← The Stacking Benjamins Show
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- [00:00]
Joe Salcihai
Two hours ago, Kyle arrived at the bar.
- [00:03]
OG
Hey, what's everyone drinking?
- [00:05]
Joe Salcihai
Thirty minutes ago, Kyle got his friends another round of drinks. Cheers. Five minutes ago, Kyle decided to drive home drunk. A minute ago, a law enforcement officer pulled up behind Kyle. Sir, have you been drinking? Tonight? A chain of events that began two hours ago is about to change Kyle's whole world. Drive sober or get pulled over. Paid for by nhtsa this episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. Navy Federal can help you find and finance the right vehicle with ease. With Navy Federal's car buying service, powered by Truecar, you can find the vehicle that's right for you as you search through inventory and compare models. And you could get an amazing rate when you finance with Navy federal. Visit navy federal.org truecar to learn more. Navy Federal Credit Union our members are the mission. Navy Federal is insured by NCUA Credit and collateral subject to approval.
- [01:00]
OG
Looks like you've been missing a lot of work lately.
- [01:02]
Joe Salcihai
I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob.
- [01:09]
Doug
Live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and on today's show is work life balance really what we should be aiming for with our free time, our money and our work? I prefer Life Life balance and leave the work out completely. But apparently they didn't love that idea and thought we should focus on work life instead. Yeah, whatevs. But that's not all. We'll pause halfway through today's topic to see how who's gonna win this installment of our year long trivia challenge. And now, a guy who can barely balance on two feet. It's Joe Salsihai.
- [02:02]
Joe Salcihai
Barely is the operative word. Hey there everybody. Welcome to Old Age is Fun podcast. Because balance is a real thing. I'm Joe Salsihai and today we're balancing a great discussion about work life balance. You heard on Wednesday from Cheryl McKissick talking about her family and all the construction her family has done to build America. So today after a work work Wednesday, we're going to talk work life Friday. And that means we talk with a guy who's all work, no play. Mr. OG is here. How are you, man?
- [02:42]
OG
What day is it today? I keep getting it messed up. Is today August?
- [02:47]
Joe Salcihai
Of course it's Friday.
- [02:48]
OG
I know that. But is it the 8th or the 15th?
- [02:50]
Joe Salcihai
Or 5, 6, 7, 8? 15. 15, 15.
- [02:54]
OG
Oh, well then future me says that I'm feeling pretty good. Kids are back in school. Two of them, one of Them is going to be in school next week. Feeling pretty good. After school activities in full swing.
- [03:07]
Joe Salcihai
Fantastic. You got the house to yourself.
- [03:10]
OG
Well, I mean, cost myself, you know, he was still here.
- [03:17]
Joe Salcihai
And the woman who has, I, I don't know. All the stuff going on in New York City. Paula pants here.
- [03:27]
Paula Pant
New York City is good. The hottest days of the summer hopefully are behind us. I mean, you never know because New York has like lots of false starts and stops to its seasons. But hopefully the worst of the heat should be behind us. And we're going into fall, which is my favorite time because it's sweater weather.
- [03:44]
Joe Salcihai
And a guy who is still in The Great North, Mr. Jesse Kramer is here. How are you, man?
- [03:51]
Jesse Kramer
Hey, I'm doing well. What's going on here? I think I'm in Buffalo today. I'm in Buffalo this weekend. Another great upstate city. Nothing else to report though. Nothing too exciting.
- [04:01]
Joe Salcihai
What happens in Buffalo that you have to leave the wonderful confines of Rochester to go to Buffalo?
- [04:07]
Jesse Kramer
My wife's family lives out in Buffalo and just some, some friends who I check in with. So I think Buffalo would consider itself the primary city and Rochester the secondary city. But either way, sibling cities just a few miles down the thruway from one another.
- [04:20]
Joe Salcihai
Both nice places and you got. Speaking of fall weather, Paul, have you been out to the Finger Lakes?
- [04:25]
Paula Pant
By Jesse no, I've never been, I've never been that far upstate. So I've been to like the Catskills, which are beautiful, but I've always wanted to go to the Finger Lakes. I've never been.
- [04:36]
Joe Salcihai
Well, sounds like we got a meetup coming on up.
- [04:38]
Jesse Kramer
It is gorgeous. Lots of great recommendations. Happy to give you some itinerary ideas. And it's really cool. Each one of the Finger Lakes for the most part has like a cool place at the north end of the lake and then another cool place at the south end of the lake with wineries and sightseeing in between north and south. So tons of recommendations and things to do.
- [04:58]
Paula Pant
Ah, that sounds beautiful.
- [04:59]
Joe Salcihai
We're gonna have a great discussion today on work life balance. And is that really a thing? Should it be a thing? We're going to dive into that. But first we have a few sponsors who make sure that we can keep on keeping on. And you don't pay any money for the goodness that is the Friday show of Stacking Benjamin. So sit back. We're going to hear from them right now. And then Jesse, Paula and Og are going to talk work life balance. Before the Internet ruled all our lives, AOL brought America online with email and instant messenger. By 2000, AOL was so powerful it set its sights on media giant Time Warner. The deal was supposed to bring us into the future, but instead it became one of the messiest corporate disasters on record. But what went wrong? Was it culture clashes, the dot com crash, or something deeper? Business wars gives you a front row seat to the biggest moments in business and how they shape our world. Because when your flight perks disappear, your favorite restaurant chain goes bankrupt, or new tech reshapes everything overnight, there's always a deeper story behind the headlines. Follow Business wars on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. You can binge all episodes of Business wars, the AOL Time Warner Disaster early and ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Hey folks, let me tell you that drinking and driving is a decision that will change your whole world. Things will never be the same once you get a DUI because legal fees and time in court are just the beginning. Getting into a crash is another way your world could be irreversibly changed. After drinking and driving, your vehicle may not be the only thing that gets damaged in that crash. You could face a life altering injury or even death, but you're not the only one who could face those consequences. Your decision to drink and drive could permanently change someone else's world, whether you injure them or leave their loved ones grieving. The next time you're out drinking, call a ride, share a taxi, a sober friend, or a designated sober driver. Always plan for a safe ride home. The only decision that will change your world for the better is the decision to call for a sober ride. It's never worth it to drive drunk. Don't risk it. Drive sober or get pulled over Paid for by nhtsa. I want to begin this discussion discussion by reminding people if you're new to the Stacking Benjamin show, these guys are not work life balance experts. We are not people who constantly help other people with work life balance. But we are people trying to stack Benjamin's and that's what we do on Friday is take a topic that's in the media and dive into it. And on this particular day I've got a piece that's from MSN and it says why work life balance is overrated and what to pursue instead. And I thought is work life balance overrated? So og, let's start with you is do you think work life balance is just this fancy myth?
- [08:06]
OG
Oh, there's so much to unpack here. We're just going right to the end of the story that's where we're at. Yeah, I think.
- [08:13]
Joe Salcihai
Absolutely.
