Ask Us Anything: Working through Christmas + Should high school students get jobs?

0:00I'm Adam Schwab. I'm Adir Shifman. And this is The Contrarians with Adam and Adir.

0:09And we are back. Episode 168, Ask Us Anything, where you ask us the questions and we do our best to answer them. Over to the chief question asker himself, Mike. Hey guys, as always, send in your questions any way you can, whether it's LinkedIn, in the Spotify comments, just get it to us somehow. Just like Robert did this week. And Robert asks, recently on the show, I heard you guys talking about why small businesses take time off during Christmas. Do you think it's important to take time off at the end of the year? Or is it better to work straight through? Your thoughts? Well, my thoughts are going to be less passionate than your thoughts my thoughts are there's arguments in both directions one I think everyone needs a break the question is when you take that break like people that say I work 180 hours I don't know a fortnight non-stop never take breaks like I'm such a machine I think you're a machine whose engine is going to burn out at some point in time not even commenting on the fact that I don't think that's the greatest use of your life personally but then there's the question of if you need to take a break, when should you take that break?

1:22I think it heavily depends on what's happening in your industry around this time of year. If you're a banker, like an investment banker, then there is no point working all the way through like a maniac because no one is here. If you're a lawyer, the courts don't even operate at this time of year. They shut. All the judges are on holidays. So, there's no point working like a maniac unless there's a particular deadline. Whereas I think that if you're a retailer and you're not open like in that lead up to Christmas slash boxing day slash early January period, you're probably going to lose a lot of sales in that.

1:57And so I think it's heavily industry dependent. I do think though, I want to emphasize like as a human being, you can't just work all the way through for your entire life because that is just a recipe for burnout. And I know I'll make this confession for me personally. Like I generally hate holidays. Like that's not the greatest sales pitch for luxury escapes, but like basically public holidays. I know you and I feel the same about public holidays. Like we dread a public holiday because it's just like a lost productivity. And like, I mean, that's not the greatest attitude necessarily to have in the world, but I do think human beings need to force themselves to take breaks in order to think more broadly and recharge their batteries.

2:41That's my broad view on it. I agree with your first point. There's lots of – and the building industry is another classic one, the teaching education. There's a lot of industries that shut down. So it just doesn't – so maybe the question was more about if you are able to work, should you work? I think there's actually – I mean, I used to be a lawyer and I think law firms now maybe don't open throughout, but I used to love working through the Christmas period. It was a bit cruisy. There was no traffic. And you can take – if you don't have kids, obviously you have kids, it's a bit different. if you don't have kids you can there's no trap like it's just a really great time to work i would always like to work for that reason but obviously i think it's very caveated if you can or can't i think the other thing to note is if you work in a business like ours and this is more of a general point when on leave and you're probably going to hate this but one thing that i absolutely hate and this is not for sort of called frontline workers so if you work at if you're on our call contact center it doesn't apply because you're answering customers but if you're any sort of corporate worker and you go on leave and don't answer emails and don't check on things, that's a big way to never get promoted in our business.

3:40Because we want people not on 10 hours a day, but if you're not checking things when you're away for at least half an hour to an hour a day, that's just not acceptable. Because things get missed, your colleagues are waiting for staff, customers are waiting for staff, and simply just not the kind of business we want to run. So obviously, I'm probably the extreme. Well, I totally agree with you on that. I'm not. There is some balance, right? Like the way that I like to frame these things, I don't, I mean, it sounds a bit sneaky, but I don't mean this in a sneaky way, is just to say to someone, when you're away, like legally, you've got no obligation to answer your email.

4:14But if stuff is happening in your area, I just want to make sure that you're kept informed of it so that you don't feel like you're being left out or someone's taking over your responsibilities. It's up to you what you do with that. Now, people might be very cynical about that and say, well, you've left the person with no choice. Actually, I'm not going to penalize them if they don't respond to those emails. What it means though is, I keep coming back to the same concept, not enough of their sense of self-worth is based around their performance in the business because they're happy just not to think about it.

4:45And I think that if your sense of self-worth is not connected to being in the company, then you're probably not suitable to be one of the leaders of the business. Because I think like I would never again hire a CEO where I thought whether or not this business succeeds or doesn't is not going to impact how that person feels about themselves in a significant way. Like if it – like luxury escapes and how that does is inextricably linked to how you feel about yourself as a person. And like I think that that is fundamentally important. I think for CEOs that's absolutely right and maybe for high level Cs.

