[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: A special thank you to our amazing show sponsors, Bulk Nutrients, Banjo's Bakery Cafes and St Lukes.

[00:00:36] NARRATOR: The Space Makers with Daniel Sih and Matt Bain.

[00:00:40] DANIEL: Hey, welcome back everyone to the Spacemakers podcast, a podcast to help you think deeply about how you live and work in order to make space for what truly matters. And I'm super excited that we are here for our second season.

[00:00:54] DANIEL: I'm here with my good friend and fellow Spacemaker in crime, the one and only, Matt [00:01:00] Bain. Welcome.

[00:01:01] DANIEL: Hi Dan. Hi everyone. It's great to be back.

[00:01:04] DANIEL: Yeah, absolutely. And we talked last time about the fracturing of our attention, how to focus and how to think deeply about the way in which technology is shaping our attention, given the idea that what we give attention to actually shapes our reality and the quality of our life.

[00:01:21] DANIEL: But we're taking it up a notch. I believe so. Yeah. And we are going to talk about how to make space to navigate life's inevitable resets. It's a big topic. It's a topic that will impact many people's lives, whether you're in your twenties or thirties, forties, fifties, sixties. How's that for a catch all?

[00:01:38] DANIEL: Something for everyone. Yeah. Yeah. We really need this down. Haven't we Matt? But we're going to talk about what it looks like to recognize the difference in particular seasons of life, how the types of habits that work in one season may expand. not work so well for the next and how to understand some of the texture of what it looks like to live well as you get older.[00:02:00]

[00:02:00] DANIEL: I looked at you for that.

[00:02:01] MATT: Yeah, maybe a few more grades have appeared in between now and last season. It was a long 10 episodes.

[00:02:10] DANIEL: Hey, so if you haven't joined us for the first season of the Space Makers, welcome to this episode. We're so grateful that you're with us. My name's Daniel Sih. I'm a productivity coach, a trainer.

[00:02:20] DANIEL: an expert in the space of time management, work life balance and aspects of digital overuse. I've written a number of books, Spacemaker and Raising Tech Healthy Humans, which have won both book awards and audiobook awards, but they're about how to think deeply about the way you live, how to make space for what truly matters.

[00:02:38] DANIEL: Yeah, and part of that is, is what we're going to talk about in this season, but tell me about yourself, Matt.

[00:02:43] MATT: Yeah. So my name is Matt. I also work for Spacemakers. I've been coaching there for probably getting on close to, I worked out 10 years, a whole decade of my life.

[00:02:49] MATT: Yeah. Um, we're getting older, Matt.

[00:02:51] MATT: Yeah, we are. Yeah. It's like, you can't stop it. So I'm really interested in work in that particular, um, space. I've got a health background professionally. I'm a former social worker, [00:03:00] uh, like Dan. I'm also, um, a father got a couple of young kids and I'm now in this I guess you could call it, uh, without being in denial, middle aged, where, uh, this season's topic is really interesting to me and pertinent to me.

[00:03:12] MATT: Um, I haven't written a couple of bestselling books as yet, that's, they're still coming down the pipeline.

[00:03:16] DANIEL: Yeah. But actually pretty much everything I write is something I learned from you. So thanks Matt for letting me have the kudos. Thanks. Thanks for the rorty checks. Hang on. So let me introduce a fascinating research article that got you and I thinking about the importance of navigating life's inevitable resets, which is important for you, but hopefully our listeners as well.

[00:03:35] DANIEL: And there's this great set of studies by a social researcher called Laura Carstensen. And she wanted to know how people in different stages or ages of life might respond to the same series of questions, basically how we make decisions as we age. And so she interviewed a bunch of people in their twenties and their forties.

[00:03:53] DANIEL: and in their 70s and asked them the same set of questions. And I think the responses were fascinating. So [00:04:00] here's the set of questions. She said, if you were given 30 minutes to spend time with someone interesting, who would you choose to spend time with? And there were three options. The first option was to spend time with a famous author.

[00:04:10] DANIEL: author of a book you enjoyed. The second was a family member or close friend, and the third was a recent acquaintance, someone you were attracted to or had something in common with who you wanted to spend more time with. And what was interesting is when they compared the responses, young people split their responses across all three categories, but older people in their 70s.

[00:04:35] DANIEL: almost all drifted towards that one response. Can you guess what it was?

[00:04:39] MATT: Well, in all honesty, I can't call it a guess because I've read the research. So the 70 year old crew, like they were much more spending time with the people who they already had an emotional connection with.