- [08:14]
OG
I don't know. I don't think so. I don't understand. I mean, I like the idea of having purpose and working for a reason that you're excited about and that sort of thing. But golly, if we haven't learned anything in the last five years since COVID that tomorrow is not promised to everybody, why would you want to trade any extra moments that you can afford not to? I was flipping through YouTube this morning, and a clip from Dave Ramsey came up. He was taking a call from somebody who was asking whether or not they should sell the family business. And he said, it's really hard to kind of decide on how to do that in the near term. Right. It's like, well, I've got these terms and I've got da, da, da, da, and whatever. He's like, think about it in a longer timeframe, like the next decade or. Okay, you're 46 today. If you're 56, put yourself having sold the company, you've got money that you invested, you're living on your portfolio. Does that sound like a better outcome to you 10 years from now? Or does continuing to grow the company and potentially. And that's fulfilling as well? There's no right or wrong answer. I think we look at work as this thing we have to do in order to get the leisure. And I'm so fundamentally opposed against that theory that we start our team annual planning every fall with put in all of your vacation days and then we'll see how much work we can get done in the year. Like, we do it the complete opposite way.
- [09:44]
Joe Salcihai
Start with the leisure days in mind.
- [09:46]
OG
Yeah. Because I think you have to have most people think you need to work really hard in order to earn time off. And I think in order to work really hard, you have had to have had time off.
- [09:56]
Joe Salcihai
Well, Jesse, let's ask you, when you hear this idea, Work life balance. Right. You hear that phrase, I mean, OG was talking about, the imagery is starting on the other side. What image do you even think of when you hear work life balance? And is that image even realistic?
- [10:11]
Jesse Kramer
Yeah, I like that. OG was talking about. It's like, pay yourself first. It's vacation yourself first.
- [10:15]
Joe Salcihai
Yeah, right. Yeah.
- [10:17]
Jesse Kramer
Tm the image that I think of is I. There's so many parallels, and maybe this is just says more about my psychology than anything else. There's so many parallels between food and diet. And then you like finances and work and kind of the stuff that we talk about here. Because I Think to myself, when someone says like, oh, you need to have a balanced diet, there's kind of this like subtle connotation there where really what they're saying is you're eating too much bad food and you need to eat more healthy food. Like that's usually what people mean. They don't mean like, hey, you're eating way too many Brussels sprouts, like throw some ice cream in there. That's usually not what they're saying. And I think there's something similar here when, when people say like, oh, work, life balance, the connotation is you're working too much and you need to focus more on some of the free time. And so to that end, I think to myself, like, I personally get a lot of joy out of work. I didn't always. And I think that's maybe something we can get into today that like my opinions on this whole topic have changed over time. There's no doubt that too much work makes all of us adult people, as the saying goes. And yeah, there's a lot of, there's a, definitely a lot of benefit from work life balance. As long as you don't again, you can't have it swing so far in the other direction that it just becomes life like fun. You, you really do need to balance in both directions is kind of my point.
- [11:31]
Joe Salcihai
I saw a TikTok video yesterday, Jesse, of this woman interviewing a guy who's, I don't know, maybe in his late 90s, right. And she's asking him for the meaning of life. And the guy's like, you know, as I sit here, I just think to myself, I wish I'd spent more time on my KPIs at work.
- [11:49]
Jesse Kramer
Right, right, exactly. That stuff, the day to day stuff, a lot of times, on the one hand, it doesn't matter. I don't know how to maybe explain it the right way, but we don't look back on life and be like, oh, those KPIs, it's a perfect example. But at the same time, the kind of things that we all do for work, however we define work, is something that provides a lot of definition to our day to day lives. So to that end, you hope you can fill it with something fulfilling, something that makes you happy. And I suppose for me personally, a lot of my work life balance, problems in my career so far have been a function of that day to day stuff just not being nearly as fulfilling as I wanted it to be. And when that improved, everything else kind of improved in lockstep.
- [12:32]
Joe Salcihai
That is interesting. Finding joy in the work that you actually do. And I think about this idea, Paula, of work, life, balance. And I remember a conversation I had with a mutual friend of ours, a pretty brilliant guy named Steve Chu. Steve wrote a great book about being an entrepreneur and his quest to get work, life, balance. Right. Spends as much time with the family as he can, but also build a business that he loves to run. But he also talked about a friend of his who prefers to work in sprints where he will just go nose to the grindstone. He doesn't even pursue balance. He pursues, I'm going to be all work, I'll work, I'll work, I'll work and then I'll play, I'll play, I'll play, I'll play. Can balance be seasonal or should we be looking for balance on a. Okay, yeah, run with that.
- [13:17]
Paula Pant
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it's actually really difficult. Like if you think about the span of a normal day and you want that particular day to be balanced between sleep, exercise, work, family time, chores and errands, reflection and meditation, reading and learning, like that's a lot to cram into a day or even a week. It's hard to, you know, on a small scale, like when you really shrink that time, it's hard to get all of that done simultaneously. Like everything all at once. If that framing of seasons you think about when you're in college. Right. There's finals week and finals week is that week where you're just like nose to the grindstone. Absolutely. Cramming for those final exams, you know, working like every hour, every waking hour of the day. What is finals week followed by? It's followed by winter break or summer break. I think that's a perfect illustration of that. Seasonal. If you think about it in exercise terms like interval training, sprint rest. Sprint rest.
- [14:23]
Joe Salcihai
Oh, gee, it strikes me, going back to what you were talking about, that you begin with leisure time. But isn't there also something to be said for what Jesse talks about, which is getting fulfillment from your work? Like instead of chasing balance between leisure and the suck that is work, chasing work that doesn't suck.
- [14:43]
OG
Well, yeah, and I think also as you look at the things that you're not doing, are you not doing them because you can't because of a time situation or because you're choosing not to? You know, for example, if you really want to go to all your kids soccer matches and they're all on Tuesday or Thursday at 3 o' clock because that's when they do it at school and you have no ability to do that because of your other commitments. Maybe I need to reorganize this priority because I really want to be available from 3 to 4 on Tuesdays and Thursdays to go to these soccer matches. We learned in Strategic Coach that every day is a day, right? 24 hour period, midnight to midnight. Some people work on Saturdays and other people go, how in the hell can you work on Saturday, man? That's the weekend. The guy who cuts my hair works his tail off on Saturdays. He doesn't work at all on Mondays. And if you asked him how come he doesn't work on Mondays, he goes, because that's not my day to work.
- [15:40]
Joe Salcihai
His Saturday is Monday.
- [15:42]
OG
Yeah, I have. Exactly. I have a different schedule than you. And he's content with that schedule. So I don't think that work life balance means I'm not going to do any work or I'm only going to, we think like leisure activities. Like I spend my entire day fishing or golfing or skiing or whatever. But it's the combination, like Paula said, of all the stuff that's important to you and is that, to borrow a phrase from nameless consultants out there, is that wheel of life evenly balanced? And if you start getting fat, then you're skipping out on your health stuff. If your psyche goes sideways, you're skipping out on personal development or spirituality. If your business takes a crap, you're not doing enough of that. And it's just like all these little slivers of the wheel of your life need to be in balance so that the wheel continues to go. If it doesn't, you're going to find out where that happens pretty quickly or where that where the issue is.
- [16:37]
Joe Salcihai
It was great to see Jesse the fire Movement get on CBS this Morning a couple weeks. That was fascinating and fantastic. But it also, you know, made a point. Fire movement really seems to be tied to this idea of work life balance. Right. Adding more life, not trading time for money. But it strikes me as early retirement actually about time or is it about autonomy?
