Digital Boundaries

Kathleen Shannon 0:00
Hey Emily, guess what I'm looking forward to

Emily Thompson 0:04
if I had to guess I'd say your next meal all through that.

Kathleen Shannon 0:08
But even more than that I'm looking forward to our annual being boss vacation in New Orleans.

Emily Thompson 0:13
Same. We still have a handful of tickets left. So if you've been wanting to join us on our annual being boss vacation in New Orleans and consider this you're signed to join us for a live podcast recording, masterclasses and workshops, and an epic Abbas celebration and more with me, Kathleen and your creative peers from all over the world

Kathleen Shannon 0:35
in the most magical city in the world, right?

Emily Thompson 0:39
Yes.

Kathleen Shannon 0:40
All right. The being boss vacation is happening September 26. To the 28th in New Orleans. Go to being boss club slash Nola. For all the details.

Emily Thompson 0:50
We hope to see you there.

Kathleen Shannon 0:55
Hello, and welcome to being boss,

Emily Thompson 0:57
a podcast for creative entrepreneurs. I'm Emily Thompson.

Kathleen Shannon 1:01
And I'm Kathleen Shannon. What's up bosses. It's just me and Emily here today and we are talking all about digital boundaries. It's a topic that has been top of mind for us and we're going to dig in. As always, you can find all the tools, books and links we referenced on the show notes at being boss club. as entrepreneurs and bosses, it can feel like we have to do everything and be everything our business needs in order to be successful. There's nothing wrong with learning new skills and educating yourself. But it's also important to know when to replace or supplement your effort with useful tools. Take accounting, it needs your attention on the regular to ensure your books are in order. Packing spreadsheets with numbers and shoeboxes full of receipts might get the job done. But is it really the most efficient use of your time, products like freshbooks let you make better use of your time. freshbooks is accounting software which kind of sounds boring, but it's far from it. It's been designed with small creative business owners just like you in mind. It's not designed for accountants. That means it's super easy to use for things like invoicing, time tracking, creating estimates, tracking expenses, late payment reminders, project collaboration, online payments, and so much more. So stop freaking out about money and get organized. Fresh books is a time saving business tool you've been looking for. To get a free 30 day trial of fresh books right now go to freshbooks comm slash being boss and enter being boss in the How did you hear about us section?

Emily Thompson 2:42
All right, I'm super excited about talking about digital boundaries today because it is something that we have been thinking about and talking about a whole lot. But the world is changing a whole lot in terms of digital boundaries and making sure that you are protected and that your information is protected. Because I think we've all realized that it's hasn't in the past actually been protected at all. However, you or I aren't the kind of people who are going to you know, let Big Brother protect us. Sometimes we're going to protect ourselves. Right? So we're gonna be talking about what that looks like.

Kathleen Shannon 3:16
Yeah, and there's like all the legal stuff. So we are in the middle of all of the GDPR European Union, digital boundaries that are being enforced upon us to be more transparent. And we'll get a little bit into that we're in the middle of it. But today, what we're really talking about is kind of the digital boundaries that we've had to enforce or impose around ourselves as people who have grown up on the edge of living our lives online. Like it was not too long ago, I just saw a meme the other day that said, Remember how people used to say Brb, which was be right back, whenever you would step away from your AOL chat, you would say brb to let people know that you were getting up and leaving. And now we're never gone, our phones are in our hands. And we are connected, basically 100% of the time. So I feel like we're having to really reassess where we draw the line, what is quote, unquote, real life whenever it comes to being online and being offline. And it really is having us, or especially me, right now, I don't know if I'm getting old, or if I'm getting freaked out, or what the deal is, but I'm really feeling like I need to redefine what my boundaries are, and really draw the line to protect what I what it is I really want to be creating and nurturing, but also like, really around defending my work, my energy and my resources from anything that might distract or compromise what I'm trying to create. And so there's so many reasons to create some boundaries,

Emily Thompson 4:49
right? I mean, I think we can all agree that having a phone having, you know, a smartphone in your hand gives you access to so many great things. So So many great things. I mean, they're definitely a tool. I'm glad I have one. All the things. However, I think we all also feel like we're a little too tethered to our phones at time. And, you know, I quite often wish for a day or a week where, where I don't have a phone in my hands or where you know, I'm not being targeted with an ad, because I talked about something earlier that day, or whatever sort of creepy thing it may be. I think that technology is beginning to encroach on our lives more and more. And I think it's important to step back occasionally look at where you are aligned with the technology in your life and make sure that that those lines fall where you want them to, so that you're not getting too caught up in it. And for the purpose of being able to show up and do the work. All too often, you know, I walk into my sauna place occasionally. And the girl at the front desk is just scrolling her face book. And whenever I see things like that at places of business, I know that a line that needs to be drawn. So for us, we have lines, we're going to talk about them today, with the hope that you guys are prompted to think about them as well, if you haven't done it in a while, or maybe if you've never done it at all.

Kathleen Shannon 6:21
You know, it's so funny whenever we were writing the being boss book, on our chapter on boundaries, we were like, Whoa, we've talked about boundaries, in so many terms. But sitting down and writing our thoughts on paper really made us think like what are boundaries, and I think that they can really be especially vague, or, you know, gray whenever it comes to the online world, because I don't know there's something about online, like you can't just put up a fence, right? It's so different than what we've experienced, offline, like whenever it comes to drawing boundaries. You know, even in our country, like a lot of times a river will denote a boundary between one state and another. So we ended up using a garden metaphor in our book to really define what it is that we want to nurture and what it is that we want to protect and from what and we even created this cool like garden worksheet in our book to literally help you visualize your boundaries. So as we're discussing this today, I want you to try and think about it as specific as possible or as visual as possible, or however you best learn, apply these boundaries to your own scenarios and situations. We're going to be talking about our own boundaries and figuring out what it is that we where we want to draw that line. So starting off Emily, where have you enforced digital boundaries so far?

Emily Thompson 7:47
This could get long, it's gonna be long because this is something that I've thought about a whole lot. You know, as someone who does, who has lived literally the past decade on the internet, I have dove face first into what it's like to really attach myself to the digital world. And I found out very quickly that I needed to detach myself very consciously in a lot of ways in order to maintain a sense of myself and lead sort of health in general. I've learned that you know, the longer I sit at this computer in a day, the worse my headache will get. Or, or for me it's information overload or having people constantly be able to contact me and expect responses, those sorts of things. So for a long time, I've had some pretty hardcore digital boundaries in place even before it was kind of a cool thing to do. Like now digital sabbaticals are a thing like people will pull on not unplug their phone but I guess turn their phone off for a couple of weeks or a month like that's just have fun thing people are doing because it's kind of trendy, which is cool.

Kathleen Shannon 8:53
Well and not just trendy but a challenge. It's not even like a cool thing to do. It is a almost impossible thing to do. It's almost like doing a hole 30 or going out drinking for 30 days. Yes,

Emily Thompson 9:04
I have seen some funny looks on faces whenever I mentioned not having your phone for a day. And I it's whenever I see those looks on faces when I'm like really like you can't detach yourself. So let me talk about some of the things some of the ways that I have detached and created some digital boundaries for myself as someone who loves the internet and who loves the digital world at time. So one of the first things that I implemented and it drives my mother insane, is that my ringer is never on my phone.