[00:04:50] DANIEL: Yeah, absolutely. Which probably doesn't surprise you, but the researchers were asking, well, does this mean that young people are open to new ideas, that they're flexible and adaptive and older people, [00:05:00] for example, are stuck in their - but, but that's actually not what came out because in a second set of studies, they asked the same set of questions, but with a small caveat.

[00:05:09] DANIEL: For younger people, the caveat was this, they had half an hour before moving to another country to live, maybe for a long period of time. And for older people, the caveat was that they could guarantee 20 years of extended healthy life. And when they asked those questions, they found that younger people answered a lot like the older generation.

[00:05:29] DANIEL: But if they only had half an hour left before they moved cities, they would spend time with people they knew, friends and family, people they cared about. And the older people actually split their choices, just like the younger people in the first set of studies. If they had more time to live, then they would actually meet interesting authors and people that they found interesting and had things in common with.

[00:05:49] DANIEL: because they would have enough time and space to actually invest in those relationships. And so it seems to indicate that actually we make different types of life decisions and different types of life [00:06:00] choices based on how much time we feel we have left. I think that is a fascinating idea that we want to explore in depth, recognizing that our stages of life change our perspectives and what to do about that as we inevitably go through last resets.

[00:06:15] MATT: Yes. Cool. So what I think is valuable is going to depend on the horizon.

[00:06:19] DANIEL: The horizon. Yeah. Yeah. And, and also, you know, even our experiences of life, but the what works in one season won't actually work for the next for a whole lot of reasons.

[00:06:29] MATT: So this conversation makes me think about a couple of things. I, a blog post that you wrote, was it like last year or the year before?

[00:06:35] DANIEL: Probably like the year before, zoom in and zoom out.

[00:06:37] MATT: So this idea that again, we can almost artificially as a thought exercise, we can zoom in as in make our horizon short term, or we can zoom out and consider our lifespan long term. Yeah. Which is really interesting again, because that's like, it's handy to have that shift of perspective.

[00:06:53] DANIEL: And only humans can do that, right? The idea that we can put ourselves into a future scenario and then look back. back or think about the [00:07:00] immediacy of the moment. Sure.

[00:07:00] MATT: Yeah. Look, I've talked to my dog about it. He just doesn't get it. You know what I mean? It's strange, but he just doesn't seem to get it.

[00:07:05] MATT: He's always living in the moment. It's great. Yeah. He's always present. Maybe that's why dog years are like a lot longer. Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah. So it made me think of your blog post, but it also made me think of, cause this has been doing the rounds recently. All right. So, uh, Jerry Seinfeld's recent. So 2024, uh, commencement, uh, speech for Duke university.

[00:07:23] MATT: Hmm. Yeah. Big University Jukie guy, Jerry Seinfeld. Now you can contrast his big idea with the idea that was again, made famous by Steve Jobs all the way back, I think in 2004, 2005 with his Stanford commencement address.

[00:07:35] DANIEL: I have listened to that, everyone.

[00:07:36] MATT: Yeah, of course you have. You're like, you're a, you're a self help guy, like productivity guy.

[00:07:40] MATT: Of course. You probably got the tattoo somewhere. Right. So yeah. So, so Jobs's idea that was just like massive was that he talks about this quote that he read. And I think he was around 50 at the time of the commencement speech. Yeah. Yeah. Um, he references this idea that he came across 33 years early that stuck with him ever since a quote that he paraphrased, which is pretty much every day you should live as [00:08:00] if it was your last day, your last day.

[00:08:02] MATT: Yeah. Live every day as if you're lost. Okay. So you do the tattoo. Okay. Okay. That's great. So again, so that is very much an immediate short term, what, 24 hour horizon. Yeah. Okay. So, and he talked about how, again, he would like literally stand in the mirror and he like a lot of days and ask himself, is this my last day?

[00:08:19] MATT: Is this what I do? Is this how I spend my time? And if the answer was no, too many days in a row, it was a sign for him to be able to change focus. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:26] DANIEL: And it was an awesome speech, right? I mean, the crowd loved it.

[00:08:29] MATT: Crowd loved it. And the point is so salient that nothing brings clarity to life like the thought or realization of impending death.

[00:08:37] MATT: Yeah. And again, when he gave that speech, it was like literally he'd been diagnosed, I think only a year beforehand with pancreatic cancer, which again, at that stage they thought they'd treated. And he said in that speech, I hope that I live like another couple of decades.

