Exploring the Four-Day Work Week

[00:00:00] Welcome to the SMB Community Podcast with hosts Amy Babinchik, James Kernan, and Carl Palachek. Produced by Kernan Consulting and for the international MSB community, we are dedicated to making every IT professional a successful IT professional. Welcome everybody to the edition of the SMB Community Podcast.

[00:00:28] I'm kind of excited about what we're going to talk about today. It's a little bit of a departure, I think, but some good information that you're going to glean for this from your business. I'm excited. As usual, though, let's dive into our question of the week. This one actually did not come from a listener.

[00:00:52] This one I spotted in a user group, and it's one of these big MSP groups, 7,000 people plus in the group. And somebody asked, what about the four-day work week? And what they were talking about is implementing a 32-hour work week for their techs instead of a 40. So a true four-day work week. And it piqued my interest right away.

[00:01:22] I took a look at the comments, of which there were a lot. And the majority were in favor of moving to this 32-hour work week. And quite a few of them said they're doing it. So what do you think about that, James? That's interesting. Do you know, could you tell by looking at the group and the answers, were those business owners or were they more employees? They were business owners. So it's primarily a business owner group.

[00:01:51] And it sounded like the staff that they're moving is really their help desk staff. Some of them are, you know, say rotating but shifting, right? They've got some people with Mondays off, some people with Wednesdays off, some people with Fridays off. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a creative way to implement it with staggered days, you know, so you get full coverage.

[00:02:18] But I will tell you, you know, being a successful business owner for years and years, many businesses, especially in today's challenging economic climate, it'd make me really nervous of just saying, oh, okay, everybody, we're just going to cut back, you know, you know, 15% of our work hours and just to make it great for you guys. But our competitors are all still going to work 40 plus. I'd be nervous about doing that.

[00:02:48] So I would say now I would be opposed. I would maybe come up with some creative ways. I like staggering the staff. I'd maybe do four 10-hour work days instead of, you know, still paying everybody full-time salaries and 32 hours. Maybe only advantage I would see as a business owner is if you are paying people by the hour, which some people would qualify for that. But I don't know.

[00:03:16] I would just say on the surface level, I would be opposed to it, even though you know me, I'm a big fan of the work-life balance. So it's got its pros and cons for sure. But the top level, I'd say I'd be opposed to it. Well, here's the, what I'd like to see in this is that it says that business owners are looking at productivity

[00:03:45] and not just punched in hours. Right. Because you definitely can't do this if you're not getting max productivity out of those 32 hours. Okay. And one, you know, and one of the, one of the problems with a 10-hour or 12-hour day is that productivity does, does wane. It drops off on those extra hours.

[00:04:08] So consolidating them and making a longer day, it, you know, it sounds good, but you don't actually end up getting the same, the same level of productivity out of those 40 hours. It would spread across five days. So in, in my business, we, we did a similar thing. We called it summer Fridays. And from Memorial Day to Labor Day, we gave everybody Fridays off.

[00:04:37] And the reasoning, the reasoning was, was this. Summer's short. I want everybody to be able to take advantage of it. You know, there's a lot of family activities, a lot of things going on in the summer. Business tends to be a little bit slower in the summer as well. So that made some of the time available. And the way that my business was structured was really all about your personal productivity.

[00:05:05] And so while we were off on Fridays, we were not officially closed. So if, you know, client contacted, you know, with something serious, it still had to log in and address it. So it was more like you were on call on that day. Okay. Right. But definitely don't purposefully schedule an appointment on Friday.

[00:05:31] You know, make sure that all the, all the things that need to be done to make customers happy are, are done by the end of day on Thursday. And if all that's true, then go and enjoy the sunshine on Friday. Yeah. The way you just worded that right there. I love, I love the, um, the summer schedule of that. Uh, I think that would be super attractive.

