The Art of Manliness - #503： The Case for the 24⧸6 Lifestyle

00:00:00.000 We'll see you next time.

00:00:30.000 We'll see you next time.

00:01:00.000 Aaron joins me now via clearcast.io.

00:01:04.720 Aaron Edelheid, welcome to the show.

00:01:16.560 Thank you so much for having me.

00:01:18.300 So you just put out a book called The Hard Break, The Case for the 24-6 Lifestyle, not the 24-7.

00:01:26.760 Before we get to the impetus behind, well, actually, this is the impetus behind the book.

00:01:30.660 You start off the book talking about a moment in your life.

00:01:32.920 You are a finance guy.

00:01:34.880 You've been running investment properties, a company that manages investment properties.

00:01:40.080 So super motivated, type A.

00:01:44.180 But there's this moment you found yourself, you were sobbing in the shower, and you just thought your whole world was falling apart.

00:01:50.780 So tell us about that moment.

00:01:52.540 Yeah.

00:01:52.780 So it was actually kind of a pivotal moment in my life.

00:01:56.760 So normally, people aren't too keen to talk about when they have kind of an emotional breakdown.

00:02:04.800 But, you know, this is actually before I started owning rental properties and managing them.

00:02:11.480 But I had started managing money for people and investing it in the stock market at an early age of 23.

00:02:19.200 And started seeing really tremendous success.

00:02:23.100 Started in 1998.

00:02:25.260 And for four years, even through the dot-com crisis, I was a golden god.

00:02:31.220 I averaged like 25% a year positive returns.

00:02:37.320 The whole market was going down.

00:02:40.660 And I formed my own very small hedge fund.

00:02:45.700 And things looked to be taking off.

00:02:49.200 And then suddenly, a bunch of things started happening.

00:02:53.960 Really just kind of life things where I had a relationship, personal relationship, and we broke up.

00:03:02.560 And I had taken on a business partner.

00:03:05.760 We started fighting.

00:03:06.880 And then that broke up.

00:03:09.160 And then I got sick, and doctors didn't know what was wrong with me.

00:03:12.800 And eventually, it was kind of misdiagnosed appendicitis.

00:03:19.620 And out of this, and then suddenly, not surprisingly, my business returns started falling.

00:03:28.680 And suddenly, I wasn't outperforming.

00:03:30.700 And I was still very young at this point, 27, 28.

00:03:35.360 I didn't realize it's actually normal to underperform for some periods of time.

00:03:40.140 I mean, I wasn't mature enough.

00:03:41.800 Warren Buffett has had periods where he hasn't done so well.

00:03:46.340 And it's actually normal.

00:03:47.480 But the combination of all those events really put me in a tailspin.

00:03:52.740 And I found myself crying in the shower and kind of not knowing what to do.

00:03:59.160 And I kind of got myself out of it.

00:04:02.100 And my first thought really was, well, I got to double down on work, right?

00:04:07.900 I've got to, I'm not doing, I'm not, my returns, my results are not what I expect.

00:04:13.860 So I've got to do more.

00:04:15.560 I've got to work even harder.

00:04:17.200 And what I found is that wasn't helping anything.

00:04:21.540 And it really wasn't, it took me a little bit, but it wasn't until I really had a desperation

00:04:28.840 that I said to myself, well, maybe the problem isn't that I'm working, I'm not working enough.

00:04:36.740 But maybe the problem is that I'm working too much and I'm too invested in it.

00:04:43.780 And so really out of desperation, I decided in 2005, what I'm going to do is I'm going

00:04:50.140 to turn off, and at this point it was a BlackBerry, I'm going to turn off my BlackBerry on Friday

00:04:56.040 night, right before I go to bed.

00:04:57.740 And I'm going to try to make it till noon on Saturday.

00:05:01.200 This is how addicted, I'm still addicted to my phone, but this is how addicted I was at

00:05:05.560 the time.

00:05:05.920 It seemed like a heroic task, right?

00:05:10.180 Like, how can I possibly have my phone off for four or five hours?

00:05:14.280 And I did it.

00:05:15.560 And then after a couple of weeks, I said, well, maybe I can make it till two or three.

00:05:19.700 And then after, and I did.

00:05:21.080 And then after a couple of months, I said, why can't I do it a whole day?

00:05:24.360 And really out of that, out of that kind of experiment, it just transformed my whole life.

00:05:35.080 And now I've been doing it for over 13 years.

00:05:39.100 It's the best thing in my life.

00:05:41.160 And it enabled me to have all of the success that I had after.

00:05:48.180 So what caused me to start crying in the shower?

00:05:51.380 My portfolio was down 5%. 0.51

00:05:54.380 That's ridiculous, right? 0.53

00:05:57.420 Like, there's just absolutely no perspective there.

00:06:00.840 So now fast forward to 2008, when you have real problems, right?

00:06:06.900 The financial crisis.

00:06:08.540 Markets are down 30 or 40%.

00:06:11.160 But now instead, I have a stronger foundation, which we can talk about later.

00:06:18.020 And now I'm a stronger person.

00:06:21.580 So I was able to say, wait a minute, there's opportunity here.

00:06:26.640 And so in the heart of the financial crisis, started buying foreclosed homes, fixing them

00:06:32.000 up and renting them out in 2009, and grew that from 16 rental homes to 2,500.

00:06:37.200 And I was able to then, as I'd say in the book, up and down through the book, all the whole

00:06:44.360 time, shutting completely off from work and technology from Friday to Saturday night, and

00:06:51.420 then selling the company for $263 million to a public real estate investment trust.

00:06:56.580 And I can tell you is that if it wasn't for me taking off a day every week, I would not have

00:07:05.460 been able to find that opportunity, have the stamina to see it through, to go through the

00:07:13.400 ups and downs.

00:07:14.320 It would not have been possible.

00:07:17.940 So after I sold the company, I started working on this book.

