Mastering Focus: Penny Zenker's Strategies for High Achievers

0:01 Welcome to The Coaching Equation, brought to you by Empire Partners and hosted by Ryan Lang and Brooke Bishop. Our mission is to help you build a profitable and impactful coaching business by cutting through the noise and all the expert advice to deliver tried and true actionable insights that you can deploy in your business today. Each week, we bring on expert guests, unveil cutting-edge tactics and strategies, and share the secrets and stories that we've gathered from working with the most successful coaching companies on earth. Welcome to episode 20 of the Coaching Equation podcast.

0:42 I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners, alongside my co-host and co-founder, Brooke Bishop. And we've got a fantastic guest on today's episode. Penny Zinker is with us. Now, Penny is known as the focusologist. She is a captivating international speaker, business strategy coach, and bestselling author. She centers her work around the psychology of productivity to eliminate distraction, perfectionism, and self-sabotage so that you can maximize results both personally and professionally. Penny is no stranger to success. By the time she was 31 years old, she had built and sold a multimillion dollar company in Zurich.

1:26 She's also served as a Tony Robbins business coach, which is a really fun connection we get to explore inside of the episode. And her book, The Productivity Zone, was an instant inspiration. Amazon bestseller. Her TEDx talk, The Energy of Thought, has had over 1 million views worldwide. And her new book, which I'm so excited to explore on today's episode, is called The Reset Mindset. It's gonna be published in 2024, actually just a couple of weeks after the publishing of this episode. Penny has been featured on NBC News, Forbes, Inc., ESPN, Wharton Business Radio, and many, many more. Buckle up for episode 20 of the Coaching Equation podcast.

2:11 Welcome back to the Coaching Equation podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners, alongside my co-founder and co-host, Brooke Bishop. What's up, man? What's up? What's up? And for those of you that are joining us on the video side of the podcast, you can see we've got a lovely third edition to the party today. Penny Zenker is with us today. What's going on, Penny? Penny. I am so excited to dive into this because I think that what you do and your content and everything that you're about is going to be so unbelievably helpful to our audience. But before we go too far down the road, first of all, I have to just ask this question. Where did the nickname the Focusologist come from?

2:53 Let's start there because I love this and I got to know the story behind it. Well, thank you. I'd love to say that, you know, that somebody actually came up with it for me, but the truth is I made it up. I love it even more. You know, we get to do that, right? But I did make it up for a reason and people in all the people, executives and teams that I've coached, clearly the theme through my life and the work that I do is around how to keep people focused on what matters most, whether it's And so, you know, as we entered into this current day that we're in, so, you know, I think it was really around just before the pandemic, around the pandemic, that I realized that we need to take back our focus.

3:39 We are completely losing our focus. We are addicted to distraction and being pulled in all different directions. Hmm. And so I felt like it needed to be a movement. So not only was it something that I was doing for others, but I know that I need to do it for myself. So I made up a definition because when you make up a word, you got to make up a definition. Yeah, I love this. So I call it, it's the practice, right? The daily practice of controlling and directing the energy of our thoughts, our actions and our behaviors to deliver a positive, meaningful result. Okay, I'm tempted to just dive in there.

4:19 But before we do, before we do, tell us a little bit about kind of, you know, your early backgrounds and beginnings with this work. What was it that really got you honed in on all of this and in the first place kind of pre pandemic? I mean, I think the way that things start for us all, right, is like we have a path. And so I think that the path really started when I was 19, when my father died in an accident. There's reasons why it may have started sooner, but I'll start there. with the biggest shift for me that life is now. And we need to focus on what matters most and be more intentional with our choices so that we can live the life that we want to live with the people that matter most to us.

5:05 And I think that it started really there. And then everything just kind of layered on top of it, having that same direction for me, if that makes sense. So, yeah. And then I started my own IT business. Yeah. And I would help people to automate processes. And if we think about when they would automate their processes, it would give them more time to focus on the more critical work. Right. So that's what I mean by it just continued to build on top of each other. And then, you know, as I got into coaching people around this after, you know, fast forwarding, it's just always been about that. Let me ask, before we dive into the coaching and that kind of stuff, I'd love... We all are going to have or have had traumatic, difficult, challenging things that happen in our external environment that we can't control.

