The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Leidy Klotz Joined Jerry Miller Live On “The I Love CVille Show!”

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

Leidy Klotz, UVA Professor & Author of Subtract, joined me live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

Good Tuesday afternoon, guys. I'm Jerry Miller. Thank you kindly for joining us on the I Love Seville Show. It's great to connect with you guys through our flagship show on the I Love Seville Network. Today's program is one we have looked forward to for a couple of weeks now. We have a UVA professor in the house named Lainty Klotz. He is not just an acclaimed and award-winning professor. He is a talented author.

He's an international speaker. He's a father, a former professional soccer player. And for the last 20 minutes, we've enjoyed his company in our studio, and he seems like a guy that you just want to sit next to and belly up to a bar and just talk about life with. And Lighty Clots, you will see in a matter of moments. I encourage you, the viewer, and listener, to offer some questions or help shape the conversation

by putting your questions or your comments in whatever chat box you're watching upon. As you guys know, this show airs live on all social media. platforms and archive wherever you get your social media and podcasting content. I think Judah Wickhauer and I have a bevy of questions, which I think you will see Judah and I's dynamic throughout this interview. I do want to highlight one of our partners that make the program possible. Conan Owen of Sir Speedy of Central Virginia, he's a Darden graduate. He's the CEO of Sir Speedy of Central Virginia.

And folks, if you have a logo and you need an application for scaling that logo, then Sir Speedy of Central Virginia is someone you can call. The banner that's directly behind me is a SirSpeedy product. Window decal, signage, stickers, pamphlets, direct mail, trifolds, you name it. Sir Speedy, Central Virginia has it. I'm going to introduce our guest. Lydie Klotz is an award-winning professor, international speaker, and acclaimed author. His book, Subtrak, got the I Love Sebo show talking a few weeks ago and already has generated a lot of questions.

Subtract is a scientific appreciation of why we underuse subtraction and how to access its untapped potential. As subtract highlights, we pile on to-dos, but don't consider stop doings. And boy, oh boy, do I fall victim of this. I constantly try to do more with the same amount of time. And eventually something gives. and whether that's sacrificing family time or that's not performing to the clip that I should be performing professionally or personally.

I think this book subtract is a must read, not just for you, the viewer and listener, but certainly for me. Judah Wickhauer, if you can go to the studio camera and then a two-shot as we welcome Liding to the program. The world now has eyeballs on you, Liding. Thank you kindly for joining us on the show. And if you could take a few minutes

to introduce yourself to the viewers and listeners. All right. Well, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, all the things that Jerry just said. I'm also an assistant soccer coach. You did an assistant under 11 soccer coach. So I spend a lot of time and get a lot of joy working with the kids of Charlottesville in that role. I spend time at Fry's Spring Beach Club, Formula Fitness, where else? Commerce Street Books. Those are some of my favorite places around Charlottesville. We live right by the university, and we've been here since 2016. So it's been a great place to call home, to live my life. And also, you know, UVA has been an amazing institution to work at. And it's certainly kind of enabled the things that we're going to talk about today. Rob Neal, already given you some props. Coach Lydie, good people right there. Yeah.

He's giving you love in the feed. Logan Wells Clayla, welcome to the broadcast. Two newspapers, including folks from the Cavalier Daily, watching the program as we speak. And we encourage the viewers and listeners to shape the show. All right. Let's talk about what brought you to Charlottesville and the University of Virginia. Did you say 2016? 2016, yeah.

So I was at Clemson for the first eight years of my academic career, also a great institution. But I'm from upstate New York, and we had our son, Ezra, who played soccer with Rob's son, Evan. Ezra was one and a half at the time, and it's just, it was just a really small town. and we wanted to be somewhere where the town was bigger. And, you know, the university here is obviously exceptional, too. And so I got an opportunity to come here. Another thing that's rare in academia is being able to kind of span across disciplines. I'll try not to get two in the weeds here.

But one of the nice appealing things about UVA is that I could come here and focus on ideas, not just be stuck in a box about this is the only thing that you could study. So that was appealing in addition to the great institution. and obviously the great place to live. What was the, before you got here, from your standpoint, the rep of the University of Virginia, the upside, and if there was any downside of taking this job? The upside, I think, just the amazing students.

