The Reset Mindset: How Strategic Focus Drives Leadership in a Distracted World

I figured if that guy could do it, then I can do it. And I think that's the thing is believing in ourselves or finding someone who believes in us more than we believe in ourselves, one or the other. Because sometimes that is enough. Being able to assess and discern what creates the most value and deserves your time so that you can say no or find other solutions for those things that are demanding your time, having the.

Ability to simplify the solution, right? It actually allows you to be more creative. It actually allows, it actually creates more opportunities for you to think creatively, design creatively, etc.

Sometimes it's easier to have big constraints than little ones because then we focus on like incremental changes.

Welcome back to another episode of the Athletics of Business podcast. I am your host, Ed Molitor. Today, thrilled to welcome another one of our keynote speakers at our Coaching Effects Summit in Omaha, Nebraska on May 5th and 6th of 2026. Penny Zenkern. Penny is widely known as a focusologist, an international keynote speaker, business strategy coach, and two time bestselling author who specializes in the psychology of productivity and focusing. With more than three decades of leadership and entrepreneurial experience, Penny helps leaders and organizations cut through distraction, align priorities and achieve greater results with less stress. Super valuable conversation. We talk about Penny's journey and how a personal tragedy at the age of 19 reshaped her focused mindset and emphasizing acceptance and meaningful goals over blame. We're going to talk about today's focus crisis, the distractions that harm decision making.

Constant demands overwhelm us, requiring structured pauses for realignment and clarity. And with that being said, Penny shares one of her reset practices with us and it's just a simple three step algorithm that helps us regain focus by stepping back and gaining perspective and realigning priorities without distractions. And we're going to go over AI's role in how organizations using AI see a 76% higher personalization, enhancing employee experiences which supports better leadership preparation. And then we're talking about the future outlook, right? The focused leadership. How crucial it is as this pace and rate of change is greater than anything we've seen. Penny has such a robust, rich background that goes all the way back to her early career. She began as an entrepreneur journey early. By the age of 31 she had founded, built and sold a multi million dollar company while living in Zurich, Switzerland.

And then she later served as a C suite executive at a global top five market research company where she led strategic business turnarounds and managed large international teams. Really cool conversation and I hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as I did recording it. Penny, thank you for joining us today on the Athletics of Business podcast. It is so nice to finally get an opportunity to speak with you and to meet you.

Oh, I'm so excited to be here, Ed. This is great opportunity.

We have a lot to talk about. Obviously, we'll get to the event in May here eventually, but let's just jump right in. I mean, your journey is nothing short of remarkable. And here you are now at this part of your journey, and you have the title, the Focusologist. How in the world did that come to be? I just can't wait for the listener to hear that.

You know, we're all in business, right? You have a lot of people that are listening that are business owners or involved in business. And how do we differentiate ourselves? You know, and as I was developing the business, people asked me to answer that question, what differentiates you? If you had to own one word, what would that word be? And it's really hard to answer that because we are all so much. Right. Our businesses can handle a lot. But I looked back into my history. I asked my, you know, my executive coaching clients and anyone that's ever worked with me, why did you work with me? What did you get out of working with me? And the answer that kept coming up over and over again was strategic focus.

Like it was about focusing on the right thing or understanding that focus drives our behavior, which ultimately drives our actions. Right. And our results and our outcomes. So I just have kept coming back to my definition of focus because to me, attention and focus are two different things. That's why they have two different words, nuances. But attention is part of focus. But focus is more strategic and making sure that we're focused or directing our attention towards what's strategic and purposeful and matters most.

Where does that come from? I mean, you know, obviously our past shapes us, right? Where you journey through life, did focus become a superpower of yours?

You know, it's interesting because I did have to dig into this a little bit. And, you know, it really. It came from a significant event in my life. So When I was 19, my father died in an accident when my parents were overseas. And at one of the most difficult times in my life, when it was difficult to accept, I found myself focusing on, you know, who's at fault and the things that I couldn't control. And I realized it was sabotaging my success and my wellbeing at the time. Like, I was almost failing out of school that semester. And I Just felt like that was the wrong focus. Right. I was asking myself the wrong question, why me? That's the wrong focus. So I somehow, you know, woke up. I think it's because I decided I needed a new perspective.

