Research clearly demonstrates that age plays a significant role in determining our happiness. Generally, we start and end our lives feeling happier, with a noticeable dip during our mid-40s and 50s. It's common in mid-life to feel dissatisfied and to grapple with regret, questioning if there's more to life.

In this episode, Daniel and Matt unpack the science of the happiness curve, offering practical strategies to help you prepare for, and navigate this inevitable life reset.

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[00:00:29] DANIEL: Big thanks to our sponsor. Bulk Nutrients. Enjoy a 5% discount on protein powders and health supplements For orders over 45 dollars at bulknutrients.com au. Just enter the Code Space Makers,

[00:00:48] DANIEL: Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Space Makers, a podcast to help you think deeply about how you live and work and live an intentional life. Uh, my name's Daniel Sea and I'm here with my good friend, Matt Bain. Hi everyone. [00:01:00] Great to be here. Yeah. And we're talking about a big idea that the habits and practices that help us set up for success in our twenties and thirties are actually kind of intuitively the ones that often hinder us to really thrive later in life in our future.

[00:01:34] DANIEL: And look, we've been getting some great feedback from our last two episodes. And I really liked one of the emails that someone sent us. Amy. Uh, so thank you, Amy. She said, my life looks very different now in my 40s. When I was 20, I spent my time hanging around with Finnish rock stars, but now I wipe cat poo off my daughter's

[00:01:57] MATT: So I got to say when you first saw me that [00:02:00] before the show, it really stopped me in my tracks. You know, it blew me away. I was so surprised. I thought, man, like I've gone through this much of my life and there is such a thing as Finnish rock stars. That's amazing. Finnish rock stars. Is that like a Suga Ross or is that the band?

[00:02:16] DANIEL: I liked about that comment, it kind of summarized our entire show in like one line, you know? So how do you make the transition from hanging around from finish rock stars to wiping cat paws into all the shoes. All right. So moving on, but please, please keep emailing us your comments.

[00:02:39] MATT: Yeah. So based on the reading that we've done, and again, there seems to be like a lot of, a lot of overlap in terms of the stages, the ages.

[00:03:03] MATT: Hmm. The third. We've called the second mountain and that's from 65 onwards.

[00:03:20] DANIEL: And while they're broad, wide changes, you know, It's super helpful to have a sense of what stage of life you're in. Yeah. And also to have a sense of what, what's coming up next.

[00:03:31] DANIEL: Great. So give us a summary. What was it?

[00:03:34] MATT: Number one was identifying which of those three, three and a half slash four stages you're in right now. Number one. Number two was looking at, um, so we went through some pitfalls last week, so it was identifying What out of these common pitfalls do you think you're most at risk of being in or falling into?

[00:04:00] DANIEL: Yeah, that makes sense. And you and I had a really good conversation. We both reflected on this individually, but then you and I had a chat.

[00:04:27] DANIEL: The importance of investing in friends and not allowing old friends and close friends and even people that I'd like to be closer to as friends to, I don't know, fall off the radar. You in the squeeze of everyday life and what it might look like to put some more energy in my life into reconnecting with people.

[00:04:49] MATT: something similar.

[00:04:49] MATT: yeah. So, um, my life, uh, thankfully, um, and you know, it's a blessing. It's got very little to do with me is full of people, which is absolutely fantastic. You know, it's great family and friends, [00:05:00] but upon reflection, it's become clear to me. And while doing something like this podcast just makes it all the more kind of pertinent, right?

[00:05:27] MATT: They'll keep on loving me for decades going forward. So they're the ones again, but they're, they are also the most irreplaceable. Yeah,

[00:05:40] DANIEL: Excellent. I was thinking it would be great to. Basically, just make sure I catch up with someone every fortnight or even once a month for a coffee, you know, and, and just make sure there's space in my calendar to do that. It'd be great to have more time on the weekend with friends and do more family stuff, but at the very least I could catch up with kind of old friends and have lunch.

[00:06:01] MATT: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:05] MATT: Yeah. I, um, yeah. So looking at my calendar and trying to be realistic, cause you know, one thing that I really value about doing this with you is that I want to keep the lens always realistic and not naively idealistic.

[00:06:31] MATT: But that's just, again, that's not going to be happening. For all intents and purposes, so I need to structure something in. So I've, um, I've got this idea of wanting to, um, bake into the calendar. Like it'll be something like, you know, the first Saturday of every month, just booking the same venue, same time, inviting the same crew of old friends, um, along.

