Greg Voisen
Hey, well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. And we have David Sax joining us. And David has a new book out. He's joining us from Toronto, Canada. The Future is Analog: How to Create a More Human World? Well, we definitely need to do that. David. The big question is, probably most of my listeners is how, right so you know, but it's good to have you on the show. And then I'm going to tell my listeners a little bit about you, your writer, reporter speaker who specializes in business and cultures. His he's has other books out, but one is the revenge of analog was the number one post best seller. He's also been translated into six languages. He's author of three other books, save the deli, which is why a James Beard Award, the soul of an entrepreneur, and the tastemakers and as I said, he lives in Toronto. And he's a wonderful writer. That's the key. This book is easy to read a lot of great stories, opportunity for people to explore themselves, what it would be to be more analog versus more digital. Now, you know, you in the introduction is but you tell a great story about being invited to speak at a conference in Korea, about your prior book, The revenge of analog, and you were greeted by a reporter Hey, David. Hey, David, you know, they ran up to you. I remember reading that part in the but what do you think about the fourth industrial revolution, the reporter said, and you being a prior reporter, you had a little snide remark. But can you tell the story and why your passion for returning to more of a community and humanistic kind of lifestyle? I mean, it almost seems like we're ensconced in this is a world you know, and there is a way to be more human. And I'd love to know what you think.

David Sax
Yeah. So the story is kind of this random one, I was invited to speak in Seoul at this big fancy business conference. So it's like, Great, awesome, and everybody degree before you're paying me a lot of money. Great. You know, business class ticket, I'll take it awesome. Get off the flight, you know, 13 hours in the air. I'm just like, exhaust Laster to the side of my head. And my mouth smells like death. And all of a sudden, there's this TV crew running off of David tax saver. Tax. I was like, yes. You know, like, I just got out of luggage. When you're like, what do you think about the I think it was the fifth industrial revolution or fourth industrial revolution? I thought what you think about the fourth industrial revolution, I was like, what is like the convergence of AI and super sentient beings, the digital future, I was like, Oh, I don't know, I'm more interested in the analog feature, which was the reason I was brought there is to sort of talk about this. And my book was actually a big hit in Korea, which I found out the next day randomly. But it that kind of triggered this thought process that that I had, which eventually led to this book in some way. Plus the pandemic. And it was this assumption that that reporter had had really summed up that when we talk about the future, we're talking about digital. When we talk about the future, we're talking about computers, we're talking about technology, we're talking about hardware, we're talking about software, we're talking about AI, you know, this is the framework with which we have to approach the future, whether we're in business, whether we're in government, whether we're in culture, whether it's in our individual lives, the future is digital. How many times that people said, well, we live in a digital world, or we're gonna live in a digital world, right? How many times you hear that? Greg? All the time, all the time, right? And no one ever questioned that notion. No one ever says Hold on. What do you mean by that? What do you mean digital world? We're humans, right? We live on a planet that has real consequences. You know, it's a planet that we're warming very quickly. And we, we the most important thing right now is not like what our phone looks like. But it's like, how hot the water is off the coast of San Diego, where you are? And what effect is that going to have on I don't know drinking water and forest fires and our livability as a species. And yet, we've been so incredibly focused these past 25 or so years, on digital because of what it's brought us because of the changes made that the idea of a digital future was just this accepted form of reality. And then what happened was the pandemic right Back got sick somewhere in China three years ago. And, you know, chain reaction just went away the butterfly effect The Black Swan, and suddenly, you know, it's March 2020, we're all inside, living that digital future, right, we're going to school and working and socializing and doing everything in our lives, online, all of our Congress, everything, everything, all of our socializing all of our commerce, all of our culture, all of our religion, all of our everything is being done through digital devices through hardware and software. And in many ways, we're living the predicted future that has been promised to us and sold to us by Silicon Valley. For many years, you know, this was it all, you know, in the future, you're gonna be able to work from wherever and schools won't even be buildings, people learn from the best teachers everywhere on Earth. And if you want something, you'll just say it to a speaker to a thing, it'll pick it up and it'll be dropped at your door. Isn't that going to be wonderful? And then we lived through it. Right? And very quickly, we realized, this is not the future we bargained for. Or if it was like, it actually stinks. A large part of it. And so this book is really asking that question of really, okay, well, what, what did we learn about not just the limits of digital, but the values of analog of the real physical face to face spaces, relationships, interactions that we have as humans in this world? And, and what kind of a future we want to build that elevates those where they matter? Right? Yeah, and wow,

Greg Voisen
the technology has advanced us in almost every area of our life, and much of it to the positive.

