Always On, Caring & The Laptop We Won't Close

Tim · 0:00
Let's do our favorite parts. What was your favorite part, Reggie?

Reggie · 0:04
My favorite part was Tim inspiring me to go back to my Christian roots.

Mary · 0:08
I actually was thinking that. Um, my favorite part was Nicole's tattoo review. Let me do that again. My favorite part was Nicole's tattoo reveal at the end.

Tim · 0:19
I was wondering what the review was about.

Nicole · 0:20
Mine was the review. My favorite part is that Tim has not changed at all in the last 10 years.

Mary · 0:25
I don't know if that was mine.

Reggie · 0:27
Uh, my favorite part was the crew loving on me and me getting to love on them. A little bit, and it was super embarrassing.

Tim · 0:33
My favorite part was the 40 Hearts' new mantra, we could care less.

Nicole · 0:39
Never Reggie-proof.

Mary · 0:45
Hello and welcome to Age, the podcast. I'm hosting today and my name is Mary Greene, and I'm joined by my colleagues, Reggie Tidwell and Scroggs. And our special guest today, Nicole. Nicole, tell them a little bit. I mean, you don't have to actually, Don't tell them anything about you except this.

Nicole · 1:04
Okay. At all. The whole thing.

Tim · 1:05
At all. Nothing.

Mary · 1:06
Non-disclosure.

Reggie · 1:08
It's a secret.

Mary · 1:09
We will definitely put, if you'd like, some links out to Nicole's work and what she's doing. We'll share those. But what I really want to know today is, what's your current obsession? What are you really into at the moment? Maybe even in, like, too into it right now.

Nicole · 1:25
You got anything? I do, actually. This is embarrassing to admit, but I've recently gotten really into like old headphones from like the '90s.

Reggie · 1:35
Nice.

Tim · 1:36
Whoa.

Reggie · 1:36
That is cool.

Nicole · 1:37
For whatever reason, like Pinterest has really been serving those to me and I've been like, oh, these look so cool. And I went down a Reddit thread where people are like, you can just buy headphones from like the '80s and '90s, like in packaging from different countries.

Tim · 1:53
Like actually from the '80s and '90s?

Nicole · 1:56
Yeah. Like I bought like a pair of like very funky little Over-the-ear corded ones from Japan.

Tim · 2:02
Yes. I love that. Is it the one with the little—

Nicole · 2:05
So cool. And they don't make them like these anymore.

Mary · 2:07
Absolutely.

Tim · 2:09
They have the little fuzzy ends on them with the little metal.

Nicole · 2:11
Yeah, they have. They're not metal, but they're like, they have like these little gem, like they're like the funky, like back when people were like, what will the future tech look like?

Reggie · 2:20
Wow.

Nicole · 2:22
It looked like that.

Reggie · 2:22
And I was like, this is so cool. I love that. I'm an audiophile.

Tim · 2:25
So can you find these and then put them on the screen?

Nicole · 2:28
I have them in my bag.

Reggie · 2:29
You do?

Nicole · 2:29
Can you get them? I gotta grab 'em really quick.

Tim · 2:33
Yeah, go get 'em. I gotta see this. It's good.

Mary · 2:35
I was— last time I was in New York, I was there to consume art like my life depended on it. And one of the places that my mom and I went was the Cooper Hewitt Museum. And they had this really cool exhibit. You would've loved it, audiophile. There was, um, the downstairs room was about quality.

Nicole · 2:52
Oh my God. That was very Star Wars. Like a little overeerie.

Reggie · 2:57
Those are really cool.

Tim · 3:00
All right, show those to the camera.

Nicole · 3:00
Oh, they're so cool.

Tim · 3:01
Oh, wait, do they have your iPhone?

Mary · 3:04
I have a—

Nicole · 3:05
I have like—

Mary · 3:06
those aren't authentic. There's a USB-C on the end.

Nicole · 3:09
I had to buy like a little—

Tim · 3:10
Oh my goodness, those are amazing. All right, I'm gonna put them on the table so you don't knock them over.

Mary · 3:15
Now I have a question about your audio. This is the last thing we're gonna say, and then I swear to everyone who hates the intro, we're gonna be done.

Tim · 3:23
We'll get into it.

Mary · 3:24
I'm curious about your— I worked for audio brands for a long time. What's your usage occasion for headphones? Are you mostly like at your desk listening to them, or do you walk around listening to music? I know we live in In a place that's mostly like driving a car.

Nicole · 3:37
Yeah, I think I listen to something almost all the time, like maybe to a fault.

Mary · 3:43
Can't be—

Reggie · 3:44
You're listening right now, aren't you? Yeah, she's probably listening. In here.

Nicole · 3:49
But I do have like, I'll have AirPods for like when I'm at work and stuff because I have to move around a bit. But like, yeah, and then I have like over-the-ear ones for when I'm working out. But yeah, I was like, these are all really boring. Okay, and I want something that's like fun. Yeah, and I started thinking of like, since when did like a brand decide that like I should have something inside of my ears to listen to music?

Tim · 4:13
It's invasive.

Reggie · 4:14
Yeah, it is invasive.

Nicole · 4:16
And it like kind of makes your ears achy after a while.

Tim · 4:18
Yeah, it does.

Reggie · 4:19
And I was like, for like extended listening, I have to do like the over-ear things. I have the Grado SR125s, which are like audiophile grade, but they have these soft foam And then it uses your head. It rests on your ear and they're open air. So they, oh man, it sounds amazing. And, but my ear gets irritated when I have something in it for too long.

Nicole · 4:39
Yeah. I do have like a huge nice pair for like when I'm playing bass or something.

Mary · 4:43
Yeah.

Nicole · 4:44
I want to have like—

Reggie · 4:44
You play bass?

Mary · 4:45
I do play bass. What?

Tim · 4:47
Now we're getting into it.

Reggie · 4:48
Now we're getting into it. That is awesome. We need to bring her Thursday for the jam.

Nicole · 4:53
Oh, I'm not that good.

Reggie · 4:54
I mean—

Tim · 4:56
Not that we want to get into this.

Mary · 4:57
Not that we want to get into this. I'm going to just say this and then we'll leave it. We keep saying this.

Tim · 5:02
I dug into the research behind when the first headphones came around and what it did to our culture. This was years ago because I started noticing, well, maybe when I had— so this is like 17 years ago. You're just looking at Will because we have to—

Mary · 5:17
I'm looking at Will to go—

Tim · 5:18
It's been my son's name anyway. And they were talking about how it's split our experiences up from each other because kids started listening to their own music and they started being less influenced by their parents. collections, their vinyl collections, and it stopped being a group family listening environment, and everyone started choosing their own music and their own experience.

Reggie · 5:41
Wow.

Tim · 5:42
And so I wonder how— because it's hard in a world where other people either don't want to play music, you know, like when you're in a coworking space like we have in this same building, it feels so dead in there, you know, because there's no music, there's no vibe.

Reggie · 5:54
No, it's just so—

Tim · 5:55
And so to get your vibe and get your creativity rolling, you got to put your headphones on to feel that, that movement. And so, I wonder if we just live in a world that's become so sterilized because no one wants to— like, in coworking, you don't want to offend the other person or disrupt them or whatever it is. Okay.

Mary · 6:11
I'm going to say one more thing and then we're not going to say anything more about this.

Tim · 6:14
Yeah. I didn't leave it.

Mary · 6:15
There's a—

Reggie · 6:15
It's such a good topic though. Can we just make the topic headphones?

Mary · 6:17
Maybe it'll come out of this.

Tim · 6:19
Because I already have a few other things I want to talk about.

Reggie · 6:21
The magic trash cans. But I have to pull it for the magic. I'm sorry.

Mary · 6:25
Yeah. Okay.

Nicole · 6:26
I—

Mary · 6:27
Yeah.

Tim · 6:27
Okay.

Mary · 6:27
There's one. Sure. I'm hosting. I'm pulling the piece of paper. It's the most fun part of this episode. I'm The only thing I wanted to say is that there's a famous, it's in almost every theater curriculum. It's taught in college programs and probably in some high school programs, a woman named Uta Hagen. And in a nutshell, the main thing that I remember from the coursework that we did on her text is that she had critiques of headphones generally because she said it disconnects you from life here. People walking around with headphones in, you're kind of creating your own sort of internal experience and insulating yourself rather than being in the world.

Nicole · 7:03
Mm-hmm.

Mary · 7:03
And so she was like, to be an actor, You have to live, you have to experience all this stuff. So she was like, no headphones. And I said, then I can't be an actor.

Reggie · 7:12
I need to—

Tim · 7:13
and I quit.

Mary · 7:14
Not gonna happen for me.

Reggie · 7:16
While you pull that, one last thing about headphones. I love headphones.

Tim · 7:18
You can't leave anything anywhere.

Reggie · 7:20
Because they are your personal, like, score, your personal theme music. So when you're walking through life and you have them on—

Mary · 7:28
Like hook-up music.

Reggie · 7:28
Yeah. You're just like walking in.

Tim · 7:30
So it's the fault of movies because we want that. When you watch movies—

Nicole · 7:33
Yeah, I do feel like me.

Reggie · 7:34
Totally right.

Nicole · 7:35
But to put it back, a part of why I got was that I was like, I have my AirPods in and I can't hear anything around me at all, ever.

Reggie · 7:43
Which is a little scary.

Tim · 7:43
With those, you have some bleed-through.

Nicole · 7:45
Yeah.

Reggie · 7:46
Yeah.

Nicole · 7:46
Or like if I'm working and people are like trying to get my attention.

Reggie · 7:49
Yeah.

Nicole · 7:50
And then I feel terrible and I'm like, what did you say?

Reggie · 7:52
You can hear someone approaching you if you're like walking, you're like—

Nicole · 7:56
Yeah.

Reggie · 7:57
Walk that. Yeah.

Mary · 7:58
Yeah. Okay.

Tim · 7:59
I—

Reggie · 8:00
Back to you.

Mary · 8:00
We'll do our best to get this back to headphones as our theme.

Nicole · 8:04
Yes.

Reggie · 8:04
Let's see.

Tim · 8:04
That's our challenge today.

Reggie · 8:05
That's the challenge. I like it.

Nicole · 8:06
Talk more about it so we can get back.

Tim · 8:08
See what it is. Did you not even look?

Mary · 8:10
I looked. Oh, my lighting is kind of—

Tim · 8:13
oh my gosh, it is, it is headphone worthy.

Nicole · 8:17
Yes, I saw it.

Mary · 8:18
It's the topic is always on.

Tim · 8:20
What comes up in you when you hear that? I think our mind is always on, um, and maybe it shouldn't be, but what should be on always is, I think, the heart. A person who's animated and engaged and With you all the time. Never off, which is not good.

Mary · 8:39
It almost frightens me, actually. Always on means there's never a time to, like, stop and take a break. You're always ready to give 100%.

Tim · 8:47
Always on can be a bit much.

Reggie · 8:49
Gotta have some yin to the yang.

Mary · 8:51
Here, I'm not always on. I'm myself, and I figure, like, you fuckers can take it or leave it.

Reggie · 8:56
Whoa!

Mary · 9:00
That's a good topic.

Reggie · 9:02
That's interesting. That is a good topic.

Tim · 9:03
Oh my goodness. Okay. Ooh, it's hard for me to think of anything else now because we were just talking about always having—

Mary · 9:08
Yeah, we've primed ourselves. The first question we tend to ask ourselves just to like immerse is, what's the first thing that comes to mind? And you're not allowed to say headphones. Nicole, if you got something, shout it out.

Nicole · 9:20
Oh, I definitely do. Oh, definitely.

Mary · 9:22
Tell us.

Nicole · 9:23
I think of like being a designer in an age where everybody can reach you all the time.

Reggie · 9:28
Yeah.

Mary · 9:29
Tell me about it.

Tim · 9:32
That's what I was thinking. Burned out.

Reggie · 9:35
Yeah.

Nicole · 9:35
I don't know if I went there.

