Daniel Sih: [00:00] Hey there, Spacemakers. I'm Daniel Sih here with my good friend and co-host, Matt Bain. Welcome to season five of The Spacemakers, a podcast to help you live an intentional, meaningful life.

This season, we're exploring an idea that could change the way you see almost everything. How to hold two seemingly opposite truths in tension at the same time. Moving from either or to both and thinking, work and life, artificial and human intelligence, pace and space. [00:28] It's a pod course to help you navigate complexity, think deeply, and embrace the power of both and. Thanks to our generous long-term sponsor, Bulk Nutrients.

Narrator: This is the Spacemakers.

Daniel Sih: Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Spacemakers podcast. We are up to season five after a short break, and we're exploring how to make space for an intentional meaningful life. But this time we're talking about paradox and productivity [00:56] and the power of both and thinking to navigate a complex, busy, overwhelming world. So if you are here for the very first time, my name's Daniel Sih. I'm a productivity and time management coach and author. And this podcast, or as we say, a pod course will be 10 episodes to help you explore one big idea and to help you walk away with one big change to help you make space in life.

And that's to help you think both and [01:25] rather than either or so that you can live in this complex world. And as always, I'm here with my co-host Matt Bane, the co-host with the most a paradox in and of himself. Welcome, Matt Bain. Thanks, Dan. It is great to be back. It is great to have you back. Tell our new listeners about who you are.

Matt Bain: Yeah, uh, one way to think about me is almost the polar opposite of you. I suppose it's also like I uh [01:50] like to say when it comes to doing the training with you. Sometimes I think that you like just sprang from your mother's womb with a to-do list ready to go. Whereas in I like to think about myself as an incredibly disorganized person in recovery. And that's why that's one of the reasons why we spend lots of time together.

Daniel Sih: We're going to spend 10 episodes talking about this big idea of how to make space to navigate the complexities of life through both and thinking. So I recently launched my newest book, Wise AI with Paul Matthews, who co-wrote the book with me. Uh, and it was at Fuller's Bookshop, [02:19] who's been a sponsor of this show and our favourite bookstore in Hobart.

Love it. And uh I was having a chat with the owner, Tim, you know, as we were leading up to the to the book launch, and I just asked him, you know, how's business going? And he said, Oh, look, it's been a little bit slow for a few months, but it's definitely picked up again. So I asked him, you know, well, what's behind the slump and the business going better because I'm interested in small business being an owner myself.

It was interesting. He said, Oh, look, I've been thinking it was the war in Iran, the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, people's kind of [02:48] fear and anxiety, and also the petrol prices that are impacting their ability to come into a shop and buy. But it turns out it was their road works on Macquarie Street, which is like down the road from where they were. Basically, people found it harder to park in the city because of some local road works.

And um, I just that really struck me that throwaway line. You know, is it the war in Iran or the road works in Macquarie Street? And I just think, isn't that so representative of the world we live in that we are impacted by these massive global events? Um, [03:18] they impact our work, they impact the way we live. Uh, they impact, you know, what it costs to go supermarket shopping because of the increased prices. And at the same time, like very local everyday events impact us just as much.

And it's so complex as a business owner to know which is which and how do I navigate this change. Um, and we thought that was a good example of the complexity that we're struggling with today and why we need both end thinking.

Matt Bain: Two truths. It's such a good example. Um, so what I take away from that is that [03:48] when I'm presented with a problem or a challenge, it could be something literally on my doorstep or it could be something happening way overseas. And in either case, first of all, I'm struggling to identify which one it is. And then secondly, like what do I do about it?

Can I do anything about it? So it's gotten the point now, Dan, where [04:02] if one of my kids refused to go to school and I asked him why, and they said, look, it's the uh it's the global supply chain issue.

Daniel Sih: I probably should, I'd probably say, yeah, sure. Okay, yeah, acceptable. I get it. Yeah. I mean, seriously, there have been world events uh that have happened. I won't describe which particular ones, where I know a lot of clients, I've run training events and like half the people didn't turn up because they're so upset about these particular events. So there is a real sense where what's happening externally and in a bigger picture sense not just [04:29] doesn't just impact us emotionally, but it it impacts us in very real tangible ways. It can impact our small business. Uh, you know, AI is a classic, right? This massive change in AI is affecting my business.