And I went overseas for a semester, and I realized that it's really, what does this mean to me? And that question then makes you focus on a whole set of different choices and different ways of looking at the world. And so, yeah, so then I was like, well, what this means to me is that life is short. We need to focus on the things that make us happy, that create value, that drive impact, and that deliver experience. Right. I want to experience life to its fullest. And so then that's what I did starting in that semester abroad. And then I lived, actually 16 years overseas because I sought out that opportunity. I've started and grown several businesses. I've sold one of those businesses. So it's just really driven me to do the maximum of what I can with my life.

I've written two books, and they've become bestsellers. So I'm just looking at, you know, what's that next great thing that I can do or big impact that I can make?

Now I'm gonna. We're gonna get to the books, and we're gonna get to your focus. But I have to go back to 19 years old. And to have the ability to have that perspective, I mean, it's pretty amazing. It's. It shows a lot of strength. What was it that allowed you to make that shift? Was it someone, or was it something you read, or was it just kind of like an aha moment and you took it and you ran with it?

A couple different things happen. Right? I think that's also. So somebody had introduced me. This isn't in the book. I don't think that I had talked about this, but someone introduced me to the Serenity Prayer. You know, God, grant me the serenity to accept the. I don't probably know what you're saying. Yeah, yeah.

It's very powerful.

It is. It's very powerful. And it was really about acceptance. And that's what I needed in that time, was to accept that my father wasn't coming back. It's not something I could control. So it just got me in the place to understand and come to acceptance. And there were some other things that happened. As I said, I was kind of failing out of school. I was failing one of my classes, and I thought, this isn't me. Like, I'd look in the mirror and I'D say, this isn't me. Who is this? And I think there's a point where we have to grieve, we have to feel. I'm not saying in any way that we shouldn't stand in that space and feel the feelings, and we can't live there. I just came to a point with a number of things that I recognized in my life.

So I was pushing my friends away, so isolating myself, and I just realized that it wasn't serving me. This wasn't who I was. And I think it was really that trip to Europe was one of the steps that I took that I needed to get out of that rut. And sometimes that rut is exactly where we stand or sit right now. And so the minute that we get a new perspective on life, that we look at things from a new angle, things change. The way that we feel changes the way that we look at it. And so I think it was that it was just getting into another country, looking at my life and my relationships and everything in a new way that helped me to say this. I want something different.

I don't want to continue living like this because this isn't who I am. And, you know, there's that old thing also that you say, that person wouldn't want that for you. And my dad, you know, he wouldn't have wanted me to live like that. And so I wanted to live a life that would make him proud.

Yeah, I think you've done that pretty darn good job of that. Now you get to Europe, right, And you realize, like, you're reshaping, you're reframing this whole situation. You're changing your perspective, you're dialing in your focus, and you're focusing on the right things, what doing. You're. When did you realize that all of a sudden you had something that was going to translate into the business world? I'm really good at this, and I'm really good at helping others do this as well. And not even so much as when you started your own thing, but when you first started, you know, getting into your professional career, when did that connect with you?

I don't know if you remember, Steve Jobs did a speech at Stanford, and he talked about the puzzle pieces. And in retrospect, you can see how those pieces come together. I think it's more like that is. I knew that I love people. I love people's spirit, like the amazing things that we can create. And also that we can recognize that we're in our own way, right? That we have the Potential to get past these challenges and do amazing things. And I realized that actually in middle school, people used to come to me and I was the person that everyone shared their problems with, like, that they wouldn't share with anyone. And I was always like, whoa, I can't believe you're telling me this. But they trusted me and I held the space for them. And I think, you know, it starts there.

And so there's been all these little pieces along the way. I've always been someone who's been business oriented, you know, had that lemonade stand or always looking for, you know, how do I monetize this? So a lot of those pieces just kind of came together in different ways. But I guess it really took off when I started my own IT business when I was in Switzerland. And the only reason I started that business was because I was sitting across from a developer. I was a full time employee at a consulting company and there was a contractor developer who I was sitting across from and I was training him. And I had managed to get myself into technology. I was never trained in technology, but I just always loved it.

