Bookworm Transcripts

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Did I just stress you out with OBS Mike?

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There's a little bit of stress. I'm not sure if it's all OBS

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Long story short. Yeah, we failed with the live stream. Sorry everybody. That's all right. We'll get it figured out for next time

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I wish I knew how many times I've tried to do some form of live stream and it's falling apart

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So this is far from the first time I've had something like this happen. Just another one of those

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It's just another one of those is just the way this stuff works

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So if you joined us on twitch and helped us through some of our troubleshooting

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Thank you

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If not and you knew nothing about it, we're gonna try again next time because I won't let it go

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That's kind of how I tend to operate and I think Mike is maybe gonna be frustrated with me in the process

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But we'll try it again. We'll try it again. So

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Between here and there I guess this way we at least get to announce that we're trying this

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on the podcast and if you're interested in watching us live as we record this the goal is to

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Have video via twitch and we can have the chat and stuff happening there a hundred percent public

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we had a conversation with premium members and

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Without exception everybody said absolutely go for it make this thing public. So that's what we're trying to do and

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I think we simply tried to do too much at once here at the beginning

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So we'll make some adjustments Mike and I'll do some more testing

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We'll give it another go here in a couple weeks and

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We'll go from there. So as this releases that would be

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Who would that be it be a week from?

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When this releases I think in theory we got to check out the schedule and stuff first, but right that's the goal

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So now that's off our chest

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Take a deep breath Mike. You're right. I'm good

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All right, let's jump in to follow up. I have one

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I'll get it out of the way and then you can do your three

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that was to

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set up daily questions and

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Use those as

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journal prompts. I did do this and

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I can't say that the whole journal prompt side of it

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Turned out the way I expected because it doesn't actually work as journal prompts and just for reference

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Like here's the there are six questions that I look at at the end of the day

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Those are did I do my best to and then they all follow after that did I do my best to set clear goals today?

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Make progress toward my goals today find meaning today be happy today build positive relationships today and be fully engaged

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today, so those are six questions I run through at the end of the day lots of days here and

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Sometimes that sparks things that works out for a journal entry at the end of the day, but it

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Not always it's it's kind of just a sometimes thing, but I am doing it. So I would say that's a success thus daily questions

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There you go. I win. Can I say I win? All right. Good job, Joe. You can you have one follow up?

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I'm I'm batting a thousand right now

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Or today's follow up

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All right, so I also had a action item to create my own

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daily questions and

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I did that I'm gonna share something with you via messages that I was gonna share

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Before but then we had video issues sure I

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actually recorded a video about this I am doing this inside of Rome research thing and

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I'm using a text expander snippet and a keyboard maestro macro

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and what it does is it creates a

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section under my daily notes page in Rome and it has

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The questions and it's got a sliding scale which you can do real easily in Rome with a double curly brackets

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Slider I think is the the code

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So it's just the question and then that piece and it's all indented so it's in a block that I can grab and put inside of a separate

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Daily questions page which collects all this stuff together so I can review it

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But I like this it's a text expander snippet that I throw up there at the beginning of the day

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And then as I go through my day I

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Adjust these because I didn't like the idea of staring at a screen as the last thing that I did

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During my day

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So it forces me to be a little bit more active as I go about my day and I'm answering these things

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And not just wait till the end and say how did I do?

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Which I really like

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the other

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piece to this as

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I mentioned last time I'm kind of

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Questioning where day one fits I've been doing the kind of morning pages style

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Journaling inside of my fancy notebook and I've been doing that kind of as I go throughout the day

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That's been going really well, too

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So I feel like between that and these daily questions

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I've kind of found a journaling method that clicks for me sure sure

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And are you

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Like how does okay?

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What does the review process on that look like like do you go back and review it at all?

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I well, I never have yet

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Because I started this just a week or two ago

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But I do think that I will do this periodically as part of my personal retreat that I will go through and I will look at all

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Of the daily questions for the last couple months just real briefly maybe 15 minutes to go through all of them

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Be like why did I have so many

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Low ones in this particular area and then figure out what I can do to kind of fix that

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That's the thought process at the moment sure as with everything Mike does it's subject to change

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Okay, that's fair

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But yeah, so that's the daily questions and I shared the link to the video specifically the time is publishes

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I'll put a post up on my

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My website so there'll be a link in the show notes for people who want to see this your action it looks more impressive than it sounds

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Needs a visual yep

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The other other follow-up items I had were to

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Do the demon Simon exercise?

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I didn't spend a whole lot of time on this so I feel like I didn't give this the effort that it really should have had

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But I did think about it a little bit and I did actually have some meetings with the person

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that I

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Thought of for that particular exercise

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So the other item here pretend I'm gonna be tested at the end of every meeting this one has helped a lot

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And I don't have like specifically

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Quantifiable proof that like this changed my perspective other than how I feel the meetings went

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But this totally changed meetings for me. So this definitely had its intended effect. Nice

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Well, that's encouraging. I haven't used that at all

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Maybe that's because I haven't been in any meetings at all since we last recorded

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Not even virtual ones not even virtual woods none. I've been in zero meetings since we last I've had some virtual meetings that have really tested this

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Let me tell you

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There was one meeting the other day where the organizer and half of the people in the meeting joined the video meeting

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while they were driving in their cars, which was

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Really exciting. I bet I bet

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So that's follow-up. I guess actually one other thing I'll mention here

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I've shared this with you and I've shared it with a few other people

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I have started to make these videos about the sketch notes that I take from the sermons that I listened to and

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I shared one last week and

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Got a lot of positive feedback about it. I still am not committing to this every week yet

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I think it's still in the experimental phase, but I am recording these short walk-through videos of like

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The sermon notes that I take in sketch note form. So if you're interested in that sort of thing

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I'm gonna start posting some of those to my website

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So I'll put a link in the show notes for people who may be interested in that

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I still find it kind of hard to believe that people are interested in my sketch notes

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I never thought these would be interesting anybody but me yeah

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But people are telling me that they like them. So I'll throw it out there. Well, I think it's interesting

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It's interesting to see you talk through your sketch notes Mike shared this with me

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I think it's helpful. I think there are people that will enjoy watching those for sure cool

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So kudos to you Mike on that. Thanks

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so

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follow-ups done Mike which means we need to have a conversation yes, we do about tech difficulties or

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Maybe see now. Here's the thing like because we had technical difficulties for like 45 50 minutes straight

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because of

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That I think it's interesting that we're now going to step into a talk

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about a book

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About the problem with technology

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And how it causes problems

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It's only fitting that we had problems with it. How appropriate I know I know it's it's like perfectly

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suited for that, but

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today's book is reclaiming conversation by Sherry Turkle and

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I think we're gonna talk a lot about how

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texting is a terrible thing to do it's

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Probably the gist of the book. I think that's probably fair

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so

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Sherry's

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entire I shouldn't say entire premise, but a lot of the premise is

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Around the concept of how technology has changed the way that we talked to each other and how we have been going down

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It I wouldn't say it's in her words, but an incorrect method of talking to each other

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Which we have been doing via little computers machines

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texting

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Not face-to-face anything not face-to-face. I think is what she would be getting it

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I think she would probably be okay with phone like phone conversation. It seemed like she was okay with that to some degree

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But even that I think falls short of what her

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intent is

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overall for sure I

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Agree although I was thinking about this earlier and now that you bring it up it reminded me did she ever officially

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define

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conversation

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I don't think she did no

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Because I was the note I wrote down I was waiting for for the definition

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but

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it's kind of assumed

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which I

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I don't know how I feel about because a lot of times when you pick up a book like this

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380 pages and you couldn't give us a one paragraph the script at the very beginning

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correct and in a lot of cases like you pick something like this up and

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like it's one of the first things they want to do is define the terms and

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she did

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Oh shoot, what were the there were terms that she used oh it was intelligence

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That's what it was she was very particular about how we use the term artificial intelligence at the beginning and how

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Intelligence means more than just knowledge

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Like she was very particular about that and wanted to reclaim the definition behind intelligence

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but yet she never gave us a definition of

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conversation and

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How she wanted to you know, she never said she wanted to reclaim the definition of conversation as well

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So I don't know. I think that's interesting. It's it's fascinating to me that you picked that up as well

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Yeah, and I don't think it's completely

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Necessary like you said it's kind of implied that she's talking about

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face-to-face

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conversation in the same place where a big part of the conversation is

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recognizing people's facial expressions and stuff like that

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But it did feel weird that she wasn't talking about that specifically at the beginning

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She talked about all of the things that happen when we don't have it like we become less empathetic we become less connected less creative less fulfilled and

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She talked about

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How were page 10 we're so accustomed to being always connected that being alone seems like a problem technology should solve

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so she kind of just makes a distinction between connection and conversation but

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Never really defined what she considers to be a conversation

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So is this podcast that we're recording right now? Is this a conversation? I kind of think she would think no

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Because there's not the face-to-face aspect of it, but then you get a little bit closer like okay, so if the video actually worked

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Is that a conversation?

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Sure. Yeah, I don't know. I think I'm not sure I don't have a book in front of me right now

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But I don't know when this was written and I think that as technology evolves the lines become a little bit grayer

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So maybe zoom wasn't a thing, you know when she she wrote this she references things that happened in like 2014

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So I think it was written probably shortly after that

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but so video calling I'm sure has has been around but I

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Think it's it'd be kind of it's one of those books where

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You have to take it for when it was written as like this is a stamp in a

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period of time and

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Then you're left with the question of like well how has her thinking on this evolved as time goes on right?