[00:08:49] DANIEL: Yeah. But there's no doubt that once you've had an experience like that in your fifties, you've had cancer, you are actually starting to make decisions about what if the next.

[00:08:58] DANIEL: year might be my last. That's [00:09:00] right. And so your time horizon is shrunken and therefore it becomes a very pertinent question. Yes. That's right.

[00:09:04] MATT: So, so much wisdom there. Right. But again, I suppose what is important to remember for our purposes is that you've got a 50 year old guy who's just like at a genuine cancer scare and he's addressing a bunch of presumably like 20 somethings.

[00:09:15] DANIEL: Okay. So that was one of the critiques I had in my blog post, right? Yes. And the critique was that, well, that's fine for a 50 year old who's already at the top of his game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's left the legacy, he's got enough, obviously enough income to kind of provide for himself and his family and his children, his kids are grown up, and he doesn't have much time left because he's had a pancreatic scare.

[00:09:33] DANIEL: It makes perfect sense to shrink your horizons and live every day as if it's their last. But he was speaking to 20 year olds who had no idea about, you know, what it looked like to live in the, kind of the professional world. They didn't have accumulated assets. They probably had 50 or 60 years left or more of their life.

[00:09:54] DANIEL: And actually to live every day as if it's your last, to not delay gratification [00:10:00] to not put it, put aside, let's say savings for long term compound interest. Do you know what I mean? Like it's not necessarily wise advice for a 20 year old to actually live in the moment because they've got another 60 years to live and they need to consider that.

[00:10:14] MATT: Yeah.

[00:10:14] DANIEL: Which is where we relate to that Kasterson study.

[00:10:16] MATT: Yeah. Yeah. And also Seinfeld. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So in his commencement address, like he pretty much says you guys, cause you're only like in your twenties, he says, you know nothing about life and you know really nothing about yourselves. So like the last thing like that you want to do is kind of be stuck in this short term horizon perspective of just live every day like it's your last because you don't even really know what's important to you or important about life as yet.

[00:10:41] MATT: So his advice is like, try a whole bunch of stuff and try to be good at things and be fascinated again. So again, he, and he also says, interestingly enough, he said, I'm saying all this to you as a seventy year old and cause he's 70, believe it or not. And he's like, my life is done. I'm pretty much finished.

[00:10:58] MATT: Whereas in you guys are [00:11:00] just starting out. So he's like, at least tacitly acknowledging their difference in horizons and perspectives.

[00:11:05] DANIEL: Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong. So he was saying that we should try lots of different things, or at least be open to the idea that we don't know what life's going to look like.

[00:11:13] DANIEL: Yeah. But he wasn't saying, therefore, do nothing. He was saying, therefore, turn up, wasn't he? He was saying, yeah, work hard. Work hard, show up. And even if your job kind of sucks, learn something through that experience. Yeah. And as you do so, you, you'll start to experience all the other opportunities that might come over a 60 year horizon.

[00:11:31] DANIEL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's different perspectives to shape your worldview. Yeah. That's good. So I suppose what we're saying, Matt, in all of this is, uh, the amount of time you have left, or at least the amount of time you think you have left, will actually shape your decisions and horizons. And we actually need to be able to consider this in the landscape of life, particularly as we navigate our twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, et cetera.

[00:11:52] MATT: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, looking at the science of change.

[00:11:59] DANIEL: [00:12:00] So look, these ideas are great in theory. You know, you get older, you have to make different decisions than when you're younger. But you and I are really interested in this from a personal perspective, you know, largely because we're in our, what sociologists might say, the midlife slump or the midlife squeeze.

[00:12:12] DANIEL: Yeah, that's it. Uh, you know, where we've got, you know, pressures with older parents, we've got pressures with teens and younger kids, we've got pressures with work and, and, you know, finances, you know, where we have to plan for the future, but also deal with the present. But also, you know, both you and I've had experiences in life.

[00:12:28] DANIEL: where we've had some setbacks and disappointments, uh, some sadness or maybe even, you know, suffering in a kind of a small S perspective. And that has shaped some of why we think it's so important to think about our midlife and how to make a good transition. Yeah. But I thought it'd be good to share some of maybe my recent story.

[00:12:46] DANIEL: I've had a number of big resets over my life. You know, my new career as a physiotherapist, a big reset when I nearly burnt out in my thirties. But the one I haven't actually shared with anyone or almost anyone is probably the more recent reset from a few years ago, but it's the one most pertinent [00:13:00] for this podcast.