Kathleen Shannon 9:35
Same Mine isn't on at all. And even now I can hear the vibrate like I don't even vibrate. See I'm about to turn that off.

Emily Thompson 9:43
I don't even vibrate. I don't even have my vibrator on. I cannot I do not know when something is happening on my phone ever. And this is actually I recently needed to turn my ringer on because my grandmother was going to call him that's the only time I'm ever going to cook, turn my ringer on And I didn't know how to do it. Like, I had never turned by ringer on this phone that I currently have that I've had for about two years, I had never done it. So I do not have a ringer on my phone. It's never on and I have very few notifications. So the only apps that I allow notifications to come through are like calls and text messages and, and slack because the team is on slack. And we'll talk about that more a little bit in a second. But not having a ringer on my phone, not having a thing in my hand or in my pocket that can distract me whenever it pleases, or whenever you know, the world pleases has been huge for me being able to stay focused on my quote unquote, real world life, even though my online life is just as real world as the real world. But nothing that's happening in the digital world can interrupt any moment that I'm having with my family or with myself or, or whatever it may be.

Kathleen Shannon 11:06
I love that. And I think I'm the same way whenever it comes to my ringer and not having my phone on in that way. I don't sleep with my phone next to me. So someone's texting me in the middle of the night. I don't know, I won't know until the morning.

Emily Thompson 11:20
Yeah, whenever I look, I'll know whenever I have a moment to pause and like take in that information. And I find that because of that, I'm able to be more attentive, I'm able to give better responses, I'm also better able to filter, whenever you have a ringer on you're consistently being reactive to the noise or you know, the vibration or whatever it may be. But I can be super proactive about when my attention is on my phone.

Kathleen Shannon 11:48
And it's so funny because you used to leave your house to do things and people if they couldn't get ahold of you, they couldn't get ahold of you, they would leave a message that you wouldn't get until you're back home. So it's kind of like what's the equivalent of that now. And I will say on the flip side of that being, you know, your friend, like I'm texting you now more than ever, but it's nice knowing I think because I know that you don't have your ringer or your alerts on that. It's not going to be distracting you from whatever you're doing that you'll get to it whenever you get to it. And it almost makes me feel like I can text you more knowing that it's not a distraction.

Emily Thompson 12:23
Yeah, good. I'm glad to hear it because some people are annoyed by it. Like I've literally had people in my life be annoyed that they can't easily get in touch with me. Usually, again, my mom and I love her very much. But like moms just want to talk to you when they want to talk to you for sure. And she's actually even sort of been trained to call David like if she really needs me.

Kathleen Shannon 12:41
Oh my gosh, my family at the same thing they call Jeremy if they need me. Yeah,

Emily Thompson 12:45
because she knows I want to answer my phone. I have had people be appalled by that. I don't care. I just don't. What about you? castling.

Kathleen Shannon 12:54
So one of the first times I felt the need to establish digital boundaries was around online gossip. So I was a huge fan of those, like just Jared websites, there's a couple other I can't even remember the names of them. But like, oh, Perez Hilton was one of them. Yep. Like just those online celebrity gossip, and even gossip magazines. I used to love those. But obviously those are print but the digital version of those I was kind of a fan of. And then I remember I was at the very first designer vaycay and my friend Megan Gallagher, who has a blog called fresh exchange, she was like, Oh, I saw you on insert name, a very popular hater website that I won't mention the name of she's like, Oh, I saw you on that website, you had like 13 pages dedicated to how much people hate you. And I was devastated. It was the first time I'd even like really heard of this website, I didn't really know what it was, I went back to my hotel room and I made Jeremy read it. And I just I felt sick about it. I felt really misunderstood. I felt really sad. I was totally affected and bummed out by it. And that's whenever though I realized like, oh, wow, if I didn't even know about this, my life right now would be so much better. So from that point on, I establish a boundary of I will never read that stuff ever again. And that even kind of applies to our ratings and reviews now for iTunes and for our book. And I really do appreciate the good ratings and reviews and but at this point, I'm not reading any of it because I want to be able to create what I create without being affected by the negative stuff, obviously. But that also means that I can't be too boosted or affected by the positive stuff as well. Like I'm so glad that it resonates. But I just have to almost cut myself off from all feedback. So I had to really create some boundaries around that and that also meant no more consuming the celebrity gossip Because I was like, oh, wow, these are people too. And people are just constantly misunderstanding or talking trash or whatever. So drew some boundaries around all of that stuff. And it almost like brings me to today. So that was, I don't know, what, seven or eight years ago. And it brings me to today where I'm feeling like, you know more than ever, as our lives as our lives are becoming more enmeshed in technology, and you can be talking about something and be served an ad later on, like, just this element of privacy is becoming more huge to me. And I'm starting to see the importance of it. I think I was of the opinion like, back in the day of like, privacy is kind of like overrated, or like, why do you even need it, and I maybe becoming a mom has really shifted it for me where I'm really wanting to protect my kiddo. And we'll talk about that in a second too, because I'm meeting to like, figure out some boundaries around that. Okay, but what else what else for you any other digital boundaries that you've been forced?

Emily Thompson 16:02
Yeah, a couple a couple more. One is because I do look at a screen all day for work, I hardcore limit screen time, outside of work. And it's not even so much like a proactive thing where I have to where I have to, like set these boundaries. I've also found like, super intuitively, I don't want to look at a screen anymore, like once I walk away from from the computer. So you know, one thing, one thing I do, therefore, is I don't watch a lot of TV like even more or even less now than I used to. So I'm not watching a lot of TV. Whenever we're spending family time together, we're usually going for a walk or sitting on a porch or you know, playing a guard card game. And part of this also recently came from Dave and I will occasionally like get into a show and watch all of them because Netflix. And we had been watching the show and like I was almost doing it out of like duty to David where like he wants to sit down and watch TV. And I totally get that it's relaxing all of those things. I don't necessarily want to what I and what I realized is what I want to be doing is reading more books. Like if I'm actually feeling like I want to read more books, and I'm spending my time instead doing something I don't really want to be doing, then girls got to make a shift in her life, right? So I've made a very conscious decision lately to even scratch less screen time for my life for the purpose of indulging in things I want to do. And that for me being reading books. So for me hardcore, limited screen time. I obviously don't superimpose that on my family like Lily has screen time limitations, which we've talked about another podcast for whole other reasons. David can obviously do whatever it is that he wants to do with his life. But for me, I really only ever look at a screen when I'm working.

Kathleen Shannon 17:58
You know, a boundary I haven't placed her on that is whenever it comes to books and TV. If I don't like a show, or if I don't like a book, I'm not going to finish it. Like there's just not enough time. Yes, in my

Emily Thompson 18:09
life, I have started too many TV series to get like half an episode and I'm thinking I'm gonna watch all these, it's gonna be great and be like, Nope, I will drop a show like a hot potato with no like need of loyalty at all. So I fill you with that. I like that.