[00:06:52] DANIEL: this regular rhythm where you're catching up with people you care about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's just baked into your schedule.

[00:07:09] DANIEL: That sounds good. And look, if we announce the place and the time, uh, you might be able to meet lots and lots of new friends. Uh, but look, let's keep each other accountable through, uh, this interview. We're going to have a, an episode on friendship and what it looks like to really invest in friends and it might be good to be able to even come back and say, Hey, we did some of the stuff we said we do.

[00:07:34] DANIEL: All right. So let's get into the happiness research. I love this research. I didn't know about it a few years ago and I have found it super helpful. In fact, I was having a conversation with a friend and he was telling me, Oh look, the last five, six years have just. Felt like walking through mud. And he, he just gave a throwaway line.

[00:08:13] DANIEL: And he said, Oh, nearly 53. And I'm like, you know, the research that. Basically, you've gone through the bottom of the midlife slump and he's like, no. And we had a great conversation and he was like, Oh wow, I wish I knew this before. So um, so the, the happiness research has been popularized by a guy called Jonathan Rourke.

[00:08:50] DANIEL: So there's something embedded in the human experience, which is represented as what we call the happiness curve. And so imagine you're mapping a kind of a graph with life [00:09:00] satisfaction or happiness on the vertical axis and then the horizontal axis is your age. So how long you've lived for, uh, and imagine an upside down curve.

[00:09:42] DANIEL: If you put all the countries together, being that kind of smashing point of unhappiness just in 48. Yeah. I'm turning 47 very soon. Lucky me. I'm condolences. Yeah. I thought it was you making me depressed. It was my age. Um, I think I play my part, but, uh, [00:10:00] After that, and this is why we call it the paradox of aging, not just the happiness curve, is that people tend to get happier.

[00:10:30] DANIEL: It's really encouraging to know that actually as I get older, even if I get sicker and even if I lose some of my mobility, the research suggests I'm actually likely to be happier even than in my thirties. Yeah. Which I think is cool.

[00:10:45] MATT: So we're talking, I assume when we're talking about that slump, we're not talking about a midlife crisis, are we? Because from what I've read, like midlife crises, like proper. I guess full blown, they're only, I think they're only in about 10 percent of the population, people in midlife. Yeah. So there's [00:11:00] that.

[00:11:02] DANIEL: think of more the suboptimal responses that you and I talked about last time, like the avoidance responses or the denial responses that lead to the kind of behaviors that you might classify as a guy in their forties and fifties having that midlife crisis. So it depends on how you want to define it.

[00:11:21] MATT: Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. So the, um, So like the, the, the term, and I like, it's kind of fancy, it's a 10 word, but I like like the term that I've heard for it again. So slump is different from crisis. Slump is more like this almost, this almost, um, epidemic sense of ennui.

[00:11:53] DANIEL: But you're talking about the idea that, uh, in your midlife slump, and again, this is, this is what Jonathan Rourke would say. It's quite [00:12:00] common to feel dissatisfied in life without necessarily having any reason to be dissatisfied. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. That's good. Actually, what's interesting is in almost every country you see the same slump, except for Russia.

[00:12:23] MATT: good. I feel like we've just risked losing a whole segment of our audience, our global audience.

[00:12:29] DANIEL: a particular subsection of our audience. Uh, and, uh, So to summarise the happiness curve, life satisfaction or happiness starts to slowly decline after your 20s into your 30s. It slumps and you're at your kind of bottom of the dip in your late 40s, early 50s, and then you become happier.

[00:13:09] DANIEL: to the point now where young people are actually more unhappy, or at least as unhappy as people in the midlife slump. So you're not seeing a happiness curve anymore, or at least we're suspecting there may not be the same curve. But I don't think that changes the trajectory of the human condition. I think what that says is there's something going on in teens and Gen Z in terms of their mental health, their anxiety, their depression.

[00:14:04] DANIEL: Uh, I've written a lot about this in my book Raising Tech Healthy Humans, which really goes into it in great detail. Um, about why we should slow down with social media. Some tech with young kids, uh, particularly kids in primary school, preteens, uh, and particularly internet based technologies as opposed to like old fashioned television screens, because you need your kids to have a healthy brain, healthy social skills, and healthy mental health in order to be great in a tech economy as they get older.

[00:14:53] DANIEL: Particularly friendships. And in person community. Sure. Which we've talked about as a key predictor of happiness in all stages of life.