5:58 And I want to circle back to the time when your father passed away and you're 19 years old, which is... I mean, that's a difficult time for that. It's difficult anytime, but certainly at that age. Was there something in particular that got you to go, okay, I've got to kind of decide what I'm focusing on. I've got to decide what I'm going to make this mean because if I don't X, was there something that got you to go down that line of thinking? Because so many people, so many people in an instance like that would just decide that it means another thing and go down a completely different path. So was there something there for you? Yeah. And I talk about this in my book, right? I think the first question that I asked myself was, why me, right?

6:42 We kind of make ourselves sort of, and all the thoughts that come around, why me? And, you know, I found myself, my father was actually, it was an accident while he was away on vacation. And so and any other way that he would have fallen when he was sort of bumped by a bus and, you know, his legs just took him too fast and landed on the one spot in his forehead that actually rendered him brain dead almost instantly. Yeah. And so at first, right, it's wanting to find somebody to blame, right? We're wanting to blame that bus driver, you know, for being not paying attention. And, you know, that's kind of the natural instance of what we do.

7:22 And I realized that that wasn't getting me anywhere. That that why me was putting me as the victim and it was only kind of sucking me into more negativity. And somewhere along the line, I just realized that that was the wrong question. It was driving me down a path where I was in class. I was just getting sucked into that negativity. And so I realized that the question is exactly what you said is, what does this mean? And then what else could this mean? So if I've given it the meaning, you know, that I could have been risk averse and said, I'm not going to go on vacation anymore. And I'm never going to do anything that challenges me because I'm sure to, you know, but I actually went the opposite where I said, what does this mean?

8:03 It means life is now. It means life is precious and that we have one life to live and that we should do everything possible to live boldly and loudly. And so I think that that's the meaning that I ultimately gave it. You know, and also in hindsight, right, a lot of this is clearer to communicate than what I would have done. But I immediately like six months later, as I was going through this funk, I signed up to go first semester abroad. Right. To see the world like, you know, and that brought me into a whole nother trajectory. with curiosity and really being open to different perspectives and has shaped my life tremendously.

8:44 So it was, you know, it was one of the greatest, even though it was one of the biggest tragedies in my life, it was also one of the greatest gifts in my life. You mentioned about things that we can't control. I think that, Ultimately, the greatest gift that I got was appreciating that there is a lot in our lives that we can't control. And it comes back to focus. We get to choose to focus on the things that we can control. Powerful. That's insanely powerful. And it was then when you were abroad, I mean, you were able to create quite a bit of success in the business world after, you know, doing what you did. I'm just curious, what was sort of the entry point there? I went after it, right?

9:25 Love it. Well, the entry point when I got transferred was just, I was working at JP Morgan in New York City and was working in this special training program where we ran around to each different division of the bank. And, you know, I would say there, I just got lucky that it turned into an international assignment. I was looking for it. I was actually going to leave the firm and go somewhere else. But they were sending all the young people so that they didn't have to put kids into special school programs, right? It costs more to send somebody who's got a family overseas. So they sent all us young people. None of the women came back, by the way. So be careful, right? Those family accents, they'll get you every time. But that sent me over to Zurich, Switzerland to start it out in consulting, you know, at JP Morgan.

10:12 And then I left there to go into consulting, staying in Switzerland. And it's just One of the most beautiful places in the world. So, you know, I couldn't leave. And that's where I started my own IT business after a couple of years. That is so cool. You know, what I love about everything that you're saying is, you know, we talk around here a lot about kind of embracing the journey, letting go so much of like how things are going to happen and all of that stuff. And you know what I love, what I want to point out that I'm sure you're hyper aware of, but for the person listening to this right now... We're talking about asking better questions. We're talking about curiosity. We're talking about what are we making things mean? Embracing these types of ideas eventually put you in a situation where you're willing to allow the flow of life to happen on the way to the outcomes that you're, you know, that you're kind of seeking.

11:03 I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Just to highlight what you're saying is that question, what else does this mean? Is like something that I've been more conscious of so that when I realize I'm giving something a challenging meeting that I say, what else could this mean? And what else could this mean? I actively use that as a tool for me to choose something that's more productive and bring me to a better outcome. So I think, you know, you're spot on when you say that. And I just want to make sure that it's crystal clear for people that are listening that this is a tool. Yeah, 100%. 100%. You know, so you've worked with a lot of big companies, you've coached a lot of big time A players. Speaking of which, I think we got a little bit of a connection here with Tony Robbins.

