Latest / Business Brain – The Entrepreneurs’ Podcast / Digital vs Analog and All About Nothing

Transcript

Digital vs Analog and All About Nothing · Business Brain – The Entrepreneurs’ Podcast

• 0:00
  Dave Hamilton: Business Brain, episode 760 for Wednesday, June 10th, National Ballpoint Pen Day, 2026.
• 0:11
  Shannon Jean: I'm a fan of the ballpoint.
• 0:12
  Dave Hamilton: You know, it reminds me of National Taylor Day, though, Shannon.
• 0:18
  Shannon Jean: When's the last time you bought.
• 0:20
  Dave Hamilton: A ballpoint pen? I realized the other day, I actually made a joke,
• 0:26
  Dave Hamilton: that the ballpoint pens that I have and the staples that I have,
• 0:34
  Dave Hamilton: they were a parting gift when I left Citibank, which was in 1995.
• 0:43
  Dave Hamilton: That's crazy. And the joke I made was that I would, when I ran out of Staples,
• 0:50
  Dave Hamilton: that's when I would know it was time to retire.
• 0:53
  Dave Hamilton: But the same with ballpoint pens, right? Like, we don't buy them anymore. And to be fair.
• 1:01
  Shannon Jean: Yes. I have a Mont Blanc. And that's the, but I bought it. I got them at an
• 1:05
  Shannon Jean: auction. I bought about 200 of them. Sure. And I sold every single one. And I kept one.
• 1:10
  Shannon Jean: That's the last, and that was probably five years ago.
• 1:13
  Dave Hamilton: Yeah, okay.
• 1:14
  Shannon Jean: And, you know, there seems to be a bucket of them around my house in drawers
• 1:19
  Shannon Jean: and everything else, but I don't recall ever purchasing one.
• 1:21
  Dave Hamilton: Yeah, I probably will buy a ballpoint pen before I buy Staples.
• 1:26
  Dave Hamilton: Just because I do write things. Like, I actually do have a pen that my wife
• 1:31
  Dave Hamilton: gave me for our anniversary, for our platinum anniversary, whatever that was.
• 1:35
  Dave Hamilton: You know, and it has, like, platinum in the pen or whatever.
• 1:37
  Dave Hamilton: And I keep that at my desk, and I use it when I need to. Like I do have some
• 1:43
  Dave Hamilton: paperwork stuff that I do, but like, I'm not writing anything out longhand.
• 1:47
  Dave Hamilton: Like, so it takes a long time for me to, to burn through a cartridge on that.
• 1:51
  Dave Hamilton: So, you know, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating. It's fat. It's fascinating. Um,
• 1:59
  Dave Hamilton: You had an interesting topic, Shannon. And I'm curious what you mean by this.
• 2:06
  Shannon Jean: So there's some good memes I like to think about when I'm – most of my life
• 2:12
  Shannon Jean: and work is online, has been for a long time, and it's kind of gotten more and
• 2:17
  Shannon Jean: more over the past few years.
• 2:19
  Shannon Jean: And one of those memes is from Succession where the – I forget the guy's name,
• 2:26
  Shannon Jean: Kendall, I think is the character. he's tells somebody you're too online,
• 2:30
  Shannon Jean: you know, you've been too online.
• 2:33
  Shannon Jean: And the other one that I like, it's not really, I guess it's a meme now,
• 2:36
  Shannon Jean: but is from The Shining where Jack Nicholson's character types out all work
• 2:43
  Shannon Jean: and no play, makes Jack a dull boy, right?
• 2:45
  Dave Hamilton: I believe he types it more than once. Yeah, that's right.
• 2:47
  Shannon Jean: Yes, yes, thousands of times. And I kind of feel that way.
• 2:53
  Shannon Jean: Sometimes I find myself too online and I find myself getting,
• 2:59
  Shannon Jean: you know, just kind of dulled by the, the routine, you know,
• 3:04
  Shannon Jean: I'm not a fan of routine, but it does happen to us.
• 3:06
  Shannon Jean: And you get there and you jump online, you're this, I'm on X,
• 3:09
  Shannon Jean: I'm on this, I'm on that, I'm doing this in the community, I'm all that.
• 3:13
  Shannon Jean: And so I was thinking about it this weekend to, for me to be.
• 3:20
  Shannon Jean: Not, it's not happy because I'm very happy, but it's a fulfilled or to feel
• 3:26
  Shannon Jean: more balanced, I need a mix of the digital and the analog.
