The good life

Back in 2000, while I was still in college, I read this article about the founders of Great Harvest Bread Co: Pete and Laura Wakeman.

Their philosophy on life changed how I thought about building a business:

"When all your choices are made with freedom and simplicity in mind, then freedom and simplicity is inevitable."

They talk about how they followed simple principles that led to freedom:

In the early days of the business we had simple rules, but we followed them like religion. One was the two-day weekend. We never violated that, no matter what. Combined, the two of us worked about 50 hours a week. We didn't talk about work at home; that was a rule. That's especially important. When we left the bakery, we were gone until we came back.We worked so we could take trips. We loved our work, but we worked so we could take trips.

Unlike many founders, they didn't pursue growth mindlessly: they weren't putting in 80-hour weeks or sacrificing their personal lives. Instead, the Wakemans prioritized living a good life first.

For them, the purpose of having a business was to give them a good life. They always kept that goal in mind.

"We vowed to live more like our rock-climbing friend, rich in time."

For them, a good life meant pursuing adventures outside of work. They tracked their hours and gradually, over the years, they reduced the amount of time they worked:

• In 1993, they worked a total of 2,986 hours (combined)
• In 1996, they reduced that to 2,000 hours (1,000 each)

For them, defining how many hours they would work at the beginning of each year gave them more freedom. They were diligent about tracking this by punching in and out like their regular employees. They didn't want their work time bleeding into their personal time.

They called these boundaries "handrails."

What works for us with a 100-plus-bakery franchise is what worked for us with a single retail store. Simple, physical handrails. Handrails that we set, then follow without further questioning. All the good systems, all the good habits, derive from this simple act of partitioning. In the old days working on a Sunday would have been taboo. But the partition between work and play is just as simple and clear today as it was back then.

When they were interviewed, they were preparing to take a 3-month trip away from the business. Three months!

The feeling of leaving for a long time, let's say three months, has always been the kid-out-of-school feeling.

My business partner and I have been imagining this for our business, Transistor. What would it be like to leave for a three-month sabbatical? How could we structure our business to make that happen?

One of the strongest components of Pete and Laura's playbook is their hiring philosophy:

Laura and I purposefully created a little world where we fit. We hire people who think like us. This is not a little thing. You can't have a great life unless you have a buffer of like-minded people all around you. If you want a happy company, you can do it only by hiring naturally happy people. You'll never build a happy company by "making people happy."

If your goal is to build a business that gives you a good life, you can identify and hire naturally happy people who want the same thing: a purposeful life, and the space to do things outside of work.

It's clear that Pete and Laura's contentment is a result of deliberately pursuing freedom and simplicity in multiple aspects of their life:

• "We're very rural. Our house is eight miles outside of Dillon, Montana"
• "We get outdoors -- a lot. Every single day we're out in the weather for at least a couple hours."
• "We run or lift weights for an hour or two every day."
• "We are completely surrounded by animals at all times."
• "We spend every summer either in Latin America or on a wilderness trip."
• "We always 'buy high, sell low.' That's really a key to freedom. The minute we're done with something, we sell it supercheap and get it out of our life, fast."

Now, Pete and Laura's choices won't necessarily be the right decisions for you or me. But you can see how deliberately shaping your work, home, and habits can give you more of the life you desire.

I think it's worth asking yourself, "What do I want? What am I building this company for?" Too often, we build businesses to give us a better life, only to have our work crowd out everything else.

Know what you want, and make sure that the path you're on will get you there.

Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin

PS: If you liked this post, you'll like my other post, The Calm Company.