Dr. Richard Kyte: We Can’t Flourish Alone

Hello, and welcome, fellow Awsomologists, to Awsomology. I’m Sue.

And I’m Ben. And in this episode, we’re sitting down with Dr. Richard Kite, director of the DB Reinhardt Institute for Ethics in Leadership and endowed professor of ethics at Viterbo University, author, and fellow podcaster. Holy smokes. We got a list behind his name. I like it. Thanks for being here, Rick.

I’m really happy to be here. Thank you both for inviting me.

We’re very excited to talk to you.

You are an author of several books. Your most recent book being Finding Your Third Place, Building Happier Communities, and Making Great Friends Along the Way.

That third place, that building community is something that is incredibly near and dear to our hearts, so we are definitely going to talk about that. But let’s start with you because we’re very interested in you as a human being as well. So where where does the journey start to take you into the field of ethics and what you’re doing now?

You know, at so so I don’t know if you want a short answer or a long answer because because the the, you know, the truth is I don’t really know. So, like, so many of us, we get into a kind of career, like like, where do our interests come from and, you know, and and then there’s all these accidents that happen along the way too. But I grew up in a very small town, Frazee, Minnesota in north northwestern Minnesota, but, you know, about fifty miles from Fargo.

And, I had a lot of extended family around. So I I remember from a early age just observing people and had a lot of characters to to observe, you know, including some, you know, really good influences and some bad influences. And and I remember from an early age just noticing, you know, how how how some people were seem to do really well in life and be really happy and pleased and enthusiastic about it. And other people, like, kept making bad choices.

You know? And and, and then I and I think I was also, you know, fortunate to have a mother who was very interested in talking about like, talking about people and observing, you know, like, why were they doing this, or why did they act like that, and just having these conversations.

But academically, you know, translating that kind of interest in human behavior into something like the philosophical study of of ethics kinda happened by accident, by two things.

First of all, discovering the writings of CS Lewis when I was in high school and being really interested in trying to find out, like, what did he read when he was young? And it turned out he was reading, like, all these people that we know as, like, class classical thinkers, Plato and Aristotle and Augustine and, you know, and so forth.

And not really knowing who they were, but thinking, oh, that’d be really cool to study that. And then when I got into college, had an opportunity to, study that because I ran into a really fascinating professor who was a Japanese American who, who thought it was really important that students read original sources or what was called primary text.

And so, I just kept taking classes from him until I was most of the way toward a major and figured, well, I might as well major in this. I’ve already got, you know, a lot of credits. And I because I had no plan I had no plan as an undergrad.

And, so I ended up doing that, and pretty soon I, you know, graduated with a philosophy major having read, you know, a lot of books that we would call right now classics of Western civilization, but also, like, having these fascinating discussions about them and just thinking, like, it’s it’s really interesting how, like, knowing knowing something that Plato wrote two thousand years ago can really help you to live a better life today.

So that’s that’s kind of an answer. Right? You know?

A lot more to it, but but that’s that’s maybe the shortest version I could tell.

That’s a great answer. And I I’ve gotta ask, you know, and I I love the the word accidents along the way to discovering things, or to landing, you know, where we are in life and on our career paths and all of those things. But, I have to ask, so you find your way to that major. You graduate school. What what’s that what’s the first job out of college for a guy like Rick Kite?

So I had you know, I was I had start my dad was a house painter. I started painting with him when I was about ten years old.

Well, I actually didn’t get to paint for quite a few years because my job was to scrape and prep and clean up The fun stuff.

Yeah.

Stuff for yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I got to, like and, and and I was fully prepared to, like, go into the trades because I thought, you know, I’m gonna graduate with a degree in philosophy, and it’s not good for anything. So, like, what am I gonna do?

And then I got a call. This is about a month before graduation.

I got a call from somebody that I had met, the year before asking me if I’d like to go out to Colorado Springs and help her run a miniature golf course for the summer.

And so I thought that sounds much better than painting houses. And so I I packed up an old van, like, a week after graduation, drove to Colorado Springs, rented an apartment, and, the the I went into business with a woman who turned out to be my wife because, like, we we we we got along in business pretty well, and we thought that seemed like a pretty good foundation for a long term relationship.