David Sax
Here we are. Video call...

Greg Voisen
zoom. But the social interaction part, I get the isolation part, I understand, we're going to talk about that. Because, you know, it has done more to our psyche, as far as I'm concerned with relation to like, you and I here right now, you know, it's like, hey, we can talk to anybody across the world, I get an interview tomorrow in Dublin, Ireland, with the guy, another author, you know, it's like, it is pretty amazing to be able to capture this media, and then reshare it, give it to the world and all that. But I also understand that I missed that physical connection to sit with David and have a cup of coffee. Right? And, and really, you know, see David's reactions and, you know, listen to his emotions, and so on. And we also Well, remember this outbreak, a COVID-19. I know exactly where it was, at the time when it happened in 2018, that changes that thrust upon us. And here we are three years later, still dealing with the issues of it, you know, it isn't gone. That's for certain. But in your estimation,

David Sax
I just had it three weeks ago.

Greg Voisen
Yeah. You know, and I didn't get it. But I had a bad flu. And it was, you know, it felt like I had it. But my point, in your estimation, what is the significant impact to the digital versus analog world? And what do you mean by kind of an analog future? How do these coexist? In other words, we have kind of much of us displaced one for the other. And I think we're coming back to this balance between the two, it's almost like a homeostasis, right. It's like, okay, our body wants this homeostasis. But how do we kind of get there, David, we, we kind of feel like, okay, we're, we're, you know, let's go get Uber and have Uber Eats, and let's go, you know, instead of going to the theater, we're going to turn on Netflix, and we're going to watch a great thing on Netflix, and it's just so ingrained in us now. And I do miss that other side. And I have to admit, I'm probably one of them who's not doing as much socializing, but I should be.

David Sax
Yeah, I think the term you use their balances the great one, right? Because the promise of the digital future, and, and, and the sort of philosophical underpinning of the people who are creating it and selling it, and I say, the term Silicon Valley, I don't mean people just working in the Bay Area. You know, we're talking about anyone who's involved in sort of designing, promoting, and selling, marketing this technology as the future. And it's really based on this idea of exponential growth, right? It's Moore's law. It's like the, every 18 months, the microprocessors are going to shrink in size and doubling power and having speed and, and that's why your phone keeps getting better and better and a computer does too, but it kind of cost the same dollar amount as it did in 1980. And that allows for constant new innovations. so on, and that just keeps going up and up. And that I think was this notion of inevitability, that if this year we're doing 10% of our transactions online through online shopping, the next year, it'll be 12%. And after that, it'll be 15. After that'd be 20. And, and until we won't need stores, we won't need these things. Because this, inevitably, everything's going to sort of move in that direction. But it wasn't there yet. There was this balance, right, even people were people were doing remote work, people were using zoom, people were working remotely, but it was a smaller percentage of people, right. And that would happen was with COVID-19, we were all kind of like, dunked into this immersion in in a fully digital existence, or an almost fully digital existence in almost every aspect of our lives. And it was, in a way this test drive, if you want to call it of that digital future. But we very quickly tip that balance, where digital became the dominant force. And so we instantly saw within days, what was working for us and what wasn't with that bounce, right. And I think each individual, each company, each organization felt that differently. So work is a great example, right? Because it's really the one that's still being figured out. And for some people, it's like, this is great, I never want to go back to an office again, this works great for me, maybe the company's like, This is fabulous for us, you know, this is it, we're done with offices, terminate the leases, you know, sell off the chairs, close the boardroom, you know, send the plans home, we're good with this, and others where it was like, Well, hold on, I really missed that I want to get back to that office, like I missed my routine, I miss I miss the commute, I missed all the aspects, I missed the people, I miss the space, I missed being able to manage people and see them, whatever it is. And now what's happening, especially in work, is figuring out that homeostasis, right, is figuring out what that balance is based on our current needs. And our previous experience of the past couple of years, where, you know, that fully digital experiment was conducted. And, you know, the feeling of it was unmistakable. Like people. It was very visceral. And I think that was that was the interesting part of it.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, and I do. I know, I have a son that works at Adobe. And I've watched this gradual comeback to work three days a week kind of thing. Yeah, I've seen this happen in many of these digital economy kind of businesses, right? Obviously, the brick and mortar businesses, they've kind of always been there restaurants, hospitals, places where people have to serve others. 24/7. Right. Yeah, that's been there. But we have seen that shift back again, and it is working. It is working. He's telling me, hey, Dad, you know, it's working. We're finding this balance, again, to be able to work remotely, and also come back in and have great meetings and talk to one another and have that interaction. And it's good. So I think we're seeing that you speak about the major shift in working over 30% of American workers working from home. I'm surprised it was.

