on episode number 167 of the beyond add diversity podcast with Dr. Brad Miller.
Dr. Brad Miller:We talk about how to work fewer hours, make more money,
Dr. Brad Miller:and spend time doing what you want in life with Joe Sanok.
Dr. Brad Miller:The author of Thursday is the new Friday.
Dr. Brad Miller:They see this glimpse into a new method of using the neuroscience
Dr. Brad Miller:to get more done and to feel less stressed in the process.
Dr. Brad Miller:to inform how we do our regular everyday work
Garland Vance:Hi, this is garland Vance, author of getting unbusy
Garland Vance:helping you to overcome overwhelm and be more productive.
Garland Vance:Dr. Brad Miller helps you to claim victory over adversity.
:Welcome to the beyond adversity podcast with Dr. Brad Miller,
:the show dedicated to helping you crush adversity and succeed in life.
:Brad believes you deserve a life that is fulfilling and impactful.
:And this show is designed to help you navigate beyond adversity
:and achieve your life of peace, prosperity and purpose.
:Now here's Dr. Brad.
Dr. Brad Miller:Hello, good people.
Dr. Brad Miller:And welcome to the beyond adversity podcast with Dr. Brad Miller.
Dr. Brad Miller:So good to have you with me today.
Dr. Brad Miller:This is episode number 167 of the podcast
Dr. Brad Miller:where we help you to grow through what you go through
Dr. Brad Miller:overcoming adversity to achieve your life of peace,
Dr. Brad Miller:prosperity, and purpose,
Dr. Brad Miller:you can always go to Dr. Brad miller.com,
Dr. Brad Miller:find back episodes of the podcast
Dr. Brad Miller:with great leaders and teachers
Dr. Brad Miller:and find a free gift there.
Dr. Brad Miller:Let me ask you something.
Dr. Brad Miller:Were you influenced at all by Tim Ferriss?
Dr. Brad Miller:his book of several years ago,
Dr. Brad Miller:the four-hour workweek, I know that I was.
Dr. Brad Miller:And yet there's still a little bit lacking in that
Dr. Brad Miller:and how to implement that
Dr. Brad Miller:Tim gives us a lot of great clues in his teachings and his writing,
Dr. Brad Miller:and his podcast and his blog.
Dr. Brad Miller:But it's time we get an update on that process
Dr. Brad Miller:and learn how we can add more time,
Dr. Brad Miller:be more accomplished in our life,
Dr. Brad Miller:make more money, and spend time with the people who are meaningful to us.
Dr. Brad Miller:That's the emphasis of our great guest author here today.
Dr. Brad Miller:Joe Sanok is the author of Thursday is the new Friday,
Dr. Brad Miller:and he is going to be talking to us today
Dr. Brad Miller:we're going to learn some things
Dr. Brad Miller:we're going to learn and come to know how to slow down to gain more time and productivity.
Dr. Brad Miller:By the time we're through with our interview,
Dr. Brad Miller:we're going to feel the influence a major adversity with his daughter
Dr. Brad Miller:and with his own health, which influenced his desire,
Dr. Brad Miller:his burning desire to transform his life from a 40 hour nine to five work day
Dr. Brad Miller:to a new life where he is able to have his own work schedule,
Dr. Brad Miller:dedicate more of his precious time to his daughter,
Dr. Brad Miller:his family and pursuing the things that he wants to do.
Dr. Brad Miller:If you come back after the interview to my comments,
Dr. Brad Miller:we'll learn what to do about it,
Dr. Brad Miller:how you could implement some of these great processes.
Dr. Brad Miller:That we have in our conversation today.
Dr. Brad Miller:But Joe Sanok he blogs at Joe sanok.com.
Dr. Brad Miller:That's Jo JOE. So again, ok.com.
Dr. Brad Miller:And there's some information there about his book,
Dr. Brad Miller:Thursday is the new Friday.
Dr. Brad Miller:You're going to love this interview.
Dr. Brad Miller:So, let's get into our conversation with Joe Sanok.
Dr. Brad Miller:The author of Thursday is the new Friday, right now.