[00:13:00] DANIEL: And so, I mean, I might start with a few years ago. It was about two and a half years ago now. I had three weeks where I went off to the East coast of Tasmania by myself. I hired a little kind of wooden shack with an outdoor bath that you heat up with a wood fire heater by the beach. And I spent three weeks in solitude and almost silence, basically walking up and down the beach, reading books and thinking deeply about my life, where I was heading and processing some of the stuff that had happened so far.

[00:13:32] DANIEL: Uh, so I thought I might share some of that experience, how I got there. So for a bit of context, it's probably two big pieces, uh, a career piece and maybe a pain piece. From a career perspective, I'd, I'd, you know, I'd been a physiotherapist and then I'd started a small business and then I'd ended up working in church ministry, leading a small church.

[00:13:50] DANIEL: And for about a decade, I'd been juggling these two careers in particular, you know, leading a church community and trying to build a small business. Both are about part time, [00:14:00] but you know, as you know, leading organizations like a business or a community isn't really a part time job.

[00:14:04] MATT: And that was the last time you did anything part time anyway.

[00:14:07] DANIEL: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I needed some space ironically as the space maker, but I navigated it pretty well in my thirties. Like I found it worked really well. I'm obviously organized. I have productivity skills. I know how to box my time and to carve out space for health and personal wellbeing and family.

[00:14:24] DANIEL: So, you know, it worked well, but it kind of hit my forties and I just got tired. And I just felt increasingly unhappy with both the idea that I had these two very random careers that seemed to be very disjointed and disconnected, not skill wise, but in terms of what I had to read and learn to stay on top of stuff.

[00:14:42] DANIEL: Uh, and just things weren't working well in either, you know, business wasn't really thriving, church was struggling, and I just felt like a lot of it was where I was at. And for years, I just felt like I'd like to do one thing, but I didn't. But I don't know. I just felt stuck. I didn't know what one thing that could [00:15:00] be and it felt painful to let go of either one given I'd invested a lot into it.

[00:15:04] DANIEL: Yeah. And so partly, after a number of years of wrestling and, uh, having coaching and getting to the realization that I had to make a decision, I thought, well, I'll book this sabbatical or this long service leave, I was going to have four weeks of silence and then head away for a few weeks with my family, uh, and just do fun stuff.

[00:15:24] DANIEL: And then, you know, just mooch around the house and do gardening for the last bit of my sabbatical or long service. So that's where I got to. A lot of people wrestle with what comes next and sometimes it's helpful to take some time out.

[00:15:36] MATT: Yeah. That's great. So again, just so I've got it clear in my head, you transitioned from the late thirties.

[00:15:40] MATT: This is now early forties.

[00:15:41] DANIEL: Yeah. Early forties. Yeah. I'm not a sharp. Yeah. Yeah. Life's super busy and stressful. I thought having young kids would be difficult, but actually teens is another level of complexity and just, it requires, you know, you, you need to be present and there's a whole lot of stuff that happens in your forties, which is hard.

[00:15:55] DANIEL: Uh, yeah. So that, that was that. But then at the same time, there was this other piece, we [00:16:00] moved to Tasmania, um, and I think 18 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

[00:16:02] MATT: 2005, roughly 2004, 2005.

[00:16:04] DANIEL: You remember when I moved to Tasmania?

[00:16:05] MATT: I do. Cause funnily enough, and I think it was just coincidence, but I left the country when you came in.

[00:16:13] DANIEL: Oh, the world was a better place. Yeah. So about the time I met you, I met Michael and Julie when I came to Tasmania and they became really good friends. That's when we met. Dr. Julia Vidal in our first season when she spoke about tinnitus and learning to hear noise in the silence. And look, they had similar values.

[00:16:29] DANIEL: They had one baby. We hadn't had kids at the time and we just got along well in terms of life and dreaming. But we started to dream big about what it might look like to create a sense of community. Because one of the things that I've always cared about is breaking down the barriers of kind of relationships and people in our ultra consumptive individualized world and they had the same types of ideas that wouldn't it be good if we could actually live a life where we opened our homes, we opened our fridges, our tables, our lives to our [00:17:00] neighbours, to each other and actually create a sense of kind of community - not like a commune in that traditional sense but at the same time we wanted to have a community, a more open life.

