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- [00:00]
Jason Pfeiffer
Nicole, I'm starting to think about what gifts to get people for the holidays. And you know that's not my strong suit. I'm bad at gifts. What should I do?
- [00:08]
Nicole Lapin
Well, I know that, but you know this one. Jason My favorite gift to give is Justin wine. Since 1981, Justin has been producing world class Bordeaux style wines from Paso Robles on California's central coast and is proud to be America's number one luxury Cabernet. As a pioneer of Paso, Justin wines are what put Paso Robles on the winemaking map. Justin offers cure curated gift sets, library wines, magnums, and even custom etched bottles. And you can personalize the gifts with a custom message icon or logo. This is a great gift to give your clients, your colleagues, your friends, your family, or a great gift to give someone hosting a dinner party or a gift exchange. Whatever it is, Justin Wine is sure to make your holidays memorable.
- [00:50]
Jason Pfeiffer
All right, I've sold. How do I get some?
- [00:51]
Nicole Lapin
Pick up Justin Wine today at a store near you or you can visit justinwine.com and enter code HELP20 for 20% off your order. Be sure to check them out@justinwine.com to receive 20% off your order for a limited time.
- [01:11]
Jason Pfeiffer
This is Help Wanted, the show that makes your work work for you. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, editor in chief of.
- [01:17]
Nicole Lapin
Entrepreneur magazine and I'm money expert Nicole Lapin. On Tuesdays, Jason and I answer the helpline and help callers solve their work problems.
- [01:25]
Jason Pfeiffer
And on Thursdays, I give you one way to improve your work and build a career company you love.
- [01:30]
Nicole Lapin
And it starts now.
- [01:33]
Jason Pfeiffer
You look around and you see all these people who are working it. They are pushing at all hours. They never seem to sleep. Hustle, hustle, hustle. They're just constantly producing and you feel so lazy compared to them. It just, it just leaves you feeling perpetually behind, like you're unable to rest. And as a result, you just try to keep doing more, to just squeeze more in, to demand more of yourself, to just go, today I'm going to give you permission to chill out. Because all that doing, all that squeezing, all that go, it is not making you happy and it's probably not even leading to good work. So let's embrace some normalcy. And as we embrace normalcy, as we make it okay for us to just work normally, not crazily, we are still going to get everything important done for real. Because for all the wild stories out there about hustlers hustling, there is something important you need to know. It is not all what it seems. But before we get there, let's start with a founder who I recently met, who nearly drove himself into the ground. So I'm going to call this guy Mike. He has a company with hundreds of locations throughout North America. And he said to me the biggest mistake I made was sleeping at the office, end quote. Sleeping at the office. A thing he did. He did it often. In fact, during his company's early days, he would work to exhaustion, he would sleep on the couch and he would rise early to keep going. Why? Well, Mike told me he grew up on stories of work obsessed entrepreneurs. There was, you know, Steve Jobs starting emailing employees at 4:30am and Mark Cuban who didn't take a vacation for seven years, and Marissa Mayer who worked 130 hour weeks at Google. And of course, Elon Musk slept on the Tesla factory floor. These were the models that Mike absorbed. And as far as he knew, that was the only way to run a company. But Mike really struggled with it. He told me I was a terrible boss. He was tired and irritated. He resented his employees for not prioritizing work the way that he did. The stress and the absence strained his marriage. And I told him, when he told me all this, and this is real, I told him, I, Jason Pfeiffer, feel partially responsible for this. I really do. It's because I've been in media for decades now and my industry amplifies these kinds of stories. Just one example, I found this headline on entrepreneur.com, elon Musk explains why he's still sleeping on the Tesla factory floor. That was a headline. Stories matter. Stories provide the frameworks for how to understand the world. And we don't talk about this enough. But there is a massive downside to learning through stories like that because not all stories get told. The outrageous ones are the ones that are told the most. And as a result, we make the unusual sound usual. I mean, you run enough stories about Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Mark Cuban and all that, and that starts to sound normal. But the thing is, it's not. It's not normal. The normal stories do not get told enough, which is crazy because there are a lot