[00:05:56] Um, the, um, I, I, I tell you, it made me think something that you said, I think is really important is, is tracking the bench, benchmarking the performance. And, you know, businesses I had, you know, you were virtual and I was brick and mortar. You know, I had a big, big fancy office in San Diego, uh, really nice facilities, uh, where we wanted people there. You know, we had a big help desk. I had a big sales team.

[00:06:25] I had field engineers that were always out in the field. And the reality is I didn't really track hours for them. And they were on an aggressive, both the, all the outside salespeople and the outside engineers that did all the big projects. It was a pay for performance. You know, they all, they all had a draw or a salary, but truth be told, I didn't, I wanted them at our physical meetings or trainings.

[00:06:50] That was the only requirement, but it was, uh, it was kind of hands off, especially if they were all making commissions. And, uh, what's interesting about that is I like tracking the benchmarks and making sure all your, uh, those types of employees are making you money. And, uh, and my philosophy was we had a, a break-even point for every single employee.

[00:07:16] And as long as they were, uh, once they break past their performance and revenue would break past that break-even point, commissions would turn on. And I used to tell people, it's like, look, I just don't break the law. I don't care where you're at. You know, I don't care if you're working or not, if you're making commissions every month, that's what I want. And then it's up to you. You know, if you want to work two days, three days, four days, six days, I don't really care. I just, you know, I want to reward you for the harder, harder you work.

[00:07:44] And, uh, um, that model worked really, really well. We attracted great talent. Now it's a little bit harder nowadays. You know, you can't really do that with a, a level one help desk tech or, you know, an administrator commission plans like that are, are more challenging. But I still think you could do things like that. But, uh, I don't know. You know, Jay, you could do, you could do things like that, James.

[00:08:09] I think that's really creative and interesting, you know, definitely if you're a level one help desk and, you know, you're sitting at your desk every day, uh, you may see that as a, an, a thing to aspire to in the company. Right. I want to move up where I'm more in charge of my time. Like you, I didn't track hours worked. We tracked productivity. Yeah. So, you know, so, you know, if you needed to take an hour to go to the dentist.

[00:08:38] Just go take an hour to go to the dentist. Just don't leave anything hanging. You know, it's a lot, a lot of personal responsibility. Those are, those are the people that I hired. And I don't think you can do that sort of four hour work week and make it work for your business unless you have employees that have that kind of personal responsibility level. Right. They're, they're very, they're very high on that.

[00:09:06] They're very, um, they're very in tune with the business and, and, you know, understand what it is to do a good job. It's not just sitting in your seat. It's about, you know, bringing in revenue for the company, getting the work done, keeping customers happy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's a good point.

[00:09:25] And we did some other creative things, just some other outside the box ideas for engineers that were doing more than $15,000 a month in project revenue. Uh, we would actually assign their, then they're allowed to have interns. And we, we had a big internship program and, you know, the interns were the ones sitting on the help desk calls, you know, waiting for, you know, the, the help desk support for maybe the software that were, that were supporting.

[00:09:55] And they would, I don't want to say do the grunt work, but they were in the field with the engineers or in the office, you know, learning what the engineers do, but they're really doing a lot of the admin tasks that are high end. You know, level three, level four field engineers didn't have time to do. And, uh, we did similar things as well with the outside salespeople.

[00:10:18] It's like, if you weren't doing at least $10,000 a month in gross profit, you are not allowed to leverage the inside sales support. You had to do your own quotes and things like that. So we kind of made it a model where we attract, we attracted and recruited specific people that were highly competitive, that wanted to make lots of money.

[00:10:39] You know, this was, you know, 15 years ago since I ran that company, but we, we did really, really, really well and attracted great talent. And, um, you know, I don't know if it's quite like that anymore with kind of the post COVID era, you know, more and more people are used to working remote. That's more important to them. Um, so, I mean, I love this question. I, I would just say somehow I would work in those, those performance KPIs.

