Technology Mindfulness w/ Rob Krecak

Hello hello, welcome to Episode 60 of Life on the Brink!

Today I'm so excited to present my conversation with Rob Krecak, founder and Chief Connection Officer of Humans First. Rob's goal is to help people and companies use technology in a way that serves them best.
Technology can be amazing and helpful and enriching, but it can also be detrimental. What if we could use all of the good, while letting go of the unhelpful? Today we're talking all about mindfulness: observing yourself and your life to see how technology may or may not be serving you well.
We're all about enjoying our days here, and this is a very thought-provoking (but non-pressuring) conversation that brings up some helpful questions.

In this episode we're talking about:
-what technology mindfulness means and ways to implement it
-the best ways technology can serve you
-a root cause of many people's anxiety
-how to identify burnout
-ways to work more efficiently so you have more time to rest

Plus, Rob shares an inspiring Little Joy and a FIRE music mix (seriously).
humansfirst.us

For the complete show notes, click here!
For full transcript, click here!


Site: lifeonthebrink.live
Social: @anna_on_the_keys

Transcript

Unknown: 0:07

Welcome to Life on the brink, a lovely little place filled with inspiration and creativity that is dedicated to enjoying life one day at a time. I'm Ana, and together we're exploring the beautiful things in this world that fascinate us. And often discovering something new. Hello, hello, everyone and welcome to episode 60 of life on the brink. I hope you're enjoying your July. It's that midpoint of summer and I know that it's where I live anyway. Definitely hot during the day, and humid constantly, like it's it's normal at this point to be at 95% humidity at all times. But I'll tell you what, if I'm able to get up and out and walking before it gets super hot, it's very nice. And the shade is very nice. But oh my goodness, is it hot. So it's pool days and beach days from here on out for the foreseeable future. And I hope that you are able to enjoy summer wherever you are. And you're getting lots of fun reading done and at the very least we'll be able to enjoy this episode have a little bit of a repose. Let's get right into the tea. If you are joining for the first time. I always invite everyone to make a cup of tea or coffee to listen if you're able, because it's just a nice way to unwind. And today I'm drinking something very nice and I just want to share it right away. I am trying Steven Smith tea maker never heard this one before. It's blend number 67 called meadow. So listen to this listen to what's in this camera meal. South African Roy boasts hyssop Linden flowers, lemon Myrtle, rose petals, safflower and then like a couple other things. Oh, it is nice, nice herbal tea. And I have just a little bit of the almond and coconut creamer, the vanilla one from Trader Joe's. Guys, it's I feel like a fairy. It's so nice. So we have quite a bit of a brainy episode, if you will today. And so I think we should just go into it prepared with something nice and warm and comforting. It's a very fun episode coming at you today. One that is sure to make us think today I am to be joined by lovely guest, Rob Krajicek, who is a very, has a very specialized, interesting field regarding technology. So if you've listened to previous episodes of the podcast, you'll know that from time to time, I like to explore ideas of mindfulness, and of productivity as well. And generally just living simply and enjoying your days. So all of those things sort of come together today around the conversation of technology. So in just a few minutes, you'll hear my interview or really conversation with Rob. He owns a company called humans first. That is all about technology, mindfulness. And he works a lot with companies on how to have good relationships with technology, as well as talking about four day work weeks, and stuff like that. But I just invite you to relax, don't worry, this is not a bash you over the head. With the technology sort of episode. It's all very manageable, and is ultimately designed to enrich your life. So if this is interesting to you, or if you are someone who, like me, is looking to decrease some screen time or is always you know, I'm looking for new ways to fill my free time or to discover more free time by not filling it with things that are not as important to me and not as enjoyable, you know, that often come from our phone. So if if that sounds like you or if maybe you are more than that productivity, sort of like, Oh, I feel overwhelmed, or technology feels stressful or you feel drained or burnout. We talked about burnout today to just sit back, relax. Let's all take a deep breath. Ready, breathe in. And breathe out and relax your shoulders. And we're just going Don't go into this with open eyes, and with our nice cups of tea, and just maybe get some ideas, you know, you know yourself. And this is all about learning yourself and listening to what you need. And this is different from the philosophy of, you know, rejecting all technology and living in a field, which also sounds lovely, but for most of us is unrealistic. So this is all about integrating technology in a helpful way, rather than an unhelpful way. And I'll be sure to leave all kinds of resources, where you can learn more about this and about Rob and his business at the end of the episode. So without further ado, this is my conversation with Rob Cray check about technology mindfulness. Welcome, Rob, welcome to Life on the brink. I'm very interested to learn a lot about what you and your business does. So why don't I let you introduce yourself, your company humans first? What is the goal of it? And how did you get into it? Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me. And I'm really appreciating them grateful for the opportunity to chat with you and the listeners today, and really, really excited to talk and share this stuff with with everyone. So yeah, my company is humans first. And I say that I'm not the CEO, but the chief connection officer at the company and our mission at humans first is to help humanity understand how technology impacts mental health, relationships and productivity at work. And, you know, I kind of defined what I've studied over the last four years as technology, mindfulness. And the way I define technology mindfulness is, it's using technology in a way that makes your life easier instead of making it more difficult. Okay, wow. Yeah. So technology, mindfulness, I am doing a little bit of research on you, I found that term. And thank you for defining it. How would you say is, how would you go about explaining to someone the difference between like a poor use or a helpful use of technology? Yeah, well, maybe it's helpful to just think about this. So let's rewind the clock to 40 years ago, maybe some of the listeners weren't even alive then. But 40 years ago, when technology first just became available for consumers, right? That was when like, you know, desktop computers that were really huge were and were like, 10s of 1000s of dollars were available at home and like cell phones, or like the size of, you know, like a notebook, they were ginormous, right. And so at that point in time, all technology was good, because what it did was it increased communication, it increased our ability to be productive. It did all these amazing things that we couldn't do at all before, you know, having a cell phone, when you never had one is a game changer for your entire life. But what's happened over the last 40 years is that we went from the situation where all technology was good. And now it's not all good anymore. It's not serving us well, in certain ways. And I just want to be clear to listeners that I'm not anti technology, I'm pro humanity, right. I'm a nerd. I built my first computer when I was in middle school. So I love technology. It's amazing, and does amazing things for humanity. But there are certain ways that I think a lot of people, hundreds of millions of people are using it now, that isn't helping them. It is damaging, in some ways to mental health and to our relationships and to our productivity. And so the whole point of humans first is to educate people and help bring awareness to those ways that they might not use, that they might be using tech technology that doesn't serve them well, so that they can make some decisions on how they might want to change their behavior. Yeah, yeah, that makes perfect sense. And how long is humans first, like, Ben, when did you start that? Yeah, I mean, I officially started well, I'll say researching this four years ago. But I've this actually has been two decades in the making. A quick story is, you know, this, I kind of joke that I have career add. And my first career was in finance, I was ahead of Wall Street job. And I was a sell side equity analyst and I analyzed medical device and pharmaceutical companies. And so this was in the finance field. And I understand you know, how to analyze businesses and talk to CFOs and CEOs. But I just didn't feel like I was helping people enough. And so I left that career and opened up three Anytime Fitness health clubs. And then later on for you break, I fix cell phone repair stores. And I also had a tech startup to help small businesses. And so if you look at my career, it's been finance, then health and fitness and then technology. And you might think like, those are totally unrelated, and they really don't have anything to do with with each other. And that's exactly true. But humans first I'm really excited to show people is the combination of all those things and over the last four years, I've read over 100 books and dissected 2000 articles and studies and won many, many hundreds of experiments on myself to see how technology affects my life and what I'm able to do. And that's why I'm excited to bring this information people because this is many, many years of my life, you know that I'm sharing this information with them. Yeah, wow, well over 100 books. That's impressive. And so I'm interested in sort of breaking down all of those different things. You mentioned mindfulness, and also productivity, which are both things that I have, have highlighted in different episodes of this podcast. And I guess concerning first productivity, I, I often take the outlook these days of trying to get things done efficiently in the shortest amount of time, so that you have more time to relax. I came from as a as a musician, sort of, in college, there was like a constant like need to keep working and keep practicing. And I'm sure everyone sort of goes through a version of that in Yeah, in college. But it was, I found this quote, actually, on one of your blog posts, it was the one on efficiency, and it just completely, it's in line with everything I experienced in college, and the quote is overworking yourself until your bone tired might look like a badge of honor. Yet it's the underlying cause of poor health and frequent burnout. And that's just that's exactly true. But so often overlooked. So what is your I know, typically you speak to or you help people work their companies. But is there anything you would say to individuals or families or perhaps people listening, that do have companies in terms of productivity and how to use technology to make your time more productive, but without it, you know, being detrimental? Yeah, well, I really, I'm really glad that you brought up that quote, and, you know, maybe what would be half helpful is if I describe what I believe is happening to hundreds of millions of people around the world and with how they use technology, both psychologically and physiologically. And then I think it will give the listeners a clearer picture of why so many ways that we use technology today is really detrimental to our health. Let's pretend for a second that it's 50,000 years ago, right? We're all cavemen and cave women. And if a saber toothed Tiger is attacking my family, my tribe, well what happens to me, I my fight or flight system, my nervous system, my sympathetic nervous system gets amped up, right. So what happens is adrenaline gets released, which makes me feel awake and allows me to scan the environments for more threats. My body also