A Sabbatical Every Seven Weeks - Sean McCabe

[01:44] Paul: Awesome. So Sean, thanks for chatting with me today. I wrote an essay about sabbaticals last week, and it's something that's been on my mind for the past couple of years. I've noticed that Sabbaticals have this almost magical quality of bringing people closer to what they actually want in life. And in my research, I stumbled upon your blog, which is devoted to this, and your own journey. Starting in 2014, you went from working over 100 hours a week, I think, to taking a sabbatical.

I'd love to just start there. We'll dive into how you've integrated this with your team, But how does one— like, what is— talk to me about the mindset of somebody that's like, I'm going to work every day.

[02:33] Sean McCabe: I don't think it starts with that thought of working every day, but it was more born out of necessity, you know, just feeling like, you know, got to keep making payroll, you know, got to keep making the money, you know, have this team to pay. And at the time, you know, the business model wasn't very solid. And so it was very reliant on me just going out and exerting a bunch of effort to make money. But like, I had this, I had this idea of where I wanted to go, you know, and that was, that was pulling me forward. And then I'm kind of also being pushed by just the fact that I need to meet payroll. So yeah, yeah, I didn't, didn't really anticipate getting to that point.

It just kind of got to that point. And I realized like I didn't really have any friends. Like if you asked me if I had friends, I'd be like, yeah, of course I do. But like everyone that I probably would've called a friend was on payroll. And it was like, except for my wife. And I'm like, wait, no, she's on payroll too.

Like, I don't know. I don't know like what's going on. You know, I was like not exercising, not getting much sleep, just, just really burned out and I, I'm just kind of a all or nothing guy. Like if I'm gonna do something, I'm obsessed about it. Otherwise I don't care at all. So I didn't know what it would look like to slow down.

Like I couldn't really wrap my mind around that. I needed something that would just be like, how do I go all in on a break? And then my research led me to this concept of sabbaticals.

[04:05] Paul: Yeah. What, what were some of the inspirations there? Did you have specific people or just the idea?

[04:13] Sean McCabe: No, there was Stefan Sagmeister's TED Talk about taking off every 7th year as a sabbatical. I was like, that's really cool. But I need something smaller scale. Like, I'm not ready for that yet. And so just as a play on numbers, I'm like, well, there's this 7-year thing, and then there's 7 days in a week. What if I just took off every 7th week?

And it was just an idea, like an experiment. And I was podcasting at the time and I said, I'm going to try this out. You know, I'll let you know how it goes. And did it once and it coincided with a trip and that was fine. But then 6 weeks went by really fast and suddenly it was time to take another sabbatical. And I was like, oh, I really don't want to do that.

Like there's too much work to do. And I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't publicly said, this is what I'm going to do. So like people are kind of tuning in like, oh, how is the second one going to go? I'm like, I guess I better take this. And so I really had to grit my teeth and get through it. Like, as bad as that sounds, it wasn't really till the third time, which was, you know, another 7 weeks, that it kind of clicked for me.

And then it was like, like my body was craving it, like I was ready for it, like I really, really needed it. And I didn't really realize just how like exhausted I was. Like I was just operating. I think a lot of us are operating at this chronic low-level burnout that we just are used to ignoring. And it's not until you give yourself the opportunity to rest that you realize how much you need to rest.

[05:50] Paul: Yeah. I often find when people take these breaks, it takes almost up to a month sometimes just for the healing phase, as I call it. Uh, what, like, what were some of those days like? Was it like just stressful waking up and not being able to like check in or, uh, checking on work?

[06:13] Sean McCabe: Yeah, it, it's, I, I've seen it, um, kind of flashing forward a little bit. Like it ended up being such a game changer for me that I, I now pay my employees to take off every 7th week as a sabbatical, and that's kind of One of my larger missions is by the year 2047, I want to get every company in the world to pay their employees to take off every 7th week as a sabbatical. Like, that's my mission here because it's just been such a game changer. But for me as well as my employees, I see it really consistently that the first time it's great. You know, it's like a, it's like a vacation. The second time is weird and it's like you feel this resistance.

