Attaching to God: Neuroscience-informed Spiritual Formation

106 Digital Overwhelm in the Workplace (with Craig Mattson)

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Does doing your job need to feel like losing your life? Can your vocation be part of your spiritual formation? Can we survive digital overwhelm?

Dr. Craig Mattson is a researcher, teacher, and writer at Calvin University. He’s the editor of The Mode/Switch newsletter and podcast on Substack, both of which decode workplace culture and the strange etiquettes of digital spaces. Craig’s three books address spiritual formation by attending to the kinds of humans we yearn to be in the digitally saturated spaces of life and work. His most recent book is Digital Overwhelm: A Mid-Career Guide to Coping at Work.

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Craig Mattson Interview

[00:00:00] 

geoff-holsclaw Does doing your job need to feel like losing your life? Can your vocation be part of your spiritual formation? Can we just survive this new digital overwhelm? That's what we are talking about today. This is the Attaching to God podcast. Uh, I'm Geoff Holsclaw and we are exploring a neuro, a neuroscience informed, spiritual formation produced by Embodied Faith.

And I'm very glad to be. Um. Joined by a fellow Grand Rapidian, if we could say that. Uh, Dr. Craig Matson is a researcher, teacher and writer at Calvin University, which is just down the road from me. He's the editor of the Mode Switch Newsletter and podcast. I. That's hosted on Substack. You can find it there.

Show notes. Uh, we'll have all the links. And, um, you really [00:01:00] like to kind of decode the workplace culture, uh, and the digital spaces. He's written several books that kind of link, spiritual formation and the different ways of being human in our digital landscape. Most recently, he has written Digital Overwhelm, a Mid-Career, um, guide.

Let's see, right there where there we go. A mid-career guide to coping at work. Craig, thank you so much for being on today.

Craig Mattson: I am grateful to be here. Geoff, I have followed your work on this, uh, this your substack and when I saw that you were doing work in attachment. Um, and in the country of talking about attachment theory, I was like, I feel like there's an intersection here, and you were gracious enough to say, let's try it.

So grateful to be here.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Let's for sure try it. The um. The topic is really good because I haven't really had many, um, people on to talk about like spiritual formation in the workplace and vocation and things like that, which is huge. Um, we've mostly been [00:02:00] focusing kind of like on the kind of the neuroscience and blah, blah, blah, all the sciencey stuff, but there's a lot of. and, uh, research is going into kind of like our work life environment, especially post covid work from home, um, but then also the digital landscape that we're in. And so I'm really glad that you reached out. Uh, it wasn't really something that was on my radar as much, and I was like, yeah, let's do this. So, so glad, so glad you did. So how did you get into your, what is your, like your work specifically, uh, there at Calvin and, and more broadly.

Craig Mattson: I hold, I'm very fortunate to hold an endowed chair at Kelvin University and uh, that chair is half teaching and courses related to strategic communication and is half, um, research and writing and sort of public engagement. Um, so. I got into this work before I joined Kelvin, which was just a couple of years ago in 2022.

For 20 years I've [00:03:00] been doing this work on the south side of Chicago at a school called Trinity Christian College. And, uh, wonderful learning community there. Uh, really enjoyed my time there. Um, and during C-O-V-I-D-I started reaching out to alumni of our program there and asking them how they were dealing.

How's it going in the intensities of the early 2020s? And the stories they had to tell were, were, um, jaw dropping and I thought, I, I need to, like, pursue this. And so what had started as a series of informal conversations, catch up calls, um, turned into a full blown research project about the experience of rising professionals in the workplace, um, in the early 2020s.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Oh, okay. It was, uh, so this is a small word, world moment. Uh, I was reading through your book and I came across the name John Berba from Highland

Craig Mattson: [00:04:00] Oh,

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: He's, I don't know if you remember the interview or however you collected the data, but he was a good friend and was at a part of our church and was, uh, sent out as part of a church plant, uh, many years ago.

Um. When I was ministering outside of Chicago also, so that was a small world moment. I was like, whoa, this is so bizarre. I was just reading it. I see my friend's name and you're quoting him on some of these

Craig Mattson: Yeah.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: So, um, so you're, so tell us about digital overwhelm. How did that, so is this the, the project and the research you were just talking about, did this book come out of that or was this kinda like a part two after you started jumping into some of these kind of questions?

