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LIVE YOUR FECKIN' LIFE · The Karen Kenney Show

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Karen Kenney: It's the Karen Kenney show. Hey, you guys!
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Welcome to the Karen Kenney Show. I'm super duper excited to
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be here with you today, and I gotta tell you, I had a little
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plot twist. I just, I just pivoted on myself because I
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thought I knew what I was gonna talk about today, and then when
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I went to hit record, I was like, no, no, no, no, no! I want
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to talk about something else. So I'm just gonna like dive right
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into this sucker. I don't know what the title of it's gonna be
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yet. However, it's a jumping-off point. I was thinking about this
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the other day. My sweetie and I actually had a conversation
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about this. And when I was out on my walk run today, I just got
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back, and because you gotta look at at my age, you gotta move it
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or lose it. You gotta you gotta use it. You gotta you boy, you
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gotta use it or you're gonna lose it. But I just got back and
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I was like, no, I'm gonna talk about this instead. And I came
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upstairs and hit record. And here's the thing: I think it was
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don't hold me to this, but I'm pretty sure it was somewhere
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around like 2006 ish. Like, remember Gary V, Gary
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Vaynerchuk. So Gary comes on the scene, and he might have been on
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the scene for a while. But I just remember distinctly at one
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point he started pushing this whole idea, and maybe this
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wasn't in 2006, but I just remember it being like 20
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friggin' years ago, and Gary was kind of doing this whole thing
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about like document your life, document everything, and he
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would say instead of you know quote unquote creating content,
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just document everything and then put it everywhere, like put
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it all over social media. And I think it was around that time,
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and I could be wrong, but I think it was around that time,
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where when everybody like when Facebook and different you know
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quote unquote social media things came out, the whole idea
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was for us to be social with the people that we loved, with our
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friends and family. It was an easy way to kind of like almost
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on a mass level to stay in touch and to update people about
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what's going on. Blah blah blah blah blah. That's what these
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sites and all of that Facebook, Instagram, all these different
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things were originally for. Right now, they're not actually
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social sites. They have totally turned a corner. But more
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importantly, what I want to say. So we we would consider them
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more like entertainment vehicles now. I don't consider them as
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actually being necessarily the best social tools for being
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social. I think the best social tools is to you know see people
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in person, to have relationships and friendships where you
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actually get together and see each other. And if you live far
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apart, maybe you call each other on the phone, or maybe you write
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letters. Remember writing letters? Oh my God! But here's
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my whole point about all of this. When Gary started telling
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everybody, I'm not blaming this on Gary. I'm just saying, back
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at that point, he was telling everybody to document
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everything, and I think something happened to the
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collective psyche of all of us. Right? I really believe in a
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Course in Miracles is this concept that like all minds are
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joined, right? So it's kind of like this idea, like how on one
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island, right? There can be two separate islands where the
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monkeys don't know each other, they don't talk to each other,
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but something happens collectively where the monkeys
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on one island will start to figure out how to use a tool.
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They'll figure out how to use a rock to like smash nuts and get
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the goodies inside, and then all of a sudden, somehow, magically,
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mystically, on the other island, those monkeys also start doing
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it. How does it happen? I believe it's because there's a
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universal consciousness of some kind. So something kind of
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happened to the human universal consciousness where we went from
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we used to just live our lives. Maybe that's what I'm going to
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call this: live your fucking life. Just live your life. But
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let me get to what I mean about that.
