Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #627: Empathy

Episode Date: April 12, 2019

This podcast is based on a recent article I did talking about the importance of empathy in game design (and life).

I'm pulling up at driveway. We all know what that means. It's time to drive to work. Okay, well today's podcast is all about empathy. So this is based on an article that I wrote. Real quick, a lot of people ask me, occasionally I will overlap topics I wrote in a column that I also will do in my podcast. People are like, why would you do that? column that I also will do in my podcast. People are like, why would you do that? And the answer is, the data shows there's actually, well, there's a bunch of people that both read my column and listen to my podcast. There's a whole number of people that listen to my podcast that do not read my column. So one of the reasons I definitely redo certain things is because there's an audience

there that doesn't know them. The other reason is, even if you have read my article, the podcast is 30 minutes long. It lets me go into detail a little more than I did in the article. So even for those that read the article, there should be extra details here for those that did. But anyway, on to empathy. Okay, so the first thing I explained in my column was I believe empathy is broken into two parts. So the first part is understanding what other people care about. And the second part is connecting to the emotion they have about that thing. And so my advice in the column and talking about it, well, I'm sorry, let me do the lead in.

I talk a lot about various skills that I believe game designers need. And so one of the skills is empathy. And once again, I define empathy as a two-part thing, understanding what other people care about, and then connecting to the emotion that they have about that thing. So I'm going to go into detail about all of this. But the reason, real quickly, before we get into explaining how to be more empathetic, is to talk a little bit about why is empathy so important for a game designer? Okay, well, I explain

all the time that Magic really isn't one game, that it's a series of games that have a shared rule set and game components. That Commander is a different game than Legacy, or Vintage, or Modern, or Standard, or Booster Draft, or Sealed,

or Pauper, or, I mean, I can go on and on. There's an infinite number of ways to play Magic. In each one of those, while there's a lot of similarities, you know, the rule set is similar, the game pieces are similar, but they're different animals, you know, and they require different things. And so part of my job is I'm making a product in which many different people will use it many different things. And so part of my job is I'm making a product in which many different people will use it many different ways. So how do I do that? How do I make a magic product that all these different people appreciate and like? And part of that is by understanding my audience, by understanding what they want, what they need, how they feel. And so I do a lot of it,

spend a lot of energy trying to understand my audience and what they want. So empathy is important because, you know, I talk a lot about getting the emotional, hitting the right emotional tone with the set and making sure that people sort of connect to it. Well, part of doing that is understanding people, is understanding sort of their wants and desires. Okay, so let's jump in. Okay, so I'm going to talk about this in two sections. The first section is about understanding what other people care about. So let's start with that section.

Okay, so number one in this subsection is talking about listening. So the story I told, I will tell right now, I took many writing classes in college, but one of my writing classes with a teacher that I really adored, and this is how she started her first class. So we came in. She's like, okay, everybody.

She goes, look, I'm not going to waste your time. I'm going to start right now by explaining to you how you can be a great writer. She goes, it's not a mystery. Here's what you have to do. Every day of your life, write. Write every day. And when you're done writing, rewrite. And when you're done rewriting, put it aside and write something else. And just every day write. And what'll

happen is, if you write every single day, you'll get better at writing. And if you do that enough day, you'll get better at writing. And if you do that enough, you'll eventually get good at writing. And if you do it enough, you'll eventually get great at writing. You know, she said, it's not, great writers become great writers because they put the time and energy to become great writers. And that becoming a great writer is about, you know, learning your craft and about just, you know, there's no better way than just writing itself. And the reason I bring that up is I think listening is something similar in that

I don't think anybody can be a great listener. I don't think there's some inherent skill someone has to be a great listener. Really, it's about learning to listen. That most of listening is making a conscious effort to listen. And generally speaking, I think most people are not good listeners. They don't listen. And they come up with a lot of reasons to, like for example, people might say, oh well I can stop listening. I know what they're going to say. Or

I don't care what they're going to say. Or I don't care what they're going to say. Or I don't think the person saying it is particularly important, so it's not important to me to listen. And all those, I think, are mistakes. I think the key to being a good listener is a couple things. One is acknowledging that everybody has something to say. Acknowledging that any source could be of, you could learn from. That you could learn from anybody.

That there's no such thing as somebody that you have nothing to learn from. And you have to be willing to say what this person is saying has value and that I need to value it. And third, a lot of listening is resisting the urge to talk. Now, give it. I'm a talker, so I get this. One of the things that's really interesting.

