087. Erin Loechner: From HGTV to Living Tech-Free

Today’s guest is the wonderful Erin Loechner, author of one of my all-time favorite books, Chasing Slow. From blogging to creating content for HGTV, hear why Erin walked away from her TV career, and how she’s built a successful business without social media (or even a smartphone).

Erin is an author, NYT-bestselling editor, and founder of the global tech-free movement The Opt-Out Family. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Huffington Post, as well as on the Today Show.

Her new book “The Opt-Out Family” will have you rethinking your relationship with technology and how to build a life off-line that is more engaging than the algorithm.

WILDFLOWER SHOWNOTES : shannaskidmore.com/erin-loechner

📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:
Order Erin’s New Book!
Chasing Slow (On Shanna’s must Read book list!) by Erin Loechner
The Renaissance Soul
Other Goose
Free workshop for anyone considering homeschooling their kids ages 2-7!
Join the Global Movement for Parents Doing Tech Differently

Transcript

Erin (00:00):

This is no joke. At 2:00 AM I set up like a bolt and I have this book outline in my head of everything that I want to say, every chapter I want to write, and I grab my little notepad and I start s scrolling it all down. And we do that in the middle of the night and it never makes sense the next morning, but it all made sense the next morning every line made sense and I thought, this is something I have to do this. And I can't tell you how much it felt so different from the first book. I felt like the first book was something that I wanted to do for fun. It was interesting. I wanted to experiment with it. This feels like a mission. This feels like no matter what I needed to get it on paper and it just poured out of me. I researched, I interviewed over 200 sources. I just got in there deep.

Shanna (00:45):

You're listening to Consider the Wildflowers, the podcast episode 87. I have admired today's guest from afar since reading her first book, chasing Slow, one of my all time favorite books, and had the honor of meeting her in person back in 2018. Since then, she has become a dear friend and one of the wisest women I know. Erin Lochner is on the show today. From blogging to creating content for HGTV, hear why Erin walked away from her TV career and how she's built a successful business without social media or even a smartphone. Erin is an author, New York Times bestselling editor and founder of the Global Tech-Free Movement, the Opt-Out Family. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Huffington Post, as well as on the Today Show. Her new book, the Opt-Out Family will have you rethinking your relationship with technology and how to build a life offline that is more engaging than the algorithm.

(01:36):

Today is a good one. Enjoy. Hey, it's Shanna, and this is Consider the Wildflowers, the podcast. For the past 15 plus years, I've had the honor to hear thousands of stories from entrepreneurs around the world. As a former Fortune 100 financial advisor, turn business consultant, I have a unique opportunity to see the reel behind the highlight reel. I'm talking profit and loss statements, unpaid taxes, moments of burnout, and those of utter victory. Or as my husband says, the content everyone is wondering but not many are talking about. And now I'm bringing these private conversations to you. Hear the untold stories of how industry leaders, founders, and up and coming entrepreneurs got their start, the experiences that shaped them and the journey to building the brands they have today. Stories that will inspire and reignite encourage to redefine success and build a life in business on your own terms. Welcome Wildflower. I'm so glad you're here. Hi Erin. Welcome to the show.

Erin (02:28):

Hi, Shanna. I'm so excited to be with you. Oh, it's just the best.

Shanna (02:33):

It is the best. I haven't seen you since what, 2019 maybe?

Erin (02:36):

I was trying to do that math. Yep. Yeah, it's been

Shanna (02:39):

A while. And I forgot to tell you before we hit record, while we were doing our quick little catch up, Kyle has now officially joined the company, and so it's so fun. Full circle moment. That's how we met working together, and now we are working together again. And so anytime I do a podcast when he's not here and I have to do the tech stuff, I'm like, thank goodness for Kyle.

Erin (03:03):

Thank goodness for Kyle. Exactly. I feel like that all the time. I love that guy.

Shanna (03:07):

Yeah, so it's been fun to do that. But Erin, it is a joy to have. You are one of the most special humans that I know, and I think I've told you this before, but for everybody listening, I have to tell you a little backstory. I read Aaron's book Chasing Slow, and it's incredible. It's top five, hands down, favorite book all time. And so I used to host a conference and I reached out to Aaron to be a speaker, like a dream, just like it's Aaron Loughner. Does this make you feel weird, Aaron? It's Aaron Loughner. And you said yes, and you came and I just, you are so genuinely who you are and it made me love the book clearly even more. And now to have you on the podcast, it's just an honor. You, you're just such a voice of truth and light and goodness and yeah, I like you a lot,

Erin (04:06):

Shanna. Thank you. And my favorite part of that story is that that conference was so, and it was a summit. It was just a very intimate gathering, but it was a really impactful, just the way that you lived, the messages that you were speaking, you could see it behind the scenes, you could see it in your relationships and in your marriage. And it was a beautiful thing for me to witness that there can be abundance all around and every avenue of your life. It does exist.

Shanna (04:34):

And I think we're just naturally such kindred spirits because I don't often think how rare it is because it's so natural to me, and a lot of people around me believe very similarly, but I still think it's very rare in the business world to actually chase slow and to put your life values before your business goals or make those two things align. And so I think that's why you and I feel like in our communities like connect so well of those shared values.