And at the same time, what's affecting my business is the fact that I didn't sleep that well because I was working too hard on my emails. Do you know what I mean? And so we have to navigate the future and the present. We have to navigate global and local. We need to navigate ourselves and others and all of these are both and realities. And we want to talk about the power of paradox within that. [04:58] Excellent.

Uh, so I like I really like the work of Jermaine Cashio. So he talks about the world that we're in being a BANI world. It's an acrostic, B-A-N-I, for brittle, anxious, uh, nonlinear and incomprehensible.

And I I quite like that description. Uh, you know, what he says is that the world is now brittle, or at least organizations are now brittle. Uh, they used to be volatile, they used to bend, but now they suddenly break. So something [05:26] will happen, like the global supply chain crises or COVID or you know, AI, and and all of a sudden an industry that seemed like it was somewhat fragile is all of a sudden irrelevant.

Uh, and we're experiencing that I see that in business all the time and the challenges of that. Uh, so that leads to anxiety, which is the A and Vanny. I think we are living in this culture where so many of us feel [05:52] a low grade anxiety about both the global events and also our position in it.

Even if we navigate our own kind of inner world and somehow become a non-anxious presence, well, then we're still leading and working amongst people who are anxious. We're living in a world which is nonlinear. So, you know, A doesn't always equal B, which doesn't always equal C. Some things that you do, which used to lead to an outcome no longer provide the outcome you expect.

And then some things you do lead to a tremendous outcome, [06:21] positive or negative, that you just don't expect. Like the world is it, it it feels like it's non-linear as well. And the final idea is that all of it makes it incomprehensible.

It's almost like the more data, and the more you examine the world as it is, the more you recognize that wicked problems can't be understood, and that we need to somehow navigate very complex systems in very practical ways.

Matt Bain: Yeah, you're painting a really rosy picture there.

Daniel Sih: Yeah, very cheery start to the podcast. Um, but we [06:49] I mean, I suppose we want to start with this honest reflection of the world we're in because we all feel it, right?

Everyone has a complexity problem. We don't have to teach people or tell them that it's a complex world that's changing fast, that there's insecurity and volatility in the bigger picture stuff and that we feel anxious in in the immediate future. Like I think people feel that. Um, you know, we feel a BANI world when we go to the petrol station, we look at the price. Uh, we feel a BANI world [07:18] when we open, you know, watch the news and we we read about the polarization of politics and and the instability of the climate change crises. We also feel it when we open up our inbox and when we can't keep on troll of our work, where AI is pumping out so much stuff that we just can't keep up, or when we just simply feel overwhelmed at the idea of falling behind and losing our jobs because of irrelevancy. At least that's how I feel.

And a lot of the people I coach feel the same way. Yeah, yeah. [07:43] And I actually think if you're someone who doesn't feel a certain sense of change or um volatility in this, you'll like you don't have to feel anxiety or stress with that volatility. But if you don't feel that sense of volatility, you're probably actually not thinking both and, but you you're probably actually keeping your head in the sand and hoping things won't change, but they are changing. For you and I, and from the certainly for the people I coach and and for the companies and organizations we work with, we see this great sense of change. [08:11] And one of the things that you and I have recognized is that the only way to make space and to navigate this change and this complexity is through paradoxical thinking to move from binary, either or thinking, right and wrong thinking, where you focus on one end of a paradox, and instead to start to see the world as a polarity or multiple polarities, to have the maturity to navigate the both and to hold the tension of two equal and opposites [08:41] and to do so to help you not just survive, but to thrive in this new world to see opportunities where people actually have anxiety.

Matt Bain: This point I think is important, and let's be honest, it's still something that I'm somewhat struggling to kind of articulate and get my head around. But I suppose what we're warning people against is uh whilst there is some comfort and often it's simple to kind of when you're faced with an issue or a problem to slip into that black and white thinking where you think, well, the solution is clearly A, because B is wrong. [09:10] We're talking about a third way.

