27. Terrible Advice for Surviving the Apocalypse

Is it just us… or does the world feel completely out of control?

Between the 24-hour news cycle, endless social media, and a constant stream of global crises, it’s easier than ever to fall into the anxiety spiral. In this episode of Wrong Way Forward, Justin Joseph and Katy Montgomery tackle a question a listener sent in: How do you stay sane when the news makes you feel like the world is falling apart?

Spoiler: the advice column they found says to “plant flowers.” Justin and Katy are… not convinced.

They break down why modern media is designed to keep you hooked, how doom-scrolling fuels anxiety, and what actually works if you want to interrupt the mental spiral. From Simon Sinek’s “two-year rule” to the surprisingly powerful five-senses grounding exercise, they explore practical ways to reclaim a sense of control when everything feels chaotic.

Also in this episode:
 • Why the 24-hour news cycle is built to keep you anxious
 • Katy’s experiment blocking social media for 22+ days
 • The psychology behind doom-scrolling and dopamine
 • How to stay informed without losing your sanity
 • Why your brain might actually be your worst enemy

If you’ve ever opened your phone, read the headlines, and immediately needed a margarita… this episode is for you.

Subscribe for new episodes every week where we serve subpoenas to bad advice and roast it mercilessly.

🎙 Listen to the full podcast wherever you get your podcasts
 📩 Send us terrible advice to dissect: wrongwayforwardpodcast@gmail.com

#WrongWayForward #Doomscrolling #MentalHealth #NewsCycle #Podcast #Anxiety #SelfHelp #SimonSinek

Transcript

Meet Katie And Justin

Speaker 0:00

She's Katy Montgomery. He's Justin Joseph. These best friends are serving subpoenas to bad advice weekly with Wrong Way Forward. Now here's Katy and Justin.

Justin Joseph 0:11

Hi everybody. Welcome to this week's Wrong Way Forward. I'm Justin Joseph here along with my best friend Katy Montgomery. Hello, Katy Montgomery.

Katy Montgomery 0:17

Hello.

Justin Joseph 0:18

You're in chaos over there. You're redoing your house. So this is a good sort of segue into what we're talking about today.

Katy Montgomery 0:24

Yes, yes. Like how you handle when you feel like you have no control over anything. And I can tell you, doing a renovation, I have absolutely no control.

Justin Joseph 0:33

I was like, where's the sign behind you? Oh, there it is. It's there. So that's not packed yet.

Speaker 1 0:39

I just want to tell you, Justin and our viewers, get ready.

Katy Montgomery 0:42

Because once I move out of the house, I am going to become a digital nomad and I will be traveling everywhere. So you might see me in closets. You might see me in bomb shelters. You might see me in my brother's basement. Um, so we're not going to be looking pretty.

Justin Joseph 0:59

So no good lighting, no good sound. Well, you'll probably have good sound, but the lighting will not be spectacular. It wouldn't be unusual for you not to have a sign behind you, because you never do. Um, but anyway, so that's coming up. But it really does segue into this week's topic.

When Life Feels Out Of Control

Justin Joseph 1:13

And it's a topic that Katy and I have been discussing for some time. And because if you are like I am, and I I think Katy is, to some degree, I'll let her talk about that. You just feel like the world is spinning out of control. And this is not a political statement, it is just a reality statement. And it was so funny last night, um, our little dog just got surgery, and she didn't just get surgery, she had a she was getting spayed. But when we got back from Europe, she had what's called a cherry eye. Have you ever heard of that, Katy? You know, they have a third eyelid that prolapses and pops out, and it's horrifying to look at, but it's immediate surgery. So she had to be spayed, she has a hernia. We need then need to have eye surgery.

Katy Montgomery 1:52

Then um what you get for not getting a dog at the pound. Those dogs are hardy, they know how to hustle, they don't get sick. When you get the purebreds, it's kind of like all those, you know, monarchies and and and royals that like slept with each other and they all have terrible ailments.