Erin (05:10):

Absolutely. I love seeing how you're doing it. It's always inspiring to me,

Shanna (05:15):

Erin. Okay. Well tell everybody who you are and then we're going to talk a little bit about your backstory and then really a lot about what you're doing now. So Hi Erin. Welcome.

Erin (05:24):

Okay. Okay. Well, I am a mother of three kids. I have a husband. We live in the Midwest. And my backstory really started, we used to live in Los Angeles about, oh, shoot, 20 years ago is really when kind of the beginning of my business I would say began. I didn't call it a business then. It was a hobby. Of course, you kind of fall into these things accidentally. But I was living in Los Angeles with my husband, our two dogs, and I've always blogged that was, I kind of grew up in the internet age when everybody had a Zenga account and whatever else. And so Zenga, yes. Do you remember Zenga? Oh, right. I know Zenga. Good old days. I had just always sort of used it as this digital journal, like an online journal. And at the time I was doing so many different jobs in la.

(06:18):

I was a stylist and an art director sometimes. And then I would pop in and do and curate some gallery shows for friends, and I would pass out zines on the street corner. I mean, it was literally just, I would do, I was a dog walker once. I would just do so many different jobs really, because I was trying to find out what the job was going to be, right? I went to college, I grew up with two parents that were public school teachers for their whole lives. And so I still had that mindset where it's like you pick one job and you do it for 50 years and then you retire and they throw you a big party. And I was looking for that and I wasn't finding it. And so I thought something was wrong with me. Am I not a good enough employee?

(06:57):

And why can't I find a good fit and where's my passion? And I remember, gosh, somebody handed me this book called the Renaissance Soul. Have you ever read that? I have never even heard of that. Erin Anna. It's so old and so good. Actually, I should probably reread it now to see if it resonates, but it certainly did then. Okay, I wrote it down. I thought you should. And I thought, I don't need just one job. I can live a lot of jobs and enjoy a lot of different things and hopefully will make ends meet that way. And so at the time, my husband was a PA in Hollywood, so he was making just kind of pennies working all the time. And we were just sort of scrapping together this life based on what we love doing. And so my job really, I would say my business kind of blossomed from there, just changing that mindset from what I'm doing with these hobbies isn't a distraction from the job that I should be getting. It could actually be the job.

(08:01):

And then that kind of set me on a path to, I ended up blogging full time, interviewed other artists. I started a video series before YouTube. YouTube wasn't a thing, I just hosted them on my site. We had gallery shows and we partnered with artists, and I had a postcard series with a friend, and we would mail people postcards and sell. We sold T-shirts at one point. I mean, we just did a lot of different things that we love to do. And as part of that, I think the internet was built as such that like-minded people, there were so few of us that were so kind of nuts about creating things on the internet that we sort of flocked together. And I just feel really, really blessed to have been given that foothold into community. And at the time, everybody was supporting everybody else. Truly.

(08:55):

It was just this, it was a weird underground club, and everybody else thought blogging was like a disease, and it was just a really beautiful way to meet people that were a little bit odd like you. And so that's where it started. I don't know the moment that it pivoted to me considering in a job, I guess. I think from that blog, more people would come visit and you would be exchanging, there was a blog roll on the side and you would go visit your friends and everybody was having conversations all the time. And magazine editors started to really take notice of the weirdos on the web. And so I would get offers to write stories for early stories for their websites as they started ramping up their site presence. So Ready-Made Magazine, El Decor, the sites or magazines that some that don't exist anymore, but that I would work for.

(09:51):

And it a little bit taught me how to think editorially and how to listen and respond to readers. Because at the time, I was just really writing into the void and wasn't really thinking about who was receiving that and what would be helpful in their life. And that editorial training really taught me you have a reader and the sweet spot is finding what you enjoy that your reader also enjoys, that your reader actually wants. And so that kind of just stuck at the back of my head and I thought really hard about what my reader would want and would kind of offer one-off products. I remember one of the first products that I made independently for the site was, do you remember when inspiration boards were huge?

Shanna (10:34):

I mean like mood boards?

Erin (10:36):

Yeah,

Shanna (10:37):

Kind of. I mean, was this pre Pinterest though?

Erin (10:40):

Yes, this would've been, gosh, 2005. And it felt like every artist studio had their own inspiration board and where you'd still clip things out of real magazines. And I would notice that anytime I posted a friend that was an artist that a picture of their inspiration board, people would just go wild and the comment section would be crazy. And I thought, oh, I love seeing this. I love getting a sneak peek into any people's houses and how they really live and what it looks like. And at the time, you really only saw the shiny HGTV stuff. And so I honed in on inspiration boards and started a online magazine, and it was a zine at first, and then it was an easy, but I remember I just compiled, gosh, 40 to 50 of these inspiration boards from people that I knew, and it was just a picture and them talking about their inspiration board, and I charged $2 and 99 cents.