I mean, I just, like every student here is an honor student, and not just in an academic way, but also in like a social student. way and so as a person so much of my fun and success depends on depends on having good students and you know so that's the that was the huge upside both at the undergrad level and the and the grad level I think if there's any downside it's it's not every university is slow to change but UVA because of the history I think is you know maybe that was a perceived

downside at the time, but although there's been plenty of change since I've been here. How do you describe yourself to people? Are you an author first? Are you a speaker first? Are you a researcher first? Are you a professor first? I mean, you clearly have the gift of human connection. A dad first. I love that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's my filtering mechanism. And then I think yeah, a professor and author, definitely. But I think, and then as a professor, I think thinking of my job is trying to create knowledge and trying to share

knowledge. So that's kind of the research and teaching piece. The professor, I can already tell you embody this quality. The best professors I had at UVA were ones that inspired me to think outside of the classroom and what they are teaching. They challenge, for the purpose of inspiring. Yeah. How do you describe your professor style?

That's it. I mean, I think I'd be curious, the challenge for the purpose of inspiring, I think it's, I work really hard to be able to get them, like you said, to get them to think outside of the classroom, and that is like one of the objectives of the learning objectives that I put on the syllabus is to, you know, facilitate this love for lifelong learning.

I know for me when I was in college, I was, you think about this as, like, okay, I'm getting all this information, then I'm going to go out in the world and use it, and that's not what's happening. You're learning how to learn, and when you go out in the world, you're going to need to learn more about the things that you, so if I can help them kind of get that love for learning, I'd be curious, though, I want to push them and I push myself very hard, but I, yeah, it's always a struggle between like, okay, just leaving it up to them and giving them enough flexibility where of course when you do that some are going to not do anything right

or just take advantage of that versus you know how do you how do you really push them and show them that they can do something beyond what they thought they could do before um comments continue to come in we'll get to your comments guys put them in the feed and we'll relay them um live on air i see six different states uh watching the show right now um nick juk nick duke senior on YouTube specifically asked this question, Professor of what specifically, which schools at UVA specifically, and how do you blend what you're teaching with the student today that is so focused on screens, social media, and what's in the palm of their hands? That's a great question. It is an awesome question. So my official appointment is engineering, and there's a department

of engineering and society that is kind of like engineering and how it touches the world. And then I have courtesy appointments at Darden and in the School of Architecture, which kind of brings in the design side. But that allows me to interact with students, kind of independent of discipline. I think for the first time the students are different than me. And I've been doing this for a long time. And it's the first time I felt like, okay, yeah, this is a different generation. And a lot of it's the pandemic, probably, but the screens too. I think it's really just...

You're a millennial, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so young millennial? 47, I'm 47. Okay, so you're older millennial? Older millennial. Okay. So you, this is the first time in your teaching career

where you feel like a large gap with who you're teaching. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, not like I can't relate to them, just like, yeah, they've had different life experiences than me. They have a different world view than I do. Okay. This is the first time I've felt that.

And they have, I think it's, you know, meeting them where they are, right? This is the reality, and it's not, sure, there are some things that are less than ideal, but there are also some really positive things about this generation, right? I mean, all this stuff that they're getting in school about being in touch with your emotions

and being a good person, and then they come, and you realize they have this much greater awareness in those areas and much greater ability to kind of interact across different peer groups in the classroom. And then with the technology, it's trying to work with it instead of against it. I mean, one advantage that I have is I'm not giving questions

where there's one right answer that can be Googled and now just plugged into chat GPT, right? It's like I'm asking them to think, which the computer can be a helpful tool with that, and now AI can be a helpful tool with that, but they've got to figure out how to take it further than the computer can do so. But yeah, that's kind of how I'm working with that.

So you've embraced, I, I love this approach. You've embraced the technology, the artificial intelligence, and almost welcomed it into your curriculum and classroom. Yeah, I mean, and again, my class is different than other teachers' classes. If you're teaching a class where you have to teach them how to do calculus, there's certain things you need, certain ways you need to test them. But I look at it as like they should be using AI in the same way that I use it,

which is I know how to do the things that I want to do. and then this can help make it better. And I want to give them opportunities to practice that. And there's the concerns about cheating. This may be naive, but I just, you've always been able to cheat in college. You know, it could be that you get your roommate to do the assignment for you,

and then it could be like you get an essay written for you on the internet, and now you can plug things into AI and get the answers. And of course, we don't want to make it so easy to do that, but I think you've also just got to, you can't always just be a policeman, you've got to sometimes just be a guide and trust that the students, if they want to learn, are going to learn. So again, I don't want, there are checks in place. I can tell when somebody uses AI to write a prompt and doesn't modify it at all. But if they want to use AI to generate 10 different responses and then use their brain to figure out which one is the right one and then modify that more with their writing, I mean, that's kind of the world that they're in, right?

man I have so much I want to unpack with this I got to get back to the pandemic comment so COVID was March of 2020 depending on where we call it stop into 2023 right about there yeah okay I mean definitely affecting academia all the way through there big time affecting academia through there so the students that are in school now very much reared and mature during the pandemic. The students prior to the pandemic, the students during the pandemic, and the students post-pandemic, compare and contrast them for the viewers and listeners. Okay.