Justin Joseph 2:08

Well, this yeah. Anyway, uh, we're not maybe that's a future podcast topic. I've got 10 friends that would love to come phone in and yell at me for having a purebred. Anyway, yeah. So yesterday was surgery day for her. So, you know, and I was the heart, I just she's a very sweet little thing. And anyway, it was hard to let her go, but I got her home last night. I exhaled because I knew she had she was in a three-hour surgery with all the stuff she had done. There were other things that were she was getting done too. Anyway, so Josh Josh was coming home and I said, let's just order Mexican, pick up two margaritas, and let's just do that. And he got home and I was thinking, God, this reminds me of COVID, because we would always do that during COVID. And he he got home. I didn't tell him that he said, This reminds me of COVID. And it and it was almost a calming sense because the world was in chaos during COVID, but you created your own um sense of peace in your four walls.

Katy Montgomery 2:57

And we also survived and there was an end. So it's knowing that, you know, everything ebbs and flows. I think that's also very calming to know this will not be the status quo forever.

Justin Joseph 3:09

That's true. But you know, we've been putting this topic off for some time. And I'm like, and I was telling Katy in our pre-production, I'm like, this is actually perfect because the world's literally on fire. And she said, yeah, and if we wait another week, maybe there'd actually be a nuclear war, this would be even more on topic.

Speaker 1 3:24

And really, actually, I'm literally people just pull their cards and like it just feels like the world's

The Advice Column Doom Spiral

Speaker 1 3:33

crazy.

Justin Joseph 3:33

And our advice topic this week that we are taking on, and we are trying to get back to the advice columns because I know we've kind of done a bunch of stuff, but our advice column this week we're taking on is a woman who writes in and says this exact thing. And so um, this is uh an article that appeared in Oregon Live. It's called Why though? The current events keep pulling me into an anxious spiraling nightmare. Um, Lizzie writes, let me see here. Um, how can I cope with all the horrifying things our government is doing and still be a productive member of society? I am burdened by a thousand sorrows and feel the weight of our current events keep pulling me away from a present reality and into an anxious spiraling nightmare. And I don't, again, this is not a political statement because you know you can be on either side of the political line and feel this, even if you are a big supporter of our president, and maybe you thought that he should go into Iran. It still feels like gas prices are now going up, et cetera. There's it's just things out of our control, right?

Speaker 1 4:34

Correct.

Justin Joseph 4:35

And then to that, um, the woman writes back, dear scared and worried, you are not alone. Last week, too, people told me they had recently gone to a doctor and had a hard time answering those classic depression questions. How many days in the last week have you felt hopeless in a way that wouldn't get them flagged for immediate intervention? That's interesting. We are living in a chaotic time, politically, environmentally, emotionally, and financially. And this is on top of a series of chaotic events. I know because I've been getting messages from scared and worried people constantly since I started writing this column. In fact, I can't remember when things were remotely calm, when the good news was just good and no one was oppressed or unhappy. Um, I'm not saying things aren't extra bad now because they sure are that way, and yet he just kept going. And then she goes on to say, so focus on the things when you feel yourself spinning out that you um focus on these things when you when you feel yourself spinning out. She says, You can't change a Supreme Court decision or the temperature of the Pacific Ocean, but you can plant some flowers in your garden or in a pod. You can paint a sign or join a protest, you can volunteer to teach kids how to read or pick up trash in your neighborhood. You can call a friend or go for a walk, you can learn spiritual practices. She goes on and on. There's a litany of these things that she's prescribes.

Why Generic Coping Tips Fail

Justin Joseph 5:46

And, you know, I think it's a lovely thought, but I I think it's the wrong way forward. Katy, you?

Katy Montgomery 5:51

I mean, I I couldn't agree anymore. It's it's like first of all, I think what she missed is she's like, you know, she's not distinguishing. First of all, this person sounds like they are a super empath. And people who are super empaths, I mean, they don't just notice emotion, but they absorb it like a sponge. I mean, I have known people in the past, and even people who are in my profession, you know, executive coaches, career counselors, who they don't just kind of absorb the emotions of their best friends and their family and the people closest to them, but you know, even just, you know, a client. And so what can you do?

Justin Joseph 6:29

Can you recognize those people in your day-to-day work when you see them?

