Author Recap: Your Digital Footprint: How Big Data Shapes Who We Are

So Ches, another fascinating podcast. You and I, I think we just do these because they're fun and we get to learn so much. And what an interesting way of thinking about data. You come in, there's so much fear and so much trepidation around it, and what Dr. Sandra Matz is telling us, look, there's some interesting ways to think about it too, but I loved how she started this with, it's like living in a little village where everybody knows you, and if you run to the bus, it's not that, oh, he's running late. No, he's disorganized. We're making inferences with the data that we get. I thought that was fascinating. Yeah, it was also interesting that she said, in a small village, even though they know everything about you, for the most part, it's positive, like they're trying to help you. Exactly. Yeah, be better organized, get to the bus on time, you know, help you with your grades and all that kind of stuff. Now, you know, everything is digital. I mean, you're sending it out to not just the 500 people in the village, although I thought it was funny, up to a thousand, they've almost doubled their population, right? It's going up to millions of people. And how they can parse it so perfectly. You know, they can know if you're an introvert or an extrovert, your income level, you know, where you travel, where you don't travel, and all these things, again, to influence you. Whether it's buying cosmetics or how you vote or how you see the world. And of course, you know, we're post-election now. We saw that just in massive quantities. The texts that you got every day, the emails. You couldn't watch a football game. Every commercial was a political ad. It is extraordinary. The thing that really impressed me when she said, when we talked about data breach, she said, you feel like people are stealing your data. They're not. You're giving it to them. You've invited them in. You said, yeah, take my photos, take my microphone, take my, you know, my tracking. It really is extraordinary the amount of information we freely give. Yeah, and not really realizing how it's being used. You know, younger people are a lot more aware than people in our generation of this, but still, as you were mentioning, everything demographically about us, but also what she was saying is, it's our proclivities, it's the way our mind works. Maybe we're neurotic, maybe we're self-absorbed, maybe we're angry elves, you know? And what they're doing is they're playing on that, they're selling things specifically to me based on how I am. But also, then on the good side, I thought this could be really helpful is that, look, you haven't been out of the house in a few days, you haven't called anybody in a few days. And it's a prompt to say, take a shower, go for a walk. But it's also could be used as a compliment to therapy. As she was saying, we have nowhere near enough therapists to help all of us who may struggle. So I think that's really powerful. Yeah, always the good side and the scary side. Yeah, yeah. We're very quick to look for the negative. Well, you know, I'll tell you, somebody who always brightens my day and is the positive side is our extraordinary producer, Brent Klein. I don't know if he has that effect on you, Adrian, but it's like a ray of sunshine every day to me. Yeah, whenever I'm around Brent, yeah. And of course, Christy Lawrence, too, you know, our booker who helps us find amazing guests. And to all of you who listen in, we know you've got a lot of things on your plate that you give us your time. We really appreciate that. If you like the podcast, please share it. It's all about mental health and things to do that can manage your anxiety. I loved Dr. Metz. She said, I take my dog for a walk. These little things that you can do to lower your anxiety. We'd love to have you visit thecultureworks.com. It's our website for some free resources to help you and your team and your culture thrive. What else, Adrian? If you haven't picked up a copy of our best-selling book, Anxiety at Work, please do so. We also love speaking to audiences around the world, virtually or in person, on the topics of culture, teamwork, resilience, ideas like this. So give us a call. We'd love to talk to you about your event. So, Chess, I'm gonna give you the last word because that's just how I roll today. Yeah, well listen, I hope you have a great week. I hope that you're managing your mental health and that you're of help to other people around you and your families. We wish you the best of mental health and a great week. Cheers. Bye.