And this person across me, I was training him and he was making like five times what I was making. And I realized, like, why am I doing this? You know, I can do this. And somebody had mentioned to me, hey, why don't we start a business together? I'm the IT security guy, you can do application development. And then we have this person who does administration. I was like, yeah, let's do it. They all backed out. And I ended up being the only one driving this company forward. Yeah, Focusing on application development at the time. And I felt like a little bit of an imposter because I don't have the background. But I figured if that guy could do it, then I can do it.

And I think that's the thing is believing in ourselves or finding someone who believes in us more than we believe in ourselves, one or the other. Because sometimes that is enough. And many times I've held that belief or held that belief for other people, and I'm sure you have as well. And that helps to elevate people to step into what's possible for them.

And I think part of that whole journey, right, it is a great segue into the fact that, like right now we are dealing with a pace and rate of change unlike anything we've ever seen. It's crazy in distractions, negativity, divisiveness, indecisiveness, however you want to verbalize it, Right. Articulate, I should say. I have to imagine that focus has never been more important. How do you see the challenge for leaders on their focus now compared to five years ago, or even forget that with everything that's going on, how challenging is it for people to dial in and have that focus consistently?

We're in a focus crisis because we have the inability to focus. And you know, what I want to make clear too, is I call myself the focusologist, and people now, right, refer to me as focusologist. But it's not because I'm, you know, the holy one of focus. Like, I get just as distracted, right? I can get distracted. We have a political environment that's very polarized. We have a lot of things that are going on in various different aspects of the world that we live in, as well as our families, right? And so we're seeing the results of that are the loneliness, the indecision that you talked about, because so many things are vying for our attention at the same time that it's fried our nervous system. And we're actually addicted to distraction because we've trained ourselves to be like that.

So we're constantly looking at our phone, right? It used to be our refrigerator, right? If you were bored, you would go to the refrigerator, you'd open the refrigerator and you think, why am I here? Or you'd have that 10th cup of coffee just because you're looking for a break. I remember being in that place. You're looking for a pause or a break, so you have another coffee. So today it's looking at our phones. But that's even more addictive. And that inability to focus affects our decision making. It affects our ability to think critically. And then AI on top of that, some people feel like, well, they don't really need to think because AI can do the thinking for them, right? So that it's even more of a distraction in terms of us thinking more clearly.

As I was preparing for our time together today and we spoke briefly about this before we started recording, was to have those purposeful pauses, right? Those reset moments. And that only when something significant happens in your world, but on a daily basis. But if I could for a second, like the reset moments, purposeful pauses. Say that 10 times really fast, okay? To reflect, to rethink, to reprioritize, to re energize and to be intentional. This doesn't help. You do that when people pause. Like you said, like the old days was us going to get in our cup of coffee, right? Or going to get in a bottle of water or something. So how do people do that. How do they take the purposeful pause right now?

Well, so it depends on the context. Right? And that's why you mentioned a couple different things that you can use it to recharge. So that might be to go take a walk, even if you're not in a place. Maybe you can go up and down the stairs a few times, maybe you can just go and get a glass of water, but it's not going on your phone. That's not a purposeful pause. A purposeful pause is structured to give you what you need. So if it's the recharge, it's really your best recharge is to move your body, to drink some water, to breathe, you know, take a couple of deep breaths, big belly breaths, and to really, like, sigh out loud. Right. It basically resets your nervous system if you do something like that.

But it could also be as simple as taking, like sniffing a lemon or having some essential oils right near you. Right. That can be a quick pause in between meetings or phone calls or something. But what about rethinking? It might be a question that we ask ourselves, you know, what am I missing? You know, instead of moving ahead too quickly, asking a quick question to interrupt that pattern, what am I missing? How else could we approach this before you dive into the first answer that comes up? Because often the first answer is just the quickest, accessible. It doesn't make it the right and best answer. And then there's reprioritizing in that moment. How do we step back and look at what's on our plate, reconnect with the bigger picture and our objectives so that we can say, well, is this still our top priority?