Katy Montgomery 6:32

Oh, I mean, yes, you you see people, I mean, I've even seen people that they can't hold back the tears. Like they just actually start to take on the emotions of someone else. And what you need to do is interrupt that empathy loop. And I think this is like, I just when you were reading that out loud, I was like, let's go fly a kite. It's like go fly a kite. Go, go plant, go plant a flower. It's like, I just think that that is flippant, and I think it's a little patronizing, and I think it's simplifying something really complex that is happening.

Justin Joseph 7:06

Oversimplification. That's what I'm saying.

Katy Montgomery 7:08

This is a person who I think has a high level of empathy. And I think what the advice columnist was trying to do is to separate macro, you know, world issues, war, you know, what's happening in the federal government versus kind of micro, what's happening in, you know, in kind of their daily life. But I think what she needed to kind of talk to this person is how does this person kind of interrupt the empathy loop? And I think giving them, for lack of a better word, some concrete things to do rather than, oh, go do this, this, this, like a litany of just kind of tasks, I think was unhelpful.

Justin Joseph 7:44

I also think it doesn't get to the root of the problem, right? Just because you paint doesn't mean you're fixing what you talked about, what's really going on behind there. And not that I, I mean, obviously therapy is what is we're talking about here, but there are a lot of people who don't want to go to therapy. And, you know, so there's got to be a better way.

Build News And Phone Guardrails

Katy Montgomery 8:00

Well, and you know, and I was thinking through this, and you know, everybody knows I've been harping on the brick. Um, we should be sponsored by the brick. It's the little tool that helps you kind of um, you know, change your daily routine in terms of consumption of social media and even of news. And so there are some concrete things that this person could do to put some kind of healthy boundaries between what's happening on that mic macro level, and so they can focus more on the micro. So that could be, you know, no screen time in the morning, right? It could be no phone in the bedroom. So when they're waking up in the morning, it's the first thing that they're reading. And let's talk about what's happening in the Middle East. There's a big time difference. So when we wake up in the morning and grab our phone, we're in shock and awe because so much has occurred while we're asleep in America. Um, it's maybe giving yourself a very specific news window. Like I can watch the nightly news for 30 minutes, I can give myself 30 minutes to debrief with a loved one, my partner, um, you know, kind of have this scheduled concern. I'm gonna have scheduled concern about the macro events, but it's putting some boundaries around that. And I think what I find is that she didn't give any specificity about that. And she gave a very generic, and again, the word keeps coming to mind flippant advice.

Justin Joseph 9:16

I agree. And I also think that um, you know, I think I I agree with you that the news loop is is is to blame here because if you get if you start to get locked in on everything, no matter what side you're on again, right? Because there are things that happen on the left side of the aisle that could make the right side crazy and vice versa. I do think in the end it's interrupting that news cycle and literally making a choice to block it out and almost say, you know, when there is a nuclear bomb launched, yeah, I probably need to know that. But short of that, I really don't want to know anything about that. You know, what what's going on over there? And maybe that's naive, but uh I there's got to be some separation between what's what happens in day to day with all the chaos and what happens in your life.

Katy Montgomery 9:57

Right. And I think probably we should take a break. And then when we come back, I've got kind of two things that I thought through. Um, you know, and they're they're not things that, you know, I have come up, you know, and and created on my own. I've you know kind of stolen from others. But I think two pieces of advice that would not have been the wrong way forward and that I thought might be kind of helpful for this um this person seeking advice.

Justin Joseph 10:21

We'll be back on the other side.

Katy Montgomery 10:23

You've been listening to Wrong Way Forward, where bad advice goes to die and then gets resurrected just so we can roast it again.

Justin Joseph 10:30

If you're enjoying the chaos, hit like and subscribe and come back every Thursday for new episodes.

Katy Montgomery 10:35

Have a new topic or some disastrously bad advice you want to dissect, email wrongwayforwardpodcast at gmail.com. Include your contact info.

Justin Joseph 10:45

Now back to Wrong Way Forward.

Speaker 10:47

Roasting the worst advice ever. Welcome back to the Katy and Justin

The Two Year Rule Reset

Speaker 10:51

podcast.

