[00:00:00] DANIEL: Mhm. Hey there, Spacemakers. I'm Daniel Sih, joined by my good friend and co-host, Matt Bain. We bring you The Spacemakers, a podcast to help you shift the way you live and work. More than a podcast, this podcourse will take you on a carefully curated journey around a simple but profound idea, that the habits and practices that fuel success in our 20s and 30s are the very barriers that hinder maturity in our forties and fifties.

[00:00:29] DANIEL: Big thanks to our sponsor, Bulk Nutrients. Enjoy a 5% discount on protein powders and health supplements for orders over $45. At bulknutrients.com.au just enter the code spacemakers.

[00:00:42] NARRATOR: The Spacemakers with Daniel Sih and Matt Bain.

[00:00:48] DANIEL: Hey, welcome back everyone to the Spacemakers, a podcast to help you think clearly about how to make space in your life for what truly matters. And I'm here with my good friend and fellow space maker who drives [00:01:00] cars through fences, Matt Bain. Welcome. Thanks. So today we are going to talk about health and fitness and how our health and fitness goals are

[00:01:08] DANIEL: need to change as we grow older. And it's part of a broader theme, making space for life's inevitable resets. And we're talking about the big idea that the types of habits and practices that set us up for success in our 20s and 30s need to be rediscovered, reimagined, and sometimes unlearned in order to have a successful reset in our midlife squeeze.

[00:01:29] DANIEL: And that is definitely true for health and fitness. So I was at the gym, just the other day. Oh, nice. And I, that's very kind of you, and I was, I was doing some bicep curls or something like that. Yeah. We call them vanity curls. Vanity curls. I was doing vanity curls and next to me was this, you know, clearly older guy.

[00:01:51] DANIEL: My guess is he was in his eighties and he was there lifting like, I kilo weights. And I was like, you're doing really well. And we had a conversation [00:02:00] and he said to me, oh, look, I used to be able to do what you could do. I said, how long have you been at the gym? And I actually meant this gym, but he said, I've been going to gyms for 70 years.

[00:02:08] DANIEL: Whoa. And I'm like, how old are you? And he said, I'm 92 years old, nearly 93. And I'm like, oh my gosh, good on you, mate. That is impressive. I hope that if I make it to 92, I will be there at the gym, you know, exercising regularly. And it made me wonder, you know, what was going on in this guy's 40s and 50s in his midlife squeeze in terms of his beliefs and his goals and the way he approached fitness and exercise to actually allow him to be standing before me, you know, lifting relatively heavy weights, certainly for that age at 92.

[00:02:43] DANIEL: Yeah. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the difference between the twenties and thirties, forties and fifties in terms of exercise and health goals. And, you know, I get to put on my physiotherapy hat, which I'm excited about because I hardly ever talk about health and fitness, but I did do more than a decade as a physiotherapist.

[00:02:57] DANIEL: And so I certainly, uh, in this [00:03:00] area feel like I'm drawing on experience and knowledge from many different fields. I worked in musculoskeletal rehab, I've worked with amputees, I've worked with psychological physiotherapy health, I've done geriatric health, so I get to draw on a few different ideas and we'll bring in our own personal stories and maybe some of our own philosophies into this episode and hopefully give people practical tools to make space for a healthy midlife reset.

[00:03:33] DANIEL: So here's the thing, Matt, we all get older. The one kind of guarantee in life is that our bodies will decline over time, and we'll slow down, mentally, physically, and at some point, we kick the dust.

[00:03:46] MATT: And we're starting this one off with the good news.

[00:03:47] DANIEL: We just thought we'd start off the episode with some positive news.

[00:03:50] DANIEL: Yeah, that's a half full perspective on it. That's right. But seriously, we are in a culture which kind of idolises being young. There's this kind of obsession in our culture about staying young. [00:04:00] We don't have a culture where let's say elders are really respected, you know, like a lot of ancient cultures or actually a lot of cultures that just aren't Western cultures where, you know, older people come with respect and that sense of wisdom and where you look up to kind of people as they're older.

[00:04:14] DANIEL: Yeah. And so therefore there's this kind of current as you mentioned last week to wanting to be young and youthful. But the reality is, as you and I know. As you get old, you hit your 40s and 50s, certainly 60s, 70s, things decline. In fact, from the research perspective, this is just one small area. If you think about muscle mass, it's statistically true that our muscle mass decreases at about three to eight percent per decade after the age of 40, 30.

[00:04:42] MATT: Oh, man. So, like, you're already telling me that I've lost some of my mad gains.

[00:04:45] DANIEL: Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. You're losing your mad gains very quickly. Wow. So, you know, sarcopenia, the loss of muscle, is inevitable, but you can obviously change that with exercise and weight training, but that's just one area that demonstrates that there is a long, slow grind to losing [00:05:00] muscle, to losing agility.

[00:05:02] DANIEL: Uh, and the whole lot of other areas of, of physical health as we get older. And so the reality is we have to start to think differently about what it looks like to be healthy. Uh, I mean, the reality is some of the things that keep us healthy when we're young are the same as when we're older. You know, we need to eat well, we need to sleep right, we need to do kind of weight resisted training or build our cardiovascular system up.

[00:05:22] DANIEL: So, you know, exercise, fitness, good diet, sleep is good at all, any age. But it gets tougher, as you know, as we get older. Yeah. It gets harder to maintain what we have, and even as we try to maintain it, eventually, we will lose our health and our strength. And it can be hard to change the way we approach health and the way we approach our own perception of our bodies and our own perception of our abilities throughout that midlife reset and beyond.

[00:05:52] MATT: Well, I mean, to some degree it's hard not to view that acceptance as being tied up with me having to face my own mortality. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:05:59] DANIEL: The [00:06:00] good news is you can actually make some adjustments which will make a tremendous difference into how you approach health and fitness as you get older. But before we get into more happy ideas about death and dying and mortality, let's go back to our practical exercise because we want it to be more than just you and I riffing about ideas.

[00:06:17] DANIEL: We want it to lead to some types of changes in behaviour and ideally we would love people to finish this 10 part. I, I've actually implemented something that has helped me to either navigate my 20s and 30s better, or, you know, 40s and 50s, or even beyond to actually make a difference in your life, to help you make space.

