Shea Morrison | The Goodnight Co

Shea Morrison, co-founder of The Goodnight Co. and a corporate wellness facilitator specialising in sleep health join Cherie for the first episode of season 3. Cherie and Shea explore the crucial role of sleep in leadership, well-being, and performance, as well as practical strategies for improving sleep quality.

Key Insights from the Conversation:

1. The Importance of Sleep in Leadership & Well-being – Good sleep enhances resilience, decision-making, and emotional regulation, making it essential for effective leadership.
2. Shifting the Narrative Around Sleep – Historically, sleep deprivation was seen as a badge of honor, but the conversation is shifting toward recognising sleep as a key pillar of health alongside diet and exercise.
3. Practical Tips for Better Sleep – Shea shares strategies such as maintaining a consistent sleep routine, managing light exposure, and prioritising rest and recovery.
4. Workplace Sleep Awareness – Leaders should understand their team's sleep challenges, encourage recovery breaks, and promote a culture that values rest to enhance productivity and well-being.
5. Sleep & the Bigger Picture – Sleep impacts long-term health, brain function, and overall quality of life. Small, consistent habits can make a significant difference in improving sleep.

The discussion highlights the importance of personalized sleep strategies, breaking unhealthy cycles, and integrating sleep awareness into corporate culture. Shea also shares her journey from a fast-paced media career to co-founding The Goodnight Co., emphasising the power of living authentically.

https://www.thegoodnightco.com.au/

Instagram: thegoodnightco

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Until the next episode, we hope you live and Lead with Courage!
Cherie x
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Luminate Leadership is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you’re struggling, please see a healthcare professional, or call lifeline on 13 11 14.

Transcript

Cherie Canning: Welcome to the lead with courage podcast. It is such a delight to have you here. 

Shea Morrison: Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be asked and to really lean into this conversation because I think that it's really interesting times where we're at. So I'm really excited about having this conversation with you today.  

Cherie Canning: Thank you. And likewise, and I literally, I was at Studio Pilates this morning and I walk in and see on the TV, the Goodnight Co as one of the partners for the the challenge I'm in at the moment. 

And I thought, wow what timing to see your business name as I walk in for my exercise before I come and see you today. So yeah there's alignment and excitement from me right there. It's so great to see you.  

Shea Morrison: Beautiful. Yes. I'm excited about that. That Studio Pilates as well. There's lots happening. 

Cherie Canning: Oh, it's fantastic. And we'll dive into that, hear a bit about your business and how you got there And your story also, I'd love to talk with you around, the impacts of sleep on our health and as the leaders, how they can support people in their teams as well. But before we get into all of that juicy stuff, the question that we always ask our guests on our podcast is what does lead with courage mean to you? 

Shea Morrison: It's an interesting one. I've I've been pondering over this question because I feel that it's changed so much, for me, my Previous corporate background was in radio, in media sales, advertising, for close to 20 years. And so that was a very different time period as well. And I feel like that we're moving so fast with technology. 

We're in the messy middle, which I think, explains where we sit in terms of straddling the industrial revolution and the digital age. And I think that this, really determines the way that we make decisions moving forward in terms of leadership. Because for me, it's changed a lot. I think about back in my days when I was running big teams and what that meant and now I feel as though that we're running very solo. 

I feel like people are very in a little bubble, almost as opposed to the way that I used to know the corporate environment and I think that this is this positives and negatives in this and where I feel that we really need to, embrace the things that we need to embrace is understanding a bit more about who we are and really becoming clear about that as individuals so that we can connect more into our heart space to be able to lead with authenticity with courage and in a way that. 

It works for us individually, rather than worried so much about everybody else. And I think that with this digital technology, as we move forward, this is going to be really important because technology can take us out of our heart and very much into our head, and we can make decisions that are not always Maybe aligned then. 

So we need to constantly come back to find ways to ground and come back into that heart space so that we can make decisions from there rather from our head.  

Cherie Canning: Yes. And just to be awake to what's actually occurring, is this coming from my head or from my heart and the consciousness and the awareness of where your actions are, being born or being driven from that awareness is huge, isn't it? 

