Julio Vincent Gambuto – Please Unsubscribe, Thanks! - Vox Novus with Victor Fuhrman

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Vox Novus, The New Voice, Vox Novus, the New Dimension,
Vox Novus thought and movement leaders who will share from
their experience and offer tools to help us navigate our
rapidly changing world. My name is Victor Furman. Welcome to

(00:28):
Vox Novus, the New Voice. How did the pandemic change
your life? Was the outcome challenging or beneficial? My guest
this week on Vox Novus, Filmmaker and author Julio Vincent
Gambuto explores the profound societal shifts prompted by the pandemic,

(00:53):
revealing how the forced pause allowed people to reassess their lives,
prioritize genuine happiness, and resist the relentless demands of modern life.
His work encourages readers to break free from automated behaviors, values,
and relationships that hinder true fulfillment. His website is Julio

(01:14):
Vincent dot com and he joins me this week to
share his path and book. Please unsubscribe thanks. How to
take back our time, attention, and purpose in a world
designed to bury us in bs Please join me in
welcoming to Vox Novius. Julio Vincent Gambudo Welcome, Julio.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Hello Victor, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for
having me.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
And thank you so much for sharing and joining us,
because your message, I think is really really important. So
let's start by saying, share with us your path and
what it was like prior to the pandemic.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Sure, well, you know, I'm a bit of an oversubscriber,
if you will, or at least I was back then,
meaning I kind of signed up for everything everywhere, kind
of all in the name of being successful, quote unquote,
and I found myself really kind of on a treadmill,

(02:12):
you know, going and going and going, not questioning much,
kind of on autopilot and a little bit breathless to
be honest, right, just kind of living this pretty relentless life,
going and dodging and flying and being everywhere at once,
kind of, you know, all in the name of moving
life forward. And I think when the pandemic hit, I

(02:36):
certainly fell off that treadmill and started to sort of
question whether or not that really was what I wanted
in my life. So the book has sort of grew
out of all that.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
How were you called to filmmaking?

Speaker 2 (02:50):
You know, I was a kid who borrowed his father's
cam quarter, and that was in the eighties when you
kind of had to take half the VC are out
and put it into a bag and carrying it around
with you with a whole bunch of wires. And I
loved telling stories, and I thought that that was a

(03:12):
really wonderful way to tell stories. Visually, I loved editing
and sort of cutting stories together. I loved putting music
to things and sort of making music videos when I
was a kid, and that sort of you know, that
was always there. It was kind of just like this
connective tissue. I think that you could zoom back and

(03:35):
look at all the different parts of my life and
see that perhaps they were all connected by the desire
to tell stories. And most of my work though in
college and after college, was as a writer, and so
I was putting stories to paper and obviously keyboard to screen.
And then in my thirties, I decided that I really

(03:58):
kind of wanted to make a go of being a
filmmaker and kind of, you know, revisit that dream that
I had as a kid. And it's been kind of
a bullet train since then. That has stopped, at least,
of course, for the pandemic.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
So we're all creators. Each of their projects is like
a child. Is there one film in particular that you
chair with us that you're most fond of?

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Well, amid a lot of short films, I've made two
feature films. One I co directed, which was a film
adaptation of James Franco's book called Actors Anonymous. That was
an independent film that we made, and I think it
was like twenty sixteen seventeen or fifteen sixteen. And then
my first feature film that I co wrote and directed

(04:48):
was called Team Marco. And it's the story of a
young boy who's obsessed with his tech and his screen
and his iPad, and his grandfather, who's of course a
little more old school, drags him to the park and
teaches him how to play botchi uh. And this was
really a you know, a love letter to my hometown.

(05:10):
We shot it. I'm from Staten Island, New York. We
shot it completely on Staten Island, with about five hundred
people between the cast and extras, and so it was
a really big community event. And I loved it, and
I loved it, and I'm incredibly proud of it. And
that's you know, that's out now and streaming you know,
all over the place.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
So wonderful. Thank you for sure wonderful.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah, that's that's my baby. If I had to, if
I had to pick a favorite kid, that's it.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Your awakening to the issue with modern tech and time
consumption started with a sales blast email from J Crew.
What happened when you received that email?

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yes, it did well, you know, like so like everybody,
I was in the house in March and April of
twenty twenty, and at that point we were all pretty
scared and didn't know what was really happening. And we
were about three or four weeks into this nightmare that
we now know to be the pandemic. And in the

(06:09):
very beginning of the pandemic sort of like you know,
the first week or two after the shutdown, you know,
every corporation in America, every list that you didn't even
know you were on, was sending you a message to say, hey,
remember how to wash your hands left right soap water.
You know, be smart, we don't know what's happening. We're

(06:31):
all in this together. That kind of messaging was, you know,
all over our screens. And then about four or five
weeks in suddenly the messaging changed and it was kind
of immediately back to, you know, buy this sweater for
fifty percent off and make sure you buy a car
and all of this kind of nonsense. And I found