releases cortisol, which is a stress hormone that basically shuts down certain bodily systems and activates different tissues so that I can, excuse me, fight or flight. And so I'm in this hyper vigilant state, I'm in this very amped up state. And that's because I have to either fight the saber toothed tiger to save my family or run away with my family, I have to survive, right? It's a survival mechanism that we have this sympathetic nervous system response when we when we sense a threat. Well, here's what's happening to the average person. And they don't even understand that this is happening. And it's literally some people are literally doing this for almost every waking hour of their day, when we check our email, or get a notification on our phone, or interact with technology, not all the time, but a lot of the time, our sympathetic nervous system gets activated, just like if as if a saber toothed Tiger was attacking. Well, here's the problem is once that system is activated, it takes a minimum of 30 minutes to down, regulate and recover. And the average person when they're at their job is checking their email once every six minutes. And they're getting a smartphone notification once every 15 minutes. And so when when you're doing the math, you're sitting here saying, oh my gosh, well, our nervous system is never ever, ever getting a chance to recover, because we're just amping it up throughout the entire day using technology. And so this is why I believe this is the root cause of many people's anxiety and possibly even depression. This sympathetic nervous system is so active throughout the entire day, we never get a chance to down regulate and recover. And this is why a lot of us feel like crap all the time. We feel nervous and anxious and sometimes depressed. It's because of this technology use and we're not giving our bodies and minds a break. Wow. That's, that is a powerful statement. How then, I mean, in a in a society where you could go without email, but it would be sometimes hard to communicate. How would you recommend a person go about you know, other than I'm going off grid and not doing anything with it? How do you recommend like giving yourselves those breaks? Or like, do you isolate time for certain amounts of activities? Or what do you suggest? Yeah. So the way I think about technology mindfulness is I want to use technology to structure my use in a way that is helpful to me and not rely on willpower. So more structure less willpower. Here's kind of an example I would give for dieting. Let's pretend you came to me and and you're like, hey, I want to lose five pounds, you don't need to lose 10 pounds, let's just say you did, right? Like, you come to me, you're like, Hey, I'm gonna you lose five pounds? I would be like, okay, great, you know, here's a few things that we can do. One of the rules is, we're not your favorite food, let's just pretend as chocolate chip cookies, we're not going to allow you to buy chocolate chip cookies in your house, like you don't even get to have them in the house. So if you do that, and you comply with that, which would be I'm not saying it's impossible, like, obviously, you could sneak to the grocery store and buy chocolate chip cookies, right? But most likely, you won't. Well, that not having the chocolate chip cookies in the house is one scenario. Another scenario is I put a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the counter. And I tell you, Hey, Anna, I know that chocolate chip cookies are your favorite treat, I want you to walk by this plate of chocolate chip cookies 20 times a day and not take any. And now you have to rely on willpower. And every single time you walk by the plate of cookies, you're thinking yourself, even subconsciously, I want to grab a cookie. And what happens is you only have so much willpower every day. And you're eventually going to pass by the plate of cookies and have fun, because that's just how human nature is. And so the way that I think about it is if there's certain things that I don't want to do, like, let's say, for instance, check social media during the day, I should structure my technology use in a way that is conducive to not doing the things that I want to do and doing the things that I do want to do. And so for instance, as a simple example, let's say I'm trying to reduce my social media use, but you I'm not willing to delete it from my phone yet, which I know a lot of people probably aren't even though I really believe that that's the best decision for most people. Another suggestion I have for people is to, and again, you can do this in 15 seconds, it will dramatically change your use, all you do is you take the social media apps, and instead of having them on your homepage, when you open up your phone, you move them to the very last page. And so now there's this little bit of extra friction, right? Where you have to scroll a bunch of times to get to it to use it. I'm not saying you can't use it. I'm not saying don't use it, it's just a little bit harder. And you'd be surprised that that little bit of difficulty, actually greatly reduces the amount that you use it not it doesn't totally get rid of it, but it reduces it. That's the point. Yeah, and actually, that's exactly where my two social medias sit. Not all of them, I probably could restructure a bit more. Um, but that's a that's a really great analogy. You're not far off with the chocolate chip cookie thing. That's right. Um, okay, so this kind of leads into what I would consider part of the mindfulness conversation, because you say, I really liked it. You mentioned, it's not about like, omitting the things that you don't want, but about like, adding the things or you know, prioritizing the things you do want. When I've spoken about mindfulness in the past, usually, I guess my difficulty is, usually technology is seen as like always the enemy, you know, that it, it cannot be mindful. And so I guess my question is twofold. Do you think that there is room for mindful entertainment use of technology? And if so, what can that look like? You know, because I do think especially with like mindless scrolling, I think