11:48 Since I saw your name, I'm like, I know Penny somehow. I'm like, where do I know Penny? But I think we might have worked together at some point in time. Did we meet in another life? I think we did. I think it's quite possible. As soon as I saw the focus piece too, I'm all, oh, where focus goes, energy flows. I'm like, this is gonna be a very, very fascinating conversation today. Yeah, that's definitely Tony's quote. And I love it. It's so true. So true. And all about energy management and directing our energy. Were you coaching for Tony? Is that the capacity you're working with him in that? Or how did that... I was with Business Breakthrough. So it was a joint venture between Chet Holmes and Tony Robbins, and we would be part of the Business Mastery. That's where our paths across.

12:28 So I was in charge of Business Mastery. So that's where... Well, perfect. That's how it was. Business breakthroughs in the crossover with Chet and the whole crew over there. And that's fantastic. Yeah. That's funny. Small world, right? It is a very small world. It makes a lot of sense too, because I'm like, the stuff you're talking about, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is so critical and so timely in the world today. You know, just even your mentioning of how distracted the planet is. I mean, that's what all these marketing companies are paid. I mean, it's what we're trying to do with our own marketing, with our clients, is we're trying to disrupt where they're at and get their attention. So, yes, focus is now a superpower. So, this is a very pertinent subject matter and topic. So, that's very cool that you got to support on that end. Yeah, it was a great experience.

13:08 And actually, if it wasn't for them rejecting me to be speaking on the stage, I wouldn't be where I am today because I actually had a chance. Unfortunately, when Chet died, you know, they were redoing things and having some other speakers that they were building up. And I was really... upset that I wasn't chosen for that. You know, it was only a couple of slots that they were looking for. But it sparked a spark for sure underneath my butt. And I realized that maybe it was because and this is comes back to meaning. Does that mean that I'm not meant to be a speaker? Or does that mean that I'm meant to speak my own truth and my own content? And so I chose the one that served me best and started to speak my own content, my own truth, be further developing that.

13:55 And, you know, today I speak all over the world as a public speaker. Speaking of which, speaking of which, speaking of speaking, see how I did that? That was awesome. So you are, I mean, I'm going to use the word prolific, I think, in certain ways as a public speaker, Penny. And I mean, your TEDx talk has had over a million views. And I'm really intrigued. The energy of thought. Tell us more about that. Well, it's all intertwined into what we're talking about, right? You know, and that's why I define the focusologist as the energy of our thoughts, our feelings and our actions produce a positive, meaningful result. Because that is what focus is. You know, coming back to where focus goes, energy flows or energy flows.

14:39 I always forget which way it goes. It goes both ways. Is that we have more control over the energy of our thought than we give service to. And it's a skill that needs to be practiced, especially today. As you said, we're so distracted. We're so busy. We're so much less intentional. If we're not careful, right, more and more going away from intentionality. So the energy of our thought is really how we stay in tune with the stories that we tell ourselves, the words that we use and what they're telling us about what we're actually thinking deep down and how when we pay attention, we can reframe that to something that's more productive.

15:22 And I really want to be clear for people listening. This is not about positivity. It's about being more intentional. What's the difference? I'm not saying it can't be about that. It can't be a positive of nature, but like, you know, me going through my father's death or getting rejected from this, it wasn't like a ridiculous sense of positivity. Like I'm so great. I'm going to, you know, be the best in the world. I had no idea that it would ever be as successful as I am right now. It was saying just intentionally that there is a better way for me to interact with this. Just like I did with my father, I could go down this rabbit hole of negativity. And what does that bring out in me? That brings out the worst in me. It has me interact with people in a more conflict type of way.

16:06 And that just, it just mounts. And you start to behave in ways that aren't in line or congruent with how you see yourself or how you want to be. So it's really just defining your identity of who you want to be, who you see yourself in the future, and then aligning those behaviors and living that, right? So it's intentionality. I don't know if I define that well enough. No. No, I think you did. And I love the distinction between the two, because in my mind, I feel like, you know, we hear that word positive. Oh, I'm a positive person. Like Stuart Smalley comes to mind for me. It's like, you know, affirmations in the mirror, you know, kind of a thing. And, you know, I feel like where I think this is so powerful, what you're saying, Penny, I love this because I think that we often force positivity.

