January 29, 2025 • 29 mins
Jack Cohen joins us with advice on how to get the most of our your job and Career, then Kevin Kenny has advice on how Alabama students can apply for grants and improve their acceptance rate to colleges. Then Adan Holtz joins us from Focus on the Family with advice on healthy use of social media for kids.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Do you like your job or even your career? And
if not, maybe it's time for some retooling.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm John Mounts and this is a Viewpoint Alabama on
the Alabama Radio Network. And joining me now is author
and CEO Jack M. Cohen. In his new book The
Freedom Frameworks, he takes it beyond just finding a job opening.
He helps you find a career that energizes you and
allows you to live life on your own terms, whether
you're a young professional middle in your career or you're
an inspiring entrepreneur. Jack. Welcome to Viewpoint, John.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Thank you, I appreciate the time.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Let's start with this. How do you know it's time
to make a change?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Great question, and I think the answer is pain and suffering. Unfortunately,
I think that a lot of people are poor at
managing their careers because they're poor about managing their expectations.
And I think they give up their agency and find
(00:59):
themselves at effect of the manager they report to or
the business they work at. And I think that is
foolish and empty calories. And so in a scenario like that,
where I mean, people haven't thought about this, but they've
they've given agency up their at effect of a manager
who's probably not very good. They start to feel pain
(01:21):
and suffering, and they start to look for another job.
It's flawed because they're likely to make the same mistake again.
Your question was, how do you know? I think that
most people react and say, I don't like this anymore.
I'm going to go find something I enjoy more. My
recommenization is, could you begin with the end in mind?
(01:45):
Could you have a fantasy around an intended future and
could you have an understanding how your existing role, existing company,
existing to dos can get you where you want to go?
And if you are proactive about that, then the obvious
answer is you will know when you have accomplished what
(02:07):
you needed to accomplish and it's time to find the
next step on your journey.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I've often heard the expression that people don't quit jobs,
rather they quit their boss. And in other words, it
is poor management that results in people's dissatisfaction with a
job in a lot of cases. But what do you
do when your manager is they're standing in your way,
You're not able to move up or out, and so
you feel like the only thing you can do is
is just you know, pull the ripcord.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yeah, and I think you're one hundred percent right. I
think people will lie and rationalize that they left for money.
People rarely leave because of money. They leave because the
culture of the business isn't what they wanted. They leave
because they lost faith in the platform, or they have
a problematic manager. But I think you'll agree in your
(02:56):
own career. Unfortunately, when we look back at all the
people we work for, excuse me, the reality is maybe
ten percent of them were exceptional leaders and managers and administrators.
They were exceptional at finding something about us that they
(03:16):
brought out in us. And I just think that if
you're really stuck unfortunately, you need to go find another job,
which is why it's kind of important to make sure
people have savings, right, save some money out of your
salary in order to have the freedom to go a
month or two without a job while you're looking for
(03:36):
another one, which obviously is easier said than done.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Well, Jack, I often look at it sort of like
if you are into gardening and you go out and
you say, my garden looks ugly. I'm going to go
purchase a new small hedge. You buy it and you
plant it there. That's like a new employee, right, you've
just planned. The new employee doesn't know what it's doing
at a water the employee, but you also have to
trim it and you have to kind of shape it
over the weeks and months, because it can grow in
two ways. It can grow into a beautiful bush, or
(04:00):
it can grow into a really ugly thing that you
end up having to pluck from your yard a few
years later and start over again. You don't want to
be in that situation of being the bush or being
the person who plan in the bush. But if you
are in a position where you have realized that you
know what this, this job has grown into something that
I don't want to do. You know my jobs? You
know that phrase you always see other duties as assigned?
(04:21):
What happens when the duties you were hired to do
have long since gone away and now it's nothing but
a clues of other duties as assigned And you think
to yourself, this is not what I got into this for.
How do you identify I want a new job versus
I want a whole new career.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I loved your metaphor about the gardening because it's really
about the foundation and investing in that that garden and you, yourself,
are the most important asset that you'll ever have. Therefore,
you should be investing in yourself. But if you remember
the book Alice in Wonderland, when Alice is running across
(04:59):
the chess board, the rabbit asks Alice, where are you going?
And Alice says, I don't know. And the rabbit says,
if you don't know where you're going, any path will
get you there. And I think the mistake human beings
make when they go to work for somebody else is
they are living in their current reality. Think about all
(05:22):
of us do the very best we can in order
to survive and prosper for the day. And we have
things we like to do and don't like to do,
but it's all in our current reality. I find that
the better somebody can dream, the better somebody can rationalize
or address the demons that they think are holding them back.
(05:44):
The better they can begin with the end in mind
to have a view of the elements of the intended
future that they seek. Then these people can have they
can know when time is up. You know, how many
people do you know that you in college that would
pre med and they thought they were going to be
a doctor or a lawyer. And as soon as they
(06:05):
got to their doctor stuff or their lawyer stuff, they
found this wasn't for me. The problem wasn't their fantasy.
There was no problem here. Part of their journey was
a little bit of trial and error. And I just
think it's important that people live life as a to
do activity, not a to think activity. And if you're
unhappy with your current job, first of all, ask yourself why,
(06:30):
Ask yourself what is possible? Ask yourself how this relates
to the intended future you seek, and then take action,
do something.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
This is Viewpoint Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network. My
name is John Malson speaking with author and CEO Jack M. Cohen.
He wrote a new book, The Freedom of Frameworks. We're
talking about people's jobs and careers and how to get
the most out of it. What you have identified three
keys to success in your book? Do you want to
share those with us?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
If the most important asset you'll ever own is yourself
and the earning power you can create, the three keys
to success are daily, make sure you're requiring skills, accumulating experiences,
developing relationships. It's those skills, experiences, and relationships that give
(07:19):
depth and texture to you as a professional and your career,
and as you have enough. I call it gumballs in
the accumulator. If each one of those skills, relationships, or
experiences represents a gumball in a tube. Eventually you get
enough of those where you have the skills to call
(07:42):
an audible in your life, in your career, or make
a big decision from the seat that you sit in
the job that you have. So it's important to invest
in yourself, and the way to invest in yourself is skills, experiences, relationships.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
I feel like another thing is you. We shouldn't pigeonholed
these skills because there are skills that are very specific,
sometimes skills that only apply to a single organization, but
there's other skills that can be applied across larger, larger situations, like,
for example, your ability to work with people. Those skills
I think transcend any one job.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Totally agree, and you're hitting on something that's just so unique.