[00:17:11] DANIEL: Yeah. And so that's what we did. We bought land, uh, after a few years, we bought land together, we built two houses. So Mick was an architect and designed the houses. And we got like this crazy building contract where we had one big house loan with four people on the same loan. And we manually worked at how much we spent and eventually built two houses, Strata titled it and ended up with a shared deck, a shared barbecue area, trampolines, gardens, you know, chickens, our own houses.

[00:17:42] DANIEL: And, and it was a great project. You can imagine it took a while to get there. Yeah. But we learned a lot about each other in the process and we ate together at least once a week for the next 15 years.

[00:17:52] MATT: You had kids, they had more kids. Yeah. Yeah. That's great.

[00:17:55] DANIEL: So between us we had six kids and it's been an amazing experience to learn to navigate [00:18:00] life so closely with other people, to have our own space, but also to navigate space, uh, to even navigate decisions like both.

[00:18:07] DANIEL: If our kids are going to go one to school, then we should all send our kids to the same school just because it practically makes sense from a transport and uniform perspective. But anyway, needless to say, I became really close friends that Mick and Jill's more like family than friends. Uh, but I got a knock on the door, uh, a few years ago.

[00:18:25] DANIEL: Pounding on the door was one of my neighbours, and, you know, they basically said, Mick's collapsed, he was healthy one moment, and then he had a massive heart attack. And, you know, my wife and I are medically trained, so we went down there and we tried to resus him for about 10 15 minutes until the paramedics came, but he passed away.

[00:18:44] DANIEL: Obviously, leaving behind Jules and the kids, um, but, you know, he left a big hole in our life as well.

[00:18:50] MATT: Um, well, I'm probably just worth noting, he was only fifty two, fifty two, and a seemingly fit fifty two. Yeah.

[00:18:58] DANIEL: Yeah. So, so it was a real, [00:19:00] it was a real shock, but it happened three days before my long service.

[00:19:05] MATT: I remember, man.

[00:19:07] DANIEL: And so I had this, you know, but intersection of two things happening on the one hand, I knew it, I knew I was in the middle of a reset and I knew that something had to change in terms of how I made decisions around my career and my life and, and I felt unhappy and stale. And then I had a whole lot of mess, uh, which was really complex.

[00:19:28] DANIEL: So I didn't go away straight away. But after about a month, my wife said to me, you know what, we're going to be unhappy for a while and life's going to be painful for everyone. It's not going to be more painful if you head away. So why don't you go and take three weeks of silence and have that solitude you wanted?

[00:19:47] DANIEL: Because I felt like I just needed a breath of silence just to think clearly and to get my head into that space. And it's actually the last thing I wanted to do now, because when you're grieving, it's not necessarily a great idea [00:20:00] to be alone. But I did. And it was an amazing experience. It was hard. But I'm so grateful.

[00:20:08] DANIEL: Uh, yeah, so I walked on the beach, lots, for hours and hours every day. I read a stack of books. And what's fascinating is I already had a stack of books that I'd purchased, like I'm a physical book type guy. Can't quite go with the kindle. I can for fiction, but not for non fiction. And, uh, the, the books I'd already bought were all about the midlife slump, about what happens in your 40s and 50s in terms of the happiness dip, what happens with career changes, uh, how do you rethink money, how do you rethink friendships, and how do you rethink career changes because I thought I'd be thinking about a career change, but I didn't spend any of that time thinking about career changes.

[00:20:47] DANIEL: I just started to think about my life and I just started to reflect on what it meant to be rather than do. And I just processed grief, but all the books actually were perfect because the big message I got out of [00:21:00] reading books like Second Mountain by David Brooks and, uh, Falling Upward by Richard Rohr and, you know, a whole lot of books in that kind of space.

[00:21:08] DANIEL: The big message was that. Um, the second transition in life is often one that happens through sadness and suffering and it's in the letting go of what you've known in the past where you actually discover yourself. Yeah. And, and a lot of us suffer in different ways. We'll experience physical pain or illness or the death of, you know, a family member.

[00:21:29] DANIEL: Like we'll experience maybe a loss in career and just true disappointment in terms of not being able to actually achieve the things we'd hoped for. But somewhere along the line, in your forties, fifties, sixties. Suffering and struggle is going to hit you and actually all the research seems to indicate that that is what will teach you more in life in your midlife slump than success.

[00:21:53] DANIEL: In fact, one quote that I read said that success has very little to teach you in your forties and fifties. It has a lot to teach you in your [00:22:00] twenties and thirties, uh, when you're building a container, when you're getting a sense of ego, when you need some success and some wins. But in your later life, it's actually learning to let go, learning to be, learning to recalibrate some of what you thought was so important, and now isn't so important, and actually prepares you for a better, more joyful type of life, but a sober happiness, as Parker Palmer says, a happiness that's walked through some suffering or some sadness, but on the other side is actually more joyful than you had before.

