The Tortoise with Brooke McAlary

In last week’s hostful, Brooke and Ben answered some excellent listener questions about birthday presents, advice for their 20-year-old selves, and how they manage to balance home duties while also working from home. But the question that got the most feedback was one about zombies. As big fans of The Walking Dead and other zombie/apocalyptic TV and movies, Brooke and Ben had a lot of fun briefly discussing their chances of survival in a post-apocalyptic zombie world, as well as establishing which weapons they’d be most likely to pick up if the undead came for them. But it also got them thinking about the different ways slow living could actually impact your ability to survive (and perhaps even thrive?) in the apocalypse, and in a discussion over on Facebook earlier this week, a lot of people weighed in on the question: “What is it about slow living that would prepare you for a zombie apocalypse?” So here it is - a possibly-slightly-ridiculous but-very-well-researched episode that addresses the incredibly serious issue of how slow living could save your life if ever you find yourself living through a zombie apocalypse. Enjoy! ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes or head over to the Patreon page to help support the show financially. And thanks so much for listening! ====Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brooke was feeling quite optimistic at the beginning of this month’s decluttering experiment, certain she could find 500 items to let go of between the beginning and end of October… Turns out she might have been a tad over-confident. Ben and Brooke talk through the past week and their efforts in continuing the Slow Home Experiment, and while so far so good, they’re both concerned at what the latter part of the month will look like. It’s proving more difficult than expected for two reasons. Firstly, they don’t have as much stuff to let go of as they used to, and secondly is the stop-start nature of the experiment. Needing to shift in to a daily practice of letting go is proving a challenge, but definitely a positive one that will see both Brooke and Ben let go of sticky, sentimental or invisible clutter as the month goes on. For links and resources mentioned in today’s episode head over to the blog http://www.slowyourhome.com/109. This month is already proving to be a really fun experiment that lots of you are joining in on, so please feel free to play along (it’s never too late to start!) and tag your social media posts with both #minsgame and #slowhomeexperiment. Enjoy! ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes or head over to the Patreon page to help support the show financially. And thanks so much for listening! ====Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today is another hostful episode and Brooke and Ben try their best to answer some cracking good questions. Including: I'm a 20 year old university student and a big advocate of slow living, but I feel like a lot of the content out there is targeted towards a different age group. What advice would you give to your 20 year old selves regarding slow living and what would you have done differently at that age if you'd been introduced to this idea sooner? Can you talk about school holidays and your thoughts on structured activities for your kids versus encouraging them to find their own fun? How do you navigate birthday parties? With sport friends, school friends, parent friends with their kids .... it can turn into a party every weekend! Kids love parties and being invited so much so that I think saying a flat out 'no' is almost cruel. And if you go and celebrate one child's birthday, then isn't it nasty to say no to another child? I’d also love to hear your thoughts on actually hosting a party and the gifts and the lolly bags etc. I am working from home and find myself distracted by laundry and dishes...I'd love to hear details about how you get work done. Specifically, your daily rhythm, how you set boundaries around work/home management etc. If the world were presented with a zombie apocalypse, do you think it would still be necessary to live a slow life? How well do you suppose you both might fare in that situation? Turns out Brooke has some very real thoughts about birthday parties and zombies (not necessarily together) and Ben has some really excellent insights into how he breaks his work days in to chunks that allow him to get a lot of work done without getting overwhelmed or becoming distracted. For resources and links mentioned in today’s episode, head over to the blog. Enjoy! ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes: or head over to the Patreon page to help support the show financially. And thanks so much for listening! ====Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's the beginning of a new month, which means the start of a new Slow Home Experiment. In today's episode Brooke and Ben talk about their decluttering experiment, why they wanted to go back to their simple living roots, and the rules of the #minsgame they're following this month, as a motivator to let go of some of the clutter that's crept in over the past year. Essentially though, they're letting go of clutter every day. October 1, they each let go of one thing. October 2, two things. October 3, three things, and so on, all the way to the end of the month. Ben does some impressive arithmetic to work out how many items that is, but suffice to say, it's going to be a challenge!  Both Brooke and Ben talk through their first three days worth of clutter, the strange emotional attachment we form with things - particulalrly when they're tied to important moments in life - and the freedom and lightness that comes with letting go.  Brooke talks about the importance of simplifying and the impact decluttering the family home had on her recovery from post-natal depression, as well as the massive ongoing benefits that letting go of the excess has provided over the past few years.  For links and resources mentioned in today’s episode head over to http://www.slowyourhome.com/107 It's going to be a really fun experiment that anyone can join in on, so please feel free to play along, and tag your social media posts with both #minsgame and #slowhomeexperiment. In the meantime, have a cracking week! Enjoy! Enjoy! ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/slow-home-podcast-brooke-mcalary/id985005895?mt=2 or head over to the Patreon page www.patreon.com/slow to help support the show financially. And thanks so much for listening! ====Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week you heard the first part of Brooke’s chat with Carolyn Tate - founder of The Slow School of Business and founding member of Conscious Capitalism Australia - and today she returns for Part 2! In this episode they go deep into the issue of hyper-consumerism and whether Carolyn feels a sense of ownership of it - considering her background as a marketer. This leads into a really interesting conversation on conscious consumption, what it looks like and how to know if a brand we’re supporting really is ethical, as well as the important accompaniment to conscious consumption, which is conscious capitalism. Brooke and Carolyn also share a whole heap of resources so head over to http://www.slowyourhome.com/106 for all the links. Enjoy! ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes: (https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/slow-home-podcast-brooke-mcalary/id985005895?mt=2) or head over to the Patreon page (www.patreon.com/slow) to help support the show financially.   