Or out of this list, would I reorganize this? Right. So all of those different things. So that's why I say, depending on the context, lots of different ways to take those reset moments to serve us in the way we might need it in our context.

You know, what's interesting is we talk a lot about being the face and voice that your team needs to see in here. In other words, showing up in the moment and exactly like they need you to, individually and collectively. Okay? And when we talk about as leaders, there's a lot of people pulling at you. There's a lot of demands on your time. There's a lot of demands on your attention. There's a lot of different things that folks demand you focus on. But you say something that I absolutely love, and I want you to talk about that. Focus on what deserves our time, not what demands it.

We have to discern what's most important. And we live in a world of false urgencies. That's part of what the focus crisis is, that we are looking for that quick shortcut or all these things that are coming and demanding our attention, these urgencies, when they may not deserve our attention, we might be able to delegate it. It's not for me. It's not my monkey or my problem. So how do I make sure that the right person gets on that? Being able to assess and discern what creates the most value and deserves your time so that you can say no or find other solutions for those things that are demanding your time. You know, whether it's automating it, delegating it, deleting it, you know, whatever that might look like.

And that really goes to the Eisenhower decision making matrix too, Right. With the four quadrants, it can a little connect to that.

Yes. And I'm not a fan.

There you go.

I'm not a fan. And the reason I'm not a fan is because urgency is one of those axes. And even though I know that it's showing you to stay away from urgency, why is it even a criteria? So I use effort and impact as my matrices. Urgencies will fall where urgencies fall. How much effort is it and how much impact is it delivering? So if urgency is one of those criteria, we're giving it too much weight, in my opinion. Then we're making decisions from urgency and not clarity. Does that make sense? So I'm.

It makes total sense.

Done looking for clarity. And so that's why I use. I don't know if there's a name for it or who created it, but you know, it's effort and value.

Yeah, no, I'm absolutely tracking. And that leads to this, though. And this is another thing that were talking about earlier. It's not how complex the problem is, it's how simply we approach. Because oftentimes you'll get a group of people collaborating, Right. And you're sitting in a room, you're like, man, there's a lot to this. Yeah. But what's the next thing? What's the next thing that we need to do that's going to allow us to do the next thing after that? Right. How have you over the years worked with all of your clients to really dial into being able to reframe and break down complex situations into the simple next task?

There's a couple things I'd like to share, but I think the most important thing of what you're asking is what I was able to discern and sort of simplify and narrow down with the reset mindset. The recent book that I wrote was the Reset Practice that has three steps. And I realized that is the practice that I use with every client, every situation, whether it's an emotional situation or a business situation. It's an inherently simple way to approach any complex problem. It's what I call the algorithm of our life. A way to think about it. I liken it to the Rubik's Cube that to solve a Rubik's Cube, which is super complex, it's just a few steps done over and over again because it's an algorithm.

So this reset practice, to step back, right, step back away from the emotion, the biases, and the way we've always done things so that we can reconnect to the big picture. That's step one. Step two is to get perspective. Remember how I said when I went to Europe, it gave me a new perspective? I was able to look at things with fresh eyes. So that's where we take in new inputs, ask what's missing, reflect on things, evaluate so that we can decide, given our context and situation, what's the best next step that we've taken a moment to evaluate it. We're so quick to say we're aware of something, and then we jump into a solution without really taking perspective. So it's. That's an essential step.

And then the third step is to realign, is to then focus on what matters most, what's the best next step, and also to block out what is keeping you from focusing on the best step. Because based on today's distracted world, we need to have clarity. And that's what this is. It's a feedback loop that constantly has us what I call dynamic reassessment. That's the core of the reset mindset, is to dynamically reassess. Every time situations change, circumstances shift. Re looking at our priorities. That dynamic reassessment keeps us current, it keeps us relevant, and it keeps us also continually innovating and reinventing because that's what's necessary in today's. In today's environment.

Talk about that a little bit. Having the ability to simplify the solution, right? It actually allows you to be more creative. It actually creates more opportunities for you to think creatively, write design creatively, et cetera. Talk a little bit about that, how that happens.

