Joe Sanok is the author of Thursday is the New Friday: How to work fewer hours, make more money, and spend time doing what you want. It examines the 4-Day workweek and how it actually boosts creativity and productivity. Joe has been featured on Forbes, GOOD magazine, the Smart Passive Income Podcast and is the host of the popular Practice of the Practice Podcast, which is recognized as on of the top 50 Podcasts worldwide with over 100,000 downloads each month.
We talk about...
1. The history of the 40 hour work week and how it's not based in nature
2. Research on the positive benefits of a 4-Day workweek
3. Discovering your unique productivity sprint type for maximized efficiency
4. How to shape your environment for success
5. Natural neural syncing
And more!
You can get his $59 Internal Inclinations Assessment for FREE by going to internaltest.com and entering the code TITNF to find out what your natural inclinations are and to get recommendations for how to optimize them.
Website:
www.joesanok.com (Use this to get his book Thursday is the New Friday)
If you want to download my contributing chapter to the Amazon International Best-selling book Peak Performance: Mindset Tools for Entrepreneurs you can download it here
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joe Sanok (00:00):
Do I accept myself as a human.
(00:02):
Just as a human.
Or do I have a mindset where Ineed to do certain things to
achieve?
If you didn't make multi sevenfigures or whatever your number
is, do you feel that you're abad person?
Do you feel that you shouldn'thave a voice in the world?
Michael Bauman (00:58):
Hello, everybody, whether you've been
listening for a while or whetherthis is your first time here, we
are happy to have you.
Before we jump into the episode,it would be awesome.
If you could write a review forthis show, especially on apple
podcasts.
So it takes less than a minuteor two.
It's pretty straightforward.
So you click on the show, youscroll all the way down to the
(01:19):
bottom.
And there's a little button thatsays, write a review.
And as always, if there's anepisode, you really like send it
over to your friends They'llprobably like it too.
Thank you so much.
And let's get back to the show.
So welcome back to SuccessEngineering.
I'm your host, Michael Bauman.
And I have the pleasure ofhaving Joe Sanok on.
He's a keynote speaker, aconsultant.
He's a podcaster.
(01:39):
He's the author of Thursday isthe new Friday how to work fewer
hours, which is great, make moremoney also great, and spend more
time doing what you want, whichis great.
He looks at how can we actuallyhave a four day work week that
boost creativity andproductivity been featured on
Forbes, Good magazine, SmartPassive Income and then the host
(01:59):
of very popular, The Practice ofthe Practice podcast, which is
recognized as top 50 worldwide.
So pleasure to have you on theshow.
I'm excited to hear the insightsthat you have to share.
Joe Sanok (02:10):
Oh, Michael, I'm so excited to hang out with you
today.
Michael Bauman (02:13):
Absolutely.
So we're gonna start with thatuniqueness.
So I want you to share aboutgoing into an interview with
cheetah print hair.
Joe Sanok (02:20):
Love that.
When I was probably 20, 21,somewhere in there I, throughout
all of high school and collegehad different colored hair.
And I went to this kind ofFriday night lights, high
school.
And so everyone were these likefootball players, but I had a
ponytail and was superalternative and wanted to be
different, cuz I already knew Iwas different.
And so when I was in college, Ihad applied to work at this
(02:41):
runaway shelter for kids as analternative to running away.
So, I had applied, I didn'thear.
And then.
I decided, I'm gonna do the nexthairstyle and I dye my hair
completely bleached it and thentook Q-tips and did these little
like cheetah print all the waythrough.
And like the next day I get aphone call for an interview and
I didn't have a lot of money atthe time, so I.
Had spent probably 30 bucks onthis hairstyle.
(03:02):
And that was a lot of money backin college.
And I'm like, I'm not gonna justlike dye black again and start
over.
So I went into this interviewwith my suit and tie on and my
portfolio honors college Joewith cheetah print hair and the
whole interview I feel like Ihad a sense of what a lot of
women go through where, guys arelooking at their chest and
they're like, Hey, my eyes areup here.
Except it was the opposite.
(03:23):
It was like, my eyes are downhere cuz.
Interviewers were looking at thetop of my head for the whole
time.
But later they told me I got oneof the reasons I got the job was
they thought I could connectwith the more unique and punk
rock kids there.
So, perfect.
I worked in my favor.
Michael Bauman (03:35):
Perfect.
I thought, the spots weresupposed to camouflage thought
there's a myth.
It's a
Joe Sanok (03:41):
man.
Yes, absolutely.
Michael Bauman (03:43):
Could you talk about and this is central to
just pretty much everything thatyou do.
So can you talk about how thatplays into what you describe as
the outsider influence and howyou can actually leverage that
to be unique and be yourself?
Joe Sanok (03:57):
Yeah.
So one of the things that theresearch revealed as I was
writing Thursday is the newFriday is these three internal
inclinations and that's one ofthem that you're referencing.
And so one of them is topleaders, keep curiosity, front
and center.
They also maintain an outsiderperspective and a third, they
move on it.
So they, they don't overthinkthings.
They're not paralyzed byperfection.
They adjust as they go.
(04:19):
And so that outsider perspectivewe see over and over the top
leaders maintain that.
And, oftentimes we see it,people moving cultures, or, I
mean you, yourself, living inChina you have an outsider
perspective and you see thingsdifferently.
And then when you come back tothe states, I imagine that you
still have an outsiderperspective because you then
have lived overseas.
So, oftentimes statisticallyoutsiders have more influence
(04:43):
than insiders.
And there's a really interestingstudy that was done where they
brought small groups together,six to eight people.
They sat'em at a table and theyshowed them two colors, either
blue or green, and they hadthese different kinda shades of
blue and green.
And they'd say to the group,what color is this?
And most people would say, oh,that's blue or that's green.
And for the most part, exceptfor a handful of colors they
would agree that's blue orthat's green.
So then they did a secondversion of the study, same size
(05:05):
group.
But they had two people thatwere working with the
researchers and there werespecific color cards that they
were supposed to say theopposite.
So instead of it being green,they'd say blue, instead of
blue, they'd say green.
And they found that they wereable to sway the group
statistically more than theyreally should have been able to.
And so we see this replicatedover and over in different
areas.
Even if someone say starts a newjob.
(05:26):
Uh, I remember I was working ata community college.
And, this was, I don't know,2010, probably 2000 somewhere in
there.
I started there in thiscounseling department, they were
still handwriting all of theirprogress notes.
So there's no way for me todigitally search for, Hey, has
Michael come in before foradvising?
is he depressed?
Like there was no way for me todigitally search for that.
(05:47):
They were handwriting thecalendar.
So there was no way for me toknow who was on my calendar,
except for going up to the frontdesk and Taking a picture of my
schedule.
Well, and then they filed theprogress notes instead of by
last name.
Like, I couldn't even search byyour last name.
It was by day that the studentscame in and so they had to look
at old handwritten calendars tofind out that, last September
(06:07):
you came in and had flunked yourmath class and then.
We had to go back to that day.
And it was just so ridiculous.
And as an outsider who had sawhow community mental health
works, saw how progress in thoseworks, just say, this is crazy.
Like So as part of the projectswith the Dean, I said, I'd like
to refine and change the systemto be digital so that we can
(06:27):
have, some ways that we cansearch for this.
But outsiders oftentimes havethat outsider perspective, and
that adds a lot to a company.
It can also be very threateningto a company.
And so if you can maintain that,especially as you move up in
leadership it really allows youto do things that the average
person can't do.
Michael Bauman (06:43):
So I'm curious, how do you go about maintaining
an outsider's perspective fromthe inside yeah.
Joe Sanok (06:50):
I think some of the things is in your own personal
life, putting yourself in reallyawkward situations, like things
that scare the crap outta you.
So for example, a few years ago,I started doing improv uh, To
just try it.
A friend of mine, she had taughtimprov throughout Europe and
said, Hey, I'm gonna get a grouptogether.
And I just stopped in and I wassuper scared and it's just, six
to eight people doing this, butyou're in a scene in front of
(07:12):
your peers that know improv.
And I don't it's really scary.
I was an outsider.
And, but it's hilarious for menow.
I feel like I'm walking a tightrope every single week.
And so finding these things, itcould be, if you're someone that
goes to church, maybe.
Go to a different church, go toa different religions, place,
learn something, say there's abunch of people from Columbia
that live in your community andthey have a, Columbian day and
(07:34):
they have Columbian foods likego to those events, be an
outsider.
And when you do that, yourecognize what that feels like.
And once you know how it feels.
You can then look foropportunities within the
corporation to say, well, wheream I not pushing back on things
that maybe I should be pushingback?
Are there questions that I wannaask that I don't feel prepared
to ask?
And so making sure that youthink through, well, how do I
(07:57):
push back?
How do I allow my feelings tocome up?
Maybe you need to push back insome new areas and just see how
that goes.
And look at the data, look atyour feelings, look at, what
does that do for you?
And then, adjust according.
Michael Bauman (08:07):
Yeah.
I think that's really important.
And like you said, havingtraveled all over the world and
lived in lots of differentplaces, you do get to realize
how much of a superpower thatcan be when you can go into a
group and you can see, these arethe things that I like about it.
These are the things that mightbe different than how I do it.
Can I stay curious longer andthat's, something that you do a
(08:28):
lot as well.
Can you talk about the researcharound curiosity and how
important that is to making surethat you just maintain that
curiosity and willing to learn.
Joe Sanok (08:39):
Yeah, what's really interesting about curiosity is
we have this one word, curiositythat actually, comes to fruition
in a variety of different ways.
There's a really unique study inthe 1970s where they were
basically putting collegestudents that were very hungry,
that hadn't been drinking intosensory deprivation chambers.
And so these students came, Ithink they made like 10 bucks a
day for doing this torture.
(09:00):
much different ethics.
Yeah, I know.
So these students come in andthey, all that they were trying
to figure out is how bored doessomeone have to get before they
start getting curious.
And so.
It was all males.
So these males go into theirroom by themselves.
It's completely dark.
The only thing that they reallygot was like their meals put
under the door.
So they saw this little bit oflight, a couple times a day.
(09:22):
There was a bed in there.
And they were supposed to stayseated on the bed.
And so the first part of thestudy, they just have these guys
kind of sitting in there.
And they're like, how long dothey stay seated on the bed?
And then, they start wanderingaround.
Well then they added thisblinking red light and they,
there was a button in the roomthat the, they couldn't feel
until they were like feelingaround and then they found this
(09:43):
button and the button wastotally random.
It wasn't even associated withthe red light, but then the guys
would like hit this button.
And then once in a while there'dbe like three red lights in a
row.
And these guys were just boredout of their mind.
And so over time they did allsorts of other weird studies
like that to just show thatcuriosity often comes from
boredom.
That's one of the areas.
(10:03):
One of the other major areas isseeing someone do something that
you don't have the ability todo.
So our next door neighbor he'sthis middle school boy.
He loves every single sport.
It's like baseball, basketball,football.
He always has some sort of,sports stuff going on.
But say he saw someone do apitch in baseball that he's
never seen before.
I know he's gonna be out therewith his dad, practicing that
(10:25):
pitch until he gets it down.
So curiosity sometimes comes outof the sense that I can't do
what I want to do, or I sawsomething that I want to do.
And then the last area of thecuriosity often emerges is being
able to say, I have a specificgoal I want to reach.
The goal drives it.
How do I get there?
And then investigating becauseof that.
And so when we think aboutcuriosity, This is something
(10:48):
that oftentimes we think we haveto foster because it's not in
us, but the reality is we allhad this as kids, right.
I was babysitting my nieces theother day.
And so, they're four and six.
My daughters are seven and 11,so, four girls under the age of
11 playing in the backyard.
And they're squealing and loudand then it gets really quiet
out of nowhere.
(11:08):
And I'm just like, uhoh I gottago check on'em really.
That's how it's with kids.
It gets too quiet.
You go see what's up.
And they're all standing aroundthis dead mouse.
And the conversation washilarious.
It was like, how do you think itdied?
Should we have a mouse funeral.
Do you bury mice, but wouldn'tan owl like to eat it, do owls
eat live mice or dead mice?
like, what kind of funeral wouldwe have?
What should we make a headstonefor it, all these questions
(11:31):
about this dead mouse.
But they're trying to sort out,is this part of life that
happens every day and it'snormal, or is this something
that's really abnormal?
So the first time they see a caraccident, the first time they
see a rainbow they're sortingout are these normal things I
need to be really scared of.
Like, could I die in a caraccident tomorrow?
Or is this something that reallyisn't something to be really
scared of?
Or savoring that rainbow is thatsomething that happens every
(11:54):
day?
And I just never noticed, or isthis something that happens just
once in a while that curiosityis them trying to have a
construct for the world.
But at some point we stop havinglevel of curiosity, cuz we think
we've figured out the world.
And that's where I think topleaders realize that sure, you
may have figured out certainexpertise, but there's so many
different areas that you canstill continue to grow.
Michael Bauman (12:15):
Yeah.
I think that's, reallyimportant.
And that's why we build ourescape rooms now to, to Yeah,
it's probably the person thatyou know, was stuck in that room
and they're like, I have abrilliant idea.
Joe Sanok (12:25):
we actually do our improv practice in an escape
room.
One, one of our guys owns inthis.
Escape room company.
And so we practice in thisescape room that looks like
Alcatraz.
Michael Bauman (12:35):
Nice.
