#162： Digital Manners & Etiquette For the Modern Man With Daniel Post Senning
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode of the Art of Manliness podcast, we discuss etiquette for men, digital etiquette, and etiquette for women. We also discuss thank you notes and how to manage them in the digital world, and the etiquette of digital etiquette.
Transcript
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right mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast we've probably
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all heard of emily post she wrote an etiquette book all the way back in the 1920s and her work
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still continues today in her family there's a thing called the emily post institute and family
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members are continuing the work of emily post of encouraging good etiquette and manners and today
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on the show i have emily post's great great grandson daniel post sinning to discuss manners for men
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etiquette and specifically digital etiquette you know have the etiquette of smartphones email text
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it's such a new aspect of our lives that it's it's often confusing about what's the proper protocol
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for these different modes of communication so really fascinating discussion we also discuss
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thank you notes which is timely for the holidays when you should write one how do you manage thank
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you cards or handwritten thank you cards with uh emails when you're engaging someone on email like
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do you is you saying someone on email do you send them a card still we're going to answer that
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question uh so without further ado daniel post sinning and digital etiquette
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daniel post sinning welcome to the show thanks so much for having me it's a truly an honor and a
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privilege to be here well thank you so much so you uh work for the emily post institute
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and in your name is post uh so start off this so you you joined the family business
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i'm assuming i i sure did a little background um a lot of people think emily post is still alive and
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about 10 years older than they are and that that's not true she was my great great grandmother she wrote
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her first book of etiquette in 1922 um founded the institute with her son in the late 40s and
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uh the business has been running ever since we currently uh are publishing the 18th edition of
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emily post etiquette working on the 19th it's been in print ever since that first edition in 1922
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wow that's fantastic it continues on so i'm sure everyone's come across or maybe flip through
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uh emily's post book on etiquette but i think etiquette and manners for a lot of men gets a bad rap
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because i think when they think etiquette and manners they think sort of like stuffy rules and
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protocols like you know stick your pinky out when you're drinking your tea or something like that
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and then it's old-fashioned and not really relevant in the modern day um but i think people would be
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surprised when they actually read the content you all put out you don't present etiquette that way so
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how do you all define etiquette and manners over there at the emily post institute sure we've got a
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formula that works really well for us i promise this is the end of the math for today but we say
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etiquette is a combination or equals manners plus principles and i think that the manners part of
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that equation is what a lot of people think about when they think etiquette and um things like saying
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please or thank you or holding a door for someone or offering your chair to someone or traditional
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courtesies around ladies going first um those are what those are manners they're the specific
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expectations we have of each other in a given social situation and they they change they change over
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time they vary from one household to another one country to another one company to another
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um the principles are the second part of the equation you don't have etiquette without manners
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and principles and principles are the the timeless and eternal guidelines values principles that we use
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to to guide us when we don't know the manner in a given situation or when we're dealing with
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difficult relationship situations and there isn't a particular manner that applies and i think it's the
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framework of of having a principles approach to etiquette that's really served the emily post
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institute for five generations and the principles that we've identified as the the bedrock or the
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foundation for all good etiquette are consideration respect and honesty so if you're thinking about
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other people if you're using your consideration if you're aware of who's impacted that's really
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important that if you're respectful if you recognize the value and worth of others as well as yourself
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and the things around you you're you're at that next level of of of good shape and then the final
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principle that we think is really important is honesty that you've got to operate from a place of sincerity
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and integrity and um if you've got those three things working for you whether you know the particular
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manner or not or whether you're trying to assess whether a manner that you grew up with is still useful or
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important uh i think i think that having that that principles idea as part of the etiquette equation
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really helps keep etiquette relevant yeah yeah and i guess growing up i heard it was like you know just
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make the other person feel comfortable and welcome if you do that you're not you're probably going to be
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okay absolutely thinking about other people i when i do uh business etiquette trainings or appearances i