People think about skills as their business their trade skills,
and maybe they're advanced and they think about business skills
general business skills. But there's a third element, and these
are the soft skills, the human element skills. It's your
(08:40):
ability to listen, to communicate, to cooperate with others, to
participate on a team, to learn from a mistake. Those
are the things that are really important. And I think
about it in the context of cross training. If you
think about athletes today that will cross trained in When
I was a child, you baseball players or football players
(09:02):
only exercised in that kind of modality and domain. But
today they have nutrition people, and they have flexibility and
mobility people, and they cross train so that they can
apply their trade. And so if you think about it,
who you hang with, your hobbies, are you doing social
(09:23):
commitment activities, are involved in the chamber of commerce or
your church. You are picking up skills because you're getting
exposed to other people and having different experiences that you
can therefore apply elsewhere. I think the key to life
is can you take them experience last Tuesday and apply
(09:43):
it to an unrelated, unexpected experience next Thursday. There's no
way to prepare for that other than cross train, getting
depth and breadth of exposure.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And Jack another thing you mentioned was networking and the
importance of networking, and I think that is so critical
when you're identifying not only what you want to do,
but also how to get there because there are people
who have gone before you. They could guide your way.
They can say, hey, look, you don't want to go
into this, take my advice you want to go into that,
or I know somebody doing that, and I can put
(10:14):
in a good word for you. As a hiring manager myself,
I can't tell you how many times I've had, you know,
two hundred resumes sitting on my desk and I'm like,
you know what, I just out called this. You know
you're looking at references. I know this guy. I'll call
this guy and say is this person good? And a
lot of times that's kind of all you need to
get your foot in the door. Now, Once you get
your foot in the door, you have to perform. But
(10:35):
sometimes just getting your foot in the door is the
hardest part.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I think you're hitting on something that's so really important.
But I also think you know that people don't care
how much you know until they know how much you
care about them. And I think networking for the sole
purpose of my next job is probably sult is suboptimal.
I think that what people miss about life is is
(11:00):
that most of our careers are based on a printership.
Can you find other masters of the craft that you
can learn from. What's the purpose of networking and whether
you do this inside your industry like going to an
industry association meeting or outside your industry because you're interested
(11:22):
in the American Cancer Society or als or whatever your
passion is, there are opportunities. These are people that are
much like you. They're struggling with day to day. They're
struggling with their current reality and their vision of an
attended future, and you can learn from them by being
exposed to them. If they are a master of this
(11:44):
particular problem set and you can learn from that, Yes,
you're right, you can get references from those people. But
more importantly, you made yourself more valuable to the next
employer who's going to hire you.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Author CEO Jack M co and the author of the
new book The Freedom Frameworks, Jack, I hope that our
listeners were able to take something away from this they
can apply even if they're not looking to get a
new job, just maybe make themselves more valuable and travel
up the ladder where they are in their current place.
You know, grow where you're planted. I wanted to thank
you so much for joining us and if before we go.
(12:19):
Is there one thing our listeners should take away from
this interview that they could apply on Monday morning that
will make their job that much more enjoyable or that
much better for them in the future.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yeah, I know you said one, but I'll give you three.
Invest in yourself, recognizing that life is hard if all
you do is the easy stuff, but easy if you
do the hard stuff. And probably most importantly, there's a
difference between doing everything you can to avoid a problem
(12:53):
today in the future and presently taking a future problem
and addressing it now. Be prematurely. It likes to do activity.
So go to work Monday morning and enhance your skills,
your experiences, your relationships, and enjoy the journey. Participate in
the grind. Look at there you will be successful.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Jack mclin, thank you so much for joining me this
week on Viewpoint Alabama.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Thank you, John, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Up next, the cost of college is ever on the rise,
and it can be difficult to find all the information
you need on scholarships in one place. Joining me now
is Kevin Kenny. He's the CEO and founder of Level All. Kevin,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Thanks, I'm really glad to be here. Thanks for having me, John.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
So, I understand that you have a you have something
called level all, which is a college and career readiness
platform that some of the Birmingham schools are using, including
the Birmingham Promise. Explain what this is.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Yeah, so we're really excited about what we're doing in Alabama.
Level all is one thousand percent free to every single
human being in the state of Alabama.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
So what is level all.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
It's a college and career readiness platform. We are trying
to democratize information and we know that the playing field
is not level so we built this platform where in
one platform you can get everything you need. Is you
navigate the path to college, to a career to the workforce.
You can use it from age thirteen to adulthood all
the way to your one hundred years old. It's a
(14:19):
really powerful platform.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
And when you talk about being able to democratize things,
you don't necessarily have to use it just to go
to a four year college. There are other paths that
people could take as well too.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Right, Yeah, So we're not here to argue that one
path is better than another path. In one platform, it
can help you navigate being successful in high school. It
can help you navigate the path to college and affording
college and finding success in college. But maybe college is
in your path, we help you figure out alternative to college.
There's ups and downs and level alls with you every
step of that way.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Kevin, what do you think about the power of the
pedigree in terms of I realized there are certain vocations
you would go into where it does matter that you
went to Yale Law, but there's plenty of other things
where you could have gone to a community college. There's
a lot of people who are going to very expensive,
well known schools pursuing a degree in something that might
not have the big paycheck once you get out of college.
(15:13):
Is it important that you go to one of these
great big colleges or should you go to a college
that has, you know, the right price and is maybe
more affordable just from a standpoint of you could live
at least closer to home, if not at home.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Yeah, I think it raised like two or three issues there.