00:07:23.180 It took me three and a half years, and I wanted to definitively make the case.

00:07:27.160 Because the other thing that I saw from my company is that I saw all these work practices inside

00:07:34.300 and outside the company, from having about 100 employees to over 126 investors, a board

00:07:43.040 of directors, investment bankers, contractors, et cetera.

00:07:46.520 So, okay.

00:07:47.060 So you basically implemented a Sabbath practice in your life.

00:07:50.300 That's right.

00:07:50.620 Before we get there, before we talk about what a Sabbath is and what it can look like,

00:07:55.100 let's talk about the problem that you are facing, because you're not the only one that

00:07:59.060 this is happening to, where you work all the time, you're not getting the results you think

00:08:03.820 you should get.

00:08:04.340 So you think the solution is, well, I should just double down on work.

00:08:07.900 And you highlight all this research that says that Americans, particularly middle-class,

00:08:14.220 upper-class Americans, people who are doing knowledge type, like lawyers, doctors, creative

00:08:18.600 types, they feel like they're working more than ever.

00:08:21.400 So how many hours are Americans working on average these days?

00:08:25.260 So it's not so much that we're working more hours per se, but it's that we're constantly

00:08:34.240 connected.

00:08:36.160 That's one of the biggest problems.

00:08:39.320 We're constantly connected and we're on call.

00:08:43.440 So if you think about it, when you have your phone on and you're connected to your phone

00:08:50.020 and your computer and your email, you're basically on call to every business contact and every

00:08:56.740 social contact that you've almost ever met through Facebook, through Twitter, through email,

00:09:06.960 through Slack.

00:09:09.120 Everyone can reach you at any time.

00:09:11.820 Yeah.

00:09:13.440 And our brains are addicted to the point to check it.

00:09:16.740 We may not immediately respond, but everyone has access to us.

00:09:23.540 The research is very clear.

00:09:25.800 We are not made to be on call every waking moment of the day.

00:09:32.080 And it's an absurd comment.

00:09:34.180 It's an absurdity.

00:09:37.280 Like, why would we allow that?

00:09:39.960 How could that possibly be good?

00:09:43.340 And the reason, one of the reasons I spent so much time working on the book is there's

00:09:47.720 200 footnotes in this book.

00:09:49.100 I had to remove dozens because my editor told me, you're not writing a scientific paper.

00:09:58.440 The evidence is overwhelming that what we're doing to ourselves from a health, a mental health,

00:10:05.660 happiness, creativity, productivity, it's not working.

00:10:10.180 And we kind of, we know this, right?

00:10:13.220 We intuitively kind of know that something's wrong.

00:10:16.740 And we see it in society as well.

00:10:19.360 People are more anxious.

00:10:20.680 There's an anxiety epidemic going on.

00:10:23.120 People are angrier.

00:10:24.440 We're arguably living in the best time ever to be alive in terms of health, in terms of

00:10:32.820 lifespan, in terms of violence, in terms of opportunity.

00:10:38.480 There is inequality.

00:10:39.800 It doesn't mean that it's all wonderful.

00:10:41.620 But if you look in the vast history, we should be dancing in the streets by how good the world

00:10:48.240 is.

00:10:48.580 But we're not acting like it.

00:10:50.580 No.

00:10:50.760 Yeah, for sure.

00:10:51.180 And I mean, so, okay, there's emotional, psychological consequence.

00:10:54.580 You talk about the physical health consequence of us constantly being connected and constantly

00:10:59.560 like you work, like you might not work more hours, but like, it's just like, you're always

00:11:04.160 constantly checking in, like it's sucking up your bandwidth.

00:11:06.680 There's also like physical health consequence.

00:11:08.880 Like you experienced something like that.

00:11:11.600 Oh yeah.

00:11:11.880 No, well, would you want an 80% increase in coronary risk?

00:11:15.820 Right.

00:11:16.280 No, yeah.

00:11:16.700 All you have to do is work more than 10 hours a day.

00:11:18.880 That's according to 50 years of research.

00:11:23.400 And it's really bad for women. 1.00

00:11:25.840 Women who work an average of 60 hours a week are three times as likely to develop heart 0.99

00:11:31.960 disease, cancer, arthritis, and diabetes.

00:11:34.080 There's a link between long work hours and depression, heart disease, type 2 diabetes.

00:11:43.580 You're more likely to become an alcoholic.

00:11:46.860 Then just think about injuries.

00:11:50.240 There's a German study that showed that after the eighth or ninth hour of work, you have a

00:11:55.880 substantially higher risk of injury on the job.

00:11:58.680 You're more likely if you work more than 12 hours a day or more than 40 hours a week to

00:12:04.900 have neck, shoulder, and back disorders.

00:12:08.460 You know, the WHO, the World Health Organization estimates that health, mental illness, and substance

00:12:15.400 abuse cost employers something like $100 billion a year.

00:12:19.100 Like this is all translating into, and then if you, the problem seems to get worse.

00:12:25.900 So the average stress level is, you know, for millennials on a scale of one to 10, it's

00:12:32.960 5.4.

00:12:34.480 And for boomers, it's 4.7.

00:12:37.320 And for the older generation, it's 3.7.

00:12:40.120 So like, and then you look at in college, college health clinics are being overrun with mental

00:12:47.300 health cases.

00:12:48.420 It's growing by double digit percentages every year.

00:12:51.440 The number one way that middle school kids die is from suicide.

00:12:57.760 Used to be car accidents.

00:13:00.760 Like, so a lot of the stuff is just like, whoa, you know, like there's not only physical,

00:13:06.060 but there is, there's this really mental consequence of, of overworking, of being connected all

00:13:14.880 the time.

00:13:15.500 And it's that we're not built and set up for this.

00:13:19.680 And it's like anything, it's not, this doesn't mean that you just, you know, go back to using

00:13:26.620 like a rotary phone, right?

00:13:29.120 It's just that anything taken in its, in its extreme is, is not going to be good.

