#5 – Healthy work-life – How to keep an employee for 50 years

Summary

Listen to Erik and Emil discussing these three questions:

– If you have to push, is it healthy?

– If you know you only have 5 years to squeeze out the value, is that the right idea to invest your time in?

– Sleeping at work?

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi, welcome to the Become and great podcast in this podcast. Me and my good friend Eric, the founder of great dot com explore, how can we become great as people? How can we have a great work life and how can we create a great organization? Today, Eric is feeling really shitty, which is a good thing because of what we explore today is how can you have a healthy workday? When is it healthy to work even though you’re feeling shitty? And when should you just not be at work at all? And when are you the most productive and can you make sure that you use that time as your working hours? What are the benefits of a flexible, flexible work hours? How can you make sure to get good sleep?

[00:00:49] What is the benefit of a nap and what she’d do if you have lost the passion for your work?

[00:00:56] Your piece is.

[00:01:08] All right. Hi. Welcome to the great podcast America. How are you doing today? Hello, my friend.

[00:01:16] Today, I’m not doing very well, to be honest, I’m think I’m battling a disease and I’m in the fifth wrong round. I haven’t lost. I’m not down. Worn either. It’s like I don’t know the the Brits vs. the Germans in the First World War.

[00:01:37] A couple of years in between. Before the Americans joined in. We’re just punching at each other in the history and nothing really happens.

[00:01:44] And today, I also kind of pulled my muscle in my back. So I feel like an old man. So I’m at 40 percent out of a hundred, which is a very low point to be in a podcast.

[00:01:58] Jesus, that’s the lowest you ever shifting in a playlist. We have ever. We have a an idea. Great that if someone is below 50 percent, maybe that person shouldn’t be there at all because that would sort of make the experience, the connection that we have to the company become a bit. You get bad associations, but you wanted to do this anyway today. Why stop?

[00:02:30] Yes, there are a few reasons why I wanted to do this anyway today.

[00:02:35] One of them being that I want to be comfortable with whatever results I’m bringing to the table so I don’t I won’t be comfortable doing a podcast even though I don’t feel it’s the best work I can do because I’ve had this.

[00:02:52] I have this way, I always want to beat myself an overachieving every kind of target I set.

[00:02:59] And it’s draining.

[00:03:02] If I always feel like I have to make it even better. So suddenly, if I make something that’s amazing, which I feel the last podcast, Carlsberg. It comes with a side effect of making me feel less joyful about doing another episode because a it might not be as good as the previous one.

[00:03:19] So doing something really well adds more pressure for you to do stuff. Feeling better? Yeah, exactly. So did you realize this?

[00:03:30] I think this came already from when I started doing YouTube videos a couple of years ago. You started the channel, right? Yeah. So I set up a YouTube channel two years ago to talk about whatever inspirational thing I felt most fun. And the first video I did, I didn’t prepare much. I just turned on the webcam and just started talking about just beginning this passion. This topic I’m very passionate about. Just just do anything. Whenever the first thing is to start a YouTube channel that’s basically open your computer press record and start talking. And then I did a second video and I put more time and more effort into it. But I felt that it wasn’t as good. It’s already there. I felt that I’m losing it a little bit.

[00:04:17] What did an enemy like posting that video? Yes. No more time invested and that it was worse.

[00:04:25] So the first video was really scary to post, the second video was somehow scarier. And I think I felt that it was better. But the feedback they got and the result wasn’t its kind of talk, its. It was evident that it wasn’t. So then I did a total of eight episodes and I put more and more time into each episode. In the last episode had different camera angles. It was edited that very well. It had sound at the end of it and and suddenly it became too overwhelming to even do a ninth episode. I felt like how this is too much time is too much effort. I don’t want to beat that one. So I probably put more time and effort into each video. And then I reached a level like This is not fun anymore. I. It takes too much of me to beat what I did.

[00:05:20] So what was the consequences of adding that kind of pressure on yourself?

[00:05:26] The joy went away. I didn’t enjoy what I did anymore, and I end up feeling like a loser.

[00:05:33] Even though the eighth video was probably a lot better than the first one. My conception of it was that it was worse because no, I couldn’t kind of get anywhere. So yeah, I do. You relate to this.

[00:05:55] Try to think about something I can very much imagine what you were going through. The first one? Yes, do something. It’s fun in the moment, but then just more and more effort and more and more pressure and the joy sort of goes away. And, you know, I can if. You haven’t played much computer games, have you? No. No. I remember I stopped playing a computer game like civilization or something. And first I try it just so much fun, the mess, trying different stuff and failing. Now I want to get better at this. So, no, I go on the Internet and I look at every strategy and I’m like printing pages of strategy and I’m trying to think of everything.