Sure.

I’ve heard, you should live with someone before you marry them, or you should go on a road trip with them before you marry them. I haven’t heard go into business with them before you marry them, so that’s that’s a new one for me.

Yeah. Like, it puts you through a lot of tests Yeah. Right, in a short period of time. And and, like, one of the main causes of breakups is financial, like, disagreements.

Right? Sure. And so you’re making financial decisions all the time when you’re running a business together. So if you can do that and still be happy, that’s that’s a pretty good test.

That’s a good sign. Yeah.

So let’s jump ahead a little bit.

How how does the study of ethics tie to this concept of a third place that you’ve been spending some time with more recently?

Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s a great question, and it’s it’s a question not too many people have asked me.

The the it it goes right to the heart of what ethics is about if we think of ethics as it was classically understood.

If you go way back to Aristotle, for example, he thought ethics what it really amounted to is that, like, is is studying the what is the point of life? What is our reason for believe for living? And it the whole point of life was what he called eudaimonia, which is usually translated as happiness or flourishing, something like that.

And so I think he was right about that, that, like, ethics isn’t just about doing what’s right. It’s about living a life of integrity, a life in which we flourish. And when when and what we find out is we can’t flourish alone. Mhmm.

We can only flourish together. And so you have to live a life in which you’re committed to the common good and committed to the the the thriving or the flourishing of the community in which one resides.

And what we’ve seen recently over the past several decades is a real, real challenges to this idea of community and and to the very possibility of social connection.

And we’re especially finding young people are in crisis right now because of the lack of opportunities and skills for social connection.

And so this this idea of a third place, if we think of home as first place, work as second place, third place is where we go to socialize, Those are the places set aside in our communities for building social connection, and we’re losing them. And that’s a really a good way to talk about about, like, the vital importance in our lives of having those places and then and then deliberately cultivating social connection for the for the sake of happiness. Right?

So that’s like so so I see it as being about the very heart of ethics is is how we build connections with others and build positive connections.

So a question about that third place.

When when did we stop building them? When because we we hear I I really I wanna make this a good question, Rick.

Mhmm.

But I don’t know if it is.

We we have heard so much about trying to invigorate this third space. Right? Yep.

When when did it start to die?

Did we intentionally was there a time we were intentionally building them? This is so many questions.

And what happened to that that we stopped?

Does that Yeah. The through line there was complicated. So but you’re a professor. You you understand it.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it seems like so so if you go back to human history, as far as you go, like, every every kind of society, any culture that has flourished has had really meaningful public places where people gather and make connections.

One of the things that happen in American society, and this we could say, like, Western societies generally, is that in the process of industrialization, our lives became both busier and more prosperous, and we started really separating in a way, like, workplaces and private spaces. These both really develop fast. Like, there was a lot more homes and better homes and bigger homes, and they kept, like, throughout the whole history of industrialization.

They keep our private spaces get better and more more opulent, and also our workplaces get bigger and more productive and and so forth.

And so what happened is the public the importance of the public spaces started to shrink.

Mhmm. But at the same time, it seemed like like people were really invested in saying, well, those public spaces are shrinking, but we’ve gotta we’ve gotta find ways of connection. So, yeah, all the way through, like, the the early parts of, like, the late eighteen hundreds, the early nineteen hundreds, up until and I would say through World War two, people were starting clubs and organizations, and, and they were building a lot of churches. They were building a lot of places for people to gather outside of home and outside of work.

So, so that there was there was a period in American life at least where that really flourished, and it seems to have been on the decline ever since the the maybe the end of the fifties. Mhmm. So it’s hard to say when that happened because the decline happens differently for different kinds of organizations and different kinds of places, and it and and happen at different speeds in rural areas and in urban areas. But if we start tracking, like, what we call civic participation, Like, how much do people get to know their neighbors and join groups and and do all the sorts of things that we do in third places.

That has declined every decade since the nineteen fifties.

So not a brand new phenomenon?