(06:53):
myself really really enraged. I had gotten this email from
j Crew the morning of I guess it was like
the first week in April of twenty twenty, and it wall.
You know, they certainly weren't the only ones writing these
kinds of emails, but I got their email and I
was just kind of floored because I felt like, wow,

(07:15):
you know, you had just told me to wash my
hands and be safe and that we were all in
this together, and now you're selling me, you know, a
winter sweater and a turtleneck. And so because of how
kind of furious I felt alone in an apartment, hadn't
seen my family and friends in six weeks or so
four weeks or so whatever it was at that point,

(07:35):
and so I wrote this essay called Prepare for the
Ultimate gas Lighting, which, in a very surreal turn of events,
went around the world in about forty eight hours and
now I think has something like twenty one million readers
in about one hundred countries. And the essay was really

(07:56):
kind of a response to that J Crew email. It
was a it was a call for us all to
kind of not be lulled back into or you know,
lulled into going back to normal. Uh, And it really
questioned what normal was in that moment. And you know,
obviously it's five years later now, and so there's plenty

(08:16):
of perspective that we have now that we didn't have then.
But my call then was really for people to use
the pandemic as a moment to kind of understand if
we wanted to keep consuming at the rate that we
were consuming, if we you know, if we wanted to
continue to just constantly be marketed to by every company

(08:38):
in the known world and universe, and really, you know,
what did we want to learn from the experience. So anyway, yeah,
it'll started with a J Crewe email.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
And many of these events inspired you to write please unsubscribe,
thanks at how did the pandemic influence your perspective?

Speaker 2 (08:58):
Well, you know, the book the book is is really
an evolution of that essay and it's not so much
focused on on gaslighting or manipulation or what have you,
but it's really kind of a The book is is
a look at the concept of subscription so you and

(09:18):
I know subscription well from you know, Netflix, and you
know the book at the Month Club or whatever it
might be. And and and we're very savvy now about
what subscriptions are and how to click and subscribe dot
dot dot. But I really wanted to look at kind

(09:39):
of why this new system has emerged. And when I
say a new system, I really mean like digital capitalism.
How has it taken over our lives? What has it
given us, what has it robbed us of? What is
it taken from us? And and perhaps if we can
have a better relationship with what it is we subscribe to,

(10:00):
we might actually take back our time and attention and focus.
And so I look at subscriptions with respect to those
external subscriptions like I'm talking about the things you click on,
But then I also look at subscriptions meaning kind of
commitments to social networks and social relationships. And then I

(10:21):
also look at a third level, which is what I
call underlying subscriptions, meaning the kind of emotional contracts that
we have with ourselves about who we are in the
world and to each other and start to you know,
how we present to the world and to other people.
And so the book is an exploration of those three

(10:42):
levels of subscription, all pretty much influenced by the event
of the pandemic at least.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
How did your background in filmmaking and writing shape the
narrative style of your book.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
It's a good question because the narrative style is really
a combination. It's part memoir, part social science, part social critique.
I think for readers there's a lot to chew on.
It's about three hundred pages of all of that, and
so it's a mix really of genres and of not

(11:22):
of styles. I mean, it's all my style, but it's
really a mix of different lanes. You know, the book
is selling as a self help book, but I always
say that it's where it helps, where self help meets
the system, meaning, you know, as we try to become
happier people, how do our efforts at increasing our happiness

(11:44):
or elevating our happiness or enhancing our happiness, how does
that interact with and conflict sometimes with the larger systems
that we're a part of. And so, yeah, the narrative
structure itself is is really a combination of many things.
And when I look at my films and I look

(12:06):
at sort of the way that I like to tell stories.
I do like to mix genres and narrative styles. You know,
in Team Marco, we shot a very simple, straightforward family film,
live action with actors as one would expect, but we
had a lot of fun cutting in old eight millimeter

(12:29):
film reels that my grandparents gave me that my grandfather
actually left me when he died. We had them digitized
and we used them in the film. And I think
that's a good example of just sort of mixing media,
or mixing genres or mixing styles. Call it what you will,
but I like to tell stories from different perspective, from

(12:52):
different perspectives, with as made tools as I can, And
so I think, you know, if you're looking at the
book and you're looking at the film, you're probably seeing
a lot in common.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
You had touched upon gas lighting. What do you describe
as the ultimate gas lighting?