So, I remember reading this article that was talking about dating. And it was saying, you know, it looked at a lot of factors about what can make a first date successful. And there were a whole bunch of different factors, but one of the ones that ranked really high was listening. That one of the things that people find very attractive in a mate is someone that listens to them. Like, really listens to them. Not puts up a,

not sort of creates the illusion they're listening, but actually listens. And what that means is they spend time letting that person talk, and then they say things that demonstrate that they have listened to what that person said. And that's an important part of listening is both hearing what the person says and making sure that you demonstrate to the person that you have heard them that's an important part of listening as well, not just the act of listening which takes time and energy and focus but making sure the person feels listened to and that is also very important but making sure the person feels listened to.

And that is also very important. Okay, so how you have to listen, you have to make the conscious effort, but also you have to create opportunities for people to talk. Okay, there's a bunch of ways to do this. One is open up about yourself. People have a lot of sense of equity to them that if you open up,

it makes it more willing for other people to open up. Like one of the things that I do, for example, you'll notice, those who follow me, obviously this is my podcast, I spend a lot of time and energy on social media trying to be very much myself, trying to, I want people to see me not as a corporate entity, not as the man, but as a person. And part of what I do to do that is I definitely make sure that I, I'm very open about who

I am. You know, if you follow me on my social media, I'm not just talking about work. I share stuff with my family. Every year I share like my holiday card. You know, when we're celebrating things with my family, I share that with people. That I want people to see me as someone very relatable,

that I'm a person, I have a family. I, you know, that yes, I make magic cards and I talk about that, but that I'm more than just that. And that I feel that if people can see who I am, it makes them more comfortable connecting with me. Essentially, the more human you appear, the more people will want to interact with you. And especially on social media,

where it's easy to be sort of distanced from somebody, opening up is important. So that ties to number two, would be share information. The other thing that I think is important of what I do is not just that I am very open about who I am. And like I said, if you've read my stuff or listened to my podcast, I have talked about raising my kids and meeting my wife and important life lessons, things that have shaped me. I've talked about my past career.

I've had lots of different things. I've spent a lot of energy sort of letting people in. I've talked about my dating life. I mean, I've talked about things that were personal that meant something to me. Now, my caveat there is, you know, you should open up as much as you're comfortable opening up. I'm a writer by trade. I'm a little more comfortable sharing some things than some people might be. I'm not saying to share things you're not comfortable about sharing.

So share, but up to the point where you're comfortable. The other thing that I do is I try to produce content. I obviously make this podcast. I write my column. I have my blog where I answer questions. I have my comic I do every workday. I have my poll. And I interact on social media.

I talk to people on social media. I retweet things. And I, you know, both on Tumblr and Twitter, I will, as I see interesting things, I will forward them so people can see them. But I do a lot to share with the public. And part of that is I've spent my entire career sharing sort of behind the scenes of the game design. Like one of the things is when I started at Wizards, it was not normal practice in the game industry to sort of explain behind the scenes what you're doing. In a lot of ways, I paved a lot of, I paved a new path. Like, it's kind of much more given a thing now that people

will explain behind the scenes what they're doing in their game designs. But I think a lot of that came from the fact that I, you know, really was someone who pushed that and I did it on a weekly basis. I was, you know, at first it was actually, at first it was a monthly basis because I'm the doula. But then once we started the website, I did it on a weekly basis. And, you know, one of the things I believe is if you want people to share things about you, we'll share things about, you know, like, I want you to see behind the process. I want you to see how we make things.

I want you to understand the game, because the more you understand how we make magic, the more interested you might be in helping us make magic and sharing information with us. And so if I want to get information out of you all, well, I want to get information from me. I mean, not just personal information, but also just work information, game information. How do we make the game that we all play? How do we do that? And what I've discovered is as I share information about how we make the game, it makes you all want to be more open about sharing how you play the game. And like one of the things that I try really hard to do is have a lot of equity. That I want people to feel like

it's not just a one-way direction of communication. It's not just if I'm trying to get information from you, I'm giving information to you. That there's a back and forth. In communications, we call it two-way addressability. It's a fancy name for you're interacting with your public in a way that there's a back and forth between you and the public.

