Something You Should Know - How to be a Great Customer So You Get What You Want & What do Facebook and Google Really Know About You?

Episode Date: January 28, 2019

We have all heard how some people become sad or depressed during the winter months? Maybe it’s the lack of sunlight or the social isolation of winter – or maybe it’s all a myth. I begin this episode with a look at Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and reveal how real it really is. http://medicalresearch.com/mental-health-research/depression/sad-no-relationshipbetween-sunlight-and-depression/20863/ Have you heard of “surveillance capitalism”? It’s the business of collecting data on you and me and then selling that data to others. Google Facebook and a lot of other companies do it. It’s legal – but should it be? Shoshana Zuboff, a professor at Harvard and author of the book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (https://amzn.to/2UlNag5) joins me to explore this highly lucrative business and explains we should all be concerned about it and why it could mean the end of privacy as we know it. As winter storms approach, it is common for people to rush to the grocery and stock up on staples like bread and milk. Often to the point of leaving store shelves bare. But why? Storms only last a day or two. Why are we hoarding supplies as if we will be stranded for weeks? I’ll explain the psychology of all that. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/happy-trails/201601/panic-shopping-the-psychology-the-bread-milk-eggs-rush As a customer you interact with a lot of professional people – waiters, store clerks, doctors, hair dressers teachers and a lot of others. Sometimes those interactions go horribly wrong. So what can you do to make sure things go right? Lynette Padwa author of the book, Say the Magic Words:How to Get What You Want from the People Who Have What You Need (https://amzn.to/2MyhX6A) talked with those professionals and discovered the secrets to making your encounters go well so that you get exactly what you want and everyone is happy. Listen to discover how.   This Week’s Sponsors -Capterra. Visit www.Capterra.com/something to find the best software solutions for your business -ADT. Go to www.ADT.com/smart to learn how ADT can design and install a smart home system for you. -Geico. Go to www.Geico.com to see how Geico can save you money on your car insurance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, seasonal affective disorder. The idea that some people get depressed during the winter. I'll explain why it's all baloney. Then Google, Facebook, and other companies have data on you that they sell to others. It's called surveillance capitalism and it's a little scary. There's really no one to call. It's not like we can call Facebook or Google or the other hundreds of surveillance capitalists and say, I really don't like this. Could you please skip me? Then when a winter storm approaches, why do people stock up on food as if they'll be stranded for weeks? Plus, when you know how to be a great customer, you can get just about anything from anyone. Everyone wants to succeed and they hate to fail, from your doctor to anybody else. So if you give them the impression that they

will succeed with you, things go much more easily. All this today on Something You Should Know. As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know is all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes.

Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily.

And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome. If you've ever had, as a customer, you've ever had a bad experience with someone at the bank, or a store, or a waiter, or your doctor, or whoever, even your child's teacher. If you've ever had a bad interaction, you'll want to listen to the second interview in today's episode, because it will help prevent those bad experiences from ever happening again.

First up today, I want to talk about Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. It's that condition where people become depressed during the winter. The theory is that something about the wintertime triggers sadness. Less sunlight, shorter days, less social interaction, whatever it is, that supposedly some people become depressed during that time and then they become less depressed in spring and summer. Well, it turns out that this theory is bogus. A study published by the Association for Psychological Science has determined that seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, doesn't actually exist.

They looked at data from about 34,000 people and found that there is no evidence that symptoms of depression were associated with the seasons. People who responded to the survey in winter months or during times of low sunlight exposure did not have noticeably higher depression levels than those who responded at other times of the year. So why is this important? Well, pursuing treatment based on a false cause is unlikely to lead to a good recovery. If you tell a depressed person that what he or she needs is more sunlight to ease their depression, well, that really doesn't do anything. And that is something you should know.