Kathleen Shannon 18:26
Okay, so I talked about, you know, creating this boundary around what I'm consuming and not consuming gossip websites, I also establish some external policies and some external digital boundaries, probably in our Facebook group, which has also been like a whole other episode. But I really do feel like people for the most part, if you can give them general guidelines of like, don't be a bad person, like be a good person that they can really self regulate. And I've even seen that in my own life. And in my own family around screen time. For example, like I'm a big fan of personal power and your personal ability to relate, you know who you are and how you are in the world. However, a lot of people once they get behind a screen will just spout off or not think about the other person on the other side of the screen. Right? And so I think that whenever it comes to enforcing external boundaries, we'll get like some crappy comments. And if we actually reply and say like, Well, hey, whatever, however, we might respond, which is usually pretty level headed. But also like, I'm not going to take that, like kind of like sticking up for ourselves a little bit while also being compassionate to the person because obviously, they're commenting from a place of hurt if they're writing a shitty comment or whatever it might be. But still saying like, hey, this isn't cool here. Like if you leave me a crappy Instagram comment, I'm gonna delete it. Or if you leave me a crappy, you know, direct message, I'm probably gonna block you. And so that's a boundary that I have no Problem enforcing now because, again, there's just not enough. There's not enough good in the world right now. And so I'm going to be deleting any bad that comes my way. However, this is like a fine line boundary, because there are a lot of learning moments happening in the world today. And so like if I accidentally say something offensive that like is, you know, truly, like inappropriate. And I will take that as a learning moment. And I've recently learned not to delete that stuff like it should be kept online so that like, people can also learn from it. I don't entirely know, I don't know if this is like where there's that fine line, like, and I'm not saying anything like crazy offensive. I'm thinking back to a moment. I've talked about this on the podcast before where I posted a photo on my Instagram that said, Did I stutter? And it was like a Lady Liberty, like holding right. It was a political statement is a political statement. And it was about the Muslim ban. I don't even remember, like, there's been so much political stuff. I need to ask that question. There's basically been like, I could post something every day. That's like, out of anger. And this is coming back to digital boundaries as well. Like for me in order, like, my baseline is kind of pretty angry. Like, especially whenever it comes to politics, like I'm kind of an angry person. And in order to not be so angry, I have found that I've had to really create some boundaries around that stuff. Yes. Anyway, going back to that post, it was offensive to people who stutter. And I just didn't even think about that. I was like, Oh, my gosh, and trying to make this like bold political statement. I hurt some people's feelings. I did take the post down. Because like, I didn't want to continue to hurt feelings. But I also went on my stories and apologized and said, like, wow, that was a learning moment. So I'm just using that as an illustration of what it was like to make a dumb mistake in public and to fix it, right. Um, but Okay, so going back to the anger thing, though, I recently I recently deleted the news app and the Facebook app off of my phone, I realized that having, you know, boundaries around the content I was consuming was important, because the world straight up is just making me angry right now. Yeah. So I had to stop consuming it. And I found that like, I'm able to do better work, I'm happier for my family. I'm happier for anything that is I'm creating and wanting to nurture because again, boundaries aren't just what you're saying no to it's what you're saying yes to and I want to be saying yes to creativity, I want to be saying yes to positivity. And I want to be the change, right? I want the world to be less angry. So I have to be less angry. And I think that there's certainly a place and a time for people who are angry and fighting in that way. I just know, for me, it's like toxic, it's like poison in my soul. It might not be for everybody else. So like, I think that everyone has their place. I'm just not a warrior. I'm not a fighter. I am a lover. And I need to create boundaries, in which I can like nurture the lover inside of me.

Emily Thompson 23:14
Yes. Oh, I love all of that. Because agreed same here where you know, that news app was getting me riled up every single day, in a way that did not keep me like productive. And I feel like my productivity and obviously along with yours, as well, has the potential of you know, creating a nurturing the space that has people doing good things. And if that, for me, it was a decision, a decision of if that impedes my ability to show up and do the work that I meant to do, then I'm going to delete an app or two off my phone for sure. And it doesn't mean that I don't consume news, it does not mean that I am unaware of what's happening in the world, it just means that I am setting aside a specific time and place for me to consume that content so that you can stay informed without consistently being bombarded with all the bullshit that's happening. Because it is a lot and not even to say that it's you know, more now than ever before. But our access to information given digital technology is so much more consistent, and therefore in a lot of ways questionable that, that I feel like a lot of the information that is just being thrown at us needs better filters. So I filtered it filtered the fuck out of it. For sure, so I'm right there with you. I think that I know for me to setting that digital boundary and taking those steps did huge things for my ability to show up and do the work that I'm here to do. And again, it doesn't mean that I am, you know, being placated that I am, that I'm not listening or watching This means that I'm being much more intentional about when and where I'm consuming that information.

Kathleen Shannon 25:06
Yeah, I mean, whenever you look at Facebook, and you look at these news sites that are attached to the news app on your phone, look at how those places are making money. They're making money with advertising. So the more sensational their headlines are, the more clicks they get, the more money they get. And so I think the I mean, this isn't going to be a whole episode about politics or news or journalism. But there is some, like, retooling that needs to happen there. And it's gonna start with being like really cognizant of where you put your attention, because right now, you're voting with your attention,

Emily Thompson 25:43
right? And your clothing literally your clicks.

Kathleen Shannon 25:45
Yes, literally, your clicks. So again, I think it's important to be aware, but I think it's really important to be super specific, and like discerning about where you're getting your information from, and who's making money off of your attention. Yeah,

Emily Thompson 26:00
for sure. For sure. Okay. So next up, Phil, he did a little hot and bothered now, guy. But like, this is why these digital boundaries are so important. like to think that like what I'm feeling right now, and the sweat of my body is what I was literally feeling every single day because I didn't have these boundaries in place, is why I needed to call it a whole lot. But let's talk about some little easier things maybe least lighter. But one is I have drawn some pretty hard, pretty hard lines around taking occasional weekend days off from my phone. And usually, especially on the weekends, there's no computer happening, because I'm not working. So the phones is my phone is my like, tether to digital technology. I love going a day or two or a week or IV I have done a month or more before without a phone. I'm always reminded of how beautiful life is when you don't have that piece of technology in your hand.

Kathleen Shannon 27:06
I'm also reminded today but I have a question. Yes. Do you use your phone for photos?

Emily Thompson 27:10
I do

Kathleen Shannon 27:11
see this. As I know that is the hardest. My phone has literally become my digital camera. Yes.

Emily Thompson 27:16
And that that is absolutely a problem. And so when I had bulleted down there on on this list that we have, because I agree I think that the phone or the camera and Instagram, but it has even if he most days as well, is the reason I still have my phone, I've really gotten to a point with my ability to disconnect from my phone, that if not for the camera, I wouldn't have one. Like I just wouldn't, and I wouldn't feel bad about it. And I wouldn't like I wouldn't feel like a grandmother like you can call me whatever you'd like. I'm feeling super done with my phone, except I really love having a camera.

