How to Work Fewer Hours with Joe Sanok

Artwork for podcast Deeply Rested: Anti-Capitalist Conversations for Entrepreneurs

Episode 18 • 8th January 2025 • Deeply Rested: Anti-Capitalist Conversations for Entrepreneurs • Maegan Megginson

Welcome back to Deeply Rested. How happy would you be if you could drastically reduce your workload without sacrificing your income? If you're like me and most business owners I know, the answer is very happy. If you love the work you do, but wouldn't mind doing it a little less, today's conversation is for you.

I'm joined by Jo Sanok, host of the Practice of the Practice podcast and author of Thursday is the New Friday: how to work fewer hours, make more money and spend time doing what you want. Joe's book examines how the four day workweek boosts creativity and productivity, and he lays it all out for us in this interview.

Joe and I originally recorded this conversation for my fundraising event, The Rest and Success Code. I love Joe's practical approach to becoming deeply rested, and I hope you love it, too. Sit back and enjoy Thursday is the New Friday with Joe Sanok.

Maegan

Joe, welcome.

Joe

Maegan, thank you so much for having me.

Maegan

Joe, you are such a mentor in the therapy space. And the fact that you are modeling what it looks like to have business success while also talking about slowing down and resting, it brings me so much joy and I am beyond honored to have you here today.

Joe

Oh, I am so excited to hang out with you today.

Maegan

Well, Joe, let's get right down to it. I want to talk about your amazing new book. Thursday is the New Friday. First of all, congratulations. I read it in two days. It was phenomenal. Thank you for writing it.

Joe

Oh my gosh, that's amazing. You read it in two days, even my brother, I give it to him like months ago, he just started it. So thank you.

Maegan

You're welcome.

Joe

It's the classic like little brother, you know, I'm not gonna read your book.

Maegan

I was going to say our siblings often are not our target audience, right? So they're bored by what we do and what we have to say, I am your target audience, and I loved it. So I think that's valuable feedback. Okay, well, Joe, in my work as a business coach, it is very clear to me that the core cause of burnout for most therapists is that they just work too damn much. Right? They are hustling, they're stretching themselves super thin, and they're working this outrageous schedule, crazy hours, none of it brings them joy. And I'm wondering, Joe, if you have any ideas about why therapists, specifically, are so vulnerable to overworking in this way?

Joe

Yeah. I mean, I think that we just start with being trained that way, you work in a nonprofit, and you're stretching those grant dollars, and you know, you're happy if you make $40,000 a year, and then you might get a job at CMH. And they're counting productivity and billable hours. And then you might work in the courts or college. And everywhere we work, we're just stretched. And then on top of that you add that most of the work we want to do in the world is, is good for the world. And so that, you know, starfish story we all heard in grad school, you know, there's so many starfish on the beach, and then you throw one in, and say will matter to that one, you know, like we hear these things about, like social work and social justice. And that work will never end there, we will hopefully make a dent in it to make an impact. We can stand up against injustice, we can try to help people. But we could kill ourselves working on these issues we care about. So you have people that have really big hearts that also have very few business skills that are used to overworking. And you put them in a private practice or business situation. And it feels easier than what it used to be. But you're comparing working all these hours every single week for so little money and then saying well now I'm at least working a bunch of hours, and it's my business. It's like, well, I guess it's better than it used to be. And I feel like I'm making an impact on the world. But we just don't have really any mentors or guides to show us how to do it in a way that allows us to make the money, allows us to have a good schedule, and still have that impact that we all want to have in the world.

Maegan

Yeah, it's all relative, I guess to your previous levels of suffering. I think that's really helpful perspective. I mean, even if you went straight into private practice from grad school and sort of skipped the agency phase, grad school is a place where we're conditioned to work long hours work for free, kind of hustle and grind to succeed. That makes a lot of sense to me. And let's zoom out even, let's zoom out beyond the scope of the therapy world and look at our, you know, Western civilization as a whole. You talk in your book about the Protestant work ethic. And this is something that really speaks to me. Tell us what is the Protestant work ethic? And how does it show up in therapy businesses?

Joe

took a lot to survive in the: 1800

Maegan

Yeah, it was the beginning of the chapter of humanity where we start treating humans like machines.

