Word-Of-the-Week #1021: Connection
February 29, 2024 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #1021: Connection
Connection – the act of creating a relationship.
When was the last time you had a meaningful conversation with someone in person? How much time each day do you spend on your smartphone? Would you like to sleep better, feel more productive at work and have more meaningful communications?
This week Kashmir Hill’s “A Practical Guide to Quitting Your Smartphone. Readers who have taken the plunge said it had improved their lives, marriages and mental health, and offered advice to those going without their smartphones for “Flip Phone February” felt like a great follow up to last week’s WOW.
“Last May, Fabuwood, a kitchen cabinet manufacturer in Newark, instituted a new company policy: No phones allowed during meetings.
To enforce it, the company installed “device shelves” outside each of its six glass-walled conference rooms. On a recent Wednesday morning, there were animated meetings in three of the conference rooms, and the shelves outside were full of smartphones, tablets and ’90s-style flip phones. The 1,200-person company pays the cost of a flip phone for employees who give up their smartphone, and 80 people have acted on the offer.
Surprisingly, employees say they like it. Rena Stoff, a project manager, said that while at first she hated the idea of being deprived of her smartphone, she found that it had made meetings — that she once found boring and unnecessary — engaging and productive.
“Having the phone away from me has almost made my brain more open to information,” she said.
Fabuwood’s founder and chief executive, Joel Epstein, was motivated by his personal belief that smartphones are “destroying our personal and professional lives.”
He started using a flip phone seven years ago after developing carpal tunnel symptoms in his hands from near-constant use of his BlackBerry. He said he slept better, felt more productive at work and had more meaningful communications. Mr. Epstein, a Hasidic Jew, said his choice of device was not unusual in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, which encourages the use of “kosher phones” with limited internet access.
Last year, Mr. Epstein queried Fabuwood managers on how often their workers were on their phones; they estimated two hours per day on average. He asked a warehouse safety officer, whose job typically entails monitoring for unsafe conditions, to secretly document each time he saw an employee using a phone in the office. Mr. Epstein said many of the company’s poorest performers were on the list.
Mr. Epstein decided to fight back against the devices competing for his employees’ time and attention with an “InFocus” initiative, asking workers to keep personal devices out of sight while on the job. No one is punished for violating the rule, but managers will email reminders when they notice any backsliding.
There was some grumbling when the initiative was proposed, with some predicting that people would quit. But that didn’t happen, Mr. Epstein said. Instead, poor performers improved. “Within six months, productivity was up 20 percent,” he said, citing internal corporate metrics.
What surprised him most, he said, was the steady stream of messages from employees saying the program was life-changing.
- Team Flip Phone
I heard about Fabuwood’s initiative after I published an article about fighting my own iPhone addiction by switching to a flip phone for a month. Abraham Brull, a manager of software development at Fabuwood, emailed me saying that he had struggled with his smartphone dependence in the past and that it had helped him to join a company that encouraged healthier technology use.
His was among hundreds of emails I received. Many were from flip phone enthusiasts who disagreed with my suggestion that using a “dumb phone” indefinitely wasn’t an option. Long-term flip phone users of all ages and professions said that their lives were better without smartphones, and that their marriages, relationships with their children and mental health had flourished as a result.
Alba Souto, 29, from Spain, said not having a smartphone had made her relationship with her husband, who also switched to an old Nokia, “more mysterious and exciting.”
“Not having access to each other at all times via messaging apps has improved the quality of the time we spend together,” she wrote in an email. “We have more to talk about.”
“I love it,” wrote Christopher Casino, 29, of Brooklyn, who switched in October to a Cat flip phone that gives him access to Uber, Maps and Spotify, but not to social media or news apps. “I do my hobbies more consistently. I read on the subway. I talk to my husband more. I don’t feel the crushing pressure of knowing everything instantly and saying the perfect thing online.”
- Advice for ‘Flip Phone February’
Sarah Thibault, 43, an artist in Los Angeles, said she planned to participate in “Flip Phone February,” an idea that I proposed to follow Dry January. She was inspired to give up her smartphone by a viral video of a crowd of phones ringing in the new year in Paris.
