Master Microtransitions to Improve the Happiness, Success, and Flow of Your Life
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Summary
Dr. Adam Frazier is a peak performance researcher and the author of The Third Space: Using Life's Little Transitions to Find Balance and Happiness. In this episode, Dr. Frazier walks us through how to make micro-transitions between work and home so you can arrive ready to engage with your family.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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Throughout each day, all of us make little shifts in our roles and responsibilities.
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Sometimes these shifts are physical, as when we commute from home to the office.
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Other times these shifts are mental, as when we finish working on an administrative task,
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My guest calls these little shifts microtransitions and says that mastering them is a significant key
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in living a happy, fulfilled, and successful life.
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His name is Dr. Adam Frazier, and he's a peak performance researcher and the author of The Third Space.
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As Adam explains, in each microtransition, there are three spaces.
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The first space, which is the task, role, or place you're leaving behind.
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The second space, which is the task, role, or place you're transitioning to.
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And the third space, which is the in-between transition itself.
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To make an ideal microtransition, you break that third space into three phases.
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And Adam walks us through how to execute each one so you can show up as your best self in the second space.
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We talk about how to make microtransitions between different work roles.
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It's been a lot of our conversation on how to improve the microtransition between work and home,
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even if you work from home, so you can arrive ready to engage with your family.
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After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash third space.
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All right, Dr. Adam Frazier, welcome to the show.
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I'm coming in from a very sunny Sydney right now.
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Well, it's really hot here in Oklahoma where I'm at.
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So you are a researcher who researches peak performance.
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And you got one out that I really enjoyed and found really, really useful.
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It's called The Third Space, Using Life's Little Transitions to Find Balance and Happiness.
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When most people talk about finding balance, I think everyone's trying to find balance between
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What's the typical approach that you found that people take when they're trying to find
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Yeah, I think the problem from our research, the problem is everyone looks at time as the
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And what was interesting is I came into balance as a performance researcher.
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But one of the problems I noticed in the research is it all focuses on the individual, like what's
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You know, we're going to do something different where we started to interview families about
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So we sat people down and said, right, if your mom, dad, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband,
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wife, partner, whoever that person you lived with was, if they found balance, what would
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And what families said, they said, you know, we get the emails, we get the phone calls,
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But what most families said is what we don't get is you come through that door and you're
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Like you come through that door and you take your day out on us, or you come through that
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door and see us as an inconvenience that gets in the way of work.
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So what family said, balance isn't when you show up, it's how you show up.
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And what they talked about is balance is about connection.
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And I think that's the biggest mistake we make.
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So yeah, when we think about balance, we think about this scale and we're putting time on
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And one of the big reasons people want balance is to improve relationships in their life.
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But what you're saying, what people say they want from their loved ones, isn't so much
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that time balance, but what they want instead, they want their loved ones to be engaged and
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And if you look at, you know, we're focusing on men here, what kids want is come home,
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be playful, be stupid, be, you know, like build a fort with me, you know, or do some
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And, you know, like for years, I thought I had bad balance because I travel a lot, you
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Whereas some of my mates who I grew up with have jobs where they're home every night.
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But, you know, when I compared myself to them, they're often just watching TV or cruising
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And this has taken a lot of work, but I'd say I'm a real rock star, meaning I'm the fun
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So even though I'm not there as much as some of my mates are, man, my interactions are seriously
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So in the third space, you make the case that instead of thinking about finding balance in
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our lives with time on a balancing beam, we should instead think of our daily lives as
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Well, micro transitions are those little transitions we make where we move from one thing to another.
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So, you know, before doing this podcast, I had a coaching call with a CEO.
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So I'm working with a leadership team and I'm talking to the CEO about adopting better behavior.
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So I've had an interaction where I've had to go and tell a guy who's super senior that he's
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So I've had to be super empathetic, really careful with my words.
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Now I'm talking to you and, you know, having this great fun interaction.
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And then after this, I've got to have a hard conversation with a staff member.
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So our day is basically we move between different spaces and the micro transitions are those little
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transitional gaps of how do we prepare ourselves for the next thing?
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And how do I then go into a meeting with a staff member and have a really careful, empathetic
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So these micro transitions are just where we move from one thing to the next.
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So a space can be, it can be a physical space, a transition from office to home, but it's
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You're saying that this can also just be about switching roles, right?
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I think you nailed that and really described that beautifully of it can be physical.
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So for example, last night, a mate of mine's in hospital and I drove a long way to go see
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And then as I was driving home, my wife called me and went, your children.
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Like when she says your children, I know something's gone wrong.
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And she said, your children are driving me crazy and this has gone on, that's gone on.
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So then I went, all right, when I transition home, I've got to really support her.