5:18I'm more talking sort of one, two, maybe even three levels down. And I think that such a great way to, there's obviously, I think most people want to get ahead, want to get promoted, want to earn more money, want to get more, not everybody, but most people want to progress their career. Great way to progress your career is to show how aligned you are with the business. And I'm not saying that you should take, like I spend six hours a day every day of the year working. I'm not saying that you people, that's different when you're a founder. But if you spend an hour or two and go above and beyond, it's, what I can say is it's absolutely noticed by people.

5:47And it's certainly noticed by good people. You get huge extra credit points for going above and beyond. And this is not doing stupid, unnecessary stuff. I mean doing like stuff that's really relevant and staying on top of things and answering quickly. And the best way to get, when you get it, someone's potentially thinking about a discretionary bonus for somebody and ideas work those three hours when he was away when he didn't have to. That's the way to get the discretionary bonus. That's the way you get the promotion over John or Jane who hasn't done that extra effort and good managers will notice it.

6:15So I think the question's a really good one in a few senses in that whether or not you're officially working, you should be engaged in the business. You could spend your break coming up with new ideas and sending that in. But there's always stuff you can do. And again, it's not compulsory. No one's going to be fired if you don't do it. But if you want to get ahead and you want to get that promotion and you want to get that pay rise, this is great ways to do it. I always say to people in businesses, young people in businesses, if you want to move up an organization, just show the person who owns the business.

6:44this is in founder-led businesses, just show the person who owns the business how much you care about their business succeeding and don't grandstand and don't suck up to them and definitely don't be a sycophant. One of the greatest, I mean, it's not really a question about taking a holiday, but one of the greatest things that ever happened to me was when I was an intern, I think I was a medical student, and there was this very sophisticated, knowledgeable head of medicine at a big hospital in Melbourne. Everyone was terrified of this guy. And he made this comment And he said something about something in medicine and I kind of laughed a bit.

7:18And there were like 10 people standing around with this guy. And he's like, Schiffman, what are you laughing about? He didn't know me very well. And I said, I'm not sure about that. That stuff seems very dubious to me. I think one day people are going to figure out that that's not true. And everyone was very horrified that I'd said that because everyone just kind of went along with this guy. Yeah. And there's like this long silence. and then this guy says, well, that's interesting because that's how a lot of people feel about this. It is quite dubious. No one's really sure about this. And I thought, you know, that to me is not being a sycophant, right?

7:51Well, I think what you're saying is people love, I think good leaders love being challenged in the right way, not the stupid ways, but if someone forms a great argument, say, Adam, why don't we do this? This is my reasoning. That's hugely helpful. And I think that also it communicates to leaders that you care enough to take a bit of a personal risk and ultimately what I absolutely know where this kind of conversation is segue to me is so you and I can agree I assume I'm always nervous to try and suggest that we might agree because I'm going to say something reasonable and so then I'm nervous about whether you agree but like you and I agree that human beings have to have holidays do we agree on that uh yeah no agree on that agree on that okay good we got that box ticked so maniacs that take no holidays they're going to end up with a heart attack and dead and definitely not happy and it's not a good way to live but also So like you want to enjoy your life as well.

8:38I don't think anybody should be working 65 ,000 a year. That's right. That's what I mean. It's not a good way to live. And then the thing is, so how should you take holidays? And maybe we've extended this to what should you do on your holidays? And my view is if you want to go far in a business where there's someone that really cares about how that business performs, and that's my caveat is because in large enterprises, often there's no one who cares about how the business performs. What people care about is their own role and success in the business, but it's nobody's business, so nobody cares.

9:05But if you're in a business where someone cares about how it performs, the most important thing to go far is to show that individual or that group that you care about the success of the business in whatever form that takes. And part of that is how you behave when you're away on vacation. The flip side is if you're junior and there's a boss that's not letting you have a vacation because you're finding yourself working three hours a day answering emails when you're on holidays not being paid, I don't support that at all, by the way. Yeah, no, I agree. It should be to a large extent voluntary. Just on that, like it's amazing.

9:39You can spend probably half an hour, certainly an hour, but half an hour a day is all you need to keep up with things and be really impressive. Like it's not a huge commitment there. And I think by the same token, if you're spending time and not being appreciated, maybe it's not the workplace either because it's probably people above you don't care. Maybe you should look for another business that actually does appreciate that sort of stuff and maybe you're in the wrong place as well. So there's probably a few interlinked points there, but I think we largely agree on that one. I just gave some advice to a person running a business and someone running one division.

