Is the kiss cam coming for you?

Today on the Community is the whole notion of privacy dead? Well, maybe we'll be looking at the politics of food stamps. What's food? What isn't? What do we do about soda? The World Health Organization announced there's a new secret silent killer out there. Its name is loneliness. And is bigotry cross creeping into one of the top venture capital firms in the world, Sequoia Capital. Finally, we'll look at a secret political weapon of the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City. I'm Donnie has a secret weapon and it's what I'm going to share with you that you can use to bolster your own career as well. Hello and welcome. This is the Community verse. I'm TJ Walker. This is the show where news meets personal development. Every day I look at the top business, technology and culture stories and dissect it through the lens of communication skills, all with the goal of building your personal success. So let's dive in right now. I'm coming to you live by the way. I'm in Central park again as I was yesterday. It's beautiful lake. I'm in surrounded by some of the most gorgeous real estate and parkland in the world. Finishing up a couple of days vacation here in New York City on my way out to Shelter island on the east, the east end of Long island in just a couple of hours. But finishing up a vacation here but wanted to spend some time with you today as well. By the way, if you're seeing this live, feel free to go ahead and comment. And I'm doing it on my cell phone so it's a little harder for me to see, but I'll be taking a look at it or trying to, as I did yesterday. First up, this is a story I should have talked about yesterday but got sidetracked with other bigger issues. The kiss cam story, this involves a couple who were attending a Coldplay concert recently. The camera comes on them and all of a sudden their private embrace is being shown to thousands and thousands and thousands of people within the arena and then the whole world. Only one problem. It was not a married couple. It was a couple. It was a gentleman who was married to someone else. The look on their face showed extreme embarrassment right away and pretty much everyone knew what had happened. This was the CEO of Astronomer IO or Astronomer.something startup, but not a publicly traded company, but still a somewhat significant company. The woman in his arms was not just a co worker, but someone who reported him. He's the CEO, so everybody at the company reports to him. She was the head of human resources. Okay. Within a short time, the website announced that he was no longer the active CEO. What's the real lesson here? Now, what I'm about to say seems quaint, trite and obvious, I think to most people under 30. But the rest of us need to get it. And that is there's no such thing as privacy in the world. Most of us willingly give away tons and tons of data about ourself. Our location, our whereabouts, our hobbies. We give over our whole lives to our Facebook profile and to Mark Zuckerberg or to Twitter and Elon Musk. We give away so much information about ourselves, it's a part of a bargain. We do that because of all the conveniences involved. Now, I suppose city, state, national ordinances could try to write in laws saying that TV networks and big concert promoters can't violate people's privacy by putting them up on a big screen. But in a time when you and I all have these things, a cell phone, all of us have international broadcasting studios in our hand. And while you can pass a law because we're not in a TV studio or just because we're not running for president doesn't mean our actions are not being scrutinized. And there's an old, old axiom. Don't do anything you wouldn't want to see on the front page of the New York Times or your local paper. And these days, don't do anything you wouldn't want to see on social media. It's maybe still a good practical idea whether that's fair or not. Not necessarily. Now let's switch gears for a minute and look at this through a crisis communication lens. Now, the CEO, where this, the company where this guy was a CEO, was not a publicly traded company. The stakes get much higher when you are involved in this sort of a scandal. When it's a publicly traded company. Again, scandals. Not that two people are having an affair, but that the CEO of a publicly traded company is having an affair with a direct report. That's what erodes trust in the culture of the fairness in an organization. Because in theory, if you're sleeping with someone, you're not going to be unbiased next time. They want a promotion, they want a raise that causes resistance among all other employees, applicants. And so there's legitimate case to be made there. People are real though. Bill Gates, whatever his flaws, I don't think most people think he's an evil person because he fell in love 30 some years ago with Melinda Gates and different maiden name and they fell in love and got married and had a marriage for decades. He was the CEO. Should he have only dated people from other companies? Maybe, but it's going to be a lot messier, especially if you're already married, having an affair. So, again, let me switch hands. What do you do from a crisis communication standpoint? If you clearly busted and people are going to, soon as you want me to believe me, you know, you or my own lying eyes, people are going to listen to and believe their own eyes. So I think you've got to be transparent