[00:00:00] DANIEL: 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 40s and 50s.

[00:00:29] DANIEL: Big thanks to our sponsor, Banjo's Bakery Cafes, who are expanding across Australia and looking for new franchisees. If you've always wanted to work for yourself and want to fast track success, visit franchise.banjos.com.au and save 10 percent on franchise fees by mentioning Spacemakers.

[00:00:45] PROMO V/O: The Spacemakers, with Daniel Sih.

[00:00:50] DANIEL: Hello everyone, welcome back to The Spacemakers, a podcast to help you make space for a deep, thoughtful and meaningful life. And we talked last episode [00:01:00] about career resets as part of our broader season about how to make space for life's inevitable resets, recognising that the habits and practices that set you up for success in your 20s and 30s often hinder.

[00:01:12] DANIEL: Progress and a good life in the midlife and beyond. And so I'm here with my good friend and fellow space maker who is thinking about a podcast reset in his own life, Matt Bain.

[00:01:26] MATT: Yeah, no, I'm pretty happy with set again. You'd be glad to know. It's been a fairly tumultuous couple of weeks, but, uh, I think I'm back.

[00:01:32] DANIEL: Oh, good. You're back. Okay. Excellent. Well, it looks like you're here for the whole episode then. And so we are going to talk about how to practically make changes in your life if you feel like you're in a period of reset, the kind of habits that might set you up for a successful reset in your 20s and 30s, and the habits that will set you up differently as you hit the midlife squeeze.

[00:01:52] DANIEL: So, Matt, every episode we reflect on what you and I have done in response to our practical activity. What was the [00:02:00] activity from last week?

[00:02:02] MATT: Well, because this is a two parter, um, this episode is going to be a lot more on the, on the practical habits, I guess, of implementation. Last week, the challenge really was to spend some time trying to assess and recognise where you are in life in terms of, are you in a set period regarding your career, or are you in a reset period regarding your career?

[00:02:21] DANIEL: Actually, and if you missed last episode, just for a brief recap it might be helpful, we looked at the idea of set and reset like a wave, with the peaks being periods of set and the troughs being periods of reset based on a framework in my book Spacemaker, uh, and the idea that in a period of set you know where you are, you're happy with your career and you've got to just get on with moving quickly, whereas in a period of reset you need to slow down, make space and think deeply about where you're heading and that requires a different set of rules, of habits.

[00:02:49] MATT: Right, take those long walks on the beach.

[00:02:50] DANIEL: That's right. Are you in a period of set or reset?

[00:02:52] MATT: Yeah. Yeah. So I think that I'm in a period of set, but I can see, like, I know that reset is up on my short [00:03:00] term horizon. And that's cause in one area of my life, I've been studying for, this is my ninth year cause I'm doing it part time.

[00:03:07] MATT: So doing my masters and that wraps up this semester. So in real time, that's going to be done hopefully in about eight weeks. So that's a big part of my life.

[00:03:15] DANIEL: That's a huge, I mean that's a huge win, well done. You've kind of had this large project for a long time that's probably weighed on your mind because obviously you're doing this off the side of your desk when you're working as well and now you might have a bit more space to think about what comes next.

[00:03:28] DANIEL: So maybe it's a positive reset period.

[00:03:31] MATT: Oh yeah, yeah, certainly positive. But as, as we kind of discussed this, like maybe again, like worth, worth noting, I think like whilst every reset period is going to have perhaps more elements of positivity rather than negativity, chances are, because it's a reset, it's always going to be a little bit disconcerting, right?

[00:03:45] MATT: Because it is something new, right?

[00:03:47] DANIEL: Yeah. And your identity changes with each reset, which we didn't talk about, you know, and you, you've been a student for a long time. Yeah. And you won't be.

[00:03:54] MATT: Yeah. I've had all those student concessions and discounts. So it's going to be hard to say goodbye to. I know.

[00:03:59] DANIEL: Hey, um, so look, [00:04:00] I was thinking.

[00:04:00] DANIEL: and reset and you know, we had a conversation last week about the idea that sometimes you reset your career, not because of your career, but because of the broader life factors and actually reset is a broader idea than just what happens in your job. So I was thinking about the fact that my kids are getting older, you know, my daughter's, she's 17 now.

[00:04:18] DANIEL: She's driving and already living and acting a lot more like an adult. My two sons are definitely heading towards adulthood as well. And so I kind of feel like in our family life, we are going to enter a period of reset, you know, where we let go of kind of having such a hands on experience with our kids, maybe having more control over what they see and what they think and how they act and, and enjoying a different type of relationship.

[00:04:46] DANIEL: So that's going to be a reset and I can see that. So I'm thinking. Particularly since we're kind of in set still, particularly with my boys, I want to make sure I get the most out of it and actually really invest time with them and do things that [00:05:00] I won't be able to do in a few years when they're older and they don't want to hang out.

[00:05:02] DANIEL: So yeah, I'm going to Queensland in a few months with my older son.

[00:05:07] MATT: That's great.

[00:05:08] DANIEL: And we're gonna do a father son like retreat. Yeah, which is like a structured thing, rights of passage ceremony and then go diving and do some cool stuff. Yeah, and so I just want to have those kind of experiences and you know, and just make sure I'm more present for board games and, and just being there cause it doesn't take long until they're out of the house and then we reset.

[00:05:28] MATT: Yes. Yeah. Okay, cool. So I want to be more intentional about this current period of being set. Yeah. Yeah. And take the opportunity in that.

[00:05:34] DANIEL: Yes. Nice.