And I'm a big believer, and that's really important, especially with the advent of social media, that it's not just about talking to your audience, or not just about listening to your audience, but it's about communicating with your audience. Okay, next, C, ask questions. Well, another way to get information out of people is ask them the information. So I started doing this thing on my blog called Inquiring Minds Want to Know, where there's things that I'm curious about. Sometimes it's just individual curiosity on my part. Sometimes there's a reason

at work we need to know the information. I ask a lot of questions, so you don't quite know what I'm asking for work versus what I'm asking out of my own curiosity. I ask a lot of questions, so you don't quite know what I'm asking for work versus what I'm asking out of my own curiosity. I don't want to give everything away we're doing. But if we want to know something at work, people will come to me and say, Mark, I need to know something. Do you mind asking your blog about this thing?

And I'll post questions, and then we take the questions, and we compile the information, and that information gets used. The reason asking questions is important is that not everybody, I mean, people will open up about things, but sometimes what they think to talk about isn't the thing you need. And so what I find about asking questions is,

it is okay when you're listening to try to, you know, if someone is saying something and you want to understand what they're saying, it's fine to ask them questions. Now, be aware, if you ask somebody a question and they don't want to answer it, don't force them to answer it. You know, you have to sort of respect people's privacy if, you know. But I think it's okay to ask questions and provided they're comfortable answering them,

then you get to listen. Questions are very, very valuable in listening because, like I said, people don't always tell you exactly what they're thinking, that sometimes people sort of beat around the topic and that a good question will sort of open things up. In fact, if you talk about a good therapist, a psychologist or psychiatrist,

a lot of what they do is they listen, they recognize things, and then they use questions to sort of probe deeper to get at the thing that they're trying to understand. And I think a therapist is someone whose job it is to learn how to listen. So my mom, for example, was a psychologist. She's alive. She's retired. My, was a psychologist. She's a lie. She's a retired. Um, my mom was a psychologist.

So a lot of listening to my mom talk about job and stuff. A lot of her job was learning how to listen to people and also then learning how to help people. It's not just listening, but a big part of, of, of being a therapist is listening, understanding what the problem is. So then you can help them solve the problem. Um, but a big part is understanding the problem. And people don't always exactly share the information you need. Maybe it's something

that's hard for them to share. Maybe it's something they don't know that you want to know. Maybe it's something that even they themselves are sort of blocking out or something. That asking questions will get people to sort of, you can direct people and help them push in the direction that you need. Okay. Finally, in this subcategory, creating a community. So one of the things that social media allows you to do,

and I'll use blog talk as a good example, which is if you get enough people coming to the same place, over time, they start to get to know one another and that you start to build a community, especially if you have people with a shared interest. Now, obviously, I talk about magic, so I have an audience that cares about the game. And one of the nice things about building a community is it makes a more comfortable

space. It makes people feel more open, and sometimes people will share not just with you, but with other people. And another way to listen is, I mean, obviously listen when people talk to you, but you also can listen when people talk to other people. I mean, not in a private way,

but when it's an open conversation. Like, one of the things in life I've discovered is, sometimes if you're in a group of people, even if you're not talking, if other people are talking, you still can learn and listen to what people are saying. And that, you know, part of having a community is creating more circumstances where people feel comfortable. A lot of the issue about, like, in general, people want to talk about what they care about,

but they have to feel comfortable to do that. And so part of being a good listener is making people feel comfortable. Or also, listen in the places where they are comfortable. Sometimes, for example, people are more comfortable talking one-to-one. Sometimes people are more comfortable talking in a group, where there's a larger sense of sharing in the group. Obviously, like, group therapy is a thing. So, like, there is a lot of value in larger groups,

especially when the larger groups have something in common. Most support groups are all about, here's a whole bunch of people that share a common problem. So like, for example, my wife, Laura, when we had Rachel, our oldest daughter, when Rachel was really, really little, Laura joined a support group for young moms, you know, moms with young kids. And it was valuable mostly because it made her realize oh, this thing that I'm really worried about is a common thing other people are worried about it and that it took something that was scary

and made her realize that a lot of it was much more normal and natural and that part of having other moms to talk about because all the kids were the same age they were like 3-6 months I think when they started and by the way, she's still, this group still gets together. Rachel's going to college. Obviously it's the moms

