#94: How To Balance a Relationship and Busy Life + Expert Tips!

And what do we do when we have this kind of snapshot, this kind of moment of time? Each night we lie in bed and my wife was on Candy Crush and I'm like checking Gmail or do you know what I mean? And we're having a relationship with our phone rather than having pillow talk with each other, you know, and making love to the wrong device instead of a person, you know. Hey, thanks for coming. Welcome to the love shack.

Hey, welcome to the love shack. This is a little old place where we get to get together, explore fresh perspectives, eavesdrop on juicy conversations, and discover the things that really matter while having a little bit of fun along the way. This is episode nine, number 94, making space for the ones we love. We're going to have an incredible guest in the love shack with us today. I'll introduce him in a minute. But I. I also wanted to share with our listeners why it is that I have been so exc. And literally waited months to get Daniel here in the love shack with us today. It's because one of the greatest challenges we have in the work that we do is convincing couples that spending time together is a must do. We can teach you all kinds of principles and frameworks. We have conversation cards to help promote those conversations and the sharing of ourselves with each other. But it's always coming down to a place of, well, stay, Tom. I mean, I don't have the time. I'm too busy. I'm working late. You know, there's the kids, the shopping, the paying the bills, you know, the pleasing the boss, et cetera. I literally don't have any time. And the response I get back is, well, maybe I could carve out 15 minutes, you know, and to myself, I'm thinking, I'm going to take the 15 minutes for sure. You know, give me what you can. But I know inside my heart of hearts, it's going to take longer than 15 minutes. Especially when we've arrived at challenges and places in our relationships where we need to do, shall we say, a bit of rebuilding. And for this, how do we carve out that time? How do we prioritize my life, especially when it's unraveling with inside of myself, with inside of my lover, and with inside of my family. And it seems that we're almost forced to choose one or the other, right? It's either getting the bills paid, keeping a roof over our heads, or repairing the relationship and the connection that we once had as I feel it slowly drifting away. So when I came across our guest book, it really inspired me. And I immediately reached out to him and said, I've got to have you as a guest on our show because the principles and paradigms that he talks about, the one, why we've arrived where we are. Two, the principles and simple things that we can do to make more time and more importantly, finding the space inside of ourselves where our lives can be more of an enjoyable ride instead of a just run around. Hurry, hurry. You know, I can't get enough in. There's not enough of me to go around. As I collapse on my couch at the end of a day, exhausted and feeling more anxiety and more depressed than ever because the things that I know really matter to me in my heart are not in the forefront of my life. So without further ado, Daniel, Daniel C. He is here with us inside of the love shack. And let me give him a few little creds here before we let him say hello to us, if I May. He has 15 years of experience and probably maybe a year more now. It's more like probably 16, right, Daniel? 16 years of experience working with senior leadership. He is a strategic consultant and he does this role across Australia and the uk. He's also a trainer, a coach and a keynote speaker on the matter of making space. He's also, as I had mentioned, the author of an award winning book called Spacemaker, which I highly recommend you pick up. He released that in 2021. And for our listeners who are more on the relational side, I just want to point out that Daniel does indeed have a wife. Right? You still have her around, Daniel. She's still okay. Three kids. And as he mentioned in his book 18 chickens. And I just need to know, is that number like still 18? Have we had any babies? Any wolves? Get some of them. You still good with the 18 chickens?

Yeah, we're probably down to about 14, but you know, we do a bit of a regular annual turnover when they stop laying. So there you are.

Oh, their hands get penalized when they're not laying eggs. Huh? They turn into chicken dinner, they get.

Sick and you know, anyway, we try to care for my chooks.

Oh, that's great. He's also a co founder of Space Makers, which is an organization that helps corporations create space in their lives. And even though he does this for corporations, I know that our conversation today is going to help you in your own life make space for the ones that you love. So, Daniel, welcome to the show. I'd like our conversation to begin, if you're willing, with your own story about how you come to being the director of Spacemakers and writing your book. Because of our previous conversation prior to recording this show, I know you have a pretty incredible story about how this all came to be for you. So tell us about it, if you would. You know.

Thanks, Stacy. Look, I must admit, it was a little. A little bit like, by accident, as our stories tend to go. As I'm sure you know, I used to be a physiotherapist, which I think you might call a physical therapist in the States, and worked about 10 years treating patients and moving around from different places, working in hospital settings. And look, I never really felt like it was my calling. I felt like I was, you know, wearing a. The shoes on the wrong foot, maybe. But over time, I ended up in management, and I started to really enjoy working with people and thinking more broadly about culture and trying to help build teams and relationships and which. Which leads a lot more into the type of work I do now. But at the same time, I was really involved in my church community, and I was asked to chair the board and then step up and almost take a minister's role. And I had young kids, and I was building a house. You know, it's a complete disaster for work. Life balance, let's say. And I started to struggle. I started to experience breathing difficulties. So I was breathless when I was presenting to patients or clients. I started to be breathless when I was at the dinner table, and then even breathless just reading picture books to my young children. And that concerned me because I'm quite fit. So I went and did all these medical tests, and, you know, it came back, and I realized that this was anxiety. There was nothing wrong physically in that sense, but. And I didn't. It was unusual. I didn't feel anxious, but I was tired. I was overstretched, and my body was clearly saying, yep, that's enough time to think about how to make space in your life. And so I think my passion for helping people make space came out of that experience. I'm very thankful. I had another friend who had a similar lifestyle to me, and he went into complete burnout and had sick, you know, six years before he was in a place where he could even work again. And I could see myself heading that way. And I'm really thankful I saw that, actually. And so I got a mentor, and we had some hard conversations in our family, and we're like, what do we do? And over time, I started to explore this idea of, what does it look like to orientate your life more intentionally around patterns and rhythms, to Put the things in your life that really make sense and that matter. And for me, I love work, I adore what I do. And actually at that time I already had a hobby, business as well, so that was on the side as well. And that eventually became my full time business. After making some tough decisions about what to do with work and life, however, I ended up creating patterns and rhythms around deep rest, deep relationships and deep thought and putting those patterns or rhythms or routines into my calendar first individually and with others, my family and my community. And just saying work is going to have to fit around that. And that served me well and it started to create the genesis of thinking that eventually became a book about technology. Rhythms, not just life rhythms.