[00:11:07] Uh, that, that's how I would tackle that four day work week challenge question. Yeah. You have to have a KPIs for all of your employees and know, know where they're at and they should know where they're at. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Great question.

[00:11:26] If you, if you are judging their performance on bringing in that, you know, three times revenue or three times salary, which is, which is what I, you know, was kind of my baseline and they should know that too. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I told people that, you know, and I wouldn't publish because people could figure out what their salaries were if I published what the break-even points were.

[00:11:52] But we used to always share the production numbers, you know, like the number of billable hours and, uh, what the average bill rate per hour was. There was all sorts of competition going on, friendly competition, uh, for, for those people. And, uh, you know, I, I, I, I love that kind of environment. It was, it was a lot of fun. We had super stuff. Yeah. I published that information too, for my tax and, um, it really did make a difference, right?

[00:12:20] You don't want to be seen as the person on the bottom of the list. Right. Right. Exactly. And the one in last place is always the one who's most upset about that program. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's, um, you know, it's, it's that old squeaky wheel problem, right? Squeaky wheel gets, gets the oil, but also gets replaced first. Right.

[00:12:45] So yeah, if you're on the, if you're on the bottom of the list, look out, you know, you don't want to be there. Don't want to be there months in a row for sure. Yeah. Right. Cool. Well, I really, I really like that. So I, I, I feel James, like we almost changed your mind. Well, the four day work week. It, uh, I guess as I really thought about it, um, you know, on the surface immediately, I would say no.

[00:13:14] But then as I thought about it, it really does boil down to performance. It's a, you know, I've always been a pay for performance type of person. And, um, you know, if that's important to people and making money, then, you know, maximize those KPIs. And I still think, you know, to, to finish my thought, I'm a huge believer in financially rewarding or rewarding somehow with recognition, uh, that you're top performers, you know, and keep them.

[00:13:43] Keep, keep people motivated. Yeah. I mean, this is, this, this is a reward though. So, you know, um, yeah, the, the four day work week is a really, really nice benefit. And so, especially if you're a smaller company, salaries are expensive. Benefits are a little less expensive. So you can afford more to be heavy, heavy on the benefit side. But let's be honest. One last final question on this topic.

[00:14:09] Have you ever met someone who would be willing to take a 20% pay cut? Cause they wanted Fridays off. I mean, they always want the top dollar. They're, they're compared selves. Right. I mean, I, I've never had that conversation. That's the part would make me nervous. Uh, cause you're not going to save money with this. You know, you might attract good people and retain good people, which is super important today. But, um, I'm just nervous about giving away 20%, 15, 20% of the work hours.

[00:14:38] And while your competitors aren't doing that, you know, I'm, I'm, um, you know, that, that would be the challenge. But great question. I love that. All right. Hey, um, one of the thing, places that I go for news every morning is, is LinkedIn. Yep. And I, you know, it, they're very kind of subtle about it. It just shows up on the homepage over on the right column.

[00:15:04] Um, but I find that they have some good, um, some good insights and you get also get insights if you want to delve into it more from other people that feel that they're experts in that area that have added their own, usually their own articles about that, about that topic. So, so I really, I really liked that format.

[00:15:26] And today, um, when I looked in, in there, I thought, you know, I'll look to see if there's anything newsworthy we might, we might talk about in today's podcast. And, and there wasn't much tech wise in there, but I did notice a theme.

[00:15:40] Um, and it's a theme that, um, you know, as a business owner sort of, you know, definitely made me be take notice because the theme was about, uh, cuts in, cuts in sales, cuts in, in cuts in money, cuts in financing. You know, there was, it was all about, all about cutbacks and, uh, that was a, that's a little bit concerning.

[00:16:06] So, um, you know, it talked about, uh, companies cutting spending, right? Companies are, are nervous about the, uh, the tariffs and how that's going to impact the economy and the, the, the, the news about, uh, the very likely coming recession. That's making businesses sort of hold back. Like, that's not great for the tech industry, right? You know, our, our clients need to, need to spend money on equipment and projects to, to keep things rolling.