00:13:34.320 And then also there's like a lack of perspective.

00:13:37.020 And you also highlight, you know, some startup culture that exists where it's either you

00:13:42.140 succeed or you're a complete failure if your startup doesn't succeed.

00:13:46.360 And all these guys, you know, there's been a couple high case, high profile cases of,

00:13:50.080 you know, startup founders whose startup didn't do so well and they ended up committing suicide.

00:13:54.300 That's right.

00:13:54.720 And this is the, probably the number one reason that I wrote the book is there is this pernicious

00:14:01.860 myth that you need to grind and burn yourself out and go to a level that is almost like martyrdom

00:14:12.000 to succeed.

00:14:14.880 And it's not true.

00:14:17.500 And, and, and not only is it not true, but there are tremendous negative consequences to doing

00:14:26.180 this family life, mental health, physical, and I profile a series of people, including

00:14:34.860 one of the co-founders of Facebook that has, he has severe regret, Dustin Moskowitz, severe

00:14:43.700 regret that the way he worked and he said, I could have done a better job.

00:14:50.200 I could have been a better boss.

00:14:51.400 And in fact, he took those lessons and when he co-founded his next company, Asana, which

00:14:57.560 is, I believe the number one company to work for in America.

00:15:02.040 And I think they have a three or $4 billion valuation.

00:15:05.320 Ironically, it's a product to productivity software tool.

00:15:10.160 They have, you work like nine to five.

00:15:13.000 There is, you know, strong encouragement on mental wellbeing and on, on setting boundaries

00:15:21.260 at work.

00:15:22.100 It is a new company and he started it from scratch and now it's, you know, it's being very successful.

00:15:28.220 There are a number of people in this and, and companies throughout the book, as you know,

00:15:33.840 from reading it, that profile that, that they either burn themselves out, which they hadn't,

00:15:40.920 or what they've done is they're be, they're super successful because they take a Sabbath.

00:15:48.380 Well, and so, I mean, that's the other thing.

00:15:49.820 So there's not only health, both physical and psychological consequences of overworking,

00:15:54.640 but like the, you show the research, like actually working more makes you less productive.

00:15:58.360 Like it does the exact opposite of what you think it was, it would do.

00:16:02.140 That's exactly right.

00:16:03.260 And, and, and, and, and what happens is that there's, you know, this isn't surprising if

00:16:09.480 you think about it.

00:16:10.300 Look, if, if I was, if I needed to work on a project and I'm on a deadline, can I, for

00:16:17.000 a week or two, grind it out and really put in the Superman type hours and get it done?

00:16:24.120 Yes, absolutely.

00:16:25.220 But if research has shown that you keep that up for more than a month or two and your productivity

00:16:34.220 starts to decline, and then eventually it starts declining further than if you just worked

00:16:40.920 40 hours a day.

00:16:43.020 And one of the, one of the more, more interesting things that I profile in the book was the Stanford

00:16:48.680 researcher who found extensive details in world war one and why this is so interesting is so

00:16:58.480 world war one breaks out and Britain needs to compete with the German war machine and produce 0.68

00:17:06.140 more munitions.

00:17:08.220 And so they suspend, they had started implementing all these positive labor rules to protect the

00:17:15.440 workforce after the industrial revolution, but war breaks out and they said, Hey, sorry,

00:17:20.960 this is, this is life or death.

00:17:23.760 They took away all the labor rules and they started producing munitions, but it's not enough.

00:17:31.720 So they form a commission and they say, commission, we want you to look into the data and we want

00:17:37.120 you to, you know, do a survey and let us know how do we produce more munitions?

00:17:43.440 And so they did a detail, they just ground, they grabbed every, every piece of data they

00:17:49.240 could, and they came back with a pretty shocking recommendation.

00:17:54.920 And that was that workers needed to work less and not more because, and they found that the

00:18:02.980 best workers were those that didn't, not the ones who worked seven days a week, but those

00:18:09.460 that worked six days a week and had a Sunday Sabbath were the most productive.

00:18:15.900 And what they found is, is that the longer that people worked the seven days, the more

00:18:21.160 likely they were to get injured, the more likely they were to make a mistake, the more likely

00:18:27.280 they were to get sick, to get tired.

00:18:30.420 And so, you know, this, this was, you know, this has, this type of study has been repeated

00:18:41.760 a number of times and it's not surprising.

00:18:45.800 And now what I argue is the Sabbath, an institution that has been around for thousands of years

00:18:52.860 is arguably more important today than it's ever been.

00:18:57.540 Because if you think about it, our brain is a muscle just like anything else.

00:19:03.380 And we're constantly plugged in and we're constantly connected and we're constantly using it.

00:19:10.300 And what's happening is we're not giving our brain a break and we're having a lot of negative

00:19:16.700 mental health aspects that we've already talked about.

00:19:19.960 But on the other side, why are we doing it?

00:19:23.020 We're doing it because we want to achieve more.

00:19:25.800 We want to be more successful.

00:19:27.600 We want to, you know, we, we want to provide for our families, right?

00:19:32.040 Well, an interesting thing, and this, this is, this is what's so fascinating after doing

00:19:36.560 a deep dive in this is that you have a tradition that's thousands of years old.

00:19:41.340 The latest in neuroscience shows that when you're relaxing, when you're not actively engaging

00:19:48.720 your brain, there's a part of your brain that goes into overdrive and that's called the default

00:19:54.800 mode network.

00:19:56.120 Now, what does the default mode network do?

00:19:59.220 The default mode network takes in the information and the experiences that, that you have processes

00:20:06.500 them and tries to form patterns.

00:20:09.840 So what does that mean?

00:20:10.620 You ever have the proverbial idea in the shower or you're ever going for a walk and all of

00:20:15.940 a sudden the solution to a problem hits you.

00:20:19.500 That's the default mode network.

00:20:22.720 And so what does that mean for today?