Tim · 9:36
No, I'm gonna go— I'm like a bit older than you, so I'm gonna—

Nicole · 9:39
Maybe like—

Reggie · 9:41
He's a little more jaded.

Tim · 9:42
Yeah.

Mary · 9:45
I went to a similar place that, you know, everybody expects to be able to get a hold of you all the time, and I very much connect that to my cell phone. The fact that people know that I'm carrying this thing around that is meant to make me accessible means that I ought to be accessible, and I think I offend people or at least surprise people if I leave my phone behind— by the way, you, you must feel so free today.

Nicole · 10:08
Oh yeah, I forgot my phone at home.

Tim · 10:10
How ironic is this? And I almost forgot my phone in my car when I got out of the car today, because my wife dropped me off, and she almost drove away, and I was like—

Reggie · 10:17
You had to run down the road to catch her. Yeah.

Mary · 10:19
But the thing is, even if you had forgotten your phone, you would still be able to communicate. You have your computer. It's all synced up. So there's really like no excuse for not being available, and that pisses me off. Like, I shouldn't have to defend a boundary. to say, hey, I don't want to talk right now.

Reggie · 10:39
Right.

Nicole · 10:39
I don't know.

Mary · 10:40
I feel like we used the stance of, oh, I'm not home, leave a message, for a really long time.

Reggie · 10:45
Yeah. I showed up at that Explore Asheville social without my phone.

Mary · 10:51
I didn't realize that.

Reggie · 10:52
Yeah, and the whole time—

Tim · 10:53
Did you realize him not looking at his phone every 10 minutes?

Reggie · 10:55
Oh yeah, it was really great. It was so freeing.

Tim · 10:58
He kept trying to show people his pictures.

Reggie · 11:00
He's like, let me show you.

Tim · 11:01
I don't have my phone.

Mary · 11:02
Oh my God. Tim, I don't have my pictures. It was so good.

Reggie · 11:06
Because it was like, you know, it— I would, you know, something would prompt an image or something. Oh yeah, yeah, there's things that happened. And oh, I don't have my phone. And then the conversation would go deeper instead of now both of us or 2 or 3 people, you know, hovering over my phone to look at images. We just started talking about something else or we went deeper in the same topic. And that was really cool. The thing that popped up for me interesting was not anywhere close to what you guys were talking about, Reggie? Well, it's since we're all so hyper-aware of the economy right now and we're like looking at our electric bills, there's a section on your electric bill that shows you the things like how much you're spending for the devices or things that are always on.

Tim · 11:47
They're doing that?

Reggie · 11:47
Yeah. So I've been like, yeah, so I've been like trying to hunt for the things that are like my NAS drive, things that— so that's what I thought about.

Tim · 11:56
I was like, expensive device.

Reggie · 11:58
It might be the pool filter, but that's only for the summer. The pool pump. Yeah, because it goes around the clock.

Nicole · 12:06
Yeah.

Tim · 12:07
Yeah, that's a level of data I didn't—

Reggie · 12:10
But isn't that interesting? Like, my mind went somewhere completely different. You guys went—

Tim · 12:14
But think about that though. That's like, that's the origination of what we're all talking about— electricity. Yeah, like you're looking at the electric bill, which was like the beginning of an always-on mentality. Yeah, because they used to have light bulbs Or they used to not have light bulbs.

Mary · 12:27
Remember when they used to have light bulbs?

Tim · 12:33
We're ahead of our time. It would be weird if they're saying that at some point.

Mary · 12:35
Tim's podcasting from the future.

Tim · 12:37
But when they had candles, you know, it was hard for your eyes. So people would just go to sleep when it got dark, right?

Mary · 12:42
Or you had to stoke a fire. You had to manually keep it running.

Tim · 12:46
Right. And so when you got lights, all of a sudden you could work around the clock. You could read or you could do whatever you had to do. They could work in the factories around the clock, whatever it was. Light, electricity brought the ability to always be on.

Mary · 12:55
And now Half the time you start, I'll say you, Tim, but all of us, I think, who are using AI will start a process and then try to walk away because Claude is always on or whoever you're using is always on.

Tim · 13:08
And have you noticed, I just did this last night. Do you do this? You use AI?

Nicole · 13:11
A little bit.

Tim · 13:12
Okay. So when I'm doing something for the podcast, because I'm trying to develop a system that makes it a little less of a lift for all of us because we all have jobs, we're expected to do things and also do work. I'll leave it running at night because it's going through this really long system of things it needs to do. And I wake up feeling a little ragged. Like it's supposed to be doing this work. I noticed this the past 2 nights. Yeah. When I get up and I see my computer shell half open, lights still on, I feel in the middle of something still.

Reggie · 13:42
Yeah.

Tim · 13:43
I could see that.

Mary · 13:43
There's a loop that's not closed.

Tim · 13:45
Yeah. Like I didn't go to bed and restart a morning. It's like I restarted in my last day.

Reggie · 13:50
Yeah.

Mary · 13:50
It's that little crack.

Tim · 13:51
It is the crack in the computer. I got to close that shit down.

Reggie · 13:54
Yeah.

Nicole · 13:55
I had a lengthy discussion with this about my therapist at one point.

Tim · 13:58
Can you share?

Nicole · 13:58
Sure. Yeah. I mean, it was at a time where my boss was on maternity leave. Hi, Jen.

Tim · 14:05
I know Jen.

Mary · 14:06
Hey, Jen. Hope you're having fun as a parent.

Nicole · 14:10
And it was just a lot more of an influx of work and I was having to work what felt like constantly. And I had a thing where I would not just close my computer at night. I would just kind of leave it a little open. And I was like, well, I don't want to lose—

Tim · 14:25
Your place.

Mary · 14:25
All this stuff.

Nicole · 14:26
Yeah, I don't want to lose my place in what's happening. And my therapist was like, what would happen if you just closed it?

Reggie · 14:31
Right.

Mary · 14:32
And I was like, I don't want to.

Tim · 14:35
I guess let me try it.

Reggie · 14:37
Yeah, it's nothing.

Nicole · 14:38
I guess nothing would happen. But I had a hard time with it for a while. And I'd have to make a point of being like, we're gonna close it all the way. And we're gonna like maybe move it somewhere else where I don't see it.

Reggie · 14:48
Did Alex help you with this?

Nicole · 14:50
He was kind of just like, why are you doing this? Like, why are you like leaving? He's like, just close your computer.

Tim · 14:55
Why are we struggling with this, Nicole?

Nicole · 14:56
Yeah. He would be like, 'cause I'd leave it open, would be like, oh, I'll watch a YouTube video while I'm cooking on here. But then like all of the tabs would still be there.

Tim · 15:04
Yeah.

Reggie · 15:04
The words.

Nicole · 15:05
I'd still kind of see them. And then before I knew it, I'd be like, oh, well, I'll just answer this one thing really quick.

Tim · 15:09
Oh boy.

Nicole · 15:10
That's when he would catch me and be like, why are you doing work right now? And I was like, well, it's just one little thing.

Reggie · 15:16
It's just one little thing.

Mary · 15:16
That's the thing is like our whole office can come home with Yeah. Is the other truth. And I've done the exact same thing where it's like, oh, well, all my work will be on this browser window and I'll open this new browser window for Netflix or whatever I'm watching.

Nicole · 15:28
It's like different. It's not the same.

Mary · 15:29
Yeah. It's like I'm not even at work anymore.

Nicole · 15:31
Yeah.

Reggie · 15:32
I will say probably the most freeing I have felt in life was when in 2008, when there's the crash, I had an office over in the Jackson Building across town.

Tim · 15:44
Well, Walks over.

Reggie · 15:46
And I had 2 officemates, both of them were impacted heavily. And so one was moving back home with their parents in Winston-Salem, the other one was moving to Utah. And I'm like, well, I don't wanna put the bill for this big office by myself. So I moved my office home and it— having access to my stuff actually was, surprisingly freeing. You would think—

Nicole · 16:18
The context.

Reggie · 16:19
Yeah, well, it was— I didn't have a laptop at the time. I had a desktop computer. And so anytime I had to work when I was at home, I had to like drive down to my actual office to do the work. And you would think having that separation felt better, but it actually— it was the access. Because what would happen when my office— when my computer was at the office is that I would get this buildup of all these things that needed to be done. And so there was this pressure. I would constantly feel this this sense of pressure and like, oh my God, I just thought of another thing I have to do. And so then when I would get into the office, there was just a, just a never-ending to-do list of things. But when I moved my office home, I was able to actually knock off a little task here and there. The thing that you're trying to get away from, I would do it, but then I also had this like, that's done. I had this like the sense of accomplishment. And then And then when I got into the office, I was able to have conversations with my, you know, officemates and—

Tim · 17:19
Interested to hear your wife's perspective on the shift.

Reggie · 17:22
Well, we weren't married at the time, so this was pre— this was 20— what was this, maybe '15?

Tim · 17:29
Did you ever live— I guess this is—

Reggie · 17:30
This is '08. So this was what, 22 years ago? No, not 22 years ago. 12 years ago.

Tim · 17:39
12 years ago.

Reggie · 17:40
Interesting. Are we not mathing right? No, it's more than that.

Tim · 17:43
26.

Reggie · 17:44
26.

Tim · 17:45
I hate doing math in public.

Reggie · 17:46
Plus 10 is 16.

Tim · 17:47
I don't math in public.

Reggie · 17:48
So my— yeah, so that's 26.

Tim · 17:50
Don't even try.

Reggie · 17:50
And then another 6, so 16 years ago.

Tim · 17:56
We got it.

Reggie · 17:57
We got there.

Tim · 17:57
The calculator.

Reggie · 17:58
Yeah. Designers and math, that's going to be a—

Tim · 18:01
Designers and spelling too.

Reggie · 18:03
Designers and spelling. Oh my God.

Mary · 18:05
But that's what it comes down to, right? Like, this isn't my job.

Nicole · 18:08
I'll try. Yeah, I just kind of space out until somebody else finds the answer.

Reggie · 18:12
Oh, you got there.

Nicole · 18:14
I was almost there.

Reggie · 18:15
You're right.

Nicole · 18:16
Yeah, but you got it.

Reggie · 18:17
Well, it's funny, I see that happen a lot where when you do that, you check out like they'll get there, and like, and then you're like, yeah, that's it. And you're like, wait, that's not it.

Nicole · 18:24
Yeah, I'm like, wait.

Tim · 18:27
Well, it's interesting you have a different experience because I relate to Nicole in this because I have a serious issue with— I, I've, I have a tab mania happening on computer. Like, I don't want to lose my place, what I was looking at, what I was into, because it's never done.

Reggie · 18:39
Hard to get pulled out of it, right? Because you don't get to a finite point, you know?

Nicole · 18:43
Right.

Reggie · 18:43
Yeah.

Tim · 18:44
And in marketing, I don't think the work is ever done.

Reggie · 18:46
It's never—

Tim · 18:47
it's literally never done. It's like climbing a mountain that just keeps moving. Like, the summit keeps moving up and you just keep climbing, and it's like, we're almost there, and you wake up the next day and the mountain summit's higher.

Nicole · 18:57
Yeah.

Mary · 18:58
I wonder how much of this I'm not a historian, although I pretend really well. The 24-hour news cycle.

Tim · 19:05
Yeah.

Mary · 19:06
I think when I imagine how we consume media now, even things like news versus how we used to, it felt like there used to be a deadline and then you would have a break and then there would be another deadline maybe in a day or a week or whatever. And you could sort of figure out, okay, I need to deliver this much by this time. And maybe it was more than one day's worth of news. Maybe you needed to do a week's worth of news, and then you pace it, you drip-feed it, you know? But these days it just feels like either— It's always on.

Reggie · 19:40
It's always on.

Mary · 19:40
And if— even if I want to enforce for myself or defend some boundaries on my time, there's always going to be somebody who's willing to do it for cheaper, do it faster, do it in the middle of the night, Cheaper, faster. But it's hard.

