Between the Interviews - Episode 1

"Let's leave this place better than we found it."

Welcome to the Between the Interviews of the Capitalism for Good Podcast project! This first Patreon episode will outline the future of these behind the scenes and the "how" and "why" of the interviews published in the Capitalism for Good main feed.

What I'm watching: Paul Krugman's Economics MasterClass

I'm not telling you what to do, but here's where I'm putting my dollar: Etsy! I love supporting small online businesses, especially those that are handmade, unique, and sustainable. This year, I bought Christmas gifts from GatherAndKnotShop, CrazyForDolls, 77Arts, and PlainDesigns on Etsy.

Early and bonus shows as well as curated discussions and merch are available on Patreon.

More information at: https://www.capitalism-for-good.com/

Instagram | BioSite (with links to listen & more)

Transcript

Hey folks, this is the Between the Interviews show, where I'll provide some context, background reflections and recommendations associated with the Capitalism for Good philosophy. While the interviews are obviously focused on highlighting businesses and their leaders through talking about their experiences and philosophies, the Between the Interviews shows will be mostly me connecting the dots, providing some additional insight, spotlighting the things that I'm listening to, reading and watching in order to learn more, as well as some of the why behind where I am choosing to put my dollar. These Between the Interviews shows will be sprinkled in Between the Interviews, and will be posted on the main feed, but will also be posted weekly on the Patreon in video form. So if that's your jam, head there, there's a link in the description.

I've been thinking a lot about quality over quantity. Obviously, there are times when convenience trumps other things, or when you need something kind of urgently, or it could be convenience as far as you've got one store that is in your city, that's right down the street, or that's in your neighborhood, that's walkable, that's whatever, and then all of your other options. There's more hurdles, whether it's for their travel time, maybe they're more expensive, maybe they're in different parts of town, maybe they're not in your town. Like, oh no, there could be a million different ways, but how do we value those things? How do we value our time and our convenience with our actual values? So you're gonna hear me probably talk about this a million times, the things that I look for often when I am making decisions about purchases or decisions about maybe my own employment or really kind of anything that has to do with the dollar or my time and my effort. I'm thinking a lot about the environment. I think sustainability is really important. I think protecting your environment is really important. I think it's an investment in our future, in the future generations. It's something that's always been really important to me and I don't see that changing. People are also really important to me. I want to make sure that people are being treated well, that they are kind of the center of a lot of these decisions that are going on because at the end of the day, that's who these things are for and that's also who's running these businesses. It is the kind of like the staple at every benchmark in this. And so those things are the types of things I'm looking for.

I'm also looking for stability. I have never really been one that is really excited by fads and trends and things that kind of come and go. It really puts kind of a bad taste in my mouth when I think about companies that are expanding and shrinking really quickly. That affects the stability and the longevity of the families and the employees that are working there, but also the people that are counting on those products and the things that are coming out of it. Anyway, it all becomes really complicated. I guess that's kind of my point is a world is complex and it's going to take some time to to really do this right and I want to make sure that it is being done right and I keep going back to this like quality over quantity. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely time and place for quantity. I am definitely the person that if I like a product and I am going to purchase it if it's on sale, I am buying four of them or something like that. I want to kind of save my stress in the long term. I also want to save my dollar. So, you know, it's just it's a lot of things. It's not a one size fits all box. But I do kind of want to talk about like the philosophy and the things that are going on behind the scenes. Something that has been in my brain a lot and not just with Capitalism for Good, not just with the way that we spend our dollars, not just in the way that we participate as employees and supervisors and leaders and owners of companies, but just like in general, one of my themes over the past, I almost said like a year, it's not, it's been like decade. It's been just like slowing down, like slowing down, taking a breath, being thoughtful, filtering things as they kind of come, being a little bit less reactionary, and just being a little more intentional about kind of everything that's going on.

And just where I as a human have been at for a long time so I'm going to take those philosophies and bring them into this. So again, this, the Between the Interviews will come out every Monday. They'll be weekly things. They'll be shorter, hopefully easier to digest. You hear about the things that I've been thinking about, how I reflected on the last published interview, or maybe something that I'm working on behind the scenes you haven't seen yet that hasn't been published, the things that I'm researching, the things that I'm reading. I'll kind of make some recommendations about those kinds of things as well. And also tell you kind of what's to come. What am I still looking to dig more into and find out more about?

So, I guess with that kind of recommendations point, one of the things that I've been watching and listening to, I've been using MasterClass. It took me a little while to get into MasterClass. I just am a big consumer of educational type of or thoughtful intentional type of media. And so, that does not mean that I don't watch trashy TV or I don't read trashy books or anything like that. But when it comes to like podcasts and books, like I try to be throwing something where I'm learning and thinking about something in a different perspective. So, MasterClass was kind of right in that same wheelhouse. I also, it was just in a point in my life, I had been doing something where it's kind of like burnt out. I felt like I was like hitting the same walls over and over again. I'll probably tell you more about that in other weeks. But I just really wanted to feel like I was learning again and using my brain in that way and like picking up new skills. But something about MasterClass, I don't know if it was like too many options, too many things, what it was. I don't know. That just kind of like sat for a couple of months. But I've recently been getting back into it. Shout out to my friend Ashley Hindsman, who kind of like gave me a couple of nods. She has been getting into MasterClass a lot lately. So her kind of like nudges and questions have really helped me find my way back into it. Anyway, that's all to say that one of the things that I have been watching and listening to recently is Paul Krugman's, I'm not sure if I'm seeing his name correctly, his Economics MasterClass. I really liked that because as I'm talking to these business leaders and researching companies and kind of understanding how this all works together and how we can participate both the company side and the purchaser side of things, being able to put that into the context, giving it a global perspective and also a historical perspective. I haven't finished it yet, but he's talked about several different depressions, not just in American history, but all across the world that may or may not reflect some of the things that are happening right now in January of 2025. So that was really helpful for me to hear about and listen and understand. He also kind of breaks things down back to some of those basics of supply and demand. Which I've also been thinking a lot about, that supply and demand is a way that we as purchasers, consumers, I mean, it's not all just like tangible products, it's also like the services, the streaming media that we are paying for. It's also like our doctors and all sorts of things. You pay for tutors sometimes, you pay for school and college in some cases, you know, it's all of those things. But the consumer part of it is often the demand part of it. Consumers aren't willing to put their dollar in a certain place, then that's going to devalue that product.