That's a good place to do improvSo the other aspect of these
internal inclinations that youtalked about and it's an aspect
of curiosity, too.
You talked about having a goal,so that aspect of moving on it.
So what does that look like forleaders for entrepreneurs to
navigate through kind of theperfectionism and what comes
along with.
Joe Sanok (12:56):
Yeah.
So there's always a push andpull between on one side
accuracy and on the other sidespeed.
So there's times in life.
We obviously want things to beaccurate.
If I go to the doctor and she'sdoing surgery on me, she can
take as long as she wants to dothat surgery to be accurate.
Having our taxes done, havingall sorts of other things, you
want that to be accurate and youwanna put the time into it, but
(13:16):
for most of business speed isgoing to be greater than
accuracy in most cases, becauseyou're gonna get that feedback.
You're gonna get that user data.
You're gonna be able to see whatworks and what doesn't versus
just waiting till something'sperfect.
And so being able to look atthings and say, okay, why are we
delaying this?
Could we set a date that's maybefaster than what we think, get
(13:37):
it out and then adjust as we go.
Those types of leaders are ableto move quicker and to get more
done overall.
Michael Bauman (13:44):
I'd love to hear, you kind of unpack this a
little bit more with some of theavenues that come up along with
this.
So one is just fear in general,right?
Like anytime you're doingsomething new or putting
something out there or startinga new business or whatever it
is, you have that fear.
And then you also have that,kind of imposter syndrome or not
feeling enough.
I'd love to hear your thoughtson how people can, recognize
(14:06):
that and what to do to navigate.
Joe Sanok (14:08):
Yeah.
So I would say one of the firstthings people can do, and this
is what I do is think aboutwhat's actually behind that?
We use these general terms likeimposter syndrome, but the way
you feel that in your history isgonna be completely different
than my own.
And so it could be family oforigin issues where your dad or
mom was a high achiever andalways pushed you to get the
best grades.
(14:29):
And you had this narrative of,if you're super smart, then
you're gonna be successful.
So being able to figure out someof that origin, whether that's
through counseling or meditationor, self-help books or there's
so many tools out there toaddress those types of things
just looking at, do I acceptmyself as a human.
Just as a human or do I have amindset where I need to do
(14:49):
certain things to achieve?
And so, a lot of the kind ofProtestant Western culture is
based on a original sin model,even if we're not maybe
Christians that's still a verypronounced part of our culture.
So starting with it.
Babies are flawed with originalsin.
That's gonna do a certain kindof way of thinking for people
(15:10):
where, you have to achieve yourway out of it, or, find a
savior, whatever.
And I'm not saying this as acritique on religion, but just
thinking about that hasinfluenced how people think.
And so digging into our impostersyndrome and saying, do I
believe that I need to achievein order to be successful?
Do I believe I need a certainnet worth to be successful?
Do I need to have a certainnumber of employees to feel
successful?
And then to challenge that andsay, is that.
(15:31):
Like, if you didn't have 10employees, if you didn't have a
hundred employees, if you didn'tmake multi seven figures or
whatever your number is, do youfeel that you're a bad person?
Do you feel that you shouldn'thave a voice in the world?
Now.
That mixed with, we all havegoals.
When we launch things, wheneverI launch a new product, like if
(15:52):
two people buy it and I thought10 would, or a hundred would, of
course I'm gonna feel bummedabout that.
That's okay.
Like we put time into something,we wanna see it be successful.
But then to say, as a result ofthat, I'm a bad person or I'm a
bad entrepreneur.
No we're learning through thatprocess.
We're seeing what our peoplewant, what they don't want.
That's where that curiositycomes in to say, okay, In the
(16:14):
eyes of the world, this feelslike a pass fail.
I just failed.
I spent more on that Facebook adthan I ever have, and nobody
opted in.
They clicked a lot, so I had topay, but, I didn't actually sell
anything.
Of course, you're gonna bebummed about that, but then to
say, what did I learn from that?
Okay.
I learned that they clicked onthat.
So the title's good.
I learned that the copy wasgood, getting them there, but
(16:35):
that landing page, there wassomething about it that didn't
resonate with people, nobodypurchased.
And so being able to remaincurious throughout that, I think
allows you to step back fromfeeling like an imposter and
saying, Hey what do I have tooffer?
What am I doing?
Where can I find success?
And does it all need to comefrom my work?
And from the things that I'mdoing in the world?
Michael Bauman (16:55):
Absolutely.
I agree.
100% with that.
And that's exactly what you'vedone.
I mean, with your book Thursdayis the new Friday and you've
deconstructed these beliefs thatwe kind of hold to be, self
evidence, so to speak, to usethe lingo.
We have these beliefs that thisis just how the world works.
So can you talk about, I mean,take it all the way back the
(17:16):
origin story, take it back tothe seven day work week where
did that come from?
What did that look like and howdid that develop throughout.
Joe Sanok (17:23):
Yeah, what's really interesting is this wasn't even
in my book proposal, when I sentit to Harper Collins I kind of
started from scratch with awhiteboard and said, what
questions do I have about movingfrom the five day work week to
the four day work week?
And one of the big questionswas.
Why do we even have a seven dayweek?
Because if you look in nature ayear makes sense.
It's how long it takes us to goaround the sun.
A day makes sense.
(17:44):
We spin and the sun comes up anddown or, I mean, we rotate and
the sun doesn't move, but yeah.
The months are loosely relatedto the lunar cycle.
But there's nothing really thatpoints to seven days.
And so, as I looked at it, itactually goes back thousands of
years to the Babylonians.
And so the Babylonians.
They looked up and they saw thesun, the moon, mercury, Venus,
Mars, Jupiter.
(18:04):
And then they looked down andsaw earth.
So seven major celestial thingsin the sky.
And so they said we should havea seven day week.
We just, as easily could havehad a five day week and had 73
weeks in a year.
The Russians as early as the mid18 hundreds tested out a five
day work week.
The Romans, they had a 10 dayweek, the Egyptians had an eight
day week.
So this idea that.
(18:25):
The calendar has been set for,all of eternity or, for the last
thousand years, it's just nottrue.
Like even the Russian calendarcompared to the Western
calendar, those weren't evenaligned until the mid 19
hundreds.
And so people, we had toactually like lose days when
they all aligned.
We made up time, we made up thecalendar and the seven day week
(18:47):
is completely arbitrary.
And so if we just start withthat, Thing that we made up.
If the Babylonians had bettertelescopes we may have had a 15
day week who knows.
So that's completely made upthen if we fast forward to the
late 18 hundreds, how theaverage person was working was
absolutely insane.
They were working 12 to 14 hoursa day, six to seven days a week.
(19:07):
So they had a farmer's schedule.
Even if they weren't farmers.
Like people moved over fromEurope to help rebuild Chicago
after the great fire.
And they started protesting inthe 18 hundreds in like 1884
1886 specifically because theirwork conditions were so bad and
they thought they'd come to theUnited States for a better life.
And it was terrible.
There was, there were bombingsthat happened at these protests.
(19:29):
The nation went on a nationallockdown because of it, like the
government thought this wasgonna erupt and really be this
huge labor movement and thishuge, just like all sorts of
things.
So that's actually where we getMayday as a holiday to look at
worker's rights was from that in1880.
So fast forward to 1926, exactly40 years later after these
(19:50):
Haymarket protests that happenedin Chicago, Henry Ford launches,
the 40 hour work week to Fordindustries with the goal of
selling more cars to his ownemployees.
I mean, the guy just wanted tosell cars to his own people
because he thought if they havea weekend, they're gonna want to
get outta Detroit and, go seeupper Michigan.
It's beautiful up here.
I can see why they'd want a car.
(20:10):
And.
Less than a hundred years ago,Henry Ford starts this thing.
He's the first major nationalcorporation to do this, then,
there's legislation and allsorts of things that happen
where we see that the 40 hourwork week was a giant step
forward for the average person.
I mean, for the evolution ofbusiness to go from six to seven
days a week from 10 to 14 hourdays that's a huge step forward.
(20:32):
I mean, think about.
Our, that generation, that wouldbe my grandparents or great
grandparents going from when Iwas a kid, I had to work 10 to
14 hours a day, six to sevendays a week.
You lazy 40 hour a week people.
The baby boomers were the firstgeneration to be raised by
people working the 40 hour week.
And, gen Xers and millennialsare only the second generation
in human history to be raised by40 hour week people.
(20:54):
And so this is a brand newconcept.
And we see in the eighties andnineties, even Friday, Start to
fade out.
I like to joke that Friday hasbeen having an affair with the
weekend since the eighties.
Let's just call it what it is.
Because we see the rise ofcasual Fridays.
We see, birthday parties.
We see cheesy team buildingactivities on Fridays, really
start to emerge in the eightiesand nineties.
(21:16):
And by the two thousands, westart to see more companies
saying, okay, in the summerwe're gonna do, work from home
Fridays or no meeting Fridays.
And so we see that this reallystarts to shift and the pandemic
really was that final just breakwith the industrialist mindset.
The industrialist way ofthinking where everything is
prescriptive, everything is amachine.
Everything is to be optimized.
(21:37):
We no longer thought thatanyway.
But then in the pandemic, itreally finish that whole system
to say that 40 hours butts in achair, that's the highest key
performance indicator that wecan have to really saying, like,
what is the purpose of this jobrole?
What's the purpose of me beingin this job role.
We see the great resignation orgreat recalibration, depending
on how you think about it.
(21:57):
Because the way people weredoing it, since the eighties was
saying no, like the industrialsmodel doesn't work for us
anymore.
And so then we see, postpandemic or post kind of major
pandemic.
We may see more pandemics whoknows that everybody is thinking
differently about how we work,where we work and what we're
gonna do as work that gives uspurpose.
Michael Bauman (22:16):
So, I mean, and then you're trying to, you're
trying to shift that paradigmdown from the five to the four.
And obviously all the thingsthat come up like, oh, well,
we're losing on productivity andmoney and things like that.
Can you talk about the researcharound productivity and
distraction and motivation andhow that is actually not true?
And you can actually work moreefficiently in a shorter period
(22:38):
of time.
Joe Sanok (22:39):
Yeah it's crazy to look at the research because
most of the research shows thatthe final 20% that someone works
in a week in a 40 hour work weekis completely useless.
They may not spend it all on aFriday, but they're slower
throughout the week because thehuman body just isn't going to
operate above that 32 hours.
And so they're talk at the watercooler, they're gonna have a
(23:00):
meeting that lasts an hour, butreally could have been 20
minutes.
They're going to plan theirweekend when they're at their
desk and their boss isn'tlooking.
And what we see in case studiesand in the research is that
really, if we just say work a 32hour week, but we're gonna pay
you the same that you get thesame or better outcomes.
Iceland had a huge study, 3000plus people in multiple
industries.
(23:20):
So we're not talking justentrepreneurs.
These were bus drivers.
These were, childcare workers.
They worked a 32 hour week.
They were paid the same amountand they looked at it and they
found that they were actuallymore productive than those
working a 40 hour week.
We see places like Kalamazoovalley, community college, who
for years has done a four dayweek in the summer.
They save millions just on airconditioning their students
(23:41):
weren't coming on Fridays anywayand they're retaining people
longer.
They're also finding theirstudent success has gone up.
We see the UK just recently acouple weeks ago, announced that
they're doing the largest fourday work week study in
implementation.
And so over and over, we'reseeing that giant companies like
Shopify or other ones are doingthis in attracting top talent
and within just a couple yearsthere's gonna be enough evidence
(24:02):
that really points to the fourday work week that it's not
gonna be a selling point topeople anymore.
So right now, when companies aredoing it, they're innovative,
they're attracting top talent.
But that's only gonna last untilthere's kind of a critical mass
where, you know, that's not aselling point anymore.
Michael Bauman (24:15):
So I'm curious and we'll dive more into the
productivity and what itactually looks like and how you
can optimize that and things as,as well.
But there's two differentdynamics.
I mean, oversimplificationthere's different dynamics in a
workplace.
So one there's aspects ofactually, your KPIs, your key
performance indicators, all ofthat kind of stuff and actually
achieving results.
And then there's the otheraspect, which is the relational
(24:38):
aspect of just being in work.
I'm curious as how that fitsinto a model, cuz there's
benefit to just chatting withyour colleagues and stuff at the
water cooler though it may notbe productive.
So I'm curious is how that getsincorporated into the model.
Joe Sanok (24:54):
Yeah, I think that's, that really remains to be seen
more to see how relationshipswhen we look at workplace
relationships there's been asignificant shift over the last
20 years where even outside ofwork, there's not this one
central way of gettinginformation.
There's not a one central waythat people network with each
other.
Everything has beendecentralized and people want
more autonomy and freedom.
(25:14):
And so I would say being forcedinto a workplace friendship,
just because you're working withsomeone, a lot of people would
rather say I'd rather just gohang out with my real friends
than hang out with the peoplethat I'm working with and have
an extra hour to go do thingswith my family.
Now we'll see what happens inregards to a lot of that, but if
people were more efficient, doesthat mean that they're not gonna
get along with each other?
Does that mean they're not gonnacatch up?
(25:36):
Does that mean that they're notgonna do those other things?
Things, I don't think thathumans are just gonna become
robots that don't talk to eachother.
I think we, we naturally arecommunal people and if we are
able to connect with people,we're able to get more done,
especially, as we work ingroups.
