Work-life Harmony with Bessi Graham

Thank you so much for joining me. I have, um, I had the pleasure of being an early reader of your book way back. I had a look. It was actually, I think, March last year.

Yeah.

Which, um, has— time has passed very quickly, but I'm really keen to have a chance to dig in a bit to the book today, particularly because, uh, my podcast is focused around small and medium-sized business owners who are more than ever experiencing a lot of stress and pressure and, you know, feeling pulled in many different directions. And lately I've recommended your book to multiple people because I think it is The timing is brilliant. So congratulations on pulling off that miracle. But for those people who are not familiar with John, John Briggs is the author of The 3.3 Rule, the book we were just mentioning, the new workday standard of creating more by working less, which is rather appealing, an appealing thought for all of us. I'll give a quick rundown on your bio, John, but then I'm keen for you to bring it to life for us and give us a little bit of your, your background if you're up for that. So John is recognized for his innovative approach to productivity and work-life harmony, not work-life balance. I like that use of words there, which is encapsulated in his book, The 3.3 Rule, that we're gonna talk about today. His approach has not only led to significant revenue growth for his company and clients, but also promotes sustainable work-life harmony by combating the damaging hustle culture.

Yeah.

mindset. So, John, one of the pieces that I really love about your work, and when I first met you a few years back, was your commitment around the culture you create, the respect, and the way that you treat your team. And I would love for you to just maybe start by telling us a little bit of your story of why that became important for you. So the origin story of where this all came from And your commitment around those areas.

Yeah. So I'm an accountant and I've got my CPA. And when you go to school to— I have a master's degree in tax and, you know, like, I don't want to say brainwash you, but they certainly teach one mindset, which is, oh, you're an accountant. Hey, get used to working 70 to 80 hours a week. And certainly I think anyone in any master's program kind of feels the, I feel like I'm doing this 78 hours a week with classes and teach, like learning and memorizing, passing grades, right? But so they just teaching you like the same's gonna continue as you have a job. And so I worked at Deloitte, which is a Big 4 company. I think internationally people are familiar with Deloitte. And very, a couple interesting things happened while I was there. One, Definitely confirmed that, hey, you're going to work a lot of hours because that's what we've taught you. At the same time, it's, oh, by the way, you're going to work a lot of hours and all positive experience you get out of our company are going to come based on how many billable hours you have for the firm. Everything, promotions, everything is related to the billable hour. Oh, by the way, one person, maybe 2 people in the entire office control your workflow. So good luck getting billable hours that you don't actually have control over other than, you know, if I had 6 things on my desk that I needed to do, I could crank through those. But if I had one thing on my desk, great, I'm gonna be penalized because I'm more efficient than these other people who I'm competing against for promotions.

Mm-hmm.

So I spent a lot of time getting work done and then like, Talk like begging for others to give me work. But here's the— so the challenge is they're like, that's pretty inefficient to have a team member being paid to have to do that. The incentive isn't aligned with really what the company should be doing for their client. Because what happens is the client is the one who eats that inefficiency.

Mm-hmm.

So we have this bad model. We're working people way over what people should be able to handle on a long-term basis, and the company benefits from it, and the clients are the ones who suffer. Yeah, I didn't like any of that. It's not fair to the customer. It's not fair to your team members.

No.

And so when I decided to start my own firm, I wanted to make sure that I said to myself, we will always treat the customer right and be fair to them and incentivize my team so that they are incentivized to provide the best service to the client. And, you know, training people is expensive. Finding people is expensive. Keeping good people is like, you want to do that? Uh, how do I keep someone? You know, if I don't work them 70 to 80 hours a week, they have a higher likelihood that they're going to want to stay with my company. Uh, and then from there it just came about teaching the message and just harping on it. Like, I know you've been taught this is the way. But it doesn't have to be the way, whether you're an accountant or any— I, I mean, the book originally started as a manifesto, Betsy, to the accounting industry.

Yeah.

And then through talking to other professionals, they're like, I'm a lawyer, my people could hear that. Engineers, like across the board, apparently.

Yeah.

Uh, companies working team members isn't exclusive to one industry or another, like trying to murder them through too much work, uh, is just, uh, like, it's a global problem. And so I just, you know, treating my team members the right way kind of led into like, well, what are these principles that I'm using? And let's, let's get this word out, not just to accountants, but to everyone.

Yeah, I remember, um, I think we were in Florida and out for a walk with a few people, and you were talking to me about that passion that you had. And as you said, where at that point it was really focused on wanting to shake up the accounting industry and really demonstrate, not just criticize the way that the big companies operate, but actually model that you can do it differently. And in doing it differently, you don't undermine the financial stability of your business. In fact, the opposite is true. And That piece for me was something that I was like, ah, yes, fellow traveler, because all of my work has always been about that aspect of saying, hang on, we've swallowed these different stories without actually really questioning whether they're true or seeing, you know, could I run this business a different way? Are these things mutually exclusive? And so often I think whether it's in industries like you've just spoken about or more broadly in just the everyday small or medium-sized business, we have these opinions where we kind of say, well, but if we make people too comfortable or if we're not working them hard, then we're wasting money or we're not getting the most out of that employee. And so much of what is pulled together in your book does a really great job of bringing the human side to it, but then backed up with some of the research and things you did. So because there'll be people who haven't actually read the book yet, do you want to just give us a bit of an overview of what is the 3.3 rule and then talk into some of the aspects of where you've actually found some really great evidence and research, uh, in terms of academic aspects, but your own experience in your business too. Yeah.