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So I've got to go from being playful and jokey with my best mate to, okay, I've got to go home.
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So, you know, that's much more of a mental shift of, well, how do I need to show up?
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And then because these are called micro transitions, these transitions happen, can happen in the
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So at work, you're just talking about, you know, you were talking to one client who had
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a specific set of needs and then you're going to transition to another, you know, maybe an
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And then you might transition to, I got to do the budget and that requires certain things.
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So yeah, this, it's just all about transitioning from roles to different types of mental space.
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And that's, I think when I, that idea really helped me understand some of the problems that
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I've run into as well in my own work, where I bring stuff over from one mental space that
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I was at to the next, and it just, it can mess things up.
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Cause look, one thing in our research is what we found is people aren't aware of them.
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Like they're aware of them, but they're not conscious of them.
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And they don't really think about, well, how am I moving from one thing to another?
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So as you just said, so often we bring the mood and mindset of the previous thing into
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So you might have a bad day, you take it home, or you might have a meeting with a client where
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they chew you out and tell you, Hey, I'm unhappy with this.
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And then you go meet with your team and you take it out on them.
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So what this is, is how do I get over what I've just done, but also how am I showing up
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One of my staff hadn't got back to a client and it'd been three or four days.
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And I went into my team meeting realizing, Hey, that client hasn't got back to, you know,
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So I went into this meeting and I'm annoyed and I'm frustrated and I'm angry.
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And I brought this thing up about four times to that person who's responsible for it.
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And later on, my staff pulled me aside and said, Hey, you're a real jerk in that meeting.
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So I had to sit down with the person and say, Hey, you know, I was out of line in that meeting.
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But the problem was I carried the frustration of the task into the meeting.
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And yeah, I've repaired the relationship now, but it did damage.
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So we might be aware that these micro transitions are happening.
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The problem that we have is that we're not proactive about managing the transitions that
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And I thought it was really interesting in the book, you talk about what we can learn from
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soldiers transitioning from combat to civilian life about the importance of proactively managing
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You brought that up and it shows you've done your research because what really kicked this
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And one of the first was I was doing some work with some special forces soldiers who
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And I got, you know, friendly with some of them.
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And I said, Hey, like, what's the biggest challenge you face as a special forces soldier?
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And I was thinking, you know, not die or, or how do I complete a mission successfully?
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And all of them went, Oh man, coming home from being deployed.
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And they go, Oh, just, I don't know what goes on, but I come home and I just kind of fight
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Uh, and, and it's, there's just a lot of tension in the home and it settles down after a couple
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of weeks, but the first couple of weeks are really shaky.
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And when I started to talk to people, what they said was, well, one of them that did it
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well, he said, a psychologist once told me that, how am I using the plane ride home to
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Because while I've been away for six months, things have changed.
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And too often those soldiers would walk in and go, well, I'm just going to slip back into
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my old role and I'm kind of going to run the joint.
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And the family's like, nah, we've been doing fine since you've been away.
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And what this psychologist said to him is how do you adapt to your environment rather than
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And this soldier said, when I thought about how am I going to fit back in and how am I going
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And so this was one of the first interactions that got me thinking about transitions.
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Every micro transition you say consists of a first space and so that's the environment
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or the mental space we find ourselves in right now.
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Then there's the second space and that's the role or environment or mental space we're going
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So it could be first space is office, second space is home.
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And then the third space, which is the name of your book, is the space between first and
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second where you proactively decide how you're going to show up in that second space.
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So if a third space, we've been talking about this, a third space could be both an environment,
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How do we create third spaces for ourselves in our daily lives?
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What we looked at in our research is what is the perfect transition?
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And the perfect transition, whether it's, you know, the first space is I'm meeting with
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a client, the second space is I'm meeting with a new prospect, right?
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So the perfect third space has three components, which is reflect, rest, reset.
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So reflect is how do I reflect on what just happened and how do I shut it down?
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So this is all about like, how do I perceive what just went on?
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And am I carrying, you know, angst or a negative mindset forward?
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So the first part is how do I shut down that space I'm leaving?
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The second part is the rest phase, which is how do I become present?
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And this is all about just focusing your mind on the moment.
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And too often we go into the next space and our heads all over the shop.
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We're worrying about three meetings ago or we're predicting disaster.
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So this rest phase is just, can I become present?
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And then the final part is the reset piece, which is how am I about to show up to this
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thing and how do I need to show up to get the best out of this next interaction?
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So, you know, that last piece, that reset is almost like, you know, people talk about
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athletes visualizing performance and what we're doing is the exact same thing.
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So I'm about to go into a meeting with a client.
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I know that they're going to ask questions about, you know, the last delivery or whatever
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If I'm about to go in to have a hard conversation with a staff member, they're probably feeling
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How do I show up and adapt to that to help that person listen to the hard conversation I've
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So it's those three parts, reflect, rest, reset.