10:08It's not a very big business, a few dozen employees, and someone running a division, Gen Z, on a holiday, and their area of the business is not firing maybe as much as it should at the moment, and this founder was just going to step in and do it, and I said, email this person on vacation and tell them that this stuff isn't going well. You're going to just step in because they're away on vacation. Don't ask them to do anything. Don't make them respond. But just open the window for them to decide how they want to respond to that. And that is going to tell you a lot about how far they can go in the business.

10:45And there was an interesting discussion that I had with this founder about, you know, how comfortable or otherwise they felt about seeing that email. Yeah. Interesting. Great points. Question number two, Michael. All right. This question comes in on LinkedIn from Pira. She asks, my son is 17 and spends a lot of his time inside playing video games and reading. I've been trying to encourage him to get a job at one of the local fast food places in the area, but he seems resistant. Is there any advice you can offer around encouraging my son to enter the workforce? And do you think it's important for high school students to work?

11:27I want to put on a mask that makes me look like Adam and answer on his behalf that last bit and say yes it's vitally important is that what your view is about high school students working oh 100 I got my first job at the age of six months old I got you're gonna say I got my first job at six months old I worked in a nappies when I was now my first day my first I worked my parents at a cafe and I used to wash dishes when I was like 12 that doesn't count my uncle is was is a lawyer Well, that counts. What do you mean? That's just exploitative indentured servitude, but it still counts from your point of view because it kind of means that from the age of 12 you knew that there's not really any free lunches in this world, but your parents did it in a way that was not, you know, we can say honestly, like they were not oppressive to you or whatever, but they did teach you a good lesson when you were 12 years old.

12:18Well, I kind of, it probably says a bit of an app, but I kind of wanted to. I'm not surprised by that. I was watching dishes and stuff. I totally get that. Yeah. Yeah. But I think when my first, I call it first semi real job, my uncle, who was a lawyer, they used to, lawyers used to get these sort of precedents, these sort of filing things. So you have to basically, but things would change. So now, obviously now it's all online, but in the old days it was paper based and they had all these folders. You used to go into a law office and see these massive folders there. So they would change. So you'd have to rip out the old page, put in the new, it was mind numbingly boring stuff, but it was legal and I wanted to be a lawyer.

12:49So I'd do that. And it was super generous, my uncle. And he'd give me like a hundred bucks for a day, which that was huge it was like that was like 15 an hour so and i also varnished his we always joke about i varnished his stairs and for like 25 years nobody touched the stairs in so that was my first probably semi-real job then i was at coles at 15 and i think when i was 18 i had three jobs and yeah so i obviously getting money and if you want to start a business it's a great way to start your first sort of capital is to work someone else but also you you get responsibility initiative and you make lots of great friends as well like certainly when you when you go overseas and I made lots of friends when I was in Canada working at a cafe.

13:26I made heaps of friends when I was working at Village Jam Factory. So I think it's sort of three to four reasons why it's so important to have one or two or even three jobs. And anything from paper – or you don't really have paper rounds anymore, but anything from that sort of thing to babysitting, which I used to do that as well. So I think the more jobs you can get, the better. And also my nephew in the UK is at that age now. And I just said to him, go – and I did this when I was in Whistler. literally print out a resume and give it to 100 plus different places and often you'll get rejected uh but that's not because of you that's just because timing's not right eventually the timing will generally the most likely way to get a job is a by being presentable and b by being at the right place right time so i think pierre if you're gonna name her name right great great that you're thinking this way i'd be getting your son or daughter to literally every single business within walking or bike riding distance or even driving if you can take them apply to it and you'll get something for sure 100 someone will want or need you so i look at this um i'm going to say some stuff now that is grossly hypocritical because um at least i'm open about it because like i don't really i haven't historically pushed my kids massively hard to get jobs although as i've said like my son works coding stuff you know he's like got a little consulting thing that he does so he i say little but actually does he does 15 20 hours a week on it and um my daughter has started an eBay business where she's buying and selling stuff which is super impressive at 16 but I so I tell you about this situation in my view you've got a 17 year old who loves playing video games and reads so I like those are two of my favorite things in life and so I'm not in any way critical of those two things the question is why does this parent want them to work like and like what why are they not working like what and then maybe what should they do I say three things right And so I can move through these pretty quickly.

