Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you are in the world. It’s Dr. Jan Fortman with Relationship Matters. I hope everyone is having a beautiful morning, afternoon, or evening. I like to start off today’s show with something I’d like to tell women. As you know, this is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so ladies, if you haven’t gotten your mammogram, be sure and schedule your mammogram. What we want to do is to stamp out breast cancer, so I just wanted to remind you. I have scheduled mine, and I hope that you will schedule yours. Well, I am in Chicago and right outside of Chicago, and the other night it went down to, I think it was 29 degrees. Now tomorrow is going to be 71. You know what they always say when you live here, you always have a jacket or something in the trunk of your car because it can be 90 degrees in the morning and then 60, 50 degrees at night. So I don’t know if I want to move to a warm climate where it’s like 80 all the time or I just want to stay here. I haven’t decided yet, but anyway, enough about that. Tonight’s guest, let me just say this about him. How do you ask your parents for a Rolodex for Christmas when you’re five years old? How do you even know about a Rolodex? And how at 12 years old can you build your own computer? Now that’s who I have on this show this evening. Let me tell you a little bit about Rob Krizak. He is the Chief Connection Officer at Humans First, and we’re going to talk about that. Rob is a technology mindfulness expert that helps people understand how technology is impacting mental health, relationships, and productivity. As someone who was vulnerable to technology’s addictive hold from a young age, like video games, Rob is on a mission to help individuals and companies reduce stress and get back time to master their careers and life. So what I want to do is introduce to you, hi Rob.

Rob Krizak
Dr. Jan, how are you? Thanks so much for having me.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I am great, and I can’t wait to get started. But you know what I’m going to ask first? How did you even know about a Rolodex at five years old?

Rob Krizak
Yeah, so my parents had the family computer and desk in my bedroom because it was the only place that we had room for it in our house. My parents had this Rolodex of all their contacts on the desk, and sometimes I would just page through it, and I just thought, man, that is a cool way of organizing things. I like being very organized, so I wanted to organize my own phone numbers in my own Rolodex. And believe it or not, my parents actually still have that Rolodex with my best friend’s phone number in there that I met in kindergarten and all kinds of stuff.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh my goodness, so you were organized at age five.

Rob Krizak
I guess so, I guess so, yeah.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so I’m gonna move up a notch. At 12 years old, you built your own computer. How do you even know how to do that?

Rob Krizak
Yeah, so my, again, there was one computer in the house, and my dad and I shared it. My dad, I really credit him for a lot of all my technology love and stuff like that because he really introduced me to technology at a very young age when most people didn’t even have technology. And we would use the same computer, and we would, you know, kind of have disagreements about stuff like, oh, I want the, you know, I want to use this web browser, I want it to be this way. And so I was just like, all right, well, can I, I’m just gonna build my own computer. So you can read about how to do it, and you know, my dad did help me some, but you know, I put it all together and bought the components, and I’ve been building computers ever since.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow, that, you know, that’s really fascinating, especially for someone like me who is technologically challenged. But wow, that is really wonderful. So now, you are the Chief Connection Officer at Humans First. Tell us about Humans First, and I really want to know how you came up with that title.

Rob Krizak
Yeah, yeah, well, I can tell you a little story and some background about myself that will probably give you and the listener some good understanding of where I’m coming from. So when I was in high school, it was a very, very difficult time for me in my life because I had really bad acne. And so as a result, it was a very difficult time in terms of meeting people, you know, connecting with people, and I think that I had low self-esteem and self-worth, but I didn’t even realize it, you know. And so one of the other kind of side effects, I’ll say, of having this acne was that I became addicted to video games because the home computer was in my bedroom, right? And so I would play video games till 12, 1, 2 in the morning during school nights, and you know, that’s not good. My dad was a high school vice principal, and so he put a huge emphasis on education, and you know, you can’t be staying up that late on school nights. And so I saw, you know, and that was me being addicted to video games in the mid-90s, well before most people even had a cell phone, had an internet-connected computer. And so I saw the negative effects of technology for me in my life before most people even had technology at home. And so at another point in my life, I was also addicted to Facebook and addicted to my email for my job. And so I’ve personally seen several different ways that technology was being used by me in a way that didn’t serve me well. And so I want to help other people, you know, not go through what I went through. And the name of the company, Humans First, comes from this statistic. So in America, before COVID, you know, we can’t blame this on COVID because this wasn’t a statistic from during then. In America, the average person spends 12 hours and 21 minutes a day in front of screens and media. We’re spending about three-quarters of our life, seven days a week, in front of screens and media. And again, like, I think that screens and media aren’t inherently bad, but if we use them to that degree and that much, you know, they can be something that crowds out our relationships in our life. So the name of my company, Humans First, is a reminder that the most love and joy and meaning and purpose in our lives comes from being with and connecting with other people, not with technology.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, yeah, because sometimes when you’re in a restaurant, you look around, and instead of people talking to each other, you know, they’re on their phone.