The third time is where it clicks for most people. But there is still that guilt. And the biggest thing is expectation. Like, for people who are used to taking, you know, 2 weeks of vacation in a year, you know, taking 7 or 8 weeks per year seems like a lot. And so they put these expectations on themselves that like, oh, I'm going to write a book, I'm going to do this project, I'm going to travel the world and like, A week is not a lot of time. A month isn't even a lot of time.

And I tell people, be like, go in without expectation, be prepared to not accomplish things because you just need space to process, to just to rest, you know, from all this just go, go, go that you've been doing. So the biggest thing really is, is that guilt that's like, I took a sabbatical, a week, a month, whatever it is, and I didn't accomplish XYZ. And it's like, that's okay. The best thing you can do going in is just clear any expectations that you have going in.

[07:59] Paul: I think that one of the biggest benefits is shifting out of that doing mode. I think especially as Americans, although a lot of other people I talk to from different places experience this, it's this, I need, you can't just not do anything. People really say that, right? And they mean it because what they're saying is it's really scary to feel like you might be useless, right? We all— and I think it derives from an idea that makes sense. At some point, we all had to contribute because otherwise, like, the fields wouldn't get tended to, our community wouldn't eat, our family might literally starve.

Now most countries are spending less than 10% of their incomes on food and like there's way too much food. So we haven't overcorrected.

[08:50] Sean McCabe: I think it's identity because at least here in the United States, you know, you ask people, what do you do? You don't ask them who they are. So it's like your identity is so inextricably linked to what you do. When you strip away the doing, who are you?

[09:07] Paul: Yeah. And it even extends into non paid employment, because people will often describe, oh, I had a really productive Sunday. It's like, well, what are you producing? What— why are there outputs? Um, and I always found that language weird, but I didn't really connect it to a larger thing until I shifted away from full-time work and took these extended breaks. And basically forced myself on weekdays to wander around.

I was living in Boston after I quit my job, and I decided I would just devote Tuesdays to biking around the city. Except I'm biking around with the mindset of like, you're not making money, you should be doing stuff, you have these things, and you feel terrible. But then after a while, you sense like, holy crap, there's probably something deeper, like this deeper wisdom of like being alive and feeling alive that might be worth leaning into.

[10:11] Sean McCabe: It's unknown though. It's so, it's scary, you know, like it's terrifying. Yeah. It took me 2 years to figure this out. Like I would, I would do, I was doing these sabbaticals. It was great.

It started as an experiment. Every 7th week I'd take off the week. and I'd often come back from these sabbatical weeks not feeling rested. And it's like, I don't get it. You know, like I took this week off, isn't the point to rest? But I don't feel rested.

It took me 2 years to figure out why. And it's because I saw my sabbaticals as free time. And free time is— what do we do with free time in our calendar? Someone says, hey, can you do a meeting or whatever? You look at your calendar. If there's nothing there, You say yes, you know, 'cause it's free time.

If you look at your calendar and you see an event already there, you say no, you know, because you're booked. Well, I was seeing my sabbaticals as free time, and so I'd look into the future. Someone would ask me if I wanted to do something or commit to something. I'd look a few weeks in advance. There's a sabbatical week. Great, I'm free.

I have nothing going on. So I would say yes, and I would commit myself to a bunch of things. And then when I get to the sabbatical week, I'm looking at the week and there's all of these obligations, things that past me thought future me would want to do. And here I am not wanting to do it because past me didn't know future me. Past me thought future me was in business mode and do mode, and future me just wanted to do nothing, even these things that normally I would want to do. And so it caused me to— it basically took energy from me.

And I realized I need to not see my sabbatical as free time. I need to see it as sabbatical time. And so I started blocking off that time and just putting sabbatical on my calendar and I blocked it with an event. So the event spanned a week and I couldn't, I couldn't book anything there. And so someone would say, hey, can you do something in 3 weeks? And I'd say, no, I'm not available.

How about 4? And then what that did is it carved out time for me where I could go in to the sabbatical with no obligations. It was pure possibility. I could do whatever I wanted. I could say yes to anything in the moment. And so I just instituted one rule for myself.