You know, how did you muster up the courage to do that? You know, because this is a, this is a place where I think logically as we're all running around feeling the stresses on our bodies emotionally and physically, that I'm, I'm over committed, I'm overextended. Finding the courage to say, okay, this is how I'm going to set my life up and I'm going to just force everything else to kind of work around that. I would see that personally as an act of tremendous courage to think that that was all going to like pan out and work out according to my structure. Right, because of our limited thinking. Right. Because there's this voice in the back of my head and I can hear my clients saying that too. Well, what if it doesn't work out, right? What if all of a sudden I can't pay the bills? I mean, this might be a great lifestyle for me, but we all know that, you know, surviving in our world takes hard work and commitment. We've got to do more and we've got to be productive. And it does seem to be this conversation of do more, do more. So I'm curious as to how you found the courage to just trust what you knew to be true in your heart, you know?

Yeah, that's a great question. And, and it's, it's probably a number, you know, it's a sequence or series of small decisions that over time, you know, over a decade have led to where I am now. And I continue to have to make those decisions. I like how you said that. It's, you know, I couldn't just pick a structure and have a plan plan and then implement it like I was a robot because it's not how life works. I'm a very faith oriented, spiritual person as well as a productivity structured plan person and a lot of my decisions come from that sense of intuition or what I would say, hearing from God or having a sense of what I meant to do next. So even the decision to leave physiotherapy, it was a tremendous one because you can create small patterns and rhythms in your life, but if you're working 70 hours a week split between three jobs, well, then it's not going to work. So sometimes we actually need to have the hard decisions. And I knew I had to make a call for my health and my family's health about what job to do. But that was really scary because I had a mortgage, I had some young kids. My physiotherapy career was a career, you know, years of investment. I'd gone up to management, and there were plenty of opportunities to keep going. But I looked up and I just knew that it would just kill me because it would be a lot of paperwork and a lot of bureaucratic processes. And I'm a very creative person. And I kind of knew my time had come to an end in terms of that career pathway. And I was passionate about serving my church. And yet that didn't pay much. I got about a day, maybe a day and a half of fairly low pay. And my business, for the first, I think, 18 months, we, with all the profit from our business, we took our wives out as a partnership for one meal. And it wasn't even that expensive. So, you know, we certainly weren't going to live on my business the way it was. And so I was really torn because I had this passion project which was now, which was space makers and these passion passions in my life. And yet in reality, I had to earn an income. And there was one. I would say it's a spiritual moment, like in our heart moment, where I was talking to my boss. Well, she came to me in physiotherapy and said, I can see your heart's not in this anymore like it was. And I can see that things are moving for you. And I know that you've been breathless, you've had time off. We want to keep you because we love what you offer. What if we were to offer you a day, a week, whenever you want it, you know, permanent. You can just do whatever you want, pretty much create your own job description. And then she said, that way you'll be safe and secure if things don't work out with business and church. And it was really beautiful. But I had this visceral gut reaction, which was a spiritual thing. And I'm like, I don't want to be safe. And I don't want to shape my life around being fearful. And I knew that the only reason I would stay as a physio is because I was too scared. It was the golden cage, you know, I was too scared to leave the money and to take a risk. And it gave me the opposite response. I just realized I had to resign, otherwise I would always be drawn back to this really comfortable and safe profession that I was good at. So I actually made a decision that day to resign. And then about a week later, I spoke to a businessman who I really respected and he'd made lots of money and he was in a consulting field, which is a bit like what I do now. And I said, hey Pete, we're at dinner. And I said, pete, I made a decision. I'm going to leave physio and dive straight into almost full time business with a bit of church work. And he looked at me straight in the eyes and he said, that would be dumb. I was like, oh, that was another, it was another aha, spiritual moment for me because I knew that this was going to be really tough and I was going to be financially stretched. It was going to be a hard few years and I shouldn't go in with my eyes closed. And so I ended up getting some part time work here and you know, getting a cheaper car and changing our holiday plans and entering it with my eyes wide open. I know this isn't necessarily a relationship story, but it's a story of life. And so sometimes when you say courage, I mean that was a big decision. But then, since then there have been hundreds of little decisions about putting rest before work, saying no to a client because I want to invest in my family, building patterns of weekly dinners where I invest in relationships and continuing to invest in those relationships even when they've been painful or difficult. But the process is the same. I kind of listen for what I sense. I'll say in my language that God is saying to me. And I try to take the courage where possible, I suppose, guided by that faith to make decisions and to shape my life habitually around those things.

Well, and I just want to point out that your story is very applicable to relationships because every relationship, quasi family that makes up those relationships are facing very similar feelings and emotions and experiences in their lives. Just like you've described. How many of us can relate to feeling like we're in a place that we don't feel like we don't, you know, we belong. I loved how you said kind of wearing the wrong shoe on the wrong foot, you know, it's kind of okay, but there's just something that doesn't quite fit about it and that impacts the way that we show up in our lives, you know, because we can only show up as good as we feel and that is going to be our experience. Right. So when we're feeling uncomfortable like we do have that shoe on the other foot, it is absolutely going to affect every other aspect of my life and how I show up there. And I would say, you know, the relational journey and the triad of health and wealth and relationship. I kind of call it the. Don't kind of call it. I call it the little stepchild, the red headed stepchild of the triad because it's usually the one that gets sacrificed. I will pursue my health and I'll pursue my wealth before I pursue intentionally placing relationships front and center. And so when we redesign our lives as you had described and that you have done, placing the relationship first and foremost and then insisting that those other two parts come around to support that, I would say is an incredible act of courage and one that you and I have had to face as well. Right.

And I would add that it typically is initiated like in Daniel sense was some type of a significant catalytic event or a culmination of events that gets our attention. Right. So, you know, it's either choose to listen to the signals and they become quite loud, or I like to say, you know, God, universe and spirit will continue to hit us across the head or the four or the solar plexus or whatever to say, you know, how about now? You know? No, how about now?