And again, the third way is critical because what we're trying to kind of suppose wrap our heads around is that the world has gotten so complex that simplistic solutions in the face of that complexity, it'd be great, it'd be comforting, it'd be ideal, but it's just too simplistic.

Daniel Sih: It is. Yeah. And I think we've always drifted towards simplistic solutions. I'm right, you're wrong, we're good, you're bad. Yeah. There's one way, there's not another way. You know, it's either this or it's that.

Um, [09:39] I just think now we're in a world where that just simply doesn't work. And you won't keep up and you will actually fall behind if if you if you don't learn to think paradoxically. And so I think there's a real opportunity here. And we we want to look at multiple paradoxes, particularly surrounding work and life, keeping pace and making space. We'll also get super practical and help people think paradoxically, and create practical rhythms in their life where they're focusing on now and later, dealing with reactivity and [10:09] producing something for the future, uh, managing the complexity of your career and performance while also caring for your life and your well-being. So we'll actually get really practical through this season. So you walk away not only thinking differently, but also having rhythms and practices in your life to navigate a complex, overwhelming, BANI world. All right. So Matt, look, it might be helpful for listeners to have maybe some formal definitions of what we mean by [10:35] paradoxical thinking or you know, both and thinking.

Matt Bain: Usefully, we found a defin, like a good definition of paradox that I think we want to keep on coming back to. And this is from uh the book Both and Thinking by Wendy Smith and Mary Ann Lewis, uh, which I know particularly you are a big fan of. This is their definition. Paradoxes are contradictory yet interdependent elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time.

Daniel Sih: [11:00] So why don't we break this down? Because I think there's a few elements to this, which is ironic that the very definition of a paradox has paradox in it. There's the first one is that paradox is a contradictory, okay. So it's a paradox when you have two equal and opposite realities, so kind of polarities.

Uh so two things that feel like they're in tension with each other and they're on either side of, let's say, a line or they're contradicting each other. So that you know the classic would be [11:26] work and life. We feel that contradiction that on the one hand, I care about my career, I want to invest in the world, I want to make an income and I want to make a difference, but that draws me towards lots of time and energy, which pulls me away from life from my kids from self-care, from good sleep habits and from you know relaxing and having fun, right? And and obviously both are super important. Work and life are not they're not different parts of [11:55] our reality, but they there's also a tension, a contradiction in those spaces.

Matt Bain: So that's the interdependence, I think, right?

Daniel Sih: So that's the intervention. That's the interdependence part. So let's focus on the contradiction. So firstly, they feel contradictory, right?

Matt Bain: Yeah, yeah. But like just on that, I think like we mean that they initially, or at least at first glance, or seemingly seem contradictory.

Daniel Sih: There will always be tensions within it, right? Because the better you do it at a career, the the more pressure there is on life. Yeah. Um, [12:19] or vice versa, the more you focus on, let's say, having fun and relaxing and enjoying relationships, the more you might struggle with meaningful contribution and finances, right? So there is a contradiction, but as is the definition, there's an interdependence.

Matt Bain: It's because in real life, both those things, like work and say your family life, they actually are interdependent. One will affect and will bleed into the other. So if they were like in my mind, at least, if they were completely like and inherently contradictory, absolutely contradictory, there'd be no crossover or relation. [12:48] You could separate them, but no one really can, which tells me that there's some degree of interdependence.

Yes. So this is why it's really crucial. It's like seeing those two things that seem to be, again, at first glance, completely contradictory. It's looking a little bit harder and realizing, okay, one will affect the other. There is some kind of connection there. If there's some kind of connection there, some kind of interdependence, is there a better or third way to kind of like make them make them work with each other?

Daniel Sih: Yeah, absolutely. So the interdependence of work and life, just to state the obvious, you know, if if you don't [13:16] work effectively, well, then you don't have the time to invest in your life. You don't have the money to actually do the things you'd like. Yeah. Similarly, if you don't invest in your life, well, then you don't have the energy, the reserves, or the capacity to actually turn up and focus at work, right?