So you've no doubt heard that companies like Google and Facebook have compiled data on you, and they in turn use that data and sell that data to other companies in order to understand your behavior and predict your future behavior and try to sell you things based on what they know about you. And it turns out they know quite a bit about you. A lot of people are very concerned about this, and many other people aren't very aware of the length and the depth of this all. Shoshana Zuboff understands it very well. She is a professor

at Harvard Business School, and she's author of a new book called The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Hi, Shoshana. Welcome. Hi, Michael. I'm delighted to be here. It's an honor. Thank you. So explain and define surveillance capitalism. Surveillance capitalism takes something that lives outside of the marketplace, which is our private experience, and it brings it into the marketplace to be reborn as behavioral data. So surveillance capitalists unilaterally claim our private human experience for their market purposes. They do this through methods that are designed to bypass our awareness so that we are kept in ignorance as far as when they're doing this, how they're doing this, and so forth. So essentially, Google, Facebook, and presumably other companies are tracking our activity online, what we do, what ads we click on,

what websites we visit, and then they then use that information and sell that information so that companies can try to sell us other stuff based on our patterns. And this has been going on a long time, right? This whole sequence was first applied in the context of online targeted advertising, but has since become a far more general application that has gone not only beyond its origins in Google, later transferred to Facebook, later became the default model in Silicon Valley,

but is now cutting across every economic sector from insurance to transportation, all kinds of products and services, obviously finance, entertainment, health, and so forth. Really producing what we can say at this point is a full-blown economic order of surveillance. What's wrong with figuring out what you do online and use that information to figure out what you like so that we can target more ads to you so you might like them? Yeah, maybe it's intrusive, but what's the

inherent evil here? What's wrong with that? Well, that's a really good question. What is wrong with that? In order for this to be effective, surveillance capitalists understood early on what all the research data shows, going all the way back to even a well-known survey done in 2008. And most of the surveys done since then come to the same conclusion, including some material published just last week by Pew Research. The bottom line there is that when people know about these operations, they don't like them and they don't want to be entangled in them. And so it became clear right from the start that the only way you're going to be able to claim private human experience for translation into behavioral data is to do it in a way that folks can't detect. So these methods are designed as a one-way mirror. They take from us in ways that are

designed to be secret and designed to engineer our ignorance. I view that as inherently illegitimate, because what it does is rob us of the decision rights. It robs us of the right to combat. It robs us of the right to say no. It robs us of the right to exit, because we have no knowledge, we have no awareness, we're not informed. Therefore, we have no informed choice that robs us of our decision rights that might allow us to exit or to contest or to combat. We don't have voice because if we don't know what's going on, it's very

difficult to form an opinion and exercise our voice. Furthermore, there's really no one to call. It's not like we can call Facebook or Google or any one of the other hundreds and hundreds of surveillance capitalists who've come online since their pioneering efforts and say, I really don't like this. Could you please skip me? So I want to ask and comment on and ask you about a couple of things you've said. So you said that companies are surveilling us without our knowledge and we don't know what they're up to and we can't see it. It's a one-way mirror. Well, so what information are they getting? My understanding was that they're gathering information about my online behavior,

and they don't necessarily even know it's me, Mike Carruthers. He's now looking at that website and clicking on that ad for those shoes. They just know that somebody at that IP address looks at that, and so we could serve him up other ads. Also, you said that they you know, they're doing surveilling us secretly. Well, you walk down the street in any major city and you're being surveilled on camera. People are taking your picture. I don't know what they're doing with it, but that's the price you pay for walking around

in public in a major city in the 21st century. It just is. But I don't know of any big harm that comes from that. You said that we don't have a choice, but I mean, essentially you do. You don't know of any big harm that comes from that. You said that we don't have a choice, but I mean, essentially you do. You don't have to go on Facebook. You don't have to use Google. But if you do, these are private websites that there's no price to use them. But the price you pay is that they keep information on you. I guess I don't see the big evil here. You just said that you do have choice.

And the point I'm just making is that one doesn't have choice if one doesn't know that it's going on in the first place. So last week, Pew publishes this research about folks learning about the categories that Facebook creates for advertisers. And the interesting thing about the research that Pew published last week is that the great majority of participants in the survey didn't even know that this was going on. And we're talking about just last week. So it's not like, oh, in 2005, I didn't know this was going on. Even with all the means of social participation, what is required from me to just be able to live my daily life in an effective way, whether it's communicating with my classmates or communicating with my child's teachers, communicating with the IRS or my bank or arranging dinner with my friends. Almost all of these activities require us to move through surveillance capitalism's supply chains. And I get that. I understand that. But what I want to understand is the so what, which I want to ask you about in a moment.

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Visit Capterra.com slash something for free today to find the right tools to make 2019 the year for your business. Capterra.com slash something. Capterra, that's C-A-P-T-E-R-R-A dot com slash something. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared.

It's the podcast where great minds meet. and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today.

Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Buntwine, erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator. Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving God and we are not its favored children. The heresies of Randolph Bantwine, wherever podcasts are available. I'm speaking with Shoshana Zuboff. She is author of a book called The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. So, Shoshana, I'm listening to what you're saying, and I don't disagree with what you're saying. It is kind of creepy to think that Google and Facebook are amassing all this information about me and what I do online and all that. I get that. But what I'm trying to understand is,

what's the worst that could happen? Pick a victim of surveillance capitalism and what's the worst that has ever happened to someone because of this? I'm not talking about data breaches and credit cards because that's illegal. But surveillance capitalism is not illegal. So what's the worst that has happened or potentially could happen to an individual because they have this data? Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about the idea of a smart home. In the year 2017, two scholars from the University of London do an analysis of one single smart home device, in this case, the Nest thermostat. Nest, as most folks will say, on your bedroom wall, a vigilant consumer would want to review at least 1,000 contracts, privacy agreements, terms of service agreements, and user licensing licensing agreements and so forth.

1,000 contracts at a minimum because the device siphons data and these data are siphoned off to third parties for which Nest takes no responsibility. Those third parties have their own privacy policies where they say that the data is siphoned off into another generation of third parties. Nest also takes no responsibility for that, and so forth and so on in an infinite regress. So from the very start, we have a bringing down the walls, if you will, to continue the metaphor of the home, bringing down the walls of our lives so that there really is no such thing as privacy. Once we've done this, there really is no way to be in the world as we're surrounded by these devices in our in our kitchens, in our living rooms, with our phones in our pockets, or as we're walkingiphoning these data into all kinds of third parties, where they are eventually agglomerated spying on me in my own home, but the Nest thermostat doesn't have a microphone in it. It doesn't have a camera in it. Other than knowing that this guy likes it at 72 degrees at night, what could they possibly know about me? Well, they know a lot of things. They know when you're home and when you're not home. There are many things that allow them to infer the patterns of activity in your house.

There are discussions about you have the Nest thermostat and then you have a mattress that I write about called the Sleep Cutel mattress, which also in order to get the benefits of the mattress, which adjusts itself to improve your sleep, it also picks up and records the audio signals in your bedroom, the mattress can be tied into the nest system, the ecosystem. So now we can add sleep patterns and audio signals from the bedroom into this pipeline that's flowing from your home into these supply chains and down out to various third parties. And so, you know, each of these devices and, you know, Nest is the kind of device that sort of anchors an ecosystem. Other devices connect to the ecosystem and other things are being picked up and channeled. So, you know, the more devices you pile onto this and the more connection and linkage

and allowing these ecosystems to flourish, it's really more of a question of, you know, what data can they not get? Well, but you had said earlier that we don't have a choice. Well, you have a choice if you buy a Nest thermostat or not, or if you buy this mattress that you're talking about or not. And I have a Nest thermostat. You don't have to hook it up to the Internet, so the information goes nowhere.

So you have that option. You do have that option of not sharing your information with Nest. And one of the things that I find quite striking and may indicate either a people don't know much about this, or maybe they don't care and don't see the harm, are smart speakers. These smart speakers like Alexa, I mean, talk about eavesdropping. There's a device that has a microphone that can listen to what's

going on in the room because you talk to it and ask it questions. And these things are flying off the shelves. Smart speakers are selling like crazy. And you can't say people don't know. You'd have to be an idiot not to realize that Alexa is listening to you. That's the whole purpose of Alexa. So my point is that this is moving forward.

People are buying into this. And I don't know how you put the, you know, the toothpaste back in the tube at this point, because this is the way things are now. So the first thing we're seeing here is certainly an end to privacy as we've known it. And just at that level, let's look at some of the kinds of harms because now as these data about us are traveling through these ecosystem and supply chains, they're ending up in all kinds of places. And they're being used in the production of algorithms. And those algorithms might indicate, you know, what kind of credit risk you are, Michael. Or they might indicate what kind of health profile you have. And that might influence the kind of insurance rates that you are offered.