Yeah, we kind of get a little stubborn and that loving essence says no problem, I'll just come back later and we'll have this conversation again. Only it escalates, right? And at some point in time it does get our attention. Now what we do with that, Right. It remains our choice, which is something that you talk about in the book. You know, you talk about the ability to choose. And I love what you said. Busyness is a choice. It is a choice that we make. And is it a choice that we continue to make, whether that's a conscious choice or an unconscious choice. And you also talk a lot about the freedom that's our responsibility to make those choices and the power that comes along with many of the decisions that we have to make moment by moment. And you called this section of your book a paradigm. And I would like for you to talk with us a little bit about the paradigm and how we get stuck in the paradigm and some of the effects of the paradigm, and then we can move, I hope, into some of the principles that you teach because they're so impactful and we can find absolutely the space in our lives to make the important things count without sacrificing all the other things that we value, too. So I know we're quite in a dilemma. I know in my work and practice, especially with younger people, the dilemma is growing loud and significant, shall we say. And that means that more and more young people are struggling with, you know, anxiety and depression, suicidal ideations. More young couples that are having children are breaking down, seeking help. Yay. I'm so proud of those people. My generation, it would take, you know, about 60 years to finally go, all right, fine, we'll go see if we can fix the problem. What problem? We don't have a problem. So at least the younger generation are going, hey, wait, we gotta fix this. And so I would love for you to just talk about the paradigm and the role that technology plays in that, because I think that impacts all of our lives. What are your thoughts on the paradigm, our power to make choices and the freedom to do so?

Just a small question. Thanks, Stacy.

I know. And you can pick it up wherever you want to.

No, no, it's a great. It's a great question and it's really important. So I did shape my book from the paradigm to the principles and to the practices, because my experience coaching leaders and working with people is that you can give a set of practical tips, particularly around technology. You know, a simple thing like don't charge your phone at your bedside, but start and end the day with a pause. Or a bigger thing like have a full day off. You know, a digital Sabbath. A digital day off, once a week without your phone. The ideas are very simple, but, you know, people get heart flutters at the idea of having a full day ever, let alone every week, without their phone. And so we have a relationship with our technologies, and that relationship shapes the way in which we make decisions, the way in which we live, the way in which we act. I like something my friend Jamin Fraser says. He says that behavior is at the end of the assembly line of the factory of beliefs and story. What he means by that is that our behaviours actually flow from our stories and our paradigms and our ways of seeing the world. I'm sure you'd know this as a relationship counsellor, support person, and it's absolutely true in terms of our relationship with technology. So, firstly, if we don't recognize we have a relationship with our phone, then that's going to be very hard to shift our practices. But secondly, I think we need to really understand how our relationship with the online world, the identity we gain from it, the values we experience, as well as how it changes us, let's say to. At a brain level, a neuroplastic level, etc. How that is impacting the time and space we have and therefore the freedom we have to be intentional about the life we live. So I suppose that's why I care about technology, because it does impact the rest of life. You may Remember in the 1990s, Stephen Covey, who is a productivity author, he wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He talked about this idea of big rocks and he got a container and he put a bunch of rocks in. Small rocks, big rocks. And, and what we found, if you put the small rocks in first, well, then the big rocks actually don't fit. You can't actually fit them in the container. A bit like if you're traveling for a road trip, if you put in all the small stuff first, you won't fit in the suitcases if your car is as small as mine. And so, so he said, reverse the order, put in the things that really matter first, which he called big rocks, and then the rest will flow out. Now, I think he's right. The difference in the digital age is that you actually can't fit all the small rocks in. Like you. Absolutely. There's so much stuff, so many, so much information, so many projects, tasks, Netflix episodes, podcasts, audiobooks. Like, it just goes on and on and on. School drop offs, pickups, your life. Our life is habitually full and space is so hard to find. And not only do we now need to put in the big rocks, so the things that matter. And I think that certainly includes rest and relationship and thought. If we don't put that in first, then not only will we not have enough space to put in the other big rocks and the small stuff, our life just becomes totally overwhelmed. And we're filling our life with digital clutter, with Instagram, with TikTok, with Facebook, with Netflix, with Amazon. Like, all this stuff is going into our cup first. It's pushing out so many big rocks, so many big things. And if we're really going to thrive, we not only need to put in the important things first, but also come to grips with the idea that life is no longer about fitting everything in. It's about coming to terms with the idea that a lot will flow out and will never fit in our life. So what Are we going to put in and hold it? So Chris saying, what are we going to say? This is a priority. And so the relationship with tech is essential because if we don't shift our relationship with tech, then we will continue to fill our glass or our container with heaps of stuff that has pretty low value. Actually, not all of it. I mean, I love technology, but a lot of it is low value. And what always squeezes out is spirituality, silence, rest, deep thought, the ability to take bold risks because you know who you are at a deeper level and to lean into, you know, your pain and emotions or your hopes and dreams. You always lose relationships, friendships, you know, time with God. Like it's, it's. That's what flows out when we fill our lives with stranger things.

Well, and digital technology and the Internet are always forever present, right? It's always available. Having an online business myself, I'm sure you can relate to this as well. You could work 24 7, right? There's always something to do, there's something to read, there's something to learn, there's people to reach out to and get back to. And then of course, you know, then we get tired and then we just want to be entertained. And there's plenty of that on the Internet as well. And it showcases. You had some great research in your book that showcases the levels to which we consume digital media. And again, I'm not anti digital, as I know you aren't. I love digital technology. It's a great way for us to live and work anywhere and serve still. And there's some wonderful things about it as well. But I love how you put it, the things that matter most, all of a sudden there's no space in the container for all of it. And I think that brings us to the idea that you share in the book about the power of choices, right? That being very conscious of the choices that we are making is important because we are going to probably sacrifice the things that mean the most, you know, if we just kind of let it happen without some kind of conscious thought or plan or strategy to it. There's something that I wish that I would, I would wish, I do wish, and I would like to ask for you to touch on was this idea of worship and worship in the place of the things that we worship. Right? And sometimes it's unconscious worship. And you touched on it there when you were talking about our love of technology. But that was a profound moment where I was like, wow, I've never thought about human beings and our need and our desire to worship something that gives us meaning as far as a human being goes and that we can find ourselves worshiping things unconsciously that then consume and take over our lives. Is there anything that you want to point to or add in addition to that statement there?