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often open up when i've when i've got a room that's small enough with a word association game with the
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word etiquette and i hear everything from the audience and oftentimes i hear well this is the
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golden rule right this is treat other people the way you would want to be treated or do unto others
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as you would have them do unto you and that's absolutely part of the equation and i i like to
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share something i learned recently which is the platinum rule and it's popular in training circles
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the evolution of the golden rule and it's the idea that in an increasingly diverse and complex world
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it's not enough to just go around and apply your standards to everyone that you meet
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that you also have to be willing to treat other people the way they would want to be treated
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and you end up with this this um balancing act the art of etiquette really being an awareness of the
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golden rule and the platinum rule that it's important to know your standards and know your
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values but it's also important to really be able to think about where other people are coming from and
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how they're going to perceive something and maybe they're even operating from a slightly
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different set of core principles maybe not i i tend to think that that a lot of those those core
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principles translate culturally but um having a little bit of the platinum rule a little a small
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dosage of platinum to go with your gold i think is really important yeah i like how you said art of
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etiquette because i think yeah a lot of people get this idea that etiquette is just the manners like
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very formally there's a formula to it there's rules um but there's an art to it it's not a science you
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have to sort of use your judgment and different situations and you i guess you learn as you do
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it's to me it's that delicious gray area it's that territory where maybe that rude behavior isn't
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so egregious that it's illegal or going to get you fired but oftentimes it's perceived in a negative
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way and and the same thing with good etiquette or positive etiquette and because it is in that that
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gray territory where sometimes it's not exactly clear um there is an art to it one of my favorite
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examples is the if you think about the honesty principle there's a difference between a harsh
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truth and a kind or benevolent truth if you were to ask me what i think of your new sweater and i
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think it's atrocious and i tell you that that might be a really hurtful truth and i could also say
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something like oh it's going to keep you warm all winter or aren't you happy your grandmother made
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that for you i can really see the love in it there there are there are more artful truths that you can
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find that maybe are less hurtful and to me that's the fun of the work that i get to do
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so i mean what is i mean what's the benefit i mean how do you sell etiquette to uh people who are
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still dubious about it i mean how can being attentive to it and learning some manners
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help people in their business life their personal life etc sure for me and our approach here at emily
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post is that etiquette skills are relationship skills that this is all about um building good
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relationships improving the quality of relationships building and sustaining successful relationships
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um etiquette is is social skills um that's that's one approach that's really important
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to me the other lens that i love to share is that the more you can approach this material through
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the lens of opportunity not obligation the better off you're going to be etiquette's an incredibly
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powerful tool when used as a tool for self-assessment um the thank you note police are not going to come
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take you away if you don't write a thank you note at all this holiday season they don't exist they're
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not going to come get you at well i'm a few grandmothers aside yes it is uh on on the flip
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side of that equation i do intern hiring at emily post and we have on our website a seven point
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checklist for how to how to handle uh an in-person interview and the seventh item on the checklist is
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if someone's taken the time to interview you send them a handwritten thank you note i would ask you
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what percentage of people do you think send me a handwritten thank you note after an interview
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process the answer is about 30 percent i think that's high here because we've got a website that
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tells people to do it um if i've got two candidates for two positions it's probably not going to be a
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differentiator but if i've got four candidates for two positions it can absolutely make the difference
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and an increasingly casual um an informal world gives us opportunities for distinction by making
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the choice to make the medium part of the message to really invest in the relationship skills to say
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to yourself you know i'm going to take the extra time i'm going to write this person the only handwritten
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note they're going to get all year uh you really you give yourself an opportunity to make a different
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kind of impression so that that lens of opportunity i think is really important the the thing that i think
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bothers people about etiquette is when it's used as a tool of judgment or a tool to exclude or isolate
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people and to me that's so far from the heart of good etiquette you talked about how etiquette's all