16:54 I think positivity is something we try to will to happen in many ways. Intentionality is a choice. And what I love is what you're saying is like, hey, there can be positive aspects or things that come along with that. But really, we're exercising something that is within our control at all times. Yeah. Whereas positivity can come and go or we can try to force it. But intentionality is not forced. We either choose it or we don't. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. It keeps us in that place of choice and it makes it conscious. Right. I feel like intentionality also brings it to the surface so that we're really conscious of those choices because very often we're still making choices.

17:37 We're just often not conscious of what choices we're making. You know, we're going to have an opportunity to spend some time digging in on a little teaser, the new book that's coming out. Super exciting. Before we do that, I really want to make sure. Oh, she just double teased it. A double teaser. Before we do that, though, I want to make sure that we touch on a few things for people that are listening that have not yet come across your work. I'd love to talk a little bit about the first book, The Productivity Zone, and help us understand first things first. You talked about distraction, which is obvious, but what are the other big things that get in the way for the typical high achiever?

18:20 when it comes to productivity, I want to focus necessarily on just the whole world, but the people that are listening, watching the show are high achievers. What are the things that get in the way of our productivity that we can't see on a day in and day out basis? Well, one of the things that I put in my book as a framework that kind of describes how I see that it's a high performance framework. And it looks like a bell curve. It's not a bell curve, but it looks it has a shape of a bell curve. And if we were to see in the middle, that's where the productivity zone is. Those are the actions and behaviors that bring us into our most productive states and results. And on the outside, those are the two biggest challenges that we face as high performers.

19:02 And they are distractions. They are clearly distractions. And they also are stressors. And they are two Ps, perfectionism and procrastination. Like, I think we can kind of lump those two, like almost everything into that, right? All of our fears and insecurities and, you know, really, we could probably group them into those two areas. driving this to where. Yeah, I think that makes so much sense. So when we're actually, let me go on the flip side of this and say, when we're actually in the productivity zone, you've done so much research on this. You've coached so many people, you've worked with so many companies. When you describe somebody who's truly in the productivity zone, how do you kind of describe what their state of being is?

19:51 What are the things that they're focusing on, thinking, So at a higher chunk, I break the book into three sections, which are the three things that support us to be in the zone. One of them is mindset. Right. So for mindset, how are we connecting to our purpose? What kind of self-talk stories are we telling ourselves? Where do we put our focus? And how do we take care of our body? Right. Because that affects our mind. So mindset is a huge part for high performers. We hear that all the time, whether it's just having watched the Olympics, you know, or anytime you interview somebody who's achieved great success, they'll talk about how mindset is a huge part of that piece.

20:32 The second piece is strategy, is how do we approach the marketplace, the work that we're doing? You know, that would be things like planning. How do we plan and prepare for things? How do we set up the processes to support ourselves and those types of things? And how, most importantly, how do we set priorities? and be able to be clear as to what is a priority so that we can block out the other things that aren't. And then in the last segment is sustainability. Like it's one thing to have a blip of great success, but it's another thing to be able to sustain that year after year or month after month, you know, whatever timeframe you're looking at. And so, you know, the elements that go into that are really important as well.

21:14 So that's kind of how I break that up. I love so much of what you're talking about. And I want to ask, are there moments or have there been moments for you, whether it's, you know, kind of an instant, whether it's a minute, a day, whether you go through a little bit of a period, had there been times where you've had to kind of pull yourself back in and go, hold on a second, Penny, like, whoa, we got a little off kilter here. What's the deal here? All the time. I love it. I mean, yes, because I'm also the type of person, you know, there's the person who says that they first say no to everything. And that way they focus, right? And that's great. And I think there is a total skill to doing that.

21:57 I'm probably a little bit the opposite where I say yes to everything because I see it as not everything, but, you know, to opportunities that come up and I have to reel myself back. shift that a little bit and have a clear idea as to what I say yes to. Like, for instance, when I was starting my technology business, you know, we don't know what we don't know. So I thought things were going great. We were rolling out in Zurich, Switzerland. That's where I lived in the time. And we were moving across Switzerland and we had some big companies that we were working with. And We had an opportunity, somebody wanted us to come into Scandinavia. And we're like, yeah, and without even thinking.

