Everybody it's a second of March and welcome to The unscheduled see EO Timing was a little laugh on that one This week I'm going to be talking about a study on a new study on money and happiness and money make you happy. Happy money! So everyone welcome back to the unscheduled CEO podcast on another unscheduled release date for the podcast and as you can see I'm getting more and more sloppy with it and more and more unscheduled which is kind of what I expected to happen.
So last week I said that you know the episode you were listening to could potentially be the final episode of the podcast and I'm also saying that today you never know. You never know when it's a little art project like this whether or not I'm going to keep it up or whether or not it's just like a just a little phase because what I'm doing usually is I'm tinkering. I'm just trying out new things.
I'm just seeing what I enjoy doing and I'm just like following a thread and the thread right now I really hope this is all recording. The thread right now is just trying out this unedited podcast approach testing out all the equipment and the funny thing is you know maybe this podcast will never become a thing but just learning how to do all of this stuff is going to lead to something it always does.
Okay so yeah usually at the start of the start of the episode I give you a little update on what's happening with A.J. and Smart so yeah since the last time we talked we closed February February, February, February, can anyone actually say the February, we closed the February numbers meaning it's now March. It's March 2nd like I said at the start and so we had our best February was our best month ever. Best no that's not true.
It was our best February ever as a business and also our best non-sale month meaning a month where there was no Black Friday sale or no crazy summer sale. So our best baseline month which was very good. Best meaning most revenue, most profit so that's good. Growth feels good, feels like progress and as I talked about on the podcast before money is just a great way to measure progress in a business. Whether you agree with that or not that's just how it is.
So yeah closing at the month we were running a couple of different things at the same time so facilitation fundamentals had it's like second cohort or third cohort or something and that did quite well.
Just trying to find like the correct funnel for that Laura and her team were trying to find the correct funnel the one that can be used over and over again over many years and yeah that usually takes quite a while to come to that version of the funnel that you can really just not set and forget but you can always be confident that it's always going to bring in customers. And we're also talking about this is like a set tease we're trying to figure out a way.
What if we would want to get facilitators in our community more clients help them get their first client help them get to I don't know 100 k per month or 100 k per year. How what are what are the things that those people are going to need.
So we've been talking about that in terms of the new product or new service or new whatever like how what would we have to do to get facilitators to the point where we are where it's relatively easy to get clients because we know the demand is there for facilitation but
we also know that facilitators are not natural like marketers and salespeople so we're trying to figure out like what are people lacking and I'm learning this through you know two years straight now of doing coaching calls in our higher highest year program called workshop
or master so yeah that's something that we're something that I'm learning and yeah that's it basically just like yeah this podcast it's definitely interesting I definitely have really enjoyed the first seven episodes it's been a great little journal but I am losing
interest in it for sure I'm losing interest in this experiment and so who knows maybe if there's no episode next week the so the blog is sort of the central part of all of this the how to business dot sub stack dot com so the sub stack is where all of this content
is coming from and so if I stopped doing the podcast and I do something else then how to business dot sub stack dot com is the place to go currently yeah that that's where everyone should subscribe if they want to if the podcast dies but you know it also could just become
a more unscheduled podcast that I put out once a month or once a quarter or who knows just whenever I feel like it I'm not I'm not gonna stress myself and stick to any specific plan right now because obviously this podcast is not a revenue generating project it's just a
an experiment so and as part of this experiment I like to sort of bring topics that I'm interested in and I don't know so yeah I thought this would be an interesting topic we can already jump straight to the topic to the I don't know what else is I don't know if there's anything else
to talk about besides topic let's jump to the topic the topic today when I got to hit my main topic music button oh I don't have the window set up there we go there we go if you're on YouTube you can now see what I'm talking about so it's an article from the Harvard
Business School called more proof that money can buy happiness or a life with less stress thanks Laura for sending me this or is sitting over there or there I'm thanking you for sending me this article I'm gonna read it now everyone the feedback of me getting from the podcast
Laura is that people like when I read out an entire article badly you know that's what people have been saying yeah it's what people like all right so we're gonna look at this article here and we're gonna talk about it again it's called more proof that money can