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And look, obviously the context affects how much of and how many of them you can do.
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So third space doesn't necessarily have to be a physical space.
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It could be, but it can just be a mental thing you do as you transition from one thing
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It can be super instantaneous of say you're just doing admin at your desk.
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All of a sudden you've got some sort of crisis.
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So what you have to like very quickly, really in that moment, all you're doing is the reset
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Forget, reflect and rest because I don't have time to reflect.
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I don't need the rest phase, but it's all about what am I bringing to this?
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And look, even, you know, I spoke to an executive the other day and he's got a global role.
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My kids run up to hug me and I'm literally pushing them off.
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My wife mouths to me, get off the phone and spend time with your children.
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Like, of course, I'm going to have a bad interaction because that's my transition into the home.
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He said, when I heard your talk, all I did was that reset piece.
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And after I hang up the phone, I do a little breathing activity to calm myself.
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And then I think, all right, what sort of dad do I want to be when I walk through that door?
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So he's already arrived physically, but he's just changing his mentality.
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In the book, the examples of people creating third spaces mentally on the fly because they
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The ones that really stood out to me were the ones where you talk to doctors who they're
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And you talk about how one patient they might be talking to and they've got terminal cancer.
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But then they have to move to the next patient who has maybe a problem.
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It's maybe their cholesterol is a little bit high.
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And it's tempting for these doctors to be like, oh, my gosh, this is not a problem.
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But the doctor has to make that third space transition.
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It's like, no, for this patient who has high cholesterol, it's important to them.
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So how can I use this third space to kind of put aside what happened to that person that
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I dealt with who has cancer and put all my attention on this person who's got maybe slightly
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Oh, Brad, I love that you brought up that example.
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And one doctor in particular, he said, we're human beings.
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And he said, the problem is often we bring judgment to the interaction, which is, it's
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But he said, that's a terrible way to show up for a patient.
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And his reset is as each patient comes in or as he walks into the room, he thinks, if this
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was my mother or father, how would I want a doctor to treat them?
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So he literally does this every time he walks into the room.
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And he said, I actually hold the door handle and I pause, I take a deep breath and I think
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And one of the things about the third space, that piece of how am I showing up?
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Am I showing up and I've already played the take forward where I go, oh, they'll probably
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And we've already created this bad interaction.
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That's what this piece is about is how do we be adaptable in the way we show up and affect
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So a third space has this reflect, rest and reset part.
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And I hope we can dig into some of these things a little bit more.
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You have like these great questions that you can ask yourself in each of these phases of
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But I like the examples you give that you can expand out this third space to really help
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you make that transition from one role to the next.
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And you can actually create like a physical third space.
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What are some examples that you found in your research of people who made physical third
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spaces for themselves so that they could transition from the first space to the second space?
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The one that makes me laugh the most is, and this was one of the things that really started
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So I was working with this group and the CEO invited me for dinner.
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And I went over and I'm interacting with him and his family.
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He was so present and so funny and fun with his family.
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And I just sat there the whole time going, man, that's how I want to be when I'm at home.
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And I said, how do you transition from psycho businessman to super dad?
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And what he talked about is that he actually built a new entrance into his home.
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And I know this is not something everyone can do, but just hear me out.
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So what he did is that he parks the car in his garage.
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He has built a door from the garage straight to his bedroom.
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And he said, I'm not allowed to talk to anyone.
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He said, the kids know, don't run into the room.
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Don't come and see me because dad's changing gears.
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And I do this kind of little relaxation thing that only takes two minutes.
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Some other third spaces that I can think of have just been,
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You know, for me, how I use it is at the end of the day.
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My two daughters come with me for a walk to the dog park, which is down the end of the street.
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We're running around because my daughters are really active.
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And as I walk through that door, I think to myself, how many more days like this do I have?
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Because, you know, I don't know if you're a parent.
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But the cliché thing is they – people say it goes fast.
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And as I walk through the door, I think, how many more days will my daughters want to come with me for the walk, you know, before it starts to be, oh, dad's not cool anymore?
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Now, look, if I'm flying home late, I'll do it in the car.
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But, you know, so the beautiful thing about this concept is we take it and make it suit our life and our world.
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And it's about here's how I'm going to apply that in my situation.
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There's not like you have to do this, you have to do that.
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It's take the concept and make it suit your world.
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Yeah, some of the other examples of physical third spaces that people use to go through this reflect, rest, and reset process.
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The commute is a perfect example where you're driving from work back to home.
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You can go through that and prepare yourself for that second space of being home.
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Going to the gym was another one before they get home.
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Like they stop at the gym, get a workout on, and then they put their dad clothes or their home clothes on.