Joe

eally starts to emerge in the: 1800

Maegan

That is, I mean, a mind blowing perspective, right that for most of us who are in the prime of our careers, right now, we have just grown up believing that the 40 hour work week is the only way to be successful. So to put it in that frame of like, hey, this concept, this frame is only 100 years old. It really shifts everything. Yeah. So I'm from the Bible Belt. And you know, I can definitely speak to how the Protestant work ethic showed up in my life. And that the the narrative that I internalized was, if you're not working, you're being lazy. And that I mean, that message goes deep for me. I remember I remember being in junior high, and I was in my room watching some TV or reading a book, I don't know. And I just have this memory of my dad walking in. What are you doing? I was like, I'm just chilling out. And he said, You can you can chill out when you're dead. You know, you can sleep when you're dead, get up and do something productive. Does that narrative check out for you? Do you do you find that a lot of people are showing up with that same internalized message?

Joe

enerations, so think about in: 1926

Maegan

Yeah, forever.

Joe

Right.

Maegan

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, nothing comes to mind, which is a really powerful point. Yeah.

Joe

I think they also, like the pandemic has taught us so much about the things that we thought were unshakable that actually were way more shakable and can transform differently. I mean, think of all the industries that said we could never do online counseling completely, we could never do online financial advice over Zoom, we can't do you know telemedicine for my endocrinology appointment. All these industries, you realize, you know what, given the right incentives, we can make a lot happen really quickly, you have a look at how fast restaurants switched over to contact lists, being able to order within, you know, six months, you could pay your bill, you could get your order without hardly even talking to somebody. And so oftentimes, we think these things are unshakeable. But if we start to ask those questions and look at the history, and then say, well, now, what kind of alternatives do we have? That's where some really interesting and new ideas start to emerge?

Maegan

I mean, it shines a light on the question, who made these rules? I feel like the biggest benefit of being a business owner is that you get to make the rules, you know, you you get to create your business and show up in a way that feels really good to you and works for your life and brings you joy. It's the number one benefit of being my own boss is that I'm the boss, no one else is telling me what to do. We're real quick to say I want to be my own boss. But then when we are, it's really hard to actually make CEO level decisions that serve us instead of feeding into the status quo.

Joe

Yeah, you know, right before this interview, I was on another interview, and a person said, you know, we started our own business, meaning we get to work 24 hours a day, we just get to choose which 24 hours we work. And it's just such a toxic, unhealthy way of thinking about running our businesses. And I think oftentimes, it's that idea that an object in motion tends to stay in motion. And if I slow down, somehow, that's going to actually slow my progress, whereas the neuroscience is showing the exact opposite, that when we slow down, our best ideas emerge, our best sprints emerge, we get things done, we wouldn't have been able to have our brains talk about without pulling back a little bit and slowing down.

Maegan

Yeah. Let's reflect before we move on, on everything that you've just shared. What's really standing out to me, Joe is the intersection at which therapists specifically exist. And all of these cultural, societal pieces, right? Therapists are dealing with industrialization, therapists are dealing with capitalism, therapists are dealing with the Protestant work ethic or that internalized belief that, you know, my value is based on my productivity, and my grit and resting and taking care of myself is the equivalent of being lazy, which is the worst thing you can possibly be. And then pile on top of that all of the conditioning that comes from graduate school, working in agencies, being a healer in the world, it is no surprise that therapists struggle so profoundly with slowing down and resting. I mean, they're up against a lot of forces.

Joe

Yeah, I would even add, also, let's look at the pandemic and the collective trauma we've all gone through. So you've got therapists that are dealing with kids that are, you know, we're in lockdown at home, and you know, spouses that are leaving them, and also they're going through the same things their clients are dealing with. Whereas before the pandemic, that wasn't true.

Maegan

In a way we never have before.

Joe

Yeah, yeah. I mean, collectively as just humanity, we're going through a crazy time in human history. And so to say, for me to even have anything extra to give to my clients, like, where's that going to come from? You know, when, when you've got so much adulting? It's difficult during a pandemic. And so, I think just stepping back and saying, if we're going to do good quality therapy, like what does that look like with all of these extra pressures on us that all humans are going through? And then we're the ones that are supposed to guide people? What does that look like to genuinely think about ourselves as being the healthiest, the most innovative, the most creative, the most productive, entering into those therapeutic relationships,

Maegan

Right. And really starting to think about yourself in two ways, thinking about yourself as the healer, but also as the business owner, because healing for us as professionals, it comes through both of those paths, putting on on both of those hats and making some really fundamental shifts. You talk in the book, Joe, about transforming the very toxic Protestant work ethic into a healthy work ethic. Can you say more about what it means to have a healthy work ethic?