She created a Flip Phone February community on Reddit to share messages and tips with other participants. I joined and posted a link to a contest that Siggi’s Yogurt recently announced offering $10,000, flip phones, smartphone lockboxes and, of course, free yogurt to 10 people who commit to a monthlong digital detox. The company’s spokeswoman told me that 322,935 people had entered the contest.
- The Downsides
Those who make the switch be warned: There were quite a few complaints in my inbox about our increasingly smartphone-centric world.
“The issue that is most disturbing to me, and one that I wish that journalists and regulators would turn their attention to, is the ever-increasing need to have a smartphone to navigate daily life,” wrote a 47-year-old father with no mobile phone at all. “Ten years ago, lacking a phone meant some minor social challenges; nowadays, it can be hard to go through ordinary life.”
He has been frustrated by the now common use of QR codes to get into sporting events and to view restaurant menus. He and many others said payment machines at parking lots often directed people to pay via a smartphone.
“I just got a parking ticket this week because I couldn’t go online and pay via their QR code or app,” wrote a 31-year-old Missouri mother with a flip phone. But she said it was worth it.
“Even in these moments I wouldn’t go back to the smartphone. I am done being enslaved to a piece of tech that has robbed me and my kids of my attention,” she wrote. “Your child-raising years are short. Your kids NEED YOU. Want to be a good mom? Want to raise healthy kids? The best thing you can do is throw your smartphone into the toilet, even for a short while.”
(But don’t actually throw your smartphone in the toilet. You might need to connect it to Wi-Fi at some point to get a two-factor authentication code.)
Some readers, such as one corporate executive and mother of three, said they “could never go flip.”
“The invention of the smartphone has enabled work-life integration in ways I couldn’t imagine!” she wrote.
She said her hacks for making it less addictive included turning off notifications and deleting social media apps. She and others thanked me for pointing to a study that found switching a smartphone from color to gray scale mode helped people significantly reduce their screen time. “Pumped about the grayscale tip,” she wrote, “turning that on today!”
For those who are wondering, I’ve now been using my flip phone as my main phone for two months. But I did get a second line for my smartphone to use when access to the internet is a necessity. I’m not sure, for example, that I would have been able to find Fabuwood’s headquarters — on unfamiliar roads in industrial Newark — without it.
This week’s focus is on connection. How would it feel to disconnect to better connect with those around you? How many people do you know that are “addicted to their phones?” Do you realize how important relationships are in adding to your overall happiness?
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Word-Of-the-Week #1020: Frivolous
February 22, 2024 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #1020: Frivolous
Frivolous – not serious; playful.
When was the last time you were playful? Or the last time you looked up to the stars with wonder?
Once again, Neil Senturia has written a profound article Why having fun is good for the soul. Particularly for the entrepreneur — when the world is in a serious state of flux — there is a deep need to embrace those moments that amaze and delight.
“How are you feeling?
Series B financing going well, the board loves you, no homeless people camped in your parking lot, excited about the election choices, revenue ramping up, marriage is solid, climate change is a non-issue, just got back from Davos and life is fantastic?
For the 99.7 percent of us for which that is not true, we need a reset, we need some fun, some laughter, some delight. We need to stop, wonder at the universe, and remember that money doesn’t buy happiness. (Actually, studies show that it really helps, but your parents didn’t tell you that for fear that it would stifle your ambition.)
Meet Catherine Price, author of “The Power of Fun.” She teaches delight. “Making a point to notice and share things we find delightful can improve our moods, outlooks, relationships and our physical health.” She wants us to be “frivolous.” She contends it will help us live longer.
I like the use of the word delight. I believe in laughter. At this time, I think that particularly for the entrepreneur when the world is in a serious state of flux, there is a deep need to embrace those moments that amaze and delight.
As a first step Price argues for disconnecting from social media, but that is not enough. The next step is to allow yourself to be dazzled, to be amazed. When that happens, it makes you smaller, it centers you and maybe it even lets you laugh at yourself.