[00:06:33] You are such a nerd.

[00:06:38] How many women did you get this done?

[00:06:42] I had had one woman, actually. No. She kept me saying. But all of a sudden, it just gets so much to think about and so complicated and so serious that some of the joy just it’s still fun. But it’s different. It’s not that child is happiness anymore. All right. So you. Put too much pressure on yourself. The joy went away. You probably stopped doing it, right? Yeah. Yeah. So your antidote to this is what you’re doing now. Which is lowering the bar of what you find of the quality you want to give.

[00:07:26] I wouldn’t say that I’m lowering the bar of the quality I just want. This might be our best episode ever, but I’m I’m lowering the pressure on myself by saying it’s OK if it’s not.

[00:07:38] I’m gonna say that let’s publish this even if I think it’s shit because it’s simply part of where we are. It’s like if I feel that I have to step into this with top energy, the best possible topic, prepare a lot, then it’s just not gonna be fun. So the antidote to that is trying to be okay with its shit and I’m not okay with it.

[00:08:02] I think it’s fucking scary to publish something that I don’t think is good, but the only way I’m getting comfortable with it is is to simply do it.

[00:08:13] So you’re still nervous and nervous. Putting out something that you don’t feel is the quality it could have.

[00:08:20] Yeah, sure, it’s scary to judge you assholes. So and by publishing something, you’re claiming that you have something worth their time. And if you don’t? Well, then people are going to judge you. So, yeah, we’ll just have to live with it. But there’s something in that fear.

[00:08:39] I think that’s fear of that we’re describing now and the fear of actually trying to make the best one ever. I think they’re different. I think that inner child in me, at least when posting something like this, that isn’t our highest quality. It could be. It’s like this is exciting. This is fun.

[00:09:02] Yeah, I guess that I had to a new chance. One of them think this is really fun. The other one is saying, what the fuck, dude? You’re putting us in a mess again. Go back to sleep. It was so nice.

[00:09:17] All right. So to me then it sounds like even though you’re on 40 percent today, it’s a conscious and healthy decision to still do this podcast. When do you think it’s unhealthy to participate in work when you’re feeling really low on energy? It’s that if you feel lower or is it for other reasons?

[00:09:40] Let me get back to you on that one up. The other reason I wanted to do this specific podcast today feeling like this is.

[00:09:51] That passion feels like the wrong word, but that the genuine interest I have in this topic that you’re mentioning right now. When is it okay to feel down? When is it okay to just not participate? How much can you care about yourself and when is that actually the right thing to do? So the first thing that brings to mind is just when when when you’re contagious. So don’t go to the office if you’re gonna get the other people’s sake. And I’ve been doing that.

[00:10:19] I’ve been kind of pushing myself. He gets his office, even though it might not be the best position for anyone there.

[00:10:26] And I just brings up this colorful, vivid picture in my head that I think you describe the other day about someone being really sick on the on the airplane and then everyone got sick.

[00:10:39] Beautiful, beautiful picture.

[00:10:44] Yeah. To get budgetary question, when is it okay not to show up? I think that what you touched upon early on here, like if you’re below 50 percent, it’s just better to give yourself a break. Give give yourself that time to relax and recover, because the work that you’re gonna put out is probably less than 20 percent quality anyway. So it’s much better to to just step back in and recover rather than anything else.

[00:11:16] But what if you have promised to do something? What if you have responsibility? Meeting.

[00:11:26] I think I think that a company culture should a good company culture will have space for that anyway. Sure, you have promised something, but that doesn’t mean that you have to stay by your word on the expense of your own health or on the expense of the health of the team for that matter. I think that if a team is so dependent on someone doing what they’re committed to do, then that’s a way bigger problem for the team than it is for the individual. And that should be an alarm bell like, hey, guys, you need to revisit this and reconsider. So I don’t think that’s ever on the individual. I don’t think there should be such big commitments.

[00:12:14] And when did you start thinking like this? Because you founded a company cutting the media before and when you started that company, did you have the same idea about how important health is in a company?

[00:12:28] I didn’t have any ideas when I started that company. I just did things. No, not at all. I would say I had the opposite perspective on this.

[00:12:39] I.

[00:12:41] So I believe a big part of our culture, at least in Sweden and for that matter in Malta, is that it’s cool to work a lot, at least around my circles and the people I’ve been hanging out. That’s that’s the truth. It’s kind of cool to say I’m not sleeping. It’s cool to say how hard. We’re pushing ourselves on how much we’re doing. And I really felt that way. I was proud of how hard I was working, how much I pushed myself. I want the people to see that I was the hardest working person in the in the company. I wanted people to see that I showed up even if I was sick.

[00:13:18] It’s like I wanted to show that dedication and I bragged about it.

