Practice Session #4

Thanks for checking out my show notes! I’ll be utilizing this to clarify and elaborate on points that I didn’t convey as well as I would’ve liked to. I’ll also provide links to further information and resources.

Intro.

I’ll be interspersing all of this with the transcription from the audio, which will be displayed like this:

[00:00]

CK: Heyo! I’m CK and you’re listening to Practice. This is my podcast where practice is not just the theme of this show, but also the purpose behind it. I’m basically practicing podcasting and speaking in general. I’ll be talking about my experience with this process along with various lifestyle practices as well as theories and ideas behind the virtue of practice itself.

Along with me. I have my girlfriend Pam. She’ll be with us every week that she can,

Pam: Hey everybody.

CK: And aside from this intro, which I kind of have scripted, everything will be basically on the fly and unedited. I’ll have some notes for my agenda, some talking points, but really everything’s just kind of ad lib, on the fly, off the top of my head.

So my progress with this practice will be fully transparent, and I hope that’ll be of some interest to you. Especially if you’re curious about getting into podcasting yourself or if you’re looking to broaden your perspective on self-improvement.

For more details on this project and process, you can check out our website at ForcesOfEqual.com and this’ll be there “slash” practice: ForcesOfEqual.com/Practice. And feel free to hit me up on Twitter @cKdisco and Pam, do you wanna share any places where people can hit you up.

Pam: Yeah. People can find me on Twitter @Pamela_Lund and on Instagram at that Pam chick

CK: Yeah, you can find me on Instagram too @cKdisco8. I don’t post on there very often, but I’m planning to come up with some kind of social media strategy for all this as well, so I’ll try to post on there more, but for now, go to Pam’s Instagram.

Pam: I don’t post either… for now.

The latest on this podcasting practice.

[02:03]

CK: And yeah. So yeah, we’ll figure it out. And with that, we’re on to our first actual episode.

So what I mean by that is we’ve actually recorded three previous episodes. And I’m making those into my three warmup episodes for this practice podcast. And the reason I decided to do that was because I wanted to-

Well, this is kind of an agile process, and what I mean by that is a concept I’m taking from software development. And Agile software development basically means that you’re taking a minimum viable product and just releasing it, putting it out there, and putting processes in place with, in this case myself, or with your team to iterate on the fly and just adapt as you go along.

So you put your- you just put the product out there that’s minimally viable, that could actually be useful and beneficial and- just to get something out there as soon as possible. And from there you iterate on the fly instead of waiting until the product is perfect.

So we’re taking an agile approach with this podcast and it all basically came together a couple of weeks ago when a friend of ours wanted to get us all together. And we have a group of six of us – we called ourselves the “6-Pack.” And our friend Shane wanted to get us all together for a podcast with just the 6-Pack and basically just us talking and joking around with each other…

Pam: well, really taking- really taking are really great conversations that we have over dinner and on road trips and making those available to more people because we discuss such interesting topics.

CK: Right, exactly. Like every time we get together and get to talking about something, we’re always like, “Oh, we should have recorded that.” Or, you know, it wouldn’t have been beneficial for the masses, but.aa

So, you know, we were trying to get that started off the- uh, get that off the ground, but it wasn’t working out and, you know, we couldn’t get all of us together at the same time, and it just kinda kept getting pushed back.

And I was just so into the idea of starting a podcast that I just decided to do it on my own. And there’s several reasons for that that we’ll get into. But you know, we were just walking one day and I had been mulling it about for a couple hours. And you know, I told Pam like about this idea pretty much in like within 45 minutes of us starting the first episode.

So we have three warm-up episodes now. And I’ll be publishing those. And if you want to, you can go back and listen and kind of see how we’ve progressed so far. But this is basically the official launch of the podcast, episode one, and this’ll kind of summarize what we talked about in the previous episodes and give you a good idea of how we’re formatting it and how we might be moving forward.

So we’ve already talked about Agile- the Agile development process. Something else that come up several times over the past. The first three episodes is the trans three- Oh, okay… Maybe I should start before that.

A big part of this practice is helping me, myself, talk, because. I haven’t talked very much over the past decade or so, maybe, in conversation with friends or when we go out or when I’m around people. Uh, it’s not that like I can’t talk or, uh, you know, on one hand there were some issues with anxiety, but I also like to think a lot and you know, that may have gone hand in hand with any anxiety.