Shea Morrison: Absolutely. I think that so I think that to summarize my my, the question is that I feel that leadership is going to become very individual. It's not a textbook scenario anymore. When I was going through that, the corporate ladder, if that's the word for it. You needed to read this book and it was the from good to great and all of the things that were, topical at that time. 

And yes, we've got access to so much information now, but I feel like with everything in our life, if we were to tune in more to our bodies and to our our inner knowing, we've got all the answers. It's just taking that time to step back first before stepping in.  

Cherie Canning: So true. So true. 

And I fully subscribe. It's fascinating. Even just yesterday in a small group that I was working with of team leader level. And it was all around emotional intelligence and the conversation of let's not even worry for a second about what you need to say to others. You've just got to get clear on what your own thoughts and beliefs, what's holding you back, what's triggering you. 

You're amygdala hijacked. The more aware we are of that, we lead. With that authenticity and with the courage and confidence, but so often where you're reading the book of what's the script I've got to follow, what's the model I've got to do, which is also helpful, but it's the two together, right? 

Shea Morrison: Absolutely. And taking that and spending some time to work it all out so that then when in that situation, you feel really confident in the way that you are leading.  

Cherie Canning: Absolutely. So can you tell us a little bit about that time for you? So the corporate world, working in media, a very different world to now where you're running your own business, you're a co founder of the Goodnight Co and really all around sleep obsession with sleep, manifesting great sleep. 

It's all around the quality of our sleep. So what led you from that world to this world?  

Shea Morrison: Yeah, definitely. When I was when I was at uni, I actually, it was probably went back right to when I was in high school. I had this obsession with radio and I just always wanted to work in radio and that was what I wanted to do. 

And I, that's what I ended up doing. And no, I did a degree in marketing and PR, but I didn't end up in that space. I ended up in the sales environment. And absolutely loved it and it was such an amazing career because it was so fast paced and And, fun, so much fun and it got to a point though when I was when I got married and started to have my babies that I, it didn't work for me anymore. 

It was certainly not a career that was aligned to raising children. And it was really then that I started to really understand sleep. I was somebody that always needed sleep. So I knew that even from a young age when I was studying, I wasn't the person that could do all nighters. I needed to go to bed, wake up at five and start studying again. 

So I knew a little bit about what worked for  

Cherie Canning: me. Man,  
 

Shea Morrison: I was. obsessed with health and wellness. So I did a qualification as a massage therapist, understanding how the human anatomy and physiology works. And I guess just always interested in that health space. So when, after having my second child, I was like no, this is not working for me. 

And I was always entrepreneurial focus had side hustles, left and center was at the marriage celebrant on the side, all of those And so it just made sense that we, that I moved into this space, which was, I call it the fluffy stage, which was  around before we knew much around the science of sleep, because this was 10 years ago. 

It was the silk pillowcases and silk eye masks and things like that, which were to create that little bit of luxury for mums that were struggling with sleep. And then I started to lean on my background in massage therapy and went into the science backed space of aromatherapy and started to bring different products into alignment and then started to really research. 

So in 2016, Arianna Huffington came out and wrote the book, The Sleep Revolution. And I feel like this was a bit of a turning point where there were some global leaders Really focusing on not wearing sleepers, I get three hours of sleep a night as a badge of honor was understanding that they really needed more than that. 

So this was the turning point. We did a collab with her on her book tour and then really went down that space in terms of research, just absorbing as much information as possible and understanding what it meant. And and here we are, 10, 10 years celebrating 10  

Cherie Canning: Wow, how did you go about that Colab, because what a launch for your business. 

Shea Morrison: Yeah, absolutely. And, it was just a case of reaching out. It was us and Kiki Kay at the time were the two Australian brands that were involved and we were invited to New York and we they had a big launch party because this is when she started the other business Thrive Global and Yeah, it was an amazing time. 

