The Gen Z Effect and the Future of Work: Insights from Dan Keldsen - Episode of Long-Distance Worklife Podcast with Wayne Turmel
Guests, Hybrid Work, Leadership, Working Remotely

The Gen Z Effect and the Future of Work: Insights from Dan Keldsen

Wayne Turmel engages in an insightful conversation with Dan Keldsen, co-founder of PlexiCam and the host of Next Future Today, who calls himself a pragmatic futurist. They explore the shifting landscape of remote and hybrid work, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dan shares his expertise on future trends and offers practical insights on onboarding new hires, incorporating Gen Z in the workplace, and fostering effective communication and collaboration. The discussion emphasizes the importance of treating people as they want to be treated and finding a balance between leveraging individual strengths and establishing clear expectations. Join Wayne and Dan as they provide valuable perspectives on embracing the future of work and building resilient teams in a rapidly evolving world.

Key Takeaways 

1. Embracing the future of work: The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of remote and hybrid work models. Organizations must adapt to the changing landscape and recognize the long-term effects of this shift.

2. The role of a pragmatic futurist: A pragmatic futurist like Dan Keldsen focuses on identifying future trends and guiding individuals and organizations in navigating them effectively, rather than indulging in extreme optimism or pessimism.

3. Leveraging Gen Z in the workplace: As Gen Z enters the workforce, organizations should recognize their unique strengths and experiences. Collaboration, mentorship, and cross-generational learning are crucial for creating a cohesive and productive team environment.

4. Effective onboarding in remote/hybrid settings: Onboarding new hires requires thoughtful processes that go beyond basic orientation. Drawing inspiration from successful onboarding techniques in other domains, such as video games, can help engage and retain new employees.

5. Communication and connection: Understanding the communication preferences of different generations, such as video calls, text messaging, or email, is vital for fostering effective collaboration. Treating people as they want to be treated and establishing clear expectations are key to building strong, adaptable teams.

6. Balancing individual strengths and expectations: Organizations should leverage the strengths of each team member while establishing guidelines for collaboration. By finding a balance between individual preferences and organizational objectives, teams can thrive in a changing work landscape.

7. Embracing the opportunities: Rather than viewing the future as entirely positive or negative, individuals and organizations should actively participate in shaping it. Embracing new work models and adapting to emerging trends can lead to growth and success.

Time Stamps

00:00 - Introduction
00:08 - Pragmatic Futurism and the Changing Work Landscape
01:16 - The Gen Z Effect and Integrating Gen Z in the Workplace
06:45 - Effective Onboarding in Remote and Hybrid Work Environments
10:33 - Communication and Connection in the Workplace
14:45 - Balancing Individual Strengths and Expectations
17:30 - Embracing the Future of Work and the Opportunities Ahead

Related Episodes

Featured Guest

Name: Dan Keldsen

What He Does: Co-founder of Plexi-Cam, host of Next Future Today podcast and consultancy, and co-author of The Gen Z Effect.

Notable: Dan has extensive experience working with companies like Wasabi Technologies, Google, Lowe's Home Improvement, AstraZeneca, and the Federal Reserve Bank of NY. He has also led workshops and training sessions on information architecture, user experience, and findability resulting in increased understanding and adoption of best practices.

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

Remote leadership experts, Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel, help leaders navigate the new world of remote and hybrid teams to design the culture they desire for their teams and organizations in their new book!

 Order

View Full Transcript

00:00:08:11 - 00:00:33:16
Wayne Turmel
Hi, everybody. Welcome once again to the Long-Distance WorkLife podcast. The podcast where we try to help you thrive, survive. Make some kind of sense out of remote and hybrid work and the way the world is going. I am Wayne Turmel and Marisa is not here this week, which means we have a very cool, smart person to talk to besides me.

00:00:33:18 - 00:00:51:09
Wayne Turmel
And in this case I am going to bring in Dan Keldsen. He is the co-founder of PlexiCam. He is also the host and guiding mind behind Next Future Today the podcast and the consultancy. Dan, how are you, man?

00:00:51:12 - 00:00:52:12
Dan Keldsen
Great. Wayne, How's it going?

00:00:52:14 - 00:01:16:17
Wayne Turmel
Pretty well in the great cosmic scheme of things, but we'll see if we can't mess that up. Dan, you are you call yourself a pragmatic futurist and that's kind of where we want to go today is we're in this weird maelstrom of returning to work, not returning to work, hybrid work. you know, it's kind of goofy at the moment.

00:01:16:23 - 00:01:27:03
Wayne Turmel
So what I'm wondering is where the heck is this going? But first of all, you call yourself a pragmatic futurist. What the heck does that mean? Yeah.

00:01:27:05 - 00:01:35:16
Dan Keldsen
So that's that's exactly why I call myself a pragmatic futurist. As then we can have a conversation. So to me.

00:01:35:18 - 00:01:38:03
Wayne Turmel
You've drawn me into your little web.

00:01:38:05 - 00:02:07:02
Dan Keldsen
Isn't that nice? A little hook. Gotcha. So I think there are a lot of there are a lot of futurists who are more sort of extreme optimism. And I'm not totally pessimistic, but I think that as much as I enjoy what the future has brought me from, you know, if I think back to my ten year old self, my 20 year old self and my 30 year old, and now I'm getting up there, you know what I thought the future would bring to me, especially from technology, is a lot more than I You know, the reality is actually much bigger than what I had expected.

00:02:07:02 - 00:02:28:20
Dan Keldsen
I mean, I've read a lot of science fiction and I've seen plenty of dystopian novels and movies and all that kind of stuff. But in general, I think what my strength is in finding future trends that I see early signs of, and then I can help guide people into, Look, there are some futures that maybe you need to care about as a person or professionally or for your organization.

00:02:28:22 - 00:02:52:03
Dan Keldsen
You should be aware of them. There's others that who cares? It's not it's not relevant to you. And there are others that you know. The reason I created Next Future today is sometimes things happen like COVID and you need to very rapidly adapt to something that that next feature needs to start right now. So I think the pragmatic side is don't just think about the future else, and the future are going to be awful or wonderful, depending on you.

00:02:52:04 - 00:02:56:23
Dan Keldsen
You're saying we've got what can you do about it and actually take a role in actually playing a part in that?

00:02:57:01 - 00:03:29:21
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, it's interesting that you mention COVID because certainly in the world of remote and hybrid work, that was one of those 911 bombing of Hiroshima just moments in time that you can point to and go, oh, nothing is ever going to be the same after that. Right. And it wasn't that things weren't trending towards remote work and all of those things, but it pushed us across the Rubicon way quicker when most people were ready for.

00:03:30:00 - 00:03:39:07
Wayne Turmel
What do you because you and I were talking beforehand that we haven't even begun to figure out what the real long term effects of the last three years are going to be.

00:03:39:09 - 00:03:40:02
Dan Keldsen
Right.

00:03:40:04 - 00:03:46:12
Wayne Turmel
What do you see coming down the pipe that maybe we're not paying attention to?

00:03:46:13 - 00:04:16:15
Dan Keldsen
Well, I mean, you know, I've watched some of your episodes read some of what you've been doing. There's this sort of a backlash towards, you know, remote, remote anything or being on camera all the time is we need to be done with that, which, you know, some days I feel the same. So I've done a lot of innovation consulting in my life, which is really so again, like to the pragmatic features side, how do you take advantage when you know that it's time to take advantage of something and remote work has been possible?

00:04:16:15 - 00:04:32:22
Dan Keldsen
I mean, I remember installing dial up modems, I don't remember what speed, but we installed a bank of dial up modems for our consultant to be able to, you know, being back to the mothership. And I used to be able to make the sound of the bebop of the of the modems, which younger people don't know what we're talking about.

00:04:33:01 - 00:04:51:10
Dan Keldsen
That was the late nineties, mid late nineties. So and that was it's not like we were the first ones in the world to ever do that either. So there are like, like we said before, the before hit record, I like William Gibson's quote, The future is already here. It's just unevenly distributed. So there are it's been possible to do remote work.