Kathleen Shannon 27:55
I know. I've been thinking about getting a point and shoot like a little canon, I used to have a Canon g 10. So whatever the equivalent of that is now I've been thinking about getting one. It's a good idea. Yeah, that is a good idea. All right, so I have drawn boundaries. I feel like I've done a really good job of drawing boundaries around my email. It's super easy for me to like reply during normal hours. And even now, if I'm replying, I recently responded to an email at 2am. It was while we were on our book tour, I just flown from San Francisco to Oklahoma City. And I was on West Coast time. Well, I was kind of like on East Coast time having gone to the west coast now in central time. So like my timezone, you didn't know what time it was. I didn't know what time it was, I was giving a talk. The next morning, I had a ton of slides to design finish up and to send to the coordinator for the thing. And so I sent her an email at like 2am with my slides. And I was like, please ignore this timestamp. I'm not usually emailing this late, my time zones are jacked. But also because I have such strong email boundaries. I no longer feel bad if I'm emailing on the evenings or weekends, because sometimes it happens. And I feel like I know that I'm breaking the rule that I've made for myself, and then it's fine. It's no big deal. But for the most part, I think that my biggest email boundary that I'm kind of proud of is the fact that I don't feel the need to respond to everything. Like that's probably the newest iteration of this. So before it was, you know, getting organized and properly tagging my emails, and then it was having a system where I'm only checking them so many times a day. Now it's looking at my emails and if something doesn't warrant a response, I'm just not responding to it. Yeah, I've also been unsubscribing to a lot of stuff lately. Good. Like just a lot of lists that I didn't ever remember subscribing to or think.

Emily Thompson 29:51
Funny how that happens. Not funny, guys. I'm right. I think I think that Creating boundaries around email, and even text messages and phone calls. And all of those things like people communicating with you, is a really great first step for anyone who's wanting to like dip their toe into creating some digital boundaries for themselves. Just because someone texts you does not mean that it warrants an immediate response if a response at all honestly. And I've sort of come notorious for not answering text messages like I have no problem just letting shit sit there with a lot of people have problems, those little red dots on there like Apple iPhone apps, not me, like most of my apps have a red.on them actually. Um, but I've gotten also really good at just trashing emails, or, you know, not responding to things and not that I'm not grateful for, you know, people sending me their thoughts or questions or whatever. It's just I literally don't have that much time in my life. And I have priorities greater than people I don't know, emailing me, or messaging me. Or even people I do know sending me emails that maybe don't have a clear call to action, like what am I supposed to be doing? If you want me to do things? Make it clear? If not, I have other things I need to be getting to. And that saying and like that almost feels snobby. But I'm not mad about it at all.

Kathleen Shannon 31:24
Yeah, that's huge. Like if there's not a specific question or action in my email, it's not being responded to

Emily Thompson 31:30
Yeah, for sure. I can't, I would love I would love to have enough time in my day to literally interact with everyone who like crosses my path. But I don't fact.

Kathleen Shannon 31:43
This being boss episode is brought to you by 2020. for creative entrepreneurs get authentic real world stock photos. If you're looking to tell a true story about yourself or your brand, to deliver an honest message to your audience, the photos you use will matter. 2020 has crowdsource millions of photos from a community of over 350,000 photographers, all available under a simple royalty free license. Today, they're offering listeners of being boss a five photo free trial to start yours right now go to 2020 comm slash being boss, that's the word 20, then to zero.com slash being boss to get five free photos. Well, okay, so let's talk about where digital boundaries are a little less defined. And really where you could use some more boundaries, because that is one of mine, like opposite of the haters, like I've been able to drop a firm line there, we get a lot of direct messages and emails from our bosses and listeners who want and need help. And I straight up want to spend like 30 minutes writing out an email or chatting via Instagram, to give them a consultation, and to help them solve their problems. But I know it's distracting me from creating the content that will help hundreds if not 1000s of people who have the same problem. And it's funny because like my original blog, that took me down this whole creative entrepreneur path was born out of people asking me about how to freelance or asking me about systems and processes around being a graphic designer. And so I was posting it to my blog, because I was like, Well, if I'm going to spend all this time I remember I would spend all this time writing an email hitting send, and maybe not even getting a thank you in return. Right? And so I was like all butthurt about that. And so I started hitting or publishing my responses to the blog, and even like, our business bestie conversations that you and I have, like we were seeing that these would be so much more helpful if we publish them to a podcast and weren't just keeping it to ourselves. So I do value like generosity a lot. And I struggle with wanting to be generous with my time and knowledge one person at a time. And I think I need some boundaries there. But I'm like so afraid of hurting someone's feelings? Or someone thinking that I'm dismissing them or that I don't care because I do I care more than anything. That's why we've spent hundreds of hours hitting publish to these conversations.

Emily Thompson 34:16
Yeah, for sure. Right. And even after I just like, let her spill with how I don't mind like deleting an email, I feel the same way. And that's even why I've had to get so comfortable. not replying to things is because I literally just can't and not to the extent where I'm actually providing the kind of value that I want to what I usually find is that like when I have a moment like if something comes through and I feel it in my gut that this is something that I need to be speaking on to this person, you better bet you're going to get the best response of your life with bullet points and action like action points. But I can't do that with all of them. And for me, it's just been like release thing, all expectations, I guess were like, I'm not expected to email all of them. And whenever I do respond, it's just a cherry on top. That's sort of how I position it for myself

Kathleen Shannon 35:16
or like even responding to people saying really nice things and our direct messages, we get a lot of nice comments in our direct messages on Instagram all the time. And we usually respond with some emojis or reified

Emily Thompson 35:28
mode. Let's talk about emojis for communication for a second, because I've definitely found like, on some level, I'll send them and think they probably just think I'm being a passive aggressive asshole. He's just like, dismissing them with a heart. But legit. I'm feeling that heart and I'm sending it to you. So I do hope that no one ever feels that my hearts are, are me just like pushing something under the rug. It's just like, that's what you're getting. For me. You're getting a heart and it's real.

Kathleen Shannon 35:55
Yeah. And I find that my digital boundaries are so connected to my energetic boundaries. And I'm often reading emails or love notes or whatever. If I do come across a positive review, I am feeling that I am sending you love. I am thanking you and I am going back to doing the work. Yes,

Emily Thompson 36:14
yes, yes. Oh, and I also want to point out, you said a minute ago that you don't read the ratings and reviews and all those things everyone should know that I do. I am there reading them for sure. And occasionally reading some to Kathleen or you know, passing some along if I find if I find it, particularly, you know, helpful piece of feedback or whatever. But I am there reading them, for sure. For us.

Kathleen Shannon 36:38
I'm there. Emily's got her eyes on it, y'all. So

Emily Thompson 36:42
I do I do and I appreciate it's insane. Like, you know, we, I am reading them, we are reading things, we are definitely feeling it. It's just that, literally, I think here's the thing with the internet, we can go there for a second is that it has given everyone the expectations, their words, require feedback. And that is simply not the case, you are speaking out and do the vastness of the internet and not you're not always going to get a response. That doesn't mean that it's not hitting home. And it does not mean that people are not feeling things for it good or bad. Please remember that. But you are not automatically gifted responses, like you do not simply get them in return. So it's, I think it's also I think it also requires a shift of mindset. And I think that will continue to happen. As the internet grows and matures. And by the internet, like the community that is the internet grows and matures, I feel like it's been in a very like adolescent phase for quite some time where everyone needs to share everything that's happening. My 10 year old does that, like verbally shares every action that's being taken. But sharing everything and then expecting a response for everything that you share. That's quite adolescent behavior. And I think we're all like maturing beyond that, thank goodness.

