Should I Quit Social Media? A Debate With A Focus Expert - Penny zenker

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Written By Brian Nelson-Palmer
Brian Nelson-Palmer and Penny Zenker holding a rubiks cube and making funny faces

What happens when a productivity expert and a focus coach talk honestly about the role social media plays in our lives?

In this episode, Brian sits down with Penny Zenker to have a real conversation about how platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook affect our attention, stress levels, and time. They don’t hold back. Penny admits she’s been thinking about walking away from it altogether. Brian shares his frustration with AI-generated content and the constant noise in his feed.

They explore how social media can be both helpful and harmful, and what it means to use it with intention. Penny shares her Reset Mindset framework and talks about how to refocus when life and technology pull you in every direction. They also get into the difference between attention and focus—and why that distinction really matters.

You’ll hear laughter, honest disagreement, and some ideas that might just change how you interact with your phone.

Want to go deeper? Check out the show notes and resources linked in the episode!

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Want to read up on the topic? Check out the research and blog post I created on the topic.

References In This Episode

Brian Nelson-Palmer and Penny Zenker smiling

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Debate on Social Media

04:45 The Impact of Social Media on Productivity

07:31 AI's Influence on Social Media Perspectives

14:17 Personal Use of Social Media: Should You Quit?

25:17 Professional Use of Social Media: The Business Perspective

29:40 The Power of Focused Efforts

31:34 Building Meaningful Connections

36:29 Referrals and Customer Relationships

41:08 Assessing Social Media's Value

45:17 Recognizing Productivity Killers

47:22 Taking Action for Change

54:48 The Reset Mindset and Future Directions

Today’s Guest

Penny Zenker

Keynote Speaker, Focus Expert, Productivity Strategist

Penny Zenker is an international keynote speaker, bestselling author, and the creator of the Reset Mindset—a practical framework that helps people regain control of their time, energy, and attention. Known as The Focusologist, Penny teaches leaders and teams how to eliminate distractions, reduce stress, and stay aligned with what matters most.

With a background as a successful tech entrepreneur and strategic business coach, Penny blends big-picture thinking with tactical insight. Her talks and trainings challenge conventional ideas about productivity and help people shift from busy to intentional. Her TEDx talk, featured by Success Magazine, highlights the power of choice in driving performance.

Penny has been featured on major media outlets including NBC News, Forbes, and Inc. She works with global brands, fast-moving teams, and purpose-driven individuals who want to create more focus and less friction in their work and life.

Connect with Penny:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pennyzenker
Website: pennyskeynote.com

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About The Creator/Host: I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. After spending a career hands-on in the trenches as a leader at all levels, I now train Productivity Gladiators to level up their careers. Graduates wield superpowers in time management, practical leadership, communication, & productivity. If what you’ve seen here intrigues you, reach out, let’s chat!

“Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.”

 

Transcript

Brian Nelson-Palmer (00:06)

I'm Brian Nelson Palmer and on this show I share personal practical productivity skills that will make you more productive and advance your career. And in this episode, it's a debate. Should I quit social media? I want to talk about it both personally as an individual and professionally as a business thought leader And with me on the show today is Penny Zenker, who is the focusologist.

So I can't wait to debate her. Penny, thank you so much for joining me on the show today.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (00:35)

Hey Brian, I'm so excited for this debate. Let's bring it.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (00:39)

talk about being a focus ologist and how that's relevant to the discussion we're about to have.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (00:44)

Sure, well, it's exactly relevant because the focusologist helps us to stay focused on what matters most. I we are in a focus crisis and that's exactly why I created this term and not because, you know, I'm so much more focused than everyone else. I mean, I have the same influences as everyone, but I'm making it a daily practice, a commitment.

Right? To own the energy of and the direction and control where I'm focused and really looking to stay focused on what matters most. So that's the kind of the gist of the focusologist is putting together the practices and the principles and the awareness and the systems to keep us focused on what matters most.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (01:28)

there's a lot of people that talk about focus. So what would you say makes you different from others in the space that talk about this kind of focus in general?

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (01:30)

Thank

Sure, well, a lot of people talk about attention, but focus is not attention. And I think that's one of the myths or the things that we get mistaken. For me, focus is about alignment. It's how we align what we do on a day-to-day basis with our goals, our values, what we want in our lives. And so that's one thing. And then also I talk about the how, the how we do that.

is through what I call the reset mindset. It's through these, a reset practice by continually engaging in three steps that help us to be more dynamic in how we approach our priorities. Because they're not static. We don't set them once and then that's where they are. We're changing all the time within the day. but we get frustrated instead of embracing that there's a process that we can follow. And it's three simple steps, step back,

get perspective and realign, that's a reset practice that we can do once a day, multiple times a day, a week, a year, you know, in whatever timeframe and whatever we're dealing with. So that's kind of the difference on that. And one last point is, and maybe we'll get to it somewhere, is that where we focus, it drives our behavior, right? That perspective that we take, it drives our attitudes, our expectations, and our priorities. And so,

It's really important to understand what we're focused on and sometimes we don't realize where we're actually focused and why we're getting the result that we're getting. So we have to peel back the onion on that sometimes.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (03:09)

Absolutely. And I want to go back in the very beginning. You said focus and attention are two different things. Say more on that. I'm a little intrigued by that too.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (03:17)

Well, most people say, I'm gonna focus on, it's very tactical attention. Where am I spending my attention right this minute? know, people say be present. Well, I have kind of a framework to explain that because being present isn't enough. We do need to be present and we need to have attention. But also it needs to be in alignment with our intention, right? Those goals, those values.

and principles that we want to live by and deliver to our customers. And just because we give something attention doesn't mean it's in alignment with those things, because we're not checking in. We're so stressed that it actually drives our attention. Everything's being pushed at us, and we are losing control. So our attention is in lots of different places. It's the attention economy, right? But to take it back is to

is to focus, is to say, this is what deserves my attention, not what demands it. And that there's context. That's also the other piece. So if you imagine a circle split in half, one side is attention, the other is intention, and then the circle in the center is the context that drives the direction.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (04:28)

That sounds very precise. I love looking at it in that way. And all right, let's talk about our topic today. And so before I even get started, I want I made a note for myself in the very beginning. All right, Penny, before I say anything else, tell me overall, what's your take on social media?

