In this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, I talk about why trusted experts, hands-on experience, and human connection still matter in a digital age.

From your smarty-pants car guy - to that friend with a unique skill and "know how" that you admire...

The people around us are such a rich resource and can offer us the kind of lived wisdom that a quick internet search just can’t provide.

Consider this your encouragement to go old school and pick up the phone, reach out to connect and let's keep learning from one another!

While also keeping in mind to respect people’s time and expertise (especially if this is how they make their living) and to show your genuine gratitude for their willingness to help!

KAREN KENNEY BIO:

Karen Kenney is a writer, speaker, podcaster, certified spiritual mentor, and coach.

She’s known for her dynamic storytelling, her sense of humor, her Boston accent, and her no-bullshit approach to spirituality, self​-discovery, and transformational change work.

Karen helps people to navigate this whole “being human” experience with more love, curiosity,​ courage, and creativity.

She encourages people to learn and explore by using personal stories and a bunch of different practical tools and universal principles.

KK's been a yoga teacher for 25+ years and has been offering Thai Yoga Massage since 2008.

She's also the creator of WRITE CLUB , and the host of The Karen Kenney Show podcast.

She coaches clients individually 1:1 in her HEART-TO-HEART DAYS and in her program, THE QUEST.

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It's the Karen Kenney show. Hey, you guys!

Welcome to the Karen Kenney Show. I'm super duper excited to

be here with you. And I'm wearing, you guys. It was just

my birthday. Can you believe, guys? Can we believe? I'm way

closer to 60 than I was. So I'm 58. It was just my birthday.

10-4, good buddy, and I got this awesome new Boston University,

my alma mater, my BU sweatshirt, and it's an old school one, and

it's got a wicked cute old school Boston Terrier on it. So

I'm super jazzed about that. So I had a fantastic weekend, but

I've been super duper busy for a bunch of different reasons, and

I don't say like I'm so busy like in a good way. It's just

like good things have been happening, but it's just been,

you know, one thing after another. But so this is just

gonna gonna be a quick little a quick little like love note from

my hat to yours. Okay, this is just something that I was

thinking about, and the universe gave me an opportunity with a

couple of stories, or I'll just tell one. We'll keep this short.

That kind of proves my point to what to what's going on. So, in

the age of the internet, right? I realize too, I'm starting to

sound like one of those old people back in the day, but in

the age of the internet. One of the things that I worry about

losing, you know, besides people knowing how to fucking spell,

besides people not being able to read cursive, like Jesus Christ,

are we in trouble, right? But there's all these like little

things, you know, as a Gen X kid, that I really value, and I

don't want us to lose as a society, and one of the things

is each other, and let me just talk about this really quick.

So, this past week, whatever hasn't been a full week yet.

It's been about a full week, whatever. It's been no, it

hasn't been a full week yet. But so I had a car, so my Toyota, I

had a Toyota rav4, which I loved. Okay, and but I had to

get a new one because my car was 16. It's almost 17 years old.

Okay, it was time. It was time, and I always drive Toyotas. I

like to drive them as far and as long as I can. And this is

getting to a point where it was like the engine was probably

going to keep going strong, but the body starts to rust. That's

one of the major problems here in New England, you know. So I

had to go cash shopping for the first time in like 12 years.

It's been a wicked long time. So I did all that, but here's the

in that process of like thinking about getting getting

rid of my old one, getting a new one, da da da da. There were

sever. There were several times when I said I need to talk to my

guy about this, meaning not that I needed a man like a guy, but

you know how in New England or Massachusetts or New Hampshire

or whatever, we're always like, yeah, I got a plow guy, I got a

roofing guy, I got a car guy, I got a guy that does the thing,

right? And that guy could be a woman also. We just say guy,

right? And it's like you need a guy. We need a lot of guys. You

know what I'm saying? We need a lot of women. Just insert women

in there too. And what I mean by that is, a particular thing will

come up, and you'll think of this person and their expertise

or their body of work, and you're like, that's the guy to

call. That's the person I have to call to get their opinion,

their feedback, their thoughts. Like, what do you think about

this? Can I bounce this off of you, or whatever? So in this

case, I was like, I got to bring this vehicle before I buy it. I

got to bring it to my guy so he can look at it to give me the

thumbs up or the thumbs down, right? Because I don't want to

make a bad decision because things can look pretty. I'm

like, I need to see under this thing.