[00:15:18] DANIEL: Okay. So we've talked about the happiness slump and the midlife squeeze. Yeah. Before we dive into what do we do about it, it'd be good to just clarify what we mean by happiness because it's a bit of a loaded term. It's like, it's like the vibe.

[00:15:40] MATT: So you're right. It's like the vibe, I think, apart from the fact that as you hinted at before, it's, um, it's also something that was kind of nebulous. It's also been studied now. So it's, it's got like its own kind of branch of study, I suppose, in science, right? Which means that the, the, the term is often contested because they even fly for the person on the street.

[00:16:15] MATT: Okay. So they're not, it's not, you know, clear, hard and fast boundaries between the two, but still. So the first is usually a kind of term, this is the most recent. So this is like kind of common, almost vanilla understanding of happiness for most people. And you can call it hedonic. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So hedonic happiness right, is about how I feel subjectively, so it's gonna be largely caught up with my emotions or my affect.

[00:16:43] DANIEL: Mm.

[00:16:46] DANIEL: So you're saying basically

[00:16:50] DANIEL: You feel good. It is happiness based on a feeling.

[00:16:54] DANIEL: feel bad. Yeah. That's right.

[00:17:07] MATT: That's like that. You want to feel happy. You want to feel happy. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. But related to that is this other, and I'd say more kind of, um, I guess like long lived historical notion of what is meant by, um, happiness here. And if you really love the dynamic, you're going to love this one.

[00:17:36] DANIEL: is a Greek word.

[00:17:46] MATT: And he means more this in our. English language now, this would be more wellbeing. So it's more happiness is a sense of wellbeing, or it's a sense of happiness as fulfillment. So it's more about if you want this kind of happiness, then you [00:18:00] need to be living a good life and you need to be doing good things.

[00:18:22] MATT: If you've just gone and bought the new car, maybe, you know what I mean? Or you just got like the job promotion or you just eaten like a really delicious meal, but it's, it's more, you know, life can be hard sometimes. And even in these challenging circumstances, I can say that I've lived it. Well, I've done good things and I feel fulfilled and a sense of well being.

[00:18:58] DANIEL: Yeah, that's right. Because [00:19:00] bad things have happened. Whereas if your happiness is based on good living, And living according to your values, having a purpose in life, I assume contributing outside of yourself, so it's not about, it's not about yourself, but it's about how you give and how you contribute. If that's the frame for how you live, then happiness becomes a by product of that, even if things are happening that, aren't positive around, you can still have this deep sense of purpose and meaning.

[00:19:35] MATT: I think, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. And just like picking up super quick on something that you said donic happiness can be so easily associated with just the individual.

[00:19:59] MATT: So

[00:20:04] MATT: Yeah, that's right. And I don't like, these are hardly original ideas, right? Like, so there's a whole, that, that whole branch of, um, psychology, positive psychology has been, I suppose, like talking about this now for a, for a long time.

[00:20:30] MATT: So

[00:20:40] MATT: Mm.

[00:20:48] DANIEL: Yeah. Because it means, oh, if life's tough right now, it's actually part of the human experience. And it doesn't mean that as I get older, life's just gonna stay hard in all likelihood, because age is an independent variable of [00:21:00] happiness. Yes. Outside of all the other things. It's likely that life is going to get easier, but in this slump, we want to know how to deal with

[00:21:07] MATT: Yeah. Yeah. Love it. That's great. So a, you're not alone. Yeah. And B it's highly likely to get better.

[00:21:25] DANIEL: There's really nothing for me to be dissatisfied about. Like I've actually been, Got a lot of amazing things going for me. I'm so grateful. I've got an amazing wife, my family's healthy, you know, finances are okay. There's a stretch, but it's okay. You know, I love my job. So I'm healthy, you know, so many, so many things to actually be thankful about.

[00:22:01] DANIEL: But then on the inside, your, your inward experience actually feels quite different. And that's a very hard place to be, especially when I think, you know, people look at you as a leader and you should have it all together, but on the inside, you're just not okay. And I was at the gym the other day and there's all these signs up that say, it's okay not to be okay.

[00:22:48] DANIEL: Um, and last week I had a bunch of people over, we'd meet once a week for like a church house group type thing. And you know, someone said, Oh, who should we pray for? And I, my wife [00:23:00] looked at me and I'm like, okay, it would be great to have some prayer because I'm not that okay. And I was. Really encouraged by just being able to say that and have people understand.

[00:23:37] DANIEL: And I know I knew he was chasing me up because I'm not finding life that okay. And I think that's something that can help. through the midlife squeeze.