Tim · 19:56
It's the Reggies who get the relief from doing it all the time, who don't have a family. And then we get killed because we're like, no, we're going to make some boundaries. And the other people are like, I have no boundaries. I'm going to do everything.

Nicole · 20:06
It's interesting because I do to some extent get what Reggie's saying of like—

Tim · 20:10
I feel that.

Nicole · 20:11
I get the like— because what drives you to do that is that feeling of like accomplishment.

Reggie · 20:16
Yeah. You knock something off your list.

Tim · 20:18
It feels good.

Nicole · 20:20
I did that, A, because of stress, but B, because it felt good to like do things and go in the next day being like, I'm not behind.

Reggie · 20:25
Get a dopamine hit because you actually—

Mary · 20:27
I'm not behind.

Nicole · 20:29
Yeah.

Reggie · 20:29
Yeah. But yeah, that is it.

Tim · 20:32
But also, you didn't, you didn't have your wife there and she had Alex there. So Alex was the one giving you the reminder to—

Reggie · 20:38
Yeah.

Tim · 20:38
The way he's talking.

Reggie · 20:40
I will say this though. I feel like if you do lean into that sort of way of life, like having your computer and, and you know, like if you have a little window and you go and knock something up really quick— like I'll do this at home sometimes. We'll finish dinner and instead of like— the kids will go off and get their little last little half hour of tablet time. I'm like, well, while they're doing that, I'm gonna go edit these 3 or 4 images, or I'm gonna knock out that SOP or the SOW, and I'm gonna, you know, get that off my list so tomorrow is not as big a lift. But the importance is For me, the balance is making sure that I take ample, like, breaks. You'll see, these guys know me. Like, I don't just sit at my desk for hours and hours. I'll get up and go and talk and have a conversation with someone. I'll come over and bug one of my partners. And like, that's really important because that gives me a bit of my life back. Like, that's the thing that— that's the balance. That's how it works.

Tim · 21:38
But for me, I want to go home and give quality time. I don't want to be—

Reggie · 21:42
Oh, you don't want to give quality time to me?

Tim · 21:43
No, it's not you.

Reggie · 21:44
Wow, Tim.

Tim · 21:45
Wow.

Reggie · 21:46
It sounded bad.

Tim · 21:48
If I go home having not completed what I needed to do for the day and I have to do it at night or during dinner or something, that destroys my—

Mary · 21:57
The tabs are open on my computer and they're open in my mind and I can't close the tabs until the thing is done. And I think I don't have the ability or the way of being that you're describing, Reggie, the ability to like pop into a little bit and pop out. My brain, once I'm in it, it's with me until it's done. And I'll talk Weeks at a time. I'll be chewing on the same problem.

Tim · 22:20
Like a psychopath. You just go into the dark place and you just stay there. You're only coming out, you're only acting when you come out. You're like, yeah, I'm here.

Mary · 22:27
Yeah.

Reggie · 22:28
It's so funny because I'm the 55-year-old who's learned those lessons because I've been on the verge of burnout, and I think it was because I was in those places. And I find that I don't ever want to be burned out again. I think burnout is scary, and if it's your livelihood and it's like, what am I gonna do if I get burnt out on this? And I've talked to friends a lot about burnout, which is where you went initially with this always-on topic.

Nicole · 22:53
I'm there.

Tim · 22:54
I didn't get— I'm there right now.

Reggie · 22:55
And it's hard when you're like, what else am I gonna do then? I can't just like become a dentist.

Nicole · 23:00
What's important though is the like finding things outside of your work that like give you that sense of accomplishment.

Reggie · 23:06
Yeah.

Nicole · 23:07
But it's harder to get those.

Mary · 23:09
It is.

Nicole · 23:10
Because like with your work, you're like, well, I already know, like—

Reggie · 23:12
I already know these things.

Nicole · 23:13
I already know how to get there. But with something new, it's like, well, It's going to take me so much harder and longer to get to a point where I have the same satisfaction.

Mary · 23:21
I'll also say, when you think about when you're doing work, how often you're expected to do work, what times of day you're doing work, smaller tasks feel like things that are easier to, like you said already, knock out real quick. But I feel consumed with bite-sized pieces of information from every angle. And the only time I really feel like I've gained something or like I am better off for having consumed that piece of media is when I can sit down and like read something long form, when I can devote my energy to like watching a full movie, let's say, which used to get a bad rap, but now that feels like, look how much attention I have tonight.

Tim · 23:58
It's like a 2-hour vacation.

Mary · 24:01
Yeah, but, but I don't feel— I'm just constantly trying to skim the right information off of a headline or Pinterest. Or like, what's the top superficial layer that I can just sort of borrow for a minute?

Reggie · 24:13
And I'm imagining— yeah, you imagine a world where before we had all the technology and all the constant influx of content and information, can you imagine if the only like influx of content you got was when you turned on your CRT tube television set and listened to the news for 10 minutes or watched a show?

Tim · 24:37
I'm going there, Reggie. I'm there right now.

Reggie · 24:38
I know, right? Then you turn it off.

Tim · 24:40
One house phone.

Reggie · 24:41
And there's nothing. Yeah. And there's one rotary dial phone.

Tim · 24:44
People are watching this, they're like, those old guys.

Reggie · 24:46
Those old guys. And you leave the house and you walk up the street to see the neighbors and you don't have a phone on you or anything.

Tim · 24:52
Okay, let's go there for a second.

Reggie · 24:53
Oh my gosh.

Tim · 24:53
How many conversations were you having simultaneously in that period of time? In that era?

Reggie · 24:58
None. You were having one.

Nicole · 25:00
You had one conversation.

Tim · 25:01
Okay, so when they introduced the voice message. But you've got a person on either Like, you may be in a group, right? That's, that's a group, group speak or whatever. But you got either a piece of mail that you had to respond to, right? Or you had a message if you had a message machine, which came later.

Reggie · 25:17
Right, right, right.

Tim · 25:17
And, and then you had the person you were talking to on the phone or in person.

Reggie · 25:20
Yeah.

Tim · 25:21
That's all you got.

Reggie · 25:22
But that was when you were in your house. You didn't— once you left your house and you drove your, your Ford T-whatever, your jalopy over to your Yeah, like you were free.

Tim · 25:36
Oh, Bar Mary's going back. How old is Reggie actually?

Reggie · 25:40
I remember horse drunk. I'm 55, you know, I've got no shame. No, but happy.

Tim · 25:47
But really, you had those little vacations between every stop. Yeah, you know, like driving to work was a little vacation and you got to figure things out. Yeah, going to dinner was a vacation. You weren't always scrolling trying to catch up.

Reggie · 25:59
But oddly enough, they say people didn't live as long then. They live longer now, believe it or not. But that's because maybe advancements in medicine.

Mary · 26:07
A lot at play.

Reggie · 26:08
There's a lot. It's good for you. Connection.

Nicole · 26:11
So, but like, it's interesting because all of those things still exist.

Reggie · 26:13
Oh yeah.

Nicole · 26:14
Yeah.

Reggie · 26:15
Yeah. You could totally, yeah, you could totally like disconnect.

Tim · 26:18
But how do you— what Mary was saying in that people expect you to get back to them. You will.

Reggie · 26:24
They need to shut up.

Tim · 26:24
You literally will. I mean, I think everyone would like to tell win that. Like, just stop.

Reggie · 26:31
Like, no.

Tim · 26:32
But, but, but there is this automatic offense if you don't get back with somebody.

Reggie · 26:37
Right.

Tim · 26:37
You're not—

Mary · 26:38
That goes on the LinkedIn, like, paper cut clips.

Tim · 26:40
Maybe that'll be your quote for this. But, but like, if there was a way, and I remember someone doing this where they had an autoresponder that said something about what they were deciding to do with not always being on, that would give someone an expectation as to when they would respond.

Nicole · 26:56
Right.

Tim · 26:57
Or with how long the email would be. I think it was called the 6-word email.

Nicole · 27:01
Yeah.

Tim · 27:01
Oh, it would respond— every response would be only 6 words or less.

Reggie · 27:05
Oh yeah.

Tim · 27:05
But I'm wanting to do this experiment with, like, how can you restrict your device use? Like, can— and I know now there is a trend with really young people to get dumb phones.

Nicole · 27:19
Oh yeah, I've looked at that. Yeah, me too.

Tim · 27:21
To stop this always-on. So who's telling us this is the way it should be and this is the way everyone will like it forever and always, when you already see the trends start shifting and they're still giving you a load of bullshit on YouTube and all these platforms because they're telling you everyone wants this constant stream, new content, new platforms, new frameworks, new—

Reggie · 27:41
everyone wants this. You're the master of your own domain. Here's the thing.

Tim · 27:43
And they're doing it, but they're all doing it simultaneously, which is how movements succeed. We can't do it because our group—

Nicole · 27:50
Oh, I do it.

Reggie · 27:51
Oh yeah.

Tim · 27:51
I would love to hear how you do this because our group doesn't do it together. They're like, why didn't you get my text? Why didn't you send me an email back?

Reggie · 27:58
You know, I don't do that to you guys.

Nicole · 27:59
I like have my phone set so that there are like specific times that it switches to personal.

Reggie · 28:05
Yeah.

Nicole · 28:06
Sleep.

Reggie · 28:06
Oh yeah, that's good. You have a focus mode. You have a specific focus mode.

Nicole · 28:11
And I set it specifically so like personal time starts like as soon as I wake up and then it goes until 9 AM.

Mary · 28:18
Sorry.

Nicole · 28:19
And it goes back at like 6 PM and I have it set so like it doesn't show me any notifications notifications from work. I have— sorry, texts from people that I work with blocked until that time. And so then if it comes in when I switch it, I'm like, I didn't see it.

Reggie · 28:33
That's a great boundary. And that's a great regimen too.

Mary · 28:36
Yeah.

Nicole · 28:36
I'm like, I'm sorry, I didn't see it.

Reggie · 28:38
That's similar to what I do. Like, so like you were saying, you have a hard time starting something and just being able to leave it in this unfinished place. But what I learned is that you have to, you have to be comfortable with leaving things unfinished, knowing that you'll come back to And that's the muscle that I've built up because I've realized oftentimes stepping out and doing something for myself, whether it's going to like watch a show or going and working out with you or having a conversation with a friend, when I come back to it, I feel like I have more resources. I feel like I have— I am— my synapses are firing a bit faster and I can get to the finish line a bit faster. because I've had a break for myself. But if I chew and chew and chew on it, I feel like there is, at some point, I am not making as much progress. And so there is this, you know, law of diminishing returns at play where I'm working, working, working hard, but I'm getting less done. But I come back to it after a break and I'm like, bam, done.

Tim · 29:42
But all minds don't work the same.

Reggie · 29:43
No, they don't. But I had to build that memory. I had to build that muscle up. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't like I immediately done that. I just realized that if I didn't take a break, I would get burnt out. And burnout scared the fuck out of me because it's my livelihood. And so—

Mary · 30:00
Well, especially with something like— I mean, design is this way, but design is much more, in my opinion, fit to function. Like, design is not purely creative expression. It's creative expression that we use for commercial purposes. But something like— you are an artist. I know that you, whenever you talk about photography, Reggie says commercial photographer, so people know that he's got the range. But the work that you produce is creative expression. You're noticing something, you are asserting a new point of view on the world. And I think that in particular, if you get burnt out, your vision diminishes increasingly.

Tim · 30:35
Oh, I'm screwed.

Nicole · 30:36
Yeah.

Mary · 30:36
Meanwhile, if you're trying to analyze something or you're trying to crack the code on something, it feels like if I put it down, it's like reading a book.

Reggie · 30:46
You have to start over almost.

Mary · 30:47
Yeah, I have to like back up and redo it over and over again.

Reggie · 30:51
Exactly. It's like putting down a good novel that you haven't read for like 2 or 3 weeks and you have to read like a few paragraphs back.

Mary · 30:57
I didn't stop at the chapter end.

Reggie · 30:58
To remember where you were.

Mary · 30:59
I stopped midway.

Reggie · 31:00
Yeah, yeah. So you're like, wait, what happened?