- [17:01]
Jesse Kramer
Hmm, probably depends on the person. As part of my first answer, is it about time or is it about autonomy? Yeah, I mean, I think for a lot of people, the way I see the fire movement, like my personal interpretation of what I've learned about it over time is just that a lot of people are locked into this thought process that retirement is a specific age. 62, 65, whatever. Uh, and instead the fire movement says like, no, no, it's really just about understanding what you spend, how your portfolio can support that spending over time, and really it's about a certain number of assets that can support a certain level of spending and thus open up all this free time to you that maybe you didn't realize you, you could have accessed. So that, that's the way I guess I think about the fire movement. And then so for some people, and this is just reading firsthand accounts and listening to podcasts like some of ours here or, or listening to the guests that we have on, for some people, it really is about autonomy. And just like I want to be the captain of my own ship and I don't want to work for corporate America. I don't want to have a manager telling me what to do. And so for them, it might be a lot more about financial independence, like reaching that point where they can work if they want to, they can work for themselves, they can choose how they spend their day. But then, right. I just think of some of the other stories I've heard from people, and for them it was, if I can retire at 45 instead of 62 and reclaim 17 years of my life to go off and see the world, that is a top priority to me. So coming back full circle to your question, Joe, I've heard both stories and I think it just depends on the person who's pursuing fire.
- [18:32]
Joe Salcihai
Yeah, it makes me wonder, Paula. I mean, if we're chasing fire, you know, there's the age old question, are we running from something or running to something? If I'm chasing more, quote, balance through fire and am I really running toward anything?
- [18:45]
Paula Pant
Well, all right, let me take a step back where I question the premise of the notion of work life balance is that it pits work and life as mutually exclusive. It pits work versus life as this competition in a zero, you know, locked into some zero sum game where every incremental unit dedicated to one comes at the expense of the other. And I think that that is not a healthy way to look at work life. It's probably a paradigm that developed in an era when there were no smartphones, when even knowledge workers had to commute in person to an office and talk on a landline every day. Like there was much more of a separation between your home and your office and, you know, work and life these days, in the era of smartphones, in the era of remote work, in the era of much more flexible situations, I think work and life are much more integrated rather than separated. And I think seeing the way that they can sort of flow together rather than pit them as in this zero sum, like competition is a Healthier way of viewing it. And so then to your question, Jo, is the fire movement running from something or to something? I don't think anybody. Well, I don't think most people, I should say, are running away from. From work. I think the majority of people are running, at least anecdotally, are running towards a more integrated whole.
- [20:18]
Joe Salcihai
You don't think the beginning of this movement was frustrated engineers who just are sick of the grind?
- [20:25]
Paula Pant
Well, I mean, I guess. Well, the beginning of the movement is.
- [20:29]
OG
Sure seems statistically it was, I'm thinking.
- [20:33]
Paula Pant
Predating Mr. Money Mustache, there was Vicky Robin.
- [20:36]
Joe Salcihai
Yeah.
- [20:36]
Paula Pant
And predating Vicki Robin, there was probably somebody else.
- [20:40]
Joe Salcihai
Right.
- [20:40]
Paula Pant
You know.
- [20:41]
Joe Salcihai
No. Yeah. The fire movement happened way. I mean, people were dreaming about not working at age 40, way, way, way before the fire movement.
- [20:48]
OG
Not working. They don't even have jobs yet.
- [20:53]
Joe Salcihai
So maybe that's not as interesting as Paula, what you really said that I think I want to dive into. If you're like, okay, balance is kind of Ying and yang is not really what we're after. What are we after then? Is it is, I guess, is the real word alignment that we're after?
- [21:06]
Paula Pant
Yeah, I think so. Work life alignment. Work life integration. I actually really like the term alignment because that feels healthier. It suggests that the two can work together rather than exist in competition with one another.
- [21:20]
Joe Salcihai
Does that speak to you more, OG.
- [21:21]
OG
The alignment versus balance, I see him as fairly synonymous. I think about it, like I said earlier, a little bit more like there's all these different slivers of your life like Paula was talking about kind of on our first point. You know, it's like if you're not paying attention to all things, if you're not living an ideal life, you will find very quickly where the area is that you're neglecting. And you can choose to do something about that or not. But to me, it's not like, like Paula said, I'm not challenged to say, well, it's either work or I have leisure. It's not this opposite thing. It's just I have to make sure that there's a good balance, alignment, evenness, whatever you want to say.
- [22:05]
Joe Salcihai
Because that seems more. I mean, it seems what you're talking about. You know, when I think of balance, I think about the calendar. I think about managing my day, so I get some relaxation time, that I get some work time. But really what you're talking about is, you know, I'm sure you've had these times, OG Because I certainly have, where I really felt like my day was balanced. But it just felt off, like it wasn't it. Instead of calendar management, moving to, am I truly working on the thing that I should be working on right now or should I be in the place where I should be at my kids, you know, third grade soccer match?
- [22:40]
OG
I think this is good for anything. Like in your financial life, we talk about if you don't take account of your money and you don't track your spending, you can't make any improvements on it. And it's not like you're saying, hey, there's something wrong. That's why I need to track. No, you track it so that you can have some data points from which to do something if you wish. And so I think it's equally important we're doing this right now. As a matter of fact, I think it's equally important to track your time a little bit. You know, take two weeks and say, I'm just going to write down, you know, good old pen and paper every 20 minutes what I'm doing or every 30 minutes what I'm working on. And I think it's a good audit to, number one, find out what you really are spending your time doing. Are you really doing that 40 hour workweek? There's, you know, oh, gee, no, you're not, you liar. Is your life so challenging with your 19 hours of work this week or whatever it ends up being, right? It's like, let's define it how it is.
- [23:33]
Joe Salcihai
11 hours.
- [23:34]
OG
Yeah, but you can't make changes unless you have the data. Like Jesse was talking about in terms of engagement or whatever you were talking about, whatever word you use, Jesse, about finding joy in what you're doing. You can also look at that and say, like, golly, I've spent a lot of time doing this specific stuff that I just don't, you know, maybe I used to really like doing it, but now I, you know, I'm at a different level now. And somehow that got still attached to me now that I know that I can work to eliminate that from my life, whether I can outsource it or I can hire somebody, if you're in charge of that, or just delete it altogether and kind of claim back some of that. But all of that comes from data. And if you're just going, I feel like I'm not balanced. I mean, you probably aren't. Right. We have some pretty good intuition there. But it will certainly help to have data. I look at this from an energy standpoint. My given Fs today was at a level of 0. Like I don't know why. Just that was how. That's how it worked out today. And I tried. I tried a couple of things. Did some exercise, ate some pretty good food, you know, like healthy stuff. And I was like, okay, maybe that'll stoke the fires a little bit. Did absolutely nothing. So today has been a, you know, an energy balance day. I think about life as an energy component. And sometimes you got a lot of energy to sit there, like you said, and grind out like Paula was doing earlier. Just head down, just banging out, work right in the zone, in the flow. And then sometimes you got a big pile of giving Fs and you're all out of them.
- [25:00]
Joe Salcihai
What's the guy's name that. The OpenAI guy?
- [25:04]
Paula Pant
Sam Altman.
- [25:04]
Jesse Kramer
Sam Altman.
- [25:05]
Joe Salcihai
Thank you, Sam Altman.
- [25:06]
Jesse Kramer
Paul and I are going to split that trivia point.
- [25:10]
OG
Wow. Everything's a trivia point now.