like, so much of just like the social media, we lose track of time. And a lot of people, myself included at times will like struggle with that. And so in that case, I feel like it's, it's easier for me to identify and say, Okay, what do I actually want to do? Or I can replace this screen time with like reading or can actually think about what I enjoy. But is there room in your opinion to to use technology in a mindful way? Yeah, of course. I mean, don't you know, technology is one of the greatest entertainment platforms, you know, really imaginable, right? Like, it allows us TV, video games, social media is I think entertainment, right? Like, the problem though, is again, so let me let me give you this example, right. The same circuitry that is lit up in your brain when you take illegal drugs like cocaine is lit up when you use social media. Okay, wow. And so here's what here's essentially what we are doing. We would not like let's pretend I'm I'm addicted to cocaine, okay? And somebody says to me, Hey, Rob, I'm gonna give you this unlimited bag of cocaine that's completely free. And you can use it whenever you want. And have as much as you want. And I want you to just use it though occasionally and don't get addicted. Like, that would be totally insane, right? Like, no, no, doctor, no, no rehab clinic would ever do that to me, because I'm already addicted to cocaine, and I couldn't control myself. Well, what's happening with social media is we are giving 12 year old kids or sometimes younger, I mean, that's the official age, right? The youngest age, we are giving 12 year old kids this addict, this substance that is essentially as addictive as cocaine. And it's completely free. It's totally convenient. And saying, hey, just use this like a little bit, don't use it a lot and don't get don't get addicted. Of course, they're gonna get addicted, like, that's what happens, right? And the kids a 12 year old has not, you know, not an adult sense of self or self control or executive function or decision making. And so they're not going to be very likely to, you know, use it in a way that is, serves them well, probably. But the way that I define mindfulness use is we use of technology is I, I'm encouraging people to just be mindful of how they feel when they use technology. And let me give you like another example that I hope, I think, you know, will resonate with people. So let's pretend it's 10pm, you're getting ready for bed, right? And you're like, you know what, I'm just gonna check my email one more time, I'm who I've done this plenty of times, right? You're like, Alright, I'm gonna check my email one more time before I go to bed. So you check your email. And then you get this email from your boss. And it pisses you off and like says something and you know, it's like very offensive to you. And, and now you're like, Oh, my God, I'm so upset from this email, right? Well, now, you're probably not going to email him back or her back, because it's 10pm. And that would indicate that you're checking your email, and you don't want your boss to be thinking, you're checking your email, add 10. But the other thing is, there's two other things that happen, then you're probably going to go to bed way later than you expected. Because you're so upset, and you're mad, right, the sympathetic nervous system is really amped up. But the other thing that you don't even think about is, you're probably going to have a way worse night of sleep, because this email damped you up so much. And if your sleep is bad, your entire next day is bad. And so just doing this one simple, seemingly simple thing, checking your email before you go to bed, can result in you having an entirely terrible next day. I just spoke, I just got off the phone with somebody earlier today. She was saying that she checked her email at night before she went to bed and her divorce attorney emailed her and talked about her divorce with her husband. And obviously that's like, devastating. And then she couldn't get to bed like that has this is happening to millions of people throughout the world, all every day. And so like if you're mindful of that, if you say to yourself, oh my god, like, now I realize that when I check my email before bed, and I'm a lot of times I'm in a bad mood, and you realize it affects your sleep. That to me is a huge win. Because now you can decide if you want to change that behavior or not. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. That really clears clarifies it for me that it's about being mindful of how you feel. And I think sometimes that is, that's like the challenge to actually stop and think about what you know, what you're spending your time on, and how it makes you feel. One other thing that I just wanted to add Anna is, and this is this is probably going to be hard for people to hear, right? But this this is the reality. In life. When you say yes to something, you say no to something else. So here. So essentially, if you come home, from your job, or your you know, even if you work from home, let's just say you're done working, and you scroll on the couch for two hours on social media, you're saying yes to using your technology, and you're saying no to spending time with your family? Yeah. And that I think is a real that I think is one of the saddest parts of this entire equation is that a lot of people are just saying yes to their technology, because it's easier. They think that it makes them feel good, or they think they need to check it but they really don't. And they're saying no to the other humans in their life, that give us you know, the relationships in our life. The quality of our relationships is the number one indicator of our life, happiness and satisfaction. And the reason my company is named humans first is, unfortunately in America, we spend 12 hours and 21 minutes per day in front of screens and media. And that's from before COVID Humans aren't first in our world anymore. Technology is and humans first the name of my company is a reminder that we need to put humans first because that gives us the most joy and meaning and happiness and purpose in our lives. Yeah, that's beautifully put And I'm sure with COVID. Like, it's it's changed everything for a lot of people. But I think it's really beautiful what you said that saying no to one thing is saying yes to another. So if you also say no to just scrolling, because it happens to be in front of you, you are saying yes to any number of activities or people or even silence that I think is underrated and letting your mind wander. So that's, that's very well put. I do have a question about, I know that your your advice concerning technology, and productivity often goes hand in hand with a four day work week. And I'm interested to see how those two things work together, and how you might have someone who perhaps doesn't work a nine to five, how those same sorts of thought processes can be can be used to like maximize work time? Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah, that's one of the other services that I offer is I'm a consultant to guide companies from a five day workweek to a four day workweek with no loss in productivity or profitability. And I'm a little frustrated, because a lot of times people hear that and they're like, I mean, it's like, it's like, they don't believe that it's possible, right? But you know, I will, Andrew Barnes was the head of a 240 person, financial services company. And in 2018, he took his company to a four day work week, they had no loss in productivity per employee, and then profit per employee increased 14 and a half percent, which is wow. Right? And so like, if, if you can do that with a 240 person, financial services company, it's possible not with everyone, not every company, but a lot. But to me, the four day workweek is simply an extension of technology, mindfulness, I'm just using it at your job. Right. So let me just explain how because a lot of people think, like, their two main concerns are well, how on earth could I get five days of work done in four days? And then the other concern is, well, how would I cover any, you know, scheduling issues, like my clients need five days of coverage, but I have people working for days, right? And so I'll take the second one, and answer that one first. So generally, like, let's say you have a team of 10 people, we can divide them into two groups, the first group of work Monday through Thursday, the second group of work Tuesday through Friday, that way, you have five days of client coverage, but only each individual working four days a week, or some version of that, right, relatively straightforward. But the second thing is much more interesting, right? Where it's like, how can you possibly get all this work done? When I like a lot of people tell me, I can really get work done in five days, right? Well, here's what people don't realize is, the average white collar worker sends and receives 126 emails per day. And so if you take just two minutes per email, that's literally four hours of your day, almost exactly half of your day is email. And so no one wakes up and says, I want to answer email today. Like, this is what I'm here for, like, no one looks forward to that. I mean, we have to do it, but no one looks forward to that. And so, for instance, if I can just help your company cut email volume in half, I'm not even saying get rid of it, cut it in half. That is over one day of productivity for every single employee, just just that right there. Wow, that I didn't, I did not realize most people have so many emails. And, you know, it kind of reminds me this, this conversation, I was homeschooled through most of my academic life. And it was really shocking to me, obviously, in school settings, there has to be a bit of structure and bit of movement and all of that. But when you eliminate some of that, and then some of the, the extra time, it really was surprising to me how quickly things could get done. And your or if you were going at your own pace, if you need to take more time on one thing you do, and vice versa. So I'm familiar with the concept of just smashing all your work into a smaller amount of time. That's really interesting. How would you is there any way you would recommend sort of maximizing that productivity sort of mindset outside of an office place or a workplace? Yeah, so I mean, this is like, I'm a very analytical person, right? I love making spreadsheets and stuff. Like whenever my wife and I talk about finances, I'm like, let me just make the spreadsheet. So I really like, I know that's really dirty to say, I don't care. So I really like analyzing things. And one of the things that I've tried to do is analyze my own schedule, right? So that I can understand, hey, like, well, how can I do this differently? Like I'm kind of obsessed with optimizing things, and just making them run perfectly. And one of the things that I think that people don't do is they just don't put much thought into what you know how their schedule is arranged. So for instance, if you have three things to do outside the House, let's say it's go to physical therapy, go to get your dental checkup and pick up milk at the grocery store. Okay, those three things. In an ideal world, if you could arrange it this way, you would do just all three of them back to back one after the other, and leave the house one time. But instead, what a lot of people are doing is they're like leaving the house three different days on three different times. And, you know, like, when you calculate all that extra travel time and all that other stuff, it adds up. The same thing is true for any task, though, right? Like, I like to batch things, which means that I try to just do bunch of stuff at one time. So for instance, with laundry, I would rather do three loads of laundry in a row than one load today, one load tomorrow and one load the next day, I don't want to do one load each day, I want to do them all in one day. And so like by batching, as many things as possible, I'm not saying it like, it's doesn't like make it triple that is productive, but like it definitely makes a difference. And you know, when every hour of your week make some difference. That's that can be meaningful every week, that can be three, four or five hours a week, what would