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Well, you know, at the time five years ago when
I wrote this essay, the ultimate gas lighting to me
was sort of this supreme manipulation that I felt we
were going to see, and now looking back, I feel
we did see an experience from our government and from

(13:32):
big business. The two sort of main drivers were forces
that were going to try to persuade us, push us,
convince us, whatever it might be, to go back to normal.
And I just think it was the most incredible opportunity

(13:57):
that any of us alive have ever had to question
what is normal and what Why do I do the
things that I do on a normal basis? Why do
I behave the way that I do, you know, on
autopilot automatically every day? Why do I go to this job?
Why do I talk to these people? Why do I

(14:18):
like what I like, love what I love, hate what
I hate. I just thought it was an incredible learning lesson,
and so I really didn't want us to go back
to normal so quickly, because I felt like we were
going to miss the moment, right, We're going to miss
the incredible lesson of the moment. And obviously people had
rent to pay and a mortgage is to pay and

(14:40):
kids to take care of, and so I was in
a very privileged position to be able to sort of
think about the moment alone in an apartment in Manhattan.
And so with respect to gaslighting, my fear was that
we were going to be pushed to move on and
to kind of forget what we learned earned unsee what

(15:02):
we saw unlearn what we learned and move forward sort
of as if this was just a blip or a
glitch in the system instead of being a major and
significant moment in our lives. And so to this day,
five years later, I still think there are really profound

(15:22):
lessons that came out of the pandemic and that applied
to our lives, you know today, and if anything, we're
kind of living this strange offshoot of what the world
would be like had we shut it down for six
months or whatever we did. And so I just think
that there are great lessons to be learned as it

(15:43):
relates to media and tech and all the things that
I write about in my book, you know, very specifically,
you know, we are entering an age. We're already in
an age where media can be manipulated outright where you
can see things, hear things, experience things that do not exist,

(16:05):
that are in a different reality. And I don't mean
some like space sailing and different reality. I mean someone
has crafted them to convince you of something that is
not true. And now with AI that is very very
easy and impossible and will get cheaper and cheaper to do.
And so you know, having these tools in the hands

(16:27):
of everyone, which is obviously what you want in a
democracy that everybody can have access to the technology of
the moment. It can be a very dangerous thing because
what you're going to see, and what we're already seeing,
is that these tools of persuasion and manipulation are are

(16:47):
being used for ill and for you know, they're not
being used for the good of the society. And so
you know, my fear is that it's an I'm certainly
not the only one. The great fear is obviously that
it will continue to kind of worsen.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
There was a lyric from a song in the nineteen
seventies that said knowledge is a deadly friend. When no
one sets the rules, the fate of all mankind, I
fear is in the hands of fools.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Well, isn't that the question right? Who gets to set
the rules? And where? I think in this like massive
three hundred million person debate every day about who gets
to set the rules? And we live in a democratic
system that is meant to kind of elevate leaders that
can help us to set the rules, that can help

(17:44):
us make shared agreements among each other about how we
ought to behave. But I think that that process is
in crisis right now. And I think that that entire
ethosis in crisis right now, because we've been given a
technology and have created a technology that sort of tests

(18:05):
the limits and the boundaries and the even the intentions
of that system.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
Please share with us a couple of personal experiences that
illustrate the transformative power of unsubscribing.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
I love that question, you know, there's so many I
think there's the obvious right that that unsubscribing at an
external level creates a lot more peace in my day,
right It sort of takes the chaos off of my screen. Meaning,
you know, I don't really have anything that comes in

(18:41):
my inbox anymore that I don't want in there. If
something creeps in like a weed, I tend to neutralize
it quickly. I really think your inbox represents your mind
in so many ways, and so I don't like it cluttered.
I don't like it overwhelmed. So my data day, you know,

(19:01):
is very different from when I was what I call
over subscribed to now being unsubscribed. There's just a whole
lot less coming at me messages and communications and nonsense,
if you will. Also, I watched the news at night,
and I watched it for a half hour or so.
I don't really spend the entire day online. I don't

(19:23):
spend the entire day connected. I don't spend the entire
day consuming the nine hundred different things that happen in
our society on a minute by minute basis. And that's
again a bit of a luxury and a bit of
a privilege. But at the same time, I think we
all have to be really cognizant of what we're allowing

(19:44):
in and what we're focusing on and what gets to
take up our time and attention and energy. So you know,
that's the that's the kind of low hanging fruit of
what has changed. I think at a deeper level, I
will certainly share the experience of falling in love. I

(20:05):
fell in love during the pandemic and it was kind
of an incredible and continues to be an incredible experience
in my life. I think unsubscribing helped me to create
a space that someone else could occupy with me. And
I say that meaning that I think when you're going

(20:27):
and going and going constantly, and you're saying yes to
everything sort of in the name of living a rich
and full life, which is a privilege to do. You
can very easily sort of miss the forest for the
trees and not see or at least make space for

(20:47):
the things that you really want. And in my case,
very specifically, that was love and a partnership and a
true partnership. And I think unsubscribing helped me kind of
not only create this space literally in my calendar for
things like dates and for a relationship to bloom and blossom.