- [25:13]
Joe Salcihai
They're like, there's the trivia question. We got it right. I think it's interesting because Sam Altman talked about, Jesse, that we think about work, life, balance. We think about burnout. I work too much, so I burn out. Sam Altman made this comment that he said. He said, you will never burn out if you're working on the right thing, the thing that you truly should be working on. That, you know, Marie Kondo sparks joy like that. If you're. If you're working there, there will be no burnout.
- [25:37]
Jesse Kramer
Yeah, I don't disagree with him. I feel that way personally. But at the same time, there's this, like, backlash against thought like that. Right. Because you'll hear some billionaire, founder, influencer type person saying exactly what Sam Altman said. But then you'll get like, maybe a Scott Galloway who comes on and says, like, no, no, let's be realistic. Find some job. Get some master's degree in a technical field, move yourself to a big city, find a job that pays you $200,000 a year whether you like it or not, and then go use that money to live the rest of your life. We can't all be the person who finds their deepest passion and also has that passion, pay them a livable wage, and therefore has the best of both worlds. So I. I don't know. I'm a little conflicted myself, because it's not that the world needs ditch diggers. That's not really what I'm saying. But at the end of the day, it's like, I suppose it's like, where do we draw the line between someone saying, no, no, this work genuinely makes me unhappy. No matter how much it pays me versus the other side of the coin, which might be is it worth pursuing your passion to any end, even if that means you know you can't really put food on your table? There's some balance in there that I don't really know where to put it. Yeah. What do you think, Paula?
- [26:47]
OG
Is that work, life balance? Jesse, you said there's some balance.
- [26:51]
Jesse Kramer
It might be. It might be.
- [26:54]
Paula Pant
Well, I think Cal Newport has some good insight on this when he talks about how passion is often the result rather than the precursor of being in the work every day. So assuming that you have a minimum level of curiosity about some given topic, then often once you dive into that topic, you start to discover like with any topic you realize how little you know. You get past that Dunning Kruger effect hump. And so once you start learning about something, you realize how little you know, which makes you curious to learn more. And then the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know.
- [27:32]
Joe Salcihai
The deeper you get into it, the more it spurs the.
- [27:35]
Paula Pant
Yeah, exactly. And so passion therefore is often the consequence rather than the cause of going into a given field.
- [27:42]
Joe Salcihai
NBCUniversal Vice Chairwoman when she was on our Memorial Day episode, Bonnie Hammer said something similar. Paula, she was like chase opportunity, not passion. You chase passion. You often don't even know. You don't have enough data to have the passion yet. But if you chase these opportunities, there's at least enough interest there that you're diving into the opportunity and then the passion comes. It's so interesting. We record these live on Monday. You can join us most Mondays at 3:30 Eastern Time. And we've got a great discussion going on here. In the chat Jennifer says maybe it's actually presence that we're looking for. Whatever I'm doing, work or home, I'm focused on what is in front of me or am I focused on what's in front of me? Looking at data as OG suggesting to track helps you figure out the balance of energy. I want to talk more about that in the second half of today's show. And Leisure Enthusiast says, I think a huge problem is some of the nine to five companies drain your PTO if you have a sick day or a dentist appointment. They shouldn't be taking sick days from your vacation days. We need a four day workweek. I think OG would say we need a one day workweek based on your given Fs.
- [28:49]
OG
Right now I'm going to go about an hour and 20 minute work week today.
- [28:54]
Joe Salcihai
So maybe tomorrow we're going to pause there. In the second half of this discussion I want to talk about, you know, work life integration and about a piece of this article talks about thinking like you're an athlete. And I want to ask about that because I think there might be some interesting things we can do to help our work life balance or whatever it is. More after we have that discussion. But at that way point we dive into this year long trivia challenge we have between these three contributors and right now, well, the score was getting close but last week Don McDonald scored a big point for OG making the current score OG 11, Jesse 81 a half and Paula 45 and a half. I will caution everyone, we had an incident last week when Todd was here where in the live chat somebody decided to put the answer. So please, if you're here with us live hanging out, don't do that. Let's, let's make sure this is a good time. We don't have to change up the trivia question. But Doug, you've got the trivia today. What are we talking about?
- [30:05]
Doug
Hey there, Stackers. I'm Joe's mom, Neighbor Duggan. On today's date in history was a headline grabbing event in 1995 that Joe followed closely. Shannon Faulkner became the first woman to walk through the gates to attend military college, the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, which had previously been an all boys school. But Joe went there, so wasn't really. If you know anything about Joe's history, he famously purchased a new Nautica sweater with his new American Express card, a sweater that he couldn't wear because it was a military school and he was in Charleston, South Carolina, where you might have two or three days where you actually could wear a sweater like that. Anyway, Nautica has moved most of their sales online in recent years. So here's a question about the iconic brand that helped wreck Joe's financial history way back in the 80s. What year Year was Nautica founded? Okay, I'll be back right after I go turn on some Duran Duran or maybe stick a big comb in my back pocket.
- [31:10]
Joe Salcihai
Paula's looking excited, like she'd prefer to go first this time.
- [31:15]
Paula Pant
Yikes. No, no, I'm. Well, I have no idea what the answer to this is.
- [31:20]
Joe Salcihai
You were just running. What a weird mix.
- [31:23]
Paula Pant
Yeah, yeah.
- [31:23]
Joe Salcihai
We start off with Citadel, we end up with what year was Nautica founded?
- [31:26]
Paula Pant
When I thought it was a story about the Citadel and your spending story, I was excited because I know that story really well because he told it on the Afford Anything podcast. So I was like, oh, if this is a story about Joe's finances, this is a question about Joe's finances. I've got this answer.
- [31:43]
Joe Salcihai
Well, sorry, Paula. Sorry about that. Oh, gee. You're going first. Nautica. You own any Nautica clothing? OG no, no. But it is an iconic brand. And you've heard of Nautica. Well, what year was it founded? OG.
- [32:00]
OG
Hmm.
- [32:01]
Joe Salcihai
Thank goodness.
- [32:03]
OG
The wonderful brand Nautica that everyone knows and probably has many, many clothes from, I think, tying it to Tommy Hilfiger for some reason. Are they related in any way?
- [32:16]
Joe Salcihai
I don't know.
- [32:17]
OG
Beyond the scope of the judges? No.
- [32:20]
Joe Salcihai
I don't know.
- [32:20]
OG
Why do a similar logo, not a.
- [32:24]
Joe Salcihai
Cow, Similar style of clothing.
- [32:27]
OG
Maybe that's it. Maybe one was at JCPenney and one.
- [32:30]
Joe Salcihai
Was at that kind of 80s preppy. I bought my Nautica sweater at Nordstrom.
- [32:38]
OG
Oh, okay. Well, that tells me a little something. That's a little. It's a little highbrow Nordstrom's. A little high brow.
- [32:44]
Joe Salcihai
Because if you're gonna wreck your credit, by the way, when you're a freshman.
- [32:47]
OG
In college, don't do it at Kmart.
- [32:49]
Joe Salcihai
Just go, what's the most expensive store in the mall? Oh, I know, duh.
- [32:54]
OG
It's so funny. Just as a complete side note, it's so funny the lessons that we teach our kids and kind of how they grow up with money and that sort of thing, because I did the exact same thing, by the way, Joe, like, just terrible with money. No money talking the house, no example to learn from. And so Alex is going to college, and we're talking about this, and he has some money and a debit card. And I said, you need to have your own credit card. Dad's credit card is for emergencies now, not for your daily spending anymore. And he's like, I just won't spend any money. Why would I want to have a credit card like that can just get you in trouble. And I'm like, who is this responsible young man? What happened to how do I get a bigger limit?