you do with half a day of work? Or half a day of time per week? You know, that's a lot of love work day? Yeah, yeah. Well said, yeah, a lot of time that we don't always think about? Well, I do have a couple more questions kind of about burnout. Because I feel like, if you are in a place of just sort of consistent burnout, or you're kind of already in a rough place, is there a good way to start identifying burnout and like getting out of that pattern? I know, sometimes, for me, I'm one that can be guilty of being stressed and being burned out and not knowing it until I'm like, crashed, burned out completely, like, feeling like I can't do anything. So how, how would you go about suggesting identifying that and then being able to prevent it later? Yeah, that's a super good question, Anna. And, you know, I It's funny how our egos you know, try to our egos serve to keep us alive, right. And it's, again, like, It's a survival mechanism. But the ego also can shelter or like, prevents you from seeing things, including being stressed out. And, you know, when I had my first job out of college, it was a 60 hour week finance job, like I was talking about earlier. And I certainly had zero perception of this at the time, but I got so stressed out that I started losing my hair. And, you know, like, that's one of the classic signs of being stressed out for males. But for anybody really, I mean, signs of burnout are like if you just feel exhausted and depleted at the end of each day, and that and that's not just like, it could both be physically and emotionally, it could be either one. Another one is if you get sick very frequently, what happens is when you when your body releases cortisol, it sort of it can dampen your body's immune response, which makes you more likely to be sick or get sick. And so you know, that that frequent sickness is a commonly a sign of stress, not always, but it certainly could be. By the way, there's also if you have a lot of Gi problems, like, you know, you can't eat certain foods or not foods. Well, what's interesting is in the developed world, 20% of the people in the developed world have a diagnosed gi problem. And it's likely from a lot of stress, whereas in like other parts of the world, where it's not developed, and there's people are not as on on technology as much, there's actually less gi problems less, you know, so those are like common things to look out for. I guess another one, though, is just, you know, are you always feeling like you're distracted or frazzled? Or can you feel like you're focused and you're calm, you know, and, again, that's more of a subjective thing to think about. But it's something again, that hopefully, if you bring a little bit of awareness to it, it can make a big difference in your life, because you can start to see, like, for instance, this last week, I was like, super, you know, I was just like, I this was my own fault. There was no one else's fault. But I had done a poor job of scheduling too many things, right. And I was just thinking that I would be okay. And but it was just me back to back meetings for the whole week. And, you know, it didn't serve me well. And so I told my wife this weekend, I'm like, I don't really want to do much. And I never say that. I never say that. I'm like, I just want to hang out and not really do a lot of stuff because I just feel like I'm drained. And I have that awareness right to know when to do that. But a lot of people don't listen to their bodies. I guess that would be my number one thing is just listen to your body. Your body's going to tell you what it needs, whether you want it or not. And if you get sick or you get hurt a lot. It's telling you something you're just not listening. Wow. Yeah, I know that I I am often I will say yes to a lot of stuff. And I'm having to embrace saying No, which, as we said is sort of it's saying yes to rest and to letting my my body rest and letting my mind sort of wander. But I won't realize how much energy something will require. And then it'll be on the calendar. And I'm like, Okay, I still have that thing, even if it's not very big. So I definitely, I think that's a great to listen to your body. I think that's definitely a great indicator for me of how I'm doing. And now I have kind of in that same vein, one more quote of yours that leads into a question sort of about unwinding. So I really like this quote of yours. It says efficiency means completing a task with minimal time and effort, I'm sorry, minimum time and effort, it can seem impossible. Since you're conditioned to work more, you can reframe that mindset by balancing things, set realistic deadlines, break down your to do list and unwind mindfully. So we've kind of talked a bit about to do lists and in the working part, but I would like to ask you, how do you like to unwind mindfully? How, what does that look like for you? Yeah, this is, you know, I probably should have shared this earlier with the audience. But it's, that's really hard for me, honestly, because I have ADHD, and, and so a famous psychologist was quoted as saying people with ADHD, have a mind like a Ferrari, but they just need to learn how to apply the brakes. And that for me is the hardest thing is learning how to apply the brakes and like, slow things down. Because my mind is always always thinking always analyzing always. And I liked that I actually kind of liked that in some ways. So Admittedly, this is probably one of the things that I wouldn't say I struggle with it. But it is more difficult than other parts of technology, mindfulness. But one of the things that my wife and I have done is we actually have a an old school alarm clock. And so we have it set up so that it, you know, wakes us up instead of our phones. And I, she has not decided to put her phone in the other room to charge it. But I have so I put my phone in a completely different bedroom at nighttime. And it's not even around me, right? Yeah. And I also have my phone automatically set to go into Do Not Disturb or wind down mode, actually an hour before I go to bed. So it starts at nine o'clock, I ideally want to try to go to bed around 10. And so at nine