The only rule I have for sabbaticals is no obligations. Don't schedule anything. When you go into it, you can say yes to anything in the moment. It doesn't mean you just have to sit there and stare at the wall, you know, but like Don't pre-commit yourself. And that one rule has been a game changer for me. And it's what turned sabbaticals into something that just got filled up and was just more busyness to something that actually gives me energy and recharges me.

And what's funny is like, a lot of times on a sabbatical week, I'm not like, it doesn't mean you don't have to travel the world, you can take a sabbatical while staying at home. And so I might be in my office, I might be writing, I might be doing things. And if you were to peek in my office and open the door, it would look like I'm working, but the difference is I'm choosing to do those things in the moment. And oftentimes it may be the same activity. It could be writing, which I might do when I'm in business mode. But the difference between having to do something and choosing to do something, even when the activity is the same thing, is, is what determines whether something takes energy from you or it gives you energy.

[13:41] Paul: I think this is something people have a hard time disconnecting. We see work as things we have to do. And I think in a way that almost blocks us from thinking about either designing work or finding work or thinking of things we might want to do that we actually want to do. I think I discovered writing basically in my first extended break. That was something I just kept wanting to do. With free time.

Free time, I kept going over to like a notebook or like a computer and writing. And then people later would see me working or writing on a Saturday and be like, oh, I thought like, I thought you work less now. Like, aren't you not supposed to be working? And it's almost impossible unless you've experienced this to explain to someone that there's this different mode. But it's really beautiful when you discover that because then in a way you don't need a break, right? It's you need to shift that state.

[14:49] Sean McCabe: There's no one activity that is in and of itself inherently work. It's really just an obligation. Do you have to do this thing or are you choosing to do this thing? And that's gonna determine Does it take energy or does it give energy? But it can be the same activity.

[15:08] Paul: Do you wish you had taken 1 or 2 months earlier?

[15:12] Sean McCabe: Earlier than the— than 2014 when I started?

[15:15] Paul: At the beginning, you said it took you kind of 2 years to really figure out some of the deeper stuff. Do you kind of wish you had just done a month or 2 just to break some of those patterns more quickly, or is that kind of what worked for you?

[15:31] Sean McCabe: I think it was good. I think it was really good that I committed to this because had I taken a month, I would have seen that as this grand act that was like a vacation or a trip or whatever. And it's like, I did it, I'm done. And I'm back. And here we are, we're back to my, you know, addictive workaholic, all-in type of personality where it's like, okay, I'll do the month thing because I'm just obsessed about that. And then I come back and I'm going to be obsessed about work and I'm back to workaholism and putting relationships and health to the side.

I think it was really good that I committed to something that was recurring. And I would encourage people to commit to something that is recurring, whether, whether you want to do this 7th week sabbatical thing I do, or just like a weekend sabbatical where like every month you take off the last weekend of the month, or, you know, you could do the month-long thing maybe, but maybe you do it like every year. You know, commit to a recurring sabbatical. And that way, it's this investment in your long-term health, creativity, ideas, and burnout prevention.

[16:38] Paul: I love that. And if I was talking to you in 2014, I, I probably would have not told you to take a long break, right? Because you, you were kind of in this cycle in which all your friends were at work with you. And the business was relying on you. So you'd kind of created this very tough situation to escape. Like, man, like, that, that would be scary.

Like, it would have been crazy for you to have taken 2 months because that would have been really an abdication of responsibility and all these things. So, so it's kind of cool that the 7 week thing worked for you and it was kind of a slower on-ramp.

[17:22] Sean McCabe: Yeah, it was helpful at the time. I think I did 1 or 2 of these and my first question was like, how do I make sure my employees are getting work done while I'm on my break? And then I'm like, well, okay, why am I doing this? Do I actually believe in this concept? Because if I do, then I should invest in them as well. If you're well rested, you're going to do better work.

Happier people do better work. And so I started paying them to take off every 7th week, like, all right, this is your job. You know, we're all going to do this together. And it was a pretty small team at the time, so we would take off the same sabbatical week. But now fast forward 7 years, I actually ended up taking off a whole year because I came back around to my original inspiration and I was like, this 7th year thing, like, I think I am going to try that, you know? That ended up being 2020.