(11:33):

And I remember thinking that was completely wild. Who's going to pay for that? That's crazy. And thousands of people ordered it because it was just, that was what they wanted, that's what they wanted to see. And that's when I knew business could be as simple as that. Business could be as simple as making something that people want. And so from there, things really just that happened very organically. I hate when people say that because always trying to pinpoint where those turning points were, but I can't think of a single turning point other than continuously churning out work for other magazines that created this sort of ecosystem of other writers and other creators. And we all kind of helped each other. And at the time in my personal life, we were moving to the Midwest and my husband's father was ill. And so we had to leave Los Angeles either temporarily or permanently.

(12:28):

And I was really looking for, okay, how do I leave this kind of creative epicenter and recreate something like this in the Midwest? And I didn't know yet, but what we needed in our life was a house. And so I pitched hgt v.com, the idea of renovating a house and we would be one of their first sort of online posts, we would kind of ramp up their online content. This was 2008 maybe so very early to be introducing web personalities and that kind of thing. And so that was my pitch though. It was, Hey, the internet's going to be doing this eventually, so I can do it for you. And we can do web episodes. My husband's a filmmaker. We'll film the whole thing and readers will get a look at what a renovation actually looks like when it's not done in 30 minutes on TV with commercial breaks.

(13:24):

So they loved it and we started doing it and it just sort of spiraled into how it goes, more opportunities. We did 24 episodes, two full years, lots of articles and content and product things. And so that gave me my first taste of what the wider internet was outside of my own small circle, my protected little blog and community. And it was a little jarring. I'll be honest. There were a lot of moments when I thought, oh gosh, this is all moving beyond my control and am I comfortable with this? And the turning point for me in terms of my career was being in New York City, being offered a pilot from some producers that worked with a network to take the show on the air. And I remember we had lived, it sounds like a dream job, but we had lived through two years of living in a set.

(14:23):

It wasn't about whether or not the house was comfortable, it was whether or not the house looked good online and provided content for us. And so I felt like that's not where I want to be. I don't want to miss family dinners. I don't want to have a baby eventually. What is that going to be like? And I really just having lived and had a taste of it, pivoted pretty far away from that into I don't know that I'm willing to forego that kind of the sacred parts of my personal life that I really love and hold dear. And I really valued roots and we were just starting some in the Midwest, so I kind of walked away. And I feel like what happens when you walk away? I guess it's not walking away when you walk toward something that you really, really believe in deeply, there's so much blessing in it. And that's what I found. I found that more interests were uncovered. I found that I actually loved writing more than I loved all the other stuff, more than I loved the set design and the product designing and the interiors and photos, and I just loved writing. I loved it so much. And so my next project was to write a book And Chasing Slow was that book.

Shanna (15:36):

Okay, Erin, all of this is so good. I have so many things I've written down, but when you said living in a home, is it ready to provide content? Content generation? That's what was happening. htv.com, you're living on set, you're producing this material, and that was 2008 to 2010, right? So just a reference, I just looked it up while you were talking. Instagram did not even come out until the end of 2010. So I just imagine now the amount of content, all of us small business owners, everyone on the internet is producing every single day. It's mind blowing to me. Just the difference the internet has in the last 14 years has brought about, it's in the amount of content and at the height of what someone would say like, wow, this is what you're getting pitched. You're pitching a show on a network. And for you to say, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know what? Maybe that's not what I want for my life. That for so many is like, yeah, way to go, Aaron, but had to be, I mean, that's not what culturally we're told to do.

Erin (16:58):

It's not, I think we're told to be grateful and to smile and nod and keep going. And I think there's room for all of that. I do feel profoundly grateful for the people that I met in that experience and for the lessons that it taught me. And I think we can also say, I'm really grateful for that and I'm going to carry those lessons forward into a new chapter. And I completely agree. The amount of content that a lot of entrepreneurs are being, I won't say forced, but that we're normalizing content creation so much that we're just, our lives are expected to be a hub of this creative energy. And I think that's very true and very sustainable for some people, some outliers. I don't think it's very sustainable for the norm. And you would not be surprised to find out. I'm not on Instagram either.

(17:51):

So there was a time in which I was, there was a time I feel like we learned the same lessons over and over because life is such a circle. But for me, I had to relearn the same exact lesson with social media and realize, gosh, I feel like I'm kind of performing an aspect of my life here. I feel like the amount of time I have to spend on snapping a picture and crapping it and captioning it and making it, and really truly after that, that's the easy part. Then it's responding to all the people that you perhaps offended or that have questions about what you're doing or want to comment on how you're raising kids or all of that. I think that's the part that we really leave unexplored is what happens after we forget to ask ourselves, well, what then after I post this picture, what? Then after I publish this post, what then? And I still find myself when I hop online every now and then asking myself, what's the purpose of this? It has to be something deeper than a bottom line or then sort of building up my portfolio. It needs to be something that's really going, something that I can't not say I feel like that. I feel like that's my marker. I will publish something if it's something I can not say,

Shanna (19:10):

Erin, I get asked a lot because this is what my seventh or eighth year not being on Instagram for, I mean, not being on social media much. I get asked a lot, and I think choosing to live counter culturally is still hard. And so while I'm so glad I'm not on there, I always say just the time savings alone made sense for me to put my marketing efforts elsewhere. But what you brought up about even just the mental toll afterwards or the comments, the responding, that's the part that's over and above even just planning out your posts. And so that's the mental toll that I feel like I just knew my time personally, even for business could be spent differently. But Aaron, will you talk about, okay, so you start writing the book Chasing Slow, and will you just walk through maybe just because I want to talk about what you're doing now and why you're doing it and there's so much in the middle, but will you talk through how choosing this life of family, the values, family first, the life you're building over the business, but you still have to make money, you still are a business owner.