(21:08):
But you know, some of the work that I talk
about in the book and some of the writing that
I do with respect to underlying beliefs is to challenge,
you know, our sense of what is love, what is marriage?
Where do you get the ideas and beliefs that you
have about those things? And if they're not serving you,
how can you kind of rewrite them and re envision

(21:29):
them and understand them through the lens of you know,
for me now a forty seven year old adult as
opposed to perhaps a seventeen year old kid, and that
kind of work I think has been really powerful for
me because it has really allowed my partnership to bloom
so lots of different ways.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
Congratulations on finding your love and your thank you, Thank
You're very welcome. My guest is Julio Vincent Gambuto his
book Please unsubscribe. Thanks, How to take back our time,
attention and purpose and a world designed to bury us
in bs. Julia, kindly tell us where we can find
out more about you and your work and also where

(22:10):
we can get your books.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Sure so, I always recommend your local indie bookstore, but
also Barnes and Noble has been very good to us.
We were the Pick of the Month in August of
last year and when the paperback came out. You can
also just go to my website which is Julio Vincent
dot com j u l Io Vincent dot com and.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
We'll be back with more of Julio after these words.
On the Own Times Radio.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
Network, the best of the holistic, spiritual and conscious world
om Times Radio IOWMFM. Ome Times Magazine is one of
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A philanthropic organization, their net proceeds are finaled to support
worldwide charity initiatives via Humanity Healing International. Through their commitment

(22:59):
to creating community and providing conscious content, they aspire to
uplift humanity on a global scale. Home Times co creating
a more conscious lifestyle.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Back on Vox Novus. My guest this week Julio Vincent
Gambuto his book Please Unsubscribe Thanks, How to take back
our time, attention, and purpose in a world designed to
bury us in be as. Julio, how did your friends
and family react to your unsubscribing?

Speaker 2 (23:29):
Ah, they thought I was very strange. I think they, well,
those who read the book really kind of understood that
it was very much a thoughtful process. I think if
you hadn't read the book and you kind of understood
that I was stepping away from being constantly connected and

(23:51):
always on, you know, you probably thought that I was
probably more severely impacted than the pandemic, then you'd like
I think they were wonderful about it and have come
to understand what that means for our relationships as well.
And all it means is with respect to those friends

(24:12):
and family, is just healthier boundaries.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Really.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
But I will tell you I walked into a lunch
one day at a restaurant, and it was a large restaurant,
and I was meeting a friend, and the major d said, well,
can you text your friend and let them know that
you're here, because I'm not sure where in the restaurant
they are, And I said, I'm so sorry, but I didn't.
I don't have my phone with me, don't I don't

(24:37):
take it out with me when I go to lunch.
And she looked at me like I had five heads.
She looked at me like I was an alien walking
the planet. And she said, oh, my gosh, you're making
me so nervous. No phone. And I said, you know,
the phone makes me nervous, so I just choose not

(24:57):
to take it for certain events or lunch or meetings
or whatever it might be. And she just thought it
was the oddest thing in the world. So I've gotten
every response and reaction you could possibly imagine.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
At this point, you had mentioned having your relationship in
Sue when you started unsubscribing. How do you see automated
behaviors and societal pressures impacting individual happiness?

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah, I think that's really the crux of my book, Victor,
which is that you know, in psychology, there are just
automated feedback loops each in each of us, in each
of our brains and our hearts. It's the way that
we're wired, it's the way that we evolve, and those
behavioral loops are studied by behavioral psychologists, but behavioral loops

(25:48):
are the exact same kind of wiring and framework, if
you will, internally that has been used to sell us
so much crap. And so there is a direct relationship
between our personal psychology and behavioral psychology and consumer psychology,

(26:12):
and that is all the same thing. And so when
a company sits down in a boardroom and makes decisions
about how they're going to market their product to you,
they are using insights, best practices, the very best of

(26:35):
behavioral psychology. Now I'm not saying that that's all malicious
or anything like that. In fact, much of this is
done without malice. It's simply done because we somehow have
this belief in our country that you can utilize this
kind of knowledge as long as you make money doing it.
I don't believe that. I think there's a moral and

(26:56):
ethical question to be answered, which is is it okay
to take data you have that relates to how a
consumer might respond to messages of say status and power,
and use that to craft messaging or to target them
and an ad or to sell them something. Obviously that's

(27:20):
a much larger conversation, but you know that is the
nature of all of that is meant to be automated
now in this new economy. And so if you look
at even just the packages that come to your house,
if they're on autopilot and they are automated, then whatever

(27:45):
stops that behavior from happening, you need to disrupt it
if you ever want to change it. And so that behavior,
that consumer behavior, reflects that kind of automated nature of
our personal psychology. And so we very much are prisoners,

(28:05):
if you will, of our automatic thoughts and behaviors. Some
of them are good, some of them are not good.
But we have found a way to make the economy
reflect those automated behaviors. And something like a subscription, which
seems like a really silly thing to write a book about, frankly,
is the mechanism by which we are able to automate

(28:29):
consumer behavior. And so, if we're automating things that are good,
that can be a good thing, right. If we are
automating the wellness of society, if we're automating giving, loving, contributing,
sharing community, that's a no, I'm not going to argue

(28:50):
with that. That's incredible. But if what we're automating is
wasting resources over consumption, keeping up with the Jones, is
not feeling good enough, insecurity, you name it. I don't
think we're moving toward a better society. In fact, we're
moving toward a worse society because we're automating all of that,

