#45: Some of My Story and How Tech Impacts Our Social IQ

Are we live?

We are officially live, but welcome to the Talk to People Podcast in our unofficial studio space.

So, if you all are watching on YouTube, what you'll see is a blank wall behind me.

We have a little end table.

We got Logan's camera angle over here.

You can see my phantom hand in there.

And then my camera angle over here, we can see Logan's phantom hand.

So, we're just running like two cameras, but this is going to change.

It was one of those moments where we were trying to figure out the best way to set the studio, but we need to get new furniture, need to get a new backdrop.

But the most encouraging thing is that we're going to have a space for the podcast now.

Shout out to the living room studio, the dining room studio.

That is what made this podcast.

But now we're gonna have the official studio space.

So we have myself here and then we have Logan over there.

What do you think about the studio so far?

It's nice.

I mean, it feels like an actual, it feels like a studio.

Like it's a room still, it's not a studio studio, but it's like you got a nice setup, you got a desk over there, you got the lights up in here, and just a beautiful room itself alone.

Like I said, we're going to get something for a background, but the white still complements everything else though.

Yeah, the white doesn't look terrible.

And the big thing is that we won't really have to tear down and set up as much.

That's always the hardest part.

So if I could show you behind the cameras, there's a desk and that's where Logan will be producing a lot of the podcasts when we have guests on, and we will have a guest on this upcoming weekend for the next episode, episode 46, and that's gonna be someone that you know and one of the most requested guests she's been on before.

And I'm gonna leave it at that.

Y'all can guess who it is.

Y'all can figure it out, but know that it's gonna be a really cool episode.

Yeah, it'll be a lot of fun.

It'll be a lot of fun and it'll be your first, well, technically you've been behind the scenes on a couple of guest interviews, right?

Santiago.

You were there for Santiago.

Yeah, so this will be the first, but I wanted to hop on here.

It was one of those weeks where I didn't wanna miss a week just because I didn't have the studio officially set up and we're moving into the new space.

I've been reflecting on a lot this past week and Logan and I were talking about different things we could talk about.

So we have a few different things in mind, but ultimately, we're glad you're here.

Thank you all for your support because this is episode number 45.

If you are listening to Apple Podcasts or Spotify, make sure you rate, review.

If you're watching on YouTube, make sure you subscribe.

All right.

Gotta do all the plugging.

Yes, sir, yes, sir.

You know, I get the intro in.

Yeah, you get the intro in, so.

But like you said, this is episode 45.

Like, that's a big deal.

That's a lot.

So congrats on that.

And I think you've talked a little bit about this throughout the episodes.

And if people won't like piece it all together, they can figure it out.

But like, what is your story, per se?

Who like who is Chris Miller?

You know, like I said, people, if you guys want to be that person, you guys can go back, piece all together as a Chris story throughout talking to people and kind of what he said.

But yeah, like, you know, take us take it through chapters or, you know, summarize and stuff like that.

Yeah, this is something like we've been talking about a little bit and something a lot of people have asked me is they said, we wish there was a podcast where people could ask you questions and to where we could understand who you are.

Like, why would somebody make a podcast and dedicate this much time to this thing all about talking to people?

People do it all the time, every day.

Everybody's talking to people.

It's not special.

But there's something in my heart that really makes me uniquely aware of the importance of social connection.

And I believe that other people need to hear that, particularly young adults.

I think a lot of my podcast listeners are in that category.

I know personally a lot would not describe themselves as a young adult.

So I'm still glad you're here.

I want you to continue being here.

But I also want you to know that you and I both know there are young adults in your life who you're worried about.

You want them to have friends.

You want them to have that social circle, but they just don't have it.

And I wanted to build something just like a library when you walk through and there's books on the bookshelf.

This podcast has all of these episodes with helpful guides to navigate that.

But who am I?

So I'll give you a little quick boom summary, and then you tap in with questions or if something sticks out to you, because we can go deeper.

But my story is that I'm the youngest of four.

So I have three siblings.

I grew up in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, which is Northeast Oklahoma.

It's outside of Tulsa.

It's about three and a half hours away from Lawrence, Kansas.

And I was always fascinated with people.

So they say the youngest sibling typically is the charmer and the disarmer, right?

Because you're not going to be the biggest, you're not going to be the fastest, you're not going to be the smartest, because you're younger than everybody.