and essentially say, yes, that was me. I'm confirming the facts. I apologize. I use poor judgment. If it's the case of a small private company, it's your own company, then I think you can say we're changing policies or we're doing. We're doing something else. I am going on a leave of absence, something to that effect. If it's a publicly traded company these days, I don't think you have much, much recourse other than to resign, go to another company, do a startup, vow to do better next time. There's always another act. There's always something else you can do to improve. It's very rare even even in our modern political system. We see even people with long lists of convictions. It's very rare to see that completely end a career. And while Harvey Weinstein isn't making any more movies these days, a lot of the men caught up in the MeToo movement are now doing quite well. And someone like Ryan Seacrest, who is alleged to have committed all sorts of MeToo infractions with female employees, continues to thrive and continues to get more and more shows, more and more visibility. You rarely see anyone talk about it. So we're all humans. I'm not trying to excuse behavior, but human beings in close proximity fall in love with each other. You're going to have to be aware cameras are on. I mean, here I am in a public place right now in Central Park. If a couple walk behind me and are kissing, and it turns out they're both married to other people and they both work at the same company, I might inadvertently be outing them. I don't mean to, and I don't think there's anyone behind me now, but that is the world we live in. Pablo Hernandez, stopping by. Pablo, good to see you. You are my guest guest host today. This is a show where we have no regular guest host, but you, the viewer, the community member. You are my guest host. So you're saying related. So I'm not quite sure what the comment is, but feel free to add commentary there. I do appreciate you stopping by. This is community. This is the show where I try to help you not just feel bad about the news, not just doom scroll, but actually learn from it and improve and help your own career. Let's go on to the next top story of the day. This one jumped out at me as well. Sad at many levels. But the World Health Organization came out with a new report in the last 24 hours. How 100 people die an hour due to not a new chemical, not new air pollution, not new pesticides, but in fact due to loneliness. The great irony, of course, all of us have these cell phones, all these tools for interacting with human beings all over the world, our community. And what do we do with it? We use it for isolation. This is a crisis. And things like Facebook, which I'm on right now, things like Twitter, things like YouTube, which I'm on right now, are enabling this, are making it worse. Because it's so easy to sit at home, not face rejection, hold your phone, not have to look another human being in the eye and talk to someone. And any given day, sure, we all like it down day, a little alone time, an hour a day, I get it, I like that. But if an hour a day of alone time becomes 24 hours a day becomes seven days a week, it becomes a habit, it becomes the norm and it will literally kill you. Not according to me. I'm not a medical doctor, but this is according to the most recent research from the World Health Organization. I just want to share with you some of the data. They are claiming that loneliness, social isolation increases the risk of stroke, heart disease, diabetes, cognitive decline and early death. Lonely people are twice as likely to experience depression. I think this makes perfect sense. And Pablo, thank you for saying good morning. Good morning to you. I hope you're having a great day and I hope that you're talking to real people today in addition to me. And I very much appreciate you stopping by with me today. So this is a problem because of the convenience. And I'm about to go into a new work situation myself. Right. Currently I work from an office on a main street in a small village of Delray beach and it's a five block walk from my home, but I see people every day. I have lunch, I'm about to start working from home as my family and I move at the end of the month. So there is that danger, even for me, of being more isolated. And I do have my wife and daughter to speak to every Day. I think one of the most important personal skills and professional skills anyone can cultivate these days is the skill of actively proactively reaching out to connect to human beings on a daily basis, to talk to them. Not just text, not just like on Facebook, but to actively reach out to them and try to talk to them, ideally in person. And look, I can be as lazy as the next person, but yesterday was an example of what I try to live in the morning, my wife and daughter and I met with a colleague I've known for 10 years through the Internet. A very important. Excuse me, there's bugs out here in Central park today biting me. A colleague I'd known for 10 years. I'd interviewed before on this podcast, the CEO of Go Skills. And we actually met for the first time. I met her, her husband, her lovely children in person. We had a fantastic brunch. And it was great actually having human. Yeah, ants crawling. Excuse me. It was fantastic talking to real human beings face to face, socializing. There's just something different about it than looking at a screen. So I urge you, try to spend some time