And I think that was, it was that little note or that little message around, okay, this is what is here. Now you need to go further and go deeper. And then it all just started to open up. Now I can't say that it's all been an amazing journey ever since because all businesses, you have your highs and you have your lows and various, everything in between. 

Cherie Canning: Yes, absolutely. It would be probably living in denial. If we say it's all rosy all the time, that is not business. It's not what to expect, right? That's incredible. I love that so much, Shay, because I've met you through this side of the business and it's. Really part, I hear a lot, and I really like your thoughts maybe it's the algorithm, what it serves me, but I'm hearing so much around the importance of when we talk about health and being, sleep's one of the pillars there movement, sleep, and, the nutrition, and That the conversation really has changed from that badge of honor. 

Oh yeah, the all nighters, the three hours sleep. Like what a hero that you can do it all without having any sleep. It really, I feel like the pendulum has really swung. What are you hearing or what have you seen in the last few years? I guess what's evolved when it comes to even expressions like sleep hygiene? 

This is a new phrase. I feel like, it's in your world all the time, but what is going on and what shifted and what do people need to know?  

Shea Morrison: Yeah as somebody who is obsessed with this space sleep is the third pillar of health, exactly what you're talking about, and I would consider it. 

As the person in sleep to be should be the fitness pillar of health, in my opinion, so sitting right alongside diet and exercise, because I feel like once you can nail sleep, everything else falls into place in your life, it's, if you are not sleeping, so if you have one, more than one night of 5 hours or less of sleep, this is not to scare people, it's just the reality, you are more likely so you're Your mortality rate increases by 15%. 

Matthew Walker, he came out a while ago, and he's quite hard hitting. And I noticed that he changed his tact a little bit recently in terms of, he's just a little bit softer in his approach, but he did come out and said that if you are having you. More than one or two nights of less than five hours sleep, you're simply going to live a shorter life. 

And I know for me that health and wellness is my number one priority. I live it and breathe it every single day because I want to live into my 80s or 90s Independently with full mobility. And for me, I know that now in my mid 40s, I can change that and make that happen. Now, genetics play a part in this and lots of different things. 

But for me, all the research that I've looked at is that it's. That the small lifestyle factors that we do on a day to day basis are the little tiny steps that incrementally add up to getting us to this point, because I want my brain health. 40, I think the stat was 48 percent of women over the age of 55 more inclined to develop a cognitive brain disorder disease, something like Alzheimer's, dementia, et cetera, compared to 35 percent of men. 

Now, I don't want that. I want to have my brain. My brain health to me is far outweighs any other health, in terms of the way that I look or any of those things. It's my brain health. It's what goes on up there that's so important to me.  

Cherie Canning: Yeah, and then it's those one percenters, as you said then without sounding too cliche, but it's those small habits or practices that accumulate over time. 

What do you what do you think is important for people who want to sleep? And this could be a really big question because it's very situational, but we hear maybe people say, I really want to sleep more or have better quality sleep, but I'm struggling and whether that's struggling to get to sleep, have you got almost like a top five or the things to really monitor or be aware of to give yourself the best chance for quality sleep? 

Shea Morrison: Yes, I could talk about this topic all day. I don't know where to start, but I do know where to start. Okay, so there's a couple of things in that question. It is a big question. First of all, what I feel, and I've touched on this just before, is that We all have a unique fingerprint. We're all completely different genetically, and what we need to start to work out is what do we need, and it's, our needs are going to look completely differently and my needs for sleep are very different to my husband's needs, and It's understanding what you need and also, I'm going to talk a little bit to the mother and the parent piece is that we need to focus more. 

We need to fill our cup and we need to make sure that we are sorted ahead of our children. Because not only does that help us in terms of. Having that the coping mechanisms when it comes to our children, but it's also setting the example of what good sleep looks like. I talked to so many parents who are feeding their children melatonin constantly, and they're taking melatonin. 

I've got a bit of an issue with melatonin because it is a hormone and it also is something that we can create ourselves if we were to do the small lifestyle factors, these little one percenters. So I feel lots of people want to just take the magic pill and I know because life is hard and life is busy, but this is where I think we need to really work out our priorities. 