buy happiness or a life with less stress it's a common misconception that money doesn't buy happiness it's just a very simple thing to say it's an easy thing to say especially if you're not pursuing a career that has a lot of financial reward then I guess that's
a very good thing to say because you then don't have to worry about the fact that you're missing out on something but there are a lot of studies that push against that fact and this is one of them this is from I don't know the date actually I have no idea what the
date is when six months ago and I'm sure this people in the comments here of this article that are already complaining about oh it's from 25th of January 2022 it's from a year ago so it's not about the bigger home or the better vacation financial stability helps
people escape the everyday hassles of life says research by John Jaquimovics Jaquimovics I don't know how to say that name I know how to say John okay when we wonder whether money can buy happiness we may consider the luxuries it provides like the expensive dinners
and lavish vacations but cash is key and another part and another here we go cash is key in another important way I'm gonna press this one just get some music in here money can provide calm and control allowing us to buy our way out of unforeseen bumps in the road
whether it's a small nuisance like dodging a rainstorm by ordering an Uber or a bigger worry like handling an unexpected hospital bill says Harvard Business School professor John Jaquimovic if we only focus on the happiness that money can bring I think we're missing
something here says Jaquim Jaquimovic an assistant professor of business administration in the organizational behavior unit or the OBU at HBS we also need to think about all the worries that it can free us from and I think I think that is a really big thing if
you're if you're someone who who like for me I definitely didn't have a lot of money in my twenties because I was building this business and now I definitely have a more yeah let's say I yeah well I have more money now and it definitely these things yeah like
that's not what that's what people don't really realize just being able to get an Uber somewhere not even thinking about it that for me is one of the biggest biggest parts of it just like even just being like oh I don't know something has happened and we need
to delay our vacation and we can't get a like we can't get a refund on the flight or something and just being able to book another flight not really stressing about it it's more of these conveniences or avoiding inconveniences that dramatically reduces stress so I'm going
to come back to that so I definitely agree with this so the idea that money can reduce stress in everyday life and make people happier impacts not only the poor but also more affluent Americans living at the edge of their means in a bumpy economy indeed in 2019
one in every four Americans faced financial scarcity according to the board of governor lol the findings are particular important as okay in flip okay whatever not why we don't go into American economy stuff okay buying less stress the inspiration so the inspiration
for researching how many how money alleviates hardships came from advice that I'm just going to say John John's father gave him after years of living living as a struggling graduate student John received his appointment at HBS and the financial stability that came with
it my father said to me he's going to have to learn how to spend money to fix problems the idea stuck with john causing him to think differently about even the everyday misfortunes we all face to test the relationship doing cash and life satisfaction john and his colleagues
from the university of southern California grunting in university and Columbia business school conducted a series of experiments which are outlined in a forthcoming paper in the journal of social psychology and personal sciences um okay whatever
and I think for me really it was only really in 2022 and 20 maybe mid 2021 that I actually started using my money in a way that was about dramatically reducing my stress like taking ubers like ordering food more often instead of cooking like having a cleaner these kind
of things are game changers they drum like the things that I used to stress about oh what am I going to cook today or a fuck like it's pissing raining outside and I'm going to have to cycle or get to the train station um just reducing those things have definitely overall
reduce my life stress um so higher income this is an extra header higher income and I know I'm not doing caveats anymore on this fucking podcast when it's funny when I post about the podcast on linkedin I have people replying in the comments where it's like they're the
type of people you need to have caveats for for every sentence it's like oh um me saying oh I think remote work could cause issues and then someone being like well if you don't like remote work you fucking hate blah blah blah it's like uh obviously didn't listen
to podcast but it's a sentence that's like a so higher income amounts to lower stress in one study 522 participants kept a diary for 30 days tracking daily events and their emotional response to them participants incomes in the previous year range from less than 10,000
to 150,000 or more they found money reduces intense stress there was no significant difference in how often the participants experienced a stressing events no matter how they're in how bigger their income they recorded a similar amount of daily frustrations but those with