o'clock, when my phone screen goes dark, it's a cue to myself to think, Oh, you shouldn't be on your phone, you should be getting ready for bed. Another thing though, is that I, I really think that avoiding any kind of screen, even a TV screen, at least an hour before bed really is helpful. And it's not everyone, you know, there's blue light blocking glasses, yes, they help. But the other thing that people don't realize is, and there's actually some new research and I was just reading about this, it's so Fana fascinating. Every cell in our body is connected to a circadian clock, that clock determines like an internal time of day, every cell not just like your eyes, right. And so when you're giving signals to your body, like watching a super bright TV screen, it's telling your eyes and the rest of your body, oh, it's not time to go to bed, it's time to like be around and be up and doing things because your your body senses this light source, strong light source. And so even watching TV can throw off your circadian rhythm and make you know, not help you go to bed. Let's just put it that way. It's for some people, it might not be harming them that much. But for some people, it might be harming them quite a bit. It's hard. It's a kind of an individualized thing. But so you know, we do our very best not to look at any screens an hour or more before bedtime. Gotcha. Yeah, I I had the same wind down mode on my phone. I think it got turned off like a while back. Probably Sometimes I work late from certain gigs. But this is reminding me I'm gonna like get it set back up so that I can keeps coming back because you're right, it is a good reminder. And so that if I do go to my phone, it's like an extra barrier and a half to try to get through and then I can think of like, okay, well do I really need to be on my phone. I set this rhythm sort of during COVID Actually, when there was like no structure to anything. I would always I think around four or five usually it was when my husband would get home and still so because of that it sort of I've kept it and that I will try to get all of my work or errands or house cleaning or any sort of work done around that time around five o'clock. And then the rest of the evening is just sort of like I don't I try not to check my email. I try not to think about such things. It's sometimes it's hard because a lot of The, you know, my work is is very freelance and so sometimes it'll be a text or, you know, you can't get a hold of someone until 7pm. And I was on the phone with someone talking about a recording thing at like 10pm last night and I was like, I don't think about this right now. But yeah, um, but sometimes it can't be helped. And I have found that I really enjoy just that, that one on one time. In the evening or time with my family, I see my family a lot. And then reserving some time. Just for like fun things. A lot of it does still incorporate or involve technology. But just I was wondering, just like, what's fun for you? You said you like to do a lot of different stuff. Yeah, I mean, you know, I suppose watching movies is a screen. Right. So yeah, I mean, so my wife and I, we like to watch movies. That's, you know, definitely screen related. But we also are big exercisers. We love to exercise, we love to do stuff outside. When we lived in Colorado, we would go hiking or once or twice a month, most likely. And I just like to I like to socialize. I like to, you know, spend time with people have dinners, lunch, coffee, whatever. And I also am a huge reader, I love to read and I like reading paper books. Not Yeah, I read almost nothing on a Kindle or a, you know, on my phone or anything. And, yeah, I mean that, you know, I don't know, that sounds like, it sounds like that's a pretty simple life, I guess. But it sort of is I don't you know, it sounds great. Yeah, I like I really, one of the things that I really enjoy the most is connecting with people. And again, like, that's why I named my company humans first, as I just hope that more people could see that they really could get some in a lot of enjoyment in their life and a lot of happiness and from from connecting with other people. And I just think that that's something that doesn't even, you know, people it's not even on their radar, right. But I'll tell you quickly about an experiment that I did in 2021. And I really thought it was so fun. So you know, 2020, obviously a very difficult year for all of humanity. And I was like, Well, what can I do to connect with people during the during COVID? You know, and be like deliberate about it. And so I made a New Year's resolution. And I said to myself that every week, I had to do one of two things, I either had to make a phone call to someone I had not seen or talk to in the last three months, and talk to them for a minimum of 20 minutes. So I had to do two phone calls for 20 minutes each, or I had to see a person that I had not talked to our seen in the last three months in person for at least an hour. And so I did that every single week for the entire year of 2021. And I tracked it on a spreadsheet. And so I know that's right. Everything spreadsheet. Yeah, the spreadsheet. Yeah, track it. So so at the end of the year, I looked at it, I was like, This is freaking awesome. Like, I connected with so many people that I hadn't talked to in a long time and, you know, had these dinners and lunches with people. And I just thought it was so cool. And so, you know, I make it more of a point to just kind of randomly call people now or connect with people and just see how they're doing. And I just find that very meaningful, and I really like it. That is awesome. I think that's that's a great idea. And you made that as like the whole of 2021. You said, Yeah, I did it every week. I Yeah, every week. Wow. Wow, bravo. Well, thank you so much. i This has really given me a lot to think about in terms of the way we use technology, that it's not the enemy, but can be good and can be bad. So before I get to the little joy, are there any resources or ways that people can find you? Obviously, I'll have your website humans first.us. Is that right? On the show notes