00:20:25.100 How do you be successful today?

00:20:27.620 Well, you've got to be more creative.

00:20:30.320 You've got to be more innovative.

00:20:32.340 You've got to be a better problem solver.

00:20:34.440 It's not about taking in more information.

00:20:39.320 It's about what do you do with information?

00:20:42.640 And so if you're not giving yourself a break, you're not giving your brain a break.

00:20:47.220 You're actually hurting your chances to succeed in today's world.

00:20:52.600 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:20:54.280 And now back to the show.

00:20:57.620 Okay.

00:20:58.060 So let's, let's, okay.

00:20:59.100 So obviously we're overworking, not good for you.

00:21:02.320 Taking breaks are actually beneficial.

00:21:03.840 Let's talk about this idea of Sabbath.

00:21:05.880 As you said, it's been around for thousands of years.

00:21:08.480 You, you were, you are Jewish, but at the time you weren't practicing.

00:21:11.940 You weren't very observant, but then you had that moment in the shower and then you doubled

00:21:16.200 down.

00:21:16.700 That didn't work.

00:21:17.420 So you started implementing, cause you started on Friday night.

00:21:20.580 That's typically when, when Jewish people start their Sabbath, not using your phone. 0.99

00:21:24.880 So for our listeners who aren't familiar, can you walk us through like what Jewish, the

00:21:29.060 Jewish Sabbath is like, what does that look like?

00:21:31.680 So it's different for different Jews.

00:21:33.740 And so mine is, you know, the Jewish Sabbath is from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.

00:21:42.200 Christian Sabbath is on Sunday.

00:21:45.160 What I use my Sabbath to do is Friday night, I turn off my phone.

00:21:52.040 I turn off my computer.

00:21:53.500 I turn off my laptop.

00:21:55.120 What I try to do is not talk about work or do any work on that Saturday.

00:22:01.620 On that Friday night to Saturday.

00:22:04.760 Now, personally, I will drive somewhere.

00:22:09.000 I will watch TV.

00:22:11.380 But because I have three small children, it's more likely to be frozen or some other like

00:22:18.220 Pixar type movie or bubble guppies or something.

00:22:21.660 But I won't watch anything on business or politics.

00:22:25.820 And if I drive, it'll go to meet friends.

00:22:29.260 And that is my Sabbath.

00:22:31.540 What I'll try to do is go for a hike.

00:22:34.160 One of my favorite things is taking a nap.

00:22:38.240 It literally makes me feel like a king.

00:22:40.220 I love it.

00:22:41.160 And what I try to do is just really connect with my family and friends during that Sabbath.

00:22:48.540 There's other Jews who, it's a much more religious day.

00:22:52.720 They, you know, some of the more religious Jews will turn off all like electricity or they'll 1.00

00:22:59.600 leave certain lights on and stuff like that.

00:23:01.600 For me, it's more of a, you know, I'm taking the more personal side for me to just connect

00:23:10.640 with myself and my family.

00:23:12.200 And besides Judaism and Christianity, are there other religions that have a practice

00:23:16.480 of taking a break from work?

00:23:18.260 Well, I know that just inside, you know, Christianity, you know, like Mormons also do it. 0.94

00:23:23.860 And I believe, I didn't do so much research in this, but there is a Buddhist day, you know,

00:23:31.040 kind of like a inner calm kind of rest day that happens a couple times a month.

00:23:37.980 But my focus has just been what works on me.

00:23:41.220 And the reason I called the book The Hard Break is what I do is I, is it's taking the concept

00:23:47.660 of the Sabbath and showing a bunch of different ways that people do it.

00:23:52.720 And so it's not, I don't believe it's necessarily a Jewish or Christian thing.

00:23:57.300 The idea is born out of this, but I profiled, like there's some people in the book that what

00:24:03.080 they do is, you know, there's a lot of peer pressure at work to, you know, stay at work

00:24:09.200 and work long hours.

00:24:11.200 And some people say, hey, at 5 p.m., I'm done and I'm not reachable.

00:24:16.880 And they go pick up their kids.

00:24:19.300 They may, you know, play sports with them, help them with their homework, have a meal together,

00:24:25.000 put them in their room, put them to bed, et cetera.

00:24:28.200 And then they turn back on 8 at 8.30.

00:24:32.160 And so their hard break every week is that three, you know, three and a half hours.

00:24:37.980 I don't think it's ideal.

00:24:39.700 I think it is good to have a whole day.

00:24:42.000 In fact, research has shown that cortisol, which is a marker of stress in your body, that

00:24:49.480 it takes about 24 hours if you have elevated levels of cortisol for it to return to normal.

00:24:55.760 Like, it's really interesting to find all this research that just kind of ties back

00:25:02.160 into, you know, the idea of taking a whole day.

00:25:05.640 But there are different ways to practice it.

00:25:08.140 And it doesn't have to be religious.

00:25:09.820 Like Brad Feld, for example, one of the most prominent venture capitalists, one of the most

00:25:15.300 successful, his is strictly a secular digital Sabbath.

00:25:20.440 So there's no religious connotation to his day of rest.

00:25:25.380 So yeah, let's talk about some of these people you highlight because a lot of people are afraid

00:25:28.380 of taking that break from work, whether it's just turning off the phone or not being reachable

00:25:34.080 because they think it will put them behind the competition.

00:25:37.760 But yeah, you highlight several successful business people who have made taking complete

00:25:41.720 time off once a week part of the routine.

00:25:44.160 So you mentioned that gentleman just now, you also talk about Clay Christensen, the guy

00:25:49.780 who wrote The Innovator's Dilemma, practicing Mormon. 1.00

00:25:53.220 And for his entire career, even when he was working at a consulting company, he didn't work

00:25:57.260 on Sundays or Saturdays.

00:25:59.180 Yeah, no.

00:25:59.840 So this is what's really interesting is that it's very important.

