Hey, does everyone listen to this? It's just me today. I thought I would answer some patron emails, patron Nicole wrote in and says,

Dr. Kirk, I know you are happy with the current size of the podcast and the size of the community, but as someone who is so on it in terms of efficiency and productivity,

I wonder if you had a staff team of six Dr. Kirk clones, is there an area you would expand into and like to grow? And of email. Yeah.

If I had six clones, boy, that's a great thought exercise. Number one is my first clone. So I would be seven of me, I guess is the thing, right?

So there'd be me and then there'd be six clones. The first clone would answer every email because I think there are a lot of really great questions.

People want to know what I think of certain things they might be looking for advice. Of course, this podcast is not a replacement for professional services.

Therapy services, legal services, that kind of thing. But, you know, getting a perspective from someone else is can be helpful. Of course, you wouldn't want to dictate your life based on a podcast or opinion.

But answering your email makes me feel connected. I also feel beholden. It's a holdover from the earlier years of the podcast when there were different phases.

The first phase of the podcast, I would get no emails. And so it was like, or comments or any no, no feedback at all, just no indication that anyone was listening.

And then the second phase was maybe once every three months, I would get an email or something. And oh, boy, when I got those emails, it was really you fork. And I was like, oh, I finally made it.

Like there's this random person in the world who discovered the podcast and email them, you know, and we're talking in the order of six years at this point into the podcast.

Then the next phase was when I was getting a lot of emails, but I was able to answer all of them. I would also personally reply to every email just in written form in some immediate way.

And then I would more elaborately answer the question on the podcast. And then this last phase is where I, it's just not humanly possible.

I would have to have 15 episodes a week in which each episode is two hours. And I'm reading all the emails because, you know, another issue is someone recently gave some feedback, which I took to heart, which I agree with and appreciated, which is that constructive feedback, which is that part of my deep desire to respond to everyone's email because I just feel bad.

I feel guilty for not answering people's emails. I was starting to race through them, right, lightning round. And what one person was saying that that sort of does a disservice to everybody because I'm not really honoring or not really fully answering every email.

And so you might as well not do it at all, right, or just pick a select few and really get into it with those emails. So, you know, I really took that to heart and, you know, trying to do that more.

And what that means is I can't answer most emails. And really, I think it's, it's changed even more recently, maybe in the past year or so, six months where maybe even a couple years ago, maybe during the pandemic, when I wasn't really doing anything outside the house and had the time, I was still getting to most emails, but the email document list is just getting longer and longer.

And along those lines, while I'm on this topic, what I'm planning on doing just for my own mental health, my own mental wellness is I'm going to do a bout of sort of spring cleaning, you know, prior to spring, but I'm going to answer all the emails that I think I can.

And then I'm going to delete all the old emails. So if your email isn't addressed in one of these episodes, there's a chance that I included it in the document that I have for Rebecca or Amberto or Bob.

Because I'll, I'll still hold on to those emails. But unless they're for them, I'm just going to wipe this slate clean for a number of reasons. One is the document is so big. It actually takes a long time to load.

It's a Google doc and it's really hard to edit. Now, of course, you can just split them in the two. But you know what I mean? Like we're talking hundreds and hundreds of pages of emails. And so there's that. Also, I wonder if the people who emailed and because some of these emails could have been a year or two ago.

So is this person even listening anymore? Is the question even relevant anymore? Also, I just, I'm compulsive in this way that I don't want things to pile up. And so I just want to wipe this slate clean.

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