Like, is it a productivity killer that everyone claims it is? Or are we missing something?

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (04:51)

Okay, well, what I think coming into this is that I'm evaluating this very thing right now. So it's so present for me because I'm not sure what I think. I'm actually leaning to the side where I want to get away from social media for my business and just personally a light level. And it's because of the level of stress and the anxiety, the FOMO or the...

having to be everywhere all at once and all these, I'm right now in that decision making process. leaning towards it's not worth it anymore, but I'm interested in the debate because in preparing for this, right? And thinking about both sides.

know it did make me think about things- also in a in another way whenever we can look at something objectively. And look at both sides it gives us some some new insights.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (05:44)

Absolutely. And for you listening, neither one of us is coming in. I would have titled this episode differently if I was coming into this already having a very clear direction for which this this really is about the debate. So one other question before we get started into the debate, though, Penny, I'm curious, does the advent of AI like chat GPT

Has that changed your thoughts at all on this topic or still the same?

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (06:08)

Great question, and yes it has. On both sides. But, well, you know, on both sides, because the, if you look at social media now, We are overloaded with content, and some decent, some not, you know, it makes it harder to discern because,

Brian Nelson-Palmer (06:11)

Yeah, same old.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (06:28)

You want to follow certain people and you want to put out great content, you know, either side of using or consuming but it's overwhelming. AI has made it for me more overwhelming and more difficult as a content creator to stand out amongst the noise. So we were noisy already and now it's gotten even noisier. And that is one of the reasons why I feel like

maybe I want to step out is when there's too much and people are confused or they don't know where to look, we see what we're seeing, which is a lot of people are leaving LinkedIn. That's what the experts are saying is that people are leaving, the reach is not going as wide. that's, I believe, because people are overwhelmed and they're looking for solutions to be less overwhelmed.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (07:17)

that's helpful. Thank you for that little bit of context, because what you just heard was unprimed. Penny and I haven't talked ahead of what we're saying right now. So now this is the background for the.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (07:26)

So what about you

though? What about you? Has AI changed your feeling about it?

Brian Nelson-Palmer (07:31)

Yes, that's actually exactly where the idea for this episode came. So a couple of things. First, I have been thinking that you should not be on social media for a long time, personally, from a productivity perspective. It just isn't productive to mindlessly scroll social media. And I realize there's a lot of reasons people do it.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (07:40)

Okay.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (07:49)

but I just haven't found that it's a good use of your time. and I'm also the guy who, you haven't seen it already, I did a Ted talk on the value of your time.

that's the background when it came in. And then AI I learned just like you have that it's really easy to ask Chad GPT to give you the language for a social media post. And so.

Now I started looking around and it was starting to really bother me because I can even pick them out and I know you can you let you scroll through your feed and you can immediately see which ones somebody plugged in to chat GPT to give a know a prompt and I'm not saying all of them are but many of them you can start to see it and so then here's the here's the AI key that really brought us here Penny which is two weeks ago I was introduced to something called Taja AI.

Taja.ai and this is not a promotion for them. Taja is it's a wonderful productivity tool because you take your YouTube video, you upload it to YouTube and you give it your URL for the YouTube video. Taja will literally create every other form of content based on that video. So it will give you clips for social media. It will give you the the text to put in. It will give you

a blog post, a cover photo, it does all of that for you. And so while most people would see that and probably many content creators would see that and get kind of excited, for me, it's also one of those, my God. So all these people are spending as little time as possible on their side to take my time to tune into their content. And frankly, I was pissed.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (09:07)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (09:29)

I, are you kidding me? Yeah.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (09:30)

Wow, that's such an interesting perspective. You know, if I might interrupt you, you know,

that pissed you off when I heard it. I don't know that particular tool, but these tools excite me because I'm already a content creator and it can help my content to be even tighter and better. So I use it as not where social media will, this tool will pump it out and I'll use it exactly as it is. I will give it a really great prompt or already do the post.

and then see what it comes back with to make it maybe clearer or sharper or that kind of thing. So it resonates more. But interesting that it pisses you off that, and it's not because people are putting a lot of content out there. You're saying it pisses you off because people aren't spending the time to deliver you the value.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (10:17)

my time is valuable to me. And so if I'm going to be, I already struggle with, you're, if you're on any, any platform that you're on, like people talk about how many followers they have on platforms. And one of the things about that is like, if somebody follows you on LinkedIn, they're not your contact. They are LinkedIn's contact. And then you're connected through there. And so yes, you're connected that way.

But if you disappear from LinkedIn or your profile gets hacked, they're gone.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (10:48)

a different point than what you're saying, right? So agreed that LinkedIn and other people own your thing, but you're saying that you're not as concerned with the quality of the content, but the fact that I didn't spend enough time to create it in your eyes to deliver something to you. So that's how I understood it.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (10:51)

Well, yes.

Yes, and what I'm saying is if you wanted to create a piece of something really valuable for me and you wanted to create it on YouTube and that was where I was consuming it was on YouTube, then that would be that that makes sense to me. You put the time you created this content you really wanted to share it. It's valuable to you. You put it out there. I consume it. It can be valuable to me. But if you put it on YouTube and then you also.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (11:19)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (11:38)

costs clips of it on TikTok and clips of it on Instagram and clips of it on these other things. And that content, while it did save you a bunch of time to put it on these other platforms, And you're using AI to just repeat it everywhere else. And to me, the value there for me is not the same as if you created the content for me.

That was, not being as intentional with that. All the other ones are just peripheral with that. for me.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (12:03)

Right, I hear what

you're saying, but I totally disagree. Because as a productivity person, I want to multipurpose. want to take one thing and I want to use it across other platforms. It's still me. It's still my message. And yeah, does someone on TikTok maybe want 90 seconds and they only want to hear, you know, maybe there's different profiles across different platforms. So you're saying one might be long form or short form, or maybe I'd use different language because there might be a different audience there.

but that's probably already built in and can be built into your prompt so that you multipurpose it in the best way. So I disagree. I want to multipurpose. And I also disagree that if I'm on the other side watching your content, if I like you, especially if it's a video, right? And there's actually something personal about it versus just, you don't know whether it just got pumped out of ChatTPT, but I see you and then I see you on other platforms.