Yeah, look, I wrestled with putting this in my book because it was written for, you know, an Aussie audience and we're very non religious in Australia. And yet, yeah, I can't see what we do as anything other than worship, actually. I think it's actually a really helpful word when it comes to what we do with technology. And so what I mean by that is, you know, think about it relationally. I mean, so often couples, and this has certainly been our experience, will be in bed, we hardly see each other. So we, you know, we've got like busy jobs and busy kids and what do we do when we have this kind of snapshot, this kind of moment of time? Each night we lie in bed and my wife was on Candy Crush and I'm like checking Gmail or do you know what I mean? And we're having a relationship with our phone rather than having pillow talk with each other, you know, and making love to the wrong device instead of a person, you know, and like, that's one small thing, but there's this gravitational pull of tech, which is relational, where the loves and longings of our heart are expressed through our devices. So. And whatever, whatever you worship comes through your device. So for me, I'm a productivity person. I love work. I get a lot of meaning and value out of what I achieve. And so, you know, naturally I worship my phone because I love Gmail and share markets and productivity apps and making sure that my LinkedIn profile is growing. Whereas my wife, who is probably finding, finds more of her identity through relational connection, maybe approval when it's, you know, unhealthy, then it's social media, you know, because she wants to connect with people and know that she's loved. And so in a whole lot of ways, our phones, we don't necessarily worship our phones, some of us do, but we worship through our phones. We connect with the loves and longings that are dearest to us through our devices, which is why we find them so hard to put down. And I stumbled across an old scripture, a poem in the Psalms, and I won't read the Psalm, but basically it is about worship and about how we worship the tools of humanity and then we become like those tools. And I'll read, I think it's Psalm 115, but I wrote A kind of a technology version. So why do the nations say, where is their God? Our God is in heaven. He does whatever pleases him. Their idols are lithium cobalt glass made by human hands. They have cameras, but cannot see Siri but cannot speak. They have touch screens but cannot feel 5G mobility, but cannot walk. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. And it's very similar to the original psalm, except for instead of mouths that can't speak and eyes that can't see, we are orienting our loves and our longings to a number of devices that deeply impact our identity. And that therefore, if we allow them to master us instead of recognizing some of the codependency we have, well, then it will actually call us into a superficial way of living and draw us away from things and from people who matter most. So that's what I mean by worship.

No. And that really touched me. I'm glad that you put the word in there. And I think it caused me to look at my own engagement with technology and what it is I'm prioritizing in my own life through that lens of, you know, devotion and worship. And you, you had a quote in the book that says, deep down, we all desire to adore and connect and relate in divine ways as an expression of our humanity. And I think that is so true whether we're worshiping, you know, our shoes, our wardrobe, our car, our lovers. You know, it doesn't even have to be technology necessarily, but there are things, as you had said, that are intrinsic to the expression of our hearts. And those will be the things that we worship and find priority on our life. And so I. I'm glad that you used the word, Daniel. I think it works and serves very, very well to communicate your idea. You did also have some profound questions that I want to toss out here for our listeners to kind of explore their own unconscious worship in their own lives, which I found to be very, very helpful. One, the first one is, how are we spending our time, our most precious resource? Like, that's something we can't get back, we can't grow. I wish we could buy more of it. You know, we try through our healthy living. I keep saying, look, if we can stay healthy, we have all the time we need, right? We. We can figure a few things out, hopefully over time. However, I think sometimes we forget that it is this precious resource, and it reminds us when we lose a loved one or we know it's short. I have a couple of clients I'm currently Working with that are at the end of the couple's one of the partner's life. Right. And how do we have those conversations that need to be had and how do we, you know, support our family and each other? Because we all know where we're going next. And I'll tell you what, when time is in precious commodity or anything, and for that matter, we tend to value it a lot more than we ever have. Right. Its value appreciates enormously.

Well, I would just add that it's. It's interesting when we have these moments like Daniel had, meaning they oftentimes will produce unbelievable clarity. Right. I mean, all of the things that we used to get tripped up on. When you hear stories of people maybe that have had a significant health challenge, you know, or anything that produced a. A new awareness like you did, Dan, you said, look, I. I just found that amazing. When you said breathless. You're breathless, like you say. And you don't. You're athletic, obviously. You're very healthy man. It just shows you the power when we're out of alignment, you know, and so, yeah, it's pretty important to be able to breathe, you know? So I always say, look, the two places that you cannot argue what's important to us. Number one is our date book, our calendar, and the other one is our checkbook. Right. So, I mean, try to prove us wrong. Obviously, that's where we place importance because that's where you're spending your time and money.

Yeah, yeah.

So that I could not agree more. Where are we spending our time? And it can be really powerful when we think, my gosh, I've spent. Your iPhone will tell you how long you've been on screen.

Yeah, there's. There's some powerful things you can do technologically to kind of tell you where you spend your time. Right. And ironically, we, the majority of us, spend more, less time sleeping than ever before. Right. So we're not even getting the rest that we need to regenerate our bodies consistently. Which brings us to the second question you asked, which is, what's captivating us? Like, what is keeping us up? Where are we spending this time and what are we focusing on?

How do you measure that, Daniel?

Yeah.

What would you say? I love that. Captivating. What's your benchmark for that? Personally?

Yeah, look, great questions. I might, if you don't mind, comment on Stacy and your. Maybe even encourage us to shift our language, because we've talked about time as a commodity or a resource, and I was quite struck. Look, I've had some recent tragedies in my own life. Someone very close to me who I lived in community with for 10 years or more, passed away last year. So I've been thinking a lot about time and the value of time. And Oliver Berkman wrote a book called 4000 Weeks, and I think he says it quite beautifully. He actually says that we think about time like it's a resource, like money, something that we can use and add. But the reality is, he says we get 4,000 weeks if we're lucky. You know, that's like all we have. I think that's 80 years of life. And time isn't a resource because time is us. Like that's all we have. Time is life. And so. And I think that's quite a profound way of shifting our thinking because it's not like money, where you can invest it. I mean, you can increase time by exercising and putting things in that extend the longevity of your life. But essentially what we do with our time is our life. In a similar way, Habit author James Clear says that, you know, life is, I don't know, the result of a hundred thousand small habits, a hundred thousand choices. The things we habitually do with our time isn't something we do to our life. It is our life, and we become who we do, what we do habitually and regularly. It expresses our values, it determines the trajectory of our thinking, and it changes who we end up being. So time is us, actually. And I think that's quite helpful because the question of what do I put into my calendar is now a question about what does my life mean and who am I and what do I value and what do I care about most? Do I care about answering those, you know, 100 emails more than I care about playing a board game with my children? Do I. Do I really care about that extra client more than I care about my ability to be healthy and have a healthy brain that can enjoy thinking and creating and reflecting on who I am? So I think if we shift this idea that time is a resource and we realize time is life, then the only constant. And if we realize that a bit like that rock analogy, or I get a glass of water and I say that the cup is our capacity, and I just keep feeling it in terms of a keynote and I spill the water and everyone's upset, and I just keep pouring and pouring and pouring and pouring and the water flows everywhere. I say the context of the digital world is that the water is endless. Like even just one app, like Insta Histogram will never end. And if that's our context. The only solution you have with a finite glass, a finite amount of capacity and time is what are you going to put in first and let everything flow out? And so in terms of the captivating question, I think we need to make space from the busyness to reflect on ourselves, our values, our beliefs, and our why, where we're heading in the longer term and what and who we value now. So they're the things that need to captivate our heart. How do we then prioritize our space so that we put the space in even if we don't have space? And that's an act of faith. A lot of the time to say, I'm going to actually give time to my family or give time to myself, even if I can't get my work done already. But you put that in first and then and slowly allow your life to become the way you need it to be based on shaping it deliberately.