[00:23:57] MATT: Yeah. Well it's not just me. Yeah.

[00:24:00] MATT: find, you find this period life. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm. I'm a little bit older than you , and I found, I found, um, and you're gonna die earlier, gonna die like a year earlier, , uh, if the internet never gets it wrong. Yeah. Uh, so I have found like the last couple of years, uh, challenging.

[00:24:42] MATT: Yeah, you've had a

[00:24:45] MATT: but, and then like there's been also, so here's the big thing, right? So if you want to like the big kind of title, it's being, um, undeniably confronted with the fact that you, uh, now. An older person. Yeah. And that's confronting. And the catalyst for that was like, the [00:25:00] thing just made a stand out for me.

[00:25:19] MATT: And I think from my, you know, my half baked research, the creators, the showrunners actually kind of handpicked. The soundtrack, I mean, when I was reading like an article in a magazine about the bear and they mentioned the soundtrack, you know, and it started off the line with something like, and the soundtrack is really fantastic.

[00:25:48] MATT: Right. So I'm reading this going, yeah, that's great. It feels so validated. I like the soundtrack. This guy thinks he's trying that and then blah, blah, blah. And then the back half of the sentence was, you know, it's a great soundtrack. If you're into dad rock, [00:26:00] man. I've had even this ripped away from me. This has been taken away from me now.

[00:26:16] DANIEL: as you

[00:26:23] MATT: And so that like, and seriously, so with that, like comes all the stuff that we've talked about before. Like again, you know, um, there's the regret. So I, I can't, I can't, and I personally don't trust anyone who says they've gotten to our age and doesn't have any regrets. You haven't lived enough or you're not self aware enough.

[00:26:54] DANIEL: Yeah. Yeah. And look, I think for me, a lot of it is actually just practical stuff that every day I get up, I [00:27:00] make lunches, I clean dishes. And then I, you know, I'm squeezed for finances. I've got a crap load of emails and I'm always stretched for time teaching people about how to make space because that's just part of what it looks like to run a business.

[00:27:31] DANIEL: And certainly with women, you know, menopause is a massive change. The change is much more physiological and much more obvious. And so, you know, we can't really speak to that with expertise, but, um, but there's also changes in male physiology as well, particularly around the brain and hormones around that time as well.

[00:28:07] DANIEL: So we would love to give you a moment just to think about your own life. You know, you may be 20 or you may be 30 thinking, wow, you know, I'm so glad I'm not irrelevant like these guys, uh, but into dead rock one day you will be irrelevant. No, it's, uh, no, there's something in it for you. And obviously if you're struggling like we are, if you're not okay, or if you're just finding it, you know, a bit muddy or boggy to get through life, well then there might be relevance, uh, or you might be on the other side and experiencing a lot more happiness and thinking, Hey, I'm so glad that I'm not there anymore.

[00:29:57] MATT: Dan, let's go back and talk more about the [00:30:00] happiness curve and particularly like what, what can we do based on our own, I guess, experience, but also probably more importantly, like what we've read from people who've gone before us.

[00:30:14] DANIEL: Yeah. Uh, and look, the first one, uh, came from this quote that I read from Jonathan Rourke again from the Happiness Curve. Uh, he says, The midlife slump is completely normal and natural. Like teething or adolescence, it is a healthy, if sometimes painful transition, and it serves a purpose by equipping you for a new stage of life.

[00:30:48] DANIEL: There's, you know, there's nothing worse than feeling dissatisfied and concerned about the fact that you're. So, uh, the first thing that you and I came up with is we would encourage you to practice [00:31:00] acceptance and acceptance is simply firstly knowing that there's a happiness curve, but the second thing is just to accept that that's part of life and, and that there's a purpose to it.

[00:31:24] DANIEL: And I think the difference between you that quote from Rourke, you know, when your kids are teething, everyone knows they're teething.

[00:31:51] DANIEL: So the second thing we'd recommend outside of acceptance is to start reflecting on your bigger picture. So we said reflect on your why. Uh, and there's a great, I think, I [00:32:00] think this is part of the purpose of the period is to rethink what you value. Rethink what your imagination of your life should be, and maybe take a deeper dive into the inner life, even to reflect on your strengths, to reflect on, uh, your experiences of life and, and maybe even to reframe them for the future.

[00:32:26] DANIEL: Yeah. I do think you moved from being a kind of a producer and a doer where you're at the center of it and you're trying to, I don't know, change the world by yourself.

