Maggie Harlow on taking time for yourself

What's going on, everyone? It's Bluff here, and we're driving through the States in the BluffMobile, and the best thing that we can do is play our favorite casino-style games on SpinQuest. They have over 1,000 games, including Live Dealer Blackjack and Crops, with tons of slots and unlimited. You can get a $30 coin pack for just $10 for new users. Sign up today. Go to SpinQuest.com right now. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visitspinquest.com for more details. Maggie Harlow has returned to the scene of the crime here on News Radio 840 WHA. She's an author. She's a speaker. She's an all-around good soul. People love you in this town. Thank you. The last time you appeared on the show, I can't tell you how many people said, I love Maggie. She helped me with this. That's the phrase a lot of me used. She helped me with this. I am addicted to helping. It's 100% true. My husband's like, why do you, why do you have to help? And I'm like, it feels amazing to help people. I love it. Everyone's helped me. Yeah, let's get back. But that is, that's a nice way to be known. Instead of somebody saying, oh, such and such, well. Yeah, what do they say about you, Terry? I don't know. I can't let it hurt too much. It's not your business what they think, right? Well, I'm doing the best I can every day. That's what we do. I'm so thrilled to be here. I love seeing you. I love you the positive energy you bring. Maggie Harlow's written a book called Every Day Extraordinary, how giving yourself permission changes. everything. This book is great. You have a great radio voice. I don't know if anyone's ever told you. I've done this for two weeks now. I'm starting to get good at it. You're doing good. Yes, the book has been so much fun to get out in the world and have people talk to me about it. I didn't anticipate that, Terry. I didn't anticipate that I would write a book and then people would talk to me. Well, I mean, I read it a month ago, and I texted you right away and said, dude, this is, this is good. You have no idea how much you've got my confidence up, so I hope you're not just, you know. Here's the thing, it's not worn peace. Everybody's going to see Odyssey, you know, and they're like, oh, yeah, I love the long range. This isn't long range planning. This is all simple biscuits. to just sort of nibble on and go, oh, you know what, that makes sense. Yes. And some of them really, like, are going to hit you. And some of them are going to be like, well, that doesn't help me. So everyone's different. But I hope that if you can find one little wisdom cookie, that would be amazing. So what we'll do now and again is visit here and then examine one of these chapters. That's what I thought. I thought that you had responded so well, and I love just being in a room with you. So I thought, yeah, let's dive into one chapter and maybe chew on it together. Today, the courage of taking time. Please explain Professor Harlow. So in this chapter, I talk about how a change in life, like any kind of change.

You move. You have kids. You start a business. Maybe you have a health challenge. Maybe you get married or divorced. Suddenly your life changes, but you might not have really given thought to how to redesign around the change to make time for yourself. Sometimes we're so busy. Check, check the list. Check the list to do. To do, to do. I have to do this. Have to do that. We haven't figured out, okay, my life changed. Where can I find a pocket of time? for me to think about, to process, to spend time to ponder. So for me, it's my magic hour when I had little kids and I found myself with no time to myself. Yeah, and the way you write about it and the book is almost like, you know, you're a little surprised. It's like, I'm Maggie. I've been Maggie since I was a child. I'm Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. Now all of a sudden I'm a mother and then immediately like breaks on. Wait a minute. I'm not the Maggie I was. Yeah. You can't suddenly your time is not your own, not even your sleep. is no longer your own. And so I craved quiet time, just literal quiet time so much that I started getting up before the baby woke up, before the kids woke up, just to give myself a minute. And I call it my magic hour. I love that. So you do this every day in your life? Every single day of my life. You mentioned yoga. I do it. I'll do like, okay, so first thing I want to say is I know that when people might hear this, I'm really, she's so disciplined. I couldn't do that. I literally might do five minutes of yoga. But you also say wordle in the book. I play wordal. My wife does that. That's a ritual with my wife every day. She has to do it. Then she sends her results to several of her friends. Exactly. You got to brag about your wordal results. Or admit defeat. Or admit defeat. Yeah, exactly. But it just gives me a minute to be with me and no one else. And that to me is what it gives me that. I can like check in with myself and like, okay, I'm ready to start my day. It doesn't have to be ritualistic or fancy. It's just like finding that moment. Maybe it's not early morning. Maybe it's your lunch break, et cetera. Right, because some people are different in terms of their sleep cycle and they get up and they're one of those last minute, brush my teeth out the door gone. There's no time for that. Yes. And then people always say, well, restructure, go get up earlier. Well, that's just someone's different body constitution. Yes. So you can do this even. prior to going to bed at night or whatever. Yeah, go to bed. You could park your car to go into work and sit in your car for five minutes and give yourself a magic hour and just give yourself a minute to like, okay, I'm not looking at my phone or I'm going to meditate or I'm going to call a friend or, you know, whatever the thing you want to do, you know, but find, make deliberate an effort, a deliberate effort to find that moment for yourself. Another strong element, a healing ointment. is silence. That's why I left those pauses. I was enjoying it. Yeah. I mean, isn't that refreshing as well to just have a moment where nothing happens? Incredible. If the weather is nice enough, I will open a window during my magic hour and listen to the birds and just that kind of silence I love. Wind chimes. We were just in Maine. And obviously there are some sounds we're not used to around here. Foghorn. Oh. The bell ringing over at the lighthouse. Isn't that beautiful? Oh, my God. It's a symphony. I know. And it's like magic to just be able to take something like that in and experience it and not be doing, thinking about what's about to happen or thinking about what happened. Just being in that presence of that violence or whatever it is you want to be with.