(20:30):

It sounds like this philosophy very early on of this isn't, these aren't just hobbies to get me to the job. It's like these maybe are the job, maybe had a big influence on how you saw you can do a lot of different things to make the money you want to make. Was that helpful? How did you walk away from this big opportunity and be okay with that? Just kind of walk me through in life how making the decisions to Chase Low and choose your home values, how that impacted the business side as well.

Erin (21:02):

Absolutely. Well, I will say I think I lost a lot of opportunity for profit. I mean, I think that's obvious. There's a lot of money to be made in the world of influencing. There's a lot of money on social media. I think there was a real moment when I said, that doesn't matter to me that I might be losing profits or even opportunities. I do think that that's a real struggle that a lot of people have before they kind of take the plunge of ditching social media altogether or maybe that's what keeps them on. But I wanted to experiment anyway. So what I did was I took a year in which I thought, I'm going to just play this year. I'm just going to just assess. I'm going to take this year as a great experiment, call it a gap year, whatever. And I'm just going to assess what happens when I reach out to people.

(21:53):

I mean email, phone call, whatever, see what they might need help with. And these are people, I mean, one of them was a pastor at our church, just these aren't former colleagues on the internet. One was a nonprofit locally, and it was just asking, how can I support you? Do you have any opportunities for writers or for people who I knew how to content create so I could take photos, I can do, and for whatever reason doing that to build a business that I didn't have a business, I was just kind of flying by the seat of my pants. And so it felt like even if it was working on strategy for businesses that I believed in, that felt like a move in the right direction, even more so than doing it for myself. So I just kind of reached out to people and just asked what they needed and what they needed help with, if they had any openings for just a little something on this side that I could experiment with because I wanted to know what it looked like to try different things.

(23:01):

And the response was overwhelming and completely, I think there is so much faith in humanity to be had. There is so much faith in personal relationships where you are actually living alongside each other and not commenting alongside each other. And a lot of work was generated from that. One of the bigger projects was I ghost wrote a friend's book, her first book, and I realized I can, that can sustain me for a year. I live pretty simply, but just that project alone. And I enjoyed it deeply and I liked it even more than writing my own books because you don't have to market it or PR or do any of that stuff. And so I found, oh gosh, ghost writing, I love doing that. I love editing other people's projects. I edited close friends. It's not quite a bible study, but it's pretty close. And another one project for their own business.

(23:59):

And so all that to say, I just reached out with my own community to see even if I cut my income into a fraction, what do I need to survive and what will be fun for me? And I just got back to that mentality. Another thing I did was launch. I was homeschooling at the time, I still do, but my kids are older for, I had kids, really, really young kids, and I was looking for a way to learn how to homeschool. I didn't know anything about it. I knew it would work for our family, but I'd never seen it done in my own life. And so I just kind of pieced together a curriculum and then people would ask, what curriculum are you using? And I was like, I just kind of made it my own. And I started sending it to people and sending it to people.

(24:40):

And then a lot of people said, can you make more of these? And I couldn't because they didn't quite have the time. But I did over the course of the year, kind of expand all of the lessons into a website that could then more people could come to. So now it's own little early learning platform and it's screen free prompts for parents that want to connect with their kids ages two to seven. And it was so, I wouldn't say that it wasn't on purpose. I think you do everything on purpose, but it was really just this thing that I decided, I love doing this. I know people need this, I can make it. So I remember it was really hard to make the decision to hire a programmer to do it really well because it wasn't generating any income. I didn't know that it would. I just wanted a place to house it all. And so I had to really invest in the programmers that made it and it was worth it. It's slowly but surely brought back any investment that I put into it and has also brought a lot of joy and a lot of community of people that are doing things similar to me and we can ask each other questions about what we're doing. And it really serves my everyday life quite a bit.

Shanna (25:53):

Erin, I love and called other Goose, right?

Erin (25:57):

Yeah. Yeah.

Shanna (25:58):

I love what you said about, and I don't think this is talked about enough. When you decide to live differently, particularly in this conversation about growing a business or growing whatever you're doing, you will lose profits and opportunities. And I feel that way all the time. I could do marketing differently. And I know I can tell you we have lost out on so many opportunities and profits because we choose not to. But for you in your life, you continually just come back to what you value. I guess I want to call that out because I think it's harder than you make it. You do it so gracefully and maybe some days you don't feel like you're doing it gracefully, but as an outsider looking in, you do it so gracefully and make it look like, well, yeah, that just makes sense. Live the life in the way that you value. But it's hard. I have found it to be challenging to continually choose your values over maybe easier profits or more opportunity. And you walked away on and off 14 years ago. So Aaron, I love how you're just saying, I want to do things I enjoy that align with the life I want to live, and I know what I need to make to do that. Will you talk about how this has led to what you're doing now with the opt-out family?

