SNS 181: Saturday Night Special - Interview with Rob Krecak on Technology Mindfulness

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Welcome to tonight's Saturday Night special episode 180.

[00:00:05] Rob Krecak: Hi everyone. I'm Rob Krek. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to find a way to not lose sight of the importance of people is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to.

[00:00:31] The Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Mader,

[00:00:42] and today the average American is spending 12 hours and 21 minutes a day in front of screens and media, or put another way, we're spending three quarters of our waking lives in front of screens and media. And so that proportion has almost exactly. Instead of spending [00:01:00] 90% of our time with people, we're almost spending 90% of our time with screens.

[00:01:05] Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, Then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:37] And tonight, Saturday Night Special. I interview Rob Krek. Rob shares with you what technology mindfulness is and why it matters. He shares with you how there are concerns about how we use technology today and how it is impacting us. And Rob also shares some tips on what you can do to improve the use of technology and how it affects.

[00:01:58] Now one area that a [00:02:00] lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity. Getting not just more things done, but actually getting the right things done can be really tough. I've got a course called Productivity for Your Passion that's designed to help you do this and then to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity, not just to be getting more done, but actually getting the right things done.

[00:02:32] What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personality. Because the truth is, a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type.

[00:02:50] But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work. But there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for [00:03:00] anyone, and we help you do that and productivity for your passion. Check it out over@inspiredstewardship.com slash launch. Rob Krek is a thrill seeker, self-professed nerd.

[00:03:13] Question asker, voracious reader, competitor, keynote speaker, and business builder. When he first got his Wall Street job as a sell side equity analyst out of college, he thought he'd made it. After buying everything he wanted on his wishlist, he realized that he still wasn't happy. He listened to his deep down desire to help more people by leaving finance to eventually own three.

[00:03:36] Anytime fitness, health clubs and four, you break. I fix cell phone repair stores. Is someone vulnerable to technology's addictive? Hold from a young age, video games and Facebook in particular, Rob is on a mission to help individuals and companies reduce burnout and get back time to master their careers and lives.

[00:03:56] He founded Humans first to provide a one-on-one [00:04:00] kind coaching experience that analyzes and coaches people's efficiency and energy by paying attention to their mindfulness with technology. Rob, thanks. There is always something to be learned from everyone and he lets his curiosity guide his conversations in his spare time.

[00:04:16] He likes to do CrossFit better himself through reading, travel, and spending time with his wife, Nikki. Welcome to the show, Rob.

[00:04:26] Rob Krecak: Yeah, thank you, Scott. I'm really grateful to be here. Appreciate the opportunity to chat with you.

[00:04:30] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. I'm looking forward to having a little bit of insight in picking your brain a little bit about this.

[00:04:36] So we entered in the intro, I mentioned technology, mindfulness is the area you work on. I'm a firm believer in kind of defining terms because I think a lot of times we use words and it's oh, everyone knows what that. No, everybody doesn't know what that means. So what do you mean by technology mindfulness?

[00:04:56] Rob Krecak: Yeah, so the way that I define technology mindfulness is [00:05:00] being aware of ways that you're using technology so that it serves you instead of you being enslaved to it.

[00:05:09] Scott Maderer: Okay. So if that is your definition, how do people do that? What do we look for that makes it clear? First off, that maybe we need to do this cuz we're a slave to technology.

[00:05:22] And then what do we, what are some of the things we can do about it?

[00:05:26] Rob Krecak: Yeah. So the way that I describe it is think about and obviously if you're not this old, you can't think about it, but when 40 when technology came out about 40 years ago we first, when people first got cell phones or pers first got personal computers at their houses, Technology did incredible and amazing things for us, and it still does now, but every single thing technology did back then was a huge leap forward in terms of communication or processing power, and it was all good for humanity, basically.

[00:05:56] Now we've eclipsed the point we're all technology is good. [00:06:00] It's not all good for us anymore. And so the goal of my entire company, humans First, is to educate people. Them be aware of the ways that they might be using technology that doesn't serve them well, so that then they can decide what they wanna do with that information and maybe potentially change their behavior.

[00:06:18] And the thing is just there's a lot of ways that technology is manipulating us or affecting our. Mind and body are sometimes both that we don't even know or we're not even aware of that, and then we're doing it sometimes minute to minute, right? Like the average person, for instance, checks their email once every six minutes during the day during their workday.