Or they might offer some insights into your personality, your character, even your trustworthiness, because those are all forms of analyses that are being done on these data. And that might be bought up by a broker that then sells the data on to companies that they review when they are interested in hiring people. And this may influence how a prospective employer views you when you apply for a job. So there are just at the level of the loss of control over who knows what about me, the loss of your ability to know what's going on, because as I've said, these things are happening behind stage these are backstage operations and you say well people must know about this but the fact is that people don't know about this but i have to say that the way you're talking about this is you know that they're

taking this data and they're coming up with perhaps recommendations on your trustworthiness or your credit score. Well, maybe they're right. And maybe someone needs to know how trustworthy I am or how good my credit is. That maybe that information is actually serving a positive purpose. The fact that they have this information doesn't inherently make it sinister or negative. It just is. I mean, a miniature example of what you're talking about is how we all use credit cards.

We all use them to buy things and to pay, and all of that information of what we buy, how we pay, do we pay on time, all of that information is kept by somebody, and we get a credit history and a credit score. It's the way the game is played. Everybody plays it. I don't hear people screaming and yelling that you shouldn't know what I bought at the store. It just is. So I hear that there's certainly a potential for abuse of this information, but I still don't know what it is, because I haven't heard you say

who's been harmed by this. But assuming the potential is there, what do we do about it? All right, let's talk about what we do about this. So I believe that the fact that we're talking about capitalism here, we're talking about an economic logic. And it's very important to distinguish this from the technology itself. So these are two very separate categories. And we're in a situation now where this surveillance capitalism has essentially hijacked the digital and commanded it into action for its own interests. So it's all about us, but it's not for us. And this is a fundamental problem and misalignment that it no longer can claim to serve our interests. So this begins with a sea change in public opinion. We have to understand that these are illegitimate processes. We have to allow ourselves to feel outrage. We have to move into new forms of collective action and collaborative

action. Think of a digital tea party. And that's the kind of thing that is going to result in new law, new regulatory regimes. Our societies have experience in taming the excesses of raw capitalism. We did it successfully to end the Gilded Age. We did it successfully during the Depression. We did it successfully in the post-war era. And we can do that again. It's mustering our democratic resources through public opinion and transferring that ultimately into new law and democratic oversight that now shapes or any device that hooks to the internet, somebody's watching. And what happens with that information? Well, we'll see how this all plays out. Shoshana Zuboff has been my guest. The book is called The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, and you'll find a link to that book in the show notes for this episode. Thanks, Shoshana.

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Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Every day, you interact with people in the role of customer or client. People like hairdressers, doctors, store owners, even your kid's teacher. All kinds of people where you are in the role of the customer.

And what's interesting is that how you interact in those situations, what you bring to the conversation, and when you bring it, has a huge impact on the outcome. Lynette Padua took a deep dive into this a few years back. What happened was she was having some rather unsatisfactory conversations with her kid's teacher, and she got to thinking, well, what could she do? What could she bring to the conversations that would change the outcome? And then she thought about, well, what about all these other interactions we have with people at the bank or waiters or doctors or lawyers or whoever? What can we as the client or the customer do to help ensure that we get the best outcome

from these interactions? And she wrote about it in a book called Say the Magic Words, How to Get What You Want from the People Who Have What You Need. Hi, Lynette. So how did you delve into this? How did you do the research to figure this out? You know what I did? I interviewed these people, hairdressers, waiters,

doctors, lawyers. I interviewed them. I researched them. I read the kinds of magazines that they read, their trade magazines. So I found out about their perspective from their point of view. And they're very willing to talk to me because nobody usually asks them how they feel about us, their clients. Right. Because when we're the customer, we're the client, it's, you know, the customer's always right. It's about what the customer wants, so we don't really necessarily think to ask, what do they want? No, we always go into these situations thinking about ourselves, naturally.

And if you can just step out of it for a moment and look at it from the other person's point of view, that gives you a lot of power. Because the most interesting thing I discovered writing this book was that everyone wants to succeed and they hate to fail, from your doctor to anybody else. So when they first meet you, if they are getting the feeling that you are going to make them fail, they close up. They don't want to deal with you. If they're getting the feeling that you are going to make them fail, they close up. They don't want to deal with you. If you give them the impression that they will succeed with you, they love you, they want to help you, and things go much more easily.

That's just human nature, isn't it? It is. And like you say, though, you don't really think about it. When we go see the doctor or the hairdresser, we're really thinking about what we want, but we're not thinking about the best way to communicate it to them. And we're not really thinking about making their lives any easier. But by making their life easier, we get what we want. So it's sort of a circular thing. The hairdresser is a really good example.