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about making other people feel comfortable and at ease and again i think that you're you're best able
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to use it to do that when you're using it as a tool to assess yourself and your own actions and how you
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can be better so um you've written a book about digital etiquette and we're going to get into that a
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little bit but before we get there you mentioned how manners have changed over time um and i'm sure
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they've the you've had to put out more editions of emily's post book because things have changed
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so i'm curious what are some of the big things that have changed that people might think are still
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it's a hard and fast rule but there's actually a little more flexibility uh there that there than
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there wasn't than there was before oh what are the surprising changes yeah the surprising yeah how
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surprising changes so the the the broad trend is that the etiquette that change the fastest are the
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ones that um that exist around new technology and oftentimes around communication okay so the the
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in emily's original 1922 edition there were elaborate descriptions on how to exchange calling cards
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if you're if you're new in town you go door to door and you presented your calling card and
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how that calling card was received whether it was received in person whether someone
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came downstairs to take it from you or whether it was left or whether it was all part of the
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language of receiving someone getting to know someone essentially exchanging contact information with
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someone today i might talk with someone about uh how how you approach someone about connecting on
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linkedin ultimately it's the same it's the same basic task it's it's getting to know people
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establishing contact and communication with people initiating beginning relationships but
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the environment has changed so radically that while there are elements that stay the same it really
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looks so different you have to work to define those those common elements some things have changed
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almost not at all the my favorite example is that the way my great-great-grandmother would have
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described eating with a knife and fork in 1922 is almost exactly the same way that i described it when i
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teach a seminar today um so the the the manners around meal times i think that you're you're less
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likely to to radically reinvent that in your lifetime whereas i like to warn people when they're thinking
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about new technology and communication etiquette that it's really worth um checking in on a pretty
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regular basis and asking yourself and the people around you what your basic expectations are what your
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common sense norms are because those do tend to shift and change and and oftentimes more quickly than
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than we might imagine okay well what about i mean it seems like a lot of etiquette or manners were
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gender-based right the whole like opening men opening door for ladies men standing up when a lady leaves the
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table etc uh in our more egalitarian age do these gendered etiquette practices still have a place
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in our society and if so i mean what are some of the things that men should pay particular attention
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to yeah let's let's lay the groundwork um and and you're absolutely right in your assumption that
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today particularly when you're talking about um formal public and business etiquette situations
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business etiquette is gender neutral um it's really important that we have an even playing field
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um for everyone and whether that's the a willingness today to embrace the the mix the mx um title as a
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gender neutral option for people that that are our willingness to to stay flexible and to continue to
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to change and evolve in that territory i think it's really important um sometimes people ask me if i think
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that i have a hard time with today's generation is it difficult being you know the fifth generation of an
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etiquette family say no i think it was the third generation that had the hardest time my grandmother
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was representing this tradition in the 1960s and 70s when a generation of iconoclasts were truly
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challenging the social order and were intentionally working to disrupt that social order and we might
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face technological challenges today but we don't face that same sort of concerted cultural revolution
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that that that my grandmother's generation faced and that was the generation that really
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challenged the idea of traditional gendered courtesies and and that was a big big deal at the
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time i mean with i was talking with my wife the other day about miss magazine and the the idea that
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that was a revolutionary thing when it came out was was something we had to remind ourselves of and that
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wasn't that long ago the u.s government adopted the ms the ms in the early 1970s um that that recently
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how you addressed a woman was entirely dependent upon her marital status and that would that that was
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really problematic um so it was an important step to move past that in the public world and it's
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important that we that we recognize where we are 50 years later um and having said that um etiquette is
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so oftentimes tolerant of other people's perspectives it's about putting other people at ease and
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um many people today work in a workplace where there's four generations working side by side
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and maybe a couple of those generations grew up in a world where those gendered courtesies were still