In your book, Everyday Extraordinary, each chapter ends with a permission slip concept. And I love that because we are all regimented and follow certain patterns just by rote. And so just stopping... Pumping the brakes and saying, I'm going to try something a little different, is the best treat ever. Yes, and permission slip is the idea you remember walking through the hall at school with a permission slip. Did you feel like all-powerful? You almost wanted someone to confront you. That's right. You almost wanted to get caught so you could be like, I've got a permission slip. Papers, please. They always say that in the movies. Peppers, please. Nobody would say please after they're demanding papers. Papers. And then you can toss the permission slip in their face. Yeah. But that's good, though. It's smart to remind people life is obviously very finite. You don't know what happens next hour, much less next week or month, if those days even arrive. Say it. Say it. It's 100% true treasure this moment. Yeah, treat every day. There's only one August 13th, 2026. Here we are in the middle of it. Nobody knew we'd get this gift. We did it. We did it. Yes, exactly. And hopefully I have a tomorrow. But can I live this moment today like maybe tomorrow doesn't happen? Just enjoy some time with Terry. That's very kind of you to say. And it's okay to do something different every day, too. It's not like we're suggesting that you lock in and do the same thing every day. Yeah, only if you want to. It's like some people really like that kind of habit forming. They like regiment, discipline. If you're someone who's like, you know what, I'm going to, sometimes I do this, Terry, I'm going to take a different way to work today. Like, I don't know why that gives me a thrill, but it's just like, I'm going to see something different today. I never thought about that. Drive down a different street. I've got a self-driving car, so it does not get creative. Papers. Papers, please. Look, jackass, I'm trying to get you home. Don't get all clever on me now. We don't, the car doesn't care to see the river. Yeah, you have to tell it you're going, trick it. Tell it you're going somewhere else and then go, no wait, take me to work. Fake destinations. Yeah, we'll have to add that into the technology, that's for sure. All right, are you going to have book signings? Anything's coming up here soon? I'm so glad you asked. The next book signing is September 1st at Bowman Field. An airport? An airport. You don't want to be there, do you, Terry? I love airports. Ask me the three-letter symbol for any airport on the earth, and I'll tell you. Wow, okay. That's another dumb skill I have. Bahamas. B-H-H-A. I don't even know if that's right, but okay. No, I made it up. I don't know where in the Bahamas. Yeah, so it's free. So we're going to do book signing. You can buy the book there. I can meet you. We can chit-chat. I'll sign your book. And they can find that on Eventbrite. So if you just go on to Eventbrite and you search. But, you know, I'm going to be on the website. I don't think I have it on the website right now. You do speak to groups. Yes, that's my dream gig.

talking to people, telling people about my ideas and interacting with them. I have this whole shtick, this whole thing I do around permission-based leadership, that this is a way of life. Leading with the power of self-permission is a leadership skill. Yeah, because we march in these same footprints every day, and the whole idea is there's a whole lot. whole lot of other paths out there to tread upon instead of just staying in the same rut. Yeah, and sometimes we stay in that rut because we think people want us to or we should or that people expected of us, but actually the world adjusts, like be yourself, the world will adjust. You're also a more well-rounded person just by taking the other route to work. You just learn different things. And then it adds to your inventory. Yeah, exactly. Who knows? You might drive by a house that you're like, it's for sale. That's the perfect house for me. Boom. Boom. You've done that a few times in your life. Maybe. I read that in your book, too. Maggie Harlow, our book's called Everyday Extraordinary. Where can people get your book right now? Carmichael's has it. So if you want to buy local, order it from Carmichael's. They've got it. And then you can also go to Amazon. You can also go to this website, maggieharlow.com. That seems simple enough. Easy peasy. Great to see you, friend. Thank you, Terry. Back in a few on News Radio 840, WHAS.

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