doing that. Every single day after that is as enjoyable as it is. And I realize this sounds like I'm bragging, but as enjoyable as it is to watch all the greatest movies in the world on Netflix and HBO, Max and YouTube and other platforms, my family and I went to see a Broadway show, a Broadway musical, and Juliet, which I would recommend. A lot of fun. Why do that? Why, in an era where you can watch any kind of entertainment on a screen, go see it in person, it costs a lot more. Not as convenient. It's just fun watching real human beings create art, demonstrating their talents in front of you live. So it's a fantastic, fantastic experience. So I, I enjoyed that. Next up, what did I do? And this is a little more than I do in a typical day. Next after that, I met up with friends of mine from college that I met 44 years ago and work colleagues I've known for decades. And we went to the Comedy Cellar and saw live stand up comedy. It happens to be my favorite comedy club in the world. It's a social thing. We're laughing at each other. We say, hey, remember this? It's much more social simply watching comedy on a movie, on a TV screening alone. So I realize that, you know, I've got some good luck that's allowed me to do that. Although stand up comedy is not particularly expensive, I would urge you try to schedule some time with friends doing something. It could be a picnic Here in Central park or elsewhere, that doesn't cost anything. But if you want to extend your life, if you want to not be lonely, if you want to reduce your chances of depression, hypertension, stroke, spend time with real human beings, not just time on the screen. Although I do appreciate those of you spending time with me on screen today. Pablo says hello, says you are right, we can have thousands of friends on Facebook. How many of those can we have a face to face cup of coffee with? You know, every so often I do this and I haven't done it in a while, I'll go through my Facebook friends and I'll say, have I had a meal with this person in the last five years? Have I talked to this person on the phone? If not, maybe I shift them over to being friends on my business page. This Hugh J. Walker success page that if you're on Facebook now and watching me, that's where I am. I try to limit the people. I actually, I walked past them on the street, I would know and we would stop and chat. Sometimes I'm a little bit promiscuous and just say yes to anyone I ask and I do the same. But I think as a general rule there, there is an axiom in sociology that says most human beings can't really recognize more than 150 people and have more than 150 real meaningful relationships. Is that ironclad? No, but I think it's a good rule of thumb. And every so often I tell myself maybe I should really pare down my own Facebook list to 150 people. Far better to have five friends or even one real friend you talk to on a daily basis than to have 10,000 friends on social media but you stay at home all day long looking at the screen. Okay. In other news today, by the way, you're watching community verse with C.J. walker. That's me. My background is for decades I've helped business leaders, Wall street billionaires, fund managers, presidents of countries, prime ministers, communicate effectively and helping them with their own personal development skills. Now, turning the tables, looking at a lot of the very same people, how they're communicating to you in the media and teaching you the lessons I've taught them to help boost your career and to navigate various crises. Let's look at other top stories in the news. And I'm here on my, on my, I not using my regular computer, I'm holding a cell phone and I'm also referencing my iPad. But this story struck me as, I won't say unusual, but interesting in that one of the top venture capital firms in the world. Sequoia Capital has a partner who is putting out very controversial tweets, social media posts. I mean, Sequoia Capital is based in California and there is a partner there, Sean McGuire, who has very strong feelings about certain political issues. Fine, we all do. But here's what he said about political candidate, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, Mamdan. It's that he comes from a, quote, culture that lies about everything and is trying to advance his Islamist agenda. Now this struck a lot of people as blatant religious bigotry to say that he comes from a culture that lies about everything. So first of all, I'm not necessarily a supporter of Mamdani. He happens to be a little bit different from a lot of Americans and certainly different from a typical winning candidate in New York City. In New York City, the candidates typically are either Jewish or Christian in their religious background. And most of them don't spend a lot of time talking about religion when they become mayor. Hamdani has not spent a lot of time talking about religion. He spent his time talking about making New York City more affordable. Now, you can quibble about his tactics. Things like rent control can arguably reduce the supply of housing over the long run and make things less affordable. An honest person can make honest critiques of that. But this guy from Sequoia Capital, just talking about a culture that lies about everything, first of all, that's a little bit holier than now. You know, we have a lot of politicians in America who come from American culture, come from Christian backgrounds. They seem to have no