[00:05:41] DANIEL: So Matt, let's talk about two different sets of skills or habits. When you're in your twenties and thirties and you want to set yourself up for maybe a great career and the ability to reset, you probably need to do certain things. And then we'll talk about the forties and fifties a bit later on. And you said to [00:06:00] me the other day that the most important thing you can do in your 20s and 30s is to follow your heart.

[00:06:06] MATT: Yeah. Is that right? That's exactly what I didn't say to you, but you almost got there, you almost remembered it correctly. I'm sorry, it just was so catchy. I'm glad, I'm glad we had this conversation, managed to get some clarity on that because I would have felt, that would have weighed on me. Great deal. If I give you that kind of bumps to you.

[00:06:19] MATT: So, um, so what I probably said is that the advice to follow your heart is probably again, the most prevalent common advice that you'll pick up, particularly on the world of, uh, I guess the internet when it comes to career advice via the internet, right?

[00:06:31] DANIEL: Be your own person, you know, follow your heart. Yeah.

[00:06:34] DANIEL: Find your passion. Yes. You do you. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:36] MATT: Yeah. Which all like, again, like have that, you know, to be fair. It sounds more than sympathetic. It sounds authentic, you know, and it appeals to my emotions. Like, you know, cause I want to think if I follow my heart, it's going to lead me to feeling good, right?

[00:06:48] DANIEL: Yeah. So you don't want to be rigid and structured.

[00:06:49] MATT: No, no, no. And again, like you really want to be authentic, right? So I can see the appeal, but plenty of people, including the great Cal Newport have actually pointed out for really good reasons that we're [00:07:00] going to go into why that is actually. Yeah.

[00:07:02] MATT: Contrary to expectations, probably some of the most dangerous, terrible career advice you could get as a young person.

[00:07:08] DANIEL: Yep. I agree. As a young person. Why is it bad advice to follow good advice? If you're 20, you know, you're out of college, maybe you've got a degree, maybe you've got some apprenticeship skills and you're trying to work out what to do next.

[00:07:20] DANIEL: Yeah. Follow your passions. Why is that terrible advice?

[00:07:22] MATT: Yeah. Okay. So I'd say there's like, it's a two tiered reason, right? And the most important tier is that this goes back, I think it was the first episode of this season. We talked about the Jerry Seinfeld, Duke commencement speech. One of the points that he made, which is so true, and it's hard.

[00:07:36] MATT: I think it's probably a little bit difficult as a younger person to actually take this on board, but he's not the only one to actually make this call that when you're young, there's a tendency to think that, you know, everything about you and perhaps even the world, but time and experience will show that there's a whole lot of things about you that you're yet to discover in terms of like preferences, bents, real passions, points of interest, [00:08:00] strengths, weaknesses, vulnerabilities, All that kind of stuff.

[00:08:02] MATT: So if you kind of kickstart someone's journey into the career world as a young person, just say, kind of follow your gut, heart, instinct, and go for it. And that's all you need. Or that's the primary thing that you need. Then you become,

[00:08:13] DANIEL: I want to be an influencer.

[00:08:14] MATT: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah. So to some degree, it's not your fault.

[00:08:17] MATT: You're still so biologically. chronologically young, that of course, you can't be expected to know all that there is to know about yourself. So it's a bit of a bum steer to say, okay, follow your heart, follow your passions, when you don't really have a good handle on what your heart is actually telling you and what your passions really are.

[00:08:32] DANIEL: Yeah. So you don't know yourself well enough to follow your heart. And actually the beautiful thing about being young is it's kind of like a fresh canvas, right? So you get to discover all these things, but you haven't discovered them yet, even if you think you have. That's right. You can't follow your heart, Cause you don't actually what your true passions are.

[00:08:47] DANIEL: And that's what makes it like a big adventure. Right. And what's the second bum steer then?

[00:08:54] MATT: Yeah. So the second reason why it's probably like a bit of a bum steer is that when it comes to you actually like getting a good job and firming yourself up in your career, you aren't going to get [00:09:00] like brownie points or great remuneration just cause you're following your heart and your passions.

[00:09:04] MATT: Like what it turns out actually gets you the status and the position and the perks is having rare and valuable skills.

[00:09:11] DANIEL: Yeah. This comes from Cal Newport's book, So Good They Can't Ignore You, which is a quote that Steve Martin said once when they said, you know, how do you become a great comedian? He said, be so good they can't ignore you, which is great advice.

[00:09:21] DANIEL: Yes. But I remember Cal was basically saying the great jobs that have freedom, flexibility, autonomy, where you can follow your heart and do passionate, creative things are reserved for people who have real skills.

[00:09:34] MATT: Yeah. Yeah. Again, and not just any skills.

[00:09:37] DANIEL: But rare and valuable skills. Well, even if you want to be, you know, a famous musician, or you want to be a, I don't know, a creative, or you want to have this amazing ability to speak around the world and travel, you don't get to do that when you're 20 because you haven't got the skills that someone who's put in two decades of time and hard work could have, can have. Is that right?

[00:09:56] MATT: Yeah. Well, not nearly like to the same degree. And [00:10:00] again, like starting off that young in the game, you know, twenties, mid twenties, you may not even have a clear handle on what those rare and valuable skills are. Yeah. Cause no one's like, most people aren't going to give you like the book and say, hey, guess what?

[00:10:12] MATT: Like the fast inside track. If you just do X, Y, and Z, then you will get to the top. Here are the rare and valuable skills. Okay. Yeah. And often as you know, no doubt we'll talk about what I want the rare and valuable skills to be. Uh, the same thing as what other people have deemed those rare and valuable skills to be, you know, because my natural bent will be for those rare and valuable skills to be the stuff that I'm already good at and that I find easy.