[00:32:41] MATT: Yeah.

[00:32:45] MATT: I think in psychology that the, the term that I use for this is generative. So you want to move like towards a generative mindset and perspective in life.

[00:33:12] DANIEL: That's interesting. And we're going to talk a bit more about the different intelligences next. week, which actually give you a bit of clues into why this is important from a physiological scientific makes

[00:33:22] DANIEL: Yeah. Okay, cool. So if you're in this place of feeling dissatisfied or having this internal churn of wanting to ask the bigger questions, my encouragement to you would be what David Allen says, give attention to what you're giving attention to.

[00:34:08] DANIEL: So those, those kinds of questions, they take time.

[00:34:24] MATT: Matamonia. Yeah. Not yet, but I'm going to try to coin one eventually. But this is for now, like the working title is like, uh, the paradox of middle aged self knowledge. And here it is, So I, I've now been around the block long enough to be really familiar with my faults, with my predispositions, you know, with, uh, with my biases, with my personality, temperament, like I've done all that stuff, you know, so I'm really, really self aware.

[00:35:02] MATT: Pretty snappy there. So when it comes to reflecting, I need to have at least one or two people in my life that have like an access all areas backstage pass, ask me anything who can come in and help me answer those questions honestly, for my sake.

[00:35:23] DANIEL: We are deluded. So therefore it's helpful to, uh, process with others. It's

[00:35:28] DANIEL: Yep. So look, if you're interested, we are big fans of CliftonStrengths. That is one small thing that you could do, which is a Gallup tool to help you reflect on what your top five strengths are or your top 34 strengths based on heaps and heaps and heaps of research.

[00:35:58] DANIEL: If you're interested, there's strengths based [00:36:00] coaching. There's kind of reset coaching that, or just again, talking to friends and, you know, asking them honest questions and having that type of authentic relationship that helps you walk through this period of life and actually get some gold out of it.

[00:36:40] DANIEL: So you have to, it's not that you can't feel happy. It's not that you can't have life satisfaction. It just, you have to work a bit harder at it to get the same effect, which is probably no different than like exercise. It's harder to get fit when you're 50 than it is when you're 20, but you can get

[00:36:54] DANIEL: You just have to approach it differently. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, Some of the clear things in the research, you know, sleep and [00:37:00] exercise help with happiness. Eat more vegetables, you know, have less sugar, eat a healthy diet. Drink less alcohol. It matters what you put in your body. Yes. And particularly when you're in midlife onwards.

[00:37:15] DANIEL: away with the stuff you used to. Yeah. So things change. Yeah. Uh, practice gratitude and thankfulness. That's one of the things I've really picked up over the last five years. Every day I write in my thankfulness journal, just I write three things I'm thankful for because I'm naturally more of a, you Glass half empty type of guy.

[00:37:36] MATT: And I've got to say, hearing it from you, I think lends more credibility to me. Cause you are a guy who's half empty as opposed to half full. So to hear that from you, that it works is great. Yeah. It means a lot. It's good.

[00:37:47] DANIEL: it, it works. I think when you practice the habit and when there's an internal desire and that there's wisdom to be happy rather than to complain all the time, like that was actually a mindset shift. That actually, I want to be a happy [00:38:00] person and I want to be positive because there's wisdom in that, rather than just critiquing everything.

[00:38:21] DANIEL: Uh, but yes, I agree with that. I think it's very helpful. Uh, and the last one though, is, uh, is examining the inner life, which is probably partly thankfulness and gratitude, prayer, meditation, taking the time to start to think about your inner journey, not just your outer journey. And we'll do a whole episode on this.

[00:38:48] MATT: No.

[00:38:58] MATT: Mm hmm.

[00:39:00] MATT: It is, and probably like for a bunch of our listeners, no surprise, it is social connection. I think that will be a surprise to a lot of people. You think so? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like we've been, you know, like we've been threatening to kind of pull back the curtain for the last couple of episodes now.

[00:39:13] DANIEL: that, but yeah, maybe not. I suppose when I open up, you know ABC. com. There's always articles about health, fitness, exercise, mindfulness. There's very rarely articles that say the number one thing you can do to make your life healthy and happy is to have a regular coffee with a friend.

[00:39:43] MATT: Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right.

[00:39:46] MATT: Yeah. So the most, as far as I know, rigorous, robust, verified study that supports this is again, the Harvard study of adult development that we referenced a couple of episodes ago, um, which again has been promoted in this book by, um, the director, I think, and co director of [00:40:00] the, of the study.