problem. They seem to have no problem whatsoever about lying about everything. So it seems highly selective to me to say that because someone has this religion that I don't like, they are guilty of being in a culture that lies about everything. I've never seen a conservative or a MAGA member say, wow, isn't it awful that Donald Trump lies about everything? But it must be because he comes from a so called Christian culture where people lie about it. I've never seen that and I don't know that it would really be fair. I mean, part of the problem, whether you like religion or not, is you can pick apart any foundational religious text and say it's full of lies. Now, I'm not here to bash any one religion today, but I can think of one religion that claims like the earth is only 5,000 years old. No, scientists would say that's a lie. I can think of one religion that says, oh, this child was born to A virgin mother and it's really the son of God. You could point to a lot of scientific evidence saying, well, that's a lie. I can think of one religion that says it's the center, the earth is the center of the universe and the sun revolves around it. That the earth was made in in six days. That's considered a lie. And yet very rarely, I don't see this particular managing director at Sequoia Capital attacking people from that religion when they share his political beliefs on taxation, for example. I don't see him attacking their culture, saying they're a part of a culture that lies all the time. So it's one thing to say, oh, you know, we shouldn't be politically correct all the time. We shouldn't muzzle people, we shouldn't tell people they can't have political beliefs. I'm not saying that. But be consistent and don't say one guy's bad because he has a religion I don't like and policies I don't like, therefore it's because he's from a religion where the cultures are outlying when you could just as easily make the exact same criticism about politicians who share your policies prescriptions because their particular religion is filled with lies too. And Lakash writes in Lakash, thank you for being my co host today. This is the show where you, the live viewer, you serve as my co host. So I very much appreciate you standing by a Pablo also is saying, I missed a couple of your comments. Let me go back to that. Oh, Barb is saying, good morning, Barb, great to see you. I'm doing this on my cell phone today, so it is a bit hard to see. Pablo says, you're right, we can, we can have thousands of friends on Facebook. How many do we have a cup of coffee with? Barb says, good morning. I've never been considered a normal person. Well, Barb, you are not normal. You are exceptional in every way. And we're very happy that you're here today. And thank you for all of your exceptional service, not only to my community, but to the Berlin community and so many other communities around the world, and serving as a community leader and really a thought leader and a mentor to so many other thinkers and creators in the world. So thank you and happy Sunday morning to you and thanks for getting up early where you are. Pablo also says Greeks used to describe, whoops, I did something wrong here. And it forgive me, it's a little more difficult trying to do a live show from a cell phone. But my wife and daughter are asleep in the hotel room. And I have no other place to do this today. So I'm in gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous Central park today. So it's a great place to be. And I'm trying to look at the comments from Pablo. Greeks used to describe as people wearing different masks all day, using the right mask for the right situation. Adapting, adapting is then lying. Some people think so. I a case can be made. And Pablo coming to us today from LinkedIn. Barb's with us on Facebook, and we have people joining us from YouTube as well. So good to see so many of you joining us. So what's going to happen to the people at Sequoia Capital? Sequoia Capital is not a publicly traded company, and their managing directors have a lot of power and influence. They can do whatever they want. Now, traditionally, Sequoia Capital has been positioned as we're above the fray. We're not down in the dirt of everyday politics and doing fights. They are in some ways the opposite of Andreessen Horowitz, where Marc Andreessen is very quick to call out anybody who doesn't share his exact political prescriptions. Sequoia Capital is a little different. So those in the venture capital world tend to be extraordinarily wealthy men, by and large, the ones who've been around for a long time are either worth hundreds of millions of dollars or billions sometimes. So they kind of feel like, I got the freedom to say and do whatever I want. Okay, maybe. But it doesn't mean the rest of us can't form judgments on you being obnoxious or being a racist or being a bigot. Now, I think many people are too quick to shout bigotry. Just because someone calls out something they don't like in a particular religion, I don't think that's fair game. But that's not what happened in this case. This partner at Sequoia Capital based his entire critique of Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, saying he's from a culture that lies about everything. That's not specific enough. If you want to make a specific charge and say, look, I disagree with this verse in this particular foundational religious book that says, slaves obey your masters, which is in a