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really important um so it's important to be aware of of of those generational differences and approaches
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and the generational difference in awareness and i also think that sometimes people in this new world
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that we're operating in i know it works for me and it's true for me that i oftentimes take a lot of comfort
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and get a lot of ideas about what's appropriate now and moving forward from what has worked in the past
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we can learn a lot and and those traditional and sometimes gendered courtesies came from places
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when they were instituted um the chivalric code coming out of the 1300s which a lot of people
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reference when they think about those traditional gendered courtesies in the states um was really a
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code about affording women respect when it was initially instituted and by the time my mother's
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generation was rebelling against the idea of of chivalry in the late 20th century the the world
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had shifted a lot around some of the ideas that had made that behavior initially very respectful
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and and left the generation more recently feeling disempowered um to come back to the the question of
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what do you do then what if those courtesies still are important to you there's something you grew up
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with and and and you really identify with some of those chivalric and respectful aspects of it
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it's so simple you just ask permission to perform the courtesy may i get that for you thank you so
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much you know it's been 15 years since someone offered to hold a chair for me or no thank you i can
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handle that myself either way if you ask permission to perform the courtesy then you're not imposing your
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will on anyone else but you're you're illustrating the values and the manners that are important to you
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so really simple you just ask permission to perform the traditional courtesy yeah and i think it like
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it reduces some of the awkwardness that could possibly happen right if you kind of foist yourself
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because like you know if you want to extend that i think that there's a lot of women who would be
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like what's this guy doing like taking my chair out that's kind of what's going on here like but if
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you if you're sort of smooth about it say hey may i get that chair for you that's that's kind of
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that's actually kind of smooth i think and it doesn't need to be as complicated a discourse as i just
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launched into you can always say if i'm aware that there's an entire body of literature that talks
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about the male gaze and no it may i get that for you it's it's it's so easy it doesn't need to be
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as complicated a thing as we often make it gotcha okay um so let's get into uh some of the details of
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your book um your special your specialty which is digital etiquette and as you said that's the thing
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that's changed the most uh since 1922 since great-great-grandmother wrote the first one
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um so let's start with smartphones i think this is the thing that causes most the most conflict
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amongst families friends etc what's the general etiquette or guidelines for smartphone use in
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public and in front of others we're getting right here from the expert we're getting it from a post
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so after this point no one can argue all right exactly i wish um if i could push a magic button
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and then change behavior um i think this is this is one of those areas where where i'd i'd love to do
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it um it's it's really remarkable uh ap episodes did a study a couple years ago on rudeness in america
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and they really focused on new technology and they asked people have you witnessed people using their
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cell phone in a rude or annoying manner and something like 90 of people 89 of people say
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they witnessed this but when you flip the question around and you ask people if they've used their
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cell phone in a rude or annoying manner only eight percent of the public is going to cop to it of
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course of course it's always someone else who's doing it it's never me etiquette is most powerful
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when used as a tool for self-assessment and the thing is most of us know the rules most of us
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understand the common sense collectively agreed upon rules for cell phone use that really the people
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that you're with deserve your attention that whenever you're dealing with a captive audience
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the responsibility is really extra on the person who's got the phone to be careful and the captive
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audiences people in elevators stuck in a car with you stuck in a grocery line with you the cashier
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who's got to check you out these are all people that can't get away and they they really deserve your
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respect and and your attention to um their inability to get away from one half of your conversation
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um so so those those basic principles that you owe your attention to the people that you're
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physically with that there's a certain courtesy that you owe those people and that that courtesy
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is amplified when the when that's a captive audience um again it's pretty pretty well understood by most
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people and yet a lot of us are willing to give ourselves the exemption or don't see the behavior in
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ourselves when we're doing it as um as easily as we see it in others so i would love
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to encourage and advise everyone out there to really think about how
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i would love to encourage everyone to think about how they use their phone and the the experiment that
