72. Feedback with Meredith and Madelyn

On the episode today we welcome our colleagues and friends Meredith Edwards and Madelyn Freed to help us discuss feedback and how to do it properly. As an integral and challenging part of any professional environment, feedback can always be improved and given more attention and that’s what we are here to help you with today! During our discussion we look at just why feedback is so vital to a nurturing workplace before looking at the RAB framework for delivering feedback. We expand on making the process receivable, actionable and balanced. From there Madelyn and Meredith sketch out the structure of successful feedback and pinpoint some common hazards to this. We finish off the episode by playing out some examples and scenarios and going through some of the panel’s personal experiences, both good and bad. For all this and more, tune in and come with us down The Rabbit Hole!

Key Points From This Episode:

  • Why our guests feel that feedback is such an important practice.
  • Being receivable when approaching a person with feedback.
  • Making sure your feedback is actionable.
  • How to ensure that you deliver balanced feedback.
  • The structure of successful and conscientious feedback.
  • Avoiding blur words and maintaining clarity in your communication.
  • Some obvious examples of bad feedback.
  • The team’s own experience of good and bad feedback in their careers.
  • And much more!

Transcript for Episode 72. Feedback with Meredith and Madelyn

[0:00:01.9] MN: Hello and welcome to The Rabbit Hole, the definitive developer’s podcast in fantabulous Chelsey Manhattan. I’m your host, Michael Nunez. Our co-host today -

[0:00:09.8] DA: Dave Anderson.

[0:00:10.8] MN: Today, we have Mad and Mer’s tips on giving effective feedback.

[0:00:14.5] DA: Mad and Mer, finally on the podcast.

[0:00:17.4] MN: Yeah, before we begin, we have two guest today, we have Madelyn Freed and Meredith Edwards. How’s it going?

[0:00:25.4] MF: Yo.

[0:00:25.6] ME: Great.

[0:00:27.0] MN: Awesome. Great to have you all. Today, we’ll be talking about the tips y’all have about giving affective feedback.

[0:00:33.6] ME: That’s right.

[0:00:34.7] MF: That’s right, that’s why it’s Mad and Mer because this is Mad and that’s Mer.

[0:00:41.8] DA: Madelyn, why don’t you tell people like a life story about giving feedback, why it’s important.

[0:00:49.0] ME: That’s a really good question Dave, thanks.

[0:00:54.8] DA: How’d you get your feedback super powers?

[0:00:56.4] MF: How did I get my feedback super powers? Actually, sometimes I do feel like I have feedback super powers, it’s because I’m a mouthy - whatever.

I think feedback is so important and I think it is important because if you’re doing it right, you are like trusting the people around you and trying to generously help them and if you don’t give them feedback and you just sit around and stew, you are doing so much disservice that you barely are called an adult.

[0:01:32.7] ME: Yeah. I mean, Madelyn, I remember when we first started talking about feedback is because we wanted to give a talk together and one of my big takeaways from that was if you ignore these feelings that you want to discuss with a person, you can convince yourself that they’ll go away but that doesn’t actually happen if you do not address the conflict through feedback, something bad is eventually going to happen.

Even though you’re using avoidance to get around the discomfort, I have found like every time I’ve ignored, avoided, ignored, avoided, it’s ended badly. We can go into more specifics soon.

[0:02:26.7] MF: I think the reason why you need to give feedback is because like, you have to give someone the opportunity to care for you and that if you don’t give feedback as Meredith was saying, that thing will never change.

[0:02:40.9] DA: Right.

[0:02:41.4] MF: You can’t will change out of people. I think we have a really good structure on how to format feedback so that it’s like, accessible to people and helpful.

[0:02:55.8] DA: Yeah, as an engineer, feelings scare me but structure is great.

[0:03:02.7] ME: A little RAB? Is that what you’re talking about?

[0:03:05.8] DA: What is the RAB?

[0:03:08.3] MN: A little RAB.

[0:03:09.9] ME: A little RAB?

[0:03:13.3] MN: No RAB bid, yeah.

[0:03:15.2] MF: We’re on the rab id, podcast.

[0:03:18.2] MN: There you go.

[0:03:19.8] MF: I’m glad we made the joke at almost the exact same time. What is RAB?