Rob Krizak
Yeah, you know, right.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So I can see how it would impact relationships and probably even with kids who don’t have any social skills, real social skills.

Rob Krizak
Oh, totally. And it’s interesting you say that, Dr. Jan, because I owned a cell phone repair store, and one day this middle-aged woman came in with her son, and her son was probably 15 years old. And, you know, she was physically like shoving him up to the front counter, and I felt terrible because when he got to the front counter, he couldn’t string together a sentence, he couldn’t look me in the eye, he had very poor body posture. And, you know, I did my best to help him out, we fixed his phone, and, you know, he went on his way. But then I started paying attention, and I realized that this same situation kept on happening over and over and over with different people. And then I had the aha moment. I thought to myself, well, these kids are probably heavy users of technology because they’re coming into my store to get their phone fixed right away when it breaks because they basically can’t live without it. And so I thought to myself, well, maybe it’s the heavy technology use that is causing them to have the poor social skills. And so I started reading all this stuff, and over the last four years, I’ve read over 100 books and 2,000 articles and studies to truly understand the intersection of technology and humanity. And I truly believe that, you know, technology is impacting almost every aspect of our lives more than we know. And my goal with Humans First is just to educate people and generate some awareness so that people can, you know, maybe make, they can decide if they want to live their life differently or not.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So how can we back up off of technology? And I started thinking about how many hours in the day I stand in front of this computer.

Rob Krizak
Yeah.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
You know what, but how, I know you said not to blame it on COVID, but I know, I would think that since COVID, it’s even more hours because especially during COVID, you know, when we really couldn’t get out. And so what we did, we turned to, you know, I’ll say the little computers that, you know, and for me, this thing that’s in front of me. And so what I’m asking you, did this increase during COVID, and how can we get, how can we pull ourselves away because we rely on technology for almost everything?

Rob Krizak
Yeah, we do. And that’s, you know, that’s why I’m working on this problem, Dr. Jan. I legitimately think that this is the hardest problem on Earth to solve. Much like, you know, so I owned three health clubs, and, you know, I helped thousands of people with health and fitness. And it’s very similar to that in that, you know, if you want to lose weight, for instance, I can’t just tell you stop eating and don’t ever eat again. Like, that’s impossible. And I think this is similar, but technology is used with so many more things than even eating, right, that it basically is, there’s, the answer to your question is there isn’t an easy answer, unfortunately. It’s really just that each person becomes educated and understands the different ways that technology is impacting them. And then, you know, are you going to change everything overnight? No, absolutely not. I mean, that’s not very realistic. But, you know, there are some very small things that each person can do. Some of them take 10 seconds that could, you know, save you a bunch of time, reduce your stress, and allow you to do the things in life that you really want to do instead of be sucked into your phone all the time or your computer.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, I read on your LinkedIn post where you said that you struggle or did struggle with ADHD and you had an issue with focusing. Did technology influence that?

Rob Krizak
Totally. Well, yeah, so I still, I mean, you know, there’s no cure for ADHD, so I still believe that I am affected by it. And, you know, the reason that I’m excited to share the information with people about Humans First is over the last four years, I’ve run many, many hundreds of experiments on myself to see ways that I could personally use technology that would allow me to focus and get more work done, you know, at my company. And, you know, the results of all those hundreds of experiments is what I’m sharing with people with Humans First. So if I’ve, you know, figured out some techniques that help a person with ADHD focus, then they will definitely work for the average person.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Right, right. Okay, so I have a question that came in. Renita Dixon, she asks, what are your thoughts on young people entering the career world insisting on 100% remote work? How will this impact businesses from a relationship standpoint in the long run?