[00:06:38] And by the way,

[00:06:39] Scott Maderer: when you said that out loud, somebody just went and checked their

[00:06:41] Rob Krecak: email. . Absolutely. And so what we don't realize is, And what all the data shows is checking your email stresses you out. And so we're literally doing this event where every six minutes we're stressing ourselves out.

[00:06:53] And so if I just, if every single person that was checking their email in the world, which there's 4.2 billion people connected to the [00:07:00] internet, so it's probably several billion people a day, check their email. If every single one of those two couple billion people knew that they were stressing themselves out by checking their.

[00:07:09] My thought would be, or my hope would be maybe they would check their email slightly less or use some other strategies to check their email differently, and that would make a substantial increase in improvement in their life and they would be much happier. Like that to me is very motivating, and that's why I'm excited to share this information with people.

[00:07:24] Scott Maderer: So what are some of the you, so you mentioned checking email every six minutes. What are some of the top symptoms that people have that might trigger the thought that Technology, mindfulness is something they need to pay more attention. . Yeah, that's

[00:07:39] Rob Krecak: a, that's a great question, Scott. And I and again, like I personally experienced the negative effects of technology I can just tell a quick story and then answer your question.

[00:07:48] When I was in high school, I had really bad acne. It was very crippling for me and it really resulted in low self-esteem for me and made it hard for me to connect with people. But one of the side effects of that was that I [00:08:00] actually became addicted to video games. And this was in the mid nineties before most people even had a cell phone.

[00:08:05] And I saw the negative effects of technology before most people were even using it. And then at other points in my life, I also became addicted to Facebook and I excessively used my email. And so I've seen negative effect effects from technology for me in three different areas of my life.

[00:08:21] And that's something that I'm. I I wanna prevent other people from going through like I did, but I think for the average person, if they're thinking that they rely too much on technology or they're using it and they don't want to, or they feel like they have a love-hate relationship with technology, those are, or clearly they're spending way too much time on it.

[00:08:45] Those to me are some signs. You might wanna just start thinking a little bit about how you use it and why you're using it and what, and how it's serving you. And maybe make a few changes. But again, that's really up to you and you have to decide what's best for you. I'm not here to [00:09:00] tell you like, here's the seven ways that you should here's the seven things you should do.

[00:09:03] I just want to give you the information, and then you decide what you do for yourself. Cuz maybe what serves me well doesn't serve you well and vice. .

[00:09:10] Scott Maderer: And I don't think I hear you saying that we should destroy all technology and Luddites throw all the computers in the ocean and that kind of thing.

[00:09:20] Either is that's not really the message either,

[00:09:22] Rob Krecak: right? No. And to be clear, like I'm a nerd. I built my first computer in middle school I loved technology. I built my first one when I was 12. So right there. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So you get it right. And so the way I describe it is I'm not anti-technology.

[00:09:39] I'm pro humanity. I'm pro humanity. And so I do love technology. It does amazing things for us. It makes our lives way better, but without some knowledge about how to use it or how it could be affecting us, it can be bad for us too, or can harm us.

[00:09:54] Scott Maderer: So part of it then is and I guess that's the mindfulness word part, right?

[00:09:58] Right. It's about intentionality or [00:10:00] using it with mindfulness. That's why that shows

[00:10:03] Rob Krecak: up in. . Yeah. And be in, another word I like to use is being deliberate. I want to be deliberate with my use so that I can get the most out of it. While it doesn't having it negatively impact me the least.

[00:10:14] So

[00:10:14] Scott Maderer: you shared the story the early story you had of of video games, Facebook and email. Why did you get into technology mindfulness? What brought you to founding Human First and thinking about this as something that you wanted to.

[00:10:29] Rob Krecak: Yeah the origin story of humans First, I can tell quickly to the listeners.

[00:10:34] So I was, so I it's interesting that I feel like Humans First is a collaboration of all the things I've done in the past and as my my career. I joked that I have career a, D, right? So I used to be a sell side equity analyst. Covered medical device in pharmaceutical companies.