First of all, you want to make sure that when
you think about a college that it's the right price
and to the career that you want, unless you want
to be maybe an investment banker, that if you go
to one of these other schools if you do really
well and it's the right price, so you can have
a great career by going to a very very cost
effective local option. The worst thing you can do is
(15:47):
go to a college where you're dropping two three, four
hundred thousand dollars and you're studying a degree that doesn't
necessarily translate into getting a return on investment of all
that time and money. You can do that at a
much more cost effective option if that's your passion to study.
And that comes back to starting early, building a college plan,
deciding first of all, is college for you, and then
if so, building that plan, applying to college, getting into college,
(16:11):
choosing to college.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Kevin Kenny, the co CEO and founder of Level All, Kevin,
I know everyone is chomping the bit trying to find
out how they can once again apply for many of
these loans and scholarships that you have mentioned. Where do
they need to go against.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Or it's levelll dot com right there you can sign up.
And once again, we're really passionate about what we're doing
in Alabama, what we're doing with the Alabama Community College
System and some of the partnerships that we have and
Alabama's arguably one of the most important states for US
in the country. We're now used in every single state,
but Alabama is a big initiative for us. So just
(16:47):
go to leveloll dot com and you'll get free access.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Kevin Kenny, thank you so much for being my guest
this week on Viewpoint Alabama.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Thank you. I'm honored to beyond your call. John.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
You're listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs program from
the Alabama Ratio Network.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
And welcome back to Viewpoint Alabama. My name is John
Mounts and I've got a daughter, she's fifteen, and she's
all about this app. It's called TikTok. I know you've
heard of it, and the other day when there was
a possibility TikTok might go away, she got very upset.
She was really concerned about the loss of TikTok. Thankfully
for her, it came back. But this does raise a
(17:21):
concern for me and a lot of parents, how much
dependence do our kids have on apps like TikTok. Joining
me now to talk about this is focus on the families.
Plugged in editor Adam Holtz, Adam, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
John, great to talk to you. This morning.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
These apps, they say, have a can hold on our kids,
and I don't know how healthy it is.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
You know, it's not healthy. And in the middle of
a lawsuit that was a part of TikTok being banned,
and we can circle back to some of the other
reasons for that in a minute. Some internal information from
TikTok itself got leaked and NPR reported that TikTok's own
internal memos say it only takes thirty five minutes for
(18:04):
addiction to happen. Now for them, that's a feature, not
a bug, right, And I think that we have to
keep in mind that not only TikTok, but Instagram, facebooks,
not chat, all of these platforms are designed intentionally by
people who know what they're doing to basically entice us,
(18:26):
whether we're adults or kids, to give as much of
our time as possible. Now, I think TikTok may be
the worst offender in that, you know category, But it's
not just TikTok. I mean, we're really talking social media
in general. So as parents, and I have daughters that
are sixteen and fourteen, who you know, went through twelve
hours of morning as well. So I'm right there with you.
(18:49):
We have to figure out what does it look like
to engage with these things in a way that's not
addictive and not compulsive. And it's a challenge, right because
TikTok is sort of like the media equivalent of Eminem's
or Cotton Candy or Doritos. You know, pick your favorite brand,
(19:10):
you know what.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I like it too. And I don't know how old
you are, Adam, but I was a child in the
eighties and MTV was the big thing, and I remember
everyone talking about how it's ruining your attention span because
the way these music videos are shot was little one
and two second clips and it's ruining everyone's attention spans.
And there was a lot of parents who had a
lot of angst about that. Now I grew up into
(19:32):
a reasonably well adjusted person. So is this just the
next generation's MTV or is there something more sinister here?
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Well?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I think it's both a right, Like, I think that
our kids will probably be okay, and that they will
grow up and look back at this as just part
of their experience. But I also think that the sinister
part is how much time ends up being devoted. You know,
you never sit down and watch one video ever, not
(20:00):
even as adults. You know, if you're really self controlled,
maybe you scroll through five or six or seven you're like, Okay,
I got things to do because I have to go
adult now.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Right, They're like potato jims. You can't have Joe, you
can't have.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Just one right, so you know, you can easily lose
half an hour and forty five minutes. And one of
the things I've tried to do with my kids instead
of coming at it from a perspective of TikTok is bad.
These videos are bad. You're you know, rotting your brain,
you know the things that we sometimes say and I
need jerk response as parents, but really trying to have
(20:35):
a conversation. And again, my kids are fourteen and sixteen
and eighteen. Actually my son is at college. Say, you know,
how are we investing our time? Is this really where
we want to make that investment so that they have
an internal motivation that we're helping to cultivate that says,
you know what, Yeah, this is really not how I
(20:57):
want to use my precious free time because ultimately it
really doesn't matter that much. Now when we do that
in conjunction with putting some boundaries in place and Also,
the most important thing here might be mom and dad.
Are we willing to take responsibility for how we interact too? Right?
Because maybe we're not on TikTok. I'm not, but I
am on Instagram and I'm on Facebook. It's just easy
(21:21):
for us to mindlessly pick up the phone and start scrolling.
So I think when we approach it as a family, hey,
how do we get to a healthier place? You know
in every way we want to talk about it physically, mentally,
and spiritually. Then we're inviting them into something that they
can be invested in. And it's not just mom and dad,
(21:43):
you know, dropping the hammer saying oh this is bad.
And then you know they say, oh you don't understand.
I'm like, well, I probably don't, and yet I do. Right.
So those are some thoughts on how we begin to
manage it, John, And.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
The problem is for a lot of kids, and this
was made far worse by the pandemic, they have kind
of spent the last five years. Their entire social existence
is on a screen. So whether it's Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook,
or TikTok, they that's how they interact with their peers.
And so when you say you have to it's the
equivalent of like you know, thirty years ago, you can't
(22:18):
be on your phone past a certain time, you know,
and everyone would sneak the cordless phone into their bedroom
and try and you know, talk in low tones. But
you know, we I think as parents, we have a
responsibility to be somewhat over their shoulder and looking at
what are you looking at? Because there is good content,
even on TikTok that you can that you can actually
take in. And TikTok is an interesting app because it
(22:39):
reacts to what you've seen, unlike you're television set, which
doesn't know. It keeps up with what you've watched and
it feeds you more of that. So if you are
interested in say basketball, all of a sudden, you're getting
nothing but basketball videos. And so if you're interested in
science or you know, space, the space program, all of
a sudden, it's nothing but space program stuff. It could
be helpful, but only if you tell but to be helpful.