Rob Krizak
Oh my God, I love this question. So I think, you know, there’s, I get why during the pandemic, obviously, companies pretty much had to go remote if, you know, if they could, right, because that’s what was required for our society. But I know that there’s, you know, a big debate between companies and employees in terms of, hey, should we still be 100% remote or have people come in? And, you know, I’ve certainly kept up with this and read a lot about this because I really think it’s important. And I think that the companies who are still remaining 100% remote, even if they don’t have to be, are making a mistake. And here’s why. So, you know, some of the best ideas in a company and the most interesting things can happen in those moments where you’re not really doing anything with a purpose. You know, it’s like, it’s the water cooler chat. It’s you bumping into someone going to the bathroom and saying, oh, hey, how was your weekend? Oh, by the way, what about this project that you’re working on, XYZ, right? And those moments don’t happen when you’re 100% remote, basically, because you’re only in a meeting when you’re in a meeting on the screen, and then otherwise you’re not. And yes, maybe you do a handful of, you know, team building or socializing exercises or whatever, but it still doesn’t replace, you know, being in person with people. And so I, you know, Harvard Business Review did a study of what is the optimum number of, like, what’s the optimum work situation? Is it 100% remote? Is it hybrid? Is it 100% in person? And their conclusion was that having employees come into the office one or two days per week is the optimum balance between building culture, building trust, relationships, and allowing some flexibility and allowing people to do what they need to do at home. So I think that that, to me, is one or two days a week in the office seems to be like the sweet spot.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, you also said something about a four-day work week.

Rob Krizak
Yes.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So are you saying a four-day work in person, or does that include, you know, virtual?

Rob Krizak
So when I, so one of the things that I do with Humans First is I help individuals, teams, and companies officially transition from a five-day work week to a four-day work week with no loss in productivity or profitability. And when I say a four-day work week, I mean four eight-hour days, not four ten-hour days. So everyone in the company truly gets a day of time back. And what I mean by that is it doesn’t matter if you’re in person or a hybrid or 100% remote, you’re not working more than about 32 hours a week if you’re at that company. And I know that that’s, a lot of people are very skeptical about that, but there’s other companies who have done this, and after, you know, a trial of doing this for three months, they had university statisticians measure a bunch of stuff. And for instance, profit per employee increased 14 and a half percent, which is huge, like that’s crazy. And almost every other measurable thing that they took a look at improved or went in the right direction.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Really? Also, I saw what you said, and I guess this is from research, it’s kind of opened my eyes, kind of like, really? The average worker is productive for two hours and 23 minutes each day?

Rob Krizak
Yeah, yeah. I mean, so here’s kind of what’s happening to the U.S. workforce. And, you know, when you look at these numbers, it’s just like, it’s just, it’s kind of mind-blowing. So the average worker in the United States sends and receives 126 emails per day. If you’re taking just two minutes per email, that is almost exactly four hours of your day just on email. Then, so half your day, right? Then you’re in meetings about two hours a day, you know, again, like some people are less, some people are more, but let’s just say you’re in meetings for at least two hours a day. So in an eight-hour day, then that only leaves you about two hours to get your job done. And so that’s, you know, if you’re forced to essentially do your job within two hours, that’s going to be your, you know, truly productive time. But my goal with Humans First is to reduce email to company, reduce the number of unnecessary meetings, and help people work more effectively or more productively so then they can just go home and be with their family more or do the things in life that they, you know, really want to do more or travel or whatever, exercise, I don’t know.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, Renita says that sounds like my average.

Rob Krizak
I love it, I love it.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
That sounds like my average. So now, okay, let’s say, okay, so you go into companies. So do you also work with individuals outside of, you know, the corporate structure?

Rob Krizak
Yeah, absolutely, or business owners who, you know, have a small business with just themselves or something like that. So yeah, I mean, there’s plenty of ways to do this, and, you know, I’m not saying that I have the only way to work a four-day work week. There’s plenty of ways to accomplish that goal, but yeah, I do work with individuals, teams, and full companies.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So I’m an entrepreneur, and it’s just me. Okay, so now I understand the part about emails.

Rob Krizak
Yeah.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, okay, because what I try to do is say, okay, I’m only going to spend an hour going through my emails.