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Yeah, for sure. It was written in 2015 at least it's when it was released okay, and you know that it's a good thing to keep in mind

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that it was released in 2015 because

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it she covers a lot of the territory around

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groups that are texting each other and she paints this picture over and over and over again

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of groups of people who are

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Talking quote-unquote talking that did the thing

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and

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Yet they're not actually having a face-to-face like they are texting each other while they're at dinner or

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They're texting friends who aren't there or they're looking for a better party when they're at a given party

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And so they don't actually enjoy the one they're at there's a lot of that

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Sentiment and it's not till much much later in the book to she even reference how there's kind of a resurgence against that

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Because I've noticed that in some of the youth today

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how

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they enjoy the phone free retreats and

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and such like there seems to be people who

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Recognize that that's not the way we should be

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doing things so I don't know I

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think we may have

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stepped beyond a lot of her premise on

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this but I'm not

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Certain that we're far enough away from it to say it's a non-issue either

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We're also in the middle of a pandemic

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So even if we wanted to have face-to-face conversation that doesn't look the same right for most of the places that we would have it

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Yep

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And so there's a little bit of a grain of salt approach that you have to take when reading it right now

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Because even if you wholeheartedly believe everything that she says and this is the ideal how you're gonna implement that right now

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Like there's a whole section here devoted to education

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Who knows what schools are going to look like in the fall?

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But it's probably not gonna be what we were familiar with

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It's probably gonna be a little bit different and that is going to be working against us having

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conversation in the way that she did not define

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Where it's face-to-face no technology, but so you have to figure out how can we adapt this?

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What's the second best version of that?

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You know and I kind of wish she would have gotten into that but she really didn't yeah, and at 380 pages

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That is true. That is true

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So let's dive in here. I in the outline. I just kind of laid out the parts. There are one two three four five six parts

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about two to three chapters per part and

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Let's just kind of work through these the first of those parts is the case for conversation in

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Which she does not define conversation, but she argues for its virtues and

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The first of those is under the title of the empathy

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Diaries and this is something I think she hangs her hat on for a large part of the book in

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And so it's fitting. I think that she starts with that in

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showing how empathic qualities in

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Youth and I she's probably referring to the later part of Millennials as well would be my guess

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She doesn't ever use like generational titles that I recall, but

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She does refer to how

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using phones and computers to

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Have quote-unquote conversations

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We're losing the ability to show empathy for each other and then we can see the

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ramifications of that throughout the rest of the book and

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She just tells some stories of how you know

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There's bullies and and students who have no idea what the other students are feeling and they're talking about a party that

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90% of the group was at but that one student wasn't and that student runs away crying because they weren't there and couldn't be there

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And the students around them had no idea that that was an issue to talk like that in front of her

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so, you know that whole concept of showing empathy is

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One that she spells out very early and then talks about quite a bit throughout the rest of the book

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Yes, although with empathy specifically I

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Couldn't help but think back to our discussion on emotional intelligence. Yep

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because

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emotional intelligence is a combination of in

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Trapersonal skills so self-management skills and interpersonal skills skills for

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living well with other people and it's not just

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communication, which is where conversation would come

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but that's a part of it and I think the

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lack of empathy is

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More so an indication of a lack of emotional intelligence than it is a lack of conversation are those linked?

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Probably but I don't think there's a one-to-one

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correlation here either like one of the things that

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Employers are really clamoring for right now are these soft skills that typically don't get taught in school

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So you cannot teach these skills that doesn't mean they can't be taught by the way

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But the fact that they typically do not get taught and then you notice when they're not there

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well duh

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Yeah, it's true. I

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Kind of figured that would come up at some point whenever we have this conversation mostly because like we had

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We've talked about like the book grit or you know when we went through emotional intelligence

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There's a lot more to it than just one particular

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Aspect

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I don't want to say but but she does seem to have the viewpoint that empathy

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Yeah, I might be putting words in her mouth. I feel like her intent was that empathy is a

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deriving point for a lot of other

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In this case emotional intelligence qualities. Do you think that's fair? I'm not certain that that's a hundred percent

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Where I think empathy is required for conversation

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But I think the argument that she's kind of making is that a lack of conversation has led to a lack of empathy

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I

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Don't think that part is as clear cut as she made it sound because there's a lot of other emotional intelligence factors

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I think it's more direct if you flip it the other way around I think that's fair

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Regardless she likes empathy a lot

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So do I I think that's important

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It is important

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She tends to make it the thing throughout the book though

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so

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Keep that in mind as we as we go through here, but that's the first piece

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of the first part so that's she's using that as the jumping off point here in that

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the use of in this case texting

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would lead students and

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groups to the point where they're not being considerate of other people and that leads to a lot of

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Problems that they go through down the line

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Yep, so

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Exactly and I guess just to clarify like what I'm saying is that she's kind of using it as evidence of

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See we've lost conversation and we've lost the sympathy and that's the part that I don't think there's a real clear connection to sure

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I think it's very easy to say

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there's been a decrease in empathy and as a result we're seeing a loss in conversation and

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Because of that

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Use that as the springboard into the rest of the book, but the way she did it felt a little bit disingenuous to me sure

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Sure, so then what would you be like if that's the case then what was in your mind? What's causing that?

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Drop an empathy because like in her mind

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The lack of conversation and being face-to-face and having

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You know voice-to-voice back and forth with somebody else

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Helps you build the empathy muscle in this case. Yeah, if you're saying it's the other way around

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What's what's the trigger? Well, I think it's the prioritization of

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the

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technical skills and the

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Decreased emphasis on the soft skills are the emotional intelligence skills in general

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That is the thing that has caused us to get to the point where we're seeing a decrease in this stuff

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It's because

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We're not focusing on it and we're not developing those skills specifically and you can say

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Well, it's the phones fault because we text instead, but it's not just the phone

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It's the television. It's a whole bunch of things that have contributed to a

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culture of convenience and

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Not wanting to do the things that are difficult and maybe important

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Like conversation so conversation is one aspect of this, but I feel like she kind of ties it directly to

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Because this one piece is gone now. We're seeing empathy a decrease in empathy and a whole bunch of other things

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But I think if tomorrow we were to decide that you know what soft skills are really the important skills and

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part of that is

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part of that is

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communication in general part of that is

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Being able to work with other people in teams who are not like you

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Like there are different avenues that she would probably argue conversation plays out and all of those things

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But I think they're bigger and they're broader than that and we have to take that bigger view in order to recognize

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The true importance of these things to just say conversation is missing

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Isn't

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impactful enough for a lot of people

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because you may not have these

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real deep conversations with people like she's talking about in the majority of this book but

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You may have the need to work more effectively with some people who really rub you the wrong way like

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Simon and Nadim from triggers

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You know and soft skills can help in that particular instance. You're not going into that thinking

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You know what Nadim and Simon I really want you guys to have a deep heart-to-heart conversation like no one's gonna be like

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Yeah, let's do that

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But that may happen organically if we had a broader approach to developing these skills and

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This is where like the personal development

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space and the productivity space is really interesting to me because a

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lot of this stuff comes down to

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Well, I can play the the victim card and say all of these things have happened to me

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And it's not fair or I can take control of my future

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And I can try to make myself better and develop the skills that are gonna help me create a better future for myself and my family

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and the thing that really makes the difference in a lot of a lot of those areas is

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not learning how to code or

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Learning more facts, but it is learning these soft skills these emotional intelligence skills

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It's hard to measure the impact that they have but you can look back after a period of time

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And you can say oh, yeah, those are definitely the things that helped me get where I am today

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So you're saying it's not the phones causing

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The emotional intelligence drop the phone makes it easier to avoid

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talking about

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emotional intelligence and soft skills I feel like you just said that the phone is at fault

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No, it's it makes it easier. So it's enabling but it is not the causation

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Okay, I guess I'm not seeing the difference. So what I think I'm hearing is that the culture around

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convenience is

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Leading us to a point where we're not as considerate of

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other people we're leading it's leading to the decline of

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emotional intelligence is that fair well

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Yeah, probably she she makes a point later on I

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Don't remember exactly where it was

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But you go to I'm getting it like I'm just trying to figure out where you're saying the center

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Like what the focal point is at the beginning of all of that

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Because it sounds like it's the computers and screens and stuff that lead to that because of the convenience that they create

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It which I don't be computers and screens that is a broader category than a smartphone

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Sure, but the smartphone specifically she mentions later on

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that this

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gives us a lot of power and we have to learn how to use it

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responsibly and

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We have to put

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Intentional constraints in place to control our behavior if we can't control it ourselves

00:27:04

I think back to make time by Jake Nap and John Zorotsky and

00:27:09

They have a phrase in there about how the smartphone is this phenomenal technology that allows us to connect with people across the world and

00:27:18

Do all these things that are good, but at the same time

00:27:23

It really ends up allowing us to do a whole bunch of things that we consider bad and that's what we default to is that the phones fault?