Katy Montgomery 10:51

And we're back. And what I wanted to talk about, Justin, is rather than giving this horrible wrong way forward advice, I was thinking about kind of, well, first of all, I think we have offered kind of something about having a daily routine and limiting our consumption of news. But something that I thought was pretty amazing is have you ever heard of Simon Sinek?

Justin Joseph 11:12

Yeah, of course. I read one of his books. Actually, I watched one, he came to speak at one of our real estate conferences.

Katy Montgomery 11:17

Oh my gosh, that's lucky. I think he's I think he's fantastic. But he has this great kind of rule when you get kind of overwhelmed and consumed about kind of things in the future, right? And I think kind of what's happening now and and what I'm hearing from this person is there's this, this, this, this, and this, right? And so, you know, we don't know long how how long the crisis in the Middle East is gonna last. You know, we don't know long how long, you know, a particular person's gonna be in presidency, you know. Well, we know how long that person is, but we don't know um, you know, who's gonna um come in in the midterms and et cetera, et cetera. There's just so many kind of unknowns, and they're they're projecting out longer and longer and longer. And he has this great thing called the two-year rule. And the exercise is if you have two years left to live. What are the decisions that you're going to make? And what it does is it starts to get people much more in the present moment, right? It tends to reduce the overthinking about the future. And then it helps them kind of focus. And what you see is it gets people removed from that macro to more of the micro, like the things that are within their locus of control. So if you say to someone, you've got two years left to live, right? What are you gonna focus on? That might be is when you focus on, I'm gonna focus on my garden, I'm gonna focus on my children, um I'm gonna focus on my local community. You know, those give you opportunities to get out of that fatalistic kind of long-term thinking and get you in the present moment. And I thought I think that to me is much more concrete than go fly a kite.

Justin Joseph 12:55

I think that's totally right on the the money. Um, because it really changes the perspective of how you look at all of these events, right? I mean, it puts it it it makes you realize you can control what you can control today in the next two years, and you really have no control over those other things, and so there's no reason to worry

The Five Senses Grounding Game

Justin Joseph 13:13

about them.

Katy Montgomery 13:13

Yeah, and I think an another kind of you know piece of advice that I would give that I don't think is the wrong way forward is you know, I'm no surprise to you, Justin, I'm not great at meditating. But I can do something kind of small, and I think what's happening for a lot of people is they are ruminating, they are perseverating, right? It's just a constant loop. It's either the empathy loop, it's an obsession loop, it's thinking over and over, I can't do anything, what's happening, what's happening? We're we need to kind of interrupt that loop. And I love the five senses game. Have you ever done the five senses game? What are five things you see? What are four things that you can touch, what are three things that you can hear, what are two things that you smell, and what is one thing that you can taste? And so it's just in the immediate moment. And what it is is you start to focus on what are five things that I see. Well, I see the camera, I see the microphone, I see the light, I see my copy printer, I see my laptop. When I'm doing that, I'm I've stopped that empathy loop, I've stopped the perseverating, right? Because it's putting my focus somewhere else. Then what are four things I can touch? I can touch my sweater, I can touch my hair, you know, I can touch my desk, I can touch my glasses, um, I can pick up and touch this pen. But as you see, once you kind of go through the funnel, it narrows down. What are three things that you can hear? It gets a little bit more difficult. So you're having to really kind of get out of your head and out of that kind of loop of thoughts. And if you take it down, what is one thing that I can taste right now? You have to really, really think. And again, the point is interrupting these loops where we're just becoming obsessive and particularly obsessive out of something that probably is outside of our control.

Justin Joseph 15:06

I love that. It reminds me of a book I read called, I think it was called The Untethered Voice. Or maybe you you maybe it's it's a self-help book, and it and basically, and I'll I'll find the book, but it's not coming to me right off. Basically, it's recognizing that the voices you're hearing in your head where it's like, How am I gonna pay for this? or you know, recognizing that those voices is not your authentic voice, and that's someone outs that's a voice outside of you talking to you. And once you can recognize that and separate that, it helps you understand that you know your true your authentic voice isn't asking those questions.

