MegaMaker - The good life, and how to get it

​

Back in the year 2000, while I was still in college, I read this article about the founders of Great Harvest Bread Co.

As a 20-year-old business student, hearing Pete and Laura Wakeman's "business rules" had a huge impact on me.

Their business philosophy was simple:

Unlike a lot of other entrepreneurs, they weren't aggressively pursuing growth, putting in 80 hour weeks, or sacrificing their personal life. Instead, the Wakeman's prioritized living a good life first.

For them, having a business was a means to an end, and they always kept their life priorities in sight.

They'd always tracked their hours (through regular time cards). They got paid by the hour, just like their employees. Gradually, over the years, they reduced the hours they worked:

• In 1993, they worked a total of 2,986 hours (combined)
• In 1990, they reduced that to 2,000 hours (1,000 each)

For them, restricting themselves to 1,000 hours a year meant more freedom. As soon as the year started, they knew how many hours they'd be working. And they tracked it by punching in, and punching out. They didn't want their work time bleeding into their personal time. (How many of us are answering emails, tweets, etc on our phones at all hours of the day? 😅).

Pete and Laura say their secret was setting rigid boundaries in their lives. They felt that these "handrails" gave them more freedom:

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

Currently, I don't think Jon or I could imagine leaving Transistor for three months. But it's a good model to think about: how could we structure our business so we could do that?

One part of Pete and Laura's playbook I really identify with is their hiring philosophy:

If your goal isn't to "grow fast," you can identify and hire naturally happy people want the same kind of life you do: a good life, full of purpose, and the space to do things outside of work.

It's clear that Pete and Laura's lifestyle was the result of deliberately pursuing freedom and simplicity in all 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 I. But, you can see how they deliberately crafted their lives. They've shaped every aspect to give them more freedom.

That's the good life. I think it's the kind of life that many of us want.

Cheers,
Justin Jackson
​@mijustin​

​

This newsletter is brought to you by:

⚡ MegaMaker ⚡
A private community for bootstrappers
"pursuing the good life"