Joe

Yeah, I think traditionally, the way that we view the weekends really represents how we view all of life. So for most of us, the weekends have been a response or a reaction to the previous week. So you have a long week, you over drink over the weekend, you have friends over you, sleep in you, you're reacting to the week before you have all this stress and maybe in a healthy way, maybe an unhealthy way. Your weekend, then hopefully helps you feel somewhat okay after a tough week. Instead of saying instead of being in reaction, we want to be in preparation for the coming week, and just say, the best work that we can do, and the best neuroscience that we know right now is saying, when we slow down first, when we make that the priority first, that best prepares us to do the most creative and productive work. And so sure, that could be a three day weekend, it could just be that we enter into our weekends with a different posture where we say, okay, in the past, my weekends haven't really prepared me for this coming week. What's one thing I can add to this coming weekend, that's going to add just a little bit more life, maybe taking some time to read that novel that's been sitting on your nightstand for months that has no business purpose. But you know, if you sat with some green tea on a Saturday morning and gave yourself permission to read a book, you'd feel lit up a little bit more, or maybe remove something from your weekend, have your groceries delivered. I remember a couple months ago, here in northern Michigan, it was one of our first snow falls, I fired up the snowblower. It took me two hours to blow my driveway. And I was just like, why am I doing this, I'd rather be hanging with my daughters. For 35 bucks, I can have this dude snow plow my driveway, and it's just done. And just giving myself permission to say this winter, I don't want to blow my snow. Now, of course, that's a position of privilege. It's a position where I can choose. But I'm saying where do I want my energy to go? Now, if I didn't have the money, I would blow my own snow. But I would rather put that energy into my consulting clients, into my big ideas, into my daughters, into my friends. And so just even just entering into our weekends to say, how do I make this as positive as I can to prep me for doing the work that I need to do in the world in the coming week?

Maegan

Yeah, yeah. And for folks listening, like, I want you to take what Joe just said and apply it to your business and your personal life. I think that's where the transformation really becomes exponential, when we're asking, who can I get to do this for me? Who can help me with this task? How can I just get this off of my plate entirely, because I'm super clear on where I want my energy to go right now. And we do, at this moment in time, in a way that our great grandparents didn't have access to, have the ability to say, I choose to read this novel, I choose to hang out with my kids and watch a movie. And I think there's something about that, that we need to celebrate, and instead of resisting.

Joe

Absolutely. And I think that, you know, when we look at our businesses, there is that tendency, especially when you're first starting out, to bootstrap it, you know, maybe you're not full yet. And you're the accountant, you're the person doing marketing, you're doing all those things. But there's a certain tipping point when, if you have clients on a waiting list, or if you're even 60% full, doing one more, you know, clinical session is gonna pay for five hours of someone doing your social media, is gonna pay for five hours of somebody working on your website, or even just answering, answering the phones. And so taking that transition seriously, where, sure maybe you wear a lot of hats at the beginning, and maybe that's part of it, where time is an asset for you. But at a certain point, time is no longer an asset, in that same way where you can just spend it on the business. Where you can start to say I want to buy time, I want to you know, buy extra hours through the work that I'm doing, that's where you start to build a business instead of just a job for yourself.

Maegan

That's right, yeah. And I love this frame of healthy work ethic. And really naming that having a healthy work ethic doesn't mean that I grind it out doesn't mean that I bootstrap it and do everything myself, it means that I get really clear on what my greatest contribution is in my business and in my personal life. And I prioritize giving my time and attention to those things. And you gave so many great suggestions just now, I get support for everything else that falls outside of that category. That is to me what a healthy work ethic looks like. It's really beautiful thing.