Kathleen Shannon 38:08
You know, at the same time, though, I missed the really meaningful engagement and comments that we used to get on our blogs like 10 years ago, where people were, it was more of like a conversation. Yeah. And so one of my favorite things to do is leave people really meaningful feedback. So my biggest pet peeve right now is on Instagram. I think it's automated. I bet there's some sort of software where people were like, your account, kind of crawls through other people's accounts, probably for hashtags or keywords. And we'll leave this like, generic,

Emily Thompson 38:42
vague as comments.

Kathleen Shannon 38:44
Yeah, you know, it's

Emily Thompson 38:45
a robot and maybe even human beings are going through copy pasting comments into everyone's feeds, which is, yeah,

Kathleen Shannon 38:53
like a fiver like service, like someone's paying someone in right to copy paying, yeah, to copy and paste comments. And I really feel like that's the situation. And so that stuff definitely does not warrant a response. And so one of my favorite things to do is for people whose work I admire, is to either leave a really meaningful comment about why I like their work, or to leave a rating and review, which is even better, because it helps them make more money doing the content that they love the stuff that they're putting out there. So I really do like to tell people when I'm a fan of their work, but I don't respect or I don't expect a response in return. And so I just need to remember that for anyone who's sending us love notices that they don't necessarily expect a response. Like I think that I'm self imposing this expectation that like everything requires a response whenever it doesn't, and no one else is putting that on me. Right? No one's like, hey, why didn't you reply to those? I think I always assume everyone thinks I'm a bitch. I mean, even just recently, I didn't reply to an email in my inbox for Probably 12 days and it was from one of my autoresponder to my newsletter. And in the autoresponder I do say, hey, hit reply and let me know what you're struggling with right now. Even not saying hit reply, like I am inviting people to come into my inbox Even then, though, they don't necessarily expect a response. But I feel obligated to respond most times, usually with something really quick like, Hey, here's a blog post that you might like that would be helpful, or here's a podcast episode that might be especially helpful for you. Or, Hey, thanks for letting me know what your challenge what your challenges are, I'm going to be sure to create content around that in the future. So those are kind of like my go to responses at this point. But I finally responded to this email that had been sitting in my inbox for 12 days. And I was like, Hey, sorry for the delayed response, like, but also try not to be too apologetic is important as well. Yeah. And she replied back and was like, Oh, my gosh, I can't believe I got a response at all. I can't believe that a real human person, much less you read it. I was like, Well, yeah. My email address,

Emily Thompson 41:04
we read it. Right. I know, I think. I mean, I also think of people because we know people who literally respond to every email within minutes, like, that's a thing. And on one hand, I totally admire those people. But on the other hand, like, I think this is just different for everyone, like, everyone's going to have different boundaries. And I know that what's important to me, is time, not in my inbox, like that feels more important to me, I'm able to like juice up and get ready for the work that I have to do. my inbox is not my happy place, by any means. For some people, it is like communicating with people in that way is so I think it's just defining what's important to you, and creating the boundary around that. I do like, we do absolutely think that, you know, replying to people who send us nice messages is mandatory high five, if you send us a question, like, we're probably going to either send you a short answer or a reference to something where we've already answered it, or just not answer it, because it's there, if you just Google it, or whatever it may be, like, everything for us warrants a different response. And we, we do handle most things case by case, as long as they fall within our boundary of, of how it is that we want to communicate with people. And that's all how these digital boundaries work. Um, let's talk about other places where we may struggle because I know I have one. Mines, real bad is not real bad. Mines, like using my phone in bed. So you don't plug your phone up next to your bed. I do. And let me tell you why. And I've thought about this all day, because I knew I would be talking about it with you. And I have to like, you're gonna help me solve it, and I know how to solve it. So because I don't wake up with an alarm clock. I don't have an alarm clock in my room, which means I don't have a clock in my room. So the only way I'm gonna know what time it is, if I wake up in the middle of the night, or whenever I wake up in the morning is if I look at my phone,

Kathleen Shannon 43:07
okay, I don't have a clock in my room either. And I never know what time it is.

Emily Thompson 43:11
Okay, well, you know, me, I need to always know.

Kathleen Shannon 43:15
Oh, my gosh, can I tell our listener? Go for it? Go for it. Okay, so we were recently on book tour. And I didn't realize like how much Emily noted the time. Literally, if all constantly Emily was telling me what time it was, especially if there were the numbers four, two in one in the time. She was telling me like, Oh, it's 124. It's 241 421. Not I felt like nonstop. And even after I got home at one point, my husband goes, it's 420 on 420 or something like right.

Emily Thompson 43:53
421 on for 21. Right. So it was kind of my magic number. So it hasn't coming up a lot for me lately. And I do usually note it when it happens. But I'd never noticed how much I was doing it until you laughed at me a lot for it.

Kathleen Shannon 44:11
I mean, it was a lot. And so then my husband notes the time and I was like, Oh my gosh, why is everyone constantly telling me the time? And I never know what time it is. This is actually a boundary that I developed whenever I was going through like the big struggle of insomnia and sleep deprivation and Fox waking up non stop. It was almost depressing me to know what time it was. So I had to Yeah, all the clocks out of my room. So I just didn't care anymore. Right?

Emily Thompson 44:39
Well see. And my thing is I live with people who don't care what time it is. But like I actually that's alive literally cares about what time it is more than anyone I've ever met in my entire life because David is really the one where like he would lay in bed all day, but he's just kind of like a slow moving guy which is just who he is and it's fine, but like if I want anything done? I need to know what time it Okay,

Kathleen Shannon 45:02
so let me ask you a question you're waking up in the middle of night you grab your phone, you see that? It's 421. Yes. What are you doing with that information?

Emily Thompson 45:11
I'm going back to sleep knowing that I have like three more hours of sleep.

Kathleen Shannon 45:16
But you don't need an alarm clock like you do you do not need a clock.

Emily Thompson 45:22
Actually, here's the solution is a duty to clock. I just need a clock in my room. Like I just need a clock on the wall or something. And then I

Kathleen Shannon 45:31
think it should also be not digital. I agree should be a clock with arm. I

Emily Thompson 45:35
agree. I completely agree with that. But then I can't see it in the dark. And what's the point? Anyway, I'm figuring this out, guys, I'm going to solve my clock problems so that I don't need my phone next to me, because then what happens is I'll wake up in the morning and like, it's kind of starting to get light outside, like, Do I have enough time to go back to sleep? Or do I need to go ahead and start getting up? This is my like, daily scenario, I'll look at my phone. And it's like, you know, 615, like too early to kind of get up really, but like I have some time. And they'll look I got some notifications. And then there I am in my phone's going through God knows what at like, 630 in the morning. So this is this is my boundary issue is in bed.

Kathleen Shannon 46:20
Okay, could I challenge you to? Absolutely got your phone in your room just for two nights in a row? starting tonight?

Emily Thompson 46:28
Yes,

Kathleen Shannon 46:29
I'll do it. Because I want to see what changes because I but it's not much probably not a damn thing. Right? Unless like, I'll feel really bad if it gives you insomnia because you don't know what time it is. And you don't know if it's like 5am or 2am. But either way, you're your own boss, you just get to keep on sleeping.

Emily Thompson 46:46
alarm is always the answers. Just go back to sleep. I agree. I agree. Fine. I'll do it.