No. But But maybe maybe pushed forward or expedited through these online spaces and places, things that are were created digitally to simulate socialness, but aren’t really social?

Well, I think I think it it started to decline, significantly with television because television became a way for people to stay at home and have private entertainment.

Mhmm.

Where private entertainment wasn’t really pot you could go home and read a book. You could listen to some radio programs, but, you know, like, how many times you can listen to the lone ranger or the shadow or something. Right? Like, so that’s still limited.

And so people were still getting together to play cards and just to visit and all that. But with with television, like, you really start to get a decline. So that’s happening in the sixties. Right?

And and then the seventies. And then and then you get the personal computer, and you get online forms, and then then you get iPads, and you get smartphones and social media. And then we start to see a real decline in both public spaces, I would say, third places, especially, because they aren’t they can be private, but they’re but they’re for social connection Mhmm. Like cafes and coffee shops and taverns and gyms and all these things.

So so what we see is we see a start of a decline after World War two, but you’re right. It really accelerates, especially over the last, say, three decades.

I’ve seen you speak a bit, about, how this is impacting the, like, younger generations even though it’s certainly not isolated to them. But, I don’t wanna make it all doom and gloom, but what would you say like, what’s the data point or the bit of research that you’ve seen or been a part of that is most concerning to you either in the moment or something that even you’ve discovered sometime recently that is worth sharing?

Well, yeah, really two things.

The way in which young people are spending time. So we we’re seeing really, like, huge massive increases since two thousand eleven, like, huge increases every year, especially among gen z on the amount of time they spend in digital spaces. So that’s largely on on on smartphones and, gaming and social media.

Right? And and then along with that comes a real decline in the amount of time spent with friends and spent in what’s sometimes called unstructured play, just like hanging out.

Yeah.

And and those have had real negative effects on on especially in mental health of that generation.

The other, I think, data point that that I find really fascinating, just a very recent survey on what young people want when when teenagers are asked, like, what do they most want in their life?

What they say is unsupervised time with friends.

They don’t want time alone. They don’t want more time on social media. So, like like, they want they want the parents to step back a little bit and let them hang out with friends.

And so I think that’s a really good thing to know. Like, they want more of the very thing that has declined for them Mhmm. And which has proven to be really beneficial. And so I think I think we’re gonna see a pendulum shift. I think, like, if adults allow it, right Yeah. We’ll see a shift to more time spent hanging out with with friends.

Well, I’m glad you ended on that note because my follow-up was gonna be not giving you the hopeful thing. What’s the solution or the next thing that’s, gonna, you know, correct that? And, yeah, I mean, as a dad of a nine and three year old right now, obviously, more so with the nine year old who’s certainly, you know, developing his social circles and things like that, just in my observation, I can I think I can echo and confirm what you’re sharing that, you know, that time where it’s just him and a buddy or him and a group of folks where it’s not a coach or a parent or even an aunt or an uncle or somebody that’s right there with them?

The opportunities, I think, are few and far between because we’ve created this world where they’re always busy doing something, whether that’s school or youth sports or time on screens or on, you know, digital platforms and things like that. You know, just time in the basement chilling and hanging out or out back imagining things. You know, we we haven’t done a great job of making those opportunities for them. So it’s cool to know that they’re hungry for it.

Yeah. They’re hungry for it. And I think so the the opportunity is, like, adults I think adults in general and especially parents have to stop overestimating the dangers of letting kids hang out unsupervised, and they should stop underestimating the dangers of the digital world.

Yeah. Because there’s there’s real dangers there that that that are not sufficiently appreciated, and and and of a variety of sorts. Right?

And so your kids are much better off, and and they want it. I mean, that’s the good news is they also want that.

So that’s Yeah.

Okay. I’m gonna throw a curveball in here. We we are a marketing agency, a creative agency, so we’re creating things all the time. And, you know, a big part of our job is influencing people to to do a thing, to buy a thing, to fill out a form, whatever it might be.