David Sax
Yeah, that was that was I think, at the height of the pandemic. Yeah. But

Greg Voisen
you know, to me, it seems like it was even more because that's, you even said in your book, you look, you only gone into an office once and it was to do some publishing something or another. You've always worked from home. I haven't always worked from home. I used to have a business with employees, and they used to come in just like you were talking about, but that's shifted has impacted our mental health. I think this is a key here. And our job level satisfaction, then the measurement that we use, at least if you're kind of like me is what are the winds? What are the winds I had today, right? And it's so difficult to measure in a digital world because it just keeps coming up on the screen. And there's always more to do your to do list keeps getting longer and bigger and more exasperated to try and finish it. So job level satisfaction went down mental health problems went up and you quoted on an Arnold, I'm sorry, Aaron Dinham, a business coach and author is saying it revealed that we do not have a good grasp on what makes work. In your estimation, what does the future of work look like? I wrote a book called wisdom, wellness and redefining work about I don't know 2012. And I remember as I was writing that book, I was investigating all of these elements. And what does the future of work life.

David Sax
I mean, I think long term, the future work probably holds a lot in common with the past work, right? Because the things that we think of his work. And we thought of his work prior to the pandemic, were very much the sort of deliverable and measurable and quantifiable tasks that we did in order to get paid or create a product or a service or sell it. Right. And so we were able to take those very quickly and easily, like we're talking days, every company did it small companies, small businesses, large corporations, nobody went bankrupt was like, I don't know, we can figure out how to move this whole business online. You know, if it was a business that Delton information and services, everyone was able to sort of do it really quickly. And yet, that sense of dissatisfaction, that sense of depression, that sense of losing ideas, of some sort of magic coming off of it, I think that's a pretty pervasive thing that's happened. And what Aaron Dignam was saying about we don't know what makes work is we, we looked at the whole some of work, like you talked about your company that you had in an office, and we're like, Okay, we have these individuals sitting in these desks in this configuration of an office, and they're doing this stuff. And this stuff is the this stuff is the GDP, it's the economic engine, it's the it's the where the money comes from. It's the it's the it's the activity, activity, the cogs that make the machine turn, right, right. And all this other stuff around them. The water cooler, the bathrooms, the building the architecture, the coffee shop downstairs, the sad office lunch, you know, cake for Susan, whose birthday it is the retirement party, the 10 minutes of chat between meetings, this is this is all superfluous wasted stuff. It's just like, extra trappings that come along with it. And now we can actually just the, you know, the promise of remote work, the promise of virtual offices, which has been around for, you know, talking 4050 years, right, yeah, paperless office, notion came out. And remote work. And telecommuting, like this is all from like, late 70s, early 80s, this sort of vision of this is like, if we cut out all that stuff, we're going to be so much more productive, people have much more time, they'll be happier, will be more focused on the task at hand. And all that other BS commuting, chit chat, office politics, blah, blah, blah, that's going to be a done by so it's gonna be it's gonna be this revolution in working. And I think in many ways that that has occurred at some organizations or people have noticed, yeah, you know, I don't have to deal with the rest of the stuff. It's much more efficient. And yet, there's a lot of that stuff that I think people actually didn't realize the value of until it was gone. Right, the value of seeing other humans outside your house, who you work with, in