(23:01):
And if you're not giving any your kids any guidance,
then they might not be making the best choices of themselves.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
No, that's exactly right. And I think not having the bedroom,
not having their phones in their bedrooms at night, and
you know, I think beginning to carve out. Okay, at
nine o'clock we're all turning our phones off, right, look
for places that you can create boundaries that buy back
and claw back that space. And then, as you said, John,
(23:27):
just I like to ask my kids, well, what are
you interested in? What do you watch? And the other
day I was talking about the fact that I was
doing an intermittent fasting program to start the new year,
and my daughter said, well, you know intermittent fasting. The
big problem with it is that when you quit doing it,
you gain all the weight back. And I'm like, well,
where did you learn that? Said, well, TikTok, right, And
(23:48):
so just understanding that they use it not only for entertainment,
but they use it for news, they use it for information,
and so it's important for us to help them cultivate
not only discernment in terms of content like entertainment content,
but just okay, where's the source of authority here? Is
that a credible source? Do you want to believe this?
(24:08):
Because there's so much information out there? And so I
think our job as parents has never been harder. But
if we can turn it into a conversation as opposed
to a monologue. That makes it easier. And I think
if you've got kids that are not on it yet,
the longer you can wait the better.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
There's just a growing consensus that it doesn't do our
kids any favors in terms of mental health. So it's
a lot easier to delay that than to try to
put the genie back in the bottle once they have
access to it.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
One of the things I do, Adam is my daughter
and I kind of keep a thing going back and
forth where she sees something on TikTok, she shares it
to me and then I watch it. Then I actually
send it back to her and I will say, hey,
that was interesting, but did you see this? And I
will send her a response. So we kind of go
back and forth and it becomes a I guess, a
fam almost like a family endeavor of here's what I saw,
Oh yeah, well here's what I saw. Did you see this?
(25:00):
Did you see that? And I used to spark conversation
because I do think conversation. Conversation is becoming a lost
art because now it's a one way road of just
sit there and just suck up what other people have said.
I want to actually, you know, converse with people in
the real world, not on the internet, about the stuff,
even if it started on the internet.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
That's right, and I think that's a great model. And
not only are you having conversation about what they are seeing,
you're developing a relationship. You're being intentional, You're engaged, and
it communicates to your children mom and dad actually care
about my world. Right, They're not the enemy. We don't
have to have this generation gap clash, and you can
(25:42):
engage with each other. And I know when I was
growing up, if somebody said something really critical about the
music that I liked, I would internally just kind of
shut down. And as parents, you know, we have to
be bad cops. Sometimes there are some things that we
need to shut down. And there's a lot of stuff
we haven't even really talked about the dangerous content. There
is dangerous out there, so I don't want to minimize it.
(26:02):
But to the extent that we can be engaged in
cultivating that conversation, then it becomes a shared experience and
that gives us capital as parents for those times that
we do need to say, you know, well, I've said
yes to this stuff, but we need we need to
draw the line here, we need to say no to this, Adam.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I'm just curious, because the focus on the family does
keep up with this sort of things. Is there a
Christian equivalent of TikTok, like a TikTok for Christians that's
not necessarily all the worst content in the world, because
you can very quickly stumble into some really awful stuff
on any of these social media platforms these days.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, I don't know that there is, And if you've
got something in mind, I would love to hear about it.
I know that there have been attempts to do things
with more of a conservative plant, but I'm not sure
that there is a, you know, a Christian equivalent in
part with user generated media. It's it's just hard to,
you know, watch all of that content. So do you
(27:01):
have something in mind, John, No, I.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Don't at all. Or maybe maybe it's something within the
platform that they can put some sort of rails on
it to where it's I don't know how you do it,
but it's where it's it's only content. But I guess
you know it's in the eye of the beholder, because
you could have, say Hildegrass Tyson talking about something in
evolved physics sounds innocuous enough, but then he veeers into
the lane of creation versus evolution, and a Christian might
(27:23):
not want their child to see that. So I guess
it does depend on what you want them seeing. I
guess it does come down to moderation, your moderation of
what they are ingesting, but then also your moderation of
what they have ingested in discussing it so that we
can have a conversation, because I think if you shut
it all down, if you say absolutely not, you're not
to see any social media ever. Not under my roof,
(27:45):
what are they going to do when they get off
into college and now they've never seen it before, They're
going to go crazy.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
They're going to go crazy. And I think that we
have to distinguish between there's a difference between kids who
are eight, nine, ten and those who are in their
teen years, because it really is the frank of how
they communicate today with their friends. And yeah, you could say,
well that's just an excuse to get what they want,
and there's some truth to that, but social media is
(28:11):
that is the communication platform, and so I think that
we need to be giving them more agency. I guess
would be the word by the time they're in their
middle teen years, beginning to make some of those choices themselves,
and then instead of policing it, talking about it, talking
about the consequences, talking about how does it make you feel?
How do you feel like you're using your time? So
(28:33):
that we're helping them to cultivate self awareness, discernment, and
self control, you know, as they prepare to enter into
this world themselves. Because you're exactly right, John, if they
haven't had any profits, you know, any practice, what's going
to happen. You know, it's going to be like a
kid in a candy store who's never had sugar before,
(28:54):
and that's not going to work very well.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Adam Holt from Focus on the Family. To read up
on any of the information we've been talking about here today,
where can people go You can.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Go to plugged in dot com. And we also have
articles on these things on the parenting portion of Focus
on the Family's website and that's just Focus on the
Family dot com slash Parenting and one more resource I
we'll just pitch out there. We have recently published a
book or plugged In Department. Everybody in the department contributed
and it's called becoming a screen Savvy family. Becoming a
(29:24):
screen savvy family, and you can find that at the
bookstore at focus on the Family dot com.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Great information. Adam Holt from Focus on the Family. He's
the plugged in editor, thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
You bet, great conversation, John. Thank you.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
You've been listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs program
from the Alabama Radio Network. The opinions expressed on Viewpoint
Alabama are not necessarily those of the staff, management, or
advertisers of this station.