[0:03:25.7] ME: R is for receivable, let’s talk about that one first.

[0:03:28.6] MN: Yeah, sure.

[0:03:30.8] MF: Meredith, you want to talk about what receivable means?

[0:03:33.6] ME: Yeah, absolutely. To me, receivable means that you are considering that other person’s feelings is really what it means. It’s like, when you give the feedback, you are intentionally allowing that other person to have some control of the situation.

For example, receivable could mean that you are asking that person’s permission, right? You could be like, “Hey, I want to chat with you about something, can we talk for or can we,” – I was about to say, “Can we talk for five minutes?” Its’ never five minutes.

[0:04:13.3] MN: Yeah.

[0:04:13.7] ME: Don’t say that.

[0:04:14.0] MN: Don’t ever say five minutes.

[0:04:17.3] ME: Yeah, can we find some time to talk later?

[0:04:21.6] MN: Right.

[0:04:22.3] ME: That’s a bit part of receivable, what else?

[0:04:25.4] MN: Just not ambushing someone.

[0:04:27.4] MF: Yeah, avoid an ambush. But yeah, it’s like, how do you construct the feedback so that it is most receivable to the other person so like, definitely being cognizant of their time is one way.

But also, is it structured in such a way where I can understand it? Can I hear it, you know, is this the moment to ask for feedback? Like maybe not. Also, it needs to be based on a common understanding of truth, I can’t come up to Bobby and say, “Bobby, when I was in a hot air balloon, whatever” –

He’s like, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” I have no – that’s impossible to be receivable because if I thought we were in a hot air balloon and you thought we were at the Hoover Dam, we can’t have a conversation about what happened. Have a common understanding of what happened to also make something receivable.

[0:05:23.3] ME: Yeah. And, don’t just – don’t treat feedback, I feel like I do this a lot and it’s not a good pattern to follow, it’s a feedback anti-pattern is that -

[0:05:33.1] DA: Dig it. Engineers living here.

[0:05:37.4] ME: Yeah, I use feedback as a way to talk about how my perception of something is the reality and I’m just like, dumping these things on the other person instead of creating a space for a conversation.

[0:05:55.9] MF: Yeah, for sure. I think one big thing – we’re going to be talking about feelings so much, feelings, feelings, feelings, that’s everything. That’s a truth of yourself that you have to represent but the other thing you have to do is take out all the judgment of about what happened is like, we’ll talk like in detail about the structure of it but another way to make something receivable is to say like, “At this meeting – you know, yesterday, you said this thing one time to this person.”

[0:06:25.9] MN: Right, you know? Very specific.

[0:06:27.9] MF: You don’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, I am stating what happened, I’m stating the facts as much as I can state that and then I can talk about my feelings but as long as we have that shared understanding at first, it will be more receivable to you.

Because you can’t be like, “Well,” I mean, I guess you can be like, “No, that didn’t happen,” but then we’re talking about you know.

[0:06:48.7] MN: We will of there, we all know.

[0:06:50.0] MF: Yeah, you have a perception problem, I don’t know.

[0:06:52.9] DA: Okay, I guess some of the strategies you mentioned was like, you know, making sure that you’re approaching them at a time that’s acceptable to them that they’re not like, they’re fully present when you’re giving the feedback so not just jumping on them but you know, asking them what time is good for them, and then, considering the facts and the feelings of it to make it a common understanding that people have.

[0:07:23.6] MF: Yeah, for sure and that will all go into like the specific algorithm we’ll bring up later on of how to construct this but yeah, that’s a very good first foundation.

[0:07:34.9] DA: Okay, cool.

[0:07:35.8] MF: Making it to the next letter.

[0:07:38.6] MN: A.

[0:07:39.8] MF: A, the A stands for actionable and everyone knows what actionable means?

[0:07:47.3] MN: No, I don’t know, what is actionable? I’m going to say no for the people who are saying no right now, I got you.

[0:07:54.8] ME: Bless you people.

[0:07:54.5] DA: You got to go to an episode on smart goals.

[0:07:59.4] MF: Right.

[0:08:00.0] ME: Yes, you got that, can you pull that episode number out right now?

[0:08:04.3] DA: Smart Goals, the reactionable and measurable and specific, it’s episode number 45.