I need to see how the engines like sounds to my guy. So I

called my guy, and one of the things about in the age of the

internet is it's wicked easy to just go online and look shit up.

Right, you want to learn how to lay some tile? Go on YouTube. Go

find an influencer who has a course for 2990 whatever the

thing is, right? And so we stop doing human interaction, and we

start doing like video interaction, or we start doing

internet, robot, AI. AI is going to spit out the answer. Let me

tell you, AI can be wrong so many times, so there's a real

art and a craft, I think, to human beings who spend their

life's work like two, like what do they say, over 10,000 hours

getting wicked good at something. You know, you a guy

who has worked on like you know 50,000 cars over his lifetime.

He's been a mechanic for like 50 years or whatever, those are the

guys I want to talk to. I don't want to look it up now. Sure, is

it convenient once in a while to use the internet to be able to

see how a thing is done? Great, I get it, but I don't want us to

lose each other. And here's the. Thing we think about like

resources, right? And there's all kinds of resources. There's

finances. There's like money. There's time. There's like go on

and on and on, right? But you know what? The greatest resource

to me is is human beings, other humans, right? We we're all not

interested in the same things. So you have the people who are

like painters, like my friend Emily, her sweetie. He has a

painting business, right? You have people who work on cars.

You have builders. You have people like I have a friend

who's in fire, the fire protection services. Like he'll

come out and he like all the restaurants in New Hampshire,

and he cleans out the hoods and the grills and he recycles the

grease. He's the grease busters, right? So we all have our skill

sets, and how cool is it to know a guy, to know a gal, to know a

girl, to know a human that you can pick up the phone and say,

"Hey, I'm thinking about doing X, Y, and Z. I'm going to call

the guy. So whether it's your car guy, your plow guy, your

your your lawn guy, your your money guy, right? The the what

do I? I wrote one down here, the something guy. I don't even know

what that says. The laundry guy. Maybe you have a laundry guy. I

mean, if you work in the restaurant business, you

probably have a laundry guy who brings in, right? I know people

who are massage therapists. They use laundry service, whatever.

But your personal trainer, your coach, whatever it is, there are

guys, and there's something really fantastic about being

able to reach out to another human being and hear what they

have to say to make that connection, and like before we

had the internet and YouTube videos explaining things to us.

I was like, I made a little list. I'm like, you know what we

used to do back in the day? We had tudas. We had encyclopedias.

We had dictionaries. We had libraries. We had cliff notes.

We did apprenticeships. We did internships. We had mentorship.

It was that human to human relationship of passing down the

knowledge to one another, where you could learn by you know

kinetic hands on experience? We could go and talk to the guy,

and he could show us how to glue the two things together and to

use the clampy thing. What are those things called? When like

in the wood shop, when you clamp like two pieces of wood

together, right? You would learn from your auntie, who's a wicked

good god. Now, auntie, why aren't my veg? Why not my

cucumbers growing? Whatever it is, and I don't want us to lose

that. Now, most people, and there's going to be a caveat to

this, right? Most people love to be helpful. Most people don't

mind if you give them a call. Like yesterday, I was talking to

my friend who's a massage therapist, and I was like, "Hey,

can I pick your brain for a second?

Like, what do you use for? Because I go, "I think you use

like massage book or book massage or whatever it is for

your thing. What do you think about that, and we had a nice

conversation. She broke some things down for me, helped me to

make a more informed decision. Yeah, could I have just looked

it up and looked at all the price points and looked at all

the you know the little details and the things that what's

included in your package? Yeah, but I'm like, no, I can also

talk to my friend who's who's a smarty pants, you know, and has

been using this for years and years and years, and that

ability to spend time with another human, to ask about

their expertise, to get their opinion. Most people love to

give you their opinions. Most people love to be asked, right?