And so there's gonna be specificindustries, that might be needed
more, that might be needed less,but I think that's also where it
taps into the idea of slowingdown.
(25:57):
To optimize our brains before weget to what in the book I call
killing it or sprinting.
So if we just jump to, okay, wewanna work four days a week and
sprint, we need to first say,well, how within the workplace
are we slowing down to boostcreativity, but also outside of
the workplace, how are weslowing down to boost creativity
so that the brain is optimizedand ready to run when it is time
to be productive?
Michael Bauman (26:17):
And can you give an example?
I mean, you literally do this,so you have Slow Down School and
can you talk about how youintentionally formatted how that
looks, the day to day schedulefor that to accommodate this?
Joe Sanok (26:29):
Yeah.
So, I'll talk about SlowdownSchool and then I'll also kind
of share what that looks like inthe workplace.
So Slowdown School is themanifestation of a lot of these
teachings where people fly intoNorthern Michigan.
Most conferences you fly in,you're burned out from your
flight, and then you jump rightinto these sessions and you get
a handful of things out of thesessions that you probably could
have got from a podcast.
And maybe you network withpeople and the drink time in the
(26:52):
evening is usually the mostproductive, cuz you're just like
chatting with people.
And so trying to take the bestpart of conferences.
So the first two days ofslowdown school, we go hiking.
I have massage therapists comein.
We hang out on the beach andskip stones and watch the
sunset.
It's right on, on lake Michiganand genuinely slow down and just
get to know each other that arethere.
Then on Wednesday, Thursday andFriday morning, We run full tilt
(27:13):
towards people's businesses.
I teach them how to sprint.
We talk about setting, measuresand people will say in these two
and a half days, I got donemonths of work, but why it works
is that you're allowing yourbrain to genuinely slow down.
Like we think we slow down onthe weekends, but usually it's
more in reaction to the previousweek than in preparation for the
coming week.
(27:33):
So we have a busy week.
and then, we sleep in on theweekend and maybe we over drink
and, maybe we have soccerpractice or other things with
the kids.
And, by Monday morning we'retired.
We aren't genuinely rejuvenatedversus looking at our weekend
and saying, how can I actuallyprepare my brain for the coming
week?
So when we're looking at theschedule for a typical person,
one very first step, whether ornot you have a three day weekend
(27:55):
is to do the add one, subtractone Exercise for your weekend.
So to say, what's one thing Ican add into my weekend that I
can test out to see if this addsmore life to my weekend.
So it might be, I have thisnovel, that's not a business
novel, it's something I'vewanted to read that I just
haven't got to.
And I'm gonna talk to my familyand say, you know what, for an
hour on Saturday morning, I wantto drink my green tea and just
(28:18):
go read this, leave me alone.
Please support me in this.
I wanna see if this makes me abetter dad or maybe it's, a
friend that you want to connect.
And you say, I want to, go graba beer with this person or go
for a walk with this person,adding something in that maybe
you don't typically have in yourweekend and saying, did that
bring more life to my weekend?
And then having a handful ofthings on the menu that, brings
(28:38):
you more life and making sureyou pepper those into the
weekend, the subtract one sideis the same sort of idea, but
it's taking something off ofyour plate that maybe could
kinda have more weight when it'staken off.
For example, Maybe you don'twanna spend half of a Sunday
grocery shopping.
And so you use shipped orInstacart to have your groceries
delivered and you see, okay, bynot going shopping, did that
(28:59):
make my weekend feel better?
Maybe you do have a coffee datewith a friend scheduled and
every time you leave that coffeedate you feel like trash.
They're like a toxic person.
Like we're too old to have toxicfriends.
You can cancel that.
So just removing something fromyour schedule and saying, did
that give me some extra.
And that's the shift that we seeaway from the industrialist.
The industrialist said, here'sthe one model.
Here's the prescription.
(29:20):
Everyone should follow it.
Whereas this post industrialistera we're looking at well,
what's the menu.
How do I taste that menu?
Try it, evaluate it, experimentand see if it works for me, for
my job, for my life, and thenget the data.
And if it doesn't work okay,that doesn't mean you're a bad
person.
It just means that doesn'tresonate with you.
And so really having that menubased model, both in work and in
(29:41):
your life seems to be the postindustrialist way that really
helps people find what they'relooking for.
Michael Bauman (29:46):
Yeah.
I mean, I love that.
I think that's phenomenalsupports, all the stuff on
autonomy and things like that.
And then you mentioned in theworkplace tips and stuff around
that in terms of slowing downwhat that looks like.
Joe Sanok (29:57):
Yeah.
It's interesting.
Sometimes we think we have tohave a full day off or things
like that.
There's so many techniques thatcan just help your brain slow
down and recalibrate.
So there was this study outtathe University of Illinois,
where they looked at vigilancedecrement.
So vigilance how well you payattention to something
decrement, meaning breaking downover time.
So vigilance decrement.
So the old way of thinking wasthat, like a glass of water, the
(30:17):
energy and the focus you have ina day, it just gets drained out.
And really the only way torecalibrate that is to go home,
go to sleep, come back tomorrow.
Just don't keep working on thetask.
So they wanted to look at thisand see, is that accurate?
So they brought these collegestudents in and they had them at
a computer and they gave them arandom four digit number.
So say it was 4, 312.
So 4, 312.
(30:38):
When that random number comes upon the screen, hit this button
when other four digit numberscome up, like don't hit the
button.
So for about an hour, they'resitting at this computer super
boring task.
When the, when it pops up, hitthe button when it doesn't.
Don't hit the button and theyfound that these students had
vigilance decrement.
At the end of the study, theywere pushing the button and
missing their number more oftenthan at the beginning of the
(30:59):
study.
So then they did a secondversion of the study where at
the one third mark, they gavethem a one minute break.
They said something like, we putyou on the wrong computer, just
hang out in the lobby.
There were no magazines, nophones, no TVs, literally one
minute of just hanging out, havea seat here, stand up, whatever,
just be for a minute.
Then they brought them back, didanother third and then gave them
another one minute break.
(31:20):
And then they ended the study.
They found that there was zerovigilance decrement from just
two, one minute breaks.
So sometimes we think that weneed this whole like three day
weekend.
But the reality is if you justset a timer for 20 minutes and.
You then went outside or youjust, moved your body or did a
plank or whatever you do justdon't go on your phone.
It allows your brain to resetbecause when the brain's in a
(31:42):
new situation or a disruptedsituation, it wants to make sure
you're safe.
And so even though we know we'resafe our brain is still really
old.
It hasn't evolved at the pace ofour technology.
And so it's still looking forthe tiger that might kill you,
even though there's, no tigersin Northern Michigan.
But you know, if I just stepaway from what I'm working on,
it helps me reset.
So we know that there's tons ofother techniques that help you
(32:03):
slow down or to optimize theenvironment.
So for example, even changingyour environment to match what
your task.
So when I was writing Thursdayas the new Friday you can see my
home environment.
I have a standing desk in thecorner.
I would change, I had differentlights I brought in for while I
was writing.
So I had different light.
I moved the chair, that's in thecorner over to the middle and
(32:24):
moved the desk to the middleinstead of being in the corner.
I had some specific headphones.
I only wore and listened to aspecific playlist while I was
working on it.
And then I had a habit of how Ientered into that day.
So at the end of every day so Ionly wrote on Thursdays as I was
writing it and I wouldwhiteboard out the next chapter
of the book and put the kind ofthree research studies, the
(32:45):
three case studies kind ofquestions I had, and I would put
it up on the whiteboard at theend of my day.
Then I would just let it simmerfor a week and then I would come
in and right away, instead oflooking at a blank screen and
having to type, I would say,what questions do I have?
Like, what's interesting aboutthis.
So curiosity, for example I waslike, okay, curiosity killed the
cat.
Where the heck did that comefrom?
And it was literally a cat in1910 that got stuck in a
(33:07):
chimney.
It made national news was in theWashington post, like front
page.
So it was a slow Newsweek.
And then after five days, Thiscat died in chimney.
Like the firefighters were likedismantling the chimney and
headline said, curiosity killedthe cat.
And so just things like that,that then it boosts my
productivity because it's justinteresting, I've slowed down
(33:27):
enough to let things simmer andthen I've changed my environment
to like teach my brain that thisis safe and we're ready to go.
Then I can get more done when Iam working.
Michael Bauman (33:37):
Yeah, that's the environment is really important.
A lot of times with my clients,that'll be the first, one of the
first things you ask, likebasically, how can you set up
your environment to makewhatever thing you're doing as
easy as possible, right?
Cause then you're removing allthe willpower and I have to do
this and whatever.
It's just like, this is theroutine.
You get into it, you groove withit and that's yeah, that's
(33:58):
awesome.
Joe Sanok (33:59):
Well, even down to like the launch of the book, so
I did 200 plus podcastinterviews in the months leading
up to the launch of Thursday asa new Friday, I bought two of
this shirt that I'm wearing sothat I could have the same
interview shirt for every singleinterview.
So those little things that it'sjust like, okay, this is my
interview shirt.
Like I like the shirt.
I'm gonna get two of them.
Make sure that one's clean everysingle time I have interviews.
(34:21):
And then.
I don't even have to put anyenergy into what I'm gonna wear
for interviews.
Michael Bauman (34:25):
That's really awesome.
I like that a lot.
Talk about some of the otherthings that we can do to
optimize our productivity.
Some of the other tools and tipsand things around that.
Joe Sanok (34:35):
Yeah.
So one of the big discoveries isdiscovering your sprint type.
So your sprint type similar tolike an Enneagram type or Myers
S Briggs type is how you bestsprint.
So a lot of times people havetried sprinting.
They've tried, setting a 20minute timer, all the different
types of methods to sprint.
Well, that doesn't really workfor me.
I tried batching once and itdidn't really work for me, but
(34:55):
it's really that they didn'tfind their actual sprint type.
And so there's two factors toyour sprint type.
There's what kind of work you'redoing when you're sprinting and
when you're doing it.
And so.
First we wanna look at bewhether you're a time block
sprinter or a task switchsprinter.
So time block sprinter issomeone that just does one task
when they're sprinting, whereassomeone that's task switching,
(35:18):
they have a variety of tasks.
Now they're not multi-tasking.
These are still high leveltasks.
So it might be if you're a timeblock sprinter.
Okay.
I'm just working at writingThursdays a new Friday, like I'm
gonna black that out.
I'm gonna block out a four hourperiod of time for that.
And it's just gonna be that.
Whereas if I'm gonna be taskswitching, it might be for this
first half hour, I'm working onsomething high level for the
(35:39):
team.
And then, for the next halfhour, I'm gonna sketch out my
podcast schedule and interviewsand send some emails to people I
want to interview.
And then.
So it's still high level tasks,but you're very clear on what
you're doing.
So some people need a lot ofvariety when they're working and
some people need a lot of focusand there's nothing wrong with
either side of it.
It's just knowing yourself wellenough to really dive in.
(36:00):
The second part is when we doit.
So an automated sprinter issomeone that puts it in their
calendar and it just repeatsevery single week.
And so an automated sprinter forme when I was writing the book
every Thursday, it's just onrepeat like Thursday is the day
that I'm writing the book.
Whereas if we look at anintensive sprinter, they go away
for intensive.
So they might go to an Airbnbfor a couple days.
(36:20):
They.
Find a space.
My friend, Dr.
Jeremy Sharp, I write about himin the book.
He does this where a coupletimes a year he'll find an
Airbnb.
He thinks through it, he's avegan.
So we make sure he's walkingdistance from a couple great
vegan restaurants.
He looks at the menu ahead oftime and picks what he is gonna
eat.
So he is using his emotionalenergy.
For his work, not for figuringout what he's gonna have for
(36:40):
breakfast.
He wants an outdoor space andthen he also brings a lot of
specific tasks.
So he might schedule out hispodcasting.
He might work on the financesfor his private practice.
He might dive into somethinghe's been wanting to explore or
read.
So he comes with a clear planand he sprints for those few
days making the most of thattime.
And then he has everything setup so that he can, go get coffee
(37:03):
or go get his lunch.
And.
Figuring out your sprint typethen allows you to align your
natural inclinations with yourspecific areas.
Michael Bauman (37:11):
That's really interesting.
Yeah.
I haven't heard it delineatedlike that before, but it makes a
lot of sense.
My, my wife is more the variety.
I mean, she's an art teacher, somore the variety, I need to be
switching and stuff.
And I knew, I know all theresearch on multitasking and I
know that's detrimental andstuff as well, but how you're
defining it is different interms of like this 30 minute
(37:32):
block and then you're havingvariety, but it's.
not distractions within that 30minute block.
And I haven't heard itdelineated like that.
I think that's reallyinteresting to figure that out.
Joe Sanok (37:42):
Yeah.
I think that, one thing that,that I founded in writing in the
book is the natural neurosyncing and people don't even
pay attention to what theirbrains are doing.
So natural neuro syncing is aterm where we're trying to align
what we're doing in our behaviorand our activities with our
natural patterns of energy,hormones, and brainwaves.
(38:02):
And so just starting to observewhen do I have the most energy?
So for me, My peak energy timeis usually like 10:00 AM to
probably 1145.
Like, that's just like, if Ihave an important task, I'm
gonna schedule it during thattime.
If I have an importantinterview, I wanna have it
during that time.
If I'm doing emails, probablynot.