Well, prior to the pandemic is just no effects. I think the students during the pandemic, like the ones who missed their junior and senior year of high school, for example, or missed their first and second year of college. I mean, if you look at, we missed like some two random years. in our that are replaceable right they missed years that you can never get back and and after about six months of the pandemic it was really clear that that group was the least at risk so they're basically sacrificing these things for the good of society so that group i think you know a tremendous sacrifice that they made out of their lives and they just you know they missed the

the social experiences for that time. So obviously this is a generalization. It's different for different students, but I think there was just a sense of, hey, we kind of missed something here. And maybe it's not that they can't like socialize. It's just that they missed two years of being able to do that and they realize they can never get it back and that kind of stinks.

And now the students coming after the pandemic, they've still missed years out of their schooling life. I mean, they're a little more familiar with the, online environment um i think they're appreciative of the opportunities to do real things in the real world um so yeah that's kind of kind of how i i would look at it i'm trying to think of the other kind of stereotypes about the pandemic um yeah i'll just leave it there how'd you manage the pandemic professionally and personally. So we had, it just felt like every day was another just survive in advance that day, figure it out.

I mean, kids not in school. And then professionally you're like, all right, well, what's class going to be like? It's going to be online. And, I mean, I remember my first class online. Like, I don't know you that well. I've spoken with you for 30 minutes. minutes here, but it would strike me from what I can tell about you in 30 minutes, you teaching through a computer screen would be the exact opposite way of how you want to teach.

Right. Because you're like a human connection person. Right, yeah. And I would tell people that... This is awful? I wouldn't say this is awful. I mean, my whole thing with class is like, hey, you have to, I make students come to my class. I'm not one of these teachers who's like, you don't need to come to class if you can learn.

You have to come to class. The whole point is that we're all in the same room together. And my promise then is that we're going to do things that we're going to do things in this room that we couldn't do on a computer screen. And now I have to do it all on the computer screen during the pandemic. So that was hard. I just tried to shift more towards forcing them

to get out in the world for their homework assignments. But yeah, that was brutal. I mean, you lose all the, you lose all the best parts of teaching with that, right? Because it's not the human connection. And you're just talking into a screen. You can't tell people are getting it. I mean, there were a few funny moments.

And there's some, I'm thankful that at least we had that option and people didn't just go away and not get anything. But that's just such a, it's not a substitute for in person. You are an author of a extremely well-received book called Subtract. Goodness gracious. Judas got it on order. I have it at my house. Viewers and listeners since, we've been talking about you for a few weeks, have been peppering us with emails and DMs about hearing about the book and how the book has connected with them in some way or another. I mentioned to you what one viewer and listener that I have a lot of respect for.

Neil Williamson said he's the president of the Free Enterprise Forum locally. He said that this book is not only quite good, but he's reminded much of Malcolm Gladwell's books as he reads it and finds it extremely compelling your book. Put subtract into perspective first, and then we'll ask some specific questions. And Judah, we can weave you in as well with a three shot when you're ready. So put it in perspective, just the elevator pitch? Sure. Yeah. I mean, so it's based on research that we did that shows that when we're trying to make change, when we're trying to change something from how it is to how we want it to

be, there's this whole class of options that we overlook, which is the options that take away from the current situation. And there's a really vivid story that kind of begins the book and also really helps illustrate the idea. I was playing Legos with my son. He was three at the time. And we were building a bridge. And the bridge wasn't level. And so I turned around behind me

to add a block to the shorter column of the bridge, right? And I turned back around with the block and my son had already removed a block from the longer column. So he had, again, if the basic situation that we're talking about is there's something we want to make better, in this case it was just a Lego bridge.

Our first thought is what can we add to it? What can we do to make this thing better? And then oftentimes we just add and move on without even thinking about this whole other class of options, which was like taking the block away, which is what he did. And so the book kind of builds from there and talks about, okay, this is something that happens, not just in the physical world, but also in our schedules, as you've alluded to. I love how you said at the beginning that time is our most precious commodity, right? I mean, that's something that I say in the book, and it's like, this is the only thing we're never getting more of, right? We're going to have less of this every moment on for the rest of our lives. less of this commodity. And then even into the world of ideas, like how you put information

into your brain, right, and how you filter what comes in. And also, like, once you have information in your brain or, you know, mental models, how do you kind of question what you already believe? So it kind of applies across all those dimensions. And then, of course, applies to all sorts of professions, right? I mean, if you think about this act of trying to make things better is kind of the unifying principle of what everybody's doing at work, right? I'm trying to help the students learn. A doctor's trying to make a patient better. A lawyer is trying to do whatever lawyers do to try to make things better.