And let me do it opposite. I feel like the rule makes more sense after I explain some of the perfect science. Like, um, the whole world is in the state where we work 40 hours a week, and I don't think many people have ever stopped to pause. Like, how did this happen? Early 1800s, or I mean most of the 1800s, people were working 80 to 100 hours a week, 6 days a week. Like, that's even worse than what we're talking about. Well, Henry Ford comes along and he's like, I need to sell cars. How do I sell more cars? You know who doesn't want cars? People who are working 80 to 100 hours a week who only have 1 day off because their time off is so short.

Yeah.

They just need to recoup and literally just like veg out, you know? He's like, okay, what am I gonna do? So he was kind of villainized at the time, but he created what we have it now as the standard work week. He said, hey, you all are working them 6 days a week. I'm gonna only work them 5 days a week. He gave us a Saturday. So now we have a Saturday, Sunday for a weekend. And then he said, I'm also gonna cap their hours out at 8 hours a day. I think I can, with my assembly line, I should be able to produce enough cars. And guess what? These people are now going to have energy going into the weekend. All of a sudden, I have energy going into the weekend. I've always wanted to visit that place. And now that I have 2 full days off, I could go a little bit further. And oh, I could see more of the world if I get one of these fancy new cars. So we have this work week today, still 100 years after the fact that Henry Ford created to sell more cars. Zero science behind it.

Yeah.

Well, luckily in the last 100 years, science has helped us understand sitting down for 8 hours a day is not actually good for us physically or mentally. So our expectation that our team members that we're employing or even ourselves efficiency-wise, that we're super efficient 8 hours a day, we're kidding ourselves. So there's a lot of science in the book, but I think the foundational one I want to talk about that helps people understand the rule before I explain it, there's a guy named Alejandro Yeddes out of the University of Illinois. And at the time, everybody was doing this study on what's the magic attention span. If I can be the scientist who figures out the magic number for attention span is going to put me on, maybe I'll get a Nobel Prize, who knows? And Alejandro stopped and he said, hmm, I wonder if we're asking the wrong question. Is there an attention span number? Because my attention is always on something. If I'm awake, my attention is on something. Even if I'm daydreaming, my attention is on the daydream. So he's like, we all have the same attention span. But let's look at some of these studies about stimulus. And he came across a study about physical stimulus. Think about this right now. Everyone who's listening, you put on clothes this morning. Until I mentioned that, your body actually forgot you had clothes on. Now you can kind of feel the weight of the material. If you wiggle a little bit, you can feel the friction. It's because your body is designed, your brain specifically, is designed to neutralize a constant stimulus. If you stare— they, they've done some studies that show if you stare at an image long enough, even though the image is still physically there, it'll disappear from your vision. Your brain will neutralize it. So Alejandra said, I wonder if we're talking about attention, really we're talking about like focus. I wonder if the brain will neutralize a mental stimulus the same way it Neutralizes a physical stimulus. So he did a study and sure enough, he found out that is in fact what happens. So with that, the 3.3 rule states the most efficient workday consists of working up to 3 hours at a time, followed by a 30% recovery period. In Alejandro's study, he found, he asked them like 4 groups of people, You know, you guys have heard studies, right? So there's like a control group and everyone has them variables. He asked them all to do the same performing task, but some of them got interrupted and others didn't. He found that those who got interrupted, it was enough of a like trigger that caused the people's brain to not neutralize the stimulus. It's like, hey, I'm working. Oh, I'm interrupted. Oh yeah, I'm still working. Oh, I— so that's where he came up with this. You know what, we need this break period for our brains to reset. Um, the Princeton Neuroinstitute actually did a study and found that our brains have a natural cycle from focus to distractibility to focus to distractibility. And I've learned anytime there's a natural science in things, we should stop trying to fight it as humans. Oh my gosh, yes. Right? So if we're going to naturally become distracted, Let's build parameters around it. So, and there's a lot more science in the book that talks about how that works. But that's why the 3.3 rule is a, it's a guideline. It's work, work up to 3 hours because we're all different.

Yeah.

Work up to 3 hours, however long you worked, 30% of that, take that as a break.

Yeah.

And then you're gonna find that people are gonna be way more productive just because you're intentionally letting them Like reset their focus.

Yeah. And I liked the way in the book where you talked about, so, um, you named sort of the 3 examples around the sprinter, the jogger, and the Zen master of like, how long do you want to do the block? But the idea of kind of laying out these different options, but then also just saying to people, I'm not saying you have to stick to one all day or all the time. It's saying, whatever happens to work. And particularly when you think about some of what you were just talking about, that, you know, the reality is different tasks require us to engage in different ways. There's some things where there's no way it would be possible to not be bored out of your brain if you did it for more than an hour. And then other things you get so consumed that 3 hours can go like that. So I think having the model in your mind and kind of going, okay, Uh, it's the up to 3 hours, and then depending what you're doing, you can kind of chop and change. I, I think that that works really well. And one of the bits that I've been doing since I read your book is using those breaks to put back into my day some of the things that I really love doing and that I know are beneficial for me. But you always end up going, oh my goodness, I haven't done any gardening this week, or I have, you know, it just evaporates. Whereas if you go, oh, just step outside for 20 minutes and you don't have to do something massive, but it's having that consciousness of tuning back into, oh, what are the things you actually enjoy doing? And you don't have to be, well, I'm in work mode, so you can't go and do 20 minutes of gardening. It's sort of, again, I think it's just a much more holistic and realistic way to engage in your day.

Right. Which is one of the reasons why I talk about work-life harmony more than I talk about balance, right? Like, the problem with the idea of balance is you're trying to say, like, I have an equation.

Yes.