[00:22:34] DANIEL: So it's like a forced evolution. It's a forced evolution. And it's actually, and it's the evolution I think, uh, there's lots of research that suggests around the fifties is when, you know, our ancestors would have actually been grandparents, right? And we didn't live as long. And so I think around the, you know, the 40s to 60s is when we actually would transition from being producers to grandparents, from doers to givers.

[00:22:59] DANIEL: And I think [00:23:00] there's physiological changes, like not, I think there is, there are physiological changes that happen in your midlife slump that are part of this important transition. And we'll talk about some of the science of that as we move through the series.

[00:23:11] MATT: Yeah. So going back to your story, so what eventually I did.

[00:23:15] DANIEL: Yeah. So I would love to say there was this like, you know, before and after like those photos because the funny thing is I'm still in my forties, right? Which means as opposed to let's say my seventies, okay. And that means I still have to save for my mortgage and my retirement. I still have crazy responsibilities with kids and teenagers.

[00:23:34] DANIEL: I'm still trying to kick goals in my career and make sure that, you know, my business grows. So I've got this kind of busy activity that I still have to do, which is often what I,what marks the earlier years, and yet I'm running out of time, and I'm also aware that I need to let go, and I'm also aware that there's a spiritual life, a relational life, uh, things that involve living in the moment that I don't want to miss in the business of it all, which is why it's so tough.

[00:23:59] DANIEL: So [00:24:00] things definitely change, but they're probably internal things, and now I'm still wrestling with how do I actually live this out? Yeah. In the every day, the everydayness of being a very busy professional with kids. Does that make sense?

[00:24:12] MATT: Oh, yeah. Like completely because you can't afford to live every day like it's your last on the one hand.

[00:24:17] MATT: Yeah. At the same time, you've had a very real and undeniable experience where a peer of yours who's only like, who was only like a little bit older, um, Yeah. Like that day was his last and it came on so suddenly. So it makes sense to me that you find yourself experiencing the tension of those two horizons.

[00:24:32] MATT: Definitely. Like living within the reality of those two horizons.

[00:24:34] DANIEL: Definitely. And even the experience of having slowed down and made so much space, I want to hold that, but I'm also very busy. And so, yeah, I left that experience wanting to commit to more time with family, more time with my neighbours, so to invest more time actually in people who are close to me.

[00:24:53] DANIEL: So there was a commitment to locality, to being in a particular place, to embody myself in a community, [00:25:00] uh, that came out of that. I changed careers, so I ended up eventually, becoming a full time businessman and now I just do space makers, which I love and it's been an amazing experience.

[00:25:08] MATT: One thing, not two.

[00:25:09] DANIEL: And interestingly, uh, the book awards, the TED talks, the expanded podcast, and you know, the expanded reach of the business has all come after letting go of the idea of needing to succeed. Like there's this tension between the future and the, and the present and how do we navigate those life's resets based on the science.

[00:25:25] DANIEL: So this might be a good time to pause and reflect, because we like to have 30 seconds in our episodes to give you space to think about what you've heard, reflect on the content, and hopefully apply some of the ideas in your own life. So enjoy some space, think about something that might have stood out from our conversation so far, and even something you'd like to do about it.[00:26:00]

[00:26:36] DANIEL: Maybe this is where we introduce the big idea of the whole season. Yeah, great. Yeah, excellent. Okay. And you and I have spent a lot of time on this. Yeah. The big idea we want to explore in the second season of The Spacemakers is that the types of habits and practices that allow us to be successful in our energetic twenties and thirties actually hinder us from thriving and moving into our successful forties, [00:27:00] fifties and sixties.

[00:27:01] DANIEL: And therefore we actually need to learn to let go of things that actually worked at one stage of life. Yeah. Good things. Good things, important things that propelled us to success. We actually have to let go of those things. In order to relearn and experience the best of what comes next. And we actually have to do that a number of times.

[00:27:19] DANIEL: And that occurs in how we use our money. It occurs around happiness and health. It occurs around our relationships. It occurs around career changes, around productivity, around the inner life and spirituality. So we want to examine those topics based on the science and our experiences one episode at a time to help you work out in your 20s and 30s what might it look like to live a fruitful healthy life and to really succeed in one season and then what does it look like from the science to let go of a lot of those things and re imagine success so you can really thrive in your 40s, 50s, 60s.