• 3:31
  Shannon Jean: And what I mean by analog is,
• 3:35
  Shannon Jean: this weekend I got to be outside and I had used my chainsaw and I borrowed one
• 3:42
  Shannon Jean: of my neighbor's chippers and I chipped a bunch of stuff that I cut,
• 3:45
  Shannon Jean: you know, and I had this focus.
• 3:48
  Shannon Jean: I couldn't look at my phone.
• 3:50
  Shannon Jean: I'm addicted to that just like everybody else. And I had earplugs in and I had
• 3:55
  Shannon Jean: like a face mask because I was just doing all this crazy stuff.
• 3:59
  Shannon Jean: And it just pulls me away from the, you know, the, the typing and the whisper
• 4:05
  Shannon Jean: sink or whisper flow and all that stuff.
• 4:07
  Shannon Jean: Uh, it's important. And, and I just realized after I was doing that for three,
• 4:12
  Shannon Jean: four hours and I was sweaty and my arm hurt, you know, and I'm all scratched
• 4:16
  Shannon Jean: up from the branches. It's like, this is really cool. I love this. Yep.
• 4:20
  Shannon Jean: And it's important to me to be, to, to jump out of this digital realm and to
• 4:26
  Shannon Jean: you know there's another you know they always say touch grass right similar
• 4:29
  Shannon Jean: kind of thing you got to get away from it sometimes it's really.
• 4:32
  Dave Hamilton: Important it is it's so important and and i think it's the
• 4:37
  Dave Hamilton: reason that you know that our computer overlords won't take over right because
• 4:42
  Dave Hamilton: we we as humans we're very addicted to to technology it makes us more productive
• 4:48
  Dave Hamilton: uh most most of the time right i mean you know there's there's a lot of benefits to it
• 4:53
  Dave Hamilton: But there are downsides and and we all hit that point, each of us in different
• 4:58
  Dave Hamilton: ways where it's like, I'm like,
• 5:01
  Dave Hamilton: this isn't like this isn't right now.
• 5:03
  Dave Hamilton: I need to I need to go. And like you said, yeah, grass.
• 5:07
  Dave Hamilton: I had the same experience this weekend. We spent some time. We had a huge storm.
• 5:10
  Dave Hamilton: Actually, it was Friday night that we had the storm, but I didn't realize it
• 5:13
  Dave Hamilton: until Saturday, Saturday night.
• 5:16
  Dave Hamilton: That all this stuff had come down in our driveway so we spent some time on you
• 5:20
  Dave Hamilton: know friday just raking it on the sunday rather just raking it up and like cleaning
• 5:24
  Dave Hamilton: it it's like oh man it's so nice and then
• 5:27
  Dave Hamilton: you know saturday night i had a gig where we played it was a it's somewhat a
• 5:32
  Dave Hamilton: typical show for us where we had we were booked to play for two hours and i
• 5:37
  Dave Hamilton: i said to the guys i'm like
• 5:39
  Dave Hamilton: From 9 p.m. to 11 p.m.
• 5:41
  Dave Hamilton: And I said, in this town where we are, whenever we stop for the first time is
• 5:47
  Dave Hamilton: when 80% of the people are going to leave.
• 5:49
  Dave Hamilton: I said, so my... Right? Because if we take a break, it's over. They're gone.
• 5:54
  Dave Hamilton: It's interesting. And I said, so we should play...
• 5:59
  Dave Hamilton: Two hours straight through we should not take a break and yeah and everybody
• 6:03
  Dave Hamilton: was in agreement it was like oh yeah good call you know it's okay that we did
• 6:06
  Dave Hamilton: it and it worked out great like uh you know was but playing for two hours completely immersed
• 6:13
  Dave Hamilton: uh yeah i i do wear my apple watch because i i like to get credit for all the
• 6:17
  Dave Hamilton: uh the the exercise swinging
• 6:19
  Shannon Jean: Around sure yeah all that exercise that's true yeah um yeah.
• 6:23
  Dave Hamilton: But but i think i'm in do not disturb mode right like yeah i i if The worst
• 6:28
  Dave Hamilton: thing that could happen to me would be to get a text while on stage.
• 6:31
  Dave Hamilton: Oh, yeah. Forget it. To be a disaster. Yeah.
• 6:34
  Dave Hamilton: So I don't. And I'm just in it and I'm immersed in playing and singing and thinking about the songs.
• 6:41
  Dave Hamilton: And it's one of my favorite things and one of my favorite ways to detach because
• 6:49
  Dave Hamilton: playing music can be all-consuming.