During that time, that's a wasteof my best energy.
I wanna put that into somethingelse, and so looking at that,
(38:24):
looking at.
Maybe I need a little more kalein my diet.
Maybe I need a, to like drink alittle less right before bed.
Like, do I wake up refreshed?
And just these really basic, howdoes my body feel and how do I
align that best with the work Iwant to do?
Michael Bauman (38:38):
Yeah.
I have a similar thing that I'lltalk about with my clients too.
I mean, we talk a lot about,people know, money, like where
is your money going?
And it's a reflection of, whatyou're valuing and then you have
time.
But then energy, like you'retalking about is not talked
about as much, but you're going,like, how can I generate energy
rather than just like, oh, Ineed to have an external
stimulus to get a certain amountof energy it's actually going,
(39:02):
how can I generate the energythat I need to do?
And what energies do I need tobring to this situation?
Like, it's a differentcreativity when you're doing
podcasting, when you're doingyour practice, when you know,
whatever that is.
And so actually intentionallythinking about that and knowing
how you can generate energy.
And you'll see that in topperformers, top athletes, like
their ability to switch on andswitch off is actually
(39:23):
extraordinary.
Joe Sanok (39:25):
Yeah.
And even just like having aplaylist that, gets you amped
up.
I was doing a talk recently atthe local opera house, about
kind of finding fulfillment inyour job and, right before it's
like, I'm listening to M andlike, you only got one shot.
It's like, yes.
It gets me pumped up at least.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So just.
I'm backstage just like rockingout to it and yeah.
(39:46):
And to just know those thingsabout yourself, of, you look at,
I mean, the famous MichaelPhelps story of him listening to
his playlist, and then, hisgoggles filled up as he's in the
Olympics, but he knew exactlyhow many strokes it was for him
to hit the other side.
Like he had that rhythm, he hadthat predictability to know his
body and to know where he was atin the pool, in the Olympics,
(40:07):
even when his goggles werefilled with water.
Yeah, just that's the elitelevel Yeah, for sure.
Michael Bauman (40:13):
So I'm curious for you just as far as like,
daily activities and habits andstuff.
So you talked a little bit abouthow you rearranged your
environment.
I'm curious for you, whether youfollow any type of, morning
routine, and I know meditationis also, important for you and
I'd love to hear what that lookslike for you.
Joe Sanok (40:30):
Yeah.
I would say that my.
My work schedule and my routinevaries based on my children.
so we, we lived on the road formuch of the pandemic in a
camper.
And so in that situation, in thenational parks, we had five
different forms of internet andin the national parks, none of
them would work ever So I justvery, I very quick, I had one
(40:51):
webinar in the Tetons I wastrying to do, and it just was a
S show.
And.
So I just realized, when we'rein a national park, I can't
work, which is good.
I should be national parkinginstead of like working.
And so in that situation, itwould be, I would work say two
or three days in a row, reallyhardcore and then be available
via text to my assistant, butreally didn't have anything that
(41:12):
was time sensitive for me to doand then would work hardcore.
And so.
When we got home from living onthe road, it was like, do I want
to continue that pace?
Or do I wanna work differently?
And so changing up the scheduleand adjusting it to me, I'm
constantly saying, why am Idoing that work?
So I'm trying to take things offof my plate, hand,'em off to
team members.
And then also adding new thingson that.
(41:33):
I find interesting that myaudience wants.
And so.
I start with the, my scheduleit's planned, but it's fluid as
to what's gonna be in thatschedule and how it's gonna
look.
So that would be kind of astarting premise.
When I actually look at mytypical week I usually take
Mondays and Fridays off.
I always take Fridays offMondays.
I might do a, if there's animportant meeting that couldn't
(41:55):
get in Tuesday, Wednesday, orThursday most of the time I'm
doing Tuesday, Wednesday,Thursday, pretty hardcore
Thursdays being a lighter.
That's where I would do morelike webinars with my audiences
where I might do some meetingsthat I find interesting more
than kind of as like, pointed asmaybe consulting meetings.
I prefer to have the morecreative things at the tail end
of the week.
If it's at the beginning of theweek, I found that.
(42:17):
I'm kind of thinking about, or Iwouldn't say worrying, but I
know that I have a lot to do,whereas I feel that kind of
refreshing feeling by Thursdays,like, okay, we're almost to, to
Friday, Thursday's the newFriday, allowing myself to, to
have that type of schedule.
Other kind of core principles isI'm a single dad.
And so I'm raising these girlspretty much on my own.
So I wanna be highly involved.
(42:38):
In their lives.
Like I want the teachers to knowme.
I want the principal to know me.
I want their friends to know me.
And so I volunteer on recessduty once or twice a month.
I try to go to as many schooltrips and chaperone as much as I
can.
I try to do things that make theteachers feel good about
themselves or, give'em Starbucksgift cards.
And so taking time to make surethat I'm involved with my kids'
(43:01):
lives is one of the like mostimportant things in regards to
how I structure my schedule.
So then having those guidingprinciples then I look at what
are other things that I knowthat I want.
So I know that, I walk my kidsto school.
We are a block and a half fromtheir school.
So I walk them to school everyday.
I walk down and pick'em up everyday.
So that means cuz school startsa little before nine.
I'm not gonna do a meetingbefore nine 30, cuz I want to
(43:23):
have some time to come back,drink a cup of coffee, meditate.
Maybe journal, maybe, I'm reallyinto Daoism.
So I might do some reading mightlisten to a Watts podcast or
something like that for my ownself development and grounding
and realizing that even if Idon't achieve all that I want to
achieve, like I'm still okay.
Like I'm still a competentperson.
I'm still a dad.
That's trying to rock outsomething that's really
(43:45):
difficult.
So starting with that and thendiving into the day.
And then I know that my lastmeeting needs to wrap up by
three 30 because I walk down, Ipick up my girls at three 50 and
I wanna be able to take my time,get there early, maybe talk with
some other dads connect withneighbors.
And so then, know, making surethat there's that community we
just had a block party, theother day that I hosted and.
(44:05):
40 or 50 people there.
And most of those are neighborswho I know their names.
I know their kids, like that'sreally important to me that we
create the neighborhood thatlike a lot of people wish they
had.
And so like that doesn't justhappen.
You have to foster thoserelationships.
So all of that's more of themenu I choose.
And then.
Like unlike, I'm friends with alot of the miracle morning
people and, like Hal and I textabout things.
(44:28):
He has a very rigid morning,which is great for him.
It's great for his people.
For me.
I like to have that menu wheresure.
I'm gonna meditate.
Four outta seven mornings.
Sometimes when I have a goodweek, it's five, for a number of
months, I was practicingSpanish, then I didn't wanna do
Spanish anymore.
know?
So it's like, I'm not gonna belike, I thought I'm gonna do
Spanish.
So, so for me, it's really abouthaving that flexibility in how
(44:50):
we live our lives and saying, isthis working for me now?
And is it going to continue towork for me in the future?
Michael Bauman (44:56):
I love that it's very similar to mine.
Like all the things you'rementioning, like our school is
right down the road, same kindof thing.
I walked down the school and itwas interesting, I would, my
kids wake up every day at six,six in the morning and I'm just
like, oh gosh, so I had this,oh, I need to get my workout in
before my kids wake up.
And then I was just like, man,this is not working at all.
(45:17):
So I've distributed itthroughout my day.
And the other thing I was like,my meditation is really
important.
So as soon as I dropped my sonoff at school, I'd come back and
I'm like, I need to do mymeditation, but my two year old
just wants to play with me.
Right.
And so I have this expectationand there's a frustration.
Like I need to be meditatedright now.
Right.
And then I just like askedmyself, it's that question?
What is it for?
Right.
(45:37):
The meditation is so I can bemore present with the things
that are important to me and thepeople that are important to me.
And I'm like, what if I playedwith my daughter during this
period of time.
Yeah.
So I switched my schedule tolike, I dropped my son off.
Then I play with my daughter,for a while.
We have a nanny and then shetakes, takes her out and then I
actually do the rest of thestuff.
So very similar.
Joe Sanok (45:57):
Yeah.
It's It's I think that alsoit's, if we're feeling like I
need to exercise, meditate,whatever, it, it misses the
point of that thing to me, Isay, what can I do.
I can do a one minute plankevery day.
Like that's, I can do one minutefor myself, and then over time,
that's become three minutes orfour minutes.
That's sometimes that's as muchof a workout that I can get in a
(46:17):
couple times a week as I can getin, I'm walking, we'll go for
bike rides, but there's justphases of life.
That it's way busier.
And I think we're often in thekinda self-development optimized
hacking world.
Always trying to find this nextthing and saying, I want
freedom.
But then we create these cageswhere we say, I have to do a
cold plunge every morning tofeel like I'm John Lee Dumas.
(46:39):
And then I have to do themiracle morning.
So I'm like, Hal Elrod.
And then I have to meditate.
So, I'm like all these peoplethat meditate and we feel the
same pressure we felt when wehad a full time job.
And so to me, it's all about.
Is this working for me, is thishelping me feel different, feel
present.
And I think like an example ofthat, like the meditation thing
I was doing laundry, the otherand I'm like, okay, I'm gonna
(47:00):
just enter folding laundry withsome mindfulness.
And it was crazy.
I was like, this is the wholeuniverse right here.
Things get soiled and dirty andwe're organizing them.
We're cleaning them.
This is gonna be on mychildren's body.
Like this is gonna keep themwarm.
It's gonna keep them snuggled.
It's gonna, the entire universewas in this load of laundry.
(47:21):
And it's just when you take thetime to really think through.
Dishes like you are cleaningsomething, someone else is going
to nourish themselves with it.
It becomes less of a chore andmore of, wow.
I get to enter into the universein such a unique way that I get
to help take care of these twowonderful creative little girls.
And then that becomes themeditation and you get a little
laundry done.
Michael Bauman (47:42):
yeah, it's a double bonus.
Yeah.
There's different phrases inJapan, in those kind of
traditions, like the chop woodcarry water.
Type of thing.
And it's like, that is the life.
Like, can you be present whenit's neutral and also is very
similar to what you're talkingabout?
Like what if you can bethankful, not even thankfulness?
(48:02):
No.
The typical gratitude, like,check off.
I was thankful for these fivethings, but like how many
people.
Did it have to take to, for tocreate, this microphone to
create this computer that's infront of me, it was sourced from
all over the world.
People were mining this stuff,putting it here so that we can
have this conversation and yourealize you're like, wow, I am
standing in the result of thecollective work of so many
(48:25):
people and it allows you to havethat gratefulness and that
mindfulness in the things thatseem so can seem so mundane.
And I think that is reallyimportant.
Joe Sanok (48:34):
Yeah.
I think that the idea of justbeing grounded in who we are,
and.
We can have big goals.
We can want to change the world.
There's nothing wrong with that.
And if that's always coming froma place of ego, of striving, of
proving yourself to your fatherwho didn't hug you, or,
whatever, like that's not gonna,you're not gonna feel that like
(48:54):
how you started by talking aboutthese people who are highly
successful, not feeling likesuccesses.
It's because they had maybe thisextra baggage that they haven't
worked through, they haven'tthought through what does
success actually mean to themto, I mean, I know you probably
gonna ask other questions.
Maybe I'm jumping the gun.
No.
Let's tee it up.
But it's like to do recess dutywith my kids and not feel guilty
(49:16):
about missing, someentrepreneurial work.
That to me is the life.
To be able to go to the parentteacher organization meetings
and to make a good living andenjoy life with my friends and
community.
Not that it's all just aboutlike living this lifestyle, but
it's like being able to choosewhere and when and how I show up
for work.
To me that's the most kind ofmagnificent thing of this phase
(49:40):
of my career.
Michael Bauman (49:41):
I love that.
I?
Yeah, I really appreciate theperspective cuz you can balance
the two.
You can achieve at a very highlevel, and then at the same
time, live a very fulfilledlife.
If you're intentional aboutasking, how to do it and getting
connected with the people thathave either have the systems and
have done what you are lookingto do.
(50:02):
So, which is why I appreciatehaving you on the podcast.
So where can people go to findyour book, get a hold of your
book, get a hold of what you'redoing.
That kind of thing.
Joe Sanok (50:11):
Yeah.
So, we actually have a freeassessment for people to figure
out their internal inclinations.
So the internal inclinations wewant to know, are these
naturally occurring or do theyneed some work?
It's not pass fail, but youknow, if you're not doing real
well in creativity, if thatdoesn't come or curiosity, if
that doesn't come naturally.
You'll get some tips, on how youcan foster that more.
(50:31):
So you can just go tointernaltest.com.
That'll just redirect you to oneof the pages on joesanok.com.
Usually it's$59, but we have acode for your audience.
So if they just put in TITNF soThursday is the new Friday that
then just enter that code.
They'll get it for free.
So I'd say that's a great nextstep for people, wherever you
get your books, you can getThursday is the New Friday.
(50:52):
Whether that's Amazon or yourlocal bookstore, I'm sure they
would appreciate it if youordered through them.
And then joesanok.com is wherewe have all of the teaching
things around the book aroundThursday is the new Friday.
And then my podcastpractice@thepractice.com.
That's where all those thingsaround that is we have four
episodes a week and we have abunch of resources there.
Michael Bauman (51:10):
Absolutely love the conversation.
Love what you've done and arechampioning to just make life
better for people.
