t mean my business fails.
And Hyatt Vivid Grand Island provided exactly the environment I needed to explore all three.
Why I Chose Gladly Travel for This Reset
I could have booked this trip anywhere. But I chose Gladly Travel because alignment matters to me.
When I teach about soft leadership, I’m talking about building businesses that create positive ripple effects. Not just profit, but purpose. Not just success, but significance.
Gladly Travel operates on that same principle. When you book travel through their platform, 2% of what you spend goes back to schools, communities, and organizations that need support. The platform is free to join, and the discounts are real.
So while I was investing in my own rest and restoration, I was also contributing to someone else’s community. My reset could fund a classroom. My peace could support a program.
That’s the kind of decision-making that feels aligned with who I am. And if you shop through Gladly’s main platform, 5% of your everyday purchases support fundraising efforts for schools and organizations. Every purchase becomes an opportunity to give back.
Baby, when your values and your vacation align? That’s when you know you’re doing it right.
Day One: When Your Body Remembers What Peace Feels Like
The views at Hyatt Vivid Grand Island hit me first. Stunning. The kind of beauty that makes you stop mid-step and just breathe.
The food? Delicious. The drinks? On point. But what really got me was the design of the space itself.
This resort was built for slowing down. Pool areas that invited lounging, not lap swimming. Dining spaces that encouraged lingering over meals, not rushing to the next thing. Pathways designed for wandering without a destination.
I had a bay view where I could watch yachts drift past. A golf course view that was peaceful and green. A patio that wrapped around my room so I could step outside from my bathroom and just exist in the breeze.
And on day one, I did something I hadn’t done in months: I sat down without an agenda.
No laptop. No notes app. No voice memos capturing ideas for later. Just me and the ocean and the uncomfortable silence of my own thoughts.
And you know what I realized? I had forgotten how to do this. I had forgotten how to just be without producing, planning, or performing.
That first day was hard. My brain kept reaching for tasks. My hands kept twitching for my phone. My nervous system kept waiting for the next emergency.
But I stayed with it. Because this is exactly what I needed to unlearn.
How the Soft Simple CEO Framework Shows Up in Real Life
I built The Soft Simple CEO framework around three core principles. And this trip became my opportunity to actually live them instead of just teaching them.
Self-trust over self-betrayal
For months, I had been betraying myself. Ignoring the signs of burnout. Pushing through exhaustion. Telling myself I’d rest later, after this project, after this launch, after this milestone.
But “later” never came. It never does.
Self-trust meant trusting that my business could hold without me hovering over every detail. It meant trusting my team to handle things. It meant trusting that rest wouldn’t destroy everything I’d built.
And you know what? They did. It did. Nothing fell apart.
In fact, stepping away gave my team space to step up. My absence created opportunities for others to lead. My rest became their empowerment.
Regulation before strategy
I spent the first two days at Hyatt Vivid Grand Island doing absolutely nothing strategic.
No business planning. No content calendars. No mapping out the next quarter.
Instead, I focused on regulation. Morning coffee on the patio. Slow walks through the resort. Floating in the pool without a time limit. Meals I actually tasted instead of scarfing down between meetings.
And something shifted. By day three, my brain started working differently. Clearer. Calmer. More creative.
Ideas came without forcing them. Solutions emerged without grinding for them. Clarity arrived because I finally gave my mind space to breathe.
This is what I mean when I say regulation before strategy. You can’t strategize your way out of nervous system dysregulation. You have to actually rest first.
Softness as a leadership skill
The old version of me would have seen this trip as weakness. As self-indulgence. As something I didn’t deserve until I’d earned it through more work.
But the leader I’m becoming understands that softness is strength. That choosing rest is choosing sustainability. That prioritizing peace isn’t running away from leadership—it’s the foundation of it.
At Hyatt Vivid Grand Island, I practiced being soft. Soft with my expectations. Soft with my schedule. Soft with myself when my brain tried to pull me back into hustle mode.
And that softness didn’t make me less of a leader. It made me a better one.
What I Learned About Rest as a Strategic Decision
This wasn’t just a personal trip. This was a strategic business decision.
Because burned-out leaders make expensive mistakes. Exhausted minds miss opportunities. Dysregulated nervous systems respond to challenges with panic instead of wisdom.
Every day I spent resting at Hyatt Vivid Grand Island was an investment in my business. Every moment I spent regulating my nervous system was preparing me to make better decisions. Every hour I chose peace over productivity was actually making me more productive in the long run.
And here’s what really surprised me: the content I created during this trip—the behind-the-scenes moments, the authentic reflections, the real-time processing—resonated more deeply with my audience than anything I’d created while grinding.
People don’t want to see the polished, produced version of leadership. They want to see the real, human version. The version that admits she was running on fumes. The version that chose to reset before she completely collapsed.
That’s the power of practicing what you preach. It gives other people permission to do the same.
If You’re Ready for Your Own Soft Reset
Maybe you’re reading this and feeling that familiar pull. That voice that says, “I need this, but I can’t afford the time right now.”
I hear you. I said the same thing. But here’s what I know now:
You can’t afford NOT to reset. Because the cost of burnout is always higher than the cost of rest. The breakdown that’s coming if you don’t slow down will be way more disruptive than a planned trip.
A soft reset doesn’t have to be a week in Cancún. It can be a weekend retreat. A day at a local spa. A morning where you turn off your phone and actually rest.
But if you’re ready to invest in a real reset—the kind that changes how you show up as a leader—consider Gladly Travel. Free to join. Real discounts. And 2% of what you spend goes back to communities that need it.
Your rest can create ripple effects beyond just you. That’s the kind of leadership that builds something sustainable.
The soft reset isn’t about running away from your business. It’s about running toward yourself.
And when you find yourself again—rested, regulated, restored—you’ll lead better than you ever did while running on empty.
I’m saying what I’m saying.
And when you’re ready to make your everyday spending work for something bigger, check out Gladly. Where your purchases support schools, communities, and organizations that matter. Because your values should show up everywhere—not just in what you build, but in how you buy.