00:27:31

No, I would argue you could make the argument

00:27:34

I guess that it's the app developers fault because they're praying on our our sure habitual behaviors

00:27:40

But even that I think that really it's it's your fault if you don't

00:27:44

Control yourself enough to to turn the thing off at dinner time like she's talking about

00:27:49

And I've been there. I mean we've got action items associated with this

00:27:54

So I'm kind of jumping all over the place here

00:27:57

But since you since you asked I guess I guess what I'm playing me. It's fine

00:28:02

We'll jump around

00:28:03

I guess what I'm saying is that the smartphone is the easy thing to pick on because everybody has it and that's what everybody sees

00:28:09

But if it wasn't the smartphone, it would be something else maybe in the future. It's the Google Glass or the

00:28:16

Watch or whatever

00:28:18

You know, it's the technology is going to change and it's going to make it easier to not be intentional

00:28:25

And it's going to make it easier for companies to prey on your attention because it's valuable to them and your data

00:28:31

She talks about that in here too, which I thought was interesting

00:28:33

But at some point you got to say that no one's making me do this and I am going to

00:28:39

Use it this way and I'm going to not allow people to do these things

00:28:44

You know as we're recording this it's interesting like the privacy thing

00:28:47

People for several years have kind of just had this attitude

00:28:52

I think of like well, yeah, Google's part tracking all my stuff

00:28:55

But I don't really care because I get a lot of benefit from it

00:28:58

right and

00:28:59

Hey, just got released and they have that they shame people who track you and their emails are like hey

00:29:05

This this person's doing this naughty naughty, you know, the big the big banner and

00:29:10

People are like oh my gosh. This is amazing

00:29:13

I had no idea people were doing all this sort of thing like what happened in the last couple years that people now are so concerned about

00:29:18

Their privacy. They're literally doing the same things. They've been doing for years, but now it's like well

00:29:24

They shouldn't be doing this and there's got to be an alternate way to do that sort of thing

00:29:28

Could we have had that earlier if people had prioritized that?

00:29:31

I kind of think so and so for me personally, it's just not going to use my smartphone the way that I see everybody else doing it

00:29:39

but I'm gonna be intentional and use it to

00:29:41

Use the good from it and shut out the bad as much as I I can okay two things

00:29:47

She refers to the Fitbit and Glass as

00:29:50

Part of the book yep, and how that's an extension of what she's talking about like she does go into that and how those are yet more

00:29:58

Things not just the phone so she does reference things more than

00:30:03

the phone as well

00:30:06

Okay, so that's and artificial intelligence and robots. Yep. She goes into a lot of that stuff

00:30:11

so I can't say that like

00:30:13

we're kind of pigeonholing her into

00:30:17

The phone is causing this lack of conversation which causes a lack of empathy when she's not just

00:30:23

Focused on the phone. That's just her main piece that she talks about for most of it

00:30:29

But that's not the only thing she talks about so I don't think it's fair to say

00:30:32

She's saying there's a direct correlation between phone use and a lack of empathy. I don't think that's a hundred percent fair

00:30:39

Because she does reference a lot of other things that lead to similar

00:30:45

issues

00:30:47

What was the second point I got the first one written down and I didn't get the second one written down. Oh the data

00:30:53

the privacy thing

00:30:55

like today

00:30:57

Like yes, they're still doing the same things as far as data collection

00:31:02

I think they've started collecting away more than they were five years ago where we were whenever this book was written

00:31:09

But what they're doing with it has changed significantly from then till now

00:31:15

So I think you know with all of the marketing and the smart information. They're able to determine about you

00:31:21

Like I think that's partially why people are now

00:31:24

Having a lash back at all the data tracking just because of what folks are doing with it. I mean you think about Mike

00:31:32

The tools that you use as a marketer like an online marketer

00:31:36

Like sending email newsletters like it's nuts how much information those tools will give you about the people who have subscribed to your newsletter

00:31:44

Like it's just bonkers and you do nothing other than set up an account and you're not even the person on the other end

00:31:51

Who's setting up the data collection?

00:31:53

Sure, you know, it's nuts. So anyway, that's yeah, that's that's fair

00:31:58

Specifically to refer to the phone point you are correct that she does get into some other stuff later this specific section

00:32:06

though

00:32:07

She talks about how the first chapter she introduces fubbing which is maintaining eye contact while texting and she talks about even a

00:32:16

Silent phone inhibits conversations that matter and then in the next chapter

00:32:20

She talks about the smartphone genie and it grants these wishes wish number one will always be heard wish number two

00:32:27

We can put our attention wherever we want wish number three. We will never be alone and then the bonus one

00:32:32

We will never be bored

00:32:33

so she's not saying at this point that it's only the phone but she's kind of implying that it is the phone that has gotten us here and

00:32:42

I guess what I'm saying is that kind of dates this book a little bit kind of shows that it was written in 2015

00:32:47

Because there's gonna be other things that are gonna replace the phone that are gonna take these exact same things to the next level

00:32:55

It's gonna be an even bigger problem than it is right now

00:32:57

But it's not going to be the smartphone genie. It's gonna be something else and that's totally not her fault

00:33:02

She can't look into the future and predict what's what's gonna be next, but well you're looking into the future, too

00:33:08

Though I'm looking into the future by looking at the past

00:33:10

Sure, and like what way like what is nothing's gonna stay the same what has replaced the phone?

00:33:16

Like that's that would be my question then like she's saying the phone is the central point and the biggest potential

00:33:22

offender here I

00:33:24

Would argue that's the same today like it's still the biggest offender correct this so I don't think that has changed

00:33:32

I agree. It's the the biggest offender right now

00:33:35

But she mentions the Google Glass thing for example. I kind of think that was a product that was ahead of its time and

00:33:42

maybe a little bit

00:33:45

Not exactly the it wasn't presented in a way that people were able to normalize it

00:33:50

Like I just had this kind of creep factor into it, right? But there'll be a version of that that's more

00:33:58

More approachable seems a lot less threatening and people are gonna are gonna flock to it whether it's that

00:34:04

Specifically or something else, you know, there's gonna be something that will replace the

00:34:10

the smartphone and I say that just because

00:34:14

I've got kids who are getting older and I recognize that even the stuff that I write about this stuff for a living

00:34:22

And there are things that their approach to technology is different than mine

00:34:26

so she talks about like the voice assistants in the later later parts of this book and series specifically and

00:34:32

I don't ever use any sort of voice assistant my kids do all the time

00:34:38

I would prefer to listen to podcasts my kids watch YouTube videos

00:34:43

So even though I am in this world

00:34:46

I am missing pieces of it and I'm seeing like their affinity for these other things and I

00:34:55

It's just gonna constantly be evolving. It's gonna constantly get worse not to sound all old man yells at cloud, but

00:35:01

So the smartphone I feel like this is I

00:35:07

Don't know what would have came before that that would have been level one

00:35:11

That's kind of like level two level three is gonna be something else and that's really what we should be looking for

00:35:16

Sure opinion. Yeah, I guess my point is that

00:35:21

She's saying the phone is the center offender like it's the center like the biggest problem

00:35:26

because of how much convenience it gives us and

00:35:30

I guess all I'm saying is yes, you're saying it will evolve into something other than that

00:35:36

I don't think she would argue with that. I'm just saying that in today's world. It's the same

00:35:40

So I don't think she's wrong and saying the phone is the center point simply because it still is today

00:35:46

Correct. I think it also depends on what you consider to be your world

00:35:51

Like there's a whole section in here on education again jumping all over the place

00:35:55

But I remember when I was in college I had a laptop, but I didn't take it to class

00:36:01

there was no Wi-Fi all over the campus and I took notes by hand and

00:36:06

I've often thought back and big man

00:36:09

I wish I had an iPad like that would have made things way easier in the middle of a class because she was the example of a

00:36:16

Class sheet taught specifically

00:36:18

where the students came up and they

00:36:21

apologized for texting in the middle of of class and

00:36:26

I think depending on the form factor and maybe at that specific point the phone's not the thing

00:36:33

Maybe it's the iPad because you can hide behind the screen

00:36:35

We've all seen people take out their laptops and meetings and then you're like I wonder what they're doing

00:36:39

so if that's the place where you're recognizing the effects is that

00:36:46

you're attending one of these classes and

00:36:49

You feel bad because you're addicted to your technology, but maybe it's

00:36:55

Happening through messages on your iPad instead of the the smartphone

00:36:59

I know people who are able to put their smartphone

00:37:02

Away and go somewhere for an extended period of time, but they can't turn notifications off on their watch like

00:37:11

This is very personal the the doors that we leave open to

00:37:17

people and

00:37:20

companies to

00:37:22

Arrest our attention at any given moment and I think it's worth thinking through what those are for you

00:37:28

But it's not always the smartphone. Yeah. No, I think that's fair. I was thinking about the Apple watch a lot

00:37:34

During this book just curious to see

00:37:39

If it because I couldn't remember when it came out

00:37:42

Has it has it been more than five years ago now?

00:37:44

I think so and that's a great example because I know people who are like, huh, see I'm not addicted to this stuff

00:37:51

I have notifications turned off on my phone. Yeah, but they get them all the time and they're watching and they're constantly looking at their watch

00:37:57

Right, right so the net gain here is absolutely zero

00:38:01

You just transferred them from one screen to another. Yeah

00:38:06

Well, here's so the other piece of this very first part the case for conversation is the flight from conversation and

00:38:14

We've been all over this. So I don't think we'll spend a ton of time here, but she makes the point that

00:38:19

People a lot of times will have

00:38:23

the phone with them and

00:38:26

It allows them an exit into another world or to see what's going on someplace else and as a result

00:38:35

It forces the conversation to stay light because then you can dip in and out of it without having to truly focus on the conversation

00:38:42

so as a result of a

00:38:45

device whether it's your watch your phone whatever it is

00:38:50

Because it can connect you to some other place

00:38:53

You're more likely to step away from the conversation and the face-to-face you're in right now

00:39:01

Which means you're not going to go into a deep conversation because if you're floating in and out of that conversation

00:39:06

You you can't follow a deep conversation

00:39:08

Yep as a result of that

00:39:10

So it forces you to keep a light conversation which means having a deep conversation is very difficult for people and

00:39:17

leads to other issues as we'll get into in the business section

00:39:21

Exactly. She also says in this section that pro conversation is not anti technology

00:39:26

And I think that's an important point we look at

00:39:30

All of the negative aspects of smartphones and technology a lot of times

00:39:35

But if we can just learn to curb our own behaviors those aren't necessarily bad things

00:39:40

She mentions that the average American adult checks their phone every six and a half minutes