Matt Bain: I've got the best example here. Yeah. It just came to me in real time. Like you, I remember, and many of our listeners, slash uh viewers will be familiar with The Far Side by Gary Larson.

Daniel Sih: Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do like The Far Side. Yeah, where you remember there's a classic cartoon where there's uh two observers, [13:45] like, and they're watching like this third guy who's just in shot, and the third guy is clearly like a bomb disposal expert. And one of the observers is saying to the other, gee, I hope Gary's okay this morning.

I'm pretty sure he had a big fight with his wife last night and he's in the middle of diffusing a bomb, right? That's it. That's a really good example of you cannot just say, okay, I'm gonna cut off my occupation completely from my personal family. Yeah, okay. So what's going on what goes on at home impacts your work

Matt Bain: and sometimes it's super hard and sometimes blows things up.

Daniel Sih: That's a good definition. All right. Um [14:13] so this is the paradox though, right? Because we have um every paradox is contradictory. So planned and spontaneous, you know, how much do you invest in preparation, how much do you need to just go with the flow and see what happens. Uh caring for self or others is a big one. You know, when do you say yes to someone because of the relationship and when do you guard your own time?

Science or spirituality, progressive or conservative if we go into the political realm, uh, environment or economy. Do you know what I mean? Like there are contradictions and paradoxes everywhere. And each of them [14:44] has this element of both having parts that are separate and parts that are connected. And I think what makes it a paradox is the tension and holding the tension of the two.

The hard thing about paradoxes is there's this complexity where two things are different, but they have interconnections, and yet the tension persists over time. So you you'll never, maybe until you retire, let's suggest, you'll never end up having no tension between work and life if you care about your career [15:13] and you care about your life, right? The same as you know, planning for today or or planning for the future. Like you're always going to have a tension with do I do the reactivity of today, or do I do the long-term thing that's going to make an impact longer term? I think what we need to learn as humans is to hold that cognitive tension to be okay with the dissonance of these different realities and to not kind of reduce the tension by saying I'm an either-or person, I'm a right and wrong person, I'm a good and bad person, but but to hold these [15:42] two equal and opposite tensions that connect and separate and learn to make great choices within that.

Matt Bain: So we're gonna argue, and we're arguing that resolving that tension particularly prematurely will be detrimental, and then in fact maintaining or holding that tension will actually lead to a more enriching at least third, if not fourth or fifth option or way forward, right?

Like that's what I was saying. So it's actually it's not a concession, it's not a compromise to say, you know what, I just got to live with this paradox. [16:11] It's actually a better way to live. So like going back to the family and professional life, I guess the argument would be if you resolve that tension, what will what it would probably look like is diving into your professional life entirely at the expense of your family, or vice versa, like just sucking at your job because you're such a family man, for example. But we're saying, again, if you've got a good family life going, it will actually make your professional life better. [16:33] Exactly. And vice versa.

Daniel Sih: And the more you can live in that tension and the more you can hold it, more you can lean into it and actually um learn paradoxical thinking, uh, the more you can make space for the kind of complexity of life that we're talking about. So look, let me read a quote. We like quotes at the Spacemakers.

Uh, so Carl Jung, only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life. I really like that. Yeah.

If we can think [17:00] paradoxically, we broaden our life and we actually align it with reality. Yeah. Yeah. Look, Matt, we're talking about these big ideas, these kind of complex definitions, but at the end of the day, you and I feel what it looks like to live in a complex world, right?

Um, and like all of our pod courses, we picked this because we thought it would help us to navigate the complexities that we're struggling with. I mean, for me, I'm a business owner, and I'm really feeling as a small business owner how fast [17:29] the world is moving. Uh, I was thinking about Ubers and taxis, you know, and imagine being a taxi driver, investing in your kind of what are they licenses or tickets, um, feeling like you had a secure job, and then Uber comes along and it literally kind of takes out the clients from under your feet and changes the model overnight.

Uh, and I I just think that's that's how I feel as a small business owner with AI in particular. [17:55] But I just think about podcasts, for example. Okay, you and I plan this podcast, we put lots of time in, uh, we meet in a studio, we produce it, you know, costs lots of money, we have sponsors, and it takes us months to produce something, which we hope is worth listening to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But now you can grab a book, put it or or an article, put it into notebook LM and say, give me a podcast, and two AI voices will speak on the topic in real world, right?