00:04:51:12 - 00:05:14:03
Dan Keldsen
Even people like me probably you who did it early, Philomene or Masters, and that we are infallible. And we you know, we always get it right and we're the best people to ever possibly work with remotely. You know, it doesn't work that way, but the more you have exposure to it, you know, it's hard to learn things with technology if you're not actively participating.

00:05:14:03 - 00:05:33:04
Dan Keldsen
Like you could hear remote work as possible, but until you actually know it, it's a very different thing. And with COVID, you had no choice. So it's all right. Now you're on camera. Congratulations. You weren't expecting that to you don't have a you probably don't have a space in your house where you want to be on camera, where there's not noise or weird things behind you.

00:05:33:04 - 00:06:03:09
Dan Keldsen
Like, I certainly didn't have my background setup until COVID happened. So, you know, it's until you actively take a part in that you really can't know what you should be participating in and how to take advantage of it until you're in the moment. I think that that that acceleration that happened with COVID because, you know, we had Friday the 13th lockdown and then poof, then in three years, you know, it's it forced people to, whether they wanted to or not, they needed to figure out how to work in a new and different way.

00:06:03:11 - 00:06:10:19
Dan Keldsen
And always, I think that's very useful because it actually got people to take a step that it was long overdue in a lot of ways.

00:06:10:21 - 00:06:32:05
Wayne Turmel
Okay. So as we think about the future, you are also the author of a book called The Gen Z Effect. And it's kind of a radical notion. If you're going to talk about the future, maybe pay some attention to people who still have one, as opposed to those of us who are near the end of our journey. And I'm not being facetious about that.

00:06:32:05 - 00:07:05:12
Wayne Turmel
I mean, a lot of the sturm und drang around return to work has been driven by senior leadership management, business people who are pining for the before times. Right. But one of the things and when I say this, I get these horrified looks on people's faces. We're now going into, you know, used to be youngins. You taught them how to work in an office and and that's how they got interned and everything else.

00:07:05:12 - 00:07:30:02
Wayne Turmel
Well, we now have four, four years of new hires coming out of college who don't know what it means to have worked in an office or right in the way that you and I did back in the day. So tell me real quick, what did you kind of discover in the Gen Z effect and what does this mean going forward for the workplace?

00:07:30:05 - 00:07:53:14
Dan Keldsen
Yeah, so we wrote the Gen Z effects in 2014. So there was way before COVID, well before, I don't think Zoom existed or it was it was incredibly early. So the it is one of the topics that we talked about in the book. I interviewed a buddy of mine, Justin Levy, who I believe was at Citrix at the time about remote work and what that meant.

00:07:53:14 - 00:08:17:22
Dan Keldsen
You know, like I didn't grow up in in a manufacturing role like, you know, earlier generations might have done it, you know, where you got to get you have to get dirty and dusty and in loud environments and all. And I think that's generally a good thing because we're moving towards, you know, knowledge work and more experiential things that don't necessarily threaten your life by, you know, losing a limb from some massive machine.

00:08:18:00 - 00:08:40:15
Dan Keldsen
So I do think there's you know, there's unfortunate I mean, my my oldest daughter turns 21 in a month. My youngest is 18. So they had to live in school settings in a very different world than I certainly had or you had in the very formative years of high school or college. On the one hand, it was terrible and there's probably a whole bunch of damage that's been done to them behaviorally.

00:08:40:16 - 00:09:05:19
Dan Keldsen
And, you know, in otherwise, on the other hand, the younger generations have been taught that teamwork is a thing, that you need to be good at it, that, you know, if you do larger projects with other people and therefore you need to know how to do that. So I think in a lot of ways they're much better equipped to as far as what they've experience in team based work that they're going to be needing to do in the in the future.

00:09:05:19 - 00:09:23:12
Dan Keldsen
Because nobody, you know, things are moving so fast, everything's accelerating. No one person knows everything. You can do everything. So you really need to to me, a part of an underpinning of the Gen Z effects is you need to leverage the strengths of whoever is part of your team, young or old. You know, it doesn't matter where they are in the planet.

00:09:23:14 - 00:09:37:12
Dan Keldsen
How do you bring out the best out of them and then use that as a wedge to drive forward into the future instead of just, you know, you're you're too old, you're too young, you're too you know, that doesn't work very well. So maybe we can do better things together.

00:09:37:13 - 00:10:01:23
Wayne Turmel
Absolutely. So let me hold your feet to the fire a little bit. I mean, it's wonderful to say, Oh, don't we all have these fabulous strengths and we do. And we should learn from each other. And we should. But purely practical basis in a world where you are in the office 24, seven, five days a week. Mm hmm.

00:10:02:01 - 00:10:17:18
Wayne Turmel
How do we bring the new hires of the world on? How do we onboard them? How do we incorporate and orient them so that they become productive, fabulous members of our teams quicker?

00:10:17:19 - 00:10:33:12
Dan Keldsen
Yeah. Yeah. So I so one of the things I hope is a strength for me is I like to take a look at what's happening in sort of the consumer world and bring it to the enterprise. Most of my work has been on the enterprise side, so how do those things and the sort of bridge between both sides.

00:10:33:15 - 00:11:01:11
Dan Keldsen
So I've paid a lot of attention to what is onboarding like from like I happen to be a gamer video games to a really great job of onboarding people because if they don't, they don't make money. You know, the the long game is you have a subscription or you buy, you know, a season or whatever. And if you have not engaged your people to get over that hump, to be onboarded and have some idea what they're doing, you can't milk them for money over a very long period or.

00:11:01:13 - 00:11:05:21
Wayne Turmel
Exploit their blood, sweat and tears for years as employees. Yeah.

00:11:05:23 - 00:11:30:00
Dan Keldsen
Exactly. Yes. No, that's. Wait, you're you're the you're the pessimistic futurist. I'm supposed to be the pragmatic summing up. But so from an AI, you know, I think unfortunately for enterprises there's not a lot of you know we've we got lazy in doing onboarding for new hires. When you're there in person, you can sort of, you know, you can make up for not really a formal onboarding process by just being there.

00:11:30:00 - 00:12:01:00
Dan Keldsen
So they can ask questions of the person in a cubicle next to them or whatever, you know, in the lunchroom outside, whatever. And it's definitely harder to do that if it's purely virtual unless you put some thought into to making that happen. And it doesn't have to be hideously formal, like I'm not a big fan of like governance teams that have 30 people that meet once a quarter or something really intense like that just set some baseline of, you know, like we do like standups from the Agile world totally applied.

00:12:01:00 - 00:12:20:09
Dan Keldsen
They can fit. It's not only for developers. You could do that with your marketing team or your finance team or whatever, and that's one way to get people to know each other, which I think is the biggest piece of onboarding, is you need to get to know other people in your organization. And by virtue of that happening, you will figure things out on your own.

00:12:20:14 - 00:12:56:14
Dan Keldsen
I think that's it shouldn't be on the employee to have to figure it out. It should be supported by smarter than usual managers and policies that have at least some bare bones to them. But it's, you know, you got to put pieces in there where you can connect people. It doesn't matter if they're in the office online or some situation where they're doing both and, you know, working in an office two or three days a week and not all the time, but you need to build little bridges so that you can get people out of, you know, maybe a maybe they had a bad experience right out of college and, you know, their first job

00:12:56:14 - 00:13:15:00
Dan Keldsen
was terrible, you know, just whatever it was didn't work out. So that experience is going to color them. Coming to your organization some way is good and bad, probably. So what can you do to give them an expectation of of what it's supposed to be like and how and not just what it's supposed to be like you would find in an interview.

00:13:15:00 - 00:13:33:15
Dan Keldsen
But the reality is, you know, we do have meetings that are on Monday afternoons and we are expected to talk about what happened in the last week and anything that we ran into, you know, anything that gives you some some structure. So that it's not totally up to the individual to try to figure out the probably ungodly mess that's your organization.

00:13:33:17 - 00:13:59:14
Wayne Turmel
Well, it's interesting, too, because I think we make some assumptions about Gen Z and millennials. My daughter is, you know, the poster child for millennial, at least age wise, right? She turns 30 this year. And I think we make some assumptions, you know, because these darn kids text instead of talking that they don't want in-person or in fact, that's not true.