[00:10:52] So I was a stock analyst researching those types of companies. So that helped me with the business the business side of things and the finance side. But then I [00:11:00] also really love health and fitness and so I owned three Anytime fitness health clubs. And then I also owned four ure Fix cell phone repair stores.

[00:11:07] So you look at my career and you say it's crazy. I. Business slash finance, then health and fitness, and then technology. And humans first really combines all three of those. And what happened was one day I was at one of my cell phone repair stores in Brookfield, Wisconsin, and this middle-aged woman came in with her son.

[00:11:24] And he was maybe 15 years old, I'm just guessing. And she was literally shoving him up to the front counter. She was physically pushing him to the front counter and she said, Hey Tyler, you need to tell this man what you did to your phone. And the kid had broken his phone and I felt terrible for him.

[00:11:39] He looked at me and he could barely stammer out a sentence. He could barely have a conversation with me about how he had broken his phone and that my heart went out to him because I related and I felt like it was, I was looking at myself when I was in high school and had the bad acne.

[00:11:54] But we fixed his phone and everything went fine. And he went on his way. But then I [00:12:00] started paying attention and a couple weeks later, a very similar scenario happened where someone came in, a parent came in with their daughter who was about the same age, and she could barely talk to me either.

[00:12:09] And what I started realizing is that this same scenario kept on happening over and over. And then I had the aha moment. I said to myself what are these kids? Are probably very heavy technology users because they're coming into the store to get their phone repair right away when it gets broken.

[00:12:27] Maybe it's because of how much they use technology or how they use technology that they can't have a normal conversation with me, and so maybe technology is the cause of that. And so I started reading a bunch of books and researching this and then four years and a hundred books later, 2000 articles and studies later, and almost 50 notebooks worth of notes later.

[00:12:48] I feel like I, I'm not, I don't totally understand the subject as the best I would like to, but I feel like I understand it very well and I'm really trying to understand the true problem that humanity has with it on a very deep [00:13:00] level.

[00:13:00] Scott Maderer: As you started doing that research and digging in, what are some of the things that you came across that concerned you about how we use technology today?

[00:13:10] Oh man.

[00:13:10] Rob Krecak: Here's the way I would des and don't give

[00:13:12] Scott Maderer: us all 100 books in 2000 articles. . .

[00:13:17] Rob Krecak: Yeah. Yeah. Here's the simplest way that I can describe the macro, my, in my opinion, the macro view of what's happening to humanity. So I think that technology is simultaneously doing two things.

[00:13:31] One, it is increasing the day-to-day and sometimes minute to minute stress that we experience while two. On the other hand, it is degrading our ability to deal with that stress because it is diminishing our social support systems and communities and relationships, and those are incredibly critical for us to be able to tolerate stress.

[00:13:53] So more stress, less perceived social support, both of. Both of those [00:14:00] phenomenon are acting on the same equation and they're both going in the wrong direction. And that is why I believe we have this mental health crisis, way more stress all the time and way less ability to deal with it. And it's all, and the root cause is how and how much we use technology.

[00:14:14] Scott Maderer: So how do you. How do you think you just mentioned the social systems and the support systems that we have and Yeah. You know the example of the people that, young men that weren't able to have a conversation with you about their phone? How do you see technology impacting our

[00:14:31] Rob Krecak: relationships?

[00:14:32] So a couple of the most staggering statistics that I heard in my research are the following. And I almost, some of these I didn't believe like had to double check and triple check the sources. Cause it seemed like a clickbait article, right? But this, the first one is the average American hasn't made a friend in the last five years.

[00:14:53] Which to me is really sad. How is that even possible? That in America where we have 350 [00:15:00] million people, the average person hasn't made a friend in a half a decade. That to me is really sad. But one of the other ones was this, in 2020, the most Googled fear was a fear of other people. The very thing that makes us most human connecting with other people is now the thing that we fear the most.

[00:15:21] And I get that was because of c o d, but the point is that regardless of what it was from. We still now fewer the thing that makes us most human. And if you think about humans, 50,000 years ago when we were cavemen and cave women, life consisted of three things, hunting, gathering, and socializing.

[00:15:38] And social scientists estimate that when we were cavemen, we spent about 90% of our time socializing with other humans. And today, , the average American is spending 12 hours and 21 minutes a day in front of screens and media, or put another way, we're spending three quarters of our waking lives in front of screens and media.