15:18The first is I would say, you know, have you read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? You wouldn't have read it, Adam. Mike, I'm guessing yes on you. Yeah, I read it a long time ago, but I have read it. That's a high-quality book. Do you remember what advice is on the back of the actual book of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Not the book that you read, but the book in the book. What's the back of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy say? No, I can't remember. You don't remember? That's the most iconic two words in the whole book. It's don't panic. That's the advice. I think that is great advice for life and it's great advice for this parent.

15:49Don't panic about your 17-year-old. Like there's nothing, it's not terrible that they're not working. It's not a disaster. It doesn't bode negatively for the future. But I understand why you do want them to work. And then I'd say, you know, like why, what kind of job do I think that they should have? In an ideal world, someone very smart said to me, the best job that kids can have is any job where you're interacting with people, like behind a counter or something where you have to develop your interpersonal skills especially for gen z where they do spend a lot of time on devices and not engaging with people face to face and it is noticeable often when you have interactions with gen z so i think like working behind a counter somewhere even if it doesn't have to be a glamorous job right like you know this person can go and try and get a job in eb games if they love video games so much that's or a bookstore or whatever just something where you're interacting with people or a Coles or Woolworths.

16:43I think that that is good. And then the third question is, why is this person not working now? And I think that they are not working. Why is this kid not working? For the same reason that my kids didn't feel compelled to go out and get a job. And that is because when this kid wants a video game, somebody pays for the video game. When this kid wants a book, somebody pays for the book. I can possibly guess who the someone is and so if you want to play like a real welcome to adulthood game you can say you don't have to work do what you want but if you but i'm not paying for video games anymore and books are a little bit trickier not to pay for books but like let's say you kind of we've just stuck with video games yeah i'm not paying for video games but i'll match but whatever you earn i'll match dollar for dollar and you can decide what you want like step one is earning money and then step two who's teaching them what to do with that money.

17:37But I think that kind of, there's only one reason people don't work. I mean, there's a small percentage of the population incapable of working. All right, forget about those people. Like, we can give them the safety net. But the vast majority of people that don't work, they don't work because they have something or someone else that is paying for the things they want and need in life. And if you remove some of that, then they will work. And the reason I framed this as saying I'm going to wade deep into the hypocrisy morass now is that I don't do that. Like when my kids want something, I pretty much just get it for them.

18:09They don't ask for very much, to be honest. But ultimately, you know the reason my son ended up loving work? Because he went and did this internship in Israel with the guys that I'm mates with, Lippy and Yanni, who run Multiply Me. And so the reason that he ended up continuing to work for them and do work for them and now is doing a whole lot of make.com consulting for different companies that want it is because he finally felt like he was doing something that was providing some tangible benefit and he could see the positive outcomes of what he was doing. And so as it happens, he's not at all driven by money.

18:49He's just driven by wanting to feel the benefit to other people of the work that he's doing. That's actually his motivator. I think that's great, by the way. But if you are looking for jobs and you're struggling and you get knocked back from four or five or ten jobs, which is pretty disheartening, to be honest, even if you're offering, let me do a one-month unpaid internship and then I'll show you how good I am. There's lots of ways. I think as long as the key, and Scott Galloway says, persistence and grit is so critical and being able to overcome rejection is one of the most important. Any salesperson, every founder is a salesperson.

19:21If you want to be a founder of business, you've got to be able to deal with rejection. and being rejected is hard when you're a 15, 16-year-old kid getting knocked back and it's not even your fault. It's just the timing's not right. But keep at it and even keep at it at places you've been knocked back from. I've had people who have hired who the timing wasn't right. They've come back six months later and the timing was right. So it's not as if someone knocks you back once and they hate you. Obviously, if you get knocked back three, four, five times, probably take the hint. It's probably a better one for other reasons.

19:47But if you get knocked back once, then have another crack. And simply, if you keep trying, you'll absolutely get a job. It's just about being persistent and don't take the rejection personally. It's not just founders or people running a business. If you want to be a human being on planet Earth that has happiness, you better figure out a way to get back up because you're going to get knocked down. It's going to be quite morbid, but the people that you care about, they're going to die, the ones that are older than you hopefully, not the ones that are younger. And so that's going to knock you down and you're going to get fired or something's not going to work out.