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Before social media, before this whole idea of documenting
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everything, like remember, there used to be like movies and
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books, and then when we wanted to go deep on something, we some
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some filmmaker would create a documentary, right? Now we
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almost treat everything, everything, like as a
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documentary. Meaning, I the other day, let me give an
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example. The other day, I went out, and I well, this happened
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twice. One, I intentionally left my phone at home. I think my
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sweetie had his on him. You know, because nowadays, if like
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if you're gonna, you know, if you're gonna, you don't want to
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break down on the side of the road or whatever, not have a way
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to call for help or whatever, right? If you or as a as a
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woman, especially you're going out for a run, you're going out
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to do something, you want to make sure that you have a means
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of communication. But in these rare times when you just like
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leave your phone at home, so one time I did it on purpose, and
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one time I did it by mistake. And at first I was like, "Oh no,
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I forgot my phone at home, and then slowly it started to become
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like this little taste of freedom, and I. Was just like, I
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can't take any pictures. I can't call anybody. But more
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importantly, nobody can call me. Nobody can text me. I mean, they
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can do it, but they're not going to get me because my phone is
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somewhere where my body isn't. You know what I mean? Somewhere
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where my brain isn't, and it became this little sense of
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freedom. I was like, "Oh my God, no! And I don't really have
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notifications turned on, anyways. But like, no little
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like red numbers telling me how many messages I have on any app,
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right? Like, no emails, no voxing, no text messaging, no
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phone calls, like nothing. I was just like free, and it got me to
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thinking about this thing, about how back in the day we used to
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just live our lives, and if we were going to document anything,
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like as writers a lot of times, writers we have some sort of
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writing utensil or you know piece of paper, a little
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notebook, a journal, or something on we scribble on the
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back of napkins, whatever. But if an idea occurred to us, if
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something came up, we would find a way to like write it down or
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do something that was fine, right? And if you had a camera,
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if you wanted to take pictures, that's how we used to document
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things, right? Is we would take a picture at a wedding, we would
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take a picture at your kid's graduation, you would take a
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picture to of a beautiful sunset or some waterfall or how cute
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your dog is, whatever it is, but we used to do these things and
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then we would put them in like photo albums, which you might
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then share if your friends came over to your house. Do you know
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what I mean? But that human element was there, but now it
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feels like, and this is the point I'm trying to make. I feel
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like so many of us have lost just this simplicity, and this
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clarity, and this freedom, and this spontaneity and fun of just
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living your life, because it's almost like this dictum, right?
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We've been dictated, we've been told by all the marketing people
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we've been told by the Gary V's of the world, and again, I think
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Gary Gary has done some good in the world. This is just the old
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thing. Document everything. And here's the thing: when is the
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last time? Now, if you're in an older older generation, you
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might be like, "I do this all this time, all the time. Well,
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then this isn't for you, right? Thank you for being here, and
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I'm not saying this to you, but I'm just asking the general
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public, whoever listens to the show, right? When's the last
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time you just went and had an experience and didn't feel the
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need to like? I have to take a picture, I have to think about
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this, I have to mine. I have to mine this experience, right? So
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that I can make a post later.
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And whether whether you're trying to think like, oh, what
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are the five lessons that I took away from my visit to Market
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Basket today, or what's a way that I can turn this into a
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post? What's a way that I can put this online and and make it
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content. How can I add value by taking this story that I'm going
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to tell so that I can get clients? Like da da da da da. Do
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you know what I mean? We used to just live our fucking lives, and
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then we might come home and be like, "Sweetie, let me tell you
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what happened, or you would share a story with your friend
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or whatever. But we weren't mining and just milking and
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trying to squeeze every single thing that we do, so that we can
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then share it later with a bunch of strangers on the internet.
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Now, yes, some of those people you're sharing with are your
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friends, and to be clear, I post pictures of Bunchy online,
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right? My my pug. I post pictures of Toby Pajamas, my
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cat. I do share things too, right? But I'm usually sharing
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because it's something I love, something that made me laugh,
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something I learned, something that's lighting me up, something
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that I want to, you know, make somebody else laugh about or
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whatever. But the other day, I was just like, it just kind of
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hit me, and I think why it's hitting me is not so much that
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we like to share parts of our life. It's that the social media
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overlords, right, the Zuckerbergs and the Elon Musk
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and all the people that own all the platforms. It became less
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about you being social with people you love, and more about
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you creating content for free for them, so that they can then
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use that right to manipulate and do things where they're trying
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to like gamify everything, so that they can keep your eyeballs
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on their platforms and the posts and the content of other people,
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so that they can sell more advertising to people, so that
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they can track how long your eyeballs are literally on a
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thing. So they're basically using you and your content to
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get fucking rich, and they've created this incredible
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ecosystem where they've. Got you convinced that you need to do
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these things, or you will no longer be relevant in your life.
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That your business will suffer. That you'll never find another
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client or another friend. Do you know what I mean? And it's all
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such a racket. And so, really, this is just like a little
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reminder that that you could just live your life. You don't
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have to take pictures. You don't have to post about it. You don't
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have to like find the seven tips and hacks, or here's my hot take
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on this meal at some frigging thing, or this is what I think
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about what so and so did or said. It's like all of it. It's
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like oh my god, right? It's just again, this is just an
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invitation from my height to yours, to just say I don't know.
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Once in a while, try it for a few hours. Try it for a day,
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where you just go out and live your life and have experiences,
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and don't think about what you're gonna do with it
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afterwards, right? Because what happens is when you're in the
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present moment, just having the experience with your sweetie,
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with your furry kids, with your human kids, with your family,
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with your group, your yoga class, whatever it is. As soon
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as you start thinking about, I need to take a picture so that I
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can then post it. You have already left the present moment.