Tim · 31:02
It's like trying to watch The Witcher again after it's been off TV for like 5 years and you're like, I don't even remember what happened. So I'm saying like, what if a brain doesn't work this way? where you have to find a stopping point. What if that reduces my effectiveness in this world and that makes me less successful?

Reggie · 31:19
Oh, that's a good point.

Tim · 31:20
Because I know myself, like, I feel that I don't know how to just eject out of a task.

Reggie · 31:28
And you're always on.

Tim · 31:29
My wife gets on to me, gets on to me about this all the time, is that I need to get something to a stopping point to where I can turn it off and then come back and it's in the right spot.

Reggie · 31:39
Right.

Mary · 31:39
And this would all be a non-issue if we weren't trying to get so much done.

Reggie · 31:44
All the time.

Mary · 31:44
Every single day.

Reggie · 31:45
Right.

Mary · 31:46
All the time.

Reggie · 31:47
Totally.

Mary · 31:47
Like, you could, you could be that guy who's like, I go away for 3 days, I'm in love with my work, I don't talk to anybody, and then I come back and I'm fully present with my friends and family. And people used to do that. You hear about the old— the masters would get like caught up in their workshop and you wouldn't see them for a time because they would become obsessed. And I don't know whether that's healthy or not, but But it definitely feels like some of my work would benefit from a little escape, be in the work, and then eject and be in reality.

Nicole · 32:16
But it's just too much. Sometimes I'll spend so long on a project and I feel like I'm just moving things around on a screen for hours and hours and hours and days, and then I'll take a little break and then I'll come back and be like, oh, duh.

Reggie · 32:29
Yeah, yeah, see?

Nicole · 32:31
Right. And it'll take me 2 seconds and I'm like, why did it take me so long?

Reggie · 32:35
Maybe it depends. You're speaking my language. I think it really depends on maybe the task, and like Tim says, your mind. Like, if you're the kind of person that thrives on getting to the ultimate stopping point, not just like an intermediate stopping point, like you need to get to a very definitive place where you know that you can walk away from it and the world's not going to come to an end. And so you can come back to it and pick exactly right back up where you left off. Some people probably have to operate that way.

Tim · 33:03
And, and I think that in our world with technology, there's a continuity of memory and progress. So in ancient times, life would end for a master or some really high-level thinker, and it would have to restart with someone new to the— they would be trained, but they couldn't fully own that person's experience. Right, because they lost— That person's level of intuition. They would have to restart and build their own intuition, build their own experience, and that would reset every 100 years because people would die. But when you have an AI or computers to log information and to hold it, nothing can be forgotten. Institutional memory is intact. We underestimate the power we have in our ability to forget. We think it's bad.

Nicole · 33:50
I'm great at forgetting.

Mary · 33:52
I forget stuff all the time.

Reggie · 33:53
Yeah, you forgot my party on Sunday.

Tim · 33:55
Right. And there's something that is part of it. There's part of relearning a lesson in a different way, but there's also—

Mary · 34:04
I'm so sorry.

Tim · 34:05
I didn't even miss it. What was it?

Mary · 34:06
I've really hurt Reggie's feelings, and I feel a lot of shame about it, and he's gonna keep torturing me with it until I admit.

Reggie · 34:12
That was my last torture. That was it. That was the last one.

Tim · 34:15
I don't believe you.

Reggie · 34:15
I promise you. I promise you.

Mary · 34:17
I, I deserve at least 3 more, and then we'll be done.

Reggie · 34:20
No, no, no, we're done.

Mary · 34:21
I'm sorry. The power of forgetting. Sorry.

Tim · 34:23
I think we've developed it I don't think of it as a bad trait, and I think that there is the power of the human mind to get the piece of their memory to stick and to lock in is proving a path for them, and it's unique to each of us. If somebody's constantly reminding you of something, they're controlling your mind because they're giving you a path to remember.

Reggie · 34:44
To come back to the thing, right.

Tim · 34:45
Right, but if you are logging, your being has more than just your brain. It's not just your brain's filing system. There's an internal gut system that's working, and when you remember something, it's because you need to remember it. When you forget something, it's usually because you don't need to remember it.

Reggie · 35:01
Right.

Tim · 35:02
Not so much in this world where we're at now, because there's so much going in, it's hard to say what it is you need to remember and not remember. But on an intuition level, if you're remembering something, it's because you're chewing on something, and that is more fuel to that unique fire you have to progress.

Mary · 35:18
Yes.

Tim · 35:18
But if something is always reminding you of what happened here and what happens there, and don't do this again and don't do that again, you're in a web of no options because you're like, I tried that, tried that, this, nothing works. And you're locked.

Reggie · 35:30
That sounds like—

Tim · 35:31
You don't, you lose that possibility ceiling, you know, like you, you start to be held down by like, oh yeah, that didn't work. And I think it leads to burnout, not being able to forget.

Nicole · 35:41
Do you know what I think about a lot that I think you would particularly appreciate? And it was actually a comment on TikTok. I think about a lot, but it was somebody saying like, I wanna do something like this, but it's gonna take so much time. And the person commented and said, the time's gonna pass anyway.

Reggie · 35:56
Yes.

Tim · 35:57
Oh yeah.

Reggie · 35:58
I love that.

Tim · 35:58
Yeah.

Reggie · 35:58
I like that. That's really nice.

Tim · 35:59
I love that.

Mary · 36:00
I do as well.

Reggie · 36:01
Well, it sounded like when you were saying that there's someone that's always bringing you back to the thing, remind you, just reminded me of like a significant other from that moment. And that's, that's what like partners do. They'll like remind you of that thing. It's like, remember in blah blah blah, and you get coming back. But one thing I was gonna say is the ability to forget also can be a protective device because like for trauma, our minds are able to block out things that happen that were traumatic and we don't want to be remembering them all the time. Right.

Tim · 36:34
I mean, this was my same argument when we had the discussion about photography. Yeah, that one Once the brain locks onto an external memory, except instead of an experienced memory. Our experience that we have is unique to us. It comes from sources that no one else can match. But when though, and this may be why the news cycle started going 24/7, is the control is easier when you're constantly inhibiting someone's own vision, own journey.

Reggie · 37:01
Yeah, you're hijacking their—

Tim · 37:03
Hijacking their path Oh my God. And you're making little hyperlinks to brain patterns that they are not developing. It's being developed for them. And so you start to create a groove in society that they— it's hard for them to jump out of because you're an outsider. You don't answer texts in time. You're not getting enough done. Like, there's all these threats.

Reggie · 37:21
How cool would it be to measure the brainwaves of someone from that original time when we're talking about before all the tech and constant stream of content to somebody now? Like maybe even a Gen Zer who just has this all-the-time influx of stuff. I wonder if our brains are even so different.

Mary · 37:41
We have definitely adapted to the level of noise in the world. Even if you take that at its most basic level, there are probably buzzes and frequencies in this room that we've just decided to tune out at some point in our past that someone from the past would probably Oh, what is that? Why does it remind me of that movie?

Tim · 38:01
What's that movie about the jinn or the genie? 3,000 Years of Love.

Mary · 38:06
Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba.

Tim · 38:08
So he comes back, he's a jinn, he comes into her world and he's like wrecked by the amount of frequencies that are happening. Yeah, all the radio waves and the sound, everything that's happening, he's like tortured by this.

Mary · 38:21
Absolutely. I think that that would be the case. But I think that we, particularly younger people, have adapted to the amount of content that's coming at them.

Nicole · 38:30
Yeah.

Mary · 38:30
And I do feel like that, you know, there, there are critiques of younger generations. There are always critiques of younger generations. If you're younger and you're listening to this, fuck them. You are fine the way that you are. Everything that they say about you that makes you feel bad about being Gen Z or millennial, whatever it is, give it 30 years. and you'll see the strength in it. You are adapted for a new era. We've said fuck a lot on this episode.

Tim · 38:54
I know, this is gonna have to have a special playlist.

Reggie · 38:56
This is the fuck episode.

Mary · 38:56
I'm just—

Reggie · 38:57
The fuck-isode.

Mary · 38:58
I remember millennials had the same shit. We're the kids who got the participation trophy. We were snowflakes. And yeah, that manifested some weird ways in the world, but we had to become what we needed to be to survive in this world. And our parents were trying to set us up up to be those people.

Reggie · 39:17
Totally.

Mary · 39:17
And I think that these days, one of the necessary coping skills you have to develop is, how do I deal with all this noise? And I don't think parents have got the code figured out, nor do they ever, no offense. But I think you're seeing a lot of really interesting coping skills being developed. I look forward to learning.

Reggie · 39:38
That's a really good point.

Tim · 39:38
I'm glad you brought that up because something you said just triggered the I was trying to think this whole time about an experience before screens, before this always-on that we're experiencing. And I remember my dad as a child, he was in the ministry and he was always on.

Mary · 39:53
When you were a child or when he was a child?

Tim · 39:55
No, when I was a child.

Nicole · 39:56
Okay.

Tim · 39:57
You know, 'cause I grew up—

Mary · 39:58
It's like—

Reggie · 39:58
He was a baby minister.

Mary · 39:59
Now Tim is podcasting from class.

Tim · 40:01
Did I say when he was a child? When I was a child.

Mary · 40:03
My dad as a child, I think is what you said.

Tim · 40:06
In the '80s, my dad was in the ministry and he was always getting called to like a nursing home or a hospital or to pray with someone. And he literally spent very little time with us as kids because he was always on. He didn't have a cell phone or all these things that we blame for always being on.

Mary · 40:23
My dad was a detective and it was the same thing. Like you get called to a scene, right? You're like, well, I gotta be traumatized.

Tim · 40:29
There was no personal hours in that, in that line And probably doctors.

Reggie · 40:34
Yeah.

Tim · 40:35
ER people. I mean, maybe all doctors, but ER doctors especially.

Reggie · 40:38
I've been watching The Pit and it's like, talk about always on.

Tim · 40:41
Right. So it's not— I was just trying to connect to maybe the human experience. Like, we're not dealing with something that's new, even though the technology changes and is new. We're not dealing with a fight or a struggle with something that's new in the human experience.

Nicole · 40:54
Yeah.

Mary · 40:55
I agree with you that it's always been the case that things were accelerating. People were expected to be more available more often, but because our technology has gotten better, It's this instant gratification that's expected to happen. And there's a great quote, I'm going to butcher it. Will, I'll send it and we can put it on the screen. But it's something like, we are Paleolithic biology with— I'm going to—

Reggie · 41:20
anyway.

Tim · 41:21
That sounded great.

Mary · 41:21
The point is that our biology—

Reggie · 41:24
I think I get what you mean.

Tim · 41:25
We're primal.

Mary · 41:25
I have to read it off my phone every time because I haven't taken the time to memorize it.

Tim · 41:28
I'm getting it, right?

Mary · 41:29
Because it's a surface level. It's a little tidbit that I absorbed. I was like, this really made an impact on me, but for some reason I can't memorize the words. Basically, the point being that we have old-school biology that can't evolve as fast as our technology or our industry can. So things are picking up. We are adapting our world faster than we can adapt our bodies and our neurology. And so we're just not keeping pace with our own ambition, and that will be the death of us.

Tim · 41:56
I mean, is the burnout.

Mary · 41:57
Yeah. I will say I'm really fixated on this topic. This has been huge for me since before I quit my full-time gig at an agency in 2023, but certainly even before that. I think one of the tools we can use to get ourselves out of this hole that we've dug is ritual. And I mean that culturally, observing the same festival days or celebration days and intentionally taking days off where we can celebrate and be together, observing Milestones and marking them with experiences that can outweigh the traumatic experiences that your brain is trying to offload. Put more joy into the system. And even things like— I have friends— I'm an artist. I have friends who are artists and we make fun of the artist's way because it's kind of kitschy, but it can be a very valuable practice just to build a daily repeated thing that you do on purpose to tap back into yourself. And yeah, it helps you process, it helps you manage the inventory, so to speak, in your brain. I've seen a lot of content online about famous authors and their daily habits. I just read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, recommended to me by Jenn Maer, who was on a previous episode. And she talks about the craft and the practice of writing is returning every day and just doing a little bit. I like that. Small assignments, make it small for yourself. And you might accidentally do a big assignment and you might accidentally love what comes out of it.