Kathleen Shannon 46:54
I'll do it. Okay, so the digital boundary that I'm struggling with, is two parts. One is I am not sure where to draw the line when it comes to sharing stuff of my kid. And I felt really comfortable posting about him whenever he was younger. But now as he's getting older, this especially came to my attention whenever I posted it was like that post your first headshot day. So I posted a headshot of whenever I submitted myself as a model to 17 magazine perfect. It was abused, probably 13 or 14. And I got hundreds of DMS for people telling me that I look just like Fox. And the fact that people could respond and know that he is my twin and like he is like we are basically identical. I basically cloned myself, but the fact that like people had that much facial recognition of my kid, it's fine. I was actually super impressive. Like, I don't I can't tell when people look like other people at all.

Emily Thompson 47:59
It's not a skill you have.

Kathleen Shannon 48:01
There's like every once in a while, like you'll make an expression where I can see Lily. But I mean, even then, like I see you every day, right? I don't know. So it was just kind of, I kind of thought okay, maybe I need to start drawing some lines, but also even just thinking about my own privacy and my own boundaries and kind of being freaked out more recently than ever before with speech recognition and facial recognition and people hacking into your cameras on your iPhones and on your computers and watching you work or do whatever you're doing, freaking me out. And so then I'm thinking, well, what's the world going to be like for Fox in 20 or 30 years? Where are his digital boundaries going to be? And at what point do I you know, give him the freewill to decide what those are. So that's kind of freaking me out a little bit. I don't know what to do about it. However, just two days ago, I deleted Instagram off my phone. So this is kind of solving some of my problems, but I don't know if it's a break. I don't know if I quit. I don't know if it's gonna be a good reset where like almost like a whole 30 or something where whenever I come back, I'm like, okay, but now I know I'm allergic to sharing photos of my kid. You know, like, maybe I'll have I'll have drawn better boundaries and better lines around that kind of stuff. And so I deleted Instagram off of my phone because I do need a reset. I am entirely way too addicted. I spend so much time scrolling. And last night, I completely reorganized my entire junk drawer, which is something that I do not do. But because I didn't have Instagram on my phone I had like all this time to do adult grown up things. Yeah.

Emily Thompson 49:45
Nice. Nice, nice. I don't have an answer for for sharing kids. I err on the side of like, not a lot. And I think like most of these is just I think everyone's going to be different. You've obviously always been the sharer of everyone that I know, you share. But the thing that's always shaped how I share Lily, especially as she's gotten older, is I once read something about how like someone was referring to their GED, and I don't remember who it was, but they were like, you know, her story is not my story to tell. And I remember thinking Hot damn, and that's truth. Because like, I'm here to share my story, and I will share that story almost as much as you will, though. I don't think I'll ever will as much as you do, Kathleen, um, but like, hers isn't mine to share. And so, like she'll make a make an appearance occasionally. She wishes it was significantly more, for sure.

Kathleen Shannon 50:47
Because what our listeners don't know is that Lily is actually my child. Yes.

Emily Thompson 50:53
Right. So Kathleen and Lily are the same person. it's mind blowing.

Unknown Speaker 50:58
All your karmic says,

Emily Thompson 51:00
I'm done. you're asked to learn and heal. For sure. With you both in this shape,

Unknown Speaker 51:06
we'll figure out.

Emily Thompson 51:09
We'll see. We'll see. But um, but Lily would like me to share her more. However, she doesn't have the experience or knowledge to make those judgment calls just yet. So I don't share very much. And then obviously, there are people who share even more, and there are people who share in between and even less, I think everyone has their everyone has to draw their own lines there.

Kathleen Shannon 51:32
Okay, but in my two day experiment of not having Instagram and again, is it back on your phone yet? No. I reinstalled it because I needed to do a being boss Instagram story. So I reinstalled it, I didn't know our password, I had to call Caitlin and get our password for our Instagram account. I logged in, I did the Instagram story. And then I answered a few direct messages. And then I logged out and deleted it back off my phone. So it is not on my phone. I think that we were recently chatting, it was probably Paul Jarvis, I feel like this is something that he would do, where he was telling us that he has to reinstall it and login and like double authentication login, in order to share something on Instagram, and then he'll take it back off. So I think that if I really have something to share, I might do it that way. I didn't give anyone a warning or a heads up,

Emily Thompson 52:22
I kind of just, I'm still dming you so you'll have some presidents. So whenever you're

Kathleen Shannon 52:28
gone, I will never see the right. Maybe so Okay, so here's what I've noticed with this Instagram thing that I'm doing. I have been walking around living my whole life in Instagram captions, like, oh, blog post stories before that. Yeah. And in some ways, like that's good. Like, I don't know that I would have gone to Mount Everest without having a blog to talk about it on. Like, it's definitely an impetus for living a big life so that I can share a big life. Like that's something that I want. And also like elevating the mundane. Like That is something that's always been really meaningful. And important to me is like seeing the meaning in the little moments as well. And I feel like Instagram is especially a place where you can share those little moments, right? But like, even yesterday, my kiddo asked me after I picked him up from school, he was like, Can we go to a graveyard? Because he's definitely my child. Yeah, I go, yeah, we can go to a graveyard. So we go to a graveyard. And I bust out my camera and I take some photos of him and I start thinking about an Instagram caption. And it was like I almost went to go post it on Instagram. And oh, yeah, I don't have Instagram. So now Who do I share this with? Like, who do I send? If you don't share it? Did it even have? Did it even happen? Well, I ended up texting it to, you know, Jeremy, so Fox's dad, my husband, I sent it to him. And then I started thinking like, since I've moved to Detroit, my family doesn't really call me very much. And one time I didn't post to Instagram stories, and my mom was like, your Instagram is broken. And I was like, No Mom, I just haven't posted. And it kind of makes me wonder if I feel like a lot of my nearest and dearest feel like they're interacting with me by looking at my Instagram, because I do share so much. But the truth is, I'm not getting that exchange, right? Like I'm not getting to interact with them, even though they feel completely satisfied by how much they're interacting with me by watching my Instagram. So in some ways, I'm hoping that it will help me reconnect to some of my friends and family that like I actually want to talk to, or even text with. Right, so like, I'm cool with texting. It's fine. I just want there to be more of an exchange.

Emily Thompson 54:50
Yeah, that's beautiful. Oh my god. I hope you get that. I hope you get that and one thing I want to talk about really quick is here's about Paul or or whoever it was who That's probably

Kathleen Shannon 55:00
Paul around surely

Emily Thompson 55:01
Oh, it sounds like him for sure.

Kathleen Shannon 55:04
Um, this idea of like logging and posting and leaving. And what's the point of adding content to a platform if you don't consume content on a platform, this is how I feel about like, automating Twitter's. So this is something I've done for a long time is automate and push our content to Twitter. But we're really not on twitter at all, like Twitter is all but gone. And I've been totally fine with it. But now I'm starting to feel that way about Facebook and about Instagram. Yeah, like, what's the point if we're not really engaging?