I love it, I'm gonna keep following you. As long as that content is consistent with what you're saying and your message, then I don't care how much time you spent on it. This is your expertise. You can spend five minutes or five hours and shame on you if you're spending five hours on it. That's all I'm saying.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (13:16)

Yeah, I mean, it's a good point and it makes sense. And the value of your content is not lost on me. When I first discovered this AI, I was with some other content creators that was the point that they were bringing up to is that look, if they're interested in you and what you have to say, then this just helps you to get that across other platforms. And I recognize that, too. And so the last thing for you listening,

How much of your time do you spend on it? So if you haven't done this already, this is an awesome moment while you're listening to me tell you this right now to open up your phone open up settings and it's something called, it's in screen time is what it's called. And it will show you how much time you spend on each of the apps on your phone each day.

Go look at that real quick, just so you have a context of like, I'm talking about my time I spend, Penny talks about her time. How much of your time are you spending on it? And take a look at that right now. And now let's talk about our debate. So Penny, I want to couch this in two different perspectives.

First is from just me as a consumer of content, It's not from an ID idea or a thought leader perspective. It's from a just a regular guy or a regular girl. If you're on social media, should you quit social media? Why yes or why no?

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (14:35)

Well, I never would make a blanket statement since different people use it for different reasons. So when I lived abroad, I loved social media because it was a way for me to connect with a lot of people from home that I wouldn't otherwise be able to send individual letters to or be able to make individual phone calls. So putting up a picture of my kids as they're growing or something we did or a message to everybody was so great and being able to have that back and forth.

interaction so social media if you're the consumer you know is is to ask yourself. What you're consuming it for what value is it bringing you because for me in that context it brought me a lot of value. But that being said for me today. Is it's not bringing me as much value because.

the algorithms are not showing me, know, it's showing me more of the same stuff. And I don't want the same stuff. I want to open my perspective. I want to, I want to see different things. I don't want to keep seeing ads for a product that I already bought. So to me, it's adding less value to me right now in my context of where I am in my life. And so I think that's the first critical factor is

What and where is it adding value? Does it really add value to be on all the different platforms? if you're going to use it and you find value in it, that there's also value in setting a time limit and a time and place to do it so that you're not constantly looking at it throughout the day, give yourself that break.

but untapped and uncontrolled. We talked a little bit about it before. We're in the attention economy. Everybody is pushing stuff to you thinking that it's more sensational and we've lost control of our impulses. we have to be told not to have the phone in the car. And it has to be a law now that we can't even look at it at stoplights. And it has to be a law. I'm guilty of that too. I'll stop at the stoplight and I'll check my phone and I...

Recently, I was like, I cannot do this. This is awful. And it just became a law in Pennsylvania. So I was like, perfect. know, certain places in the house are gonna be zoned free because we've lost control of our impulses.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (16:47)

Totally. I think I loved your point. On the one hand, social media is a great way to keep in touch with people. Frankly, social media to me is my address book because guess what? People's phone numbers change over time. Their email over time. And you know what? When I'm want to reach, do occasionally. We just moved to another state. So like when I got to Florida, I was.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (16:59)

Hahaha!

Brian Nelson-Palmer (17:09)

reconnecting with folks that I haven't talked to and their phone numbers at all changed. I lost them. But you go on LinkedIn and there's they're still there. That's them or Facebook or Instagram or wherever you're connected with them. So for me, from the keep in touch perspective, it makes a lot of sense. However, I also really like what you said, which is the algorithms are determining what you're seeing. if I'm going on because I'm thinking, man, I haven't talked to Joe in forever. I wonder what Joe's doing.

and I go to Joe's profile and I look at whatever the posts are, where he is now, to me, that's valuable keeping in touch time on social media. But if you're on there and you're scrolling your newsfeed, I think the newsfeed is a waste of time because it's an algorithm. The social media company makes their money because of things in your newsfeed and advertisements. And it's only gotten worse over time. I just read an article the other day that just

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (17:46)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (18:05)

I got so frustrated because I read Facebook meta is leaning into AI content creation for ads. They want to make it as easy as possible for people to create ads. And so they're going to make billions of dollars giving you ads and your time. They're going to make money because you watch their ads that was made by a machine. And I just, that's just so frustrating. So I,

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (18:16)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (18:32)

Personally, I think. If you have people that you group text messages are one of my favorite things, you have groups of friends that know you, you know them, the meaningful connections I think that is way more meaningful looking at your photos and your actual history. I think that social media time personally for me on social media is not meaningful unless it's very intentional with I'm going on to find.

I log on there every couple of days to see what are the little red numbers. What notifications do I have. What messages do I have. What happened. Respond to those and then close social media. And that's the end of my time on social media. I don't know. Any thoughts.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (19:12)

Yeah, well, I like that you said it's so indicative of how we're all different, whether it's generational or what, but I hate group texts. I hate the binging and all that and having to follow who's, I hate that. Like that I would much rather have that the comments and everything are on a picture that I have on Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever. So it's interesting, right? We all have our preferences of what works for us.

and what doesn't. So that is overwhelming to me and I don't like that. But I think that's the thing is to understand who you are and recognize what works for you and what doesn't. One of the things I talk about when I talk about reset moments is this would be a great time for people to have a reset moment, which means let's rethink the way that we use social media. Let's get really aware of what works for me and what doesn't.

Recognizing my body when I'm feeling stress, what is creating this stress? And I've started to recognize some of those things and look to find other solutions because of the demands that are coming at me from different ways. And if I didn't have a rule of how I was going to work it without a rule, like a fixed way of saying, okay, I'm going to check social media for no more than 30 minutes and then set a timer. Then I know I'm going to do the important things while I'm there. And I'm going to be very intentional.