Katy Montgomery 15:40

Well, and it kind of goes back to what John Rosenberg was saying with us a few weeks back. Like your brain's doing you no favors. I mean, we are really clever and we can write all kinds of stories, we can be fatalist, we can, you know, bring up past trauma, we can, you know, write a story in our head to kind of explain our anxiety. So, again, how can we kind of interrupt that loop? I think that would have been much more helpful advice than, you know, go paint a sign.

Justin Joseph 16:07

100%. And it's interesting that on that note of John Rosenberg and your brain is not dignity at your friends. I mean, we got we put that clip up online, and I that was probably one of our most viral clips we've had to date. Because, you know, for me it was shocking to hear that. But I think a lot of people just don't that's not what you expect to hear, you know.

Katy Montgomery 16:23

Yep, exactly. Because our brain is really fantastic and it's really pretty amazing, and it's can do really amazing things to mess you up, too.

Listener Email On Morning Doomscrolling

Justin Joseph 16:32

All right, a couple viewer emails we got this week on this topic because we're not the only ones that are dealing with this. Um, hi, Katy Justin. Is it normal to feel like the world is slowly losing its mind? Every morning I wake up, make coffee, and then I make the mistake of opening my phone. Within five minutes, I'm reading about three global crises, a celebrity meltdown, and I think and a think piece about why something I like is secretly problematic. By 8:30, I'm exhausted. How do you stay informed with that without feeling like you're spiraling? I think that's a good question. How do you stay informed without getting into the doom spiral?

Katy Montgomery 17:06

Well, I think it's it's putting out boundaries and giving yourself kind of concrete guardrails. So, you know, the the great thing about the phone is it's highly accessible, it's convenient, and you can pick it up at any time. The terrible thing about a phone is that it's highly accessible, convenient, and you can pick it up at any time. And so I've talked to a lot of people as they're getting home from work and you know, they might have dinner with their family, and then everybody's sitting on the couch with their phone, and everybody is losing track of time, right? Where it used to be when we were growing up, there was the nightly news, and you had 30 minutes of news, and then you kind of moved on. We didn't have, you know, 24-hour news cycle, we didn't have phones, and in the morning, the newspaper would be delivered, and you might read that over breakfast, or you might pick it up in the afternoon and read another section, but that was it. So, what I would probably say to people is you can still be incredibly informed. You do not need to be informed 24 hours a day. And if you think back to even, you know, I would say up until, you know, what, you know, probably when we graduated from college and law school until about the year 2000, it was not 24-hour consumption. And we still were rather informed. And so again, I would be telling people is, you know, what is the kind of daily routine in terms of terms of your consumption? Um, and and trying to put some limits on that. Then in terms of talking about it, maybe you also put some guardrails around that. I'm gonna have scheduled concern time, I'm gonna have debrief time. And it's gonna be hard because part of the reason, and we know this, the news is now meant to keep you on that platform. It is, it is meant to be that way. You know, it's with the headlines, with the the lead, with the photography, with now multi-kind of use. You can hear it, you can see it, you can read it. It's it wants you to stay on there. And the reason it wants you to stay on there is so then it can have the data, and the data to do what? To have advertisements.

Justin Joseph 19:12

Feed it back. Yeah. And the other thing is, and then when I was in the news, that's what they always say. They said we got to feed the dragon. Every that was, I mean, I heard that probably twice a week, you know, when things were slow. Well, we have to feed the dragon one way or the other. And so that means we were gonna feed it with whatever neat whatever we could come up with.

Katy Montgomery 19:28

Exactly. And so I think the idea is, and what people don't realize is because again, you're getting the dopamine hits while you are reading it, right? And so it's happening, but what you don't realize is that I am doing this, and therefore I'm not doing this, right? And so if you are doing that, what are you missing out on? I'm missing out on face-to-face engagement, I'm missing out on playing Rumi Cube or Mahjong, I'm missing out on going on an evening walk with my partner. Because again, you're getting the dopamine, but at the at the end, it's you're feeling um empty, you're feeling overwhelmed, you're feeling exhausted, you're feeling drained. And I think, but it's very hard. And it's it's I can tell you this, it is a habit that you will have to kind of build.