And work needs to equal balance, like life on this side. And look, we all know that work affects life and life affects work. We've all experienced it, or you've had people experience it. Like, something's going bad at work, you typically bring that home to your life.

Yes.

And vice versa, right?

Yeah.

And so with the rule, we're trying to just say it's all you. It's all you.

Exactly.

And so it's fine to like think of, I'm going to get my work stuff done during an 8:00 AM or 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM type of window.

Yeah.

But even during that time period, we have to tell ourselves, you cannot go straight. You just cannot go straight. It doesn't work. And to the— what you were talking about, Based on the different tasks we have to do anyways. If it— we all, we're all different, right? So I'm going to say this and people are going to be like, you're out of your mind, John. But as an accountant, if you give me a financial statement and say, do some pro formas and like, let's estimate what this guy's business is going to look like in 12 months or something, I love that stuff. I could go full 3 hours just focused on it, right? And others are like— Anything spreadsheet. Are you kidding me?

Yes, exactly.

No way.

That's me.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so, whereas I could do that with business models, I could like go into your business model for 3 hours straight without blinking. Yes. Yeah.

Based on our different tasks, what we need to do, we have to like really hone into this principle that, okay, I don't like this task. It bores me most of the time. That means we need to do a shorter time period. with quicker breaks.

Yeah.

As opposed to sitting for a long time because you're going to need more rejuvenation to remind yourself that there's something outside of life than the boring task that you want to do. And to your point, yeah, during that break time, you're allowed to basically do anything other than work-related things or things that give you stress. I've learned that since publishing the book. We had a team member going through a, a move that they kind of felt like they were forced to move. And so it was the house she's leaving that her children grew up in. And like, it was really sad.

Yeah.

And, um, you know, we found out that she was trying to coordinate some of that stuff, move stuff, with her husband during her 3 breaks. I'm like, that doesn't work because you're— while you're giving yourself a reset from the work you were doing, you're still loading your mind with stress.

Yeah.

And the purpose of the— now look, we all have to do stressful things and there's things that you don't do on a break that aren't good for recovery that you can totally do. I'm not saying don't do them.

Yes.

Just saying if you're working and you're taking a break from the work so that you're more efficient when you come back to work, there are certain things you can't do.

Yes. Well, because I would imagine that otherwise it's that aspect of you're now taking time away from doing the work, you're not going to get the benefit of being refreshed and coming back and being more productive. So you're actually then gonna think, well, this doesn't work. And it, it's because there is actually some guidance in the book around which things are worth doing or actually help you get that benefit. Do you find when you think about how your team, so if we talk about your business, have engaged with this. Firstly, I think, uh, when we had a conversation early on when you were implementing this, there was almost the questioning or disbelief of like, are you really serious? Am I allowed to take this break? Like, so talk to us about what did you have to do as a leader and the owner of the business to make people, I suppose, feel safe, the cultural elements of, like, setting this up to work. And then given that example you just gave us of the person who was using their breaks, but it turned out it was for something stressful, how, how much of the benefit or the success of this type of approach comes down to then a really tuned-in and engaged manager actually working with people and kind of helping them tune into what is the best way for them to use that?

Yeah, good. Oh, so many good things in there. So the first thing is, as the owner, you have to like internalize it yourself. That took what I mean, I'm doing the research. I'm like, there's no way I'm not like, the research is telling me basically I'm gonna, out of an 8-hour work block, uh, workday, I'm purposely telling them don't work for 2 of the hours. That's effectively how the math works out. However method you get to your 30%. Yeah. It's about 2 hours off out of 8 hours.

Which probably anyone listening is having that same reaction of like, yeah, why on earth would I do that, John? Like, this is—

Why would I waste my money on that?

That's crazy.

Well, for one, studies show your person's only working 2 hours and 53 minutes a day anyways. So we're actually doubling it with the 3.3 method by giving them an intentional break.

Yeah.

Um, and 2, their work will be better. I just, You have to try it out yourself, though.

Did you? How long did you do it as, like, quietly in the background without telling team that you would? Like, how long did you test it out yourself before you felt brave enough?

I mean, it took me 2 years for the book, so probably about 6 months once I had the science. Yeah. And I'm trying to pair it with the other things we did in the business. I'm like, all right, let's see if this works. And it did.

And did you do it as a trial? Was it a trial? Like, did you kind of say, let's try this, guys, or had you already convinced yourself you were just—

So for me, for— I'm just talking about me personally. I did it myself personally for 6 months without them even knowing what I was doing. Yeah, because I'm that— I was that guy. I'm an accountant. Are you kidding me? Wait, you're, you're clocked off? Why are you clocked off during the middle of the day? Are you— it's work hours. Your butt's in the seat. Let's get working. Yeah, I was that guy. I was the biggest proponent for like, no way, Jose.

Yes.

And yeah, it took me 6 months of doing it myself. I'm like, man, this works. This is good. I felt so much lighter. I felt so much more rejuvenated.

Can we just stay on that for a little second? Because I want to also pull out in case anyone's listening and going, oh yeah, but my business is more complicated. Or maybe John's business is tiny. I want you to just put some meat on the bones for people around the fact that this has all taken place for you in a period which really you should have been more stressed, having less time off, because in that 2-year period you have acquired new businesses. You're now, is it 200 employees?

200.

You're growing rapidly. And so I think it is worth Just giving that context because otherwise people might think, oh, he's probably got like 10 people on his team and it's a cushy little, like, so, so talk to, it's actually quite miraculous that you have pulled this off within the stage of business that you're at.