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i like to remind people is pavlov's dogs yeah the the classic experiment about program biological
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behavior you feed a dog and ring a bell and measure salvation response it just doesn't take long where all
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you need to do is ring the bell and you get the salvation response food or no food and we these
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these phones ring and we take them out and we get connected to family and friends and information we
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care about and we get a little endorphin rush and we get that positive feedback and we are habituating
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ourselves and programming ourselves to respond to these devices and without some intentional and active
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deprogramming that unintentional rude use is going to creep into your life it's it's going to happen
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whether you want it to or not because that's the nature of how we use these things yeah and it's
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not even hasn't have the ring it's just like the light has to flash right people get the ghost
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vibration yeah you feel it on your leg when nothing's happened because just because it's been that long
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and your body thinks something must be going on it's um it's really quite remarkable so so bringing
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intentionality and awareness back to use i think is the the biggest tip i can give anybody because i think
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most people sit for half a second and ask themselves is this is this good or appropriate
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is this a fair use of this for both me and the people around me most people make the right decision
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well there's actually if you're having if you're having trouble for all you out there having trouble
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like deprogramming there are some apps out there like i know there's one for android that will
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actually tell you like give you a report at the end of the day how often you looked at your phone
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so oh fantastic so it gives you like a sense of self-awareness right so you see i looked at my phone
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300 times today that's ridiculous i need to stop doing that so there's a tip there go look for
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that out there i don't know you don't remember the name of it um so let's talk about another
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aspect of communication that is like just it's overwhelmed our lives it's email i remember when
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email first came out and it was kind of cool like you only you saved email for like really special
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occasions but now it's like that's how that's how we all communicate we avoid the phone it's all over
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email or texting we'll talk about texting in a bit um so what are the the the etiquette protocols
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for email generally uh you know how how soon should we respond uh you know how do we nudge people who
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haven't responded etc yeah um so for for me this is one of those new technology areas where i think you
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can take a little lesson from the past i i like to treat new email exchanges as little letters
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so um you don't need to date them you used to be once upon a time you put a date on a letter you
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don't need to do that there's a time signature but i still i'm a big fan of salutations greetings
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closings so uh if it's a a new chain with someone use and we can descend down the level of formality
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deer is the most formal um you can always use deer someone's name and title our title and name
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greetings can work well if you don't have a particular name
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um hello or hi or even hello someone's name hi someone's name just someone's in some sort of
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greeting comma return return content of the email return return most formal closing sincerely
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comma next line me um other acceptable uh business sort of descending down the scale of formality
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closings uh regards best regards all the best best uh for social correspondence warmly
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affectionately um with affection uh the comma return name complete uh take your cue from the
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person who's initiated the chain respond with the same level of formality once you're bouncing that
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email back and forth those uh salutations and closings can fall away they often do even if i'm
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corresponding with someone who i email with every day if i just put their initials at the top of the
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email give them a couple returns i think it humanizes the message just a little bit makes
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it a little less of a demand for someone's attention um so that that's the that's the broad idea treat it
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like a little letter use salutations and closings uh for signature blocks try to keep um logos free of
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image attachments a lot of people sort emails by attachments so you want to keep the attachment out of
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there if you're going to offer someone thanks get it in the body of the email don't include it in your
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signature line where it becomes perfunctory um other email tips choose your subject line well it's
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what gets email read as you mentioned we get so much email now one of the the tasks that any
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professional is faced with is sorting and filtering important information it's one of the things that
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we all have to do as part of our professional lives now so there's an absolute new and emerging
00:24:54.160
courtesy around not spamming someone and labeling information that you send someone accurately so
00:24:59.640
they can find it later if they want it or care about it and so that's your subject line and
00:25:05.080
that's not all caps but that's something descriptive and topical about what happens in the body of the
00:25:10.160
email gotcha what about uh cc's and bcc's etiquette classic that we just did a question recently on
00:25:18.760
on our podcast about group text and it's one of the most shared pieces of content we've done in a while
00:25:24.420
how to politely get out of family group text um and the the old version of that question was
00:25:29.600