• 6:52
  Dave Hamilton: There are times when I'm playing something boring and I've watched a football
• 6:55
  Dave Hamilton: game on the screen. and it's like someday this gig will be over,
• 6:58
  Dave Hamilton: but most gigs aren't like that most of the time. Right, that's right.
• 7:01
  Shannon Jean: I think the word you used, I like is, excuse me, is immersion. Yeah.
• 7:07
  Shannon Jean: Is sometimes you need to really dive deep in the digital realm.
• 7:11
  Shannon Jean: For sure. Which I like too.
• 7:13
  Shannon Jean: Building something, creating an app, creating a website, working on a community,
• 7:17
  Shannon Jean: making a logo, whatever.
• 7:20
  Shannon Jean: And that's an interesting topic about AI, stealing that from you, from us.
• 7:26
  Shannon Jean: We should talk about sometime. Okay. But I love that too.
• 7:30
  Shannon Jean: And I love getting immersed in a book and just losing myself and reading,
• 7:36
  Shannon Jean: going down the rabbit hole in some other story, right? That's not my life.
• 7:40
  Shannon Jean: And also the analog part, really working outside and tearing things up. But-
• 7:45
  Shannon Jean: I don't want to do any of them full-time.
• 7:48
  Dave Hamilton: Right. Any of them.
• 7:50
  Shannon Jean: And I, like, if I'm up at our river house and I'm just, you know,
• 7:55
  Shannon Jean: busting my butt every day, man, I'm just like, I got to get out of here.
• 8:00
  Shannon Jean: It's just too much. I need to get back and sit at my desk.
• 8:02
  Shannon Jean: And so it's just that balance. I really, I've come to appreciate it more and,
• 8:08
  Shannon Jean: I could feel that I was kind of out of whack with being too much in front of
• 8:13
  Shannon Jean: a screen, whether it's this one or my phone or whatever it is.
• 8:16
  Shannon Jean: So getting to unhook and we're going to go, we're going to Tahoe on Wednesday
• 8:19
  Shannon Jean: for a few days and get out of here. So I'm really looking forward to it.
• 8:23
  Dave Hamilton: That's good. That's good. Yeah. It's important. It's important.
• 8:26
  Shannon Jean: I think so.
• 8:26
  Dave Hamilton: All right. I want to talk about nothing Shannon. And so we're going to do that in a minute.
• 8:33
  Dave Hamilton: But first I want to talk about our sponsors.
• 8:36
  Dave Hamilton: And let me ask you something. If somebody walked into your office right now
• 8:39
  Dave Hamilton: and said, Hey, hand me your client list, your contracts, and your login credentials.
• 8:45
  Dave Hamilton: You'd say absolutely not, right? We're all on the same page about that?
• 8:50
  Dave Hamilton: Every day scammers send emails that do pretty much exactly that and they're
• 8:56
  Dave Hamilton: getting frighteningly good at it the one i've been watching fake vendor invoices
• 9:01
  Dave Hamilton: we got one we actually tried to pay it thankfully
• 9:04
  Dave Hamilton: we were stopped by our bank they look identical to the real ones the right logo
• 9:09
  Dave Hamilton: the right format slightly different bank routing number your bookkeeper approves
• 9:13
  Dave Hamilton: it money moves And by the time anybody catches it, the payment is gone.
• 9:19
  Dave Hamilton: And this, folks, is where our sponsor Bitdefender earns its reputation.
• 9:24
  Dave Hamilton: Bitdefender is a global leader in cybersecurity, and their ultimate small business
• 9:28
  Dave Hamilton: security is purpose-built for teams of 25 or fewer who are building something
• 9:34
  Dave Hamilton: real without a dedicated security department.
• 9:37
  Dave Hamilton: What I really like is that you get AI-powered scam protection that spots these
• 9:41
  Dave Hamilton: attacks before they reach anyone on your team, plus business reputation monitoring,
• 9:47
  Dave Hamilton: password management, unlimited VPN,
• 9:49
  Dave Hamilton: and a dashboard so clean, it makes me feel like I actually have my act together.
• 9:53
  Dave Hamilton: And that, my friends, it's a powerful feeling.
• 9:56
  Dave Hamilton: Keep your small business safe with Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security
• 10:01
  Dave Hamilton: and save 30% when you go to bitdefender.com slash brain.
• 10:05
  Dave Hamilton: That's bitdefender.com slash brain for 30% off check it out i think you're really
• 10:10
  Dave Hamilton: going to like it and our thanks to bit defender for sponsoring this episode
• 10:15
  Dave Hamilton: All right shannon uh nothing nothing is a valid event on the calendar uh okay
• 10:23
  Dave Hamilton: yep i i was talking to my business my strawberry uh business coach
• 10:29
  Dave Hamilton: And, uh, and we were talking about, I, I, I sometimes overcommit myself, Shannon. What?