But if you can learn people, then you can make people laugh and you can, like the middle child typically is seen as the peacemaker and the older child is the trailblazer.

But I identified as that charmer and disarmer.

So I loved interacting with people.

Whenever we were at recess in elementary school, man, I would talk people's heads off.

Yeah.

I'd be talking like crazy.

And I had people tell me like, you're so weird for that.

You talk so much.

But in class, I was really dialed in.

I didn't want to get in trouble because I had seen some of my siblings who were older than me, they had gotten in trouble and I wanted to avoid that because I was scared about that.

So that kept me on the straight and narrow, it wasn't a faith or it wasn't a set of principles, it was me avoiding what had happened to my siblings.

Not repeating their mistakes, really.

Like learning from them.

Yeah.

And whenever I go through middle school, I get involved with band.

I played the trumpet.

I played soccer.

I started playing video games a bunch.

I played RuneScape.

Did you ever play RuneScape online?

No.

RuneScape?

Yeah.

You know World of Warcraft?

Yeah.

Okay.

It's like a stripped down version of World of Warcraft, but you could play on browser and you'd kill the dragons and the goblins and farm potatoes and cut down trees and I spent so much time doing that and I loved it.

I would go to the library after school and play for two hours every day because we didn't have a computer at home and we didn't have internet at the house.

So it was like I could play RuneScape at the library in middle school.

And one of the times I got in trouble the most was going to the library without telling my mom after school.

And she showed up and she was like really stern with me about how you need to tell me where you're going.

And I remember being so nervous and I would tell my friends like, man, they'd be talking about how they got in trouble for something.

And I'm like, I snuck out to go to the library.

And that's how I got in trouble.

But yeah, my, I think middle school and high school, it's really hard figuring out who your people are.

And I had a hard time with that.

I had some friends that were near to me, like local, and I hung out with them a lot.

But in high school, I meet a group of people who, they all went to the same church.

And I talk about Braxton, who was in my math class and he solved a Rubik's Cube under the table.

And I was fascinated by that.

And I went to him and I was like, how did you do that?

And he's like, YouTube and talking to me.

And it gets to a point to where we become friends and he invites me to church.

And we're going out to church each week, it's a blast.

I went for three things.

I went to church for the free food, for the ping pong and for the girls.

So those three things are like the three horsemen.

Like, why not go, right?

And I'd go every week, week after week after week.

And this was at the same time where my brother, my older brother, who's about four years older than me, three years older than me.

And we've talked about this a little bit on the podcast, but he was developing schizophrenia and he was also using different drugs and drinking a lot.

And he'd come home and he'd be aggressive with my family.

And it was really, and there was not a lot of stability.

So like coming home, it was scary.

There were moments where I was very nervous.

I remember moments where like he would threaten me.

And I always had the big brother paradigm in my head.

Like he was my big brother.

I was always scared of him, right?

Like he was always intimidating to me.

And even got to a point to where I was bigger and stronger and more athletic than him.

But it was in my head, like, I don't know, that's my big brother.

You know, like I'm not trying to mess with that.

But there were moments where like he would come after me.

And I remember we had a German Shepherd named Dixie.

I love Dixie.

And she would hang out.

I love big dogs.

So now we got Sonny, just chilling right now.

But he was going through a particularly hard time.

And now looking back on it, I know about these things called psychosis.

And it's periods of time where really your neurochemistry just checks out, leaves the chat.

And it's when many people who struggle with severe mental illness do the most irrational, like crazy things, like the highlights and the lowlights are in periods of psychosis.

And really you don't want to let people get there.

It's like preventative medicine to make sure they don't get there.

But he got there because we didn't know about it.

And I remember being home alone and my parents had left and I could feel it.

I could feel it in the air.

Something's going on.

And I attribute a lot of emotional intelligence to things like that.

To being in places where I had to learn how to be safe.

Like in that particular moment, I left the house.

I was in the backyard and I saw him punch the glass window and it shattered on his hand.

Oh my gosh.

And he was yelling at me.

And there was blood running down his arm.

And I jumped the fence and ran.

And there were moments like that.

Like I remember him talking about, I'm gonna shoot you.

I'm like, shoot me.

You don't got a gun, right?

But I still ran cause that's scary, right?

When you're in high school, like a freshman.

And later that year, cleaning the room and finding a gun with bullets, like in the room that we shared.

And being like, wow, he wasn't joking.

And I love my brother.

I think he's an incredible guy.