Craig Mattson: The sequel? Uh, no, it, it did spring directly from those interviews, I, uh, technically interviewed 47, uh, gen Z and millennial professionals. My rationale for interviewing them as opposed to X-ers like me or even boomers, was that,

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: X. Forgotten. No one researches us. Right. We

Craig Mattson: I know, [00:05:00] yes. We're so left out latchkey kids to the end. Um, but yeah, so, uh, my reason for interviewing the Rising Professionals was that I, I felt like they were more alert to the sort of leading edges of work culture today because they were precarious and, um, we were right in the middle of the great resignation, and so they were.

They were, uh, feeling all the things in ways that may be more economically secure, generations might not be. So, um, out of this research, um, I, I have to say that upfront, I didn't ask about digital overwhelm. I asked about vocational overwhelm or workplace overwhelm or communication overwhelm. I was just kind of feeling around for what.

Do we call this sense of the too muchness of work today? Um, and then eventually I landed on digital overwhelm, um, because, um, the, the one of the greatest shaping [00:06:00] factors of work culture today is the incredibly rapid development of digital technology. Um, and so many of our feelings and so many of the pressures and intensities.

Are tied to that, the rapid emergence of ever new and ever more digital platforms,

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Hmm Hmm. So you, um, as a way to get into this, 'cause I just saw this, you were doing kind of like a. Uh, is it a podcast or are you blogging through the show? Severance the season two.

Craig Mattson: right? Yes. Severance. Yep.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Well you can't spoil it 'cause I haven't started watching it. I, I was a late comer. I just got caught up, uh, just a couple weeks

Craig Mattson: yeah.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Um, and so we haven't started season two, so you can't ruin it. But could you kind of talk about how that is, like for, in your mind, a great representation or kind of an, a way to kind of get in to some of the digital overwhelm questions that, uh, that you've been [00:07:00] pursuing?

Craig Mattson: Yes. In one of the most striking conversations I had with a rising professional, um. Someone who was a self-described elder millennial, um, she said, um, this is gonna sound very atheist of me. Um, but my work is meaningless.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Mm-hmm.

Craig Mattson: And it was one of the first times that I registered. Like I had probably seen it before or, or heard it before, but it was the first time that I really registered that for many people today, the sanest way to make your way through life and work is to draw very sharp lines between your personal life and your professional life.

Um, and for someone like me, like an Xer again, um, just sort of keep your head down, keep doing the job, keep doing the work, keep being productive. That was my only ethic. Um, and suddenly I was talking to people who had a very different posture towards work. Um, the show Severance, I think [00:08:00] is, uh, a kind of hilarious,

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: you explain the premise just for people who don't know?

Craig Mattson: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's in some, I started to watch this show multiple times because it's, it's a scary show to me. Um, but the, the premise is an exaggeration of what these rising professionals are saying. So they draw a line between. Uh, their work life and their life, life, but the characters in this show actually undergo an operation so that they have no knowledge of their life, life when they're at work or of their work life when they're at home.

And so it's a kind of gorgeous hyperbole of like all of our, uh, experience today where we're like, how do we relate our work life to our life life?

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Yeah, so they have, um, basically it's like two shows on one because you have the show of a couple people in their lives, their normal lives, [00:09:00] their daily lives, where the main character, his wife died unexpectedly, I forget how, car accident or something. Uh, and uh, his way of kind of. Living through the grief is, I just need a couple hours a day where I'm not thinking about this tragedy.

And so he gets this procedure, which it just severs your work life and your, your home life. Um, uh. And so you get the other part of the show where people are just living kind of underground in this basement and when they go down the elevator, they kind of switch, which we'll have to get into this mode switching, uh, language that you talk about.

But they switch and you can see it. It's really great acting 'cause you see it on their faces where they're going from these like people to just these. This, and they, and they call them IESs. So the people at work are called the ies, and the people on their, their outer life are called the Audis. And they talk about, and they imagine and wonder about their Audi's lives, but they have no idea, you know, and then the same.

And so it's just, it's very dicho, you know, dichotomized, it's very, uh, and then they start kind of fighting with each [00:10:00] other, which is very interesting, which I think happens. So, um, so you were seeing that kind of split in your research before the show came out? Uh, and I'm sure the writers for. Apple TV we're like, yeah, this is how people are feeling.