Can you if somebody’s asked you this question already, you gotta let me know their name because we need to hook up. But, can you connect this, I mean, either the the ethics space that you’re doing so much great work in or this, topic of third spaces. Can you connect it to to marketing and how we’re doing? Like, if there’s something that you found that would be, you know, helpful insight for a marketer to be aware of as they’re thinking about whatever their next creative project, their next campaign, as they’re considering their audiences and things like that. Is there anything that you’ve, been able to make a connection to or spoken on before?

Well, you know, one of the things that that distresses me sometime about the world we’re living in is I think that that it’s too much driven by marketing, that that marketing shapes the message instead of the message shaping the marketing.

Mhmm.

Right?

And, and and I and this is not really for the people who are in the marketing business like you. This is, like, for all of us. Like like like, we should get first things first. Like, first things first is we should figure out what kind of life we want to lead, and then we should figure out, like, how do we how do we promote the kinds of things that we really need to live that good life.

And and I see this especially, like, in the world where kinda we’re entering into this AI world where we’re seeing all kinds of hype and promotion for AI. And the people who are creating it are themselves saying, like, this could destroy the world.

Like, how do we get involved in a world in which we’re actively marketing a product that we think could destroy us? Like, that makes no sense.

Right?

So, so that’s the the old phrase is putting the cart before the horse.

Sure.

Like, we have all sorts of things that that that we do in this in this world that that, like, we should be doing because we think they’re really important. And my own world is education, and I find so often that we’re so focusing on branding what we do as a university that we forget to have discussions about. But what do we want our students to become?

Like, what kind of people do we want them to become? And then market ourselves as the place that tries to do that rather than thinking like, first of all, we have to figure out how to market ourselves, and then we figure out what so then once we’ve marketed ourselves that way, what do what should we teach?

Like, that gets things backwards, and I think I think it’s not good for the marketing profession either. Like, the marketing profession should be one which serves people, serves their fundamental needs, right, to to let people know about what is out there that is that is good, that can benefit them in some way.

Right? Yeah.

I That’s that’s high level thinking about marketing.

Right? Yeah.

Yeah. But I but I think, and I think we completely agree. I think, you know, we try really hard, and, obviously, we’re not perfect. No one’s perfect.

But we we pride ourselves on being ethical in what we’re doing and understanding that our job is not to is not to create need.

It’s to connect people to the things that will make their lives better.

Now that is you there is a slippery slope there. So who’s deciding what is your better and what, what is making people’s lives better. And in the hands of an unethical person, that can be a really tricky question, to just let lie out there. But that that’s definitely something we we believe that we wouldn’t support.

You know, we wouldn’t we wouldn’t do work for something that we think will hurt people. And that that right. But that’s actually been isn’t that just something we were talking about, as we were talking about the different clients we could be talking to and where where do we draw the line? Because, an awful lot of people need marketing.

Right.

But not all of the people that need marketing are doing something that we think is making the world better. And Yeah. Where what line would we draw? And it would be, if you’re making the world worse, we’re not working for it. Right.

Yeah. And, you know, as we’re busier and busier and our people’s capacity is filling up and stuff, like, we’ll have to make decisions. Right? And sometimes, yeah, the decision might be a client that’s more profitable in one way or the other, but, also, like, that can’t be the only point of consideration.

The other might be, you know, does this client’s values align with ours? You know? And are they, yeah, selling a product or a service that’s generally doing good or connecting people to something that they need? You know?

And, you know, I suppose a challenge that we have, whether we’re talking about our credit union clients that are selling, you know, checking accounts and loans and deposit products and all kinds of stuff or a small business client selling a widget of some kind. You know?

I suppose every industry that we serve probably has some level of their products, being a true need to a certain audience and then maybe a want or something that could actually harm other folks. You know? I’ll I’ll use a an auto loan from a credit union as an example. Right?

I mean, there’s some folks that absolutely need that thing. It’s access to their job or to, you know, whatever that that having that car means for them. For others, it’s, you know, the auto loan from the credit union might mean a significant dollar savings to them monthly. That means, you know, they’ve got extra money in their pocket to, whatever, feed themselves, feed their kids, give an opportunity, whatever.