- [33:34]
Joe Salcihai
Where did you come from?
- [33:35]
OG
That thing up? Yeah. No, you did not. You are not your father's son. Anyways, Nautica. So I'm going to say it was a relatively new brand in the grand scheme of things. Not like Levi's, you know, 19, 1800s. I'm going to say it came about after the turn of the war. All the fine fellas coming back from overseas went, hey, those Parisians, Those dudes know how to dress, bruh. So we need to kind of get with their vibe. So I'm going to say somebody came up with this in 1948.
- [34:09]
Joe Salcihai
1948. Do you know the brand Nautica, Jesse?
- [34:13]
Jesse Kramer
I do, and I was going to say, because I think it. And Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren and some other brands like that were on JCPenney shelves. Not that I really went into there like that often, but growing up, whenever I needed, like the nice clothes, you know, not the Aeropostel or the Abercrombie, whatever they were, JCPenney was one of my options. And yeah, Nautica was there. And I'm actually kind of frustrated because somewhere in OG's 14 minute answer, I was thinking to myself, like, what were the proximate events before the founding of Nautica? And one of my thoughts was, oh, maybe it was the wealth generation and like the baby boomer generation and just the post World War II. So I was thinking along the same lines. But I'll go. I'll. I'll switch up because I genuinely have no clue. And I'll say that maybe it was the money that was. And then the economic boom of like the twenties, like the flappers, like the Gatsby era. So I'll just go right in the middle and say, is that the Gilded Age? Is that the Gilded Age? Yeah. So I'll say 1925.
- [35:17]
Joe Salcihai
1925. Paula, we've got 1925 and 1948. Do you know Nautica?
- [35:26]
Paula Pant
I can picture the label. I have a visual in my head of like the logo. I can't think of an article of Nautica clothing might look like, other than my general vibe is preppy. Like, you're the type of person who wears boat shoes, basically.
- [35:43]
OG
Think Joe Salsihai.
- [35:46]
Joe Salcihai
Thank me. And you've got Nautica. There you go.
- [35:48]
OG
Obviously.
- [35:48]
Paula Pant
All right. You bought Nautica. Okay, within the question, it said that your financial mistake was in the 80s. That doesn't sound right.
- [35:59]
Joe Salcihai
Why wouldn't you think it was the 1940s? What are you doing here?
- [36:04]
Paula Pant
No, it just. That just sounds like too long ago.
- [36:06]
OG
Math checks. Trust me.
- [36:09]
Paula Pant
Okay.
- [36:10]
Joe Salcihai
Sadly, it was 1986.
- [36:13]
Paula Pant
All right, so I'm gonna guess that Nautica was established enough, but not so established that it was like the establishment. It had to be like that perfect sort of age of brand to appeal to the young folk of 1986.
- [36:32]
Joe Salcihai
That's how we refer to ourselves too, as the young folk. We walk around the mall with all the other young folk.
- [36:40]
Paula Pant
All right, so I'm going to take the over. I'm going to say 1949.
- [36:43]
Joe Salcihai
1949. All right. OG's got 48, Paula's got 49. Jesse's going back to 1925. Who's going to win this thing? We'll find out in just a minute. This episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. Navy Federal can help you find and finance the right vehicle with ease. In this summer you're in the driver's seat with savings. You could get a $250 bonus when you buy your next car through Navy Federal's car Buying Service. Powered by TrueCar and Finance with Navy Federal. With this tool, you can find the vehicle that's right for you as you search through inventory and compare models. And you could get an amazing rate when you finance with Navy Federal. Navy Federal strives to support all active duty veterans and their families to achieve their personal and financial goals. And this partnership with TrueCar is one of the many tools Navy Federal uses to help its members make your plan with Navy Federal and TrueCar. Today Navy Federal Credit Union Our members are the mission to Qualify for the 250 bonus car purchase and financing must be completed by September 2, 2025. Terms and conditions apply and are available at Navy federal.org truecar Credit and Collateral subject to approval. Navy Federal is insured by ncua. When my brother in law needed a new cell phone provider a few months ago, well that was easy. Because you know what doesn't belong in your epic summer plans? Getting burned by your old wireless bill. While you're planning beach trips, barbecues and three day weekends, your wireless bill should be the last thing holding you back. And that's why I highly recommended that he switched to Mint Mobile. He took that recommendation. He said bye bye to overplace wireless plans. Those jaw dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages. MIT Mobile is here to rescue you too. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Own your own phone? He just brought his right over. I helped him set it up myself. And with any mobile plan you bring your phone number along with your existing contacts. So this year stop breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mint mobile.comsb that's mintmobile.comsb upfront payment of 45 required equivalent to 15amonth limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan taxes and fees, extra cmit mobile.com for details.
- [39:16]
Jesse Kramer
This is the story breaking right now.
- [39:18]
Doug
Fox One is coming soon, which means soon you can be there live for all the biggest moments. She is gone. And witness history as it's made.
- [39:29]
Joe Salcihai
It's not about me. It's about what this human space flight program is about. It's our national goals.
- [39:35]
Doug
Get all of your favorite news, sports and entertainment with a side of I.
- [39:39]
Joe Salcihai
Think I may have peed a little.
- [39:40]
Doug
All in one app streaming live on August 21st. Fox One.
- [39:47]
Joe Salcihai
All right, OG you kick this off by saying 1948. You still have the years between 48 and halfway to 1925 feeling good.
- [39:54]
Jesse Kramer
You've got all the Great Depression, OG I do.
- [39:58]
OG
Joe clothing circa 1986 is really not my specialty of trivia. I like the fact that you guys have really tried to niche down to something that I have absolutely no concept of. So I feel zero confidence.
- [40:13]
Joe Salcihai
That warms my heart that OG just has no idea about Nautica. Jesse, you've got 1925.
- [40:21]
Jesse Kramer
Yeah, yeah, I feel okay. But I just really like the fact that I'm pretty sure what happened was like, it's 1935. Someone in the Dust bowl is like struggling to put food on his table and he's like, I'm going to design shirts for preppy kids. Right. And so that's how it got founded and OG Is going to win.
- [40:41]
Joe Salcihai
What goes good with trying to feed a family in the Dust Bowl? I know. Boat shoes.
- [40:44]
Jesse Kramer
Boat shoes, yeah.
- [40:46]
Joe Salcihai
Paula.
- [40:46]
Paula Pant
1948 and up in 1949.
- [40:50]
Joe Salcihai
49.
- [40:51]
Paula Pant
1949 and up.
- [40:52]
Joe Salcihai
Yeah.
- [40:53]
Paula Pant
You know, I feel good. So if it was founded anytime in the 1950s or 60s or even the 70s, I've got some good decades there.
- [41:00]
Joe Salcihai
All right, Doug, who's going to take home this week's winning answer?
