[Music] hi Shannon Waller here and welcome to the inside strategic coach podcast with Dan Sullivan Dan today we're going to talk about something you've chatted about with Peter dandis on your exponential wisdom podcast and that is the ability to be grateful for technology and I love this topic because I think technology is something it's very easy to take for granted it's very easy to be looking for the next thing I know I'm very appreciative of my iPhone where I come from but most people from what you and P were talking about are not particularly grateful for all of the additional conveniences that technology provides so what's the context around being grateful for technology well it was just an observation that I made to Peter and then we sketched out the concept but it was basically that I've been watching the high-tech world let's say since the internet started I would say it's probably mid mid90s when the internet started and there was kind of a craziness that entered into the technology world and that is there was kind of a first of all I think collectively the entire high technology World went into the Gap to use a coach concept and that is that no matter how good the thing that they created was it wasn't really up to their ideal where the technology goes and they were communicating this through their advertising to the general public and saying don't get left out don't get left behind you got to start thinking you know you got to be able to use your technology wherever you are and one of the things that really alerted this to me we did the best marketing survey that we've ever done in strategic coach last November and three things came back one is that all of our clients really want to scale their business number two is they weren't real happy about the the way that they were attracting great team members so it was scaling team members and the third one which really surprised me it's the first time I've ever heard it how do they protect their team and their scaling goals from the negativity of technological change and I had never heard entrepreneurs and I've been coaching for 45 years ever position technology as a negative problem that they had to protect their team from and I said you know we've crossed a watershed in the development of Technology it's so pervasive in the world right now and the internet as certainly brought that about that now it's creating angst it's not creating happiness it's not creating satisfaction certainly not creating meaning if anything there's been a draining of meaning as people are continually worried do I have the latest technology what technologies am I missing why am I not maximizing the value of the this technology I'm not getting the productivity out of it that I thought I would it seems to be increasing the amount of complexity it's not providing Simplicity and so I think that this is not just an entrepreneurial issue and one of the indicators I use is just the sheer amount of drug addiction that's going on in society and I don't mean illegal drug addiction I mean legal drug addiction people are drugging themselves to offset the negative impacts that they're feeling from the speed of change the acceleration so I said to Peter I said you know in the last 25 years there's a mindset that I've seen completely missing from the entire high-tech world the Silicon Valley world the internet world and he said what's that and I said gratitude I just don't see anyone expressing gratitude for the amazing capabilities that we now have in the 21st century which were just unimaginable really when I was you know I was born in the 19 1940s grew up in the 1950s and 60s I said man if I had had these capabilities back then you know and I'm very thankful for you know I really appreciate my tools I really love my technology empowered capabilities that I have I want to give you a little indication of two things first of all I said with one exception I haven't seen any gratitude and the one person that I found who seems to be really grateful is Tim Cook who has a lot of people are aware of Apple became the first trillion dollar company from a valuation in the world and whenever Tim Cook talks he invariably mentions Steve Jobs and he always says how grateful at Apple everybody as for the fact that they were able to work with Steve Jobs that he created a very special kind of company and they have a very special relationship with the marketplace they continue always did continue making beautiful technology that people love using and the other thing is in all this talk about people misusing your information Apple has been pretty pure about guarding people's personal information and not selling information as a way of making money for people so he's a real exception but when you look at the technology world and you go back to who created the high-tech world who created the microchip who created the personal computer computer who created the internet all the major thinkers whose thoughts actually created the present world are dead they were alive in the 40s 50s 60s and 7s and it was the thinking of these individuals all physical reality comes from conceptual reality and the physical reality of the present world really comes from the conceptual creativity that happened over about a 30 or 40y year period from 1950s to the 1980s that's fascinating and for me it's interesting this whole attitude of gratitude is a very it's kind of the atmosphere we encourage and live in a coach we focus a lot on the positive and I find it really interesting because you know I have two teenagers and so the negativity of Technology as applies to teens is a