Well, I mean, think about it. In complexity, we get overwhelmed. And so when we're overwhelmed, our brain goes into fight or flight, and it actually narrows our Focus so that we are not looking at all the different examples and opportunities, right? We just are seeing what's in front of us. And when we simplify things and we use this simple practice, we can step back and see a broader scope and see how it relates to the bigger picture. You know, you don't have as many things that you're cognitively trying to stay connected to. You're just giving yourself that space to ask these more creative questions to space. It's space itself that gives us room to create, right? To be creative. I don't know if you've ever been in a situation, right, where it's a high tense, high pressure situation.

Oh, yeah, it's hard to think about anything else than what's right in front of you. And so without.

I'm raising a teenage daughter right now, so. Yes. No, I'm kidding.

I hear you. I have some kids of my own. So just having something that we've practiced in those smaller moments to help to get, give us a way to simplify things, a way to step back from the complexity or the emotional connection gives us that space to think more creatively and to be open to connect the dots, right? That's also really important is think about, you know, you get in the shower and you have all these great ideas. You know, you're not sitting at your desk answering a thousand emails, right? You're taking the important things that your mind is processing and you're giving it space. And then all of a sudden you're like, yeah, that actually could connect to that. And so that's how I would answer that.

I mean, you know what comes up for you when you think of simplicity and how that creates space for creativity?

It absolutely does. Like, one of the things we work with is like the rules of the game concept, right? So the constraints that you're operating inside of and those constraints, from a business owner's perspective, you're a business unit leader's perspective. It can be your budget, it can be your resources, it can be the timeframe, it could be the metrics that have been set for you, right? Like there's all sorts of different things. And I, you know, once you understand those constraints and the boundaries that you have now, you know what you're working with, right? And now how can we figure out to the best of our ability what to do? And to your point, the dots, like connect the dots, like, okay, this happens and what about this? If this happens, what about this?

How do we reverse engineering success if this is exactly what we. We have to achieve. And here are the resources that go into it. Here's the time that goes into it.

You use the word constraint. And so I have a couple of exercises that I do because I believe the bigger the constraint, the bigger the creativity. You know, we saw it in Covid, how that opened up, like so much creativity because there's pressure and that pressure when it's accepted. Remember I talked about in the beginning how we accept something when we accept the situation for what it is, as simply as that is Right. And we understand the constraint, we can come up with some creative ways of looking at things and really open up our perspective because we have to. I believe that sometimes it's easier to have big constraints than little ones, because then we focus on, like, incremental changes, and we don't look at really changing the way we look at things. We're still looking at it the same.

We're just making small incremental changes. Nothing wrong with that. But every once in a while, Right. A reset can also be not just looking at incremental changes. But what if were going to change our process entirely? What would that look like? Like, what if I came into this business and I didn't know the industry, I didn't know anything about it? How would I do things differently to challenge that creativity within ourselves, to look at things really in a new light.

I love that. In bringing Covid back up, you think about the constraints we had. And to me, what was really fascinating during COVID we had a lot of CEOs on a lot of business leaders, and to hear the different stories about how they just kept their doors open and some how they maximized their growth. Right. In different ways. But what was really fascinating to me was how many different business leaders cross functionally or different verticals, I should say, reached out to each other to say, how are you doing it?

Yeah.

And little did we know, went from survival to completely revamping how we would do business moving forward. You know, good, better, different, whatever.

Absolutely.

Completely changed it. So sometimes in the biggest, tightest, most challenging constraints come our greatest results.

Yeah, exactly. It broke down a lot of silos. Right. People really connected. Not everywhere, but those that embraced it and were looking for the greater impact, the greater good for the company or for the world were coming together and it created deeper connections.

Speaking of deeper connections and thought, I want to take it back to 2017. Absolutely love your TED Talk. Okay. But in the title of it is so fascinating, as is the opening story, but the energy of thought. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

It really stems from this whole idea of focus, right. The energy of thought is simply, are we aware of the energy that our thoughts have and its impact on how we show up? Right. And then the results that we get. And you said, you know, reframing is a key tool that you use to help people to see things in a different light. And, you know, most of the time, we go around unconscious of what our thoughts are. Right. We don't even pay attention to the words that we use, and we get these results, and sometimes we're frustrated. Most of the time, we can drive that back to, what were we thinking? What were we focused on? I share a story of me scuba diving and a time where I jumped in the water.