[00:10:37] DANIEL: Yeah. And maybe what you see others in your relational world doing, and they're probably the same age as opposed to, you know, the CEOs or business owners earning 400, 000 a year. Right. So again, it's, it's just the challenge of age. So what does Cal Newport suggest, and other authors, suggest that we do then if we're in our 20s and 30s, we want to set ourselves up for both a [00:11:00] great career and the ability to then move to different careers.

[00:11:02] DANIEL: Yeah. When we find ourselves in a reset, what would you recommend a 20 year old do if it's not just follow your heart and, you know, use your passions and emotions to make decisions? Yeah.

[00:11:12] MATT: Yeah. So I think like the big two takeaways here, first of all, you need to identify like what those rare and valuable skills are.

[00:11:18] MATT: And again, so you want to talk to people who actually have experience. So not just people who you see on the internet who may be roughly at the same age as you are and are probably making some kind of career out of just telling people what those rare and valuable skills are, in their opinion, you want to find someone who's got.

[00:11:32] MATT: Real life experience, probably like a bit older and advanced in the particular industry or profession that you are, that you're interested in. Find out from them, and ideally a variety of people in that space, as to what is it that they've actually done? What do they actually value that they're willing to exchange cold, hard cash and autonomy and personal discretion and flexibility for?

[00:11:52] DANIEL: And I don't think it has to be just conversations, it can be reading. You know, I remember reading when I started, uh, my own small business, a consulting business, I was [00:12:00] completely, you know, over my head. Not, I did have conversations with particular business owners and that was very helpful, but I remember reading different authors like Patrick Lanciani, who wrote Getting Out of the Way.

[00:12:09] DANIEL: Yeah. Naked, I think, or naked consulting. It was something like that. Yeah. Getting naked. Naked. And, you know, his big advice is when you're with a client for the first time, don't pitch, don't sell. Listen really well, ask great questions and start consulting. Basically give them the types of advice that will help their life.

[00:12:25] DANIEL: And then you don't have to sell anything because you've already given them something valuable. And that was tremendously helpful. And I don't pitch or sell anymore. I just listen to people and help if I can. And work comes my way. But that was something I wouldn't have been able to find out unless I'd heard from someone who was already far beyond me in that field.

[00:12:43] DANIEL: And I had to practice it.

[00:12:43] MATT: Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's good. Um, you know, um, again, though, I, I guess like just to point out, so you actually, you landed on a good, credible authority. Yeah, authentic. Yeah. Someone who actually, who could speak with credibility and integrity into that space. Um, which is great, but again, like there are so many [00:13:00] voices out there right now, like more than when we were at that age, I think kind of exploring our respective fields.

[00:13:04] MATT: So I'm just saying you want some judicious discernment when it comes to deciding who it is that you're going to listen to.

[00:13:09] DANIEL: And you know, the reason I read that book was because a consultant who is, experienced in my space, who I trust, who was mentoring me, told me to read it.

[00:13:19] MATT: Okay. I was going to put money on the fact it was called getting naked.

[00:13:22] DANIEL: That's right. So what's the second, what's the second thing?

[00:13:25] MATT: Yeah. So, uh, so the second thing is, uh, you want to, and again, this is a great Cal Newport, Newportian, Newportarian idea. Yeah. Newportonian. Deliberate practice. So he talks about like deliberate practice. So again, this, uh, this is determined what some of those rare and valuable skills are that you want to grow and develop in.

[00:13:42] MATT: You need to actively have a process, like an intentional process from getting where you are in terms of your degree of skill to where you'd like to be. And the pathway from here to there is going to be what he calls deliberate practice. And there's really two big components of this. Number one, you can't say, I'm just going to spend like the next.

[00:13:56] MATT: I'm sorry. and have that as your grand plan? You want to [00:14:00] have some idea of the content that you're going to cover and again, how will you going to have covered that content over the next hour? So there's got to be some degree of structure around how you actually go about practicing it. You know what I mean?

[00:14:11] DANIEL: Even pull out the guitar and rather than just tinker, you actually have something that you are deliberately trying to learn. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:18] MATT: So that was the first component. The second component of deliberate practice is that it can't be easy. Yeah. So, because again, you're trying to actually stretch yourself and develop and go from this point of competency to that point of competency, it's going to involve some strain.

[00:14:31] MATT: It's going to be costly. It's actually going to be like work. So it's not just doing whatever comes naturally and it's not just kind of doing something that you're already pretty good at and just kind of coasting. There's some degree of effort and strain involved.

[00:14:43] DANIEL: And that's the bit that really stood out to me, because when I read So Good They Can't Ignore You and I read about the rare and valuable skills, you know, sometimes I think, do I have rare and valuable skills, you know, and, and I must because people are asking me to speak and therefore I have expertise, blah, blah, blah.

[00:14:56] DANIEL: But I suppose the question is, how do you get those skills? [00:15:00] Yes. And I did find that idea of deliberate practice to be very helpful, you know, if I was to summarise what I understood of that concept compared to following your heart and follow your passions. One is to basically say the way to get a good job is to be true to yourself, which basically means your feelings and maybe your interests, you know, but the deliberate practice idea essentially says work hard.

[00:15:25] DANIEL: and turn up regularly and find a few skills that you see as being valuable. You have to work, you know, you have to have interest in them, I think, but you can see that there's also an alignment with some type of paid job as a result of having those skills. Yeah.

[00:15:41] MATT: Yeah. So, so maybe at the very least interest in that particular field.

[00:15:44] MATT: Interest in the field. Yeah.