person on a daily basis, is actually tremendously valuable. Because what happens in those interactions, it's not like now we're having a work interaction. Now we're having a personal interaction, things bleed into one another, those relationships, build trust and confidence. And those confidence and trust is what allows ideas and thoughts and honesty to sort of flow and germinate. And that allows for new ideas for you know, shifts in strategy, whatever, that doesn't come as easily when everybody's separated online. So your son works for Adobe, it's a fabulous company. I've been there before, when I was researching one of my other books, to their offices in San Francisco. And, you know, they're very focused on getting individuals to talk and interact with each other. And do it in all sorts of different ways. Because it is a company that's based upon software for creative individuals, and they need creative ideas. And it's very hard to create that when everybody is off in their own world. And it's like, okay, I need a creative idea from you, Greg, go, right. Yeah, it doesn't happen that way, where maybe we're banging our heads against our desk, because we're trying to figure out a new, I don't know, Photoshop, application thing or whatever. And it's like, sudo, get a coffee and we go downstairs and get a coffee, we go for a walk around the block. In San Francisco, we see something, that thing gives us an idea we're having conversation, and it turns into the next great feature, or whatever it is. Right. And I think, again, you know, the future of work, I think is going to be that mix. It's going to be I really identifying the parts of work. That doesn't really matter whether you do them online or here, you know, expense reports, right. You know, skin You will linger calendars or, or something like, you know, the process oriented emails or programming, right? Like, if someone's sitting there programming and an office is, you know, doing it, like at home, maybe that like specific type of program or your code writing or whatever is, is, you know, accounting, I don't know, like all these, you know, very sort of process oriented things. But then what are the elements of it that actually aren't as quantifiable that you can't pay? Well, this contributes to the bottom line. And you know, we studied it, and this is how many hours people are working in, therefore, doesn't it? It's like that coffee break that walk the, the relationships even you know, what, what one gentleman interviewed for the book, Andres Hoff Brower called embodied cognition, which is like the awareness around ideas, and understanding of group ideas that an individual employee or worker will get simply by walking through the office every day, so that you walk by, and I see Greg's desk, and there's a sketch of something and that sketch evolves. And I see it out of the corner of my eye every day when I walk to the elevator. And all of a sudden, you go and give your presentation. And I already have an idea of it. Because I've seen it, I've seen the things you've been pinning up, I hear snippets of you talking about it when we meet up at the watercooler or whatever, right? Those things actually have a value. And sometimes it's hard to put $1 sign on them. But that's something that we have to accept, right? Because not everything is this notion of efficiency. And then

Greg Voisen
this and there is a difference, David to between the way the generations work, there's been lots of studies, right? You got the Gen Z years, Gen X, you've got, you know, all these generations in the workplace today. And, you know, the pandemic, I think, had maybe less than an impact on the younger generation, like, say Gen Z, because that's what they really like. But

David Sax
see, I'm very, very skeptical about that. Anytime someone makes a generational a sweeping generation, generational generalization, I, my ears, my, my ears go up. And I'll tell you why. Right? Because those things, maybe survey a tremendous number of people and say, Well, we did a survey of 1000 people, and this is what we found. Right? All right, we've observed this behavior. You're talking about a sweeping generalization about, I don't know, hundreds of millions of people across the globe. Right.