Is sleep a priority? How can you make it a priority? And then what can you unpack from there? I think that when, what you were talking about, Cherie, is that there are three, there are three categories that we like to look at. And that is if you're having trouble falling asleep, if you're waking up finding it hard to get back to sleep, and if you're waking up constantly feeling unrefreshed. 

Now, some people can relate strongly to one of those areas, or maybe two, or maybe all three on a constant basis. And if you start to understand what is your, where do you sit in that puzzle, because there are different areas and different things that are triggering those those challenge areas. 

So they're the sorts of things that we can start to unpack and then start to. address what are the things that you can do. But if you were to look holistically to your broader question about what are like the top five, first of all, it's prioritizing sleep. Second of all, your best night's sleep starts in the morning. 

And for lots of people, they're like, Oh, but I'm not a morning person. And my advice is to become a morning person. And I know that sounds a bit harsh, but. It's the reality because we need some, we need sunlight in order to really help our circadian rhythm and more and more research and more conversations happening around the circadian rhythm. 

And it's just a fancy way of talking about our body clock. We have this Amazing internal body clock that works on a 24 hour cycle, where all of these processes are happening within our body across that stage. And when it comes to sleep, the 2 key things here is light affects our melatonin, which is developed in our pineal gland. 

And this is what governs our sleep. So we want to make sure in the morning we're switching melatonin off, because that's what gives us that boost of energy, adrenaline, cortisol kicks in so we can get moving for the day. In the evening we want to reduce the amount of light so going back to cave days where we were living by the natural sun rhythm and thinking about the beautiful warm glow of a fire that type of orange light so that we can allow melatonin to kick in to make us feel tired and sleepy so that we can fall asleep easily. 

Cherie Canning: Yeah beautiful. And there's such. This, my take on it, and I love, your confirmation ought to tell me I'm completely on the wrong path here. But I feel like when it comes to things like this and habits and rituals and practices and specifically here speaking to sleep, in isolation, turning down the lights may not feel that significant or even scents and the smells that we might have in our rooms or in our houses. 

But compound that day after day, and then with other things, reducing technology or considering what are we drinking in the afternoon or the evening that may be impacting whether, and it's not about telling people what to do. That's not my intention, but, being conscious if you can't fall asleep, when was the last time you had the coffee or you. 

waking up where you're drinking alcohol, these kinds of things, I imagine the inquiry for all of those and everyone's different as you say, but those small habits every single day, we might not realize that opening the, even having your curtains open in the morning and open to natural light. 

In isolation is such a big thing, but I imagine it's just the compound of all of those rituals and all of those practices really gets you into the right rhythm.  

Shea Morrison: Totally. It's habit stacking. And that might sound really boring. And for people who don't like routine, it's challenging, but it's finding it just a couple of things, so we've talked about prioritizing sleep and then talked about light. 

It's also thinking about consistency. Our body does like consistency when it comes to the body clock. So what is your, You know your bedtime sleep time and what's your wake time and sticking to that as much as possible because for a lot of people what the challenge is that they go hard all week because that's what life is expecting of us and then on the weekend it all is a different routine so might sleep in for hours and just laze about and which I'm not saying is wrong it's just that what's happening is that we're messing with that the circadian rhythm so it's. 

For social jet lag, it's almost like flying to America and your time, your body clock has shifted. So you need to come back and deal with that on Monday and Tuesday, which is often why you've got Monday artists and people are like, Oh my gosh, I feel like I've been hit by a truck because your body clock has shifted over the weekend. 

So there's all these little things that are going on that start to make sense as well. So thinking about that the time that you're going to bed, the time that you're waking up the light. Prioritizing sleep. And as you mentioned, there's all of these other things as well like alcohol, caffeine, nicotine prescription medication. 

So all of those go into a bucket as well. And then thinking about the foods that we eat when we're eating. And it's not. I'm not here again to tell people what to do and not what to do, but it's thinking about how much and when. So how much of those things am I consuming and when am I consuming it? 