20:20You're going to lose money. or like life is lots of negative outcomes and how well you can get back up after you get knocked down is a very big correlate to how happy you are in life, I think. Totally agree. On that very positive note, we'll go to a super quick break and back with our third question.

20:49and we're back question number three mark all right guys final question this week comes in from nick martin nick asks on linkedin i heard a saying the other day those who say they read by non-fiction and those who read, read fiction. As two people who may be contrarian to this simplified statement in reading habits, I'm curious to know your split on types of books you read, non-fiction versus fiction. If you read multiple books at once and if one or both helps you to be successful day to day. I love this question so much. Let me first begin by saying some positives and some negatives about the question number one nick marden that's a great name two first names billy joel so all the best english and american singers have got two first names as first name yeah there you go so we give a tick to that number two listener to the contrarians podcast tick to that so there's two positives now let's get to the negatives that quote i don't people that say they read read non-fiction people that read read fiction we've got to put an X against that.

21:58That's not good. So there are lots of different kinds of books. There are people that I know that the only books they've ever read, as it happens, Adam, that you raised that he's a footballer, is they've only read memoirs and biographies about footballers. Okay, that's the kind of book that's what they're interested in. You and I have got some different views on the liberal arts, and the liberal arts is heavily about literature. And so I think there's very much fundamental value to the arts in society, including like fiction but I don't think that somehow it's morally superior or on a higher intellectual plane than non-fiction.

22:36I think it depends what you're in the mood for or what you like and so I'll talk about like my own habits with this stuff. I like reading, I call it memoirs because autobiography sounds so terrible and it's such a long word and so I call it, so I like reading memoirs. That's the most popular form of non-fiction book. If you walk into any bookstore you will see that the biography section is the biggest section of non-fiction. People love that. I understand why. I found it to be very helpful. I love reading people's life stories, especially the ones that write very honestly about their failures.

23:08I love those kind of books. I love business books. I love physics books. I love all that. I'm reading – I'm not reading. I just bought a book about the disappearance of the bees, those insects and what the consequences of that. So this is all nonfiction. I don't think we can disparage that kind of stuff. That's all great stuff, right? That's all very interesting. On the flip side, what about fiction? And so the majority of fiction that's sold is maybe what you call pulp fiction. That is just like an alternative to television. And that's fine. That's what people like reading. I mean, Harry Potter, we all love Harry Potter stories.

23:46I mean, as in, I don't love the books. I never read the books. but the whole concept of how successful this has been and how it's gotten kids into reading. You haven't read Harry Potter? I've watched one movie. No, I don't read those books. Yeah. Have you read the books? Oh, I love Harry Potter. I was saying how my son and now my daughter are both reading it now. What's the window I've given you? I've given you the greatest opportunity to say the thing that you most like saying on this podcast. Why do you think you guys have read Harry Potter and I haven't? I don't know. I have no idea. Oh, I can't believe you haven't taken up this opportunity.

24:17You should say, well, the thing is that's our age difference showing. You're a bit older, so you're a bit older when Harry Potter came out, whereas the two of you have been heavily in the target age of Harry Potter when Harry Potter came out. I was very young when Harry Potter came out. I think I missed it by a few years. Yeah, people love it. Speaking of Harry Potter, one of my favourite people in the world is J.K. Rowling for a number of reasons. Obviously, Harry Potter and just her bravery in the last few years has been incredible. I agree. But on the book topic, like people say, well, J.K.

24:47Rowling's amazing because she brought kids to read books. I've got news for you. Kids have been reading books forever. As long as there are books, kids are reading books. I don't think we've ever seen and we've never seen before and since. Do you remember when the Harry Potter books came out and really from 2000 when the movie started coming out alongside the last four books? There were people lining up at midnight to buy that. Like cues, like iPhone style cues. There's never been anything like that and never been anything since. It was unbelievable. So let me tell you a little bit about that phenomenon though.

25:16So you had writers a long time ago, children's, let's say, Enid Blyden. If you heard of her, she was a lot. Yeah. And so maybe you've read some books by her and, yeah. I've read almost all her books, yeah. Famous Five and Twins and Clares. Yeah, there's hundreds of them. Did she have some issues? I was not across her issues. There was a few racism issues she's had, which I think was a sign of the times. It was really with, is it Noddy? But I think that was regrettable. But most of her books were okay. And so she was very popular. and she wrote great stuff and obviously Roald Dahl. But the reason people were not lining up for their books.