appropriate use of reply verse reply all and generally speaking only reply all when everybody
00:25:35.760
on the list needs to know if you're talking about an invitation that's coming from a single organizer
00:25:40.340
just reply to the organizer you don't need to reply to the complete list um again that that's the
00:25:46.940
courtesy of not um giving people information that's extraneous or superfluous in their world
00:25:52.540
um the i'm sorry what was the second part of your question like blind you know blind carbon copy
00:26:01.400
the the cc versus the bcc of course for me this is the question of honesty that um generally speaking
00:26:07.640
the carbon copy is what you want to default use so that everybody knows everybody that's received the
00:26:13.480
same information the bcc is really best and only used for protecting someone's um email if you've got
00:26:21.740
someone on a list who who uh it doesn't share their email for some reason that that's for me the
00:26:28.540
appropriate use of the bcc some people would use it to um send a request to someone and simultaneously
00:26:35.560
without letting them know send that same request to their boss as a way to double check and and i say
00:26:41.200
just let that person know there's no need to be um there's no need to be deceptive about it
00:26:47.520
so with the bcc my big tip for folks is to be sure you use your you to be sure you're being honest that
00:26:52.980
you could explain to anybody who received the email why you were using the bcc the way you are
00:26:57.360
gotcha and in guidelines on how soon you should respond like you know for someone like me i get
00:27:03.160
tons and tons of email and i i used to have the i protocol like i'm going to try to get back to
00:27:06.920
people within 24 hours sometimes that's not possible i mean what do you do if for that in that case
00:27:12.980
well thanks for sharing your time frame because that's about mine for for email i tell people i
00:27:18.160
think that the basic expectation is it's about a 24-hour turnaround you can't expect that someone
00:27:23.180
again we're all tasked with sorting and prioritizing information all the time and
00:27:28.860
um the idea that you you you could penetrate someone's world in less than 24 hours via email
00:27:36.580
i think is a bit much if you haven't heard from someone in 24 hours even an acknowledgement that
00:27:40.880
the email's been received i don't think it's inappropriate to follow up but i also wouldn't
00:27:45.220
um treat it as if they had failed i wouldn't act aggrieved about it i would do it more as just a
00:27:51.160
follow-up just checking to be sure you received my first email or wanted to be sure you received my
00:27:56.100
first email my tone would be um not one of being disturbed that i hadn't been responded to
00:28:03.700
a concept i love to share is that human attention is a gift and um it should be received with
00:28:09.980
appreciation and people also need to recognize you can't necessarily demand someone else's attention
00:28:15.820
you you have to earn it because human attention really is a gift and we only have so much of it
00:28:20.280
to give yeah so i guess a tip would be if you do i think you kind of hinted to it at it there if you
00:28:24.840
are overloaded with email at least get back to someone saying look i got your email but it's going
00:28:29.500
to be a while before i can give a complete response to it i think that's absolute best practice
00:28:33.980
and like you i wish i could say that i i always was able to do it i wish i i wish i always got
00:28:39.280
back to emails within 24 hours it doesn't happen but i also i don't i'm not bothered if 24 hours
00:28:45.620
later someone follows up with me and says just check in to see if you got my first email and
00:28:49.500
oftentimes i really appreciate it oh no i meant to get back to them okay so you mentioned texting all
00:28:57.120
right that's another thing that's been coming up like uh that's becoming a big a sore spot uh for
00:29:02.280
family members couples even and on the job texting has become a problem so what's the
00:29:09.460
etiquette of texting like when should you do it how neat how fast need to respond because i think
00:29:14.500
it's kind of funny with all these different communication types right there's like there's
00:29:18.340
like we had there's like this unspoken time frame that you should be able to respond so if it's like
00:29:22.360
a phone if like it's a letter well you have like you have like a week so like a handwritten letter you
00:29:26.660
can respond to someone in a few weeks that's fine email okay 24 hours but with text i guess
00:29:32.060
there's like this unspoken assumption that you have to respond right away to a text is that is
00:29:36.040
that the case maybe even in seconds yeah if you don't respond what are you there why don't you
00:29:41.740
respond to me i've gotten that before or or it just it becomes um it did the whole the whole message
00:29:47.240
dries out yeah if you were to jump in with that witty reply all of five minutes later just something's
00:29:53.300
lost it's uh and and that's absolutely true each of these mediums has its own rhythm its own pace
00:29:58.720
and and there's no question i think the broad understanding is the text is very immediate
00:30:03.100
um i sometimes tell people that uh we used to imagine a day when telepathy exists we got it
00:30:08.660
i can have a thought and i can share with anybody almost instantaneously anywhere i was absolutely
00:30:13.000
amazing um i tell people to be really careful that that you build expectation particularly within
00:30:20.100
relationships around communication and response time and that you don't want to build a set of
00:30:26.940
expectations into your wife that you're that you just can't live with or that ultimately you don't
00:30:31.420
enjoy um so i use texting i don't have an expectation of a 30 second turnaround time with anybody that i
00:30:39.560
text with in life there are definitely certain groups that i'm in particularly on a sunday afternoon
00:30:44.780
when the fantasy games are rolling very quickly um where we're communicating very quickly back and
00:30:52.000
forth and probably the response time is that 20 30 seconds tops um but it's not an expectation if i
00:30:58.460
were to jump in later it would it would be okay and i love to encourage people to build that kind of
00:31:03.380
space and breathing room into the expectations that they build into the into relationships um because
00:31:08.720
that can be really difficult that that that quick text response um demand and i think sometimes it
00:31:14.740
results in rude behavior that oftentimes there's a substitution mentality that people know that it would be
00:31:20.160
inappropriate to make a phone call from this situation but they're willing to substitute a text so it was
00:31:26.080
teens at the dinner table and then it was people in movie theaters and little by little the idea that
00:31:31.380
that substitution mentality is okay is is is starting to be chipped away at which i like because i to me it's
00:31:38.840
about where your attention is going in terms of how rude it is to the people around you um
00:31:44.640
but i do think that that texting in particular because people feel that they should respond
00:31:51.700
quickly kind of draws them into behaviors with with their phone that's not always
00:31:56.100
the most appropriate or that isn't always the most considerate for the people that they're with
00:32:00.320
um so i like to say take a deep breath relax it's still going to be there you can still respond to
00:32:05.900
it later it might not feel as relevant but it probably will be and if it were really critically
00:32:12.180
important the information i don't might or might not be coming as text to begin with yeah it'd
00:32:17.120
probably be a phone call yeah and so i mean do you should you uh if you do need to make a text like
00:32:22.260