rampant conversation that happens all over the place and yet we also take for granted all the incredible conveniences so I I really like this contrasting perspective Dan because it's a tool and we can use it to support you know what we're up to and how we're growing or we can be overwhelmed but I think you have such a healthy appreciation and approach to how to use technology and for how not to get overwhelmed I mean one of things I like how Peter talks about it is he said you want to ride the wave of Technology you want to surf the top not be you know caught on the undertoe underneath every day I just have this little five minute meditation on where my current life is being supported by breakthroughs in technology podcast is a huge one I'm so grateful for the internet where you can create a free radio station called inside strategic coach podcast and here we are and it's like we have our own radio station and I have seven other podcast series besides the one that we do together and then all the technologies that make it possible Zoom I just totally love Zoom every time I'm on I said GE what a wonderful thing I have here so here's the thing technology does not make you grateful you have to be grateful for technology so we've moved into a world where there's nothing about technology that will make you grateful as a matter of fact if you are passive with it and you just treat it like a consumer you're going to be you know why does it take so long to get on the internet you know you're on the runway with a plane and it's 15 minutes Beyond when they said you're going to take off and you're angsty there but you're traveling 2500 miles and roughly 5 hours and a trip that a hundred years ago would have taken you a week or even more than a week to actually get there and I said you know what an amazing thing that we have but the meaning has to come from the inside the meaning is not going to come from the outside so our concept of gratitude Is that real Act of gratitude somebody does something nice for you and you feel grateful but the other person is the actor here you have to be the actor in relationship to proactive gratitude and I I'd like to just as we close here link this up with the word appreciation because appreciation has the Gratitude sense of the word but it also has the economic sense of the word and in the economic World appreciation means you increase the value of something gold appreciates you know real estate appre appreciates and I think that the aspect here is that you have to look at the technology and bring your appreciation to it and then the meaning of that actually comes but the First Act has to come from the inside and I just want to close Babs and I got together to be a partners and a team 35 years ago we have a clock radio that wakes us up in the morning and it's a little Sony model from the late 1970s the little tan thing it's a piece of plastic you know it's kind of crappy little piece of equipment but for 35 years it's done the one thing that we want a clock radio to do it wakes us up you know it takes a little bit of jiggling to get it on a clear station that I like and there was a probably a period from The fiveyear Mark until the 20year mark where it could have been thrown out and replaced with something else but once it got beyond the 20year mark I said you know I'm going to going to keep this forever I mean solid state there's nothing that's going to go wrong with it and it's a little venerable piece of technology that does one thing that we love and I've just noticed how much I love that little clock radio and it's 40 years old I love it we were talking about this and I have a silver clock radio that my dad gave me when I was 18 well I'm 53 and it's still beside my bed and it still does exactly what it's supposed to do yeah and it's attached to meaning it's attached to other things besides Ides just the technology so we had a beamer we had an X5 SUV BMW and I loved that car and the reason was it had to be filled up with gas Babs now has the Tesla X and my role as the hero because Babs doesn't like going into gas stations and she doesn't like filling the car up with gas and I grew up on a farm and I kind of like the smell of gasoline it's got a smell I like the smell of gasoline so I used to to go in and you know I would get back in the car especially if it was raining or it was cold weather and I I'd be out there and I'd fill up the gas tank and I get back in she says you're my hero Tesla I'm not the hero and as a result I don't relate to the Tesla because one of my major roles in my relationship with Babs got removed when we moved from the BMW to the Tesla and I won't fall in love with the Tesla I fell in love with the BMW but I won't fall in love with the Tesla because it took away one of my major hero roles I love I can't be a hero to the Tesla right I love that you want to be a hero to Babs Dan I really love this idea of proactive gratitude especially for technology because it's a total antidote to the potential overwhelm that people can feel and when you look around at everything from your clock radio to your smartphone to what heav you to all of the multitude of tools we use including podcasts and zoom and business to really just have this wow I couldn't do what I do as easily as quickly you know as well without this and I think all of a sudden it creates that sense of abundance that's the topic of Peter's first book and we can look at things much much differently so all of that Gap thinking that people get into is just totally mitigated by having proactive gratitude for technology thank you thank you thank you Shannon