Because it is playing a role in my ability to get good quality sleep.  

Cherie Canning: Yeah. Somebody explained to me once around. Alcohol and sleep. And this is my very simple understanding of what I think I was told was that, when you have alcohol in your system, your body needs to break that down or deal with it in the way that it does. 

But then when you're asleep, instead of, if you weren't, if you didn't have alcohol in your system, your body, you might have even told me this, Shea, some time ago about, yeah, I think you might have, but your body is then Without alcohol, leaning out your liver and cleaning out all your organs and doing all these things to repair and rejuvenate your insides. 

But when you add alcohol on top of that, it doesn't get to those tasks because essentially it's breaking down the impacts of the alcohol. I think it was you who told me that Shay, and it's really stuck with me. Have I remembered that correctly? What else can you add?  

Shea Morrison: Yeah, absolutely. Correct. Because this is what's happening. 

So when we're going to sleep, because often I also get questioned around, Oh, seven to nine hours of sleep. I don't need seven to nine hours for me  personally. Eight hours is optimal. That's when I'm in my sweet spot, but.  

Cherie Canning: What's the time for you? What's where's your eight hours typically?  

Shea Morrison: Yeah, I don't normally, I don't often achieve eight hours, but I probably get between seven and seven and a half and that's okay. 

And some nights at six and some, but I like to be in bed, going to bed 9, 930, which sounds a bit like a Nana, but that's me. And then I'm up early, so I like to get up around five so that I can exercise and do the things that I need before the rest of the house gets up. And so that's, that's what I try and aim for. 

But, for lots of people, if I, do have a night where I'm five or six hours sleep. I will try definitely to meditate during the day, close my eyes, have a rest whatever that might be just for 20 minutes so that I can allow my body that time. Because when we are going to sleep, we need to cycle through these stages, which is our deep sleep, our REM sleep. 

And I heard a beautiful analogy the other day. I've got my car wash analogy, but I've also now got a washing machine analogy, which is when we're cycling through these stages. Think about a washing machine. So you put your clothes in, you turn it on its cycle, and it's going to do a light rinse. It's going to rinse all those clothes so that it can get everything moving. 

It's getting everything wet and, agitating it slowly. And this is a bit like light sleep. So when we go into the light sleep at night time, that's what's going on through the body. Then when we move into deep sleep, so the washing machine's turned up a notch and it's released the washing liquid and it's getting in there and it's agitating a bit harder so that it can get in and clean things at an even deeper level. 

And this is like our deep sleep. And then our REM sleep, which is where we do all of this beautiful processing of emotions, regulating our emotions, memory consolidation, learning. So all of those beautiful elements that are so required during this stage. That's that next stage where it's I'm getting in further and I'm going to clean out those stains and I'm going to get in there. 

And that's like that stage in the washing machine cycle. So you can see that we need all of those aspects in order to compliment and round out what's happening in our sleep so that we can wake up and feel as though we've got the confidence to deal with that hard conversation or. Understand that tricky model of the graph or, just be on our best game, and that's what's required in that seven to nine hours.  

Cherie Canning: Yeah. Beautiful. And yeah, it's so powerful. I'm wondering from a conversation at work for people who are, leading others, even those in and around them, but specifically we're leading others when. It's not, it's a professional relationship. 

It's not your partner or a friend. And so you've got limited control or understanding of what's happening for them at home. But you've got someone saying, I'm just so tired.  I'm not sleeping. What advice would you give to the leader to give to their team?  

Shea Morrison: Yeah, and I think that this is when I speak to, I do lots of coaching and I do run lots of workshops in corporate environments and it's definitely a question that's asked a lot and it's understanding and unpacking a little bit. 

This is where the inquiry does need to go a little bit deeper and you probably do need to step into that personal element because I think that sleep is this is what's happening at home. So you need to start to understand. Where does the priority lie for that team member when it comes to sleep? Because if they can't acknowledge that sleep is what? 