(29:13):
and we're amplifying it and amplifying it and amplifying it
with all of the tools that we use to automate it. So,
you know, a much larger conversation which you can kind
of find in the first hundred pages of the book.
But you know, autopilot is not a good thing all
the time, but it has been sold to us in

(29:34):
the last twenty years, especially in the last five or ten,
as an incredible thing. Right, It's convenience, it's everything you've
ever wanted on repeat forever. Oh my god, who wouldn't
want that. The truth is that automation can amplify some
of the worst things in our society, and I think

(29:55):
we're seeing that happen.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
And long before AI as a childhood the early nineteen fifties,
I remember how advertising was designed to get you to
buy everything, including things that were not good for you,
such as cigarettes. I remember cigarette commercials back then, where
a doctor would be smoking cigarettes and he says, this
is the best cigarette to smoke and program that into

(30:17):
the population who ultimately were getting lung cancer and other
diseases from smoking.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Absolutely, and that's where I think, you know, we are
in we are we are in dangerous territory when we
don't question you know, what it is that we're automating.
I'm hopeful about the future. I think we live in
an incredible place and I think that you know, our
nation goes through ups and downs, as every society does,

(30:45):
but I think we have to be really mindful of
how we use these tools.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
And in your book you allude to the importance of
brand literacy. Please explain absolutely.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
So. You know, when we were kids, you know, there
was you know, you went to the and we were like, yeah,
this is the gap. Great, I get a nice pair
of jeans and a T shirt and that's the gap.
Now brands are everywhere, and they're quite insidious. They are
in every parts of our life. They are in our mailbox,
our email box, our phone. We see messages from them

(31:16):
all the time, on every screen, all day long. And
that's what is contributing to and just frankly is the
noise of the world. Right now, right is that we
are being marketed to at every turn, every moment of
the day. And so I advocate for brand literacy, just
meaning understanding how brands work, how they're incentivized, what it

(31:42):
is that they want, how they're built, what they're built for,
how they express themselves. You know, if you look at
any given industry, you might say, oh my gosh, there
are you know, fifty brands in this industry, when in actuality,

(32:03):
every ten brands are owned by another brand and owned
and if you trace it all back up the ladder,
there's only about five or six companies in every given industry.
You know, in the nineties, we used to have twelve
separate airline carriers in the United States major ones. Now
we have three or four. And so that consolidation has

(32:26):
led to this, and trust policy has led to this.
Our lack of enforcement about antitrust laws has led to this.
So there's been a lot of factors that have gotten
us here. But we're at a point now where brands
dominate and they can kind of spin themselves into whatever

(32:48):
version of themselves they need to to get you to
buy something. Now, I do not think that we don't
have personal responsibility in all of this. Yes, as consumers,
we have to be aware enough to make smart choices.
But you can't make smart choices if you don't understand
how these things are designed. So when I advocate for

(33:09):
brand literacy, I also advocate for tech literacy. I think that,
like our young people need to be taught how brands work,
how money works, how technology works. Because if we're going
to go into you know, a world that will frankly
we already live in that is so brand heavy, and

(33:32):
that our young people are being marketed to all day
long on their own devices, they've got to be aware
of how this all, how all this works, so that
they can make smart choices.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
And you say, we have to get a hold of
saying yes, no.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah, We've got to stop saying yes all the time.
I mean, look, we live in a culture that says
like say yes to the dress, right, like say yes
to carpe DM make sure you say yes to every opportunity.
And I am now, my partner is not American, and
my partner comes from a society that was socialists and

(34:09):
is becoming capitalist over the last twenty years. And you
can just sort of see in our life experience and
in how we understand the way that everything from stores
to the economy works. That you know, I was sort
of raised in a society that said yes to everything,

(34:32):
and he was very comfortably raised in a society that
wasn't taught that. And you can see it in our
day to day interactions because I am a people pleaser
to the nth degree, because I was raised in this
society that says, if you say no, you will be
passing up the opportunity to somehow climb the social ladder

(34:55):
or improve your socioeconomic status, or by that product that's
going to change your life, whatever that is. By contrast,
he was not raised in a society like that, and
so he is much more comfortable simply saying no to
the things that he does not want or the things
that he feels he does not need. I'm very bad

(35:16):
at it, and I've had to sort of teach myself
in my forties how to say no. And look, there's
an embarrassment of riches in America. We have access to
everything all the time, whenever we want it, whenever we
need it. But I do think that will be healthier individuals, mentally, emotionally,
perhaps even physically if we learned how to say no more.