They like to share their wisdom, their knowledge, their

experience, their expertise, their point of view. I want to

just make one little caveat here, which is this: what we

don't want to do, though, is if somebody makes their living off

of the advice, like how do I say this? It's one thing to ask a

carpenter, like, "Hey, do you think this is this is a fair

price for like you know however much lumba, blah blah blah? Like

to ask a quick question. What we don't want to do is like I'll

put it in context. It'll be easy. Let's say somebody's a

coach, right? A life coach, a spiritual mentor, like whatever.

It's just an easy one for me because I'm in the in the in the

business. Um, or let's use a yoga teacher too. I could do it

off of any of these. If you want to ask a yoga teacher, like,

hey, you know, I got this crick in my back, or I did it. And

P.S. hashtag yoga yoga teachers are not doctors, right? But

let's just say you get a little little thing that's bugging you

in your back, and you're like, are there any stretches I could

do for this? Are there any postures? Any asanas? Right? Any

poses I could do for this? Da da da. It's one thing to ask them.

Can they show you one little quick little thing? It's another

thing to go to them and be like, Hey, can you write me out a

whole like 60 minute sequence? It's like no no no. That's how

people make their living, right? So often to pay them, right?

Don't just try to quote unquote pick their. It's like, hey, you

know, back in the day, people used to do this to me all the

time, and not just me. I have tons of friends in these

industries, right? And they'd be like, yeah, it's amazing. I'm

like, yeah. If you want to know what I think, hire me. You know

what I'm saying? If you want an individualized program, hire me.

I can't just like if I can't just walk around giving it away

to free to everybody because this is how you know you make

your living or whatever, so that's what I want to say. Most

of us love to be asked. We don't mind being helpful. We love to

give you a little here and there, right? Sometimes we'll,

you know, if we obviously, you know, sometimes you do just jump

in and help somebody and you do it for free, blah blah blah. But

you can't do it all the time. So just be mindful if you're asking

for somebody to to like to really now move into like a

client relationship without you actually you know reimbursing

them or paying them or whatever you know you're not just gonna

call a random therapist and go can I just ask you something

real quick they're gonna be like no book an appointment right

first of all because it's you know they have regulations and

stuff like that so just keep it in mind, but remember, there's

1000 more ways also for you to get experience. Like I said,

tutors, encyclopedias, dictionaries, libraries,

apprenticeship, mentorship, internships, whatever. It

doesn't always have to be online. Let's not lose the art

of hands-on experience. Let's not lose the art of spending

time with another human being.

Lived experience is a lot different than just reading

about something in a book, watching a video, talking to

somebody who knows. Like, like I'm thinking of all kinds of

Addisons and craft makers. Everything from pottery to like

people. I'm making this up. People who like I don't know do

macrame or crochet or knitting or whatever. Like, yeah, you can

watch a video, but it's a totally different thing to have

Aunt Sally put her hands on your hands and say, "Oh nope, you go

around the corner and slip the knot and choke the thing and do

the whatever. You know what I'm saying? So let's not lose sight

because it gets easier and easier and easier when internet

resources are so abundant. We can it can easily shrink our

world, so we just start to go to the machines for everything. And

I don't want us to lose our artisans. I don't want us to

lose our artists and our craftspeople and the people who

work with their hands, the people who are in the trades,

the people who have accumulated. So they they have forgotten more

shit than we will ever know about that subject that they're

an expert in. You know what I mean? So, I just think I just

wanted to give a little nod out to you know the people who have

helped me over the last few days. You know, reached out to

our buddy Mark, and I was like, Mark, I'm looking for this

particular pot for my Toyota. You know, I googled it. This is

what I found. This is how far I've gotten. I think this is the

pot number, but you know what? He works at a pot store, and I'm

like, hey, if he can find me the pot, I'm now going to give him

business, right? But I asked him, does this sound like the

right pot? And I was just so grateful that I had a car pots

guy that I could call. You know what I'm saying? So I just think

it's really important that we acknowledge these people, these

human beings who have had 10,000 hours of hands-on experience or

whatever, but the people who that human-to-human, hot-to-hat

connection, right? To be able to pick up the phone, and I know I

a lot of people have anxiety and get weird around picking up the

phone, and they think I don't want to bother them, and it's a

Saturday, and they're probably busy. You know what? That's what

voicemail is for. You know what? They can call you back or not

call you back. But I, I really were like, look, I'm probably

gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be dead in 30 years probably, and

whatever, right? It's not like people are gonna do whatever

they want to do, but I can't control what the world loses.