00:26:03.900 The Sabbath isn't broccoli.

00:26:06.000 You know, it's not like a vegetable you have to take.

00:26:09.740 This is, to me, it's ice cream.

00:26:12.760 But I get a vacation day every week.

00:26:17.160 And not only do I get a vacation day, but this vacation day has been the key to my success.

00:26:24.460 So what I wanted to do is not only share all the research, the overwhelming amount of research

00:26:29.700 that shows how it doesn't work, how we're working doesn't work, and how bad it is for

00:26:35.840 you, but I want to not profile people that are not only doing it, but say that it is

00:26:40.600 the key to their success.

00:26:42.700 Like Brad Feld, prominent venture capitalist, said he's doing the best work he's ever done

00:26:47.500 since he implemented this.

00:26:49.360 You mentioned about Clayton Christensen and all of the success that he has done, has seen.

00:26:56.280 Think of the best example is Chick-fil-A.

00:27:00.440 Oh yeah, I love Chick-fil-A.

00:27:02.940 Yeah, they're closed every Sunday.

00:27:05.380 How many times do you drive by a Chick-fil-A on Sunday and go, oh, I wish they were open.

00:27:10.520 Like, right?

00:27:11.360 But they're closed every Sunday.

00:27:13.400 The average Chick-fil-A does four times the revenue of the average KFC, even though KFC

00:27:20.180 is open every day.

00:27:21.320 They're about to be the third largest fast food company in the country, and they do $9

00:27:30.700 billion in sales.

00:27:33.280 And if you talk to the executives at Chick-fil-A, they say the key to their success is the Sabbath.

00:27:39.900 And I profile in the book why and how all of their practices in their company kind of flow

00:27:46.260 down from this idea that everyone gets a day off.

00:27:50.640 They are more successful because of it.

00:27:53.660 And you mentioned Clayton Christensen.

00:27:56.540 When he first started his career, he was at Boston Consulting Group, who kind of frowned

00:28:01.300 on taking a day off.

00:28:02.440 You think about consultants, they're working all the time.

00:28:05.720 It's a very tough job.

00:28:07.080 You have to travel as well.

00:28:09.400 And so it's interesting to profile Clayton's story where in the 60s or 70s, he was struggling

00:28:16.560 at Boston Consulting Group, and he stuck to his Sabbath practice, to the Boston Consulting

00:28:23.460 Group of today.

00:28:24.820 Because the Boston Consulting Group reached the level where the senior partners were like,

00:28:30.260 we're having a problem retaining employees.

00:28:33.080 They're burning out.

00:28:34.360 They're using our company as a stepping stone.

00:28:38.020 And how do we retain our employees?

00:28:39.980 How do we have them see that this is a place to stay?

00:28:45.900 And so a Harvard professor came in and said, hey, I'd like to start an experiment.

00:28:51.260 We'd like to try and see what happens if some of your consultants take a day off.

00:28:57.280 And so the senior partners were like, yes, you'll find a team, and we'll monitor them and see

00:29:06.440 how they do.

00:29:08.140 And so the Harvard professor tries to go in and can't find anyone who wants a day off,

00:29:16.200 which is kind of totally absurd.

00:29:19.200 If you and I were to take a time machine of any time 20, 30 years ago, 50 years ago, 100

00:29:28.680 years ago, and you were to come in and say to the person, hey, I want you to take a paid

00:29:34.940 time off and not work.

00:29:39.880 Every person in the past would be, yes, that sounds amazing.

00:29:44.540 But only today, when it's like, no, no, I can't do that, it's going to hurt my career.

00:29:50.100 Or it just looks bad, right?

00:29:51.480 Yeah, it'll look bad. 0.99

00:29:52.780 You're an immoral person, right? 0.78

00:29:54.540 Like a less virtuous person if you take time off. 0.87

00:29:57.240 Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:29:58.500 So eventually, senior partners have to intervene.

00:30:01.820 They find one team.

00:30:04.480 And what happens?

00:30:06.220 Well, this team starts saying, my God, I feel so refreshed.

00:30:11.820 This is really wonderful.

00:30:13.220 You know, I'm having these new ideas.

00:30:15.760 And then they start talking amongst each other and say, hey, why are we having that three-hour

00:30:21.120 meeting?

00:30:21.640 Can't it be 30 minutes?

00:30:22.900 And then people start backing each other up.

00:30:25.860 And they start saying, oh, now I understand why this person does the job this way.

00:30:32.100 And they start working better together.

00:30:35.160 And what happens?

00:30:36.820 They're more refreshed.

00:30:37.880 They have better ideas.

00:30:39.220 They're more efficient.

00:30:40.520 And they're working better together.

00:30:42.100 What is the quality of their output?

00:30:45.740 Substantially better.

00:30:47.260 All of a sudden, other people in their office said, wait a minute.

00:30:50.380 They look happier.

00:30:51.700 How do I get in on this?

00:30:54.100 And so the senior partners say, whoa, there's something really here.

00:30:58.480 And so they did something, you know, very enlightened, which is to say, they went in and they said, you know what?

00:31:06.520 We're going to roll this out to the entire company.

00:31:09.380 But of course, and you got to love this, only consultants, they come up with a name about this.

00:31:15.540 They say, we're going to call this predictable time off.

00:31:20.500 You know, I call it the Sabbath.

00:31:23.800 They're like, we invented.

00:31:25.580 And Boston Consulting Group is like the number three or number four best company to work for.

00:31:30.300 Retention in the company has surged, employee satisfaction, and they're absolutely benefiting from this, from the qualitative output to inside the company, the quality of a work and life and the happiness of their employees.

00:31:53.220 Well, speaking of that culture that's happened, you mentioned if you went back in a time machine 20 years ago and someone came to you and said, do you want time off?

00:32:01.220 People are like, yes.

00:32:02.700 But now it's like, no, like, I'm going to work.

00:32:05.160 I'm going to rise and grind.