higher incomes experienced less negative intensity from those events more money brings greater control those with higher incomes felt they had more control over negative events and the control reduce their stress people with ample incomes felt more agency to deal with
whatever hassles may arise and higher incomes lead to higher life satisfaction people with higher incomes were generally more satisfied with their lives and I can tell you as someone who's I'm kind of like a hybrid you know I can I walk between the worlds of people who
are very high income and people who are with within normal kind of everyday day to day jobs and I can definitely tell you the people that I know with more money are less stressed and seem to be more satisfied and when I say seem to me it seemed to be it's well I
spend a lot of time with them and I'm very sure they're more satisfied and that's not what you generally hear because you generally hear or at least you know I always had the impression all people with lots of money are always stressed and always they're actually unhappy and
they just buy stuff and it doesn't make them happy but yeah that's that's probably the people at the extreme ends the type of people who post on Instagram about their new Lamborghini but the quieter people who have high incomes they're generally quite satisfied even when
shit the normal shit of day to day is happening it is less stressful for them so yeah that is something I think if you're listening to this podcast hopefully you're able to the whole point here is like for many of us it is a choice whether we want to put effort into
learning how to make money or not and I think a lot of people are like yeah well money doesn't make happy make you happy anyway and if you learn that it actually can reduce stress dramatically and it does then I think it even makes it more interesting to pursue high
income skills and you know you know making money is actually something you learn so I'm not going to read the whole thing but there's just this last part why cash matters in another study researchers presented about 400 participants with daily dilemmas like finding time to cook
meals getting around in an area with poor public with poor public with poor public transportation or working from home among children in tight spaces oh yeah that's another thing you know more income also means bigger bigger living spaces in more convenient areas they then ask participants
how they would solve the problems either using cash to resolve it or asking friends and family for assistance here are the results people lean on family and friends regardless of income John and his colleagues found that there was no difference in how often people suggested turning
to friends and family for help for example by asking a friend for a ride or asking a family member to help with child care dinner cash is the answer for people with money the higher a person's income however the more likely they were to suggest money as a solution to a hassle for example by calling
an Uber or ordering takeout while such results might be expected John says people in the night might not consider the extent to which the daily hassles we all face create more stress for cash strapped individuals or the way a lack of cash may tax social relationships if people are always
asking family and friends for help rather than using their own money to solve a problem the question is when problems come your way to what extent do you feel like you can deal with them that you can walk through life and knowing everything is going to be okay John says yeah so that there's
there's then it goes more into the study um yeah yeah I think that's an interesting way to look at it you know it's not about buying happiness it doesn't have to be about that topic it uh it's about reducing overall stress and I can tell you for me in 2022 a lot of stressful life events which
I'm not going to be talking about on this podcast but just having cash to solve a lot of these problems made my life a lot less stressful a lot less um yeah so agree I agree with this as someone who has been on both sides of the income wealth coin it it definitely makes life less
stressful and I definitely think especially if you're in your 20s and you're listening to this I think it was helpful for me to listen to people like uh remit seti and tim ferris talking about and no okay again talking about these things openly when I was in my 20s because most people
like ashamed to talk about money topic it's just evil um but then you end up back you end up in that spiral of then oh well I'm not going to pursue it I'm and then you know when you're in your 30s and 40s you're maybe irritated that you didn't I definitely know a lot of people who are
irritated and annoyed that they didn't pursue uh money making and money making skills in their 20s I just I I'm glad I did basically um yeah interesting uh interesting article maybe it wasn't maybe it was and um I'm just wondering is there anything else I wanted to go into
yeah the a while ago I wanted to talk about this uh how to get what you want out of life and then I went into the selfishness topic but I don't think I'm gonna do that today I'm gonna I'm just gonna keep a chill just gonna keep a chill so yeah what what are the things that I've learned from
doing this pot what what was my biggest if I'm taking a break from this podcast now who knows maybe there'll be an episode next week but I have a feeling there won't be um I think my biggest take away from this entire experiment or first first of all my favorite topic was the atomization
one so I think that was what episode was that so if you're listening to this and you're and you haven't listened to the other episodes uh my favorite episode was hmm what was it I wasn't this one nope was it this one uh how to figure out what you want to do in life is this the one