But there’s others that also, like, don’t need that thing. And, you know, actually, them getting that auto loan means they’re putting themselves in a debt situation that they do not need to be in. You know? So it’s the same product, you know, maybe even the same rate, exact same parameters, but it can do one thing or another to people.

And I do think, you know you know, we are very happy and fortunate to work in the credit union movement where, you know, generally and, again, nobody’s perfect.

We are looking out for people’s best interests. You know? We live by that people over profit, you know, mentality, and, I think we’re we’re doing good for people. And, again, you know, of course, there’s there’s outliers. But, so that that brings a challenge to the work that we do, whether it’s, you know, us vetting out a client or us selling our products and services or marketing products and services in a way that, you know, really is for good.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah. And it’s it’s it’s hard because we we we also wanna live in a society in which we give individuals a a wide range of choices and respect their freedom to choice without Mhmm. Without determining their choices for them. But that means that sometimes people are gonna make what we consider to be bad choices, and and, you know, that that’s not my job to constrain their choices.

Although, I I think it is my job, sometimes, like, as a person who teaches ethics to be critical at times. Right? Yeah.

But this this puts marketing in a really interesting kinda ethical position in society in which you are in a way, you’re in the business of optimizing people’s choices. So you’re optimizing freedom, which in general is a good thing, but might be exercised in irresponsible ways by some. And that’s just part of it. Right? You just accept that. That’s that’s that’s part of the part of the business.

But I just like, generally, I I think we’ve we’ve turned into society that’s fairly unreflective about first things, like even having a discussion of what are people’s needs, what what are the basic needs we have, and how do we pursue a life in which we we prioritize those needs.

This is something I don’t I don’t hear people talking about very much, and I think it’s, you know, it’s it should be it should be a matter of daily conversation.

So what would what would a conversation like that sound like? What who who should be having those conversations? What should they, in your opinion, if, if you could lead people to the right choice, the quote, unquote right choice, what would that sound like?

Well, it what it would sound like is, like, daily just having all kinds of small conversations about the things that we choose at different times. So, like like, what we choose to eat and and why, what kind of clothes we choose to buy, who like, what, whether we need a new car or not or can would be better off, kind of nursing along this this this old vehicle that needs a lot of repairs.

Like, these are the sorts of conversations that one has kinda naturally, I think, among, groups of friends. Like, when you get to coffee for together for coffee, you just talk about this stuff. And it all seems, like, at the moment, it seems might seem kinda trivial.

Right?

And yet over the course of a lifetime, all these small choices we make add up to like, like, they add up to a life, a life that is focused on some sorts of things rather than others. And and life set ends end up being, like, fairly happy or not at all or or and sometimes helping others out or not helping others out.

And so that’s coming back to this idea of third places. This is where third places become really important because they give us a chance to just have these small conversations as to which we’re always processing the little choices we’re making throughout our life. And and and when we’re talking about those things, what we’re doing is actually distinguishing between what do we need versus what do we want, and and and what kind of wants are, like, well grounded.

And so let me give you an example. I just saw just saw a post recently of something that’s becoming viral in the college world is, designer dorm rooms.

It’s like like these young people are moving into the dorm rooms and then sharing photos where they’ve, you know, like, brought in special furniture and, you know, duvet covers for their beds and, you know, all this stuff where they spent, like, thousands of dollars outfitting this room. So it looks immaculate.

Like, I’ve never seen an actual student dorm room that looks like that. But this has become a thing now in the Internet, like spreading these photos, these images that go which creates the impression that students like, that’s what the standard is, and you’ve gotta outfit your room or you’re really behind it. And and yet it’s just not true. And and the other thing is it’s really wasteful.

Yeah. Like like, if you’re going to college, don’t worry about, you know, your does your bedspread mat match your, you know, lampshade or whatever? Like, it it really doesn’t matter. Yeah. Focus on things that matter. Right?

Mhmm.

And, so this is one of the ways which I think social media can kinda contaminate one’s world is it disconnects you from reality. And and when you’re disconnected from reality, you can’t make good decisions about what we need versus what we want.

The whole time you’re talking, I’m just picturing my college dorm room, and, it’s so far from designer that I can help.