Unfortunately, the highway system in his brain that makes up all of his neural pathways is crossed over a couple of times, right?

The flow of traffic is not like the typical human being.

So due to that, it manifests in some scary ways.

And we're still figuring that out.

Thankfully, like he's a lot better now.

But I attribute a lot of emotional intelligence to that.

And then I attribute why I joined church to that, because at home, it was very unstable.

So going to church and hearing about, like in the Bible, it talks a lot about steadfastness.

So there are many verses that talk about steadfastness being a tribute or a nature, a quality of God.

Like one of my favorite verses or favorite chapters is Psalm 100, and it says make a joyful noise to the Lord.

Y'all can fact check me on this, right?

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.

Serve the Lord with gladness.

Come into his presence with singing.

Know that the Lord, he is God.

It is he who made us and we are his.

We are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

For the Lord is good.

His steadfastness endures forever.

For the Lord is his love endures forever in his steadfastness, something I choked to the last.

But the very last verse, it talks about the steadfastness of God and how it endures forever.

So hearing about this thing that could be in my life that provides stability and provides a firm foundation to build upon was very appealing to me.

I was like, wow, because I didn't have that.

It was very shaky at home and I love my parents.

They listened to this, I love you guys.

Y'all were there for me.

But still there was a lot that I couldn't control.

So church was big and getting in church, then I began to learn about how important community is.

That's something Christian churches do really well.

And that's something mosques do really well and synagogues do really well.

And really a lot of main religions are pro-social.

They encourage people getting together.

Unfortunately, some of that is like in-group, out-group.

So they encourage people getting together at the expense of another group, which I don't think is good, but they're very good at community.

So I learned about the power of community.

And we talked about this in a different pod, but like the importance of your testimony, like your personal story and how each person has a personal story.

And so this lines up, like me needing to be emotionally intelligent, that way I don't get hit in the head at home.

And then me going to church and learning about identity, community, how each of us has something that we can contribute and this steadfastness, it starts to boil together.

So like whenever I go to university, I'm thinking, I really love people.

I love talking to people.

I love connecting with them.

I can study that.

Sweet, let's do it.

I don't know what I'm going to do with my life, but I know I'd love to study that because I love people.

Then going to graduate school, same thing.

Boom.

So then work essentially has been what can make money, what can provide.

I've been interested in work.

I love work.

I think work is really cool, but I'm not that person that's like, oh man, you know, you meet the people who at age 12, they're like, I want to be a doctor and they become a doctor, right?

Or like, I want to be a lawyer or I want to be a teacher.

It wasn't really until I stumbled upon this stuff, like, ooh, I'd love to do this as a career.

I'd love to collect conversations to help other people connect with those around them.

Like that is a calling that if I can figure out how to pivot into a career, I'm all in.

So work was not knowing exactly what to do like after grad school and stumbling into a job that was down the street from the university because Annie, who I was like seriously dating, I didn't want to leave her.

And then we moved to Lawrence because she gets a job and there's an open card, open role for a bigger company.

So I go into that job and then I leave that job and I go into a different job.

So it's been little like breadcrumbs to get to the next place.

And I'm in that spot now, right?

Like we were talking about different jobs that I've been looking at, that I've been applying to, going to interviews.

And it's hard sometimes because I have to, like I know that God made work.

I know that people are made to work.

Like work can give you a lot of joy.

Like the soil is meant to be tilled.

We need to do that.

But it can be hard sometimes, not feeling that one occupation, but feeling like the certain calling to navigate that.

And whenever I leave the last job, it's like, all right, I want to do this.

I've been doing it.

But that is, in a long way, inside scoop into the wiring of why I'm doing what I'm doing now.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was, wow.

Like, just, yeah, wow.

That's awesome, though.

Like you said, you're doing what you're doing, and you're loving what you're doing, which is always good.

That's always where you want to be at in life is loving what you're doing and being passionate about it, you know?

Yeah.

And you were talking about how, so you're the youngest of four, and during your middle school and high school days, were you ever in school with your siblings as well?

Like how, you said you're three years apart from your older brother.

Is he your oldest older brother, or is he like your second oldest?

Yeah, good question.

So second oldest.

Second oldest, okay.

Because my other two are much older than me.

They're sisters.

And this is an interesting fact.

When my mom was pregnant with me, my sister was pregnant with her daughter.

So she is, it's like a 15, 16 year old year gap.