22:37 And it wasn't until we got later into the process that, you know, that we realized that, you know, we had some risks that we hadn't even thought about. We didn't have the capacity that we needed to have with some of the challenges that we ran into at that time. This was many years ago, that every country has a different operating system. They're not the same. if you're old enough to be as old as I am. And remember those days, if you were in IT, it was something that on the surface you wouldn't know. But the application development that we did sat on top of those operating systems. And so it functioned differently. And so it's just, you know, this is where we this is where I have to reel myself back is to, I call these sort of reset moments.

23:21 And this is part of what I talk about in the new book is to take a little extra time to really challenge assumptions, to rethink what you thought you knew, you know, so that you can challenge it. Are there any risks that we hadn't thought of, you know, who do we need to talk to again, coming back to your better questions, right? It's not enough just to say, what are the risks that I might face? Because it's only when you ask other questions on top of that, that some of those risks really come up. It's like the first initial five or six might come up, but it's the other ones that are going to bite you in the butt that you didn't ask those questions. So take those reset moments to slow down so that in turn, you know, in the long run, you'll be faster because you've thought things through.

24:07 You've just been smarter about the way that you went about it. Maybe we would been able to prepare ourselves in a different way for that. That's just an example. I love this. I just want to say really quickly, for those of you, you know, working with coaches and experts, Penny, if I had a nickel for every time somebody was like, yeah, I don't need mindset. Okay, guys. We just get right to the execution, right? We don't need that. Yeah. If the focusologist needs to reset herself, I'm going to call bullshit on that one. Sorry, I interrupted you, Brooke. Go ahead, man. Oh, no, I was just gonna say, Penny, I'd love to get your inputs just as it relates to like outsourcing or delegating or leverage just in the relationship to productivity and focus, right?

24:50 Because I know on our side, we're big fans of scaling and growing in that way. But I know that that always comes with another side of it too, because I know a lot of people don't factor in management and some of the other pieces that go in. But as it relates to focus and really being productive and staying the course, what's your take and input on things in that realm? Wow, I have so many things to say. So let me think about where I start. So first of all, those things you just mentioned, like delegation, automation, things like that. I mean, they're multipliers. If you want to scale, those things are absolutely essential. Otherwise, you as a leader or as a team, whoever is holding on to knowledge or holding on to the way you've always done things is exactly what's holding the organization back.

25:32 is that it's a multiplier. My favorite thing to do every morning, you know, people talk about their morning routines. It's not that it's mine is super structured, but I love to delegate. I love to be able the first thing in the morning to delegate one or two things. Cause then I'm like, yeah, I'm already like way ahead. Cause they're going to get stuff done for me. And then, you know, so that's my favorite morning activity. Of course it, again, you still need to slow down to speed up. So it's not dumping, right? We can't just dump things on people and expect them to get good results. We have to really thoughtfully delegate so that we can set that person up for success and that we have like-minded ideas of what it is that we're achieving.

26:14 Same thing as if you're going to improve a process. I took over in a market research company and I was responsible for one of these divisions and also IT that I had taken over. And they were talking about implementing a new document management system, which on itself sounds good. But when I started to ask a couple of questions like about what problems is this going to solve and how will this be different than the previous one that we had, crickets, it was really just to be in with the new technology. And I was like, no, we're not doing this. We need to plan and be more intentional about what we're doing and why we're doing it. So, you know, I think it's about putting in those multipliers, but really being very intentional and thoughtful about how you're going to scale in the way that you're intending to scale and not scaling too fast and then paying the price for not doing it right.

27:07 Now, that's so much gold in that. I love just adding that one word of thoughtful delegation like that just connected the dots in my brain. That's a whole different angle and a whole different twist. I absolutely love that. And I'm changing my morning routine now. Like it's done. Delegation routine. I was just literally before we started this podcast, Penny, I was having to call time out on this guy and go, no, you are not going into Canva. You will delegate that right before we started this podcast. But we all have those tendencies, don't we? We do. Of course we do. I'll just jump in. How do you resist that? How do you resist that? How do you build that muscle? I don't resist it. That's how you don't resist it.

27:48 Well, sometimes I don't too. Sometimes I don't too. But I think there's a point where you see that it is – hurting you or hurting the success or the progress that you're making, you know? And I think it depends on the size of your organization. It depends on who you're holding it back from. So there's a lot of, it depends, right? I'm a really good coach. That's our answer to it. I like that. Yeah. Oh yeah. But I think that it's knowing, challenging yourself and asking yourself, does this really make sense? And probably for Canva, if you're doing something quick, maybe it makes sense to just get it done. But at the same time, what's it holding you back from doing? What else could you be doing that would be more valuable with your time?