and all over everywhere? Are there any other resources or things that you'd like to share or ways that people can contact you? Yeah, absolutely. And I'd like to offer the listeners a free 30 minute technology mindfulness consultation with me there'll be a call and I'm happy to help you out with whatever you need all you need to do to redeem that is just email me my email address his rob our OB at humans first.us and just mentioned this podcast and that you want to have a call and then I'm happy to chat with people. Help them out. Wow, that is so generous. Thank you and I will definitely leave the links to your various blog posts in the in the show notes that one on efficiency like it was so nice though. It was broken down I thought I think it's a really excellent read. So I highly recommend it to everyone listening. Would you mind also putting the very first blog post in there it's called Software is eating humanity. that I think is really I put so much time into that. And it really helps. You know, if people have just 10 minutes, right, that's all it takes to read that. And it really helps you understand with a lot of citations, tons of data, right? How much humanity is being affected by technology. Like, I really wish, if I could get everyone on Earth to read something for 10 minutes, I would show them that blog post. All right, we'll do I will definitely highlight that one as well. And go read it myself. Yeah. Okay. Well, I always ask my guests, or I share myself, at the end of each episode, a little joy. So something that has just brightens your day. And the point of the exercise is just to sort of reflect on the good things that have that are in your life, or things that have been really been brightening things up. So it could be something physical, or a moment or something much more fluid. So, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So my wife and I actually included this in our wedding because we thought it was so meaningful to us. The amount of love success and happiness in this world are infinite. And so imagine how much love success and happiness we could all have together. If we all decided to put humans first. Wow, that's beautiful. You said you, you put that in your wedding? And our wedding toast? Yeah. Toast. Oh, my goodness. That's beautiful. So I guess that that sort of brightens up every day with that idea? Yeah. Well, if you think of life like that, I mean, there's just an unlimited number of amazing possibilities. Yeah. Okay, well, um, one more thing, I forgot to mention it to you, but you are you are free to participate in it or not. I also always share a playlist or an album of music that I've been listening to lately, or one that I think is sort of in the vein, but it doesn't always have to be so would you? Would you like to take the reins on the album or the playlist this week? Oh, yeah. That's so cool. I love that. Um, you know what, I'm gonna go with two friends Big Booty mix tomorrow, number 16. To two friends, big booty mix number 16. They have like 21 of them. All right. And it is such an amazing mashup of incredible old songs and new songs. It's like EDM with dance music and other like, but it's just, it's just unbelievable. It's okay. It really is like that got me through my last two difficult workouts. It was incredible. Oh, awesome. Okay, yes. If you send me the link to that, I'll be sure to share it in the show notes. And I can't wait to listen to that. Okay, yeah. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Rob. For being on the podcast. This was super enlightening and inspiring. And I'm interested to learn more. Yeah, absolutely. I'm so grateful for the opportunity. Thank you for having me. And there you go. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. And maybe it was enlightening in a few different ways. One thing that has really stuck with me since we had this conversation is just listening to your body, you know, if something's off, maybe assess what you might need. And like I said, I'm going to leave in the shownotes in the blog post, those two different blog posts. And then of course, you can check out so many more along with the website, which is humans first dot U. S. And again, if you would like to redeem a free 30 minute technology, mindfulness consultation, you can just email Rob at in the email is Rob at humans first.us. And you just mentioned this podcast. If you are interested in learning more, there's a very nice, generous offer. So feel free, make sure to take advantage of that. And also, I just want to include some other podcast episodes of mine that you might be interested in listening to sort of in the same kind of vein. There's Episode 27, which was about hustle culture and success in which I talk quite a bit about burnout. Episode 40 was about productive habits, and working efficiently. Also, Episode 42 is about peaceful self care, sort of as relieving stress. And then also episode 49 is about mindfulness generally and slowing down. So feel free to check out those episodes if you like. Also, do check out the big booty mix, volume 16 Because so far, what I've listened to Have it it's quite long. It's like an hour long. It is just really fun. If anyone remembers the pop Dan theology, recap music videos at the end of each year, it kind of gives me that vibe, but not you know, you're exclusive. But it's lots of fun. Lots of fun, perfect for summer and I hope that you are enjoying your summer and that you're able to soak up as much of the cool weather as you can. And I'll be back next week with a new episode. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Life on the brink. If you're enjoying these episodes, please feel free to leave a star rating or even better leave a review on Apple podcasts to help spread the word. For podcast show notes and extra inspirational posts throughout the week. Head to the blog at life on the brink dot live. And if you'd like a little extra dose of inspiration in your life, sign up for the monthly newsletter, which lights up your inbox the first Friday of each month. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, friends, you have a lovely week. Bye