Turns out I didn't pick the best year to travel the world. But now we have, we have different sabbatical tracks for the employees. So like, not everyone is off at the same time so people can handle customer support and things like that.

[18:30] Paul: When did you decide to do it for your team? What was their reaction to that too?

[18:35] Sean McCabe: Oh, I mean, obviously they loved it. It was really only a couple of weeks in. I just, I'm super logical. So I was just like, if I believe these reasons are good to do it for me, the same reasons would be good to do it for them. Because my reasons were, I'm overall net more productive. Like, I'm not saying that's the best motivator.

But for me, obviously, like as a workaholic, it was like productivity, you know. And so that was kind of a way that I could justify it to myself. And I think it can be a way to explain to other people who are, you know, business owners, right? It's like, that's nice, everyone feels well and they're well rested, but like, it needs to make economic sense. And I'm like, I really think it does because it creates these built-in 6-week cycles. You got these kind of built-in sprints where it's like, what are we going to get done?

What are we going to accomplish in 6 weeks? A lot of people, companies, they're not asking that. So they're just kind of slogging on week after week, you know, 50 weeks out of the year, you get done what you get done. But this forces you to kind of set milestones for yourself. Like, what am I going to get done here? And you take 7 weeks worth of work and you, you very easily collapse it into 6.

Like, it's not, it's not that hard. Like, we all waste time, you know, so you give yourself a little bit of a deadline and you get everything done. So like, We get the 7 weeks worth of work done in 6, and then we take off a week, and because we're recharged from that, we come back and there's a spike, you know, because like we're energized, and overall it's a net win.

[20:11] Paul: I honestly think you could probably save a year's worth of time in some of these big organizations I've worked in. It's interesting because the way we think about work, full-time employment, is basically It's a very machine way of thinking of the world. It's like we have this human capital, we call it, and the capital is available most weeks of the year. You only go on vacation if somebody's covering for you. So we have this infinite capacity, which basically means nobody ever commits to any deadlines. Everyone pushes everything down further and further, and no one really likes this because The secret is when you do have intense focus deadlines, people love doing that kind of work.

That's what brings people alive. When I was in consulting, I used to love when we had short deadlines and very focused goals. The worst parts were when you're just kind of sitting around and then a client freaks out and you have to react. That's a whole different mode. But that focused, targeted, intense work, most people I know want that.

[21:27] Sean McCabe: Yeah, it's nice direction. It's just like, here's a box in which to operate, and then at the end, you know, take a week off, you know, it's, it's kind of nice. And there's cool stories that come out of people's sabbaticals as well. Like one employee I had was working on a music album for like 7 or 8 years. He plays all the instruments, you know, but like he just never got it done. And in like 2 or 3 sabbatical weeks, he finished his whole album.

And it's like, that's such a cool, that's such a cool story, you know. And if you're, if you're comparing 2 agencies that you want to hire and one gives their employees sabbaticals and like tells these cool stories of like trips they've gone on and books they've written or whatever, and the other doesn't, and like the services are the same, you're probably going to hire the one that like, you know, happy people do better work. So like, it's a competitive advantage as well. Like, it attracts talent, it attracts clients, it retains employees. It's just such a win all around.

[22:28] Paul: I imagine your attrition rates are pretty low.

[22:31] Sean McCabe: Yeah, it's funny. Like, I don't ever even lead with the fact that we give, you know, every 7th week off paid. A lot of people know about it, but like, I usually don't lead with it because then everyone wants to work here. You know, I try and make it a place people want to work even without that. And then it's just a bonus.

[22:48] Paul: Now, do people ever stack them or like combine them, take 3 weeks at a time? How does that work with—

[22:56] Sean McCabe: Yeah. Yeah. So this is something we've, we've thought through quite a bit. Every once in a while, you know, maybe you have a wedding or something, right? And it happens when it happens. Maybe it's not on your sabbatical track.

That's fine. Like, it's flexible. I just, I'm not a fan of unlimited vacation, the concept of unlimited, because people don't take it.