- [41:09]
Doug
Hey there, Stackers. I'm sweater weather lover and guy who loves imagining Joe's work in ROTC class. Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. We were gonna ask you how many hours did Joe last at the Citadel before receiving his first wedgie? But it turns out you can measure that in minutes, not hours. So instead today we're talking fashion because we thought it'd be fun to have some laughs at the way Joe wrecked his credit while attending the Citadel by paying for a Nautica sweater with an American Express card. A company, by the way, that Joe later represented in the media. Don't they do any research before sending people out to the microphones? Come on, people. So what year was this credit destroying fashion brand called Nautica founded. Well, the correct answer is 1983, making Paula miraculously our winner.
- [42:01]
OG
Wow.
- [42:02]
Joe Salcihai
What is is going on here?
- [42:04]
OG
Amazing.
- [42:07]
Paula Pant
Incredible. Incredible. I'm going to have to buy a Nautica sweater with my Amex.
- [42:11]
Joe Salcihai
I got to tell you, Paula, when OG said, well, I think it's a fairly recent brand, I'm like, oh, he's not going to do this again, is he?
- [42:17]
OG
I think when you put it together that I didn't think of Paula, which was, what brand would the kids want? And like, how new does it have to be for kids to be interested in it? And I might have got a little closer if I would have thought through that.
- [42:32]
Joe Salcihai
And I think that's why you put it with Tommy Hilfiger, because I haven't looked this up. But I bet Tommy Hilfiger, if we did look it up, if somebody wants to do that, came out probably around the same time.
- [42:42]
OG
Well, them. Ralph Lauren.
- [42:44]
Joe Salcihai
Yes. Yeah.
- [42:44]
OG
Tom Ford maybe, like kind of all those that vibe was.
- [42:48]
Joe Salcihai
When was Tommy Hilfiger brand founded? I'm being told it's 1985. Oh, very similar time between Nautica and Tommy.
- [42:59]
Jesse Kramer
Interesting.
- [43:00]
Joe Salcihai
And to your point, also achieve very similar look. All right, let's dive into the second half of our discussion on work life balance. Work life alignment. Or maybe I like what Jennifer, who's hanging out with us talked about. Maybe it's being present in what you're doing. Let's shift this kind of to work life integration, because this is a question we get often, and I think people ask often. Paula, do you think blending work and life is more honest because you were talking about now that it's kind of blurred, right? The lines are blurred between when I'm home and when I'm at work. So is blending more honest or does that just blur boundaries until we burn out? Because work is following us home, it's following us on the weekends. There's no lines anymore.
- [43:46]
Paula Pant
I think it's just more honest to the way in which we live because the reality is technology is such that we are reachable 24 hours a day. That was not the case back when we were in the era of landlines. Even then, people, when fax machines first came about, people were like, oh, look at how much technology is advancing. And it's only getting even more intense now. You know, I get once somebody buzzes on Slack, I get a notification on my wristwatch. I want to make a note here that I'm specifically talking about knowledge workers because certainly if you drive a truck, it's different. But Even still, there's so much identity tied up in work. You know, you go to a party and everyone's first question is, so what do you do? And then that often, because that's the icebreaker, leads to just talking about work, even when you're at the backyard barbecue, right? And so even if you're not on your phone, even if you have your notifications silenced, even if you have the type of job that really respects boundaries, you're still thinking about it, you're still percolating on it, you're still talking about it. So I think that we just need to accept that, because that is the reality of modern work.
- [44:58]
Joe Salcihai
I don't know. Do we have to accept it, Jesse? I mean, just hearing Paula talk about, I'm at the cookout, I'm not really paying attention because my brain is on work. My wristwatch buzzes, and I'm looking at my wristwatch instead of talking to you. Like, I feel like this work distracting us with everything just leads me to less balance.
- [45:18]
Jesse Kramer
Yeah, I am bad at this. Like, full disclosure, I am bad at this. But on the infrequent occasion, whether intentionally or just kind of accidentally, I've been able to ignore notifications for like, a full day or even like half a day, right. Instead of having Outlook and Gmail constantly open in the background, I just shut them down and don't look at them for four, six hours or the entire day. Like.
- [45:43]
OG
Four whole hours, you go without checking.
- [45:44]
Jesse Kramer
I know, I know, exactly. I mean, just the way I'm describing this ought to tell you something about where my baseline is at, right? But I have a solution for this, buddy. I know, I know. And by all means, listeners write in, tell me what I'm doing wrong. I guess what I'm saying, what I found is that my productivity gets way better because I'm not constantly distracted. And then do the people on the other end of the email notice the difference? I'm pretty sure they don't. In other words, my communication to them is just as good. My ability to respond quickly is just as good because 99% of people out there, they don't care if I respond to them in 15 minutes or in a day, for the most part. And so for that reason, I guess what I'm saying is I ought to be better at just shutting, like, checking email once a day, responding to everything, and then not checking it again until the next day. But like Paula, and like, I think a lot of people out there, I fall into this trap of the phone is buzzing, my desktop is dinging. People are calling me, Facebook, this, whatever it may be, like notification, notification, notification. And then next thing you know, you're kind of caught in the hamster wheel of always responding and then more notifications come in.
- [46:50]
Paula Pant
I do want to make a note that when I mentioned Slack buzzes on my wristwatch, the reason I specifically talked about Slack is because I distinguish between internal communication with my team, which I am ultra highly responsive to, versus email, which I check like once a decade.
- [47:10]
Joe Salcihai
And if people think she's joking, she's not.
- [47:12]
Paula Pant
Yeah, seriously. Well, Jesse, you know, you sent me an email and like a month later I was like, oh, hey, just look at this. You emailed me in May.
- [47:24]
Jesse Kramer
Paula, in six weeks I'm going to release this cool multi person podcast episode. I'd love for you to participate. And like three months later, she's like, hey, how did this turn out? How did it go?
- [47:38]
Joe Salcihai
You know? And for anybody that has a really hard time with distraction, I really like this book, the power of fun by Katherine Price. You can watch her TED Talk, which has had millions of views. It's a fantastic book. Chapter three, I think is called why you feel dead inside. And it is this idea that we're so distracted. Jesse, to your point, we're so distracted and we're getting that dopamine hit from our phone over and over and over and over and over that when real dopamine stuff happens, we don't feel it anymore because we're so addicted to our phone. And that distraction that we're not finding what she calls true fun in our.
- [48:17]
Jesse Kramer
Life, it's super scary that, like, that's genuinely frightening. And my wife right now is reading is it the anxious generation by Jonathan Haight Height, who's like a NYU psychology professor? And it's because we have a daughter, we have a kid, and we're thinking about, like, man, I. I think about it all the time. Like, my daughter is never going to know a world. She already doesn't know a world without smartphones and social media.
- [48:41]
Joe Salcihai
And.
- [48:41]
Jesse Kramer
And like, what does that do to a person when they're potentially exposed to these, like, dopamine machines at such an early age. But, yeah, I know exactly what you're referring to there, Joe. Maybe not through, like, personal experience, because I don't know about you guys, I don't have a really good way of monitoring my dopamine levels, but just through hearing other, other people talk about that.
- [49:02]
Joe Salcihai
Fact, my dopamine is up.
- [49:04]
Jesse Kramer
Exactly. Like, we've become so used to the dopamine Hits that we get from notifications and this kind of social engineering that these big companies have done that we forget about the fact that it's like, oh, yeah, like a nice sunset with an ice cream cone is supposed to be this magical experience, but it doesn't feel that magical because no one's liking my photo on Facebook right now. And it's like, okay, that's. That's a bit of a problem.
- [49:25]
OG
Yeah.