And so that's what the book talks about. I mean, I try to use stories. That's maybe the Malcolm Gladwell analogy. I'm nowhere near is skilled a writer and storytellers Malcolm Gladwell. But stories work. I mean, stories are things that people remember. but then also try to be very true to the science and, you know, what's said about this, not just in my research, but also in research across different areas.

I know when you talked about this before, you liked the fact about people getting 100,000 words a day, right? We encounter the equivalent of 100,000 words a day. And so, you know, pulling things from other areas that are relevant to the thesis of the book. And I'll say one more thing about it, which, you know, know, it's really nice to hear people saying that this is, you know, kind of help their mindset. I mean, that, to me, is the goal of the book, is just give people a slightly clearer lens for viewing the world. And with any luck, they can also have a few more option, or one more option at their disposal when they're trying to make things better.

When you wrote the book, what did you think the reception would be? did you because the book has been embrace we talked about this before the show you wrote the book kind of with an angle on uh not an angle but with a focus on life right the book has been big time embraced by the business world yeah did you ever anticipate that i i mean i i hope that it would be relevant to the business world but as we were talking about before there's not really many business examples right in the book right because that's not my world and i didn't want to talk about something that i don't know about so i tried to stick to kind of to the scientific examples, the design examples, it's a little more in my world. There's some examples in there from academia and reading and information and writing. So it's been fun to learn about the business world and I'll get, you know, an organization will have me come in and talk and then I get to learn about what they do, what their problems are, how they see, because if they're inviting me, it's because they think subtract is going to be helpful for them. And so I get to see how that fits in.

And then I collect these stories that I can then share with other organizations. So it's been cool to see it embraced in that world and learn about that world. I mean, we obviously, there's a, you know, academia in the business world are different, but it's really nice to be able to go out there and see people who are like just trying to make the world a better place through their jobs. And, you know, they want to have this tool at their disposal. So three shot will weave you in here, Judah. I got a couple more. And then why don't I throw one more?

Can I just add? Yeah, please, go ahead. So speaking of businesses, after you've gone to your, after you've gone to your, you know, speak to a business, in the follow-up, how have you learned that those businesses have used the book and your theories to change the way they do business? Or, in a follow-up to that is, is the extent of what you are doing with some of these businesses, window dressing, pomp, and circumstance, like this whole HR thing that is never actually actualized in the org chart or the company?

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure both. I think, honestly, it has a lot to do with how the business sets it up. If they have me come in and just do a talk, then it's going to be, here's an idea, and hopefully there are people use the idea. But if there's no, obviously, if there's no kind of like, hey, let's actually work with the idea. What I tend to do, I'll go in and I talk and, like, give the idea as quickly as possible and then force them to think through in a fun way how this could be implemented. their personal lives, in their business lives. So I'll have them, you know, we call it a

subtracting game, but it's, you know, it's basically having them work through the idea and come up with some applications. So I see those. I see what they've come up with. I, you know, I don't get to go back in six months and see how it's worked out. But the ones that are successful are when the organization, you know, somebody who wants this to happen, you know, they're the masters at figuring out how to move these big ships in one direction or another, right? And so then they can seed the idea and start talking about why it's important. Then I come in and then I give them the tools for using it and then they check back in with their people in six months. Because the people don't care if I check back in with them in six months. They care if their boss checks

back in with them in six months. And then in that case you can see the ideas. I get but I do, I mean, so like there's one organization that got rid of annual reviews. And I'm not saying that, you know, that's not me doing that. That's an idea that they came up with and you know, maybe I gave them the power to, or the coverage to feel like that was okay to do. But, I mean, that's a pretty cool outcome. And, you know, it wasn't that they thought that the review of their employees wasn't important. It was just that, like, hey, this annual review process has become, like, a checkbox thing where we're not actually having the real conversations.

We're just figuring out a reason to give person a 1.5% raise or a 2% raise. So can we get rid of that and then do something different instead or use that time to do something different? You talk about in the book how we continue to your words, pile on to do's, but don't consider stop doings. I have never, so the show, this entire show is opinion-based. And when you give your opinions like Jude and I do, you know, an hour a day, five days a week, four years,

you're going to have, it's going to elicit response. Right. And we don't want everyone that watches and listens to the show to agree with us every time. We don't want them to disagree with us every time. But we want them to feel something. That's the whole point of the show. We offer commentary so you feel something. I, in the many years of doing this show, have never seen a response to opinion that I've offered that this is a now 60-hour work week.