[00:16:37] Um, they also, uh, in there was an article about prices rising because of the, the tariffs and those things are starting to kick in. They said, may is when we're really going to start to, to feel that. And, um, Amazon noted that they are having, um, many fueling. Fewer of their vendors, uh, sign up for a prime day coming in July.

[00:17:02] So that's usually a big time when consumers can save a bunch of money and there's their big sort of flagship, uh, discount day at, at Amazon. Well, apparently it's going to be, going to be much smaller this year. Yeah. And then, and then finally airlines are saying they're having trouble filling seats. So good news for consumers, prices said airlines seating might be coming down for those summer vacations.

[00:17:29] Um, bad news for airlines profitability because consumers don't pay as much as businesses and businesses are holding back on buying those plane tickets. Yeah. Yeah. So just a lot of interesting things about, about the economy. If you sort of gloss through that list of articles every day, um, helps you keep track of that big picture. Yeah, that's a, that's a great point.

[00:17:57] LinkedIn is a super source for that type of information. I like going to multiple sources and trying to read about what, you know, the economic indicators are and so forth. And I also like just, you know, you and I are at an advantage because we talk to a lot of business owners every week and every one of our peer group calls. I ask everybody every week. I go, Hey, how are things going in your economy? You know, not, not the world economy, not the national economy, but your economy. It's all personal, isn't it?

[00:18:27] Yeah. Yeah. Your, your pipeline, what is your pipeline up? Is it down? And most everybody is reporting that their pipelines are up or at least the same, uh, comparatively as where it has been historically. Um, you know, and, and obviously all the MSPs that, that I work with around the country are all, you know, B2B, you know, they're, none of them are, are true retail. So I can see the consumer confidence going down a little bit based on the economic indicators.

[00:18:55] But I think on the B2B side, they're, they're still spending money on tech. You just need to hustle out there and make sure in the right place at the right time with their clients and, uh, in, in prospects. So. Yeah. I think, I think the, I think the tariffs actually had a boost on tech purchases. So I saw a lot of, a lot of chatter about, uh, MSPs going out there and talking to their clients about purchases that they intended to make this year.

[00:19:22] Go ahead and make those now because of that uncertainty of what might be, what might be happening with those, with the prices. And also potentially some, um, chip shortages again and, and things like that that could affect prices too. So yeah, it's, it, it is always good to remember that there's the national economy and then there's your own personal economy and they can be two completely different things.

[00:19:47] You have control over your own personal economy and, you know, reminding your clients of things that might be happening in the national economy that could raise prices on, on equipment. And that that's how you can control your own personal economy. Right. Right.

[00:20:06] And I, I will, I will tell you it's, uh, you can see that, that uptick, you know, that short-term boost in, in the tech economy, uh, because a lot of people are reporting, you know, favorable results on closing big deals, especially when it's connected to, you know, projects and products. Um, you know, that won't last forever.

[00:20:27] And, uh, I hope and pray that, you know, these trade tariffs get most of, at least the big ones get resolved here this quarter. So, um, I'm still optimistic on that. You know, it doesn't make sense for it to go longer. You know, we need to, you know, create deals and keep trade going. Uh, but, um, yeah, I think the media has done a, an amazing job of fear mongering again with, uh, with people and, and, you know, crushing the consumer economy.

[00:20:57] Confidence. So I did, I did read that, um, you know, the groceries are all coming down, eggs and bread and all the common stuff. And then, and then of course I go to the store this weekend. I'm like, what, Hey, these guys are wrong. You know, it's still outrageously expensive. I spent over a hundred dollars and think I only got like three things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I saw some of that, that news too, about, about, you know, grocery prices going down and then pretty much all the, all the, all the, all the, all the,

[00:21:27] comments were, were, yeah, not where, not so much. Right. Not at my grocery store. Yeah. Completely in Nebraska yet. Yeah. Well, I mean, since when do prices go down anyway? Right. Gasoline is a commodity and it, it sort of bounces around, but your groceries are not that. And once they're, once they're up, they're up and that's it. You just have to get used to the new price. Right. Yeah. It's tough.