[00:15:45] DANIEL: But sometimes you have to do stuff that you're not interested in just to kind of build the skills to give you the opportunities. And when you have consistently put in the time to be a person who builds skills, who does hard things, who does concentrated, focused, deep [00:16:00] work, as he might say, in the knowledge worker field.

[00:16:02] DANIEL: Well, then you have heaps of opportunities open up to you because there are fewer and fewer people with those skill sets. And then you can launch from one career to the next. And that's definitely what's happened in my life without knowing the theory. But I learned valuable skills as a physiotherapist, but then I learned valuable skills as a change manager and project manager, which I put on top of my health skills, which made me a bit more valuable in the health area because others didn't have that.

[00:16:25] DANIEL: And then that led to, you know, having productivity skills and then speaking skills. And then, you know, once you've got a certain amount of skills, you can then cascade one on the other. You kind of get exponential gains.

[00:16:35] MATT: Yes.

[00:16:36] DANIEL: because you're known in a particular area, you get more opportunities, then you get more skills.

[00:16:39] MATT: Yeah.

[00:16:40] DANIEL: But you've got to start somewhere. Yeah. And that basically means turn up and do hard stuff.

[00:16:44] MATT: Yeah. But it's like the right hard stuff. Yeah. Because again, rare and valuable. Rare, which means it's hard because if it was easy, then those, those skills wouldn't be rare because everyone would be doing it right.

[00:16:54] MATT: And then valuable. It's not just anything and not just hard work for hard work sake, but valuable i. e. People will exchange their [00:17:00] hard earned cash for it.

[00:17:01] DANIEL: Yeah. So if I asked you, this might be a hard question, but what are some skills that you've learnt that would count as rare and valuable skills?

[00:17:09] MATT: Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Yeah. So one, one just off the bat is that I can. I can, I was almost going to say, I do public speaking good. You do do public speaking good. I speak good sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so I can do public speaking.

[00:17:24] DANIEL: Yeah, yeah. You've spent years developing skills in that space.

[00:17:29] MATT: Yeah, yeah, yes, yes, I have. So as we've said in earlier episodes, I've certainly done the reps and I've gotten some feedback.

[00:17:34] MATT: I'd like to get more feedback as well, but that's still something that I can do. And I know that's a rare skill because it understandably, terrifies and intimidates a lot of people. And it's always a little bit risky, right?  

[00:17:43] DANIEL: So that's one. I say on that point. So, you know, I speak good too. Yeah. Um, and I found, let's say learning to podcast, one of the disciplines I've had is to listen to every single interview I've ever had and to critique it and even to watch [00:18:00] myself speak.

[00:18:01] DANIEL: And then to critique it and to ask people who I trust, what did you think? You know, like I did a conference, everyone said it was great. I got fantastic feedback. And then I had some honest, raw conversations with people and they said it was excellent, but they said it annoyed me because you kept putting your hand in your pocket and you crossed your legs a lot on stage.

[00:18:18] DANIEL: And I didn't even know that. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. So again, rare and valuable skills often requires honest, brutal feedback and the openness to changing and growing, which is part of why you become good.

[00:18:28] MATT: Yeah. And on that, such a good point on that. I think, again, what's really telling is that you had two sources of feedback there.

[00:18:35] MATT: And I'd say this was the majority of people who provided this feedback aren't capable, don't want to do the thing that you were doing. And so they'll say it was great because again, they benefited from, but again, they don't have the same informed perspective as someone, a peer who does what you do. Maybe he's been doing it for longer.

[00:18:50] MATT: They're going to give you the harder feedback to hear, like you said, but it's probably more valuable.

[00:18:54] DANIEL: Yeah. I did have a year of weekly coaching from an overseas coach to help me not speak, [00:19:00] but to frame my content in a way that engages people's hearts and minds. It was incredibly valuable. And he was brilliant.

[00:19:07] DANIEL: Yeah, sure. And we would come with our talks and our outlines and, you know, there were times where he would be like, that is a terrible introduction or that is boring or, you know, and, and that kind of feedback from him was excellent. So yeah, I agree with what you've said. So you were going to say speaking, what, what's another, What's another skill?

[00:19:24] MATT: Besides like being wildly charismatic.

[00:19:26] DANIEL: And watching a lot of the bear.

[00:19:27] MATT: Yeah. Except for those rare invasion skills. No, um, cause I've been fortunate enough to like go to university. So that has been really valuable in terms of helping me have to digest pretty like decent chunks of pretty dense information, you know, from a mixture of sources, and then trying to kind of make sense of that process, synthesise it, and then spit it back out when it comes to say, essays or presentations.

[00:19:49] DANIEL: And I think about the fact that you read voraciously and you read hard stuff. You don't just read easy stuff and you've done it for a long, long time, right? So you've developed a big body of knowledge as a result of that discipline [00:20:00] of deliberate practice, a lot more than most people. Yeah, sure. And as a result of that, you know, one of the reasons I said I'd love you on the podcast is because you know so much and you're great at communicating.

[00:20:09] DANIEL: And so therefore you, there's an opportunity to do something that, you know, you and I find interesting, creative and hopefully make an impact in the world, which you and I would not have been able to do it in our twenties had we not had those deliberate skills. So we may have wanted to be YouTubers and podcasters and follow our heart, Mm hmm.

[00:20:27] DANIEL: But the podcast would be rubbish because we haven't put in the reps.

[00:20:32] MATT: Yeah.

[00:20:32] DANIEL: Uh, and that's what we're trying to say, essentially. Yes. Put in the reps, build some skills, and then you open up opportunities to actually have some great career resets. That's right. So, Matt, when we talk about careers from, let's say, 20s to 40s, according to career research, people don't typically go from A to B to C to D.