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And then, I mean, you can even do this at work.
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I imagine like if you're transitioning from, say, administrative work to creative work,
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you could have a space where you go where I'm putting off administrative brain and I'm going into creative mode.
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Like, I'll sit at my desk when I'm doing what I call doodads.
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And this is just administrative work to keep the business going.
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But then there's a spot on the couch where I like to sit to do my writing.
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And by moving between places in the house that I work, that helps me transition from one kind of work task to another.
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We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.
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Okay, so third space, it can be mental, it can be physical.
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But what we're doing is we're trying to do these three phases of the third space, which is reflect, rest, and reset.
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And we've kind of talked about how you can do this a bit, but I want to go a little deeper.
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So with this reflect, are there any specific questions you found really useful when you're reflecting about what happened in that first space environment that you were in
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that can help you get ready for that second space environment?
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Because what we found is when we ask people to reflect on what they've just done, our natural tendency is to look at what was bad about it.
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So when they would reflect on their workday, they go, oh my gosh, I forgot that email.
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And what they had was this really cynical bias when they reflected.
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Now, one of the things we noticed about special forces soldiers is every time they debrief an activity, they would ask themselves the questions, you know, what went well about that?
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And I said to some of them, why do you do those questions?
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And they said, look, we're so hardwired to look at what's wrong.
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So we did an exercise, what do we need to improve?
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But those questions about what went well, what did I improve?
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And what we inserted in that reflect phase were those three questions.
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And no matter how bad a day you've had, something's gone well.
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And what we found in that reflect phase is that when people answer those questions at the end of the day, what happens is they get a burst of happiness and the mindset they take home is more optimistic.
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So that reflect phase is about is that reflection balanced or is it just looking at mistakes?
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And you talk about like if we get a bit deeper, we've had some organizations like a cancer charity expanded this and they went, oh, our challenge is that we often hear devastating news and we take that home.
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Because, you know, they can go through some full on stuff when they're dealing with kids with cancer.
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And as people left the workday, they had to write up, here's something I did really well today or here's something that was great about the day.
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And as people leave, they read the comments and write their thing up.
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And all it does is just gives their mood a little boost.
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Yeah, I like focusing on the wins because I think what it sounds like it's doing, it's sort of decontaminating the negative so that you can transition.
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So you don't have that spill over into the second space.
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Yeah, and it's not being the Pollyanna delusional optimist of we won't talk about the hard things or we won't talk about mistakes.
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Like you still got to have those hard conversations, but reflect is just, is my reflection balanced or am I just beating myself up or I'm just focusing on all the bad things?
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So it's not, you know, sometimes I worry about sort of delusional motivation or being the Pollyanna optimist.
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Yeah, I can see if you had something really bad happen at work and you think, well, that didn't go well, but I handled the situation the best I could.
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I mean, you're still recognizing that what happened was really crappy, but you recognize, you know, I did pretty well handling the situation and maybe you still made some progress.
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Yeah, and I might have fell on my face, but man, at least I stepped up and I took a swing.
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Like that can be the reflection or as you pointed out, yeah, that didn't go as well as I'd hoped, but I think I did that well.
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Or when that client objected to that issue, yeah, I think I answered that question really, really well.
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So yeah, it's about finding the little nuggets of improvement and gold in that rather than just going, oh, that was a disaster or God, I'm hopeless.
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So you're reflecting on what happened in the first case and you want to kind of, you want to have a balanced view of it because we tend to go negative.
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That's our default as human beings is to think negative, but balance it with, by thinking about the wins that happened.
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The next part is rest and that's all about being present.
00:28:39.080
And I think you mentioned it could be as simple as just taking a breath, you know, sort of doing a quick meditation.
00:28:44.180
What are some other things you found that are useful in this rest part?
00:28:47.040
Yeah, well, as you pointed out, like the objective is how do I become present and how do I calm my brain?
00:28:54.020
Obviously, breathing meditation is the ultimate.
00:28:59.120
And some people, you know, I'm thinking about one guy.
00:29:10.020
I set a calendar alert to ask me those three questions.
00:29:13.360
He said, I'm already looking at my phone on the bus.
00:29:20.620
And the rest phase, he said, I've got a mindfulness app on my phone.
00:29:30.820
Look, some people talk about exercise as their rest.
00:29:34.640
And the thing is, you know, going to the gym, exercising where you're focusing on a task.
00:29:45.360
Is people who rode a bicycle home or rode a motorbike, that rest is taken care of.
00:29:53.740
And what they said is that the days I ride to work, I show up better at home.
00:29:59.680
And the reason is that if you're riding a motorbike or a bicycle, you've got to be so focused, you can't think about anything else.
00:30:09.580
And so you're not riding home ruminating about the day or thinking, oh, I should have done that better.