And oftentimes I just find myself thinking so much or unable to think clearly because of my anxiety that I just wouldn’t parse it part- I just wouldn’t participate in conversation. So a big part of this practice is me just kind of ripping off the bandaid and doing this, talking on a podcast and having others listen to it potentially. So that’s going to be- one of the foundations of the podcast is seeing how I progressed with my speaking spills- speaking ability.

Pam: to give some context there. Um, you know, we’ve been together for 11 years and getting you to talk about literally anything was always a challenge. Not- I’m not talking about like let’s sit down and have a serious conversation, but just that you, you’re just not a talkative person. Like I’m the one that’s constantly jabbering and you’re the one that was always listening

And you would, you know, say like, “yeah” or “I agree,” but like you wouldn’t really talk in detail about a lot. So I got into the habit of asking you to tell me stories from your childhood or open-ended questions or like, what did you learn today? Because I knew that those were things that would be easy for you to talk about.

They were like low investment things that you could w they weren’t anxiety inducing, but it was something that it would get you to open up. But I had to do that as your partner, just to get you to like have conversation.

CK: Yeah. Yeah. It’s crazy to think about how it was like, and you know, I’m still working on things. The big thing is I want my speech to reflect the eloquence of my thoughts. ‘Cause I feel like I have these great thoughts and you know, the way I talk in my mind is great, but then when it comes to me opening my mouth and words coming out, they’re not matching up with what I was thinking or how I thought it would come out, you know?

So that’s…

Pam: That’s something that everybody struggles with, which is why this is so great, is to show people what it’s like to actually, you know, talk on the fly and ha- and have these discussions. You know, we spend so much time watching scripted television that we get this idea that people have these amazing off the cuff conversations and sounds so smart.

CK: True. Yeah. And that’s unrealistic, but we may lose sight of that just because it’s so prevalent and we don’t think about how prepared that kind of stuff is. So yeah, that’s- talking is going to be a big thing. And I guess that’s good. Cause this is a podcast. So…

This preparation versus action thing is obviously a key theme.

[09:33]

CK: So before I was getting into that, I was trying to say the Tran- Okay… the transtheoretical model of behavior change. So this is something that’s come up and this’ll hopefully exemplify a- what- kind of, what I want to get out of this.

So the transtheoretical model real quick is a six stage model. I think some models have just five or seven, so it’s six plus or minus one I guess depending on what model you look at, but the phases are generally something like the pre-contemplation stage, contemplation, then preparation, then action, then adherence or relapse. And if you relapse, obviously you go through the cycle again.

So the reason I’m taking this model from psychology is that it kind of makes sense for me in terms of how I want to change my own behavior into more of a action and production mode. So, uh, over the past three episodes, I went over a lot of the things that I want to do and a lot of projects that I have and a lot of interests and hobbies and stuff that I want to get out that will help people.

And I gotten myself into such a place where I’m just preparing and preparing and contemplating and contemplating. And so I do a lot of studying and research, and I just keep iterating and iterating and I never get stuff out and published. So I’m using this to get from the contemplation and preparation stages to the action stage.

And so I want to get into that action mode and the production mode so that I can publish and share all these things that I’ve been researching and studying all these years. And just put my voice out there because you know, we live in a society, we’re social creatures, and we feed off of each other and we learn from each other.

And you know, we’re each other’s best teachers. You know, the quickest way to learn is from someone else’s experiences. So, you know, I want to participate in society and offer that and, you know, get feedback and in turn, improve myself as well. So that’s kind of my- the standpoint I’m taking in terms of how I’m going about this and why I want to do it.

And as we’ve discussed in the warmup episodes, you know, it’s already benefited me in terms of producing. And while I actually haven’t published any of these episodes yet because of certain logistics and whatnot, I have been in such mode that I’m producing in other areas.

And this will be out very soon. I have the whole workflow and logistics worked out now that I’ll be able to release episodes in a more timely manner.

But yeah, it’s all been great so far in terms of what I want to get out of it.

Pam: And it’s having the same effect on me and my life and how much I’m producing and the creative work that I’m doing. And also just watching you do things that are outside of your norm has made me more comfortable trying things that are outside of my norm.

Or even like silly little things that, you know, if I were to think about, you know, recording a video or something… Before, I would like hide in the bedroom and I didn’t want you to hear me doing it, and it’s so ridiculous. But now it’s like hearing you recording for this makes me feel like, “Oh yeah, I can do that too.” Like I don’t have to be shy about it. So I’m hoping that when people are hearing this that it motivates them in the same way.