But like you said, if I'm scrolling and I end up down the rabbit hole, I didn't do what I came to do. Maybe I came to do research for one thing and I ended up watching cat videos or something, I don't know. So it wastes your time, but it also can create that stress if you're constantly checking it or feel like something's going on there. So it's really finding out what works for you and then really setting up some systems that support you to get.

the best of yourself for the day.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (21:00)

I think habit is a lot of to do with it as well. I think people are in the habit of when they're bored. Yeah. And I was this guy for so many years. So that's why I'm speaking from experience here. Get on the elevator, pull up and scroll social media real quick. You're in between. You're waiting for people to jump on a call at work. So you pull it out and you're scrolling. If you're bored that

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (21:07)

No.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (21:25)

the default, the habit became checking social media. And the one that I just recently changed was laying in bed. I used to be on my phone checking social media, and I would end up down a scrolling rabbit hole, And while certainly maybe there's a debate as to whether that was good or not, I got to tell you that I have been phone free in bed for four months now, and it has been life changing in a good way.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (21:50)

Mm.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (21:50)

it's, it's been such a positive thing as far as learning how to quiet your mind, not be engaged all the time. It's been such a good thing.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (21:51)

Absolutely.

I was just gonna say like, that's a rule that you can set for yourself. Go ahead.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (22:05)

Yeah, and so for you listening, what I was going to say is if you have a habit of social media, what are the things that you could replace that habit with that you would be more rewarding? if you have a split second instead of opening up social media, could you text your sister because you haven't talked to her in a while? Or could you text your parents or The other one that I love is people talk all the time about wanting to learn another language and they never have time. Well, there's apps.

on your phone that Duolingo is a free app that you can download.

There's a story I tell a lot when I speak about, there's a woman who worked with patients of all ages in hospice. And for six years, she kept track of the thoughts and advice these people gave in their final days. And the five most common bits of advice that they would give to pay it forward are things like, do more for others, be a better parent, spouse or child, take more risks, don't work so much, life balance is important.

Not one person ever said I wish I would have spent more time on social media. And so in the very end, when you go all the way to the end, all that time on social media is not going to be something you remember ever again. So let's be intentional with some of that time.

I'm not going to delete the accounts, but I think I'm done checking social media except once every few days like an email account.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (23:24)

I love what you said about some of those, replace those habits with more meaningful habits of reaching out to people that we care about and really making more of that one-on-one connection. Because also social media, as much as it is great to stay

connected, they're superficial connections. It shouldn't replace those deeper connections where you can really ask a personal question And maybe one last point on the habit is I want to take it a point further and I don't think it's a habit. It's an addiction. That's why I talked about impulse control. We are addicted.

And these measures of not having the phone in your bedroom, not checking your phone first thing in the morning so you can focus on the most important things, setting time limits for social media, for yourself, for your kids. It's essential so that we can break the addiction that we have and take back control.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (24:17)

I'm with you. You know, I want to shift gears now, Penny. Let's take this a step further because you and I are both thought leaders and content creators. And our business has to do with being an expert at various things or being known, having a reputation in the area. And there is this the number one reason that I have taught, I have.

workshops and keynotes and things that I've done over the years. And I help people for you listening. I'm going to include, have three blog posts that go over ways to help break the addiction as far as here's apps you can use to eliminate the newsfeed, to help you get off, to count the time on how long you're there. So I have a lot of resources that I'm going to make sure I give you in the notes. And the number one reason that people say they can't get off is because I use it for work.

they're just straight up, Nope, I have to be on. And so I've really struggled with that. let's switch to professionally now. Should you quit social media? Why yes, why no.

Or if it's in the middle, like, what is the right way? Talk about that penny.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (25:20)

So I put together some thoughts on why to stay and why to go. So let's talk about why to stay. So why to stay is that there is still a greater reach that you can get to over social media than many other ways. And not just the reach because you can do a podcast like this, which has reach. I don't know if podcasts are considered.

social media of sorts or not these days. But, you know, different types of forms, right? if you can multipurpose it, why not be present and just multipurpose it across all platforms so that you reach as many people as possible across all platforms? So I think from that perspective, all those platforms can be advantaged because your listeners might be on Instagram.

or they might find you first on Instagram, they might find you first on LinkedIn or YouTube or wherever. And they can't buy if they don't know who you are, right? So that's a big challenge that people have is that they've got this great content and this great product or whatever it is, but nobody knows who they are. So that to me is a big issue.

I think also social media, talked about it before, people could comment. It's an accelerator of relationships because there is interaction. So the difference between this podcast is that people can interact afterwards, but we're not taking questions or calls and there's not any direct interaction with the audience that's out there. And a post, people can make comments and that can help you.

Understand what somebody's challenges see who it's resonating with and so it starts to create a relationship and build that What do they call it? You know in order for people to buy they have to know like and trust you right? So it starts to build that that kind of awareness and it creates social proof to write people are commenting there They're seeing your post it gets 300 likes or whatever it gets and and so that creates some of that as well

So I think when used intentionally for your business, that it can be, it can really be valuable. A story that I might like to share here is the most important thing with any business, let's say platform that you're using or strategy that you want to use is know the rules of the game. It's so important today when we, when we talked about algorithm earlier that most of the people who follow me do not see my posts.

because of the algorithm. So that's even more frustrating. They're following me, but they don't see my content. So it's not even about the people who aren't following me. So I say, step back and really understand the rules of the game. And I want to refer to Tim Ferriss. I'm not sure if you're familiar with this, but he won a Chinese kickboxing national championship and he won it by...

focusing a strategy around the rules. One of the rules was if you push somebody outside of the ring three times, then you automatically win the match. And so he wasn't gonna win off of the other elements of the hitting. so he was really focused on that aspect. That was his strategy. That's what he practiced. And that's how he won. And, you know, at first I thought, well, that's a cheat and that's ridiculous. he didn't really win it, right? But...

That's not true. In any game, whether you're playing football or basketball or tennis, you know the rules of the game, know your opponents, and then you can play the game accordingly. So I think it's important that when you're doing it, that you're understanding and setting your strategy around how you need to play the game.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (28:53)

I agree. those points are really. Good ones and really helpful because obviously this is not this is definitely somewhere in the middle. There is not a definite yes or a definite no to this topic like I I am leaning toward wanting to challenge myself to leave it behind completely. However, I'm.