She was young.

She, you know, she definitely was a young mom, but my niece is like three months younger than me.

Yeah, so we had a big gap.

And that was an advantage too, was growing up when things weren't the most stable.

At times I had three moms, because both my sisters and then my mom were there for me.

Yeah, which I feel like, you know, and same with me, I feel like I'm very close with my mom and my sister.

And, you know, I think that helps out a lot, just in communication wise, because I think, I'm just gonna put this out there, women are better communicators than men.

And I feel like if you grew up in a society or grew up in like a household where majority of your communication skills come from women in your family, you will be a lot better, like in the real world, as to like that, you know.

Granted, there's some good men communicators out there, still, but I think the majority of the time, and, you know, I think history just shows us that women are just better communicators, you know.

Yeah, and that is our, there's a lot there, because women or girls, little girls, whenever they're growing up, are encouraged to operate in groups.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, they're encouraged to navigate life together, which means you have to talk a lot.

A lot of the activities that they're naturally inclined to gives them time to talk, right?

Like being able to work with the doll together, like you get a lot more time to talk versus throwing a football 30 yards apart.

Yeah.

And a lot of research is going into that.

I was reading two nights ago about the Men's Shed Movement, the male shed movement.

It started in the UK or Australia.

And it was like they had these country clubs that these women would go to, like the men would go golf.

Cool.

They can chat.

But there's these clubs that the women would just sit in and chill and talk.

And it was particularly after retirement, like men get wrecked after retirement.

The levels of depression and suicide for men leaving the workforce, because they're stripped from what they believe is their calling card for life.

Like after that, they feel as if there's no demand for them.

And when you feel there's not a need for you, that's a very helpless feeling.

Yeah.

So if you can get to a point to where you build or weave a social net that supports you, then it's gonna help you retire and it's gonna help you move on to a new season of life.

So they put together these sheds for woodworking and it allowed men to go in there with people around them and build stuff and then they sold that.

So the men felt like they were actually creating revenue, which is a really cool feeling.

And then they got to connect with the people there and they may not even had the biggest conversation, but it was being in the same room with other men and acknowledging one another.

And one of the guys developed that condition where your skin turns yellow.

What is it like jaundice or something?

And people from the shed showed up and they checked in on him and they supported him.

And that means so much.

So you're totally right.

The girls are better because they're encouraged to do that and the men are encouraged.

It's so complex because oftentimes men aren't as encouraged to express emotion and emotional expression.

If you can learn how to do that at a young age, it's gonna help you so much because with increased stress, emotional expression becomes super critical.

And the more stressful times get, the more you need to be able to express what you're feeling.

Because if you don't, it'll double down.

And like coal creating a diamond, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure.

But you don't have the emotional expression, so you'll either implode or explode.

Yeah.

And typically that sets you back rather than making progress.

Yeah.

Well, and like, you know, I think it's being vulnerable is also really helpful and just communicating in general.

If you're vulnerable with somebody, it not only strengthens your relationship with each other.

If they're, you know, kind of vulnerable back and you have that kind of vulnerability with each other, I think it definitely will help build that communication just in general, you know, whether it be with that one person, you know, with that one person and another person, but definitely being open and being able to share, share the emotions.

I think emotions is a key part of that whole kind of vulnerability aspect of being able to show your emotions, show, tell people when you're happy, tell people when you're sad, tell people, you know, what brings you joy and so with that and what's been, you know, sorrowful for you for a while.

But just, yeah, emotions also, it's very hard to communicate them, I think, in today's society, but once you learn how to communicate your own emotions, it will help you a lot.

Whenever you say vulnerability, the women are more likely, it's more likely or more women, there's a statistic about depression diagnoses and I'm pretty sure y'all can comment below or message me and tell me I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure more women get diagnosed with depression, but the suicide rate for men, depending on the country, is at least three times the rate.

And the question is like, well, that doesn't make sense because typically we associate people taking their own life because they don't view the future as being better than their current existence.

And oftentimes that's mixed with depression, but what happens is a lot of men, they don't go to get diagnosed.

Like they don't seek out that medical treatment or slash and they never talk about it.

So they never have somebody tell them, hey, you need to go, yeah, talk about this with someone who's professional.

And that prevents men from growing and obtaining a lot of things in life that they could obtain.

So part of me thinking about building this podcast, I think about should my audience, should I tailor this to men?