Yeah. I mean, when I started this research for the book, we were like $3 million in revenue and maybe 40 team members. And 2 and a half years later, the book was published in January. Um, 2 and a half years later, we're at 215 team members and we'll do $20 million this year. And that, if you guys have ever had that type of hypergrowth, I can tell you we broke every freaking system in our business.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, while trying to stay on top of client needs during tax seasons.

Yes.

Um, absolutely. Like it, we, We're a Titanic at this point when it comes, like, I know we're not a Big 4.

No, but that time period jumping to the speed of that changes, and that's a big jump. Yeah. Amazing. Would you go so far as saying that, do you think if you hadn't have put this in place, what do you think would be the current situation? Would you, if you'd acquired those businesses, would it just have been slower growth, more stress, uh, more tension for everyone relationally, both at work and at home? Or do you think it would have not worked?

I lived it when I was at Deloitte. I lived it when I started my own small business.

Yeah.

I remember my wife telling me, like, one of the most heartbreaking moments of my life was when she's like, you know, I'm like a single parent. And like, yeah, massive respect to people who are actually single parents. That is a hard freaking job. And for her to actually be married but not have my support, it's almost worse because it's a bit of— it's all— I'm— because I'm working 18, 20 hours a day. I'm like, well, how do you sleep on that? I don't know how I got through that, but it was miserable.

Yeah.

And I can't imagine. Yeah. The acquiring the couple businesses and I I don't even want to know what it would have been like without the 3.3 rule.

Yeah, I know. Sorry, and I know I interrupted your flow there, but I just thought it was important to, um, say you haven't just been trotting along in a nice little, um, phase. It's like you are more relaxed now. Like, I can even see from a few years ago, like, your energy and disposition is completely different. Even in that, it's not like you were in a terrible place there, but it's obvious Yeah, the difference is very clear. So sorry, I'll, I'll shut up now.

No, great observation. So I first had to accept it myself. And then once you are on board as the owner and you realize this is actually more efficient for me, therefore it must be more like, it's gonna be more efficient for my team as well. That is a different battle because first there's the, As an owner, we live with guilt. We allow ourselves to have so much guilt. Oh, I need to be working. Oh, my clients have needs. I better work on those, which is what is one of the reasons that pushes us to kind of just feel like we're working all the time because our clients are always on our mind. Our team members don't quite have that stress because a lot of them have the ability. It's the end of the workday. I clocked off. Cool. I'm gonna go enjoy my life. I'm gonna come back to work. But, you know, if they want to come back to work, it's a definitely different vibe than if they're like, I hate my job because this guy keeps on pushing me to work overtime hours or things like that. I can tell you when I first introduced it to my team, they did not believe me. They're like, wait, it— I mean, they should— they're like, April, is it April 1st? Is this an April Fool's joke? Like, you wait, you want us to take a break? And I listed out here the things you can do on a break. Like all this, like, go ahead, like watch comedy people on your phone. Do like—

Yeah.

Wait, so if you catch me with my phone out at work, you're not going to yell at me? Like there's, there's just so much stuff. And so to get past that, we had to do a lot of reinforcements, like a lot of reminders in the beginning. Yes, guys, here's how the rule works. Did anyone have any scenarios where you're like, I didn't know this rule applied? So We did kind of Q&A, which was helpful for the book too, to see kind of where they're having questions. And so the readers probably would have the same questions. So we included those in the book. And then it became, because one of the things, if you have a team that I love doing is actually encouraging them to take a break timed with somebody else. And then they have a break together and they do nothing work-related, just a conversation about What's your life like? What's my life look like? What was your weekend? How was it? Like, just a building bond. We're now more friendly than we were before because we know more about each other. Just having that. So if you have a supervisory role type of position and you're trying to get this implemented with your team, I think one of the easiest low-hanging fruits is to have your manager actually go around and individually schedule. You know, it takes some time, but it's like Bob the manager says to Susie the worker, hey, what's your workday look like today? When's your 3.3 break? Hey, let's do that together. I'd love to just chat with you.

Yeah.

Right? And that, that has helped because then it's from top down being enforced. Like, we are serious that we're on board that you guys do nothing work-related during your 3.3 break.

And what's interesting is, um, and obviously you know the, the research more than I do that, that comes up in your book, but when I think about the how interconnected different things are, something which can seem not work-related, like a manager having a cup of tea with someone and just chatting about non-work things, everything is connected though, right? So if we then go back to some of the pieces that you describe as the benefits of the 3.3 rule, and that in my work I talk about as some of the competitive advantages you can leverage if you merge money and meaning, right? So if you intentionally design your business model in this way. So both of us, we're using different words, but we're talking about the same thing. And when I think about the elements that are needed to be able to do things like increase the sense of purpose or contribution for team members, one of the things you need to be able to do for that to play out well is you actually have to know your team. Like, you have to know what's important to them, what drives them in a non-work conversation. When you're regularly having those, you see patterns, you see what excites them, you see the stories they're telling, who's important to them in their life. And it's more real then. It's not this transactional thing of, right, let's have a meeting and please tell me the name of your dog and what, like, yeah.

It's not a checklist of questions to help us be personal with each other. Yeah.

Are your grandparents still living? Like, we're not doing a survey, but we're actually getting to know people, what drives them, what motivates them, so that we are more tuned into going, ah, we've got this project coming up that we're doing. And not only am I looking for who's got the right skill set, but I'm saying it actually would be great to get those 2 people to work on this project because I know how excited they are about that type of client or this type of outcome being created. So it's all of these pieces. Uh, again, when we stop just having these very one-dimensional approaches to what does it mean to run a good business, we just focus on profit maximization and we instead say, actually, we've believed a whole bunch of lies about what's going to make a strong business. We've swallowed those stories of like, oh, we need the 40-hour workweek, or we need— and not actually understood where they came from and said, is that still relevant, or is that relevant for my business? So it's, um, it's really exciting to be able to now be in a time where we have the evidence and the case studies and examples to back up these things and say, no, it's not just a nice thing to do, it actually makes sense. And you're saying, you know, here you are, an accountant saying, I know it sounds crazy, but it actually does work.