number of religious texts. If you want to say, I think that's wrong, I don't think slavery is a good thing. I think that violates the fundamental principle that human beings are all worthy of respect and autonomy. I have no problem with that. In fact, I've made that charge against certain religions. But to just say Here's a bad guy. He's bad because everybody in his culture lies about everything all the time. That, my friends, is too broad a brush. You are watching and listening to the communiverse. I'm TJ Walker. This is your daily dive into top news stories regarding business, regarding technology and culture. What we try to do here is look every day at top stories and dissect them through the lens of communication to help you be more successful. The next story in the news is regarding food stamps. The SNAP program, this nutritional assistance program in the United States for people with low income, and it affects mostly children and mothers. There is a push, a growing push to eliminate the ability for people to use food stamps to buy sodas. There's already a prohibition in six states for people using food stamps to buy things like Coca Cola, mellow yellow Pepsi. There is some controversy about it there. There are some often on the left, in the center left, the democratic side of things, that thinks, oh, you're further stigmatizing poor people, making them feel bad at the grocery store. They should have free freedom. There are many, some centrist, some on the right saying, this is ridiculous. Why are we paying, why are we giving people tax dollars to buy junk food? So where do I stand? I'll be honest with you. I think it is an absolute atrocity to use government money to buy poison. And that's what junk food is. That's what soda is. It absolutely, absolutely kills. Very few people would say, well, let's just give money, and if they want to spend the money on heroin, let them do it. Let them buy heroin for their kids. Now you're probably thinking, TJ That's a ridiculous analogy because heroin kills people. You're correct. Heroin, according to the most recent United States government statistics, killed 3,900 people in the year 2023. That's a lot of death because of heroin. But guess what? Official government estimates show that tens of thousands of people die every year in America because of excess sugar consumption. That's right. Sugar kills. And even, even worse, sugar is a contributing factor. And I mean processed sugar. I don't mean taking a bite out of an apple. I'm talking about processed sugars, artificial sugars. It creates an environment where it's much easier to become overweight, diabetic, have obesity, stroke, hypertension. And it might not kill you in that one bite of a Snickers or that one drink of a Coke, but it's much more likely to end your death prematurely. Instead of living to the ripe old age of 90, you die at 75. Instead of those last 10 years being great retirement years, playing, traveling, enjoying time with grandkids, it's time in a wheelchair because they had to amputate your leg because you're diabetic, because you've been eating Snickers bars and drinking Coca Cola your whole life. So when the government says things like, oh, buy a lottery ticket because you're going to help education, the government's lying to you and it's contributing to your financial destruction. When the government says, here's money and you can buy processed sugar that will give you cavities, give you diabetes, help you teach your kids how to have poor nutrition, I think that's an atrocity. So I'm very much down in the camp saying, let's give people help for food. Let's give them food, let's give but food, Pepsi, Coke, they're not food. They are, in fact, poisons. And I would go so far as to say Snap food stamps should be used for real food, for produce, for fruit, for vegetables. And if a package has added sugar, you can't use Snap. That's what I personally would do. Now, you might think that's some kind of extremist position. The Democratic Mayor, Mike Bloomberg of New York city, in office 20 years ago, came to the exact same conclusion. He was ridiculed and mocked as being a nanny and trying to run a nanny state. But he really does care about reducing deaths. And at some point, the government can't control everything you do. I'm not suggesting the government come into your house and go through your refrigerator and tell you what you can and can't buy with your own money. But when it comes to the government's money, it has an incentive to create health, to create. To help you live a longer, healthier, happier life. Not to be encouraging you to create addictions to drugs that kill you, because that is what Coke and Pepsi and soft drinks and sugary drinks are. They become addictions for poisons and drugs that do, in fact, kill you. So I'm all in favor of saying if you need help from the government to feed your family, to feed yourself, fine, we're here to help you. But it's got to be for real food, not engineered, sugary, processed food. I want to thank so many of you for popping in today. And Pablo talks about one of my favorite doctors, Robert Lustig. He's an endocrinologist, and he has written about and done videos, and he's been an outstanding spokesperson for this whole message of sugar is killing us. Robert Lustig. Pablo, I'm glad you like Dr. Lustig. I'm a huge fan of his and I would urge you perhaps after this show to take a look, look him up and watch some of his content. Because