[00:15:57] And so that proportion has almost pro [00:16:00] exactly flipped. Instead of spending 90% of our time with people, we're almost spending 90% of our time with screens. And I don't think that's a, that's clearly we can't be having relationships if we're spending time with screen. They're not, and I'm not saying they're totally mutually exclusive, but for the most part they are.

[00:16:17] You're not on your cell phone with your best fr your five best friends and you're all staring at the same cell phone. You're on your cell phone looking at it by yourself. And that, yeah.

[00:16:27] Scott Maderer: But we're talking on screens right now. Totally. As so what about when technology does.

[00:16:34] A connection is does it work at all or is it completely, you

[00:16:38] Rob Krecak: know, useless? G, great question, Scott. And here's the way I would say it's a, I view all technology, like it's a tool, right? It's a tool to facilitate things. Just if I have a hatchet and I can use it to chop down a tree and start a fire to save my life in a very cold environment, I can also use a ch hatchet to chop off someone's head and kill 'em.

[00:16:58] And [00:17:00] technology can be used in a good way for social things or in a bad way. But here's something that I wanna share with the listeners that I don't think anyone is not, it's not on people's radar. I'll tell a quick story about my grandma. My grandma and I were, we chatted on the phone a bunch during the pandemic.

[00:17:16] I would call her every couple months cuz she's 85 years old. And I just wanted to check in with her and see how everything was going. So we chatted on the phone and I enjoyed talking to her. But finally after we were able to see each other in person. The very first thing that she said to me was, Rob, come here and give me a hug.

[00:17:32] And I thought that was really interesting, right? Because we had talked the whole pandemic and why would she want a hug? And the reason is there are two chemicals that are released when humans are in person, and especially when there's warm human touch. Those chemicals are serotonin and oxytocin.

[00:17:49] The, those, the greatest amounts of those chemicals are released when we're in person with people and when we have physical contact and the amounts of. Are diminished or greatly reduced [00:18:00] or sometimes almost eliminated when we have, when we do digital communication. And so for instance, me telling my mom, I love you mom, and giving her a hug, we interpret that in our brain totally differently than if I text my mom.

[00:18:13] I love you, mom. But all the, think about the way almost all of our communication is going, it's almost all going to digital digital format. And so even this Zoom call for instance, we would have a different level of connection if we were in the same room, Scott, just because of what's called limbic resonance or our ability to sense each other's energy and emotions and feelings and thoughts in person.

[00:18:37] It doesn't translate the same over a screen, even with Zoom, even with video. It's not the same. The mirror

[00:18:43] Scott Maderer: neurons don't engage the same way. Yes. Our ability to, yeah. Yeah. And for listeners, mirror neurons are literally we have little cells in our brains. That's whole job is to say, Hey, he's smiling.

[00:18:56] I should probably smile and I should feel better. Or, Ooh, he looks [00:19:00] upset. I should figure out why he's upset because maybe I've done something wrong. And it, it mirrors other people's emotional state in. Literal neurobiological way. Did I get that right, ?

[00:19:13] Rob Krecak: Yeah. Perfect explanation. I love.

[00:19:15] And it, it's

[00:19:16] Scott Maderer: also why sometimes to go back to that, you've, I think every listener's probably had that experience of having a conversation with somebody and going, something's wrong, and I have no idea what's wrong or why I just know something's wrong, yeah. It doesn't feel right. And that's actually how I will say it.

[00:19:34] Now screens, so the screen, I guess what I heard you saying is the screens can help, the phone call can help. Those are, it's not that, Bad thing, it's that it's not as good of a thing as continuing to make sure you've got the physical contact and actual true connection in a non-digital realm as well.

[00:19:55] It doesn't replace

[00:19:56] Rob Krecak: it well, and yeah, that's a great way of saying it, Scott, and think about [00:20:00] this. So how many times have you talked to a let's say you have a 15 year old son or daughter and you say to him, Hey, how's, how are things going? Have you talked to your friends today?

[00:20:10] And you ask 'em that and then they're like, oh yeah, I talked to my friends. And when your son or daughter says, I talked to my friends, what they mean is I texted back and forth with my friends. And when you, and I would say I talked to my friends, it would be like we had a phone call or we talked to them face to face.