Designer back? Yeah. No.

And, like, every dorm room I’ve ever seen. Right?

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

They’re they’re disasters.

Yeah. Yeah. And, in fact, you kinda take pride in the disaster and the fact that half of the stuff in there was from a garage sale and, you know, everything else that most of us experience in our dorm room.

Yeah.

So what I think I’m hearing you say is yeah. And I’m applying this to the idea of what we do in marketing.

So that messages like that, those viral images, people are sharing them. They give the impression of a paucity of choice. You do not have a choice. You have to have a designer, dorm room or, you know, this other you have to buy a new car. They’re they take those choices away from people.

And if people are isolating themselves, they assume that that message is correct rather than turning to a friend and saying, you know, I was really thinking I should I should spend twice my yearly salary on a vehicle because I saw that on TV, and I was told that that’s the right thing to do.

And to have a friend to go, that sounds insane, and you shouldn’t do that, is what helps us create these healthy choices and regrounds us.

And when we are pulled away from this impression that we don’t have a choice, that we have to meet that status quo. Am I picking that up? Am I learn am I learning, professor?

No. I think I think no. Exactly. I think that’s exactly right. And I think there’s, there’s ways of doing marketing that kind of that educates or informs and clarifies for people. Mhmm. And there’s kinds of marketing that manipulates.

Yeah.

And I and I think, like, what what happens a lot of times when we’re talking about viral images, especially, like, viral images on social media, a lot of that is manipulation.

Mhmm.

And and and that’s problematic because it what it it doesn’t represent what’s really going on in the world.

Yeah.

So let’s not do that then.

I’m in. Sounds good.

Done.

Well, that is a that’s a really good place to segue into the big question then. We’ve talked a lot about a lot of different things, and you have such a wealth of expertise. Honestly, as I was writing these, you know, the notes for our discussion today, I couldn’t even anticipate. You know, you you, have done you have so much research, and you’re already putting so much valuable information out. I couldn’t decide. What what is the question to ask this guy?

So I thought I would we could open the floor up. What’s the most important thing if you let’s assume that this podcast, wouldn’t this be nice, goes out to everyone in the world, the message that you would love people in the world to get right now.

I would say make your life deliberate, and and don’t don’t rely on don’t don’t rely on on what should I so much of our so much of our life is mediated right now, right, by technology.

That when you make your life deliberate, what you do is you emphasize real experiences with real people.

And that’s kind of become my tagline.

Like, right now, when people ask me, like, what’s my advice? I say, have real experiences with real people.

And, and it is so refreshing.

So, Ben, you were at a rotary conference where I spoke. Yeah.

And afterwards, there’s a exchange student from Brazil who came up to me all excited because I was talking about, like, the importance of friendship, going to third places, joining organizations, that sort of thing, but real experiences with real people, that’s where I was emphasizing. She came up. She was all excited. She said she said, I used to spend fourteen hours a day on my phone.

Now I’m down to four, and I’m so much happier.

And I’m thinking four seems like an awful lot, but, you know, a lot better than fourteen.

And, and she said, I’m gonna try to get it down to two. But she was so excited because what I’d been saying was affirming what she had been trying to do in her life is is get off of the digital device and spend more time with real people.

And and she was just saying, like, how much her life was better because of it. Yeah. And, you know, this is something that pretty much every previous generation just kinda took for granted because what else are you gonna do? Like, yeah. Like, that’s in some ways, it’s a low bar, real experiences with real peep Yeah. Because it’s what everybody throughout history has always done. Right.

And yet that’s something to aim for right now, and and I think it’s really important. So Yeah.

Comes down to that’s the first step.

I love all that. I love the message of, you know, first things first, that we’ve heard today.

The idea of living your life deliberately, something that I I won’t claim to be running my life through this filter every day, but something that I’m trying to remind myself of more and more often is, am I or is someone else better because I have done blank, fill in the blank. You know? And, you know, we we maybe, get stuck on social media and, you know, when we talk about digital experiences and Gen z and all that, you know, it’s easy to go to social media and that being the root of all evil, you know, and all of that. But, asking myself that question about my experiences digitally and on social media and stuff, it’s not very often that I can answer that question with a resounding yes.