We all go to the stylist, and we try to explain in words how we want our hair to look. That doesn't really work with them. You really have to bring a picture or a point because they're not exactly on our wavelength. When we say an inch, they're thinking something different. When we use words like trim, they're thinking something different. So you really have to bring them pictures or points. And one fascinating thing I found out about hairdressers is that if they do something you don't like, if you end up really disliking the cut or the color, they're usually happy to fix it for free. They want to keep your business.

They don't care that much about your friendship. It's a very, it ends up feeling like a very personal relationship. But in reality, they're not going to get upset or insulted. They just want you to remain a client. Well, that makes perfect sense, too, because it isn't really a friendship, although maybe it sort of feels like that because it's kind of intimate. But how many people hang out with their hairdresser? It's really a professional relationship.

Right. But because they're touching your hair and it just seems sort of personal and people start confessing a lot of stuff to their hairdressers sometimes. It's a different kind of business relationship. So those lines get blurry. Sometimes you end up feeling like you don't want to insult the stylist. So if they do something you don't like, you just go away and never go back to them. And that just loses them business. So it evolves to a situation that isn't good for anyone, and it's better just to be kind, you can say, that cut didn't turn out the way I expected it to. You don't have to say, I hate that cut.

But give them a chance to fix it because a lot of times they can't. Well, let's talk about waiters because there are good waiters and bad waiters and we have all dealt with both. And I'm sure if you talk to waiters, they'll tell you there are good customers and bad customers, and they have to deal with both. So that's an interesting interaction, the customer and waiter. Well, waiters really get the brunt of everybody's bad mood a lot of the time. Waiters consider themselves a very beleaguered group of people because customers get mad at them and the chefs get mad at them

and they sort of get it from all sides. So if you go into a restaurant, try to be nice to the waiter. A lot of people just use the waiter as the one person that they can dump on because they have power in that situation. But the waiter actually has a lot of power. They have the power to mess up your food. Unfortunately, they've been known to do that. If you are really rude to a waiter, they can do anything to your food in the back room.

And trust me, many of them do. So it behooves you to treat the waiter politely. If you go into a restaurant frequently, to leave a decent tip. That's 20%, even at breakfast. And when they come over to take your order, say hello. Look them in the eye. Treat them like a person, not like some sort of servant. Yeah, well, wait a minute, though.

People sometimes get lousy waiters, and often you go to a restaurant, perhaps a very expensive restaurant. You're spending a lot of money for not only the food, but for the experience, and the waiter wrecks it. So what do you do when you have a crappy waiter? Well, crappy waiters, you know, it can only be bad once. I mean, you never have to go there again. And there's really not much you can do about it if it's a really terrible waiter, except not return to the restaurant and tell the manager what happened.

I mean, the more common situation is it's a restaurant that you go to a lot and you haven't bothered to treat the waiters very nicely and they remember you and then they'll give you bad service because you don't tip them well and you haven't been very nice to them well sometimes maybe but i've been to restaurants where i have been nothing but nice as a customer and still gotten poor service and a lousy attitude from a waiter you have have to make up your mind, as I have, are you going to take the higher road? You know, yes, you can treat a waiter nicely and conceivably. They'll still be a bad waiter, but most of the time,

they are really grateful if you're nice to them and if you say hello. But the waiters I talked to, I interviewed a lot of them, and they said what they hate is when they come home from the table and the person just barks out an order, you know, coffee, doesn't bother to treat them like a human being, then they're not going to bother to get your food to you very quickly because they feel like they have no power. So they use their little power they have any way they can just to make your life miserable in small ways if you haven't been nice to them. It's kind of like the golden rule.

The golden rule really works well in these situations. Treat them the way you would like to be treated. Yeah, well, that's true in many circumstances in life. I mean, the funny thing about the professions in this book, which were everything from a hotel, reservation, persons, landlords, doctors, realtors, contractors. There's 18 different professions in the book. And most of them involve money that you're paying the person. I think the exception was teachers and politicians. But even though money exchanges hands,

money is not really the root of what makes these relationships work well. It's always about human interaction, understanding the other person's perspective, their biases, and what they like, and being able to play to those so that they will give you good service. So let's talk about teachers, because you just mentioned them. And also, you said one of the reasons you wrote the book and one of the reasons you really got into this topic

was because of conversations you were having with your child's teacher. So let's talk about that. The most interesting thing I learned about teachers was to never go into the parent-teacher conference openly clutching your child's papers. Because the minute they see the papers in your hand, they clench up. They know you're going to challenge them about something. And that is a very bad way to start out that parent-teacher conference.