I'm reluctant to do that because I don't want to run. Like you said, there is a level of thought leadership that's there. People, they're like, for example, I'll use for myself as an example, most of my work and the people that I work with and clients and people that know me from the productivity gladiator side know me on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn is my primary platform. And I used to

spend a lot of time on all the other platforms trying to be everywhere because I just thought, well, if one's good, some other ones would be better. And it was really, there was a, there's a book called essentialism that I read with the book club that is, that is just game changing. And it really made sense where like, look, you could make little tiny splashes in a bunch of places, but how much water are you going to displace if you make one big splash in one spot?

that's gonna make way more difference. So to your point, like you said about knowing the game or knowing how it's played or whatever, I decided that the only thing that I currently post on any of the other platforms, on Facebook, Instagram, I've got a TikTok for Productivity Gladiator if you wanna see it there. And the only post that goes up there now is the new episode alert post whenever I drop a new episode, that is the only thing that goes there. And now those places are billboards.

If you want to go looking for me, you will find me there. However, the profile says, join the email list and come, know, LinkedIn and email are the ways that I really operate right now. And so

If you're in business and your business has a budget, then you can be on all the platforms and pay to get into people's algorithms. And at that point, do your thing. You can afford it. But for those of us, if you're trying to use it organically and you're thinking, be on more of these platforms, no, man, find the one, the number one platform for the type of person you want to connect with and be on that one platform and own that platform.

And it's way more effective than trying to be on all the platforms. So ultimately my, my point here in this area is the other, the flip side to that is beyond one platform. just said that now I want to go off social media completely. I,

I think that meaningful connections, referrals are how my business really works. You're right. Social proof is a thing. They should be able to find you on those platforms. But if they, if your friend says that Brian's awesome, then that's going to be worth way more than anything I do on social media. And I'll get another speaking gig from that one or whatever that is.

There was another speaker that I was following who came. I'm a member of the National Speakers Association. And I came in and was talking and he said, you know, if you think about having a business, if your business is putting out content on social media and hoping that somebody finds you or hoping that that will somehow generate revenue and you're not, you, if you can't project or predict how much business you're going to have in the future.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (32:17)

Thank

Brian Nelson-Palmer (32:25)

based on what you're doing, you don't actually have a business. And when he said that it was like light bulb, mind blown moment where it's like, my gosh, that is so true. Your real customers, the real people that you work with, the actual business, knowing, are they going to be around being able to project? How much am I going to do? And it's not just

a raffle, like, I going to win the raffle and have a good month? You should be able to predict it. And at that point, you have a good business. And for me, I kind of want to do more with that angle of my business, where how do I reach out to people and find customers and find people that I can work with and find that stuff? Because I want to be able to predict how my business is going to be, not just put social media out there.

So I don't know. know I've been going for a minute. Let me pause there, Penny. I'm curious if you have any thoughts on those, but that's my that's my challenge to myself is I kind of want to get off of it and I don't know. I'm afraid I am afraid to get off of it because of what I might lose. And that's a stupid reason to stay on.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (33:19)

in.

yes and no. Right. So it depends on where your target market is. So you said, you know, choose one platform and blow that up. Well, you don't have to blow any of them up to your point, right? Is you could have a billboard everywhere and that could be enough because you were targeting in other ways. So the way that I look at it is you can still get referrals and get business from

from social media, people who liked your content, they pass it on to somebody who's having an event and things like that. And then, and then you get that event. But let's say you just chose a billboard and you posted. And if the, if you did the minimal, I would say the best bang for your buck there is a newsletter because the LinkedIn newsletter will send an email out to the people who are your followers. And that's the only way that those followers were, will see your, your posts.

in that case. like that's, you what's the one thing again, knowing the rules and how everything works, what's the one thing that you could do? And maybe you do that once a month, right? You don't have to do it twice a week. You could do it once a month. So just having that, that billboard I do believe is valuable because like you said, those people might be in those different places, but you can really minimize the energy by saying, where are the people who are buying now? This is my strategy. And this is why I'm considering

really going away from a lot of the social media that I've been doing is because I want to hit the people who are buying now in our industry, right? As public speakers, we can't really guarantee where our business is coming from unless we're doing repeat events or we have clients that we do multiple events for throughout the year or training or something of that nature. But we do want to get in front of the people who are having those events now and they're booking now for maybe six months, right? So

There's some lead time, but we could do things more with trade, with associations. We can look for different connections. We can work with speaker bureaus and anybody's business. can say, well, who?

How do we invest in understanding who they are and where they are? Who else interacts with them that it could be a great fit? Let's say it's a different business. Let's say I want to work with CEOs. I might make a relationship with accountants or lawyers who have access to those senior executive level people.

it's just an added benefit that they could do if they could also refer me, right? So that, for instance, financial advisors do that all the time as they have key referral partners. You talked about referrals. The fastest and easiest way to build any business, like you said, is referrals. And I guess that would be the thing is to look at, what else is the fastest way to meet those people who are having, need your product now and have

to the people that you want to get access to.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (36:30)

I think I want, I want to, I almost want to take what you're saying to another level because the referrals are good and your, if your product is so good that they want to refer you, that's how you know your product is good enough. And if it's not there yet, keep working on it. And my, my comparison for that is there's an easy way to find this out by the way, if you, don't know how to do this, there's an easy way to do it, which is to

ask one of your previous customers or several of your previous customers that you have a relationship with, reach out and ask them one question. And the one question is, it's called the net promoter score. This is a thing you can Google it. I'll include a link in the, in the episode notes, but on a scale from zero to 10 with zero being not at all likely and 10 being extremely likely, how likely would you be to recommend your product insert thing here, product event speaker, whatever.