Greg Voisen
But I think they're talking about their values. What did what each generation values? I'm not saying we don't have common values? Sure. We do. We look, I'm 68 years old. So look, I, I've been around awhile. And I recognize that my generation has we I can see it happening. And sometimes customer service is a great example. So when I was growing up, it was like paramount. Today, you're lucky if you get any customer service kind of almost anywhere. Other than maybe Apple, I'll just put a big thing out for Apple. So yeah, exactly. My point is, is that I do believe there are some value differences. And there's been a shift in the way in which people work, we're talking about work, how we work. Look, you can look to your father even and go, he probably woke up every morning to go do something can't come home to you know, take care of the kids, your mom did the same thing. We're still seeing that. But we're seeing it done in a different way. I do believe the stressors today are actually they seem to be greater the actual stressors of living in the world today. And that brings me to a question which I don't want to skip this one, which is you have kids, and you even wrote the book about how it was to kind of tear your hair out while they were trying to learn over the internet. Right? Yeah. So we've seen the fallout of the pandemic. My wife was a school teacher for 25 years, how our digital system and the attempts to digitize learning. You state in your chapter on school, that nowhere did the utopian idea of the digital future crash harder on the rocks of analog reality than with school? I would agree with you. Can you tell us the story of Larry Cuban and what he told you about the education he said what the education really was, and what you believe the future of education should be? I think this is a big one. This is a really big one actually.

David Sax
Yeah. So you know, the promise of digital education even as an idea as an ideology predates computers, right? Thomas Edison, late 19th century, early 20th century is coming up with all sorts of inventions, among them, you know, early forms of radio, you know, the first kind of photographs and recorded Sound and film, right? And he's saying, Look, this is transformative, we are not going to need schools in the future. Because why would you have a bunch of people sitting in a room that you have to pay for and staff and shoveling snow for and do whatever, when the best minds can deliver lectures to students anywhere, at any time, students shouldn't be trapped in this sort of specific space. And that grew, you know, as digital computers evolved, especially going into the sort of 1980s and 90s, CD ROMs and the Internet and, you know, streaming video into all sorts of promises around this, right. And, you know, the One Laptop per Child initiative from Nicholas Negroponte and folks at MIT, the MOOC movement from Sebastian Thrun at Google and, and lots of brilliant folks in Silicon Valley and Stanford, were saying, Look, we're going to videotape the best lectures of the best university, they're gonna be open to everyone in this in the future, we're not gonna have university campuses, and, and giving laptops to kids giving tablets to every student in the LA school district as they did about 10 years ago. Every one of these things was a dismal failure, not like a weird, like, total, complete failure, right? The MOOC movement, the best, brightest minds, and tons of money behind it, when they rolled it out to universities, the universities, California college system, in a couple of sort of pilot projects was like 10% of people finished the course 10%, could you imagine a university course where 10% of people finished it, that professor would be fired immediately, and the department would be shut down, right? So, you know, still 10s if not hundreds of billion dollars be invested in ed tech, a lot of it, not all of it, but a lot of it with the promise of like, schools are at an institution that's obsolete and need to be disrupted. This is ridiculous that we put all these people sitting in this chair, staring at this person online. This isn't how we should learn, right? And then along comes the pandemic and every single student in the world, except for some in New Zealand, kindergarten all the way to grad school are doing this for their school in right platforms, you know, best most, you know, highly funded private schools, Harvard, MIT, Oxford, the Tsar bone, the fanciest private high school and elementary school and the richest parts of the richest countries of the world. And, of course, all the public schools, right, you know, with their varying levels of, of lower funding everywhere, and everywhere was a feeling. Right? Like students, students, you know, comprehension went down, their marks weren't down, their learning went down, their antisocial behaviors went up, rise of depression, Rise of, of a lack of motivation, and I saw it with my own kids who were in kindergarten and second grade. I mean, it was just dismal to watch. Yeah, how unmotivated, how bored how they learn specific things. They learned facts my son learned to read in that time, mostly by reading books at here, but you know, his teachers did their best, but it was, it was clearly not a success. And so, to get to Larry Cuban, Larry Cuban is a professor at Stanford who studies the history of education technology. And he began as a booster of ad tech in the early 80s, but quickly saw.