[23:17] Paul: Right.

[23:18] Sean McCabe: You know, like you actually need to take it to benefit from it. So the reason I like having these sabbaticals is they're mandatory. It's like, okay, you know how your job is to write or edit or market or whatever? Your job is to take this week off. Like we're paying you to take this week off. So, you have to, you know.

[23:36] Paul: Well, and I think there's something hidden there is that most companies aren't doing this because they are not committed to doing great work. I think one thing I've realized is that if you actually want to do like exceptional work, you need pauses. Like you need space and you need breaks. One, just for inspiration. Two, for like getting in different modes and like recharging creatively. But yeah, what— and what you see this in the most like forward-thinking companies taking these breaks, giving extra days off, mostly because they're obsessed with doing great work.

Unfortunately though, most companies are not interested in doing great work. Um, and this is something that I think a lot of people have a hard time to figure out.

[24:32] Sean McCabe: I, I, I don't think I've ever heard it put quite that way. That's really interesting. Like, if you want to do great work, you need pauses, you need rest. And I, I totally agree. I think your best work, the work for which you will be known, the work that will contribute to your legacy is currently locked up. You know, it's, it's in this box that's inaccessible to you and you can bang on the box all you want.

But until you take a step back and give yourself some space, you're not gonna be able to unlock those creative ideas, like the really, really good ones. You have to create space to, to discover.

[25:09] Paul: It's even the personal stuff too, because I think the craziest thing I've seen in sabbaticals is people either remember things they used to love as a kid, they rediscover hobbies. Or they have these very obvious things like, oh my God, I stopped volunteering 3 years ago. Why did I stop? And they start re-engaging with these things. Did you have anything like this come up for you in the first couple of years?

[25:36] Sean McCabe: Yeah, yeah, I have. I've made intentional decisions to set aside secondary passions like art and music and things like that. And my thought was, I'm going to— it's hard to make a living from those things, even though I enjoy them. My thought was, I'll work on things that make money more easily, and then eventually I'll come back and revisit those. But it's, again, it's that all-or-nothing mindset. And what I like about sabbaticals is it just gives me time and space and permission to rekindle and explore those secondary passions.

And like not worry about, oh, I shouldn't be doing this, I should be working or doing something else right now.

[26:20] Paul: I just haven't seen that work. I mean, I have seen it work. I've seen it, that energy reignite in retirement for some people. I have seen that and I won't deny it. But this, like, once I get enough money, once I get enough time, once I get enough freedom, I will then rediscover these things. People radically underestimate how much that path changes you.

And I think it's just after experiencing these things, it's about like I'm radicalized after experiencing these extended breaks. It's like that energy, like you need to protect it if this broader perspective and a way of thinking about life matters to you.

[27:06] Sean McCabe: I, on just to close the loop on the topic of stacked sabbatical weeks. So, you know, I didn't like the unlimited thing because it's optional. Um, but even though it's mandatory to take the time off exactly where you take that off, we can be flexible on that. So like as much as possible, stick to your sabbatical track because someone needs to take over while you're gone. And there's some coordination with that. But if you need to adjust it a week, that's fine.

If you want to take a 2-week trip, you could combine some of your sabbatical weeks that way. And even more recently, we've decided to let people pull days out of an upcoming sabbatical week. So like, say you want to take a long weekend or something, you know, Friday, you know, Friday to Monday or something like that. You could pull a couple sabbatical weeks, days from your upcoming sabbatical week. So we're flexible in that way.

[27:59] Paul: Has the sabbatical shifted to something that you almost design around at this point?

[28:04] Sean McCabe: That's such a good question. In a sense, yeah. I mean, it obviously is for us, it is a constraint, but I think creativity thrives within constraints. Like, if you give someone a box within within which to operate, they can think outside the box. You know, whereas if you just have this unlimited landscape, it's kind of like, eh, you know, so it's kind of been positive for us, I would say. And I've been pleasantly surprised.