getting together. But it really became a tight-knit group and that the importance of the group was that just sharing shared experiences is very, very powerful. Okay, next. Part of listening. So next thing is you need to learn to go deeper. So one of the things that normally happens when you're talking to somebody and they say something you disagree with, the normal human reaction is, oh, I disagree. Stop listening. I don't agree with what they say. But a good listener has to go deeper than that

it's not enough to go we disagree you need to understand why they're saying what they're saying an example I gave using a magic example is someone says to me I want you to make

red enchantment destruction now I get to stop and go wait a minute, red can destroy enchantments, that's not something the color pie can do. Okay, they're wrong, I just stopped listening. But by going a little bit deeper and saying okay, I want to understand why they want that. What exactly is going on? Why do they want red enchantment destruction? And when I listen to them, for example,

they might explain that they play with their friend and they have a mono-color red deck and their friend has a mono-color white deck and their friend just has enchantments they can't deal with. And it's really frustrating to them. And it makes them feel hopeless. It makes them not enjoy the game. And so when I dig a little deeper, I'm like, okay, they're feeling frustrated. They're feeling hopeless. You know, that is really, well, I mean, I'm

jumping ahead of myself, but it helps me get deeper into listening. I just realized I jumped to the second section. We'll come back to that second section in a second. And number four is understanding motivations is when you listen deeper part of understanding why somebody wants something is not just why they want the thing they want but why, what exactly is causing them to want it and that, one of the most important things about listening is while you might disagree with why somebody wants something,

you will often understand the motivations behind it, that there's a lot of shared things. They get into the emotional part. You'll see there's a lot of shared connection that somebody, for example, might want to do something you disagree with, but the reason they want to do it, you might a hundred percent agree with like, oh, I understand that frustration with that thing. I too get that. Oh, I wouldn't do what you're doing to solve that problem. But oh, I now understand your problem and I share. I recognize the problem and understand the problem. Okay, so let's get into connecting. Okay, so number one is understand the

emotion being felt. And what that means is when somebody wants something, why? Why do they want that thing? The thing they're telling you when I say to dig deeper, what I'm saying is get to the core of the experience. Like for example, when I was doing the psychographics, so Tammy and Timmy, Jenny and Johnny, Spike, that was all about, well, why do people play? Not just on the surface level of what kind of cards do they like.

It wasn't just, oh, Tammy likes big creatures. It was going deeper than that. Like, well, what exactly does Timmy and Tammy want out of the game? They're like, oh, they're in it for the experience. They want to do things that give them an emotional rush. Oh, okay. And once you sort of dig a little deeper and you understand the motivation, it really opens things up and makes you understand.

Because one of the things that I think is important is that emotions are pretty universal. I mean, why you might feel a certain emotion versus another people might vary, but the emotion itself is something you can connect to. Okay, so number two is find the emotions in yourself. So let me talk a little bit. I used to do a lot of acting in my youth. I was in a lot of plays. I wrote some plays.

And I took a whole bunch of acting classes. So I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. There's a place called the Cleveland Playhouse. And at the time, I don't know if they still have it or not. It was called the Cleveland Playhouse Youth Theater. One word. And they had classes every Saturday. And I used to go every Saturday and take classes. And it was like the whole morning long. It was like three hours. And usually you would have like a warm-up class and then three different classes you would take. And they would be on different topics.

So one of the classes I took was called Finding the Truth. It got recommended to me. And what they explained to me was, okay, I have to do a scene. I want to be a good actor. So let's say, for example, you have a character who lost their mother to cancer. Okay, now let's say you haven't lost your mother to cancer. Okay, well, how do I play a character that lost their mother to cancer?

How do I do that? How do I fulfill that role? So what the teacher explains is, okay, first thing you need to do is go find somebody who has lost their mother to cancer. Now, it could be a real person, like you could go talk to someone face-to-face. That was their favorite because you could ask questions and stuff. Or you could watch a movie or read a book or read an article or find somebody who's experienced this who is communicating it. And there's many ways to do that.

Like I said, his favorite was finding an actual person because face-to-face you get asked questions and things. And when you talk to that person, what you then need to do is figure out, okay, listen to what they're saying and then try to understand what emotions did it evoke. You know, they lost their mother to cancer. How do they feel? And one of the things about the reason you want to talk to people is there are emotions that come out of it you might not realize. So, for example, let's say you talk to them, and one of the big feelings is, you know, you talk to someone who lost their mom at a young age,

and then maybe the character lost their mom at a young age to cancer, and they say, you know what? I felt many things. I felt sad, this and that. I felt angry. But I also felt a sense of betrayal. I felt betrayed. And so you say, okay, sadness, anger, betrayal.