28:30 What if you got somebody who was your Canva person and then you never had to touch Canva again, except for to show them what it is that you're looking for? How would that make a difference in your life? So I think it's really just about asking those questions and deciding, you know, what are you ready to let go of? Maybe if you let go of one thing every week, right? If we just made like a little thing that we could let go of every week. I feel like this just turned into an intervention. It was supposed to be an interview. It totally did. This just went left. I'm like, we're just not. The only thing I promise is we won't take away your lucid charts, bro. You can keep your lucid charts. I'm now the chief enablement officer. I'm changing my title. That's true.

29:12 Oh, man. Penny, I want to ask, when you talk about it depends and what we should and shouldn't decide to delegate and how we know when and all of those things. So many people listening to this show right now are either solopreneurs or maybe they've got one or two team members and they'd like to grow and they'd like to grow their business and they're learning how to do that. Yeah. When you're coaching somebody who is a solopreneur or small business owner, something of that nature, how do you help them figure out when the bottleneck is occurring and where the stuck point is, where they need to... make a hire, delegate something?

29:53 Because I think for most of us that decide not to do that, the initial hire is always the hardest one because we've built something, we've earned some money, you know, we've then got to have that conversation and choke on it a little bit of, oh, wait a minute, I got to pay somebody to go do this when I could just be doing it on our own. And we hang on tooth and nail so many times. So tell me a little bit about your thoughts on that. What it brings up is a story of a business leader. He was sort of the, what do you call it when it's the person who gets all the sales? Who's like the king of rainmaker, rainmaker. That's it. So he was a complete rainmaker and he was running the division and also the rainmaker of the division.

30:36 And notoriously late for every meeting, just like totally overwhelmed because he was juggling so much. Right. And so the main thing that I focused on with him that helped to make a shift was just to help him understand what's the value of your time. And I don't mean like if you look at what he brought in. So he could clearly quantify what the value of his time was. So I don't remember, this was years ago, but it was clearly multiple thousands of dollars per hour that he could be. So if he took any of the administrative things that he was doing that didn't need to be done by him, and that saved him an hour or two hours that he could be out making rain, then he should be doing that.

31:21 Or teaching his people how to make rain, right? So that he can multiply. And so we tend to have this all or nothing thinking is like, you know, A, if I delegate, I'm going to lose control. Well, you don't have to lose control. You can delegate, as we said, you know, to thoughtfully delegate and be very clear as to what the end goal is, have check-in points. So it makes you feel in control as you've put some structure into the way that you're working together. And our all or nothing is, well, I either delegate all of this, let's say, creating the proposals or none of it. Well, actually, we found out he could get somebody to get it started, just the beginning part by using some standard elements, right?

32:03 A template with some standard elements based on what that client was looking for. And then he could work it from there. So it saved him maybe an hour for each proposal. But that's huge, right? We don't want to discount every hour and say, oh, but that's not the two and a half hours that it would take to actually work it up. Okay, so you saved an hour here, an hour there, and now it becomes a significant amount of time. So where can you find those little pockets? This sings to my soul. I'm like, I'm back in your good graces. I'm jumping back in the efficiency piece. And like we always often talk about highest and best use of our time or income generating activities. If you're an income generating person, I think I'd love to hear your take on, and I'm sure this is probably a huge part of your content, your material, but prioritizing or deciding what activities to give your energy and focus to.

32:54 I'd just love to hear what, as it comes to focus, because I think for a lot of us overachievers, we have so, it's almost like we want to focus on all of it. Right. So what's your input or what's your take on how do you narrow that down? Or how do you get to like, instead of being the light bulb or Ryan and I were on this morning, instead of being a shotgun, how do you become a sniper? Yeah. That's a good analogy. I like that. I think one of the first things is that people, I've done a lot of different surveys. And one of the main things that came across in my research is about competing priorities and where people of all levels in an organization feel like they're stuck and struggling with these competing priorities. It's about 75% of the population has said that.