And I think the listener who's considering taking a sabbatical themselves, who's maybe scared about the unknown, or how people will react, or what about my clients or whatever, I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised. And I have a story from just like, 4 days ago that I'll tell in just a second. But yeah, when it comes to designing what we offer in terms of our services or things like that, yeah, it's challenging because if you want to deliver client work to clients on a consistent basis, they're expecting something every so often, you have to have people delivering. And in the early days when we only have one sabbatical track, it was much more limiting, where either you just had to set expectations or you couldn't offer certain things because we were going to be off one of those weeks. Now with multiple sabbatical tracks, we do have people on at all times.

So that does give us a bit more flexibility. But you'd be so surprised, like, I actually just asked a coaching client. I had worked with them for 6 months. And I just completely spaced because I hadn't been doing coaching for a couple of years and I decided, all right, I'll start doing it. And I said, sure, let's do this. And we started and I completely forgot to mention that I take off every 7th week as a sabbatical.

And so I committed to doing this like weekly thing. So for those 6 months, I had this 1-hour call that I would do even if it was my sabbatical week. But when it came up for time to renew, I said, oh, hey, you know what, last time we started, I completely forgot to mention, like, if we continue, would you be okay with me taking off every 7th week? Because I do these sabbaticals. Would it be okay if we skipped every 7th week? I didn't offer a price difference or a discount or anything.

I just asked them if they would be okay with it. And they said, sure. And it was that simple. Like, that's all that it was.

[30:32] Paul: When it comes down to it, people are scared to ask. I've done a couple episodes with people who have implemented 4-day work weeks. You can come up with 100 reasons why it won't work. And often it's the most powerful is, well, our customers would never allow that. And it's like, well—

[30:50] Sean McCabe: That's the easiest one.

[30:51] Paul: Yeah. It's, have you asked them? And I talked with Tash Walker in London who has an advertising agency, and she just told her clients, look, we're not working on Fridays. We want to make our employees' lives better. And they were like, yep, okay, we like working with you.

[31:11] Sean McCabe: No one's going to care. No, I promise. Yeah, exactly. You, you, all it is is expectations. Yeah, that's it. Communication and expectations.

And you can play it one of two ways. Like, hey, normally we deliver on Fridays. We're actually going to deliver on Thursdays because we're out of office on Friday. And so anything you send us after that, we'll get back to you on, on Monday. And they're like, great. Like, you actually don't even need to give a reason.

But you can if you want. And sometimes people are excited and sometimes they're inspired and like, oh, I wish we did that, or maybe we could implement that. But like, you actually don't even have to give a reason. You can say, this is how we work. And the vast majority of clients, they'll just be like, okay, great. Because if you want the results, which is presumably why they're coming to you, you, you want the world famous pizza, you let them make it with their sauce.

You don't come in with a jar, you know, and like, here, make your pizza with this sauce. You want the results, the results require the process. Your clients want your results. Tell them what your process is. Our process is we work these days, we deliver on these days, and they'll say, great.

[32:14] Paul: So 2049, we're going to get every company, and I'm on board now. I'm— I am.

[32:21] Sean McCabe: 2047. I can use those 2 years.

[32:23] Paul: 2047. I am on board to get every company in the world taking every 7th week off. How are we going to do this?

[32:35] Sean McCabe: Okay, so here's the good news. We don't actually have to personally get every company in the world. We just need to reach a tipping point. And that isn't necessarily 51%. Like, it could be 20%. As long as we get, you know, once you get the Googles and the Facebooks and the Amazons and whatever, it's like the ping pong tables in the early 2000s, you know, or it's like It's like, oh, you guys don't have a break room or, you know, free sodas or whatever people cared about then.

Now we don't drink sodas. Um, uh, but it's a competitive advantage. It's like I could work at Google and get paid sabbaticals every 7 weeks, or I can work at Facebook and like get some cool things, but not sabbaticals and similar salary. Like you just need to reach a tipping point to where like everyone has to offer these perks. And then, and then we're good. So as far as reaching that tipping point, I mean, that's, that's my mission here.