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for your time.
Really appreciate it.
Joe Sanok (51:24):
Yeah.
Thanks for having me, Michael.
Absolutely.
Michael Bauman (51:26):
Before you go, I would love it.
If you actually just shared thisepisode with a friend, I'm sure.
While you were listening, youknow, someone just popped into
your head and you're like, oh,they would probably like this as
well.
So it's really easy.
You just click the share buttonon either the website or
whatever podcast platform you'reon and send it over to them.
And chances are, they'llprobably like it, too until next
time, keep engineering yoursuccess.
Do I accept myself as a human.
(00:02):
Just as a human.
Or do I have a mindset where Ineed to do certain things to
achieve?
If you didn't make multi sevenfigures or whatever your number
is, do you feel that you're abad person?
Do you feel that you shouldn'thave a voice in the world?
Michael Bauman (00:58):
Hello, everybody, whether you've been
listening for a while or whetherthis is your first time here, we
are happy to have you.
Before we jump into the episode,it would be awesome.
If you could write a review forthis show, especially on apple
podcasts.
So it takes less than a minuteor two.
It's pretty straightforward.
So you click on the show, youscroll all the way down to the
(01:19):
bottom.
And there's a little button thatsays, write a review.
And as always, if there's anepisode, you really like send it
over to your friends They'llprobably like it too.
Thank you so much.
And let's get back to the show.
So welcome back to SuccessEngineering.
I'm your host, Michael Bauman.
And I have the pleasure ofhaving Joe Sanok on.
He's a keynote speaker, aconsultant.
He's a podcaster.
(01:39):
He's the author of Thursday isthe new Friday how to work fewer
hours, which is great, make moremoney also great, and spend more
time doing what you want, whichis great.
He looks at how can we actuallyhave a four day work week that
boost creativity andproductivity been featured on
Forbes, Good magazine, SmartPassive Income and then the host
(01:59):
of very popular, The Practice ofthe Practice podcast, which is
recognized as top 50 worldwide.
So pleasure to have you on theshow.
I'm excited to hear the insightsthat you have to share.
Joe Sanok (02:10):
Oh, Michael, I'm so excited to hang out with you
today.
Michael Bauman (02:13):
Absolutely.
So we're gonna start with thatuniqueness.
So I want you to share aboutgoing into an interview with
cheetah print hair.
Joe Sanok (02:20):
Love that.
When I was probably 20, 21,somewhere in there I, throughout
all of high school and collegehad different colored hair.
And I went to this kind ofFriday night lights, high
school.
And so everyone were these likefootball players, but I had a
ponytail and was superalternative and wanted to be
different, cuz I already knew Iwas different.
And so when I was in college, Ihad applied to work at this
(02:41):
runaway shelter for kids as analternative to running away.
So, I had applied, I didn'thear.
And then.
I decided, I'm gonna do the nexthairstyle and I dye my hair
completely bleached it and thentook Q-tips and did these little
like cheetah print all the waythrough.
And like the next day I get aphone call for an interview and
I didn't have a lot of money atthe time, so I.
Had spent probably 30 bucks onthis hairstyle.
(03:02):
And that was a lot of money backin college.
And I'm like, I'm not gonna justlike dye black again and start
over.
So I went into this interviewwith my suit and tie on and my
portfolio honors college Joewith cheetah print hair and the
whole interview I feel like Ihad a sense of what a lot of
women go through where, guys arelooking at their chest and
they're like, Hey, my eyes areup here.
Except it was the opposite.
(03:23):
It was like, my eyes are downhere cuz.
Interviewers were looking at thetop of my head for the whole
time.
But later they told me I got oneof the reasons I got the job was
they thought I could connectwith the more unique and punk
rock kids there.
So, perfect.
I worked in my favor.
Michael Bauman (03:35):
Perfect.
I thought, the spots weresupposed to camouflage thought
there's a myth.
It's a
Joe Sanok (03:41):
man.
Yes, absolutely.
Michael Bauman (03:43):
Could you talk about and this is central to
just pretty much everything thatyou do.
So can you talk about how thatplays into what you describe as
the outsider influence and howyou can actually leverage that
to be unique and be yourself?
Joe Sanok (03:57):
Yeah.
So one of the things that theresearch revealed as I was
writing Thursday is the newFriday is these three internal
inclinations and that's one ofthem that you're referencing.
And so one of them is topleaders, keep curiosity, front
and center.
They also maintain an outsiderperspective and a third, they
move on it.
So they, they don't overthinkthings.
They're not paralyzed byperfection.
They adjust as they go.
(04:19):
And so that outsider perspectivewe see over and over the top
leaders maintain that.
And, oftentimes we see it,people moving cultures, or, I
mean you, yourself, living inChina you have an outsider
perspective and you see thingsdifferently.
And then when you come back tothe states, I imagine that you
still have an outsiderperspective because you then
have lived overseas.
So, oftentimes statisticallyoutsiders have more influence
(04:43):
than insiders.
And there's a really interestingstudy that was done where they
brought small groups together,six to eight people.
They sat'em at a table and theyshowed them two colors, either
blue or green, and they hadthese different kinda shades of
blue and green.
And they'd say to the group,what color is this?
And most people would say, oh,that's blue or that's green.
And for the most part, exceptfor a handful of colors they
would agree that's blue orthat's green.
So then they did a secondversion of the study, same size
(05:05):
group.
But they had two people thatwere working with the
researchers and there werespecific color cards that they
were supposed to say theopposite.
So instead of it being green,they'd say blue, instead of
blue, they'd say green.
And they found that they wereable to sway the group
statistically more than theyreally should have been able to.
And so we see this replicatedover and over in different
areas.
Even if someone say starts a newjob.
(05:26):
Uh, I remember I was working ata community college.
And, this was, I don't know,2010, probably 2000 somewhere in
there.
I started there in thiscounseling department, they were
still handwriting all of theirprogress notes.
So there's no way for me todigitally search for, Hey, has
Michael come in before foradvising?
is he depressed?
Like there was no way for me todigitally search for that.
(05:47):
They were handwriting thecalendar.
So there was no way for me toknow who was on my calendar,
except for going up to the frontdesk and Taking a picture of my
schedule.
Well, and then they filed theprogress notes instead of by
last name.
Like, I couldn't even search byyour last name.
It was by day that the studentscame in and so they had to look
at old handwritten calendars tofind out that, last September
(06:07):
you came in and had flunked yourmath class and then.
We had to go back to that day.
And it was just so ridiculous.
And as an outsider who had sawhow community mental health
works, saw how progress in thoseworks, just say, this is crazy.
Like So as part of the projectswith the Dean, I said, I'd like
to refine and change the systemto be digital so that we can
(06:27):
have, some ways that we cansearch for this.
But outsiders oftentimes havethat outsider perspective, and
that adds a lot to a company.
It can also be very threateningto a company.
And so if you can maintain that,especially as you move up in
leadership it really allows youto do things that the average
person can't do.
Michael Bauman (06:43):
So I'm curious, how do you go about maintaining
an outsider's perspective fromthe inside yeah.
Joe Sanok (06:50):
I think some of the things is in your own personal
life, putting yourself in reallyawkward situations, like things
that scare the crap outta you.
So for example, a few years ago,I started doing improv uh, To
just try it.
A friend of mine, she had taughtimprov throughout Europe and
said, Hey, I'm gonna get a grouptogether.
And I just stopped in and I wassuper scared and it's just, six
to eight people doing this, butyou're in a scene in front of
(07:12):
your peers that know improv.
And I don't it's really scary.
I was an outsider.
And, but it's hilarious for menow.
I feel like I'm walking a tightrope every single week.
And so finding these things, itcould be, if you're someone that
goes to church, maybe.
Go to a different church, go toa different religions, place,
learn something, say there's abunch of people from Columbia
that live in your community andthey have a, Columbian day and
(07:34):
they have Columbian foods likego to those events, be an
outsider.
And when you do that, yourecognize what that feels like.
And once you know how it feels.
You can then look foropportunities within the
corporation to say, well, wheream I not pushing back on things
that maybe I should be pushingback?
Are there questions that I wannaask that I don't feel prepared
to ask?
And so making sure that youthink through, well, how do I
(07:57):
push back?
How do I allow my feelings tocome up?
Maybe you need to push back insome new areas and just see how
that goes.
And look at the data, look atyour feelings, look at, what
does that do for you?
And then, adjust according.
Michael Bauman (08:07):
Yeah.
I think that's really important.
And like you said, havingtraveled all over the world and
lived in lots of differentplaces, you do get to realize
how much of a superpower thatcan be when you can go into a
group and you can see, these arethe things that I like about it.
These are the things that mightbe different than how I do it.
Can I stay curious longer andthat's, something that you do a
(08:28):
lot as well.
Can you talk about the researcharound curiosity and how
important that is to making surethat you just maintain that
curiosity and willing to learn.
Joe Sanok (08:39):
Yeah, what's really interesting about curiosity is
we have this one word, curiositythat actually, comes to fruition
in a variety of different ways.
There's a really unique study inthe 1970s where they were
basically putting collegestudents that were very hungry,
that hadn't been drinking intosensory deprivation chambers.
And so these students came, Ithink they made like 10 bucks a
day for doing this torture.
(09:00):
much different ethics.
Yeah, I know.
So these students come in andthey, all that they were trying
to figure out is how bored doessomeone have to get before they
start getting curious.
And so.
It was all males.
So these males go into theirroom by themselves.
It's completely dark.
The only thing that they reallygot was like their meals put
under the door.
So they saw this little bit oflight, a couple times a day.
(09:22):
There was a bed in there.
And they were supposed to stayseated on the bed.
And so the first part of thestudy, they just have these guys
kind of sitting in there.
And they're like, how long dothey stay seated on the bed?
And then, they start wanderingaround.
Well then they added thisblinking red light and they,
there was a button in the roomthat the, they couldn't feel
until they were like feelingaround and then they found this
(09:43):
button and the button wastotally random.
It wasn't even associated withthe red light, but then the guys
would like hit this button.
And then once in a while there'dbe like three red lights in a
row.
And these guys were just boredout of their mind.
And so over time they did allsorts of other weird studies
like that to just show thatcuriosity often comes from
boredom.
That's one of the areas.
(10:03):
One of the other major areas isseeing someone do something that
you don't have the ability todo.
So our next door neighbor he'sthis middle school boy.
He loves every single sport.
It's like baseball, basketball,football.
He always has some sort of,sports stuff going on.
But say he saw someone do apitch in baseball that he's
never seen before.
I know he's gonna be out therewith his dad, practicing that
(10:25):
pitch until he gets it down.
So curiosity sometimes comes outof the sense that I can't do
what I want to do, or I sawsomething that I want to do.
And then the last area of thecuriosity often emerges is being
able to say, I have a specificgoal I want to reach.
The goal drives it.
How do I get there?
And then investigating becauseof that.
And so when we think aboutcuriosity, This is something
(10:48):
that oftentimes we think we haveto foster because it's not in
us, but the reality is we allhad this as kids, right.
I was babysitting my nieces theother day.
And so, they're four and six.
My daughters are seven and 11,so, four girls under the age of
11 playing in the backyard.
And they're squealing and loudand then it gets really quiet
out of nowhere.
(11:08):
And I'm just like, uhoh I gottago check on'em really.
That's how it's with kids.
It gets too quiet.
You go see what's up.
And they're all standing aroundthis dead mouse.
And the conversation washilarious.
It was like, how do you think itdied?
Should we have a mouse funeral.
Do you bury mice, but wouldn'tan owl like to eat it, do owls
eat live mice or dead mice?
like, what kind of funeral wouldwe have?
What should we make a headstonefor it, all these questions
(11:31):
about this dead mouse.
But they're trying to sort out,is this part of life that
happens every day and it'snormal, or is this something
that's really abnormal?
So the first time they see a caraccident, the first time they
see a rainbow they're sortingout are these normal things I
need to be really scared of.
Like, could I die in a caraccident tomorrow?
Or is this something that reallyisn't something to be really
scared of?
Or savoring that rainbow is thatsomething that happens every
(11:54):
day?
And I just never noticed, or isthis something that happens just
once in a while that curiosityis them trying to have a
construct for the world.
But at some point we stop havinglevel of curiosity, cuz we think
we've figured out the world.
And that's where I think topleaders realize that sure, you
may have figured out certainexpertise, but there's so many
different areas that you canstill continue to grow.
Michael Bauman (12:15):
Yeah.
I think that's, reallyimportant.
And that's why we build ourescape rooms now to, to Yeah,
it's probably the person thatyou know, was stuck in that room
and they're like, I have abrilliant idea.
Joe Sanok (12:25):
we actually do our improv practice in an escape
room.
One, one of our guys owns inthis.
Escape room company.
And so we practice in thisescape room that looks like
Alcatraz.
Michael Bauman (12:35):
Nice.
That's a good place to do improvSo the other aspect of these
internal inclinations that youtalked about and it's an aspect
of curiosity, too.
You talked about having a goal,so that aspect of moving on it.
So what does that look like forleaders for entrepreneurs to
navigate through kind of theperfectionism and what comes
along with.
Joe Sanok (12:56):
Yeah.
So there's always a push andpull between on one side
accuracy and on the other sidespeed.
So there's times in life.
We obviously want things to beaccurate.
If I go to the doctor and she'sdoing surgery on me, she can
take as long as she wants to dothat surgery to be accurate.