[00:40:03] MATT: Yeah.

[00:40:21] DANIEL: So if you're, let's say in your mid forties, you're struggling with, you know, relationships, you're, you're time poor, you know, all the stuff we're talking about, the number one thing you can do to set yourself up for a great life is to start investing in regular meaningful relationships with a fairly wide group of people.

[00:40:39] MATT: Yes. So it has to go beyond your immediate family. Yeah. And

[00:40:49] DANIEL: She's a social neuroscientist, which I reckon is a cool term. And she looked at the randomized control studies and the systematic reviews, uh, and she summarized it. all the [00:41:00] happiness research and longevity research with this pithy quote that neglecting to keep in close contact with people who are important to you is at least as dangerous to your health as a pack a day cigarette habit, hypertension, or obesity.

[00:41:28] DANIEL: Having exercise therapy after a heart attack will help you live longer. But the number one and the number two things are wide social relationships and deep connections with people you love. They're the ones that matter more. So, therefore, it's a simple message, but it's a hard message, and we're going to explore this more in the friendship episode.

[00:41:51] DANIEL: as you're doing your diabetes exercises at the same time. Okay, cool. Um, so, if you're in the happiness slump, we've said practice acceptance, reflect on your why, do the types of [00:42:00] things that will invest in your happiness, particularly, reconnect with and build meaningful friendships.

[00:42:28] DANIEL: And eventually you'll start to feel happier according to the research.

[00:42:32] DANIEL: So we've talked about heaps of stuff. Hopefully this has been a useful episode looking at the science and some of our experiences, but we always like to finish the Space Makers podcast with a practical activity because it's what you do for a living.

[00:42:50] MATT: to help you if you're approaching it. So we've got not one but two. So the first one, so this is for you if you're like in your 20s and 30s right so and um and we talked about this we want this to be almost a [00:43:00] preventative. I would put money on the fact that you've got people in your life that you know you are at risk of, um, neglecting or having kind of just drop out, yeah, drop out.

[00:43:34] MATT: One of the, uh, one of the risks, common risks for, um, um, entering adulthood. So that 20 to kind of, you know, 30 up to 40. age range is that you can be so understandably preoccupied with building your career, doing well at that, that you neglect close friendships,

[00:43:52] DANIEL: You miss the broader community. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's for the twenties and thirties. Tell me about what we recommend for the old farts like you and I. Yeah. Yeah. So again,

[00:44:06] MATT: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this is about not so much a preventative measure, but more about, or, um, more about reconnecting. So start a podcast with a friend. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. If you've got the drive, yeah. Start a podcast with a friend. Um, so I want you to think about someone who you haven't seen for ages, but, um, and usually if you're like me, you haven't seen them for ages, but they're just going through your head.

[00:44:37] MATT: We should grab a coffee sometime, but it doesn't ever go any further than that. We're asking you to be more intentional and specific about doing that. Yeah. So actually make it happen. So again, pull out the calendar, you know, like give them a call, text them, and then book something in that's face to face.

[00:44:53] DANIEL: So the only difference is we're saying if you're in your twenties and thirties, we'd really encourage you to book a rhythm. So have a higher [00:45:00] bar and actually. build in patterns in your life, that's still a great idea in your forties and fifties. But if you're in your forties and fifties and you're feeling like you're really super stretched and you just haven't connected at all, then at least phone a friend and book a time to have a coffee or a walk or something.

[00:45:40] DANIEL: If you have a mini plan, Even if it's for like, let's call them and book a time a month in the future, it's likely that something will happen. We would love to hear listeners email us at podcast at spacemakers. au and say, Hey, I did it. We find that really encouraging. Even in the last series, people photoed [00:46:00] sticky notes and showed us what they were going to do.

[00:46:20] DANIEL: And then when you hit your 40s and 50s, it's great to say no to a lot of things. and to be selective in your swing and how do we make that transition to learn to say no for a greater yes. In the meantime feel free to check out spacemakers. au forward slash strengths if you're interested in strengths coaching or reset coaching and at the same time we also have a link in the show notes spacemakers.

[00:46:57] MATT: Or if you're not feeling happy, don't worry about it so [00:47:00] much if you're in the midlife slump, okay? It's perfectly normal.

[00:47:06] NARRATOR: The Spacemakers with Daniel Sih and Matt Bain.

[00:47:20] NARRATOR: Looking for a speaker at your next big event?

[00:47:40] NARRATOR: Until next time, make space.