TVC 060 Digital Detoxing With guest Tim Reid
Digital Detox and the art of looking up.
Part of the influencer series is scouring the world for people who really are living and creating the life they love not only in business but also in life. I didn't leave the continent for my next guest as he's an Australian native and well known in the podcast wilderness...
I'm very fortunate to have snared a little bit of time away from the very popular Tim Reid. Founder and host of Australia's number 1 marketing podcast, The Small Business Big Marketing Show. 
Tim and I talk turkey about digital devices and the art of looking up.  A no-nonsense approach to getting connected to what really matters in business and in life.
 
#digitaldetox101
 
Here's some quick pointers on what you'll learn from this episode with Tim
The internet - it's our everything and yet we don't need it every second of the day
The importance of looking just 3cm up and what you'll notice as a result
Key roles parents play in setting boundaries
Key roles leaders play in setting examples - getting up away from your desk, having more face to face time, less emails unless necessary and picking up the phone more often
The fact that peoples dying wish is not to have made more Facebook posts - but to have more friends, more time with people they love and more connection with those and the wonderful things around them
Try the smile game (without being too creepy..) just make more eye contact for a split second with people, smile when people hand you your change or your coffee, stop talking on your phone when you go to order something, be present.
The online thing's here to stay. The internet will take off and we can acknowledge that it's only going to grow. However, let's not let it rule our lives.
Tim mentioned it used to rule his life and he has chosen not to let it. From a marketing stand point there has never been a better time to market a business, or to build a personal brand.
The opportunities to do that are extensive and a lot of them rely on being online but that doesn't mean that you should spend your entire life online. It's even more relevant when you start to try and bring a family up and instil different values and boundaries around iPads, iPhones and computers.
I'm the father of 3 teenagers yet I'm this marketing guy who talks about there's never been a better time to market a business. I've got to embrace both and I do say to my kids, "Hey guys just look 3 cm up. There's a world around you. Look out, look people in the eye." I fear that we're losing that ability to communicate on, what we used to, on a human level.
 
SO WHAT'S NEXT
Remember the importance of being yourself, of building business relationships on authentic contact, of going to visit a friend  instead of just staring at their life online. Of asking your teams at work and your teenagers at home how they really are - and not be staring at a screen while you do this.
 
The role we have now is to learn to bring back the balance between human connection and connectivity.
 
To bridge the gap between what people say and what we really do. To reach out, to have a conversation over dinner and to really listen, to walk and talk for meeting and notice nature around you.
To harness time out for creativity and to recharge our energy levels and personal wellbeing so we ar...