EPISODE DESCRIPTION
In this episode of Coffee With Phil we’re looking life being too busy to be quiet, where Phil unpacks how to set a direction for a fruitful life and what it means to be off focus.
If you can see that things are too busy and life is unmanageable, maybe it’s time for you to gain an awareness of the demands on your life, and join Phil as he slows down and learnshow to make space for quiet.
If you’re the kind of person that only worries about feeling good today, you definitely won’t want to be challenged by Phil in this podcast. But, if you’re game, grab yourself some time and enjoy coffee with Phil.
MENTIONS
- Podcast: The Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast’ – Pete Scazzero.
- Book: John Mark Comer: The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry
BONUS CONTENT
- Show Transcription: CWP. 21.
SUBSCRIBE
Introduction
Hi and welcome to the podcast. Welcome to coffee with Phil, I’m your host Phil strong and today I wanna talk about life being too busy to be quiet. I wanna speak with you about life being too busy to be quiet and we’ll get to that in a minute, but I wanna ask you this question right at the start. Have you ever had the speed wobbles? Do you even know what the speed wobbles are?
Well, when I was a young fella, I was really into my skateboard. Now this was before skateboards were actually cool or, I was just into riding my skateboard, we didn’t do tricks like all the cool kids do now. We just wanted to go fast on our skateboard. We wanted to go over jumps on our skateboard, and in this particular story, I thought that the best way I could go faster was to get my friend to essentially tow me behind his push bike. So, you could imagine I’m hanging on to the seat, and he’s standing up on his pushbike and he’s pedalling really fast while I’m holding onto the seat, and I’m standing on my skateboard, behind his bike.
Well, we actually achieved what we wanted to achieve in that we got to go really fast, but I went too fast and then I got the speed wobbles because I wasn’t able to keep the board as steady as I needed to for the speed, and that means it got a little off balance and when it gets a little bit off balance you get what’s called the speed wobbles.
Now what I remember most about that incident is the loss of skin that happened as I transferred myself from my skateboard to the concrete at great speed, and then as a result of that exchange, I transferred my skin from my body to the concrete and so when I got up again, there was less of me, because some of my body, my skin, was left on the pavement. I had, I still have scars on the left hand side of my body from the knuckles, the wrist, the elbow, the hip and the knee that dragged along the concrete. So I don’t tell that to get pity from you at all. It’s quite a funny story, and you know, when you’re kids you bounce back pretty good and you do it again the next week. But sometimes when it goes too fast, we get the speed wobbles in life, and we get the speed wobbles in life, we crash and we end up hurting ourselves., and what I’ve discovered is that if I’m too busy to be quiet, then life is a problem because I’m coming back to a place where I think we need to insert more quiet space into our lives. Sit. Turn off the device, contemplate the world, look at the wind in the trees or the dog playing on the back lawn, and just be quiet.
So that’s my end game, and some of you who are adrenaline junkies like me are already thinking, oh, I might turn this one off and skip to a different episode. Don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t do that, because there’s some stuff here I wanna talk about. I wanna talk about three problems that I see in my life, that if I figure if I just hold up my life as an example, some of you might relate and then decide well, you get to choose if you want to do something about it?
Too many demands
So, I want to talk about three problems. The first problem that I’ve identified in my world is that I have too many demands on my time, on my life. And I wrote this phrase down the other day when I was planning my podcasts. I wrote down that I’m juggling plates and spinning balls. Now those are two analogies that I’ve crossed over on purpose.
You know, there’s the old analogy of the guy who’s spinning plates on a stick and he’s trying to keep them all spinning, and if he doesn’t get the momentum right on plate number one, it gets wobbles and it falls over and breaks, but he’s got to spin that while he’s watching plate number two, and then if he’s got the third and the fourth plate, you can just get the picture, I hope, that spinning plates is hard work without breaking them.
One of the tricks I learned years ago when I was doing a lot of group work in the corporate world was, I taught myself to juggle, and it was it was fun. It was good. It was entertaining for those that liked to be entertained. But if you’ve ever juggled, you know you’ve got a really get into a pattern to keep three or four items moving in the air without dropping any of them. So, juggling balls is an art, but you’ve got to be very disciplined to be able to do it without dropping something. I must confess I never tried juggling knives or flaming torches for the obvious reason that, well, that’s just stupid. But, but here’s the point. Too many demands for me is like juggling plates and spinning balls.