[00:20:51] DANIEL: You know, you don't say, hey, I want to be here. You know, I want to be a productivity consultant and therefore I should do X, Y, and Z. Typically what happens is career pathways [00:21:00] are zigzag, so we have zigzag careers. And so rather than go linear, they're unpredictable, you know. And again, look, look at my career.

[00:21:07] DANIEL: Went from being a, an ice cream driver, a telemarketer, to a physiotherapist, a church minister, to a productivity consultant. You know, so you wouldn't, Uh, yeah. I don't, I don't predict it necessarily, right? And so I think that's quite helpful because I was coaching someone just the other day in their midlife reset and they are wanting to set themselves up for the last 15 years of their career.

[00:21:27] DANIEL: They've run their own businesses. They've had lots of experiences, but they said, I've really just gone from one thing to the next because there was an opportunity or because I saw a possibility without ever really having a plan for my career. And she was saying she kind of regretted that, but I was like, well, don't regret that because you've done some incredible things.

[00:21:45] DANIEL: You've started great businesses. You've had amazing experiences. You've learned some rare and valuable skills. And actually the research suggests that all of us have zigzag careers. There is no plan. So what I would say in your twenties and thirties is don't be too concerned about having an [00:22:00] overarching plan for your career because you're probably going to be wrong because you don't know what your heart is.

[00:22:04] DANIEL: You can't follow your passions, right? Rather, do something because it contributes to the world. It, it aligns with your skills at the time and it will stretch you further than you are right now. Do stuff that's ethical and, and that obviously makes money. But when you hit your career reset in your forties or fifties, then you need to slow down and probably take more time to consider what are the puzzle pieces like we talked about last episode that truly fit my puzzle as opposed to just trying lots of stuff or similar to our previous episode on productivity rather than swing at everything.

[00:22:37] DANIEL: Yeah. That's right. Then you need to sharpen your swing. And so that's where we come to a second set of habits, which I'll talk about in a moment, which is to actively do nothing and to slow down so that you're a bit more planned rather than purely zigzag.

[00:22:52] MATT: It's almost as if, if someone has been at school for a long time, I think, and they graduate 20s to mid 20s, they're so used to things being in a pretty linear, predictable fashion and path.

[00:22:59] MATT: [00:23:00] So I think that's what makes it difficult. You've been trained to think about your path of progression being linear and predictable and then boom, you hit the stage in life. The rest of it isn't going to be like that.

[00:23:09] DANIEL: And therefore, the way to prepare for a chaotic, unpredictable future is to develop rare and valuable skills and to turn up, build a work ethic, hopefully build some networks to prepare for the unknown as opposed to do maths one, maths two, the maths methods, et cetera.

[00:23:28] MATT: Or just stay at school as a perpetual student. That's always a good backup plan. So to try to bring all that together. Together, if you're in your 20s and 30s, again, keep on building, work on identifying what those rare and valuable skills are, and then put the time into deliberately practicing and getting better and better and honing your talent and capacity at those respective skills.

[00:23:47] DANIEL: And don't worry too much about the future.

[00:23:48] MATT: It's almost like more kind of concentrated on the process, again, of building those skills rather than some predefined outcome. Again, to go back to Cal Newport, he's got this fantastic quote that we should just wrap this little bit up with. He writes, [00:24:00] the things that make a great job great, I discovered, are rare and valuable.

[00:24:04] MATT: If you want them in your working life, you need something rare and valuable to offer in return. In other words, and this is a cool summary, you need to be good at something before you can expect to get a good job.

[00:24:14] DANIEL: Love it.

[00:24:22] MATT: All right, so Dan, let's just, for the sake of the exercise, let's assume that we're through young adulthood. We've now hit like that midlife squeeze, so you know, mid forties, right? And he's done a good job at deliberately practicing and building out this repertoire of rare and valuable skills. But you find yourself, like we talked about last episode, perhaps at the start of what you know is going to be some kind of career reset.

[00:24:45] MATT: What do you do now? I know you've got this idea of actively doing nothing, but I'm still really, because again, like, I think I'm kind of there, but I'm still not all the way there. So I want to hear more about it.

[00:24:53] DANIEL: Yeah, sure. So look, I just think there is a sense we need to slow down and we need to not jump at the next thing, [00:25:00] not chase quick solution.

[00:25:02] DANIEL: So it's, it's doing nothing, but it's actively doing nothing. So when I think about that idea, I suppose I came up with that term having read a pretty random piece of research about action bias. It was by an Israeli researcher, Michael Ba'Eli, and he was actually studying world class soccer games. So when I, you know, So you're watching a world class footy match, okay?

[00:25:22] DANIEL: The game is tied and there's, let's say, a penalty shootout or, at some stage in the match, there is a penalty awarded, okay? And so penalties are super important in a very low scoring game. But what's interesting at these high level, kind of, world class or premiership league football matches, When the kicker kicks the ball, the goalie has to make a decision about which side of the net to jump at before the ball starts to move because it moves too quickly.

[00:25:48] DANIEL: Okay. So, so you have this kind of game between two people. You've got the kicker who is trying to use body language to not give any hints about where they're going to kick the ball, but you know, [00:26:00] they kick it really, really fast. And then you've got the goalie who has to make a decision about where they're going to jump.

[00:26:05] DANIEL: Um, before the ball is even kicked because they don't have time to react. So the researchers were trying to research what is the best place for a goalie to jump in order to save a goal in a world class match. It's a hugely important, very expensive answer because you make a lot of money by stopping goals.