Joe

Yeah, if we can start to really, in our businesses or our lives, say, what are the things that only I can do, the things that I love doing? What are the things that are just most draining for me? And there's things that you just choose to do. So there have been certain phases of life where I paid someone to come fold the laundry, right now my seven and 10 year old girls can help do that. That's important for them to contribute to the family. And as part of that, I put my own laundry away, I fold my own laundry in front of them too. And so we do it all together. So that's something that right now doesn't make sense for me to outsource. But then there's other things that my personal life I do outsource. And then in the business as well to say, if I show up for a podcast like this, I can't send Jessica my director of details to do this. Like only I can show up for this. But I can have Jess checking my email right now, responding, checking on the finances. You know, I had two pre-consulting calls this morning, so she's following up and scheduling with them, making sure the payment went through, their Trello board set up, like all those things so that I can do what I do best. So when I record a podcast, I do a podcast interview, I drop it into the Google sheet and then my team takes it from there, but that's because we've set up those systems so that they know, Okay, when this is dropped in, then Mitch, my sound engineer does the audio. And Sam she does all the show notes so I can show up and do a bunch of podcasts that only I can do. And then all that backend stuff I can have someone else do, and it makes it more efficient. And then we can create more content as well.

Maegan

Such a great example. Thank you for sharing. I want to talk more about slowing down. You've hinted at this a few times in the conversation so far. And I know that this is the point when many therapists get antsy, because they think that slowing down means they're going to achieve less. And I know for a fact, Joe, that you and I are not here to keep people small. We believe in all of our colleagues' capacities for tremendous success. And we know that the secret to getting there without burning out, is slowing stuff down. So I would love right now to hear your thoughts about what it really means to slow down as an ambitious business owner.

Joe

Yeah, I think there's a few examples that come to mind for me. And first, we have to believe that slowing down has the potential to help us. No, we're not going to set firm boundaries, what I call hard and soft boundaries, around our time and our activities, if we don't think it's actually helpful. In the same way, if we don't believe a budget is going to help you save more money or pay off debt or whatever, if you don't believe that to your core, you're probably not going to do a budget very well. And so to just say, when you set boundaries, and you slow down, you're just telling your time where you want it to go to do the things you want to do. And so I would start there, we hosted an event in the summer called Slowdown School where top practice owners fly in to Northern Michigan, we pick them up in a big yellow school bus and go hang out on Lake Michigan for a week. And the first two days, we genuinely slow down, I suggest to people like turn off your phone unless we're taking pictures. So they then have to make sure that their practice won't fall apart. You know, so they have to set up some of that infrastructure. Yeah. So we go for hikes, we bring in massage therapists and yoga teachers and we skip stones on the beach. And the first day people are usually super antsy, like I'm here with Joe and the team and all these people like, I want to ask you all these questions, I want to like ask Allison and Whitney, all these questions. And like, all these great NS therapists are here. And it's like, no, we're gonna just slow down. First, we're gonna go for a hike, we're gonna talk about non-business things, get to know each other, skip stones, you know, have a drink on the beach. And then on Tuesday morning, every time it happens, it's like, their face just peels off, and it's just a ray of sunshine. And they're like, oh, my gosh, like, I slept so well last night. And I'm so excited for the salad bar at lunch. And they just kind of rest in that slowing down. But then what happens on Wednesday morning is, by setting those boundaries, you've allowed the pressure to kind of build, where when it's time to sprint, you can go full tilt, these people absolutely kill it in the two and a half days, we run towards their business, because they'd set that boundary to let it build, if you just keep checking that email and getting that hit of dopamine when you're looking at Facebook or whatever, like, it doesn't build up as much. So then, you know, on Wednesday morning, we show up, people just kill it. I remember Jessica Tapana was someone that came and she was just chit chatting with people in the evenings. And she was showing off like her website, and she's like, terrible at technology and self proclaimed, she said this. And she got super into SEO and just like learning how to build SEO and was showing people here's what you can do. And here's some different ways to think about it. And at the end of the week, she had been working on her practice all week, the last day, she said to the group, you know, like I was just thinking like, Do you think there's a market for for therapists, like a therapist, teaching other therapists how to do SEO? Would any of you be interested if I was gonna launch some sort of side company to do that? And she walked out of Slowdown School with 10 new clients. And now she makes more money off that SEO business than she does on her group practice.

Maegan

And the inspiration never would have happened if she wouldn't have slowed down.