I was the first one in, and, you know, it was really rough, and they weren't even sure they were going to go that night. And I kind of overheard that, and I started to feed that worm in my ear that was like, oh, my God, are you going to do this? You're crazy. So as I jumped in, I still had that voice in my head that was loud, telling me, you shouldn't do this. And the waves are moving me further and further away from the group. And it was my fear. It was what I was saying to myself that was keeping me from the group.

Because as soon as I realized and became conscious of this pattern of, you know, speaking to myself like this, and I. I guess I just realized that I. I was gonna die if I continued, because, you know, you can lose your group and that'll be it. And I just pulled it together. And as soon as I decided I wasn't gonna let that fear take me over, I got back to the group like that. It was amazing, the shift. And so again, it's a focus question. Are we focused on what we're afraid of? Are we focused on what we've lost? Are we. Or are we focused on the possibility and what we can achieve or where we want to go, not where we don't want to go, and just that simple shift in focus, it shifts how we feel.

You know, it shifts our attitudes, our expectations, and our priorities. And so therefore, I come back to. And that was part of the idea of where this focus drives behavior. It's the core. I invite everybody to become a focusologist so that they.

Well, that's right. That's exactly right. You know, what's interesting about that is just by changing your focus and where you're directing your attention, and we know where you direct your attention is what creates the thoughts and the thoughts create the beliefs. The beliefs drive your actions. But you were always able to have the positive energy. You were always able, like that capability, that ability to get back to your group was always there. But it was that shift that allowed you to do it. Which is what always blows me away. When people push back on the fact that by changing the way you think, you can change your performance. I mean, it couldn't be more obvious.

Right. You mean that they push back and they say, oh, that's.

Yeah. No, that's not.

Yeah.

There's way more to it than just changing the way you think.

Right. It's simpler than we think. I think we make it complex. And I understand. It feels like that, right. When you're in this place, this mixed up Rubik's Cube, and you feel like that everything's swirling around. And that's why it does feel easier to just say, my situation's more complicated. And at the end of the day, you've seen it. I've seen it. Almost any business situation, there's only a handful of different business situations and different ways to handle it. Right. A lot of it is comes down to a simple approach and just getting clear on what the problem really is. And that's simple. But very often you have people in the organization who are all think they're solving the problem, but they're all working towards different problems.

Yeah. Are we saying, are we solving the right problem?

Yeah, exactly.

Identified what the problem is and what it means to us. And are we solving the right problem and are we all trying to solve the same problem?

Exactly. So it's awesome.

Congratulations on all your success. We still have so much more to talk about, but I want to make sure that we touch on your two books the order how they connect, the productivity zone, the reset mindset. So the productivity zone you wrote first. Tell me about that journey getting to that point.

Yeah. So I created this framework and it looks like a bell curve. It's not a bell curve, but it looks like a bell curve. And one side is procrastination. On the other side is perfectionism. Those two things that we get caught up in that loop. And in the middle is the productivity zone. It's where we want to be. And so to get out of procrastination or perfectionism, there's and be in the zone where we're most productive. There's 10 core drivers that help us to get in there. And so since I had already created that framework, it made the book Bringing it to life much easier because then each chapter is designed to introduce you to one of each one of those core drivers.

Awesome. And we'll obviously put the link to the book in the website. But then the reset mindset, do they. Do the books complement each other? Now, I know the answer, but I'm asking for the sake of the listener, do the books complement each other and how do they go together? And I'm going to put you on the spot only because you already told me, do you feel like you wrote them in the right order.

So they do go together because as we simplify our thinking, we go through different iterations. Right. It's not. I could have called myself the focusologist years ago, but I didn't because I didn't have it that clear as to what's the one word that represents me and how I best support and drive value. So the productivity zone was one way to help people to control the energy of their thought, because that's partly what's in there. As. As well as, you know, understand focus drives behavior. And these 10 core drivers areas to refocus our attention. And the reset mindset is a higher level of a mental model. Right. To help us in the way of thinking. The productivity zone is a form of a reset practice. Right. Each One of those 10 drivers can have a reset practice.