00:30:14.340
You're looking out for cars or you're being hypervigilant.
00:30:21.980
Look, one thing we did, you know, I live in Sydney.
00:30:25.660
And one of the things we have is just the most beautiful harbour on earth.
00:30:31.800
And we noticed people that got the ferry home were much happier in the home environment.
00:30:38.200
And if you look at that transition, they're on water.
00:30:44.260
So it's calming them, that rocking motion of the boat on the water.
00:30:48.840
They're looking at one of the best views in the world.
00:30:52.480
And they've got like, you know, because it's very beautiful.
00:31:00.160
And they're appreciating beauty, which makes them present.
00:31:04.160
Those people, man, they arrived home so happy they were dangerous.
00:31:08.360
So there's so many things we can do in that rest phase about calming us.
00:31:17.400
So the simple breath activity exercise might be useful if you have to make a really fast
00:31:24.080
microtransition, maybe just a matter of seconds.
00:31:26.860
But then if you've got some time, you can expand this out.
00:31:29.580
And it might be a walk or it could be exercise or it could be even just a simple change.
00:31:35.020
I mean, I've always liked the saying, change is a rest.
00:31:37.660
So maybe doing something with your hands or, you know, all sorts of things could work.
00:31:42.660
I mean, it's kind of, it's limited by your imagination.
00:31:46.540
So let's talk about the third phase of the third space, and that is reset.
00:31:50.360
And this is the final step when we're getting in, about to move into that second phase.
00:31:54.200
So what are some questions or reflections or things we should be doing to reset so that
00:32:04.060
So, I mean, as I talked about earlier, it's kind of like, as the athlete goes into the
00:32:09.480
competition, they think to themselves, you know, what do I want to focus on?
00:32:17.540
And what we found is for the average person, the best questions are, what is my intent?
00:32:28.740
You know, obviously I literally transitioned into this podcast and, you know, my focus was,
00:32:39.720
And I thought to myself, this is a concept that so many people have come up to me and
00:32:44.740
said it has emotionally affected them or revolutionized their home life.
00:32:51.380
So as I came into this podcast, I'm like, I've got to be focused.
00:32:57.140
I've got to be animated because I want to, I want these people listening to change how
00:33:03.160
they show up for the people that mean the most to them.
00:33:06.020
So I literally in my transition connected to emotion and service and meaning and purpose.
00:33:14.920
And then what you think about is, well, how do I have to behave to get that intention?
00:33:21.620
So if my intention is I want to go home and be a playful dad, you know, what's my behavior?
00:33:29.260
Well, I come in, my gestures are more animated.
00:33:35.300
Whereas if I'm about to go have a hard conversation with a staff member, I want to be the complete
00:33:47.280
And I don't want to go in with this whole story in my head of you did this and this was
00:33:55.860
Like the first thing I'm going to say is, hey, we got this feedback from a client.
00:33:59.920
Just give me a perspective about what was going on.
00:34:04.380
So I want to go in without judgment and empathy.
00:34:07.600
And I'm visualizing, okay, my intent is I want this person to feel safe.
00:34:23.380
I think sometimes when people hear this, they think, okay, well, I want to be a great dad.
00:34:27.240
I want to show up and be enthusiastic, fun, et cetera.
00:34:30.320
You go into your home with that intention from work, but the kids are just crazy.
00:34:35.120
Your wife's upset because they've just been driving her nuts and the house is a mess.
00:34:39.440
And so you have this intention, well, I'm going to be a great dad and be awesome.
00:34:42.800
But then the situation you find yourself in, it kind of just crashes against that expectation
00:34:50.160
And so people get really frustrated and they get angry.
00:34:53.280
Then their intention that they had in place goes out the window and then they turn into
00:35:00.040
And so the point you made is that you need to have this intention, but don't be too attached
00:35:13.600
Obviously we want to visualize and focus on what we want to achieve, but we've also got to be
00:35:24.460
So I had a great day at work and I transitioned home and I was like, the king of the world
00:35:34.260
I was on this high and I walk in and my 13 year old daughter is in a bad mood.
00:35:40.280
And as soon as I walk in, she gives me attitude out of the gate and I was just crushed.
00:35:46.720
And what I noticed is I started to like, I wanted to have the argument and the fight
00:35:54.640
So what I noticed is I went in feeling awesome.
00:35:58.080
And I'm thinking to myself, I want to pay it back.
00:36:01.620
So we started to get into this little tit for tat thing.
00:36:09.460
And I said to her, hey, I can just tell you're not in the headspace to have a conversation
00:36:14.000
and I don't want to say something I didn't mean.