Joe

No, no, or, this guy, Michael Glavine, that I talked about in the book, he was in a mastermind group with me and he has this amazing couples practice and group practice down in the Chicagoland area, and just serves people and has a very unique approach to couples work. And he talked for a long time about writing a book, and he just hadn't done it, you know, practice things would show up. In one of our 20 minute sprints, he outlined, I think, was seven or eight chapters of his book with all the details, all the bullet points, it just flowed out of him. And that's, that's what slowing down does, it allows your brain to rest enough so that when you get into that workspace, you can use that neuroscience to get so much more done when you're actually showing up to work.

Maegan

Yeah, I mean, these examples are so powerful. I know personally, I do my best, most creative work when I'm on a retreat, if it's by myself, it's if it's with a group of colleagues, and I love it so much. I do it several times a year now because without fail, you get there, you have space, you're resting deeply. And then vroom, this just wave of inspiration and creativity will flow out of you in a way that it can't when you are in the weeds and the grind of your day to day business. And you know, I also just have to say because it's, it won't leave my head. You gave all of these phenomenal examples, but what really is stood out to me as Wow, these people must be feeling really inspired by Wednesday if they're excited about a salad bar?

Joe

Right, haha.

Maegan

I'm like, things are really changing. So you will love salad and you will get your next great business idea, and what's not to love about that combination?

Joe

Just the flip side of it. We had one lady who was on the keto diet and stayed in ketosis all weekend Slowdown School and another lady that was vegan instead of some of the best vegan food she had ever had. And I just thought, if we can have our chef make both of those people happy, like we have arrived.

Maegan

Yes. That is an impressive feat. I must say, I'm, now I want to try the food, but it's getting close to lunchtime. So that's probably what that's about.

You just have to come to Slowdown School.

Okay, I'm there. Sign me up. Okay, thank you for that context. I hope everyone listening is now sold, that there is science and, and an art to slowing down and magical things will happen for you and your business when you first really internalize that mindset shift. I appreciate that you started with that, Joe, that first you have to really believe that slowing down is valuable and worthwhile. And also that you that you're deserving of slowing down, right? When that Protestant work ethic kicks into gear can be really hard to feel like it's okay for you to slow down. But once you do, and you embrace that practice, good things will happen. I want to talk about a part in the book, you get into a really famous fable about the tortoise and the hare. And I love this part because I often talk about that fable and for many years, I have identified myself as a turtle. You know, like I wear it loud and proud. Like, I'm a turtle. I work with turtles, I love being a turtle. But you have a different take on that fable and it really made me think. Can you share with us now what your take is on the tortoise and the hare story?

Joe

Yeah, so the traditional story is that, you know, there's a hare and a tortoise that are gonna have a race for some reason. And

Maegan

Don't worry about why . Suspend your disbelief.

Joe

The night before they were at a bar and made a ridiculous bet, or like who knows? So you know, this hair, this rabbit like takes off, is like right before the finish gets cocky decides to take a nap. And then the tortoise is slow and steady, and, you know, goes across the finish line and wins. But when you really think about it, you know, the hair just sprinted like crazy, took a nap, because his body's saying I'm tired, or her body and just should have set an alarm. If they set an alarm for 20 minutes and did the math on how fast the turtle was like they would have won. And so this idea that we just have to work and work day after day and never slow down, the turtle or the tortoise approach to me sets us up for that that hustle culture where you never can give yourself permission to rest or to say that's good enough, or I've worked really hard this week, I'm going to just go dink around all weekend and do whatever I feel like doing, or maybe I do want to watch a Netflix show for four hours on Saturday. Like who cares, you know, to allow ourselves, whatever our bodies feel like it needs. Instead of just like that constant, relentless business thinking and doing that often actually comes out of a place of ego, out of a place of not being good enough or not knowing if we're good enough or not even knowing the numbers we're searching for. If you don't even know what numbers for you you want to hit, whether that's in social media or financial or whatever, how can you ever give yourself permission to pause, because you never know if you've achieved your goals?