[0:08:09.6] MN: There you go.

[0:08:10.4] DA: Resolutions and active term?

[0:08:11.8] MN: Learn more about actionables.

[0:08:12.9] ME: Yeah.

[0:08:14.5] MN: Go ahead, describe an actionable - a feedback that is actionable.

[0:08:18.3] ME: Yeah, this is something that it is possible for that person to change something and have that feedback be responded to. Make a suggestion or open that up but I really want to talk about B because I think B is you know, we know what A is mostly. B is balanced.

[0:08:39.0] MN: All right, what is balanced?

[0:08:41.2] ME: Yeah, I mean.

[0:08:41.1] MF: Meredith, you want to go for it?

[0:08:42.5] ME: Yeah, I would love to talk about balanced, also, I think that there is some overlap here with receivable.

[0:08:49.1] MF: Sure.

[0:08:50.0] ME: For sure. But basically, with balance, you are creating an opportunity for a discussion. Bottom line, that’s the most important thing and we talk about asking real questions, not putting the other person in a trap. An example of that would be like, do you think you respect women?

[0:09:17.8] MF: Yeah.

[0:09:18.5] ME: Is that a genuine question? I mean, sometimes I really want to ask that question, right? I would just love to ask that question but if I’m in a feedback mode where I’m trying to have a real conversation and like, be respectful of the other person, I can’t do that – Yeah, I cut it out.

[0:09:42.4] MF: I think that’s so huge because it’s going to come up again and again when we talk about making the feedback small, is that by the time you get to giving feedback and you’re thinking about this, honestly, it’s probably looming really large in your head.

[0:09:59.1] ME: Yeah.

[0:09:59.3] MF: It’s reached to some breaking point, you’re very frustrated, you’re upset, there’s emotion and all you want to do is say like, you know, “Did you think it was really appropriate that you - ” you know.

[0:10:11.7] ME: Yeah.

[0:10:13.1] MF: No, you think like, it would be better if you didn’t always, something, something? You know, you end up putting someone else in a trap because you already know the narrative of what you’re angry at them about and what you have to remember is they don’t know you’re mad.

They don’t know you’re mad. You wish they did but you haven’t talked to them before. This is your opportunity to tell them.

[0:10:34.3] DA: Just popped the little bush.

[0:10:36.0] MN: Then you literally tell them why you’re mad.

[0:10:37.8] ME: Yeah.

[0:10:39.2] MN: Tell them why you’re mad, balanced though.

[0:10:42.2] MF: Balanced, it means like, when I ask you a question and in the structure of the feedback, I ask a real question, something I am actually curious about, give you the opportunity to say, “What did you think about what I just said? What do you think about that situation? You know, what was motivating you?” Whatever.

Open ended, non-judgmental.

[0:11:08.7] DA: Does that question come before or after you’ve given the thing? The feedback.

[0:11:15.7] MF: Well, let’s talk about structure baby.

[0:11:19.1] DA: Any structure.

[0:11:20.2] MF: We need a structure. Yeah, there’s a structure to good feedback, this comes from some training that we had at Stride that was very nice training, we’re kind of creating that but –

[0:11:34.5] MN: Shout out to LifeLabs.

[0:11:35.6] MF: Shout out to LifeLabs, very good organization, very helpful. But they put the feedback into four pieces. Micro yes, data, impact and question. We’ve kind of buried the lead on a lot of these things, we’ve touched on them.

[0:11:55.2] DA: And do those phases kind of overlap with the RAB?

[0:12:00.8] MF: Yeah, they are both happening at the same time so the structure is aiding in making the feedback, receivable, actionable and balanced. The structure again is micro yes data, impact and question.

Micro yes is part of what we call actionable or I’m sorry, part of what we called receivable which is let them have a little bit of control, so ask, “Is it okay? Is now a good time? Can I meet you in a minute or you know can we meet this afternoon?”

[0:12:37.1] ME: Right. Next part, data, the way I think of this is, if I were a really smart computer, but not smart enough to understand emotion.

[0:12:49.9] DA: As many computers are not.

[0:12:52.0] ME: Observing a situation –

[0:12:52.0] MF: Teach me how to love.

[0:12:56.1] ME: How would I describe it? Just state the facts, we have an example, “I noticed that yesterday, during the sprint planning meeting, you were on your computer.”