CK: Yeah. That’s awesome. I hope so too, and that’s great to hear coming from you, because that’s the whole point that I was saying before, you know. I want to put myself out there and get feedback and also provide an example of, you know, what can be done in this arena or just as a human in general. So yeah, so me personally, I’m getting a better sense of what I can do with this.

My complex systems mindset.

[14:25]

CK: And about my background in general, I have a broad range of interests and I have desires, you know, just like anyone else to be an expert in some realm or in all realms. But I’m now realizing the irrationality of that. Like before I, you know, I wanted to be the smartest person in every single subject, and you know, I just learn as much as I could and try to gain all the knowledge possible. But I mean, that’s just an impossible task.

So I’m starting to realize more and more where my strengths are, and that’s in synthesizing information, especially across disciplines and then strategizing around all this information in a complex systems sense, which is something that I may mention a lot.

So a lot of my thinking is based on complex systems. And what I mean by that is that, you know, often times people will think in binary terms like yes or no, white or black, and they tend to overlook how complex something might be in everything else that goes into it. And so complex system kind of- complex systems kind of considers everything above and beyond something.

So for example, like a human. Is a human being in a system within itself or within ourselves. But within ourselves, we have certain systems, whether it’s organ systems or you know, our circulatory system, digestive system… And those are systems within themselves it’s kind of like a hierarchical methodology.

And kind of a 360 view of things per se. So yeah, it’s kind of hard to explain and it gets esoteric in some forms because I like to relate it with quantum theory, and I don’t know how much or how deep we’ll get into that kind of stuff.

Pam: this is where you lose me.

CK: But yeah,

Pam: Well, but the complex systems, it’s just the idea that nothing exists in a solitary state. Everything that you look at is within a bigger system, and that there’s also a smaller system within the thing. So you know, we can take like vitamins, for example, which you think like taking a vitamin has to be a good thing, right?

But just taking the vitamin outside of the context of it being in the food that you eat or what your body needs could be dangerous or uh, beneficial or neutral. You have no idea because the vitamin isolated outside of its system of food and put into your system of your body, it’s not taking into consideration the entire system.

CK: Right, exactly. So that’s why we can get into a lot of trouble with scientific studies and especially around nutrition, because a lot of it is done isolating certain nutrients. And so you don’t get to see the whole picture of how something might affect your entire body system in the context of the whole system rather than just that specific chemical or nutrient.

So. Yeah, we’ll stop talking about that for now, but that’s just to illustrate how I consider myself more of a generalist. And you know, I like to study across a lot of different disciplines, especially in sciences, like cognitive sciences, behavioral sciences/psychology, as well as physics and biology. So health sciences as well.

Trying to describe my specialties.

[18:36]

CK: And then I- I do specialize in areas. So a lot of my work over the past decade and a half has been in online marketing and with a specialty in SEO – search engine optimization. And I would also say I specialize in the biohacking realm. I’ve gotten pretty deep into the whole functional biohacking aspects of health and nutrition and functional medicine.

And then I’d also say I specialize in soccer. I’ve been playing soccer since I was eight years old, although I had a 10 year hiatus after college and then came back 10 years after that. But soccer has been a big part of my life, and I know a lot about it. So I’d say I especially specialize in that.

Pam: Especially as a 40 year old guy keeping up with 20 year olds

CK: Yeah, that’s right. Maybe we’ll talk more about that in the future, but yeah, that’s fun. But yeah, uh, other than that, I’m more of a generalist and I like to take my concepts and methodologies around complex systems into all areas that I study or you know, that I want to know more about or understand. So that’s just kind of a little peek into how my brain works, or how I think my brain works.

And so what do you think, Pam, do you think that’s good background for listeners?

Pam: I think that that will, um, definitely pique the interest of a lot of people who think the same way that you do. Uh, it, it may scare off some people. And so I want you to know that, um, I am not, uh, the type of person that understands physics. And, um, it took me a few times of CK explaining concepts- complex systems to me for me to, like, be able to picture it in the world and start making analogies for how it works.

So if you’re like me, if you’re that person, stick with us. It’s not that complicated. And, um, the way. CK, uh, integrates knowledge that he gains and explains things, makes it very simple to understand. And- and what we’re talking about here isn’t going to be like the trajectory of stars in space or something crazy like that.

It’s, it’s practical knowledge that you can apply to your day to day life.

CK: Yeah, that’s awesome. And I’m kind of surprised that you said I make things simple to understand because I feel like that’s one of the things I need to work on. And that’s what I want to practice with this podcast is explaining those complex concepts and breaking them down into more digestible bits.