[00:27:56] DANIEL: Making space to navigate life's inevitable resets.[00:28:00]

[00:28:05] DANIEL: So we're going to head towards the wrap up and we always finish with a practical personal challenge because it's what you do that counts. You can hear so much information, you can listen to so much stuff, but at the end of the day, it's, it's what you apply that will actually stick. And so we want to give you a few suggestions and we do this at the end of every episode.

[00:28:24] DANIEL: And so we're going to talk about one activity, which is about identifying what stage of life you're in and maybe how much time you have left. So it reminds me of a joke. You know, I'm a, I'm a dad. We need a good dad joke. And so, you know, the doctor rings the patient and says, oh, I've got some good news and some bad news.

[00:28:45] DANIEL: And the patient says, Oh, okay. Well, you know, give me the good news first. The doctor says, well, the good news is this. Okay. You have one day left to live. The patient's like, oh my gosh, that's the good news, what's the bad news? [00:29:00] And the doctor says, well, I've been trying to get to all day. It's the second or third time I've heard it still puts a smile on my face.

[00:29:09] DANIEL: This is why we're friends, Matt. You actually laugh at my dad jokes and you know, I believe you're genuine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a sincere, sincere before. Awesome. Well, I'll give that, you know, Caleb, I'll have to give credit to my son for teaching me that in the first place, but on a serious note, uh, we're going to look at what does it look like to work out how much time you have left because that will make an impact in how you shape your life.

[00:29:29] DANIEL: And so our practical challenge is to work out how much time you actually have left.

[00:29:34] MATT: Yeah, that's right. So the average lifespan for a Australian male is now 81 years old as of 2022. Average lifespan for an Australian female. 85. So four years difference there. Yeah. 81 versus 85. Okay.

[00:29:47] DANIEL: Yeah. And so look at how old you are.

[00:29:49] DANIEL: So I'm 46. Oh, my maths is terrible, Matt. I'm 46. And how, how old did you say? The average Australian is 81. 81. That's right. Ah, yeah, yeah, that's right. 46 to 81. Did [00:30:00] anyone help me? Hmm. 35. That gives me 35 years left and I better work on my Sudoku and my maths. So 35 years left. Yeah. So that's sobering and it helps you start to think about how you might want to use that time.

[00:30:15] DANIEL: Zooming in and zooming out.

[00:30:16] MATT: Yeah. That's right. That's right. So again, like we just, this exercise is just all about, I suppose, adjusting your horizon based on that figure to work out again. Who knows, but roughly speaking, how long you're likely to have left.

[00:30:26] DANIEL: And they won't all be good years necessarily. You know, it's pretty obvious that many of us have able years and then less capable years, and then obviously a few dependent years, most likely.

[00:30:35] DANIEL: There's also another assessment that you and I have both done, which we found very useful. I like that, that smile. So if you want to get even more scientific, instead of just going with a random life age, go to livingto100.com/calculator. The link is in the show notes. We like this. It's an American one, but it also has metrics so you can easily work out your weight and your height.

[00:30:56] DANIEL: And, uh, you'd asked you about alcohol. It asked you about whether you have [00:31:00] pets and asked you about your, your lifestyle and what you eat. Yeah. And then it actually spits out a number that. Yeah. It's scientifically valid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It gives you a bit of a sense of how long you might live. Yeah.

[00:31:10] DANIEL: Obviously, recognizing that there's huge variables in individual.

[00:31:13] MATT: Yeah. But like, to be fair, I think it's, it's backed by an insurance company. It's used by an insurance company. It was put together by an insurance company. So, they've got a financial stake in the game to make it accurate. Okay. Yeah. I think.

[00:31:22] DANIEL: I didn't know that.

[00:31:23] MATT: Okay. I'm pretty sure it's true. And so, drum roll, what did you come out as?

[00:31:27] DANIEL: No, you want to share first.

[00:31:28] MATT: Okay. Okay. Sure. Okay. I got. I got. I got. I got. I got. I got. I got. I got. I got. Uh, much to my surprise, 91, 91, there you go, 91, there you are, you're so impressed,

[00:31:38] DANIEL: You mean surprised.

[00:31:39] MATT: Well, maybe.

[00:31:41] DANIEL: Yeah, maybe. Well, I came out at 87 the first time when I did it two years ago, and now apparently I'm living to 92. Oh, get away. So I'm going to get to bury you now, which is kind of awesome. But it's almost like the more times you take the test, the better results you get.