Really important as part of this data facts piece, address a person’s behavior like in the moment, at the time, what a person or smart computer could observe them doing.

Don’t make comments about anything like an inherent quality of theirs because that goes into the judgment territory.

[0:13:33.6] DA: Which might be like, I thought you were mean or –

[0:13:37.4] ME: Yeah, exactly, I noticed during yesterday’s sprint planning meeting, you were being disrespectful.

[0:13:44.8] MF: Right, you weren’t – even, you weren’t paying attention.

[0:13:48.0] MF: Yeah, That’s blurrier than you were looking, “You had your computer open and you were looking at it. I don’t actually know, I can’t read your mind so I’m going to say, just what I am observing.

[0:14:00.4] ME: Exactly.

[0:14:01.0] MF: That’s something called blur words, you wanted to remove as many blur words as you can. Blur is anything that isn’t that robot specific which is you know, “Sometimes, a couple of times, a while ago. I saw you do this thing, you want to say, this was the moment, this event, I heard you say this,” that kind of thing.

Reducing the blur words, this is helpful when you kind of write down what you wanted to say and see how many blurry words you can take out. The next part is, impact. The impact is how did it affect you, the feedback over. There probably are ways to give feedback to someone where you felt that what they did affected someone else badly.

[0:14:50.0] MN: Right.

[0:14:50.5] MF: We’re not talking about it in Mad and Mer’s fabulous, how to get feedback tips, we’re just not talking about it tonight because I don’t know how to do it. What I do know is that you can give feedback if it affected you.

[0:15:03.2] MN: Right.

[0:15:03.8] ME: Don’t defer it, this is where the big boy pants come on. You have to say what the impact was. In this case, the example that Meredith brought up, might sound something like this. “I know you have Mr. Dinkis’ big project on your plate. I mentioned it because I worked hard to prepare for that meeting and I felt disappointed that it seemed like your attentions were split.”

What I’m talking about there is my disappointment.

[0:15:33.0] MN: Right.

[0:15:33.3] ME: I worked hard and when I perceived, in my own head, it seemed like you weren’t paying attention. I don’t know if you really weren’t but to me I was perceiving it, that made me feel disappointed and that all of that is to say like, “I don’t know what’s happening with you, I don’t know what the world is in your life. I know that you have your own stuff that you’re working on, I’m giving you all the credit in the world. But to me, that behavior that we saw yesterday made me perceive that you weren’t paying attention and I felt disappointed by it.”

[0:16:05.9] MN: Right, the facts being that like, this person may have been on their laptop or doing other things that weren’t – having their attention fully on this meeting.

[0:16:16.0] DA: Even the feelings are kind of like, data in a way because you’re like, they’re observations that you had, like internal observations as well as like external thing of, you’re looking at your computer and this made me feel this thing.

[0:16:29.3] ME: Right. I think this is so big because this is where everyone will try to shark the responsibility off this. You know, “Yesterday, I can tell you the facts, this is what happened. You were on your computer with this meeting, it was 11:45 in the morning, we were hungry,” whatever. You say all the facts, but then you say, I could imagine, a person being upset in the room, it’s possible, I see.

I felt like Lindsey was really mad at you. That is shirking their responsibility that’s passing the buck because what you really mean is that it was you.

[0:17:08.9] DA: Right.

[0:17:10.3] ME: Also, they can just say, “I’ll go talk to Lindsey,” also, if you say your feelings, just like, “I felt disappointed,” they can’t be like, “No you didn’t.”

[0:17:24.7] MN: That’s not true!

[0:17:25.6] MF: Yeah, you aren’t trying to set yourself up to argue the fact. You give like very dry facts and then you say, you’re very squishy feeling. Because those two things are like, that’s what you want to communicate, you want to say, here’s what I observed and here’s what I felt.

[0:17:48.4] ME: Absolutely. Which brings us to part four which is the question. I think that best case scenario, it would be awesome if the person receiving the feedback were to come up with - well, not come up with a question. But if you were to ask a question off that person, you know, “What is your idea for doing this differently next time?” Or like, you know, get that person to generate the action item, genuinely.