it will. If it doesn't scare you away from drinking sugar, I don't know what will. And eating sugar. It's an absolutely everything. Okay, one last story I wanted to touch on today and I should have tied it in with the one earlier about Sequoia Capital. But this Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, Mamdani is his name, it gets a lot of attention in part because he doesn't call himself a Democrat. He calls himself a democratic socialist. And many in America have nothing but negative feelings about socialism. They think of Soviet Russia, they think of Fidel Castro, they think of it as extreme left wing authoritarian dictatorships. They think of breadlines, they think of mass poverty. They think of everyone driving around in 50 year old cars held together by chewing gum. So it is potentially a massive problem for the Democratic Party nationwide if every single candidate for Congress in a swing district in Iowa has to answer the charge of do you support your major Democratic leaders who call themselves socialists? It's a very real issue. However, I do want to point out something that I think is relevant to all of us. This young man, Zorant Mamdani, has a secret weapon when it comes to winning over voters and to diffusing tension. And the secret is he's got a massive smile on his face. Every time you see him campaigning, social media videos, campaign ads, he has a smile that reminds me of a young Bill Clinton. Politics are different. He doesn't look like Bill Clinton, but he has this element of joy on his face. And I think that is the way to go through life. It's certainly a way to win more votes. Is it possible to be the angry populist and get votes? It's possible. But that only tends to work for one side of the political spectrum. For people in the center, the non right wing side of things, a smile goes down a lot easier. But it's not just a left right issue. Ronald Reagan, patron saint to conservatives everywhere, was known for always having a genial smile on his face, looking good natured, looking friendly, telling a joke, having looking like he's about to have a chuckle. So I do think that it is an extremely powerful message that you're sending. I'm happy to be here. People are drawn to happy people. And when you look at all the candidates running for office in New York City in that crowded primary, and you saw former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who seemed like he always had a sour scowl on his face. Seeing Mamdani with that smile on his face, there was just something about it that attracted people, drew people in. Am I telling you to walk around the big fake smile on your face all the time? No, but a little bit of a smile goes a long way, especially if you have to talk about any bad news or negative news or anything that's attacking to anyone. It makes it go down a lot easier. It's great body language. It says to people, hey, I'm comfortable, I'm confident, I'm relaxed. Therefore, it makes you infinitely more credible to people. So think of that smile anytime you're around people in a meeting, or certainly anytime you're around one of these camera. A little smile goes a long way. I want to thank all the folks getting up early with me today for our live session. If you're watching this on demand, please post your comments, questions, thoughts. Pablo, Back to the sugar issue says Pure White and Deadly, a 1972 book by John Youth, a British nutritionist and former chair of nutrition at the Queen Elizabeth College, London. He gives the Wikipedia entry, so you may want to check out that book. Pablo, thanks so much for joining me today. I'm TJ Walker. This is Communiverse, your daily dive and the top news stories of the day about business, technology, and culture. Join me here every single day on whatever your favorite platform is. See you tomorrow. People are drawn to happy people. And when you look at all the candidates running for office in New York City in that crowded primary, and you saw former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who seemed like he always had a sour scowl on his face, Seeing Mamdani with that smile on his face, there was just something about it that attracted people, drew people in. Am I telling you to walk around with a big fake smile on your face all the time? No. But a little bit of a smile goes a long way, especially if you have to talk about any bad news or negative news or anything that's attacking to anyone. It makes it go down a lot easier. It's great body language. It says to people, hey, I'm comfortable, I'm confident, I'm relaxed. Therefore, it makes you infinitely more credible to people. So think of that smile anytime you're around people in a meeting, or certainly anytime you're around one of these, a camera. A little smile goes a long way. I want to thank all the folks getting up early with me today for our live session. If you're watching this on demand. Please post comments, questions, thoughts. Pablo Back to the sugar issue says Pure White and Deadly, a 1972 book by John Youth, a British nutritionist and former chair of of nutrition at the Queen Elizabeth College, London. He gives the Wikipedia entry, so you may want to check out that book. Pablo thanks so much for joining me today. I'm TJ Walker. This is Communiverse, your daily dive and the top news stories of the day about business, technology and culture. Join me here every single day on whatever your favorite platform is. See you tomorrow.