00:13:59:14 - 00:14:22:09
Wayne Turmel
What we're finding is and it makes perfect sense in the beginning stage of your career, when you're young, when you don't know anything, you want more human contact, you want mentorship, and you want socialization and you want to meet people and all that stuff, right? When you're a middle aged goof who's near the end of his career and you want to be left alone to get your work done.

00:14:22:09 - 00:14:25:09
Wayne Turmel
Remote work is a beautiful thing.

00:14:25:11 - 00:14:29:20
Dan Keldsen
Right? Yeah. Yeah. So you can be a hermit in your virtual world.

00:14:29:22 - 00:14:45:14
Wayne Turmel
Exactly. But. But talk to me about what Gen Z thinks of, you know, socialization in the workplace. What are they looking for that we need to give them if we want them to be good, when we want them to stick around and all of that stuff.

00:14:45:16 - 00:15:16:20
Dan Keldsen
Yeah, all of that's a multi-hour conversation potentially. Have you heard of the Golden Rule that you should treat people as you'd like to be treated? There's a platinum rule that you should treat people as they want to be treated, which is unfortunately not done all that often in my opinion. You know, like there's you know, I've watched some of your recent episodes, the question of should your camera be on or not when you're in a meeting or a conference or whatever it happens to be, there's different situations where absolutely you should always you can't wrong probably.

00:15:16:20 - 00:15:33:17
Dan Keldsen
And there are certain situations where it's it's optional and maybe it's useful to have an official. David Nobody has to be on camera. It just takes a little burden off of people. So to the point of those darn kids, all they do is talk to each other and send means and, you know, you know, and they're just want to talk all that kind of stuff.

00:15:33:20 - 00:15:52:05
Dan Keldsen
That's true. Older people are as well. You know, we're all addicted to our smartphones. What would we do without them? I don't I don't know how I would ever get anywhere I needed to drive to if I didn't have GPS that told me exactly where to go, like a voice in my head. But that doesn't mean that they're, you know, it's a different channel to communicate through.

00:15:52:07 - 00:16:14:02
Dan Keldsen
That is maybe foreign and weird for older generations. And one of the aside from the plan, one of the things that we talk about in the book is reverse mentorship, as we normally talk about mentors as the old mentoring, the young, which is very useful, also doesn't happen nearly as often as it should. But, you know, I can learn from my kids, you can learn from your kids, you can learn from other people's kids.

00:16:14:04 - 00:16:35:20
Dan Keldsen
You know, what is their experience? What is some piece of that that might apply to you? Maybe it's actually more effective to just text somebody than to send an email or give them a call because maybe they're already on another call. Why not learn from all these pieces that are possible and then purposely decide this is how like if you and I were working together, how do we want to communicate?

00:16:35:20 - 00:16:56:05
Dan Keldsen
That was one of the videos you guys posted most recently is what are the rules anyhow? You know, Kim, can we agree on you know, look, we we need to have a, you know, a video camera on one on one conversation on a monthly basis. So we know how I'm doing my job and you can give me feedback.

00:16:56:07 - 00:17:06:15
Dan Keldsen
If we don't state that ever, then it's going to be a surprise, especially on the part of the employee. And that's usually not a it's not a great feeling. I don't think it's really the right kind of tender.

00:17:06:17 - 00:17:28:17
Wayne Turmel
Well, and I think that whole notion of the platinum rule and I'm passionate believer in that. I think the flip side of that is, yes, we need to understand what they want. And it's incumbent on us to explain why we want what we want. Right. We're not doing it because we're old and we're always right and we're not doing it because we're inflexible.

00:17:28:21 - 00:17:54:03
Wayne Turmel
Sometimes that's the right thing to do, and here's why. Right. But I think those conversations are what we aren't having. So, Dan, thank you very much. As I mentioned, Dan is the coauthor, to be fair, of Gen Z Effect. He's also the host of Next Future Today, we will have links to all of that in our show notes.

00:17:54:05 - 00:18:21:11
Wayne Turmel
So, Dan, I'm going to bid you a quick adieu for a moment and just remind everybody that those show notes are available at longdistanceworklife.com. If you have enjoyed the show, if you are a long time listener, please like and subscribe. You know how this stuff works. It's important for us to show up on search engines and the like, so help us out like and subscribe.

00:18:21:16 - 00:18:51:18
Wayne Turmel
You can also reach out to either Marisa or myself, LinkedIn, email, whatever works for you. We are also always looking for pet peeves and questions for future episodes. And of course, if you have not yet checked out Kevin Eikenberry in my new book, The Long-Distance Team: Designing Your Team for Everyone's Success, you might want to check that out and you can get more information that longdistanceteambook.com.

00:18:53:05 - 00:19:08:07
Wayne Turmel
All right. That is it. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, thank you for listening. We will be back in our next episode with Marisa. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate your support. And don't let the weasels get you down.

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Status Colors & Need for Clear Communication - episode of Long-Distance Worklife podcast with Wayne Turmel and Marisa Eikenberry
Ask Wayne Anything, Surviving Remote Work, Technology, Working Remotely

Remote Work Rants: Status Colors and the Need for Clear Communication

Marisa and Wayne are back sharing your pet peeves. They explore the importance of maintaining professional environments during video calls and emphasize the significance of AV hygiene and user experience. They also delve into the intriguing topic of status colors on platforms like Slack, uncovering the obsession some individuals have with constantly monitoring their teammates' online presence. Marisa and Wayne provide insights into the challenges of remote work etiquette and team dynamics, ultimately aiming to foster more productive and harmonious remote work environments. Tune in to relate, vent, and discover ways to overcome these common frustrations of the remote work life.

Key Takeaways

1. Respect the Environment: When taking video meetings, be mindful of your surroundings and ensure they are suitable for a professional setting. Avoid background noise and distractions that can hinder the experience for others on the call.
2. AV Hygiene and UX: Consider the audio and visual aspects of your video meetings. Use headsets to minimize external noise and echo, and be aware of how your actions and behaviors impact others on the call.
3. Reflect on Your Actions: Take a moment to think about how your behavior and actions may affect your teammates. Be responsive, professional, and considerate of others' time and attention during video calls.
4. Status Colors and Trust: Constantly monitoring and obsessing over your teammates' online status colors can create unnecessary mistrust. Instead, focus on clear communication and understanding expectations for availability and response times.
5. Open Communication and Feedback: Engage in open conversations with your teammates about what is considered appropriate behavior and communication in your remote work environment. Be receptive to feedback and willing to address any concerns.
6. Don't Sweat the Small Stuff: While certain behaviors and distractions can be annoying, it's important not to let them overshadow the bigger picture. Prioritize effective collaboration, productivity, and respect within your remote or hybrid team.
7. By fostering a culture of respect, clear communication, and understanding, you can create a more harmonious and productive remote work environment.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
01:06 Video Meetings in Unsuitable Environments
04:17 Motion sickness and distractions during video calls
08:28 Importance of professionalism and respect in remote work
09:29 Constantly monitoring teammates' status colors
11:40 Obsession with status colors and issues of mistrust
16:05 Finding common ground through shared pet peeves
17:10 Conclusion

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

Remote leadership experts, Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel, help leaders navigate the new world of remote and hybrid teams to design the culture they desire for their teams and organizations in their new book!

 Order

View Full Transcript

00:00:07:22 - 00:00:18:22
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to Long-Distance Worklife where we help you lead, work, and thrive on remote and hybrid teams. I'm Marisa Eikenberry, fellow remote worker, and joining me is my co-host and remote work expert Wayne Turmel. Hi, Wayne.

00:00:19:00 - 00:00:23:20
Wayne Turmel
And it is indeed a lovely day. Hi, Marisa.

00:00:23:21 - 00:00:32:23
Marisa Eikenberry
So today we're going back into even more pet peeves. We still have a bunch that you guys have sent us. And please keep sending us these.

00:00:33:01 - 00:00:37:07
Wayne Turmel
Can I tell you how much I enjoy hearing what makes people crazy?

00:00:37:09 - 00:00:38:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00:00:38:12 - 00:00:44:03
Wayne Turmel
It just gives me such joy because there's a part of it that goes. It's not just me.