Reggie · 43:25
Right.

Mary · 43:26
don't have to force the whole thing. Just force the first word. We're going to show up for ourselves today.

Reggie · 43:30
Love that.

Tim · 43:31
When you were talking, I was remembering there was a point at which— this is maybe when we first started working together. Nicole and I, my agency previously hired her out of college as a designer. And this was in a time in my life where I've spoken about it before, where I was having a midlife crisis, I guess, or an enlightening experience.

Mary · 43:50
Oh, before? That was before now?

Tim · 43:53
Yeah, well, maybe it continued. Maybe it's more like a season.

Mary · 43:56
I'm having my own midlife crisis.

Nicole · 43:57
I don't know.

Tim · 43:58
Did someone ever tell me that a midlife crisis can last like 10 to 15 years?

Reggie · 44:01
Season of midlife crisis. Oh, yikes. That's terrifying.

Tim · 44:05
But I mean, but I, I mean, I would always have existential crisis around my, my job, the things I was doing, my career. And I would come back to this, I would come back to this moment of trust in myself. that I would know what to do when the moment came.

Nicole · 44:21
Hmm.

Tim · 44:22
And I don't know where I developed— I know where I developed this, actually. There's actually a verse in the Bible that says, don't worry about what you will say. I will let you know. I'll give you the words to say when it needs to be said. And so I had this intuition in myself, and I don't see that as like a— I mean, it could be like channeling, but there is a, there is a piece of you that I believe was put there on purpose and that you have what you need for the experience you're going into. And I think now Especially with AI, trying to prep and to be that person, trying to extrinsically be that person instead of intrinsically trusting you already are. We've developed this fear that we're not going to have what we need. We're not going to be who we need to be in the moment when it arrives. Like, I'm not going to know enough, or I'm not going to remember this, or I'm not going to do this. And so we try to— we're trying to like pack it all in instead of being light, traveling light, and trusting that you're walking in the path where you'll have what you need when you get there.

Nicole · 45:16
Right.

Tim · 45:17
Like it's destined for you.

Reggie · 45:19
That's so funny because that made me think of a Bible— I don't know if it was a Bible verse, but something definitely from my earlier days of Christianity was the let go, let God. And it—

Tim · 45:29
have you heard that before?

Mary · 45:30
I remember that.

Reggie · 45:30
Take the wheel. And seriously, Jesus, take the wheel. Yeah. Like seriously, it got me through a lot of things when I was younger because you get pushed right up to this pressure point, and then you didn't see a way through, and then you relax and you, you think about that, let go, let God, and then somehow this opening would hit. That's so interesting.

Tim · 45:53
And they say that we project onto other people's experience.

Reggie · 45:55
Yeah.

Tim · 45:56
And you put a lot of manufactured fear into what if this happens.

Reggie · 46:00
Yeah.

Tim · 46:00
And it's like putting fear into the future and taking it on presently. So you're like, oh, that happened to them, if that ever happened to me, I would feel terrible and I would hate this and I could never do that. And so you create this shell around yourself to protect you so that that never happens to you. But what they say in a lot of psychological studies about therapy is that you going through it is a very different experience than watching someone else go through it. You have what you need to go through the things you go through, right? And you have to trust that, or else you'll be protecting yourself from every single thing that's about to happen in your life.

Reggie · 46:34
And those other suckers didn't have the resources resources.

Tim · 46:36
So, I mean, no, they do, because everyone is born with this built in them. They are prepared for what they're about to travel through, what they're about to travel through.

Reggie · 46:47
There's another Bible verse, like something to the effect of—

Tim · 46:49
Bring it, Reggie, preach.

Reggie · 46:51
God won't give you more than you can bear.

Tim · 46:52
Yeah.

Reggie · 46:53
So there's something to the, to the, um, the idea that regardless of how hard— like when you think, I mean, I mean, I think about it myself. Like, we had a kid with cancer. That was a big fucking deal. And when you think about it, like, when I think back about it, I'm like, how did we get through that? Like—

Tim · 47:14
And I think about it, I'm like, I can't imagine having to go through that.

Reggie · 47:16
Crazy, right? I was like, we had— and then I was the only person providing all the income for my whole family during that time. And so I was just like, but we did it. We got through it. Like, we— I had something in there and my wife had something in there that came out that That was what we needed in the moment and we got through it and now it's like it never happened to some degree.

Tim · 47:39
Yeah. There are studies about the streets that got bombed during World War II and it came out in this book called The Happiness Advantage. And they— what came out of this atrocious event brought a level of happiness and community to that group of people. They came out psychologically stronger and more connected than they were before they got bombed.

Mary · 48:01
I mean, we lived that in a way in western North Carolina.

Reggie · 48:05
Oh, Helene, yeah.

Nicole · 48:05
Yeah.

Reggie · 48:06
We definitely came out stronger on the other end.

Mary · 48:08
And you've got a million stories about people who maybe, maybe not knew their neighbors before the storm, but now they know names and they can—

Reggie · 48:16
They hang out together and they've created this culture of friendship within their communities.

Tim · 48:22
That's good.

Reggie · 48:23
So many great stories like that that came out of Helene, specifically because when you're thrown into this scenario where you're scared and you're lacking resources, it drives you to seek resources and connection. Like, connection is one of the most important and calming things when you're going through some kind of strife. And so I've heard— I heard a lot of those stories, as you know, because I was working on the project where I had to interview people, communities where— and there were those stories where somebody didn't know their next-door neighbor. And come on, I, I'm not trying to judge people, but—

Mary · 48:56
Reggie would never.

Reggie · 48:57
I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, you have somebody living in a, in a building right next to you for years and you barely know who they are.

Tim · 49:06
I would push back a little because I think we're meant— we are expected to know so much. Sometimes I don't learn things intentionally just because I have a lot that I have to hold in my head. And so I'll be like, unless they become a natural part of my life, like I'm seeing them on a regular basis or I intersect with them a lot, I'm not going to log that into my head because I have too much going on there and I don't need to have to remember. And then the expectation that I'll remember them, oh, that—

Reggie · 49:30
But here's the thing for me is like, these are people that are in your safety zone.

Tim · 49:34
I know, but how often do you see your neighbors?

Mary · 49:36
I never see my neighbors. I think you and I both have a little bit of what I'll call, for me, like small town trauma, where it's like I'm expected to know everyone and remember their kids' names and know what school they go to, and they're going to be surprised when I don't and disappointed, and I'm supposed to show up this way. I wonder if there's a little preacher's kid in there.

Reggie · 49:52
Well, maybe.

Mary · 49:53
I have a question. You brought up connection, and I was thinking about always-on and about how in my world that has typically come through email, Slack— I don't know if you all use other tools like that— and sometimes text messages. Although I think that with the advent of some other technology, texting is falling by the wayside for professional Like between colleagues at work. I still text my clients.

Reggie · 50:20
Like, I made the mistake of texting Mary last night. She's like, oh, he was like following up on those invoices.

Mary · 50:27
And I was like, it's 9:30.

Reggie · 50:29
And then when I texted Nicole at like 11, I was like, I'm so sorry.

Mary · 50:32
I was like, why is Tim texting me?

Tim · 50:33
Why is he texting me?

Reggie · 50:34
I'm so sorry.

Mary · 50:35
But I was like actively working on something else.

Reggie · 50:38
You were working?

Mary · 50:39
I was like in a meeting.

Reggie · 50:42
I thought you were with Alex watching a show or something like that.

Mary · 50:44
It was like too many things.

Reggie · 50:46
Now I don't feel so bad.

Mary · 50:47
Well, you're like always on the laptop.

Reggie · 50:49
I thought I was interrupting chill time. No, it should have been chill time.

Mary · 50:52
I think I was in the bath actually.

Reggie · 50:54
You know what I think I was doing? See, now that's—

Mary · 50:56
Multitasking my relaxation time.

Tim · 50:58
You were in the bath on the laptop?

Mary · 50:59
Oh, I like fast and loose, baby.

Tim · 51:02
Oh my goodness.

Mary · 51:03
It's tech.

Reggie · 51:04
That is an oxymoron. You're supposed to be relaxing.

Mary · 51:07
Not working, wow, whatever. But I, I can remember later—

Tim · 51:12
We're not worried about the computer, worried about you taking bath time.

Mary · 51:16
Oh, that—

Nicole · 51:17
yeah.

Reggie · 51:17
You say I had a relaxing working bath. Relaxing working bath, they do not belong in the same sentence.

Mary · 51:23
It's like my anxiety get— I get so tense that it's like I need to be in the bath to balance it out.

Reggie · 51:30
Is that your safe place?

Tim · 51:33
Footballers, they're like, how do we protect ourselves from ramming into each other? Let's put a helmet on.

Mary · 51:38
Yeah.

Tim · 51:38
And then we keep ramming each other.

Mary · 51:40
Literally the same.

Tim · 51:42
Let's work in the back. I can keep working even though my level's here.

Mary · 51:46
I mean, it's a performance thing, right? It's like, well, I want to perform at the peak.

Reggie · 51:49
Oh my God.

Mary · 51:49
So how do I adapt my world to make it work for me? But the point I was trying to make, or the question I was trying to pose, is born from this example I have from my New York agency days where working late was so of glorified. It was sort of like, oh yeah, we're all in this together.

Reggie · 52:05
You're dedicated because you're working.

Tim · 52:06
Got the badge. Yeah.

Mary · 52:07
And, but it was made better by the fact that other people might be working at the same time versus now I feel like there's a lot of individual work and yeah, we're not, we kind of resent meetings. Like as a culture, this meeting could have been an email is a big part of who we are. And so I'm curious, like, are there times when How does that play into your life these days? Are most of your design assignments things that you're working on by yourself and people are just asking you to transact and get you stuff, or are people trying to collaborate with you off hours? Oh, this is a good question.

Nicole · 52:45
I'm the only designer at my work, so it's always just me.

Mary · 52:50
And yeah, I find that to be very difficult.

Reggie · 52:53
It's like— You have a lot of— you're carrying a large weight. You have a lot to bear. Wow.

Tim · 52:58
How many personalities do you have in your head that you work with?

Mary · 53:00
Oh, several. One for each brand.

Tim · 53:03
She's like, I work with a team. They're just all up here.

Reggie · 53:05
Yeah.

Nicole · 53:06
That's what I think of when we put on the website, like, we have a team of designers. I'm like, it's me, myself, and I.

Reggie · 53:11
That's funny.

Tim · 53:12
Oh, what's the—

Reggie · 53:13
what's the cartoon with all the different emotions?

Nicole · 53:18
Um, oh, the like sadness scale?

Reggie · 53:20
Yeah. No, no.

Nicole · 53:21
What's the—

Reggie · 53:21
you're talking about a picture. Inside out. That's like you got your whole team of designers.

Mary · 53:27
We're gonna miss you.

Tim · 53:28
The one that's angry.

Reggie · 53:28
Yeah, the angry one, the boring one.

Nicole · 53:32
I do have like a good boundary one, I think now.

Reggie · 53:36
Yeah.

Mary · 53:36
Lots of therapy.

Reggie · 53:37
Yeah.

Nicole · 53:39
But who will be like, like I'll be working on something and like, I do think for design or like creative fields, you get so into it and everything suddenly feels so important. Oh yeah.

Mary · 53:49
Totally.

Reggie · 53:49
Right.

Nicole · 53:50
It's like, well, this is my livelihood and like people are counting on me Like, this is important.

Tim · 53:55
And then I'll have the boundary thing that's like, does any of it actually matter?

Reggie · 54:03
Yeah.

Nicole · 54:03
I'll be like, does this really matter? I'll be getting so upset about the secondary font should be this on this thing and you have it wrong.

Tim · 54:09
It's ruined.