Am I better, or is somebody else better because I have just spent four hours on my device or, you know, been on scrolling on social media stuck in the reels or, you know, entertained by that viral thing. And that is the thing. You know? There there certainly are opportunities for entertainment and such, but, there’s others, other sources for that entertainment and, you know, real experiences with real people.

Even though those both of those things, the digital experience or those real experiences might be entertaining, there is one that’s better. And then oftentimes, it’s the real one with real people. Right?

And it gives you opportunities to be useful to somebody.

So, like, when you commit yourself to showing up for other people, what happens is you develop a relationship in which others end up depending on you for something.

And without even necessarily choosing it or deciding it, you end up being very helpful. So that question you ask, am I doing something that’s actually helpful that makes other people’s lives better?

When you develop relationships, you end up doing things that that are quite useful. And and this is one of the like, the saddest surveys that we see in our society right now is how so many young people find themselves to be useless.

Mhmm. Like like, nobody needs them. And and, well, if you aren’t interacting with real people in real ways, it it’s very hard to be useful to anybody.

Yeah. And so that that’s the first step. And then what you find out is that you start interacting with people, and suddenly you are useful because you’re there when they need something, and and you’re in a position to help. So and, like, what you said about, like like, going through your day and asking, like, am I am I making somebody’s life better? Right?

You’re gonna have a lot of opportunities to do that if you’re committing yourself to spending time with people. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, gosh. We I wish we had, like, two more hours with you.

So so much to think about already. Right?

Before we transition to our closing segment, how can people learn more about you? What other things would you like people to get connected to?

Yeah. So, so my book, Finding Your Third Place, that, you know, like, they can people can buy that in bookstores or online, you know, at, any kind of seller. So that’s widely available.

And then, I also have a website, richard kite dot net.

And, and I’m easy to find at the Viterbo University website also. So if if somebody goes there so pretty easy to find. Richard Kite, people can Google that, and it’s it’s not a real common name.

Yeah. K y t e.

K y t e. Yep.

Awesome.

Alright. Well, let’s, start to round this out. We’ll shift into our something awesome segment where we share recommendations for, anything awesome in life right now. Cool books, good watches, cool experiences, whatever it might be.

I’ll kick it off, and cash after the conversation today. I feel almost silly sharing this, but I have to I’ve got young kids, and we like a good animated movie. And, the it’s trending a lot right now, but, there’s this Netflix movie called k pop demon hunters. And as to the point and awkward as the title is, it’s an amazing story full of lots of lessons, good lessons for kids, good lessons for parents.

The animation’s cool, and the music is, like, it’s, like, leading in the billboard list and stuff now, which for an animated Netflix movie is just kinda crazy. But, so much to love about it.

And, basically, any, quiet time in the house is filled with the soundtrack playing and with with two young kids that are all about dancing and singing along. It’s pretty awesome and adorable to watch as a as a parent too. So not only is the show good, but there’s some good, ancillary benefits there too with the kids picking up on it.

But But it’s it’s entertaining for the parents as well as the kids.

Is that Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s one of those, you know, kind of like lost art right now, a quick watch. Right? You know, it’s a movie that’s only an hour and twenty minutes long or something, you know, which, is a nice thing because, you know, lately, it seems like anything that winds up in the theaters and such, it’s, like, two hours minimum. You know?

So Right.

Yeah. Did you bring anything for us, Rick, or you got something to share?

Yeah. So couple things. So, this is not a kid’s movie at all, but I would say over the last couple years, the best movie I’ve seen, the one I keep thinking about over and over, is called perfect days. It’s by the director, Wim Wenders.

And it is about see, if I tell you what it’s about, you probably won’t watch it because it sounds like the most boring movie in the world. It’s about it is about a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo.

And following him as he goes about his job. Now it gets more involved in that, but the the movie is is beautiful because here it follows, it follows somebody who takes what we would think is a very disagreeable kind of job, and he takes it with he he does it with reverence.