do you excuse yourself like excuse me can i go do this or is it okay to be like whip out your phone
00:32:26.680
i'm gonna make a text really quick and then just do it right there and put it away at the phone really
00:32:30.100
fast also prevention's worth a pound of cure i like the way you announce what you're doing there
00:32:34.300
um i i think it goes a long way towards just acknowledging again you got to know the rule to know how to
00:32:41.060
break it my attention should be on this person that i'm with it's really not a big deal if i
00:32:45.740
fire off a quick text particularly it's going to set us up for dinner later on or something um
00:32:50.380
just giving that person that you're with the basic consideration of acknowledging you're about
00:32:56.700
to break a little etiquette rule and it doesn't need to be like oh i'm so sorry i'm about disrespect
00:33:00.740
you for taking my phone out and texting but you know i just want to text my mom real quick and let
00:33:05.160
her know that i'm planning to come for dinner tonight then they know you're going to be off real quick
00:33:10.500
they know what you're doing they don't wonder whether or not you even care or about them or
00:33:15.380
how their impact or affected because he just showed you cared you just pulled them um pardon me just a
00:33:20.920
second magic words really are magic i'm gonna i'm gonna fire off a quick text to my mom tell her i'm
00:33:24.780
gonna be home for dinner um so yeah that that that letting someone know what you're doing how long
00:33:30.220
you're going to be doing it just acknowledging their humanity as part of the process i think take
00:33:34.960
something like that and makes it an absolute um not a big deal at all right it's making people feel
00:33:41.140
good and and comfortable exactly back to that um and and i don't know if i if i managed to solve our
00:33:46.940
problem of what do you do with texting where that expectation is is so quick in the yeah i'm frame of
00:33:52.260
reply i think the answer is you give yourself the latitude that you understand the the counter argument
00:33:58.820
why you wouldn't just take your phone out of your pocket and fire it off i think we've talked about
00:34:02.620
those reasons already one showing consideration for the situation that you're in at the moment
00:34:06.860
you're sitting in church and you wouldn't do it then you're at a funeral you wouldn't do it then
00:34:10.220
you're in a public restroom and you're not going to take your phone out and hold it in your hand then
00:34:14.260
um or the other consideration that we talked about of just that you don't want to be constantly um
00:34:20.760
respond more responsive to the device in your pocket than the hiking trail that you're walking down or
00:34:27.760
that there needs to be time in all of our lives where we can carve out um to be with the people
00:34:32.560
we're with even if that's just ourself and um you mentioned those apps i'll tell you how many times
00:34:39.220
a day you've looked at your phone and it might not even be as as personal as you know i'm sitting here
00:34:44.260
with my mother i'm not going to answer a text right now it might be you know i i don't need to pick my
00:34:49.300
phone up 200 plus times a day and and and that's an okay reason to to limit the amount of replying you
00:34:56.500
do also you know i've for some reason this is really weird like i never picked i've never taken to
00:35:01.900
texting so like people text me and i guess i've sort of trained them because i don't respond
00:35:06.420
i know it's probably really i know it's really rude of me um not at all but make your preference
00:35:11.680
known yeah expectations in the relationship i do that i tell them with that yeah i tell people like
00:35:15.780
don't text me like call me or like send an email um i'll tell you what broke me i i was with you i'm
00:35:22.180
i'll i'll update myself like i did i graduated college in 2000 so i bet my first cell phone i had
00:35:29.920
on my way out the door from college and i i did not pick up texting either until i watched my younger
00:35:35.520
brother and his new wife text all the time and it was like it kept them very close it was a very
00:35:41.500
immediate part of their relationship and it struck me as sweet how connected they were i'd be with him
00:35:47.520
and he'd be getting these little messages from her all the time and um it kind of won me over to what
00:35:52.260
a personal medium it can be um and when i watch when i watch younger people the kids these days and
00:36:00.000
their text machine um i'm often reminded of my brother and his wife and and how close they seem
00:36:05.620
when they're interacting on it so that that was that was the moment i took the plunge and jumped in
00:36:11.480
yeah good for you yeah well i i work across from my wife every day so that's i guess if we work
00:36:16.420
separately then that would that is a treat that is definitely a treat um let's talk about social
00:36:22.400
media uh because this is a place where there's like no manners it seems like whatsoever facebook
00:36:29.000
twitter blog comments um i mean what can people do to make social media networks a more civil place
00:36:38.020
or is that a lost cause i i i've heard this before that there are no manners online and my proof to
00:36:44.760
you that there are okay it's how aggrieved people feel when they're broken that you wouldn't have so
00:36:52.300
many people as bothered by what other people are doing if there wasn't a basic social expectation
00:36:56.820
there to begin with and anytime you have two people interacting you start to have expectations of each
00:37:02.340
other and the expectations we have each other online are are are are they exist and they they came into
00:37:09.140
being more quickly than i think people even even realized and um i i love that element of it that
00:37:17.600
what happens online is interaction is human relationship so in many ways it's it's a purely
00:37:22.780
um social space and and that some of the particular etiquettes are peculiar to that space
00:37:29.420
but um but they're absolutely there and they absolutely exist um and as far as what we do to
00:37:36.620
to to shift them mold them shape them and make them and tell that community be the kind of community
00:37:42.600
that we all want to participate in it's model the behavior you want to see in the world that etiquette is
00:37:47.440
most powerful when used as a tool for self-assessment we rarely have the standing to address someone else's
00:37:53.420
behavior and if you want to find out how little standing you have addressing someone else's behavior try
00:37:58.260
addressing their behavior online yeah and see what kind of response you get um it it's it really is
00:38:05.540
one of those spaces where the degree to which you participate well really determines the quality of your
00:38:13.080
experience there um i make a joke sometimes at the start of my my seminars i say you know i think most
00:38:18.620
people don't mean to be rude i think that i'm an eternal optimist that a few internet trolls aside most
00:38:24.160
people don't wake up in the morning and set out to hurt someone else's feeling or make someone else
00:38:28.440
feel bad but we make that allowance that that happens some in online spaces and with that mediated
00:38:35.100
interaction where you aren't as responsible to the person that you're impacting as immediately or
00:38:40.840
directly as if you're in a room with them um i think sometimes the intentionally hurtful or the
00:38:46.280
intentionally harmful is easier and and maybe gets out more than than people would intend it to or or or
00:38:54.360
um rude behavior that would someone would catch themselves sooner if they had the real world consequences and
00:39:00.600
were faced with them they just don't uh whether they intend to or not and that does happen online i have to
00:39:06.620
acknowledge that and and i really think the best defense against that is is understanding your own level of