[00:26:23] DANIEL: And so they analysed all these goal kicks from all around the world and they looked at if the goalkeeper jumped to the left, they had a 14. 2 percent chance of stopping a penalty because that's where the ball went. If they were to jump, dive to the right side of the net. They had a 12.6% chance of stopping the goal, which is basically the same.

[00:26:41] DANIEL: It wasn't statistically different. But here's the kicker. If the goalkeepers stayed in the centre of the goal, did nothing, so to speak. Mm-Hmm, they had a 33.3% chance of stopping a goal. Wow. So basically the, the statistical chances of stopping a world class goal increase [00:27:00] if the goalkeeper doesn't dive left or right, and simply looks.

[00:27:03] DANIEL: Like they're doing nothing. But what's interesting is that goalkeepers only stay in the centre 2 percent of the time.

[00:27:08] MATT: Wow. Okay.

[00:27:09] DANIEL: Can you guess why?

[00:27:11] MATT: Oh, look with that many people watching you and with all your teammates thinking like, you know, what they're thinking, I can imagine that you'd want to be seen to be doing something.

[00:27:17] DANIEL: You want to be seen to doing something. Absolutely. Which is called action bias. You can imagine this, right? Like if, if you do this massive dive to the left and you miss, or you do a massive dive to the right, it looks like you're doing your job. You tried. You tried, right? Even though you're statistically less likely to stop the goal, but if you stay centre, eyes out, looking at the ball and then the ball just flies past to the left or the right, you look like you're actually not doing your job and it won't be long until the fans and the commentators start criticising you.

[00:27:43] DANIEL: So therefore goalkeepers always jump, even though it is counterintuitive and counterproductive to actually do something. So doing nothing gives you better outcomes, while doing something actually leads to worse results, but the majority of us jump. And so I found that fascinating because the researchers [00:28:00] use this as an example of action bias, where people have this tendency to do something when they feel, particularly when they feel uncomfortable.

[00:28:08] DANIEL: Or when they feel like they're in pain, or where they feel like they're at risk, or like there's a fight flight response, they do something habitually because it makes them feel better, even though often doing something in those situations leads to worse outcomes. And so I think that that's a classic in terms of the midlife reset.

[00:28:26] DANIEL: That when you feel like you're in a career that you're comfortable with, but it's time to make a change. You have that niggling desire to change or something around you in your environment that's not career related is really pushing you to actually make some hard decisions. What we like to do is to just grab at some quick, easy solution.

[00:28:45] DANIEL: And yet I think the smart thing is to actively do nothing. And I say actively do nothing because it's not doing nothing. Like I said before, it's not just scrolling TikTok or watching movies or ignoring the problem. That won't solve the issue. If you think about a goalkeeper in a world [00:29:00] class game, they're looking forward, they're completely on alert, so they're active, but they look like they're doing nothing.

[00:29:08] DANIEL: And I think that is the posture that helps with a career reset. That make sense?

[00:29:13] MATT: I think so. I'm guessing that you would not equate actively doing nothing with being passive, correct?

[00:29:19] DANIEL: No, so I don't equate it to being passive. In fact, I think to actually make it through a successful career reset, you have to consistently do it.

[00:29:27] DANIEL: Take the next step and take the next step, which I do teach in other areas, which we call way power or process thinking. So I still think you need to be making decisions, but the decisions you need to make are often slower, more considered, and that feel more like you're doing nothing. So maybe reflecting, pausing.

[00:29:45] DANIEL: So the types of activities I would do in a reset are typically to journal or to ask people questions about what they did, or to maybe have coffees with a number of people and kind of gather [00:30:00] information or to simply reflect on, you know, what are the key things in my life that have given me particular beliefs or values to kind of go deeper into the inner life.

[00:30:11] DANIEL: Yeah. To work out who am I and how am I wired and what am I really called to do? Because if you actually want to do something that really matters, you want to consider it deeply. So I'm just saying. Put yourself out there step by step, do small things, but it almost feels like the things that you're doing are to actively hold back from that compulsive need to fix the problem.

[00:30:32] MATT: So I'm probably not going to be reactive and I'm not going to be impulsive. I'm going to be more Considered.

[00:30:37] DANIEL: You know, when you find yourself in that uncomfortable place, hold that space and don't close it. And it's in the opening of that space and the doing nothing actively that you discover and detect the step that will guide you to, uh, that is the calling or the career I really want to take.

[00:30:54] MATT: Because there's something. in that discomfort that is going to shed light [00:31:00] and clarity on what I'm supposed to do next. Yeah.

[00:31:02] DANIEL: Particularly when it's uncomfortable, you know, there's a Loonick cartoon I love, um, Michael Loonick for Aussies, we all know him, but if you're listening from elsewhere, he writes these profound, profound, cartoon, some political, some life based.

[00:31:15] DANIEL: And there's just this picture of this person with their, like, their chest open. It's not too gruesome, but you see their heart. Uh, and, and the poem goes along the lines of, you know, if, if you find yourself in a place of pain and your heart is open and exposed, uh, well then leave it open, he says, let the cold air and the salty air kind of fill it, let a, let a stray dog lick it, let a bird sing a song into your heart, you know, and I think it's the same idea, you know, when you find yourself in that uncomfortable place, hold that space.

[00:31:45] DANIEL: And don't close it. And it's in the opening of that space and the doing nothing actively that you discover and detect the step that will guide you to, uh, that is the calling or the career I really want to take.

[00:31:58] MATT: Okay. Okay. So I'm not going to hold that [00:32:00] space because I'm a masochist or because I'm, I just want to be really stoic.

[00:32:04] MATT: I'm going to hold that space because there's something in that discomfort that is going to shed light and clarity on what the really good thing is, is, is that I'm supposed to do next.