Nicole · 54:09
And then the voice in my head will go like, it doesn't matter. I'm like, you know what?

Reggie · 54:13
You're right.

Nicole · 54:13
It doesn't actually, it doesn't matter. It's fine.

Tim · 54:16
That only gets worse the longer you do this because you're like, you know, really, what does matter? It's gonna be redesigned in 2 months anyway.

Reggie · 54:23
2 months anyway.

Nicole · 54:23
It's fine and healthy though.

Reggie · 54:25
And who says that? I feel that, Nicole. That totally took me back to those times where I was solopreneur, pushing myself up against the grain there. And I always have this anxiety of like, oh my God, tomorrow's gonna be so busy. I've got all these things to get done. And And then the day would happen and either a client that I needed to show something to asked if we could push it back a day or a week or whatever, or something shakes loose. And then I start realizing all the other things that I had made so important, like, this is so important, all start to seem less important. And I had more time and space. I'm like, why do I do this to myself?

Tim · 55:11
Yeah.

Reggie · 55:11
And so that's when I really started to like develop that, like, do a little bit at a time, make progress, you know, have those dopamine hits from actually accomplishing little bits at a time. And then you have more, like, of you left at the end of the day. Those days where I would be, like, chomping through stuff all day long, I would be completely—

Tim · 55:32
Wasted.

Reggie · 55:33
Wasted. At the end of the day, I'm like, oh, why do I do this?

Nicole · 55:37
I don't like feeling like a cop. Like, sometimes you're, like, an in-house designer, you feel like the design cop. Yeah.

Reggie · 55:44
Oh yeah.

Nicole · 55:44
Like, you have to follow the brand guide.

Reggie · 55:46
Right, right, right, right.

Mary · 55:47
That's wrong.

Nicole · 55:48
Like, you're using the wrong logo for the company. That's not the right one.

Reggie · 55:51
And then I just have to be like, like, yeah, take a step back and be like, I'm like, it's really them.

Tim · 55:58
Brand cop. I love that title.

Mary · 56:00
I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say something that maybe people will get offended by, but people—

Tim · 56:05
Say it right to the camera.

Reggie · 56:06
I'm already offended.

Mary · 56:07
People love to be told what to do. They don't want to read your brand guide. They want you to personally look at every piece of material they make and have a conversation and hold their hand and make eye contact and say, maybe you used the wrong logo, maybe use a different logo here. Instead of, you came and pushed the design button, I gave you brand guidelines without you having to actually do anything, and now you won't even read the brand guidelines and use them. You're still going to lean on me as your human companion.

Reggie · 56:32
They just need 2 minutes of training.

Nicole · 56:34
They're going to chat me personally and say, can you send me the logo file?

Tim · 56:37
How many times do I have to say this?

Reggie · 56:39
May I have the logo file?

Nicole · 56:40
And I'm like, what do you need it for? And you know. What do you need it for?

Reggie · 56:44
Right, right.

Nicole · 56:45
You're not giving me context.

Mary · 56:46
And that's one job you could perform, right? Like, if I was being paid to hold knowledge and give it out gently and calmly, that could work. It's a lot of care work. It's a lot of—

Nicole · 56:56
That's a job for an AI robot that I will be making at some point that'll just be like me. And it'll, I'll be like, you can message Robot Nicole and she will send you the AI file. I think people want that.

Mary · 57:06
It's a little Nicole sparkle. I don't think it's— I think even if you made the AI, people would still like come around the AI.

Reggie · 57:12
Need the Nicole sparkle.

Mary · 57:14
I just think that our presence—

Nicole · 57:15
I could be like, add a little sass when you're—

Tim · 57:17
Oh yeah, there you go.

Mary · 57:18
Too calm.

Reggie · 57:19
Just a hint of sass.

Nicole · 57:21
Yeah, get a little bit of an attitude.

Tim · 57:23
Imagine your hair is dyed pink.

Reggie · 57:24
Oh, I love it.

Mary · 57:26
Put on your gemstone headphones and tell them what for. I just think that I think that we keep pretending, we keep lying to ourselves and saying that brand can be written down. It's this artifact. We can analyze our way into truth about it. And the reality is it's a lived experience and it is held in someone's body. I'll bet you look at stuff and you have like a gut feeling before you can tell them what they did wrong. You're like, oh, that's not right.

Nicole · 57:49
It's not right.

Reggie · 57:50
Yeah.

Tim · 57:50
But isn't that the scourge of us? Like, is anyone else out in the world even caring that much? They're like, they changed. I'll say this to my kids, they changed their design. They're like, really? I'm like, okay, maybe I'm the only one seeing this stuff.

Nicole · 58:01
It is a like pick your battles kind of thing. Like if you're married or in a relationship, some of them have to be like, what's the threshold where like I will say something about it? And what do I just have to like let it go?

Tim · 58:11
Let it lie.

Reggie · 58:12
Let it slide. I now want to see an episode of Inside Out with Nicole as the designer and all her little emotions in there. And the anger guy's like, look at that kerning. Look at the kerning.

Tim · 58:22
It looks I've got to tell them about that.

Nicole · 58:24
This is why we shouldn't have given them Canva. That's what we're saying, Brian.

Tim · 58:27
Oh my goodness. Canva.

Reggie · 58:30
Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Tim · 58:32
We might offend some if we talk down on Canva. People are like so empowered by Canva.

Reggie · 58:36
Yeah, they are.

Nicole · 58:37
And to tie it back to the always on, like, always on tools like Canva have helped pick the battles of like, well, I don't want to be always on. So if I can set up some nice little templates or things for people to mostly use correctly. When I have more time off, then I'm like, that's a battle I'm going to win. That's a win.

Reggie · 58:57
That's a win. I think that's a win. You got to find your wins wherever you can.

Mary · 59:00
I just feel, to your point, Tim, about is it even worth it? Does anybody even notice these things? I do think everybody in this room right now is more sensitive to that stuff. And I mean that word in the good ways and the bad Sometimes we're sensitive to things that maybe in the grand scheme don't matter, but we are paid to have that sensitivity and that sense of connection to the work and to be attuned to how if you do use a weird kerning or like the wrong secondary type, it creates a different feeling. And that might not be the feeling that we want to present as a company. So we are artists and craftsmen in that way.

Nicole · 59:38
Mm-hmm.

Mary · 59:39
And the fact that we pretend like some document is going We pretend like it's this analytical thing that other people are going to be able to read a guidelines document and do. It's like we're putting them in the 101 course when actually you just want the professor to come lecture. No offense.

Nicole · 59:55
It's interesting that you say that though, because in an in-house situation for me, because I work as an in-house designer right now, that you're working on things from as big as the website and things that everybody is going to be seeing to little things like little documents or like a small social media post.

Mary · 1:00:13
Scale.

Nicole · 1:00:14
And what I have to tell myself so that I'm okay with this balance—

Tim · 1:00:18
Is this me, myself, or I saying this?

Mary · 1:00:19
I.

Tim · 1:00:21
I is saying to myself.

Nicole · 1:00:22
I, of like, if the brand that I've built is so shaky that one small error on a social media post is going to disturb the whole system, then I have not built a very strong brand.

Reggie · 1:00:32
You have not built a strong brand. Very good point.

Tim · 1:00:34
So I have to be like, So you get hard on yourself then? You're like, it's my fault.

Nicole · 1:00:38
Oh yeah. Well, like, I also went to an art school, so they're very like intense. And it's very like, what was drilled into me was like, you are only as good as the last thing that you made.

Tim · 1:00:49
Always on. Speaking of always on.

Mary · 1:00:52
Oh yeah.

Nicole · 1:00:54
Or like something that like haunts me a lot is the term of like, yeah, that you're only as good the last thing you made. But also, when you finish a project, nobody is going to see all of the constraints or issues. They're only going to see the final product.

Reggie · 1:01:09
Right, exactly.

Nicole · 1:01:11
You're not going to be there to stand next to them to be like, well, I ran out of time, and like the client said this and I didn't get to do it.

Reggie · 1:01:16
Like, they're not actually going to see your progression of ideas and execution.

Mary · 1:01:21
Yeah, especially when you're in design, commercial design, and you're really there to, of course, you're imbuing the work with your own style and experience and whatever. It's great that you have a degree that they can employ, but at the end of the day, it's somebody else's sort of vision for where it's going. And so I think you can't— not you specifically, but one can't carry all that baggage, because I definitely have produced work that I was not particularly proud of because of the constraints or challenging relationships or poor communication.

Nicole · 1:01:55
It happens. Yeah.

Mary · 1:01:57
haunting, to use your word. You've got like a poltergeist following you saying, be great.

Nicole · 1:02:03
Well, there is someone of like, well, if you just spent like a couple more hours working on that, then like the finished product might be better and then you wouldn't have this thought. And I'm like, well, you know, that mountain's getting bigger and bigger, right?

Tim · 1:02:13
You just keep climbing it.

Nicole · 1:02:14
Yeah.

Tim · 1:02:14
And it keeps growing.

Nicole · 1:02:15
Or you just have to be like, well, what also makes me feel better is that when it's done and in store and then I text everybody I know secretly and I'm like, this is in the store, like, go look at it. And they're all just like, it looks amazing. thing. And I'm like, in my brain, I'm like, well, the other like iterations back, like they didn't go with was so much better.

Tim · 1:02:32
Yeah.

Nicole · 1:02:32
But they're like, I don't, I don't see that. I see this and it looks great.

Tim · 1:02:36
So what's the problem?

Nicole · 1:02:38
Well, I guess there's not a problem.

Reggie · 1:02:39
I had a phase.

Tim · 1:02:40
Yeah. Do they pay us? Oh, sorry, Rich, you go ahead. You started first.

Reggie · 1:02:43
It's a quick thought. I just had, I had a phase where I was so annoyed with seeing people taking fonts and turning them into logos with like no, like, deconstruction.

Tim · 1:02:56
No, no problem. I love that. No, it's American Apparel.

Nicole · 1:02:59
They just did Helvetica.

Reggie · 1:03:00
I have a problem with that. I feel like you gotta do something to it.

Tim · 1:03:03
No, you don't.

Reggie · 1:03:04
Because otherwise anybody else can go get that same font and make your logo.

Tim · 1:03:08
They don't have the same experience, the same products.

Mary · 1:03:10
They can do that anyway. And I definitely can let them do that.

Reggie · 1:03:13
So I had a phase where I would like show my progression, where I would show like the that in my actual pitch, I would show the font that I started with and show how it changed into this different thing that worked. And when I look back at it, it's kind of silly in the grand scheme of things.

Mary · 1:03:33
People love to see that.

Reggie · 1:03:34
Like, I would hope they would appreciate, but most, to your point, I think what the end user, the client, the person you're designing it for, they don't care about any of that. They just want the end result. And so while I'm nerding out on how I did this really beautiful transition of this font into this beautiful logotype or this mark, they're just like, oh, that looks really good, period.

Tim · 1:03:58
Hand it off to our marketing team.

Reggie · 1:03:59
We can roll with it. That's it.

Tim · 1:04:01
Yeah, it's like, yes, bring it on. They didn't care about any of the other stuff that came before that.

Reggie · 1:04:05
And I'm like, wow.

Mary · 1:04:06
I think that— but that to me—

Reggie · 1:04:08
I wanted to come back to what you were gonna say though.

Mary · 1:04:10
I just think—

Tim · 1:04:11
Do it, Mary, do it.

Mary · 1:04:14
I'm also on the camp of like—

Reggie · 1:04:16
You're in the queue.

Mary · 1:04:17
Yeah, I'm also in the camp of logo's a logo. It just exists to serve a purpose. That can be a way that it serves its purpose if it's just a typeface. But I think it comes back to the push-button get design culture that we live in. And so I am fascinated, and I know many clients that I've iPad who would be fascinated with seeing your progression in your journey. It's like seeing inside your mind for a moment. And if you started with a base font and then you worked your way out—

Reggie · 1:04:45
Only designers.