[00:31:58] DANIEL: We were trying to work out why.

[00:31:59] DANIEL: And my [00:32:00] wife said, it's because you tick that we got a dog. And I'm like, no, please don't say it. Giving me a dog gave me another five years, but who knows. The point is though, if you really want to take this seriously. Do the test living to 100. com forward slash calculator. It gives you a sense of how much time you might have left.

[00:32:14] DANIEL: And then we're going to help you start to reflect on what do you do with that time and how do you, how might you make decisions both living every day as if it's your last and also planning for the next 35 years.

[00:32:24] MATT: Yeah. And further to that actually spits out recommendations as to what you can do to extend your lifespan as well.

[00:32:29] MATT: Yeah. So apparently I've yeah. Drink less coffee. That's what I say. Apparently I have to pat my pet more.

[00:32:35] DANIEL: So look, to finish the activity, just to be super clear, is you can, you can do this very simply. Spend 10 minutes, you know, book 10 minutes or have 10 minutes of quiet just to think about what you've heard in this podcast.

[00:32:47] DANIEL: And what we'd like you to do is, you know, take those average ages, 81 and 85 years old and minus your age and then reflect on how much time's left. It could be as simple as that. Or if you want to go a bit deeper, look up [00:33:00] the link and actually do your age calculator and then start to reflect on what do the results mean for you and how might it shape your current stage and what might come next.

[00:33:08] MATT: Look, I'll admit it was a slightly challenging as I was a little bit apprehensive about it, but it was a worthwhile exercise doing that calculator. Cool. Especially since you're living one year less than me. Well, that's, that was just my first time around. Like next time I take it, I'll be 102. Nah, I'll, I'll be 93.

[00:33:24] MATT: I'll be 93. Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the recommendations was stop doing so many podcasts.

[00:33:31] DANIEL: So that's our first episode of the second season of the Spacemakers podcast. Look, if you've enjoyed either the first season or this episode, we would really, really like you to leave a review. It is super helpful as a new podcast to get reviews.

[00:33:46] DANIEL: It also helps us find out what you enjoy about the show. At the same time, we would love you to contact us directly. It's been so encouraging, particularly last season when people told us what they were doing and what they liked. We heard stories about people taking up yoga and doing yoga. [00:34:00] People spending more time with friends and families, you know, people disconnecting from social media.

[00:34:05] DANIEL: I mean, it's been so encouraging to hear people make space in their life based on the podcast and to ask questions. So email us at [email protected]. Matt and I read every email, we respond, it would be great to hear from you and to find out what questions you have and what you've found useful.

[00:34:24] MATT: Cool. So, Dan, really, really looking forward to next episode next week. So what we're going to do is look at the three life stages that we're going to argue based on research and data, everyone goes through one way or the other. So the three life stages. So we'll be looking at entering adulthood, which is between, we're going to argue between 20 to 40.

[00:34:43] MATT: Very good. And then we're going to look at, as Dan's already kind of hinted at, the classic middle life squeeze, which is 40 to 65. And then lastly, we'll be looking at again, what I think we've already talked about a little bit, um, the second mountain period, which is really from 65, [00:35:00] 66, 65 onwards, onwards.

[00:35:02] MATT: Yeah. So we'll be unpacking what is entailed in each of those three stages of life.

[00:35:07] DANIEL: Yeah. And I'm really looking forward to finding out about that framework and then pinning our habits and the idea that, uh, what do you need to do at different stages in order to live a successful life and to make space to navigate life's inevitable reset.

[00:35:21] MATT: That's good. Yeah. That's good. Cause again, I've just said that everyone's going to go through those phases. Not everyone is going to go through them well.

[00:35:27] DANIEL: Absolutely. But thank you again for joining us on the Spacemakers podcast and until next time, make space.

[00:35:35] NARRATOR: The Spacemakers with Daniel Sih and Matt Bain.

[00:35:38] DANIEL: A special thank you to our amazing show sponsors, Bulk Nutrients, Banjo's Bakery Cafes and St Lukes. Amazing companies from my beautiful home state of Tasmania, the island of creativity, and of course, space making.

[00:35:53] NARRATOR: If you like this podcast, you'll love our Spacemakers YouTube channel, full of content on productivity, life [00:36:00] wisdom, and everyday spirituality.

[00:36:02] NARRATOR: It's practical, interesting, and a little playful. Until next time, make space.