Erin (27:34):

Yeah, yeah. Well, and it really ties in so well to your initial thought, sorry that it is hard to recognize that you're losing profit and opportunity and to walk away from that. But what I found kept me from kind of tiptoeing back in every time, well, two things happen. One was during that gap year, I realized I can feed my family by working at the grocery store, and that's something that I would be willing to do. My husband and I could make that work. So if working online doesn't work, that's okay. I can get a job and I would love our cheese man out and he's awesome. So I would love to do that. And that's always something that is available should the gap year not pan out or whatever. So I do think you have to get to a point where you're willing to say, if this doesn't work, that's okay.

(28:30):

It's just really about feeding your family. It's about making enough and figuring out how to do what you can with less if you need to cut corners where you need to. And I will always go back to the fact that I believe that blessings happen when you're really listening to what I believe God is leading you to go. So it has worked for me in that I will not say I haven't lost opportunity or profit, but I will say that I've maintained enough to put money in the bank and I've been able to enjoy it, to do it in a way that I enjoy, that I feel like honors the spirit that God's given me. So I think the real key for me that has kept me from tiptoeing back in to that kind of the rat race and the treadmill of more and building and all of that has been my kids.

(29:26):

I have three, their ages are 11, seven and three, and we homeschool, remember. So they're here all the time. We're always together. And I found that I don't don't use a smartphone right now. I have a dumb phone. I found that when I had one, even if I was narrating what I was doing on it, even if I was saying things like, I'm just going to update our grocery app really fast, or I'm just placing an order for quinoa or whatever. It occurred to me that I wanted to create a future where my kids would actually have the choice of whether or not they used cell phones at all, smartphones at all. And by me modeling this over-reliance on technology, when I could very well walk to the grocery store and go pick up quinoa instead of order it and have it delivered in two days, I wanted them to see that instead.

(30:22):

And it was so hard to break that habit because you have small kids and it's like, oh, if I could just stay in my car and have the groceries delivered, that would be so much better. And if one has the chickenpox, well, what do you do? And I will say that's when you rely on the community you've built, that's when you rely on your friends and you say, is there any way you can bring Ganad from the store? And it's that need. I was finding that I could provide everything for myself. There wasn't any room for other people to help provide for me or for me to pour into their lives. There was no communal exchange because we could all take care of ourselves so well, so independent, yes, we're with this thing in our pocket and I didn't like the message that was sending to my kids.

(31:04):

And so that was kind of in my head. So then I would just go through bouts of ditching the smartphone. I would switch to a flip phone and I would get back to the smartphone. But I found that having my work be on the phone wasn't working for me. I didn't mind it so much being on a computer that felt less normalizing for whatever reason. I think because the computers, it's open to everybody. Anybody can see it at a place where it's pretty single use. I check my email with it, but it's also where we'll look up recipes and things like that. So it just felt like a tool and all that to say, I was slowly making all these changes in my life of just stripping back kind of the things that I had assumed needed to be for us to sustain. I completely believe the lie that technology is the future that we have to adapt without asking myself, but is technology the future that I actually want?

(32:05):

Is technology the future I want for my kids? And I think a fair bit of it is really good, but I think there's a difference between using the internet and participating in internet culture. And I didn't want my kids to feel like they had to participate in internet culture to be a full whole person. So that meant for me, really, I would rather leave those opportunities and profits then risk appearing to be a hypocrite in my own home. It was very important to me anyway. People in our actual lives would always make fun of me and just talk about the flip phone or my, I never take pictures on my phone. I don't have my phone very often, and they like to give me a hard time. And I always just thought it would kind of end there and that we would just slowly influence our own social circle.

(33:10):

And no joke, I received an email from my publisher and asking, I had a contract for two books and I was just sitting on the second book. I wasn't sure what I wanted to write about or if I would for a very long time because I feel like what I thought was the way you have to publish books now is to rejoin the rap race. And I thought, I'm not willing to do that. So we'll just see if I get to the second book or not. But I got an email from my publisher asking to brainstorm a couple ideas, and I said, honestly, the only thing that I could think of that's actually on my heart is this idea of really reducing in our homes, technology's overuse. And what I wanted to talk about was, it's not enough to take away our phones. We know that we have to replace it with something better.

(34:03):

And this family motto was born from that, and the motto was, be more engaging than the algorithm. I love it. So we've always said to the kids, no, we're not going do, we don't do the iPad. No, we don't do this, but we will do, let's do this. Let's go get ice cream. Let's go to the park, let's go. It was always finding something better to replace it with that they enjoyed more anyway. And so I wanted to kind of see how that played out over time. So that was our motto really for years. And then this book idea, this is no joke. At 2:00 AM I set up like a bolt and I have this book outline in my head of everything that I want to say, every chapter I want to write. And I grab my little notepad and I start scrolling it all down.

(34:46):

And we do that in the middle of the night and it never makes sense the next morning, but it all made sense the next morning every line made sense. And I thought, this is something I have to do this. And I can't tell you Shanna, how much it felt so different from the first book. I felt like the first book was something that I wanted to do for fun. It was interesting. I wanted to experiment with it. This feels like a mission. This feels like no matter what, I needed to get it on paper and it just poured out of me the whole thing. I poured everything in. I researched, I interviewed over 200 sources. I just got in there deep and I learned some really terrible things about the internet and some really dark things about the algorithm. And I realized there is no room for this in my house.