So instead of spinning plates and juggling balls, sometimes when I’ve got too many demands. In my life, I feel like I’m trying to juggle these plates without breaking them and spin the balls on a stick, and this is my fault. This is the way that I’m wired and I’m almost wired to head to self destruction, because the drive that I have to achieve it’s built in me. It’s wired in me. It’s who I am. I’ve always wanted to win. I haven’t. I’m not always a winner, but I always want to win. I’ve always wanted to be successful. I like to be out the front, I like to be able to help others. So I’m the kind of guy that builds things for people to climb up onto. So, I like to lift others as I climb, and that drive in me is a strength. It’s what’s got our family out of trouble in times it’s what’s got businesses that I’ve owned through seasons of difficulty. We’ve experienced amazing experiences as a family, which you can read about in some of my books. Where I’ve just had a crazy idea and I’ve just had the guts to make it happen.
So that drive to achieve as a strength, but that strength quickly can flick into an enemy if you go too far, and one of my mentors, Lance Wallnau he says this. He says your greatest strength over extended becomes your greatest weakness. I’ll say it again, Lance Wallnau he says this. Your greatest strength. Overextended quickly becomes your greatest weakness. So, that which helps you can sometimes come and bite you on the bum or, worst case destroys you.
For you, I don’t know if you’ve ever had an injury to your Achilles heel, I have never had that. But I know that when your Achilles tendon, your Achilles heel, when it snaps, as often happens in sports incidents. It makes a really loud crack and if you’ve ever been in the room and that’s happened, you know what it is and you instantly look for the victim, or the patient, because they are gonna need a serious amount of help. You know your weakness is your Achilles heel.
So what? What am I saying? You know, I’ve gotta think about what is my strength that’s working for me. And then are there strengths in my life that are actually causing my Achilles heel to snap? Is there a strength that I’m overusing making too many demands in my life, and therefore setting myself up for trouble. So have to think about that problem number one too many demands, problem number two multitasking to fill in every empty space.
Multitasking to fill in every empty space
One of the techniques that I learned years ago in the corporate world with regards to project management, was to make sure that you had tasks working in the background while you were working on your primary task for the day. So, I was thinking, well, if there’s someone else that could be doing something while I’m also working, then I get twice as much done.
Now what I’ve done is I’ve transferred that into my own life and I’ve thought, well, how could if I’m driving in my car to get to an appointment, what can I do while I’m driving to make use of that time? So instead of having quiet space or empty space? I’ll be listening to a Podcast, I’ll be drafting an e-mail, not by typing, but by talking, or I’ll be on the phone making use of that.
But let me take that one step further if I’m driving to a destination. Let’s just say I’m gonna call that destination point D on the road map. I’m actually thinking to myself, who can I see on the way, what is destination B and what is destination C on the way to destination D, and this just frustrates Kathy because, you know, we might be going to a social function, we might be going to visit some friends for dinner. And I’ll be saying, hey, if it’s OK on the way. I’m just gonna stop and do this errand, or I’m gonna stop and see this person. Or can we pick up so and so on the way? And that’s not the way Kathy thinks. And she actually, she thinks it’s actually a hindrance, and she’s a 100% correct because often, because I’m fitting in appointments on the way to appointments. I’m late for every single appointment because I’m trying to fit things in. And I’ve got certain friends in my life that do exactly the same thing. You’re listening? And you know who you are? And I’m saying to you. And I’m saying to me, stop it because we’re too busy to be quiet.
And I’ve been reflecting on this, and lately I’ve shared it in other podcasts. You know, I’ve started to take the time in my car to use it as quiet space. No phone calls. No podcast, sometimes, not over every time, and no other jobs. I’m just going to get there, and I have this time to think.
But the other challenge that I was given from a podcast, ironically, I was listening to a guy help me understand how to slow down my life. And his name is Peter Scazzero, and he’s got the Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast, which is brilliant. But he said he said this onece and it really challenged me. Because I’ll turn up to an appointment, I’ll go, right, let’s go, let’s get this done. But he said, look, if you turn up and you have not made room in your mind to prepare for these people, then you’re dishonouring them.
And he says, what he’s really challenged me. He says. What you gotta do, is you’ve gotta make time in advance to thoughtfully prepare for a meeting or an encounter with someone and think and pray about what’s going to happen and when you do, you honour them, and when you do, you make room for God to show up, and when you do, you will find yourself more fruitful.
And that’s been really challenging for me because I’m, I like to multitask. I like to turn up just in time and I like to get things done, but what I’m trying to do, and this is my confession to the world and you can help me with this, but maybe it’ll help some of you achievers out there, is to make room to prepare for people and make room in my life for them. So problem number two is multitasking to fill in empty spaces.
Squeezing out Holy Spirit
Problem number three, the last one I want to share with you today, I’ve called this one squeezing out the Holy Spirit. Squeezing out the Holy Spirit. You see what I’ve found, if my life gets busy because I’ve got too many demands I’m multitasking to fill in empty spaces, I actually squeeze out the discipline of connecting with the Holy Spirit at the beginning of the day, in the middle of the day, and at the end of the day.