00:39:45

You don't have to check your phone every six and a half minutes just because everybody else does

00:39:50

And if you can get that under control then you can actually do a lot of good with it for sure now

00:39:57

At the very beginning of the book at the top of the table of contents

00:40:01

there's a quote and this quote is referred to in the introduction of the book and it is then used as

00:40:08

the section titles for four out of the six

00:40:13

pieces here and

00:40:16

The quote is by Henry David Thoreau from Walden. I feel like that book comes up a lot

00:40:23

I really need to read this one Mike. I know you won't because it's different

00:40:27

Oh, I'm picking a different book for next time. I'm not sure if you look that a yet

00:40:30

I haven't looked I need to refresh the thing. I'll refresh it here shortly

00:40:35

The quote is I had three chairs in my house one for solitude two for friendship

00:40:42

three for society and

00:40:45

the next part in the book is referred to as one chair and

00:40:50

The intent is she then goes through these three different pieces here

00:40:55

one is for solitude and then she also has another chapter for self-reflection and

00:41:01

the intent here is that you are

00:41:04

turning inwards as

00:41:07

opposed to constantly being connected and I think this is where she comes up with the phrase I share therefore I am and

00:41:14

what she what she means by that is that

00:41:18

You don't really get to know yourself and what you think and feel about things until you've shared pictures or comments online

00:41:25

on Facebook on Twitter on wherever like you have to share what you think in order for you to figure out who you are

00:41:31

It's kind of your way of figuring out your identity

00:41:33

Whereas if you spend time in solitude, which is her first point here

00:41:38

you have the time to do the self-reflection and such which those are technically separate, but they kind of morphed together in my head but

00:41:45

When you do that you have a chance to think through what you think about something and process your way of thinking about it and

00:41:53

Determine what it is your opinion is on things as opposed to having to share it with the world and hope they like it and

00:41:59

You know tweak everything you're saying to what everybody else wants you to say

00:42:03

Thus the echo chamber Mike

00:42:06

That's the echo chamber. This part made me uncomfortable

00:42:10

Did you like my note under solitude

00:42:14

So we

00:42:17

Could I go there? I want to go there? I'm gonna go so at the very beginning we were talking about the empathy diaries and

00:42:24

One of the points. This is a very small point

00:42:27

This is a very small piece of this chapter, but I glitched on to it because of bookworm and

00:42:32

I hope listeners will appreciate that I latched on to this the point was that reading fiction books

00:42:39

Helps the reader improve empathic capacity and she just briefly mentioned how reading fiction is a way to combat the lack of

00:42:47

empathy

00:42:49

created by

00:42:50

Constant phone use. Why do you think that is I just needed to get that out there?

00:42:55

It's because you're diving into the world and seeing the thoughts and the experiences of these characters and how they're interacting with each other

00:43:03

You're seeing conversations that you don't see in real life

00:43:06

Yep, yeah, that's I saw that and I was like huh I wonder why and then like yeah wait, that's really sad

00:43:14

Yeah, but it does go even for folks who are not fully like they're not super deep on phone use

00:43:21

like even my wife is big into this and she is far from addicted to her phone and

00:43:28

this is something that she

00:43:31

loves to do because she gets to see the worlds of other people and it's interesting to me how often she will reference a fictional characters

00:43:39

reaction to a certain circumstance and

00:43:42

How she's using that to inform the way she interacts with people in real life. It's interesting to me, but

00:43:48

Fictions, you know, it's dessert Mike. It's not necessary

00:43:53

Well, you could make the argument. I think which is kind of how we got where we are

00:44:00

That a specific conversation is not necessary to sure

00:44:05

but we've seen the

00:44:09

the net result or

00:44:11

Again, not a direct correlation here, but we see what that lack of focus on

00:44:17

conversation and other soft skills emotional intelligence skills has

00:44:22

Has brought us to right so I don't know. I'm still not probably gonna read fiction

00:44:30

but I did I

00:44:32

Did take some time to think about why?

00:44:36

She said what she said about it improving the empathic capacity

00:44:40

she didn't explicitly say it but I've kind of shared what I think or why I think that is and

00:44:46

I think you could get the same benefit from

00:44:50

Prioritizing conversation, which is a big thing I got from reading this book not to jump all the way to the end

00:44:57

But that's the big takeaway here is create more time and space for conversation

00:45:02

not

00:45:04

fictional conversation where you're peering into the world of other people I get I get where that's like a version of this which is

00:45:09

beneficial

00:45:11

But I think more beneficial at least for me is the actual conversations themselves and that's uncomfortable enough

00:45:18

I heard it

00:45:21

one introvert who would much prefer

00:45:24

Just to send the text message then to call people and have the conversation which having read this

00:45:32

I've challenged myself to do that more this week of made a couple of uncomfortable phone calls

00:45:37

Which they weren't even uncomfortable

00:45:38

They were just hard for me to make the call and then once I did talking to people, you know, it was

00:45:44

You can look back at it and you can say well, what was I so afraid of but

00:45:48

Still the the resistance and the friction is is there for me

00:45:52

sure

00:45:54

One of the things I don't think she called out like yes, she talks about how people were using

00:46:00

phones to get away or like to avoid an in-person alive a real-time conversation

00:46:06

They were using phones to get away from that because it was messy and you couldn't edit yourself

00:46:11

But yeah at the same time

00:46:14

I have a tendency to text be

00:46:17

In a lot of cases simply because it's way faster and I don't have time for the phone call

00:46:22

Sure

00:46:24

I will send off the quick message like you just need to know this one thing

00:46:28

And then I'm gonna go away

00:46:30

Otherwise if I make the phone call, it's gonna be 10 minutes

00:46:33

Well as the person who edits the podcast

00:46:37

I can tell you that I understand the ability to not respond in real time and kind of self-edit

00:46:44

But when you are amplifying that message and sending it out to a lot more people

00:46:49

There's only so much editing can do yes, you sound like an idiot

00:46:53

You're still gonna sound like an idiot when I'm done with you

00:46:57

Sorry

00:46:59

And there have been times where I'm editing and I'm like, uh, I wish there was an easier way to make

00:47:05

What this whole point that I just made sound more intelligent, but at that point it is what it is

00:47:11

and so I feel like

00:47:14

forcing myself to put myself out there

00:47:17

Has been

00:47:18

Beneficial and helping me overcome a little bit of that

00:47:21

And that's the thing

00:47:24

I mentioned like this part made me uncomfortable when you were talking about not having to have all of these thoughts in public

00:47:29

Because I am having more and more thoughts in public. I mentioned at the beginning. Yeah, I'm sharing the

00:47:36

The sermon the sketch notes from the sermon notes that I take

00:47:39

That is really scary to me that feels very

00:47:44

Personal I am very much

00:47:47

intimidated

00:47:50

By doing that which probably means that it's a good thing that I'm I'm doing it

00:47:54

But I also think that if I am able to pull this off

00:47:57

an internet where I don't have to be

00:48:00

so worried about every single thing that I say

00:48:04

Because I share the truth and I'm not constantly editing myself and people know what to expect from me

00:48:11

I obviously have to live up to my reputation and I have to have the integrity and the character to sustain this

00:48:20

but

00:48:21

That seems very appealing to me

00:48:23

so

00:48:25

I am

00:48:26

I'm quickly approaching the point where I do not have an unpublished thought it feels like

00:48:31

but

00:48:33

if as long as I am

00:48:35

True to myself in the thoughts that I publish

00:48:38

then

00:48:40

That I think is a a good thing and hopefully

00:48:43

encourages other people to do the same and maybe

00:48:47

Loses a little bit of this negative stigma attached to digital communication. Yep

00:48:54

I feel like I I cannot say that I'm

00:48:57

in your ballpark of no one published thought like that's a thing that content creators tend to say

00:49:04

and

00:49:06

I don't argue with it. Sparky says that quite a bit. I think and it's kind of a cool

00:49:11

Concept but every time I've heard it

00:49:14

It's come from folks who do not have strong 80d

00:49:18

in any way

00:49:21

I have thousands and thousands and thousands of ideas and thoughts that I'm never going to get the publishing

00:49:27

This is not going to happen

00:49:30

Sure, and it's I just have too much. It's the way it happens

00:49:33

I do try to get around that somehow with

00:49:35

Like that's one of the things I've been doing with the twitch streams

00:49:39

Like folks who have been following me know I've been streaming on twitch lately

00:49:43

and

00:49:44

It's kind of a cool thing

00:49:46

To do that because you can explore so many different ideas over the span of a couple hours

00:49:52

And have conversations with people just kind of hang out and and do some of that in a granted

00:49:58

It's it's kind of odd in that

00:50:00

Like I'm talking into a camera, but you're talking back through a chat box like it's a little different in that scheme

00:50:06

But it is fascinating to me how much ground you can cover

00:50:10

in that

00:50:12

In that time so it's fun. I'm planning to continue doing that

00:50:15

But it is interesting how like when you have a conversation

00:50:20

Like when you're trying to publish things in public like yeah, you can't edit it

00:50:26

Especially when you're streaming it because that thing is recorded as you're streaming it and

00:50:30

It's there like yes, you could delete it

00:50:34

But you're gonna delete the whole thing you can't edit out what you're doing like it is there

00:50:39

So you have to be 100 real you have to be genuine

00:50:44

You have to be completely honest with people

00:50:47

When they're joining you for that otherwise like if you say something that's not 100 true like there's a record of it

00:50:55

Yep, and people will bring that back

00:50:58

But the smartphone isn't the thing that allows you to be in authentic

00:51:02

I mean I remember several years ago. I was in the jewelry store

00:51:06

Shopping for a gift from my wife and the person was showing me a necklace

00:51:11

And they were telling me a story of how the guy who bought this bought seven of them for all of his girlfriends

00:51:18

And then they found out about each other and they all dumped him and so he brought them all back

00:51:23

Wow

00:51:26

Like I can't even I can't even imagine trying to keep all that stuff straight like no, thank you

00:51:32

Yeah, but people do it. Yep. That they do

00:51:36

So I I'm going to

00:51:38

Share things but I'm going to do my best to make sure that I am sharing true things

00:51:44

and not try to

00:51:46

Remember which versions of myself I have promoted in different places. That's just too much work. Right?