Like I'm running this agency, but this agency for me is, it was actually, it's 3 things. Number 1, it's cash flow. Like I want to fund my mission for sabbaticals where I can pour in like time and resources and people and content to get the message out about sabbaticals and just how powerful it is, how much of a competitive advantage it is for businesses, the benefits of it, how to do it, how to implement it, you know, all the logistics around like multiple sabbatical tracks and how do, what do you accommodate? Like we've, we've thought through it over the years. So I want to help people with that. Um, so the agency is cashflow to fund that mission, but it's also a case study because we've got all these people and like, here's how we, we've shown that we've got this agency that's delivering services to clients, the clients are happy, the employees are happy.

We've got these multiple sabbatical tracks, like, see, it can work. And then the third thing is, you know, we have this media agency, so we can also use the agency to help promote the sabbatical stuff. So yeah, like, that's, that's at least my plan is just like, tell the story, tell especially your employees' stories, like what are things they've been able to do, like the stories are really what breaks through the noise and gets people to remember.

[34:48] Paul: I've done a bunch of research on the history of work. O'Shaughnessy actually elevated this trend, which was basically work— the work week was falling until like the 1970s and then just flatlined. So, we like lost our desire to like shorten the work week and we now have like literally no one in the workforce that ever remembers a time in which work weeks got So it's like— it is. It's like a remembering of the things that fired up in our childhood, but remembering that there was a time on this earth in which people thought it might be worth trying to shorten the work week. And my theory is like everything is knowledge work, everything is gig work in today's world, and you can't do it in a nonstop hustle. You need these like creative bursts, right?

So, I love the mission.

[35:51] Sean McCabe: It's so— it's crazy because like, I'm just such a like, go, go, go, like productivity person, like get as much done as possible. Like the amount of automation I have in my business, the amount of macros I use, like my hands rarely go from keyboard to mouse because like I can do everything on the keyboard, you know, I've got 4 27-inch displays and a keyboard shortcut puts the windows on different displays. You know, like just, it'll take a tab and put it on the right half and this, like just in a single stroke. Like you watch me use a computer, I'll get a week worth of work done in a day. Like just crazy. But then I work the next day and then I work the next day and then I work the next day.

It's like, when, when do we reap the benefits of this increased efficiency? Like the, there is no natural point where we get more and more and more done and then just go, you know what, the natural conclusion here is we should just work less like that. It's not natural. What we just keep doing is go, go, go. And I don't trust myself to know when to slow down. I just won't.

So the only way I know how to do it is to create a system that forces me to do it. And that's why I was saying it's so important to schedule that recurring sabbatical. 'Cause I, you know, I'll look at my calendar, what do I have today? Well, if the calendar tells me I've got a sabbatical, then I've got a sabbatical. Like I've just outsourced that thinking because if I have to think to take a break, I'll think myself out of it.

[37:23] Paul: That's awesome. And I think it's a useful perspective too because I probably lean in the other direction where I just work less and I don't have a team. I've designed things around just me and I just work a lot less than most other people. I started making money money online a little more passively in the last year and I was like, okay, now more time to explore and create. But I don't think most people are wired closer to me, they're probably a little closer to you and it's cool to see the example both at a team level, organization level, but also role modeling it from the top.

[38:06] Sean McCabe: Do you think structure works the other way around, like for you, where you're, you're more inclined to work less? Does structure in terms of having these times where you do work help, or how do you navigate that?

[38:21] Paul: That's such a good insight because that's exactly how I operate is I think there's like a high-level way of thinking about it in which I'm thinking about projects at a 1 to 3 month basis. So, it's like, okay, over the next 3 months, this is what I'm excited about. This is what I'm going to work out or work on. Or it's like this one month, I'm going to sprint and deliver this. And I usually do that like you with like public commitments. So, I put this out there, I might start selling something and then I'll create it because I love helping people.

Writing is something I just literally love doing. I do it every day. And I don't need to design around that other than making sure I block off my time. So only meetings typically on Wednesdays where I talk to people about their relationship with work for fun, and then calls like this usually at night. But 95% of my mornings till 2, 3 in the afternoon are just open. And I know in that space I'll do stuff because I love it and I want to keep doing it.