00:00:44:05 - 00:01:06:04
Marisa Eikenberry
100%. 100%. So we're going to talk about those today. And the first one that I want to start with we actually got from LinkedIn, from Maya Middlemiss, who said taking a video meeting in an unsuitable environment because look at me and my work from anywhere lifestyle. Meanwhile, terrible background noise or they're making you seasick while apparently on a trampoline.

00:01:06:06 - 00:01:13:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Respect the rest of the room. Pay attention to the AV hygiene and UX of the whole call. So Wayne, does this bother you when people are.

00:01:13:07 - 00:01:15:19
Wayne Turmel
AV hygiene and UX oh my!

00:01:15:19 - 00:01:17:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:01:17:04 - 00:01:47:19
Wayne Turmel
Basically what she's saying is try not to be annoying. This is a problem. This is a problem that actually goes back to the invention of the cell phone. Okay. And here's what I mean by that. Those of us who are old enough to remember when we could take conference calls on cell phones for the first time, which means we weren't tied to this big clunky desk phone and we could walk around or take a call in the car.

00:01:48:01 - 00:01:54:13
Wayne Turmel
And more than one conference call had been interrupted by a flushing sound.

00:01:54:16 - 00:01:56:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I would think that.

00:01:56:03 - 00:02:05:05
Wayne Turmel
Various and sundry noises they told us perhaps the person on the line wasn't fully engaged with the call.

00:02:05:07 - 00:02:06:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00:02:06:12 - 00:02:32:21
Wayne Turmel
So this is a problem that's been going on for a while. It certainly is an issue. And now the way Maya said that tells me that there are two parts to this. One is the actual functional thing of it's annoying. I have a class that I teach for a university, and more than once my co teacher has turned her video on and I am looking at her cats.

00:02:32:21 - 00:02:55:02
Wayne Turmel
But literally at her cats. But because the cat is walking across the keyboard and she just turns the camera on and I'm like, this is not the view I'm looking for, right? And it can be a little distracting. So some of it is is is there a level of professionalism here? Of course. Right. And respect for your peers.

00:02:55:07 - 00:03:23:16
Wayne Turmel
Some of it is also, hey, I slipped into the office. I'm wearing big boy clothes. I'm doing this. And you're you know, on the couch with your lap desk doing, you know, doing yoga while trying to take this call. It's just annoying. So there's a respect thing, to be sure. The AC hygiene thing is very real. Certainly, people have taken meetings while they're out of the office that, of course, happens.

00:03:23:19 - 00:03:31:09
Wayne Turmel
Does that necessarily then have to be a face time? Nobody wants to watch you bounce up and down on a walk. Right.

00:03:31:13 - 00:03:32:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00:03:32:17 - 00:03:55:23
Wayne Turmel
And so there's just a and we don't do this enough as human beings, I might add, which is what is the impact of my behavior or my actions on the other person? Yes, I'm here. I'm responsive. I'm taking your call. I'm not in the office. But by golly, I will help you. Maybe that doesn't have to be a video call.

00:03:56:01 - 00:04:17:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I know. Like, for me personally, like, I get motion sick pretty easily. So when people are, like, walking their dog and they're on video call or I had one the other day, it wasn't too bad. But like, she was in the car, she was not driving. She was in the car and like on this. And it was like, you probably didn't have to have your video on at that point and probably shouldn't.

00:04:17:12 - 00:04:18:12
Wayne Turmel
Not for nothing.

00:04:18:13 - 00:04:29:21
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I mean, she was a passenger, but still like it was just for me. It was distracting. I couldn't pay attention to the other two people in the hall because she's constantly moving. Right. Right. And.

00:04:29:23 - 00:04:41:12
Wayne Turmel
You know, as we've said so many times, I am all about seeing somebody's face when the call starts. But once the call actually begins, what value are you adding?

00:04:41:14 - 00:04:43:00
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Yeah, it depends on what kind of.

00:04:43:01 - 00:05:00:23
Wayne Turmel
Perhaps detracting from everybody else's experience. So it's just, you know, give some thought to what is going on. I also have this conversation a lot with people who are at home so they don't use headsets.

00:05:01:03 - 00:05:03:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Oh, my God, drives me crazy.

00:05:03:07 - 00:05:26:22
Wayne Turmel
And there are beeps and bloops and there's noises even in an empty house. There's the dogs go crazy at the neighbors or, you know, somebody lets a leaf blower go insane or something is going on and you get an echo. It's you wear them partly so you can hear I mean, of course, you know, I want to be able to hear what's going on.

00:05:27:01 - 00:05:45:18
Wayne Turmel
But also you do that so that you are being respectful of the other people on the call. And it is a fair accusation that people who are not in an office environment sometimes become oblivious.

00:05:45:20 - 00:05:53:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes, we've talked about this before, too. Or you used to be in an office, but then you went home for three years and so now you forget what it's like.

00:05:53:16 - 00:06:02:03
Wayne Turmel
Well, in your reveling in your freedom and, you know, I won't even tell you what I have on my feet right now because it's irrelevant to this conversation.

00:06:02:05 - 00:06:03:01
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:06:03:03 - 00:06:07:01
Wayne Turmel
Right. I will tell you, it's not something I would wear in the office.

00:06:07:03 - 00:06:09:03
Marisa Eikenberry
And that's okay.

00:06:09:05 - 00:06:15:08
Wayne Turmel
But it's irrelevant to the conversation and it's not distracting, except now everybody's wondering what that is wearing.

00:06:15:10 - 00:06:16:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Obviously, it's funny slippers. It's fine.

00:06:16:23 - 00:06:18:09
Wayne Turmel
No, it's not funny slippers.

00:06:18:11 - 00:06:19:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Secret's safe with us.

00:06:19:12 - 00:06:50:09
Wayne Turmel
Really ugly mariachi sandals. But it's. It's Las Vegas in May. And, you know, I got to run around, take the dog out and do stuff, and it's easy, but it doesn't impact what people are seeing and hearing. So really, it's when you are going to take one of these calls, you need to stop and think what how do my actions impact my teammate?

00:06:50:15 - 00:07:06:03
Wayne Turmel
How do I add value to the meeting? How do I distract and be open to feedback, something that you think might not be a big deal might really bother somebody. I am not a big fan of cats, but.

00:07:06:05 - 00:07:09:11
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm not sure that many people are.

00:07:09:13 - 00:07:20:17
Wayne Turmel
There are people who don't care. We've talked before about people's unnatural affection for their animals on video calls. The assumption that everybody finds it as adorable as they do.

00:07:20:19 - 00:07:24:03
Marisa Eikenberry
Without realizing it's distracted and really not professional in the moment.

00:07:24:03 - 00:07:26:06
Wayne Turmel
And really not professional. Exactly.

00:07:26:09 - 00:07:50:14
Marisa Eikenberry
So. Well, and with that, too, I would also like because, like, you know, we keep talking about video a lot also, but like, you know, there's a background noise thing, too. If you're somewhere that like there's a lot of, you know, you're in a car and the windows open. Well, first of all, if you can maybe put up the window, but like I know we've been on calls before where we've had to tell somebody to mute because we can hear the window and we can't hear anyone else.

00:07:50:16 - 00:08:12:18
Wayne Turmel
Well, I'm a full disclosure. I do not keep my phone live. You know, I don't get rings and announcements. Yeah, but I do have it on Buzz. And there have been times when we've been on calls, there have been times when we've been recording this podcast where my phone goes off and I can ignore it. It's buzzing, it's in the background.

00:08:12:22 - 00:08:23:22
Wayne Turmel
It doesn't bother me what might bother somebody else. Right? Right. Okay. Wayne needs to be better about that. It's just respect and like being a good person and stuff.

00:08:24:03 - 00:08:27:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Amazing, right? The simple things.

00:08:28:01 - 00:08:36:19
Wayne Turmel
The fact that we have to talk to you people about this. Were you raised by wolves? What?

00:08:36:21 - 00:09:00:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Tell us in the comments. But moving on from this, I want to go to Mallory Glassner who said people who constantly watch and or talk about their teammates status colors. Now, I remember when I saw this comment on the post slide put and I was like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What do people do this? What is this? Is this really a thing?