Because a lot of that research is there, but the more I dwell on it and reflect on it, the more I think, no, this is for young adults.

And the reason why is because I talked to a lot of, a lot of the women I know that are in their 20s and their 30s are looking for a young man because they want to, that's what they're interested in and that they want to build a family and they've always thought of developing a legacy.

So it doesn't, if men aren't able to emotionally express themselves, if women aren't able to emotionally express themselves, it never stays cleanly just, oh, this only affects women.

Oh, this only affects men.

No, it's always going to bleed over, right?

If I miss the mark continuously, that's going to hurt my wife.

If my wife misses the mark continuously, that's going to hurt me.

The angle I'm taking is, if you can improve your social connection, a lot of the stuff will be better for you, for your partner or your future partner, because people who are SS tier, the top tier people, are going to be interested in being in relationship with other top tier people.

Oh yeah.

So if you can make yourself a top tier person while you're single, then it's going to only help your prospects and your future.

So for the single people, but also for the people who are in a relationship, it's like, okay, we need to be thinking about this.

Yeah, that's true.

And I also think that having a podcast like this about communications, about just kind of like talking, so again, today's society, I think helps a lot because our social communication I think has dropped as a generation.

I think we're all part of the same generation.

But I think like when the social media spiked a lot, I think in like 2012 or 16, or somewhere in that area, I mean like 2010, I think that people were more diving into the social media aspect, more of the media aspect of social media and not so much the social aspect, and so I think that they were all about media and content and like you said a couple episodes ago of getting at scrolling, consuming, not really necessarily reaching out and networking, and I feel like that's still kind of it today.

And so like telling people how to communicate with person to person, face to face kind of communication helps a lot.

And I think AI is gonna replace a lot of human communication opportunities.

I think a lot of technological advancement is created to reduce friction.

Like that's Jeff Bezos' method of operation is reducing friction.

Amazon reduces so much friction.

We can, rather than having to drive an hour to Kansas City to get something, I can order it and it be at the doorstep.

Right, next day.

That's so much friction that just got reduced.

And he buys the ring because we don't even have to come to the door.

Yeah.

We can sit on the couch and look at our phone and be like, okay, hey, you're there.

Gotcha, yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you.

Thanks for dropping off the package.

And then he gets the, they just invested in the vacuums, like the Roombas.

Oh, really?

Yeah, so it's like we don't even need to walk around to vacuum our house.

And the one scale to look at that goes alongside the natural opportunities to communicate scale typically is active versus sedentary lifestyle.

So the more sedentary lifestyle you have, typically that means you're going out less.

That means you're going to places where people are around less.

And it means you are putting yourself in places where you're less likely to interact with strangers or acquaintances, friends, loved ones.

Maybe someone could say, I work a desk job.

So I'm talking to people all the time at a desk job.

It's like, okay, you're sedentary, but you're still active.

I'd say that's probably a bit more rare, especially as we get more into work from home and as we get more into a lot of back-end jobs and front-facing jobs or AI now.

So once the friction gets reduced, we think it's really good, but then it removes all these opportunities.

So yeah, there's less opportunity to connect.

I think also something that we as a society have kind of lacked too.

You kind of talked about this before, but facial communication and how to kind of read people's faces.

How much do you know about like the non-verbal communication?

Yeah, if you go on LinkedIn or Twitter, or you always see statistics about this, and it always changes.

People will say communication is 90% non-verbal and 10% verbal and 70% non-verbal and 30% verbal.

The commonality between all of them is that non-verbal communication accounts for more feedback than verbal communication.

Okay, you can look at pitch.

Like if I'm talking and oftentimes people who ask questions will be a little higher.

Yeah, true.

Right?

Or versus oftentimes people who ask questions will be a little higher.

That's a statement, right?

That's one thing.

If I'm talking to you and we're talking about something and I'm talking about a moment that I had with my brother whenever I was young and I start talking really fast.

Okay, something's going on there.

Because he changed his pace.

So you can look at pace.

Another thing is I have a specific cadence when I talk.

I had someone this past weekend tell me I talked like Buddy the elf.

And they told me I talked like the guy who was on Golden Bachelor.

And I love that person if you're watching.

But it's a specific cadence.

And people will tell me I use my eyes for things.

And that's not a verbal, the eye thing.

But the cadence, people have specific cadences.

So you got your pitch, you got your speed, you got your tone.

You've heard, don't talk to me in that tone of voice.