[00:20:26] But for 15 year olds the literal, the definition of talking is change for a lot of them or maybe all, most of them. And so I think that is the danger of this right, is. We're we according to our age, or by stratified by age, we are changing our definition of what it means to have a relationship or be with someone or talk to them even.

[00:20:50] And I don't think that those are good for humanity. Like the direction that those changes are going isn't good for humanity. And that's why I want to raise [00:21:00] awareness of this for people so that if you have a 15 year old, you could say hey, what do, what if you gave your friend a call?

[00:21:05] Or what if, hey, what if I brought you over to your friend's house and you, my friends would all think I'm weird. 15 year old would answer. But you know what? Maybe they need to do something uncomfortable once in a while. Maybe they needed to have that face-to-face conversation. And even if it's uncomfortable the first few times that's, or even day.

[00:21:21] Scott Maderer: Why don't y'all actually get in the car 15 maybe not 15 year old, but 16 year old at least, why don't you actually. Get in the car to go over to their house or or go out to eat together or, yes. Whatever. Hang out, absolutely. And by the way, that's what they would call we're hanging out, we're not talking if we're actually physically together.

[00:21:41] Right. yeah. That, that, that makes sense. But it's I think most listeners would probably agree that there are probably some places in their life where technology's getting in the way. Uhhuh, I think email and Facebook are [00:22:00] probably the two biggest buckets, would be my guess.

[00:22:03] Or social media if you wanna broaden it outta just Facebook. Yeah. And I guess phones would be the third one, right? The reflexively. Every time we've said phone, somebody has picked up their phone and looked at it it's just, of course it's natural, right? And I know I find myself doing that sometimes reflective I just literally put my phone down and I turn and do something and pick the phone back up.

[00:22:27] And it's

[00:22:27] Rob Krecak: Yeah, like why did I do that , why did I do that?

[00:22:31] Scott Maderer: So when you find some of those areas that you're struggling, what are some of tips or what are some of the simple things that people can do to begin to improve the way they have a relationship with

[00:22:43] Rob Krecak: technology? Yeah, I love that.

[00:22:44] And first though, what I'll do, Scott, is I'll quantify exactly what you just said and you're totally correct. So again, the average person is spending in America is spending 12 hours and 21 minutes a day in front of screens and media. And so the average white collar worker is sending and receiving [00:23:00] 126 emails per day.

[00:23:01] If you assume for a second that it's two minutes to process every email, that's almost exactly four hours of time, then the average person in America also spends two hours and 14 minutes per day on social media. So just with email and social media alone, that's about six hours and 14 minutes. That's literally almost exactly half of the 12 hours and 23 minutes, almost perfectly half.

[00:23:23] And so if you think about, okay, even if I could just cut those numbers in, I would save three hours a day. That's half a work week, half a work week, not a half workday, half a work week. And yeah, I would wanna get a half a work week back. Absolutely. So here are some of the things that I do and again.

[00:23:47] I think it's incredibly important that listeners understand that you will be way more successful with technology mindfulness if you craft your technology use in a way and or structure [00:24:00] it in a way that allows you to use it in a good way instead of relying on willpower. Let me give you an example. When I was addicted to Facebook, I realized this because I was checking Facebook at Red Lights and in elevators and filling every 22nd segment of my day with Facebook, and I'm like, this is crazy.

[00:24:20] What am I doing on my phone? all the time. And so I would just say to myself, okay, I'm gonna I realize I'm doing this. I'm gonna just try not to use Facebook a lot. I also have a D H D, and so I'm very easily distracted, right? And despite me being very mindful of it and using my brain, and I feel like I'm a very disciplined person.

[00:24:42] I still used it all the time, all still right? And. What I, here's what I did instead. One of the first things I did is I took the Facebook app and I moved it to the very last page of my apps on my phone. Now there's a little bit more tension or friction [00:25:00] in order for me to use Facebook, and that for sure reduced my use quite a bit.

[00:25:05] But then the next thing I did as a second step was I completely deleted it off my phone, but what I told myself is I'm still gonna allow myself to use Facebook. I have to use it from a laptop or a computer, and so that will force me to be much more deliberate and intentional with my use. And now I literally can't even use it from my phone.