Maegan

So much wisdom right there. Mic drop. It was you know, you started telling the story about the tortoise and the hare and I was like, Oh, I'm not gonna like what he's about to say. And then I got to the end of and I was like, Wait a minute. Excellent point. I've never thought about it that way. But when I looked at it through my own lens, and then I was like, Oh, maybe I am, maybe I am a hare because I don't think about it in terms of sprints. I think, I think about it, I like to do chunks of deep work. I think they're like super similar what we're talking about, right, but I like to set aside a chunk of time and say for two hours, I'm going to like knock this out. And I'm going to get into a really deep focused inspired space and and see if I can tap into some creative flow. And what I produce in those chunks of time, it's like how on earth did I just do all of that in two hours? And now I can take the next two days and watch whatever trash TV show on Netflix and and so you talk about it through the lens of sprinting, sprinting and slowing down. Say more about what you mean by sprinting.

Joe

y, every Thursday, from April: 2020

Maegan

I really appreciate this emphasis on identifying your unique type and not comparing yourself to the way other people do their best work. But just really getting clear on how do you do your best work. I wish I would have known about your sprint types years ago. I feel like I was fortunate in that I intuitively fell into a knowing that you do your best, most creative work when you get out of your house and you're in a separate location and you can do something in an intensive chunk. But knowing that there are actually these evidence based types, and you can kind of discover where do you fit? It's, it fast tracks your ability to get into flow and do work in a way that really energizes you. Because let's let's come back to The Rest & Success Code, right, we're all about helping people avoid burnout. And the fastest way to burnout is to try to do your work and build your business using strategies that are designed for somebody else. Right? If you're trying to show up in a way that isn't innate to who you are, you will struggle but if you can tap in early to who am I? How do I do my best work? And now how can I create systems and boundaries that will allow me to do my best work consistently, there's a really good chance you won't burn out because you'll feel really inspired by the way you're showing up in your business.

Joe

Yeah, and I think you're spot on in that area where I mean, as we think about the work we want to do, if you burn out, you're not going to be able to continue to do that at the at the high level that you really want to.

Maegan

Which is sad. Yeah, we don't want that.

Joe

Yeah,it's sad, costs a lot of money. I mean, there's a lot of people in the world that need help, and we won't be able to give it to them.

Maegan

That's right. It's you have, you have so much, we all have so much good to offer the world. And you were saying this at the beginning of our conversation, when we're doing good and our work, it never ends, you know, there will still be even if we worked every minute for the rest of our lives, there would still be work left to do when we die. So let's not do it that way. Let's do it in a way that really protects who we are and what we need so that when we are showing up and doing work in the world, we're doing it from a very inspired and nourishing place. Yeah, I want as we were reaching the end of our conversation, Joe, I feel like you and I could keep this going for hours. But I'm gonna keep us on track and I want to circle back to scheduling, right. Thursday is the New Friday is all about the condensed workweek. Let's talk about how busy therapists can begin taking some small manageable steps towards shortening their workweek. You have any ideas about where can they begin if they're feeling overwhelmed by this concept?

Joe

Yeah, I think first just evaluating how much of your income is based on you showing up. I mean, if if, if when you show up, you get paid and when your kid is sick or you're sick or you're on vacation, you don't get paid. That sets you up in a different way than if you have some sort of either passive or different types of income. And so that traditional model, just seeing clients and then just getting paid for it, that's gonna be really hard for you to condense your work week, because that just means for you to make the same amount of money, you have to squeeze five days worth of clients into four. And so,

Maegan

Not stainable. Especially not for highly sensitive people.