David Sax
So Larry Cuban is a professor at Stanford University who studies digital technology in education and the history and sort of reality of it. He began in the 80s, being a booster of ad tech, but very quickly saw the limitations of that, when it put was put into practice. And he explained to me in in the most wonderfully clear way, what what's going on, he said that digital technology just like film, and sound as Edison didn't even print is it is a tremendous vehicle for the delivery of information, right? Information, which we think is the core of education, learning, one plus one, learning how to read learning, comprehension, learning, science, learning all these different things. It's the information. But he said an education isn't information, right? Education is fundamentally a human relationship between the teacher and their students, between students each other, between the students in the school and the community surrounding it, whether we're talking about an elementary school in your neighborhood or university campus, and in the city, in the state where it's in, and its alumni network, you know, go beavers, or whatever. And, and he said, and that human relationship is actually what allows for learning. Because when you think back to the best teachers you've ever had, and I'm challenging to name one right now, who's one of the best teachers you ever had Greg,

Greg Voisen
a guy in high school, Dr. Or no doctor. He taught me environmental sciences. I can't remember his name, but I was really fascinated by the subject.

David Sax
Right. But was it the facts he taught you? Or was it how he taught?

Greg Voisen
No, it was, I think it was my curiosity about the topic, I was extremely curious and still happen to this day. I mean, we're talking High School to 68 years old, just like you were speaking about earlier, the aggregation of, you know, co2 emissions and water and everything. And I've been a big advocate of that. So I think it was the fact that he was teaching something that I went into a course and I was like, wow, I just wanted to just, I have this insatiable curiosity about.

David Sax
But that's it, right? People remember who the teacher is they remember the sub Mr. Alexander, but you may not remember the specific facts that Mr. Alexander, right. And those facts are available to you. But I'm sure the way he taught and the relationship he built with his class, or at least with you was, you know, the core of what that was. And what Larry Cuban says is, this is a tremendous medium, for transmitting information, you want to learn about climate change, and the planetary sciences and Environmental Sciences, you know, go to Google, go to YouTube, go look online, you can find un papers, animations for kids, you know, everything you want, interactive, things are whatever. But in order to remake, you truly care about that, and turn that information into knowledge requires that relationship. And that is cut off when you do this, right. When you remove students from the class, when you remove teachers from that personal relationship, and they're just delivery, delivery mechanisms for information. That's the difference. And that's why it failed. And so when you think about the future of education, it's not more tech in the classroom, it's less tech in the classroom, or if there's tech, the tech is either there to learn specifically about the technology like computer science, for example, or for coding or any sort of STEM type subject that will use computers as a tool, or it's in the background. Right. It's they're working with the administration, it's helping the future plan their lesson, but it doesn't get in the way. And some of the most interesting school and most successful school systems in the world, like the Finnish education system, they have very little tech, they have very little standardized testing, right? It's actually more about engaging as much as possible with the student on a human level, to get them curious and interested in learning that makes those systems successful, where the American system is almost entirely based on sort of a quantifiable measure of information retention and success, which is you know, the

Greg Voisen
the take the LSAT, or take the various Yeah, crazy

David Sax
focus on standardized testing, which is delivered like mediocre results, America ranks in the middle of worlds, you know, global measures of, of how well it educates its population.

Greg Voisen
Well, I think the studies that have substantiated what you're talking about Larry Cuban, you know, as I was speaking with Dan Bitner the guy that wrote the Blue Zones book, right, so Dan was on here about a week ago and got any of these demographers went around, studied where people lived over 100 years old. We just got into this discussion. about apps, changing behavior, and an app on the phone, right changing a behavior, billions of dollars put into apps. And he said, you know, what we found is the rate of retention there is so low that after seven months of years, no one's using those apps anymore to actually track their weight or track the food they're eating or make a substantial change there, right? This is about education, right? One on One education one on one, he said, but when you change the environment, in which the people live, that's when you can have a change. So they go into a city, they change the laws, they say, Hey, look, we're going to serve better food, we're going to have bicycle paths, we're going to do whatever we need. And he's actually been able to lower the BMI from three to 4%, and a whole city, full cities, right? I loved his approach, because what he's saying is, look, when you change our options in the environment, right, it's like a school, right? Being in a school, the school, the environment of the school, to me when I was going to school was as big a part of anything, versus being stuck in my bedroom in front of a screen, right? That isn't the most appropriate environment. Okay. So I loved in college, going from classroom to classroom learning from Professor to professor, interacting with kids over lunch and doing whatever I mean, let's face it, that's

David Sax
college. That's not the stuff you learn, right? Like wearing their Yale sweater, because they're like, well, actually, I learned these facts that, like, these are the people I met. These are the relationships I built, right. This is why I paid, you know, fought to get in and paid so much money to build these relationships and immerse myself in this physical analog environment in order to learn in this place, right. So I could wear this sweater while I'm jogging, Central Park, or whatever.