Charlottesville is now not a 40-hour work week. It's a 60-hour work week. and it's a minimum 60-hour work week. I have had so much hate from that comment and hate from my colleague here, Judah, who is... That's not true. Okay, jump in, jump in. Jerry loves to say that I hate

and that my pushback is not so much on the statement. It may be fact, but my problem is when, you know, if it's going from 40 to 60, okay, is it going to escalate? When, you know, is it going to be

in another 10 years, is it going to be a 70-hour work week here in Charlottesville? In another 10 years, is it going to be an 80-hour work week? Eventually, you just run out of week. And so I don't, you know, maybe it is a 60-hour work week here, but my problem is, is that going to change? Is that going to escalate and get worse? And at what point do you say, okay, this is unsustainable? Yeah.

And I'm supposed to resolve your conflict. No, you don't have to resolve the conflict. No, I think, and this is obviously from an owner to team member type perspective. Right, yeah, there's a lot there. There's a lot there. There's a lot there. How many, but to the extent that we have the capacity to shape our own workday, I think there, I mean, one thing that I like to point out is that, hey, if you're working 60 hours

and you love what you're doing and it fit, your wife's okay with it and you're, it's, you know, then that's, that's amazing. What we want to avoid is the time that we spend that we look back on and you're, like, man, I had control over not having to do that, and I wish I hadn't done it. And I had done something else instead. And I fully appreciate, right, that like, hey, you just got hired at an engineering firm, first year out of school. You can't go to your boss and say, I don't want to work these hours. But eventually you get into a position where you have a little more autonomy over, like, figuring out how you're going to spend your time. And that's where you want to try to

be deliberate about it. Arm of the University of Virginia, UVA Today, recently had a Q&A with you. Yeah. And that's how we first came across your personal brand, your book, and your philosophies. They, in this story, highlight Microsoft 365 KPIs, key performance indicators. And some of these KPIs are absolutely, as the article highlights, eyebrow racing. The report found that 40, this is Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, a Microsoft report, that 40% of the people who are online at 6 a.m. are checking their emails. Well, that's you, right?

You just said at the beginning. I mean, in fact, it's a lot of times even earlier than that. And it goes late until night. The report found that meetings after 8 p.m. are up 16% over last year. I literally had a business phone call that went after 9 p.m. yesterday. I am routinely sending email up until midnight at night. The report also finds that employees receive an average of 153 Microsoft T messages per weekday. 153 messages.

That is absolutely crazy. How about this one? And you touched on this already. They asked you this question, what impact can overflow of communication have on an employee? And you answer this. This really opened my eyes here. The average American encounters 100,000 words a day. Now imagine trying to do your best thinking while managing 50 plus after hours, emails, and last minute meeting requests.

We sacrifice our ability to enlarge ideas to manage a deluge of messages. Unpack that for the viewers and listeners. Yeah, I mean, and that stat was from when I wrote the book, so it's probably more now. I mean, so 100,000 words a day, just to put that into context, my book is 70,000 words. A lot of books are 50,000. So that's like two books worth of stuff that you're processing each day. And then if you think about this in terms of, okay, we definitely need to take in information, but we also need to be able to think and make good decisions.

And one of the things, you know, the more information that we're overloaded with, the more that's going on in our brain, the more we kind of rely on our default ways of doing things or default ways of thinking about things. And so that's where you're less likely to come up with something new or even something to get you out of the spiral that you're in if you're constantly overloaded. And it's not, sorry to be the boring professor that suggests a balance approach, right?

It's not that we shouldn't take in information. It's amazing to have information. It's amazing to have these resources. And it's also not that we should just always be on walks all the time. and thinking creatively, right? You have to have a balance between trying to take in the information and some kind of free cognitive time, and that's when the ideas are going to come.

And that's not my research. That's other people's research, but it's pretty well-established idea in psychology anyway. Another thing I find fascinating here, fellas, in Judah as well, is like, we have here in Charlottesville, we have the second highest cost of living and all of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Charlottesville metro area.

According to HUD, the median family household income is 125,800. Median family household income. And that number has escalated year over year, over year, and it will escalate even more at the end of this year.