I love that you have a wonderful acronym for space. This might be a great time to share that. Right, Because I think that beautifully illustrates what you just said.

Yeah, great. Thanks for that. I knew you'd ask me that. And it's funny, I've spent two weeks in a deep dive of writing my second book, which is actually about parenting, and I've got another acronym and I had to write this down because I forgot the old one. So here we are. Space. Space is about. So these are the principles by which you connect the paradigm and the practices. So to set limits and the importance of setting limits on technology, particularly planning patterns. So the idea that once you value the idea of limits, how do you habituate what you do technologically? And then how do you habituate the other things in your life that you want to put in first, which are predictable patterns? And then the three principles again. Deep rest, deep community, deep relationships and deep rest. Sorry. And deep thought. I put them in as assigned. Rest. So put rest in before you put work in to your calendar. Cultivate community. So that's about putting in patterns where you can build relationships first and then embrace silence, which is about having space to think and rest and. And have the courage to know who you are and to process what's going on in your world and to listen.

I loved the mention of a research study that was done. I don't think you. Well, let me just back up. You asked the question, which I found to be delightful, was would you rather spend time alone for six to 11 minutes with your own thoughts, or would you rather you experience painful electric shock? And as you say in the book, that's a ridiculous question because, you know, the obvious answer for most of us would be, well, of course I don't want to experience electrical shock. Right? And yet we set our lives up to. To having that continuous painful experience, those electrical shocks that happen, you know, in our bodies, like, I can't breathe. Like, you know, I'm. I'm struggling to meet the commitments that I've made, or I know I'm sacrificing the relationships with myself or others. And then you backed it up by a research study saying, actually, after 11 years of looking at this, we find it more painful to be alone with our own thoughts than to experience painful endeavors of regret that often comes as a result of some of these small little daily choices that we make, because there is that overflow and there is not enough of us to go around and focus on those things that matter most to us. So I thought that was. So in the end, actually, as crazy as that idea sounds, we don't realize we're making those choices because we don't want to be alone with our own thoughts. And I know you've mentioned that a couple of times. Times. I would love for you to share some of the advantages and benefits of being alone in deep thought and cultivation, like, enroll me, because I love this, but I show. I'm sure a lot of our listeners, especially our younger listeners, don't believe in the embrace of the silence. Like, what is that going to give me? I find it to be quite painful, frankly. Right. So tell us what the benefits are. Enroll us and tell us why this is such a significant thing in our lives.

Yeah, yeah. No, it's fascinating. So if I talk about that, that study was amazing. It was by a guy called Timothy Wilson in the University of Virginia, and he was just trying to work out how people reflected generally and reflected on their thoughts. So people were in a room for six, I think, to 15 minutes, and they were just told to think without a device. And people found it painful. And so to compare what they meant by painful, yeah, he gave them electric shocks and then so painful that they would pay $5 not to be shocked again. Put them in a different group in a room and said, look, I don't encourage you to shock yourself, obviously, but there's the machine. I encourage you to sit and think and reflect on your own thoughts, but if you have to, I suppose you're welcome to. And like 67% of men and 25% of women chose to electrocute themselves rather than stop and think. And Feel their emotions. Isn't that amazing? And so that is something that's happening because we habitually reach for our devices. So I mean, the question is, what is the value of silence? I think it's. It's abs like it is. There are so many. There are so many benefits of learning to be still. I first experienced this when I had a silent retreat when I was like 18, 19. I was on a leadership program and we spent a day by ourselves and I found it incredibly hard. And yet I also found it like there was something captivating about it of learning to be still and silent. This is before. This is before the iPhone came out. So I already had the ability to have somewhat. The ability to sit for six to 15 minutes at least, probably more than that. But over that time, I suppose I've invested in silence and solitude. I mentioned my closest friend died and I actually had three weeks of silence last year that, you know, I ran the funeral and did a lot of stuff like that. And then I was gifted with three weeks to just head off by myself, even away from my family. My wife joined and did something similar later on, but. And that was an amazing experience, being able to sit there and grieve and feel the emotions and just think about other stuff and just, I don't know, allow myself the space and time to take a big breath. And I remember at the end, it was an incredibly joyful experience. Actually, that's probably. That would be my summary of that time that I read books and obviously I didn't have my phone. I put it aside. I rung my wife and family at six o' clock every day and put my phone back in the car. But it was this process of detox almost. Where at first it was really hard and I felt fidgety and it was difficult and I had all these emotions over time, you know, like the depth of my feelings got processed, I suppose. And then I found myself, you know, I walked on the beach for hours and hours every day and I found myself just being able to sit. And I don't like cooking, so I made like a big pot of jook, which is like a Chinese porridge. I'm half Asian and, you know, I ate that like every day. So boring. But I remember like just eating porridge, you know, and thinking, wow. Just savoring every taste. I remember being able to look at the trees and just spend half an hour just delighting in the simplicity of nature. And I suppose all I'd say is there's unbelievable joy that comes from simplicity. And you don't actually need a lot in your life to experience joy. In fact, what happens is we clutter ourselves with so much noise that we can't enjoy ourselves. So I would say the process for learning silence nowadays, it used to be that when you're silent, you experience pain and emotions and you have to process the data in your life and that's horrible and that's why you want to electrocute yourself. But if you move through that process over time, I'm not saying you have to have three weeks, but I'm saying if you engage in silence on a regular basis, journaling, prayer, meditation, I mean, however you do it, you move to the other side where silence is a joy and simplicity is just so life transforming. But now the first step is we have to unplug from our phones long enough to get the silence, to feel the pain, to experience the joy of space. And so we have to teach people to go all the way back to their relationship with their devices, because without shifting that, you'll never even start the journey.