Whereas the things that we are demanding, that we are wanting more of, that's going to have a direct impact on that business. And then that's also going to have kind of a butterfly effect everywhere. I keep kind of pausing myself when I am talking about some of these things because I'm trying really, really hard not to go down any of these rabbit holes yet. I really want to keep these episodes on the shorter side. But if you want to go down that rabbit hole, and then maybe later we'll together go down those rabbit holes, Paul Krugman's Economics Master Class, highly recommend. And then also kind of in terms of recommendations in general, I do want to shout out some of the things that are examples of where I am putting my dollar. I recognize that what is a priority for me at this moment in time may or may not be a priority for other people. So it's less that I am saying do this, don't do this, this is a good company, this is a bad company. I just want to give you an example, and I really want to talk about like the why behind it.

So in a segment, I feel so cheesy saying things like that. In a segment that I'm going to call, not trying to tell you what to do, but here's what I bought. I'm going to focus this a little bit on Christmas. So it's January 2025, Christmas just passed. I know there are other holidays in the winter time that some people celebrate. I celebrate Christmas. And one of the places that got a lot of my dollars for Christmas was Etsy. I use Etsy in general. I like the idea of being able to shop local, the shop local, but the local is an online local. But supporting small businesses, oftentimes they're creators. I like things that are handmade. I like also things that are unique and not always one that's going to go after something because it seems cooler, because other people have it. I kind of want those one of a kind type of things. Anyway, I'm going to pick this up because this is one of them. This year, I wrapped a lot of my Christmas gifts for folks in reusable Christmas gifts. I got these and then they kind of cinch. You put all your stuff in it and then they cinch up. Imagine this is like a big Santa bag full of stuff. Then they're cute. They come in all different kinds of designs. The cloth, I imagine they can be washed in some way. You probably have to be careful about it. But with the intention that it can be used year over year or celebration after celebration, I got this and a pack of them with different kinds of designs from the GatherAndKnotShop.

I'll put links to all the stuff on Patreon so you guys know where to find those. I also used Etsy for, we do a holiday party with some of my college friends from a sorority that I was in. Shout out, Delta State at Missouri State University. We do a holiday party all together because we're really cheesy. We do it every year. It kind of rotates from people's houses and stuff. Often we do an ornament exchange. This year, and it was funny, I kind of had a twin brain with... That's funny you said twin brain because the girl that I'm going to shout out is also a twin. Well, I'm taking her spot as the twin here in twin brain. But she and I both had custom ornaments made for that party. I'm not sure if she did hers on Etsy or not, but that is an option there. I also bought these very beautiful. I don't have an example of them, but I'll link the shop again. But these beautiful little like hand-stitched bookmarks for a handful of my friends that are also readers, and some shirts that are Chiefs themed big Game of City sports fan. Chiefs are killing it right now. And so I bought some stuff from different shops from there as well. But that was a big place. I thought that those were also some kind of more unique kinds of gifts. I also thought that it was really fun to just like search and like click around and see what people are making and I am not crafty at all, not that kind of creative.

So I very much appreciate other people's time and talent and effort when it comes to things like that. So that's where I put my dollar. And then just to wrap this up, I in no way want to present myself as any kind of an expert, any way that I'm saying like, this is what you do, this is what you don't do.

I think, again, the world is very complex. There's a lot of things that are going on and that change very quickly. I think things evolve.

I also think that information, access to information is wildly different, depending on who you are, where you are, your algorithm, and also what's happening in the world. I just, again, I could go on and on about this because it just makes my brain hurt a little bit to think about how not black and white things are. So, just as I'm going through and researching things and trying to make heads or tails of this, some of the questions that I still have are, this is funny that I wrote this down after I just rambled about this, how do we make this more manageable? How do we value time and convenience? What's the environmental impact of shipping? We just talked about how I put a bunch of stuff on Etsy that all got shipped through, you know, USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, like all of these different things. What's the environmental impact of that? How does that compare to other ways in which you can purchase stuff? How do we cut that down? Comparisons? Can we pressure companies to improve environmental impacts? And if so, how do we do that? I don't know. These are questions that I still have, that are things that I'm going to kind of get into. Next week, I'll have more reflection on specifically the first video that I put out or the first podcast that I put out, the introduction of the Capitalism for Good Project that's published on that main feed.

And we'll kind of go from there. But yeah, all right, that's enough. Let's go and leave this place better than the way we found it.