Um, but it's, um, it's almost this creation of two different people. And, and you're saying, um, these people you interviewed seem pretty dissatisfied with this setup. Is that right?

Craig Mattson: Well, I, I guess in some ways it's frustrating because I think that it's very human to want wholeness and, you know, and integration of the different parts of you, but for survival. These rising professionals were saying, no, I really do have to sever these, these two parts of myself. Um, and I, I don't know, there wasn't a whole lot of regret that there was acceptance.

Like, this is just what I gotta do, I

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Hmm. Hmm. Well, could you, um, you know, [00:11:00] the, this. Podcast is a lot about like spiritual formation. Could you talk about kind of how you see the linking between vocation, workplace life and like that formational kind of aspects? How do they either work together or sometimes work against each other? Um, in the, in the work you've seen?

Craig Mattson: Well, what I noticed as I heard these people's stories was that they tended to make use of six coping mechanisms, um, and I called them modes of communication. These were six ways that they would communicate to just deal with the intensities of work life today. Um, and these modes of communication, I won't name them all, but they, they would be things like, uh, emailing things.

You just gotta get clarity. You want to get everybody on the same page. So you write a 2000 word email that'll do the job. And then, uh, you find out your manager only reads the first two lines of every email that she gets. Um, [00:12:00] another mode might be dialogue where you're like, what we need is a good face-to-face conversation.

Let's talk this thing out. Um, and then you realize that that mode too has its limitations. Because very often the gap between people, even in face-to-face conversation seems to widen. Um, and then there would be modes that. People would use like signaling things where they're, they're like, less is more.

I'm gonna just signal what's going on. I'm thinking of a black woman professional who described what she called the face that she would put on in zoom meetings just to K to kind of signal to people an appropriate way to relate to her. You're not my besties, in other words, and this face indicates that I am strong and I'm capable and I'm present, but we don't enjoy, uh, the kind of friendly, chatty connection that [00:13:00] you seem to be assuming that we do.

Um, so those different modes would help people in certain ways to cope with the pressures of the workplace. But I also explore the limitations, as you could tell, of the modes because each mode has its own sort of, um, limitations. I mention all

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: other three you already got? You got half of 'em out there. What are the other three? Unless I'm putting you on the spot, I know that, uh, we don't always, for all of you who wonder if, uh, if authors memorize everything they've ever written, that is not true. We forget stuff that we've written.

That's all right. That's all right.

Craig Mattson: yeah, that's why we write it so we don't have to remember it. Um, I think GK Chesterton said something about the distribution of labor is like, I write the thing, you read it and like, I don't ever wanna read it again. You know? So, um, but yeah, other modes might be like a tacit mode, um, where you, um, it's what, you know, without being able to say it, that matters in the workplace.

Um, another mode [00:14:00] would be advocating. Things. So it's a, it's a challenge for many people, but especially for rising professionals to persuade other people to do their stuff so that you can do your job. Um, so those were some of the other modes. I think I also talked about meaning things, which actually brings us to this point because, um, a lot of people wanted to talk about what their jobs meant or didn't mean.

And so I think like meaning making in the workplace is a. It's a surprisingly large factor in workplace culture today.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Yeah, I've noticed that. Um, I. Because I have like Gen Z kids, but the millennials that I used to work with and pastor with, and there's a lot of literature about how there's that shift to wanting their work to be meaningful, um, and having meaningful work as a way of evaluating job prospects and companies to work for and work environments.

Is, do they feel like it's meaningful, which is kind of a shift from previous [00:15:00] generations? You know, I don't remember, uh, for Gen X and you know, boomers and things like, it's just like, well. Does it pay and am I successful? Right. Um, and so there's, there's a big shift, but I think it has kind of, now it sounds like what you're saying is it's kind of, uh, flipped now of just like I'm resigned to.

My work being meaningless, which doesn't necessarily lead to human flourishing in the long term either. Uh, so yeah, that's really, that's really interesting. Which it kind of leads to this thing that you mentioned in a recent, um, post about like the great detachment and there's like literature about like quiet quitting, especially among Gen Z.

Uh, could you kind of talk about that, uh, a little bit?