to a friend or colleague. And if they rate it as a nine or a 10, that means you were good and ask them why you were good. And if they rate it an eight, then they're like meh and ask them what you could do better. And if it's seven, six or less, definitely those are the people you want to ask a lot more questions and find out why not. And then keep working, keep fixing it until it is so good that they absolutely you're the top of mind. You're not just

good. You're not just okay. You are great and make it great and then do the referrals. And that's where I feel like we're so caught up on social media because you could get more customers from social media. And I'm, I'm struggling with, you know, if I go back and just continue refining my keynote and continue making it doing more, making it even better than every time I speak, it's going to be another one. And so like for speaking, could be that if your business is

different. How do you make the experience that much better exceed their expectations? Make it a 10. You want to be a 10 for that and keep making it better. And I truly think that the really busy people, you know, the businesses you've worked with where they're running away, they're busy, they're not worried about how their social media posting is happening because they're so busy doing a good job and taking care of the people that they work with. And so I really, I just, that's the part that I'm really

thinking about is like, man, if I didn't use LinkedIn, if I didn't, I certainly email and newsletters. I want to be directly connected with people. I want to I'm going to continue putting out great content. And but that's the that's the pieces. How do you make it so good? That it keeps going. It I don't know. That's just the part that I've been waffling back and forth in my head about is like, want to do.

You know, maybe LinkedIn, maybe don't let go of LinkedIn, but then if it's good enough, I don't need it. And then you go round and round and round.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (39:24)

Right. you know, first, one of the principles that I would say here with social media is that to constantly check in to see how it's working for you and whether your content is adding value. Because one of the key principles I use when I talk about dynamic reassessment and the reset mindset is things work until they don't. And very often, even though that sounds completely obvious, and we know that,

we still get caught up in that trap where we're not paying attention to the signals that things are not working. And so we have to create what I call reset rhythms to really check in and see what's working, what's not working. And like you said, where do we add more value? Where is the opportunity? What's changing in the marketplace? How are people working differently, thinking differently, consuming differently, and what would add more value? And coming down to your point of

minimalism and you being the value guy, right? Focus on those key points of where your value is and really hone in on that. Like you said, just really refine it and refine it and everything will come from that. So maybe you have one or two really amazing newsletters or posts or something that delivers amazing content. And then that draws people to you.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (40:18)

Yeah.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (40:40)

and you can work on the experience that goes around that or that goes around the next level when they engage with you and then the next level and the next level so that they stay longer because that's a huge way. Not only is it the easiest way to get your business is through referrals, but the easiest way to grow your business is to get more business from the people you already have. I call that do more with what you have. So for people go through your client list and see,

Brian Nelson-Palmer (41:04)

Yes.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (41:08)

who left and why they left and try to reconnect and show them how you can deliver better value today or even more, maybe how it could be a fit again for them. Go through the people who said no and find out why they said no and look to create a product or offering that makes them say yes.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (41:25)

Absolutely. You all those people that follow you, do they even know what you do? Have you sent them a message? Like in in LinkedIn, for example, I've got a very healthy amount of LinkedIn contacts and I'm pretty confident that many of them don't really know what productivity gladiator is or how I can help what exactly it is that I do. And so when I think about I could put a social media post together where the algorithm might show it to

5 % of the people who follow me and maybe or maybe not, they'll ever see me again in their news feeds or I could send them a direct message and introduce myself and share a bit about and ask how I can be helpful. it's just it's stuff like that where it's like, man, I here. I've sort of here's where I've arrived. I don't know, Penny would tell me where I've arrived with this is I think I want to be more intentional with the social media in the use directly connecting with.

people and I want to social media is going to be great to let people know. Like you said, newsletter, Hey, let me be helpful. Here's the concept for this week or not even this week, but like here's a helpful concept that I want to share. And I put that stuff out regularly. This is so the podcast is that. And so if you want to tune in, join that, but then direct connect. Like you said, I do think you having a profile on each of the platforms so that when people search for you, they can find you.

and then the profile will send them to where you are if they're looking. That's kind of where I'm kind of landing here is a presence. Yeah.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (42:55)

It makes sense, but I'm going to challenge you, if I might, on

you're going to do outreach on LinkedIn. So the reason that a lot of people are leaving LinkedIn is because it's a pitch fest. And I get so many pitches, I'm sure you do and everyone out there, and I don't even read them. and unfortunately it's gotten to a point because there's all these AI and whatever that are making the tools that are just sending, you know, so many out a day that

Brian Nelson-Palmer (43:01)

Okay.

That's true.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (43:22)

they're meaningless. And so when somebody even has a good pitch, I'm not even interested because I don't know them. Somebody wants to offer me something that I could probably use, but I don't know them yet. And if I don't follow them and I don't know them, I'm not going to engage with them because I don't have the time. I'm not on that platform that often. So I would argue that that is not your best form of getting people's attention. You can do that. And people hire.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (43:30)

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's true.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (43:50)

third party

people to cut and paste and put that in or even a thoughtful message. But in reality, that's a long game. And so I would encourage other, what about taking that content you have and putting it in a trade magazine where if it's relevant to exactly those people who are reading that magazine, that they're gonna be attracted to that article, to that content. And then they come over and follow you. And maybe one of the reasons why I create a substack

Brian Nelson-Palmer (43:59)

You all

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (44:17)

newsletter and I'm not sure that that is the answer. But A, to bring them off so I own the list. But B, for that interaction is that then people are choosing to follow you and so you can have more of that interaction. You can create communities and work groups. The answer isn't clear because we're in a transition. People are skeptical. They're hesitant. They're annoyed at all the interruptions.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (44:36)

Yeah.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (44:44)

And so it's a question of how to really truly connect with someone that you can add value to and for them to be able to see that.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (44:45)

Yeah.

true. And that brings me back to like even email list. Have you ever sent the people on your email list a personal note to connect with them? Or are they just part of the herd that you're trying to build? And have you done anything with it? And like that's, oof, it's just, we're not going to, obviously we're not going to solve that part on the, on this podcast, but man, that's a, that's a good one. So let me, let me add a couple more things, Penny, that I just want to touch on. The first one is,

I'd love for you to share what are the warning signs that social media has crossed from a productivity tool to a productivity killer? Like for the person listening, what would you say to them to help recognize the signs?