Dr. Brad Miller:Our guest here on beyond adversity with Dr. Brad Miller
Dr. Brad Miller:is the author of the new book Thursday being the new Friday
Dr. Brad Miller:where he talks about how you can work fewer hours,
Dr. Brad Miller:make more money and spend more time doing what you want.
Dr. Brad Miller:He is from the practice of the practice where he generates innovative,
Dr. Brad Miller:innovative ideas to help people in the counseling profession
Dr. Brad Miller:to grow and scale their private practice
Dr. Brad Miller:our guest here today, Joe Sanok.
Dr. Brad Miller:Welcome to Beyond adversity. Joe.
Joe Sanok:Thank you so much for having me here today.
Dr. Brad Miller:Awesome. Awesome.
Dr. Brad Miller:It is great to have you here.
Dr. Brad Miller:You're the author of several books,
Dr. Brad Miller:and you've got a new book coming out
Dr. Brad Miller:called Thursday is a new Friday.
Dr. Brad Miller:And we will get into all that
Dr. Brad Miller:in the process of our conversation here today.
Dr. Brad Miller:But what we're about here is helping people
Dr. Brad Miller:find ways to overcome adversity to achieve peace,
Dr. Brad Miller:prosperity and purpose are what we like to say.
Dr. Brad Miller:And Joe, tell us a bit of time
Dr. Brad Miller:where you maybe you face some adversity,
Dr. Brad Miller:which may be insightful to some of the decisions you've made
Dr. Brad Miller:that led to this book.
Joe Sanok:Yeah, so in 2012, I was working full time
Joe Sanok:at a community college as a college counselor,
Joe Sanok:I also had my side gig counseling practice
Joe Sanok:and a growing podcast at the time.
Joe Sanok:So pretty busy life. But my oldest daughter
Joe Sanok:right before her first birthday needed to have open heart surgery.
Joe Sanok:And so that first year of life,
Joe Sanok:she was having these breast milk milkshakes were
Joe Sanok:you know, we'd be putting formula with the breast milk
Joe Sanok:to try to get her up to weight
Joe Sanok:and all these different things.
Joe Sanok:And then, right before her first birthday,
Joe Sanok:she had this open-heart surgery.
Joe Sanok:So, this little kid, all bloated and big,
Joe Sanok:and just, you know, we're at University of Michigan,
Joe Sanok:the Ronald McDonald House and
Joe Sanok:just watching your child go through just such a tough first year of life.
Joe Sanok:And then, you know, fast forward six to eight weeks,
Joe Sanok:and we get the all clear from,
Joe Sanok:from our daughter, she's good.
Joe Sanok:Right now, she has no limitations,
Joe Sanok:or heart issues, you know, as now a 10-year-old, are not there.
Joe Sanok:She has annual checkups.
Joe Sanok:But right after we got the all clear,
Joe Sanok:I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
Joe Sanok:So, we thought we were about to leave this medical world
Joe Sanok:just say goodbye, our daughter's healthy.
Joe Sanok:Move on, I'm diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
Joe Sanok:So, we go back into the medical institution,
Joe Sanok:I have radioactive iodine treatment,
Joe Sanok:get my thyroid out, you know,
Joe Sanok:now I'm more than almost 10 years post cancer.
Joe Sanok:So beyond, you know, where they worry about it.
Joe Sanok:But in 2012, that that made me rethink a number of things.
Joe Sanok:My grandma died that year,
Joe Sanok:my best friend's wife had breast cancer,
Joe Sanok:or those two kinds of things within my family.
Joe Sanok:And I started to evaluate my work at the community college.
Joe Sanok:And it was harder, because I loved the work there,
Joe Sanok:I had so much autonomy, my boss was amazing.
Joe Sanok:It wasn't one of those situations where I had this terrible corporate job
Joe Sanok:that I just wanted to leave.
Joe Sanok:And it was something I loved,
Joe Sanok:I absolutely loved the job.
Joe Sanok:And I recognize that working the 40 hours
Joe Sanok:plus, the counseling plus the podcasting was not going to be sustainable for me.