Mary · 1:04:47
Well, that's not true. That's not true.

Nicole · 1:04:50
Craft people.

Tim · 1:04:50
Craft people. Maybe your clients are makers.

Mary · 1:04:53
I think high-level marketers also appreciate the journey to get there, and it's actually very, very helpful if we're trying to collaborate something, for me to see multiple steps in your process, because I might not agree with the final place that you landed, but I'll be with you from step 3.

Reggie · 1:05:07
I'll try to understand how I got there.

Mary · 1:05:08
I'm like, what if at step 3, instead of doing this, you did that? And then we can connect better.

Tim · 1:05:13
I hate redoing step 3. Never stop on step 3.

Reggie · 1:05:15
Never stop on step 3.

Mary · 1:05:16
I'm— well, I just mean to say that—

Reggie · 1:05:18
Don't ever do it.

Mary · 1:05:18
That you open yourself up. It's very vulnerable for one, but you open yourself up for deeper connection, relationship, and collaboration.

Nicole · 1:05:27
by doing a little bit of that.

Mary · 1:05:29
And it does disappoint me that many people don't want to hear about the process because I think that's where the magic happens. And so now I'm learning that maybe 40 Hearts is only a brand for nerds. We need to just be real with that.

Reggie · 1:05:41
Nerds are cool.

Tim · 1:05:42
I like nerds.

Reggie · 1:05:42
I'm a nerd.

Tim · 1:05:43
I was never a nerd, but I like nerds. My son's a nerd and I love it.

Reggie · 1:05:47
I'm totally a nerd.

Mary · 1:05:47
I'm really sorry to tell you this.

Tim · 1:05:49
I've always been a nerd.

Mary · 1:05:49
You're now a nerd.

Reggie · 1:05:50
I don't think—

Nicole · 1:05:51
You're definitely a nerd.

Tim · 1:05:51
I think I've always been a nerd.

Reggie · 1:05:52
I think you've just I've definitely always been a nerd.

Mary · 1:05:54
I mean, it gets a bad rap.

Reggie · 1:05:56
We're friends because you're a nerd.

Mary · 1:05:57
People assume you're a Poindexter about it and you're at your computer studying whatever. I'm a big sci-fi fan and that was the first thing that came into my mind. But nerdy takes you to a certain category and you're not necessarily in that category, but design and philosophy around new media, you're a really big nerd, my friend.

Tim · 1:06:19
Big fat nerd.

Reggie · 1:06:20
Yeah. Big fat nerd.

Tim · 1:06:22
Well, I was gonna say, you had said something earlier.

Mary · 1:06:24
His toes.

Reggie · 1:06:26
You can't touch your toes.

Tim · 1:06:27
You know, I can actually look.

Mary · 1:06:29
No, I stopped.

Reggie · 1:06:29
No, that doesn't count.

Tim · 1:06:31
No.

Reggie · 1:06:32
Stand up.

Tim · 1:06:32
Okay, let me try it.

Mary · 1:06:33
My family was trying to listen to this episode. I say trying.

Tim · 1:06:37
Nope, I can't.

Mary · 1:06:38
Because they said I couldn't listen to the obesity episode.

Nicole · 1:06:41
And I was like—

Tim · 1:06:41
Who said that?

Mary · 1:06:42
My family.

Reggie · 1:06:43
What did they say?

Mary · 1:06:44
They're like, it's hard to listen Wait, what did you say?

Tim · 1:06:46
My wife said the same thing. She was like, I wish I could have been there to like say some stuff. We had, we had pulled obesity and were not—

Reggie · 1:06:53
That was such a cool episode though.

Tim · 1:06:54
Wait, wait, first I'm gonna get off topic.

Mary · 1:06:56
I'm sorry.

Tim · 1:06:56
Unless that was going somewhere. Was that like your nerd statement? Nerdy?

Mary · 1:06:59
I was just— you were calling yourself a big fat nerd and I was like, he's not a big—

Tim · 1:07:02
No, I guess I don't mean like that in that way. I mean, she's like, I don't know what I mean.

Nicole · 1:07:08
Okay.

Tim · 1:07:08
What I was gonna say before, yeah, is that Mary said something about they pay us for this. And you were connecting to that, to the emotional connection to what we do.

Reggie · 1:07:15
Yeah.

Tim · 1:07:16
And I don't know that people pay us to be emotionally connected to it. That's the part I've been struggling with, is that I just had this conversation with someone at Reggie's pool party who had worked for government work and helped out with Health.gov and these different cool redesigns during the Obama era. And what it came down to is that the people getting these projects are really good at getting projects. They're good at the, like, the first part of it, you know, like the contracts and the, um, the RFPs.

Mary · 1:07:47
Saying the right thing.

Tim · 1:07:49
They've got like all the law legalese around it. They can, they're like really good and they get paid to get the project and then they just hire whoever to get it done. That's like a second, it's like a second part of the process.

Mary · 1:08:03
We'll worry about that when we've landed the project.

Tim · 1:08:05
It's not very important, you know?

Reggie · 1:08:06
Right.

Tim · 1:08:07
Let's just get the Yeah, just send him down the line. And he was having an issue with this because he really cares about the end user's experience.

Reggie · 1:08:16
Yeah.

Tim · 1:08:17
But that doesn't get the job.

Reggie · 1:08:19
Right.

Tim · 1:08:20
He doesn't get paid to care.

Reggie · 1:08:21
Right.

Tim · 1:08:22
He gets paid to get the— he gets paid when he gets a job. And I'm thinking, when do we get paid?

Reggie · 1:08:27
We should stop caring.

Tim · 1:08:28
Do we get paid because we care? No, we're doing this podcast because we care, but we're not getting paid.

Reggie · 1:08:32
Right.

Mary · 1:08:33
And that, I think, is a basic flaw in our, in our society. I also think that people don't realize it, but they do want that.

Nicole · 1:08:41
I think people want that.

Mary · 1:08:42
We are being reduced down to a transaction or an image. But the reality is, and we will start to see this more and more as people start churning stuff out with AI, we're looking for somebody, as if anybody could replace Will, but we're looking for somebody to do our editing here on the podcast. And I can't tell you how many people have approached me like bots writing to our email.

Reggie · 1:09:02
Just had somebody from Bangladesh. Connect with me on LinkedIn. It's just—

Tim · 1:09:06
I think we opened ourselves up to a—

Mary · 1:09:08
I mean, we had to get some leads pouring in somehow, but I think that the reality is we do want people to care, particularly the people who are making things. We just haven't figured out how to make our economy support that, and care work is not very valuable right now. I got on the soapbox a couple episodes ago, but I think that we are going to shift back that way. I don't know.

Tim · 1:09:30
Fundamentally, you're correct. Like, the Steve Jobs story is enough to settle the fact that everyone wants, someone who cares. Steve Jobs is notoriously over-obsessed with how the end user would experience his products. But how do you—

Reggie · 1:09:43
Missed that.

Tim · 1:09:43
—develop— I missed it too. How do you develop that and actually survive in a world that's so largely against the caring about it? It is an individual decision. Yeah, because he made the move, and you wonder how he survived through making the move, because when you make the move, you put yourself out there. And you're not getting any return on it. You could easily just run hard and just get the projects and then push it. And I've had this thought. I'm not gonna— I'm gonna admit it to you now, but I've had this thought. If I could just let go and not care, we could succeed.

Mary · 1:10:14
Yeah. Oh, I've had that thought.

Tim · 1:10:16
I have felt like I'm the problem here because I care too much. Like, I am the clog in this, whatever this is, because I care. If I would just not care, like everyone else out there putting out bullshit, at work, then we could just start rolling, just start getting stuff happening, just put it out there. And so that makes me go to my punk rock vibe where I'm like, yeah, just put it out there. Like photocopy something taped onto a paper and that's good enough. Like that—

Reggie · 1:10:39
Is that our new motto is we don't care. Let's just do that.

Tim · 1:10:43
40 Hearts, we could care less.

Reggie · 1:10:45
Yeah, we could care less. I love that.

Tim · 1:10:48
We could care less.

Mary · 1:10:50
There's a lower degree of caring that I could give you. I'm gonna go on record and say this, and I can't wait for this artifact to prove me right. I think we're just gonna have little like time capsules of Mary being right that we'll come back and celebrate.

Tim · 1:11:02
The Mary Wright Podcast.

Mary · 1:11:04
But I— hopefully, I'm gonna knock on wood— I think that the sooner you can really commit— you're saying this to us all the time— the sooner you can really commit to the raw version, to the scary, this might be shit version, the sooner you will get free and the faster things will start to happen for us. And between you and Reggie's level of polish that he requires to get things out the door, we will meet in the middle somewhere. And I'm sort of like, does it work? Okay, great, let's do it. So I think that you're not the clog in the machine, but you might be in your own way sometimes. You know more than you actually—

Tim · 1:11:39
That's a nice way to let me down.

Nicole · 1:11:40
Well, I was going to say, I think even I have worked with Tim 10 years ago now, and you were saying the same thing.

Reggie · 1:11:48
Okay.

Nicole · 1:11:50
I'd be like, yeah, you're right.

Tim · 1:11:54
I imagine she's hearing wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. I think it's about caring though.

Mary · 1:11:59
I think it's about trusting that you have what you need for this moment and you don't have to work so hard.

Tim · 1:12:04
Right. That's what I just said and I'm not even—

Reggie · 1:12:07
Think about it. We could lead with you could care less. We could care less. You know why? Because it can be said 2 ways. We could care less, but we don't. Like that. Yeah, we could care less.

Mary · 1:12:19
Well, there's a balance.

Nicole · 1:12:20
I found that, like, I really, like, am bad at this sometimes, but I have to read the room of, like, with the person, of, like, the level that they seem to care about this project, because I will match that frequency.

Reggie · 1:12:32
Yeah, yeah, you'll match.

Nicole · 1:12:33
You're just like, I just want this thing really quick, and, like, timing is is the most important thing to me, then I'm like, all right, then we'll—

Reggie · 1:12:40
yeah, that happened to me back in the solo days where a client was like not in a hurry. They're not getting you the stuff when you need it. And so, but of course when they get it to you, they want it done yesterday. But I've already adjusted to their level of not giving a damn. So they would send me something a week late and I'm like, well, I'm gonna take a little longer to get back to you.

Tim · 1:13:00
Return the favor.

Reggie · 1:13:01
And I started noticing I was like, this is not how I normally work, but man, I totally brought myself down to their level of care.

Tim · 1:13:07
Or is there another industry where people do get paid to care?

Mary · 1:13:11
Hmm. Good question. There absolutely is.

Nicole · 1:13:14
I can, like, at least for me, I feel like people like my work pays me to care about the brand.

Tim · 1:13:19
Yeah. Yeah. To some extent. But isn't it so—

Reggie · 1:13:20
Because you're an in-house designer and you have one brand that you have to actually focus on. You're shepherd of this one brand.

Nicole · 1:13:28
Yeah, but if it gets to a point where that caring is in conflict with a timeline or something getting done, then it's like—

Reggie · 1:13:36
The care goes out the window.

Nicole · 1:13:37
Yeah, then like—

Mary · 1:13:38
You want me to care to a point.

Nicole · 1:13:40
Right. Yeah, they don't want me to be like too much of a nerd about it.

Tim · 1:13:44
Yeah, yeah. Let it go, Nicole.

Nicole · 1:13:46
Yeah, like if you meet someone who's like, oh, I love Star Wars, and then they're like, do you remember in that scene when this thing happened?

Reggie · 1:13:51
Oh, I know, there's a level of nerd that you're like—

Nicole · 1:13:53
Oh yeah, that's what I wanted.

Tim · 1:13:55
I don't remember that moment.

Reggie · 1:13:57
Yeah, I was gonna say, that's, that's way too much nerd for me.

Nicole · 1:14:00
Being a lot right now.

Mary · 1:14:01
Let's just like celebrate that and be like, no, but I'm so glad. Thank you for sharing that.

Reggie · 1:14:05
Yeah, thank you.