Let's dive into giving us, as we wrap up our conversation here, which has been so incredible and thought provoking, what is a simple way I can just get started? So I see from our conversation, yeah, I do have some things that I need to reassess and look at differently. And I am paying the price for not having any space in my life. And there are things in my life that are being sacrificed that are so important to me. I know they are emotionally, but I just can't seem to find the time to get around to them. How would I begin to implement your acronym of space? Where would be the very best and first place you would suggest that I focus and take that first initial step?

I imagine it might be in three areas. There might be other areas, you know, it might be your lack of. You don't have deep thought. You just don't have time to really reflect and to be silent and to think about who you are and where you're heading. It may be that you don't have the investment in your deep relationships, the time with others that you want, and the ability to focus. Or it might be the lack of deep rest. You just always run into standstill. And as a knowledge worker, rest must involve a shift in how we work. And work is done in the mind. And therefore you need to rethink what it looks like to not practice the Internet when you're resting. So the question is, where do you start? I think you need to start with, you know, what are you really longing For. And what are you really craving or missing or needing? We can usually work out the pain. And from that point of pain, well, then just how do I come, hell or high water, put it in first and then build something from that. So if it's rest, how do I turn off my tech and make sure I have half a day every week at least, where I have no plans, where I'm investing in the things that really give me life and energy, which. Which almost always needs to be offline. If we work online for work or if it's thought, well, then, yeah, how do I carve out an hour every week in a cafe with a journal just to think and be silent? Or if it's. Yeah. Relationships, you know, how might I actually prioritize time with my kids? A board game, a coffee, a bike ride, or with a friend, you know, a monthly coffee even. And just. I put it in, even if I don't have time. And again, I'm starting to reshuffle what's in my glass, what's in my cup, and make it happen. And could I give a story. Do I have time for a story to.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So, I mean, one example for me was a number of years later, I was running my productivity business, and my job is to teach people how to make space. It's pretty ironic. There's a lot of pressure on me to live a better life, and yet it was hopeless. Like, I was in this kind of growth period of my business, and I had absolutely no space. I was smashed at work. I was smashed relationally. I was tired, and I just started to feel hypocritical and I was doing all the right things. You know, I was getting my inbox to zero. I had my to do list running. I had all my priorities. Priorities and set. I had, you know, some good habits established. And yet it just. My life had no. No space and had no. No margin or buffer. And. And it was even worse because I was teaching people this stuff. And. And I'm like, what do you do? Like, you know, and I was in a mentoring session with a bunch of people who I have mentoring fairly regularly. And. And now they were asking a question and we're doing a scripture anyway. And I read this strange passage from the Older Testament where a person called Elijah goes up onto a mountaintop and he has his showdown with a bunch of alternative prophets and fire rains down from heaven. And it's just a strange story, but one of the parts of the story is that the reason they were having this showdown and trying to work out whose God was real is because there was this drought across the land, and it was destroying everything. And they wanted the rain and the God provide the rain. And in order to kind of set up the scene, Elijah pours water all around the altar again and again and again and absolutely kind of soaks the altar before the fire consumes it. And. And I had this kind of. It was literally an aha moment. I'm like, why? Why? Where did he get the water from if it was a drought? Like, I always just assumed that putting water on this kind of sacrifice made the miracle more miraculous. But I'm like, that makes no sense, because it's completely a drought, and he just pours gallons and gallons and gallons of water on. Now, I know that's strange, but for me, I started to ask the question, how does this work? How do you. I realized that Elijah poured out what he didn't have in order to bring the rain. And I'm like, what? What don't I have? What's the resource of that? What's the absurd commodity that if I poured it out, I'm kind of just shooting myself in the foot, if that makes sense. It's a very kind of short explanation of a longer story, but. And I started to ask the question, what don't I have? And I realized I don't have space. I don't have time. I can't think, I can't rest. I'm so busy that I don't have time to make space. And from a faith perspective, I felt very convicted that actually I need to give God the first fruits of my time. I need to actually pour out what I don't have, which is space first, and just have faith that the rest will work out. Because the structure wasn't working out for me. The planning wasn't working out for me. And so that's what I did. I put aside one a half a day every Monday morning, which is like prime time for work every Monday morning. I didn't open my inbox, I didn't open my phone. And I walked on the mountain near my house with a cup of ginger tea, like a thermos. And I thought, I prayed, I enjoyed nature. I breathed fresh air and ended up actually sitting on a mountaintop. And I found a favorite space. And I spent about an hour and a half there every Monday morning. And then I came down from the mountain and I began my work. And instead of feeling completely overwhelmed, instead of my business getting out of control, the opposite happened. And I can't explain it. When I needed work, work came in. And when I needed more space, there was more space. When I was more at peace, I had some of the best ideas during that time, which changed how I actually acted each week. So by having the trust to put in that space because I needed it, everything actually worked out beautifully, and I started to recalibrate my life. So I don't necessarily know how that translates to everyone's lives, but I would say in faith, Put in what you don't have time for, prioritize it.

You think you don't have time for what we think we don't have time for.

You have 4,000 weeks. That's it. Don't waste it.

Well, you know, there's. Time is an interesting thing. And I wish we had time to kind of go into this conversation around time, but, you know, when I was studying Hypnotherapy back in 1996, my, my instructors taught us about how the brain works and our relationship to time and basically challenged us to watch time expand, that there's always enough time. It's how we're using our time and interacting with time that makes all the difference about time itself. And he's. He explained that in our brains, the more we spin up, the more panicked we get, the more busy we become. The last functioning we have of our executive functioning in our front lobe, and then we've got to move faster to get ahead of it, and we spin up even more. And now our decision making and our ability to really be effective is very curtailed. This is where we're going to forget things. We're going to get into car accidents, we're going to trip over things we're going to do, which just tends to befuddle us even more. And he says, watch the magic of slowing down. And if you slow down, the slower you go, the more time expands. So if you're feeling panicked because you're late for work or late for an appointment, if you'll just intentionally slow down, you'll find that you'll probably arrive on time or not as late as you thought you were going to. And after months of playing with this idea of time and the expansion of time, it's absolutely something that we share a lot with our clients because they're coming in with some big decisions to face, right? What is our future? Are we going to make it? How do we turn this thing around? And they want decisions like right now, right now, right now. And the first thing I always say is, slow down. We got plenty of time, right? We want to make sure that the next steps we take are. They're important and they're critical to your future, however it's going to go. So we want to expand time to be on our side. So salt, just take a breath, right? So it's the proverbial.