Using this example of like, you know, having the meeting, person being on their laptop, Dinkis’ big project on their plate. This is where we as a givers of feedback  are posing the question and we ask, “Could I ask you to not be on your laptop during the meeting and how should I tell you next time if it happens again?”

I also really like that like, “How should I tell you next time?” Because I really like the pieces of feedback that give the other person, that give the receiver an opportunity to take back some control and have ownership and be like, yeah, I’m in a position now where I’m receiving feedback but I’m not always, you know, the A-hole.

[0:19:11.2] DA: That sounds balanced.

[0:19:12.0] ME: Yeah.

[0:19:12.3] MN: Right.

[0:19:13.6] ME: Yeah, we’re going to give that person the benefit of the doubt, right? It’s nice when they get to tell you, yeah, next time I do this, can you come and like tap me on the shoulder? Because then, - I just like that you’re trusting that person to do the right thing. I think a lot of times when you send that trust to the person, they behave better.

[0:19:39.2] MN: Right, I think because you’ve mentioned before Meredith, like allowing the individual to give the option and how that person should react when they’re breaking this particular behavior, because maybe some people don’t like to be touched on the shoulder or don’t like to be touched at all, right?

You could just say like, you know, “Hey, you know, is it a hand motion or is it like, you know, could you close your laptop?” Or a tap on the shoulder could work for this person but I think that is a great – if the person wants to be touched on their shoulder, right? Like tap. Just slowly close your laptop. Imagine the feedback being “Hey, your attentions were split, could you not?” That really wouldn’t work at all.

[0:20:24.5] ME: Yeah.

[0:20:27.0] MN: “Yo, could you not do that? Thanks.” And then walk away.

[0:20:29.1] ME: Or, if it’s not posed as a question, if it’s posed as a direction.

[0:20:35.1] DA: An ultimatum.

[0:20:36.4] ME: Exactly. Next time we’re in this meeting, if I see you on your laptop, I’m going to walk out of the room or I mean, that’s sort of dumb but I can imagine a person saying that.

[0:20:46.4] DA: I mean, Elon Musk could be into that. I hear this is real.

[0:20:50.6] ME: Really? Walking out of the room?

[0:20:51.7] DA: Yeah, the law of two feet, just get out of there.

[0:20:55.3] MF: Scram. I’m not taking any direction from that guy, whatever. I’m disrespecting the king.

[0:21:02.0] DA: I do feel like that’s not really actionable feedback.

[0:21:05.5] MF: To walk out of there?

[0:21:07.1] DA: Elon Musk just left this room. Thought we were having a great time.

[0:21:11.3] MF: Yeah, there is something really important about not asking a closed question, not where the thing is yes or no but also to go back to the last stuff for a second, the impact, it’s also a cheat to say, “I feel like you don’t respect me.” You did say I feel at the beginning of that sentence but that doesn’t mean that is your feeling.

You have to make sure that you are on yourself for that which is like, “I feel like you’re feeling something,” is not your feeling, that’s you projecting into someone else’s brain.

[0:21:56.9] MN: Right, you got to keep it internal?

[0:21:58.9] MF: Yeah. It’s so easy to do that. I know everyone in this room has done that at least once.

[0:22:06.4] DA: Right, it’s really easy to like stick to the form, you have like a mad-lib template and it’s like okay, I feel blank, okay, fill in, you know, statement. Got it.

[0:22:21.8] MN: We just learned the structure on how to give good feedback and as Madelyn mentioned before, we’re trained or not trained but we often just give bad feedback.

What are some obviously bad feedback things that we should avoid doing right now?

[0:22:40.5] ME: “You’ve just offended every person here.”

[0:22:43.5] MN: Word? Live or recording?

[0:22:49.3] DA: Oh yeah.

[0:22:52.3] ME: No that’s just bad feedback.

[0:22:53.9] MN: Oh shit, what did I do? What did I say?

[0:22:58.7] MF: Not actionable, not receivable. Taken hostage by the feedback. Yeah obviously bad.

You want to give us another one Meredith?

[0:23:06.2] ME: Oh please.

[0:23:09.3] DA: Yeah, do me. Do me this side.

[0:23:12.2] ME: Okay, Dave I feel like you act like a know it all.

[0:23:17.5] DA: Oh dang. I don’t know things. I don’t know lots of things.