It will increase your profitability. It really will. And it, because as a small business owner, like especially as you start having team involved with things, you, you're going to become removed. And it's certainly as we've grown and we are now 200, I'm further removed from a lot of the process than I ever was when it was just me.

Yes, of course.

And you want your team to feel Like they have the ability to make suggestions about, hey, this is what I'm seeing with our process. Have we thought about these things? And when Sally, who supervises Ed, has a 3.3 break with Ed, now they're comfortable with each other. They took an effective break. But you better believe that increases the effectiveness of my entire company because now Ed, who's in the minutia day to day, maybe interfacing with the client, more than Sally is, he can come and bring a suggestion. And Sally, with her experience, can say like, well, as your supervisor, I actually see the logic with that. Let's, let's talk about that improvement. But you're— all these things are connected by giving people a proper 3.3 break. When I know it sounds crazy, they're doing nothing work-related. Your whole business will become more profitable and more effective.

Can you connect some of this to ideas like the 4-day workweek, or like, there'll be people who say, um, you know, how is this different? Or why wouldn't I then just reduce their hours? Talk about the distinction between what you're proposing and some of the current, uh, aspects. So there's a lot of talk at the moment. There's been a bunch of, um, different pilots and things around the 4-day workweek and results in that with people with very strong opinions on either side.

But yeah.

Just explain for people some of the challenges you see in how people approach a 4-day workweek and how what you're talking about is different, understanding, of course, you could use this in a 4-day workweek.

But totally, yeah, absolutely. Uh, if you guys can run a successful company the way you want with the growth you want and you're only working 4 days a week, awesome. The science of the 3.3 rule still is going to apply to anybody. But I do have an entire chapter I go over this because, yeah, the 4 4-day workweek was, is, is a big thing, and many countries have tried it. Government entities have tried it. Private people have tried it. And what we see is there's kind of 2 different approaches people have taken. There's the, I'm gonna give them a 4-day workweek, but now they have to work 10 hours a day because I still gotta get them to have the 40. That doesn't work because we're trying to avoid burnout. Burnout in you and burnout in your team. And I can tell you, if you're not burnt out but your team is, you'll eventually get burnt out of dealing with a burnt-out team. Um, burnout is a real thing, people, right? And 10-hour, you just— if they're not getting— if they're not productive making it work at 8 hours a week, like, they're initially gonna be a honeymoon stage where they're like, oh, I love this, I have an extra day off, it's awesome.

Yeah.

It'll start taking a toll. Then the other is like, okay, we're just gonna do 4— it's 4 days and 8 hours. So it's 32-hour week. So I'm reducing their hours. Most people don't want their pay reduced and sometimes businesses reduce their pay. Others don't, which is fine, but it's still an 8-hour workday with no structure or permission to the team member to take that break. And if you don't give them that permission, they're gonna be as ineffective as they currently are, which studies show— Yes.

And they're gonna be doing that. What was it? 2 hours and 56 minutes.

2 hours and 53 minutes a day.

Yeah. Which is the whole piece of this comes back to us needing to stop and check, are we even asking the right question? Are we solving the right problem here? Because if we've just latched onto something and said, oh, people are working too much overtime or people are exhausted, or, you know, we've picked something and named it as the problem, if we're still using a solution where the format of how that plays out is not efficient, is not getting the most from that productivity standpoint, but is also still draining for people, then actually we could end up with a worse outcome. Now, again, not saying that there aren't people who are doing the 4-day workweek well, but on its own, it's not— it doesn't solve some of those pieces you're talking about.

Exactly. It's just not complete enough. The 3.3 rule comes in and the science is Structure your workdays however you want, as long as you're only working up to 3 hours and then taking an intentional 30% break of whatever time you work. Like we were before you started the live, you were mentioning how you're an early person. You're in Australia. I'm in the United States here in Utah, very different time zones. I don't love the morning. You do. I have 200 team members. I have some team members, they're like, they're more functional in the morning. Why would I say, like, well, I'm sorry, you can only come in at 9:00.

That's crazy.

You have to stay till 5:00.

It's like, it also doesn't allow people the respect to know themselves because sometimes it's about, are you more effective or more alert in the morning? And sometimes it's about the task. So I have certain, um, there's certain pieces of work that I do in some of my, um, advisory work where I've learned that if I try and do it in the middle of the day, I find it so boring that I get distracted and I'll do anything but that. So it will take me 4 or 5 times as long because I keep drifting off. And what I discovered was timing played out. So it was about taking the breaks, but it was also that I will get up at 3 AM and work on that because if I know I could be in bed, I'm not going to go off and drift and do other things. I will get that thing done, you know. So sometimes it's about us also being respectful and Giving people the autonomy to say, you know yourself, you know the task, figure that out. But then you're giving those guide rails of this is what the evidence shows is going to also make you more productive. Not— it's not just time blocking or just 4-day work week. It's adding this element in.

Absolutely. Like that. One of the reasons I love the science behind the 3.3 rule so much is it does require us to start paying attention to ourselves. As opposed to these unwritten rules that we've accepted, like Henry Ford's 40-hour work week so that you can sell more cars.

Yeah.