My normal response to fascinating stuff is to say “wow.” I have a bit of the child in me, and I want to suggest that a combination of gratitude and delight can actually be effective in running your company or just surviving in the company in which you toil.
I know there is a touch of corny here — you know the “look up at the stars and wonder” moments — but Price makes a great argument for what she calls “savoring, the practice of deliberately appreciating positive life experiences.”
Now there are several kinds of delight. If you have been tossed on the hot coals by your venture capitalist who said “no mas,” you can take a bit of comfort in some data, namely 38 percent of VCs disappeared in 2023.
I don’t think Price is advocating schadenfreude, but rather she wants us to elevate our own spirits, raise our ratio of joy to misery and seek wonder. Along the way, seek “playfulness, connection and flow.”
I like the idea of playful. That does not mean more game apps, but instead trying something goofy. My granddaughter made me a paper crown, and I wore it watching a football game. I think it helped the Chiefs win that day.
Price likes the word “marvel.” I know that is easy to do that when you read about the latest and greatest health care cancer cure genomic AI, but I am going to try to embrace baseline marvels — like electricity.
As many of you know, I am a passionate follower of magicians, magic tricks and conjuring. I know the same card cannot be in two places at the same time, but there it is. How can that be?
Barbara and I went to the Mat Franco magic show in Las Vegas. It was fabulous, and right before the conclusion of one of the tricks, I turned around and looked at the audience. Their mouths were open. It was wonder. The reveal and then came massive applause. That was the moment when they gave it up. They were transported.
I know that the startup racket can be brutal, but a few moments outside yourself might yield new insights. At worst, it should make you smile.
Finally, please indulge me while I beat my favorite drum — why people do stupid things.
Case in point: Joe Lewis, 86-year-old British billionaire, just couldn’t help himself. He was found guilty of insider trading. “I knew that what I was doing was violating a legal duty, that what I was doing was wrong.” His fine was $50 million and possible time in the slammer.
His net worth at the time was $6.1 billion.
So you risked prison and your reputation to make even more money and “to give some tips to your friends, employees and romantic interests.”
Joe, when is enough, enough?”
Rule No. 796: “For a Few Dollars More” – Sergio Leone
This week’s focus is to be frivolous. What do you do to elevate your spirits? When was the last time you felt amazed, dazzled or delighted? How would it feel to “savor” and deliberately appreciate your positive life experiences?
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Word-Of-the-Week #1019: Character
February 15, 2024 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #1019: Character
Character – attributes that determine a person’s moral and ethical actions and reactions.
Are you aware of what your best character traits are? Is there someone that you admire?
Steve Strauss, author of STEVE’S 3-MINUTE COACHING, once again has great insight to share.
Great Question: Character Trait?
(Great questions lead to great answers; weak questions, weak ones.)
“What do I consider to be my best character trait?”
Coaching Point: Very few people are introspective enough to ask this Great Question of themselves. Fewer still have a clear answer. Those who do have a distinct advantage in life over those who don’t.
Socrates pointed out the benefits of “Know thyself.” More to the point is the downside of not knowing what you’re made of.
Would anyone expect a good and consistent outcome from cooking a dish without a recipe? Or painting a painting in the dark? Or raising fully functioning children without teaching them some core values for life success? (Well, sadly, yes to that one.)
What keeps us from being willing, eager even, to discern our best character trait? And that is ‘discern’ not create. By the time we look inward our life formula is pretty well set. Rarely does someone later in adulthood create a new character trait from whole cloth.
How about this? Take a considered look at people you admire. Whether you know them up close and personally or at a distance. The key feeling is ‘admire.’
What character traits do they exhibit? Not just talk about, exhibit. Which of those traits float to the top of your list? If you admire it, it probably already exists in you.
Which one is it? Which is your best character trait?
See all past issues and subscribe here Steve’s 3-Minute Coaching
— Copyright 2024 Steve Straus. All rights reserved. —
This week’s focus is about character traits. Of all the people that you admire how many of them have the same character traits? Have you ever thought about how many of those traits you have too?