[00:06:38] MATT: So Dan, we asked people to complete a little exercise that to give again, credit where it's due, came from the Good Life book and it was called The Friendship Map. So made up of four quadrants and the two axes were quality, ah friendship, yep, yep. So that was, again. Does this friendship energise me?

[00:06:56] MATT: Does it inspire me? Does it encourage me? Or does it deplete me? And the second axis [00:07:00] was that of frequency. So how often or how, um, infrequently do I see this particular person?

[00:07:05] DANIEL: And it's based on the longitudinal research that people live longer, they're happier and they're healthier based on the quality and frequency of their relationships.

[00:07:14] DANIEL: So therefore it's worth mapping out our current state in order to work out what might our future state look like.

[00:07:19] MATT: So I was meant to like really like give you clarity in the here and now as to what you know the state of your friendships look like. So it's going to then help your intentionality in terms of how you may want to modify or change any of those.

[00:07:30] MATT: Yeah.

[00:07:31] DANIEL: So like I found it really helpful. I mean you and I have both talked about this since we did the exercise. I found it helpful to have a framework and a model to be able to say okay these are the friends or the people in my life who I see, at the moment, this is how frequently I see them. This is how infrequently I see them.

[00:07:46] DANIEL: And more importantly, where would I like those relationships to be? I do like your idea of actually having a regular weekly catch up or monthly catch up, I think, with a bunch of guys.

[00:07:56] MATT: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A bunch of people. We actually start this [00:08:00] weekend.

[00:08:01] DANIEL: Okay. Good. I'm glad I was invited. Thanks, Matt.

[00:08:05] MATT: I feel like we get a fair bit of one-on-one time.

[00:08:07] DANIEL: Doesn't count when thousands of people are listening. Um, no, but that sounds great. So you've put in a place, you've put in a practice, is it a monthly catch up?

[00:08:12] MATT: A monthly catch up. Yeah. Like a monthly catch up with the same like crew of old friends and everyone who's been part of that like knows each other as well, which is like really cool.

[00:08:21] MATT: So they've all got history, but again, life has gotten busy with, I think it'd be fair to say all got caught up in that current. And so there's very little regular occasions where all those people would kind of be brought together. So I had to make an intentional, but again, like they all know each other, which is really cool.

[00:08:34] DANIEL: Yes. That's good. So I can see, you know, that friendship quadrant for you. All your friends are moving to the right because you see more frequently and I'm being left behind. Thanks very much.

[00:08:53] DANIEL: All right. So Matt, let's get philosophical before we get practical. You and I read an article. And it [00:09:00] made us think. Tell us about that.

[00:09:01] MATT: So this little doozy came from 2014, from the Atlantic magazine, and it was penned by a guy called Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. So he's an oncologist, he's a bioethicist, and I think at the time he must have been mid to late 50s.

[00:09:17] MATT: And he was also like, just in terms of, I guess, his chops and credentials, he was part of the President Biden's panel of experts on COVID as well. So he's a serious, he's a serious guy. And the article was entitled, why I hope to die at 75. And to be clear, this guy, again, on record for a long time as not being supportive of physician assisted suicidal death.

[00:09:38] DANIEL: He's not saying we should be topping ourselves.

[00:09:40] MATT: Yeah, that's right. And he's planning on taking that route when he says, again, he hopes to die at 75. He's got this idea, right? That by 75, most of us, if we've had like a halfway decent chance at life, would have had lived a full life. Well, like what he calls a full life by the age of 75.

[00:09:56] MATT: Children, hopefully, you know, grandchildren accomplished in our careers. So in [00:10:00] terms of like what constitutes a good life, by 75, you've had a fairly good shot at achieving that. After 75, statistically, and he said Americans particularly don't like talking about it, or acknowledging it. And there's a whole industry that's been built up on this idea of, I think he calls it like American immortality.

[00:10:15] MATT: And if I take the right supplements, have like, you know, if I stick to the Mediterranean diet consistently enough, if I know the right doctors who can throw me the right pharmaceuticals, and then I can live for 85, 95. And he said, like, his big point is that of course, in terms of lifespan that is getting, you know, for most countries, more and more and more kind of pushed out.

[00:10:34] MATT: But his point is that although in terms of lifespan, so time that you live like chronological age, that may be getting bumped in terms of health span. So actually not being, um, rendered compromised by diseases or conditions, that isn't decreasing. So effectively you can live longer in somewhere like America.

[00:10:51] MATT: Yeah. But that just means that, you know, in some ways your inevitable death.

[00:10:56] DANIEL: Yeah, okay. And so you're not experiencing necessarily health span which is a quality of [00:11:00] life, just extending your life further. And it almost pushes into the idea of why are we trying to live as long as we can anyway? Yeah. Like, what are the cultural factors or the, you know, value and belief factors that are, I don't know, making us obsessed with not being old.

[00:11:16] DANIEL: So look, I'm not sure whether I agree with this philosophy all up, but it did stimulate conversation certainly between you and I, particularly around this idea that like, how do we approach health as we get older? What is the goal of health? Is it long life or is it health span? And what might it look like to, I suppose, set yourself up in that second transition of life, which is we're talking about the midlife squeeze.

[00:11:38] DANIEL: in order to then have a good second mountain experience and maybe even let go of some of the need to be forever young.

[00:11:44] MATT: Yeah. Yeah. Well, to go back to, to his experience, I know at the time of the article, he had just climbed Kilimanjaro with his two sons and he talked about being a grandparent and he said, having this kind of set point in your mind of 75 makes you kind of confront.

[00:11:59] MATT: So he actually [00:12:00] had a calendar date, I think it was 2032. Okay. So 2032, he was expecting and hoping to die. So immediately that means that there's a concrete finish line to this mortal coil. And so he said that actually that was useful in the sense that made him think about the meaning of life. So in terms of like what health means for him, I think you can infer being active enough to do stuff with your kids, being active and fit enough to be like a, an able bodied adult.

[00:12:23] MATT: grandparent and contemplate what the purpose of your life is.