- [49:26]
Jesse Kramer
So anyway, yeah, I don't know what the answer is.
- [49:28]
Joe Salcihai
Weird that we're addicted to the thumb up. Like, it's crazy. Just, Just, you know, a stranger gives me a thumb up, and I feel this warm, fuzzy. Who the hell cares? Versus. And in chapter one of her book, Jesse, Catherine talks about the fact that she had just had a baby. She's sitting with her baby, and they had just remodeled their kitchen. She grabs her phone while she's. She's holding on to her baby, and she starts flipping through furniture even though she's already completely bought the furniture. It was just a reflex. Now and then she looks and her daughter's staring at her, and she goes, I'm looking at stuff I don't care about that I've already bought. When this living human being is. Is not getting any attention from me, it's just horrible. Shane hanging out with us says that's why I turn off my phone notifications for social media. I check it only once a day. It drives my wife nuts. It's funny. Well, oh, gee. You and I talk about strategic coach. I mean, one of the first things that they talk about is what Jennifer's talking about here, which is presence, about getting rid of the distractions. When you're at home, be at home, and when you're at work, be at work.
- [50:32]
OG
It takes so much energy is not the right word here, but belief that it's not going to, you know, the world's not going to fall apart, your world's not going to fall apart without your constant supervision and attention on whatever it is that you're doing. So you know to your point, Jesse, about email and that sort of thing. Obviously Paul has mastered this. To my knowledge, Paul is pretty successful. Doesn't check email. Still successful. It's okay. You don't have to. You just turn it. Take it off. Your phone, buddy. Just take it off. Just take it off. We'll sit here, we'll wait. You can grab your phone. You can do it.
- [51:10]
Joe Salcihai
I felt like this went from a podcast episode to an intervention.
- [51:14]
OG
Well, it said he can only make it four hours out checking his email.
- [51:17]
Joe Salcihai
Jesse, there's a reason we invite you here today.
- [51:19]
OG
Yeah. Have a seat, buddy.
- [51:21]
Jesse Kramer
Take a seat.
- [51:21]
OG
Jesse, you know we all love you very much, right? We all care about you.
- [51:25]
Joe Salcihai
We love you so much.
- [51:26]
OG
Yeah. I just want to see you happy.
- [51:28]
Jesse Kramer
Will you text that to me instead?
- [51:29]
OG
Yes.
- [51:30]
Jesse Kramer
Did you email this to me as a joke?
- [51:32]
Joe Salcihai
Speaking of. Because then you get the dopamine hit from quitting.
- [51:36]
OG
Yes, exactly.
- [51:37]
Joe Salcihai
Exactly. Speaking of good books, another book that I love is Jim Lair and Tony Schwartz wrote a book a number of years ago called the Power of Full Engagement. And they talk about treating yourself like a tennis player where there are days that you need to show up and there are days that you don't need to show up. And we talked earlier, Paul, about sprints, you know, and this kind of gets back to the sprint idea. Tennis players play in tournaments all year long, and yet they really are only 100% engaged on four or five, you know, that they really want to the majors. They got to be there for the majors. Golfers are kind of the same way. Like, I feel like, Paula, maybe if we looked at ourselves more like we're an athlete in our life and we're like, I've got these times when I need to show up and I got these other times that I'm in quote, training for those times, maybe that would work better.
- [52:29]
Paula Pant
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, that goes back to. Yeah, exactly as you said, the interval training, the sprint rest. Sprint rest. Athletes have. They have their off season and they have their on season. Heck, even in the middle of the game, they have a halftime.
- [52:42]
Joe Salcihai
Yeah, right.
- [52:43]
Paula Pant
No one says halftime is for the lazy players.
- [52:48]
Joe Salcihai
You're so lazy, you got to take a break halfway.
- [52:50]
Paula Pant
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
- [52:52]
Joe Salcihai
Mr. Pro Football Player. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. OG do you think it worked that way in terms of on season, off season?
- [52:59]
OG
Yeah, everything I think of in that way. Yeah. Whether it's training for athletic stuff, whether it's eating and how that fuel can cycle both on a daily basis, but then kind of over time and then certainly for work. Right. Like, there's periods of time where we've intentionally been a little lighter in review meetings and that sort of thing. Here it's a great example our team takes from the time that we start asking for stuff to have a review meeting until a review meeting is maybe about a month. Sometimes that's because it takes a while for people to go, oh, yeah, I need to send this in. But sometimes it's just because that's the pace in which we go. And so we intentionally don't have meetings in January, review meetings in January, because that would mean our behind the scenes team would be fully working in December, in the last couple of weeks of December, getting ready for those meetings that would happen in the second week of January. And that just seems to me to be fairly unfair. Everybody else is like, ah, it's the.
- [54:03]
Joe Salcihai
End of the year.
- [54:03]
OG
You know, that's kind of like the prep team is like going, oh, it's not the end of the year for us. We got, we're up to our eyeballs and work. And so we intentionally say, well, no, we're not going to have meetings in January, or, you know, scheduled meetings in January, because then that gives everybody the same, you know, the same treatment in terms of time off.
- [54:20]
Joe Salcihai
But then in March, you're cranking in March, you're. It's.
- [54:23]
OG
But that's the trade off. And you have to remember that. I think if you're going to have periods of cycles like this, whether it's work or exercise or whatever, there's a time where you have the cut phase, you know, where you're like getting skinny for your, you know, summer bod. And then there's the period of time where you're bulking up and the scale is going to move and you can't just look at it on a daily basis and go like, oh my gosh, the scale's going up. Well, yeah, it's because that's, that's the season you're in. That's the time that you're in. But when it's time to do the other stuff, it's time to do the other stuff. You can't always be in let's eat cupcake stage of your life. And you can't always be in. Well, it's always January, so we don't have work to do. That's the trade. The trade is if we're going to have periods of time where it's a lot less busy, then we have to be okay with periods of time where it's a little bit busier.
- [55:09]
Joe Salcihai
Jesse, as a business athlete yourself, I like the idea that Paula talked about of even halftime in a football game. Like, you know, even for overachievers, right, Like NFL football players, it's a time when an overachiever goes, you know what? I gotta relax for a few minutes before I hit it hard again. How do you experience that halftime? Like, how do you schedule that out? We heard OG the way that he does it, you know, by setting up his calendar. How do you do it?
- [55:36]
Jesse Kramer
Still working on It. I think that's maybe my first answer. Still working on it a little bit. My weekdays in the office, maybe I kind of partition my brain a lot of times that when I'm sitting at this desk, this very desk I'm sitting at right now, I'm very much in work mode, and that is both the content work and also the client work. Whereas when I'm home, I try really hard, especially when my family is awake, I try really hard to not be in work mode.
- [56:03]
Joe Salcihai
To be present.
- [56:04]
Jesse Kramer
To be present. Exactly. I'm not always perfect at it, but do you guys ever hear that one thing? I remember people would say it in college. I never subscribed to it until much later in life. They said if you take a test in, like sweatpants and a hoodie versus if you kind of wear some nicer pants, you tuck your shirt in, you dress up a little bit, that your brain will kind of be in a bit more of a professional mood to take your test, and you'll actually perform better.
- [56:29]
Joe Salcihai
There have been studies done on this. I mean, it's a fact.
