825 – Not all dangers are online: Tom talks Digital Marketing Danger

Episode 825 – Digital Marketing Danger
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody! It's Tom here with episode 825 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today, we're going to talk about digital marketing and its dangers. Woohoo! Actually, I'm going to talk about the ergonomics of online marketing to keep you healthy. Why am I thinking about this? Because my back is killing me. All right. Hope you didn't miss episode 824. That was royalty free music. You don't want to get a lawsuit against you for using music that doesn't belong to you, because you will cry big froggy tears if you get a federal lawsuit against you, I'll tell you that. We shut this darn phone off. All right, check out my mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com. It's the longest running, most unique, most successful ever in the field of internet and digital marketing. Check it out at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com and pick up a copy of my automation ebook at screwthecommute.com/automatefree this book has or what's in this book has helped me handle as much as 150,000 subscribers and 65,000 customers without pulling my hair out. All right, let's see. Follow me at tiktok.com/@digitalmultimillionaire on TikTok.

[00:01:39] Now, here's the deal, folks. I've been hearing and ignoring the phrase for at least five years. Here's the phrase sitting is the new smoking. And I blew it off. As you know, I'm tough as nails. And yeah, whenever I'm, you know, not so busy, I'll work out more and not sit so much. Well, well, well, the universe has a way of sending messages, and the universe isn't always the most kind when it does it.

[00:02:12] So I have this. It's like a ninja sneaks up on me and stabs me in the back when I turn a certain way. And so I had to go to doctors and get MRIs and all that stuff. And yeah, so I've been sitting too much and not exercising and keeping my weight and my core strength and shape. So I have to do something about that. And, and yes, I am doing this, but it did bring up the, the topic so that hopefully you can catch this before it happens to you. If you're a real serious marketer sitting a lot and I'm going to talk about some other stuff too. So so I'm going to talk about the ergonomics of working online. And this episode is going to spend more time on back pain and how to prevent it. But I'm going to talk about other things, necks and wrists and things like that while you're working on the computer. So right now I'm preparing this podcast while standing on my. Listen to this. I plod, I plod. Yeah, I said, I plod. So years ago I saw an article online about a couple of professors who put a board across the handles of a treadmill, and they coined the term I plod. See, they contended that walk. This was years and years ago. They contended that walking at even a tiny speed, like 0.5 to 1 mph, was far better than sitting when you're working. And I thought, man, that's a great idea. And I promptly built one I have I'm going to put a picture in the show notes.

[00:03:48] I've had a treadmill in a living room for a long time facing the TV. But what happens to so many exercise devices? It became a repository for a bunch of junk and that I didn't know what to do with, but I wanted to keep it handy in case I needed it right. And this went on for years. Now, occasionally I would dust it off and then go sit down in my easy chair that had poor lumbar support, which those of you that know me know that you know, I'm pretty much a fanatic in my business and taking care of my mentees. So this sitting session could easily be 12 hours or more with breaks just to take the dogs out. And this was bad and I knew it. But, you know, the show must go on. That's that's what Tom says. And I have too many responsibilities to help these small business people, and I'm never going to let them down. And this is what's all going through my mind. And you'll note in the picture when you look at it. I hauled out all my old telephone books that had been in my library for years. Dusted them off because one thing I have been good at over all these years is keeping my wrists straight while typing and clicking the mouse. See, the telephone books raised up the laptop and mouse so I could keep my wrist straight while I was working.