33:37 And I want to say first thing is the biggest challenge that we have is that we don't set priorities. If we have competing priorities, we don't have priorities. Because the whole definition of priorities is that this is more important than that. Mm hmm. So that's the first thing to look at is what criteria are you using today to set your priorities? And I often tell people that we know if somebody who's close to us needed us had some kind of, you know, God forbid, some kind of illness or something, we'd know what to do. We'd be there immediately. We'd cancel everything that we have and we'd be by that person's side or whatever we needed to do. So when it's the extremes, we tend to know how to prioritize.

34:18 It's that messy middle that people talk about. We just kind of let it flow. So we have to be clear on what our criteria is. And then we have to communicate that criteria with our team so that they can be more autonomous and. and make decisions also on what is the best and highest use of their time. And my criteria, if you want to hear sort of what I like to use, what I teach is about, it's not about urgency and importance. Because that gives too much emphasis on urgency. And we get so caught up in all that's urgent and that crowds out what's important. And how do we define important? That's also kind of wishy-washy.

34:58 So my two axes would be effort and impact. So the quick wins, the things you do first are in the first quadrant, which is high impact, low effort. Those are your quick wins. Do those things first. I don't know who says do the hardest thing first. No, not if that hard thing is not impactful. Right. So we have to be really clear and do those things that create the highest impacts. That's the 20 percent that makes 80 percent of the difference. And then if we stay above the line and we stay with high impact, high effort, we're going to do those things next. But we're also going to want to invest some time there to optimize.

35:42 That quadrant is about optimizing as to how do we move it to low effort? Do we delegate it? Because someone else can do it faster, more effective. Do we change the process because the process is cumbersome and inefficient? Those types of things. I'm back in the intervention bus again. I didn't say anything. I know what you're thinking. So what's your process that's not in line with that? My brain lives in to-do lists and trying to prioritize. And I love the, yeah, I live in the land of process, but I'm the guilty of, I'm going to go change the process in a vacuum. And then I'll tell people about it later.

36:23 When they're like, why is this happening this way now? I really like, and this, here's the tricky piece, just, and I'm taking notes. High impact, low effort is really what jumped out, right? Because my brain always goes to what's going to get us the biggest result versus thinking of the how we get there and what's required to get there. It's more of like, what's the result we're after? And it's like, let's move mountains versus how do we summit and get on the other side in the easiest way humanly possible? Right. Right. I don't know if that fully answered your question there, but. Yeah, it does. It says that there's some room for reprioritizing how you currently work your criteria. Even just the sentiment. And obviously, I've heard the go slow so you can go fast.

37:05 I mean, I've uttered those words probably 10 times in the last week. But living those words and actually implementing it and, you know, I'm like, hey, the gun went off. It's like sprint, right? So to actually intentionally slow down or even hit stop and go, what am I actually doing? Why am I doing it this way? To go slow, to go fast. There's so much gold. I'm actually, I'm very excited to go back and hear this episode. There's a lot of distinctions that are woven in here. Awesome. I think the key is what you said is it's, and everybody, I believe everyone I've worked with, even myself, I'm challenged with this on a regular basis. So I go back to, I'm still resetting. I'm still reprioritizing all the time because I'm also triggered by that shot that goes off and I'm running and I'm like, whoa, hold on a second.

37:49 I think I'm going down the wrong path. But the sooner that you can question yourself, that maybe you're spending too much time and effort in this area that... It just seems to be difficult and the effort is higher than you thought. The sooner that you can realize that, and that's where I come back to the reset mindset, is to be more dynamic in the way that we challenge the way that we do things and that we're constantly checking in with ourselves. is this the right path? Is there a less effort path that'll get me there quicker? Is there someone else that I need to speak to that could support me to get there? You know, sometimes we are in a lane and we can't stop in the middle or whatever, but just recognizing it, it's part of the process as well with this reset practice.

38:33 Sometimes we recognize it after the fact, and then we get to reflect how we're going to do it differently. And the more we practice it, then we recognize it Because we become professional noticers, right? Then we now recognize it during, while we're doing it. So we can be more real time in our changes, challenge each other while the process is going on. And then when we're really in mastery, we recognize before we actually take action. So before we take action, we slow down as opposed to in the process or after the process. Penny, listen, I'll shoot you an email. You can send us an invoice for the... This is so valuable. So, so, so valuable.