Do you like your job or even your career? And
if not, maybe it's time for some retooling.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm John Mounts and this is a Viewpoint Alabama on
the Alabama Radio Network. And joining me now is author
and CEO Jack M. Cohen. In his new book The
Freedom Frameworks, he takes it beyond just finding a job opening.
He helps you find a career that energizes you and
allows you to live life on your own terms, whether
you're a young professional middle in your career or you're
an inspiring entrepreneur. Jack. Welcome to Viewpoint, John.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Thank you, I appreciate the time.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Let's start with this. How do you know it's time
to make a change?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Great question, and I think the answer is pain and suffering. Unfortunately,
I think that a lot of people are poor at
managing their careers because they're poor about managing their expectations.
And I think they give up their agency and find
(00:59):
themselves at effect of the manager they report to or
the business they work at. And I think that is
foolish and empty calories. And so in a scenario like that,
where I mean, people haven't thought about this, but they've
they've given agency up their at effect of a manager
who's probably not very good. They start to feel pain
(01:21):
and suffering, and they start to look for another job.
It's flawed because they're likely to make the same mistake again.
Your question was, how do you know? I think that
most people react and say, I don't like this anymore.
I'm going to go find something I enjoy more. My
recommenization is, could you begin with the end in mind?
(01:45):
Could you have a fantasy around an intended future and
could you have an understanding how your existing role, existing company,
existing to dos can get you where you want to go?
And if you are proactive about that, then the obvious
answer is you will know when you have accomplished what
(02:07):
you needed to accomplish and it's time to find the
next step on your journey.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I've often heard the expression that people don't quit jobs,
rather they quit their boss. And in other words, it
is poor management that results in people's dissatisfaction with a
job in a lot of cases. But what do you
do when your manager is they're standing in your way,
You're not able to move up or out, and so
you feel like the only thing you can do is
is just you know, pull the ripcord.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yeah, and I think you're one hundred percent right. I
think people will lie and rationalize that they left for money.
People rarely leave because of money. They leave because the
culture of the business isn't what they wanted. They leave
because they lost faith in the platform, or they have
a problematic manager. But I think you'll agree in your
(02:56):
own career. Unfortunately, when we look back at all the
people we work for, excuse me, the reality is maybe
ten percent of them were exceptional leaders and managers and administrators.
They were exceptional at finding something about us that they
(03:16):
brought out in us. And I just think that if
you're really stuck unfortunately, you need to go find another job,
which is why it's kind of important to make sure
people have savings, right, save some money out of your
salary in order to have the freedom to go a
month or two without a job while you're looking for
(03:36):
another one, which obviously is easier said than done.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Well, Jack, I often look at it sort of like
if you are into gardening and you go out and
you say, my garden looks ugly. I'm going to go
purchase a new small hedge. You buy it and you
plant it there. That's like a new employee, right, you've
just planned. The new employee doesn't know what it's doing
at a water the employee, but you also have to
trim it and you have to kind of shape it
over the weeks and months, because it can grow in
two ways. It can grow into a beautiful bush, or
(04:00):
it can grow into a really ugly thing that you
end up having to pluck from your yard a few
years later and start over again. You don't want to
be in that situation of being the bush or being
the person who plan in the bush. But if you
are in a position where you have realized that you
know what this, this job has grown into something that
I don't want to do. You know my jobs? You
know that phrase you always see other duties as assigned?
(04:21):
What happens when the duties you were hired to do
have long since gone away and now it's nothing but
a clues of other duties as assigned And you think
to yourself, this is not what I got into this for.
How do you identify I want a new job versus
I want a whole new career.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I loved your metaphor about the gardening because it's really
about the foundation and investing in that that garden and you, yourself,
are the most important asset that you'll ever have. Therefore,
you should be investing in yourself. But if you remember
the book Alice in Wonderland, when Alice is running across
(04:59):
the chess board, the rabbit asks Alice, where are you going?
And Alice says, I don't know. And the rabbit says,
if you don't know where you're going, any path will
get you there. And I think the mistake human beings
make when they go to work for somebody else is
they are living in their current reality. Think about all
(05:22):
of us do the very best we can in order
to survive and prosper for the day. And we have
things we like to do and don't like to do,
but it's all in our current reality. I find that
the better somebody can dream, the better somebody can rationalize
or address the demons that they think are holding them back.
(05:44):
The better they can begin with the end in mind
to have a view of the elements of the intended
future that they seek. Then these people can have they
can know when time is up. You know, how many
people do you know that you in college that would
pre med and they thought they were going to be
a doctor or a lawyer. And as soon as they
(06:05):
got to their doctor stuff or their lawyer stuff, they
found this wasn't for me. The problem wasn't their fantasy.
There was no problem here. Part of their journey was
a little bit of trial and error. And I just
think it's important that people live life as a to
do activity, not a to think activity. And if you're
unhappy with your current job, first of all, ask yourself why,
(06:30):
Ask yourself what is possible? Ask yourself how this relates
to the intended future you seek, and then take action,
do something.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
This is Viewpoint Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network. My
name is John Malson speaking with author and CEO Jack M. Cohen.
He wrote a new book, The Freedom of Frameworks. We're
talking about people's jobs and careers and how to get
the most out of it. What you have identified three
keys to success in your book? Do you want to
share those with us?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
If the most important asset you'll ever own is yourself
and the earning power you can create, the three keys
to success are daily, make sure you're requiring skills, accumulating experiences,
developing relationships. It's those skills, experiences, and relationships that give
(07:19):
depth and texture to you as a professional and your career,
and as you have enough. I call it gumballs in
the accumulator. If each one of those skills, relationships, or
experiences represents a gumball in a tube. Eventually you get
enough of those where you have the skills to call
(07:42):
an audible in your life, in your career, or make
a big decision from the seat that you sit in
the job that you have. So it's important to invest
in yourself, and the way to invest in yourself is skills, experiences, relationships.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
I feel like another thing is you. We shouldn't pigeonholed
these skills because there are skills that are very specific,
sometimes skills that only apply to a single organization, but
there's other skills that can be applied across larger, larger situations, like,
for example, your ability to work with people. Those skills
I think transcend any one job.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Totally agree, and you're hitting on something that's just so unique.
