One common piece of career advice is to “follow your heart”—that is, pursue what you love and chase your passions. While this may be great advice at 40, it can be downright misleading at 20, as what works in one season of life may not apply in the next.

In this episode, Daniel Sih and Matt Bain continue their exploration of career resets as the years go by. We’ll discuss the importance of building career capital through deliberate practice and the value of “actively doing nothing” to uncover your life’s meaning.

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[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.

[00:00:50] DANIEL: Hello everyone, welcome back to The Space Makers, 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, recognizing that the habits and practices that set you up for success in your 20s and 30s often hinder.

[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: 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.

[00:02:02] MATT: this

[00:02:02] MATT: 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 recognize 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?

[00:02:48] DANIEL: of

[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.

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

[00:03:45] MATT: Because it is something new, right? Yeah. And your identity

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

[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.

[00:04:46] 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.

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

[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.

[00:05:41] 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.

[00:06:19] 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?

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

[00:06:48] MATT: Yeah. So you

[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.

[00:07:08] 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.

[00:07:22] 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.

[00:08:02] 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,

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

[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.

[00:08:48] MATT: like a big adventure. Right. And what's the second bum steer then? 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.

[00:09:11] 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.

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

[00:09:56] DANIEL: can have. Is that right?

[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.

[00:11:02] 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

[00:11:09] DANIEL: you know, use your passions and emotions to make decisions? Yeah.

[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.

[00:11:52] 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.

[00:12:25] 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] MATT: practice it. 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.

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

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

[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.

[00:14:10] DANIEL: what I mean?

[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.

[00:14:43] 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.

[00:15:25] 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.

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

[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.

[00:16:35] MATT: Yes.

[00:16:39] MATT: Yeah.

[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.

[00:17:00] DANIEL: for

[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? Yeah, yeah,

[00:17:09] MATT: 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

[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.

[00:17:43] DANIEL: 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.

[00:18:18] 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.

[00:18:35] 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.

[00:18:54] DANIEL: 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.

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

[00:19:27] MATT: a lot of the bear. 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, synthesize it, and then spit it back out when it comes to say, essays or presentations.

[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.

[00:20:32] MATT: Yeah.

[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.

[00:21:27] 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.

[00:22:04] 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.

[00:22:52] MATT: 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.

[00:23:09] 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: 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: don't worry too much about the future.

[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.

[00:24:15] MATT: it.

[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.

[00:25:02] 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?

[00:25:48] 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.

[00:26:23] DANIEL: And so they analyzed 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.

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

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

[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 center, 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 criticizing you.

[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.

[00:28:45] 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.

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

[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.

[00:30:11] 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: I'm probably not going to be reactive and I'm not going to be impulsive. I'm going to be more Considered.

[00:30:54] 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.

[00:31:15] 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, We'll 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.

[00:31:58] 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.

[00:32:16] 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.

[00:32:35] 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.

[00:33:53] 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.

[00:34:34] 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 favorite tool by the Gallup organization. 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.

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

[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.

[00:36:16] 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] DANIEL: Plan. 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: I want to say Dr. Robert Clinton. Dr. Robert Clinton. Or Bobby Clinton. Bobby Clinton. Yeah. Yeah.

[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.

[00:37:21] 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. Yeah,

[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.

[00:37:57] 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.

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

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

[00:38:53] MATT: based on all that.

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

[00:39:30] 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.

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

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

[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.

[00:41:04] 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

[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.

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

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

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

[00:42:27] MATT: journal for half an hour. Yeah.

[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.

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

[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.

[00:43:47] PROMO V/O: Watch three free Email Ninja videos and start taking back control of your inbox today by signing up at emailninja. au. Until next time, make space.