Now, now let me just make something very, very clear. The Holy Spirit is God, and God doesn’t have to be slow. Why is that? Well. Because God’s outside time he’s before, middle, and end. He’s not limited by the tick of a clock. He doesn’t need to be slow. But he wants to be slow, because he wants to allow room in our limited time-constrained world that we live in for now, he doesn’t, but we do. He wants to make room for us to connect with him, and when we move too fast we can’t do that. Let me give you an example that some of you might relate to.
I don’t know if you’ve ever worked out in a gym or had a gym at your home. Kathy and I were in a season of life once where we were doing a lot of running, and to make sure that we could keep doing the training even when the weather was horrible, we had a treadmillI in the garage. And the beauty of a treadmill is one, you don’t get wet when it rains, two, you can run in your underwear if you want to, and thirdly, you can change the pace quite easily. You can run faster, you can run slow, and in Kathy’s case, you can even watch Netflix.
But I don’t know if you’ve ever stood next to a treadmill while someone else is running on that treadmill. Have you ever done it? You know, for a season there, I was doing shuttle sessions where you’d run fast, run slow, and so you really would be sprinting and then you’d have time to recover. And while you’re recovering, you’re gasping, and so I’d be running like crazy and. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump on the treadmill. And then it would slow down, and now Kathy would think that because I’d slowed down, it was a good time to ask me a question to get directions to go somewhere or check in with me. The problem is because I’ve been running so fast, I’m gasping. I’m breathing. My heart is thumping so loud that I can’t even hear her.
Well you know, this is what it’s like when the Holy Spirit is standing right next to us. You know, we’re running, running, running, sometimes thump, thump, thump, thump, thump through life and Holy Spirit’s just standing there, going wanna have a chat? Hey, how you going? Why don’t we connect some more? Why don’t we hang out? And and your heart is thumping, you’re gasping for air, or you’re moving so fast that you’re don’t actually get to connect with the Holy Spirit and this is what I think is a brillient picture of squeezing out the Holy Spirit in our lives.
And that’s what we’re doing, we’re too busy to be quiet and in his wisdom, God just wants us to be quiet so we can connect with him and hear his voice. I was reminded by a friend today at lunchtime. You know, when Elijah was on the mountain top, he wanted to connect with God, and God wanted connect with him, and then there was there was a fire and then there was an earthquake and there was a really really strong gust of wind, and God wasn’t in any of those, and then Elijah heard the quiet whisper, and he went out to meet with the Lord.
So sometimes I think friends, we’re so busy, so noisy, so loud, so chaotic that we’re too busy to be quiet, and in that we miss connecting with God. So what do we do with all of this? Well, here’s what I’ve written down. Literally, we have to have a ruthless cull in our lives that makes room, so cull.
The ruthless cull that makes room
What is a cull? Cull is actually a pretty harsh term. These often used to cull animals to separate the disease or the weak, or the ones I want to get rid of and so we need to do that in our lives.
An author called John Mark Comer wrote a brilliant book called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry and it was a principle of discipline that was given him by one of his mentors, Dallas Willard, and I read the book, it’s fantastic, and I’m trying to apply some of those disciplines in my life. If you’re searching for help, I would recommend that book. But here’s seven little things that you can do to make a ruthless cull that makes room in your life.
Number one, learn to sit and be still. I’ve got several friends that just don’t know how to sit still. They’re constantly on the move. They don’t have any quiet time. Now I get the fact that some people are active resters, but I do believe that the Holy Spirit standing next to the treadmill wanting you to push the stop button. Get your breath back. Sit and be still.
The second one that I’ve got on my list here is make rest a high priority. The other day I got lots to do, trust me I got plenty on my list and, but I wasn’t feeling strong. I wasn’t feeling onto it, and I just felt that I needed to rest. I needed to make rest a priority. And so I went and had to lie down. I put some music on, closed my eyes, didn’t end up sleeping, but I certainly rested, the result of that was that I felt better and fancy that when you feel better, you’re actually more effective.
I’ve also said that it’s really important we should sleep more. Sleep is, it’s a gift that’s been given to us. Now, if you’re not sleeping, you need to find out why. One of the main reasons people don’t sleep properly is they overstimulate themselves with media, and it’s not the purpose of the podcast here, but seriously, we just need to have less of our device so that we can wind down and sleep well. My purpose is not to guide you and give you advice on sleeping. My purpose here is just to say, get some sleep.