(35:37):

There is no room. And so we still use the internet. Sure, we will look up recipes. My rule is I don't subscribe to anything. So if I am seeking information, then I try to keep a mental Rolodex of who might have that information. I like to ask people in my real life before I check the internet, I like to use all of those opportunities of need to create more connection with my local circle and my local environment. But we do still use it. And I'll Beit very we, we keep it on a tight leash and we keep it very far. So all that to say the book grew out of this kind of global movement. So we have the Optout family and it's at optout family.com and it's still in progress where people can get, and I do know the irony of making a website for it.

(36:36):

That's what I did. And I also wanted them to make a book so that it could be picked up at the local library for free. So it is, it's called Opt Out Family, how to Give Kids What Technology Can't. And it's really actually, what I love about it is we don't talk about digital wellness, we don't talk about balancing. It is strictly, here is the playbook that technology gives us. Here are all the ways that, here are all the things that it does to capture or grab your attention or distract you from your everyday life. Now let's put all of those same mechanisms and strategies into place in your own house for your kids so that you're meeting your goals and not the goals of the tech bros.

Shanna (37:25):

Truly, how do you make your life more engaging than the algorithm?

Erin (37:30):

Yeah, it's all spelled out. And it was so much fun to write and it was a joy. So I don't even remember what your question was. I just got on a tangent about that. But that is where

Shanna (37:41):

I just think you have walked through so many different seasons of living against the culture, and particularly in the technology or in business and profits in just so many ways. And I think first how hard that truly is, you have to be so aligned with your values in order to keep choosing that and keep choosing it and keep choosing it. And how cool for outsider looking in, how cool to now see that coming to life in this movement you're creating with the opt-out family in the book. And that's I think kind of what I'm watching, what I've been seeing, Aaron, I don't know if I'm allowed to share this, but getting to read a little bit before it comes out and when this podcast comes out, it'll be coming out very, very soon. I can tell you. And to anyone who, and Erin, I'd be interested if you've been given feedback yet to say to someone, and I can speak this from personal experience, but to say to someone, yeah, I don't do Instagram and I always feel like I need, and I stopped myself earlier from saying it, I always feel the need to say, I'm not trying to demonize Instagram or any social media or Facebook or whatever.

(39:06):

And it's interesting because you speak in this book, there's some strong language, I guess there's some strong truths that you have found through research about the actual algorithm and why is it that we are afraid to call out how this work is manipulating our brains and changing our culture. And I'm just so impressed, Aaron, with how you've been able to research and learn these very hard things, but also say, let's the goal here, the goal is to get back family life and to make our screens less, make our life so addictive that the screens feel boring. And I love kind of that change. You say some things about the algorithm's like Ouch, really ouch. And I think people are, it's like it's not easy

Erin (40:16):

And it's not an easy read and it's not a cozy read. And I did really struggle with how to be really bold and honest and truthful about this research without demonizing the internet because it is hard when you really dive deep. It's funny how quick we are to give mercy and grace to the internet

(40:40):

Just because we've normalized it, but it's not a safe spot. It's not a safe place for our kids. And honestly, I wonder then why do we think it's a safe place for adults? Why do we think that we're so immune? Because we use it every day that we can withstand all of its temptations and all of its corruption and all of its manipulation can't. It's the same thing as I feel like we preach sobriety rather than moderation. Some people can handle moderation and some people can't. And maybe that's true. Maybe that's not true. I don't know. But I feel like the internet is very similar where we try to paint the internet and internet culture specifically as something that we can just tiptoe in with moderation. And I wanted to know, well, where's the book for people that need sobriety instead? Where's that book? And so for our kids, I wanted to write

Shanna (41:32):

It. I mean, thank you for your boldness. There were some things that I sent to Kyle when I was reading through that were just so powerful. And like you said, they're bold. And I told Kyle at one point, I said, I wish I could show up with such boldness because like you said, we give grace to things that have become normal. I just want to encourage anybody who's listening, who is seeking more community. Erin, you told me this years ago, and I don't know if you will even remember, but you said, I want to build a community that I can take a casserole to. And you said it in your air in much more eloquent way than I have said it, but it was just this concept of we have lived, we live such independent lives for a lot of us, maybe not. I mean clearly I don't want to put everybody in that category, but for anyone who's seeking more community, for anyone who's seeking a different life than maybe what feels normal.

(42:34):

I mean, I know, and I've shared this story before on podcasts, when people ask me about social media, I missed one of my best friend, my roommate from college, her baby shower because they sent out invites on Facebook and I'm like, well, I'm not on Facebook and it isn't easy to live kind of counter culturally, but I want everyone to read this book. And it's so powerful. Its messaging is so good. When this podcast airs, you can pre-order the book and it'll come to you in I think just a few weeks. It comes out June what, 13th,

Erin (43:12):

June 11th. Yeah, I had to think about that.