So here's my statement. If the cost of living is escalating, if housing supply is throttle, if home value, are escalating, right? And this is all happening at a time where floating debt, interest rates are getting more expensive. Groceries are getting more expensive. Putting clothes on our kids' backs are getting more expensive. Just everything in life is more expensive. What are we going to do to be able to manage this more expensive area? You talk about raises at some of these

companies, one and a half to two percent. That's below inflation. Right. So you're actually year over year work getting less money. Right. When you factor in inflation. So it's like, Like, do we work more hours to keep up in the rat race, or do we do, do, do we consider doing more with less output, work output? And maybe that could be the technology piece, like artificial intelligence being integrated into our lives, how we work, where it's doing a lot of the work that we know we can do, but it's doing it at a faster clip. So I'm really fascinated with that crossroads and dynamics. Anywhere you want to go on this, clearly I see Judah want to offer some perspective. You go first here, Liding. Okay, I think, let me give an example, and it's not a prescriptive example,

but it just helps you kind of understand what a subtractive example is, because that's a very complex problem with lots of solutions or lots of connotations depending on your situation. But, you know, a subtractive response to that would be like, all right, maybe I need a house with fewer square feet, right? And that, again, it's not right for everybody. It's certainly not right for people with growing families. But it's like, okay, if I do that, then all of a sudden I have less to maintain, less cost,

and, you know, relieves the housing market a little bit. And that's just the class of ideas that we want to think of and then be able to evaluate our options and choose accordingly. Because I think one of the things you said in there was like, hey, can we do more with less? and that's actually not subtracting. It's a good option sometimes, right? Like, can we speed things up with technology? But the end goal is still more. And what I'm arguing is that there are points

where you actually, you can have less that's better for your situation, and we don't want to forget about those. What do you think, Judah? Well, you kind of addressed exactly what I was going to ask. thinking that we all have examples in our mind for creating incentives for high performance. Right.

But I was going to ask you to give some more examples of just what getting rid of obstacles to our goals looks like in a variety of situations. Yeah. So one of the challenges when you subtract, right, is that it's not. visible so people can't see that you've done anything so i think one way to think about the these subtractions is to to show people that you've done them i don't this i'm going to try it and see if it works but like the logo that you talked about before like logo design that's a very streamlined logo right it doesn't say i love charlottesville it's very simple it's a beautiful

logo right it's very recognizable logo around town um that's a case where i'm sure they thought of a whole bunch of logo design options and then you know, ended up with the streamlined one, which involved some subtractions. So kind of, in terms of the incentive, like trying to make this work in the world, can you think about ways that you can make it visible that you did this and show that it's intentional? Another one is like the iPhone. That's a cliche example, but nobody says, oh, Steve Jobs couldn't think of more buttons

to put on the iPhone. It's like clear that this was the design intent, and it's clear that this is. like the value proposition here is that there's less. So there's that piece of it. And then when you're thinking about, I lost the other thing I was going to say. So making it visible is important.

Okay. Well, I'll almost counter what you're saying here. If you're employed at a company and you're trying to climb the vertical ladder at a company, the last thing you want to do is have the perceive or the perception that you're doing less around the company. Right, right.

Whether it's smokescreened, whether it's faked or actual, you want your direct boss and your boss's boss and your boss's boss's boss to see, oh, this guy's grinding. This guy is the first in at work and the last to leave. You may not actually be doing the keystrokes and grinding that whole time, but the perception in today's world is reality, perception is reality, is that you're a team player and you're going above and beyond, So you should get the promotion.

Yeah. But if everybody else is leaving on time because they're getting their eight hours worth of work done in eight hours. And this other person is looking like they're grinding, but they're taking eight hours, I mean nine hours to do that eight hours of work and staying late, is that really good? And what I want to ask you, Lydie, is what was the question? Is streamlining processes part of what you had in mind with subtract? I mean, that is an example of subtracting. It's like you make it more efficient, you take away these steps that were useless. But I think it's pretty easy to see things that are like waste.

Not pretty easy, but that's not a new idea to take waste and get rid of it, and that makes everything better. I think it's like the opportunities to, you know, one of the examples in my book, book, the balanced bike. You've got little kids. Do they ride that? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So this is the, if you don't have a young child recently in your life, these are the small bikes that a one-year-old, as soon as they can walk, they can basically toddle on top of this bike because they're pushing with their feet. No pedals. No pedals. So the whole innovation is just that you subtracted the drive train and the pedals. And all this bike innovation over the last 100 years, nobody thought to do that and

make it marketable to the, saleable to the parents and, like, help this whole new demographic ride bikes. That is a subtraction where the end product is better. It's not just more efficient. So that's the kind of thing. And I think as you're climbing the ladder, you're, you know, as you're, if you're the person who's like, you know what, I am not going to just sit there and pound away at my computer because I know that if I go for a walk for a half hour in the middle of day. I'm going to come up with ideas. I just think there's a little extra that you need to do if you've got bosses to show that, hey, that time, I'm actually being very intelligent about my use of that time. It's not that I'm like going to watch TV. It's that I'm like going for a walk because

I know my brain works differently when I go for a walk. And whether it's a story you tell your boss about like, hey, here's this idea that I came up on my walk. And then all of a sudden you're kind of shifting this perception around why you're doing it, I think that's kind of an example of making it visible, right? It's not like you're just not going to work because you don't want to do it, it's that

you're working how you know is going to be most effective. I would, that was well handled. The balance bike is absolutely genius, and you're right. Both are boys, and now our two and a half year olds using it, learn how to ride bike on a bounce bike.