People think about skills as their business their trade skills,
and maybe they're advanced and they think about business skills
general business skills. But there's a third element, and these
are the soft skills, the human element skills. It's your
(08:40):
ability to listen, to communicate, to cooperate with others, to
participate on a team, to learn from a mistake. Those
are the things that are really important. And I think
about it in the context of cross training. If you
think about athletes today that will cross trained in When
I was a child, you baseball players or football players
(09:02):
only exercised in that kind of modality and domain. But
today they have nutrition people, and they have flexibility and
mobility people, and they cross train so that they can
apply their trade. And so if you think about it,
who you hang with, your hobbies, are you doing social
(09:23):
commitment activities, are involved in the chamber of commerce or
your church. You are picking up skills because you're getting
exposed to other people and having different experiences that you
can therefore apply elsewhere. I think the key to life
is can you take them experience last Tuesday and apply
(09:43):
it to an unrelated, unexpected experience next Thursday. There's no
way to prepare for that other than cross train, getting
depth and breadth of exposure.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And Jack another thing you mentioned was networking and the
importance of networking, and I think that is so critical
when you're identifying not only what you want to do,
but also how to get there because there are people
who have gone before you. They could guide your way.
They can say, hey, look, you don't want to go
into this, take my advice you want to go into that,
or I know somebody doing that, and I can put
(10:14):
in a good word for you. As a hiring manager myself,
I can't tell you how many times I've had, you know,
two hundred resumes sitting on my desk and I'm like,
you know what, I just out called this. You know
you're looking at references. I know this guy. I'll call
this guy and say is this person good? And a
lot of times that's kind of all you need to
get your foot in the door. Now, Once you get
your foot in the door, you have to perform. But
(10:35):
sometimes just getting your foot in the door is the
hardest part.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I think you're hitting on something that's so really important.
But I also think you know that people don't care
how much you know until they know how much you
care about them. And I think networking for the sole
purpose of my next job is probably sult is suboptimal.
I think that what people miss about life is is
(11:00):
that most of our careers are based on a printership.
Can you find other masters of the craft that you
can learn from. What's the purpose of networking and whether
you do this inside your industry like going to an
industry association meeting or outside your industry because you're interested
(11:22):
in the American Cancer Society or als or whatever your
passion is, there are opportunities. These are people that are
much like you. They're struggling with day to day. They're
struggling with their current reality and their vision of an
attended future, and you can learn from them by being
exposed to them. If they are a master of this
(11:44):
particular problem set and you can learn from that, Yes,
you're right, you can get references from those people. But
more importantly, you made yourself more valuable to the next
employer who's going to hire you.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Author CEO Jack M co and the author of the
new book The Freedom Frameworks, Jack, I hope that our
listeners were able to take something away from this they
can apply even if they're not looking to get a
new job, just maybe make themselves more valuable and travel
up the ladder where they are in their current place.
You know, grow where you're planted. I wanted to thank
you so much for joining us and if before we go.
(12:19):
Is there one thing our listeners should take away from
this interview that they could apply on Monday morning that
will make their job that much more enjoyable or that
much better for them in the future.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yeah, I know you said one, but I'll give you three.
Invest in yourself, recognizing that life is hard if all
you do is the easy stuff, but easy if you
do the hard stuff. And probably most importantly, there's a
difference between doing everything you can to avoid a problem
(12:53):
today in the future and presently taking a future problem
and addressing it now. Be prematurely. It likes to do activity.
So go to work Monday morning and enhance your skills,
your experiences, your relationships, and enjoy the journey. Participate in
the grind. Look at there you will be successful.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Jack mclin, thank you so much for joining me this
week on Viewpoint Alabama.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Thank you, John, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Up next, the cost of college is ever on the rise,
and it can be difficult to find all the information
you need on scholarships in one place. Joining me now
is Kevin Kenny. He's the CEO and founder of Level All. Kevin,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Thanks, I'm really glad to be here. Thanks for having me, John.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
So, I understand that you have a you have something
called level all, which is a college and career readiness
platform that some of the Birmingham schools are using, including
the Birmingham Promise. Explain what this is.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Yeah, so we're really excited about what we're doing in Alabama.
Level all is one thousand percent free to every single
human being in the state of Alabama.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
So what is level all.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
It's a college and career readiness platform. We are trying
to democratize information and we know that the playing field
is not level so we built this platform where in
one platform you can get everything you need. Is you
navigate the path to college, to a career to the workforce.
You can use it from age thirteen to adulthood all
the way to your one hundred years old. It's a
(14:19):
really powerful platform.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
And when you talk about being able to democratize things,
you don't necessarily have to use it just to go
to a four year college. There are other paths that
people could take as well too.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Right, Yeah, So we're not here to argue that one
path is better than another path. In one platform, it
can help you navigate being successful in high school. It
can help you navigate the path to college and affording
college and finding success in college. But maybe college is
in your path, we help you figure out alternative to college.
There's ups and downs and level alls with you every
step of that way.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Kevin, what do you think about the power of the
pedigree in terms of I realized there are certain vocations
you would go into where it does matter that you
went to Yale Law, but there's plenty of other things
where you could have gone to a community college. There's
a lot of people who are going to very expensive,
well known schools pursuing a degree in something that might
not have the big paycheck once you get out of college.
(15:13):
Is it important that you go to one of these
great big colleges or should you go to a college
that has, you know, the right price and is maybe
more affordable just from a standpoint of you could live
at least closer to home, if not at home.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Yeah, I think it raised like two or three issues there.
First of all, you want to make sure that when
you think about a college that it's the right price
and to the career that you want, unless you want
to be maybe an investment banker, that if you go
to one of these other schools if you do really
well and it's the right price, so you can have
a great career by going to a very very cost
effective local option. The worst thing you can do is
(15:47):
go to a college where you're dropping two three, four
hundred thousand dollars and you're studying a degree that doesn't
necessarily translate into getting a return on investment of all
that time and money. You can do that at a
much more cost effective option if that's your passion to study.