Like, I, we have a lot of remote team members now out of necessity to hire good people. We had to open it up nationwide. In fact, we have international team members.

You're growing so fast. That's kind of gonna be essential now.

And, you know, I have plenty of team members who are excellent and they're stay-at-home moms. And so they wake up early before the house wakes up and get some work done and then their parent duty during the day. And then when the kids are in bed, they put a little bit more work in. And for them, they're like, this work-life harmony works for me.

To be perfectly honest, I think I was the most efficient when my kids were little because I had to be. It's that thing of you gradually, when they don't need you as much, you're like, oh, there's more flexibility. But when you have to be that structured, I think I was the most effective and productive in that period. I think we often make assumptions that like, oh, they'll be distracted. It's like, well, I don't think that's actually true. Yeah.

Yeah.

Love it. Are there— when you think about the elements, um, in what you've kind of seen as that's played out, so you've talked to us about you did the trial yourself. then you got brave and brought it into the team. What are some of the typical challenges that either you've found or readers or other clients of yours who are implementing have found this? Like, for example, I can imagine people saying, well, how on earth would I do this if someone's a casual employee? Or does it only work for some, like, full-time staff? Are there certain patterns or challenges that you've seen that you can give us some kind of little cheat codes to of like, okay, here's how it works in this setting?

Yeah, um, a couple things have come up since we've published the book and have had the team running it longer, even longer. First one is for part-time people, the rule still works really well. It's just potentially their 30% breaks are them living life. doing other things, right? If I'm— if they're part-time, I'd actually— I'm thinking through this right now. Like, I probably have people challenge me on this if this statement isn't true. If you're— if you have a part-time worker, your job is never gonna be the number one priority in their life. Something else always will be. And I'm not saying if someone's full-time that the full-time job is their priority, but it's much more of a priority than someone who's part-time. And so therefore, it's like they get their hours in, When they can. That being said, we have found you still have to give me an idea of when you're getting your hours in. I, I'm not gonna just leave it up to chance, this ultimate flexibility. Like, no, I need to know if on Monday you're gonna be clocked in from 10 to 12 because that works for your schedule. Like, you tell me, have that flexibility, but communicate with us. Another thing we've noticed is because of the book, I lay out the sprinter, joggers, and masters kind of like almost like a teaching aid to help people understand how it would work. It is just a teaching aid. It's, it's just there to help us generally understand it because we're all so different and our business needs and tasks change. For me to say I'm always a Zen master and block out my schedule that way would be irresponsible. But I had team members who did that because they initially liked the idea that, oh, I, if I come into work at 9, I can leave at 4 because the last hour of the day is my 3.3 break. And so what I've also found is as a business owner, you use the 3.3 rule however you want. And I really hope everyone tries this out like the next tomorrow, whenever you're listening to this tomorrow, please, folk, like pay attention to how you're working when you've lost focus. Take a 30% break, like try it out, please, because I want evidence. Tell me it didn't work. And the only way for you to tell me it didn't work is you have to try it. And I promise we can try it a little. So anyways, what we've learned is that for business owners, it's cool. End your day at 4 because you're the business owner, if that, that works for you. But I found for my team members, we've had to let them know, like, look, it might happen occasionally, but if you're intentionally planning for your 3.3 break to be at 4 and you leave. The problem with that is, is your clients rely on you, or our clients as a company rely on you. And if you're not available at 4 because you're on a break, so we've had to explain, like, even if you're on a break but a client needs you, we serve the client. The client pays our bills.

Yes.

And so while we don't expect that to happen every time you're on a 3.3 break, you have to be flexible to that as a possibility. Therefore, you can't just like clock, like you just can't check out and not be available. We need you available during the hours the customers expect us to be available, even if you're on a 3.3 break. So those are kind of the 2 biggest ones that we've seen. So I counsel my team members now, like the best way to approach it is what does my, like either at the end of today or the beginning of tomorrow, looking at the tasks I need to do that day, Which also falls into a lot of other efficiency things that other people have been teaching for decades of what are the big 3 things. Like our days can get so distracted. If I can sit down and say, what do I absolutely need to do today? I'm now building that into this process of using my 3.3 rule. Okay, based on that, I like that task and here's a block. I think I can do that block at this time. So then I give myself a tentative structure for just tomorrow. Or the day if I'm doing it in the morning. And then from there, I have self-awareness. It's like, you know what, normally I can do spreadsheets for 3 hours, but today, for some reason, because of whatever's going on in my life, it's affecting me. I, I feel like I'm losing focus after an hour and a half. I'm gonna go and shake it off. I'm gonna go and take a break.

Yeah.

And then I'm gonna come back because the break says, like, if I do the break the right way, I know I'm gonna be able to come back more focused.

Yeah. Have you found that there's, you know, one of the pieces when you were describing before your early career and being in a setting of, you know, the massive hours of work, etc., does either the research or your experience show that there are differences related to, you know, age or whether someone is neurodivergent or whether they're like all of these aspects, what are some of the pieces where they genuinely change how you can engage with it or where they at least change it for a period? So when I think about, um, you know, right back at the beginning of the conversation, I said to you that one of the patterns I'm seeing in small and medium-sized business leaders is this exhaustion and the overwhelm of, like, trying to stay up to speed with, like, all the change that's going on in the world. And I think one of the reasons why people are finding that quite destabilizing is because they've always had this image of themselves or this persona that they were an overachiever and a high performer, and they could do all the hours. Um, that to me speaks into this aspect of sometimes we can do something for a period that might even be a few decades, and then it's just not sustainable, right? So how do you use something like this? So it's beautiful for those of us who are at the period where we're too exhausted to keep functioning like that. Great. We can use the 3.3 rule and avoid burnout. How do you slightly alter it or give people room to move if they are in that energized young period where they're saying, I want to get ahead or I want to do more. Do you just say, well, then do you— could still do the 10 hours, but you're doing the 3.3 rule across it? Or how does it play out? Or is there a drop-dead point where you say research shows you just can't do that many hours in the week even with the 3.3 rule?