• 10:38
  Dave Hamilton: I do too. And, and, and I don't just do it like in my, my like business life
• 10:43
  Dave Hamilton: that we talk about here. I do it with gigs too. Somebody will text me and be
• 10:46
  Dave Hamilton: like, Hey, are you available for a gig on the, on the 11th? And I'll, I'll look and say, yes.
• 10:51
  Dave Hamilton: And I only say yes, because I'm available. Like I don't have anything on the 11th.
• 10:55
  Dave Hamilton: But if I were to look at, say, the 13th, the
• 11:00
  Dave Hamilton: 14th, the 15th, the 16th, and the 17th, I would realize I need to not play and
• 11:05
  Dave Hamilton: I need to not have to learn 30 songs for a gig on the 11th because I need to
• 11:09
  Dave Hamilton: learn 30 songs for a gig on the 13th and then, you know, again on the 15th.
• 11:14
  Dave Hamilton: But I don't do that. And so he had actually two things.
• 11:18
  Dave Hamilton: Well, the nothing is a valid event on the calendar. That I'll actually take credit for.
• 11:23
  Dave Hamilton: I like it. He said, you know, why not leverage the power of the pause?
• 11:30
  Dave Hamilton: And I said, say more. And he said, great. When somebody, because,
• 11:34
  Dave Hamilton: you know, we entrepreneurs, we get initially when we start our businesses,
• 11:39
  Dave Hamilton: doesn't matter if it's, you know, business doing landscaping,
• 11:41
  Dave Hamilton: business playing music, a business selling ads on the Internet,
• 11:44
  Dave Hamilton: whatever it is, doesn't matter.
• 11:47
  Dave Hamilton: When we start our businesses, we learn to say yes to every single client that shows up.
• 11:54
  Dave Hamilton: Even if they're a bad client, like we just say yes, because we need cash flowing.
• 11:58
  Dave Hamilton: That's the that's the health of the business. Right. So cash flowing. Great.
• 12:02
  Dave Hamilton: You get the cap. But then that doesn't go away. Right. You know,
• 12:06
  Dave Hamilton: that that fear of of not having the phone ring again stays with you.
• 12:13
  Dave Hamilton: And then you so you say, you know, it's hard to say no. You wind up saying yes
• 12:17
  Dave Hamilton: to more things than you probably would if you could go back in time and change those decisions.
• 12:23
  Dave Hamilton: And so his advice, which I love and am happy to share, is
• 12:30
  Dave Hamilton: the power of the pause instead of saying yes like when a gig comes in for me
• 12:34
  Dave Hamilton: it's i'd love thank you for the opportunity i'd love to do that let me check
• 12:39
  Dave Hamilton: my calendar and then i added to it
• 12:42
  Dave Hamilton: you know can i get back to you is 48 hours long enough you know soon enough
• 12:46
  Dave Hamilton: like setting some expectations so they don't think you're just being a flake
• 12:49
  Dave Hamilton: and also so that you know you show them respect for their time and sometimes
• 12:53
  Dave Hamilton: they'll say no i need to know in 12 hours okay
• 12:55
  Dave Hamilton: i will let you no intent, you know, like whatever it is, but figure that out.
• 12:58
  Dave Hamilton: And then actually use that time to not, cause I can look at my calendar and
• 13:02
  Dave Hamilton: tell you if I'm available on the 11th, right. You know, but that's not the question
• 13:06
  Dave Hamilton: I need to answer for myself.
• 13:08
  Shannon Jean: That's a good point.
• 13:09
  Dave Hamilton: It's easy to say no. If they're like, are you available on the 11th and I've
• 13:12
  Dave Hamilton: already got something? It's like, no, that's easy.
• 13:14
  Dave Hamilton: But the yes, it's like, well, what's the cost of that? Yes.
• 13:18
  Dave Hamilton: Yeah. And nothing is an acceptable event to put on the calendar and leave there and that occupies time
• 13:27
  Shannon Jean: Yeah this is one of the problems i have with uh auto calendars like calendly
• 13:32
  Shannon Jean: your link gets out there yeah and yes you set rules and you can go you can be
• 13:37
  Shannon Jean: pretty specific about like space in between them but boy man uh.