00:32:06.620 I'm going to hustle.

00:32:07.620 Like, that's the ethos today.

00:32:08.720 But I mean, like, I was talking to my wife about this.

00:32:10.940 Like, 20 years ago, Office Space came out, that movie.

00:32:14.020 Yes.

00:32:14.540 And like, that's how people felt about work.

00:32:17.140 It's like, well, if I had a million dollars, I would do nothing.

00:32:19.460 Like, I don't want to work all the time.

00:32:23.220 Now, it's like, I don't think that would resonate with a lot of young people.

00:32:27.100 They're like, well, of course, you should always work.

00:32:28.900 Work is amazing.

00:32:29.940 And you should hustle and rise and grind.

00:32:32.460 Well, I think that, you know, what you have to look at is to why, what's driving this.

00:32:39.840 What I think what's driving this is signaling.

00:32:43.520 It's wearing it on a sleeve.

00:32:45.880 Or it's this, you look at other people that are doing it.

00:32:51.380 And they kind of enforce it.

00:32:54.220 And it's all about looks.

00:32:57.220 And it's not about output.

00:32:59.600 All we should care about are what are the results that we want.

00:33:03.740 How do we want not only the results from our business life, but our personal life as well?

00:33:09.460 And so it's like, I have three young kids, and my wife has taken the phone from my hand and thrown it in the front bushes of our house.

00:33:22.620 That's how upset she's been.

00:33:24.620 And still, with how I use my phone, she complains that she only sees the top of my head.

00:33:30.480 It has helped save my marriage and my relationship with my wife that she knows at least one day a week she gets all of me.

00:33:39.680 Not it distracted me.

00:33:41.120 There was a wonderful article in The Atlantic talking about how parents are now spending more time than they've ever spent with their children. 0.98

00:33:49.880 But the quality of that time is garbage. 1.00

00:33:53.700 It sucks. 0.99

00:33:55.200 Why? 0.99

00:33:55.740 Because they're distracted.

00:33:57.840 They're not really there, and our kids know it.

00:34:00.320 When I sit on the floor with my daughter, my five-year-old daughter, and we're playing, and then she does something cute, and I want to take a picture, or I want to turn on her favorite song.

00:34:12.840 So I go to my phone, right, because everything's on my phone.

00:34:15.980 And I go to do it, and then I look, oh, I got an email.

00:34:20.800 Got a text.

00:34:22.260 I wonder what's going on.

00:34:24.120 And it's five, ten seconds, and my daughter will turn to me and say, Papa, will you play with me?

00:34:32.320 And my first reaction is like, I am playing with you.

00:34:35.440 I'm here.

00:34:35.740 I'm right here.

00:34:36.400 But she knows she doesn't have my full attention.

00:34:40.060 And on that Sabbath day, there is no distraction.

00:34:43.480 There is no – I am there.

00:34:47.100 And I can't tell you is that it just – everything in life comes from relationships, all of our satisfaction.

00:34:57.060 Look, now, obviously, past a certain dollar amount, you want to make sure that you have a roof over your head, and you have a job, and you're paying the bills and stuff.

00:35:09.400 But once you get past that, all of the satisfaction in life comes from relationships.

00:35:17.360 So don't you want to have one day where you just get to focus on those relationships the most important?

00:35:24.620 Don't you want to just have a lunch or a dinner with friends or family and not be distracted or feel like you have to go run to something else and something else and something else?

00:35:36.740 No, yeah, I think a lot of people would like to feel that.

00:35:39.540 So let's get to some brass tacks here of how we can start implementing this in our lives.

00:35:44.100 So how do you go about setting up a Sabbath for you, for somebody?

00:35:49.660 Because I imagine it takes some prep work to get it mixed in place.

00:35:53.140 What does that look like?

00:35:55.060 So the number one thing I recommend is baby steps, is don't jump in with both feet.

00:36:03.140 I don't think it works with diets.

00:36:05.340 I don't think it works with many things.

00:36:10.380 We start going to the gym, and you're going to be like, I'm working out every day.

00:36:14.900 You're not going to keep it up.

00:36:16.880 It's not sustainable.

00:36:18.440 How do you make this sustainable in your life?

00:36:21.240 And to me, it's you take baby steps.

00:36:24.600 So how did it work for me?

00:36:26.440 I started with four hours on a Saturday morning, having my phone and computer off.

00:36:31.420 And so what I recommend is people start doing it.

00:36:35.980 And prep beforehand.

00:36:37.780 Let people know where you're going to be, that you're going to be off.

00:36:43.480 You set the expectation in advance.

00:36:46.660 Anything that you need to get done, you get done in advance.

00:36:49.920 And then there's just tips and tricks that you can do.

00:36:56.180 A lot of people don't realize this, but let's say you didn't want to have your phone completely

00:37:01.020 off.

00:37:01.520 You can put Do Not Disturb on your phone.

00:37:04.520 Turn off all notifications.

00:37:06.060 And if you put up Do Not Disturb, at least on the iPhone, if someone calls you twice

00:37:11.920 within five minutes, it'll ring through.

00:37:15.220 So if you really need to have that phone on, you can keep it on.

00:37:18.860 The other things, just tricks, as I said, I have three small kids.

00:37:24.960 Two of them have some ongoing health issues.

00:37:27.460 They're doing well.

00:37:28.400 But there's been times when my wife and I have to separate on a Sabbath for a variety

00:37:33.580 of reasons, and what we'll do, we'll switch phones.

00:37:38.380 There's nothing on my wife's phone that there's no work email, there's no Twitter, none of the

00:37:46.400 social media is mine, and it's just a phone.

00:37:51.120 You can also get, if you think of the movie, you can get kind of like an old flip phone to

00:37:56.160 use just for the Sabbath.

00:37:59.240 And there's a bunch of little things to think about, like how are you going, because what

00:38:08.980 keeps people connected is fear, right?