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Word-Of-the-Week #1018: Beauty
February 8, 2024 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #1018: Beauty
Beauty – the qualities that delight the senses and that give pleasure.
Are you fully aware of those things that delight your senses and that give you pleasure?
This week features another article from The Better Newsletter by Sam Horn.
ANECDOTE
“My friend Glenna was married to Jim, a former linebacker for the Green Bay Packers, who loved being out on the lake.
He bought a really big boat for waterskiing that wouldn’t fit in their driveway, so he parked it in their backyard.
And there it sat… For months. For years.
Glenna said that every time she looked in the backyard, there was that darn boat.
Finally, one day she’d had “enough.” She got all worked up and pronounced, “Either that boat goes or I go.”
Her husband looked at her and asked a simple question: “Glenna, what percentage of our relationship, in your opinion, works?”
She thought about it. “Eighty percent.”
“I agree. So, let’s focus on the 80 percent that does work instead of the 20 percent that doesn’t. Sound good?”
She agreed … and then went out and bought a really big rosebush.
Bada boom.
Glenna solved her problem by looking out at beauty (instead of the boat), and she and Jim had many (mostly) happy years together.
ACTION
- How about you? Are you looking at the beauty or the boat in your life?
- Grab your journal and reflect on these questions:
- Is there a way to reframe the situation?
- What resources will I need to remedy the situation?
- Is it my job to “fix” this?
- Does someone need to be held accountable and am I that someone?
- Will time heal this problem?
This week’s focus is about being able to find the beauty. Are you able to create beauty in your life even when things aren’t to your liking?
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Word-Of-the-Week #1017: Mistake
February 1, 2024 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #1017: Mistake
Mistake – the result of defective judgment, deficient knowledge, or carelessness.
Have you ever had a lapse in judgment that caused you to lose a promotion, a raise, or your job? Have you ever been accused of “resting on your laurels?” Do you have a tendency to complain about your work situation?
This is the sequel to Travis Bradberry’s article “Career killers – Even small mistakes can be costly in the workplace.” To recap he wrote, “Little things can add up over time and undermine your career just as much as one huge lapse in judgment. Stay aware of these blunders before they creep up and kill your career:
- Having an inflatable ego – Did you ever work with someone who had a string of successes and started thinking that he or she was a star? Success is great. It definitely boosts your career, and it feels really good. The problems start once you let it go to your head. You start thinking that success is going to last forever and that you’re entitled to it.
Never, ever be content with resting on your laurels.
- Losing sight of the big picture – It’s easy to become head-down busy, working so hard on what’s right in front of you that you lose sight of the big picture. But smart people learn how to keep this in check by weighing their daily priorities against a carefully calculated goal.
It’s not that they don’t care about small-scale work; they just have the discipline and perspective to adjust course as necessary.
- Negativity – Sometimes when you’re feeling negative and down, your mood can leak out and affect other people. People who spread negativity through their department and complain about the work or other people complicate things for everyone else.
If people always have to tiptoe around you so as not to risk poking the bear, they are unlikely to be willing to do it for very long.
- Low emotional intelligence – Everyone knows that you can get fired for being unable or unwilling to play nicely with others, but what trips up a lot of people is having a poorly developed poker face. If everyone can tell when you’re bored or irritated or that you think something a colleague says is stupid, this will catch up with you.
Emotional outbursts, belittling others, shutting co-workers down when they speak, low self-awareness and just generally being difficult are other ways that a lack of emotional intelligence will do great harm to your career.
- Playing politics – Working hard to build strong work relationships is very different from instigating conflict, choosing sides, undermining colleagues, spreading rumors and all of the other things that fall under the umbrella of “playing politics.” If you find yourself feeling embarrassed about any of your tactics, you likely are playing politics.
Stick to strategies you’d be proud to discuss in front of your colleagues.
This week’s focus is about not making mistakes. How good are you at weighing your daily priorities against carefully calculated goals? How easy are you to work with? Do you work hard at building strong work relationships?
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