[00:12:26] DANIEL: That reminds me a bit of productivity author Oliver Berkman, who wrote a book 4,000 weeks, which is excellent. And he essentially said that the average person lives about 4,000 weeks. So therefore, how do we actually make use of that time? As best as possible.

[00:12:40] DANIEL: Yeah. And so we need to kind of somehow wrestle with the zooming in and zooming out, which we talked about in episode one, that on the one hand, we have to acknowledge the reality of our circumstance and how busy we are for both health, friendships, relationships, money, whatever area we're talking about.

[00:12:54] DANIEL: But at the same time, to be willing to look forward and zoom back to realise actually, there's no oasis of [00:13:00] time where I'm sitting around doing nothing. Because if you don't invest in your health now, or your relationships, or any other area that we're talking about, you may not get that chance later on.

[00:13:10] DANIEL: Yeah. That's good. Now, when you and I were talking about health as one of the topics around the idea that life changes and our habits must change as we hit the midlife slump, uh, we were wrestling with do we tackle health in a holistic sense, obviously covering exercise, nutrition, sleep, mental health, like there's a whole lot of areas that encompass health, but given my background as a physio and the fact that we need to time box it somehow, we're going to focus predominantly on physical exercise.

[00:13:39] DANIEL: But that doesn't mean we negate or neglect the importance of these other areas of health which are equally as important. So if we talk about fitness goals, I think what's fascinating is our goals and our approach to fitness often changes as we get older. In fact, I heard a great podcast episode with Arthur Brooks, who wrote Strength to Strength.

[00:13:57] DANIEL: We're a fan of that book, and he was talking with Tim [00:14:00] Ferriss, and he just had a quick kind of throwaway line, and it really stood out to me, and it was like, oh, that's, that's my philosophy, and it actually clarifies my philosophy of exercise and he basically said the goal of exercise in your 50s is to be active in your 80s which is very similar to that idea of you know how do I become like this 90 year old who's still at the gym who clearly has enough physical activity to at least be active and do things in his life and I actually really like that idea.

[00:14:31] DANIEL: You know that the goal of exercise now is different than let's say when I was 20 where I wanted to win stuff, I wanted to compete, I wanted to have big stretch goals and maybe stretch myself as much as I could. Well now actually I want to be exercising in a pattern and in a way that is regular enough and healthy enough that it will set me up for health span rather than lifespan.

[00:14:54] DANIEL: I'm not interested in living as long as I can, but at least I would like to be active for the [00:15:00] life that I have so I can invest in my grandkids.

[00:15:03] MATT: Yeah, and that's good. I think that's where I'm headed towards myself, like personally, or you could be like Kevin Spacey's character in American Beauty. So, uh, Kevin Spacey's character, I can't remember his name, in American Beauty, like, talks to his neighbours because he sees them exercising and says, I want to start exercising because he's like in the classic midlife, you know, squeeze.

[00:15:20] MATT: And they say, well, like, what do you want to exercise for? And he goes, I want to look good naked. That's really my main goal. Once you got to the heart of it. Yeah. Well, let's talk about being there for your grandkids and blah, blah, blah, but that's interesting. Right. As in, again, so I think again, like there's that perspective of again, being in midlife and trying to be realistic and know that your body and all these.

[00:15:42] MATT: really important ways is declining. And so wanting to try to mitigate that or slow that decline down as much as possible and also be useful and functional and healthy for your future self and the people that you love and care about. But I think if we're being honest, for a lot of us, there's still that element of [00:16:00] vanity.

[00:16:00] DANIEL: Absolutely. So we're going to talk about some principles for how you might approach health and fitness differently in your midlife slump. But look, we want to acknowledge at first that Gosh, health is such a personal thing, and it can be a painful thing for so many people. Um, yeah, and there's such a big spectrum of even the people we know in our lives.

[00:16:18] DANIEL: I mean, on the one hand, we've got people who, you know, to whom health is a real battle. Uh, and it could be because of lifestyle choices. Uh, you know, the accumulation of kind of years of not exercising and so they're wrestling with obesity or chronic pain or persistent pain or injuries. Sometimes there's just bad genetics.

[00:16:37] MATT: Yeah, well that's made like high cholesterol and heart disease in the family. That's what we could do about it.

[00:16:40] DANIEL: You just roll the dice and you didn't get a choice. There's no judgment here and there's no one right way to approach health and fitness. So if health is a battle for you, then I still think the principles we're going to share.

[00:16:50] DANIEL: are super helpful, but the specific examples might need to shift based on your capability right now. Yes. But then there's the other spectrum where health is a [00:17:00] haven, where people have invested heavily in their health, where they've always been fit and strong, but potentially are a bit obsessed with youth.

[00:17:07] DANIEL: And then they hit their midlife slump and they just work harder and faster and spend more money to try to get better. You've seen that as well, right? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:15] MATT: Not personally, of course, but, uh, people like will double down. So it's either, I'm just going to turn up and double down on the kind of routine that I've always used and that's always brought me success.

[00:17:26] MATT: And, or again, particularly if you've got the connections and the money, then there are all these pharmaceutical options available to you that they're going to enhance these, but it's in, it's probably not so much about functionality and it's not about being healthy. Preparing to be more healthy for later on in life.

[00:17:40] MATT: It's more about performing and looking good right here, right now.

[00:17:43] DANIEL: And avoiding the realities that you're actually just getting old and have to do things differently. Yes. That's it. So with that in mind, let's look at three principles that we think have been helpful for us to help us maybe reset how we approach health later in life.

[00:17:56] MATT: Yeah.[00:18:00]

[00:18:02] DANIEL: First principle. And again, this is, I know this is value laden, but I just think that it's super important to prioritise your health. And I really think about, you know, Confucius wrote a quote, a healthy man wants a thousand things, a sick man only wants one. And basically the idea that when you're healthy, you dream about lots of stuff.

[00:18:23] DANIEL: Everything's important, but if you're truly sick, then you really just have one thing you think about. And I've seen that. I've seen that as a health, yes. I've seen that as my parents have gotten older, that there is a reality that when you have terrible back pain and an incident of it, all you're thinking about is your back, right?