Rob Krizak
Yep.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Of course, you know, you end up, it’s like I look back, and it’s like, oh my God, you know, and all I’m really doing is delete, you know, read, delete, read, delete, read, delete, delete. Okay, okay, so let’s tackle that first. You said that it’s an average, well, I’m standing in an office of 121 emails, and that’s probably true. So how do you cut down on that? How do you, if you’re working with an individual, an entrepreneur, you’re working in a company, how, and they’re getting these emails, what do you do? What do you tell them? Don’t read them?

Rob Krizak
No, no, so, you know, the process of reducing email, again, there’s many ways to do it, but here’s what I find is that the vast majority of the companies that I talk to don’t have written standards of communication or written communication guidelines. And so when they’re not written out, what that does is that just forces all the employees to guess how and when and how much to communicate. Well, all that guessing does two things. One, it duplicates a lot of efforts and makes things very inefficient, which wastes a ton of time, and time is very valuable. But the other thing is it makes it incredibly stressful for those employees to do their job because they’re just sitting here going, do I need to check my email for three minutes? Should it be every hour? Is it once a day? I don’t know. And so then everyone just kind of, again, guesses and, you know, what they think is appropriate. But then when other people don’t have the same expectation as them, they become anxious, right? And so by establishing written standards of communication or written communication guidelines, then you can allow people to not check their email nearly as often and then spend less time in their inbox and spend more time doing the things that generate value for the company.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so I can understand then in the corporate world, so to speak, but an individual entrepreneur, what happens, at least in my case, is that you don’t know which emails are important or not because you might look and say, okay, I keep getting an email from a particular company, a particular person, and you might say, okay, well, from their track record, you know, they’re just trying to sell me something. But it might be that what they’re selling me at some particular point in time is of great value to me.

Rob Krizak
Sure.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So in reducing the number of emails, what do you tell, that’s an entrepreneur, single, you know, a business owner, just me and maybe a couple other people, but I’m the one reading emails.

Rob Krizak
Yeah, so it’s not that you’re, it’s not that I’m, you would still receive that email, but you just wouldn’t have as much urgency to look at it or respond, right? And so what happens is a lot of people, you know, they have their inbox open, right? And they’re basically looking at it all day, all the time. I used, again, I used to do this too, like I get it, right? But what’s happening is when you look at your email, a lot of people become overwhelmed because your email essentially represents a bunch of unfinished tasks or unresolved issues, right? And so when you look at that, you say to yourself, oh my God, I have 50 unread emails, and every email represents something that I need to complete, and I only have 30 minutes. Obviously, I’m not going to do all the 50 of those things. And so when you look at your inbox every time, whether you know it or not, subconsciously, you become overwhelmed. And I’m sure, as you know, when people become overwhelmed, we experience that as a loss of control, and then we think of a loss of control as a threat. And so when we look at our email inboxes, a lot of times it can activate our sympathetic nervous system, which is the fight-or-flight system that keeps us alive when there’s a threat. But we don’t, you know, the body is not designed to have that system be activated all the time. And so that additional stress on our body builds up over time, and I truly believe that this is the root cause of not all, but a lot of the anxiety that we have today is constantly being reminded by technology of all these things that we need to do, but we don’t have time to do.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, okay, so how successful has your system been when you go into these different companies, and how long does it take?

Rob Krizak
Yeah, so generally the system takes, you know, three to four months, but that really depends on a bunch of factors like the size of the company, but most importantly, the willingness of the employees and the management team to try something different, right? Because, yeah, you do have to change a little bit about how you run the company, there’s no question. But, you know, as an example, I have a client of mine who, you know, I worked with him for about six months, and we worked on some other financial things as well, not just Humans First stuff. But in less than six months, I was able to help him triple the profitability of his business and work less than half the amount of time. And so now he’s traveling around the world and is in Thailand, you know, enjoying his life while he’s working remotely and owning his business.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, that’s all good. Got another question here from Sarah Crawley. She says, every political person running for office all over the country thinks I can support them. I’m on information overload, and I feel guilty because I can’t support. Is there a way to ban junk mail from my computer?

Rob Krizak
Yeah, good question, Sarah. So I have a couple of recommendations for you that I typically take people through, and I think they could be a game changer for you. The first one is a service called unroll.me. So you just go to the website.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, yeah.