(35:40):
I think that helps protect our day to day energy more.
I think that helps protect our calendar and protect our inbox.
I think it helps us protect our mental space so
that when the things that come along that truly matter
to us, we have the time and energy and attention
and focus and cash to say yes. When you say

(36:03):
yes to everything, you sort of constantly drain yourself.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
I know about people pleasing. My childhood relationship with my
dad engendered the sense that if you care for others,
you will be loved, and so I became a people
pleaser following this ultimately resulting in my own health issues
being neglected. And this led to an awakening. In your case,
it was in your forties, in my case, my fifties,
and the creation of healthy boundaries. I learned it was

(36:29):
okay to say no when my energy was being usurped,
and to only say yes when appropriate. I've been writing
poetry since I was a kid, and this inspired a poem.
Can I share that with you is It's called the
healing power of no. A time comes for choosing rather
than losing the essence that makes us so and in

(36:49):
the bestowing there's a power in knowing the freedom that
comes with no, when said with compassion, not angry in fashion,
and letting the self love flow. There's a sense of
renewing and deep soul in viewing the awareness that comes
with no. So with gentle voice and the power of

(37:09):
choice and the courage to make it so. I'm still here,
my friends. There's no means in this end, just the
healing that comes with no.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
Wow, Victor, that's incredible, and that should be all over
the internet right now.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Well it is. I've shared it on Facebook.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
Good.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
I'm glad. I'm glad.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
I actually published a book of poetry last September, and
it would be my place. I want to send you
a copy. Send you a copy of that book, and
we're done. Absolutely, that's incredible.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
I mean, look, you've hit the nail on the head
in the most poetic way possible. Yeah, there is great
power in no, and there is great power in yes.
But you have to know when to wield both of them.
And I think the older you get, perhaps from my
generation who was raised in this sort of way of

(38:04):
people pleasing in the eighties and nineties because the economy
was what it was, we have sort of learned now
later on life the power of no. But if you
look back at the last you know, fifty to one
hundred years in our country, we've been trained. And I
don't use these words to be provocative. I simply use

(38:26):
them because you know this is we've been conditioned to
say yes to everything, and there's incredible power in understanding
your own boundaries and what you need to get through
the day of the week, the month, you know, life,
and to be able to say no to the things
that are just not going to fit.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
We are aware of the negative effects tech addiction has
for kids, but what about adults.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
I mean, it's so interesting that you say that, because
you know I, like many other people, I have read
Jonathan Higg's book The Anxious Generation, and I think he
has focused on children rightfully so because it's a very
pressing issue. I think my book is a little bit
broader and sort of calls on us as adults to

(39:17):
also do the things, or at least respond knowing how
dangerous this is. I think it's as dangerous for adults
as it is for kids. I don't think that because
you're older, you somehow automatically have more wisdom about these tools.
I think there are plenty of people who do and

(39:38):
are able to kind of regulate themselves better than perhaps children.
But I don't think your age necessarily dictates that you
somehow have the power no matter what, you're more responsible,
you're an adult, you should have the power dot dot dot.
But I see plenty of adults who are just as
addicted to their phones as kids. And I see plenty

(39:59):
of adults of adults who are just as addicted. It's
not even so much to the phone. It's to the
validation and the the literal likes and love that the
phone gives them. And I you know, it's we're taught
not to judge one another in this way, but I

(40:20):
think at this point in our society, we've been taught
so much not to judge each other that we're sort
of scared to to disagree. But I think ultimately this
is a dangerous position for a society to be in,
right where we're getting that kind of validation and praise

(40:41):
and you know, our cup is being filled digitally instead
of with, you know, by human interaction and human connection,
and you know, sort of will unwittingly it has become
the theme of most of my work. But yeah, I
think It's time to kind of wake up to the
fact that this little machine in my hand is not

(41:04):
going to give me the things that are necessarily make
a fulfilling life.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
My guest Julio Vincent Gambuto his book Please Unsubscribe, Thanks,
How to take back our time, attention and Purpose and
a world designed to bury us in bs. We'll be
back with more after these words on the Own Times
radio network.

Speaker 5 (41:25):
Humanity Healing International is a small nonprofit with a big dream.
Since two thousand and seven, HHI has been working tirelessly
to bring help to communities with little or no over
Our projects are not broad mandates, nor are they overnight solutions,
but they bring the reassurance then no one is alone

(41:45):
and that someone cares to learn more. Please visit Humanityhealing
dot org. Humanity Healing is where your Heart Is.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Hello.

Speaker 4 (41:55):
I'm Sandy sedgeby a host of Home Times Magazine's Flagshit
radio show. What is going on? My passion is sifting
through information, research and innovations from new thought teachers, speakers
and researchers, pushing back the boundaries of what we know
about life, energy, metaphysics, and the universe. I love shifting
perceptions about who we are, why we're here, and how

(42:17):
quickly impossible becomes normal when we open our minds, expand
our awareness, and accept that the only limits that exist
are those we place upon ourselves. So, if you're the
kind of forward thinking, eager investigator of what lies beyond
the current reality that most perceive, why not make a
date to come play with me in the field of
possibilities at four pm Pacific time seven pm Eastern Time

(42:41):
every Thursday, and together we can discover what's really going on.