Matt Bain: Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Sih: Now it's it's [18:24] it's not bad. And then you can even interact with it. So I'm like, am I building a taxi business in an Uber world? And at what point is it gonna kind of fall out? Yeah. Or will podcasts continue to be really relevant because people want to know that they can talk with, like listen to real people who have real stories and who have planned and prepped.

And that's just that's just podcast, right? But you know, let alone everything else I do, which also seems to be not under threat, but but that seems to be changing so quickly [18:52] that I want to be investing in the now, but also not neglecting the future, and then suddenly finding it's like a Kodak moment where there's no more Kodak.

Matt Bain: Like it reminds me of the time that I I uh I uh bulk bought all those landline telephones back in 2005. That was a dumb idea. Did you really? Yeah, well, there's a fire sale, right? I mean, I thought I should have seen it coming.

Daniel Sih: Well, they might come back, they'll be retro one day. What about you? I mean, you you you and I both think [19:19] this is a topic that can that can help us and help explore things we're wrestling with.

Matt Bain: I mean, I hadn't had any misgivings about being a podcast host until about 30 seconds ago, but yeah, but sure.

Daniel Sih: This is just my way of breaking the news that you're a place, you're now replaced with an AI body.

Matt Bain: Thank you, Thank you, Matt. I'm very good to have you here.

Matt Bain: This uh this is particularly pertinent to me in the sense that I feel the tension and I don't like the tension, so I want to go all out one way [19:48] and resolve the contradiction. And I know because I've done the multiple personality and temperament, big five, whatever assessments. And I know um uh I know that one of them said, at least one of them said that in terms of the uh, I guess like the trait of conscientiousness, I'm in the the bottom third percentile, which means if there were a hundred people in a room, [20:12] 96 would be more conscientious than what is just for the listeners.

Daniel Sih: who aren't aware of the big five personalities. It turns out it's a combination of orderliness and industriousness. So that is the ability to stick to any one goal and actually see it through. Okay. So to define it simply though, because even those are complex terms, you find it hard to get out of bed, right?

Matt Bain: Yeah, well, no, it's more like I I find it easy to get out of bed if there's something that interests me. I find it hard to be bothered putting my pants on, checking the calendar, seeing what I've got on that day, [20:39] and then actually going to the appointment and doing the thing and finishing it.

People like me hate routines, order predictability, calendars, schedules, appointments. All that to say um, I feel this tension between because I mean, I'm not, I'm not a complete idiot. I've got um I've got some aspirations and ambition, but I feel like I'm constantly underachieving Q season four. So it'd just be easy for me, I think, to resolve the contradiction by going, you know what, I just want to become like a professional slacker, [21:07] coast through life, embrace my lack of conscientiousness, and just you know, we'll see what happens.

We'll just roll a dice and we'll see what happens. That'll be easier than living in this space where it's like, oh, come on, man. You've got responsibilities, you've got people who depend on you to some degree, you've got some degree of again like potential. Maybe you should, you know, prove your grade three teacher wrong and actually meet that potential, you know what I mean?

Daniel Sih: It's interesting, even even the way we've um named our podcast. I know I'm going lifting it up a bit. [21:31] Someone just listened to our last season of the podcast and said, I disagree. I think you should actually build some habits and learn productivity skills and actually invest in like the way you work. Uh, for those who didn't listen, our last season was an anti-productivity season to say that actually the self-help and well-being movement is exhausting us, and we need to learn to be enough without having to build on new habits and practices and skills, always adding more and never being enough. But even that's paradoxical because everything we talk about is how to build new skills, habits and practices. [22:01] So that's kind of assumed, but we also realize that the paradox is actually well-being and doing more and adding more exhaust us, right?