Rob Krizak
So you go to this website, unroll.me, and then you connect, excuse me, you connect that service to your inbox, to your email, right? And then what happens is the service scans your email, and it looks at all everything you’re subscribed to, so like newsletters and updates and all, you know, anything you’re subscribed to. And then it summarizes it in one page for you, and then what you can do is just go down every single item and uncheck the box if you want to unsubscribe. You could do a hundred of them or 200, you know, unsubscribe 200 things at one time, and then it just automatically takes you off those lists. It’s incredible.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So I’m putting it on here for you, Sarah. Let’s see, you said unroll.me, correct?

Rob Krizak
Yep, and just make sure you disconnect your mailbox from that service when you’re done. But yeah, it’s super effective. Another thing that I like to do, because I, you know, sometimes you want newsletters, but you don’t want a million of them in your inbox because it’s just not manageable, right? So another thing that I did is for each newsletter, and it does take a little bit of work, but once it’s set up, it’s all like seamless. You can take a newsletter and then create a filter in, for instance, in Gmail or in Microsoft Outlook. And so every time you get that newsletter, it puts it in a different folder, marks it as read, and then once a week, let’s say, so the name of my folder is zero urgency, so I don’t feel like I have to, you know, go in there all the time. But maybe once a week, I go in that folder, look at all my newsletters, and say, oh, okay, like these look interesting or these don’t, and that’s it. So I still have that information available to me, and I didn’t unsubscribe, but it never hits my inbox. I don’t ever have to like manage it or, you know, shuffle it to that other folder. It just automatically goes, like, gets moved to that folder.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
You know, that’s a good idea just for some emails, and you’re like, what do they want now, and put that in there. I can imagine with my box, I probably have a million of them in there. Well, Sarah says thank you, thank you, thank you.

Rob Krizak
Yeah, happy to help, Sarah. Good question.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So, Rob, I’m gonna take a quick commercial break, and when we come back, I want to talk more about technology and mental health.

Rob Krizak
Yeah.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And how technology really affects mental health.

Rob Krizak
Absolutely.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Alrighty, so we will be right back with Rob. [Music]

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
All right, we are back with Rob. But before I, another question came in during the commercial, and it’s, what is your biggest obstacle in implementing Humans First?

Rob Krizak
The biggest obstacle in implementing the four-day work week is the belief that, you know, a lot of people say, well, I can’t even get everything done in five days. How could I possibly get it done in four, right? And, you know, I guess I’ll just tell you guys about another example of an individual, not a company, but, you know, I have a client, she’s running for governor of Colorado, so she is very, very busy. And what happened is she came to me, and she’s like, I can’t manage everything, my campaign is crazy, this is really hard for me to do. So she took my initial client survey, and then I worked with her for about three hours, and we did a lot of changes to how she was, you know, using her technology. But what we did is we measured her screen time on her iPhone, and what we found is that I was able to help save her over 40 hours of screen time every week, an entire work week’s worth of time every week. And so if I can save one person 40 hours, I’m very confident that I could save the average person eight.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I guess so. So now let’s talk about mental health and technology. And there’s a lot of focus where it should have been a long time ago on mental health.

Rob Krizak
Yeah.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So how do you think technology affects mental health?

Rob Krizak
Yeah, here’s how I know it’s affecting it, and this is, again, I just wish I had a megaphone, like, to blast this information to, like, the five billion people that are connected to the internet today. So what’s happening is two things. The first thing is technology is increasing the day-to-day and sometimes minute-to-minute stress that we experience, and I can talk a little bit more about that in a second. But the other thing that technology is doing is it is degrading our relationships, families, and communities, and our social support system. Those relationships, families, and communities is the main way that humans buffer against stress. You know, if, so think about it, 50,000 years ago, we were cavemen and cavewomen. We did three things: we hunted, we gathered, and we socialized. And 90% of our time as cavemen was spent with other people. Well, now almost 90% of our time is spent with screens and media. And so we’re not designed as humans to, you know, be in the presence of this very unnatural thing for three-quarters of our life. We’re designed to be with other people so that we can, you know, feel cared for and loved and, you know, do fun things and build relationships. And so, you know, so again, what’s happening is increasing stress, decreasing ability to deal with that stress. And I truly believe that, again, this isn’t not the only cause, but one of the main causes of the mental health crisis we have today.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so basically not being able to interact with each other on a personal level.