Greg Voisen
Well, I want to be sensitive to your time, and I have lots more questions. But I do want to let my listeners know that this book touches every day is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I think one of the most important ones that you speak about, really is Sunday. And I'll tell you why. Because you're speaking about something that's this integration of the soul and some spirituality. And you start your Sunday thing off, I thought it was quite funny about you putting on your wetsuit to go surfing, who the hell goes surfing in Toronto, and the freezing cold but I guess you do have to be really like, quite ridiculous to want to go out. But me. Maybe you're learning cold baths. I love that because it maybe you're going to extend your lifespan? Can you tell the listeners a story and getting out in nature as to how nurturing that is for our souls, regardless of the weather conditions or any other excuses we might make up to deter our adventure into the wilderness because to me, that is really, for me, that's my reconnection everything is going into riding my bike or going down to the beach or walking in the woods or doing anything. And I think that's part of what this world needs more.

David Sax
Yeah, there's a wonderful gentleman that I talked to for the book, Richard loove, who is a San Diegan I know, wrote, you know, Last Child in the Woods is really a figurehead in American life for reconnecting ourselves with nature. Yeah, and I think this is something that everyone during the course of the pandemic suddenly discovered, right? Because you are now you know, kind of like a child free to sit inside and eat all the crap you want all the candy, you want all the bread, all the pastry, you know, go drink and you know, take all the weed gummies you want and you can watch as much Netflix as you want. There's nowhere to go anymore, like just sit inside and like binge whatever show you wanted. And I think within a few days or weeks, most people like our attic, I gotta I gotta get out of here. And people would walk like you would go in cities towns everywhere. People were just walking you go on hiking trails and they were packed bike sales went through the roof. They you know, they sold out bikes they sold out of bikes worldwide. Yeah. I've two friends who own bike stores. It's the only reason why children on bicycles. You know, everything was just anything that was outdoors was in such high demand. Even here in Toronto, where people surf the worst possible waves in the worst possible weather. You no subzero temperatures, wind wave slop, dirty water, like the surf store was selling out of waves in wetsuits.

Greg Voisen
Said you surf for any at a condom float Wow, that was

David Sax
that was Yeah. I had that happened in California to thank you for at least having safe sex. But you know, it, it showed that yearning for something beyond our screens that this isn't sufficient for the body and for the soul. And you know, I had a wonderful week last week, I was on book tour in the West Coast of the US. So, you know, I found myself on the first day in San Francisco, and it really had nothing to do till my event that night. And I love San Francisco, and it was a beautiful, like blue, blue sky day. And I like when I rented an E bike, you know, and went along the water and then hiked all these paths all along, pass the Golden Gate Bridge all the way to Sunset Beach. Like the cliffs above looking at the ocean, it was just, it was so wonderful. It was like, all I needed. And I was so content, and so happy. And then the next day in Portland, and I came in from Seattle, Seattle was pouring, pouring rain, miserable, pouring rain. But Seattle, the rain had just ended. And I walked through the forest there in Washington Park, and like, just covered in pine needles and feeling so alive and the smell of all of that. And then the last day I was in LA, and in LA, it was raining for the first time in six months. But my friend and I went on a hike in in, you know, just outside Malibu, in a canyon, and we were covered in mud. And it was like, it was great. It was amazing. It was such a wonderful thing. And why it's like, this is something we need. And I think we've realized that right? This is like a fundamental human need that we can't replace with a peloton bike and like a simulation of morality through the world. Right. And I think this is that that soul aspect where it's like, you know, church services, synagogue services, mosque services, you know, Buddhist meditations, transcendental California and yoga, like all of that went online, you could zoom, you could you could sign up, you can stream every class, audio, video, virtual reality, whatever. It's just, it's insufficient. People wanted to go back to those places, and sit in uncomfortable positions in order to be connected to something bigger than themselves. And that's connected with the people with them, and connected to the person who's delivering the sermon or talk or service or experience. And that sense that you're part of something bigger, right?