Oh, and we didn't even talk. Like once they go to with the pedal bike, they don't need training wheels. Right, they don't need to balance. Because they know how to balance. It's incredible. And it's especially incredible when you're, you know, sub 10 years old, boy or girl, how quickly you can pick things up,

especially when you have an older sibling to watch and mimic and do. And our youngest boy really is doing things like six to eight months faster than our older boy did. To your point, I would say the team member, the employee that is clocking the nine hours, but doing eight hours of work, is still going to climb the vertical ladder faster than the team member that works eight hours and does eight hours because the perception is of a grinder.

But I respect that example that you gave. But the person that's grinding after hours is going to earn the employment equity, at least from my standpoint. Do you think if they showed, if the eight-hour person showed that they were, like, made a conscious effort to show that they were being more thoughtful and effective and how they did their work, that that would be helpful? I think the eight-hour person, if the eight-hour person gets the work done in eight, then the expectation from the boss would be, then why aren't you working nine hours?

What else can you be doing? You should be doing more. Yeah. Because the company, the organization, is all about squeezing as much juice from the orange. Right. And it's unfortunate, but that's what it is. And you also made the point, what's 60 hours of work a week if your passion is your profession? If your passion is your profession, you never work.

a day in your life, some would say. Right. And I get the impression that your profession is your passion. Yeah, yeah, I'm so very lucky. You're lucky. Same with me. And I also get the impression that you're probably clocking 50, 60 plus hours a week. If you count thinking time, it's just never off, right?

I'm never off. I'm the same way. Yeah. And what do you say to the folks that are out there that are just never, that are never, I mean, we're never off? Like, I'm driving the family Ford Explorer, and my wife's sitting shock on the boys in the backseat. she'll say to me can you be in the moment like what are you thinking about like you know and I'm just like I am in the moment aren't we allowed to think yeah I know I say that can't I think yeah oh man I don't I don't know what to say to I mean it's bless your heart that you're just try to focus it in a good

direction right yeah I again I mean you got a I think it's important to be able to pull out of that every now and then to just reassess that okay these patterns that I've fallen into are are they actually what my goals are, right? So if you're like, oh, it's okay to always be disconnected and then you realize that your kids are growing up and you're not even like noticing what's happening, then it's like, okay, no, actually my goal is to be, that's my first priority. And then you've got to figure out how your mental energy is getting devoted to that. But so, but in general, I don't think it's a problem if you are really engaged with what you're doing all the time. I'm not here advocating for, like, laziness. Right, right, right.

here's a tough question for you how your book is acclaimed i mean what some of the on some of the awards 12 best business books of 2021 according to wealth management uh behavioral scientists notable books of 2021 habit weekly top 100 behavioral design books uh i mean just you you're you're an international speaker um you are getting you're getting invited to do what i think is a great podcast this is this is fun i like i learn so much on these this is this is a lot of fun i'm thoroughly enjoying this. How do you follow up subtract? Oh, I've got so my next book's coming out in April.

Get out of town. You didn't know about it. Okay. It's called we just I just, the manuscript's just off to production. So it's called In a Good Place. And then what's the subtitle is how how our spaces

how the spaces where we live, work, and play can help us thrive. It's basically about our relationship with our physical surroundings. I don't have all this sound yet but it's um you know subtract it I think is going between this physical world and what's going on in our brains and this kind of zooms out and does that at a much bigger level so it's like you know what's this what's the studio you know how's this shaping how we live our lives and how can we shape our spaces right how does like modifying your home environment help you feel like you have agency and

competence there's some good kids examples in the book the next one where Even just something as simple as like kids playing with blocks or kids playing Minecraft or kids playing with sand on the beach. I mean, one of the reasons, you know, we're wired to want to manipulate our physical surroundings to show that we can, to show that we can do it, to learn. And then, you know, so how do we take that into adulthood and still be able to do those things? This question comes from Charlotte, North Carolina. Jerry, please ask your guess what his family's rules are with screen time with his son. Oh, my God. he's going to St. Anne's next year

and so he had an amazing experience at Trailblazer Elementary in the city and then he's going to St. Anne's with one of your listeners' sons. And so we just had an hour and a half of screen time training and I was like, please tell me the answer to that question and they didn't tell the answer either. Our rules, what I've, he's really

thoughtful kid and my big thing has been trying to get him to understand the pros and cons of screen time and then to set his own, agree on his own limits and then monitoring himself. So over the summer, for example, we had a rule last school year that was like 30 minutes during the week and, you know, 45 minutes during the week and an hour and a half on weekends. And then over the summer, I was like, well, what do you think about that for the summer? And he said, well, since it's basically just the summer, let's just do an hour every day. And then he tried to monitor it. But of course, like, he goes over.

and then we make rules, like loopholes where if you're playing Minecraft with your cousin, that's okay, and then he ends up calling the cousin. So I don't know, that's the short answer. I think it is important to help them have some agency in it, but if people have answers, I'd love to know them because it's a constant struggle. Yeah, it's a constant struggle in our house.