And that comes back to starting early, building a college plan,
deciding first of all, is college for you, and then
if so, building that plan, applying to college, getting into college,
(16:11):
choosing to college.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Kevin Kenny, the co CEO and founder of Level All, Kevin,
I know everyone is chomping the bit trying to find
out how they can once again apply for many of
these loans and scholarships that you have mentioned. Where do
they need to go against.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Or it's levelll dot com right there you can sign up.
And once again, we're really passionate about what we're doing
in Alabama, what we're doing with the Alabama Community College
System and some of the partnerships that we have and
Alabama's arguably one of the most important states for US
in the country. We're now used in every single state,
but Alabama is a big initiative for us. So just
(16:47):
go to leveloll dot com and you'll get free access.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Kevin Kenny, thank you so much for being my guest
this week on Viewpoint Alabama.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Thank you. I'm honored to beyond your call. John.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
You're listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs program from
the Alabama Ratio Network.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
And welcome back to Viewpoint Alabama. My name is John
Mounts and I've got a daughter, she's fifteen, and she's
all about this app. It's called TikTok. I know you've
heard of it, and the other day when there was
a possibility TikTok might go away, she got very upset.
She was really concerned about the loss of TikTok. Thankfully
for her, it came back. But this does raise a
(17:21):
concern for me and a lot of parents, how much
dependence do our kids have on apps like TikTok. Joining
me now to talk about this is focus on the families.
Plugged in editor Adam Holtz, Adam, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
John, great to talk to you. This morning.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
These apps, they say, have a can hold on our kids,
and I don't know how healthy it is.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
You know, it's not healthy. And in the middle of
a lawsuit that was a part of TikTok being banned,
and we can circle back to some of the other
reasons for that in a minute. Some internal information from
TikTok itself got leaked and NPR reported that TikTok's own
internal memos say it only takes thirty five minutes for
(18:04):
addiction to happen. Now for them, that's a feature, not
a bug, right, And I think that we have to
keep in mind that not only TikTok, but Instagram, facebooks,
not chat, all of these platforms are designed intentionally by
people who know what they're doing to basically entice us,
(18:26):
whether we're adults or kids, to give as much of
our time as possible. Now, I think TikTok may be
the worst offender in that, you know category, But it's
not just TikTok. I mean, we're really talking social media
in general. So as parents, and I have daughters that
are sixteen and fourteen, who you know, went through twelve
hours of morning as well. So I'm right there with you.
(18:49):
We have to figure out what does it look like
to engage with these things in a way that's not
addictive and not compulsive. And it's a challenge, right because
TikTok is sort of like the media equivalent of Eminem's
or Cotton Candy or Doritos. You know, pick your favorite brand,
(19:10):
you know what.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I like it too. And I don't know how old
you are, Adam, but I was a child in the
eighties and MTV was the big thing, and I remember
everyone talking about how it's ruining your attention span because
the way these music videos are shot was little one
and two second clips and it's ruining everyone's attention spans.
And there was a lot of parents who had a
lot of angst about that. Now I grew up into
(19:32):
a reasonably well adjusted person. So is this just the
next generation's MTV or is there something more sinister here?
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Well?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I think it's both a right, Like, I think that
our kids will probably be okay, and that they will
grow up and look back at this as just part
of their experience. But I also think that the sinister
part is how much time ends up being devoted. You know,
you never sit down and watch one video ever, not
(20:00):
even as adults. You know, if you're really self controlled,
maybe you scroll through five or six or seven you're like, Okay,
I got things to do because I have to go
adult now.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Right, They're like potato jims. You can't have Joe, you
can't have.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Just one right, so you know, you can easily lose
half an hour and forty five minutes. And one of
the things I've tried to do with my kids instead
of coming at it from a perspective of TikTok is bad.
These videos are bad. You're you know, rotting your brain,
you know the things that we sometimes say and I
need jerk response as parents, but really trying to have
(20:35):
a conversation. And again, my kids are fourteen and sixteen
and eighteen. Actually my son is at college. Say, you know,
how are we investing our time? Is this really where
we want to make that investment so that they have
an internal motivation that we're helping to cultivate that says,
you know what, Yeah, this is really not how I
(20:57):
want to use my precious free time because ultimately it
really doesn't matter that much. Now when we do that
in conjunction with putting some boundaries in place and Also,
the most important thing here might be mom and dad.
Are we willing to take responsibility for how we interact too? Right?
Because maybe we're not on TikTok. I'm not, but I
am on Instagram and I'm on Facebook. It's just easy
(21:21):
for us to mindlessly pick up the phone and start scrolling.
So I think when we approach it as a family, hey,
how do we get to a healthier place? You know
in every way we want to talk about it physically, mentally,
and spiritually. Then we're inviting them into something that they
can be invested in. And it's not just mom and dad,
(21:43):
you know, dropping the hammer saying oh this is bad.
And then you know they say, oh you don't understand.
I'm like, well, I probably don't, and yet I do. Right.
So those are some thoughts on how we begin to
manage it, John, And.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
The problem is for a lot of kids, and this
was made far worse by the pandemic, they have kind
of spent the last five years. Their entire social existence
is on a screen. So whether it's Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook,
or TikTok, they that's how they interact with their peers.
And so when you say you have to it's the
equivalent of like you know, thirty years ago, you can't
(22:18):
be on your phone past a certain time, you know,
and everyone would sneak the cordless phone into their bedroom
and try and you know, talk in low tones. But
you know, we I think as parents, we have a
responsibility to be somewhat over their shoulder and looking at
what are you looking at? Because there is good content,
even on TikTok that you can that you can actually
take in. And TikTok is an interesting app because it
(22:39):
reacts to what you've seen, unlike you're television set, which
doesn't know. It keeps up with what you've watched and
it feeds you more of that. So if you are
interested in say basketball, all of a sudden, you're getting
nothing but basketball videos. And so if you're interested in
science or you know, space, the space program, all of
a sudden, it's nothing but space program stuff. It could
be helpful, but only if you tell but to be helpful.