You race past someone because you're aggravated they're going too slow, and you get to the traffic light and they pull up right behind you before it turns green.

The thing that's ironic about that experience is we've all cut someone off, right? But boy, when somebody does it to us and we're in a hurry, you know, we got the one finger salute that comes out, right, because we are so pressed for time. And I think it is the slowing down and making space and finding places for rest to regenerate that expands our lives. You know, if we sit in silence, it's amazing how long a minute is. If we're trying to get somewhere and we're rushing, it's amazing how short a minute is, you know, so just. Just something to consider that space and time science and quantum physics does an excellent job of helping us kind of recalculate that interaction with time. So. All right, I think we ought to take some of our takeaways here, and let's each kind of choose one that we want our listeners to take away from our conversation today, and then we'll step into some. Follow the fun moments as we wrap up our conversation.

Well, I'm going to go first because I love Daniel's sharing story. And, you know, we're not going to get there oftentimes with our logic. So knowing that you needed to give yourself this privilege, that it. But logically it made no sense. And boy, I'm a very intense, heady person, as my wife will concur. And, you know, that hit me like right across, you know, so we have to. What was it one of our guests said it? What? You know, let your head rest in your heart. Rest in your heart. You know, we've got to get out of our head and get into what we know. But sometimes taking that action, you know, I would say forcefully is. Is. Is damn hard.

Mm.

Yeah.

I would say. I. Go ahead, Daniel.

You go first, if I can comment on that. I was probably much my take home from myself. How funny is that? That's. Is that narcissistic? I don't know the. Yeah. Probably being reminded again that very similar that I like the idea that time expands. I think there is a spirituality to time because time is our life and we are. We are emotional, spiritual and mental beings. And so, yeah, similarly, that sometimes you need to surrender yourself and take the space to think about who you are and where you want to head and that the most important thing, rather than ticking off the next thing. So again, it's being reminded of the same thing.

Yeah, I love that. And that's going to. I'm just going to capitalize on that because I don't think it can be overemphasized. You know, whatever we're facing in our lives right now, whatever might be playing out as a challenge in your own life, I would encourage you to slow down, to contemplate it, to get clear about how you feel about it. Translate your own thoughts and feelings into a language that first you can understand. And then you'll have some clarity about how you want to go forward. And the only way that that can happen is if we take the time and the space to rest and contemplate it and rejuvenate ourselves so that we're ready for the journey ahead, whatever that might be. And that can only happen if we make space. So, you know, that that is kind of the takeaway, I hope, that our listeners find in our conversation today of just how critically important it is to go in the directions that we want to go. It's gonna, it's gonna begin by slowing down and that contemplation of ourselves and where we wanna go next, which takes us beautifully into our follow the fun. Because I loved, loved, loved this activity that you shared. So let's. I called the follow the fun. I kind of took some liberties here from the creative side of things, but dream your future and you can do it with a post it note. Amazing, right? So now you know where I'm going. The post it note timeline. Are you surprised?

Yes. I'm like, what? Because you warned me before we, we had this interview that you were going to use my book for the follow the Fun. And I'm like, I'm not sure anyone has said my book is fun. And so I'm not sure what the fun part will be, but hopefully it's not. Yeah, excellent. Let's do the post it thing. Tell me about how you like to do it.

Yes, yes. Let's just share the steps. So step number one that I need to do is I need to get myself a bunch of post it notes. Right. And then you tell us what to do next. So I got my post it notes, I got my pen. I'm ready, I'm ready to slow down and contemplate this. What's fun.

I'm not sure I would call this fun. I think this is a deep dive into your soul, which is painful. But, you know, let's pretend it's fun if that's. If you're kind of that way inclined. But yeah, the timeline, it came from a person called Terry Wallace, I think, who borrowed it from someone else. Can't remember, I'm sorry, off the top of my head. But it's a way of realizing that the journey that you've had in the past will actually guide the future. And that if you want to know where you're heading and what you value and to really. If you want to be more conscious about those moments, those fence post moments that have guided your life. Imagining a fence, there's lots of posts. What are the key moments that actually have shaped your past? Well, then they will help shape your future. So the way you do that is you get a bunch of sticky notes, maybe two colors, red for negative experiences, and then, you know, I don't know, what's a fun color? Yellow for everything else.

Yellow.

Yellow. And then you just randomly think about your life. I mean, I'm 45 years old now, and so there's a lot of life. I write down what are the keys, key experiences that stand out from my journey. What are the key people who have impacted my journey, and maybe some of the key events that are painful that have kind of determined my life. Because life is actually the way we actually contemplate and review life is through moments. It's not through what we call Kronos time, TikTok time, it's Kairos time, significant spiritual moments or moments that are high or low that have guided us this far. And so you just randomly remember stuff and put as much down as you can. I ended up with like 140, 150 notes, which is a lot, but you can go with a lot less than that. You know, I probably overthink things. And then you put it into a timeline. And so you can use a board, like a core flute board. I just use a wall. And I stuck out the notes and I realized this is. This is my life. So that's the first step. The second step is.

And I would just add that if. Excuse me, let me just interrupt you for a minute. I would say that, hey, if doing your whole life is too taxing, just look at the last five years. Just reflect on the last five years and look at all the areas of your life relationally, health wise, professionally. You know, you can break these into life categories as well. Which would be, you know, the addition that I would add to, so it doesn't feel so overwhelming. Right, and you can have negative.

Yes.

And I want to just, I just want to preface here for our listeners. Listen, negative doesn't mean bad. Negative just means challenging. And there's so much emotional power we gain from the challenges in our life that will propel us forward. If you look at anybody who's, who's doing things that are really meaningful to them, they usually have a byproduct of, I want to overcome something that was really difficult, or I, and, or I have done that, and I want to pave the way for others coming behind me, my children, my family, et cetera. And so, you know, I like to remind our clients, hey, treasure those. They're valuable, right? Unless we just use them to kick our own fannies, which is not what they're for. So I think in doing this process, we can find tremendous catalytic moments that literally pick us up, you know, metaphorically, and put us on a whole new path. And some of those stories we've, we've talked about today, right, those catalytic moments are the things that's kind of like, we call it Gus, God, Universe, and Spirit, just so we can honor everybody in their spiritual inclination. But Gus has this way of picking us up, not so gently sometimes, and placing us in a. A different track of our lives, whether we like it or not. And then as we look back over those difficulties, if we find the power and the joy in them, we realize that those are the significant moments, typically that shape who I am and what it is I do. Would you find that to be true, too, Daniel?