Justin Joseph 20:13

All right, that's a good stopping point to take us to the other side of the break. And on the other side break, we should check in on how the brick is working, how your social media is. We our New Year's resolutions, we'll do that on the other side. We'll take a few viewers emails and then we will wrap up. We will be back on the other side with Wrong Way Forward. Thanks for streaming Wrong Way Forward, the weekly reminder that advice is usually free for a reason. We call out bad advice wherever it hides boardrooms, break rooms, and even book clubs.

Katy Montgomery 20:38

Enjoying this dumpster fire, like, subscribe, and check back every Thursday for new episodes. Want us to roast your favorite piece of nonsense? Email us at wrongwayforwardpodcast at gmail.com. Be sure to include your contact info. We're not psychic, just judgmental. And now back to Wrong Way Forward.

Speaker 20:57

Roasting the worst

The Brick That Blocks Social Media

Speaker 20:58

advice ever.

Justin Joseph 20:58

Welcome back to the Katy and Justin. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to this week's episode of Wrong Way Forward, where we are taking on something that we probably should have or could have taken on since the beginning of this. Everyone feels like their world or the world is spiraling or is out of control. And so today we're talking about how to how do you stay sane in a world when you feel that? How do you stay in control in a world that you feel is out of control? And Katy, um, you were taught we when we went to break, we were talking about, and you've had some success with the brick. Tell us about it.

Katy Montgomery 21:26

I have. So the brick is a contraption that you kind of attach to your phone if you want to block certain content. Um, and it's been really interesting. Um, you know, what you can do is is kind of tap and unblock. And I have blocked all social media. So that is um Instagram, LinkedIn, um, Facebook, um, TikTok, you name it. And I have not tapped back on the brick in 22 days, 14 hours, and 44 minutes.

Justin Joseph 21:57

Congratulations. So what does that mean? So that means You're obviously you post our our warm way forward stuff, so that means you come right off after that.

Katy Montgomery 22:05

So I just don't use it on my phone because again, the phone is way more convenient than um a laptop. So I do check social media daily on my laptop, right? But that might be catching it between meetings. But I, you know, if I'm gonna go on a walk or I'm standing in line at Starbucks or I'm going and running errands, I can't just pick up my phone and start to do the needless scrolling. When I sit down on the couch and I watch TV at night, again, I my phone's there in case someone calls or someone texts, but I can't just pick up the phone and mindlessly start the Doom scrolling. And I have found it to be incredibly helpful. And it's only once in a while when somebody sends me a link and I can't easily access it on my phone because you know they'll send me a link to Instagram and it might be blocked on my phone. But what I have found is that I feel much lighter, I feel like I'm much more focused. And I mean, I couldn't even watch a movie because I could barely pay enough attention to keep the plot because I was constantly on my phone. And it has been incredibly freeing. And I find it really great now, particularly with kind of the state of affairs of the world that we live in, is that you know, I'm gonna sound so nerdy, but my one of my favorite parts of the day is to wake up and immediately play spelling B on the New York Times and to do the crossword. And I do that, and then I spend some time reading the headlines to make sure that I'm knowledgeable. But then I start my work day and it's all off until I might have a moment at the end of the day to check. But but those are the guardrails I've needed to give in my to give myself so that I can kind of break that ruminating kind of negative loop.

Justin Joseph 23:52

Love it. I think that's great advice for anyone out there as well.

Follow Ups On Ethics And Tourette’s

Justin Joseph 23:56

A couple of notes from last week's podcast. We had GJ, one of our favorite viewers and one of our dear friends, write in. Um uh if you're really interested in Tourette's syndrome, last week, as you recall, we did the BAFTA controversy in Tourette's. GJ wrote in if you're really interested in Tourette's syndrome, the girls and I watched a show, the girls, these are his girls, um, a show on HBO Max called Balin Out Loud. It does give you a perspective and it's funny as shit. So we should check that out. Another viewer email, I'll listen to the BAFTA discussion. I'm really torn. On one hand, if someone has a neurological condition that can't control, it seems unfair that they shouldn't attend public offense. But on the other hand, if you know there's a real possibility the worst word could come out at the worst possible moment, is it responsible to put other people in that position? So I think that was exactly the nature of the thing.