00:09:00:07 - 00:09:22:07
Marisa Eikenberry
And she responded, Oh, yes, it's a thing. So much so that someone actually invented a dongle that makes you stay green. Now, we've actually kind of talked about this concept of always looking like you're online in a previous episode where, you know, I saw somebody put peanut butter on their mouse so that way their dog would look like the mouse.

00:09:22:07 - 00:09:29:21
Marisa Eikenberry
So that would look like you're on line. Like, I don't understand this obsession with weather. Okay, well, fine.

00:09:29:23 - 00:09:57:05
Wayne Turmel
There are two parts to this. Yes. I suspect this is me trying not to just freak out at human behavior. I always assume that even the worst behavior happens for a reason that is logical to the person doing it. Okay, so there are two parts to this. First of all, as the person who's being looked at, am I being responsible with my status updates and things like that?

00:09:57:05 - 00:10:23:11
Wayne Turmel
And why does it matter? Well, it matters because people want to know that I hope it's less that you are working, but that you are available to answer questions or to be a resource or something like that. Is this person available? I have a question. Can I ask Marisa? And if I do ask Marisa, can I expect immediate answer or is it going to come later?

00:10:23:11 - 00:10:42:14
Wayne Turmel
Because she's obviously busy. You and I are situated. I don't have a problem sending you a question. If you say you're not being disturbed or you're not getting your your messages. Cool. I've asked my question. It's off my plate. It's out of my way. And she is a responsible person and she will answer me when she can.

00:10:42:16 - 00:11:03:01
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, and I can't speak for other platforms, but like, you know, sometimes even that that green icon is green icon or lack of it is deceiving. Right. Like, I think slack. If you haven't opened up Slack in 30 minutes, it will show you as offline. I might still be sitting at my computer. I just haven't opened up slack in 30 minutes because I've been on deep work with something.

00:11:03:07 - 00:11:28:11
Wayne Turmel
All right. So here's the thing. Part of it is, as the the person who's been am I being mature and grown up and responsible, like if I'm not going to be at my desk, do I tell people I'm not going to be? Of course. Very often I say I'm out of the office for an hour, but I have my phone with me or I'm out of the office and I cannot be reached until such and such a time.

00:11:28:13 - 00:11:40:14
Wayne Turmel
I'm being respectful of you, my teammates, so that you can do that and you're not waiting for something that's not going to happen. The flip side of her statement, though, is really interesting.

00:11:40:18 - 00:11:41:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00:11:41:10 - 00:11:44:14
Wayne Turmel
Which is why do you care so much?

00:11:44:16 - 00:12:01:13
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, She actually gave us an example about at a previous organization. She used to hear people say all the time, so-and-so is always yellow and never working. Well, first of all, you don't know that there was another one. Well, so-and-so was green at 2 a.m. Well, if you know that so-and-so was green at 2 a.m. that means you were also looking at two.

00:12:01:13 - 00:12:05:11
Marisa Eikenberry
I am like not going to work life balance.

00:12:05:13 - 00:12:35:15
Wayne Turmel
Position here by yourself. Yes. Yeah, Absolute. And so what that says is there is a huge level of mistrust going on. Does that come from and we just talked about in the last episode, do I know what's going on or am I making assumptions? And if this is they continuing pattern, am I going to be a responsible adult and ask somebody about it?

00:12:35:17 - 00:12:43:21
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Well, in some cases it's none of your business. Like you're not a manager of that person and you know, like.

00:12:43:22 - 00:12:55:04
Wayne Turmel
You're not your business. It is your business in so far as good teammates offer feedback to each other, fair. And if this is becoming a thing.

00:12:55:06 - 00:12:55:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm.

00:12:55:20 - 00:13:04:23
Wayne Turmel
I might say to you, you know, Marisa, you might want to log off. I do not always log off my computer. At the end of the day, I just don't.

00:13:05:01 - 00:13:05:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, which.

00:13:05:15 - 00:13:09:22
Wayne Turmel
Means, yeah, it could look like I'm online at two in the morning. I'm sure it does.

00:13:10:00 - 00:13:27:21
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. I was going to say, I don't always, since my desktop is both for work and for personal stuff, like, you know, I sometimes leave Slack open but it's still in do not disturb mode. So. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Thankfully, I've never gotten a message that was like, Why are you up at 10 p.m.? And I'm like, Because I'm actually playing the sentence.

00:13:27:23 - 00:13:36:16
Wayne Turmel
Exactly. You know, you know? So why are you so concerned about this? Other person's behavior becomes the question.

00:13:36:18 - 00:13:37:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00:13:37:07 - 00:13:52:16
Wayne Turmel
And if they are missing deadlines, if they are not responding, if they are not participating in meetings, if I am that person's manager, that becomes a performance management issue.

00:13:52:18 - 00:13:53:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Of course.

00:13:53:11 - 00:14:12:06
Wayne Turmel
They need to be coached as a team, have you had conversations about what is appropriate behavior and inappropriate behavior? When What does it mean when we see somebody is yellow? What does it mean when somebody is on? Do not disturb all day?

00:14:12:11 - 00:14:19:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Do they have a status saying that like they're in deep work mode or did they just put it in Do not disturb and you have no context at all.

00:14:19:10 - 00:14:40:03
Wayne Turmel
And did you put it on? Do not disturb and forget to turn it back on. I mean anything is possible, but that is the part of that that fascinates me is the people that are annoyed. Yes, that tells me more about the team dynamic than people forget to change their status.

00:14:40:05 - 00:14:58:20
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes. Because it doesn't sound like I mean, I might be wrong. And obviously, you know, I we don't have Mallory on right now to confirm or deny this, but it sounds like it's a little bit more of like peer to peer, you know, Oh, my God, Like so-and-so is on at two in the morning than it is like a manager saying, Wow, like you were on at two in the morning.

00:14:58:21 - 00:15:00:13
Marisa Eikenberry
Like, is everything okay?

00:15:00:15 - 00:15:05:16
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, no, this is peer to peer. This is, this is gossipy, mean girl behavior.

00:15:05:18 - 00:15:07:11
Marisa Eikenberry
100%.

00:15:07:13 - 00:15:16:23
Wayne Turmel
This is this is is now getting petty and silly and whatever. And now I don't know you. I'm not meaning to call you a mean girl.

00:15:17:01 - 00:15:24:03
Marisa Eikenberry
But she was reporting that this happened in a previous organization she used to work for. Not that she was the one asking.

00:15:24:03 - 00:15:31:09
Wayne Turmel
Okay. Okay. That's that's good, because otherwise, Mallory, we would have to chat.

00:15:31:11 - 00:15:46:04
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, anyway, we don't have time for any more of these today, but thank you so much for going through these too. And thank you to Mallory and Maya for sending these to us. I enjoy going through these months, a month. I don't know about you, Wade, but like, I.

00:15:46:09 - 00:16:05:14
Wayne Turmel
Love listening to people vent. It makes me so happy. So, yes, we want your pet peeves. Not just about meetings and webcams, but anything having to do with remote and hybrid work and just being better and saving our sanity and being less snarky with each other. I'm good with all of that.

00:16:05:16 - 00:16:26:19
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Well, and you know, and we've talked about this in previous episodes, that's like, you know, we work on a remote team. We've been working on a remote team for a long time. We teach people how to do this. And some of these pet peeves are also ones that we have too. So it's kind of fun to like see it from other perspectives and be like, Oh yes, this is not just this is not just an that's fine.

00:16:26:21 - 00:16:37:22
Wayne Turmel
You know, I realized a long time ago that one of the things that make me feel best in the world is when I realize it's not just me.

00:16:38:00 - 00:16:39:09
Marisa Eikenberry
100%.

00:16:39:15 - 00:16:47:23
Wayne Turmel
I am not the only one who feels this way. I am not the only one who gets frustrated with this. That actually makes me feel better.

00:16:48:01 - 00:16:52:21
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, isn't there like a whole thing about, like, you have a common enemy and, like, it creates this camaraderie?

00:16:52:23 - 00:16:57:15
Wayne Turmel
Well, we'll just. We'll just team up with Maya against whoever leaves their light on yellow.

00:16:57:15 - 00:17:07:18
Marisa Eikenberry
That's what that was. Mallory But yes, Maya will go after the people who are walking her dog. Weather video.