[00:25:26] And so of course then my phone use went to zero because it, I had to. And then what I realized is I don't really miss it or use it that much on the computer, and so I got myself away from it that way. But notice that even though I was aware of it and very mindful of it when I had it on my phone.

[00:25:44] there was still no resisting it. Because it's so addictive. It is so easy to use that I structured my technology use in a way that was much more conducive that to serving me well. And so listeners will actually be familiar with some of the terms you just used, [00:26:00] cuz one of the things I talk about in the podcast, if they've listened for a while, is creating friction and smoothness.

[00:26:06] Scott Maderer: Meaning if you wanna make something. Make it smoother. If you wanna make something hard, create friction and that's a great example of you were creating friction around something that you no longer wanted to do. And basically you continued to increase the friction levels until you got to a point where you're like, I actually want this after all.

[00:26:25] Nevermind. Absolutely. And you can do the same thing the other direction. Making things smoother too, if there is some getting outside or taking a walk. The, make it easier for you to take a walk, get get your clothes out ahead of time. Plan the route, do all of these things.

[00:26:41] Yeah. Or

[00:26:42] Rob Krecak: as a super simple example, let's say you wanted to try to be more mindful about taking a break from technology and taking a walk every day at 2:00 PM what you could do is set an alarm that goes off every day at 2:00 PM and when it rings oh, that's my cue to go outside.

[00:26:56] And you would hear it, right? Like you would set an actual alarm on your [00:27:00] phone. So again, super simple. It literally requires almost no effort. But then when you hear that alarm every day, you're like, oh, yeah now this is my cue to go outside. That's one way that, in my opinion, using technology is serving you well, and that's great.

[00:27:13] And I encourage those that, that type of use.

[00:27:17] Scott Maderer: It's the. Again, taking a step back, it's the first step is really the mindfulness part, not the technology. Even though it's technology, mindfulness, it's it's really being mindful of

[00:27:30] Rob Krecak: technology is really totally what you're saying.

[00:27:32] Yeah.

[00:27:32] Scott Maderer: So I got a few questions that I'd like to ask all of my guests, but before I go there, is there anything else that you think was really important that you'd like to share about the work that you do?

[00:27:43] Rob Krecak: Yeah I here's one thing that I guess I gotta challenge listeners to do this, right?

[00:27:48] And again, and I'll just take social media as an example. The average list the average American is on social media, two hours and 14 minutes a day. Here's the challenge I would have to listeners, I'm not asking you [00:28:00] to stop your social media use. I'm not even asking you to delete it from your phone.

[00:28:03] What if you though just took your social media use and you cut it in? Every day. So you had about an extra hour a day, and then with that hour you took that and you spent it with someone that you cared about, whether that's grabbing dinner with them, coffee, you make a phone call and talk to someone you care about.

[00:28:21] Or, hey, even you just sit with your spouse on your couch and you connect with them and just talk with them. I promise you that the amount of joy and happiness and meaning you would get in your life. Infinitely better when you spend that time in person or over the phone with someone instead of spending time on social media.

[00:28:38] I promise you that. And so my challenge would be to just try that for a week. Cut your social media time in half, not get rid of it, but cut it in half, and then try to spend it with someone that extra hour with someone that you care about. I really believe that your life will be so much better for doing.

[00:28:54] And if

[00:28:55] Scott Maderer: you don't have somebody you care about, go make a new friend. Cuz then there you go. You change that first stat, the . [00:29:00] No, no friends in five years when yeah, absolutely. I'm trying to think, have I made a new friend in the last five years? I think I have. Actually, no, I know I have, I made a new friend earlier this year and we went and had dinner go with him just the other day.

[00:29:12] Yeah. I had to stop and think for a minute. It was like, have I actually done that or not? Anyway. Nice. So here's my brand is inspired stewardship, and I I used that word, but like we talked about at the beginning of the show, I've also discovered that. , I use the word, and not everybody hears or means the same thing when they hear the word stewardship that I do.

[00:29:33] So I like to ask other people, what does the word stewardship mean to you? And what does that understanding have to do with or how does that impact your

[00:29:42] Rob Krecak: life? Yeah. So to me, being a good steward is like caring for the people in your life in a way that, again, I like to use the phrase serves them and you it's, and again, I to say, to use a word from my [00:30:00] vocabulary, it's being mindful of how you're interacting with and taking those people into account with your actions, your thoughts, and your words.