[00:13:25] I was proud of that. And I can see now how ridiculously unhealthy that was. First and foremost for me as a person. Secondly, as a role model and for the entire organization.

[00:13:38] It’s just not good.

[00:13:40] I mean, I can relate to this. Were you used to play tons and tons of poker? Are you proud of the number of hours you put into it?

[00:13:48] Yeah, for sure. I was tracking them very closely because. In hindsight, if I could go back and change what I did because I wanted to play as much as possible and I was bragging about it, and in hindsight I could see that because I played so much, the quality of my game went down, which meant that I probably got as much done in twelve hours as I could have gotten in 10. If I would have spent these other two hours recovering somewhere, somehow. But those two hours of rest that would increase the quality of your game. Those are not as easy to track. Well-Being is not as easy to track as dollars.

[00:14:32] So I. I just wanted to play as much as possible. And a consequence of that was that my health really started to suffer. I got huge back problems. I got mental health issues because I was playing too much and that caused me to have to take very long breaks.

[00:14:52] Where do you think this comes from, our mentality of thinking in our it’s so much.

[00:15:03] I think ours are. Are easy to track. And. I was using that as a way to feel self-esteem and confidence.

[00:15:20] So the numbers of hours posted your feeling of value in a sense.

[00:15:27] Yeah, for sure. I got. I use that as a metric of how proud I was of myself. And to be fair, it was a very important metric when you play poker. The more you play, the more money you make. So it was good to push myself like that, but there was no time for recovery.

[00:15:46] That’s really true. That is what you’re saying. The number of hours is a metric. Jess, what is your question? So you said that it’s good to push yourself in terms of the number of hours.

[00:16:01] Yes.

[00:16:03] I think it I think it is unless you push yourself so much that there are negative consequences.

[00:16:13] If you have to push, do you think. There isn’t always negative consequences from that.

[00:16:20] I think poker was an interesting example because I guess it’s kind of similar to what you went through with Katrina is that I started playing poker when I was 17 and I quickly realized that while. Just by luck that I’m bored in the exact right generation. When there was a poker boom, everybody wanted to play poker online, was exploding with opportunities to make money. And I one or two years soon realized I found what for me is a goldmine here. And this will not last. I knew very early that, OK, poker has five, maybe 10 years where it’s possible to make money like this. Afterwards the market went by and I was right about that. So I realized, OK, I have five years now. Let’s squeeze such much value as I can out of this. Even though it’s not healthy and I can imagine you had a similar experience with Katrina while I found a gold mine here. It’s not gonna be as easy making money from this business in ten years time. Now is the time to act. And I think about health later.

[00:17:34] Can you relate to that idea?

[00:17:37] Yeah, I think that this is this is such an interesting thing because I’m I’d like to challenge that way of thinking as well. So.

[00:17:49] I mentioned this analogy to you before and I was thinking about it this morning. Like, how would we go about a business or anything we’re doing? If we had the perspective our entire lives, like, how would we would we think about things? And it’s relating a lot to how I’m thinking about great.

[00:18:12] So.

[00:18:14] Let’s let’s imagine that we’re that we’re looking at life as.

[00:18:20] 1 every year is one day rather than a year. And let’s say we have 48 more years to live. So there will translate that into 48 hours. And we’re supposed to move as long as possible during this time. And we’re standing in front of a line and the distance can represent anything that we want to accomplish in our lives. If that’s getting further in our relationships or getting further in building a business or in whatever skill set or money we want to accomplish, we want to move as far as possible.

[00:18:57] I believe that standing in front of that line, knowing that I’m supposed to move using my legs only for the next 48 hours.

[00:19:06] Very, very few people will start to run.

[00:19:09] I’d say it’s up 24, so it’s a 48 hour race. And you can move forward anywhere you want.

[00:19:14] Yeah, you can. You can walk around or crawl if you want to do that.

[00:19:19] Cool. And this race represents your life.

[00:19:22] Yes, love represents. And I used to think that this is when I put it this way to me, it’s very obvious that it’s festive.

[00:19:32] Good pace of walking, because I could probably keep up a pace of walking for 48 hours. And if I can’t.

[00:19:38] At least that’s the best pace. And then then relax.

[00:19:43] Looking at it that way, it was obvious that walking is the best pace. But taking this analogy into poker than that, you might not have 48 hours hour.

[00:19:53] Forty five hours, but I would have five hours.

[00:19:57] So then the question is, is the best possible thing to run as much as you can for five hours a day, five years in this case, and then maybe having to recover for three years because you pushed yourself very, very hard or would even the best case scenario would to to aim for getting a shorter distance in this timespan and.

[00:20:24] Having a possibility of doing something else, is it maybe not even the right thing to chase something if you know it’s only going to last for five years when you were entertainer, could you see imagine your life ten years later after this was done.