00:17:07:20 - 00:17:10:06
Wayne Turmel
All right, that's it. We're out of here.

00:17:10:08 - 00:17:29:04
Marisa Eikenberry
But listeners, thank you so much for listening to the longest work life for show notes, transcripts and other resources, Make sure to visit Long-Distance Work life dot com. If you haven't yet subscribe to the podcast, you almost any future episodes including pet peeve episodes just like this and while you're there be sure to like and review. This helps us know what you love about our show.

00:17:29:06 - 00:17:46:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Feel free to contact us by email or LinkedIn with the links in our show notes and let us know you listen to this episode or even suggest a topic for Wayne tonight to tack on a future episode, including these pet peeves. If you'd like to learn more about remote teams order Wayne and Kevin Barry's new book, The Long Distance Team, you can learn more about the book at LongDistanceTeamBook.com.

00:17:47:02 - 00:17:49:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Thanks for joining us. As Wayne likes to say don't let the weasels get you down.

Read More
A graphic for the Building Connections as a Digital Nomad episode of Long-Distance Worklife Podcast. Wayne Turmel interviews Liz Scully
Guests, Surviving Remote Work, Working Remotely

Building Connections as a Digital Nomad with Liz Scully

Join Wayne Turmel in a captivating conversation with Liz Scully, founder of Rethink Central and a seasoned digital nomad, as they explore the art of building connections while embracing a nomadic lifestyle. Liz shares invaluable insights, practical strategies, and personal experiences on how to forge meaningful relationships, network effectively, and create a supportive community while working remotely and traversing the globe. Discover the secrets to maintaining connections across time zones, the power of mastermind groups, and the joys and challenges of living as a digital nomad. Whether you're a remote worker, entrepreneur, or simply curious about the digital nomad lifestyle, this episode offers essential guidance for building connections and thriving in a location-independent world.

Key Takeaways

  1. Building connections as a digital nomad requires reaching out to friends, colleagues, and networks in new locations.
  2. Meeting people in new places involves regular interaction and making an effort to connect.
  3. Mastermind groups provide valuable support, accountability, and a safe space for asking questions and receiving feedback.
  4. Mastermind groups can be beneficial in various contexts, not just for entrepreneurs.
  5. Having a supportive community that understands the challenges of running a business is essential.
  6. Technology, online communities, and social media platforms play a crucial role in connecting with like-minded individuals.
  7. Maintaining relationships with people in different time zones requires flexibility, understanding, and intentional communication.

Timestamps

00:02:19 - Introduction of Liz Scully and her background as a digital nomad.
00:04:36 - Challenges faced by digital nomads in building connections and creating a support system.
00:06:45 - Importance of reaching out to friends, colleagues, and networks in new locations.
00:11:26 - Process of creating a network and life as a digital nomad.
00:11:28 - Approaches to meeting people in new places and the significance of regular interaction.
00:13:06 - Definition and benefits of mastermind groups in various contexts.
00:14:57 - Importance of having a group that understands the challenges of running a business.
00:16:38 - Strategies for meeting new people and building connections while traveling.
00:18:05 - Role of technology and online communities in finding like-minded individuals.
00:19:01 - Strategies for staying connected with people in different locations and time zones.
00:21:01 - Importance of investing time and effort into building connections and maintaining a support system.

Related Episodes

Featured Guest

Liz Scully holding a cupcake in her hand

Name: Liz Scully

What She Does: Founder of Rethink Central, Business Strategist, Keynote Speaker, and Founder of the International Mastermind Certificate Program

Notable: Liz Scully spent 20 years working on big Hollywood films - she's won an Emmy and her work is multi-Oscar nominated. Now, she's a business strategist and a Mastermind coach and KNOWS business can be ridiculously fun as well as highly effective. She's Irish, nomadic and as confused as everyone else why she has an English accent.

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

Remote leadership experts, Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel, help leaders navigate the new world of remote and hybrid teams to design the culture they desire for their teams and organizations in their new book!

 Order

View Full Transcript

00:00:07:21 - 00:00:36:05
Wayne Turmel
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Long-Distance Worklife, the podcast, where we try to help people whom we work work remotely or in hybrid team situations or generally just trying to keep the weasels at bay in the workplace. Welcome. Welcome. We're here to help you thrive and survive. This is a Marisa-less episode, or, as they say in French, an episode

00:00:36:08 - 00:01:03:12
Wayne Turmel
sans Marisa, which I did just for her benefit. But that doesn't mean it is without entertainment. We have my friend Liz Scully with us. Liz is a coach, a full time digital nomad. She is the brains behind Rethink Central and I am going to introduce you to her now. Liz. Hello from London.

00:01:03:14 - 00:01:06:23
Liz Scully
Hello. What a delight to be here. Thank you for having me.

00:01:07:01 - 00:01:11:08
Wayne Turmel
Oh, you really need to raise the bar on delight, but that's okay.

00:01:11:10 - 00:01:17:17
Liz Scully
I have a low threshold of delight. There is nothing wrong with that, my friends.

00:01:17:18 - 00:01:29:01
Wayne Turmel
That's true. So here's the deal. You and I met in the jungles of Guatemala, which sounds like a far more interesting story than in fact.

00:01:29:01 - 00:01:33:05
Liz Scully
Yeah, it really does.

00:01:33:07 - 00:01:44:12
Wayne Turmel
But since then, you are. Well, why don't you tell us what you do? What is? Rethink Central. Give us the the wonder that is Liz in a sentence or two and then we'll say, Excellent.

00:01:44:12 - 00:02:05:19
Liz Scully
So I am a mastermind evangelist and a business strategist. So I work with micro-businesses and very small businesses helping them grow. It is an absolute delight. I work with lots of entrepreneurs and really the focus of my business is one without the pain. Really. It's a delightful thing.

00:02:05:21 - 00:02:34:17
Wayne Turmel
Well, it sounds delightful. And so what I wanted to talk about today is as a digital nomad and as somebody who works remotely from wherever, one of the big knocks on this and it is true for some people to a fairly large degree, is the sense of social isolation that comes with I mean, yeah, yes, it's lovely to be left alone to get your work done.

00:02:34:19 - 00:03:00:00
Wayne Turmel
And the flip side of that is while you are working, you are alone. So I know that you have a system for doing that. I want to talk about being a digital nomad and then hopefully a little bit about what is a mastermind group and who should care. But that will be at the end of our conversation. So let's start with you're a digital nomad.

00:03:00:02 - 00:03:07:14
Wayne Turmel
COVID grounded you to a degree, but you were all over the place for a while. What is digital.

00:03:07:14 - 00:03:40:00
Liz Scully
Anyway? I really was all over the place for sure, so I gave up my last real bricks and mortar home something like 2011, and since then I haven't had a real home. I just move about, which is fabulous. And my last home was in Bangalore, in India, because I was working for DreamWorks there and I have just spent a lot of time bouncing between New York and various places in Europe.

00:03:40:00 - 00:03:59:02
Liz Scully
I spent a lot of time in Budapest. I spent a chunk of time in Malta. I am very big time in Guatemala, which is weirdly, it's one of my safe places. I just want to go home for a while, which as someone who doesn't have a home for me, that is Antigua and Budapest, but New York, so it's great.

00:03:59:07 - 00:04:03:09
Liz Scully
It's lovely, delightful. In fact, I would I keep using.

00:04:03:11 - 00:04:29:08
Wayne Turmel
Okay. So right now, most of the people who are listening to this are, as I am, wage slaves, kind of working for somebody. And we like the idea of being able to work wherever we are and we have that capability. But doing it is easier said than done when you land somewhere. I mean, well, let's start with when you land somewhere.

00:04:29:10 - 00:04:35:22
Wayne Turmel
How much do you know about where you're landing? What does the process of becoming a nomad look like?

00:04:36:00 - 00:05:05:23
Liz Scully
So the actually being completely location independent and running a business that is location independent are two separate things. So first of all, I move my entire business online and then I became location independent. But arriving in a new place, I have done a reasonable amount of research, particularly I normally say an Airbnb. I spent I spent last couple of years, maybe four or five years where I spent so much time in having these.