Okay, now you then go to your own life and say, when did I feel sad? When was a moment that I feel real sad? When was a moment that I felt angry? When was a moment that I felt betrayed? And ideally, can you find something in which you had multiple emotions together? And then when you're acting, you say, okay, I need to capture sadness and anger and betrayal.

And I'm going to use my real life experience to tap into real emotions, but I'm going to apply it to the situation. What the teacher explained is, if you feel betrayal and you emote for your acting a sense of betrayal, the audience has no idea where your real betrayal came from, but they understand that in the play, oh, well, you lost your mother to cancer, so they go, oh, well, that must, the sense of betrayal must have come from that, you know what I'm saying? And then they connect it to that. And that when you have real emotions tied to the proper scene, it reads, it reads correct. And that you, the actor now, oh, well, they've, you know, in the play, they've lost their mother to cancer. And wow, they're sad

and they're angry and they're betrayed. That reads so real that part of finding the truth is a lot of what I'm saying today is listening, understanding, and then connecting to that. And so when you, the first step of this is, okay, I got to listen to them and I got to understand what emotion is it. Then I got to look within and understand the emotion within myself. So for example, the person who wants the red enchantment instruction, I tap into it and I sense this frustration and hopelessness. Okay, well, let me think back to my magic playing. Have I had moments where I was frustrated or hopeless?

I have. I know exactly what that feels like. And so I can say, okay, I get what it is. I get what they're coming to. So the third thing is don't judge the emotion. What it means by that is it is not your job when you're trying to understand somebody. It is not. You need to accept that as how they feel. So the story I told in my article was I was a camp counselor for many

years and I always liked working with the youngest kids. And normally, the boys tended to work with the older kids and not the younger kids. So, the six and seven-year-olds where I worked, I was the only boy counselor. A lot of girls loved the only boy counselor. So, I remember there was a little girl, I think her name was Stacy, and she had never been to camp before. She was like six. She was really afraid. This was something. she had not been away from her parents. And her comfort thing, so she had a little Care Bear. So for those who don't know what a Care Bear is, Care Bears are these, they were toys and they were video, they had a little show.

And they all had symbols on their tummy that represented some kind of emotion. Anyway, this one had a sun on it. So I'm trying to relate to Stacy. So I get down on her level. And so you want the eye contact to be the same level. So I kneel down. I'm talking to her. And I'm trying to connect with her because she's upset.

And so I say, oh, you have a Care Bear. And she smiles and she goes, yes. And so I say, oh, I see it has a sun on it. Is this Sun Bear? And she goes, no, it's Fun Shine Bear. And then just starts crying hysterically. Okay, so eventually I calm her down and I get her to, you know, I take a swallow to the bottom with her. And when I'm walking back to my co-convict, and I get her to, you know, I take a while to bond with her.

And when I'm walking back to my co-con, I'm like, oh, man, I got to learn the Care Bear names. And they're like, why? And I'm like, oh, well, like, you know, A, the Care Bears are pretty popular among the kids. And Stacey in particular, look, she's really having a hard time. She clearly bonds with the Care Bears. I need to understand the Care Bears a little better. And my conscience was like, who cares? Who cares about the Care Bears?

And I'm like, look, she cares about the Care Bears. Our kids care about the Care Bears. You know, that part of connecting with somebody is recognizing that they care about something. you know, and that me, you know, dealing with little Stacy, it wasn't that I had to say, oh, the Care Bears are awesome. I had to respect that to her, the Care Bears were important. And a lot of listening is when you get to the heart of the emotion is not judging the emotion, not judging what is happening, but understanding that to that person,

like, a real big mistake is someone's sad about something, they go, you shouldn't be sad about that. Like, no, they are sad about that. You know, part of connecting to it is saying, okay, I've been sad, I understand how it felt for me when I was sad, and the things I was sad about were important to me. The things they're sad about are important to them. And you can't, you have to respect the fact they feel the way they do and respect the emotion that they're feeling. Even if to you, that emotion and that thing don't

connect, that doesn't mean it doesn't connect to them. They had different life experiences or different things that matter to them. You know. There might be other factors that you're unaware of. Really what's important is you have to respect that to them, that is the thing that matters. And that a lot of what empathy is, is saying, okay, I'm going to take time and energy to understand what they're feeling, why they're feeling it, and then, rather than scoff at it, rather than belittle it, connect with the fact of, like, on some level,

everybody has experienced the range of human emotions. You in your life have been very sad about something. So if somebody else is very sad about something, don't judge what they're sad about. Help them with their sadness. That if something makes somebody really sad, you have to acknowledge, you know what I'm saying, part of being a good game designer is saying, okay, what exactly, how are my game components, how are my players feeling about them?