[00:18:41] DANIEL: You're not thinking about everything else. We want to zoom out a little bit and think actually, if that's true, how do we make sure we don't just wait until we're in a health crisis to actually prioritize our health. Go to the dentist and get your checkups. Go to the doctor when you need to. You know, don't be so stoic that you wait until you're literally falling apart that you actually kind of get a health check.[00:19:00]

[00:19:00] DANIEL: That might involve obviously investing in exercise and regular routines, cleaning your teeth, you know, flossing. I mean, it did, there's no perfect routine, but it is about recognising that health needs to be up there. And the reality is when you hit your midlife slump, you can't get away with what you used to.

[00:19:16] DANIEL: You can get away with stuff when you're 20 and it doesn't matter. You can drink a lot and start late and you turn up fine the next day.

[00:19:24] MATT: It doesn't work when you're 50 certainly be born out in my experience, but like, you know, it's hard I think when you're say like early midlife. So I say like still in your 40s because the deceptive, the self-deceptive part is that if you take a reasonable care of yourself and, or you're lucky then you can still push yourself to the same kind of extremes as you could when you were younger. Yeah, so you're still capable but where it catches up to you is the recovery So I used to pull all nighters all the time when I was studying. And then I tried to pull an all nighter last year and I managed to do it.

[00:19:52] MATT: I literally stayed up all night and worked. But seriously, I suffered like I'd never suffered before for the following days. And you see that people can still [00:20:00] lift as much as they used to at our age, or they can run marathons. But then the recovery is where it starts to hit you square in the face. You're not the same beast as you were when you were younger.

[00:20:10] MATT: Yeah. It's just so easy to talk about prioritising your health, like you said, but again, I think when you get down to the actual hard and fast metrics of building into your calendar or paying for it, that's when it becomes a whole lot more difficult.

[00:20:21] DANIEL: Absolutely. Yeah. And even when you give that example of being young, right?

[00:20:24] DANIEL: Yeah. If you're young and you recover fine. Yeah. And you don't experience any pain or any stiffness. Well, then why would you prioritise your health? Unless it's a values based thing, it's a bit like, we all know climate change is coming, but unless there's a cyclone, no one takes it seriously. We all stopped everything quickly when COVID came, but a pandemic's been brewing forever.

[00:20:43] DANIEL: So it's the same type of idea. It's very hard as humans to think about the future and allow it to change your life. Yeah, that's right. So maybe that's the good news. When you hit midlife, it becomes, the gap between the future and the present becomes closer. Yes. And you feel something [00:21:00] different. Yes. And therefore you get that maybe crisis, which is a good thing.

[00:21:04] DANIEL: Yeah. That might say it's time to actually do something different. Yes. Yeah. Invest in my health.

[00:21:08] MATT: Make it a priority. And maybe it'll provide motivation to have to. Yeah. Usually inevitably spend more time or money on your health. Yeah, sure. That makes sense.

[00:21:16] DANIEL: And now you and I have both talked about this, recognising that we are coming from a privileged perspective.

[00:21:20] DANIEL: Yeah. And that it does require a certain level of education and wealth to be able to truly prioritise your health.

[00:21:27] MATT: Oh, yeah, yeah. This, this came home to me maybe, it's probably, 10 years ago now, I signed up for this charity event that was called something like live on 2 a day. So I was to help you kind of like be able to empathise more and relate more and raise money for people who are literally living below the poverty line, which at that time was 2 or less Australian.

[00:21:46] MATT: So I went for seven days each time on 2 a day. And you couldn't get a dentist checkup. Right. That was like, you know, it really sucked. It turns out you can't afford coffee on 2 a day. You can’t afford tea. You can’t afford sugar. You can't afford [00:22:00] fresh veg. Yeah, exactly. So I was getting by, it was easy to eat, but it was easy to eat poorly.

[00:22:05] MATT: I couldn't afford to eat well. I thought, man, that really rammed it home. If you want to shop well, shop for good quality food, healthy food actually costs more.

[00:22:13] DANIEL: Yeah. So we want to acknowledge that, but also probably links in with the money episode, which we'll talk about later, that actually how you set yourself up when you're younger might also open up your options when you're older.

[00:22:22] DANIEL: Yeah. Yeah. So like the first principle. is to prioritise your health. The second principle is to really shift from outcomes to process. And that really, it really came home to me personally when I read James Clear's book, Atomic Habits, you know, super popular book, uh, and there's lots of helpful stuff in it.

[00:22:41] DANIEL: But I was really trying to get into a gym habit because I have a fast metabolism. I find it hard to maintain muscle mass and I lose weight really quickly, especially if I'm sick, which might sound great. You know, hey, I don't put on weight and there's benefits to that, but actually it's not so good from a health.

[00:22:55] DANIEL: Perspective if you just can't keep on weight and so I have to actually go to the [00:23:00] gym. It's one of the things I've found that really helps me feel fit and strong, but I just couldn't maintain a decent routine I would get to one particular point and then I'd either lose motivation or I'll injure myself or I'd get sick, you know, means I kept feeling disappointed that I wouldn't reach any outcomes and that it stopped me actually succeeding in going to the gym regularly.

[00:23:21] DANIEL: And then basically James Clear gave an example where he says never miss a workout. Don't for, the win is not whether you can lift X amount of kilos. The win is that you turned up four or five times a week and that you tick it off using a habit tracker week, after week, after week, uh, and even if you turn up and don't do any more than just walk on the treadmill for 10 minutes, or something that you find fairly simple, you've still ticked off that you went to the gym.

[00:23:47] DANIEL: Does that make sense? And so I changed my mindset from outcome to process and it's been an absolute game changer. I've been to the gym four to five times a week. For three plus years ever since I read [00:24:00] that book and while I've got a set bunch of exercises that I try to do, I say to myself, all I have to do is do the warm up.

[00:24:07] DANIEL: But in reality, after I've exercised for 10 minutes, then I typically want to do the roller and then I typically want to start to do my weights routine and I typically actually want to stay longer than I can because I'm into it.

[00:24:19] MATT: Motivation follows action

[00:24:20] DANIEL: Yeah, and there have been two or three occasions where I really, really didn't feel like it, I walked on the treadmill and I thought I'll stop this.

[00:24:25] DANIEL: I'm going home, I'm gonna get a coffee and I get to tick that off. Does that make sense? Yeah, but I didn't miss the workout.