Another key theme: Language.

[21:29]

CK: But yeah, I, you know, I just want to practice in general to be more accurate with my language because, you know, I don’t want to lead people the wrong way. And I, you know, I do due diligence myself when I research things, but at the same time, when I’m discussing them or trying to convey the ideas I have, I might not have a grasp of that information well enough to be able to convey it in the language that I’m using or the language that I have available to me in that instance.

So I want to practice to be more accurate with my language and make my conversations more memorable or useful. So, yeah, I mean, that goes back to what I want to do with this podcast.

And in the same sense, I also have an aversion to labels. So like when I was describing my background before and what I do and how, you know, people want to be experts. Like I don’t like calling myself an expert in anything, even though I feel like I have a lot more knowledge and abilities than someone else that might call themselves an expert. So I’m- that’s just kind of an example of how I’m trying to navigate language and how much importance, really, I put into language because, you know, language comes in many forms, and this is, I would think, the primary way that we as humans communicate with each other. Right? I mean, of course…

Pam: I mean, what else?

CK: Yeah. There’s everything’s, uh- Yeah, I mean, the way we communicate it- every aspect of how we communicate is a form of language, whether it’s in speech or text, even music or nonverbal actions.

So yeah, I just want to become more comfortable with how I use language and I’m hoping that this will help me just, you know, practicing talking in general and speaking and just kind of learning how to put my thoughts into words in a manner that makes sense.

Pam: okay.

On the current state of affairs around the world.

[24:12]

CK: Let’s see… I don’t know where we want to go from here because we have five minutes left, and…

I guess we should just go ahead and talk about what’s going on in the world right now, because it’s kind of getting crazy with the whole Coronavirus. And so I got a little anxious there saying that because I want to be clear with my language in that sense, because you know, everybody knows what I’m talking about but this specific form of Coronavirus has been called COVID-19 as well as now I believe the official term is SARS-CoV-2.

It’s like the second version of SARS.

Pam: Isn’t SARS the actual virus and COVID is the disease? (Yes, Pam is spot on! 🤭)

CK: Yeah, well COVID… So what’s COVID stand for? Coronavirus Disease 2019, right? So I think they use that to label whatever it is now (the disease). But since they’ve since discovered that it’s a close enough variation of SARS that they’re calling it variation 2 (the virus). So now it’s SARS-CoV-2. I think that’s what the scientific community is saying.

So, yeah. I learned about the whole naming of the virus on the day of recording or maybe the day before. The information was just released and I spoke about it without having a full grasp of it yet.

I’m not a doctor. Be responsible for your own knowledge.

[25:35]

CK: But don’t take my word for it because I’m not a scientist. And, on that note, don’t take my word for anything that I say on this podcast. You know, do your own research.

And I’m going to be providing show notes, uh, included with a transcript for every episode. And in those show notes – kind of to appease my own anxiety as well, because I’m, you know, doing this on the fly and I don’t have like, you know, any references or anything like that prepared – so I’ll provide those in the show notes.

So if you want to find out more about something that I talked about, or if you disagree or believe it’s untrue, then I’ll provide more information there. And you know, if I made a mistake and I know it, I’ll correct it in the show notes as well.

And you know, if there’s a correction that you want to make, just hit me up on Twitter at cKdisco and let me know and we’ll see what that’s all about. And go from there. But yeah, I mean, I’m not a doctor. I’m not a scientist. I’m not an academic. I’m just a guy that likes to learn about a lot of stuff. So don’t take my word as fact.

You know, I believe it’s everybody’s own responsibility to follow up and be skeptical of what you hear and before you determine that it’s true, make sure that you know for sure.

Off the soapbox and back to the Coronavirus.

[27:08]

And so back to the whole SARS-CoV-2 thing, I’m just going to call it Coronavirus for now, because everybody knows what I’m talking about.

CK: There’s a lot going on now and it’s kind of scary, but you know, you can still go outside, just stay six feet away from people outside your own household. And, you know, go outside. Enjoy the weather if you can, if you have good weather or even if you don’t, it’s still healthy to go outside and I’m sure you’ll enjoy getting out of the house.

We actually went for a trail run. and we’re fortunate to live in Southern California where the weather’s nice pretty much year-round. It’s been raining for like the past week, kind of off and on, but it’s been nice these past two days and we were able to go out to the hills for a nice trail run. And there were a lot of people at the first place that we stopped.

We were surprised.

Pam: Like, shockingly.