[00:20:43] No, I just wanted to build something as big as possible as fast as possible. And I didn’t see that as it’s now or never. I didn’t have your way of thinking in this. This was only my ego wanting to build something as big as possible and my imagination telling me that if I only have accomplished these things, life will be a fairytale after that. So I wanted to get to the fairy tale as soon as possible.

[00:21:17] I think it’s.

[00:21:20] So personally, what happened was that I ran as fast as I frickin could for three, 4 years and.

[00:21:31] If we go back to that analogy of running again, then so I would probably be able to run for about one year in this perspective, will run day at a one hour sorry, at a decent pace and still enjoying the run. But after having run running for one hour, I’m going to start hating to run. I’m not going to be able to really think clearly I’m probably gonna lose pace in a sense. I’m not going to be able to have a good conversation with people around me. I’m just going to be running and thinking about nothing else. And then after running for two hours, I’m almost dying and I might be able to keep on running for the third hour or a fourth hour, for that matter. But then I’m falling.

[00:22:14] And I’d say that that’s what happened to me. So I ran for three, four years and then I felt I had to recover. I didn’t really do anything for the next two years. And looking back, this analogy makes sense to me because I barely remember the last two years of this. I don’t remember doing much outside of business. I barely remember situations that happened because I was so drained of energy, so focused on just running that I simply stopped experiencing life.

[00:22:49] So I think that does this make sense because I feel like, yeah, yeah.

[00:22:53] And do you wish you would have done it differently?

[00:22:58] So if I put it this way, but let’s say I worked for for three years. SHARP Yes. To make the math easier.

[00:23:08] And then I had to recover for two years. So basically I was running for three years and then I just stood still for two years in terms of that growth or getting somewhere perspective.

[00:23:21] I think that I would have gotten to the same distance in five years if I just took it slower. I think I would enjoy the ride a lot more. I would have had time to smell the flowers. Enjoy the sunshine, see the wind and feel the wind.

[00:23:36] So. And I would have been able to redo it, so I I don’t regret that I did it the way I did because I survived. I managed to I think that that was more luck and skill if I would have worked at that pace and anything bad would have happened.

[00:23:57] I mean, like in my life outside of business. Let’s say I got sick or someone in my family got sick or one big business deal fell through. I think that would have been enough to just toss my legs outside, away from my body, and just for my face would just hit the ground and I would just drag it along the asphalt.

[00:24:19] Now, that didn’t happen. So I can say that I didn’t regret it, but I it’s I believe it’s more luck than skill that could so easily have happened.

[00:24:31] Coulton So.

[00:24:34] Imagine you go into the gym. You can either workout a little bit everyday per week or it could go one or two times per week and then you, max, lift as much as you possibly can. And I’m not an expert in this field, but I can imagine that both have their advantages and the advantage of the one we work out super hard for two times per week. Is that you send a signal to your body that says I need to get stronger or you find out how much your body is capable of. So one advantage I can see of working until you’re almost bursting like you did and like I did with poker, is that you especially if you do it in your 20s. Is that OK? I realize now how hard I can work before it becomes unhealthy. And then that’s knowledge is something you can use now in your life to know what is your perfect? What is a pace that works for you?

[00:25:31] So an interesting perspective. I believe that where it falls short is how much the workout is.

[00:25:40] So let’s say you’re to go and really, Max, for one hour or two hours, a couple of times a week is probably a healthy way of working out. But let’s say you’re doing an Ironman once a week and then it’s probably not so healthy even you might survive, especially in your 20s, but you might ending up having broken your body the rest of your life because of it.

[00:26:05] And I think that’s a better analogy for how the two of us treated our bodies through these couple of years.

[00:26:13] I think that is exactly it. Yeah, I think we did it and we did it without having any idea of how to think about safety.

[00:26:23] So let’s say you’re doing Max at the gym. You’re doing it. What is this one? Breast Prescott Express. And yes, I’m gonna lift 200 kilos and get smashed.

[00:26:34] Yeah. Yeah. I spoke about this with our with our friend Jay the other couple of weeks ago. So Jay is in crypto crypto currencies that are completely booming and he wants to do the most out of that. And he has exactly the same perspective that you brought up on poker. Well, not exactly. You don’t think it will end, but I think that now is the time of the most opportunity that by far the biggest chance of accomplishing something. So he wants to pushing himself to the maximum and accomplish as much it possibly can right now.

[00:27:10] And I spoke to him about this and asked him like, why? Like it is now or never? Is someone else going to do it? Someone else is gonna beat me.

