The Good Life and How to Get It

Most entrepreneurs crave balance in their lives but can't even begin to imagine how to achieve it. Pete and Laura Wakeman of Great Harvest Bread are a happy exception.

Everyday rules for living, from the sanest CEO in America

Editor's note: We at Inc. have written often about the desire of company owners to have not just a business but a life, too -- a day-to-day existence that actually makes room for personal relationships; for the pursuit of decent health; for a family, maybe; possibly even for the occasional trip to the movies (though one should be careful not to overreach). But over the years of doing those stories a pattern has emerged, which is that the stories are almost always about people whose lives aren't working, people whose stabs at personal change -- however hopeful or audacious -- haven't yet been proven out. More often than not, in fact, the stories carry a not-so-subtle whiff of desperation -- which surprises readers not at all, since readers, when it comes to marrying business and life, tend to feel a good measure of desperation themselves.

That's been the pattern. Then along came Pete and Laura Wakeman.

I met the Wakemans last summer, and Inc. readers met them in our November story about Great Harvest Bread Co., the business they have run since graduating from college, 25 years ago. (See " Zen and the Art of the Self-Managing Company.") The story focused on how Great Harvest, a chain of 137 franchised whole-wheat bakeries, enables information to flow so freely among its people that innovation and continual improvement happen inevitably, almost by accident. What the story left out, though, was the Wakemans themselves, and how they have succeeded at both growing their company and creating a life they not only enjoy but love. And we do mean love; when you're with them, the feeling is palpable.

In a series of E-mail messages, I asked Pete Wakeman to say more about how he and Laura had managed this uncommon trick. I tried to explain to him that the overwhelming majority of business owners get swamped by their companies, that many aren't even aware of the need for psychic balance (personal obsession and workaholic martyrdom being the celebrated entrepreneurial traits that they are). I told him that most of those who do wish their lives had balance can't begin to imagine how to achieve it. Limit my workweek? Not bloody likely. Completely leave my business for a spell? Impossible.

All too often, of course, the consequences of that behavior include bad health, impaired managerial performance, and all manner of burnout. Longer term, the consequence is that all too often there is no longer term. Most owners -- I explained to Pete -- don't run their companies for 20-plus years, as he and Laura have. Then I left him with some questions. What follows is part of my E-mail message and Pete Wakeman's response. --Michael Hopkins

Pete, what would you tell business owners who are struggling? Can you describe for them how you make your balanced life work? The questions are simple, really: What are your hours? How do you take time off? What happened when Great Harvest needed you so badly that it might have seemed impossible to leave, but you did anyway? And how have you and Laura -- as well as your company -- been affected by this way of working? Begin at the beginning, if you can. When you started your bakery in the 1970s, did you have a clear idea how you would balance your work with whatever else was in your life? --Michael, October 13

A different kind of rich
Michael, I like that last question because it goes right to something important, which is the simple fact that we've been like this all our lives. It's not uncommon for people to want to believe they're trapped, and often those people will do the "must be nice" thing with us -- must be nice to have a com- pany, so you can take the whole summer off; must be nice to have enough money to go to Bolivia. The assumption is that the way we live is a rich-people thing, an arrived-people thing, something few can afford (and by afford, I mean in time as much as in money). We always wish we could show people our younger selves, the Pete and Laura who had no money and were building things from scratch. We were surprisingly the same as we are now.

Before the bakery, I graduated from college a year ahead of Laura and worked on a dairy farm. We were both working too hard, she on her schoolwork, I milking cows. I talked my boss into a three-day weekend one month, so Laura and I could go rock climbing with friends. We were so looking forward to that weekend; we needed it bad. When it finally arrived, off we went to the Schawangunks for some pure camping and rock climbing. Well, it rained like crazy all weekend long. Our friend, who basically lived at the climbing area and climbed every day of the week, was in a great mood, happy to just drink beer while it rained and to let his climbing calluses soften a bit. But something snapped in Laura and me that weekend, something deep -- the very word "Schawangunks" still has this waterloo meaning for us, even today. That Sunday night, driving home in the rain, we vowed that no weekend would ever be that precious to us, ever again. We vowed to live more like our friend the climbing bum, rich in time.

In the early days of the business we had simple rules, but we followed them like religion.

In the early days of the business we had simple rules, but we followed them like religion. One was the two-day weekend. We never violated that, no matter what -- it was a line we were afraid to cross, as though lightning would strike us down if we did. Combined, the two of us worked about 50 hours a week. We didn't talk about work at home; that was a rule. That's especially important. When we left the bakery, we were gone until we came back. In fact, for our first seven years in business we lived 17 miles out of town, the last 5 of those over gravel, and had no phone. No phone and a gravel road for seven years is a wonderful, wonderful thing for teaching the basic work/home separation habits.

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