00:05:06:03 - 00:05:26:21
Liz Scully
They started asking me to the annual conference. Why would I go like, what is the benefit to me? I could see the benefit to you lot because you're going to have a like an actual customer in the building. But really, why would I do that? So I have researched exactly where to live, by which I want to know how far is the local supermarket?

00:05:27:01 - 00:05:46:19
Liz Scully
Can I get decent wi fi and the biggest research I do on obviously because because I can live anywhere. I need to check that I want to live there. So I've looked at cultural stuff and what's going on with museums and transports and all of those kind of things that we all do. When we pick somewhere we want to spend something.

00:05:46:21 - 00:06:11:17
Liz Scully
The biggest thing is a nomads, but I spend my time doing is getting people to run speed tests on their Wi-Fi and send me the results because I will live nowhere with slow internet. It is of no use because if you spend if you spend any time running video conferences, which is my entire life, you cannot do it with slow internet and you can't trust someone to go, Oh yeah, yeah, no, it's fast.

00:06:11:23 - 00:06:34:03
Liz Scully
No, no. Show me, show me the speed results. So before I choose to work to live anywhere, first of all, I check I once points of interest, then I check that the work conditions are fine. Now, you can also do this if you want to check this. Co-working is everywhere, but my job is speaking to people. So if you imagine sitting next to build a co-working session, they would hate me.

00:06:34:05 - 00:06:44:07
Liz Scully
That woman, she never say never shuts up. So fast. Internet, That's a big thing. Can I get really fast? Internet.

00:06:44:09 - 00:07:13:00
Wayne Turmel
So you've determined that this is a place, right? You like the city or you think you're intrigued by the city enough to want to spend some time there? And you've done your research and you've found a place that fits your your criteria and you arrive. Now, how do you make yourself to home? And by the way, you're keeping your business going or keeping your boss from firing you because you're not working and things True.

00:07:13:00 - 00:07:36:08
Liz Scully
So the big the big learning and gosh, this took me a long time to get together is that when you change countries, you need to spend take off at least three days. There's the day before you leave when you're closing down that particular country, there's the travel day and then there's the day afterwards when you arrive, at which point you need to buy a sim for your phone.

00:07:36:13 - 00:07:56:14
Liz Scully
You need to make sure that your internet works. You need to go and actually locate that supermarket we talked about, make sure that things work because there's always something that's missing. Yes, you have a bed, but you have no sheets or you have. And this this is a nightmare for an Irish person. You have an apartment and you have teabags, but you have no cattle.

00:07:56:16 - 00:08:19:20
Liz Scully
Now, that has to be dealt with immediately for obvious reasons. So those three days, you just need to accept that you are going to be doing things that are not work related at that point. So either do it on the weekend or make sure that you've schedule time off to deal with that. And I mean, I have done long contracts where as well as running my own business and working with other people so they expect cool times.

00:08:19:20 - 00:08:43:03
Liz Scully
And those those again, like any long term job, they're going to give you time off. Surely if they're not changing job, I like at some point people are going to allow you to have time off and some of that is going to be spent in that reassessment of where you live because there's always just a certain amount of life maintenance when you switch countries.

00:08:43:05 - 00:08:50:08
Wayne Turmel
Life maintenance, what are the breaks? And the obviously not having a tea kettle would be.

00:08:50:10 - 00:08:50:20
Liz Scully
Exactly.

00:08:50:20 - 00:09:02:17
Wayne Turmel
That's a horrible thing and a very unpleasant surprise. What are the big life maintenance things that people don't think they're going to encounter and do?

00:09:02:19 - 00:09:23:23
Liz Scully
So like really strangely, like when you move all the time, there is a certain set of food that you like. We all do it well. We have our regular supermarket shop, so if you have just done that in, say, Budapest and you go moving to Malta, you have to eat up the food in one country before you start.

00:09:23:23 - 00:09:43:07
Liz Scully
Boy, you get fresh in the second country. So you need to make a decision about whether or not you will go to be the sort of person that moves half a pound of rice from Budapest to Malta because you are too cheap to let it go. Or are you the sort of person that's just going to be forcing your neighbors to take your exit?

00:09:43:09 - 00:10:04:05
Liz Scully
So it sounds ridiculous, but if you move all the time, you spend a lot of time thinking, Didn't we have some strawberry jam? Oh, no. That was three countries back. Where is the jam? Do we have jam? So there's just like a certain there was a certain level of food that if you live in one place, you can assume that there is like a few things that are staples.

00:10:04:05 - 00:10:18:13
Liz Scully
If you move into a brand new house every three three months, you have to put all of those staples in place and you can end up in the ridiculous position of carrying tea bags around the world. It's it's foolish.

00:10:18:15 - 00:10:27:19
Wayne Turmel
Are you a once you've found your spot, you nest in and it's fine, or are you a third location kind of worker?

00:10:27:21 - 00:10:48:07
Liz Scully
Oh, I tend to look, I'm because like I said, because my job is talking to people, I feel it's unfair to co-working. Like we will see people in coffee shops having video meetings. Don't do it. It's so rude. Like like go somewhere quiet and do that. The rest of us do not want to hear about the trouble you're having with the accounts department.

00:10:48:09 - 00:11:01:01
Liz Scully
Oh, keep it moving. So I work from home, which means I need to be, you know, safe and warm and all those kind of basic stuff and food and teabags. Obviously, you need teabags.

00:11:01:03 - 00:11:26:07
Wayne Turmel
One of the things and I never thought about this until my daughter went to her massage therapist the other day, and her massage therapist said, You work on the couch, don't you? You have a lap desk, you don't have a real desk and a real chair, do you? And the reason is she's coming in looking like quasi modo.

00:11:26:08 - 00:11:28:13
Wayne Turmel
What about the physical setup?

00:11:28:15 - 00:11:57:00
Liz Scully
That is interesting. So when I'm choosing the abbey I will live in, I am actually scanning for there was a coffee, there is a coffee table I can put my feet on so that my legs are horizontal. There is cushions so that I can keep my desk at the right level. I also always have. I have one of those extendable things my laptop, so that when I am doing video conferences like this, my camera is eye level, simple things like that.

00:11:57:00 - 00:12:20:11
Liz Scully
I have a little kit of things that I am certain of. I also have the world's largest and most edited set of cables for all possible situations. I have more travel plugs and a human ever requires because you can guarantee that when you look at how the the wiring in the place is, whether you know, the distance from the plug to the desk, you want to work on.

00:12:20:17 - 00:12:35:11
Liz Scully
So again, part of that first life maintenance that you're doing that first day is making sure that you're not going to be hunched up and that you can actually manage to run a video conference without running out of battery on your laptop halfway through. Tedious but important.

00:12:35:13 - 00:13:06:02
Wayne Turmel
Now, I, I am like a three day hermit. I can live in wherever I am, whatever confined space for about three days. And then I need to get out amongst other human beings. Grumpy old man that I am. I know that one of the things you do is you help coach people who are going to be location independent to actually have lives.

00:13:06:04 - 00:13:13:03
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And connect with people. Talk to me. What does that process look like and can you help me?

00:13:13:05 - 00:13:33:08
Liz Scully
Well, I think I think it's very easy to become a technophobe. You're absolutely right. So I have I guess system is probably a strong word for it, but I have friends all over the world and that is not an accident. Many people that become location independent rather than digital nomads, which tends to be much more getting about to much more sort of social.

00:13:33:12 - 00:13:52:12
Liz Scully
But location, independent people tend to be a bit, are they? You have jobs like mine where you spend more time alone. So you have to have you have to have a system to get out there. So before I move to a country amongst the research I do is I ask my friends, of which there are many who do we know in whatever it is?

00:13:52:12 - 00:14:16:05
Liz Scully
Who do we know in Malta? And there will always be a couple of people that you could go and speak to so-and-so, so you make arrangements with them. You look at all the other networks, you have Facebook, LinkedIn, friends of friends. If it's the sort of place where this big conglomerate So I often work for Kodak or Technicolor or Sony or any of the studios, if they have a branch or department in that place.

00:14:16:05 - 00:14:34:03
Liz Scully
So I will speak to my other friends. And you work for Technicolor. Who do we know at Kodak in that country? So you then get a little group of people who are your first contact, and if your friends are kind enough to directly introduce you, they will almost always go for coffee with you. Because, you know, I've got this friend.