[00:27:20] And we started challenging. This is like, OK, is the most important thing to be the first one doing something or be the one who does it the best. Over time. So Google wasn’t the first search engine online, but they are by far the biggest one. AltaVista, every guy. Lots of them came came before. No one even remembers MySpace and all the other guys that were before Facebook.

[00:27:45] Facebook wasn’t the first one. Same thing for all kinds of things online. It’s not important to be the first one. It helps in some scenarios, but compared to being the best one, it makes no sense to be the first one. So if you’re the first one and pushing yourself far, far too hard, which I think is very, very common when starting a business and seeing these opportunities like poker or like crypto, it’s so likely that you will just fall short.

[00:28:18] And.

[00:28:20] He actually changed his perspective when we spoke about this and felt that they made a lot more sense too, like Gaelic shill with these and these things that focus on this and that because he believes that he will be cricket over the next 20 years or something.

[00:28:35] I’m probably for most people, the amount of opportunities increases as you grow, as you get older. Yeah, and it doesn’t seem like that when you’re younger.

[00:28:45] No, that’s true. It’s very easy. The thing is, now or never. But it’s very rarely the case.

[00:28:50] But then the other side of the spectrum then would be to go to the gym. You’re there for 20 minutes. You know, you touch some chance a little bit. You’re not really getting sweaty. You’re smelling the flowers, looking at other people, working out hard. And I mean, the downside with that path is that you’re not growing.

[00:29:10] It maybe can grow that way.

[00:29:13] Actually, I’m sure there are people who are very successful with that way of training. But for me, if I were to choose how I could work because I a natural high work ethic, I would like to burst.

[00:29:26] And arrest the burst and then arrest before I only boast about a burst of burst the bastard.

[00:29:32] But I think bursting with wrestling is something that works very well for the way my psyche works. My energy type works.

[00:29:41] Yeah, I think that you’re touching upon something, something very interesting here is like that might be your optimal way of doing things that actually push yourself.

[00:29:51] But then making space for resting and pushing yourself for the right reasons. Yeah. What I’m hearing now is that this is way, way I want to do things. This is the way I believe I will feel the best. This is not your ego saying I want to push myself so I can brag about it.

[00:30:09] Just like you wanted to participate today, even though you’re 40 percent. Exactly. That’s comes from a lust.

[00:30:15] Yeah, I’m not forced to do this. I’m not doing this to be able to say that I did. I’m doing this because I feel it’s the right thing to do for. For my soul. If you want to take you to a deeper level, it’s it’s for me.

[00:30:31] So speaking of lust, what is yours? The perfect work day for your soul.

[00:30:39] I was just going to ask you that question. Ha ha ha.

[00:30:42] So the perfect work day for my soul.

[00:30:46] And I believe I like the way we’re doing things right now. So I’m usually waking up at 7:00 and I have a pretty slow morning. I have a coffee that you have taught me is healthy. So it’s a coffee with butter. Coconut oil and Ms. TR called bullets coffee, apparently. That’s good. I don’t know why. Still, I drink it.

[00:31:08] I have some time for myself. I do a morning meditation routine focused on gratitude and appreciation. And then I come in here and we usually to call a meeting for an hour, hour and a half to two hours, something like that. Similar to what we’re doing right now. Then I take a break for about three, four hours in the middle of my day. So I go go work out. I quite often have a massage. I have a lunch. As often I read something during the lunch or listen to something. And I and I get back to work at Brown to them. And I do another two hours or something. And I’m usually very, very efficient when I’m doing things right. I go into it. I have high energy, usually take a nap there during the lunch.

[00:31:58] I come back rested and I focus a lot. So.

[00:32:04] And then I have some off time, I’m not really focused, but still getting some things in and answering some e-mails here and there the rest of the evening, kind of. But I don’t really count that as working because I’m more enjoying it than anything else. So I think that on my perfect work day for my SO is probably somewhere between three and four hours of efficient work. Split up in two or three sessions. But then I do it seven days a week because it’s the perfect work day for myself. So I think that’s that’s how I get the maximum output. I don’t get much bragging rights from it. It doesn’t sound cool to say that you work 20, 30 hours a week when you’re in the entrepreneur square.

[00:32:50] But I think that’s that’s my best path. The best speed for me to do this, 48 hour runs dash walk.

[00:33:00] How do you do this? What’s a perfect day for the soul of a man if he wants to work?

[00:33:08] I have about between.

[00:33:11] One and a half to three hours of really effective, focused attention in the morning. Then I usually take a longer break working out, having lunch, sleeping and then one and a half to three hours. Effective work in the evening as well. And then outside of that, I do all that stuff like take care of my apartment, do errands. And I think. One thing I really like about the way we work with great this, that it is for me more for lifestyle than work. So when I go out on a walk in the evening, I think about great all the time. So I’m not sitting down and actively working, but I’m thinking about things that are related to too great for most of my day. And even though I’m having a break on lunch, I’m thinking about great stuff. So I think there’s a lot of passive things coming in with ideas or redefining ideas or making ideas better.