[00:30:09] And so how does

[00:30:09] Scott Maderer: that understanding play out in

[00:30:11] Rob Krecak: your life? That's that's really like the purpose of my whole brand, right? Is the purpose of my entire company, humans. First is to get people to think of other humans more. It literally, like that's in the name of the company. And my hope is that when people hear this information that.

[00:30:28] They will take a li little bit less time with their technology and put a little bit of more care and time and have more stewardship with the people in their life. That to me is like what makes this world live worth living in? Like being with and being around other humans and connecting with the hearts and souls of other people.

[00:30:43] That's what we're here to do. That's what we're on this earth for. So this is my favorite question of the show, though. I've been told by some guests that it's not their favorite. So we'll see how you feel about it. . Yeah. If I invented this magic machine and I was able to pluck you from where you are today and [00:31:00] transport you magically into the future, maybe 150, 200 years, and through the power of this machine, you were able to look back on your entire life and see all of the connections, all of the relationships, all of the ripples, and that you've left behind, what impact do you hope you've left on the.

[00:31:17] Oh man. So I love this question. I really like this question, and I've if I told you how often I thought about something similar to this it would, you probably, it would probably surprise you, but. I my life's goal and I have this piece of paper that I've spent many hours writing.

[00:31:37] My life's goal is to positively impact the lives of 1 billion people while still being a great husband and father and friend. And that's really what I'm hoping to do with humans. First, I, there are 4.2 billion people connected to the internet, and I know that if they knew what I knew about how technology's impacting them.

[00:31:54] Their lives would be totally different. And that's why I'm so motivated and excited to share this information with [00:32:00] people cuz I know that even a small piece of information, if widely disseminated, could make an such a huge difference in people's lives. That's really exciting to me. And so I would just hope that people would look at back on my life and say, that was the guy that helped us with technology mindfulness.

[00:32:16] That was the guy that helped us use technology in a way that served us well. That would be really rewarding to. So what's on the roadmap? What's coming next for you as you continue on this journey?

[00:32:28] Yeah I'm just looking to accomplish our mission of helping humanity understand how technology impacts mental health relationships and productivity at work.

[00:32:37] And one of the other things that I didn't really talk too much about, but I also am a consultant and I help guide companies to officially transition from a five day work week to a four day work week with no loss in productivity or profitability. And when I say a four day work week For eight hour days, not for 10 hour days, and the employees get the same pay.

[00:32:57] And the way that I use that, or I, the way that I do [00:33:00] that is through technology, mindfulness and helping people use technology differently. And that's what's in my immediate future is helping more companies to do that because I feel like. The four day work week is something where in 10 years it's gonna be the standard.

[00:33:16] It's not gonna be the, it's not gonna be the outlier or the unusual thing, like remote work was 10 years ago, and obviously Covid accelerated that trend Incredibly. I really view the four day work week as something that in 10 years is gonna be on the forefront of everyone's mind.

[00:33:37] Scott Maderer: You can find out all about Rob over on his website@humansfirst.us. Of course. I'll have a link to that over in the show notes as well. Rob, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listener?

[00:33:50] Rob Krecak: Yeah, Scott, absolutely. One thing that I wanted to do is offer a free 30 minute consultation with me about technology mindfulness.

[00:33:56] So all that your listeners will need to do to redeem that free [00:34:00] call is to email me. You can email me@robhumansfirst.us if you just put in the subject line that I listen to the Inspired Stewardship podcast and wanted to redeem. 30 minute consultation. You can email me again at Rob Humans first us, and then I'm happy to connect with you and see how I can help you with your technology mindfulness.

[00:34:21] Awesome.

[00:34:22] Scott Maderer: I'll make sure I add that to the show notes as well so that folks can find the email there and we'll make sure that folks do that. That sounds like an awesome opportunity, and thank you so much

[00:34:32] Rob Krecak: for sharing that. Thank you Scott. Really appreciate being on the podcast.

[00:34:42] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this, [00:35:00] Please. Please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes.

[00:35:09] Rate all one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review, and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed. Until next time, invest your. Your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.