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You are no longer present. You are already time traveling,
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right? Like warp speed time traveling into how am I now
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going to share this in such a way to promote my business, to
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promote my program, to promote my product, to like do you know
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what I'm saying? Now, some of you might say this doesn't apply
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to me, and that's great, awesome. If you're already
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living this way, awesome. And I'm not saying we should never
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post on social media or anything again.
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I'm just saying notice how we pull ourselves out of the
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moments with these people, with the people you love, your
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friends, your family, whoever, so that we can then start to
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think about how I'm going to milk or mine or use this for
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something later to tell a story or to add value or to hit my hit
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my criteria or my quota of posts for the day or whatever it is.
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You know, I personally have found when I post about like if
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I post a picture about Bunchy or I post like oh I just made a
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huge batch of vegan tempeh stew yeah like 50 people will like it
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a bunch of people will comment on it sometimes even more you
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know I have a post on Instagram where we we've had for I haven't
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seen her this summer so I'm a little heartbroken because I
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don't know if she's around, but we we have had this beloved
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three legged dia, who has graced our property for like the last
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seven seven years, and I did a video of her and I put it on
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Instagram. It's gotten like 2.3 million views or something, 2.1
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million views. I don't know, it's pretty high, but it's over
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2 million views, and it was just posting a picture, like a little
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video of my dear friend Trixie, who I love, right? So, but so if
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I just post about like animals or I post something silly,
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right? Tons of views. Anytime I try to post about something
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where I'm trying to help other people, like whether that's I
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post about my podcast episode this week or I post about my
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Write Club workshop P.S. That's coming up this Saturday,
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Saturday september 26, at the 11th letter writing gallery in
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Concord. If you want to come, but if I post about my yoga
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class or my Thai yoga massage or stuff that I'm creating and
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offering, it just gets buried. It gets buried and nobody sees
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it. And these are things that I really want to share with people
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because I'm like, this could be the solution to somebody's
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problem. This could be something that somebody needs to hear.
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This could be a story that could make a difference. You know what
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I mean? So, but none of those things actually make it
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anywhere. Maybe like three people see them because the
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thing now with the algorithm is, if or the business side of it
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is, if you're not spending money on Facebook ads or Instagram
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ads, they don't want to share your shit. They're like, "Yeah,
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no, we're not doing that anymore. We're not giving you
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guys free advertising. So the things that really matter to you
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for your business, or the things that you're trying to promote to
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help others, we just bury that shit, you know. So all this to
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say, you guys, it's this isn't that deep of a of a of an
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episode, except to say I just kind of clocked the other day
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that it's like so often we lose just this real innocence of I'm
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just going to be here in the moment watching my kid's soccer
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game or watching this thing, and just fully being there and not
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feeling like we have to capture it or document it or use it to
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put it out there. Do you know what I mean? And if this doesn't
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resonate with you, that's okay. Thank you for listening and
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scroll on by. But I think it's important that we look at how
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and the reason why it kind of gets like you know, as we gets
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like you know when it when it does. Or a cat, like the
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hackles. They're hackles. Why my hackles get up about this is
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that they have trained so many of us. Meaning they, the as I
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say, the social media overlords, the mettas and the mus and the
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Zuckerbergs and the AI, all of them. They have slowly been kind
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of like trying to train the collective conscious, you know,
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the consciousness of all of us that if we don't post, we're
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invisible. If we aren't having an online life, then we don't
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have a life, and it's just not true. I think my prediction is
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that more and more and more and more people are going to be
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leaving, going to be leaving these apps, and they're gonna
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get back to some basics.
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They're gonna stop planning. Like, when's the last time?
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Think about it. When's the last time? Now, some of you, again,
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you might host your family all the time, but when's the last
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time you had just like a dinner party at your house where you
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invited some people over and you all just sat around and talked.
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Everybody put their phones away, and you were totally present
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with each other. You know what I mean? Like these things are so
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important. There's so many arts that we're losing, like the art
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of conversation, the art of communication, the art of
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cursive writing, the art of knowing how to write a letter,
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the art of knowing how to do. Do you know what I mean? Like
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meeting face to face, and having genuine like conversations. All
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these things, right? I'd rather you like show me your photo
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albums. Do you know what I mean? And now even it's on phones.
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Everything's on phones, and people just go scroll, scroll,
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scroll. Oh, look! Here's this picture. Here's this picture.