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (45:33)

the signs as a user or as a business.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (45:35)

Both.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (45:36)

Well, I mean, one of them would be stress. How much stress is it causing you as you're fielding messages and trying to be across all these different platforms back to your point of choosing one? If you're feeling stressed about that, then choose one, right? That's a signal. That's a point to say, okay, I need to reset and look at this and approach it in a different way. how many hours or?

minutes are you spending on each platform and is that truly giving you joy? Is that adding value to your business or creating some sort of value or joy to you? If not, are you learning something? Great. Some people are online and they're getting education, right? And it's making a difference for them. And if you're just scrolling and it's not really making a difference, what's the opportunity cost? What could you be doing, like you said, that's more meaningful, whether it's...

connecting with people that you love, whether it's learning something that could be valuable, whether it's just doing something that's more joyful. Maybe you always wanted to paint or something that gets more of your creative side going. I think that is one of the things that's missing the most is that creative side. We'll listen to a podcast and we'll learn something there or, but how do we engage our creativity so that we're thinking differently, not just driving down

a particular road to get smarter in one area, but how do we go broader? Because that also is going to be a big and important thing for the future as we have tools that will help us to dig deep, but we need to be able to make unique connections between different areas.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (47:13)

Yep. And what would if the person listening could take just one action after our conversation today, Penny, what would you want them to take away?

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (47:22)

I think it's just to set up a structure for themselves, get a piece of paper and set up a structure as to, yeah, look for those signals. What value is each platform giving you? Maybe come up with four five different questions. Some of them we shared here. What's the opportunity cost? What value are you getting from it? And those types of things, and just journal.

just journal on it, take a few minutes to answer those questions and really thoughtfully reflect and see what would enhance your life. I mean, don't have, this isn't my area of specialization. I do like creating frameworks and stuff like that. And I think it would be setting some kind of structure to journal around because I think that what doesn't work so well for people is just to

Brian Nelson-Palmer (47:53)

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (48:08)

have a blank piece of paper and just journal. So if you took a structure that helped you a few questions, a way to reflect on it, to see how it's serving you and where it's not, and then giving you what's your next step. And that's the most important thing is not just to reflect, but what insights do you gain from that reflection? And then what are you going to do differently? And specific actions, right? Cause we all know, we're like, well I'll,

Brian Nelson-Palmer (48:10)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (48:35)

be on social media less. Well, that doesn't matter because there's nothing specific, there's no action to take. So it would be coming back to some of the things you mentioned, it might be okay, well, I'm gonna not have my phone in my bedroom. I'm gonna stop being on my phone after 7 p.m. Whatever it might be that they're concrete. I have a thing called gatekeepers and using the rule of three. And I think this is something that they could use as a framework where they set some rules that help them to

Brian Nelson-Palmer (48:48)

Yeah.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (49:03)

regulate and not have to make that decision. It's already clear at seven o'clock. I'm off my phone. I put it in the basket. I'm done. So you don't have to think as much about it and reduces decision fatigue filters. What kind of filters can you put in place? That some people have things on their phone where it shuts down social media channels after a certain period of time or you go gray scale. So it's not as as addictive. know, what filters can you put in place? Maybe I block hours in my calendar.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (49:26)

Yeah.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (49:30)

or 30 minutes at the end of the day or 30 minutes at lunch and those are my block times. And then the last one is the environment. How do you control the environment you're in to support you?

Brian Nelson-Palmer (49:41)

I love that. So then as a last thing, Penny, let's both take a taste of our own medicine here. Penny, I want to challenge us. I want you to share where you are with social media right now. What are you actually going to do with it? What's your intention around social media right now?

And I'll share mine after this conversation. Here's my intention on what I'm going to do with social media right now. And this might change by the time you hear this episode. But this is this is it right here. What what where are you at now? Go ahead, Penny. And then I'll go to.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (50:04)

Yeah.

Okay, you know, I'm at pulling back from LinkedIn and I'll do my newsletters. I'm doing them, what is it, once or twice a week now. So I will cut right back to that. I'll do one every other week and reduce that number. So reduce the number of posts, but really look at the quality of posts and look at, for me, setting time limits.

because I have been on it way too much and looking to, hey, this person made a comment, LinkedIn says you have to do it within 30 minutes for it to, I'm saying screw the algorithm, I don't care. I'm not playing to that anymore because that creates stress for me. So even though I say no the rules, we have to also decide whether we wanna play by the rules and it creates too much stress. So I'm gonna have certain times that I go on and that's it. That's gonna be my main thing is just setting some rules around.

when and how I use it so that I don't have to think twice about

Brian Nelson-Palmer (51:04)

I love that. For me, I think on the personal front, I've I've been very structured with this from, you know, I early in the very beginning, I told you about checking how much time you spend on social media with your screen time settings in your phone. You can also set limits in there. And so I set limits on mine as 15 minutes a day. And I've really decided that I want.

once a week to be my new paradigm for checking the platforms. And what I mean by that is almost checking it like an email where you log on there and what are the notifications. And if somebody reached out to me specifically, if it's a message from someone, I love that. I want to engage. want them to know that I do check it occasionally. for me, on the personal front, I'm on Instagram and Facebook, and I want to check those once a week and respond to messages.

and look at notifications, but not do the news feed at all. And on LinkedIn, I want to set aside time once a day to check the notifications because I do want to be a little more timely on LinkedIn from a professional sense, since this is where referrals come from and that kind of thing. But I'm with you. It's not going to be based on how fast did you respond or whatever. It's no. When I'm able to check it, I'll check it once a day on LinkedIn.

and the other ones are off. I'm also going to delete all of these platforms from my phone. They're no longer going to be a phone activity. It's going to be a desktop activity. So I'm going to sit at my desk, and I am going to check the platforms the same way I would when I check my computer. And that's going to be where I do all of it, and it's no longer on my phone. And so the time limit's still there. If I ever have to pull it up, you can pull it up in the Safari browser or the Chrome browser.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (52:27)

you

Wow, that's a good one.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (52:48)

But the experience kind of sucks, but you can accomplish something. But I want to do less with it there on the personal front. And then for the business, I'm going to redo all of my social media pages so that it does say that if you want to find us, here's the website and sign up for the email list and the podcast. Let them know where I am, where the best place is to follow. And then that way they're, like you said, the billboards.