Because often I think the challenge for most people having been in this space for 10 years is that they have no awareness. That sleep is the thing that is holding them back or sleep is the thing that the reason why maybe they get sick at the drop of a hat with colds and flus because their immune system's not functioning because their sleep isn't, they're not getting enough sleep, there are all of these little cascading things that contribute that we are not aware of. 

For example, if we were, I liken it to something else, like a lymphatic system. If you've got lymphedema or lipedema, you know you've got that, and you know that you need to do X, Y, and Z. But when it comes to sleep, there are all of these aspects in our health that it contributes to, but we don't necessarily know, if we don't know a lot about it, that's what's causing it. 

So I think, Leaders, this is why they really need to understand sleep and understand that there are all of these emotional physical elements that go with sleep that might be impacting their team member so that they can help them to start to prioritize this because it's outside of the office. This is something that's happening at home. 

Then I think that when it comes to the office environment, making sure that they're leading by example, in terms of having that rest. Understanding and making people aware that if they had, a couple of nights of really bad sleep, it's okay to go and sit in a meeting room and close your eyes for 20 minutes because you're going to get so much more productivity out of that person if they do that than if they don't. 

Or it might be going outside and taking a walk in the sunshine or, just really encouraging these small steps that can happen in the office. To help change what might be happening for them and understanding how they can start to prioritize sleep. The sleep's not just sleep, it's also rest. We can also really recover, go through a recovery process in the body when we just shut down our eyes for 20 minutes. 

It doesn't mean we're sleeping, but we're just, we're taking away all the distractions from the outside world to allow the body to rest.  

Cherie Canning: Yeah, beautiful. Maybe put on a yoga nidra track and, have that kind of. In between that rest and yeah, allow your brain to switch off from what it's doing in the middle of the day. 

And yeah, just rest.  

Shea Morrison: It's Andrew Huberman, most people that listen to the podcast, I'm sure, listen to a bit of Andrew Huberman and he talks about that, which is NSDR, non sleep deep rest, which is 20 minutes of just that, closing your eyes down. And it is like a yoga nidra practice where your body can recover during that stage. 

Cherie Canning: And even just the rest and recovery words, I find it really. I guess encouraging in a way, but also quite comical because I don't think we've quite gotten there, but also encouraging because we know we will get there when we look at sports athletes, right? When we look at people who are professional athletes, every single one of us as the observer or anyone who is the athlete knows that to be at peak performance, they need to rest and recover like recovery. 

And the rest is. Is part of their peak performance, isn't it? So whenever we see it through sport, it is a no brainer to have off days, their ice baths, their massage, their meditation, mindfulness, their sleep. It's all critical for performance. Yet sometimes when wedefault into the corporate world, we almost think no, just got to be on, just got to be on, respond to that email, do that report at 10 PM, be sitting on my computer at night. 

And then wonder why I'm not sleeping, but I've got to get up early in the morning because I've got to, get back to it and then this cycle and almost the permission we've got to give ourselves that if we want to perform at our peak and have impact on our teams and the work we do is meaningful and successful rest and recovery is a critical element. 

It's just not always part of the language yet in corporate world.  

Shea Morrison: Yes, but I do, my observation from looking in and not being in a corporate environment, but speaking to lots of people and working in the space is that it is changing.  

Cherie Canning: Yes.  
 

Shea Morrison: And that this is definitely something and, speak, speaking to people where can it be more around doing a sprint and then recovering? 

Doing this and then recovering, so what does the rhythm look like for you? And I think that this comes back to this original conversation is  that what works for you? And these are the conversations I think leaders should be having with their team members and understanding, like you do your profiling, personality profiling and all of the things for people. 

There should almost be a it's this physical, physiological profiling to understand how do these, how do people work and what's working for them so that you can understand how to match that person where they're at when it comes to this rest and recovery as well.  

Cherie Canning: Yeah, that's so wise. And finding that rhythm for you, isn't it? 

The sprints, there's, Andy and I will often laugh, I'll say, Oh, if. Had more time and what would I do with different time? And I just maybe rest more. And he laughs at me and goes you just, you'll find something else exciting to do not saying I don't rest. 