[00:34:11] I like what you’re saying now. I think that basically what what you’re touching upon is that you might only work work three to six hours or something like that per day. But there is so much space in that that you really enjoy this. So it’s kind of your brain is still actively working, probably another six hours a day. Yeah. With things that relates to this interview, probably not happen if you didn’t enjoy it.

[00:34:36] No. And if you look at it from that away, I do very few things in my life that are not related to great communication or health or relationships. There’s almost nothing else.

[00:34:51] So probably your thoughts are more or less only touching on those hot topics.

[00:34:56] Yeah, and there are a lot of topics under the great umbrella, of course, but I rarely think about stuff that’s outside.

[00:35:03] Yeah. They can relate to that.

[00:35:05] So when I was doing my morning routine this morning and I sat outside in the set, outside in the sun and I had done this guided meditation kind of thing that I do, and afterwards I was up there and my head just started mapping up this 48 hour analogy that I did before that came from there. And that wasn’t work in the sense that would just my mind playing around.

[00:35:31] And then it becomes work and it comes from that space and from that that possibility that my brain needs to go from focusing on something to get something done and then going back to reflection mode.

[00:35:44] That and again.

[00:35:47] Yeah, man, I think what’s interesting with what you’re saying. Reflection motors as well, going back to it. It’s. Almost subconsciously.

[00:35:57] Yeah. Let go of your conscious focus and then your subconscious mind is like working.

[00:36:03] So maybe what we’re doing is actually working like maniacs. If you were to come to ours, but it’s actually their subconscious playing rather than us working.

[00:36:12] Yeah, it doesn’t feel like work for me at least. Not like that.

[00:36:17] So now I can brag again. I play 18 hours a day.

[00:36:23] I would subconsciously all you really were consciously, you stupid guy.

[00:36:30] But for me, my energy level is very volatile as well. I know a good friend spirit that is in the shop here. He is like a collector. He was like a tractor.

[00:36:41] It’s like a tractor, right? It’s going kind of slowly five kilowatt kilometers per hours. But he’s never having any other pace and he doesn’t stop. So over time, he would go further than most of us. But he has no swings in his energy. I have huge rings and.

[00:36:59] So in a day, I can have one a half hours or I can have eight hours of good energy. It’s very volatile.

[00:37:06] You were the one who taught me about napping. You’re the reason why I take naps. Tell me about naps. Do you know why I do? Yes. Do what I tell you.

[00:37:14] You do what you tell me. I’m not going to stop making my own decision. I know that brain power of that to you and your puppets. You know that.

[00:37:25] I wish I had done some flashcards on this. It could be coding a cool book right now. But I read it. I read a couple of books about sleeps. And I think there is good science out there on that. Sleeping during the day. Taking a nap is very good for your memory consolidation. It’s good for your creativity and it’s good for your problem solving abilities. All of those are great. So you take a 20 minute break and you get an upgrade. In those three things that I think are core to a job that we do that is creative and has to do with communication.

[00:38:04] Yeah, I agree. Basically, what would I do? I never took naps before, and my perspective of that was that while I couldn’t fall asleep anyway, so why would I? And I’d say there were two main elements that resulted in I didn’t take naps.

[00:38:22] First one being that I didn’t fall asleep. And you were actually the one who quoted some books for me that told me that it doesn’t matter if I fall asleep or not during a nap. The only thing that matters is that I’m actually resting. So even if I don’t manage to fall asleep, my body’s still recovering almost as much as if I would fall asleep.

[00:38:43] So suddenly realize hey, it actually made sense. If I rest the second one being that I was counting hours like we touched upon before, so obviously I couldn’t waste 2 20 minutes not working. And not be able to count those hours. What I realize now is that, yeah, it’s either resting for 20 minutes or scrolling Facebook for an hour.

[00:39:12] It’s like because my when I feel that I need to take a nap, I don’t do it everyday, but I do it a lot of days. Or just resting for 20 minutes. If I’m if I’m in a place where I can’t really take a nap, just sitting down and shill for 20 minutes makes it all sounds as well. And I think what it’s taking away from is not 20 minutes of productivity. If I would be able to do 20 minutes of productivity, I wouldn’t even feel like taking a nap. It would take away 20 minutes or, as I mentioned, an hour of scrolling some Facebook, barely answering a couple of e-mails, playing around with my phone.

[00:39:48] Yeah, something like that’s just the understanding of that. It’s not work anyway. It’s not work. It’s not productive work or sleep. It’s very unproductive work or sleep. That’s the trade.

