Episode 20 · · 1:32:03
Homeschooling, Community Confidence, and Being Human at Work with Abby Covert
Abby Covert shares what excites her now, leaving corporate life, reclaiming creativity through recovery work, sobriety, journaling, and disciplined writing, and how community builds confidence beyond capability. They explore being willing to be bad at things, the pressure to “pick a specialty” online, and bringing fun and psychological safety into work by modeling humanity. They also talk about knowledge decay on the web, AI’s mixed effects, and Abby recommends listening to live Grateful Dead recordings.
Topics
- 0:00 Homeschool Wins
- 1:05 SenseMaker Salon Plans
- 1:51 Leaving Corporate Comfort
- 4:51 Learning While Being Bad
- 6:30 Public Failure Online
- 8:37 Make It Up
- 11:53 Information Is Sketchy
- 14:38 Reclaiming Creativity
- 18:12 Recovery Journaling Rituals
- 21:32 Community Builds Confidence
- 24:47 Mentors And Role Models
- 29:28 Bringing Fun To Work
- 32:15 Authenticity In Meetings
- 37:09 Cracking Tough Nuts
- 43:27 Teaching Internet Safety
- 45:04 Kids Online Boundaries
- 46:23 YouTube Parental Controls Fail
- 47:56 Internet Safety Curriculum
- 48:43 Schools Lag Behind Tech
- 51:01 AI Adoption Timelines
- 54:35 Digital Decay and Link Rot
- 56:27 Indie Web and Collective Memory
- 1:00:08 AI Democratization Limits
- 1:01:45 Mouth Coding for Nonprofits
- 1:06:08 When Vibe Coding Breaks
- 1:11:36 Human Culture and Agency
- 1:15:20 Privilege Diversity and Consulting
- 1:24:37 Coffee Filter Discernment
- 1:27:54 Grateful Dead Community
- 1:30:42 Where to Find Abby
- 1:31:28 Closing Thanks
- 1:31:50 Morning Excitement Check
Links
- How to Make Sense of Any Mess
- Stuck
- Silent Spring
- Grateful Dead
- Dick's Picks
- Live at the Mars Hotel
- Furthur
- Dead & Company
- Otis Redding — "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay"
- abbycovert.com
- thesensemakersclub.com
- Be Internet Awesome
- Wayback Machine
- The Pastry Box Project
- YouTube
- ChatGPT
- Wix
- Ikigai
- The Artist's Way (Morning Pages)
- Indie Web movement
- Information Architecture Institute
- Etsy
- Stax Records
- Epic Universe
About Abby Covert
- abbycovert.com (everything she's written) and thesensemakersclub.com (The Sensemakers Club — her membership community running daily weekday meetings). Not very active on social media.
Abby Covert's music pick
The Grateful Dead — especially the live recordings (start with Dick's Picks rather than the studio albums). Abby loves the Dead as much for the longstanding, mutual-aid community around the band as for the music itself.