Joe

Yeah, so if we first evaluate, are you in that situation where you're only making money, if you show up, okay, that's a job. Great, you gave yourself a job. Now let's build a business. And so what are businesses? They they build income that's not always just based on people's time. And so that can be in a lot of different ways, that can be that you're adding clinicians to your practice. So maybe you're not in the office on Friday or Saturday, maybe you are completely online, maybe there's a specialty that there's an opportunity to help kids and you personally don't want to work with kids. Are there things like that, that you can do? Also looking at counseling is kind of the middle of the sandwich. What about people that are, you know, six months out from wanting counseling, but they want some help now. So if, if you're doing marriage counseling, say there was a couple six months before they needed counseling that said you know what? Is there an ecourse? Is there a book? Is there a membership community? Is there a training that you're doing, that can help us out as a couple, there's an opportunity there to build something that is another stream of income. And then on the other side of the sandwich, you know, after people are done doing counseling with you, or they're stepping down, what are supports to help them continue that success? You know, is it a retreat for people that have gone through counseling with you, or, maybe it's not just people that did counseling with you, but it's a retreat that you help people in a different way. So thinking through a lens of multiple streams of income is going to start to free up some of your time. As well, we want to look at how efficient are you actually being. And so a lot of people, you know, they they may schedule on the hour, and then give themselves 15 minutes between sessions, if they end on time, which maybe they're not, then maybe you should look at that, when I did counseling, I would schedule three sessions in a row on the 45 minutes, because it was 45 to 50 minutes. So I would have a three o'clock, a 345 and a 430, then I would take 15 minutes to do progress notes, go to the bathroom, get a drink of water, and then jump right back in. So instead of than having all these 15 minute blocks, I'm then saving myself a half hour for every three sessions. And so just looking at your own efficiency, you know, maybe for you, that's just too much, you can't do three in a row, you can't do two in a row, you can't end on time, okay, well then start billing for 60 minutes. Look at whether or not you should be raising your rates, look at those terrible insurances that pay $78.12, evaluate what's working and what's bringing in the money, and then start to say, if I was gonna only work four days, and I wanted to make, say 20% more next year, what are those numbers even look like? If I wanted to take an extra two weeks off next year, what's my average have to be? Some of that basic math, a lot of times therapists haven't even done to say, I want to take home $100,000. Okay, I know that with my taxes and expenses, I need to bring in 150, I want to work 40 weeks a year, I only want to work four days a week, I only want to do X number of sessions. Like that's really simple math, if you just run it, you probably need to make at least $150 a session. So then when you're on a $72 insurance panel, that means you've got to make up that money in your private pay. So you need to be charging at least probably 225 for your private pay. So then you can start to say now I know what I want to make. I know what I want my schedule to be, I know what I need to charge. Now I need to attract those people that can pay what I'm charging. And then that defines all of your marketing, all of your branding, who you bring on to help attract those clients.

Maegan

I love the combination of emotional strategies and very practical strategic strategies. And nothing bugs me more than business owners who have completely arbitrary metrics in their business, which is what you're getting at. Right? You know, you don't actually know what your fee needs to be, because you haven't really thought about how much money you need to pay yourself. You're just sort of spaghetti on the wall all the time. And that's exhausting, and it will lead to burnout. So coming back to the math. And if you struggle with math, we have conversations this season with Tiffany McLain and Linzy Bonham who are helping us make the math part of it way more accessible and digestible. But when you when you really get into the math, it allows you to disconnect from the emotion, and the Protestant work ethic, lazy messages in your head and the scarcity, fear about being poor and the family of origin stories that are making it hard to make these changes. When you're just sitting with the math, you can kind of let go of the emotional pieces and just look at the data and make a data informed decision about what you need to do differently in your business. And it's such a powerful exercise anytime I've had someone do this exercise or I've done it myself every time you learn something, that is just fact. And there's something really powerful about fact, when we're working towards slowing down and minimizing our work weeks, I really appreciate that advice. You talk in the book too, about taking really small steps towards slowing down and working less. One thing you suggested that I liked a lot, Joe was like, hey, if, if moving to a four day work week is just not in the cards for you right now? How about ending at 3pm on Friday instead of five? Or how about getting to the point where you can take one Friday off a month, I think those tiny, tiny steps towards the four day work week are gonna make this vision a reality for so many people who are stuck in a more black and white way of thinking about it. What do you think?

Joe

Yeah, I mean, the big shift away from the industrialist is their prescriptive model, compared to more of a menu based model where we try things we, we adapt, we're gonna give it a whirl and do some experiments. And so even when I left my full time job at the community college and was going full time into private practice and doing podcasting. Hold on a second. I need sip of water too.

Maegan

We're both just taking a little water break.

Joe

e data and found that June of: 2015

Maegan

Yeah, I love it. Joe, you have given us so many ideas, I hope that the gears are starting to turn for all of our therapists listening in. And I just want to say again, if I could just sing more praises for your book that there are so many ideas and suggestions in the book about how to do this. I read a lot of nonfiction books, and I feel like, you know, 90% of them are all theory and very little application. And one thing that I loved about Thursday is the New Friday as I finish it, feeling like I had a lot of theory that helps me make sense of the problem and the argument, but I closed it also going wow, I am now armed to the teeth with ideas and strategies about how I can make this a reality in my life. So if you loved this conversation, and you want more, buy Thursday is the New Friday. Read it. I think you're gonna love it. And Joe here at the end, I have two bonus questions that I ask all of my guests on The Rest & Success Code. Are you ready?