[00:05:14] Now I can't emphasize this enough. Keep your wrist straight while working. Set your chair and your desk height so that you can keep your wrist straight. I've got good friends with severe pain in their wrist because they didn't heed this advice. Now, I saw on Amazon they even have a treadmill table that you can adjust the height. So I could even get rid of those telephone books now. Okay, so let's say you have a treadmill. How do you convert it cheaply to an iPlod? And in a minute I'll discuss other methods to work standing up and also chair possibilities for good posture. And if you don't even have a treadmill. But see, almost all, you know, full blown treadmills have rails or handles where you could hold on it while walking or running. Mostly walking. If you're running, you're probably running. If yours doesn't, we've got solutions for that too. So basically you take a piece of wood or I just went to Home Depot and bought a shelf. It was about 15 in deep and four feet wide. I got two pipe clamps and a couple bolts and nuts, and I'll put a picture of that too in the show notes. And I screwed the board to the handles of the treadmill. It was done in about five minutes. You don't even have to do any screwing now. Screwing this. We use that term and screw the commute, right? Because there are plenty of commercial tables on Amazon that have their own fasteners included. Some are like Velcro, some are clamps and this kind of stuff.

[00:06:45] All right, so what if your treadmill doesn't have any arm, some of the lower ones or the real compact ones are, you know, just sit on the floor or what if you don't have a treadmill at all? Well, some of the commercial tables will fit over your treadmill. They have a frame that sits on the floor, with a table that slides in front of where you would be standing on the treadmill. Now, here are some terms you can search for on Amazon, where you'll see tons of different designs where you can just pick one that suits you. Here's the terms. Treadmill table. Treadmill desk. Attachment. Treadmill desk riser. Treadmill desk. Ergonomic platform. Standing desks. Height adjustable standing desk is some of those are you can just push a button and it raises and lowers the table for you. You can even search for bike trainer. Some of those stand up in front of your bicycle. That'll work the same. You could. It's hard to type when you're on your bicycle. Maybe, but. But anyway, it's just another option. So this iPlod is kind of saving my bacon and helped me overcome this back problem. Now, I said earlier to pay attention to your wrist, but I also want you to pay attention to your neck. Everybody's crouched over looking at their cell phones and tablets. These are your what they call your cervical vertebrae that are affected. The the lower back is the lumbar and the upper is the cervical. I actually did a zoom consultation on my cell phone while I was laying down with my neck, supported the heating pad on my back, and I was on zoom on my cell phone.

[00:08:29] Perfect. And you should also. Now you got to explain to people what's going on if they see you laying around your bedroom. All right. But, you know, all my mentees understood. And I'm hoping that they feel like, man, he came through for us even when he was hurting. He took care of us. So that's the way I roll. And you should also position the top of your screen with your eye level so you aren't looking down all the time when you're working. All right. Now let's talk about sitting. Now, there are many ways to support good posture while sitting. Some people sit on those giant exercise balls. Some kneel on these kneeling chairs. However, in my research, I was going to do it. But my most of the kneeling chairs, all the reports that I saw aren't really good for big or tall people. So and people's knees were getting numb while doing it. So I would try one out somewhere before I bothered to buy one, and then put it together and find out that it sucked. See, it's a hassle to send those things back, even with Amazon, because you got to take it apart and rebox it and all that. Now I have seen them as low as 25 bucks on Facebook Marketplace, and that's what I would do before I spend 100 to 275 bucks on a kneeling chair and find out that it's, you know, I don't like it.

[00:09:52] Now there's loads of office chairs that claim low back support or lumbar support, but that varies in quality. And again, I would go to a big office store if you can still find one like that actually has actual chairs on display that you can try out, it's probably safer and way cheaper to buy low back support pads that you can move from chair to chair or even put in your car, and some of them are heated, some of them vibrate, but again, they even vary in their firmness. But they're much easier to return if you buy one online and it doesn't work out. And they don't require that you put them together. And even if a chair feels good when it's brand new, depending on the quality of it, it may wear out and not have any support. You know, in a few months you don't know. So I like the idea of the inserts that you can stick and carry with you wherever you need to go. Okay, so I'm no ergonomic expert, but I got my wake up call and I'm doing the things I need to do, so this never happens again. So yeah, working online can be dangerous. And not just from hackers and virus writers. You could be hurting yourself just by how you work. And I'm proof of that. All right, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. We'll catch you all in the next episode. See you later.