Katy Montgomery 24:41

That was that was yeah, that was the crux of the argument. And I think both of us are are really kind of trying to straddle those two things. Um, and and it's it's a difficult quandary. And you know, it's really interesting. I just came out of a program that I'm co-directing, and we had the last um three days of the seventh module, which was fantastic, and there it it really makes you love people when you when you teach and you and you see the content that's coming out. But we did an ethics course, and Justin, you know, because you know we both had to you know take the ethics exam as attorneys, and there was a mandatory.

Justin Joseph 25:15

I had to take twice. I had to take twice.

Katy Montgomery 25:17

Justin.

Justin Joseph 25:19

Oh no, that was ethics in college. Remember that?

Speaker 1 25:23

I just here's the thing, Justin, that just tracks. But what is so interesting about the ethical stuff is that, you know, it's I mean, of course, like I remember in law school, they were like, oh, you know, there's like really clear stuff.

Katy Montgomery 25:37

Like, you know, you can't commingle funds and you can't do certain things. But a lot of point of ethics is there's not a hard and fast answer, right? Like there's not a set standard, and it really brings about, you know, a lot of of lively debate. And I think, you know, thinking through kind of teaching that, you know, ethics session and hearing the debate and kind of seeing the kind of no hard and fast line that really made me think back to the conversation we had about the BAFTA awards and about this person with Tourette's is, you know, there's no kind of bright line here, right? And a lot of this is intuition and your values and the sense of community and and seeing it not taking yourself into account, but also taking others, and it's a complex conversation.

Justin Joseph 26:22

For

Why Public Apologies Feel Fake

Justin Joseph 26:23

sure. Another question, another viewer email said, let's see here. Your discussion of Alan Cummings' apology made me realize something. We have completely lost the art of apologizing. It's a really that could be a good future episode, too. Um, every apology now seems to follow the same for formula. We're sorry if anyone was offended. So very passive-aggressive. Um, that's not an apology, it's basically saying the problem is the audience's feelings. I'm curious if you think public figures should be trained on how to apologize because right now it feels like every crisis is made worse by someone giving a terrible apology.

Katy Montgomery 26:55

I mean, yes, I I agree with that.

Justin Joseph 26:58

Yes.

Katy Montgomery 27:00

And what's wrong with with admitting failure or being wrong or using it as a growth or learning moment? I, you know, I don't I don't understand why we are are so opposed to that. I mean, if we actually look, yeah, most most learning comes out of failure, you know, most growth comes out of making a mistake. I mean, like, I just think about you know how we train doctors, right? It's like once they make a mistake and we overcorrect it, they know not to do it again, you know? And so, and we're talking about life and death decisions there. Why can't these public figures just say, I messed up?

Justin Joseph 27:39

I just want the most empowering things I can do. And then I and in any fight I'm having, if it's with Josh or whatever, I really do take a moment and say, Am I wrong? Even if I'm not completely wrong, what would be the harm of an apologizing? And unless I'm really right, I I apologize.

Katy Montgomery 27:54

Which you and I want to admit, you have apologized to me. There also is the art of accepting the apology because sometimes I make just an apologize for you know three or four weeks. Yeah, and I keep bringing it up.

Justin Joseph 28:06

I do think this would be a good episode, and we'll take it up on a future episode of Wrong Way

Wrap Up And How To Write In

Justin Joseph 28:10

Forward. But that's all the time we have this week. We want to thank you for watching. Katy, give them our handles.

Katy Montgomery 28:14

Oh my gosh. Okay, well, check us out at wrongwayforwardpodcast at gmail.com if you have any ideas. We're also on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and of course you can watch us live on YouTube. We'd love to hear from you. Your interaction with us gives us great stuff to work on, and we can decide whether or not you are the wrong way forward.

Justin Joseph 28:33

We'll see you next week. All right, that's a wrap on this week's episode of Wrong Way Forward. Remember, the only thing worse than taking bad advice is giving it.

Katy Montgomery 28:41

If you've liked what you've heard, like, subscribe, or follow us wherever you stream podcasts. And if you've got a topic or need some advice, we'll probably regret giving, email us at wrongwayforwardpodcast at gmail.com.

Justin Joseph 28:55

Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Romway Forward.