Craig Mattson: Yes. I was gonna say I would love to, but it's not a phenomenon that I love, honestly. Um.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Sure.

Craig Mattson: Sometimes for generational reasons, like it's hard for me to understand, but also for, um, just the reasons that it feels necessary to, to detach today at work for so many people, [00:16:00] the phenomenon arises. Um, it's not a new thing.

I think trade journalists need new things to talk about all the time. They have to generate content and so they give us these. Monikers, like the great detachment, but you mentioned quiet quitting, and that's been around for some time now. Um, and there are lots of quiets out there that, um, uh, quiet firing and quiet vacationing and, and so forth.

Um, but. The phenomenon arises in the workplace because people need their jobs. They have very high tuition bills, or they have mortgages, or they have, um, kids medical bills. They don't have an option. Um, like it seemed like they might have. During the Great Resignation from 2021 to 2023, it felt like a wild time in the United States especially where.

Wow. The, the labor market was such that you really didn't need any job. You had, you could find another one or you could just take a [00:17:00] break because you were, you were getting a check from the government for a bit. So, um, now things have shifted and people need their jobs. They, they can't, the labor market doesn't allow them to just sort of move around quite as much.

And so their way of dealing is by. Practicing a kind of emotional regulation, um, uh, um, a sort of emotional pullback. Uh, I'll be present, I'll do my stuff, but I'm not going to do any emotional labor here, like pretending I love this job or like I love being on this team. I'm going to detach.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: hmm. So it's that pulling back from the kind of emotional labor of the relationships, um, is kind of the great detachment and that. Long term you'd figure that would make things feel more meaningless. Uh, 'cause you're divesting yourself of that. [00:18:00] You know, some of those most, um, you know, core parts of being human is relating and emotions, um, and things like that.

Craig Mattson: Yeah.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: So you talk about biblical wisdom, uh, in the workplace, but you also have a lot of like. Good strategies for some of this digital overwhelm, uh, about like zooms, zoom meetings, emailing, um, just kind of the day-to-day kind of things kind of in the workplace. Could we start with, uh, some of that and then kind of go into the, some of the biblical insights, unless you wanna like match them together, but what are some of the ways of kind of just helping us cope with somewhat of the dehumanizing aspects of just the workplace?

Somewhat. The larger kind of question of just feeling meaningless, like what? What can we do about that? How would you advise people?

Craig Mattson: My book is not a sort of Cal Newport styled or, um, atomic Habits styled book in [00:19:00] the sense that I am sort of providing hacks for, um, how to cope in the workplace. My goal is kind of on the far side. Oh

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: big fan of that. I mean, I, I love the atomic. Habits and things like that. So those are all great tips and stuff, but that does, that just helps you become more productive and efficient, uh, which is not wrong, but that's not necessarily gonna get to that deep human itch and urge for meaning and significance and purpose and connection and belonging.

Craig Mattson: You said it.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: maybe. So, okay, so I just wanted to throw that in there. So, continue.

Craig Mattson: no thank you Geoff. I think that's, I, I'm glad to have that affirmed 'cause it's a little scary. 'cause you know, people wanna notch this book into a particular category and it seems like it sort of fits there. But I'm actually kind of looking on the far side of coping, like how can we do more than cope when work is just super intense?

And so I do have these kind of. What I call mode switch workshops throughout the book, like every other chapter is a half chapter. And I [00:20:00] talk about really practical things like how to write an email so you sound like yourself or how to survive zoom, room fatigue and, and so forth. What to do when your tech breaks down.

Um, but you'll notice quickly that everything, all the advice there is really advice about spiritual formation. Um, it's about. Working community. It's about, um, loving your neighbor. Um, and so for instance, my, you know, dominant piece of advice in regards to email overwhelm is to try to write some of your emails as if email were a gift, um, as if it was a gift that you heard from this person and is as if you are trying to create a gift.

For them. That sounds hilarious. It sounds so impractical and unrealistic. Email is the worst, but. At the same time, I think, like you said, there's [00:21:00] a paradox in like managing email ever more efficiently. You just get more of it to do, so why not slow down and attend to how you are relating to the other? Um, which I think finally is a matter of how you are posturing yourself spiritually in relationship to, um, other people.