00:38:12.400 The fear of what happens if X happens, or someone needs to reach me, or one, I can tell you very

00:38:20.720 little happens on Saturday.

00:38:22.060 And from a business perspective, there's very little, and if you're so critical that you

00:38:30.240 need to be on seven days a week, something's wrong either with your job or the business

00:38:35.420 that you're running, because that is not sustainable.

00:38:40.140 And what happens if you get sick, or get hit by a truck, or your business is going away,

00:38:46.080 you're describing there's no redundancy in your business.

00:38:48.720 And going back to, is that this is what a lot of very smart entrepreneurs are starting

00:38:54.980 to realize, building redundancy into your business is actually really good.

00:39:00.160 So giving people days off is ways to find where there are problems in your system, that if someone

00:39:08.180 can't take a day off, then that's a problem.

00:39:11.220 But so those are some of the ways.

00:39:12.660 The other ways is, make it enjoyable.

00:39:17.000 Remember, this is not meant to be kind of this painful medicine you have to take.

00:39:22.640 This is supposed to be a vacation.

00:39:25.360 This is supposed to be a day of rest.

00:39:27.500 What are you going to do on these days?

00:39:29.260 Some of the days I do is, I just read for pleasure.

00:39:32.380 I'm not reading to improve myself.

00:39:33.840 Constantly, I'm reading blogs, like The Art of Manliness, or I'm reading books and productivity

00:39:41.620 stuff, and trying to, how am I going to make myself better and better?

00:39:45.520 You know what I don't do on the Sabbath?

00:39:48.180 I don't do any of that.

00:39:49.840 I read science fiction and stuff purely for fun.

00:39:54.000 I take a nap.

00:39:54.740 I go for a hike.

00:39:55.640 If I'm going to do an activity, there's just one activity.

00:40:02.080 Because remember, the Sabbath is meant to be different than every other day.

00:40:05.620 So the last thing you want to do is turn off your phone and then say, I'm going to pack

00:40:10.180 in seven or eight activities, and I'm going to run from one thing to another.

00:40:13.220 That's not a Sabbath.

00:40:14.480 Right.

00:40:14.760 You don't want to make it a chore.

00:40:16.520 Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:40:20.380 It's meant to be this.

00:40:22.720 You're getting time back.

00:40:26.360 You're getting time back.

00:40:28.180 You're getting this gift of time, which we all know is just flying by so fast.

00:40:36.660 Enjoy it.

00:40:37.840 No, for sure.

00:40:38.340 Yeah.

00:40:38.560 Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 0.95

00:40:41.240 Make it a refreshing day for yourself.

00:40:44.660 So yeah, it sounds like a lot of things you can do.

00:40:46.740 Reconnect with family.

00:40:48.220 And that could be one of the things you talk about is call your parents, right?

00:40:51.620 Because you probably don't see your parents.

00:40:52.700 Use that day where you call them or FaceTime, whatever it is you want to do with that.

00:40:56.960 I didn't know that.

00:40:57.620 She talked about in Jewish tradition, like Sabbath is a day to have sex, which I had no clue. 0.78

00:41:02.800 That's exactly right. 0.71

00:41:03.520 That was the thing.

00:41:04.500 So I profile Senator Joseph Lieberman, who was almost vice president.

00:41:09.060 And he talks about it in his book.

00:41:13.340 Again, it comes from this idea that it's supposed to be enjoyable, that it's actually a commandment. 0.85

00:41:19.760 You're actually supposed to have sex on the Sabbath.

00:41:24.520 So when you talk about, for me at least, connecting with your family, connecting with your spouse, connecting with friends, it's meant to be enjoyable.

00:41:35.060 So the other thing is make it your own.

00:41:38.740 What do you not get to do during the week that you would like to do?

00:41:43.180 There are some people who are like, you know what I love to do?

00:41:46.880 I love to go out and garden.

00:41:48.840 Or they've asked me like, hey, is it okay if I mow the lawn?

00:41:55.400 And it's like, I really enjoy it and I zone out.

00:41:58.860 And I'm like, yes.

00:42:00.500 I always wondered why do so many Silicon Valley founders and venture capitalists are surfers.

00:42:07.680 And then it hit me after talking to them of why they're constantly rushing out to do it.

00:42:15.240 That's their little Sabbath.

00:42:17.900 What can't you do when you're surfing?

00:42:20.440 You're not on your phone.

00:42:22.340 You're not working.

00:42:23.840 You're in this kind of zone.

00:42:25.940 You're into nature.

00:42:27.020 That's another thing.

00:42:27.900 Go out in the nature.

00:42:30.060 Go for a hike.

00:42:31.580 Go do something that is out there that will fulfill your soul.

00:42:39.020 So taking daily or weekly breaks is something we can do easily.

00:42:43.940 Or I mean, maybe not easily at the beginning, but it can be done.

00:42:47.300 But you also talk about within the Jewish tradition, there's this idea of sabbaticals.

00:42:50.860 We take an extended break.

00:42:52.420 That sounds like a vacation.

00:42:54.120 But unfortunately, more and more Americans are taking less and less vacation.

00:42:58.420 Yeah, that's right.

00:42:59.020 Americans gave up something like 700 million paid vacation days.

00:43:07.220 And then you're reading in the Wall Street Journal articles about work-cations, where you bring your work on vacation.

00:43:15.100 Now, we know from the research that this is not good.

00:43:18.740 It's not good for you.

00:43:20.160 It's not good for the business.

00:43:21.400 It's not good for productivity.

00:43:22.900 We know this.

00:43:23.560 It's not good for your health.

00:43:24.920 We know all of this.

00:43:26.200 And yet people are doing it.

00:43:27.380 And it's like, and they're giving up payment.

00:43:30.120 And so what I do is I highlight in the book, one entrepreneur, one successful CEO, who's instituted something called paid, paid vacations.

00:43:41.580 He pays people to turn off on their vacation.