Mary · 1:14:06
I'm—

Reggie · 1:14:07
And we can coast it in because I want to bring that guy over.

Mary · 1:14:09
Oh, I, I was just about to say, is there anything we can— is—

Reggie · 1:14:13
what's the hope? Are we bringing it back?

Mary · 1:14:15
Like, what, what hope is there?

Tim · 1:14:16
Care less, keep moving. I'm just kidding.

Mary · 1:14:20
It does.

Tim · 1:14:21
Shut the laptop shell. Maybe that's the lesson here. Yeah.

Nicole · 1:14:25
Yeah.

Mary · 1:14:25
Close the laptop and maybe like care about the other stuff in your life that makes you you as much as you care about the work that you're selling for somebody else's gain. I don't know. Take breaks.

Tim · 1:14:35
Here's something. When I think back on projects, I don't care about them. It's the weirdest thing.

Reggie · 1:14:41
He really doesn't.

Tim · 1:14:42
Years later.

Reggie · 1:14:43
Until it's done and then it's done. I don't care.

Tim · 1:14:46
When you look back, it was the most important thing in my life to get this done and make it be perfect and make everything solid. And then you look back and you're like, why was this such a big deal?

Reggie · 1:14:55
You're like, what website?

Tim · 1:14:56
I gave my blood.

Nicole · 1:14:58
Like, go to the future Tim.

Mary · 1:14:59
Right?

Nicole · 1:15:00
I was like, Tim 5 years from now, care so much about this one specific thing.

Tim · 1:15:06
So that's my new personality in my head is future Tim.

Reggie · 1:15:08
You need a line to the future not caring Tim so that you can channel it While you're in the midst of the project. I like this.

Mary · 1:15:14
Very Capricornian. I think that we can work on that.

Reggie · 1:15:17
Capricornian. Yeah. I saw that movie.

Mary · 1:15:20
It does. It feels important that we mark today as actually sort of a sad day for the podcast, but we celebrate what's about to happen in the life of our friend and colleague, Will.

Tim · 1:15:33
Oh, you're gonna be so cozy in that one.

Mary · 1:15:35
Yeah. Snuggle in here. in here, bro. Yay. Um, I, I'm glad that we got to share this on camera.

Tim · 1:15:43
William.

Reggie · 1:15:44
Will, what's the thing you're going to miss the most about us? Don't put me on the spot like that.

Mary · 1:15:50
No, you've got to come up with something that you love about each of us individually, and it can't be Tim's blue eyes.

Reggie · 1:15:55
Sorry.

Nicole · 1:15:56
Oh, all right, it's my face.

Reggie · 1:15:59
I stare at Will too. I like that you are always bringing I'm just kidding. Oh, well, I'm gonna do it. You've got like crazy optimism and crazy huge ideas and you're always swinging for big, big shit. Yeah, so we'll see how that goes. I mean, it like, it works out and sometimes I'm like, this guy's fucking crazy.

Mary · 1:16:17
We mostly just debate timelines. Like, I actually— him only has brilliant ideas, they just don't always work on the timeline that we need them to work. So we gotta play the short term and the long term.

Reggie · 1:16:31
Your energy and attitude is awesome. And it's been really fun coming to work every week over here. Mary, I don't have anything to say.

Mary · 1:16:39
I love that.

Reggie · 1:16:40
Mary, you're not what I wanted. I know, I know. We'll deal with that in a couple weeks when I leave.

Mary · 1:16:46
Will and I have been friends for a long time and we've seen a lot of things in each other's lives. I cannot believe you actually did that exercise.

Nicole · 1:16:54
Thank you so much.

Tim · 1:16:55
I'm gonna embarrass you. What are you gonna miss about Nicole?

Reggie · 1:17:00
I liked your thoughts on Always On because that is the extent of my knowledge. Appreciate what you had to say. Mary, thanks for bringing Will into the world.

Mary · 1:17:11
I bring you the best people. I mean, between that and I think we've had some excellent collaboration on this podcast.

Reggie · 1:17:19
Friends for life.

Mary · 1:17:21
It's not gonna feel the same. And I say that as the people who sit here in this room, and probably if anybody ever watches this all the way through, or if you—

Tim · 1:17:31
Last episode, people were watching.

Mary · 1:17:32
Really? Hey, thanks for being here. I— please don't leave when Will leaves. We really need you. Yeah, but I do think you added like a special magic to the podcast, and it definitely got us through. Like, you are part the trajectory of this. It would not have been what it was without you coming in when you did and being respectful of the crazy unconventional ideas, but adding so much. And yeah, I'm secretly hoping that we'll get you back somehow. But in the meantime, I'm happy that you're happy and that you're gonna do awesome things, and we will brag about you when, when you're gone.

Reggie · 1:18:09
100%.

Mary · 1:18:10
Posted on what you're doing.

Reggie · 1:18:11
And I will say that Will, you have brought— not only did you bring good energy, good— yeah, yeah, you're in the hot seat. Good energy, humor. You were our source of truth off, just off-screen. You were, and you leveled up our production with your dedication to solving problems and adding the little touches. Thank you.

Mary · 1:18:42
And I think we need to go on record and say that Will had a number of incredible recommendations about how to further increase the quality and polish of our production, and we said no. So when you're showing, you know, your portfolio reel, you don't have to show the whole Aged podcast, but you can just show this little clip where we brag on you.

Reggie · 1:19:02
We said no.

Mary · 1:19:03
Yeah, we said, can't do that. We're doing I'm the raw version, the punk rock version.

Tim · 1:19:07
I do appreciate that about you, Will. You roll with it and you bring yourself to it and you have a good head for adapting to whatever the vision is that you're inside of. And that's been enjoyable to work with you in this situation, through the unknown, through the problems we had, and working together felt so Right. Where friendly, in some situations where there's issues, it gets hostile in this industry and it wasn't ever hostile with you. It felt like family.

Reggie · 1:19:41
Yeah.

Tim · 1:19:42
I appreciate that about you.

Reggie · 1:19:42
Love that. I'm going to go now before y'all keep—

Mary · 1:19:48
Will could cry. I think Will could cry if we kept going. I'm definitely going to cry when Will leaves.

Tim · 1:19:54
Under your belly button. Oh no, it's under your It's under your— he's lost his magnet for the back of his microphone. What do you mean? Oh, if— look under your butt. Stand up a second.

Mary · 1:20:09
Do this. Oh, it's under your butt. So this has been H the Podcast. Thank you for joining us. Nicole, thank you so much for being here. Yes.

Reggie · 1:20:18
I want to— Special episode.

Mary · 1:20:20
We didn't get to dish about past Tim as much as I was hoping She brought it up.

Tim · 1:20:24
I have not changed. I don't know if that's encouraging or discouraging.

Mary · 1:20:27
I mean, consistency is valuable.

Nicole · 1:20:29
Yeah, true.

Mary · 1:20:30
Yeah. We know that this is a huge chunk of time. We know that this is a weird kind of podcast. We know that our room is a little echoey and that our walls are kind of shadowy and that it's weird to see our full bodies and that we're sitting on these interesting little benches.

Nicole · 1:20:46
You're welcome.

Mary · 1:20:47
You're welcome.

Tim · 1:20:49
You're welcome.

Mary · 1:20:50
I don't know if anybody noticed her badass shoes.

Tim · 1:20:52
I love those.

Mary · 1:20:53
Those are badass shoes. And also like the— this tattoo that looks like a chicken foot with a candle.

Tim · 1:20:59
That's the one I was looking at. Can you explain that really fast?

Nicole · 1:21:01
Do you mind?

Mary · 1:21:01
Yeah, what is it?

Nicole · 1:21:02
Nothing about it.

Tim · 1:21:02
Nothing? What gave you that idea? It's killer.

Nicole · 1:21:05
Oh, it was pre-drawn, and I was— while she was tattooing it, I was like, does this mean something?

Tim · 1:21:10
And she was like, I could care less.

Mary · 1:21:13
She was like, this is a signal to people like Mary in the future, like, that's my people. Anyway, we're doing this a weird way and we know that. And a lot of people get really confused and we can understand why you would. The people that I talk to get really confused. A lot of people assume we don't know what a podcast is like. And we all listen to podcasts. We enjoy podcasts.

Reggie · 1:21:37
So many podcasts.

Mary · 1:21:38
We are laying a long-term bet. here that when the AI overlords take over, the stuff that's going to feel meaningful to people, the things that are making us feel actually connected in the world of the internet, are going to be the things that we can tell a human put their heart into and somebody cared. That's why we do it the weird way. Thank you for your patience with us as we figure out what our weird way is. We will see you next week.

Tim · 1:22:04
Yes.

Mary · 1:22:05
Have a great week. Have a great time in the meantime.

Tim · 1:22:08
Bye.

Reggie · 1:22:08
Bye, guys. Thanks for being here.

Mary · 1:22:10
Oh, I think I'm just gonna get on that soapbox every time at the end of every episode and be like—

Reggie · 1:22:16
Thanks for listening. This podcast was created and developed by our hosts, Reggie Tidwell, Tim Scroggs, and Mary Greene. Special thanks to our guest, Nicole Thiel. Produced by Tim Scroggs. Live production and editing by me, Will Special thanks to Dylan Garcia. Today's episode is presented lovingly by 40 Hearts, creators of enduring value.

Mary · 1:22:41
I'm sorry that I brought you into this.

Reggie · 1:22:48
This is good stuff.

Tim · 1:22:50
It's not like getting connected humans. So, um, like I was saying over there, this is just a podcast to be yourself, and whatever you bring here Today, everything your life has amounted to, all you know, is all you have right now.

Mary · 1:23:03
Said another way, you can't do anything wrong.

Nicole · 1:23:05
You can't get any worse.

Reggie · 1:23:06
You're exactly where you started.

Mary · 1:23:07
You're in this moment right now.

Tim · 1:23:08
Yeah, no one's prepared. There are no notes, there's no topic. It's, it's us. And don't be unafraid.

Reggie · 1:23:17
Yeah, say whatever you want.

Mary · 1:23:18
And if you fall, we'll catch you.

Tim · 1:23:19
Yeah, that's right. We also call this the oven, so if you have a random idea Or a random thought, we'll cook it together.

Mary · 1:23:26
Half-baked?

Tim · 1:23:27
Anything half-baked can be cooked here. All right, so we start off with a little squeeze. I'm gonna squeeze Reggie, and then we're gonna go around the circle, and then we'll get into like a little—

Mary · 1:23:35
And you squeeze the tummy. There you go. I do that all the time.

Tim · 1:23:39
It's hard to get the coordination.

Nicole · 1:23:40
But we're like—

Reggie · 1:23:42
I'm gonna pray for you.

Mary · 1:23:43
We're getting it, we're getting it.

Tim · 1:23:44
Once you get the rhythm, you'll feel it.

Nicole · 1:23:46
Yeah.

Reggie · 1:23:49
You're gonna take a big breath in.

Tim · 1:23:55
Sorry, I'm gonna get some of my coffee.

Mary · 1:23:56
Coffee in this whole episode, baby.

Reggie · 1:23:59
All right, we get one more cup.

Mary · 1:24:01
We've got a shakedown.

Tim · 1:24:02
And Mary's gonna lead this one. This is a shakedown.

Mary · 1:24:04
This is because we get all sweaty. This is not a fun place for people to watch starting a podcast. So it's a shakedown. It's gonna go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Arm, arm, leg, leg. Ready? 1, 2, ready, go! 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Tim · 1:24:17
5, 4, 3, 2, 1. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Mary · 1:24:20
4, 3, 2, 1. 4, 3, 2, 1.

Reggie · 1:24:22
4, 3, 2, 1. 4, 3, 2, 1.

Tim · 1:24:23
3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1.

Reggie · 1:24:24
3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1.

Tim · 1:24:25
3, 2, 1.

Reggie · 1:24:26
3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1.

Nicole · 1:24:27
3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1.

Reggie · 1:24:28
3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1.

Tim · 1:24:28
3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1.

Reggie · 1:24:28
3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1.