Heidi Forbes Öste, a behavioral scientist with a passion for wellbeing and technology, joins Tonya Dawn Recla to explore digital self improvement. Combining a career in social strategy, advising organizations and leadership on the use of technology to connect for knowledge sharing and relationship building, her doctoral research into human behavior behind the interactions and her personal passion for well-being, her work has evolved to provide solutions for thriving in the digital era. Listen in as she talks about digital self improvement.
Hello, everyone, this is Tonya Dawn Recla, your Super Power Expert and I’m delighted to have with us today Dr. Heidi Forbes Öste a behavioral scientist, best-selling author of Digital Self Mastery, and she has just this wealth of information, and experience, and wisdom.
And we’re going to talk today about digital self-improvement. And I know that kind of throws you off for a second, you’re like, “Okay, I get self-improvement. I get kind of the digital aspect, but what is this about? What is this digital self all about?” And I think it’s an important dialogue as we recognize that the internet, and social media, and stuff has a huge impact on our businesses, but also technology in general with smartphones and all of the kind of cyber ways that we are moving through the world, and developing improvements, and maybe some not so improvements. And so I’m excited to talk today about what all of that entails. And I’m very excited to have Dr. Heidi with us. So, welcome to the show.
Thank you. So happy to be here with you.
Oh good, good. Well, let’s start in by asking, what are your superpowers?
I see the relationship with technology that other people deny.
I think my superpowers are seeing things that other people don’t see. Sort of seeing that invisible relationship with technology that we are in denial of, and helping people bring that forward and nurture it so that they can nurture their other relationships and connections. So it’s really seeing the unseen that’s causing the biggest problems for us.
Very cool. So, talk a little bit about that, like what are some of the issues that you’re seeing?
Well for example, in the workplace we use all these different tools for communicating with our teams, with our clients, and when things go wrong with the technology we can often relate that to the actual person that we’re dealing with rather than recognizing where they might be an issue, whether it’s with the technology or how we’re relating to the technology. It ends up having sort of a negative effect on that connection. So, for example, if there’s someone that’s using a software to communicate that you really struggle with, you end up not wanting to communicate with that person just because of your relationship with that particular technology, and it really can be quite disruptive. And on a simple scale, you think of like our kids when they’re using Snapchat or something else like that, that we’re not comfortable or familiar with, we miss out on part of the conversation with them because we’re not present in that conversation.
How do you handle that, because I know that on some level in a self-dominion kind of way like I think that it’s important that we honor what we’re interested in, what we’re not interested in, and how we want to feel about all of that, and not to kind of displace that onto somebody else. Particularly when it comes to our kids or younger generations I agree with you, I think the tendency is to want to make them wrong or at least to have the overlay of some displeasure. What advice do you offer to people about … so many platforms out there, you can’t possibly keep up with all of them. How do you advise people?
I don’t do platform specific. What I really help them understand is acknowledging that relationship and learning sort of a respect around it, so that it doesn’t disrupt the relationships on the other end that you’re connecting with. So, it’s more about sort of recognizing where you’re comfort zone is, where there are potential issues, and where that might be hindering whether it’s your productivity, or your connection with your work, or with the people that you’re working with, or the people in your life, your family, and friends. So, it’s really more about acknowledging that relationship and recognizing how they can move through that, whether it’s in some cases it’s delegating certain pieces, because they don’t necessarily need to do it. Sometimes it’s just accepting them, and sometimes it’s honoring them and actually building a gratitude practice around it so that they remove some of the stress that is often triggered by using some of the technologies.
I love that we’re talking about technology and you’re talking about having like a gratitude practice. I think it’s so perfect because it’s easy to want to separate those down. You know to be like, “Here’s this like technology space, but then here’s this like woo woo spiritual space,” but they’re all so many aspects of our existence, we really have these full existences at this point that encompass all of it. And so it makes sense to me, even though I can’t say that I would have actually thought of it that way, but it does make sense to me that we’d bring all of it into the same conversation.
Yeah, I mean it’s really about conscious living. And technology is so much a part of how we live and work today, that bringing consciousness to that level of how we move in the world today is really critical. We can’t just deny that that’s part of it. And so, consciousness really overlaps everywhere.
Being at peace with technology.
Yeah, and I think there’s so much value in this idea of being at peace with technology, it’s easy I think to make it the enemy or it’s easy to put it on a pedestal, but the solid healthy incorporation of it I think is true of all aspects of our existence.
Oh absolutely. And I mean part of it is also recognizing where you need to go boundaries, just like in any other relationship. When you have a relationship that is causing a toxic response for you that is a stress trigger, or another kind of emotional trigger, depression, all kinds of different things.
That we need to look at that more like we would treat any other relationship, as sort of how do we recognize, what are those things that are the triggers? And how can we be in a better place with them? And sometimes it’s as simple as for example, like with the technology that your battery’s constantly dying, and so you feel like it’s at those critical moments, it’s just not reliable, it’s not there for you. But if you step back and realize how you’re taking care of your devices, and your energy, which is ultimately what your devices are running on, you often can see that for example, you’re running too many apps in the background, you’re never taking the time to actually let your devices, whether it’s your phone or your laptop, or whether it’s your speakers in your house, whether you’re letting them fully reboot and reconnect with the latest software with all of the other things that are connected to it. So, we sort of isolate them and just say, “Well, it’s not working. It’s not reliable to me.” But are you taking good care of it? Are the connecting cords in good shape? All of these different, some of them at very simple steps, but some of it is more just stepping back and being a little more open to the perspective of, it will take care of us if we take care of it.
Awesome. I love that perspective. So we’re going to take a quick break. We’ve been talking about digital self-improvement. Talking with Dr. Heidi Forbes Öste, and we’ll be right back after the break. And when we come back I want to really dive into some practical steps maybe from a business perspective on how we can make sure that we’re incorporating this in a really healthy fashion. So stick with us, we’ll be right back.
Find out more about Dr. Heidi Forbes Öste at 2balanceu.com.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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