So again, I think even embedded in the seasons itself has been paradoxical thinking. So all we're trying to do is pull all this together personally and also from a seasonal perspective before AI takes over and there's no more Spacemakers, and actually uh put a bar around this to help us think both and maybe put some context both on our lives but also on [22:30] the content of our season so far. Hey, this might be a good time to have a pause and reflect on what you're learning. Uh at the Spacemakers, we always like to create a bit of space so that you can reflect and think about how these ideas impact you. Um have a moment, reflect on the contradictions of life, reflect on the complexity of your world, reflect on what it means for you to think both and [23:28] I always like the reflective pause, helps me to gain my thoughts. But um, we always finish as well with an activity because as we say on the Spacemakers, it's what you do that counts. But yeah, what's an activity people good to do today?

Matt Bain: Yeah, great. So this is a natural follow-on from that little reflective space. You've probably zoned in on some tension in your life. And that probably reflects, it's indicative of a paradox. So here's what we'd like you to do. Grab a journal, digital, paper-based, [23:54] go through and identify, actually, write out, articulate what you think that uh that particular paradox may be.

Here are some examples, some classics. It could be between work life and family life. It could be between saving and spending. It could be between spending time with family and spending time with friends, with mates. It could be spending time alone versus, if you like, spending time with others.

[24:21] Or it could be like to use a more kind of classic professional scenario, having an open door policy when it comes to your office versus deep work time where you just head down and alone. Now, strong suspicion is that once you start looking for these paradoxes in life, you will find them everywhere.

Daniel Sih: And naming them, recognizing them and recognizing, oh yeah, that's why there's tension there. That's why they are contradictory. That's why they're interdependent. Uh, and what might it look like for me to make space to navigate the tension of both end?

I think that's [24:50] that's what we want you to head to to recognize the actual paradoxes that you struggle with. Yeah. And to become more comfortable with that emotional tension related to them.

Matt Bain: Yeah, so please don't think this is an invitation or a suggestion to resolve them or to solve them.

Daniel Sih: I'm really excited about this season. We're going to talk about some big ideas. We'll also get really practical. I hope our listeners will walk away at the end. Um, really answering the question how do I live well and how do I be productive in this busy complex world, [25:19] but in a deeply human way. How do I navigate paradoxes and live both and um so we we normally have a kind of a season handout with guides and infographics to guide people through each pod course. Uh, but this time the majority of what we're going to talk about is kind of stuff based on my two books, Space Maker, How to Unplug, Unwind and Think Clearly in the Digital Age.

We've won a heap of awards. Best personal development book in Australia, best time management [25:47] and prioritization book in an American business book award. Uh, but there's a lot in here that we're going to talk about how to keep pace, how to make space, how to build paradoxical rhythms in your life.

So instead of the handout, if you haven't read my book, buy my book. Uh, and we're going to talk about aspects of that over the next few episodes. And my newest book, Wise AI with Paul Matthews. Uh, we we will talk about the paradox of AI and how to navigate [26:15] um the complexities of life in an AI world as well. So I highly recommend that people read that. And that will give them the diagrams and the ideas that support this podcast. Yes.

Matt Bain: So, on that, a final ask from us. Uh, we would so value it and be very thankful if people could continue to write reviews of the podcast. This is just a great way to expose the podcast to other people who may be interested and really benefit from it. And as a special incentive, uh, [26:41] we are going to give a copy of Wise AI to the first five people who write a review and send us a copy of that review via the email address podcast at spacemakers.au. That's podcast at Spacemakers uh.au. So the first five will get a free copy of Wise AI. It'll be autographed. Probably by me, because that'll be kind of funny.

Daniel Sih: So [27:05] it was a great offer, though. And uh seriously, reviews, um, reviews are like the lifeblood of podcasters. Partly, it's the only way we really hear from you to know what you like and what's been helpful. Um, and we'd love to give you the a free book, a signed book.

I'll get Matt to sign one as well. So until next time, think both and look for the tensions in life and hold them creatively. And of course, as always, make space.

[27:36] Thanks to our generous long term sponsor, Bulk Nutrients. Are you ready to put these ideas into practice? If you'd like to spend a year working with me to improve your habits, productivity, and work life rhythms, check out Productivity Masterclass at spacemakers.au/masterclass.

Narrator: The Spacemakers with Daniel Sih and Matt Bain.