[00:21:53] Hey, um, we promised to talk about, about books and, um, books that we think are worth, worth reading. And, um, you know, I, I, I made a little list and I tried not to make it too long because I think, I think if you, if they have too long of a list, maybe you will get overwhelmed and not read any of them. But I don't know how many I made there, what, eight, 10, eight, I guess. Um, yeah.

[00:22:21] And I included a couple more of philosophy, right? And so James and I are going to include, include our book lists in our show notes. So be sure you guys go out there. Um, so I'll, I'll start and mention a few here. Um, a couple of books that had a influence on me and that I actually bought copies of and gave them to everybody that worked for me.

[00:22:46] Where the, where the, the first three on my list execution, um, which is about how to actually get something going once you've made the decision that you're, you're, you know, that, oh yeah, we, we should do that. Right. Actually do it. Right. It's a, it's a, it's a good book on the, if you need motivation on why you need to focus on execution, that's a good book because it talks about, uh,

[00:23:16] the difference between companies that actually follow through and do the thing they say they're going to do. And those that wait, waiting is to death. You visionaries out there that have all sorts of ideas, you know, then strength finders, it's called an ideator. You need to read that book on execute. That's me. That's me. And I, I'm an ideator, but I'm also an executor. Right. So I am too. It's, I, I can tell you a funny story another time, but I'm a balance.

[00:23:45] You know, I'm, I'm a visionary, very strategic, but yet, Hey, can I make money? Is it repeatable? No, are those things, how do I execute and go to market and make it profitable? I think of how to go to market and with, without those two together, it's, it's not a good idea. So. Right. Well, you're right. You're a hundred percent right. So this, this, that that's a good book. It's a classic. It's been around for a long time. And actually the, the three, the three that I bought for, for my staff have been around for a while.

[00:24:14] The next one is the go giver. I love that one. That's a great one. I love the go giver. It really, um, helped employees understand the philosophy, uh, that I have about business. Right. That if, if, if we, if we give, we give more than we get, if we have the, we have the business attitude that we are here to serve.

[00:24:40] Um, you know, that the go, go giver helps people understand why I make the decisions that we do, why we interact with customers the way that we do. Um, you know, it was a really good book, real quick, short read too. So I love those kinds of books. The other one is good to great. Uh, good to great. Also a pretty, a pretty easy read as well. It's not, not terribly long.

[00:25:05] Um, good to great is about, uh, why some companies are good and other companies are great. And the difference between good and great is actually a small amount of effort. Uh, and so the book does a really nice job of taking you through some, some stories and some examples. It's very storytelling forward, uh, about, you know, businesses, businesses that were good and businesses that were great.

[00:25:34] And you'll recognize some of those names. You're drawn to great businesses. People are not drawn to good businesses. Right. So striving, striving to, striving to get past good is, is worthwhile. Um, and then recently, and I think I mentioned these before in a previous podcast, two new books that are out, um, by Annie Duke are how to decide and quit.

[00:26:01] Um, and they're, they're related in some ways, you know, quit is about stopping doing things that aren't productive for you anymore. How to make those decisions, how not to hang on doing something for longer than you should be. Right. Just because you've made money from that thing in the past or did things a certain way in the past doesn't mean that you should keep doing it. You can hang on to that old success right into the grave.

[00:26:29] So, uh, you have to, you have to, uh, you have to stop doing it. And then how to decide is, um, helping you do that execution part that we just talked about. Right. Mm-hmm so you've, you've got a bunch of good ideas. How are you going to decide between them? What's, what's, what's the best one? And she has some great techniques in there for, for helping you decide what to do.