And thanks so much for listening!   ====Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“You will never regret being kind.” Turns out, not only is this an internet-friendly quote thrown around online a great deal, but it’s also actually true! This month’s random acts of kindness experiment has been both eye and heart-opening for Brooke and Ben, and this week they talk through some of their favourite moments. They also talk about the vulnerability of kindness, and how much easier it’s started to come, the more they’ve practised. As this is the last Monday show for September, it’s also time to reveal next month’s Slow Home Experiment, and in October Brooke and Ben are going back to their decluttering roots and playing the Minimalists Game. In this episode they explain exactly what that means and why they’ve decided to spend October letting go of some of the excess stuff that’s accrued over the past 6 months, as well as how you can join them. It starts easily enough, with decluttering one item on Day 1 of the month, and two items on Day 2. It starts to get a little tougher as the month wears on though, and you’re letting go of 10, 15, 20 items a day. So while this is going to be a challenge, it would be a fun one to join in on too. Head over to http://www.slowyourhome.com/105 for the details, feel free to play along, and tag your social media posts with #minsgame and #slowhomeexperiment. In the meantime, have a great week! ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes: (https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/slow-home-podcast-brooke-mcalary/id985005895?mt=2) or head over to the Patreon page (www.patreon.com/slow) to help support the show financially. And thanks so much for listening! ====  Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today Brooke chats with Carolyn Tate, co-founder of The Slow School of Business and Conscious Capitalism Australia. She’s an ex-marketing executive who ‘flicked on the slow switch’ in 2010, after a massive realisation about the life she’d been living. Brooke and Carolyn talk a lot about her personal journey, what changes she’s made over the past 6 years, what she’s still working on and how her life is different now. Carolyn is also a massive advocate for living a purpose-driven life, and they talk a lot about the idea of finding your Why and using it to inform the choices you make and the life you create. They also talk about the problem with work/life balance as one of the core reasons for Carolyn to start The Slow School of Business, and she has some golden tips on how to start affecting change from within an organisation rather than seeing the only solution as finding a new job or starting your own business. There is so much to learn from Carolyn’s personal story, including what happens when we have the courage to listen to that little voice in our heads that’s telling us something isn’t right, that we couldn’t actually fit it all in to one conversation, so stay tuned next week for part two! But in the meantime, don’t forget to head over to http://www.slowyourhome.com/104 for links to books, blog posts and resources mentioned in today’s episode. Enjoy! ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes: (https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/slow-home-podcast-brooke-mcalary/id985005895?mt=2) or head over to the Patreon page (www.patreon.com/slow) to help support the show financially. And thanks so much for listening! ====Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

More than halfway through this month’s Slow Home Experiment and Brooke is discovering that the impact a random act of kindness can have stretches further than only the receiver, and even beyond the giver, to sometimes impact the people who simply witness it. And while it wasn’t necessarily the intention when they began, her and Ben have realised that putting kindness into the world in this way, on a regular basis, is such a rewarding thing to do. This week Ben and Brooke talk about the good parts of the experiment, as well as some of the things they’ve been struggling with personally, and Brooke shares a particularly funny internal reaction to her buying coffee for a stranger. They also walk through some of the kind things they’ve done for others this week, and will be posting some ideas for kindness acts over on Facebook over the coming days. None of them are big, and most don’t cost anything other than time and attention, but the benefits are much more wide-reaching than either Brooke or Ben had expected, and for that they’re grateful. For the full blog post and links to resources mentioned in today’s poggie, head over to http://www.slowyourhome.com/103 Enjoy the pogpast! ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes: (https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/slow-home-podcast-brooke-mcalary/id985005895?mt=2) or head over to the Patreon page (www.patreon.com/slow) to help support the show financially. And thanks so much for listening! ====Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s time for another listener chat on the pogpast, and Brooke’s guest Joshua is a warm and generous delight of a person whose openness left both Brooke and Ben feeling incredibly inspired.  When she first heard his story in the Straight and Curly Facebook group a few weeks ago, Brooke knew she needed to talk to Joshua about his journey back from overwhelm, and how he and his family have learnt to value time and experiences over the trappings of ‘success’. Joshua is so open and generous in the things he shares, as he talks about the moment it became clear that things weren’t OK and goes deep in to the ways he and his husband have worked together to find a balance. Joshua also talks about the really simple shifts he’s made at home in order to start living more sustainably, as well as what he’s doing with the space letting go has opened up. The audio in this conversation isn’t great unfortunately, but the wisdom Joshua drops is way too good not to share so please forgive it. Enjoy! ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/slow-home-podcast-brooke-mcalary/id985005895?mt=2 or head over to the Patreon page at www.patreon.com/slow to help support the show financially. And thanks so much for listening! ====Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brooke and Ben knew that the Random Acts of Kindness experiment would shift the way they viewed the world, but what they didn’t expect was the huge levels of support from all of you! Today they talk about why it’s struck such a chord with people, as well as the different ways they’ve both tried to spread kindness over the past week. This experiment isn’t about big, audacious gifts or flashy examples of financial generosity (although they’re amazing too) but rather showing kindness where we might not have previously - opening a door, smiling at a stranger, letting someone know you’re thinking about them or that you can even see them, acting on the impulse to be kind where we otherwise might not have - and today both Ben and Brooke share why that’s been an incredible, and slightly unnerving shift to make. For the full blog post and links to resources mentioned in today’s poggie, head over to http://www.slowyourhome.com/101 Enjoy the pogpast! ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes: (https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/slow-home-podcast-brooke-mcalary/id985005895?mt=2) or head over to the Patreon page (www.patreon.com/slow) to help support the show financially. And thanks so much for listening! ====Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.