00:36:16.260
So, hey, Bells, I love you, but I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm checking out of this conversation
00:36:24.180
Now, sometimes it doesn't work and I go home and I expect this great interaction and I get
00:36:30.400
And if I've had a really tough day, I might take it out on them a little bit and we're
00:36:35.420
But what this is about is that, well, in that next interaction, I have to be flexible.
00:36:42.760
There's the three phases, reflect, rest, and reset.
00:36:46.260
Let's kind of walk through real life examples that men might experience on a daily basis.
00:36:51.740
And you said, I think a lot of guys just bringing work home is something a lot of men struggle
00:36:57.180
And I think they'd rather show up better for their family and not bring work home, like
00:37:02.280
the negative energy or the negativity of work home with them.
00:37:05.180
So let's say, okay, a guy has a bad day at work.
00:37:15.620
And he's got that commute between work and home, home being the second space.
00:37:21.080
What would a third space moment look like for this guy during his commute?
00:37:27.060
Hey, before I answer that, can we just go back a little piece?
00:37:30.280
Because, you know, I have a number of presentation topics that I present when I speak at a conference.
00:37:37.240
But when I do this one, the most common group that come up to me, and usually it's at the
00:37:44.400
So they've had a couple of glasses of wine, which loosens them up a little bit.
00:37:47.540
But a lot of men come up to me, and particularly older sort of wise men, and they come up and
00:37:55.440
go, man, I wish I'd seen that thing 20 years ago.
00:38:00.240
And what they talk about is they said, you know, I'm proud of my success.
00:38:03.660
I'm proud of the money I've earned, you know, what I've achieved.
00:38:07.480
But the most common line I hear is, but the people that meant the most to me got the worst
00:38:18.460
And they just go, man, if I just, if I have my time over again, that's the thing I do differently.
00:38:28.100
I took it out on, you know, my family or my partner, or even, you know, if they lived on
00:38:33.500
their own, they went home and stewed over it, or didn't socialize, or didn't connect
00:38:41.680
And this is the thing I hear from men the most, is I find it hard to go home and change
00:38:48.260
But when they get it right, it's a different sport.
00:38:55.000
And, you know, men in particular who don't tend to be emotional send me emails going, man,
00:38:59.920
thanks, thanks for that thing, because it really made an impact.
00:39:03.840
So I suppose for the people listening here, this is big steak stuff.
00:39:08.480
Like we don't want to muck around with this, because this is the stuff we worry about later
00:39:14.940
So if you think about that guy, if he's had a really bad day, you know, there's multiple
00:39:20.480
things he can do, depending on what he, if he already has a third space practice.
00:39:24.480
So it could be like when I've had that bad day, I call a friend and I say to them, hey,
00:39:31.540
I just got to, I've got to do a bit of a dump and I need a debrief and I need a pick me up.
00:39:37.080
And I'll call a mate and they'll empathize and talk to me about it and go, oh, that sucks.
00:39:45.660
So that reflect phase is a really empathetic and almost a bit of a venting session.
00:39:52.620
And sometimes after that, like rarely, you know, a mate might say, but, you know, what
00:40:00.260
was good about that or was that the only thing that happened in the day?
00:40:04.480
They don't kind of go turn that frown upside down, but they're helpful in that.
00:40:09.480
Yeah, but man, you got all this stuff going on.
00:40:13.560
So you could connect with a friend, even with your partner.
00:40:16.380
Some days I, you know, I text my wife, I text my wife the other day and I just went,
00:40:21.900
man, I just got some feedback and I thought it was going to be great and it wasn't and
00:40:27.620
I'm crushed and I'm just going to take a little bit longer to come home.
00:40:32.560
Like, I'm just going to go for a bit of a walk first.
00:40:35.680
And so I've communicated with her and sort of set some expectations.
00:40:40.960
And that day I came home, I tried to transition.
00:40:46.500
And, you know, I was taking it out on the kids and she looked at me and said, hey,
00:40:51.720
So we did another walk and we kind of debriefed the day.
00:40:56.280
But she said, hey, you can't show up like that because you've been a jerk.
00:41:02.640
And we went for a walk and we debriefed and had a chat.
00:41:05.520
So, you know, there's various things like that.
00:41:08.040
It could be sometimes I use, you know, a funny podcast, you know, something that makes
00:41:16.820
You know, that guy could think about, you know, what he's grateful for.
00:41:21.140
Or it could be to communicate to your partner, hey, I'm really struggling.
00:41:25.200
So I'm kind of checking out a bit tonight and I'm going to have some interaction, but
00:41:33.220
It's much more about looking at, okay, if I've had a really bad day, what am I doing
00:41:40.320
And I might have to lean on other people or my partner, but that's some of the things they
00:41:47.560
Look, I mean, probably the biggest one in there is do some sort of exercise that burns
00:41:51.780
off all that cortisol and adrenaline that they've accumulated.