So it we've just taken it to a higher level is to say, okay, are you resetting when you need to? How do you recognize when you need to reset?

Yeah.

And then here are some tools in order to do that. Like you said, we wait too long. We think that it's after we're in a crisis or we've broken down or burnt out. Right. That is true. That is a time to reset. But how many burnouts and breakdowns could we avoid if we reset sooner and on a daily basis, whether it's in a relationship in our business or anywhere? So. And I think that the simpler one should have come first and then maybe the more detailed one in terms of reset practice. But that's not the way things work sometimes.

It's not. It almost speaks to what we're talking about. Right. Did you get to the simpler one because you got through the more complicated?

Yes.

And that's what's really interesting and fascinating. And if I were you, I would take complete credit for that being the process that you came up with the second book. You know, and you talk about the reset moments. Going back to that. You talk about the reset moments. I don't want to say reacting but acting on red flags, acting signs, you know, in other words, like last time this happened, then this happened. I need to reset now, so I'm prepared for when this moment comes. Depending on, you know, what call I'm getting on next. Today's one of those days. You know, it's a back to, back to back day. Each call with different meaning was someone different. I intentionally took three to five minutes to reset before each call. So I showed up the way I felt I needed to inside of that call.

Absolutely. That's a perfect example of using the reset moments. Right? And in that three to five minutes, what you were doing, whether you realize it or not, because it's intuitive, when you intentionally take a reset moment exactly for that purpose, to prepare yourself or right, to be in a certain mindset, you're stepping back, you're closing down one thing, right? Or emotionally looking at what your current intention is for the next call, you're getting some perspective. What kind of challenges might you face? Who, you know, what conversations do you want to have, whatever that might be. And then you're realigning, you're getting ready and you're going to show up in your best way. So it's intuitive. Those three steps, you don't even realize that you're doing it.

But it's important that we recognize and label it as a reset moment so that we go through all of those steps, that it's structured and intentional. But that's a perfect example, right, of reset practices are all over the place and we're probably already doing it in a lot of different ways. The question is, could we do it more often and could we do it more effectively by adding more structure to it or being more intentional with them?

Obviously, we're going to get to the event, how excited we are. Tedx talk the two books. But I want to honor the work that some more work that you're doing right now. Let's talk about the research that you shared with me earlier. Because it is so significant, I almost used the word relevant, forgive me, because it's beyond relevant. It is so significant and important right now. Can you share? And again, we'll have a link to this in the show notes as well. It'll be out on social media. But can you share what this research is and what they can see and expect in the report?

Yeah, sure. In stepping back to reevaluate why we have like crazy ridiculous numbers on disengagement in the workplace and you know, I, I wanted to step back and rethink that What, Why, you know, what is going on and what are we missing? And human connection is, like, fundamental, right? I don't understand why there's such a disconnect. And then I did some research and we're, I think part of the gap from what my research developed was we see this personalization everywhere. And it feels good when you call up the bank and they say, yeah, hello, Ms. Anchor, tell us what you're calling about. Or are you calling about your recent purchase of xyz? I love that. I'm like, yes, let's get to the point, right? They know who I am. It feels good. And.

Or I go to Amazon or Spotify or Netflix and it's showing me the next thing that I might want and might fit within my needs. And then we go to the workplace and there's no personal. There's very little personalization. Right. We get onboarded in the same way as everyone else, even though I have different learning styles, preferences, personality type. Right. Different cultural backgrounds, different experience. And so we have this cookie cutter environment. And that's where the gap is, that there's an expectation that we're going to have the same level of care in the workplace, but most people still feel like a number, and that's just not acceptable anymore if it ever was. It's raised the level of expectations. So the gap has widened. And that's one of the things.