[00:26:57] And then I also, we have two books in here in my list that, um, held great, uh, held great, great influence on sort of my, my outlook on the, on the world and, and money and business. Uh, first one is Your Money or Your Life. And I read this back when it came out in 1993 and there's a newer edition out there, um,

[00:27:24] from 2018 and it was rewritten by somebody else. So, um, I haven't read that new one. I don't know if it's as good as the original fit and the original, I'm sure that I'm sure that it's dated, but, uh, one of the first things that they have you go through in that book is an exercise to take a look at the amount of money that you've made in your working days up to the, up till the time when you're doing this exercise, right?

[00:27:52] How much money did I bring in and what's my net worth and why is there a gap? Right. And for most people, it's going to be a really big, huge gap. So like, where did that money go? And that's your, that's your, that's your starting point. That's the starting, starting point of the book is, you know, where did, where did that money go? Why didn't it translate into, into my, my net worth? I've been working and making money. Why isn't it accumulating?

[00:28:22] Um, and it, it's really then goes forward and puts out some pretty radical ideas on, uh, how you, how you should look at new technology, new, new things, just how you decide if it's worth it for you to, to make certain types of investments or, or not. Um, it could be a little austere.

[00:28:48] The, uh, the author originally had an idea that, um, if you held to a point in time, your life would get less and less expensive as the years went on. Yeah. So a little bit, a little bit of a radical idea, but there's also another concept in there called the gazinga's pin, um, which, which I love because you hear this, this trope, right?

[00:29:16] It's just become a cliche now of like, well, all you have to do to get wealthy is stop going to Starbucks, right? You know, you'll save, you know, this many thousands of dollars every year. If you just, if you just stop going to Starbucks and this book says, look, we all have a gazinga's pin. And, uh, you know, I think if I recall correctly, his gazinga's pin at the time, remember this

[00:29:41] was 93 was buying a new CD, uh, from his, you know, favorite, favorite band. And he's like, I can't not do it. Right. I have to spend that money. This is what makes me happy. And, you know, so in today's, today's terms, going to Starbucks in the morning and getting a coffee helps make you happy and kicks off your day, spend it, own it, do it. Right. Yeah. I agree. Yeah.

[00:30:10] So, um, and then finally, uh, a history book, the history United States in five crashes. This is about the stock market and the five biggest crashes that happened in the USA and how it has shaped our financial industry and how it really shaped our whole country and, and outlook in the world. And that's a great book. If you, if you've never read anything about the history of the United States, you can get the whole gist of it by just reading that small book.

[00:30:40] Interesting. Interesting. Couple, couple books I haven't read there. So thanks for that list. My list is similar. Uh, I'm going to do my top eight. Uh, I love the go-giver, you know, virtual high fives, Amy on the go-giver. Awesome. Yeah. Um, and, um, good to great another super book. That's one of my favorites. Um, almost any of the John Maxwell leadership books are fantastic. I'm big John Maxwell fan.

[00:31:08] I read a lot of leadership books. He's one of my favorite authors. And then some other business wisdom, uh, that we haven't talked about. Gina Wickman wrote a book called traction. We've talked about EOS on the program before, big fan of traction. So I loved that book series. Uh, atomic habits is another good one. Atomic habits, kind of the golden nugget for me in there was just the power of your mindset

[00:31:35] in being, having that attitude of gratitude and being grateful for what you have. And, uh, most people, you know, have a tendency of like, oh, I was so busy today. I had to wake up at 5am. I did this. I did this. I had 20 meetings, you know, um, I worked all day, you know, and, and then you just change it instead of, I had to, I get to, you change one word in that sentence. I get to wake up at 5am cause I'm alive.