Yeah, unfortunately, the 3.3 rule would help a workaholic be more productive. It would. The science—

just for a period or ongoing? Like, you think they could sustain it? Yeah. Okay.

They could sustain it. That's the beauty of the principle is like, as long as you're taking those proper breaks in between work blocks, you could sustain it. But I would just argue, what is the purpose of your life and where does happiness really come from?

Totally.

There are going to be— there are going to be people, and no judgment, there's going to be people that that's where they get their happiness from. That's based on their level of development. That's where it is. Business success equates happiness. To think it's dangerous, but there's going to be people that are there, right?

Yeah, of course.

I think what happens too in our society is there are a very small percentage of all people born on the earth that are what I would refer to as uniques of nature. They're just unique. They only need 4 hours of sleep for some reason, and their brain still functions like mine does when I have to have 8 to 9 hours of sleep. And those people end up being super successful. And so now you have these super successful people who are uniques of nature, and they tell you, this is how I live my life.

Would you say, though, because Whenever I look at people who are in that category, I would say they only look super successful publicly. But they're— I don't— can't think of one person who is in that category who is super successful across multiple elements of life. Because when we talk about relationship, they probably have their partner at home saying, I feel like a single parent, or they've been divorced 4 times, or their kids hate them. Like, so it's what's valid, right? So this goes to that.

Exactly. To them, what is it like? Yeah, I mean, I think about Gary Vee is a typical person who comes up when as an icon of the hustle culture. And I actually don't know very much about his personal life.

Yes. And he does that on purpose. But yeah.

Well, good for him. I mean, I hope it's a good family life. I don't know. But what I can tell is he has been able to sustain him being everywhere and doing all these things for a really, really long time. Now, obviously he's very successful and he is wired that way. Mike Michalowicz is an author I know and he is a machine that like the guy, he's a machine and I know he has a great life. His kid, like I know him personally and I know he has a great family.

Yeah.

So like there are those people, but the, of course, then there's the others out there that maybe people are revering, if you will. And they're not willing to ask the question like, yeah, but this person's a complete jerk to their loved ones.

Yeah.

Or they've been divorced 100 times. And so they can't figure out that type of relationship, but somehow they figure out business relationship. Or, yeah, they look super successful here, but anyone who's done business with that person would tell you, I'd never do business with them again. For sure. There are so many things we have to be aware of, but From a principle standpoint, with the 3.3 rule, it would help anybody work more if they really wanted to. I just ask people that they really, if they're not sure what happiness means, to really take a serious look at it. Like, take some time, don't work, like focus on that. What does happiness and success really look like for me? That is one of the things I know the younger generation coming up seems to get crap for it a little bit. But it's one of the things I think us older folks could really admire, which is—

I agree.

They have better defined for themselves what happiness looks like. And it isn't necessarily career status or titles. Oh, I need to be a VP. If I don't have a VP status, then I'm not a successful person. Um, and so I'm hiring people where it's like money is important to them, but it's not the end-all be-all like I would say it was maybe 20 years ago, where it's like, whatever you need me to do, if you pay me more money, I'm gonna do it.

Yeah. And to be honest, I think some of that comes down to the aspect of they are actually questioning rather than just accepting a current hustle culture or the assumption that a few decades ago the belief was, well, if you work hard and you're loyal, the company will protect you and look out for you. And people have now seen that is not the case in almost all situations.

Almost all cases. Yeah. Almost all cases.

Yeah.

They hurt you, those people who are relying on that pension.

And so actually young people are sensible to say, why would I sacrifice myself when actually this is not reciprocal, like you're not going to be there for me when I need you. I think one— oh, sorry, you go.

I was like, why do I have no problem with them saying this is a relationship? Like one of our core values in our company is called value exchange, and I expect that to work with my team members as well. Meaning, am I providing a fair exchange of value to them and vice versa back? The company has to mean something to them and be something to them other than this Promise of, well, if you suffer with me for 20 years, oh my gosh, I hope you trust me that you'll be taken care of.

I'll look after you.

It didn't work out very well. And I'll say this too, to those who are like, if they're listening to us, like, you guys are full of baloney. This isn't— no way. I don't buy it whatsoever. Unfortunately, you have to understand from a statistics standpoint, that's your pool. That's your biggest pool of people to hire for your business.

Yeah.

And if you don't get on board, this generation is not going to change that mindset.

No. And they also are interviewing you just as much as you're interviewing them. Like, it's not a— the power dynamic is not the same.

And I think you are going to have to adjust even if you don't like it. You have to provide value to them as well.

And in that though, I think if we go back to the piece that you spoke about earlier, let's be honest about how expensive and time-consuming it is to have to be doing the recruitment process, the training process. When you have high turnover, that is a really tricky place to be. And I know in the book you spoke about some of the aspects when there's the surveys and things of like the best place to work. But if you dig a little deeper and you go, except people only work there for 18 months and then they move on, like, I'm not sure we can take their answers that they love working here if they won't actually stay for more than 18 months. So I think, again, this comes down to how do we as the business owners or the business leaders be more discerning in asking the right questions, looking for the right data, and not just being so stuck in our ways on this is the way I do it without, you know, going, is there a better way?