Emily Thompson 55:36
Right. And that's just something for everyone to think about? For sure. Alright, let's start wrapping those up a little bit. Because all the things, I think whenever it comes down to creating digital boundaries, what Kathleen and I have done is we've pulled really what has sort of become like a foundational like exercise of being boss and allow that to help us define how it is that we show up in the digital space, when and where and how we're here. And we've done that by looking at what it is that we value, and if the things that are going on, on our phone or computer or in our like online community or whatever doesn't align with what we value. We scratch it, and we don't feel bad about it. So Kathleen, your values and digital boundaries, how are they lining? Oh,

Kathleen Shannon 56:25
so I think that a big value that keeps coming to mind lately has been reliability. So whenever it comes to the content that I'm consuming, I want it to be really reliable. So not only in frequency, but in quality and all of the things. So this actually kind of makes me think about I'm gonna come back to the Instagram thing, because one thing that Melissa Griffin does, is she doesn't follow anybody. And I think that comes back to your question of like, what's the point if you're not engaging, but I think it really is interesting how she almost uses it as a way to re engage with the kinds of content or people that she wants to follow. So like, she'll delete everybody, and then slowly re follow. And I think that that's pretty brilliant. I'm a little too chicken to do it now. But who knows, maybe after I come back onto Instagram, I will delete everybody and re follow as necessary. I also really like bookmarking different accounts and like going to them when I want to. So kind of like text messages and all the things that we've talked about, okay, sorry, I just went on a tangent backwards. But coming back to values, I think reliability is a huge one to me. So I want to be reliable, and I want to consume reliable content. Also, a big one, for me has always been authenticity. And I know that that's a word that has been used a lot. But whatever, it still resonates with me, which is the importance of values, like it really has to resonate with you. So for me, it's authenticity. And in my own sharing boundaries, like sometimes I want to play the game and be like other instagramers in a super compelling way that is designed to connect with a broad and wide, wide net of people I want to have like all of my photos looking exactly the same so that whenever you hit my page, you're like, Oh, this is beautiful and consistent subscribe, because like you will it's like a just a psychological game for the most part, but I cannot fake it. And I really refuse to so whenever it comes to my own Instagram content, it's going to like look, the way that it looks or my emails, I'm constantly challenging myself and even us, like how could we say this in a way that feels more like us? And that is where I draw the line. Like I'm constantly wanting my content to reflect who I actually am. And that's a challenge. Like, it's not easy, because you're consuming content. That sounds really cool. And you're like, what if I tried on that voice for size, or sometimes you don't even really know who you are. And you have to explore who that is with your content. But for me, at this point in my life, I feel like I kind of know my voice. And if I'm writing something I can feel when it's not true or when it could be more honest or more authentic. And that is a boundary for me that I'm constantly pushing up against and exploring where it's at.

Unknown Speaker 59:11
How about you?

Emily Thompson 59:14
I love that. Everybody just sit with that for a second? Just a second.

Kathleen Shannon 59:18
Yeah, it makes me think about like in middle school, I used to be kind of bummed out because I never really wanted to be popular. I didn't really care about that. But I did want to be light, if that makes sense. And I remember my mom telling me like you, you want people to like you for who you are not for who you're pretending to be. And so that's how I am in business too. I want to attract people who like

Emily Thompson 59:43
us to be who she is.

Kathleen Shannon 59:47
But I mean, what else is there? What else is there? And I think that anything that's anything that's the hard part is like figuring out who you are and really exploring that and being open to change and evolving along the way. doing that in front of a bunch of people can be super embarrassing as someone who has been publishing content online for the past 10 to 15 decades, like yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, what about you, I'm

Emily Thompson 1:00:11
sure. Alright, so I have a couple 211 of mine is freedom, like freedom is like one of those hard core core values that I have. And nothing makes me feel less free than the tether of my phone of like having that tether to the digital world, in my pocket at times, and that's why I don't have a ringer. That's why I don't have most apps. That's why most apps don't have notifications turned on. That's why you know, I haven't like dove into so many things. So like, for someone who has been on in the online world, for so long, I actually like I'm just on the surface, guys. Like I haven't dove into many places, and especially not in a really long time. Like I just don't have time for it. So for me, freedom is one of the biggest ones. And, you know, it is that sort of like top level place, it even gets me a lot like as an online, online business owner, my team is online like everyone's remote, so I have to be on my computer or on my phone. But what I do find is that by occasionally breaking from it by you know, spending a day or a weekend or a whole week without my phone, that's what I'm reminded that I'm in this relationship with digital technology by choice, like I can absolutely live without it. Life is still beautiful without all of those things. But I absolutely also do choose to live in the digital world in the way that I do. But breaking that tether occasionally is how I remember that

Kathleen Shannon 1:01:48
I feel like another challenge is that you should take slack off of your phone or turn off notifications,

Emily Thompson 1:01:56
I would probably never come to my desk. Like a lot of times slack is like a reminder that I need to go to

Kathleen Shannon 1:02:02
work. Oh, okay. See, it's I only access slack and the team and my email and all of that through my laptop at my desk.

Emily Thompson 1:02:11
Yeah, like a lot of times, especially in the morning, like I'm going to take a long morning, if at all possible, especially like weeks when we have really long like meeting days or whatever I'm going to take a long morning. And it's usually the thing that usually nudges me into the office is seeing the team get at it on slack. And I'm like, Okay, I gotta get to work. If not, I might not come to work.

Kathleen Shannon 1:02:33
That's interesting. Okay, we'll have to chat more about that in a later episode. What

Unknown Speaker 1:02:37
are some level again,

Emily Thompson 1:02:39
so creativity is another one of mine, I have kind of been dying to get an iPad Pro. How ever however, I know I feel more creative when I'm like, hands on something whenever I'm like, pen to paper, or making a thing or whatever it is. So that's one of the it's one of the things that's really helped me create these digital boundaries. Or like even like how much I'm in my inbox, like, I can't design a damn thing. If I am answering every single email that lands in my inbox all day long. So for me, like making space for creativity, and like putting myself in the places where I can be most creative, creative is how I have, how it's how I've been able to create the boundaries that I have. And then also my final one.

Kathleen Shannon 1:03:31
Oh, wait, can I say creativity? Yes, please. So it made me think about like my relationship with Instagram and blogging and podcasting. Like my ways of sharing, sharing is a value of mine, I think like really not just being authentic, but then sharing that sharing who I am with the world, I think it's in my like in my star chart. It is just who I am, I want to express and show up and be seen. So for me, though, being really comfortable with not just my digital boundaries, but my sharing boundaries, and evolving those for the ways that fit best with me. And so maybe right now, my feelings with Instagram and Facebook and kind of more of the social media side of things is that the internet has gotten so noisy and creativity has become so accessible that I want to like push the line a little bit more and get more creative. It's like once I've mastered something a little bit, I want to try the next thing. So it's like blogging. I felt restricted by that I was feeling misunderstood. I felt like I couldn't really find my voice. So then we started podcasting. And I was like, Yes, this is it. Like we can have a good conversation. I could do this all day, have conversations about creativity and boundaries and all the things and so I think with Instagram, it's like, maybe just my sharing boundaries have shifted a little bit and I'm like, I'm kind of almost even bored by it. Like maybe that's the situation but I do whenever you were talking about the iPad Pro. I am really craving wanting to start a YouTube channel and more specific Like, as a way of storytelling, or I have this dream of doing stand up comedy, but I don't know that I necessarily want to be on a stage doing stand up. So it's just comedy in general. And maybe you want to be funny and make people I just want to make people laugh. And maybe I can do that from the comfort of a YouTube channel. So yeah, anyway, I busted out my iPad Pro the other day, and was trying to edit a movie on it. And it was not working. That made me think of that. But it also made me think of like how we're creating and how we're sharing is going to evolve and to constantly evolve with that, and let that expression show up in different ways.