Speaker 6 (42:47):
Hi, this is Bill mar I can find humor in
almost anything, but one thing I never laugh about is
cruelty to animals. If you don't get the joke either, right,
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals five or one
Front Street in Norfolk, Virginia, two three five one oh.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Back on Vox Novus. My guest this week Julio Vincent
Gambuto his book Please Unsubscribe Thanks, How to take back
Our time, attention and Purpose and a World Designed to
Bury Us in BS. Let's take a look at some
of the practical steps that readers can use to unsubscribe
from the aspects of life that no longer serve them.

(43:22):
Tell us about digital detoks.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
Sure, you know, there's a couple of ways you can
really sort of flirt with all of this if you will,
or get your feet wet, And one of them is
to just do a digital detox where you look at
a week or a month or three months, whatever you're
comfortable committing to, and you step away from all the

(43:46):
digital tethers that keep you going, going, going. So what
do I mean by that? I mean stepping away from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
whatever it might be. You can take it off of
your phone, just delete the app and maybe just reserve
it for your desktop, just use the desktop version. You

(44:06):
can do things like I do this thing where I
unsubscribe from five accounts every time I'm on social media.
So you know, well, we all know that, Like there's
plenty of people on there that you don't even know
how you got, Like, you don't even know how they
got on your screen. You don't know how you know them.
You wouldn't recognize them on the street. They wouldn't say

(44:27):
happy birthday to you, So why are you looking at
what they're doing all day? So my practice is that
every time I'm on social media, I delete five So
whether it's an organization, a brand, a person, and trust me,
there are way more than five that you scroll through
that you're uninterested in. So I do that as a practice.

(44:49):
I do a practice. I think you can do a
digital detox by simply doing what I mentioned earlier, going
to lunch one day without a phone, going to a
meeting one day without a phone. Obviously, do it safely,
know where you're going, get the directions first, all of
the above, but test yourself, you know, push yourself in
small ways to breathe the air and you know, literally

(45:13):
step on the grass, if not literally figuratively, and reconnect
with nature in ways that perhaps you don't do because
you are so tethered. I'm not pretending any of this
is easy, Victor. It is quite difficult. But I do
think that once you start in small ways, you get
to sort of remind yourself in those ways that that

(45:37):
in fact, there is a whole world happening if you
look up from your screen. So yeah, digital detacs I
think is really important, and it can be sort of
a length of your choosing. It doesn't have to be,
you know, really onerous.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
And one of the things that I started doing actually
last year and continue to do to today? Is I
mute every possible notification on the phone and computer?

Speaker 2 (45:59):
Oh that is like yes, that that is stage one
for me, absolutely, Like nothing pings all day long. I
don't want to feel like I have lobby and dog
all day. So I think it's really important to just
silence everything. You know. Look, if you're a mom and
you have kids, or there's like particular moments in your

(46:21):
day or people that you need to hear from and
the things are in an emergency, obviously you know, make
those adjustments as you see fit. But I think as
a general rule, like yes, turn all the pings and
the dings and the rings off. You know where to
get the information, you know where it's housed, you know
where it will come. You go to it instead of

(46:42):
having it come to you in the most disruptive way possible.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
You know, And you say, downtech your devices.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
Ah, you know I did. This is the subject of
a lot of debate and actually is becoming more popular online.
But it's really I I got rid of my iPhone.
I think I did it for three and a half years,
and I had I had a phone called a jitterbug,

(47:12):
which is actually made for senior citizens. It is uh,
you know, has a large type and a button that
you press if you fall down. It was sort of
a ridiculous thing for me to be carrying around, but
I loved it because I didn't It didn't really have
anything on it. It just had the ability to call.

(47:33):
I suppose you could text if you wanted to, kind
of you know, text like it was nineteen ninety seven
and kind of you know, put you know, three three
taps in for every letter or whatever it is. But
I did down tech. And when you when you use
the word down tech, what I simply mean by downtech
is not upgrading all day long, right, not upgrading every
time there's a new operating system, there's a new hardware,

(47:57):
there's a new laptop, there's a new angle gadget, But
rather downtecking and sort of going to the devices, hardware
and software that are perhaps not the latest generation in
order to create more time and space. You know, this
doesn't work for everybody, and obviously there are people who

(48:18):
run businesses off of software that needs to be current,
et cetera, et cetera. But I did it with my phone,
and you know, I don't regret it.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
And your next one is probably my favorite. Unsubscribe from
automated emails.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
Yeah, I think this is hard because they they creep
up like weeds. But what I do recommend is that,
you know, you spend a week, call it unsubscribed week,
and don't do it on Monday. From Monday to Thursday,
just put every email that's automated and automated mass email
into a folder, like as it comes in all day long.