If you go looking for me there, you'll find productivity gladiator and it will tell you where to go to find more. And I I want to stay active on LinkedIn with that. When it comes to new episodes like this, maybe you're tuning into this episode for the first time because of a post you randomly saw on LinkedIn. And I think that's great. Like that, that absolutely happens. I love what you said. I, the email newsletter thing is good. So that's my intention there is once a day on LinkedIn, only on the desktop and

No more on phone and check it once a week. That's where I'm at now.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (53:45)

Awesome.

Well, I love that. And you know, I'm glad you asked that question because I'm going to sit with that for a little bit and I'm going to make a list and really look to do that. Because my husband and I, we were talking about that this morning and been talking about it in the last little while where we said, we're not going to bring a phone here. We're not going to. So I really want to write them down because I think that adds it. You you take it from up here as an idea to a concrete rule and way that you want to operate.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (54:11)

Yeah. And for you listening, if you haven't, we just showed you what we're going to do. If you haven't paused for a second and actually made the note written down the things you're going to do, please do that. Because like Penny said, until you actually decide what are the concrete steps you're going to do for it. It's one thing to think about it. It's another thing to make a plan and actually try to do some of it. So I hope that you'll do that too, because I'm very much where we're both going to do it. I'm going to be working on this. So.

Penny, this has been great. Now talk real quick about, you had mentioned you talked about the reset mindset. So talk about your book and talk about the keynote.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (54:48)

Yeah, definitely. Well, my book, The Reset Mindset came out in September and really proud it won a number of awards. I was on the USA Today National Best Seller list. got just a lot of really on the success magazine, best book list and business book list and number one best seller on Amazon. So lots of great accolades. People are really resonating with it. And it's exciting because as I have conversations like this,

the more conversations I have around it I hear how people are interpreting it, it leads to new and cool things. And one of the things it's leading to is a new keynote that I'm working on, which is around sort of the leadership in the age of AI and personalization. And maybe this is another talk that we can have if you want to do that. And it's really around, if we look at the...

personalization and how it's changed over the years. Now we're moving into an AI driven predictive. You can go on and look at YouTube and it's gonna give you more of the same types of videos, which can be good if that's what you're looking for. It's gonna serve you up on Amazon, other things to buy that relate to the things that you like, other books that you might like. And there's interesting, there is a gap.

in the organization in utilizing this type of personalization in a way that can enhance the employee experience as well as a customer experience, right? So we're seeing that on some of those platforms, but we're gonna see more and more of that and we're gonna see how people are gonna be co-collaborating to create their profile with their learning styles and the different ways, maybe the different generations, their different personality preferences, work preferences.

And that's all gonna come into how we can work better as organizations and be better leaders so we can give more specific feedback that can land in the best way, that we can onboard people in a much more effective way. And that is the new age of personalization when it comes to leadership. And I'm excited too with all the research that I'm doing and really to talk more about that in the coming months.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (56:59)

That's awesome. Well, thanks so much for sharing that. And I'll definitely have the links to what she's talking about, whether it's if you want to find out more about her keynotes or her the book, I'll have those links for you in the notes to this episode as well. So you can jump straight there and check those out. And if they want to keep in touch with you, what's the best way for them to keep in touch?

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (57:16)

The best way to keep in touch, can follow me on LinkedIn. We were talking about that. I am present there and do have my newsletter and everything. Substack is where they can also get me because my newsletter is on both platforms. And my website is pennyskeynote.com. So P-E-N-N-Y-S keynote.com.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (57:35)

and I'll get those links down there in the notes for you too. So that'll be it.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (57:38)

Awesome. I know

we took a picture and I introduced the Rubik's Cube. I'd love to explain a little bit about why I use the Rubik's Cube as a metaphor for the complexities of our lives. Can I do that real quick?

Brian Nelson-Palmer (57:50)

This could be fun. Yeah, let's do it. What do you got?

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (57:51)

All right,

so we learn best and retain things when we can use anchors and metaphors and things like that. So the Rubik's Cube has actually 43 quintillion different configurations. That's crazy, right? So it's a super complex puzzle, but there's only a few simple moves that are done over and over again that solve the cube and take us from here to here, right? It's an algorithm. And so with the concept of the reset mindset,

is that there's just three simple moves when we do it over and over again, can be the algorithm for our life and have the same impact to take us from chaos to clarity, right? Or distracted to focused, or even from impossible to possible. So that's the metaphor that I use and how people can remember just to do these three simple steps to take back control, to dynamically reassess and leverage that point of.

things work until they don't that we're constantly checking in and making sure that we're putting our time, attention and energy on the right things and the things that are gonna move the needle for us, right?

Brian Nelson-Palmer (58:56)

That's awesome. All right. I never thought about the Rubik's Cube that way. you're right. I do know how to solve a Rubik's Cube. So I did go back and learn the three moves that you're talking about so that I could do that. So that does, that resonates a lot. Thanks for that.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (59:02)

Cool.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (59:09)

I like that. And for you tuning in, do you have a friend or colleague who you've talked about social media and too much time on social media with? Does this remind you of someone? And would you share the link to this episode specifically with them? Because I know that Penny and I would love to know that our conversation touched people that are facing the social media conundrum.

Penny Zenker: The Focusologist (59:11)

That's my step.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (59:37)

today and a few texts or messages or however back and forth with you directly a direct message would be so thoughtful and I'm sure it would mean it would be such a treat for them to hear from you probably more than you know. So thanks for passing on our conversation and also I do more than podcast. You heard me talk about it in this episode all the knowledge and the help that I share goes to my email subscribers first. So if you're not already on the email list please come join the fun but

I love sharing Productivity Gladiator with you because together these productivity skills are going to change your life. That's a wrap.

Brian Nelson-Palmer
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How Hidden Beliefs Are Wrecking Your Productivity - With Rachel Druckenmiller