[00:40:03] And that’s the danger of counting hours, because I’m sure that me taking a 20 minute nap will add to my output, which to me is more important. I’m convinced.

[00:40:15] Yeah.

[00:40:17] I think everyone output is more important, but this once again touches upon what you spoke about with poker. It’s so much harder to measure output than to measure numbers of hours.

[00:40:28] Yeah, it’s how it seems.

[00:40:32] I’ll bet if you’re employed by someone and you need to report I work this many hours.

[00:40:37] Yeah.

[00:40:38] Yeah. I think that the numbers of hours count comes from the industrial age. Basically years you aren’t. You’re working for Henry Ford. You are building cars on one of these big car building trucks, whatever it’s called machine lines. And you’re doing the exact same thing over and over again. You cannot physically work faster because you need to wait for another car to come. So there will be a hundred percent correlation dependent between the number of hours you are there and the output you did. And that’s kind of how our entire society are built up around industrialization. And now suddenly there is more or less zero correlation between the number of hours you’ve been sitting in front of your computer and the actual output that you have.

[00:41:26] And to me, I think even to go tell Henry Ford would benefit of allowing all of his workers to sleep for 20 minutes starting today, because they would be better at building the machines, solving problems and they would be making less mistakes. I think being tired and making mistakes correlates very closely. Yeah, probably.

[00:41:44] He’s probably turning in his grave right now because he wouldn’t do it.

[00:41:48] All right. Sorry, Henry.

[00:41:50] We knew a lot more about business than you did. Just so you know, you suck. That’s why General Motors took over.

[00:41:59] So.

[00:42:01] Yes, some guidelines. If you’re listening to this and thinking, all right, I want to try out a map. To me, there are two kind of maps that are good. One is to shorten up and that one is less than 20 minutes and it’s less than 20 minutes, because if you sleep for more than 20 minutes, you were going to deep sleep and then you would wake up in something that is called sleep in Earth. And have you ever woken up and feeling like you’re a zombie? No. No. That’s only been after you slept for too long. You went into deep sleep and now it takes a long time for your body to wake up again. So either. Less than 20 minutes. Or if you’re really tired, let’s say you only slept for three hours last night. You want to compensate, then do a 60 minute or 90 minute nap. So I had a full sleep cycle that is between 60 and 90 minutes or less than 20 minutes.

[00:42:54] That’s good. I’ve very rarely managed to do that for more than 60, but it makes a lot of sense. So let’s. So basically what we’re saying right now are all things that are relatable for us because we have all of this flexibility and I can. Most people don’t. So what?

[00:43:15] If you were working in a regular company, what would you try to apply this if you had you had to be in the office 8 to 5, five days a week.

[00:43:25] Some offices might actually have somewhere where you can go and lay down and just close your eyes for a little bit. And if your office doesn’t have that, I would look into some kind of meditation app like Headspace and yes, do a 10 minute meditation where you take focus away from work and your thoughts for 10 minutes and place your focus on something like your body or your breath.

[00:43:48] So I think that would be a lot better than doing nothing. Yeah, probably.

[00:43:54] And I would take it to the extreme, I would say, to hell with this. I’m going to find a job where I can.

[00:44:01] Great. No.

[00:44:04] Yeah. Great outcome for that matter. Or or companies that understand this. Personally, I believe that this is such a crucial and essential part of life, like to be able to control your time and be in an environment that focuses on output, not an hour spent in the office. I think that Ken does such wonders to the quality of life. I think. I think it’s hard to grasp the importance of that. If if you don’t have it. So I would say if I was in a position where I had to be in an office eight to five, I would so strongly reconsider if that’s the way I want to live my life and see what are the the options and give that some serious thought. Because there are companies out there that offer this. There will be more and more of them. You could look for jobs as a digital assistant or something like that where you can actually work from home. Look for a digital no but no mad jobs, just google things and start thinking about what could I do? That’s actually outside of this and maybe start doing a few of those hours during the weekend for whoever. If you can find it and kind of get into that loop of just trying. How could my life look? Just asking yourself, like, if I didn’t have to be in an office at this in this hours, how would my life be? What would I do? What would I change? And I think that’s so crucial.

[00:45:36] How would it change your health, your relationships, if you have for now? I feel like the flexibility is so good for my well-being, but I just imagine if I had kids, then that would be even more more important. You know, you. Imagine you had to work until five or six in office and then you’re gonna go and pick your kids up later than you wished. Instead, you could go home earlier and pick up your children, hang out with them and then work a little bit in the evening instead.

[00:46:07] If you want to.

[00:46:09] Yeah, I I personally it is just me guessing. I’ve never been in this position, so I. I’m not an overnight guessing, I guess. But I think that most people don’t even consider this as an option. It’s so far out there. And I think that it’s changed so much in just the last three or five years that now it’s actually an option in so many places.