Joe Sanok:And so that's where I started to really implement some of the things
Joe Sanok:that I talked about in the book, so that by 2015,
Joe Sanok:I could exit that job and work full time for myself.
Dr. Brad Miller:Well, that is awesome. I didn't know Joe,
Dr. Brad Miller:you and I have something to come that way
Dr. Brad Miller:my I had an infant daughter, who spent six, eight weeks
Dr. Brad Miller:and neonatal intensive care,
Dr. Brad Miller:and that that was probably one of the worst times of my life.
Dr. Brad Miller:And that daughter is now 35 years old,
Dr. Brad Miller:and now has now I have two granddaughters from her.
Dr. Brad Miller:But I can relate that nothing's been more terrifying my life
Dr. Brad Miller:than those six weeks when she was in intensive care.
Dr. Brad Miller:So that that helps you reevaluate,
Dr. Brad Miller:be reevaluate everything.
Dr. Brad Miller:So now you've taken this experience you have had,
Dr. Brad Miller:and you've put it in your books and in your teaching,
Dr. Brad Miller:and your process of helping counselors and other folks in the therapy profession,
Dr. Brad Miller:to change their lives to be a little more manageable as well.
Dr. Brad Miller:And that's part of what your book is here about.
Dr. Brad Miller:But I'd like to hear is, through your own life.
Dr. Brad Miller:And through what you teach in your books.
Dr. Brad Miller:What are some action points that you teach?
Dr. Brad Miller:Or maybe you've gone through,
Dr. Brad Miller:that help people to kind of break that pattern of whatever was?
Dr. Brad Miller:What are some things you did or that you teach?
Dr. Brad Miller:People can do what extra points?
Dr. Brad Miller:Yeah, I would start big picture that, in general,
Joe Sanok:to do our best work for the world,
Joe Sanok:we have to slow down, that when we're burned out when we're maxed out.
Joe Sanok:That's not when we ever good ideas,
Joe Sanok:that's not when we're most creative.
Joe Sanok:You know, it's often you know, we're in the shower,
Joe Sanok:and we have a good idea.
Joe Sanok:We're out for a hike, or we're on a long drive,
Joe Sanok:or we're praying or meditating.
Joe Sanok:That's when we have our best ideas.
Joe Sanok:And so, starting with big picture, we have to slow down
Joe Sanok:more than what we've been kind of living in this hustle culture.
Joe Sanok:And I think in the podcasting and entrepreneurial world,
Joe Sanok:so many people live and buy into that hustle culture
Joe Sanok:that they just need to work that 60 hours to keep up.
Joe Sanok:And that's just not true. The neuroscience does not support that.
Joe Sanok:And so, what are some practical actions
Joe Sanok:that you can take or that I take within kind of that idea?
Joe Sanok:Well, you know, this past weekend, for example,
Joe Sanok:I thought through what are the things that I really need for myself personally,
Joe Sanok:or that I need for my kids in regards to how best to live the weekend
Joe Sanok:and so, figuring out, okay, I wanted to go for a hike with a friend of mine
Joe Sanok:and go to the beach and then enjoy some time,
Joe Sanok:instead of just getting through the to do list on the weekend
Joe Sanok:and burning myself out so that on Monday morning,
Joe Sanok:I'm just as stressed as I was when I exited the week.
Joe Sanok:No, I want to be able to recuperate over the weekend
Joe Sanok:so that I can do my best work moving forward on a daily basis.
Joe Sanok:For me, meditation is a big thing for a lot of people
Joe Sanok:that could be prayer or reading as well you know,
Joe Sanok:making sure that I'm putting good fuel into my body.
Joe Sanok:So, most days I'm having some sort of green smoothie
Joe Sanok:that just helps me feel better.
Joe Sanok:Getting eight to nine hours of sleep every night.
Joe Sanok:Those basic things when we start lowdown
Joe Sanok:that then unlocks your brain to be able to do the best work that you're called to do
Joe Sanok:in the world?
Dr. Brad Miller:Well, that you just touched on a couple things
Dr. Brad Miller:I wanted to mention to you.