(48:55):
Just put it into a folder. And then on Friday,
take a look in that folder and first really appreciate
how many emails you get in a week, especially from
the same brands and the same companies and organizations over
and over again. But then go in and you know,
go in and unsubscribe. And so you know, if you
hit certain buttons on certain systems that tell you that

(49:18):
they'll take you off the mailing list, I don't trust
any of that. Some of it works, some of it doesn't.
You know, you have to really go into each of
these and unsubscribe and take your name out. There are
some systems that can help you do it. There are
some apps that can help you do it. You know,
in the most extreme case, you can kind of just
start over and get a new email address. That's not

(49:38):
always practical for people, but I do think if you
take a look at how many automated emails you get
all day long, it's not even a matter of the
message that they're sending you. The goal really is to
put their name on your screen. So the goal is
not even what's in the email. The goal is to

(50:01):
simply flash their logo or flash their name in your
inbox that day so that you keep them top of mind,
so that they are in your brain and in the conversation.
So you know, marketing teams all over the country are
sending out emails two, three, four times a day simply
for that purpose. So yeah, I absolutely recommend that. And because,

(50:24):
like I said earlier, you know, the inbox is really
a representation of your mind. And if you can control
the inbox, or at least architecture in a way that
has some space, you can you can certainly lower your anxiety.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
And you have several more. But the last one I
want to talk about today is decide how you want
to use texting.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
I think it's really important, you know. I think in
the beginning of this digital revolution, we kind of all
bought into this idea. Subscribe to this idea if you
will that you know that text had to be responded
to immediately, that you could reach anybody on a text message,
and therefore you should reach anybody on text message, that

(51:09):
group chats and text chains were efficient. You know, we've
been sold a lot of stories about this, but ultimately,
you know, I think you just have to make the
decision that this is a channel. This is a channel
of communication, and how do I want to use it.
It's the same thing as Facebook or Instagram and the

(51:31):
inboxes that come with them, or your email or these
are all different channels of communication. So it's okay to
set boundaries and structures about how you will use them,
how often you'll use them, how often you'll check them,
and maybe what you'll use them for. You know, I
have a friend who only she says mommies, only mommies

(51:55):
on text message, meaning her texts are just full of
other mothers and fathers, people in the neighborhood, the school,
her kids. That's like her mommy channel. So if anything
comes to it that's from a retailer or a marketer,
or a political campaign, or even a friend or a
colleague or a work or anything, she kicks those people

(52:18):
out of the texts, meaning she takes it to email.
She says, Nope, this is not the right spot for it.
I'll meet you on email, or I'll get back to
you tomorrow by email, or you know, hit me up
somewhere else. Is that more management? I suppose it is.
But it does keep the channels cleaner and clearer so
that you're not exhausting yourself sort of managing not only

(52:40):
your children, but your you know, local congress person's campaign
and your Verizon bill all in the same breath.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Absolutely. One of the things that I've personally become aware
of in the last twenty five years is the importance
of creating sacred space. How do you define this and
why is it important in your process?

Speaker 2 (53:00):
Yeah, I mean that's probably the thing I would love
your listeners to get the most from this conversation. It's
not just you know who wants to read the three
hundred page book about email. I don't write the book
is really about creating sacred space. And sacred space to

(53:22):
me is space that is yours in which you can
do anything, think anything, feel anything, be anything, and if
you're lucky and you're in a relationship that protects that
sacred space. Then you're probably with someone who appreciates the
sacredness of that space or the sanctity of that space.

(53:43):
And for most of us, this is our homes, right,
and this is but our homes have been invaded, if
you will, and I don't love that word, but our
homes have been overrun and overwhelmed with intrusive messages, pings, rings,
dings in so many formats and in so many ways,

(54:07):
and so well. A lot of what I'm advocating is
simply to return to a place of sacred space, so
that your home is a place of joy and comfort
and love and support and is not a switchboard for
you know, the world's or America's marketers. Right that that

(54:29):
whether you choose to define sacred space as the home
or your yoga mat or your bathroom is completely up
to you. That's not for me to say. But the
world is a noisy, noisy place, and it's only getting noisier,
and with the rise of AI it will get even
more chaotic, I think, And so I think the need

(54:51):
for sacred space is all the more important, and something
incredible happens. Victor when you create and live in a
sacred space, you get to hear yourself. You get to
hear yourself think, you get to hear what you think
about the world. You get to very or i should

(55:13):
say more easily connect to your values and your ethics
and your desires and your love. And something really special
happens when you sort of practice creating safe spaces like
that or sacred spaces like that, is you get to
hear yourself again. And that's really kind of what this
process has been for me. So that's why I wrote

(55:35):
a book to help other people do it.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
His name is Julio Vincent Cambuto. His book please unsubscribe.
Thanks How to take back our time, attention, and purpose
and a world designed to bury us and be us.
Julia one more time, please share with our listeners with
and get your book and find out more about you
and your wonderful work.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
Well, thank you. My website kind of has everything. I'm
at Julio Vincent dot com. Julio like Julio j u
l io dot com. And the book is available at
your local independent bookseller or at Barnes and Noble, and yeah,
check it out.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
Thank you so much for joining us and sharing this
wisdom which our world needs right now. Thanks Victer, thanks
for having me and thank you for joining us on
Box Novus. I'm Victor, the voice Urman. Have a wonderful week.

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