CK: Yeah. Cause we- when we usually go, we are usually either the only car or there might be two or three other cars there. And today, like the whole street was lined, which was great to see.

CK: But you know, it was also- Uh, it sucked, you know, because we didn’t want it to be crowded. So we went to a different portion of the trail.

But anyway, you know, people- it’s- it was cool to see that people were out enjoying the weather. On the other hand, I’m hearing about people having parties and having these big gatherings. And I can definitely understand the desire to do that.

Uh, social interaction is a huge thing in my own fundamental principles, and I believe it’s like the key to good health. And there’s a lot of evidence that backs that up as well.

So it sucks that we have to do this “social distancing” thing and isolate ourselves, but we have to do it if we want to be able to interact in the near future. And the sooner that we isolate ourselves, the sooner we’ll get over this pandemic, and the sooner we can get back to something that resembles our lives the way they were before.

And so, yeah, think about what you’re risking when you get into these big gatherings with people. This virus doesn’t show symptoms for like two weeks or something like that from the onset of catching it. So you don’t know if you have it or not, and you don’t know if you’re passing it along to someone or not.

So you don’t know…

Pam: That’s the thing is…

CK: Well, I just want to say you don’t know if you’re going to kill someone or not. You might be killing people by gathering like…

Pam: Yeah.

CK: It, uh, I- it kind of sounds extreme, but that’s the reality.

Pam: It’s true.

CK: Yeah.

Pam: you may not be worried about yourself. You might think I’m, “I’m young and healthy and I’ve heard that there’s plenty of people who’ve gotten this and it’s just like a little sore throat in a coffin headache,” but you don’t know who you are passing it on to. And who they’re passing it on to.

So you have to think about grandparents and people who are immunocompromised. And, you know, everyone that you interact with every time you’re in one of these groups is then going out and interacting with that many more people. And you, you know the- we’re like all what, six degrees from Coronavirus. Like you have no idea how far you’re passing it.

And it really only takes one person in a neighborhood to infec tons of people that that may not be able to withstand it as well as you can.

CK: Yeah. And with all this talk about behavior change and habits and practices and stuff, I totally understand that it’s going to be hard to go on and be isolated and follow these new rules and change your way of life, but we have to think more critically about what we’re doing and how we’re moving forward and how that’s affecting others and how things are going to look a few weeks down the line, a few months down the line, a few years down the line, because people are dying. Lots of people are dying. So many people are dying that countries don’t know what to do with them. They’re just piling up.

So, yeah, I mean, this is for real. This is serious. And I hope this will help some people be more mindful of their actions.

Okay, let’s bring it home.

[32:07]

CK: And yeah, we already went over time so I guess we have to start thinking about wrapping up now. But just real quick, I want to talk about other things that we have coming down the line and other ideas of segments.

So this episode was real easy cause we’re kind of summarizing a lot of this stuff that we talked about over the past three warm up episodes. But moving forward, I want to share my progress and experience with podcasting itself. And potentially help others who want to do this and get up and started going on with their own podcast or something of that sort.

So I’ll be talking about podcasting, and I’d also like to talk about other stuff in general about what I’m learning or what I’ve learned, whether it’s books or fun facts or science, philosophy, or other podcasts. So you know, if I can pass on a reference or a tool or some avenue for someone else to be learning more. That would be awesome. I’d love to do that. And books and podcasts, I think they have the most bang for their buck. Oftentimes podcasts, you can just listen for free and there’s so much information you can get from a lot of smart people.

So I’ll probably be talking about podcasts and recommending them, and If I have time, we’ll have Q&A or, you know, if I get questions, we’ll have Q&A. So yeah, that’s kind of the format moving forward, and I hope you enjoyed this first official episode. If you want more, you can go back and listen to the three warm-up episodes and see how I’ve progressed since then.

Outro.

CK: But otherwise, I hope you guys come back next week. And we’ll be doing this weekly, and Pam will be on with me every week if she can. And we’ll just keep practicing and see how I progress. So Pam, have anything else you want to say?

Pam: Nope, I’m good.

CK: Ah, you wanna say your social media handles again?

Pam: I’m on Twitter. I am Pamela underscore, Lund, L U N D and on Instagram. I am at that Pam chick.

CK: perfect. And on Twitter you can hit me up at C K disco. And on Instagram it’s C K disco and the number eight. And with that, I guess we’ll hopefully see you next week, or have you listen next week. And hopefully I’ll get better talking.

Pam: You’re doing good.

CK: Alright, so keep on practicing.

Too-da-loo! ✌️