[00:24:33] MATT: Yeah, I mean if you found that idea helpful, man, like yeah, so I don't want to be that guy who does jiu jitsu who then ends up talking about jiu jitsu all the time, but the classic example here, the parallel is what I've heard referred to as belt chasing.

[00:24:44] MATT: So, you know, in martial arts, obviously progression is signified by different coloured belts, you know, and there's obviously like a, a, uh, I'm thinking of doing that for the podcast. You're a, you're a yellow belt podcaster, but we're trying to move up. Thanks. Yeah. That's right. Give me time. [00:25:00] Um, yeah. So particularly like when you're younger, you see like younger people, uh, will hit the gym and they might go to like literally four or five classes a week and they're thinking, I just need to advance in belts and they're young, so they can do that and it doesn't break them.

[00:25:12] MATT: A person my age tries doing that. Then I will get broken because I will not be able to recover. So I've got to shift my perspective from, I'm not chasing belts, but I'm doing it for the process and the belts are a nice byproduct. So instead that my process is now, how many classes can I do in a responsible, sustainable manner that will be good for me per week?

[00:25:28] MATT: And I commit to that.

[00:25:29] DANIEL: Well, not just that, if, if you're young and you pump out the belts and let's say you hit a brown or a black or whatever it is, right? If that's been your primary motivation, there might come a point where you've reached your goal and therefore. That's it. Yeah, you take up golf. I've seen that.

[00:25:43] DANIEL: It's a bit like the dieting thing. Yeah. Again, if the, if the aim is to lose weight and you go on a hardcore diet, it does work. Yes. Yeah. But then if you look back in a year or two or five years, it hasn't worked because you haven't built a process or a love of the process. Yes. Into your life. Yeah. Or it's [00:26:00] much better to change your mindset and it actually leads to better results.

[00:26:03] DANIEL: And actually it doesn't mean you won't be successful because remember the episode from Jack Riewoldt? We had an interview with AFL superstar Jack Riewoldt from the Richmond Tigers. Yeah. And he was saying that when the Richmond Tigers were focused on outcome. So how many wins and losses they had. And when they became obsessed with wins and losses, he said they lost their way.

[00:26:23] DANIEL: But when they went back to process, well, then all the components came together and they won three premierships. So the first principle, as we hit the midlife slump is to prioritise health. The second one is to move from outcome to process. The third one I think is actually change your strategy, which essentially means to be willing to adapt how you approach fitness and health with age.

[00:26:46] DANIEL: Uh, you know, I'll give you two examples. Again, these aren't prescriptive. They're certainly not prescriptive, but it's how I've worked. So when I was young, uh, I loved swimming and my competitive streak was in water I really enjoyed the competition. I, I [00:27:00] enjoyed how physical it was, and it was perfect. It was a good stretch when I was 20.

[00:27:04] DANIEL: But, you know, as I got older, I don't have the body strength. I'm not big enough to really push it out in the pool. And I started injuring myself and I just got difficult. I couldn't keep up. But a few years ago, someone said, well, there's this thing called water basketball. I'm like, what do you mean water basketball?

[00:27:20] DANIEL: And so I went to the aquatic centre and there's this kind of strange niche sport, which is actually a little bit like water polo, but honestly, for old people. Okay. Old people, meaning my age. Yeah. You are still swimming the ball up and down the pool and you're still shooting goals, but they're, you know, basketball hoops instead of kind of water polo nets.

[00:27:39] DANIEL: It's kind of super fun. Cool. And it's social.

[00:27:42] MATT: It sounds like not unlike, kind of touch footy equivalent. Yeah.

[00:27:44] DANIEL: Like the touch footy equivalent. I think. And so I think that's perfect. You know? And so in that sense, I'm not going to get any awards by being a water basketball superstar, but at the same time, it ticks a lot of boxes and it's about that change in mindset.

[00:27:56] DANIEL: Yes. Of how you can still get the benefits of [00:28:00] what you used to do in a different way, recognising where your body is and the age that you have. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. So the other example I found really useful is, again, going to the gym. So my body type is ectomorph, which means it's hard to build muscle.

[00:28:15] DANIEL: But I found it super frustrating because I would keep trying to build up at the gym, and it would, it wasn't the effort that stopped me. It's the fact that I'm getting old and I would strain something. So then I heard again from Arthur Brooks, he talked about a type of exercise at the gym called blood flow restricted training.

[00:28:32] DANIEL: And it sounds a bit foreign, but basically cuffs on your arms, you put cuffs on your legs, and it literally restricts your blood flow. There's a systematic review, and basically it's for people who are either in rehab, so they injure themselves, or for older people who want to exercise until they're 90.

[00:28:51] MATT: Yeah, right.

[00:28:51] DANIEL: So what it allows you to do is it basically allows you to to exercise and to lift weights, but to lift a lot lighter weights to get [00:29:00] the same type of results, which is perfect. Easier on the joints. So I've just found it super helpful to add that into my routine and then lift a lot less. It's way faster recovery.

[00:29:13] DANIEL: And you get great benefits. I'm not saying everyone should do it, but that is another example about if you've got the resources and the education, you can change how you exercise. And I think there are lots of those types of examples where if you start being creative and thinking about how you can exercise with the end in mind, which is to be active when you're older, which is at least my goal.

[00:29:36] DANIEL: Mm hmm. There are smart ways to do it. Yeah. Do you have any examples about how you've adapted?

[00:29:40] MATT: In my own experience and some of my friends and lots of people who I follow online, it seems to be fairly common that you hit a point in life, usually it's depending upon how long you've been training this way for.

[00:29:52] MATT: So late thirties, early forties, definitely mid forties, where your body just starts to rebel. Yep. So I still like to run, but I don't know how much longer [00:30:00] I'll be able to keep it up because of my knees. And the classic transition here is that you go from being a runner to a, I think the acronym is MAML, middle aged man in Lycra.

[00:30:09] MATT: So you, cycling, the cycling, the cycling, but that makes sense.

[00:30:13] DANIEL: It honestly makes sense to me that actually there does come a point where it makes sense to move from running to cycling.

[00:30:19] MATT: As long as it makes sense. That's the main thing, right?