00:51:53

Right

00:51:55

Which this is a good place to jump into the two chairs part here and I think we're gonna lump this all together

00:52:01

uh, but

00:52:03

Two chairs is when you're interacting with other people so to go back to

00:52:07

Thoreau's quotes. I had three chairs in my house one for solitude two for friendship. So this is when you're in

00:52:13

Uh a relationship with one other person. So it's usually directly to one or a few other super close

00:52:20

Friends a small friend group of sorts and the three parts inside of this part

00:52:25

Family friendship and romance. So your close family your immediate family that you live with

00:52:32

your friends your very close friendships that you have and then your romantic partner

00:52:37

and

00:52:39

Those three I feel like are some of the most

00:52:42

I don't want to say heated but they're the the ones that you're going to have the closest ties to and be emotionally close to

00:52:52

Which means that having face-to-face conversations are kind of important and

00:52:59

borderline mandatory in a lot of cases and yet I was shocked Mike especially in the family section of the families that

00:53:06

Would handle their fights

00:53:09

in a chat box

00:53:12

Yep, like that just dumbfounded me. I

00:53:14

Know it under the fighting by text section is is this really a thing? Yeah

00:53:19

Like this is apparently a thing. I have never heard of this. I don't know anyone who does this at least that we'll talk about it

00:53:27

I I was dumbfounded by this. Have you run across any family that does this?

00:53:31

No, and I can't

00:53:34

Imagine doing that myself, but as I thought about this like why would they do this? I think

00:53:40

that the reason

00:53:44

would be

00:53:46

That you want to prove

00:53:48

Your point you want to prove that you are right

00:53:51

So it occurred to me as I was reading this section

00:53:56

That while fighting by text

00:53:58

Allows more time and space to come up with an appropriate response

00:54:01

It ends up being better for proving your point, but it ends up being much worse for saying you're sorry

00:54:09

Which if you're really thinking about how are we going to resolve this conflict? That's ultimately what has to happen

00:54:16

many of the

00:54:19

The difficulties that I've had

00:54:22

Not just in my marriage, but in different

00:54:26

relationships have been solved when I have quit worrying about what the other person did to me

00:54:32

And just apologized whether I thought it was my fault or not

00:54:36

Just saying I'm sorry

00:54:38

It's like flipping on a light switch and now everything is good and you completely miss that if you're doing it

00:54:44

this way

00:54:46

I was also thinking about the the side effect of of this being that like

00:54:52

Conversations tend not to get as heated

00:54:55

But in my mind, I immediately thought of well, that just means that things aren't really getting resolved

00:54:59

We're planning some grass in our our backyard

00:55:03

So we have grass seed that we've planted and we've gotten a lot of weeds that have sprung up

00:55:09

And it occurred to me that yeah, maybe you don't have the heated discussions

00:55:13

But it's kind of like using a lawnmower to run over those weeds and it may look okay for a little while but you haven't done anything

00:55:20

It's still there. It's going to resurface

00:55:22

I would much rather pull the thing up by the root and you don't have to worry about it anymore

00:55:26

Yep

00:55:28

But that's the easy way to do it at least if you're

00:55:30

familiar with having those

00:55:33

conversations in person

00:55:35

but

00:55:38

I have to admit that when I was reading through all three of these pieces family friendship romance like the

00:55:44

Groups of teens that we're having conversations on text at the same time that they're in the room together

00:55:51

Or looking for parties to go to or group like gatherings that they could go to and trying to figure out if that's a better one

00:55:57

like i've seen that in person where

00:55:59

teens are

00:56:03

Trying to like they'll wait till the very last minute to commit to something because they're wanting to make sure that they pick the best

00:56:09

Of anything like that's some of the convenience culture

00:56:12

And the choice culture that we have like because we have so many choices

00:56:16

We always want to pick the best of things like I see that a lot whenever we're buying things online

00:56:21

Just kind of tangentially related like we'll do a lot of research to make sure we're getting the best option for something

00:56:28

And that's not always worth all of the research it takes to go into it

00:56:32

Like I could do a lot of research on finding a new wind screen for my microphone, but frankly most wind screens for microphones will do the job just fine

00:56:40

So just find something that'll fit what I want and go for it

00:56:44

Like that's the sort of thing you could do

00:56:46

but

00:56:47

When it comes to trying to find the best place to be and waiting till the last minute and then changing once you're at some place like it just seems so

00:56:54

Flaky yep, and maybe that's us

00:56:58

Having some experience outside of that, but that seems like it's normal for some groups

00:57:04

and

00:57:06

It's honestly it's sad. It's it's really sad, but

00:57:08

That's what she's getting at here. This is this is what we need to stop doing

00:57:14

Yeah

00:57:15

People are always looking for better options, but when you do that

00:57:20

You end up making it impossible for you to be content with what you actually have

00:57:27

Whether that is a relationship with a significant other

00:57:31

Another party you're looking to attend which she talks about in this this chapter or this section

00:57:37

And I don't know as she's describing it

00:57:42

Just does not appeal to me at all

00:57:45

Uh another thing that really jumped out to me in this section

00:57:49

Is all of the issues that people had with their phones at dinner time?

00:57:54

And you may think well

00:57:55

Yeah kids these days, but no it was the parents who had the issues with the phones at the table

00:58:01

She shared a lot of stories about interviews that she did with

00:58:04

Teenagers and college students who were like mom, please put the phone away dad

00:58:11

I want to have a conversation with you

00:58:13

Which really got me thinking because

00:58:16

this year tobe is a teenager and

00:58:20

I want to

00:58:22

Create a culture in our home

00:58:26

where

00:58:28

He doesn't

00:58:29

He doesn't have to worry about that kind of stuff

00:58:33

I'm sure like there's still gonna be outside influences. I get that

00:58:35

But it occurred to me as I read this that maybe a lot of this is brought in

00:58:40

by

00:58:42

Us as parents

00:58:44

Maybe we're setting an example in our own homes of what not to do

00:58:49

So one of my action items from this section specifically is no phones at at meals

00:58:57

And uh, I've actually taken this a little bit further

00:59:01

Uh, I won't get too crazy into the details here

00:59:05

but

00:59:06

We know that he told me to be a teenager at some point in the probably near future

00:59:11

He's going to have a phone. We want to set an example. So no phones in the bedrooms

00:59:16

Well, I use my phone for sleep tracking. So it's been easy for me to say like well

00:59:21

I need my phone by my bed because I use sleep cycle and that's how I track my sleep

00:59:25

but I bought this uh

00:59:27

Charging station so everything stays out in the kitchen now plug the phone in there at night

00:59:34

No phones in the bedrooms and he doesn't even have a phone yet, but we're setting the expectation

00:59:38

Sure, and so I've had to rethink how I am tracking my sleep

00:59:42

And I've started to do it with my my apple watch

00:59:46

So you sleep with your apple watch then I do I put it on theater mode so the phone so the light doesn't come on and I still use sleep cycle

00:59:53

Because it actually tracks like the the how deep you're sleeping and all the the rim cycles and stuff like that

01:00:00

I like having that that data

01:00:03

So i'm doing it that way and it means I have to charge it during the day at some point

01:00:07

But it's interesting to me because for a long time I justified it and said no I got to have my phone in my

01:00:13

Bedroom because i'm using it for this good purpose

01:00:17

But I also realized that that meant first thing I did when I woke up as I reached for the phone

01:00:22

Yep, so this has kind of forced me to break a bad habit and get a little bit creative in figuring out a different solution to this

01:00:31

Now the apple watch specifically I can't the way I have it set up. I'm not checking text messages. I'm not checking

01:00:38

Twitter mentions

01:00:40

There's nothing that's coming in to my watch that I want to see it's really just a health device at at this point

01:00:47

Where i'm using it to close my rings

01:00:50

Exercise every day and also now for for sleep tracking

01:00:54

And uh, i'm really happy with this experiment so far

01:01:00

but that's uh

01:01:02

And I had actually started before I started reading this this book but having read this section

01:01:07

It kind of gave me increased motivation to make this work

01:01:12

Do you feel like that still sends the right message though?

01:01:15

Like if you're like say toby had an apple watch would it be okay if he slept with it?

01:01:20

if

01:01:22

He doesn't necessarily have it set up the same way you do

01:01:25

Depends if you're asking me that question now or in five years

01:01:30

Well, you were talking about setting up the habits now

01:01:33

Yeah, that's true. Well as the apple watch currently exists. I think I would be okay with that because you're not doing like

01:01:40

Video calls you're not surfing the web from an apple watch

01:01:43

But if you're able to do those sorts of things then that kind of defeats the the purpose of the rule with the phone

01:01:49

So again, is this what we're doing right now subject to change?