Joe

I'm ready.

Maegan

Question number one, I would love to know what are your personal red flags that indicate you're edging closer to burnout in your own life?

Joe

Hmm. I would say if I find that I'm not getting eight hours of sleep a night. For me personally, it's like what's going on in my life that I'm that busy? You know, am I taking on too much personally, it's usually more of the personal side that's gonna lead me to burnout where I've decided to be over socializing more than maybe what I should do because I'm such an extrovert. I any, like the other night, I had a friend leave my house like 11 o'clock. And then I had another friend who had been in Florida for nine days, and he's a neighbor. And he texted me he's like, want to have a quick beer? It was like a Tuesday night I stayed up till like 1:15 or something. Like, sure, we need to have friends that we can just do that with once in a while. But if I was doing that all the time, it would be like, okay, like, stop socializing so much. So I would say sleep is probably one of my biggest red flags.

Maegan

Yeah, I haven't heard that one before it makes that makes a lot of sense. I love that you're an extrovert and you can function on eight. I'm 10. If I'm getting less than 10 hours of sleep, I need to like step away and go what's going on here? Because this ain't working. That's, that's great. Question number two. Joe, what are your favorite ways to rest?

Joe

Oh, man, I have so many favorite ways to rest.

Maegan

Tell me about them.

Joe

so, we both could sleep until: 10:30

Maegan

I live for these conversations. And I'm inspired hearing all of the things that you do for rest and how diverse they are. Some involve other people some involve socialising, some involve sleeping, some involve being with your family. It's it's really inspiring to hear what you do to take care of yourself.

Joe

I totally forgot. Also, I do improv every week, and that just lights me up. I laugh so hard on Wednesday nights, I don't have to do an ab workout on Thursdays. I just love it so much.

Maegan

That's perfect. And during the pandemic did your improv class pivot to zoom?

Joe

We did. We did two zoom performances that we really used that platform. So one of them was we each just picked a random virtual background. And we did a fake newscast. And Lisa, our fearless leader would say now we're gonna go to Joe, who's, you know, talking with us about what's happening downtown with the raccoons and then I'd have like a random background and then have to like make up a story about how raccoons intersected with the virtual background I had. So just fun stuff.

Maegan

That's phenomenal. I feel like improv and stand up comedy were some of the Zoom pivots during the pandemic that I was the most impressed by. You know that you can take a improv class of 10 people and put it on Zoom. Like that's that is innovative. And I love that you have this outlet that just makes you laugh. And I can totally see you being a yes, and-er.

Joe

Oh, I yes, and it up.

Maegan

Haha, I love it.

Joe

I was getting, on the Getting to Yes, And podcast that Second City put out. So if you like improv and you like hearing Thursdays is the New Friday. They take a really interesting approach to their podcasts.

Maegan

I am going to check that out right after this conversation, because I didn't expect you to say that and I, and I'm really excited about it. All right. Well, Joe, thank you so much for being here. And if you want to learn more from Joe, you can follow him on Instagram at Practice of the Practice. And he's also brought along a free gift for The Rest & Success Code listeners. Joe is giving us free access to the Internal Inclinations Assessment. If you want to change the way you think, put yourself first and figure out what you really need to work on all of those important boundaries, the Internal Inclinations Assessment is perfect for you. The assessment is usually $55. But Joe is gifting us a coupon code to take the assessment for free. Thank you so much Joe, you can visit JoeSanok.com/quiz and use the code TITNF. That stands for Thursday is the New Friday. And you can get it for free. We will include this link and the coupon code in all of our correspondence with you. Joe, thank you again for being here. And congratulations on Thursday is the New Friday.

Joe

Oh Maegan, thank you so much for having me.

Maegan: If you want to go even deeper into this conversation, be sure to buy a copy of Joe's book, Thursday is the new Friday. And if you're looking to uplevel your business, Joe's team helps with podcast management, social media support, and other consulting services. You can learn more at joesanok.com and practiceofthepractice.com. Thank you so much for listening to the Deeply Rested podcast. I'll talk to you again next week.

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