Dr. Brad Miller:One of them was how do you connect with something
Dr. Brad Miller:greater than yourself a higher power meditation
Dr. Brad Miller:and things like that You certainly see how I speak
Dr. Brad Miller:to how that is integrated into a process of helping one to, to change their life.
Joe Sanok:Yeah, I think when someone has a spiritual perspective
Joe Sanok:of anything bigger than themselves,
Joe Sanok:that's going to allow you to realize
Joe Sanok:just how you can make an impact in the world,
Joe Sanok:but also, that there's plenty in the world that you have absolutely no control over.
Joe Sanok:And so even just recently,
Joe Sanok:I've been diving into a lot of Michael singers work,
Joe Sanok:he talks about how, you know,
Joe Sanok:traffic and weather are two great ways to practice letting go of things,
Joe Sanok:because we have absolutely no control over the weather.
Joe Sanok:So, say you're going camping on the weekend,
Joe Sanok:and then it's raining, there's nothing you did or could have prevented that from raining.
Joe Sanok:And so, it's your own mindset,
Joe Sanok:it's your own suffering that you're creating for yourself
Joe Sanok:in those situations of your expectations of what you how you wanted the world to look.
Joe Sanok:The same with traffic, how narcissistic is it that we think that everyone needs to drive
Joe Sanok:how we want them to drive.
Joe Sanok:And so, by being able to think outside of yourself,
Joe Sanok:and say, you know, things are unfolding in the world that are outside of my control,
Joe Sanok:whether or not you believe that that's a deity or spiritual,
Joe Sanok:or wherever your belief system is, either way,
Joe Sanok:there's something outside of you that you have no control over.
Joe Sanok:And so, letting go of that, letting go of the expectations,
Joe Sanok:letting go of the clinging,
Joe Sanok:of how the world is supposed to unfold,
Joe Sanok:or I'm going to be unhappy.
Joe Sanok:And that's just going to make you unhappy all the time,
Joe Sanok:because you have your one version of the world
Joe Sanok:and there's no way that that version
Joe Sanok:is going to unfold how you think it's going to unfold.
Dr. Brad Miller:Oh, that's, that's awesome.
Dr. Brad Miller:Stop for just a second about the relationships,
Dr. Brad Miller:emotional, emotional component of transformation
Dr. Brad Miller:that takes place, particularly with people,
Dr. Brad Miller:accountability partners, spouse, others, talk
Dr. Brad Miller:about the power of these folks in your life to help you to be make these transitions.
Joe Sanok:Yeah, I think about how many people that are,
Joe Sanok:that are ahead of me that I'm able to tap into,
Joe Sanok:just because of the relationships we have.
Joe Sanok:Even just going to events like podcast movement to connect with,
Joe Sanok:with folks that are doing really interesting work.
Joe Sanok:Oftentimes, we live in our town,
Joe Sanok:and there aren't a bunch of people that are thinking like podcasters,
Joe Sanok:and thinking like entrepreneurs and,
Joe Sanok:and creating and cultivating that community
Joe Sanok:of who's going to have influence on your life is really important.
Joe Sanok:And so even keeping up those relationships for me,
Joe Sanok:by not being stressed out all the time,
Joe Sanok:by not being maxed out with my time,
Joe Sanok:I then intentionally take time to call friends
Joe Sanok:are to check in with people that are doing interesting things in the world.
Joe Sanok:And it's not that I'm doing this so that I can pick that person's brain for business,
Joe Sanok:it's that I want to genuinely find out how they're doing.
Joe Sanok:And then we naturally are going to talk about what's working in our lives.
Joe Sanok:But it's not I'm going to be friends with this person,
Joe Sanok:because they helped me with business,
Joe Sanok:it's, this person is going to fill in a part of my life to just help me feel better in life,
Joe Sanok:more grounded, have more voices and perspectives.
Joe Sanok:That then helps me make decisions
Joe Sanok:that are more grounded rather than reactionary.
Dr. Brad Miller:Well, that's a that's awesome,
Dr. Brad Miller:how that's all integrated together.