00:43:45.520 It's kind of an absurd thing.

00:43:47.320 You know, and it brings me back to the, you know, one thing we didn't touch on was like sports.

00:43:51.480 You know, we can learn a lot from sports because sports is actually moving in the opposite direction that business is moving in because sports is studying the athlete's performance and realizing that breaks, hard breaks, are actually critical to peak athletic performance.

00:44:12.640 So that's why you saw where the Chicago Cubs almost lost the World Series because their reliever had almost thrown too many pitches.

00:44:21.920 And you find that, you know, rock climbers argue about, you know, not whether you should take a break, but how many days is the right amount?

00:44:30.140 You have someone, you know, you have NFL players who are, who are saying, oh, well, you know, JJ Watt for the Houston Texans during the, the season, he says that he tries to sleep nine to 10 hours a day.

00:44:44.380 You have LeBron James that once playoffs come, he institutes something called zero dark 30, who turns off all devices, turns off his social media, everything.

00:44:56.300 Why?

00:44:56.720 So he can focus and he can be present.

00:45:00.640 Yeah.

00:45:00.780 I think the reason you talk about it earlier, the reason why Americans aren't taking paid vacations is they're afraid that if they do, they're like a boss will find out that they don't really do anything.

00:45:11.040 Right. Like the world, the company won't grind to a halt without me. But as you said earlier, that's also a problem. If like, if your company does grind to a halt without you, well, that's a problem too.

00:45:21.420 Yeah. And, but you know, it's, it's not only that, I think it's, they're trying to signal, Hey, I'm, I'm a real company person. I'm committed to this organization. Look, I'm even responding on my vacation.

00:45:32.660 And I don't think that that's how I think it's just signaling. But again, if you want to be more successful in your work and you want to rise in an organization or you want your company to rise, it's all about having the best ideas. It's solving problems. It's being creative.

00:45:53.300 If, if you're constantly connected, you're not giving your brain the chance to, to be that person. You know, and the, one of the best examples to cite in the book is probably the most innovative musical to come around in decades. Hamilton.

00:46:11.380 How is it created? Well, Lin-Manuel Miranda at a successful Broadway show decides he's going to go on vacation. He's at the airport bookstore and picks up the biography of Hamilton by Ron Chernow and brings it with him on vacation.

00:46:32.000 Now who in their right mind would come up with a musical about a treasury secretary of the United States rapping with a multiracial cast. And that, that would be, would take the world by storm.

00:46:50.920 Well, you can only come up with something like that. If you giving your brain the chance and you're just, you're just, you're on vacation. So take vacation.

00:47:02.320 It's good for you. It's good for business. It's good for your career.

00:47:07.100 I love it. So, yeah. So, but how do you talk to your employer about this? Cause maybe you have a boss or you work for a company where they have, you know, policies where they want you to take off. They want you to take vacation and that's there. But what if you work at a place that doesn't have that, where they, the ethos is you work all the time. Even when you're on vacation, you got to be reachable.

00:47:24.740 How do you have that conversation with your employer and said, maybe that's not the best thing for the company by having that policy?

00:47:33.060 Well, you could, you could give them my book. That's one. But two is you have to ask yourself, do you want to work for that company?

00:47:42.900 You know, is this the right company? Is this the right, is this the right culture I want to be around? Is this going to bring out the best in me?

00:47:53.260 And is this going to be best for my family and my personal life? I mean, you can try and talk to your boss, say, Hey, look, I'm, I'm committed. I'm working. I, you know, I'm a hard worker, but I just need to, you know, come this time. I'm, I'm going to be off. You, you can, you can say that.

00:48:10.060 And if you get a negative reaction, then you have to decide, do you want to be at that company? But, you know, I work on Sunday. Sunday's a work day for me. And just think about it. If I can't get my work done in six days a week, something's wrong.

00:48:27.020 No, for sure. Okay. So it's a gut check. So you can do the conversation. If it doesn't go the way you want, you might have to decide, well, this isn't a great place for me and you go find something else.

00:48:35.560 I mean, you know, I think that's your real, that that's, that's your alternatives. And luckily now we're in the type of economy and shortage of workers, shortage of skilled workers, where this is the time that, you know, if ever there was a time for you to, you know, think about, you know, where you want to be and how you want to live your life, you know, now's, now's the time to do it.

00:49:03.120 And I think employers are starting to realize this, but I think beyond just, just the employment situation, I think there are more and more employers are realizing that something has to change.

00:49:17.680 They're realizing that burnout is a problem, that sickness, that mistakes at work, that it's just not helpful because more and more of our jobs is about processing information, problem solving and being creative.

00:49:31.280 Well, Aaron, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:49:36.420 So they can go to thehardbreak.com is my website. They can also find my book on Amazon, The Hard Break, The Case for a 24-6 Lifestyle.

00:49:46.680 They can also find me on Twitter at Aaron Value, A-A-R-O-N and then Value.

00:49:52.720 Fantastic. Well, Aaron Edelheid, thanks so much for time. It's been a pleasure.

00:49:55.840 Thank you so much for having me.

00:49:57.300 My guest today was Aaron Edelheid. He's the author of the book, The Hard Break, The Case for a 24-6 Lifestyle.

00:50:03.440 It's available on Amazon.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash hard break.

00:50:07.980 We can find links to resources. We can delve deeper into this topic.

00:50:10.440 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast. Check out our website,

00:50:21.240 artofmanliness.com, where you can see all of our podcast archives. There are over 500 episodes there,

00:50:25.580 as well as thousands of articles we've written over the years about relationships. We even have

00:50:29.640 articles about the Sabbath on there, a spiritual discipline, fitness, you name it, we've got it.

00:50:34.860 And if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review on iTunes or

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00:50:50.320 listen to the AOM Podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

00:51:08.660 See you next time.

The Art of Manliness - April 29, 2019

#503： The Case for the 24⧸6 Lifestyle

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