00:14:34:03 - 00:14:57:06
Liz Scully
She's really lovely. Cover Go out for drinks so you have some kind of interaction and you have to put the effort. This is the key. You have to put the effort in. So for a couple of weeks, I spend a lot of time ingesting caffeine. I see a lot of people and I put a lot of effort. And because for them, for the person you're meeting, it's just a tiny part of that day for you.

00:14:57:06 - 00:15:18:12
Liz Scully
You have no social life. If you don't do this, it's not going to happen. So there's a sort of certain time inequality for this, but many people will take the time to meet you for half an hour. Lovely. If you get on with them. Great. Arranged to meet them again. But if you don't or you know that they're fine, but they're not really for you, then I make another plan like so.

00:15:18:14 - 00:15:39:13
Liz Scully
This was lovely. Thank you very much. But do you have another friends that might be interested in also meeting me? I'd like to meet as many people as possible. And if you do that through all of your networks that very quickly, everybody you meet, you ask if they can introduce you to someone else and you make the effort to see them and anyone you like, you keep making the effort.

00:15:39:15 - 00:15:47:18
Liz Scully
Within three months, I guarantee you'll have a best friend in that country. Pretty much always. This is one to lots of friends.

00:15:47:19 - 00:15:54:19
Wayne Turmel
Here's a question that just occurred to me. So is Meetup an international thing or is that strictly.

00:15:55:00 - 00:16:26:19
Liz Scully
The meetups everywhere? So yes, that was that was the next thing I was going to say is always a good idea to check meetup if you have a special interest, if you're involved in a karate club or a tennis club, see if through that network, if they have a recommendation for the karate people to speak to in that area and then join that, even if you don't simply being part of a club or a snooker team or and of course you can just go to the bar on the end of the road, it's just I don't particularly drink.

00:16:26:19 - 00:16:37:11
Liz Scully
So to me that's not ideal. So you start going somewhere regularly and you make the effort to be pleasant and you accept to be there.

00:16:37:11 - 00:16:38:02
Wayne Turmel
Right there.

00:16:38:07 - 00:16:59:18
Liz Scully
Yeah, you're out. I see that. But that principle is making friends is work. And I think this is where as we get older we get this stuff. We can't be bothered. But if you go somewhere new and you're on your own, if you don't make friends, you will stay on your own. Nothing is going to change. So meetup bars, events, hiking clubs, anything.

00:16:59:20 - 00:17:06:02
Liz Scully
Just you put a lot of work and then it's a lot of promise. It works.

00:17:06:04 - 00:17:31:23
Wayne Turmel
So good heavens, look at the time you want to take a moment, though, and talk about everything we've talked about. It's like settling in and getting the work done, being productive, networking for your career, and that's where things like Mastermind comes in real quickly. When I think of Mastermind, I think of entrepreneurs who are trying to grow their business.

00:17:32:01 - 00:17:43:02
Wayne Turmel
First of all, what is a mastermind group for those who don't know? And then are they applicable to wage slaves like me, or is it strictly for entrepreneurs?

00:17:43:06 - 00:18:05:01
Liz Scully
Absolutely. So a mastermind is a small ish group. So I run a very small, but they can be larger. So they're a smallish group that meet regularly every week, every two weeks, once a month, whatever it is you meet regularly, you discuss things, and then you make a plan, a goal of some sort that you will definitely achieve by the next time you meet.

00:18:05:03 - 00:18:29:21
Liz Scully
So I liked social pressure. You get stuff done. The super simple in them, in in themselves, really simple, but really effective. And yes, most of the ones I run are for entrepreneurs and business growth, but you can have a mastermind for anything. One of the the calls I did earlier in the day was someone was telling me they used to run internal masterminds within a large corporation.

00:18:29:21 - 00:18:48:04
Liz Scully
So the heads of department, so the and all the issues that were coming up regularly within the company, they had a place they could talk about it that wasn't superficial. It was a bit more focused on people's careers. But yes, you can run a mastermind on anything you like building a barn, growing a baby, whatever you like.

00:18:48:06 - 00:19:11:23
Wayne Turmel
What I what I think is really important for a lot of people. There are two things about masterminds that I think are great ideas. I mean, the first is just other human beings that are facing the similar challenges that you are. There's a lot of power in knowing. It's not just to get it to, you know, it's like, Oh, wait a minute, everybody suffers from that school.

00:19:12:01 - 00:19:17:11
Wayne Turmel
The second part, I think, is the part that you alluded to, which is the accountability piece.

00:19:17:16 - 00:19:36:13
Liz Scully
Yes. Yes. Accountability is important, but I think there's not only the fact that you've got a group of people that are in lockstep with you moving towards the goals. That's really helpful, particularly if you run a tiny business. It's really lonely sometimes as it is with location, independent stuff. So it's really nice to have a group of people with you.

00:19:36:15 - 00:20:04:01
Liz Scully
But it's also there are very few places that we can indict. Most of us, our family is sick to death of what we do. Yeah. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah, lovely. Dear friends don't really care. They move to the K a successful, but they don't want to hear the ins and outs with the mastermind group. You can have a place where you can ask the questions that are vital to your business, that the people around you are bored witless about.

00:20:04:03 - 00:20:14:20
Liz Scully
But you can also ask questions. I just know sometimes we have very basic questions that are a little bit embarrassing to ask anywhere else. Take it, you mastermind. They will sort it out for you.

00:20:14:22 - 00:20:33:18
Wayne Turmel
Well, it's not just that the people around you are fascinated with keeping you up at night. It's that they don't know squat. Yes. You don't know anything. They only have the information. My bride is lovely, but if I show her the first draft of a book, all I'm going to get is. That's great, dear.

00:20:33:20 - 00:20:55:19
Liz Scully
Yes, yes, exactly. Yes, That's nice. I remember showing sales pages to people. Should it be that color? Oh, just my lovely friends. Yeah. So it's a good place to get feedback. And it's also a great place for when we have because as we know, running a business, doing a job will bring up every thing that could possibly go wrong.

00:20:56:00 - 00:21:12:10
Liz Scully
It's like years of psychotherapy in one go, just for the joy of doing your day to day. And a mastermind is a place to have people say, You know what, This is tough. And we can see that you're you're brave enough to turn up again for another day. That's a big thing.

00:21:12:12 - 00:21:31:04
Wayne Turmel
Liz, thank you so much. You've given us a lot to think about. I mean, if I'm thinking about being location independent, what do I have to do? And it's great. I mean, I dream of running off to Thailand on a fairly regular basis. So. Yeah, well, my wife would have something to say about that.

00:21:31:07 - 00:21:36:04
Liz Scully
Oh, you take your wife with you.

00:21:36:06 - 00:22:09:14
Wayne Turmel
But the idea of meeting other people and creating a network and a life and all of that. So thank you for all of that wisdom. I am going to boot you out of the video room just long enough to close it off. Liz is at Rethink Central. Folks. If you go to our fabulous Web page that Marisa has put all the work into longdistanceworklife.com, you will find the transcripts and links to how to reach Liz and all of that good stuff.

00:22:09:14 - 00:22:35:12
Wayne Turmel
Also, if you have not yet checked out Kevin in my new book, The Long-Distance Team: Designing Your Team for Everyone's Success, you can buy that almost anywhere. If you go to longdistanceteambook.com, you can buy the book, but you can also get special offers, free downloads, lots of cool stuff. We are nothing if not givers.

00:22:35:14 - 00:23:04:12
Wayne Turmel
Finally, if you enjoy the show, you know how podcasts work like and subscribe. Tell your friends. Tell your neighbors and if you have anything you want to say to us. Comments. Questions. Vicious personal attacks. Topics for future shows. People that we should talk to. One of Marisa's great joys right now is gathering up people's pet peeves and questions so that we can do those special episodes.

00:23:04:14 - 00:23:18:06
Wayne Turmel
That's it. Thank you so much. My name is Wayne Turmel. Thank you for joining us on the Long-Distance Worklife. Marisa will be back next week. Don't let the weasels get you down. Have a great day.

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