(23:01):
And if you're not giving any your kids any guidance,
then they might not be making the best choices of themselves.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
No, that's exactly right. And I think not having the bedroom,
not having their phones in their bedrooms at night, and
you know, I think beginning to carve out. Okay, at
nine o'clock we're all turning our phones off, right, look
for places that you can create boundaries that buy back
and claw back that space. And then, as you said, John,
(23:27):
just I like to ask my kids, well, what are
you interested in? What do you watch? And the other
day I was talking about the fact that I was
doing an intermittent fasting program to start the new year,
and my daughter said, well, you know intermittent fasting. The
big problem with it is that when you quit doing it,
you gain all the weight back. And I'm like, well,
where did you learn that? Said, well, TikTok, right, And
(23:48):
so just understanding that they use it not only for entertainment,
but they use it for news, they use it for information,
and so it's important for us to help them cultivate
not only discernment in terms of content like entertainment content,
but just okay, where's the source of authority here? Is
that a credible source? Do you want to believe this?
(24:08):
Because there's so much information out there? And so I
think our job as parents has never been harder. But
if we can turn it into a conversation as opposed
to a monologue. That makes it easier. And I think
if you've got kids that are not on it yet,
the longer you can wait the better.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
There's just a growing consensus that it doesn't do our
kids any favors in terms of mental health. So it's
a lot easier to delay that than to try to
put the genie back in the bottle once they have
access to it.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
One of the things I do, Adam is my daughter
and I kind of keep a thing going back and
forth where she sees something on TikTok, she shares it
to me and then I watch it. Then I actually
send it back to her and I will say, hey,
that was interesting, but did you see this? And I
will send her a response. So we kind of go
back and forth and it becomes a I guess, a
fam almost like a family endeavor of here's what I saw,
Oh yeah, well here's what I saw. Did you see this?
(25:00):
Did you see that? And I used to spark conversation
because I do think conversation. Conversation is becoming a lost
art because now it's a one way road of just
sit there and just suck up what other people have said.
I want to actually, you know, converse with people in
the real world, not on the internet, about the stuff,
even if it started on the internet.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
That's right, and I think that's a great model. And
not only are you having conversation about what they are seeing,
you're developing a relationship. You're being intentional, You're engaged, and
it communicates to your children mom and dad actually care
about my world. Right, They're not the enemy. We don't
have to have this generation gap clash, and you can
(25:42):
engage with each other. And I know when I was
growing up, if somebody said something really critical about the
music that I liked, I would internally just kind of
shut down. And as parents, you know, we have to
be bad cops. Sometimes there are some things that we
need to shut down. And there's a lot of stuff
we haven't even really talked about the dangerous content. There
is dangerous out there, so I don't want to minimize it.
(26:02):
But to the extent that we can be engaged in
cultivating that conversation, then it becomes a shared experience and
that gives us capital as parents for those times that
we do need to say, you know, well, I've said
yes to this stuff, but we need we need to
draw the line here, we need to say no to this, Adam.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I'm just curious, because the focus on the family does
keep up with this sort of things. Is there a
Christian equivalent of TikTok, like a TikTok for Christians that's
not necessarily all the worst content in the world, because
you can very quickly stumble into some really awful stuff
on any of these social media platforms these days.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, I don't know that there is, And if you've
got something in mind, I would love to hear about it.
I know that there have been attempts to do things
with more of a conservative plant, but I'm not sure
that there is a, you know, a Christian equivalent in
part with user generated media. It's it's just hard to,
you know, watch all of that content. So do you
(27:01):
have something in mind, John, No, I.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Don't at all. Or maybe maybe it's something within the
platform that they can put some sort of rails on
it to where it's I don't know how you do it,
but it's where it's it's only content. But I guess
you know it's in the eye of the beholder, because
you could have, say Hildegrass Tyson talking about something in
evolved physics sounds innocuous enough, but then he veeers into
the lane of creation versus evolution, and a Christian might
(27:23):
not want their child to see that. So I guess
it does depend on what you want them seeing. I
guess it does come down to moderation, your moderation of
what they are ingesting, but then also your moderation of
what they have ingested in discussing it so that we
can have a conversation, because I think if you shut
it all down, if you say absolutely not, you're not
to see any social media ever. Not under my roof,
(27:45):
what are they going to do when they get off
into college and now they've never seen it before, They're
going to go crazy.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
They're going to go crazy. And I think that we
have to distinguish between there's a difference between kids who
are eight, nine, ten and those who are in their
teen years, because it really is the frank of how
they communicate today with their friends. And yeah, you could say,
well that's just an excuse to get what they want,
and there's some truth to that, but social media is
(28:11):
that is the communication platform, and so I think that
we need to be giving them more agency. I guess
would be the word by the time they're in their
middle teen years, beginning to make some of those choices themselves,
and then instead of policing it, talking about it, talking
about the consequences, talking about how does it make you feel?
How do you feel like you're using your time? So
(28:33):
that we're helping them to cultivate self awareness, discernment, and
self control, you know, as they prepare to enter into
this world themselves. Because you're exactly right, John, if they
haven't had any profits, you know, any practice, what's going
to happen. You know, it's going to be like a
kid in a candy store who's never had sugar before,
(28:54):
and that's not going to work very well.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Adam Holt from Focus on the Family. To read up
on any of the information we've been talking about here today,
where can people go You can.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Go to plugged in dot com. And we also have
articles on these things on the parenting portion of Focus
on the Family's website and that's just Focus on the
Family dot com slash Parenting and one more resource I
we'll just pitch out there. We have recently published a
book or plugged In Department. Everybody in the department contributed
and it's called becoming a screen Savvy family. Becoming a
(29:24):
screen savvy family, and you can find that at the
bookstore at focus on the Family dot com.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Great information. Adam Holt from Focus on the Family. He's
the plugged in editor, thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
You bet, great conversation, John. Thank you.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
You've been listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs program
from the Alabama Radio Network. The opinions expressed on Viewpoint
Alabama are not necessarily those of the staff, management, or
advertisers of this station.
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