39:14 I want to ask just as we start to kind of wind down and I want to first make sure before we get too far, when is the reset mindset going to be available for people to get their hands on this? Because I know people are going to want to gobble this up after this episode. So the first, the release, it's available in pre-release right now with a whole bunch of great bonuses. Go pre-order. Pre-order right now. September 3rd is the official launch date. And all through September, there'll be special bonuses that are available for purchasing in December. It's only available in hard copy. But one of the special bonuses, they'll get the PDF or the Kindle version as well as the audio version when they buy the hard copy. But that'll go away at the end of September.

39:55 That is killer. Where can people go? I want to go pre-order this thing. Where can we go to pre-order the book? You can go to the reset mindset.net. And this book is the premise of, you know, it doesn't have all the examples that go really, really deep. It just gets us in a place where we get it in our system that it's about building that reset mindset. Some great examples and stories. And then in addition to some of the ones that we talked about here. I want to ask you a question. The audience that you're speaking to is deep in the world of personal development. And I'm going to, you know, many of us own the badge of honor of personal development junkie even.

40:36 So what is it about the reset mindset, Penny, that one small nugget that you really feel like is sort of a differentiator for all the work that you've put into this and your spin on how to do what you're talking about? I think the first thing that I would say is that it's sticky language. Is that, you know, you can read a half a dozen books around personal development and you're going to, the themes are going to overlap, right? Yeah, of course. Of course. Often we know what to do, but we don't do what we know. So we keep reading, right? Yeah. It's not about getting another tool or another way of doing things.

41:19 One of the differentiators is that it's a simple, easy, accessible, sticky language. People are telling me that after they leave an event, they're like reset moments. Like it's all a buzz, right? These reset moments. For whatever reason, certain things stick. So I think there's some stickiness to that. And if it's just that, that's fantastic. Just remember to take a reset moment. I love this. And, you know, in my first book, there's a framework and I think visuals really do help us. So the visuals that are included are helpful. And I also talk about it as it's about making the complex simple is we tend to overcomplicate things.

42:00 And so it brings us back to, I liken it, I think I mentioned this somewhere in the book, you know, for those of us who are a little bit older, there was a campaign that when there was a fire, we would do three things. We would stop, drop, and roll. Oh, yeah. Right? So in that commercial, you kind of, you know, whatever it is, even in today's, whatever commercials there are today, you kind of just, you know, if a jingle comes up, you can probably sing that jingle. Yeah. So it's how does it stick? Right. So this step back, get perspective and realign is your stop, drop and roll. You're in a really terrible pressure situation. Step back, get perspective, realign. And it can happen in a split second because they're kind of intertwined, right?

42:41 Ask a better question. Maybe that's harder for them to think about asking a better question than for all the connections that come with it when they say, I'm going to take a reset. They're going to say reset, right? Reset moment. And now all the connections are already built in with the wiring to already do those things. Wow. Well, listen, if you're listening to this right now and you've been wondering what's the next book that I'm going to read that's actually going to get me to do something and be impactful in my life, I think you just found it. It's right there. The Reset Mindset by Penny Zanker. Go to the resetmindset.net to preorder the book.

43:21 Do it now. Go grab all the bonuses while they're available. Penny, this has been an unbelievable episode. You're such a wealth of knowledge. I love also so much. I want to honor you for truly being a person that has lived and continues to live what she's developed and what you teach. This isn't something that you came up with in a vacuum. You know, this is through real life experience. And I also love, you know, the honesty and the candor that like, hey, this is an ongoing journey and I got to do this for myself, you know, so... Thank you for taking the time. This is going to be insanely valuable for everybody, including Brooke. And I think you changed a life right here on the podcast.

44:03 I now know what Ryan's getting me for my birthday. That's exactly right. But thank you so much for taking the time. This has been incredible. I'm excited to have an opportunity to connect with you further and especially looking forward to an opportunity to spend some time in person here one of these days. Please keep up the incredible, good and really important work. For everybody listening, thank you for listening to this episode of the Coaching Equation podcast. And please go out, make sure you pre-order the book. Again, one more time, the resetmindset.net is the URL. We're going to link up a whole bunch of other stuff where you can go and check out more of Penny's work and everything that she's all about.

44:44 And until next time, we'll see you guys on the flip side. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coaching Equation. Please hit subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you got value out of this episode, we would be so grateful if you would share it out with a friend and leave us a review on iTunes or your favorite platform. To learn more about Empire Partners or to inquire about working with Ryan and Brooke, please visit www.empirepartners.io forward slash go.