Rob Krizak
Right, not as much as we used to. I mean, of course, we can still do that, right? But, you know, there’s so many things that have replaced in-person interactions. And again, some of them, I get why we’re doing it, right? It’s more convenient or it’s cheaper or whatever. Maybe you can’t do something in person for some reason, I get that. But my, I guess, concern is, you know, there’s so many things that we could be doing in person. Like, for instance, I really wish that I had thought to ask you to do this interview in person with you. Like, I would have loved to have.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Right, because we’re both in Chicago.

Rob Krizak
Yeah, like, I would have loved that. And I really wish I would have, you know, just asked you where you were because then I would have come to your place, you know. And I have recorded podcasts in person with other people because I really like that. So, you know, that’s just a very simple example, right? And again, like, just to be super clear, I love technology, and I really think it does great things for our humanity. But the way, so the way I describe my stance is I’m not anti-technology, I’m pro-humanity.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, all right, okay. Well, Sarah says, I feel that when I unsubscribe, my email is sold through another unheard-of company. The same with my junk mail hard copies. My mental health has been affected, and I have had to ask for forgiveness for my horrific bad attitude.

Rob Krizak
I’m sorry, Sarah, that, I mean, you know, I get it, right? Because it’s like everyone, your comment, Sarah, and I’m sorry that, you know, that is, that’s happening to you. You know, what’s interesting is in today’s world, the number one most valuable commodity is human time and attention. It’s not diamonds, it’s not oil, it’s not, you know, some rare mineral, it’s human time and attention. And a lot of these tech companies are essentially trying to monopolize that. The goal of not all, but most tech companies is for you to spend as much time and attention as possible on those platforms or with that company because that makes them more money. And so as soon as, so I really hope that people think about that a little bit because then all of a sudden it becomes super clear why every company wants to give you a notification on your phone and why Facebook has engineered the platform to be super addicting and for you to spend as much time as possible on there. It’s because they make more money when you spend more time. You are the product. You are the product, not Facebook. You are the product.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, all righty. And I notice, and is the difference between texting and talking on the phone.

Rob Krizak
Yes.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
You know, and it’s like when you text, there’s no feeling behind you. I mean, you don’t know, you know, the feeling behind it.

Rob Krizak
Yeah, I’m really glad you brought this up, Dr. Jan, because this is, again, like one of the things that I really am excited to educate people about. So, and I’ve, you know, researched this a lot. So when humans connect in person, like let’s say, for instance, we were talking and I gave you a hug, right? There’s a large amount of oxytocin and serotonin, two chemicals in the brain that are released among others. And so when we have warm human touch with another person, that releases the most oxytocin and serotonin. But as we go away from in-person communication and go toward digital communication, the amount of serotonin and oxytocin release gets less and less, and sometimes there’s basically almost none released. And so what’s happening is we used to have these interactions where we would, you know, we’d be in person, I’d give you a hug or give you a pat on the back, whatever. It releases a lot of serotonin and oxytocin for both of us, not just for you. And we feel connected, we feel cared for, we feel like we’re, you know, bonding. And that feeling doesn’t happen as much with all of our digital communication, texting, email, direct messages on social media. It’s not the same. We don’t, it’s a different chemical response in our brain. And so this is why I believe that we are the most connected, and, you know, the world is the most connected it has ever been. We have more ways to communicate than ever, yet loneliness is also at an all-time high. That doesn’t make any sense. And I believe it’s because of the reason I just described to you and the listeners.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Right, I can really see that. I can see that because I didn’t understand for a while when people would say that they were lonely. You know, good grief, you know, there’s so many people around, you can do this, you can do that, you know, you can interact with this person, you can go out and find friends, but not like it used to. Now, just something just came here. Young people now, older people, we still try to write letters, and we still try to be in each other’s company. But when you think about young people and, you know, elementary school students, and I can see how that being just so tuned into technology and not socializing can change the scope of this whole world, you know what I’m saying? And that you don’t have that heart feeling.