Like, his his his job to to make this little part of the city more beautiful, to make it clean and to be ready for for the visitors who are gonna stop in the public bathrooms.

And then he gets it follows him through during his interactions and to the little third place that he goes to every day and all these things.

Anyway, it’s it’s just it’s a beautiful movie, and it it made me so happy to watch it. And I think about it all the time because it just makes me smile.

Yeah.

So I don’t think the kids would enjoy it so much.

Yeah.

But we’ll be sure.

Demons.

Like, no action, no dance tunes.

Yeah.

But there’s good music in it.

One other recommendation, and and, I would say, like, anybody who’s kind of interested in some of the things I was talking about, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays are entirely overlooked by this generation of people, and they are beautiful. They’re the most exquisite pieces of writing. They’re fairly short essays.

We know Emerson mainly as somebody who who who delivered all these quotes. And if you look for Emerson quotes, you’ll find thousands of them on the Internet.

But I love his essays, and I’ve been returning to them for three decades now, and they always seem fresh. And so I keep recommending them to people. If you’re a reader at all, go back and give those a look. You probably haven’t even thought about them maybe since high school or college, but but they’re beautiful.

Awesome. Excellent recommendations.

Thank you, Rick.

So I will I’ll cap us off. I am very excited.

And I think, strictly speaking, my recommendation is if someone is looking for a cause to support, but then I also will say that I am currently extremely biased. So, my recommendation is to check out, if you have not heard of it, the never never forgotten honor flight. I’m so excited about this. So my dad was in the navy in Vietnam, and he just turned eighty two. And in October, he and I are going to get to go on this never forgotten honor flight, and they fly the veterans to Washington DC.

They tour, among other things, the Vietnam Memorial, and, they get to spend time there. They make the whole day really about the veterans.

And I’m lucky enough that I got chosen to go as a guardian, so I get to go and sort of usher him and another veteran potentially through this experience.

And it’s just it’s a very cool organization. They do a ton of fundraising.

I found out you can buy things from their store, which also benefits the organization, things like hats and jackets and T shirts too. So if it is anything that, anyone’s looking for an opportunity to makes make a charitable donation, support a pretty cool cause, that is the one I my highly biased recommendation.

Never forgotten on her flight is one to get involved with.

So Yeah.

That’s an awesome recommendation, a great share. I’m so excited for your dad, but, Sue, I’m so excited for you to be able to get to go along as a guardian and stuff that what a cool experience for you to be there with your dad and and, you know, I’m sure meet other people and stuff too. So I’m so excited for you. I can’t wait to hear how it goes.

Yeah. Yeah.

I’m I’m pretty excited.

That is really fantastic. Like, it that’s that’s life changing for people.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And he, and he doesn’t listen to this, so I can speak frankly about him.

He he has not been excited about things for quite a while, and he’s really excited about this. So That’s great. Yeah.

Alright. Well, let’s wrap this up before Sue gets too steamy.

Yeah.

I’m a little emotional.

That’s just how I get. Thank you for being with us today, Rick. What an excellent conversation. I do hope that we get another opportunity to connect and have you come back and talk some more. You should write another book so that we can immediately have you back.

Okay. That that’s that’s a good incentive.

It’s just that easy.

But but thank you. I I this is a wonderful conversation. Your questions are so thoughtful, so thank you.

Thank you. And thank you to everyone for joining us. We’d love to have you here with us. We’d love to have you get to hear some of these wonderful guests like Rick with so much to share. You can always catch up on, your favorite podcast app, and you can always also find all of our past episodes. We’ve had a lot of really excellent guests. We’re pretty proud being able to talk to some of the smartest, coolest, most interesting people.

And you can see see and hear all of that at our blog exclamation cuso dot com slash blog.

Thanks again, Rick. Thanks, friends, for tuning in. Be awesome, and see you next time.

The Awsomology podcast is a production of Exclamation Services. Executive producers are myself, Ben Bauer, and my friend, Suzanne Campbell.

Thanks to Kylie Ganther for our show artwork, Scott Saager for booking our guests, and Alex Westerhausen for social media support.