Dr. Brad Miller:And you've already mentioned some of the habits that people can do
Dr. Brad Miller:to tweak your health habits,
Dr. Brad Miller:your sleeping habits, those are all important components to life,
Dr. Brad Miller:transformation, overcoming adversity.
Dr. Brad Miller:What are people going to find in your new book here
Dr. Brad Miller:is called Thursday is the new Friday,
Dr. Brad Miller:you're talking about kind of attracting a 60 Hour Workweek
Dr. Brad Miller:and to, you know, having a long weekend?
Dr. Brad Miller:That almost sounds unreasonable in many ways.
Dr. Brad Miller:But what are people going to find in your book?
Dr. Brad Miller:And how is this going to help them to transform over adversity
Dr. Brad Miller:to achieve success in their lives?
Joe Sanok:Yeah, so the process we go through within the book
Joe Sanok:are we start with your internal inclinations?
Joe Sanok:And so, we start on the inside,
Joe Sanok:because so many of these productivity books start with here's what you got to do,
Joe Sanok:you got to set aside this time.
Joe Sanok:And this, we don't even start with well,
Joe Sanok:is your posture towards your work?
Joe Sanok:Even correct? Is the way that you're thinking about the work even correct.
Joe Sanok:Like why give the how,
Joe Sanok:if we don't even know the why.
Joe Sanok:So, we start internally, then we move into the slowing down,
Joe Sanok:and why the brain research supports this slowing down
Joe Sanok:actually, helps us do our work better.
Joe Sanok:And then we move into the productivity.
Joe Sanok:And so that process brings together two different types
Joe Sanok:of books that typically are on opposite ends of the spectrum,
Joe Sanok:we've often got the productivity books
Joe Sanok:that are very prescriptive, here's the five steps,
Joe Sanok:here's the seven steps, do it my way or get out.
Joe Sanok:Where's my book is more of a menu teaching you
Joe Sanok:how to think and experiment in a way
Joe Sanok:that you can then adjust and change over time.
Joe Sanok:Or on the other side, we often have these kind of woo woo books,
Joe Sanok:put up a vision board don't do anything and expect the universe
Joe Sanok:to hand you your new car.
Joe Sanok:But this actually brings together
Joe Sanok:what's the best part of the brain research of slowing down?
Joe Sanok:and how does that actually inform our productivity
Joe Sanok:so that you as a thinking adult,
Joe Sanok:can actually bring things together in a different way.
Dr. Brad Miller:Awesome.
Dr. Brad Miller:Lots of great tools there.
Dr. Brad Miller:So just one more thing here.
Dr. Brad Miller:Joe, tell us about a person or situation
Dr. Brad Miller:that has been impacted by this type of teaching
Dr. Brad Miller:led here a testimonial good news story about how this is influenced by.
Joe Sanok:Yeah, I remember. So, I host this event every summer
Joe Sanok:called slowdown school.
Joe Sanok:So, these entrepreneurs fly into northern Michigan,
Joe Sanok:we pick them up in a big yellow school bus
Joe Sanok:and we slowly drive them out to Lake Michigan.
Joe Sanok:And we stay on this campus right on Lake Michigan.
Joe Sanok:And for two days, we slow down we go for hikes.
Joe Sanok:I bring in an executive chef who has partnerships with local farms.
Joe Sanok:So, the salad bar is amazing.
Joe Sanok:They know where every carrot came from.
Joe Sanok:And then, you know, we bring in massage therapists,
Joe Sanok:yoga teachers, and genuinely slow down for two days,
Joe Sanok:and we just let our brains rest.
Joe Sanok:And then on Wednesday, Thursday, and then Friday morning,
Joe Sanok:we run Full Tilt towards people's businesses.
Joe Sanok:So, on Wednesday morning,
Joe Sanok:after we had slowed down for a couple days,
Joe Sanok:this guy who had come to this event twice,
Joe Sanok:his name's Michael Glavine.
Joe Sanok:Michael is from the Chicagoland area,
Joe Sanok:he has a group counseling practice there,
Joe Sanok:he does this amazing couples therapy work.
Joe Sanok:And he had been trying to really get this work down into a book.