Having our taxes done, havingall sorts of other things, you
want that to be accurate and youwanna put the time into it, but
(13:16):
for most of business speed isgoing to be greater than
accuracy in most cases, becauseyou're gonna get that feedback.
You're gonna get that user data.
You're gonna be able to see whatworks and what doesn't versus
just waiting till something'sperfect.
And so being able to look atthings and say, okay, why are we
delaying this?
Could we set a date that's maybefaster than what we think, get
(13:37):
it out and then adjust as we go.
Those types of leaders are ableto move quicker and to get more
done overall.
Michael Bauman (13:44):
I'd love to hear, you kind of unpack this a
little bit more with some of theavenues that come up along with
this.
So one is just fear in general,right?
Like anytime you're doingsomething new or putting
something out there or startinga new business or whatever it
is, you have that fear.
And then you also have that,kind of imposter syndrome or not
feeling enough.
I'd love to hear your thoughtson how people can, recognize
(14:06):
that and what to do to navigate.
Joe Sanok (14:08):
Yeah.
So I would say one of the firstthings people can do, and this
is what I do is think aboutwhat's actually behind that?
We use these general terms likeimposter syndrome, but the way
you feel that in your history isgonna be completely different
than my own.
And so it could be family oforigin issues where your dad or
mom was a high achiever andalways pushed you to get the
best grades.
(14:29):
And you had this narrative of,if you're super smart, then
you're gonna be successful.
So being able to figure out someof that origin, whether that's
through counseling or meditationor, self-help books or there's
so many tools out there toaddress those types of things
just looking at, do I acceptmyself as a human.
Just as a human or do I have amindset where I need to do
(14:49):
certain things to achieve?
And so, a lot of the kind ofProtestant Western culture is
based on a original sin model,even if we're not maybe
Christians that's still a verypronounced part of our culture.
So starting with it.
Babies are flawed with originalsin.
That's gonna do a certain kindof way of thinking for people
(15:10):
where, you have to achieve yourway out of it, or, find a
savior, whatever.
And I'm not saying this as acritique on religion, but just
thinking about that hasinfluenced how people think.
And so digging into our impostersyndrome and saying, do I
believe that I need to achievein order to be successful?
Do I believe I need a certainnet worth to be successful?
Do I need to have a certainnumber of employees to feel
successful?
And then to challenge that andsay, is that.
(15:31):
Like, if you didn't have 10employees, if you didn't have a
hundred employees, if you didn'tmake multi seven figures or
whatever your number is, do youfeel that you're a bad person?
Do you feel that you shouldn'thave a voice in the world?
Now.
That mixed with, we all havegoals.
When we launch things, wheneverI launch a new product, like if
(15:52):
two people buy it and I thought10 would, or a hundred would, of
course I'm gonna feel bummedabout that.
That's okay.
Like we put time into something,we wanna see it be successful.
But then to say, as a result ofthat, I'm a bad person or I'm a
bad entrepreneur.
No we're learning through thatprocess.
We're seeing what our peoplewant, what they don't want.
That's where that curiositycomes in to say, okay, In the
(16:14):
eyes of the world, this feelslike a pass fail.
I just failed.
I spent more on that Facebook adthan I ever have, and nobody
opted in.
They clicked a lot, so I had topay, but, I didn't actually sell
anything.
Of course, you're gonna bebummed about that, but then to
say, what did I learn from that?
Okay.
I learned that they clicked onthat.
So the title's good.
I learned that the copy wasgood, getting them there, but
(16:35):
that landing page, there wassomething about it that didn't
resonate with people, nobodypurchased.
And so being able to remaincurious throughout that, I think
allows you to step back fromfeeling like an imposter and
saying, Hey what do I have tooffer?
What am I doing?
Where can I find success?
And does it all need to comefrom my work?
And from the things that I'mdoing in the world?
Michael Bauman (16:55):
Absolutely.
I agree.
100% with that.
And that's exactly what you'vedone.
I mean, with your book Thursdayis the new Friday and you've
deconstructed these beliefs thatwe kind of hold to be, self
evidence, so to speak, to usethe lingo.
We have these beliefs that thisis just how the world works.
So can you talk about, I mean,take it all the way back the
(17:16):
origin story, take it back tothe seven day work week where
did that come from?
What did that look like and howdid that develop throughout.
Joe Sanok (17:23):
Yeah, what's really interesting is this wasn't even
in my book proposal, when I sentit to Harper Collins I kind of
started from scratch with awhiteboard and said, what
questions do I have about movingfrom the five day work week to
the four day work week?
And one of the big questionswas.
Why do we even have a seven dayweek?
Because if you look in nature ayear makes sense.
It's how long it takes us to goaround the sun.
A day makes sense.
(17:44):
We spin and the sun comes up anddown or, I mean, we rotate and
the sun doesn't move, but yeah.
The months are loosely relatedto the lunar cycle.
But there's nothing really thatpoints to seven days.
And so, as I looked at it, itactually goes back thousands of
years to the Babylonians.
And so the Babylonians.
They looked up and they saw thesun, the moon, mercury, Venus,
Mars, Jupiter.
(18:04):
And then they looked down andsaw earth.
So seven major celestial thingsin the sky.
And so they said we should havea seven day week.
We just, as easily could havehad a five day week and had 73
weeks in a year.
The Russians as early as the mid18 hundreds tested out a five
day work week.
The Romans, they had a 10 dayweek, the Egyptians had an eight
day week.
So this idea that.
(18:25):
The calendar has been set for,all of eternity or, for the last
thousand years, it's just nottrue.
Like even the Russian calendarcompared to the Western
calendar, those weren't evenaligned until the mid 19
hundreds.
And so people, we had toactually like lose days when
they all aligned.
We made up time, we made up thecalendar and the seven day week
(18:47):
is completely arbitrary.
And so if we just start withthat, Thing that we made up.
If the Babylonians had bettertelescopes we may have had a 15
day week who knows.
So that's completely made upthen if we fast forward to the
late 18 hundreds, how theaverage person was working was
absolutely insane.
They were working 12 to 14 hoursa day, six to seven days a week.
(19:07):
So they had a farmer's schedule.
Even if they weren't farmers.
Like people moved over fromEurope to help rebuild Chicago
after the great fire.
And they started protesting inthe 18 hundreds in like 1884
1886 specifically because theirwork conditions were so bad and
they thought they'd come to theUnited States for a better life.
And it was terrible.
There was, there were bombingsthat happened at these protests.
(19:29):
The nation went on a nationallockdown because of it, like the
government thought this wasgonna erupt and really be this
huge labor movement and thishuge, just like all sorts of
things.
So that's actually where we getMayday as a holiday to look at
worker's rights was from that in1880.
So fast forward to 1926, exactly40 years later after these
(19:50):
Haymarket protests that happenedin Chicago, Henry Ford launches,
the 40 hour work week to Fordindustries with the goal of
selling more cars to his ownemployees.
I mean, the guy just wanted tosell cars to his own people
because he thought if they havea weekend, they're gonna want to
get outta Detroit and, go seeupper Michigan.
It's beautiful up here.
I can see why they'd want a car.
(20:10):
And.
Less than a hundred years ago,Henry Ford starts this thing.
He's the first major nationalcorporation to do this, then,
there's legislation and allsorts of things that happen
where we see that the 40 hourwork week was a giant step
forward for the average person.
I mean, for the evolution ofbusiness to go from six to seven
days a week from 10 to 14 hourdays that's a huge step forward.
(20:32):
I mean, think about.
Our, that generation, that wouldbe my grandparents or great
grandparents going from when Iwas a kid, I had to work 10 to
14 hours a day, six to sevendays a week.
You lazy 40 hour a week people.
The baby boomers were the firstgeneration to be raised by
people working the 40 hour week.
And, gen Xers and millennialsare only the second generation
in human history to be raised by40 hour week people.
(20:54):
And so this is a brand newconcept.
And we see in the eighties andnineties, even Friday, Start to
fade out.
I like to joke that Friday hasbeen having an affair with the
weekend since the eighties.
Let's just call it what it is.
Because we see the rise ofcasual Fridays.
We see, birthday parties.
We see cheesy team buildingactivities on Fridays, really
start to emerge in the eightiesand nineties.
(21:16):
And by the two thousands, westart to see more companies
saying, okay, in the summerwe're gonna do, work from home
Fridays or no meeting Fridays.
And so we see that this reallystarts to shift and the pandemic
really was that final just breakwith the industrialist mindset.
The industrialist way ofthinking where everything is
prescriptive, everything is amachine.
Everything is to be optimized.
(21:37):
We no longer thought thatanyway.
But then in the pandemic, itreally finish that whole system
to say that 40 hours butts in achair, that's the highest key
performance indicator that wecan have to really saying, like,
what is the purpose of this jobrole?
What's the purpose of me beingin this job role.
We see the great resignation orgreat recalibration, depending
on how you think about it.
(21:57):
Because the way people weredoing it, since the eighties was
saying no, like the industrialsmodel doesn't work for us
anymore.
And so then we see, postpandemic or post kind of major
pandemic.
We may see more pandemics whoknows that everybody is thinking
differently about how we work,where we work and what we're
gonna do as work that gives uspurpose.
Michael Bauman (22:16):
So, I mean, and then you're trying to, you're
trying to shift that paradigmdown from the five to the four.
And obviously all the thingsthat come up like, oh, well,
we're losing on productivity andmoney and things like that.
Can you talk about the researcharound productivity and
distraction and motivation andhow that is actually not true?
And you can actually work moreefficiently in a shorter period
(22:38):
of time.
Joe Sanok (22:39):
Yeah it's crazy to look at the research because
most of the research shows thatthe final 20% that someone works
in a week in a 40 hour work weekis completely useless.
They may not spend it all on aFriday, but they're slower
throughout the week because thehuman body just isn't going to
operate above that 32 hours.
And so they're talk at the watercooler, they're gonna have a
(23:00):
meeting that lasts an hour, butreally could have been 20
minutes.
They're going to plan theirweekend when they're at their
desk and their boss isn'tlooking.
And what we see in case studiesand in the research is that
really, if we just say work a 32hour week, but we're gonna pay
you the same that you get thesame or better outcomes.
Iceland had a huge study, 3000plus people in multiple
industries.
(23:20):
So we're not talking justentrepreneurs.
These were bus drivers.
These were, childcare workers.
They worked a 32 hour week.
They were paid the same amountand they looked at it and they
found that they were actuallymore productive than those
working a 40 hour week.
We see places like Kalamazoovalley, community college, who
for years has done a four dayweek in the summer.
They save millions just on airconditioning their students
(23:41):
weren't coming on Fridays anywayand they're retaining people
longer.
They're also finding theirstudent success has gone up.
We see the UK just recently acouple weeks ago, announced that
they're doing the largest fourday work week study in
implementation.
And so over and over, we'reseeing that giant companies like
Shopify or other ones are doingthis in attracting top talent
and within just a couple yearsthere's gonna be enough evidence
(24:02):
that really points to the fourday work week that it's not
gonna be a selling point topeople anymore.
So right now, when companies aredoing it, they're innovative,
they're attracting top talent.
But that's only gonna last untilthere's kind of a critical mass
where, you know, that's not aselling point anymore.
Michael Bauman (24:15):
So I'm curious and we'll dive more into the
productivity and what itactually looks like and how you
can optimize that and things as,as well.
But there's two differentdynamics.
I mean, oversimplificationthere's different dynamics in a
workplace.
So one there's aspects ofactually, your KPIs, your key
performance indicators, all ofthat kind of stuff and actually
achieving results.
And then there's the otheraspect, which is the relational
(24:38):
aspect of just being in work.
I'm curious as how that fitsinto a model, cuz there's
benefit to just chatting withyour colleagues and stuff at the
water cooler though it may notbe productive.
So I'm curious is how that getsincorporated into the model.
Joe Sanok (24:54):
Yeah, I think that's, that really remains to be seen
more to see how relationshipswhen we look at workplace
relationships there's been asignificant shift over the last
20 years where even outside ofwork, there's not this one
central way of gettinginformation.
There's not a one central waythat people network with each
other.
Everything has beendecentralized and people want
more autonomy and freedom.
(25:14):
And so I would say being forcedinto a workplace friendship,
just because you're working withsomeone, a lot of people would
rather say I'd rather just gohang out with my real friends
than hang out with the peoplethat I'm working with and have
an extra hour to go do thingswith my family.
Now we'll see what happens inregards to a lot of that, but if
people were more efficient, doesthat mean that they're not gonna
get along with each other?
Does that mean they're not gonnacatch up?
(25:36):
Does that mean that they're notgonna do those other things?
Things, I don't think thathumans are just gonna become
robots that don't talk to eachother.
I think we, we naturally arecommunal people and if we are
able to connect with people,we're able to get more done,
especially, as we work ingroups.
And so there's gonna be specificindustries, that might be needed
more, that might be needed less,but I think that's also where it
taps into the idea of slowingdown.
(25:57):
To optimize our brains before weget to what in the book I call
killing it or sprinting.
So if we just jump to, okay, wewanna work four days a week and
sprint, we need to first say,well, how within the workplace
are we slowing down to boostcreativity, but also outside of
the workplace, how are weslowing down to boost creativity
so that the brain is optimizedand ready to run when it is time
to be productive?
Michael Bauman (26:17):
And can you give an example?