more of them. So let's start telling some normal stories. How about that? All right. So people often ask me, for example, do you ever sleep? Which is a reasonable question. I have a big job and a lot of side projects. But the answer is pretty boring. Yes, I sleep. That's it. That's the answer. My kids are usually down by 9pm Then my wife and I will catch up and watch a show, read in bed. Lights are out by 11. And on weekdays. Weekdays are a little tough. We wake up at 6:40am to get the kids ready for school. Weekends, we get to sleep in a little more. And this isn't just me. This is again, normal. I once found a book called Daily How Artists Work. And the author of this book had reconstructed the work schedules of famous artists, including, interestingly, when they slept. And they were fascinating in their usualness. For example, just going to list off a couple here. Ludwig von Beethoven, that guy slept from 10pm to 6am Pretty normal. I mean, just imagine the entrepreneur coverage of that. We could go back to the original example. Elon Musk explains why he's still sleeping on the Tesla factory floor. All right, I guess the coverage of Ludwig would say something like Ludwig van Beethoven explains why he's super comfy in bed by 10. It's not so sensational, but it's more honest. And here are a few other famous sleep schedules. So we've got Maya angelou sleeping from 10pm to 5:30am perfectly healthy. Charles Darwin sleeping from midnight to 7am Charles Dickens, also midnight to 7am Immanuel Kant sleeping from 10pm to 5am and Flannery O'Connor sleeping from 9pm to 6am good night's sleep. I know a lot of big time CEOs and they sleep well, fine. I was just talking to a famous author. She told me that she wakes up at 3am to write and meditate. Which sounds nuts until you learn that she goes to bed around 9pm so what I would like you to do after hearing those stories is go live your own normal story. I mean, look, if you're lucky, your life will be full of incredible and unusual things. You will do the stuff that others want to talk about. You will have experiences worth sharing. But the foundations of your life do not have to be so unusual or incredible. They can be boring. Some useful caveats here. Are there times where you must work hard, perhaps to the point of exhaustion? Yeah, but that's not sustainable and you shouldn't expect it to be. And this isn't just about sleep. I mean, maybe you have a weird sleep schedule. I don't know. That's fine. I'm making a point here. More about the basic structures of your life and how you prioritize them. There's a great theory called Parkinson's Law. The idea is that work expands to fit the time allowed. So if you have a lot of time to do things you will take all that time, and if you have a little time, then you'll complete the task later. If we allow work to fill all hours of our lives, it will. But if we decide to live a regular life and to confine work to mostly regular hours, then we will force a different series of normal, boring events. We will instead ask ourselves things like how else can I get this done? And who else can I turn to? And what things aren't worth doing right now? And what things maybe aren't worth doing at all? That is what Mike, the founder who I met, ultimately learned for himself. He finally stopped sleeping at the office, and then he realized that with the right systems in place, he didn't even need to work late. Now he said to me, I get a full night's sleep at home and my company still grows. That guy is happier. He is healthier, his relationships are stronger. These are all good and normal things. Maybe they are not the stuff of legend, maybe they're not the stories that are told and retold, but they should be. So go tell that story for yourself. And that was originally written for my newsletter, One Thing Better, which is a companion newsletter to Help Wanted. Each week. One way to be more successful and satisfied at work and build a career or company you love. You can find it at one thingbetter Email. That is a web address onethingbetter Email. I do read them here on Help Wanted, but if you subscribe you'll get them much earlier, along with a whole bunch of other goodies that I publish. One thingbetter Email Help Wanted is a production of Money News Network. Help Wanted is hosted by me, Jason.
- [10:21]
Nicole Lapin
Pfeiffer and me, Nicole Lapin. Our executive producer is Morgan Lavoy. Do you want some help? Email our helpline@helpwantedoneynewsnetwork.com for the chance to have some of your questions answered on the show. And follow us on Instagram @MoneyNews and TikTok@MoneyNews Network for exceptional exclusive content and to see our beautiful faces. Maybe a little dance?
- [10:41]
Jason Pfeiffer
Oh, I didn't sign up for that.
- [10:43]
Nicole Lapin
All right, well talk to you soon. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.