And I think when we look back on it, millennial parents are going to look back, on screen time with their kids as today's version of the plague or addiction. Our oldest son is seven, and he can be sitting on a couch, doom-scrolling YouTube, and his favorite candy is skittles. And I can be sitting next to him with a bag of skittles, red and purple ones, which are a favorite in saying, you can have all the skittles you want. I have nothing but red and purple ones.

You can eat them before dinner. Here they are, shaking the bag next to him while he's doom-scrolling YouTube, and he does not hear me. And that's one of the ones where it's like an involved parent is the most important thing, right? Because, I mean, like Mark Robers on YouTube, he's an engineering guy. And like, Ezra's watching that. His mind's fully engaged. He's learning engineering stuff.

He's still, like, connected with the world. And then there's other things on YouTube that are like just wired to mess your kid up. Mess you up. And then the kid after watching that is like weird for. Terribly behaved. Yeah, for like an hour afterwards. 100%. We see that with our son.

Yeah. So it's like you've got a, there's a. And even, like, with the video games, I mean, Minecraft, from what I've seen, it's like, you know, yeah, I don't want as we're doing it all day, but he's fine. Like, it's basically playing LEGOs on a screen, whereas some of the other video games, you're like, yeah, it's just making him nuts. Making them nuts. And I think as parents, we've got to guard against the making them nuts ones. How can, close with this, how can the viewers and listeners that are watching the program here, nine states, how can folks find out about you, Lydie, and how can they, purchase your book, and how can they purchase your book that you have in the hopper?

Okay. I don't, I think the, if my parents gave me a good Google name, so that's how you can find my website. It is a good Google name. Yeah, so L-E-I-D-Y-I-D-Y. You own your name in dot com. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, I mean, there's no competition. Yeah. So, and then, uh, Commerce Street Books, I don't know if people have been yet, but it's here in Charlottesville, and they have a bunch of copies to subtract. It's a good one to, but you can get it at any of the booksellers, Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, wherever. And the next one, I don't think it's online yet, but it should be online soon and you can pre-order for April, but it'll be out in April. I think there's also a way on Amazon that you can like follow me as an author, and then when the

next book comes out, you can get tuned into that. Maybe we'll come. I would, please, please. talk about it again. This literally is 52 minutes of of fun here. I love doing shows like this. This comment comes in. Last one and I do have a 130 on the mall that I got to get to here. But can you ask your guest to discuss the improper translation of

the phrase, the product must be greater than the sum of its parts? Thanks for the interview. I look forward to book two living with the built environment. Yeah, that's amazing. I love that story. That's a great question to end on. It's so like it's so in the weeds. So yeah, there's

know you hear the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and so I was like digging into that quote and it um it's by one of these gestalt psychologists and their whole thing was like looking at the whole system but the original quote is the whole is something else than the sum of its parts uh not greater than so it's not just because you add more stuff it's going to be better uh sometimes the hole is less than the sum of its parts um so so the point behind the quote is obviously that, you know, when we mix things together, that can be good or bad and have unintended consequences. And, you know, we should try for the positive consequences. But as it relates to subtraction, it shows like this, we're so tuned in to add, add, add, greater, greater, greater,

that like this original quote just gets screwed up to mean only adding. Great way to end. You are fantastic in this setting. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I mean, just like the, you know, free-flowing dialogue. I mean, you thrive on this. Oh, it's fun. Yeah, it was fun. It was fun. It's an hour. You guys are great, too. I mean, it's, again, it's like the whole, it's the same thing with going to stock to organizations. If people have done their homework and know what's going to happen,

then it goes well. And if they haven't, then it's just me talking about my book. Lighty Klotz, guys. He's got a name you can find online. The book is something that you should order. Do it locally if you can. And book two is coming out soon. Judah, thank you for setting up the interview. Lighty, you crushed it.

All right. I sincerely mean that. Guys, this show, archive, wherever you get your podcasting content. And my friends, we are back on air tomorrow at 1230 with more of the water cooler of Charlottesville, Alamaro, Central Virginia, and beyond. So thank you kindly for joining us. So long, everybody. Cool.

Awesome. Thanks. Thank you.