Joe Sanok:And I remember the first sprint that we did,
Joe Sanok:he went outside and decided he was going to work on
Joe Sanok:the structure of his book for this 20-minute sprint.
Joe Sanok:And in 20 minutes, he got done his first nine chapters outlined
Joe Sanok:with three to five points in each chapter in this thing
Joe Sanok:that had been just kind of hanging over his head for months,
Joe Sanok:he got done in 20 minutes.
Joe Sanok:And what's great about slowdown school
Joe Sanok:and when we're implementing these ideas of slowing down
Joe Sanok:to then speed up is it becomes a springboard into
Joe Sanok:how these people live life back home,
Joe Sanok:it's not like slowdown schools,
Joe Sanok:the only place that they learn to slow down
Joe Sanok:and then speed up is that they've gotten a glimpse into Whoa,
Joe Sanok:I just got months of work done in 20 minutes.
Joe Sanok:And so, for Michael, and for a lot of the participants,
Joe Sanok:when we do slow down school together,
Joe Sanok:they see this glimpse into a new method of using the neuroscience
Joe Sanok:to inform how we do our regular everyday work,
Joe Sanok:to get more done and to feel less stressed in the process.
Dr. Brad Miller:Amazing stuff there. We appreciate all that insight you have
Dr. Brad Miller:they the name of the book is Thursday is the new Friday,
Dr. Brad Miller:where he helps people to work fewer hours,
Dr. Brad Miller:make more money and spend more time doing what you want.
Dr. Brad Miller:We heard a great testimonial about that your today,
Dr. Brad Miller:you can find finding but practice of the practice calm.
Dr. Brad Miller:And all the links to everything about Joe Sanok is going to be on our website,
Dr. Brad Miller:Dr. Brad Miller calm. Thank you for being our guest today, Joe
Dr. Brad Miller:on the beyond adversity podcast with Dr. Brad Miller.
Dr. Brad Miller:All right, many thanks to Joe Sanok.
Dr. Brad Miller:The author of Thursday is the is the new Friday,
Dr. Brad Miller:our guest here today on beyond adversity with Dr. Brad Miller,
Dr. Brad Miller:I promised you a couple of dos what you can take action
Dr. Brad Miller:to about to do out of our conversation with Joe Sanok.
Dr. Brad Miller:So, here's those two things, two takeaways.
Dr. Brad Miller:One is to identify the inclinations you have in your life,
Dr. Brad Miller:those things would tend to draw you into a certain pattern in life,
Dr. Brad Miller:to identify them in order to do something about that.
Dr. Brad Miller:And the second thing is to slow down in order to accomplish more.
Dr. Brad Miller:And he gives a lot of these things. And here's your action point,
Dr. Brad Miller:here's your call to action here friends,
Dr. Brad Miller:you could go to his website, Joe sanic.com, slash experiments.
Dr. Brad Miller:And there's where you can find some of the processes that he uses
Dr. Brad Miller:to help you to slow down and to identify your inclinations.
Dr. Brad Miller:So, I'm going to be taking that in order to apply them to my life.
Dr. Brad Miller:Here on the beyond diversity podcast,
Dr. Brad Miller:we talked to a lot of great authors and teachers, like Joe Sanok,
Dr. Brad Miller:you can always go to our website, Dr. Brad miller.com,
Dr. Brad Miller:and find well over 160 episodes of this podcast,
Dr. Brad Miller:where we help people to identify the adversities that happened in their life,
Dr. Brad Miller:and then find the process and over to overcome them to have a life of peace,
Dr. Brad Miller:prosperity, and purpose. That's what brings me meaningfulness alive.
Dr. Brad Miller:That's what gives my life purpose.
Dr. Brad Miller:And we are here to serve you, the good people, they beyond adversity.
Dr. Brad Miller:Audience, we invite you to come back next week
Dr. Brad Miller:for another great guest and teaching to help you to grow
Dr. Brad Miller:through what you go through. So, until next time,
Dr. Brad Miller:friends, good people. This is Dr. Brad Miller.
Dr. Brad Miller:Now, go do all the good that you can.