[00:30:22] DANIEL: It's got nothing to do with, you don't have to wear the Lycra, man.

[00:30:24] MATT: Sure. That's good to know. Thanks for the permission.

[00:30:27] DANIEL: So just to finish before we get to the practice, it does require health and fitness and the change through midlife. It's not actually about the exercises. It's actually about the mindset and your identity and your psychology and you're willing to let go of being 20.

[00:30:45] MATT: Yeah, so I get that. And I want to accept it. I think for me, at least there's a complimentary piece, which is all about still in an age appropriate way, still having some degree of [00:31:00] ambition and drive and, you know, desire for achievement. But again, it can't be me looking at the 20 year old version of myself and comparing myself against that guy.

[00:31:11] MATT: And it can't be me comparing myself to the 20 and 30 year old guys who I spend a fair bit of time now exercising with. But at the same time, I don't want to drop it entirely and go, well, what do I do again? Like golf's looking super attractive at the moment. But this is the midlife squeeze, right?

[00:31:25] DANIEL: Yeah.

[00:31:25] DANIEL: And this is the same with money, with health, with happiness, with productivity.

[00:31:28] MATT: Mm.

[00:31:29] DANIEL: You've got a lot of health left and you've got a lot of goals you can achieve physically. It doesn't make sense. So the squeeze is that you're experiencing a decline in some areas of your life and at the same time, you've still got a whole lot of life left.

[00:31:40] DANIEL: You want to achieve a lot more as opposed to let's say the second mountain or even the twilight years where there's not quite that tension. This is the tension of that second reset. You can still run a marathon and actually if you decide to run marathons, you can still be extremely good at it until you're 50, 60, even older.

[00:31:59] DANIEL: But the way you [00:32:00] approach it and the cost on your body might actually be different. Yeah. And you have to wrestle with whether that's what you want. Yeah, that's good. Yeah.

[00:32:09] DANIEL: So Matt, let's end with a practical exercise. What do you do about it? We like to give a practical activity, something you can take away and practically do if you're younger versus being in the middle life squeeze. Yeah.

[00:32:25] MATT: So, say you're 20 to 40, I think a really good idea and this is influenced by the work of Cal Newport is to actually sign up, as in commit yourself to something, some sport, exercise, fitness activity that is goal oriented and, and really, and make it pretty audacious, like make it something that's definitely going to stretch you.

[00:32:45] MATT: And ideally like make it something that's going to commute to do it alongside other people as well. And the reason why we'd be suggesting this is because it's going to help shift your psychology to start to view yourself as someone who takes the habit of exercise and fitness seriously. So it becomes your identity.

[00:32:59] MATT: [00:33:00] Yeah, that's part of your identity. So you're someone, you know, who's already got like a whole lot of friends because we know that's not the case. That's the most important thing. Nah, friendships don't matter. And then behind that, a close second is that you're someone who takes your fitness and your health seriously.

[00:33:13] MATT: And, and, and again, like you mentioned before, there's no reason why you can't do that.

[00:33:17] DANIEL: Okay. So that's a James Clear idea though, isn't it? That you act yourself into a new identity and that actually part of the benefit of swinging big and going for an audacious physical goal and exercising regularly with others isn't just that you're achieving it

[00:33:31] MATT: Yeah, but that you're reinforcing an identity.

[00:33:34] DANIEL: That is I'm someone who exercises I take fitness seriously and I'm capable and strong.

[00:33:39] MATT: Yes, that's right. So again, like we talked about before it's, it's, and like you both enjoy it and benefit from it here and now but really importantly it does act as a preventative measure in the sense that it does set up your future self for success.

[00:33:50] DANIEL: Yeah, that makes sense. Now, as a physiotherapist, having seen, you know, lots of different personality types, there are type A personalities who push themselves all or [00:34:00] nothing, and it's not in a planned way. So when we say self-preservation. Swing big and pick an activity, which is tough. I don't mean if you've been on the couch for the last three years and never done anything but you know, online gaming, but you suddenly try a marathon tomorrow, you still need to swing big sensibly, meaning that you come up with a plan, a graded exercise program.

[00:34:21] DANIEL: You might increase your exercise by 5 percent per day or per week or whatever your plan is. But the point is go for something audacious. So the exercise in the next week clearly is not to run a marathon, but it's to take some time to think about what might an exercise goal be? How can I swing for something big?

[00:34:39] DANIEL: Maybe it's to climb a mountain. Maybe it's to run a marathon. Maybe it's to get into Lycra and look better than a middle aged person, whatever your fitness goal is, take time this week to think about it, write it down and actually do the next step. That probably isn't to buy a bike or to spend lots of money, uh, it might [00:35:00] be simply to go for a walk or sign up.

[00:35:03] MATT: Exactly, sign up like a heap of gyms, martial arts classes, et cetera, for like a free trial.

[00:35:09] DANIEL: Sign up for something, even if it's a crazy idea. And you don't know if it'll stick. Yeah. But do something. Yeah. So that's 20s to 40s. What about if you're in your midlife squeeze? Yeah.

[00:35:21] MATT: So my feeling is that this is like a little bit more kind of complicated and it's going to be like a bit more nuanced.

[00:35:26] MATT: So if you're someone who's for quite a while, you've been sedentary, haven't really done much at all. You found yourself in a position for a whole lot of reasons where you're just not fit and not feeling that inspired or motivated. Then I think to some degree, you start off on the simple end of the spectrum, right?

[00:35:41] MATT: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you ask yourself and answer the question, what's the right type of exercise for me? And it's going to be the exercise that you're most likely to do. So don't be too ambitious on this, don't be too aspirational if you find yourself coming from this position and don't think, really don't think about goals as much as process.

[00:35:58] DANIEL: So do something, [00:36:00] do something that you're likely to do regularly and begin that process of ticking off day after day after day that I did this one thing, even if it's not overly taxing or overly adventurous. Yeah. But you begin the process. You begin the process, yeah. Of, of improving your fitness and health.

[00:36:17] DANIEL: Prioritising it, process based.

[00:36:18] MATT: Yeah.

[00:36:19] DANIEL: And adapting a different strategy.