[0:23:25.6] MF: I love that one because it’s like, “I feel like.”

[0:23:28.0] ME: Another I feel like, yeah.

[0:23:29.6] MF: I feel like, you know and that –

[0:23:31.5] DA: It is that feeling. It’s like on the wheel of feelings, right?

[0:23:33.4] MF: Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah you know that is not a feeling.

[0:23:37.8] DA: So what are the feelings we learned in like pre-school?

[0:23:41.2] ME: That’s an insult.

[0:23:44.7] DA: I feel like your mom is – doesn’t take care of herself enough.

[0:23:48.5] MF: When she sits around the house, she sits around in the house. Yeah, also not a feeling.

[0:23:54.1] MN: Classic.

[0:23:57.8] MF: But that is a good one because I was once told that. That’s from real life. Okay, here are some that seem good but they’re actually ineffective.

[0:24:11.9] ME: I mean I think –

[0:24:12.2] MN: Okay, is this what I think it is?

[0:24:15.3] ME: Oh yeah, I will let you take the first bite.

[0:24:20.4] MF: Oh a little set up, thank you. Yum-yum. It’s the compliment sandwich.

[0:24:25.6] MN: Ooh the sandwich. It sounds delicious.

[0:24:31.6] MF: Yes, doesn’t it? Doesn’t that sound like something someone told you in 1998 it was a good thing to do? Well guess what. It’s not. The compliment sandwich is where you say something nice and complimentary then the real deal negative, quote-unquote constructive and then finish it off with another compliment. This was a format popularized in the 90s and it turns out in research that it has never been shown to be effective.

It’s never more effective in changing behavior or making someone feel better about receiving bad feedback. It is just as everyone knows who’s been on the receiving end of it, just fake yes bullshit.

It’s just that - you know what it is and it feels like, “Why did you give me that empty compliment just so you can hose me?” You know?

[0:25:23.8] MN: So we spoke sometime about bad feedback. Let’s talk about some good old fashioned, high quality, RAB feedback.

[0:25:34.0] MF: I think the example you gave just before was super great. In the last pairing session, you were driving most of the time. We could even make most even clear but it’s still pretty good.

[0:25:50.1] ME: Three out of four hours.

[0:25:51.8] MF: Yeah, three out of four hours.

[0:25:54.7] ME: Three and a half hours out of four hours.

[0:25:58.9] MN: That’s a lot at the most.

[0:26:01.5] MF: It’s like when I was writing this method then you started typing, all of those things are really specific and then, “It made me feel like I wasn’t contributing, I want to contribute to this thing and so what do you think about doing the Pomodoro’s where only one person drives?” That’s perfection, that’s great.

[0:26:19.4] MN: Right, I really tried. I really want to fit and I think that a lot of the times when I try to in that example, I definitely felt like I wanted to contribute and I wanted the person to help me do that and that is why I think it is different like me telling someone that they are doing a bad behavior. It was more like, “Hey I want you to help me. Can you help me with this one thing,” in a feedback style.

[0:26:46.1] DA: And you have to win them over in some way like, “Yeah, we can work together.”

[0:26:47.4] MN: Yeah, exactly.

[0:26:48.9] DA: And get this done.

[0:26:50.5] MN: Exactly.

[0:26:51.5] MF: Yeah, well you want to do the example from earlier today, Dave?

[0:26:57.0] DA: Oh yeah, please feedback me.

[0:27:00.8] MF: Yeah, that was a good one. Yeah, I think I can put into perfect feedback structure too. Hey Dave? Oh I actually kind of micro yessed you already. Can we talk about this? Can I give you a little bit of feedback?

[0:27:15.8] MN: You can’t say no anyway. Wait I can’t get out of here. What’s the safe word.

[0:27:21.9] MF: It was a trap question.

[0:27:24.7] DA: Well I will give you a micro yes which is like I guess “yep”.

[0:27:28.4] MF: Yeah, very micro. Earlier today, we were invited. Me and Mer where invited to do the podcast at the calendar invite says that it started at 6:00.

[0:27:34.0] DA: Yeah and we’re so happy you’re here. This is so great.

[0:27:40.6] MF: I am also happy that I am here but when I came to the office to do the podcast at six. There were only me and Meredith were here and you guys weren’t here yet and we didn’t get started until late.