But I have a microphone and I have a voice, and I just want to

encourage us all to know who the quote-unquote guys are in your

life, right? To recognize the people with skill sets in

different areas, to appreciate them. If you've had a guy,

gratitude to them. Let them know you appreciate them, but don't

be afraid to reach out and make that human that human

connection. I think it in some ways it is a dying art. You know

what I mean. And always, of course, always respect their

time. Respect their you know offer offer to do something in

return. Don't be a person who just calls transactionally. You

know, and just when you need something, if you're just gonna

call people and like it's like fucking pick at them like

roadkill, just trying to take, take, take, take. It's not that,

right? But bring them some dunks, give them a little gift

certificate, acknowledge their expertise and that they've been

helpful to you. Okay, that's all I wanted to say. Quirky little

weird episode, but it's been on my heart and on my mind.

And one of the things I was thinking about the other day is

like I sometimes think about you know this podcast I you know

people always like well if you were making a statement about

your podcast what would you say it's about and I'm like you know

in so many ways it's about leaving people better than how I

found them you know what I mean it's also about helping us learn

different tools and. Different spiritual principles and tell

some stories or whatever that just help us to feel less alone,

help us to be more relational to each other, but also how to

navigate this whole human being experience with a little more

love and a little more grace and a little more humor and just

like just helps us to kind of like you know to move through

the world, you know, maybe looking a little bit more for

the good, the beautiful, and the holy. But it's also, in some

ways, these little like I think, in some ways, it's like a little

self-parenting, like a way to kind of reparent myself and tell

myself things that I wish I had known or had been talked about.

You know, I didn't really have parents in a lot of ways growing

up. You know, story for another day. But I realized that I was

helped along the way by different people from different

areas, different skill sets, and and I was told, you know,

there's a lot of things I wasn't taught, a lot of things I wasn't

told. So this is just kind of like me also speaking to my

youngest self and reminding her of things. But also for those of

you out there who maybe you know didn't get get didn't get little

clues or tips or advice whatever along the way. So we're all in

this together. You know all the little kids in us. You know

people often say to me, "Oh, it's too bad you don't work with

little kids because they could really use you know the things

that you teach and share and blah blah blah. And I'm always

like, "Yeah, but technically I am. I do. I work with little

kids in big adult bodies, right? Who are just navigating this

whole thing along with me. So, thank you so much for listening,

you guys. I appreciate you. I love you. I hope you're having a

fantastic day. And to those of you who reached out and wished

me a happy birthday, it means a lot to me. I love my birthday.

And hey, here's to year 58. Let's see what this sucka is

going to be like. It's already off to a fantastic stat, and

even just you right now, if you can hear the sound of my voice,

you know you're a part of what makes it fantastic. So thanks

for tuning in to the Karen Kenney Show. I appreciate you

listening to the podcast, and I hope you have a fantastic rest

of your week wherever you go. May you leave the animals and

the people and the planet and the environment and yourself

better than how you found it. Wherever you go, may you and

your love and your energy and your presence and your attitude

and and your your hands on and human being relationships,

right? Those connections that you continue to foster and

continue to nurture and nourish. May they all be a blessing. Bye.

Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show. I really

love spending some time together. Now, if you dig the

show or know someone that could benefit from this episode,

please share it with them and help me to spread the good word

and the love. And if you want to be in the know about all of my

upcoming shenanigans, head on over To KarenKenney.com/signup

and join my list. It'll be wicked fun to stay in touch.

Bye.