• 13:43
  Shannon Jean: If you have if your book anytime or whatever discovery call you know link is
• 13:48
  Shannon Jean: out there and it starts getting posted and shared all of a sudden and you look
• 13:52
  Shannon Jean: at your, I would look at my calendar and be like, wait,
• 13:55
  Shannon Jean: who, what's happening here this week? It's like, boom, boom,
• 13:59
  Shannon Jean: boom, boom, boom. And I'm thinking, yeah, I may be free at noon on Mondays when
• 14:05
  Shannon Jean: we record, but I actually, I need to prep because I need to do this and do that.
• 14:09
  Shannon Jean: And I don't want to have to block out every single minute to protect myself
• 14:14
  Shannon Jean: on the calendar. So I killed that link. That was when it got too far.
• 14:18
  Shannon Jean: I was like, oh, it's like changing your cell phone number. So I killed that.
• 14:21
  Shannon Jean: And then I'm sparingly, you know, I give out that, that link here. Yeah. Okay.
• 14:28
  Shannon Jean: Please do not share this link. Go ahead and book a time. Yeah.
• 14:31
  Shannon Jean: You know, so it doesn't get out too much, but yeah, I agree.
• 14:34
  Shannon Jean: It's protecting your time and not feeling, I read a post over the weekend that somebody said,
• 14:42
  Shannon Jean: are you really enjoying your sunday off or you are you worried about what you should be doing,
• 14:48
  Shannon Jean: right and i thought wow that's really important because if you're concerned
• 14:52
  Shannon Jean: about you should be working and doing this and you're out trying to get some
• 14:56
  Shannon Jean: analog time or whatever you're doing nothing,
• 14:59
  Shannon Jean: it takes the joy out of it and probably introduces stress that you know is not good for you.
• 15:05
  Dave Hamilton: You're not getting the benefit of the of the down time you know
• 15:09
  Shannon Jean: Yeah you're not getting that benefits so giving and i will say i struggle with this.
• 15:14
  Dave Hamilton: Of course you do giving like we all do yes
• 15:17
  Shannon Jean: Giving myself permission to be like all right i'm gonna so i by time block it
• 15:21
  Shannon Jean: i'm like okay i'm gonna read from like i know after we record we're recording
• 15:25
  Shannon Jean: you know four episodes of this after this recording i'm gonna be like okay,
• 15:31
  Shannon Jean: i need a little i need i need a minute i need 20 minutes i just need to sit
• 15:34
  Shannon Jean: i've got a couch i'm gonna stop i'm gonna read and then i'll get back into work
• 15:38
  Shannon Jean: you know so it's important to give yourself permission to do that.
• 15:41
  Dave Hamilton: It is yeah i i don't get the i don't get to do that i get maybe 20 minutes after
• 15:45
  Dave Hamilton: we finish and then i have to play yacht rock songs for four hours
• 15:48
  Shannon Jean: But that's awesome though no different you're immersing in something else.
• 15:51
  Dave Hamilton: Yes it is it is
• 15:53
  Shannon Jean: That changes that shift yes but.
• 15:55
  Dave Hamilton: Um yeah yeah so yep
• 15:58
  Shannon Jean: No it's great uh.
• 16:00
  Dave Hamilton: All right what's uh what's this episode's big takeaway shannon
• 16:06
  Dave Hamilton: I think it's like to me, and I have recency bias with this because,
• 16:11
  Dave Hamilton: you know, I just I'm just like re-embracing this concept. But this this idea
• 16:17
  Dave Hamilton: that nothing is a valid event on the calendar, I think that's.
• 16:19
  Shannon Jean: Yeah, I agree with you 100 percent on that. And because I can tell you it's
• 16:26
  Shannon Jean: difficult for me to keep those nothing spaces available.
• 16:29
  Dave Hamilton: That's the problem is it's like, well, yeah, I have nothing on for Thursday.
• 16:34
  Dave Hamilton: But man, this gig would be fun. It'd be great to see Jack again.
• 16:38
  Dave Hamilton: You know what? I'll sacrifice the couch time.
• 16:40
  Shannon Jean: Sometimes I look at, yeah. But when I look and I have a free day in my calendar,
• 16:44
  Shannon Jean: I'm just like, oh, you know, and I'm thinking, wow, I can really get stuff done.
• 16:49
  Shannon Jean: And so I'm, you know, protective of that. Yeah. I think it's really important.
• 16:55
  Dave Hamilton: I agree. I agree. Thanks for hanging out with us, folks.
• 16:59
  Dave Hamilton: We are always thankful that you are here with us.
• 17:04
  Dave Hamilton: And feedback at businessbrain.show. And we'll see you on Friday.