00:41:55.200
So they might go, yeah, I'm coming home, but I'm going for a run or I'm going to the
00:42:02.480
So you had the reflect, rest, and then reset and the various different things.
00:42:07.220
It's like, okay, on the commute home, I'm going to reflect, maybe call a friend if it
00:42:10.880
is bad and maybe just kind of vent, do a walk before I walk into the home around the block.
00:42:17.600
And then I'm going to change into my home clothes and be dad now.
00:42:23.400
And we've got to be really realistic about this.
00:42:28.480
Like one thing we know about the third space is it's skill-based.
00:42:31.720
If we practice it and do it, we get better at it and we get better at it really fast.
00:42:37.380
Like we got executives to do this for a month and one of the things we measured was the
00:42:44.460
And what we showed is in a month, they saw a 43% improvement in mood in the home.
00:42:49.700
Like their homes got happier by 43% by these executives, you know, men and women that were
00:42:56.700
Once they practice it, they got really good at it.
00:42:59.820
But some days you're just not going to be good at it.
00:43:02.500
And sometimes, you know, I go home or actually I had a guy talk to me the other day.
00:43:11.080
And he said, I had a really bad day and nothing I did was helping.
00:43:14.380
And he said, I went in the home and all I thought to myself is just minimize the damage.
00:43:21.340
Like you're not going to be a good version, but just don't say something stupid or don't
00:43:27.200
And he said, yeah, I was really quiet and I was a bit surly, but I was just mindful of
00:43:36.160
And even, and part of it's a stoic thing too, I believe, and I'm getting much more interested
00:43:45.160
And during COVID, you know, when COVID hit in Australia, like my job is I get large groups
00:43:52.160
of people in a room, sit them really close together, get them to interact, you know, not
00:44:01.240
So when COVID hit and I saw all these, you know, bookings being put on hold, I freaked
00:44:17.420
And I was a terrible version of myself in the home.
00:44:22.220
But I just kept saying to myself, I know you're not happy, but you just got to suck it up and
00:44:27.100
you've got to be stoic and you've got to be the bigger person.
00:44:29.620
And you just got to not do too much damage right now.
00:44:34.080
And yeah, you're not going to walk in high-fiving people because you're in distress, but it's
00:44:40.880
like, you've got a bigger role here is you're a dad and you're a husband and you just got
00:44:45.940
to be a bit stoic and accept that you're going through a lot of trauma right now, but you're
00:44:52.320
not going to use it as an excuse to throw the toys out of the cot and just be inappropriate
00:45:00.140
So yeah, like part of it is also recognizing we're human and, you know, it's not all bells
00:45:07.100
So you mentioned COVID, which forced a lot of people to work from home.
00:45:10.360
A lot of people are still working from home and you no longer have a third space.
00:45:16.140
So any advice there that you found useful for people who work from home to make transitions
00:45:24.960
And Brett, like I got more emails about this concept during lockdown than ever.
00:45:31.160
And what people said is, gosh, I thought this concept was important when I had a transition.
00:45:40.260
Because what we found is when people work from home, particularly people that lived on
00:45:44.040
their own, their work hours blow out and they never shift gears from work to personal.
00:45:51.460
And what happens is they stay in this kind of state where they're consistently doing both.
00:46:02.500
And, you know, it can be as extreme as like one guy said, now I work from home full time.
00:46:09.380
He said, I drive to a coffee shop in the morning.
00:46:14.620
And as I walk through the door, I reset and go, okay, you're at work now.
00:46:24.940
And he said, at the end of the day, I don't need more caffeine, but I drive to a park.
00:46:29.480
He said, I put a podcast on and I do a 30 minute walk around the park.
00:46:37.280
He said, and then when I transition home, I go, I'm in dad mode or I'm in partner mode.
00:46:47.760
And he said, homeschooling is the most brutal thing I've ever done.
00:46:53.220
And he said, the first week of homeschooling, it was just fights, arguments.
00:46:57.040
It's, you know, my sons are getting into fist fights, you know, like it's, he said, it's
00:47:02.340
And he said, I actually thought about your concept.
00:47:08.520
He said, I got the kids up and my wife who also has a really big, powerful role.
00:47:14.700
I said, all right, after we eat breakfast, we're getting dressed for work and you're putting
00:47:20.560
And the kids are like, what are you doing, dad?
00:47:27.500
We walked around the block and he said to the kids, I want you to think about that you're
00:47:34.440
And he said, we went in, they did schoolwork online.
00:47:38.340
We, you know, my wife and I went to separate offices.
00:47:40.680
And he said, at the end of the day, we walked around the block and we came back in the house
00:47:48.440
And we got dressed for, you know, when we're at home.