And in the research, it kind of goes through the number to prove that of the people that we interviewed and how they felt about personalization, one in three people, you know, would leave the organization if they're not getting a more personalized experience. We saw that actually, what was it, 76% of people in organizations that were using AI also experienced high personalization. So there was a tie between how organizations are using AI to be more personalized and that it's working. You know, that kind of opens that point for us to think differently potentially, right? People are like, oh, no, AI is going to take our jobs. And AI is bad in certain ways for human connection. But just like you said, I could take five minutes before jumping onto a podcast or going into a tough conversation.

Do a quick role play or find out, here's my concerns, here's the type of person I'm meeting with. Give me some suggestions so that I can start this in the best energy possible. We can do that now. Like that.

So as I mentioned, penny, obviously, the TEDx talk, the books, the research, all the amazing work you've done, and most importantly, what you pour into everyone based on your Journey. Your experiences tell us what we can expect as you join us on May 5th and 6th at the Tanesca center in Omaha, Nebraska for the Coaching Effects Summit. What can we expect when you get up there on the stage? Are we talking Rubik's Cubes focus here. What are we talking about?

We are. I mean, you're going to hear some of the concepts that we talked about today. I am bringing my Rubik's Cube and be careful. I might even throw one out on the stage. I might even ask someone to solve it, who knows?

Yeah, well, mental. Well for myself to leave the room when I see the Rubik's Cube come out, because that's. Yeah, that ain't happening.

Well, you know what the whole point is, you're going to hear and we're going to connect through the things that challenge us and the simple practices that we can use to get back control, to feel more confident and to navigate uncertainty with creativity and clarity. So we're going to talk about concrete solutions. We're going to, for those of who weren't listening, right. We want to make sure they're up to speed with what is the reset mindset and dynamic reassessment and the reset practice. And we're going to have some fun, Right. We'll tell some additional stories and give some concrete practices and takeaways that they can use immediately.

Yeah, it'll be so much fun. And you know, just to refer back to the things that we talked about, why it was such a perfect fit and were so excited. Coaching leaders today are navigating rapid disruption. Right? The competing priorities and the pressure to be both efficient and innovative. And what do we tell people nowadays to do? Like work harder, work longer. Right. Work faster. And with these exercises, with these tools, with the stories it allows us, again, it's not how complex the problem is, but it's how you simplify the approach to solving problems. Yeah. Well, we could not be more excited to have you join us.

Well, I'm super excited as well. I'm sure it's going to be an amazing event with all the other great speakers and activities that are going on. And if whoever's listening, I hope to see you there. So make sure you stop in and let me know that you listen to this podcast.

And before I ask you our last question, I want to make sure that you tell the listener where they can find your books, your website, social media. Again, we'll put all this in the show notes, but go ahead, please share with us.

Sure. They can go to pennieskeynote.com so p e n n y s keynote.com that's where, you know, they can find information about me and the different topics that I talk about. Amazon's the best place to find my book. I'm on LinkedIn and all other social channels, so definitely reach out and connect with me. I'd love to hear from you all.

That's great. So, Penny, you really have this dialed in, right? You really do. But how does focus evolve as our distractions grow? Like, what do you see is next? Is it an AI component? You know, what is it? And where do you go with this?

So focus becomes, I think, even more important and even more challenging because we have, I think we have the least amount of demands at the moment than we're going to see over time as AI. You know, it can bring a lot of refinement, but it can also, when we don't define things clearly, right? It can also create more work and more rework. So clarity and context are absolutely critical, and I think they always were. But it becomes even more critical in this age of AI and also in the age of the emotional sensitivity that the environment and working place has with these changes and with the uncertainty. So I believe that focused leadership is more important now than ever. And I'm not going to pretend to predict what things look like in five years because I don't know.

I mean, things are moving so fast. But I can say this for sure, is that we know that no business will be the same next year, in one year, let alone in five years. So I can say for sure that I don't know for certainty where the business is going. But I can say for sure that a reset practice and a reset mindset will help the leaders and the organizations to lead with more clarity and certainty in times of uncertainty, because you can trust the practice of resetting.

Penny, this has been awesome and I cannot wait to meet you in person. I can't wait to be in the same room as you and to learn even more. But thank you so much for taking time out of your day. I know how busy you are. I appreciate how gracious you were with your time and everything that you shared with us.

Thank you so much for having me.

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