- [56:32]
Jesse Kramer
Exactly, Exactly. So I didn't do that in college. I just wore whatever the hell I wanted. But now I kind of feel it. And part of that, I think, extends beyond just what you're wearing to where you are. Right. It's part of your environment. So when I'm here at the office, very much in work mode, and when I am at home, I try to detach as best I can. So that's probably the best way that personally, like, that's where my halftime is. It's once I'm at home until I'm back in the office the next day, or it's the weekends. And even now, if I need to work on a weekend, I try hard not to just break out my laptop at home for four hours in work, I'd rather drive into the office and actually physically move myself to the workplace in order to get things done.
- [57:11]
Joe Salcihai
It's funny how for all of us, it's a work in progress. We were talking about the phone earlier. I used to make a big deal going to a restaurant with people. And I take the phone, I put it face down, and I put it in the middle of the table. And then I remember hearing Simon Sinek go, when you put your phone down in the middle of the table, you're telling everybody that this is super important to me. And I'm going to take a short break where this thing that's way more important than you, because I said it right out in the middle of the table. I'm going to take a break from that. He's like, if it truly is important, you just put it in your pocket, which now I'm trying to do. So I think, like you, it's a work in progress for all of us. Well, hopefully we helped a few of our stackers with some work life balance. Is it work life balance? Work life alignment, presence. I think those are all worthy topics to end this week, where on Wednesday we talked about, really entrepreneurship and building America and working hard. Speaking of hard work, the hard work you guys do wherever you're at. Og what are you going to work on this mid August weekend?
- [58:07]
OG
I am working on my athletic work. So lots of fun outdoor athletic stuff every weekend for the foreseeable future. Busy, busy, busy.
- [58:18]
Joe Salcihai
I'm laughing at some of the comments. Oh, gee. As you're talking, Dan. Dan likes to bulk up with Christmas cookies. So that's part of his.
- [58:24]
OG
See, that's. That's the seasonality part of his work.
- [58:26]
Joe Salcihai
And Shane is asking if that's why Doug is unprofessional, because he comes to the podcast with no pants. He would do better. He would do much better. Doug, you'd do much better if you would wear pants. Paula. Paula. Speaking of pants. Paula, Pants, what's going on at the Afford Anything podcast?
- [58:44]
Paula Pant
On the Afford Anything podcast, we have an interview with Lori Rosenkopf. She is a professor of management at Wharton Business School and the head of Venture. Yeah, it's this. This little place in Pennsylvania. She's also the director of Venture Labs, and she talks about the seven different types of entrepreneurs. So oftentimes we have this media image of the entrepreneur as the disruptor. You know, somebody who comes in and creates the next Airbnb or the next Uber and totally disrupts an industry. And they're, you know, seeded by all kinds of venture capital and create this unicorn. She talks about how that is one of seven types.
- [59:21]
Jesse Kramer
Sure.
- [59:21]
Paula Pant
But there are all of these other varieties of entrepreneurs. There are some people who are funders. There are some people who are social entrepreneurs. There are some who are bootstrappers. And so we go through the seven archetypes of entrepreneurship.
- [59:35]
Joe Salcihai
When you said funders, I thought you were saying thunders with a lisp. And I was like, who's a Thunder?
- [59:43]
Paula Pant
You know, like the Thundercats.
- [59:45]
Joe Salcihai
The Thundercats. You got to be a person of a certain age to be a Thundercats fan. And that's at Afford Anything.
- [59:52]
Paula Pant
Where that's on the Afford Anything podcast.
- [59:54]
Joe Salcihai
Or the finest podcasts.
- [59:56]
Paula Pant
Yes. Wherever you enjoy downloading podcasts, we're there.
- [60:00]
Joe Salcihai
Jesse, when people enjoy downloading your podcast, what will they hear this fine week?
- [60:06]
Jesse Kramer
This fine week they're going to hear Ask Me Anything. Episode number eight, which just came out a few days ago, or depending if they get the stacking Benjamins a little bit after the Friday episode comes out, they might hear an episode with Kellen Klein about he's a cool entrepreneur who I've gotten to interact with here in Rochester and we talk a little bit about some of the interesting lessons that he learned from quitting his full time job and diving headfirst into running his own now very successful business.
- [60:34]
Joe Salcihai
Wow, cool. What type of business?
- [60:36]
Jesse Kramer
It's actually funny. It's content creation. Have you heard of the savvy couple? Have you heard of that brand Savvy couple?
- [60:42]
Joe Salcihai
Yeah, sure.
- [60:42]
Jesse Kramer
Yeah. So that's Kellen and his wife Brittany, who live just west of Rochester out in the burbs. And he and I discovered one another some at one point and started chatting and it's, it's a really cool business and he's really done a lot of. He just, they've been really successful with it. So he's got some interesting lessons to share with all of us.
- [61:00]
Joe Salcihai
I love it when you can get together with people offline who all work online together. I just met two gentlemen in Texarkana who have a million followers. They're storm chasers. They're YouTube storm chasers. And we've got a guy who does photography on YouTube with about 200,000 followers. Of course, Devin Carroll, Social Security expert is here and I'm like, we got to start doing our Texarkana meetup group maybe would be super fun.
- [61:25]
Jesse Kramer
That's really cool.
- [61:26]
Paula Pant
So this is where the thunder entrepreneurship comes from. The storm chaser.
- [61:30]
Joe Salcihai
That's the, the thunder. Yeah, the thunder. That's going to do it for today. That is the thunder and the lightning and everything else. Thank you everybody for hanging out with us. If you want to watch this being made, hang out with us on Monday afternoons, that is at 3:30 Eastern Time. Generally we start within about 50 minutes of that time. So come say hi and hang out like all the people hanging out with us today. Thanks for being a part of the show. And if you know somebody that shows should hear this show. They maybe have some problems with their cell phone, with distractions or just they feel burnout. Man, this is a great discussion that we had today, so please forward it to those people. But at the end of every episode we hand it over to you again. Doug. Doug, what should be on our to do list today?
- [62:15]
Doug
Well, Joe, here's what stacked up on our to do list today. First, listen very closely when Paula says something like this.
- [62:24]
Paula Pant
Remember, if you're ever playing football, halftime is not just for the lazy players.
- [62:29]
Joe Salcihai
It'S for the overachievers.
- [62:30]
Paula Pant
Yeah, exactly.
- [62:32]
Doug
Second, I pay a lot of attention when Jesse talks.
- [62:37]
Jesse Kramer
There are many ways to get work life balance right. And maybe you can take a page from OG's Book and Vacation yourself first.
- [62:44]
Doug
But the big lesson, you should all be sad Joe got better with money because now when we go to the Sizzler, instead of him buying like in the old days, he's happy to let me pay. Not cool, man. Why can't we focus on helping my credit? Thanks to the Jesse Kramer for joining us today. You'll find his hit podcast Personal Finance for Long Term Investors, better known as the Pfly Podcast, wherever you're listening to us now. We'll also include link links in our show notes@stackingbenjamins.com thanks to Paula Pant for hanging out with us today. You'll find her fabulous podcast Afford Anything wherever you listen to Finer podcasts. And finally, thanks also to OG for joining us. Looking for good financial planning help, head to stackingbenjamins.comog for his calendar. This show is the property of SB Podcasts LLC, Copyright 2025 and is created by Joe Sal Sehi. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You'll find out about our awesome team@stackingbenjamins.com along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh yeah. And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin show.