[00:36:21] MATT: Yeah, that's it. It's a bit like the, uh, Seinfeld anecdote about telling the jokes, about writing the jokes.

[00:36:23] DANIEL: Yeah, so Jerry Seinfeld famously said that the way to, you know, if you're a comedian, I don't know, you should write a joke once a day.

[00:36:30] DANIEL: Like he basically created a habit. He did. Where every day the goal was to write a joke and he ticked it off. Yeah. So that's about process rather than outcome.

[00:36:38] MATT: That's right. And eventually some of the jokes were funny. Yeah, that's right. The mantra is don't break the chain.

[00:36:41] DANIEL: Yes. Don't break the chain. Don't break the chain.

[00:36:43] DANIEL: And if you do break it once, well then don't break it a second time. Yeah. Each month, try to just keep building the streak. Yes. Yeah.

[00:36:49] MATT: So that's, that's, uh, one end of the spectrum. If you're someone, again, uh, 40s and 60s who maybe find yourself, like, reasonably, you know, but again, you want to take it serious, more seriously and take it up a notch.

[00:36:59] MATT: This is where I think [00:37:00] it can be a little bit more complicated, obviously, but if you find yourself um, as many of us do being, uh, reasonably fit, really time poor, but having a bit more money, spare money that you had compared to when you were younger, then I reckon our advice would be take some of that excess money and divert it towards people, programs, coaches, clubs, whatever, that can take the thinking and the extra time out of the equation.

[00:37:23] MATT: Yep. And just really tell you what to do. Make it as simple as possible. Something like CrossFit, for example, you join a CrossFit box, you're exercising with other people side by side. You've got people who've got the program ready for you. So all you got to do is plug in and play and turn up. And the timetable is set in stone.

[00:37:37] DANIEL: Yeah. So you're accepting that you're time poor, but potentially resource rich compared to time. That's right. So divest some of your financial capital and buy physical capital, health, things that are going to help your health. Yeah. Yeah. You know, go to health professionals because it's worth it.

[00:37:52] MATT: It's worth it.

[00:37:53] MATT: Yeah. And if nothing else, you know, you can for probably if you wait for the right sale and you splurge, you know, less than a thousand dollars [00:38:00] on a smart fitness watch, like a Garmin, for example. Yeah. And you'll get individualised programs there. Yeah.

[00:38:06] DANIEL: Now the big caveat is you cannot buy your way to health and you cannot buy motivation.

[00:38:11] DANIEL: No one can, can lose the weight for you. There is no silver bullet and anyone who promises take this tablet and take this simple kind of, you know, one step pain free experience to being healthy and happy. Like I'd run a mile from that. No one can do the hard work for you. That's a mindset. Yes. Yeah. All right, so we've shared a lot of information, hopefully some ideas stick, you know, you might disagree with us in some areas and that's totally okay.

[00:38:37] MATT: You might think cycling is really cool.

[00:38:38] DANIEL: That's right. Uh, but something would have connected, so take the meat, spit out the bones, take a moment of silence and think about it. Okay, so what is something you can do from what we've discussed? Do you need to take a big swing? Do you need to go for gold and actually chase something adventurous [00:39:00] and be the type of person who exercises and, and, uh, chases health goals?

[00:39:04] DANIEL: Uh, do you need to change your mindset and, and simply shift the way in which you're approaching your health and fitness in the midlife slump? Or do you need to take one small easy process change and just do something or maybe even invest more money. Get most tight and spend money on your health and self care because at the end of the day, if you get unhealthy and seriously unwell, it will affect everything.

[00:39:30] DANIEL: It's worth the money. So take a minute, pause and have some space.[00:40:00]

[00:40:30] DANIEL: Hey, we're just going to take a moment to bring in a small segment from a fascinating interview that Matt had with Ben Crowley, who's the founder of Bulk Nutrients, who is a longtime sponsor of our show. Ben has some fascinating things to talk about with regards to health and fitness, which is his area of expertise.

[00:40:47] DANIEL: And we want to hear about his experiences about navigating the midlife slump.

[00:40:53] MATT: Uh, Ben, this has been like a long term dream of mine. I don't often like talk about this and I'm not sure if I've ever actually, you know, broached it with Dan, but the reason I said yes, when [00:41:00] like he asked me, to join him on this podcast is only because he told me that you guys were sponsoring it.

[00:41:04] MATT: I finally got to, got to hit that lifelong dream of being able to say kind of, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sponsored by Bulk. I've always, yeah, it's been a long time coming, but I got there. Um, so I'd like to start off first of all, um, it'd be great just to hear a little bit about Bulk, a little bit of background about Bulk Nutrients for those of us who don't know, but also like really keen to hear what you see as some of the connections between, I, um, the ideas that we've talked about in our podcast, particularly season two.

[00:41:32] BEN: No worries. Well, thanks Matt for having us on. And, uh, yeah, great to hear your admiration for Bulk and what we've done. Just a bit of history on Bulk. So this is a company that I started so 15, 20 years ago, we recently celebrated our 15th anniversary, but realistically it's getting close to 20 years. Um, the first three or four years, I kind of mucked about doing a part time.

[00:41:50] BEN: Um, and then hence why we say, I think we'll officially registered a bit over 15 years ago. Now we're over a hundred staff. So absolutely massive growth in that time. Um, it's been an amazing journey. [00:42:00] I certainly love being involved in the business, um, as much now as I used to be. So, yeah, that's fantastic.

[00:42:04] MATT: That itself is like no small thing.

[00:42:07] BEN: Yeah, I can certainly attribute that to, um, a great team and us hiring on culture. And I'd like to think that the way we nurture culture into, into the people that we, that we, um, select. Um, so it's a combination of selecting the right people, but then also bringing them along on the journey, um, and making sure they're part of the process and they really sort of live and breathe our values.

[00:42:24] BEN: Yes. Yeah. Um, in terms of similarities between what we do in the podcast, uh, I'd say there's themes of like sharing ideas, um, being very open, say helping others and certainly trying to make most of your circumstances. Probably one would be, um, you know, getting up and trying again, even if you fail and no shame involved in, you know, I mean, we're, we're all humans, we've got massive flaws, um, but life's a journey and what we're trying to do is, is, you know, keep trying, trying to be better every day, um, and supporting each other, you know, along that journey.