If someone's like being angry, and then you have your volume, how loud do you talk, how soft do you talk.

And that's a huge thing.

We don't really experience that on the podcast because I use like an AI processor that compresses it and normalizes the volume that way.

People aren't having to, while they're driving, take their hand off the wheel and turn it up and turn it down.

But in conversations like this, for people who talk real quietly, you want to lean in, right?

And that is a tactic.

People are really good at that.

I've met with leaders who are leading large organizations and they whisper a lot.

You're like, whoa.

And you think to yourself, a leader would have this commanding presence with this booming voice.

But getting people to lean in, that's powerful, right?

I was meeting with a woman about a job and she said, I know you look up left when you think a lot.

And what that communicates to me is blank blank.

And I was like, yeah, right, whatever.

But there's science behind it, right?

How people smile whenever they're talking, do they smirk?

The, I guess, FBI or investigators will look at a lot of this stuff whenever they do their interrogations.

Yeah, is all right, well, tell me about this.

And they see how your feet are, how your hands are.

Am I fidgeting?

Am I tightening?

Whenever I was in college, I learned this trick.

If I'm feeling really nervous, just tighten my abs.

Because oftentimes people who are far away, they won't be able to notice it.

And then if I'm giving a speech, you won't notice it.

It's a nervous coping nonverbal mechanism.

Like we are trying to deal with all these nerves going through our body.

So all of that's nonverbal.

And as babies, we are trained.

There's this interesting phenomenon called perceptual narrowing.

And it's whenever we come out as a baby for the first four weeks of our life, we are so good at reading faces.

Babies less than a month old, they're incredible at distinguishing faces too.

So regardless of what nationality, they're able to distinguish faces and then tell the difference.

But then something really interesting happens.

And it's like after about two months, and that is whenever we get really good at focusing on the faces of the people who are caring for us.

Naturally, we know these are the people who are taking care of me.

These are the people who I really need to understand.

Or else I'm not gonna get my next meal.

From the jump, as babies, we already start studying people's faces.

And we want to know what it means when your eyebrow goes up.

Because if that means that we're not gonna get food, because it's something we did, well, we're gonna make sure we don't do that again.

Because we need to survive.

So it's a survival mechanism.

It's also, if we were way back in the day, you have a spear, I have a spear.

If I notice that your hand's clenched, I'm like, hold up, you good?

Yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean?

Like, you all right?

Yeah.

Your tone of voice is a little different.

Like, we have to survive.

So we are so good at taking in all of the accounts.

And I talked about AI and how that's a really good processor.

Our brains are even better because our brains are doing, I don't know how many, but a ton of computations by the millisecond.

And we don't even think about it.

There is, like you said, there's something when we were kids, when we don't even know how to talk yet, we can understand facial expressions and stuff like that.

But then when we get to the point of actual verbal communication, whatever that may be age-wise, it's just like those become harder and harder to like, I don't know, see.

Because you always want to just use your words, and you always tell people, like, just use your words, man, I don't know.

But that's still another form of communication, which is kind of crazy to think about.

But it makes sense though, because we're very expressive, we're expressive creatures.

I think you have dogs and cats, and their own way of communicating, also non-verbal.

I mean, every kind of domestic pet, you can say, has a non-verbal way of communicating.

It's like, you can also learn a lot from them too.

And what's so good is their ability to read us.

Yes.

That's the fascinating thing, is they have grown so keen on what our mannerisms are.

Sonny can tell when I'm about to leave.

Yes.

He is in my face the whole time.

Where are you going?

Take me with you.

Where are you going?

Take me with you.

Whenever I would leave for work, I'd get my luggage and his mood would plummet.

He would go to the corner and put his head down and be incredibly sad.

Because when I do that, I'd be gone.

Yeah.

Whenever we're getting ready for dinner, oh, what do you know?

You're no longer tired.

Whenever you pull out a rapper, and they're like, it's chocolate, bud.

You can't have it.

Yeah, it's good to see you, one.

Yeah, it's good to see you.

I haven't seen you in a long day.

The moment I pull out this rapper, you're my best buddy now.

It's like.

But again, it's not for you.

Yeah, it's not limited to humans.

It is, we have to communicate.

It is one of the most essential needs.

And then in addition to that, we have to belong, need to belong.

If we don't belong, we cannot thrive socially.

We cannot thrive financially.

We cannot thrive relationally.