[00:32:16] DANIEL: Yeah. Yeah. And if you, if you, if you find yourself in a pit and you leave it too quickly, you don't leave with the gold and, and it's about slowing down enough to then leave with something valuable, uh, a reflective, a hot moment that can guide the next season.

[00:32:31] DANIEL: And so I think that's a particularly important thing in the midlife squeeze. Yeah.

[00:32:35] MATT: A lot to process there, so we'll take 30 seconds now to have a, uh, ponder and reflect. I reckon like one thing it'd be worth turning over in our minds is, are we, again, at a stage of life where we want to be focusing on being, you know, really active with our deliberate practice, or are we at a stage where it'd actually be, yeah.

[00:32:55] MATT: Yeah. So just, just take the time to pause.[00:33:00]

[00:33:53] MATT: Okay. So Dan, you've spent like a fair bit of time again in this space of career reset, both personally, but also coaching other people through it. [00:34:00] Yeah. So really interesting, again, we've, we've gone through some concepts and some ideas, got like some, I guess some idea of the feel of this, but it'd be awesome, because this is what we promised people as well, to land on some, I guess, practical activities that, uh, that help us, again, actively do nothing.

[00:34:14] DANIEL: Look, it's a, it's a big space. I mean, you and I could do an entire season on the types of activities needed to reflect on your career and your reset. Uh, but look, maybe I'll give you some pointers. So, you know, I think doing personality profiling is super helpful. And I've mentioned this a few times. You know, the first one I ever did was, I think, um, Myers Briggs, which is super helpful.

[00:34:34] DANIEL: Helped me know about introversion and extroversion and perceiving and judging. And you know, that stuff was useful. I found CliftonStrengths super helpful, particularly for careers. It's my favourite tool by the Gallup organisation. It's well researched. Uh, so we do coaching in that space, but I think it's really helpful to know your top five themes or even your top 34 themes and how they relate to the work and life context.

[00:34:55] DANIEL: So take part in some well researched personality profiling [00:35:00] tools and let the data from who you are inform the types of choices you want to make in the future. So that's one thing. You've done that stuff as well, right?

[00:35:08] MATT: Yeah, yeah. Um, and again, like going back to, follow your heart, you know, you be, you be authentic.

[00:35:14] MATT: This is just like a great way to get it. Like you said, some actual, some hard data about who you are and to some degree, like what your heart actually looks like. So the only thing that I'd add to that is, um, is find some version of one of the assessments, a credible assessment that goes through like the big five personality scale.

[00:35:29] DANIEL: Yeah. That's the other one I'd definitely look at as well. Okay. So the second thing I think is core values is really useful. So, um, it's helpful to start to clarify what, uh, there's a number of, you know, value based exercises, but basically try to define what really makes you tick. So for me, it's things like, uh, physical exercise and hard work.

[00:35:47] DANIEL: Playfulness is a family value and a personal value you see to my business. Uh, you know, simplicity. community and faith. You know, they're the six that guide me. And so it's helpful to have a bit of a sense of how you tick [00:36:00] and that can guide your choices. Uh, similarly, I, I find it very helpful to write a personal mission statement or a mission mantra or some type of overriding document that describes, you I suppose, why you do what you do and, and what you truly contribute to the world.

[00:36:16] DANIEL: The first time I tackled that was after reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. Uh, but there's heaps of different books. I know that we've read one by Michael Hyatt, Michael Hyatt. Yeah. What was that called?

[00:36:28] MATT: The Life Plan.

[00:36:28] DANIEL: The Life Plan. That was good as well. The other one is Terry Walling and the leadership breakthrough work, I think based on the work

[00:36:36] MATT: Yeah. I want to say Dr. Robert Clinton. Dr. Robert Clinton. Or Bobby Clinton. Bobby Clinton. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:40] DANIEL: Yeah. Again, who looked at the different stages of leadership. And how to approach it. So, um, uh, if you go to spacemakers.au/lifeplan, you've got my chapter, which outlines this fantastic activity where you can go back through the different parts of your life and reflect on what are the good and bad points or the, the highs and lows, and then [00:37:00] put your life into chapters.

[00:37:02] DANIEL: And then determine what, uh, the life lessons that came out of each season of, or chapter of your life, and how might they guide the future. So again, there are a number of structured tools that you can use, and those kind of tools I think are very helpful.

[00:37:16] MATT: Definitely. You want templates, you want tools, you want just a foothold to be able to kind of dig in and start on this I reckon.

[00:37:21] DANIEL: Yeah. Uh, and the other one is more of that sort of, I'm starting to call it spiritual productivity. I know those two terms don't normally go together.

[00:37:28] MATT: Yeah, it makes me flinch.

[00:37:28] DANIEL: But I think there is a sense of the intuitive and of paying attention to the spiritual data in your life, which I call Kairos moments.

[00:37:37] DANIEL: Um, so basically those aha moments or those moments in time that are more significant than the TikTok or passing of time. The Greek word is kairos for time as opposed to the Greek word chronos, which is chronological TikTok time. So, uh, look, I've got a bunch of videos on YouTube on chronos and TikTok time and also kairos time.

[00:37:57] DANIEL: It's super helpful to determine how [00:38:00] to pay attention to the kairos moments and use the spiritual data in your life to make those aha moment decisions. So I don't think that's following your heart. It's using a process to pay attention to the intuitive parts of your life. And that's also a framework.

[00:38:16] MATT: And my guess would be that you'd be, you'd be suggesting that people like, whichever road or route they take with a bunch of these options, not all of them, but the majority of them can be done in company. Hmm. Yeah. So doing it as in maybe having these conversations, asking other people, again, people who know you and trust you, you know, you've got some history with.