00:47:51.820
And he said, look, obviously because of the reduced hours, my wife and I had to do work
00:47:55.820
of an evening, but he said it totally transformed the interaction.
00:48:03.980
And he said, we had more control over the situation.
00:48:06.740
So yeah, I mean, COVID has popped up so many funny stories about how people are transitioning,
00:48:14.280
You've got to, you've got to manufacture one and find out what works for you.
00:48:18.920
So one thing as I was reading, as I was talking to my wife about this idea of the third space,
00:48:23.760
she's talking about what about the transition from home to vacation and vacation to home?
00:48:29.400
So that's kind of interesting because there's a third space there.
00:48:31.680
And I think there can be a problem where when you're transitioning from home to vacation
00:48:35.660
or work to vacation, you bring work to the vacation.
00:48:38.800
And then like also transitioning back from vacation to regular life.
00:48:43.700
If you're not thoughtful about it, you can have, it can cause some sputters.
00:48:46.700
Have you had any experience with that personally, or even just working with
00:48:52.720
The vacation research is really starting to ramp up looking at, well, how do you have
00:48:58.000
a vacation where you actually refresh yourself?
00:49:03.240
And what they showed is on vacations work is the worst thing you can possibly do.
00:49:08.880
Like when you work, you reduce your recovery of that break dramatically.
00:49:13.440
So even if it's a couple of emails, it still brings you out of that relaxed state.
00:49:20.220
So if work is going to creep up, or if you know there's things you've got to do on your
00:49:24.880
vacation, you're better off chunking them into like the start or towards the end of it,
00:49:31.040
where you know, hey, I'm going to insert these things to, so just that it's not spluttered
00:49:41.440
In terms of transitioning in and out of a vacation, yeah, that's super interesting.
00:49:46.280
We don't have a lot of research that we've done on that, but what we know is just trying
00:49:56.980
And one thing that has come up is people who say, yeah, I practice the third space every
00:50:02.060
day, they said to us, my vacations are more restorative.
00:50:07.520
And what they talked about is, of course, I've practiced turning off from work at the
00:50:12.220
I'm just better at doing that when I stop work and I go on the holiday.
00:50:17.840
So it's, you know, you beautifully pointed it out.
00:50:22.620
Like how am I going to transition into this holiday?
00:50:26.680
And also how am I going to prepare myself for the, the come down and the sadness about
00:50:35.320
And this is something we've got to think about and look at how do we do this more effectively?
00:50:41.320
And I like how you said that this idea of creating third spaces for yourself, this is
00:50:46.720
This isn't something that you can just implement, you know, starting tomorrow and you're going
00:50:51.740
You could see improvements right away, but you're going to have lots of setbacks along
00:50:56.840
And you just have to remind yourself, this is a skill that I'm practicing.
00:51:01.160
And then the more I do it, I can apply it not only to work and family life, but also vacations
00:51:06.600
and transitions that we have in other parts of our lives as well.
00:51:11.440
And, and just to give you an example of that, you know, recently, not, not recently, this
00:51:17.340
is a few years ago, we found out someone was kind of ripping us off a little bit.
00:51:22.120
So I had to have a very hard conversation with a group who was doing something wrong
00:51:26.100
and I had to bring it up and I had to talk, like you talk about hard conversations.
00:51:37.260
My wife came home from work much later on and she walked in and went, oh man, I thought
00:51:42.740
I was going to find like this angry tyrant after the conversation you'd had, because
00:51:49.420
you know, like, I know that was going to take a lot from you.
00:51:53.040
And she said, I just can't believe how like chilled out you are.
00:51:55.860
And I said, well, you know, I've been practicing this thing for a long time.
00:52:00.840
And that was when I kind of went, oh yeah, this is skill-based and this is something that
00:52:08.160
So, you know, even in an extreme example like that, what I found is it was very effective.
00:52:12.740
To not let me really take out that difficult, frustrating interaction on my family life.
00:52:22.000
Well, Adam, this has been a great conversation.
00:52:23.520
Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?
00:52:26.840
Well, dradamfraser.com is in dradamfraser.com is my website.
00:52:35.140
You know, there we have lots of information, lots of articles, reports on our research, as
00:52:39.960
well as the book and, you know, some videos about this concept.
00:52:46.180
This is something I'm incredibly passionate about.
00:52:50.600
And this conversation actually has reminded me of how much I love this concept, how much,
00:52:56.120
how important it is and, you know, how kind of lucky I was to stumble across a few interactions
00:53:13.940
You can learn more information about his work and the book at his website, dradamfraser.com.
00:53:18.320
Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash third space.
00:53:21.460
We find links to resources where we can delve deeper into this topic.
00:53:53.960
And until next time, it's Brett McKay reminding you to listen to the podcast, but put what