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Here's this picture. And now I'm not bagging on all the
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technology because I do think it has been helpful. In some ways,
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it has allowed us to stay connected, but it also, in a lot
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of ways, has us hyperconnected, but in more shallow ways, right?
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Or we're just become more lazy in our connection and our
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communications. So that's it. Just a little something, just go
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out. I guess that's it. Live your life. Go out and just live
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your life. Don't worry about like even like I see it all the
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time too. He has another example because my sweetie is a
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professional musician. I see people go to shows and they hold
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up their cameras and they record the whole show or the whole time
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they're worried about going live or taking pictures that they can
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post later to show people or whatever, and so they're viewing
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the actual people in performance through the lens of their phone.
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They're not professional photographers who are setting up
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a tripod and capturing the whole thing and then watching the show
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with their own eyeballs without a screen between them and the
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actual performers, right? We're we're not even being present for
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our lives as it's happening, because we're using these. It's
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almost like putting friggin' like you know when people look
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through something through binoculars, right? Back in the
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day, you put binoculars on to be able to see long distance or
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whatever, and now we put this like screen, this block between
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us and the art, us and the music, us and the dance, us and
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whatever, because we're so concerned about documenting it.
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And I understand the urge. Trust me, I love taking a good
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picture, but I also love just putting my fucking phone down
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and just being there with people and being in the room and taking
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it in and I'm like, you know what? My mind, my brain, my
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subconscious, like that's also my photo album. This is where
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the memories live, you know. But I wanna, I don't wanna, and I've
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said this to my sweetie before because there'll be times when
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I'll say to him, "Hey, I'm gonna film for you because sometimes
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he likes to hear, you know, his tone back, or he wants to hear
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his, you know, his voice back, or whatever. If especially if
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he's doing a new song, I'll say, yeah, I'll capture these. And I
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used to just hold up my phone for him, like for a lot of the
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show. Not saying he made me do it or anything, but lately I've
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said to him, like, hey, if there's a couple of songs you
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want me to record or take picture, I'll do that. But I
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just want to put my phone down so I can just be there and have
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the experience, you know. And I'm a documenter. Don't get me
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wrong; like I'm a writer. I love to capture things. I love to jot
19:14
down notes. I love to snap a picture here and there. But I
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think we've we've kind of traded real life for the digital life
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in a lot of ways, and I think a lot of people are getting rich
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off of it because they've trained us to think that we need
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to share every single aspect of our lives, and we don't.
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And not only that, a lot of people don't care, and a lot of
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people don't have your best interests at heart, and a lot of
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people they hit the like button and they move on, but there's
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really no real connection. So for me, I think I just want to
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start really being more present in my life. I mean, I'm pretty
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present in my life, but even more so, like put down the
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phones, just live your life. Don't worry about the seven
19:58
steps or the five. Or the posts, or how you're going to mine this
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thing. What like just be there, just be there for yourself, be
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there for your experiences, be there for your relationships,
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and let's just see what happens. And if you take me up on this,
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and like I said, do it for half a day, do it on Sundays, do it
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for a few hours, whatever it is. And I'm not saying oh, digital
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detox, you know, I'm not saying oh these devices are evil. I'm
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just saying I think we're going to start to have a shift back to
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people just wanting more simpler times and and less just less
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digital life and more real in person life. So that's what I
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got for you today. Thank you so much for listening. If you want
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to find out what I'm up to, anything that's going on, like
20:44
anything like Thai yoga, body work, Thai yoga massage, if
20:47
you're local to you know the Concan New Hampshire area, my
20:50
yoga class is sold out, so that's why I don't really
20:53
promote it that much. And my you know I do hot to hot days like
20:59
coaching, I do all those things, right? Yeah, you can find
21:02
everything. Just go to KarenKenney.com, Write Club,
21:05
whatever it is. It's really easy to find me, and I would love to
21:09
to bump it to you in real life sometime. Wouldn't that be so
21:12
cool? So thank you for listening. I appreciate you so
21:14
much. Wherever you go, may you leave the animals, may you leave
21:17
the planet and the other people in yourself better than how you
21:20
found it. Wherever you go, may you and your energy and your
21:25
attitude and your love and your real in person, real time
21:30
presence be a blessing. Bye. Hey, thanks so much for
21:35
listening to the show. I really love spending some time
21:39
together. Now, if you dig the show or know someone that could
21:42
benefit from this episode, please share it with them and
21:45
help me to spread the good word and the love. And if you want to
21:49
be in the know about all of my upcoming shenanigans, head on
21:53
over to karenkenney.com/signup and join my list. It'll be
21:59
wicked fun to stay in touch. Bye.