Don't even get me started on some of these awards that people put credit into, like, Yeah. Um, I have clients and people that I just love dearly who've been on the Inc. 500 list. Hey, fun, super fun. Great. You grew your revenue really fast. I worked for a company that was number 88 on the list in a year and they went bankrupt the same year. Top line revenue growth doesn't matter. The last accounting firm I worked for won the Best of Utah County Accounting Firm. How did they do that? They bought an email list of 2,000 people and then had admin assistants go in and vote on behalf of all these email addresses lists that they bought.

Yeah.

Like, look into the awards, people. Let's— we have to just start defining success differently. And if that means we have to hire differently and change the way we approach our, our staff, we, we better get on board. Because—

Yeah.

And I just think it's— I feel better as a person knowing that I am providing something more to them than just a paycheck. We, we just, my team just surprised me last week with a like, congratulations, 200+ employees. And they put together this amazing book of all their thoughts of how Insight has changed them. And like, it very rarely do you get to like pause as an owner and realize you're impacting people. And I think Life is so much better focusing on that as opposed to how to get the most out of them while they're working. Because that's gonna happen if they feel safe and like value exchange is fair.

You read my mind there because that was my starting to wrap up question was I was gonna say you got a book from your team because I saw it. You posted it the other day. I would like to know when we bring all of this back into this idea of creating a culture where the wellbeing of staff is there, where we're not engaging in that hustle culture and taking advantage of our team, but we're doing it in a way that also unapologetically builds the business and strengthens the business. I would love to know some of the things of what did your team say in that book and what were those patterns that came out and spoke to you as the leader around What they appreciate the most about the culture you've created and elements like the 3.3 rule that you're implementing in your business.

Yeah, I mean, I— they're— the day after they gave it to me, like, have you read it yet? I'm like, no, I haven't read it yet. I want to be in a space by myself where I can't be interrupted, where no one's gonna make fun of me based on whatever emotion I decide to show. I wept like a baby as I read it.

I bet.

Like, it was so meaningful and moving to hear my team members tell me how the company has impacted their life and how one team member, she shared how she's like, she lives in a country where there's really bad inflation. It's hard to get good jobs. And she reached out to me on LinkedIn. And I didn't even know, I didn't even remember at the time, but we just had a conversation on LinkedIn and she's like, I, I know how to do bookkeeping. I'm like, that's awesome. You should apply for a job here. She applied, she got the job, and then a couple months later, because of the job, she was able to move into an apartment and pay for rent for her and her boyfriend. And it's like, she's like, I, I would've basically been homeless without this.

Yeah.

Um, another team member, like a common pattern was I thought I was done with accounting and I found you guys and like I realized I didn't make a mistake in my career path.

Yes.

That I do love accounting and your company, like being here has let me see how much I love doing it. So yeah, that just a lot of times, like I love that I get the flexibility to do things as a parent with my children or with my spouse, like so much. so many comments related to, I have a better relationship with my family because I work here. And like, it's just, yeah, it was really good. It was awesome.

I just think it's such a great, as we sort of wrap up the conversation, such a great example of pulling together these pieces. So, you know, I'm always talking to people about the fact that your business does more than just fund or bank grow your ability to contribute in the world or, or be generous. It is the platform that you can use for the contribution. And these stories that you're telling and the focus that you have, the way you're using the 3.3 rule and creating this culture within your rapidly growing business is in that category, which I talk about as a team focus. But where you're saying, you know what, I don't just have to show generosity or contribution by as a company or as an individual giving away money to causes I care about. I can do that. But it's just acknowledging and sitting with— you have this vehicle where you are pouring in your blood, sweat, and tears and all your skill and effort. Why not use it to be that major driver of your contribution? And all of the stories that you've shared with us today and that beautiful book that that I'm sure you will be reading many times over the rest of your life will be that example of really bringing home how you have used your business and are continuing to build it in a way where the core decisions that you make, the way you operate that business, is your contribution to the world. Everything else can be icing on the cake and additional benefit. But such a great example, um, and I'm really thankful that in amongst all the crazy busyness and the things you're doing, that you've, uh, been able to have this chat with us. We'll share in the show notes, uh, links for the book and anything else that you want us to. Is there any aspects that we haven't covered that you want to leave us with? As we kind of wrap up, John?

You know, for small business owners, there's a small percentage of people in the world who are even willing to take the risk of opening a business. That's special. And I think it needs to be protected. And that's what I'm hoping to do with the 3.3 rule, because what happens when the business owner gets burnt out? Because like you said, people can do crazy things for a period of time. And that might be a decent length of time, but at some point that wall will hit and burnout is what happens when we hit that wall. And when we hit burnout as a business owner, we close the business or we sell it to someone who didn't have the same passion. Now, like usually someone who's buying your business kind of just trying to make a buck.

Yeah.

They don't have, they're not the founder. And I just want to keep small business owners employed, like self-employed in the world, bringing that passion to the world. And I just really think the 3.3 rule is a great structure that allows you to maintain whatever level or pace you want to keep at. It allows you to maintain that way better than the old way of doing things. Yeah.

So fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing. And I really hope that people grab the book and Use it to— if there's any aspects where you've had ideas or wanted to make changes in the business but have felt like it's too risky or I can't justify it, it'll undermine the financial stability. John has done an incredible job, and as someone who is the numbers person, who is the accountant, I think brings a different, uh, rigor or perspective to that, which will be very useful for those who are more skeptical on these types of issues. So Grab the book, have a read, and I'm sure John would love it if you reach out to him and share how, how you find it and what's helpful. So I hope this conversation has been a good one, and thank you all for joining us.