01:01:52

Yep

01:01:54

But I think the big thing is just eliminating the phones right now that is the thing

01:01:58

That is the attachment device for both my wife and myself

01:02:02

So

01:02:03

We're keeping them out of the bedroom and it's felt really great

01:02:07

Good work. Yeah, I want to do this as well, but I

01:02:10

It would be very easy for me to just say I'm going to charge it downstairs. I don't use sleep cycle on it

01:02:15

I use a pen and paper tracker

01:02:17

Of course

01:02:20

And we'll go dot com

01:02:23

It's just kind of weird to me how that came out

01:02:26

Um, yeah, I don't I don't use sleep cycle at all anymore. I used to

01:02:32

But the whole tracking thing on it. I I sleep better without tracking and it seems like but

01:02:37

Anyway, I am joining you with the whole no phones at the dinner table

01:02:42

Concept as a result of this the whole parent stories

01:02:46

piece of this

01:02:49

was disheartening

01:02:51

the number of

01:02:52

Kids who wanted to have conversations with their parents but couldn't because mom and dad were on their phone

01:02:58

So

01:03:00

I have been since reading that part. I've been leaving my phone

01:03:03

In the bedroom as weird as this is it goes to the bedroom whenever we go to dinner because then I can't even hear it ring

01:03:08

so

01:03:10

Yeah, nice. That's that's where it goes

01:03:13

Um, one other piece that came from oh no this came from the next section

01:03:17

So we can go into three chairs unless there's something else you want to say about two

01:03:21

Uh, yeah, my other action item here and actually before I get there, I just want to

01:03:25

Iterate I guess that the no phone it meals the no phones in the bedroom really this is tied to the same idea

01:03:33

Of creating the time and space to have the conversations where appropriate so

01:03:38

dinner time specifically this is the one where

01:03:42

if I am intentional in seeking the conversation it happens but

01:03:47

Usually

01:03:50

What ends up happening is

01:03:52

We try to get people to the table at the same time doesn't always work

01:03:56

So it's kind of like hurting cats

01:03:58

Sure, some people are reading some people aren't

01:04:00

I tend to be

01:04:02

One of the I tend to be one of those people that just kind of like wolfs down their food and then

01:04:06

you know

01:04:08

The temptation is to leave or to check my phone and I want to curb that behavior specifically

01:04:14

And that's kind of related to the second one too. I don't really do this a lot

01:04:18

My kids actually are instigators of this because they'll have a question about something

01:04:22

And they'll they'll be like oh take out your phone and search for figure out the answer

01:04:26

So the second one here is no internet searches and conversations

01:04:29

Sure, I don't typically do this like I said especially

01:04:33

With other adults but my kids totally can get me to do this

01:04:37

Anytime so I want to I want to stop that and teach them that if you don't have an answer to something immediately

01:04:45

That's okay. You can just talk about it. You can change your opinions later

01:04:49

Right, right. We've been teaching our girls to say I don't know

01:04:53

Like it's oh, it's okay to say you don't know

01:04:56

Like it seems like in a lot of our culture. It's not okay to say you don't know the answer to something

01:05:00

Sure, everybody wants to be perfect in the communication with another person so they will look things up and have a perfect

01:05:08

streak of always having the answer for things but

01:05:11

you know, that's

01:05:14

It's not who we are like we forget things. We don't know everything. It's okay to say I don't know

01:05:18

So we've been trying to teach our girls that which means I have to say I don't know more

01:05:22

Which I don't like to do so anyway three chairs

01:05:25

I had three chairs in my house one for solitude two for friendship three four society, which is where we start talking about education

01:05:33

and work

01:05:35

Which is very fun

01:05:37

It's

01:05:39

The education piece starts off talking about

01:05:43

online classes, which

01:05:45

Perfect timing for us considering the entire world is doing online classes right now. Yep, so

01:05:53

It's like okay. All right online school

01:05:56

It's not working

01:05:59

So

01:06:01

It's entertaining to see her opinion on that and how

01:06:04

We've been deep in it now

01:06:08

Granted, it's july so a lot of this is past like a lot of school has let out

01:06:13

Uh, I say that and yet

01:06:15

We are transitioning our homeschool into a year round homeschool. So

01:06:20

That's another thing happening

01:06:23

um

01:06:25

But yeah education I think it's interesting to see how technology has been slowly working its way into

01:06:30

Education and she does point out a number of places where that's a problem

01:06:36

and students

01:06:38

Are either drawn to or were pulsed by the concept of doing

01:06:43

classes in person

01:06:46

So, I don't know I thought it was an interesting section. I feel like you have a lot of thoughts on this might I could potentially have a lot of thoughts on this section

01:06:54

Uh

01:06:57

So

01:06:59

One of the things I wrote down in the previous section

01:07:02

Just a question in my mind node file is how do you maintain conversation and community in it in the time of social distancing?

01:07:09

Yep, I don't think there's an easy answer to this

01:07:12

Which is why I said at the beginning like you kind of have to take this with a grain of salt because even if you were

01:07:17

100 on board with everything that she's outlining in this book

01:07:20

You can't do it all right now

01:07:23

uh

01:07:25

But I also think that maybe some of this is just

01:07:30

due to the defaults that we accept with the

01:07:34

technology itself

01:07:37

so

01:07:39

For example, there's a whole section in the education

01:07:42

education chapter on Elizabeth

01:07:45

And Elizabeth, I believe was a college student who had notes on Plato's republic in her phone

01:07:51

But she had skimmed the chapter and she didn't really remember anything

01:07:55

She went and had the conversation and didn't have her phone with her so she didn't have access to her notes

01:08:00

as a result her grade suffered and

01:08:04

That got me thinking back to a

01:08:09

couple of different things the first one being

01:08:13

my whole journey with sketch noting

01:08:16

and uh, I feel like now I

01:08:19

hadn't really

01:08:22

Heard about that when I was in school and I don't think I would have tried to do it

01:08:26

While I was in school because I would have tried to just capture all the facts and then review everything before the test

01:08:31

I was a pretty good test taker, but after the fact short term memory. I couldn't remember anything

01:08:37

I realize now that sketch notes

01:08:40

Force me to synthesize the information and not only

01:08:43

Restate it my own words, but to create a mental picture of the thing

01:08:49

Which means that I retain a lot more information from things

01:08:52

Which is great if you're not intending to go back and review things all the time

01:08:57

But even if you are

01:09:00

I think that this has a lot of long-term benefits

01:09:03

So I'm kind of in a position where I just wanted to get more out of the sermon notes that I was taking

01:09:08

so sketch noting was the

01:09:10

Low-risk thing to try and very happy with how that has helped me out over the last several years

01:09:17

Uh, I also think that you have to think about

01:09:21

How and why you take notes

01:09:24

And in education setting again, it's easy to just take the notes based on what the teacher said because you want to capture everything

01:09:30

That might be on the test

01:09:32

And I don't think that's a great way to do it

01:09:34

Maybe there's no way to avoid that, but for where I am right now

01:09:38

Uh

01:09:41

I bring up room all the time

01:09:42

But I feel like that has forced me to think about things differently

01:09:46

And in a very good way it feels like the next generation of note-taking where it's not a filing cabinet where stuff just ends up in

01:09:53

And if I get inspired I can go find something later because I know exactly where I put it

01:09:58

But it allows me to synthesize things and connect things after the fact

01:10:04

And it helps me not just to collect facts, but to actually learn

01:10:08

So if education if the goal of education

01:10:11

And I think maybe self-education is really the place where you have more control over this

01:10:17

Not group education

01:10:19

But if your goal is to learn there are things that you can do using technology to make that more effective

01:10:25

But again, that's not what most people are going to do in a school setting

01:10:30

It's not what most distance learning programs are going to look like

01:10:34

And I'm not sure that there's anything specific you can do in those situations

01:10:39

Other than to make the best of of what you've got

01:10:42

There's a lot there Mike

01:10:44

Yes, yes there is. Sorry

01:10:46

I don't think I have

01:10:48

A lot more to add to the education piece. I think the work side of it is the one that's

01:10:54

Of most interest to me because she refers to

01:11:00

This concept of doing remote work

01:11:03

And that's such a big thing right now as well

01:11:06

and

01:11:09

shows how

01:11:11

It's important to do these face-to-face meetings and she gives the example of how certain leaders are the best

01:11:16

Whenever they are the ones setting up the face-to-face and able to drive those and do those well

01:11:21

and

01:11:23

yet she goes through

01:11:25

the downsides of meetings and how people use it as time to catch up on their email

01:11:30

Which is absolutely true 100% in the corporate world that is

01:11:34

Three-fourths of the meetings that you're in is people on their computers doing things that are outside of that room

01:11:40

Which is very similar to what the students were doing with texting

01:11:43

You know, they're checking in on all the stuff

01:11:46

It's elsewhere as opposed to focusing in on the conversation you're having right there in the room

01:11:51

I remember I had a

01:11:53

Supervisor at one point that would very frequently require

01:11:56

Phones and computers left outside the room when we were going to brainstorm and the only thing that was allowed in the room

01:12:01

Were whiteboards and whiteboard markers

01:12:05

And that's how we did things now

01:12:10

That was the one and only supervisor I've had that would do that

01:12:13

and

01:12:14

Ever since then it's been stuff on computers and phones ever since but

01:12:19

We always accomplished way more in those particular

01:12:22

meetings. I think that's what she would argue for

01:12:26

But I don't think that's the norm at all given the mass amount of email that is required and the expectation of instant replies

01:12:35

That a lot of businesses and companies put on their employees

01:12:40

Even the requirement to have the little green dot showing up all the time and making sure it doesn't turn yellow

01:12:46

Like that is a thing

01:12:48

And I don't think companies realize

01:12:51

The downside that comes from that and yet it's a requirement

01:12:56

But so let me ask you a question here

01:12:59

Because in the education section she mentions there's two choices for teachers

01:13:03

They can change the students to fit the environment or they can change the environment to fit the students

01:13:07

Let's take that approach to the workplace. Okay. Okay. Now

01:13:12

You are a manager who's hosting a meeting and you want it to be an effective meeting. Yes

01:13:18

Do you

01:13:20

require that people leave

01:13:22

their devices

01:13:24

outside of the office

01:13:26

Or do you solve a different problem and maybe

01:13:31

It's the email thing if that's what people are feel compelled to check or maybe it's the

01:13:35

the company message thing

01:13:38

Do you think this is company culture or the device?