Emily Thompson 1:05:36
And especially in the online world, in the digital spaces, it's only going to evolve more quickly and more quickly as time goes on. So yes, open to that change all day. So my last one, though, is self reliance. Because I think we've all become pretty reliant on digital technology. And so I'm consistently have to remind myself that I can find my way without the map app, like, I'm capable of doing that geographer here, I'm capable of doing that. Or that I can make something yummy for dinner without using Pinterest. Or that I can dress myself without knowing exactly what the temperature is, whatever it may be. Like, I have to physically remind myself that I don't need my phone to be interesting, or funny, or competent, or any of those things like I don't need technology to make me me. That is so funny because there are days where I check the weather on my app rather than going outside like I could just go to well and also on our book tour recently Kathleen got introduced to how much I use Alexa but good because the Airbnb we were staying in did not have an Alexa and I'm always apparently talking to Alexa. So I would occasionally just think about and say hey Alexa, and then remember or not remember that she's not there.

Kathleen Shannon 1:07:03
Do you talk about the time a lot? Do you have a conversation? Scott what time it is staffer asked

Emily Thompson 1:07:08
her what the time is usually the weather. Honestly, David and Lily's talked to a lot so significantly more than I do. It drives me insane, actually. But we do talk about the weather a lot.

Kathleen Shannon 1:07:19
That's hilarious. Okay, so I've got some mantras for digital boundaries that I want to share before we before we hang up what an antiquated

Emily Thompson 1:07:29
phone now sitting in a chair next to the wall, okay, playing with the cord.

Kathleen Shannon 1:07:36
So one of my favorites is not my monkeys, not my circus. This is like an old Polish proverb. And I love this one, whenever I'm on Instagram, and I'm reading through someone else's drama. Like, okay, most recently, that's

Emily Thompson 1:07:50
a digital boundary I have, I'm not going to share when I am at an elevated emotion. So if I'm too angry, or too pissed, or I have something just simply that doesn't add something good to the world. And God Tom for

Kathleen Shannon 1:08:03
it. Well, again, you know, more recently, a self help, quote unquote guru had a launch that was super controversial. And I found myself like, digging into it and just reading more and more and like falling down a rabbit hole. But even like, I can fall down this rabbit hole, reading through the comments of like, I don't know, Gwynn's Tiffany's, Instagram, just dumb stuff like that. And I have to remember not my monkeys, not my circus. And that helps me stay focus and stay out of any sort of appealing shiny drama.

Emily Thompson 1:08:38
People like shiny drama, but you're the only person that's ever called it that.

Kathleen Shannon 1:08:43
Alright, so some other things recently that I've been asking myself is because of the anger issue. Is it kind? Is it necessary? And is it true?

Emily Thompson 1:08:54
Right, and if it's if it's not one of those things, so that you should be all three, not just one all three, don't share it on the internet. Jesus always guys.

Kathleen Shannon 1:09:06
Another one is don't email or say anything, especially now with your phone listening to you all the time that you wouldn't want anyone else to see or hear. And so this is more of just like a, this isn't actually about your phone listening to you. Because I do believe in privacy. And I do believe being able to vent to your business bestie or to your partner. But whenever it comes to like professionalism, be careful whenever you're emailing about someone else. Like I think that for me, it always makes me be more compassionate or give the benefit of the doubt whenever it comes to what I'm emailing or typing in slack. Does that make sense?

Emily Thompson 1:09:43
Absolutely. I mean, you should never say something that you wouldn't want read back to you.

Kathleen Shannon 1:09:49
So I recently got this advice really specifically from someone who was using our brand name for one of their programs and we had to send them a cease and desist really thinking about like, Okay, if this person republished this letter, how would that look to the internet, you know, and so it's really easy to want to get riled up and angry whenever you feel like someone has taken something away from you, or you feel there's like this injustice. And that was our example of like, okay, you can send them a cease and desist, but make sure that you'd be okay with this being blasted across the internet, like, so that's advanced, specific example. But I think it can apply to a lot of different things. So like, even the conversations that you're having in Facebook groups, or wherever, just remember, like it can be shared,

Emily Thompson 1:10:36
for sure. And I think it's all just also comes down to, you know, knowing what your priorities are, and what it is that you value and taking stock of all of those things and finding out where you know, digital technology and all the wonderful things that it does, maybe on encroaching on things that are important to you. For us, you know, we've been living in this world for so terribly long that I think we've I think we are probably a little further along than a lot of people and probably a lot of people listening to this. And you know, the internet can be a really awful scary place to fall into. But I also know from experience that whenever you create the right kinds of boundaries around it, and you know, you're using it as you know, a tool for good, or whatever it may be, you have the opportunity to reap like really great benefits for both the business that you're building online. And even like the personal life that you're building online, I mean, I've made so many friends on the internet. But you're also able to Super nurture your real world life, quote, unquote, the things that you do when you're not looking at your phone, or the things that you do whenever you're not sitting in front of your computer, because I still believe even after all these this time, that I spend the time on the internet that I do for what happens when I'm not on it.

Kathleen Shannon 1:12:01
Amen. All right. So look at all of the places where you are spending time online, if there's a screen in front of your face, track where it is that you're spending that time and note if you need any boundaries around that. So for me, it was like looking at where I was spending the most time or where I was feeling the most anxious when I was online, and really establishing boundaries around that. So years ago, it was around gossip sites, then it was around my inbox. Right now. It's around Instagram. So look at where you're spending the most time and do you need boundaries around it?

Emily Thompson 1:12:34
And then do the work? As per usual, define those boundaries, and then do the thing. End of story by Willie, this is the day I'm just being bitchy.

Kathleen Shannon 1:12:50
How do we say bye? Bye. It's like hanging up with your boyfriend.

Emily Thompson 1:12:55
You know? We have an outro outro that says bye for us. Right?

Kathleen Shannon 1:13:03
Are you later I'll miss you. all of y'all need some boundaries see tomorrow. Hey bosses, I want to tell you about the CEO day hit. The CEO day kit is 12 months of focus planning for your business in just one day. So Emily and I have packaged up the exact tools that we've been consistently using for years that have helped us grow from baby bosses to the CEOs of our own businesses. gain clarity find focus, get momentum, prioritize your time, make better decisions and become more self reliant with the CEO day kit. Go to courses that being boss club to learn more and see if it's a fit for you and your business. We'd like to give a shout out to our partner fresh books cloud accounting you can try it for free for 30 days no credit card needed and cancel any time. Just go to freshbooks comm slash being boss and enter being boss in the How did you hear a special thanks to our sponsor 2020 who is offering our being boss listeners a five photo free trial to start yours right now go to 20 twenty.com slash being boss. That's the word 20 then to zero.com slash being boss to get five free photos. Thank you for listening to being boss Find Articles show notes and downloads at WWW dot Viki Bob house. Thank you so much to our team and sponsors who make being boss possible our sound engineer and web developer Corey winter. Our editorial director and content manager Caitlin brain, our community manager and social media drive designer Jessica Bramlett and are being countered David Austin with support from braid creative and

Emily Thompson 1:14:46
do the work. Be boss and we'll see you next week.