Greg Voisen
Yeah, no, it is important. The community, you talk about it in the book, and those everything. That's everything. Yes. Like, I was like you I was brought up Jewish, but I didn't like, keep that. I'm a member of self-realization fellowship here in Encinitas, right. And that temple was shut down for two years, literally two years, including the meditation grounds, which are beautiful right on the beach in Encinitas. And I was like, wow, these guys are so conservative. Why don't they let us go outdoors, because these are outside meditation gardens. And, and yet, they were still closed, you couldn't get into him? That was like, to me, it was like, just ridiculous. So I started on my own meditation gardens, right. So we find ways to make up for it. I'm gonna make this last question. Because you know, timing. Your book is a place for our readers and our listeners to question how they're living their lives, and provides new perspectives about an analog approach to living. What reflection would you like to leave listeners with about the future is analog? If you were to leave them with one or two things? What would you advise them? What might you encourage them to think about or to do?

David Sax
That's a great question. I would, you know, went through a very traumatic time, the past couple of years pandemic. And certainly, you know, nobody's yearning to go back there. And so there's this desire to kind of move on, right. But I think we actually went through something really valuable, which is that we all got to live this experiment in this promise digital future that is still being sold to us and pitched to us by people like Mark Zuckerberg, and his metaverse. Virtual Reality sort of fantasyland. And businesses are still trying to sell us on this. And, and, and I think, whenever someone tells you something about the future, we now have this gauge that we can sort of look back and say, Hey, was my What was that part of my life better when it was all digital? And what did I realize about the things that are analog, that are physical, that are tactile, that are human, that are sort of paternal? Right? Like going for a hike or going surfing or meditating? Or you know that I actually really value? And so if we're able to realize the parts that humanize us, the mouse and make those a core value of what we do. Then when any new technology comes along, we can we can judge that technology against it. And we could say, Is this going to elevate my human experience? Is it going to make me more connected to others to myself, to my coworkers to the world around me? Or is this actually competing with it? Is this trying to disrupt it and take it away? And I think we'll know, in our own lives, where we fall with that, and we can make conscious decisions about which technology to adapt, and which technology to, you know, say, No, thanks, Mark. I'm good. I'm good with reality.

Greg Voisen
Well, David, it's been a pleasure having you on Inside Personal Growth. And I think and to conclude this, from my perspective, after having read the book, and I want to all the readers to go out and get a copy, the future is analog. The other thing is go to David Sax, s-a-x.com. You can learn more about David there that book, his other books. One thing that I think that I took away from it, is, if you look at all the days, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, say that you kind of used as a stepping off point to write about commerce, and to write about education, and to write about these various things was when you kind of pull it all together. The humanistic side of being much more compassionate, loving to ourselves and to others is, is truly at the essence of, you know, we need to be more kind to others and ourselves. Right? The digital world sometimes doesn't look at kindness and compassion, it looks at productivity, and how do you generate the next thing so that you can make some more money, right or monetization, right? And our world, meaning this Western world has embraced it so heavily. And it's such a bias, that breaking that bias that we have is tough, I get that for all my listeners out there who are on the path, like I said, try and find some balance, we're not going to get rid of the digital world altogether. But we could bring in more of this humanistic side, which you said, there's more of this community support side this more support. I know my nonprofit that the author support, I go out and give away $100 gift cards to people that are out on the streets that are homeless. Right. And, and I think the most important thing here is this. You can have you can coexist in both of these worlds. And you can do it with more peace, compassion and harmony for yourself and for others. And that if that's all you take away from this book, that's the greatest thing you could take away from

David Sax
a man. That's fabulous. Yes, yeah. I'm gonna namaste to that.

Greg Voisen
Okay, well, no, I'm gonna say to you, my friend, have a good next podcast. I appreciate you. Sorry for a few technical difficulties, but thanks for being on the show

David Sax
at the analog reality that is thank you crack this. Pleasure. All right. Take care!

Greg Voisen
Thanks, David. Bye