Shanna (43:15):

I know, and it's just a strong message, and so if people take pieces of it, if all of it, but the research is very compelling. Erin, will you just speak to, so often we talk about what maybe you have given up. People ask me that a lot with social media, what have you given up? Yes, I can see where I've given up. I mean, for years we were denied an Amazon shop page. I'm like, I make book recommendations for the business and I would love to link a little Amazon link, but we get denied. There's things like that I can point out. I don't get some speaking opportunities or brand awareness isn't maybe where, but we don't often speak to what it has given. What has it given you to say, you know what? I'm going to live in a way that aligns with my values, and those values can be different for each person, but what do you feel like it has given you walking away from this network opportunity, walking away from even promoting your book in a way that can make it grow so much bigger? What do you feel like it's provided you, your family?

Erin (44:29):

That's a great, well, and thank you for kind words. It's just really encouraging because yes, this is all very countercultural for me. What leaving social media and I don't know a better way to, I feel like I've left the internet. I mean I use it, maybe it's just that I've left placing value, placing disproportionate value on the internet. I've left the idea that you need a presence on the internet to make work for yourself. I think all that has given me is this really healthy detachment that I don't need to go look for something. I can be right where I am. I felt like sometimes the internet was a fourth child. I felt like I had to, or my phone was like a fourth child. I got to go check in and make sure everything's okay over there. And I think some people could say that about a business, unless you build a business where your terms are that you're not going to be available 24 7 because again, if you're creating work where there's a real open and closed sign, then there's going to also be a closed sign.

(45:46):

So I love that. When I emailed you, I got a little note that you would probably respond within, what was it, 24 to 48 hours, 40, 30, something like that. I'm pretty sure it goes up to 72. Erin, I love that, Shannon. I love it so much. But a business or a world where you can kind of set those terms that prioritize what's important to you and what's maybe more important to you. And so for me it has been, it's walking around with different glasses on because I don't feel like I have to background process the way that I see things. I don't have to have my phone in my pocket and think, should I be capturing this for a blog post or should I be taking this moment and spinning it into something here or using it as a lesson here? I feel like we can do that all on our own without the picture.

(46:40):

We can do that all on our own without the phone. We can take these lessons that we're learning and I have found them to be the ideas that I generate and the lessons, the profound lessons that I receive. I can listen deeper. I'm not listening for somebody to say something that matches what I read on the internet. I'm listening to their actual words. I am not jumping to conclusions based on what somebody else on the internet said. All of those voices are gone, and I really truly believe that is a privilege that is available to most of us to be able to turn those voices off and to leave social media and to leave checking your news or checking your newsletters or checking your blogs. You can save all that noise for just when you need some of that input proactively. If you need a recipe, you know where to go if you need, I'm trying to think of what else I use the internet for. Usually recipes, but I think if you need advice and anyone in your social circle isn't quite offering that advice, well then you have people like Sha and I think there are really so many benefits to just clearing the slate and then only putting back in what you truly remember or value. So for me, that was kind of leaving the internet for a while and then thinking about who I miss and then emailing them or calling them on the phone instead of visiting their block.

Shanna (48:05):

Yeah. Yeah. Somebody told me when I left social media, they emailed me. This was years and years ago, and this, I don't remember who it was, but she said, I could not find you on Instagram, so I joined your email list and I was like, thank you. It was cool to see that the people who want you in their life and vice versa, there's so many other ways of connecting. Even just a phone call, even a text, even just walking to their house

Erin (48:42):

Absolutely. And connecting more deeply as well in a private way. There's just something really special to it.

Shanna (48:49):

Erin, I'm grateful for you. You are someone in my life that I always look up to and you have such a voice of truth for me and I want to share that with you. One of my favorite movies is called Moneyball. So good. Don't make fun of me. I bet there's a quote in there and it says, the first one through the wall always gets bloody. And I feel like maybe, I hope you feel like you haven't gotten bloody, but you are walking a path. I think a lot of people want to walk at some level, at some level. And thank you for going just being an example. And I just want to share from my own personal experience before and then we'll have to wrap up and we'll do a quick fire. No, so much more we could talk about, but I just want to share, I think this is what you said, people are hesitant to make certain decisions, especially as business owners or parents to small kids or whatever it may be. I just want to share that though, my choices of leaving social media in regards to business have maybe lost opportunities. I cannot imagine how much profit we would've lost should I have stayed.

Erin (50:08):

Oh, that's good.

Shanna (50:09):

Just the amount of clarity and noise and emotional. And I also love how you talked about moderation versus sobriety. I hear this a lot, especially with social media. Can I get the good without the bad kind of thing? Can I step my toe in to reap the benefits for my small business but not be all the way in? And for me, that was a no. That became obviously a no. Me too. Yeah. So I just want to encourage people, and Erin, I don't want to speak for you, but I know I like shared at the beginning of this episode, Kyle, my husband, literally left his job in engineering and works full-time with the company. The company is still very profitable, provides for my family, and I haven't been on there in seven years. So I just want to give that piece too, because we so often think about what would I be losing, but what would you be gaining?