00:39:13.960
participation and understanding really what you have control over in those spaces because it's
00:39:20.440
it's really difficult to argue with someone who won't argue back and if you're the person who's not arguing
00:39:24.460
back you're a pretty difficult person to to draw into an argument so yeah so yeah i mean is that the best
00:39:30.200
response to say like trolls like just ignore them because there's like yeah this is one of the things i put in
00:39:35.740
my book usually what they're there for is to get attention and the less attention you give them um is
00:39:41.860
oftentimes the most effective response that a community can give to to a real agitator or disruptor
00:39:47.540
yeah and i i tell other people also like i don't think people understand this whenever they respond
00:39:53.460
to a troll like on twitter or facebook you are actually broadcasting the troll like i don't think
00:39:59.040
because like when you add them like everyone in your twitter feed like sees your conversation you've
00:40:04.080
had like if you just ignored it it would have just like kind of died in that one little
00:40:07.200
sell right yep every every eyeball that hits that is is a victory for that person
00:40:14.040
don't reach don't feed the trolls don't feed the trolls exactly okay so here's a question that i
00:40:20.500
it's it's sort of the the nexus of two mediums right and it's made very complicated with email
00:40:28.420
and that's the the handwritten thank you note right so i love sending handwritten thank you notes
00:40:34.280
um but i'm always confused about what to do with like email so i have like a you know you'll do
00:40:38.580
something with someone via an email exchange and they do you a solid like a really awesome thing
00:40:43.260
you like i want to send this guy a thank you note but it's kind of weird because like you just said
00:40:46.680
thanks to them in the email um so like do you just send the thank you note anyway even though you've
00:40:53.860
already said thanks uh before in the email what how do you navigate that sort of email and and
00:41:01.040
handwritten thank you note uh combo there yeah sure it doesn't hurt um the medium becomes part
00:41:06.740
of the message and and as i mentioned earlier whenever you take that extra step and you hand
00:41:12.520
write a note to somebody the medium really becomes part of the message particularly in a world where
00:41:16.740
that happens less and less frequently um i also say that that the medium being part of the message
00:41:22.640
sometimes the the that email thank you is the appropriate level of thanks you've had an
00:41:27.380
interaction that's been an email interaction that someone hasn't bought you a gift you haven't
00:41:32.180
banged for you haven't bought you a meal they haven't interviewed you they haven't i mean there
00:41:36.360
are all kinds of of of short thanks for which an email is entirely appropriate and would really be
00:41:41.960
appreciated but there's no reason if you decide that you want to notch it up a little bit and follow
00:41:47.360
that up with the handwritten thanks that you shouldn't do it and it'll absolutely make an impression i
00:41:52.700
guarantee it um i could talk at length about the value of of writing thank you notes of gratitude of
00:42:00.100
grace of bringing the qualities of gratitude and grace into your life intentionally by making a
00:42:07.060
commitment to thanking people and thanking them well they can really be transformative and um i'm a big
00:42:14.200
proponent and fan of of of really honoring that process of giving thanks and i wouldn't ever want to
00:42:21.460
slow anyone down or dissuade someone from following up an email with a written thank you we oftentimes
00:42:26.320
say for really important events like the that job that you really want that you really care about
00:42:31.280
it's the dream job it's the one you've been waiting for thank them three times thank them verbally on
00:42:35.560
the way out the door thank them within 24 hours with an email note and then follow up with that
00:42:40.160
handwritten note i know we call it snail mail believe it or not it's going to get there in two or three
00:42:44.040
days if you mail it from anywhere local um and it's going to get there a little later in the week and
00:42:48.840
that's that's not a bad three-point touch for someone that you're really trying to establish
00:42:53.060
and build rapport with fantastic and uh with the holidays coming up here's another question i've had
00:42:58.000
about thank you notes so if someone gifts you something and they're there in person you thank
00:43:03.600
them there right do you need to send a thank you note to them you don't have to okay this is straight
00:43:09.800
straight from emily post the important thank you the most genuine and sincere is the verbal in person
00:43:15.280
look them in the eye smile tell them you care about them you appreciate the thought you appreciate
00:43:20.520
the effort thank you so much that's that still is and will always be the gold standard doesn't mean
00:43:26.600
you can't follow up with a written if you want but really that's that's enough for most people okay
00:43:30.940
great to know um oh here you mentioned this so the thank you know the handwritten thank you note has
00:43:36.120
become like an anomaly right it's like what sets you apart and so if someone writes you a thank you
00:43:42.620
note you're like man it's like the first thank you note i've gotten in years i know what's coming
00:43:46.360
next do you write a thank you note for the thank you note it has to end somewhere this is an infinity
00:43:51.900
mirror kind of problem and and and no you you effectively and and and um you end the chain with that
00:44:00.540
handwritten thank you note and and you you exactly you could probably take a bow and exit page right
00:44:05.720
a lot of the time and um we oftentimes say it's important not to trump someone's thanks
00:44:10.420
that uh magic words are magic and there's a reason you're welcome is on the list and that's because
00:44:16.080
it's not always no thank you or it was no problem or no it was no trouble sometimes thank you is really
00:44:22.500
important someone wants to offer thanks and and being the person who can receive that and receive
00:44:26.940
it well makes an important part of that process so enjoy that you're welcome okay fantastic um so
00:44:34.440
brett unfortunately i i gotta go to vpr at three so i'm gonna have to run but i i want to do a
00:44:40.720
second part of this interview sometime let's do it yeah let's end it right now i think that was great
00:44:44.700
um we'll definitely there's so much more we could talk about i'd love to have you i think you and i
00:44:48.140
could go on for a long time i'm warning i'm a talker sure no i love it you know it's gonna keep
00:44:51.800
happening i love it so yeah we'll end it right here um so i'll just kind of do a little quick outro
00:44:55.780
dan post thank you for this dan post it's been a fascinating discussion thank you so much for your
00:45:00.860
time it's been a pleasure right it was it was truly my pleasure i'm a big fan of the art of
00:45:05.680
manliness and um i can't wait to get you over to awesome etiquette someday well thank you i
00:45:09.920
appreciate it my guest today was daniel post sending he's the author of the book manners in
00:45:14.240
a digital world living well online he's also a contributor at the emily post institute and you
00:45:19.300
can find out more information there at emily post.com well that wraps up another edition of the art
00:45:27.340
of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of
00:45:30.740
manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy this podcast again i'd always appreciate
00:45:34.700
it if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher your support is always appreciated until next time