OK, number four on the list here is say no to people. Now do it nicely, but learn how to set boundaries and learn how to manage your boundaries. Look, there’s better qualified people than me to give you advice on this, but the easiest thing we can do is to make room in our lives by setting good boundaries. If someone wants you to go and help them or to hang out with them and you don’t want to, or you need rest time, you have permission to say no. All you need to do is to say to that person. Thanks for the invitation, I really appreciate you inviting me to dinner, or to help you to clean your car. I’ve made a choice to prioritise rest and it’s really important that I honour that, so I’m going to say no today, but I thank you for the invitation and I’m asking that you would remember me another time and please invite me a different day. Thanks very much.
By doing that, you’re giving the person an opportunity to honour the choices that you’ve made. And look, the truth is, if they don’t want to honour your choices and your boundaries, then really, are they someone you wanna hang out with anyway? So learn to say no.
The next one on the list is, I’ve written down here, margin matters. What is margin? Margin is a gap that we insert into our lives to create room or space for downtime. Like I said earlier, multitasking to fill every empty space is a problem I have, and what it does is it means I just had no room to rest, to regather my thoughts or to prepare my heart for other people. Margin is making room.
The other reason that margin is really, really important is margin is what helps you when things get tough. Perfect example of this is a savings account. A savings account is where you put away a little bit of extra money for a rainy day, or for when you have a crisis or a problem, or when you want to spend it. OK, so savings account is like margin. Now if you suddenly lost your job. You’ve got a problem, but if you’ve got a savings account which is margin, then you can draw on that money until you get a new job and start earning money again. But we’ve gotta think of our time like that. We’ve gotta make room to create margin, so they’ve got space, which helps us to stay healthy.
Number six. I’ve already referred to this one earlier, but I have got on my list here. Respect others. Please respect others by being prepared for them to join you. So, make room in your thinking and your heart and your preparation so that when someone turns up you’re ready to receive them. Now I’ll give you a really bad example of me. I remember once friends came round and I had set myself a task, I wanted to mow the lawns so that by the end of the day I could sit down and just enjoy the end of the day with my family. And my friends turned up, they didn’t announce it, they just turned up and I’m like, well can’t you see I’m mowing the lawns, and Kathy’s like, no, come inside, we’ll have a catch up, these guys come to visit, and I’m like, I’m mowing the lawns, and I wasn’t prepared to make the space to receive others because I was just worried about doing my jobs.
So, that’s my confession and I’m a bad person for that, but what we’ve got to do is learn to make room for others, be ready for them, choose to receive them, and when you receive them, you respect them. When you respect them, you can also receive the blessing of spending time with them.
Finally. The last one I want to encourage you to do is to begin and end your day in prayer. What is prayer? Prayer as a conversation where you talk to God and listen to God. That’s as simple as it is. Sometimes it’s easy to use a liturgy, or a prayer book, or a devotion guide to help you with that. Sometimes it’s good just to go for a walk and talk to God while you walking the dog or walking with your spouse.
Begin and end your day in prayer. When you do that, you will find that you want to talk to God more often. You’ll notice him in every aspect of your day, and I really do think that if you start to turn your attention towards God, you’ll see he’s everywhere and that you will realise that he wants to be included in your day and that you don’t you will not want to be too busy to be quiet and connect with God once you start to see him.
So, as I wrap this up, as I land this podcast. Look, I know some of these questions I’m putting to myself, and therefore to you, are challenging. It’s going to take you some time to think through them. Maybe listen to this podcast more than once, because I know sometimes I listen to podcasts two or three times to make sure I get the juice. We’re gonna provide transcripts so you can read it. You can take notes and make sure you get it applied in your life.
Your take-away
So let me do this. Let me give you one take away at the end of this, here’s what I to do. Start to note what happens in each and every day of your life, almost like keeping a log book of what you do. Re-examine your day, and here’s what I want you to do. I want you to find what, or who, is making you too busy. What or who is making you too busy. Now this is going to be hard because some of you are working in a job for a boss and your boss tells you what to do. But where’s your boundaries? Where’s your conversation? Where’s your managing your workload, managing your energy?
You can probably be a lot more effective if you rest well, if you focus. If you have an attentive attitude towards your task list, so it might not be that your boss gives you too much work, it might be that you’re mismanaging your time, so therefore you would be the person that is making you feel too busy, so don’t always put the blame on other people. Check what or who is making you too busy and do something about it. Look, for me I know it’s juggling plates and spinning balls, and I’m trying to fix that.
Hey, I’ve really enjoyed sharing some thoughts with you today. This is episode 21, too busy to be quiet, and I hope that this time having coffee with Phil has been inspiring and challenging, provocative, and yet inviting you into a new space where you can take hold of the good things that life has, you can live a life of purpose on purpose. My name’s Phil Strong. Thanks for joining me, subscribe to the podcast and I look forward to catching up with you real soon, take care.