And since this is, um, you know, a part of the embodied faith brand, I should say, like it is a very physical thing. So when I say spiritual, I don't mean witty and woowoo. I, I mean, it's about how we bodily relate to other people in the workplace.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: I, I love that. Like, um, what I kind of heard was. Don't be conformed to the medium of just like rapid fire emails or whatever, you know, the impersonal, like bring yourself to that task as a human being who's trying to reach through the keyboard, the screen to another human being, to, you know, to then [00:22:00] accomplish something that hopefully.

You're both aligned into accomplishing, at least at a very minimal level. So like, can we take these digital mediums and still be humans through, in and through them? Is that kind of like what you're saying? Like

Craig Mattson: You've said it. Yeah. Yeah. I love this book by Meghan o Giblin called God Human Animal Machine. I just want everybody to read this book, but,

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Oh, I'm gonna write that

Craig Mattson: oh God. Human animal machine. It's so great. Um, but I, when I, I met her at a conference, um, and I, I, you know, I was a, a fan, so I was like, would you sign my book?

And she wrote in the flyleaf, stay Human. And that has become a kind of mantra for me, like, how can we, in the most depersonalizing spaces, stay human?

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Hmm. I love that. That's great. And I think that is, um. And that, that's great spiritual advice. This is why like, you know, we talk about being embodied faith is 'cause sometimes our faith can actually dehumanize [00:23:00] us or, you know, disembody us, um, just as much as our digital kind of environment. And so staying human, uh, I love that.

I'm definitely gonna check that out. Uh, and I will, I will let my wife know that it's your fault that I'm buying more books.

Craig Mattson: Yes. Uh oh. Giblin iss worth the read, for sure. Yeah. And you mentioned the biblical, uh, wisdom, uh, that was sort of animating this project. Um, so I, I'm really eager to talk about that. If, if you'll let me for just a, a second. Um.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Oh, for sure. Well, I, the way I was gonna set it up was when I was going to seminary, you know, I often saw like these, I think the title was Jesus, CEO, uh, and, and you got like a lot of John Maxwell tips about like, how does your faith make you a successful business owner? Or, you know, insights for business and success and things like that.

Um. Which, you know, is fine, whatever. But, uh, my sense is that's not what you are going after, but rather these are biblical in, so I'm setting up [00:24:00] with, I think you're offering biblical insights for staying human while working rather than being your optimally successful self. So with that introduction, yes, please jump in.

Craig Mattson: Oh, thank you for that. I, Jesus. CEO that's, that's great stuff. Um, yeah, that merger of capitalism and, uh, like, I don't know, roughly conservative Protestantism, man. It's a, it's a, it's a heady brew. So, um, I turned to the wisdom literature of the Old Testament in particular. Um, because so many of the people that I was interviewing were skeptics about organized faith, or they were, um, they were in positions where lament and sorrow and trauma and grief were just like a part of their working experience.

Whether that was from sexual harassment, whether it was from, like one person said, I have been lonely in every job I've ever held. [00:25:00] Um. So the wisdom literature speaks in wonderfully rich, um, ways to those very conditions, um, because you think a lot about attachment. Um, the book of Ecclesiastes, I think is a book that.

Commends a very complicated way of attaching to toil. Um, I say complicated because it apparently recommends completely detaching from your work. It's vanity, it's chasing after the wind. It's smoke. Uh, it's an enigma, it's meaningless. Um, but then there's this kind of constant refrain throughout it. Um, what's the wisdom of the book?

Like eat, drink. Okay. And whatever your hand finds to do, do it with everything you've got and enjoy it.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Mm-hmm.

Craig Mattson: that, for me, became the kind of core wisdom of staying human in the work. Um, an appropriate level of sort of ironic detachment from your work is [00:26:00] probably healthy. It was just like, this is not gonna do it.

This is not going to get me, uh, to lasting fame and an eternal legacy. Um. And in today's attention economy, that's super hard. Like the only way seemingly to have meaningful work is to be widely noticed. Um, but yeah, I, I find that the teacher, the philosopher, uh, in the book of Ecclesiastes really counsels us, uh, to stay human by simply enjoying your pointless toil.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And just for a reminder, the wisdom literature would be like the Book of Ecclesiastes, uh, song Solomon a little bit. The Book of Job, certainly Book of Proverbs.