Cause it is definitely an essential part of my life at the same time that it's not about doing I guess in my mind, I've come to this understanding that it's not about doing. Less, it's about how do I  maintain the energy so I can actually achieve more. It's actually wanting more impact, more sustainability to be able to do it. 

And not feeling like it means having to be like a sloth mode, I think it's almost like the pendulum swings too far. We were like, Oh, we won't work too hard. It's not about not working hard. It's. It's, in my mind, it's how do I do the work well in a way that's sustainable and that I'm not wiped out every weekend when it's time for my family, or I'm not having to just juice myself up with caffeine to even get the day started every day. 

And Then I think, yeah, finding that way for me, it is those sprints and those holidays having either little long weekends and always booking a holiday at the, for me, whether we're away or whether we're home, but just having that intentional break and not so you're wishing it a wishing time away, but you just know, okay, if I'm going at this pace now, I can recover and then we come back for another sprint. 

Shea Morrison: Yeah, and I don't know if you follow Jesse Itzler Sarah Blakely, who had Spanx, that's his husband. Yes. And he's got this great little, so this calendar that's behind me, that's his calendar, which is the big ass calendar. Yep. And he has this little process around it, and it's called, so he's got the misoji, which is a Japanese word for something big. 

It's more detailed than that, but that's my take on it. And then Kevin's rule. And basically it's the setup of your year on a big planner where you can map out what's your one big thing. So for him, sometimes it's like running across America. He's, does ultra marathons and all those sorts of things. 

I think this year he wants to go to, 50 ice bath sauna outdoor things across America. Something like that. That won't be me, coming up with what's your one big thing that you want to achieve this year. And then Kevin's rule is his friend. And that's every six weeks is blocking out. 

a weekend, so it has to be a long weekend, and it might not be necessarily going away or doing something, but it's blocking out that time where you're going to do something for you, or you're going to spend time, maybe you might be taking your child camping, or you might decide to do a movie marathon, or what is that, that every six weeks where you're going to just. 

Lock it down and take that time to reset. And I think that's what you're talking about too. Yeah. That is  

Cherie Canning: literally my calendar right now. It's got six weeks and then 12 week longer breaks. And then build the rest of the, I love that. That's exactly what you've got behind you. And then build the rest of the year around it. 

Shea Morrison: Because that's setting that intentional time that we need, because I'm not here to suggest that you need to quit your job and slow down and you're doing too much. It's about, again, how do you individually, personally manage your energy, manage your time, and you can do this once you start to really harness sleep and make it your superpower. 

Cherie Canning: Absolutely. And the world is better for it, right? I think, when I often think around the concept that sleep sleep deprivation is a torture technique and not really nice to bring that up, but the reality that is a torture technique and, how often are we just taking it for granted? 

It's something that we may be And it's shifting now around the consciousness of sleep rather than it's just this thing that happens every night and we just go through the motions rather than going how do I see this as a beautiful part of my day or a beautiful part of my life and enjoy that time and see it as rejuvenating rather than just, I don't know, being blind to just this On default  

Shea Morrison: into bed and to that point, we spend, if we're getting the right amount of sleep, we will spend a third of our lives in our bed. 

Also just making sure that your bedroom environment is set up the way that you want it. Is it, does it, is it clutter free? Is it a space where you walk in and go, Oh, my gosh, I'm here. This is it. I can't wait to get into that bed, so making sure that it is set up to receive you and to receive your energy to allow you allow that support because our bodies and our brains. 

Our brains, of course, are so smart, like our bodies start to really take on all of these habits that we do, and so we want to make sure that the body feels safe, and it feels supported, and it feels comfortable, because how lucky are we that we get to sleep in this beautiful bed every night. 

There are lots of people who don't have access to that and don't feel safe. So safety also plays a really big role in that and making sure that you're in an environment that is conducive. To allow you to get that sleep that you need.  

Cherie Canning: Yeah. Wow. You just opened up a whole, it's a whole nother podcast around safety. 