I mean, you literally do this,so you have Slow Down School and
can you talk about how youintentionally formatted how that
looks, the day to day schedulefor that to accommodate this?
Joe Sanok (26:29):
Yeah.
So, I'll talk about SlowdownSchool and then I'll also kind
of share what that looks like inthe workplace.
So Slowdown School is themanifestation of a lot of these
teachings where people fly intoNorthern Michigan.
Most conferences you fly in,you're burned out from your
flight, and then you jump rightinto these sessions and you get
a handful of things out of thesessions that you probably could
have got from a podcast.
And maybe you network withpeople and the drink time in the
(26:52):
evening is usually the mostproductive, cuz you're just like
chatting with people.
And so trying to take the bestpart of conferences.
So the first two days ofslowdown school, we go hiking.
I have massage therapists comein.
We hang out on the beach andskip stones and watch the
sunset.
It's right on, on lake Michiganand genuinely slow down and just
get to know each other that arethere.
Then on Wednesday, Thursday andFriday morning, We run full tilt
(27:13):
towards people's businesses.
I teach them how to sprint.
We talk about setting, measuresand people will say in these two
and a half days, I got donemonths of work, but why it works
is that you're allowing yourbrain to genuinely slow down.
Like we think we slow down onthe weekends, but usually it's
more in reaction to the previousweek than in preparation for the
coming week.
(27:33):
So we have a busy week.
and then, we sleep in on theweekend and maybe we over drink
and, maybe we have soccerpractice or other things with
the kids.
And, by Monday morning we'retired.
We aren't genuinely rejuvenatedversus looking at our weekend
and saying, how can I actuallyprepare my brain for the coming
week?
So when we're looking at theschedule for a typical person,
one very first step, whether ornot you have a three day weekend
(27:55):
is to do the add one, subtractone Exercise for your weekend.
So to say, what's one thing Ican add into my weekend that I
can test out to see if this addsmore life to my weekend.
So it might be, I have thisnovel, that's not a business
novel, it's something I'vewanted to read that I just
haven't got to.
And I'm gonna talk to my familyand say, you know what, for an
hour on Saturday morning, I wantto drink my green tea and just
(28:18):
go read this, leave me alone.
Please support me in this.
I wanna see if this makes me abetter dad or maybe it's, a
friend that you want to connect.
And you say, I want to, go graba beer with this person or go
for a walk with this person,adding something in that maybe
you don't typically have in yourweekend and saying, did that
bring more life to my weekend?
And then having a handful ofthings on the menu that, brings
(28:38):
you more life and making sureyou pepper those into the
weekend, the subtract one sideis the same sort of idea, but
it's taking something off ofyour plate that maybe could
kinda have more weight when it'staken off.
For example, Maybe you don'twanna spend half of a Sunday
grocery shopping.
And so you use shipped orInstacart to have your groceries
delivered and you see, okay, bynot going shopping, did that
(28:59):
make my weekend feel better?
Maybe you do have a coffee datewith a friend scheduled and
every time you leave that coffeedate you feel like trash.
They're like a toxic person.
Like we're too old to have toxicfriends.
You can cancel that.
So just removing something fromyour schedule and saying, did
that give me some extra.
And that's the shift that we seeaway from the industrialist.
The industrialist said, here'sthe one model.
Here's the prescription.
(29:20):
Everyone should follow it.
Whereas this post industrialistera we're looking at well,
what's the menu.
How do I taste that menu?
Try it, evaluate it, experimentand see if it works for me, for
my job, for my life, and thenget the data.
And if it doesn't work okay,that doesn't mean you're a bad
person.
It just means that doesn'tresonate with you.
And so really having that menubased model, both in work and in
(29:41):
your life seems to be the postindustrialist way that really
helps people find what they'relooking for.
Michael Bauman (29:46):
Yeah.
I mean, I love that.
I think that's phenomenalsupports, all the stuff on
autonomy and things like that.
And then you mentioned in theworkplace tips and stuff around
that in terms of slowing downwhat that looks like.
Joe Sanok (29:57):
Yeah.
It's interesting.
Sometimes we think we have tohave a full day off or things
like that.
There's so many techniques thatcan just help your brain slow
down and recalibrate.
So there was this study outtathe University of Illinois,
where they looked at vigilancedecrement.
So vigilance how well you payattention to something
decrement, meaning breaking downover time.
So vigilance decrement.
So the old way of thinking wasthat, like a glass of water, the
(30:17):
energy and the focus you have ina day, it just gets drained out.
And really the only way torecalibrate that is to go home,
go to sleep, come back tomorrow.
Just don't keep working on thetask.
So they wanted to look at thisand see, is that accurate?
So they brought these collegestudents in and they had them at
a computer and they gave them arandom four digit number.
So say it was 4, 312.
So 4, 312.
(30:38):
When that random number comes upon the screen, hit this button
when other four digit numberscome up, like don't hit the
button.
So for about an hour, they'resitting at this computer super
boring task.
When the, when it pops up, hitthe button when it doesn't.
Don't hit the button and theyfound that these students had
vigilance decrement.
At the end of the study, theywere pushing the button and
missing their number more oftenthan at the beginning of the
(30:59):
study.
So then they did a secondversion of the study where at
the one third mark, they gavethem a one minute break.
They said something like, we putyou on the wrong computer, just
hang out in the lobby.
There were no magazines, nophones, no TVs, literally one
minute of just hanging out, havea seat here, stand up, whatever,
just be for a minute.
Then they brought them back, didanother third and then gave them
another one minute break.
(31:20):
And then they ended the study.
They found that there was zerovigilance decrement from just
two, one minute breaks.
So sometimes we think that weneed this whole like three day
weekend.
But the reality is if you justset a timer for 20 minutes and.
You then went outside or youjust, moved your body or did a
plank or whatever you do justdon't go on your phone.
It allows your brain to resetbecause when the brain's in a
(31:42):
new situation or a disruptedsituation, it wants to make sure
you're safe.
And so even though we know we'resafe our brain is still really
old.
It hasn't evolved at the pace ofour technology.
And so it's still looking forthe tiger that might kill you,
even though there's, no tigersin Northern Michigan.
But you know, if I just stepaway from what I'm working on,
it helps me reset.
So we know that there's tons ofother techniques that help you
(32:03):
slow down or to optimize theenvironment.
So for example, even changingyour environment to match what
your task.
So when I was writing Thursdayas the new Friday you can see my
home environment.
I have a standing desk in thecorner.
I would change, I had differentlights I brought in for while I
was writing.
So I had different light.
I moved the chair, that's in thecorner over to the middle and
(32:24):
moved the desk to the middleinstead of being in the corner.
I had some specific headphones.
I only wore and listened to aspecific playlist while I was
working on it.
And then I had a habit of how Ientered into that day.
So at the end of every day so Ionly wrote on Thursdays as I was
writing it and I wouldwhiteboard out the next chapter
of the book and put the kind ofthree research studies, the
(32:45):
three case studies kind ofquestions I had, and I would put
it up on the whiteboard at theend of my day.
Then I would just let it simmerfor a week and then I would come
in and right away, instead oflooking at a blank screen and
having to type, I would say,what questions do I have?
Like, what's interesting aboutthis.
So curiosity, for example I waslike, okay, curiosity killed the
cat.
Where the heck did that comefrom?
And it was literally a cat in1910 that got stuck in a
(33:07):
chimney.
It made national news was in theWashington post, like front
page.
So it was a slow Newsweek.
And then after five days, Thiscat died in chimney.
Like the firefighters were likedismantling the chimney and
headline said, curiosity killedthe cat.
And so just things like that,that then it boosts my
productivity because it's justinteresting, I've slowed down
(33:27):
enough to let things simmer andthen I've changed my environment
to like teach my brain that thisis safe and we're ready to go.
Then I can get more done when Iam working.
Michael Bauman (33:37):
Yeah, that's the environment is really important.
A lot of times with my clients,that'll be the first, one of the
first things you ask, likebasically, how can you set up
your environment to makewhatever thing you're doing as
easy as possible, right?
Cause then you're removing allthe willpower and I have to do
this and whatever.
It's just like, this is theroutine.
You get into it, you groove withit and that's yeah, that's
(33:58):
awesome.
Joe Sanok (33:59):
Well, even down to like the launch of the book, so
I did 200 plus podcastinterviews in the months leading
up to the launch of Thursday asa new Friday, I bought two of
this shirt that I'm wearing sothat I could have the same
interview shirt for every singleinterview.
So those little things that it'sjust like, okay, this is my
interview shirt.
Like I like the shirt.
I'm gonna get two of them.
Make sure that one's clean everysingle time I have interviews.
(34:21):
And then.
I don't even have to put anyenergy into what I'm gonna wear
for interviews.
Michael Bauman (34:25):
That's really awesome.
I like that a lot.
Talk about some of the otherthings that we can do to
optimize our productivity.
Some of the other tools and tipsand things around that.
Joe Sanok (34:35):
Yeah.
So one of the big discoveries isdiscovering your sprint type.
So your sprint type similar tolike an Enneagram type or Myers
S Briggs type is how you bestsprint.
So a lot of times people havetried sprinting.
They've tried, setting a 20minute timer, all the different
types of methods to sprint.
Well, that doesn't really workfor me.
I tried batching once and itdidn't really work for me, but
(34:55):
it's really that they didn'tfind their actual sprint type.
And so there's two factors toyour sprint type.
There's what kind of work you'redoing when you're sprinting and
when you're doing it.
And so.
First we wanna look at bewhether you're a time block
sprinter or a task switchsprinter.
So time block sprinter issomeone that just does one task
when they're sprinting, whereassomeone that's task switching,
(35:18):
they have a variety of tasks.
Now they're not multi-tasking.
These are still high leveltasks.
So it might be if you're a timeblock sprinter.
Okay.
I'm just working at writingThursdays a new Friday, like I'm
gonna black that out.
I'm gonna block out a four hourperiod of time for that.
And it's just gonna be that.
Whereas if I'm gonna be taskswitching, it might be for this
first half hour, I'm working onsomething high level for the
(35:39):
team.
And then, for the next halfhour, I'm gonna sketch out my
podcast schedule and interviewsand send some emails to people I
want to interview.
And then.
So it's still high level tasks,but you're very clear on what
you're doing.
So some people need a lot ofvariety when they're working and
some people need a lot of focusand there's nothing wrong with
either side of it.
It's just knowing yourself wellenough to really dive in.
(36:00):
The second part is when we doit.
So an automated sprinter issomeone that puts it in their
calendar and it just repeatsevery single week.
And so an automated sprinter forme when I was writing the book
every Thursday, it's just onrepeat like Thursday is the day
that I'm writing the book.
Whereas if we look at anintensive sprinter, they go away
for intensive.
So they might go to an Airbnbfor a couple days.
(36:20):
They.
Find a space.
My friend, Dr.
Jeremy Sharp, I write about himin the book.
He does this where a coupletimes a year he'll find an
Airbnb.
He thinks through it, he's avegan.
So we make sure he's walkingdistance from a couple great
vegan restaurants.
He looks at the menu ahead oftime and picks what he is gonna
eat.
So he is using his emotionalenergy.
For his work, not for figuringout what he's gonna have for
(36:40):
breakfast.
He wants an outdoor space andthen he also brings a lot of
specific tasks.
So he might schedule out hispodcasting.
He might work on the financesfor his private practice.
He might dive into somethinghe's been wanting to explore or
read.
So he comes with a clear planand he sprints for those few
days making the most of thattime.
And then he has everything setup so that he can, go get coffee
(37:03):
or go get his lunch.
And.
Figuring out your sprint typethen allows you to align your
natural inclinations with yourspecific areas.
Michael Bauman (37:11):
That's really interesting.
Yeah.
I haven't heard it delineatedlike that before, but it makes a
lot of sense.
My, my wife is more the variety.
I mean, she's an art teacher, somore the variety, I need to be
switching and stuff.
And I knew, I know all theresearch on multitasking and I
know that's detrimental andstuff as well, but how you're
defining it is different interms of like this 30 minute
(37:32):
block and then you're havingvariety, but it's.
not distractions within that 30minute block.
And I haven't heard itdelineated like that.
I think that's reallyinteresting to figure that out.
Joe Sanok (37:42):
Yeah.
I think that, one thing that,that I founded in writing in the
book is the natural neurosyncing and people don't even
pay attention to what theirbrains are doing.
So natural neuro syncing is aterm where we're trying to align
what we're doing in our behaviorand our activities with our
natural patterns of energy,hormones, and brainwaves.
(38:02):
And so just starting to observewhen do I have the most energy?
So for me, My peak energy timeis usually like 10:00 AM to
probably 1145.
Like, that's just like, if Ihave an important task, I'm
gonna schedule it during thattime.
If I have an importantinterview, I wanna have it
during that time.
If I'm doing emails, probablynot.
During that time, that's a wasteof my best energy.
I wanna put that into somethingelse, and so looking at that,
(38:24):
looking at.
Maybe I need a little more kalein my diet.
Maybe I need a, to like drink alittle less right before bed.
Like, do I wake up refreshed?
And just these really basic, howdoes my body feel and how do I
align that best with the work Iwant to do?
Michael Bauman (38:38):
Yeah.
I have a similar thing that I'lltalk about with my clients too.
I mean, we talk a lot about,people know, money, like where
is your money going?