Craig Mattson: Yes. Yeah.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: That, so I hadn't really thought of it that way. So in one sense, um, Ecclesiastes in its call, you know that these things are meaningless.

I. [00:27:00] It's kind of like an exaggerated statement so that then we could recalibrate and just kind of like bring in the right level of purpose and meaning within kind of a larger kind of perspective. I was thinking, and maybe this isn't what you were getting at, but um, you know, like the ancient spiritual practices of the church as well as like, um, the philosophical schools.

Um. S speaks of like remembering your death, uh, as a way to kind of, um, giving kind of the right perspective to our daily kind of exercises. And that wasn't to be morbid, um, but it was rather so you could be open-handed with the everyday activities, everyday circumstances, um, that you encounter. Uh, is that.

You know, and they'd call it a training for death, but the training for death or the remembering your death was so that you could actually have a more fulfilling life is kind of the goal that they were after. And so, Ecclesiastes kind of fits, uh, in that, that realm

Craig Mattson: sure does.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: you know, deflated. 'cause I think like, and maybe this is just me. But, uh, somewhat [00:28:00] in our therapeutic culture, um, our true self culture, our self-actualization culture, there's really kind of an inflation of every activity needs to be an expression of your best self now and every activity, uh, and every interaction needs to be kind of like a movement toward the most flourishing kind of.

Whatever, right? It's just, and then you re saturated with, you know, celebrities and people who have made it. Uh, and then you just kind of get stuck in your regular day-to-day life. You're like, I'm definitely not making it right. And maybe we just need to deflate that kind of, that balloon a little bit of like, Hey, you know what, like, you know, just enjoying your meal with a couple friends is, is enough and you know.

Playing board games, you know, with your kids, it, it could be enough. Um, and things like, is that kind of, or am I just saying, I don't want to take your, uh, your perspective off track here, but that's just kind of what I'm hearing in the midst of this.

Craig Mattson: When I was a kid, my dad, um, [00:29:00] basically conscripted me to carry wood from the wood stack next to the garage around to a chute on the other side of the house and into the basement. And I had to stack it all, uh, talk about endless toil, like it just never stopped. Like we burned that wood up as fast as we could put it in the basement for the Franklin stove.

But there is a kind of strange. Satisfaction that is possible. Um, even in a seemingly pointless, seemingly endless job like that, this was over there and now it is over here, and I did that. So, um, I think that that there is a, there is a strange paradoxical kind of meaningfulness in jobs that, again, in our attention economy, people would say are, are.

Just, just meaningless. Um, what's Instagramable about that?

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Yeah, no, that's [00:30:00] true. That, um, but you were feeding, you know, as a kid, you know, you don't feel this way, but you were, you were preparing to serve your whole family by keeping that stove, you know, working. Uh, and there was a tangible kind of experience and a tangible benefit. Um, and I know a lot of our work, um, especially in kind of the information technologies, it doesn't feel that way.

Like you don't see it. I know I had a, a friend who was a pastor. And he was also a part-time construction worker. And being a pastor is very,

Craig Mattson: Hmm.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: well, it's spiritual, right? It's hard to see the impact that you have day in and day out on families who come and go, who, you know, whose lives don't seem to change, or they don't even know if you're listening to your sermons, right?

It just seems like it just goes off. So, you know, if, uh. It could feel very meaningless. And, and he said working construction was so grounding. 'cause he is like, I built that house. I put that deck on, like, and it's still there. So, so I don't know if there's any advice in there for finding some sort of [00:31:00] grounded hobby or kind of task that just keeps you in the world and puts you in touch with, uh, friends and relatives, but don't know.

Well, what are some, uh, last kind of either wisdom, insights or kind of other things that you, um. That you found to be either surprising or really powerful, uh, while you were working on this project? Just to kind of finish this off today.

Craig Mattson: Okay. Thank you. I think one more thing that I could share that we haven't mentioned, and I think it relates to your frequent focus on the, on the neuro dimensions of what we're talking about. But I think becoming adept at mode switching, um, is a really important way to contribute to the flourishing of your working community.

I. I think that there is a tendency to fall into a particular approach to communication and then just assume that's good for everybody and every moment and, uh, just every task. Um, that is not only [00:32:00] an impractical and ineffective approach to communication, but I think it's also a kind of unloving approach.