We have to have a sense of belonging.

And when you lack that sense of belonging, it gets very sad.

And you look for other ways to get what you get from belonging, what you get from natural relationships.

You look for other ways to get it.

And ultimately, that's going to screw you over.

So dogs are really good.

And then all the other kind of domestic pets out there.

But yeah, it's like, I think we should learn more, learn more from them about how to read each other.

You know, obviously we can use words and words are helpful.

And you know, we need to, I think vocabulary, vocabulary, it's good to have a good vocabulary when you're talking to people, even talking to a stranger, I think, but still kind of learning.

Certainly when it's a stranger, you don't know them as if like, you know, me and you were talking.

It's like, you need to kind of read them in a sense of like, okay, so I think I said something kind of triggering or said something that you don't like.

And so like I can saw that in your face kind of winched or step back a little bit.

Which is one of the worst things about social media is we no longer get that feedback.

Yes.

And that leads to a reduction in empathy.

If I tweet you and I say, you are a terrible human being, and then you look at that, and like you said, your eyebrows crunch together when your lip raises a little bit, because that's sad.

I don't wanna be a terrible human being.

Now, if I told you that face to face, I'd see it.

And I'd be like, okay, I probably shouldn't say that again, because it looked like that actually gave Logan a little bit of pain when I said that.

But when I'm tweeting it, and then even worse, I get a notification that says, RedBerry32 has liked your tweet where you diss this guy.

Then I get an incentive to do it again, because I get that dopamine hit of that heart that pops up and the bell icon.

Oh, let's do it again.

Do it again and do it again and do it again.

Yeah.

And then you realize that you're actually hurting people.

People that you don't see or you don't know, and they can't see you.

Yeah.

That's just kind of.

Something that, and we can lay in the plane with this, but something that I've been reflecting on, if you follow me on LinkedIn, I've been posting about this, but I've been encouraging people lately, when they ask me, like how do I build a network?

Yeah.

Because networking is a buzzword.

And I tell them you need to build a local network first.

And the reason why is it's easy to go to Twitter or Instagram or LinkedIn or Facebook or TikTok or Be Real or Snapchat.

It's hard to show up to a local sports league.

It's hard to show up to the church.

It's hard to show up places, but if you can get friends there, it creates, it weaves the social net that will support you locally.

That way, if something happens online that you're not crazy about, you have this backup.

You have these reinforcements that are there for you.

So I want to charge people with this, and that is, what social net are you weaving locally for yourself?

Because you need to have that support.

Then once we go online, we don't have as much of a desperate mentality.

We can focus much more on quality over quantity.

We can look at following the people who are in our niche or following the really funny people.

Or maybe you're like, I'm not even that thoughtful about how I operate online.

It's like, maybe you should be.

Yeah, right?

But then after that, we're no longer waiting on these big communities to interact with our stuff, because we have this local backing, this local support.

So I want to challenge all of you to reflect on, you know, I haven't really done this.

It's like call to action.

I'm looking straight at the camera.

But challenge you all to reflect on the quality of your social net locally.

Locally, how are you involved in the community that you find yourself in?

And how could you weave a stronger social net to support you whenever you do go online?

Yeah, I like also what you said, kind of what you said when we ended it, like, let's land the plane with this.

I don't know why, but that's also like really good communication skills there, knowing that, okay, kind of what we were talking about a few episodes ago, that you're kind of, you're leave-taking of being like, okay, well, I'm going to land the plane with this one, but that's good.

Yeah, accuse it, accuse the end of the conversation, the drop-off point or the, you know, like you said, landing it, coming to a close.

Yeah.

But yeah, it's just good communication right there.

It's like what I say, I said Obama says, well, listen.

Well, listen.

Yeah, this has been nice.

Yeah, this has been fun.

And then you said, what was yours?

Mine was, well, anyways.

Yeah, well, anyways.

Well, anyways, yeah.

That's awesome.

Well, anyways, this has been a blast.

Logan in the house again.

Yes, sir.

It's a last solo for.

Last solo.

It's been a fun four episode series.

Yeah.

You've been here the whole time, right?

Yeah.

Since we, your tips on how to, 10 rules on how to become a better communicator.

You've been here since 10 rules.

So thank you all.

We have a surprise guest next weekend.

She's going to be coming here.

She won't have to travel far.

That's all I'm going to say.

But until then, how do we sign off?

See you next time.