And it's a reflection of, whatyou're valuing and then you have
time.
But then energy, like you'retalking about is not talked
about as much, but you're going,like, how can I generate energy
rather than just like, oh, Ineed to have an external
stimulus to get a certain amountof energy it's actually going,
(39:02):
how can I generate the energythat I need to do?
And what energies do I need tobring to this situation?
Like, it's a differentcreativity when you're doing
podcasting, when you're doingyour practice, when you know,
whatever that is.
And so actually intentionallythinking about that and knowing
how you can generate energy.
And you'll see that in topperformers, top athletes, like
their ability to switch on andswitch off is actually
(39:23):
extraordinary.
Joe Sanok (39:25):
Yeah.
And even just like having aplaylist that, gets you amped
up.
I was doing a talk recently atthe local opera house, about
kind of finding fulfillment inyour job and, right before it's
like, I'm listening to M andlike, you only got one shot.
It's like, yes.
It gets me pumped up at least.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So just.
I'm backstage just like rockingout to it and yeah.
(39:46):
And to just know those thingsabout yourself, of, you look at,
I mean, the famous MichaelPhelps story of him listening to
his playlist, and then, hisgoggles filled up as he's in the
Olympics, but he knew exactlyhow many strokes it was for him
to hit the other side.
Like he had that rhythm, he hadthat predictability to know his
body and to know where he was atin the pool, in the Olympics,
(40:07):
even when his goggles werefilled with water.
Yeah, just that's the elitelevel Yeah, for sure.
Michael Bauman (40:13):
So I'm curious for you just as far as like,
daily activities and habits andstuff.
So you talked a little bit abouthow you rearranged your
environment.
I'm curious for you, whether youfollow any type of, morning
routine, and I know meditationis also, important for you and
I'd love to hear what that lookslike for you.
Joe Sanok (40:30):
Yeah.
I would say that my.
My work schedule and my routinevaries based on my children.
so we, we lived on the road formuch of the pandemic in a
camper.
And so in that situation, in thenational parks, we had five
different forms of internet andin the national parks, none of
them would work ever So I justvery, I very quick, I had one
(40:51):
webinar in the Tetons I wastrying to do, and it just was a
S show.
And.
So I just realized, when we'rein a national park, I can't
work, which is good.
I should be national parkinginstead of like working.
And so in that situation, itwould be, I would work say two
or three days in a row, reallyhardcore and then be available
via text to my assistant, butreally didn't have anything that
(41:12):
was time sensitive for me to doand then would work hardcore.
And so.
When we got home from living onthe road, it was like, do I want
to continue that pace?
Or do I wanna work differently?
And so changing up the scheduleand adjusting it to me, I'm
constantly saying, why am Idoing that work?
So I'm trying to take things offof my plate, hand,'em off to
team members.
And then also adding new thingson that.
(41:33):
I find interesting that myaudience wants.
And so.
I start with the, my scheduleit's planned, but it's fluid as
to what's gonna be in thatschedule and how it's gonna
look.
So that would be kind of astarting premise.
When I actually look at mytypical week I usually take
Mondays and Fridays off.
I always take Fridays offMondays.
I might do a, if there's animportant meeting that couldn't
(41:55):
get in Tuesday, Wednesday, orThursday most of the time I'm
doing Tuesday, Wednesday,Thursday, pretty hardcore
Thursdays being a lighter.
That's where I would do morelike webinars with my audiences
where I might do some meetingsthat I find interesting more
than kind of as like, pointed asmaybe consulting meetings.
I prefer to have the morecreative things at the tail end
of the week.
If it's at the beginning of theweek, I found that.
(42:17):
I'm kind of thinking about, or Iwouldn't say worrying, but I
know that I have a lot to do,whereas I feel that kind of
refreshing feeling by Thursdays,like, okay, we're almost to, to
Friday, Thursday's the newFriday, allowing myself to, to
have that type of schedule.
Other kind of core principles isI'm a single dad.
And so I'm raising these girlspretty much on my own.
So I wanna be highly involved.
(42:38):
In their lives.
Like I want the teachers to knowme.
I want the principal to know me.
I want their friends to know me.
And so I volunteer on recessduty once or twice a month.
I try to go to as many schooltrips and chaperone as much as I
can.
I try to do things that make theteachers feel good about
themselves or, give'em Starbucksgift cards.
And so taking time to make surethat I'm involved with my kids'
(43:01):
lives is one of the like mostimportant things in regards to
how I structure my schedule.
So then having those guidingprinciples then I look at what
are other things that I knowthat I want.
So I know that, I walk my kidsto school.
We are a block and a half fromtheir school.
So I walk them to school everyday.
I walk down and pick'em up everyday.
So that means cuz school startsa little before nine.
I'm not gonna do a meetingbefore nine 30, cuz I want to
(43:23):
have some time to come back,drink a cup of coffee, meditate.
Maybe journal, maybe, I'm reallyinto Daoism.
So I might do some reading mightlisten to a Watts podcast or
something like that for my ownself development and grounding
and realizing that even if Idon't achieve all that I want to
achieve, like I'm still okay.
Like I'm still a competentperson.
I'm still a dad.
That's trying to rock outsomething that's really
(43:45):
difficult.
So starting with that and thendiving into the day.
And then I know that my lastmeeting needs to wrap up by
three 30 because I walk down, Ipick up my girls at three 50 and
I wanna be able to take my time,get there early, maybe talk with
some other dads connect withneighbors.
And so then, know, making surethat there's that community we
just had a block party, theother day that I hosted and.
(44:05):
40 or 50 people there.
And most of those are neighborswho I know their names.
I know their kids, like that'sreally important to me that we
create the neighborhood thatlike a lot of people wish they
had.
And so like that doesn't justhappen.
You have to foster thoserelationships.
So all of that's more of themenu I choose.
And then.
Like unlike, I'm friends with alot of the miracle morning
people and, like Hal and I textabout things.
(44:28):
He has a very rigid morning,which is great for him.
It's great for his people.
For me.
I like to have that menu wheresure.
I'm gonna meditate.
Four outta seven mornings.
Sometimes when I have a goodweek, it's five, for a number of
months, I was practicingSpanish, then I didn't wanna do
Spanish anymore.
know?
So it's like, I'm not gonna belike, I thought I'm gonna do
Spanish.
So, so for me, it's really abouthaving that flexibility in how
(44:50):
we live our lives and saying, isthis working for me now?
And is it going to continue towork for me in the future?
Michael Bauman (44:56):
I love that it's very similar to mine.
Like all the things you'rementioning, like our school is
right down the road, same kindof thing.
I walked down the school and itwas interesting, I would, my
kids wake up every day at six,six in the morning and I'm just
like, oh gosh, so I had this,oh, I need to get my workout in
before my kids wake up.
And then I was just like, man,this is not working at all.
(45:17):
So I've distributed itthroughout my day.
And the other thing I was like,my meditation is really
important.
So as soon as I dropped my sonoff at school, I'd come back and
I'm like, I need to do mymeditation, but my two year old
just wants to play with me.
Right.
And so I have this expectationand there's a frustration.
Like I need to be meditatedright now.
Right.
And then I just like askedmyself, it's that question?
What is it for?
Right.
(45:37):
The meditation is so I can bemore present with the things
that are important to me and thepeople that are important to me.
And I'm like, what if I playedwith my daughter during this
period of time.
Yeah.
So I switched my schedule tolike, I dropped my son off.
Then I play with my daughter,for a while.
We have a nanny and then shetakes, takes her out and then I
actually do the rest of thestuff.
So very similar.
Joe Sanok (45:57):
Yeah.
It's It's I think that alsoit's, if we're feeling like I
need to exercise, meditate,whatever, it, it misses the
point of that thing to me, Isay, what can I do.
I can do a one minute plankevery day.
Like that's, I can do one minutefor myself, and then over time,
that's become three minutes orfour minutes.
That's sometimes that's as muchof a workout that I can get in a
(46:17):
couple times a week as I can getin, I'm walking, we'll go for
bike rides, but there's justphases of life.
That it's way busier.
And I think we're often in thekinda self-development optimized
hacking world.
Always trying to find this nextthing and saying, I want
freedom.
But then we create these cageswhere we say, I have to do a
cold plunge every morning tofeel like I'm John Lee Dumas.
(46:39):
And then I have to do themiracle morning.
So I'm like, Hal Elrod.
And then I have to meditate.
So, I'm like all these peoplethat meditate and we feel the
same pressure we felt when wehad a full time job.
And so to me, it's all about.
Is this working for me, is thishelping me feel different, feel
present.
And I think like an example ofthat, like the meditation thing
I was doing laundry, the otherand I'm like, okay, I'm gonna
(47:00):
just enter folding laundry withsome mindfulness.
And it was crazy.
I was like, this is the wholeuniverse right here.
Things get soiled and dirty andwe're organizing them.
We're cleaning them.
This is gonna be on mychildren's body.
Like this is gonna keep themwarm.
It's gonna keep them snuggled.
It's gonna, the entire universewas in this load of laundry.
(47:21):
And it's just when you take thetime to really think through.
Dishes like you are cleaningsomething, someone else is going
to nourish themselves with it.
It becomes less of a chore andmore of, wow.
I get to enter into the universein such a unique way that I get
to help take care of these twowonderful creative little girls.
And then that becomes themeditation and you get a little
laundry done.
Michael Bauman (47:42):
yeah, it's a double bonus.
Yeah.
There's different phrases inJapan, in those kind of
traditions, like the chop woodcarry water.
Type of thing.
And it's like, that is the life.
Like, can you be present whenit's neutral and also is very
similar to what you're talkingabout?
Like what if you can bethankful, not even thankfulness?
(48:02):
No.
The typical gratitude, like,check off.
I was thankful for these fivethings, but like how many
people.
Did it have to take to, for tocreate, this microphone to
create this computer that's infront of me, it was sourced from
all over the world.
People were mining this stuff,putting it here so that we can
have this conversation and yourealize you're like, wow, I am
standing in the result of thecollective work of so many
(48:25):
people and it allows you to havethat gratefulness and that
mindfulness in the things thatseem so can seem so mundane.
And I think that is reallyimportant.
Joe Sanok (48:34):
Yeah.
I think that the idea of justbeing grounded in who we are,
and.
We can have big goals.
We can want to change the world.
There's nothing wrong with that.
And if that's always coming froma place of ego, of striving, of
proving yourself to your fatherwho didn't hug you, or,
whatever, like that's not gonna,you're not gonna feel that like
(48:54):
how you started by talking aboutthese people who are highly
successful, not feeling likesuccesses.
It's because they had maybe thisextra baggage that they haven't
worked through, they haven'tthought through what does
success actually mean to themto, I mean, I know you probably
gonna ask other questions.
Maybe I'm jumping the gun.
No.
Let's tee it up.
But it's like to do recess dutywith my kids and not feel guilty
(49:16):
about missing, someentrepreneurial work.
That to me is the life.
To be able to go to the parentteacher organization meetings
and to make a good living andenjoy life with my friends and
community.
Not that it's all just aboutlike living this lifestyle, but
it's like being able to choosewhere and when and how I show up
for work.
To me that's the most kind ofmagnificent thing of this phase
(49:40):
of my career.
Michael Bauman (49:41):
I love that.
I?
Yeah, I really appreciate theperspective cuz you can balance
the two.
You can achieve at a very highlevel, and then at the same
time, live a very fulfilledlife.
If you're intentional aboutasking, how to do it and getting
connected with the people thathave either have the systems and
have done what you are lookingto do.
(50:02):
So, which is why I appreciatehaving you on the podcast.
So where can people go to findyour book, get a hold of your
book, get a hold of what you'redoing.
That kind of thing.
Joe Sanok (50:11):
Yeah.
So, we actually have a freeassessment for people to figure
out their internal inclinations.
So the internal inclinations wewant to know, are these
naturally occurring or do theyneed some work?
It's not pass fail, but youknow, if you're not doing real
well in creativity, if thatdoesn't come or curiosity, if
that doesn't come naturally.
You'll get some tips, on how youcan foster that more.
(50:31):
So you can just go tointernaltest.com.
That'll just redirect you to oneof the pages on joesanok.com.
Usually it's$59, but we have acode for your audience.
So if they just put in TITNF soThursday is the new Friday that
then just enter that code.
They'll get it for free.
So I'd say that's a great nextstep for people, wherever you
get your books, you can getThursday is the New Friday.
(50:52):
Whether that's Amazon or yourlocal bookstore, I'm sure they
would appreciate it if youordered through them.
And then joesanok.com is wherewe have all of the teaching
things around the book aroundThursday is the new Friday.
And then my podcastpractice@thepractice.com.
That's where all those thingsaround that is we have four
episodes a week and we have abunch of resources there.
Michael Bauman (51:10):
Absolutely love the conversation.
Love what you've done and arechampioning to just make life
better for people.
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for your time.
Really appreciate it.
Joe Sanok (51:24):
Yeah.
Thanks for having me, Michael.
Absolutely.
Michael Bauman (51:26):
Before you go, I would love it.
If you actually just shared thisepisode with a friend, I'm sure.
While you were listening, youknow, someone just popped into
your head and you're like, oh,they would probably like this as
well.
So it's really easy.
You just click the share buttonon either the website or
whatever podcast platform you'reon and send it over to them.
And chances are, they'llprobably like it, too until next
time, keep engineering yoursuccess.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com