01:13:42

I think it's both

01:13:45

I think there's a an overarching culture that leads to that

01:13:50

And then businesses assume that that's what they should be doing

01:13:54

So they don't bother to change it. So I think there's potential where you could like

01:14:01

I

01:14:02

In order to break that you have to break the culture

01:14:04

I think which then will change the meeting structure because if you break the culture of meetings as well

01:14:09

Meetings are not updates. They're times when you go and make decisions or solve difficult problems together

01:14:16

Which is borderline impossible when you have people

01:14:21

Disconnected and floating in and out similar to what you were talking about earlier like when you have your phone around

01:14:27

It forces the conversation to stay light because you can't go deep because your your attention is too fragmented

01:14:34

This is very similar because if you're focusing on email or you know thinking about the things you have to do whenever you get done

01:14:42

You can't go into a deep brainstorming session or a time to

01:14:48

Figure out what the best answer is given a situation or decide on

01:14:52

Whatever it is you're trying to decide on

01:14:55

You can't do that if you're

01:14:57

Only halfway there like if you're only partially paying attention like it just doesn't work

01:15:02

So I think you do have to break that

01:15:04

Right. So I kind of set you up with that question. That's fine

01:15:07

Because that I think that is the heart of the argument I was making at the beginning of this episode

01:15:16

Where the smartphone is the portal into the things

01:15:20

But it is not the things themselves that are causing the anxiety of i've got to go check that

01:15:25

You still whether you have a smartphone or not

01:15:28

Feel compelled to check your email. You still whether you have a smartphone or not

01:15:32

Feel compelled to go check what's on facebook and all of the other

01:15:36

Endless feeds the smartphone is kind of the scapegoat because it's the thing that gives you the instant access to those things

01:15:44

But in a work setting

01:15:46

The more socially acceptable version of that is the laptop or the tablet or whatever

01:15:52

and so it kind of depends on the

01:15:54

The circumstances like the the external atmosphere

01:15:59

But there's a deeper problem here

01:16:02

And for a work for someone in a workplace environment

01:16:06

It can be difficult because you just say well

01:16:09

This is the culture where I work the only way to solve this is for me to get a different job

01:16:14

I can't get a different job really if you really wanted to you could

01:16:17

If it would paint is sufficient change will come

01:16:20

But for most people it just hasn't gotten to that that level yet, right?

01:16:26

It's not important enough for them to find a job where there's a more calm company

01:16:30

Culture which is completely fine

01:16:33

We're making these decisions all the time as to what we want to what is really important to us

01:16:37

But you could make the same

01:16:40

choice about any of the other areas

01:16:43

That she talks about in this book

01:16:46

Even with your family, I think that there is there is choice there. You're not just subject to

01:16:53

the

01:16:55

The pull and the allure of the the device there are things that you can do to change the culture

01:17:00

in your family there are things you can do to change the culture in your friendship circles

01:17:05

And yeah, maybe those are hard choices to make but if you care enough about

01:17:12

About stuff you'll you'll make those choices. Sure. Yeah, I think that's a good point

01:17:17

But I want to let's go let's go into the next section because I think this will circle back into that

01:17:21

Uh the path forward

01:17:23

And then she talks about the public square which is primarily geared towards

01:17:28

The information you post online is public like whether you think it's private or not it's public

01:17:34

and

01:17:35

The tracking that these companies do is just

01:17:38

bizarre whenever you start digging into it and

01:17:42

I think that there is a

01:17:45

Fair number like a fairly large population today. I don't know if it was

01:17:51

Whenever she wrote this, but today I feel like that tracking and that data

01:17:57

awareness

01:18:00

Is leading pretty large groups of people to I don't want to say rebel but to change culture and alter that

01:18:08

This might be while we were talking about how we don't know

01:18:10

Families that do chat to solve issues like we don't maybe that's because we've gotten past that

01:18:18

Back at the very beginning. I was saying, I don't know if we're completely

01:18:21

You know, we haven't gone to the succession of what she's referring to in this book

01:18:27

But I think we've maybe taken that next step

01:18:31

We're not completely removed from it, but I think we maybe have taken that

01:18:36

Next piece and embraced it because I think we've become aware of what these devices are doing

01:18:41

But I think it's

01:18:43

I think we're right at the tip like at the very beginning of that

01:18:47

I think we're just now starting to see that become more of a thing like look at the whole mindfulness

01:18:52

and digital minimalism concept like even like with analogjo.com with

01:18:57

I have a survey that I asked people to fill out whenever they join

01:19:01

the community the the team there and

01:19:06

one of the things that comes up over and over and over again that people are asking about with

01:19:11

You know wanting to explore analog productivity like it has to do with

01:19:15

Calming the crazy and not wanting the digital products to change all the time like wanting to find tools and

01:19:22

stability

01:19:24

and keep things from being chaotic

01:19:27

That's a lot of what

01:19:30

People are looking for because they're trying to find the separation from all of the digital

01:19:35

Which is fascinating to me. Maybe that's just because I'm focused on that. That's my echo chamber

01:19:39

But it is interesting. So the other thing

01:19:43

in this section here about the the data and the privacy

01:19:49

They talk about how

01:19:52

Technology causes us to give up privacy for convenience

01:19:57

And this is the thing that I feel like she really nailed this

01:20:02

This is exactly what has been happening for a long time and all of a sudden it seems like now stuff's coming to the forefront

01:20:08

And maybe it's just because

01:20:11

In my own echo chamber ww dc just happened and so far

01:20:15

I've got a whole bunch of stuff where they're blocking tracking and hate came out recently

01:20:19

By the base camp people and they've got the big notifications like so and so I was trying to track you with this we stopped them though

01:20:26

And I feel like the response to that sort of stuff has been extremely positive whereas

01:20:32

Even a couple of years ago people were like, yeah, whatever no big deal

01:20:36

like now for whatever reason

01:20:38

People are kind of pushing back on this a little bit, which I think is a

01:20:43

A good thing

01:20:45

They mentioned she mentions on page 306 that

01:20:48

These days the most important data to those who watch us are the data trails

01:20:52

We leave as we go about the business of our daily lives

01:20:55

And I think a lot of people don't recognize

01:20:58

the true value of the data that they are

01:21:02

willingly

01:21:04

giving some of these

01:21:06

companies so

01:21:08

Whatever sort of tech defaults and standards can be raised to protect people's privacy. I think this is a good thing

01:21:15

Sure. I think there's so she goes into this last part. I'm just gonna jump in here and then we can

01:21:21

Work towards wrapping up

01:21:25

the the last part is called a fourth chair

01:21:27

with a question mark

01:21:30

and

01:21:30

The chapter title in here is the end of forgetting

01:21:33

So think about the section we were just talking about the data that's being collected all of these devices

01:21:40

Capture data store it goes into a database and then it becomes something that can be used

01:21:45

Uh to do analysis later on

01:21:48

All of that data is captured by these machines, but this fourth chair

01:21:53

is an extension of

01:21:55

the

01:21:58

quote by thorro

01:22:01

and throws

01:22:02

Uh peace was he was talking about these three chairs, but she says that she wants to think about the fourth chair

01:22:08

Which is in her mind kind of a philosophical one in that it's this chair of communicating with machines like having a conversation with a machine

01:22:18

This is where

01:22:20

Siri and the the google piece and

01:22:24

Dare I say all the dingus names?

01:22:27

Hello google

01:22:29

Many of them you can trigger for people who are yep listening to this

01:22:33

Alexa play baby shark. So this is

01:22:37

Sorry team too far

01:22:41

the

01:22:43

This this whole conversation with the devices themselves like actually having these conversations

01:22:49

And she goes into a lot of things where this is becoming a relational type

01:22:53

uh

01:22:55

Peace that I think could be dangerous

01:22:58

I think she would agree with that

01:23:01

It it's something you have to be careful with but it is something that you need to be aware of that

01:23:05

We're starting to go down that path at least we were five years ago

01:23:08

We're quite a ways down it, but I think you had a good point earlier Mike and that

01:23:11

Like your kids talk to like they use use voice assistance, but we don't really I rarely do

01:23:18

I even have

01:23:20

You know mindset to do the whole talk to Siri instead of you know

01:23:24

Calling it out. I won't say it. I mean type

01:23:28

Yeah, the top yeah type to Siri. Sorry

01:23:32

But yeah, that's what I use it for and then I set up like little shortcuts almost like text expander to trigger shortcuts like Siri shortcuts

01:23:39

That's what I use it for but I never talked to it. That seems weird

01:23:43

Yeah, I agree

01:23:46

This chapter was interesting. I didn't like it at the end of the book here though

01:23:52

So

01:23:54

I get why it's here. She's taking the chair analogy to a logical conclusion

01:24:00

But I feel like the nick of time chapter from the path forward section

01:24:05

Would have been a great place

01:24:08

To end this because this is where i'm page 318. She talks about I was looking for this code earlier

01:24:14

We don't have to give up our phones, but we have to use them more deliberately

01:24:17

So again, she's calling out the phones kind of specifically throughout the meat of this book, right

01:24:21

But then she gives a whole bunch of like action items for this slow down create sacred space for conversation

01:24:29

Talk to people you don't agree with

01:24:30

Think of unit asking as the next big thing challenge the view of the world as apps choose the right tool for the job

01:24:35

Learn from moments of friction

01:24:37

That would have been an awesome ending to this book

01:24:40

But that's not how she ended it

01:24:44

By talking about robots and AI

01:24:46

Yep

01:24:48

Yep, I feel like there are a lot of places we could go with this, but I feel like it's a good place to stop Mike

01:24:53

Sure

01:24:54

So should we do action items? I got a couple let's do it which we've talked about

01:24:59

Already to some degree, but no phones at the dinner table

01:25:03

So mine's going to the bedroom when we're eating

01:25:06

and then the second is

01:25:09

And she references maybe I didn't talk about this point

01:25:12

but saying texted instead of talked it's pretty common for

01:25:16

Folks to refer to talking to someone when actually like in reality they sent emails back and forth or they sent text messages back and forth

01:25:26

We'll oftentimes say oh, yeah, I talked to Steve and he said

01:25:29

Well, I didn't actually talk to him. I had a text conversation with him. Yeah

01:25:34

So I I feel like I want to be clear about

01:25:36

How I actually did because I feel like it's a little bit deceptive

01:25:41

With that and that's not my intent. So I'm going to try to be quite a bit better about that and just be aware of it

01:25:46

I like it. That's what I got. All right, my action items no phone at meals

01:25:53

And no internet searches and conversations mentioned both of those what we were recording so

01:25:59

Uh, don't need to say anything extra about those. I think but this this book

01:26:07

gives you

01:26:10

Very clear. I feel like if you were to read this there's going to be one or two things that you're like, oh, yeah

01:26:14

I should make this this change great, right?