Rob Krizak
Yeah, so what’s interesting is, you know, sometimes, so like, have you ever seen or talked to a parent, and the parent took the child’s cell phone away from them, right? Like, let’s say it was for a week, right? Like a long period of time, or that’s, I guess, a long period of time if you’re addicted to your phone, right? And so if you ever witnessed it in person, like when it actually happened, when the parent took the phone away, I mean, a lot of times those kids, and it doesn’t matter if they’re eight years old or 18 years old, they will act like it’s the end of the world, like, oh my gosh, you know, like, how could you do that to me? And what’s happening is, it is, this sounds like almost like not possible, but basically because so much of our interaction with other people is online today, and, you know, your phone represents those interactions, part of your identity becomes tied into your phone, believe it or not. So like, you identify part of yourself with your cell phone, with your personal cell phone. And so when kids, so, you know, especially if they’re a young kid, they feel like part of their identity is being taken away when the cell phone is taken away, and that’s why they freak out. And so, you know, do I have an easy solution for that? No, I don’t. Like, there is no easy solution for that. But just being aware of that and understanding why your kid may react so strongly when you take away the cell phone, I think can be, you know, very empowering for the parent to, you know, to maybe take some steps to mitigate that a little bit.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, I never saw it that way, you know. Wow, have you ever thought about, you know, going into schools?

Rob Krizak
Oh, totally. I mean, I’m, yeah, I’m, that’s one of the things, you know, that’s one of the areas that I really think needs the most help now is children today, you know, they don’t understand, they don’t, I mean, no one’s, you know, no one’s talking about this stuff in the way that I see it, right? I mean, you know, we jokingly, people say that they’re addicted to their smartphones or whatever, but like, no one understands the psychology, right? Or no one’s like talking about the psychology behind it. And to me, that’s really where that conversation has to start is once you understand the psychology, then you can start to take steps to mitigate that or change that or whatever. You know, again, there’s a lot of different ways to do that, but, you know, I’m certainly willing to chat with schools. If, by the way, if any listeners, you know, have a suggestion or a school that they would like me to chat with, I’d love to talk to them.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow, that would be great. And talking about stress, I’m thinking about when someone, including me, accidentally leaves the phone at home.

Rob Krizak
Yeah.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
You know, and it’s like, oh my God, I don’t have my phone, and the stress. But, you know, I have been on my way somewhere, and where’s my phone? Oh my God, I left it, turned around, went back to get my phone. Why? Because there was a time when we didn’t have, well, you know, you had a great big old phone, but even before that, we didn’t have cell phones, so we had to wait, you know, until you got home or wait until you, you know, you talked to someone in person. So I can see how it really has changed things. And you know what, just because I’m talking with you, it’s gonna really, really, really gonna stress me out. I’m gonna leave out here.

Rob Krizak
Well, the goal is not to stress you out more, Dr. Jan, but just to hopefully, you know, help you understand these things differently. But I get that. I also, you know, get stressed when I don’t have my phone sometimes. But then I realize, hey, you know, and I think about this a lot, right? It’s hard for, especially for young people, to imagine a world without a phone. But I didn’t get a, I didn’t have a cell phone until I think I was like 16, right?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay.

Rob Krizak
So I built my first computer before, four years before I even had a cell phone, which is kind of crazy now that I say that. But I mean, there was a time when we didn’t have a cell phone, and everything, the world still functioned. Like, everything worked fine. It was, you know, everything worked great. It’s just inconceivable to us today, though.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Businesses still ran. There’s another question that came in on that text. Okay, tell us something about you that you normally would not reveal.

Rob Krizak
I like that question. I like that question that I normally would not reveal. I mean, I feel like I’m a pretty open book. I guess I don’t, I don’t feel like I try to hide a lot. But one of the things that, well, so I’m from Wisconsin, and if I could only drink one liquid for the rest of my life, and let’s say, like, it would allow me to still live, you know, it would be milk.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Really? Milk?

Rob Krizak
Yeah, I like milk.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, okay.

Rob Krizak
I just, I’m a Wisconsin boy.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, yeah. Are you a cheesehead?

Rob Krizak
I’m a cheesehead, yeah. My dad actually knows the guy who makes the cheeseheads, childhood friend, yeah.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, all right. Well, you know, you’re in Chicago now, so.

Rob Krizak
I know, I have to be careful, I know.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So Sarah says this, I love to see the mini genius ideas of those with ADHD. They seem to identify their genius before others. Thank you, thanks for sharing, Rob.