[39:29] Sean McCabe: What do you say to the person who actually feels the opposite problem. I mean, they probably haven't made it this far in the conversation, but they're like, I mean, my life is like a sabbatical. I really don't feel like working. What advice do you have to that person who just— it's less about trying to force themselves to take time off, and it's more like, how do I force myself to want to do anything or to care?

[39:57] Paul: Yeah, and I think that's a big problem too. I think for me, it's Broadening the definition of work. I think people think way too narrowly around work. I had a college student tell me once that he was going to become an investment banker because society— because that was the highest salary and that means salary is valuing it the most. It's like that is a very narrow way of thinking about work, but it's very prevalent too, which is like if it can be paid for, it's work, right? I would broaden the range of work and just think of it as like, what are the things inside of you that you need to express, right?

Is it learning an instrument, learning a language, developing some hobby, dancing, writing, art, all these things? To who can you help, right? And most of us have some desire to help other people, right? Go spend time with your grandmother, go volunteer somewhere, go help a family member. If you have kids, it's very easy, right? And then you can start, like, I think that helps to start to solve the, like, oh, I'm worthless, right?

Because I think a lot of people who don't engage with things look at things like, oh, I can't find a good job or I can't find good paying work and they feel like crap. Right? Because that's what society tells you. You can't get good paid work. You are not valuable. So I think it's developing a different definition of work and then just leaning into that stuff.

And half the time leaning into that stuff is what opens up the things where you can make money and do other things. But that requires faith and that's just really hard.

[41:51] Sean McCabe: That's good advice. I like that.

[41:54] Paul: Where is the blog people can learn more about what you've written about sabbaticals in this journey, which is awesome?

[42:01] Sean McCabe: Yeah, sabbatical.blog. So sabbatical.blog is where I've, you know, been putting thoughts about sabbaticals as well as my experience taking sabbaticals. Like, so for 6 6 years I took these 7th week sabbaticals, and then I took the 7th year off. And so I also was documenting that journey where we moved out of our house, no house, no car, just a backpack, hit the road, got about a month in, and then the pandemic hit. So that kind of put a damper on the plans, but you can see what happened there. And then I actually wrote a book, but it's not done.

Sabbaticalbook.co. So I kind of just got all of my thoughts about sabbaticals and experience with, you know, all of this stuff. And, you know, how do you plan for it? How do you return from it? You know, all of those things. And once again, all or nothing, you know, this is a perfect example.

I was like, I'm gonna try and write. So I wrote my first book, it's called Overlap about starting a business while working your full-time job. I wrote that in 2 weeks. I was like, how long does it take to write a book? You know, a year, a month, you know, a week. And I was like, it really takes as long as the amount of time you give it.

And so I said, just to kind of prove this, I'm going to give myself a day. I'm going to try and write 100,000 words in a day.

[43:32] Paul: I saw this post.

[43:33] Sean McCabe: And so the way I was going to do it is by dictating, you know, having it transcribed. And I made it, um, I made it 55,000 words in and then my voice started going after like 7 or 8 hours. Uh, but I got the draft done. So like there's this, uh, recorded draft of the sabbatical book. And then I, I went on my sabbatical year. I didn't edit it yet.

So it's, it's still a work in progress, but, um, sabbaticalbook.co, you can find more about that and hear when it comes out. I've learned a lot though, like since taking off the sabbatical year. And now the company has multiple sabbatical tracks. So I think all of this experience will make the book even better. So it'll serve as a reference for someone who's wanting to explore this idea of taking sabbaticals or maybe implementing it in their company. Like, how can you actually do this with employees?

So you can have a handbook to give to them for how to take it off. But I would say anyone who's considering taking a sabbatical, or actually I put it this way. What I've found is if you're asking yourself the question, am I burned out or am I burning out?

[44:42] Paul: It's too late.

[44:42] Sean McCabe: You already are. Yeah. By the time you're asking it, like it's happening. So if you're even asking it, like it's your body kind of signaling to you like that something's, you know, up. So yeah, just don't ignore the warning signs. You know, don't be afraid to take a step back, take a little break.

Don't worry about making it super formal. Start easy, start simple. Try a sabbatical weekend, you know, take off every last weekend of the month. But yeah, just don't ignore the warning signs.