So even if you want to ask them about a grade, keep the papers in your purse or your briefcase and establish a rapport with the teacher first, and then later on in the conference you can bring the papers out. What is it do you think that teachers want from parents? What do you think they're hoping the parent will say or what? The biggest thing that teachers want is they want to know they're making a difference in the life of your child and that your child trusts and likes them.

They really care. If they didn't, they wouldn't be teaching. They're there because they love kids and they want to make a difference. So a wonderful way to start out the conference is to say something like, Little Mary really loves the way you tell stories. Or, you know, Mark says no one else has ever taught math as well as you do it. And it's even worthwhile to ask your child before you go into the conference, what do you really like about this teacher?

And they can usually come up with something. And then you use that to just start the conversation off with a piece of flattery that's honest. You don't want to lie about it. But an honest piece of flattery about how much your child likes what they're doing. Because that's what they're in it for. I came out of writing this chapter about teachers with a lot of respect for teachers. So they have a hard job, and they're doing it because they care.

And another thing that can sort of help is if you give them feedback about your child, what is your child's hobbies, what are they interested in, give them something specific about your child that will is your child's hobbies? What are they interested in? Give them something specific about your child that'll give them a way in to teach them a little bit better. I think one of the things parents wonder about in this interaction with a teacher, but also, it probably applies to other interactions as well. Do these parent-teacher conferences really have an impact? Do they really mean anything?

Or is it just for you as the parent to get something out of it and learn more about what's going on in the classroom? Or is there something else going on? I think it has an impact because teachers, as I say, they really want to know they're making a difference. And all of this is human interaction. If they know that your child really loves something that they do, they will give your child more attention. It's all cumulative.

And parents really care about parent-teacher conferences when children are in grade school. So that's your only chance to have any influence whatsoever, unless you're able to volunteer in a classroom every day. Not everybody is able to do that. By the way, one thing you can do with the teacher at the end of the year, you know, some parents give gifts if they've liked the teacher. A really great thing to do is to write a letter to the teacher, and I'm copying it to the principal, saying how much you like the teacher, what a great job she did,

so that it goes in that teacher's file, and the principal knows the teacher's doing a good job. They really appreciate that. And one thing parents sometimes aren't aware of is how much teachers talk to each other. So if you get the reputation of a person who is good to deal with and who writes these nice flattering letters at the end of the year, teachers talk about that, and next year your son or daughter's teacher will know that you're a good person to deal with.

And that makes a difference. Your reputation within the school does make a difference. Well, when you stop and think about it, really, if you just put yourself in the other person's shoes, whether it's the teacher, the doctor, the waiter, the hairdresser, and think about, well, if I were in their shoes, what would I want? What would motivate me to give better service, whatever the case may be? It really doesn't take much to figure it out

or to get a sense of what you need to do to be that ideal customer to get that ideal service. So I appreciate that. Lynette Padwa has been my guest. The book is called Say the Magic Words, How to Get What You Want from the People Who Have What You Need. There's a link to her book in the show notes. Thanks, Lynette. So far this winter, we have had some pretty big snowstorms and rainstorms

all over the United States and in many other parts of the world. And there are plenty more winter storms to come, I suspect. What's interesting is that when a storm is approaching, people rush to the grocery store and stock up on eggs and milk and bread and other staples, so much so that many stores find their shelves bare. And it seems to happen every time a big storm approaches. But why? The worst that could happen is you'll be stuck in a house for a day or two at the most. And how much milk and how many omelets are you going to eat in a day or two? Well, according to psychology today, this is all partly a sense of being prepared. Having a full stock of food just makes us feel good in the face of this uncertain storm that's approaching.

It gives us a sense of control. And in many ways, it's as simple as that. There's also this ritual of it, that the pre-storm grocery run is just something we do, and we are members of a community. In this sense, it's not unlike putting up a Christmas tree or having a Labor Day cookout. Everybody does it, so we do it.

It's a ritual. The storm's approaching, and we go to the store. And that is something you should know. Last I checked, we were at something like 1,600 and something reviews on Apple Podcasts. I'd like to get to 2000. If you haven't left a review for this podcast yet, even if it's not on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, TuneIn, wherever you listen, please take a moment and leave a rating and review. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer,

unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.