And that sort of surprised me to realize that generosity to our coworkers and to our teammates, our managers. Our, our higher ups or our, you know, direct reports like an, an important aspect of neighbor love and sometimes enemy love frankly is, um, changing, uh, being flexible enough in your approach. Uh, um, messaging other people, um, and I, I've called that mode switching.

I do think it takes a, a certain. Looseness and agility of your thinking in order to say, yeah, I know what feels like the right thing right now is just to shoot off this team's message, but maybe that's not the mode I should use. So that kind of agility is I think, strategic and effective, but I think it's [00:33:00] also more importantly, really contributive to other people's wellbeing.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Mm-hmm. And that's, um, I know for like the younger. Kind of group. That doesn't mean you're being inauthentic or not being true to yourself. That just means you're trying to match what you feel needs to be done or said to the best or appropriate or most effective kind of means. Um, and kind of, and switching between those and being creative and having multiple different avenues.

If you wanna learn more about. That mode switch mode switching, uh, and I'll put this in the show notes, uh, on Substack, uh, it's just called the mode switch, uh, at substack.com where you deal with a lot of this stuff. If people can find, uh, the podcast there too.

Craig Mattson: Mm-hmm.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Alright. Or there. Well, why don't you tell us where can we find out more about this mode switching and your work and the podcast?

Craig Mattson: Yes. So the book Digital Overwhelm, uh, was, you know, it's, it felt like its own thing, but I was like. I really want to try to kind of energize the work [00:34:00] of writing. 'cause writing a book is tiring, you know? Um, so I started this, uh, newsletter about work culture sort of parallel to it, and I kept interviewing people for that sort of doing journalism.

I. And it's really become a, a, a site for working through the kind of questions that arise in work culture. Sometimes they're really like small questions like, what does it mean to dress professionally today? Or, um, you know, should I quit my job if it seems pointless? Or, um, whatever, any variety of questions.

Um, but, uh, that Substack newsletter has, has become a sort of weekly place to kind of. Tease out some of these same work related questions.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: hmm. Excellent. And then you also have a podcast. Is it by the same name?

Craig Mattson: Yes. Uh, and that's a team effort. I'm very happy to say it's not just me. Um, it's an intergenerational team. Um, and I'm. We're really excited that Geoff and Sid are gonna be joining us in, in a few weeks on this [00:35:00] podcast. But it's an intergenerational team that involves a boomer, a Gen Z, um, a millennial, um, some Xers.

And, uh, we bring in authors and experts and coaches and consultants of all kinds. And we do the same kind of sorting through of work culture stuff, but from an intergenerational, uh, perspective.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: that. That's so great. Uh, I think, yeah, I just think. There's so many different perspectives, you know, and the world's been changing so fast. Uh, and so to have those different perspectives where we can learn together, um, you know, we talk about intergenerational churches and the need for the shared wisdom and the growth and the perspective, but I, you know, we also need intergenerational work environments.

Um, you know, that can help people kind of understand,

Craig Mattson: Makes sense.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: you know, this is, yeah. It helps you make sense of kind of what's going on.

Craig Mattson: Yeah.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Well, Craig, thanks so much for being on with us today. Um, I really enjoyed your book, uh, and for those of you, uh, it, it says a mid-career guide, but like even [00:36:00] especially for those who are just starting their careers, um, it'll probably be like, oh, like this is a place where I've been struggling.

Like, this is really helpful advice. So kinda wherever you are, uh, I would even recommend it maybe to people who are managers. You know, there's kind of this like, I don't know how to manage the younger generation. I think there's probably some good tips there that'll bring the faith in the workplace together.

So thank you so much for doing the work, um, to kind of the, the hard work of writing and then forgetting so that other people will read it and maybe remember.

Craig Mattson: And thank

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Well, I really appreciate it.

Craig Mattson: on, uh, attaching to God. I, I, um, I really appreciate the work of this, this podcast, sort of bringing together, uh, theory and people's lived experience and the concerns of spiritual formation. It's good stuff. Keep doing the good work.

geoff-holsclaw_1_01-28-2025_090842: Uh, I appreciate it. Thank you so much and we're looking forward to being in studio. You have a nice fancy studio there at the university. I just have like the corner of my office, so, but we're excited to come in. I think that's in a couple weeks.

Craig Mattson: You bet. [00:37:00]