And let's say I make something and it makes a good portion of my audience upset in some way. It does not do me any good to go, well, that's dumb that they're upset about that. No, they're upset about it. The way you need to do is you need to deal with how they're feeling, not judge how they're feeling. So for example, this is where play testing comes in. I do a play test and the majority of my audience really dislikes something. I could sit there and go, well, that's weird. I don't think they should dislike it. That's not helping me at all. I have to recognize they do dislike it.

And as somebody who's trying to make a game that people want, that you want to sell to people, that people want to play, you need to respect what they feel about it. If you make something and the majority of the playtesters are telling you, I don't like that, no matter how much you like that thing, you need to take that into account.

And the reason that empathy is so important is, okay, I have a problem. I do a playtest. Players don't like something. Well, it's not enough for me to just know they don't like it. I need to know why they don't like it. Because if I don't understand why they don't like it, maybe I replace it with something they dislike just as much.

And part of understanding why they dislike it will help me fix it. A lot of times, for example, they don't like something, and what I realize is, oh, they don't like this component of it. But if I get rid of this component, the rest of it is something they can like. You know, there's this expression, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. A lot of times when you're trying to fix something, if you don't have the information, if you don't understand your audience, if you don't understand why they dislike something, you can actually do more harm than good. Because, for example, let's say you have, you know,

ten component pieces, and nine they really like and one they don't if you don't understand the one they don't you might throw out other valuable things that make your game work that they like you know i'm saying and that that is why sort of being empathetic and having you know why listening is so important um like one of the things i stress in the article is the reason I consider myself to be good at my job, a big part of it is that I've created this means and ways to connect with my audience. You know, the reason Magic does a lot of things

that players really want us to do is not a mystery. You tell us what you want. I listen. You know, my job is making sure that we make us what you want. I listen. You know, my job is making sure that we make things that you want. Well, how do I do that? How do I know what you want? Well, there's a hidden secret. You guys will tell me

if I just do take the steps I need to understand. And like I said, it's more than just knowing what you want. It's also understanding why you want it. You know, part of making new things for you, sometimes I got to make things you don't know's also understanding why you want it. You know, part of making new things for you, sometimes I got to make things you don't know you want, but you'll enjoy. How do I do that? By extrapolating, by saying, oh, well, here's the things they're telling me

they want and why they're telling me. And if I understand the motivation behind it, I can extrapolate and use that motivation to find things you hadn't thought of, but that I can put in the game. And so the reason I'm good at my job, a big part of it, is because I take the time and energy to connect with my audience and listen to my audience and understand what it is they want.

Now, be aware, and this is a whole other podcast, the audience isn't always right in the sense that, you know, the audience, I mean, the audience is always correct about how they feel. But sometimes their suggestions on how to fix it, and this goes into my 20 lessons, isn't necessarily the right way to fix it.

You know, you have to take it with a grain of salt, the audience's advice, but you should always listen to the audience's feelings. The audience will be a really good barometer of how they're feeling about something, whether they like it or not, That you need to listen to. Now, there are solutions to things. They don't know all the parameters of the problem sometimes. Oh, I mean,

I did a whole podcast on this, so you guys can go listen to that. But anyway, empathy is important. A little secret here is also important in life. Everything I've said today applies to life,

beyond just game design, but it's also super important to game design but anyway I hope you guys enjoyed today's thing how we do on time oh not too bad

but anyway if you want to if you haven't I did write an article called Other People's Shoes oddly I have two articles called Other People's Shoes but the later one

the one I just wrote in 2019 anyway you can go listen to that I'm sorry you can go read that if you also if you like this

this podcast and haven't read it you can go read that that. I'm sorry, you can go read that. If you also, if you like this podcast and haven't read it, you can go read that. Um, but anyway, um, I just want to thank you all for listening. But I am at work. So we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.