Rob Krizak
Yeah, absolutely, I’m happy to share. And yeah, hopefully people, you know, if someone with ADHD is listening to this, you know, I’m a nine-time entrepreneur, and that didn’t stop me from becoming an entrepreneur. And yes, it made it more difficult sometimes, but I, you know, if I could somehow, like, magically choose to not have ADHD and be cured of it, I don’t think I would be cured. I actually think there’s a lot of things that I like about it, and it, you know, keeps my life interesting and keeps me on the entrepreneurial bandwagon, which I really enjoy.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I have a friend who has ADHD, and he says that’s his superpower.

Rob Krizak
Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, yeah. And things have really changed because when I was teaching in an elementary school, they would say that a child with ADHD needed to go into special education.

Rob Krizak
Really?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. But things have really changed. So that is just, when I’m looking at all what you’ve done, it’s like that is your superpower.

Rob Krizak
Thank you. Yeah, I kind of, well, I think one thing that people don’t understand about ADHD is, yes, it makes it hard to focus, but the other thing is when you like something, you really like it, and you like hyper-focus. Like, my wife will, you know, some days I will sit there and read for just like eight hours and take notes in my notebook, and I just love it. I love learning, and, you know, my wife, first of all, is slightly jealous because she’s working, you know, but I still view that as my job, right, is to, like, learn this stuff. But I, you know, I just get lost in a book, and I love that. Those are some of my favorite days. And I, so like, I think that that hyper-focus is one of the reasons why I understand what I do today about humanity and technology.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Now, you said nine companies.

Rob Krizak
Nine companies, yeah.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So what are the companies? I know one had to do with health and fitness.

Rob Krizak
Yeah, yeah, so I had three Anytime Fitness health clubs in three different states, Before You Break I Fix cell phone repair stores all in the Milwaukee area, a technology startup to help small businesses generate sales during COVID, and then my current consultancy, Humans First.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So what did you do? You sold those companies, or you just, or are you still involved with them?

Rob Krizak
I sold all of them so that I could focus on Humans First full-time almost exactly two years ago to the day.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. So now, if people want to get in contact with you, this is, okay, so www.humansfirst.us/contact. You fascinate me, actually.

Rob Krizak
Thank you.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you really, really, really do. And I’m really hoping that people have listened to you and that they see the value that you bring and open their eyes to how technology is affecting us personally and professionally, you know what I mean? And in a good way and then in a not-so-good way.

Rob Krizak
Yeah, pluses and minuses, right? It’s not all bad.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, definitely does great things for us. It’s not all bad, it’s not all bad. So something, pearls of wisdom you would like to give to my audience?

Rob Krizak
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So my wife and I thought this was so meaningful that we wanted to include it in our wedding as a part of one of our toasts, and it’s this: so the amount of love, success, and happiness in this world are infinite. And so imagine how much love, success, and happiness we can all have together if we all decided to put humans first.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I love that, I love that. Thank you so much, Rob. I really appreciate you being a guest on my show. You’ve opened my eyes, and guess what? I am going to leave my phone. I don’t know when, but one day.

Rob Krizak
Nice, I love it.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I am going to leave my phone, and I do hope that there, I know there are some educators on here, but I’m really hoping that what they will do is, whatever contacts they have, that they will talk to the school administrators about you coming in and speaking to them, you know, about how this is affecting students and their social skills and their mental health.

Rob Krizak
Yeah, so many parts of their life, not just those two things, but a lot of other things as well, for sure.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so I really appreciate it, and I’m sending you something in the private chat. So, of course, as why does your computer freeze? Oh, there we go. Okay, okay, so thank you so much, Rob, and thank you. I look forward, actually, to really delving more into Humans First.

Rob Krizak
Thank you, I really appreciate everything today, Dr. Jan. Really enjoyed the conversation.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Alrighty, so you have a good, wonderful, blessed rest of your evening.

Rob Krizak
You too, thank you so much.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Bye-bye. Wow, that was really, really interesting, really, really, really interesting. Well, I had so many other questions because I started thinking about crying with these kids. They don’t really, don’t really, you know, it seems like they don’t have any heart. And you know what, probably technology has a lot to do with it. That was just something that went across my mind. And, okay, so Renita says thank you, and Sandy Barney Ennis says wonderful information. So now I gotta do a couple of other commercials, and I guess I would call them actually shameless plugs. So let me find my shameless plugs. Okay, here we go. [Music]