01:26:17

So I like the action items that came out of out of this book and I feel like anybody who reads it is going to get something

01:26:23

Yeah

01:26:24

Yeah, for sure

01:26:26

as for style and rating

01:26:28

Like the style of the book

01:26:30

It's long. I feel like there are a lot of pieces that are drawn out longer than they should be

01:26:35

It was pretty common for me to feel like I read five pages that are recovering all the same thing

01:26:40

So that part I struggled with I feel like it should not have been 350 380 pages, whatever it was

01:26:46

I don't think it should be quite that long to me. It feels like it should be a standard

01:26:50

200 250

01:26:53

So that part I took exception with

01:26:55

Um other than that like I feel like it was pretty easy to read like as far as the the actual style itself goes

01:27:02

I think it just got long

01:27:04

As for a rating

01:27:06

I feel like I have a lot of complaints

01:27:08

uh, I question some

01:27:10

Pieces, I think you have a good point with

01:27:13

The culture versus the phone like i'm not sure the phone is all of it. I understand why she picked on it

01:27:20

Uh, but I I think it can go beyond that so

01:27:25

As far as where I want to put it

01:27:28

like I don't think this is one that

01:27:32

Like this is not going to be the one if i'm trying to show someone that

01:27:36

You need to think about your technology use

01:27:40

I don't think this is the book I would send people to

01:27:44

I think I would send somebody to something like digital minimalism for that

01:27:49

At the same time

01:27:51

She's making the point that face-to-face conversation has suffered

01:27:55

I don't think I would argue with that particular point

01:27:58

I don't know that we've run across a book that

01:28:02

talks about that specific dynamic

01:28:04

And how we have stepped away from face-to-face conversation and some of the potential benefits of

01:28:10

holding real-time

01:28:12

uh communication

01:28:14

Like I don't think we've really done that so I think there is some value in that particular piece

01:28:18

Overall though, I I don't think

01:28:21

Like this is far from a five star, but I think I would put it at 3.5

01:28:27

Like I just don't see it

01:28:30

Up in that top tier

01:28:32

Level of books so I think it has to go somewhere close to the middle and

01:28:35

I'll put it at 3.5. That's just what it feels like it should be

01:28:39

All right

01:28:42

Well, I

01:28:43

Really enjoyed this book

01:28:45

It uh

01:28:46

Took me a really long time to get through it as a long one partly because it is so long

01:28:53

But partly because

01:28:56

I didn't want to skim anything or miss anything

01:28:59

Right, uh, I'm not doing a good job of describing this because I don't skim

01:29:04

Books generally zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance. I did skim sections of that

01:29:09

Hit the hit to admit it

01:29:12

But uh when when I'm really engaged with the book

01:29:15

I almost like slow down intentionally because I don't want it to end

01:29:19

And for the beginning part of this book, that's exactly what happened to the point where I'm like, oh my gosh

01:29:25

I have to have this done in 48 hours and there's 200 pages left. Yep

01:29:29

So I feel she did a really good job

01:29:32

Bringing me in

01:29:34

I really enjoyed all of the stories from all of the conversations that she had

01:29:39

It's kind of hard to describe the style of this book because it's not really like a scientific study

01:29:46

She does share some statistics

01:29:48

It's more so she did all of these interviews with all of these people and then she's sharing like specific anecdotes from those conversations

01:29:54

To support some points, which I feel like she did a really good job of

01:29:58

I think this is a really easy

01:30:01

Read other than the length. I feel it's a very important read even though I railed on it at the beginning about how like conversation

01:30:09

Is really just one aspect of like the bigger picture when it comes to a lack of soft skills and emotional intelligence

01:30:15

It really challenged me to up my conversation game as I mentioned

01:30:20

I made some phone calls this week where in the past

01:30:24

I probably would have sent some text messages been like, nope

01:30:26

I gotta push myself to where I'm a little bit uncomfortable and

01:30:30

Every single time I've done that it's been been great

01:30:34

So I want to continue to do that don't have an action item specifically associated with that

01:30:38

But do want to share that like just even thinking about

01:30:40

The importance of conversation has already produced good fruit in in my life

01:30:46

So there are little nitpicks I have with some of this stuff

01:30:50

It definitely doesn't need to be like you said 360 something pages

01:30:53

I did not like the last section with the fourth chair

01:30:57

Like I said at the end of the path forward. I feel like that was a great spot to kind of wrap things up

01:31:04

With here's what you need to do with all this information that you just gathered

01:31:10

And then going into the fourth chair at the end of forgetting feels a lot of like pie in the sky hypothetical

01:31:18

I don't know it felt unnecessary to me. So maybe stop there if you want

01:31:23

You're gonna pick this one up. But I think this is uh, not

01:31:27

not

01:31:29

a typical

01:31:31

Bookworm book. I should say it like it it felt uh

01:31:34

And she references the the shallows which we had read earlier and I did not like that book

01:31:40

But this one I really did enjoy

01:31:42

Uh, this one felt like a breath of fresh air. So I'm really glad you picked this one

01:31:45

I'm gonna rate this at four stars actually 4.0

01:31:47

Awesome. So I am going above joe on his book. That's interesting. I feel like it usually goes the other way for sure. Yeah

01:31:55

All right, well we can put it on the shelf. What's next mike?

01:32:00

The next book

01:32:03

Is the crossroads of should and must by elle luna?

01:32:06

I picked this

01:32:08

Before I really dug into what this is

01:32:11

I'm not sure if you had a chance to look at this at all

01:32:15

But this is a different type of book

01:32:18

It is very visual and even though it is something like 160 pages

01:32:22

This is going to be a very quick read

01:32:25

Okay, this is kind of the anti reclaiming conversation

01:32:29

It's gonna be right a nice break after

01:32:32

This lengthy tome. So we have to get twitch working for next time then is that what you're saying?

01:32:38

Mm. I suppose. Yeah

01:32:40

Hmm

01:32:41

Interesting. Okay

01:32:43

Looking forward to it. I have it on order and I don't have it quite yet. It's supposed to be here. I think tomorrow

01:32:47

Monday one of those two

01:32:48

So yeah, that'll be interesting

01:32:50

Uh following that

01:32:53

Did you know that patrick lincey only has a new book out? I did not what is it? It's called the motive

01:32:59

Why so many leaders abdicate their most important responsibilities?

01:33:04

And this is from february of this year

01:33:07

So it's only a few months old

01:33:10

And uh, I want to go through it

01:33:12

So the motive by patrick lincey only I feel like we like his books

01:33:17

but

01:33:19

This was brand new so we'll see awesome. It doesn't have a number in the title. So I'm not sure how that's gonna go

01:33:24

He usually has the three the five the four like he always has something

01:33:29

But this one is just the motive. So we'll see

01:33:33

Uh got any gap books

01:33:35

not at the moment

01:33:37

but if I get to one

01:33:39

I will

01:33:40

Mention it next time. I don't like sharing gap books that I aspire to read because usually I don't get to those

01:33:45

I'd rather share the ones that I have read as gap books or at least started and I have not started any

01:33:50

Yeah, I barely got this one done. This is down to the line. I know this is a long one for sure. So

01:33:56

anyway

01:33:58

Uh, thank you to folks who attempted to watch us live and watch this debug

01:34:03

Unsuccessfullyly, we'll try again next time

01:34:07

So twitch.tv/bookwormfm

01:34:09

Uh, I'm sure there'll be a link in the show notes for that

01:34:12

Uh, yes, we'll give that another shot and big thanks to

01:34:16

Folks who are premium members on the club bookworm.fm/membership

01:34:22

membership and

01:34:25

In that premium membership you get access to all of mics mind node files

01:34:29

Which I don't think have gone away in the world of his paper explorations

01:34:33

and

01:34:34

At the same time you get a premium bookworm wallpaper

01:34:38

Access to a premium area in the club. There's a few gap book episodes

01:34:43

I did a while back if you're interested in those those are shorter like 15 minutes or so

01:34:47

but

01:34:49

Those are in the archives from probably well over a year ago at this point, but

01:34:52

Anyway, if you would like to support the show help us keep the lights on bookworm.fm/membership

01:34:58

And we would love to have you a part of that premium club

01:35:02

Awesome. So if you are reading along with us pick up the crossroads of should and must by allyluna

01:35:08

And we will talk to you in a couple of weeks