Erin (51:07):

Yeah, Shena, just to encourage you too, I think the world, I love that you are, I mean, you quit Instagram before anybody that I knew quit it, and I just think you really blaze the trail here too and gave so many other people remission to try it in such a graceful way. There was no pressure. It was just, here's what I did and here's what I found. And it was such a disarming invitation for people who might have not otherwise been able to try it. And I think of all the lives that you've impacted with that decision, it would, speaking about it very openly and giving the really nitty gritty details within that, I know I'm not the only one that finds such value in that. I can absolutely imagine that your listeners are and your followers and just everyone that is involved in your community is just so, so grateful. I think I can probably speak for all of us to say thank you.

Shanna (52:03):

Thanks, Erin. Yeah, it's funny, it's not something I ever did for anyone other than my own, I mean myself and my family, but I feel like it has been, like you said, with this new book, it feels like something you couldn't not write. And now I feel like with social media, it's something I can't not share. It feels deeper. Erin, let's do just a fun little quickfire and everybody go get both of Erin's books because they're life changing. Okay. What is one thing you would be embarrassed if people knew

Erin (52:39):

I didn't learn to tie my shoes until it was in seventh grade.

Shanna (52:43):

Just no interest? Or was it just,

Erin (52:45):

I just didn't, I think I fell through the cracks. Nobody taught me there was Velcro. I don't know. I dunno.

Shanna (52:51):

There was Velcro. That's awesome. I think a lot about what I'm not teaching as well, just like we take tying your shoe for granted, but little people have to be taught that.

Erin (53:05):

I know. I know. It's so funny.

Shanna (53:08):

Okay. Any regrets or wish you could do over moments?

Erin (53:12):

I will just be honest and say I have do over moments every single day. So new mercies is something I strongly rely on and I could pick 15 on any given week. So there are many. Yeah,

Shanna (53:28):

Same numer. Okay. Love that big win or pinch me moment.

Erin (53:36):

I will say one of my biggest pinch me moments or one of my big ones was when a girl in high school came up to me and said that she thanked me for not being on Instagram because her mom was on Instagram to find people like me, and we had had a conversation about it and her mom recognized she didn't want to be on Instagram either, and she deactivated her account and her daughter said, I feel like I got my mom back.

Shanna (54:10):

I mean, I'm going to cry over here, Erin.

Erin (54:14):

It made it all worth it. It was a really beautiful conversation and I mean, kids are honest, man. Teens are really, really honest.

Shanna (54:22):

Yeah, I'm a little speechless because it's like, isn't that the work? You know what I'm saying? What higher? Yeah. That's just such validation. Yeah, the way you're walking the walk.

Erin (54:34):

Yeah.

Shanna (54:35):

All right. Best advice or just really good advice received?

Erin (54:40):

Somebody told, gosh, I can't remember who. This is a conversation I was just having with my husband, but maybe it was Richard Branson. I don't know. Gosh, I should get my sources straight, but the advice was you can always tell somebody to go to hell tomorrow, and the idea just being that not everything has to be a thing to be fixed or managed or turn into a conflict today. You can sit with it and you can simmer and you can think, and then you can proceed and you can always save that really anger fueled conversation for tomorrow, but you're probably not going to have the anger to feel it.

Shanna (55:17):

Yeah. Okay. That is such an interesting thought process. Just like you can always say the things that need to be said, want to be said, have to be said tomorrow, but give it a minute, which is

Erin (55:32):

Sometimes easier. Yeah. Then it'll be productive. Yeah.

Shanna (55:36):

Oh, that's so good. Okay, last quick fire question, then we'll send it off. What are you working on now or one resource that you would like to share?

Erin (55:46):

I think the book is where my head is right now. We're working on getting it in every library. That's my goal, and so yeah, it's up for pre-order. I would love if people want to pre-order it, but also my truest goal is for it to be made bravery in the library, so you can wait for it. That way you can always request it at your library after it comes out in June, and it's called the Optout Family.

Shanna (56:09):

Thank you for writing books that are so life-changing. Erin,

Erin (56:14):

Thank you for, I just feel like you are just a hub of really good, thoughtful, quality people and also ideas. I mean, the people that you highlight on this podcast are just some of the wisest people that I've heard speaking about things, learned so

Shanna (56:32):

Much. Yes.

Erin (56:34):

Yeah. I feel like when I do listen to a podcast, it's very rare and I want to know that I'm going to get something that's really going to impact my life, and yours is right up there. Erin,

Shanna (56:48):

You're the best. Hey, I want to send it off with, what would you tell yourself, looking back 20 years, it's been 20 years, I think the moment where you realized you're not out to find the job, but you can let what you're doing in this moment be the work, what would you tell yourself kind of 20 years journey of entrepreneurship? Looking back now,

Erin (57:16):

I would say there are no rules and it's okay to be different.

Shanna (57:20):

I love it. Erin, thanks for your time and just being who you are. You're the best.

Erin (57:25):

Oh, thank you. Shanna. You're the best.

Shanna (57:28):

Hey, wildflower, you just finished another episode of Consider the Wildflowers the podcast. Head over to consider the wildflowers podcast.com for show notes, resource links, and to learn how you can connect with the one and only Aaron Lochner. As someone who is passionate about being very intentional about our use of technology, I hope you consider picking up a copy of Aaron's new book, the Optout Family. To quote a line from the book, Aaron says, I believe it's possible to live a life that's both full of love and empty of likes. I totally agree. As always, thank you for listening. I'll see you next time.