[00:32:00] I get to go to work and go to 20 meetings cause I'm a, you know, hot con home. Yeah. I'm successful and busy making money. You know, I get to go to my son's baseball game. So what a great book that is. The five. Sounds good. You know, let me just interject one thing. I, um, I have a friend on Facebook who publishes every week, the five things that she's grateful for, and I, there's, I forget which day she publishes them on, but, um, she does it because

[00:32:29] not, you know, not to look amazing on Facebook, but because it makes her think about it all week because she knows she has to, she knows she's going to make this post. And so she's like, oh, this, this is something I'm grateful for. I'm going to remember that. Right. And so then at the end of the week, she's like, these are the five things I was really grateful for this week. Yeah. Your, your, your whole mindset, your attitude, your attitude completely changes when you think

[00:32:56] of things that you're grateful for instead of things that are problems. You know, I think that's really important. The 5am club is another good book. It's about discipline and good habits. The 5am club. Oh God. James. I know. 5am. You know what I call that? Murder o'clock. Murder o'clock. Well, I tell you what, everybody, everybody's not going to believe me, but I tell you what,

[00:33:25] um, when, when I had big businesses and I hired lots of people, remember I told you, I recruited specific people and I used to recruit a lot of, of people with athletic backgrounds. You know, I was a student athlete, uh, for, you know, my whole, whole, you know, collegiate career and high school and so forth. And, you know, we were the ones who got up at 5am and, and worked out for two hours before

[00:33:51] we went to class and did all the same classes and the same tests as everybody else, you know, still got A's and B's worked three jobs. Uh, you know, I, I like the discipline that comes out of that in the competitiveness, especially team sports. You know, I like the team sports where people learn how to play on a team and stay in their swing lanes and, uh, understand what their tasks are each play. You know, I, I leverage that in, in my business very successfully.

[00:34:21] So I, I love that book. Two other ones real quick. One is a tearjerker. So be careful. It's kind of like purpose driven life, but it's called halftime Bob Buford. It was an amazing story about a super successful executive in the telecom space. He lost his son in an automobile accident, just poof, he's gone. And it, and that changed his whole mindset and, uh, you know, Hey, why am I working so

[00:34:49] hard my whole life just to earn all this money and be gone all the time? I need to, it should be more about having a purpose and creating a legacy. And, uh, that book for those of you that are into that type of thing, check out halftime. That's a great book. And then the last one as a, as a man of faith, I mean, something that's really important to me and my upbringing, I'll just say, you know, another favorite book of mine is the Bible.

[00:35:14] And I try to read it every day, specifically if somebody wants some business, uh, knowledge, just read the book of Proverbs, you know, it's about doing the right thing. And it's shocking how many good nuggets come out of the book of Proverbs alone. So that would be, that would be my list. It's hard to just do a top eight. I could keep talking about this forever, but, um, what a great topic today. You know, what our favorite books are.

[00:35:41] I love that we both included, um, a little bit of our life philosophy books in there too. Yeah. Right. Cause it, it is, you know, running, running a business is it's personal. I always say, you know, a business takes on the personality of its CEO. And, um, you, you've mentioned that a few times today about the kinds of people that you hired. And I talked about the, you know, the, the motivations and the personal responsibility

[00:36:10] was really important to me and the people that, that I hired. And, um, you know, it's good to find, good to find books like this that help you solidify that philosophy. You know, I know coming out of school, I had certain, certain ideas and thoughts. And then when I, you know, started reading, reading some business books and I found things that really resonated and, and supported those, it, you know, made me stronger in my convictions in the way that, that I wanted to, to run my, my business.

[00:36:39] Exactly. So I hope for everybody that they find some inspiration in those. Awesome. Yeah. We'll, we'll share the, we'll share the list of books up in the show notes for everybody as well. So. Awesome. Yeah. Yep. Go grab those, grab those show notes guys and let us know what you think of those books. And, uh, thanks for listening today. We will hear you next week on the SMB community podcast. All right. Take care, everybody. Have a great week.

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