Oh, absolutely. And it's very wise to just pick one chapter or season of your life. In fact, most of us can do that. You could pick an arbitrary timeline, like five years or three. For me, it's, you know, there's. It's quite clear the big trajectory changes in my life. If I, if I think about, you know, what would be a chapter of my life? Imagining your life is a book, and there are a number of chapters. Chapters are often two to five years, maybe eight, 10 years. But, yeah, what are the chapters? And pick the last chapter. So I think there's a lot of wisdom in starting with that. So it's not overwhelming. And, yeah, but whatever, however you do it, you'll end up with a bunch of sticky notes. And if you, if you do your whole life, and that is actually quite a hard exercise. But firstly, you can then mark off the chapters. So you can literally say, I'll put a line down each one. Yeah. And say, say, this is, you know, this. This was my childhood. This was my marriage. This is my divorce. This was, you know, my job, career stuff, or whatever it is. And. And. And then from there, it's. You're absolutely right that the red isn't about. This is bad in the sense of. It's terrible. It's about recognizing that many of the moments that transform us are from those hard or painful or difficult experiences or relationships. And so looking at that, the key question is, well, what do I learn? So what did I learn? Or what is the gold that I took out of that pit? Or what are the lessons I took out of that season that actually shaped my values, my beliefs, and my way of seeing the world? Because we all live from a story. Remember, behavior is at the end of the assembly line, and it's helpful to put some of those stories into language and if each. In each season, we remember a few things. So, yeah, in my burnout season, it was like, space is really valuable to me, and I prioritize space and that time is a spiritual reality where I actually find time by giving my life to God. That's what I came out with, not just structuring my to do list. And there are a few other lessons that came out of that season. So once you have a few lessons from those seasons, from either one or many seasons, then you can say, well, if that's who I am and that's what I care about, how does that help guide the decisions I have coming forward? And I've done this individually, but I've also done this with my wife when we were in a really tough season, and tough, not so much relationally with each other, but really tough in life. We both did this individually, and then we actually did it together. And it was amazing to put our timelines together and to actually realize that we come from such different perspectives. Yet the lessons complemented each other, and it allowed us to then find a unity in the way we move forward. So there's so many ways to use this sticky note exercise to go back, to go forward. It's a very brave exercise, and it takes a lot of courage. So, you know, do it at a time when you've got the emotional energy to do it. But the fun is that, gee, it's joyful to come out the other end to learn something about who you are and to go forward with some new language and new perspectives, because you made the space to reflect on who you are and where you're going I just.

Want to break these into some simple steps. Step one is to, you know, do the brainstorm and step two is to put them in chronicle chronological order on some kind of a table or a wall poster board, etc. Step three would be to contemplate that and ask yourself what are the points of transition or transformation and how has the difficulty that I've experienced in my patterns shaped what I believe to be true? Step four is then dream a future for the. For the next five years. I did this in five year increments, but as we've already shared, you can break it into chapters as Daniel had suggested. And I love how you encouraged us in the book to just, just be creative, like really dive into what, what might be possible. And look as you're reflecting back about the key things that are important that you continuously long for as your years are ticking off and it's still there. And so can we bring that to the forefront and make that a priority? I love how you say discover patterns from your past and sculpt your future. Right. What are the next projects that you want to explore and take to heart? Make each of those with sticky note as well. And then of course step, step five is to take some action towards those. Even if it's little teeny tiny things. You know, it's amazing if we break it down to teeny tiny things. When we feel like we're in pursuit of the things that matter most to us, we feel like we are aligned with who it is we have the capacity to become. And that does bring us the joy, whether we're actually there and have arrived or not. Right. As they say, the joy is in the journey, not in the destination. So have some fun with this, be light hearted about it and if it becomes too intense for, for you to step away from it, you know, it's okay taking bite sizes, but when you do get to come out the other side, as Daniel had said, boy, it's very rewarding and you feel like you have a clarity and an excitement about what's to be. You know, as, as I love to say, the best is yet to be. Things are about to get really good. Daniel, it's been such a pleasure to have you with us and to have this conversation with you. We always leave our listeners with a song that complements the episode. And actually, Thomas, I'll let you introduce the song because you were the one that picked it for us today. Kind of along the lines of this, you know, getting space taking.

Yeah, this is. Stacy usually comes up with the song a lot of times. But, you know, this morning said, honey, I don't have one yet. What do you have in your repertoire of saved songs that would just provide a really nice, you know, listening environment to slowing down to what Daniel talks about and encourages and teaches to make space. And so, yeah, I. This is Blank and Blanken Jones, who are incredible. They're European mixers. They mix music really well.

Daniel, are you familiar with Blanket Jones?

But anyway, they're the musicians.

No.

And it's called Chilled, which is. Which I find the. Because we love Cream here at our house. We love Cream and it's called Chilled Cream. So there you go.

Yeah, Mishpah was actually the composer who wrote the music and then Blanken Jones compiled it. If you don't, I mean, you, you're in the uk. My. I have a dream on my bucket list that I'm gonna go to you the UK and see them on the French Riviera.

Daniel's in Australia, aren't you?

I know, I know. But he says he tours through the UK and we didn't.

Daniel, share with us. Where can we people find more about you and your wonderful body of work? Where the best place for that?

Yes, my website, spacemakers.com au so the AU is for Australia and it's plural space makers, as opposed to the book, which is singular. But yeah, look, I'd love you to have a look at it. And I run productivity training and coaching for teams all around the world, obviously using this amazing technology that we can use nowadays. I also have a trainer in the Canada for the U.S. time zone, which is great. And, and you know, I, I run. I'm going to release a new book about digital parenting and helping raise humans in the digital age as well. So keep an eye out for that as it comes out probably in the next few months as well.

Well, you'll have to reach out to me. We'll definitely have you on the show again and, and help you launch that. That book, which I know will be spectacular. So it's always a pleasure, Daniel. Thank you so much. Can't wait until we talk again. Bye bye for now.

Thanks. Thanks for joining us.

Okay, everybody, time to go. We gotta close the doors to the Love Shack for this week. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Come back next week though, and join.

Us for another edition of Love Shack.

Live with Tom and Stacy Bartley.