[00:42:55] BEN: And I think that I get a sense of community from what you guys are doing. Um, it's just about, you know, trying [00:43:00] to include people and yeah, lift them up. And that's certainly what we do at Bulk Nutrients too.

[00:43:04] MATT: Yeah. Like that's one of the things I've always like appreciated about Bulk. And you see that like, both from like having to look around the facilities and, you know, meeting some of the people in the staff down there, but also like just in the, uh, in the emails, in the promotional material.

[00:43:15] MATT: Talks like a lot about the feeling of community, but also like giving back to the greater and broader community too.

[00:43:21] BEN: Yeah. Look, uh, I think, uh, I can't remember if Jess talked about the Bulk gives back system when she was interviewed, but that's actually something that she originated. Um, that's great. It's an initiative that we've just done for our second time now.

[00:43:32] BEN: And the idea is that hearing stories of community groups, uh, mostly volunteers and certainly not for profit, smaller ones, um, sharing their story and, um, I guess it's encouraged them. I mean, encouraging them and providing some incentive for them to keep doing what they're doing. And we love those stories.

[00:43:47] BEN: You know, we've always been much more interested in getting behind that and being involved in something and making a difference between it happening and not than, you know, getting involved in a major corporate sporting event or something else where our presence doesn't really make much of a [00:44:00] difference.

[00:44:00] BEN: And also our friends. Our philosophy, um, can't have much of an impact, you know, so, and just in terms of the athletes too, I guess, um, not everyone, you know, is a chiselled, um, Roman God like yourself. So yeah, we've got hundreds of thousands of customers. So to have you on that list is pretty cool, man.

[00:44:16] MATT: Thanks.

[00:44:17] MATT: You say the sweetest things. Thanks. Thanks again for coming in and your kind words. Uh, really, really appreciate your time. And again, everything that Bulk does for the community. Broadly and also for the, uh, the podcast. Really appreciate you guys.

[00:44:30] BEN: No worries. And yeah, we love being involved. So thank you.

[00:44:40] DANIEL: All right. So we've covered a lot in terms of health from the twenties to forties and the midlife slump. Is there anything that stands out to you?

[00:44:49] MATT: Yeah, it's been illuminating cause it's probably got me thinking more about that tension between again, being a realist. And just having to let go of, because of the harsh, if nothing else, biological [00:45:00] necessity of age being associated with decline.

[00:45:04] MATT: Yeah, so I'm going to lose some of my capacities. At the same time, I feel a tension between that and wanting to have some room for ambition and goals in life. As well, I mean, so not just being kind of functional and useful.

[00:45:16] DANIEL: Yeah, look, mine is probably a bit more confronting. I, um, you know, you said that in an ideal world, we will be exercising for our health and fitness for those kind of longevity goals.

[00:45:25] DANIEL: But in reality, there is a bit of, you know, I want to stay young.

[00:45:28] MATT: Yeah.

[00:45:29] DANIEL: The culture that we're in just is so youth focused and it's hard to become an old man.

[00:45:36] MATT: Yeah.

[00:45:37] DANIEL: And, uh, there's not a lot of glory in that. No. And so it's worth continually thinking through, okay, what is my why? Why am I exercising? What's the driver?

[00:45:47] DANIEL: And how do I have a healthy, realistic view of ageing? Yes. Rather than go with the flow.

[00:45:55] MATT: But, you know, whilst there's that popular betrayal that isn't real flattering and becoming like an older person. [00:46:00] I think many of us would have at least one or two figures in our lives. So I think of my, both my father and also my father in law, both in their seventies.

[00:46:09] MATT: Um, and my father in law particularly, like he goes to the gym every day. He walks every day. And both those figures, literally in the last week have come around and played my 11 year old son at table tennis and played like multiple games with him, you know, and I find that really admirable. And I also find really admirable the older people who I've seen at sports clubs and stuff, who again, once top performers, and they were in the, like they, they had their last year of the limelight and you see them particularly as they kind of hit that midlife squeeze, they're moving to, you know, coaching roles.

[00:46:41] MATT: So again, back to that generative idea. They're starting to invest from I've got to be the star of the show, you know, and the main competitor, to someone who is really investing and sowing into the lives of people and causes.

[00:46:56] DANIEL: So usually again, younger competitors and athletes and also clubs that are beyond themselves, just like we arrived to the same [00:47:00] conclusion with friendship and with productivity, the mature shift from, let's say, the forties and fifties into the second mountain phase, you know, from 65 onwards, is that move from being the star?

[00:47:13] DANIEL: to being the mentor or the one who gives, and maybe the way we should approach or could approach health and fitness is that it's actually not about us. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's not about my body, it's not about my health, it's actually about what I could give to my community, to my family, to my friends, uh, to maybe not be dependent.

[00:47:32] DANIEL: I'm not saying we shouldn't accept, um, that there will be a time when we need to rely on others completely for our physical health, but, but to not set ourselves up so that our spouse or our friends or our family have to look after us because we didn't. So there's a, a generative, uh, an outward looking approach to how we're approaching our activity.

[00:47:50] DANIEL: Yes. I think that is the heartbeat of what it means to make space. Okay, so next week we are going to jump into a new topic, which is career reset. [00:48:00] How to rethink your career in different phases of your life, from your 20s to 30s to maybe your midlife 50s, 60s. What are the different trajectories of reset?

[00:48:10] DANIEL: Using my set and reset framework from Spacemaker, and we're gonna talk about this over two episodes because there is so much to cover. It's such an important topic and it can impact so many people's lives. But until next time, make Space.

[00:48:26] NARRATOR: The Spacemakers with Daniel Sih and Matt Bain.

[00:48:29] DANIEL: Big thanks to our sponsor, Bulk Nutrients. Enjoy a 5% discount on protein powders and health supplements for orders over $45. At bulknutrients.com.au. Just enter the code spacemakers.

[00:48:43] NARRATOR: If you like this podcast, you'll love our Spacemakers YouTube channel. Full of content on productivity, life wisdom, and everyday spirituality. It's practical, interesting, and a little playful.

[00:48:54] NARRATOR: Until next time, make [00:49:00] space.