[00:38:34] MATT: You know, who want the best for you, but will also give you honest, rigorous feedback. Yeah. Perhaps as well.

[00:38:41] DANIEL: Yeah. Well that's the last thing I would recommend. Find someone to talk to.

[00:38:44] MATT: Mm-Hmm.

[00:38:45] DANIEL: Because you won't work it out for yourself. Yeah. We are communal people. Mm-Hmm. And we need other people around us to guide us through our choices based on all that.

[00:38:53] MATT: So again, you actually undertaking most, if not all those activities, like, what do you do with the results of this stuff? You record it [00:39:00] somewhere? Is it written down? Like, you still got the tattoos? Like, where's, like, where's the stuff?

[00:39:02] DANIEL: I've tattooed it all across my body, man. Six, six core values. No, look, honestly, I, I, I don't think there's.

[00:39:11] DANIEL: a perfect template. You know, I think writing it down is helpful, but I don't think it's, I don't think it's about the document. Just like the values document that you have on a wall of an organisation, isn't the thing that makes the difference. It's about the conversations, the process, the buy in and the implementation of those ideas in your policies and everyday life.

[00:39:30] DANIEL: Right. So, but I think it's, it's helpful to write this stuff down, but essentially I think the process of deeply reflecting on it and doing it, semi regularly, particularly in periods of reset, lead you to a place where it just kind of shapes who you are.

[00:39:43] MATT: Yeah.

[00:39:44] DANIEL: And remember, you know, careers are zigzag. I don't know the future.

[00:39:48] DANIEL: Plans are helpful, but you want to hold them lightly. And I think the process of continually reflecting on your life, making space to think about what, what is meaningful in your life, what you value, what are your skills, how might you [00:40:00] contribute to the world, who might you love. All those conversations that you have with others and the reflections you have in your own life I think is part of what it means to be a space maker and to live an intentional life.

[00:40:18] DANIEL: Alright, so Matt, we finish with a practical exercise each week.

[00:40:20] MATT: We do.

[00:40:20] DANIEL: What would you recommend we do?

[00:40:21] MATT: Okay, so here's what we're going to recommend. If you're in the early adulthood. We'd like you to focus on building rare and valuable skills. So, we'd like you to identify someone in your area of professional expertise or your career, someone who you respect, someone who you think has a handle on what consists of these rare and valuable skills, and book a time with them to actually pick their brains about what they see as valuable.

[00:40:46] MATT: Has been the rare and valuable skills and how to go about deliberately practicing them. Mm-Hmm. So it's gonna be on you to initiate the contact to book in the time, maybe take them out, offer to buy the coffee or whatever it is, make it as easy for them as possible. 'cause they're [00:41:00] giving up something that's kind of rare and valuable as well to you their time.

[00:41:03] MATT: Mm-Hmm. And expertise.

[00:41:04] DANIEL: Yeah. So you're finding someone who's a bit older, wiser. Yeah. And actually asking them, yeah. What would I need to do? Yeah, to get your type of job. Yeah, that's right. You know, find someone in your relational world, someone that you know.

[00:41:14] MATT: Because ideally, they'd know at least something about you, because that's going to help them probably, you know, to tailor the advice a little bit as well.

[00:41:21] MATT: If you're a little bit older, so in that midlife squeeze, then maybe you are either on the precipice or perhaps actually mid life reset, then we're going to be encouraging you to go about making some space to actively do nothing that as we've heard can take place through a myriad of different ways.

[00:41:39] MATT: We're going to recommend either spend half an hour journaling. This is just journaling ways that you can actively do nothing. So it's almost like a brainstorming exercise. Getting it out of your head. Yeah, like a plan I suppose.

[00:41:50] DANIEL: Do you want to do like a personality assessment? Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to talk to someone?

[00:41:53] DANIEL: Do you need to have some more silence? Yeah. Do you need to get a coach? Yeah. Actually come up with some activities that [00:42:00] will lead you to the data you need. So will that be a trusted friend? Yeah. Or a paid coach? I mean, what would you recommend?

[00:42:06] MATT: Oh, well, look, I mean, first base for most of us, I think it'd be like a trusted friend.

[00:42:09] MATT: But one of the, one of the, um, the results of the discussion may be, you know what? I think, friend, you're actually in a good position where it'd be worth you spending the money to get a professional coach. Yeah. Okay.

[00:42:19] DANIEL: But find someone you trust who will authentically give you the responses you want. Yeah.

[00:42:22] DANIEL: Yeah.

[00:42:22] MATT: Yeah. That's right. That's right. Yes. Yes. So someone who knows you, someone who you know has got your back.

[00:42:27] DANIEL: So either journal for half an hour. Yeah. Or, catch up with someone and work out what your process will be, but essentially do something. So, thank you so much for joining this episode of The Spacemakers and learning more about the mid life reset.

[00:42:39] DANIEL: It's a big topic, I'm sure we could talk about it further in further seasons, but not next week because next week we're going to talk about the mid life money reset. We're going to talk about how the habits and practices of saving that set you up for the in the early years can actually hinder some of how you might want to enjoy life as you get older.

[00:42:59] DANIEL: So [00:43:00] when to flip from being a saver to a spender and how to shift your money mindset as the age and stage of life moves on. Uh, it's going to be a great episode. We can't wait to see you there. Uh, until next time, make space. See you everyone.

[00:43:15] PROMO V/O: The Spacemakers with Daniel Sih and Matt Bain.

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[00:43:25] DANIEL: If you've always wanted to work for yourself and want to fast track success, visit franchise.banjos.com.au and save 10 percent on franchise fees by mentioning Spacemakers.

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