I think it's up no it can't be it's episode two yeah episode two a new concept that will make you 23% happier um that one I think is the best episode overall in terms of the topic it's this topic of um like living a more integrated life and that's the one I've definitely like making that episode
and uh kind of pulling together the articles for it and the research for it uh has had to had the biggest effect on me so definitely check that out I want to know also for you what was the most valuable let me know how to business that substack.com or you can post underneath the youtube video
whatever uh works for you I know this episode going like losing steam fast uh but that's that's quite okay I'm just opening up the last episode here okay so I've got I'm trying to fit when did that come out six days ago what date was that that was what date why doesn't it say on youtube
why doesn't it say the date I'm trying to figure out which emails are new and which ones are not so six days ago would have been the 24th 20th 23rd I think 23rd so 23rd anything after the 23rd is a new is a new comment this is a disaster isn't it because I've got a couple of I've got a couple
of final potentially final emails to read of your emails so let's have a look here 24th yes yes these are all new okay let's go to let's go to let's go to your emails I think that's uh I mean that's good idea let's go to your emails one two three you Johannes writes in
he says hey Jonathan this episode and and he's referring to the last episode where I talked about remote work um hey Jonathan this episode made me think a lot about how I feel in the remote first work environment I'm currently in I concluded that I'd like to end this atomization of work
experiment sooner or later the integrated version of work in the office felt way better to me the part I'm missing the most are the short talks with colleagues when you're able to naturally connect in contrast to that for me many in-person work meetings today feel like the arranged dinner
parties with friends you describe in a previous episode many expectations and a lot of pressure I'm wondering how do freelancers prevent becoming a loner yeah it's uh look I think um last episode I talked about this thing that like yes it's very convenient to work from home all the time
but yeah it starts to become this extremely atomized experience very non-integrated you have to like put effort into meeting people you don't get that community uh bar filled up um you have to you have to get it from other places and yeah when you actually go to the office you end up in
these very you know finally when you go to the office on a specific day for a specific meeting you you don't even have time to get warmed up to the people again and it becomes quite transactional yeah and I know I posted this on LinkedIn the episode on LinkedIn of course a couple of comments
um exactly what I expected um but yeah I I regardless of what people think about the remote work thing I think people in their 20s careers will likely suffer by not having a place to go to to meet people in person regularly of course I don't care you can like I said I have
a remote one fully remote company I you don't have to like I mean you you can work from home all you want I don't really care it's more like a general piece of career advice that I think it is generally a good idea in your 20s to have people around you colleagues people who can
become friends people who can quit with you and start your own company and I think those things are easier they come up more often over lunch when you're going for a walk with someone from the office these things are not going to come up over zoom as often in my opinion and how do you do it as a
freelancer I wouldn't I think it's a good idea to freelance for I mean we have freelancers working in a Jamesmart it's a good idea to freelance for a company that has an office that you can go into especially if you're in your 20s I I think that's a solution you ask them hey can I work from your
office because that's how you're also going to get more work if you're a freelancer remote it's hyper transactional hyper hyper transactional the you're going to do the job for them they're going to forget about you then you'll find another job whereas if you work in the office you might
again you might meet someone who you start a company with it's just selfishly I think better to have a physical space to go to but you also want to look for a company that's not optional remote because then the offices are kind of dead and it's kind of pointless anyway that's that's my
thoughts on that thanks for writing in Jake Williams writes this was a great episode for self-reflection as somebody who is and was very pro remote working this episode really made me think about how my own relationship has changed once I was a person in the office bouncing around the room learning
from anybody and everybody who gave me the time of day organizing team events and the last to leave the bar maybe not the best I think it's a good thing to I mean a lot of relationships start around being at the bar now I find that my relationship has turned as you mentioned very transactional
I wake up do my work get paid unfortunately my relationships within the company have also become equally transactional I think it might be time to fall back in love with work thanks Jonathan yeah Jake I mean I I talk to a lot of people even a lot of people working in a J and smart
again I'm in a I'm in a quite a nice position of running to different types of businesses one fully remote one more hybrid and a lot of people feel start I'm starting to see a lot of people feeling kind of like a bit lonely but depressed a bit low energy when they work at home for long