We're doing some part of the CEO sleep out for homelessness this year with Vinny's. And yeah, it just makes you think, wow, like for people who are experiencing homelessness, that's just a. Oh, another conversation  

Shea Morrison: and that comes back to when you think about ancestrally when we were growing, back then when we were living in environments in caves and we were with, groups of people and somebody would need to be alert and stay awake to make sure that there was no danger for the rest of the people that might've been in that cave. 

So there are some instinctual, instinctively some things that are going on in our Bones in our bodies that we've inherited along the way as well. So making sure that safety, particularly for children, often this is the big thing for children is that if they're in a, I look around because my house is very long and my children sleep at the other end of the house and even for them, they're 12 and 10. 

Sometimes they get a bit like, mom, you're all the way down the other end of the house. And while I know it's safe, they don't necessarily know it's safe. So it's reinforcing that doors are locked, we are here, the dog is here, all of the little things that really is required for children to feel safe so that they can get that good quality sleep. 

Cherie Canning: And it's  incredible. I'm just reflecting only in the school holidays over Christmas. Did our eight year old daughter have her first sleepover with someone coming to our house? And it was beautiful. And her little friend had never had a sleepover before. And a lot of prep with the parents and leading up to all this and little friend, she, her eyes were still like wide open while my daughter was already asleep. 

And I popped in and you could see that little bit of. Oh, is this okay? Fear, essentially. And I asked her, I said, would I be able to give you a cuddle? And she said, yeah. And I just cuddled her. I said, you're safe here. You're safe here. It's time you can go to sleep now. And she literally fell asleep. In my arms,  

Shea Morrison: like all it's required for you. 

Like it's that simple. And there are some people potentially as adults that may not have felt safe when they were children going to sleep. And that could also be the reason why they might have trouble falling asleep or waking up and getting back to sleep. There are all of these little aspects that exist that, that are happening for people. 

So it's quite complex sometimes. Yeah.  

Cherie Canning: It is. And so that's the help you do. You do the coaching as well. Shay, like we'll share all your details. Obviously you've got the beautiful products of the good night co provide and to assist with great quality sleep. But I might put some details in here for the other things, how else people can work with you. 

Shea Morrison: Absolutely. So the bit that I love the most, I love coaching and I love running workshops in, in corporate environments or in any environments really group and community so that people can start with the basics and there are some fundamentals that are required. You haven't really thought about sleep before. 

So these things are the areas that I absolutely love. And I think that by providing more education and more information. Then really going to help. Reach that goal of helping. The world fall back in love with sleep.  

Cherie Canning: I love that so much. And we have been in one of your workshops in our team, and we still talk about the things that we've learned from it. 

And yeah, really powerful. Shay, I'm so grateful to see you and have you on here. I have these cards in my hand, our little connection cards that we play with in our workshops. Can you tell me one, number one, two, or three, and I'll pull one as a little last question for you.  

Shea Morrison: Two, number two.  

Cherie Canning: All right. 
 

What is the best piece of advice you have received, Shea? That's a big one.  

Shea Morrison: That is a big one. The best piece of advice I think comes back to what we're talking about here and that is living your life with authenticity in order to allow others to learn and grow. From what you're here to do. I think that we're all here to share our own unique voice. 

And I think that the more that we can step into that with authenticity, then the more that it's going to allow everybody else to thrive and and grow alongside of what you're doing as well.  

Cherie Canning: So beautiful. Thank you. I fully agree. And. That's what it's all about, right? But yeah, that authenticity and being you and giving other people permission to do the same. 

That's beautiful. We say thank you. And I often think of you at nighttime, which is a strange thing to say to someone, isn't it? But I thank you. . And I thank you for the work that you do because it truly is changing the world. And when we sleep well. We are well. So it's truly changing people's lives and then how they interact within life. 

It's so powerful. Keep doing the amazing work you're doing. Thank you.  

Shea Morrison: Thank you, Cherie. Thanks so much for having me. It was wonderful.