I felt frustrated because I had to leave the client early and I’m going to have to get home late and I was annoyed with that. Could we maybe have the invite start later if you guys know that it’s going to have to start later? What do you think?

[0:28:10.3] DA: Yeah, I think that makes sense. We had the invite starting earlier because we had so much set up we have to do but now it’s so easy.

[0:28:21.4] MN: Maybe we could push the invite later?

[0:28:24.2] DA: Yeah, we can push it later.

[0:28:26.2] MN: So we don’t waste anyone’s time and make people feel frustrated about it.

[0:28:28.6] DA: Or we’d give you a heads up also if I get pulled into something.

[0:28:31.8] MF: I’d really appreciate that. I love a heads up.

[0:28:31.9] DA: Yeah.

[0:28:32.0] MN: Awesome.

[0:28:33.6] MF: Love a heads up.

[0:28:34.5] MN: So that was cool because you asked us what we could do and then we also mentioned what we could do and if we were to change our behavior and something else happened because emergencies do happen.

And thank you for being polite and giving us the feedback rather than, “Yo, you all are late, you all are wasting my time, I am not here. I’m out.” Now, moving on.

[0:28:57.7] MF: Been there, when I did give that feedback I was a little bit more like that.

[0:28:59.4] MN: It was like with the clap, clapping OG, “You y’all late!”

[0:29:01.3] MF: Yeah, I know I can be a pill sometimes. Sometimes, part of it.

[0:29:09.3] MN: No it’s all good. It’s all good, I know I was going to touch it. It was facts though, we pulled data.

[0:29:13.0] DA: It was real, yeah.

[0:29:16.6] MF: I did it. You know to be fair, I don’t always practice what I preach.

[0:29:19.2] DA: It was awesome having you guys on.

[0:29:20.6] MF: Oh it was our pleasure.

[0:29:22.8] ME: Oh yeah, thank you Dave and Bobby.

[0:29:24.4] DA: Is there anything that you guys want to plug?

[0:29:25.9] ME: Oh yeah, I have a couple of things.

[0:29:27.4] MN: Yeah, let’s do it.

[0:29:28.0] ME: Well I have a podcast of my own.

[0:29:31.7] MN: Hey! Shout out. 

[0:29:35.3] ME: Yeah, I do with my friend and colleague, Emmanuel Genard, it’s called Evil Geniuses. Also a production of Stride and check us out, evilgeniuspodcast.com.

[0:29:48.7] MN: There you go.

[0:29:49.1] DA: Yeah and friends of the show, you may recognize Emmanuel from many, many episodes. You stole him from us.

[0:29:56.5] ME: Yeah.

[0:29:56.9] MN: Yeah.

[0:29:57.8] MF: He needed to go out on his own.

[0:29:59.2] DA: Yeah he did and he did it.

[0:30:03.5] MF: Those mellifluous tones.

I am going to plug, I have a monthly show in Brooklyn, if anyone is in Brooklyn. A monthly show at Union Hall called The Scientist and if you’re not in Brooklyn it’s also a podcast on The Good Orbit Network.

I also want to recommend watching The Office all the way through again. It’s really getting me through and I really plug that.

[0:30:31.8] MN: Watch The Office.

[0:30:32.1] DA: Oh yes, on streaming services near you, Netflix, Hulu. Okay.

[0:30:33.8] MF: Yeah, Netflix.com.

[0:30:37.6] DA: Wonderful, yeah I can recommend both the podcast Evil Genius and the show. I have been to the show as well, it’s pretty cool. It’s not at Union Pool, it’s not Union Pool.

[0:30:48.2] MF: Not Union Pool, Union Hall, very easy to make that mistake, very easy.

[0:30:52.5] MN: Union Hall.

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On behalf of our producer extraordinaire, William Jeffries and my amazing co-host, Dave Anderson and me, your host, Michael Nunez, thanks for listening to The Rabbit Hole.

Links and Resources:

The Rabbit Hole on Twitter

Madelyn Freed

Meredith Edwards

Stride

LifeLabs

Ruby

Mean Girls

Pomodoro Technique

Evil Geniuses Podcast

The Good Orbit Network

Union Hall

The Scientists

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Hulu

Elon Musk

The Office