periods of time but it's almost like so convenient and so like what one employee at a J and smart says like it's so hard to get out the door and come to the office even though I know it's good for me it's the same thing is going to a gym it's like just getting out the door and actually making it
happen when it's not mandatory is so difficult and yeah like it's interesting to hear employees telling me yeah like I would love to be here more often but I just it's just too fucking comfortable it's it's interesting I mean it's fucking I totally get it if you don't have to come to the
office then then like why wouldn't you just stay in your PJs all day I get it but yeah I look if your my goal is to kind of my goal with this podcast and my goal when I'm talking to people is to help people kind of build satisfying careers oh shit I just realized the youtube
version of this looks shitty because I've been resizing the window the whole time yeah like I think if you're looking for like life satisfaction and a good career then fully remote working from a country location unless you have a really integrated life with lots of friends there and
lots of people coming and going from what I've seen people start to get a little bit weird and a little bit lonely but then they also almost you adapt to it and adapt to a more hermity style life and then it's really hard to get back to the non hermity style life like I can tell when people
are at this office at a jane smart who haven't been here for a while they also tell me this that they feel weird being around other people I don't know if that's a good thing but whatever who cares you know I mean I'm like I guess it's rare to hear someone saying like me I'm saying I benefit
from the remote work thing as well I benefit from people from not having to have a bigger office from being able to hire people all over the world I benefit from these things but the people themselves I'm like hmm I don't know okay and some people are like some people have a better grasp of remote
working than others some people have a better lifestyle setup than others and of course you can't generalize but but generalizing is way more fun um I don't know if I read this one last week but I'm gonna read it anyway so David Finnegan writes in I personally love the freedom of
remote work but I definitely wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life remote only unless I move to Bali or something as you said it's largely down to preference yeah well I think I don't know some um somebody wrote on LinkedIn like under this podcast they were like yeah it depends on
people's preference that's actually not the point I'm trying to make I think everyone will choose the majority of people especially over 30 will choose work from home if they have to choose only office or only work from home I think my feeling is the majority of people are just gonna naturally
gravitate towards the more convenient one which I totally understand um I just don't think it's I think the the cons are not being talked about a lot okay um but the pros and cons aside the question I keep coming back to is how much of the return to office drive is based on conventional
knowledge I don't even know and I don't know whether it's better for the businesses or not um I think my big point in the previous episode is just how it affects the individual's careers but yeah anyway kind of like when the high street retailer's got yeah actually I honestly think
uh in a lot of cases remote is better for companies because it's cheaper okay kind of like when high street retailers scoffed at the idea of online retail was threat to their business and now most of these high street retailers are owned by online retailers are dead the conventional knowledge was
wrong and doubling down on the brick and mortar stores wound up costing them business not really sure if that's where we're heading with work maybe in person is really better maybe remote work is just waiting for the amazon of remote work to to emerge I think they're going to be
a lot of successful remote businesses absolutely and many of them will beat the revenue targets of the in-person ones but again I think it's more the individuals are going to be unless society changes and and amenities and things are built in a way that working from home is actually less lonely
and less isolating I think it's it's going to be weird yeah but really thanks so much for everyone who wrote in thanks to everyone who's been listening to the podcast you can catch me at how to business.substac.com I'll probably take next week off the podcast and we'll see if there's
another one um let's see what else uh it's been really fun doing this podcast it's been really fun I really appreciate all the people who actually listened to it and comp took the time to comment that's a really like I really appreciate that I hope this was a valuable season of the unscheduled CEO
um maybe it also gave some people the um I don't know maybe maybe seeing that you can do a podcast without any editing uh with that with very little preparation but that can also be somewhat entertaining and have a you know relatively good
listener base gives people some inspiration to do to not spend so much time trying to make stuff and just start um thanks to the roadcaster pro 2 for being the greatest and worst device I've ever used in my entire life and um yeah I'll see you all so I'm not I'm I'm currently not using social media uh so where you can catch me is how to business.substac.com thank you so much everyone for listening and I hope you have a lovely week weekend life thank you so much