[00:46:31] So if there isn’t an option where where you are. Consider if that’s actually true or if he if that’s just not true.

[00:46:42] There probably are options.

[00:46:50] So what’s the downside with this, let’s say? What do you think is the downside to working like, wait. Think you have full flexibility, you’re working from home? What’s the worst part about that?

[00:47:00] The worst part about that is that is to not spend face to face time with someone, because I think a good thing about if you’re 10 people and you’re in an office. First of all, you get to face to face time, more human connection than we do now. We assume. But you also get that whole group is forced to sink their energy output. So if I were to be in regular office and I had to work between nine to 12, then I had a lunch break and then between 1 to 5, for example, then I would focus all of my life force to those four hours. And if other people focus together, you could have a multiplier effect on that. I think.

[00:47:41] Do you miss it? I never experienced it, but I don’t want to.

[00:47:45] You’re a lonely guy. You’ve never been working with people. But we did have an office in.

[00:47:55] But not enough common shared project.

[00:47:58] I could easily see you as a an erm it’s like living alone on like a little island with one of these.

[00:48:07] What’s it called the third in Swedish, you know. A. We just a little lamp up there guiding guiding the boat.

[00:48:16] But just look at it. Great now. So Spirit has been biking over to my place a couple of days per week during last year and then we sat down and we worked together with presentations. And I think the folk being two people, you can focus on one thing for an extended period of time, but I’m not capable of doing if I’m at all. So when I go to Malta and I visit you, you and I can sit down and explore a great concept for hours.

[00:48:45] And that’s challenging to do. If you’re on your own.

[00:48:49] So that’s a guess, a great way to describe what they can anchor. Focus.

[00:48:54] Yeah, something tells me what strikes me now, as well as what we spoke about before, like when our brain starts to drift. Yeah. If we’re two people and our brains kind of drifting, the drifting together and one drifting mind plus one drifting mind probably equals for drifting minds in terms of creativity and stuff like that. So we can keep the same focus doing that, keep the energy tied to that and be engaged.

[00:49:22] So what we spoke about before, we like playing playful, painful, two different things. Painful.

[00:49:29] It’s really hard to describe. 40 percent painful. Put on a little a little bit. Yeah.

[00:49:38] So playful. The playful work time probably increases a lot in output. So it’s more fun to touch upon these different topics you can and interact with it in a far different way. And that could actually be just when you’re going to lunch, if you’re in a regular office or when you’re taking breaks and all these things. And that’s something that we are missing out completely on like this. Because we’re not next to each other. So our brains need to be playful with themselves.

[00:50:09] And I guess in a big company you ran into and talked to people during lunch breaks. And by the watercooler that you probably wouldn’t talk to if there was a remote organization.

[00:50:20] For sure, yeah. Because you need to actively talk to someone. Yeah, remote. You’re not having the passive conversations and to declare we are great.

[00:50:29] We are six people right now and we have just started to look at all the problems that most likely are going to be with a remote organization.

[00:50:36] So we’re gonna be OK. We’ll keep you updated on that one. It’s not a good idea. Get out. Get into the office. Get out while you still can. Yeah.

[00:50:49] So that’s where we are. Yeah. I feel that my energy is is lacking a bit cold.

[00:50:55] I think this is a great time to wrap this wrap this one up. Do you have something to add on the topic of a healthy working day, strengthen honor?

[00:51:07] No, I don’t.

[00:51:08] Well, I think that this is a conversation that is so healthy to have and. Have if if you’re thinking about these things. Actually asking what does people in the company you work for think about these things? Is it the unwritten law that you’re supposed to be working this or that hours?

[00:51:29] Or is this maybe just in your head? So I would start questioning these things for myself. Start questioning how would my life change if I had the opportunity to do whatever I want? How could I actually bring this conversation up with a manager or whatever? And even what could I do at the moment in my life to make that situation change? Because I’m sure that everyone can come up with a way to make that situation change. If they want to say, I’ll revisit that thought and see where it takes us.

[00:52:06] Cool. Let’s wrap this up with a prayer to the overlords overlord.

[00:52:11] Please repeat what I’m saying. Their overlords, dear overlords. May my throat be healed. May my truth. May the planet be healthy, made a planet healthy. Maybe I have flexible working hours. We have flexible working hours. Have a great weekend. You guys.

[00:52:29] Have a great weekend. Suddenly you’re sounding like Match.com. So for everyone having to see you, man, gone. Googling and you will understand why Emily’s is real.

[00:52:37] You see someone with a good smile. All right. Well, thank you guys. Very talking to and loving that I can do this with the energy that I just had this piece.