Hey, what's up, champion? This is your host, Neal, and I want to welcome you back to another episode today. Today we have a fire episode lined up for you today. You know, here in the executive perspective, we have one direction that we move. We move forward and upward. And that sometimes means tackling the tough or uncomfortable conversations that might be competing for our interests or limiting our high performance. Well, today we're going to talk about some of the dangers of misusing social media, but specifically we' talking about the area of productivity and how when you doom scroll, it can not only limit the potential you have inside of you, but it's equivalent to throwing your future away or flushing your dreams down the toilet. I know those are strong statements, but we're going to back them up today and we're going to give you some alarming stats of social media misuse and what you can do to correct it within your life. And I'm fired up about today's show and I pray you are too. Get ready. This is your captain speaking. We want to let you know we've been cleared for takeoff. We have clear skies today with no winds, so we are expecting a smooth and highly enjoyable flight. However, should you experience some personal turbulence, don't worry as you've chosen the right airline. As we are trained in navigating unexpected bumps, our destination today is high performance and success. Sit back, relax, get hyped, or do whatever you do. As we too are pumped for today's flight. We understand you have options when you fly and we are grateful that you have chosen to fly with us today. We recognize by choosing to fly, Neal Reyes, you are committed to growing personal development and reaching higher than you ever have before. Enjoy today's flight. Be blessed and remember, the best is yet to come. What's up, champion? This is your host, Neal Reyes, and I want to welcome you to the Executive perspective. For years I struggled to answer the question, what do you do for a living? Why? Because most people who ask only expect to hear one thing. I'm an executive with a deep level of understanding of business, operations, leadership and technology. I'm also the president and founder of a worldwide ministry and CEO. CEO of an executive coaching and consulting firm. My number one passion is people and I receive significant gratitude in life from sowing into others and encouraging them as they grow to achieve their fullest potential. If you're a high performance individual like me, or you're simply ready to take your business, leadership or inner potential to the next level, then strap in because I'm locked in and all in. This is the Executive Perspective. Hey, what's up, champions? This is your host, Neal Reyes, and I want to welcome you back to the Executive Perspective. Today I'm going to be speaking with you about a topic that I feel is critical for today. The topic I want to speak with you about is how doom scrolling is killing your productivity. I'm going to say that again. How doom scrolling is killing your productivity. Now, some of you might say, what is doom scrolling? Well, I'm going to break that down for you. But basically today we're going to be talking about how social media and the abuses of social media towards your time management is savaging your momentum and it's sabotaging your future. It's a deep, deep subject today because just about everybody out there uses social media to some degree and it doesn't matter what type of social media you do. But social media is a massive thing these days. And while it certainly can have some positive aspects, it's the abuse of social media that is impacting productivity for so many people. I want to be very clear about that. Again, I'm not attacking social media, but it's the abuse. Maybe a better way of phrasing it is the misuse of social media that is sabotaging productivity for millions and millions, if not billions of people. Today. I want to go into some core things with you, and then we're going to jump right into the subject. We're going to get deep into it today. First of all, I want to tell you that the average person actually doesn't realize how much social media is stealing from them. And regards to their time, their clarity and their calling, these are really, really big things right here. The amount of time, which I'm going to give you some stats in a minute, but the amount of time alone that people spend on social media, it steals from their clarity. What I mean by that? Well, when you're constantly looking at things on social media and especially if using something that's very, very just easy to scroll, like a TikTok or an Instagram or something like that, just naming some of the different ones that are out there, but you know, the different ones that you use, but when it's just so easy to swipe, even if it's something like shorts or even reels that are on Facebook or something as you're just swiping through them, you know what happens is that you can cover so much time swiping, swiping, swiping, swiping, swiping, that before you know it, not only have you done hundreds if not thousands of swipes, but you've spent not just minutes but literally hours in the same spot doing nothing. This is a really, really big problem today, specifically in the area of productivity. Now scroll fatigue is another thing that we speak about and scroll fatigue is very real. Leaders must learn how to reclaim their focus in order to lead effectively. But if a leader doesn't know how to maintain their focus and they're even having studies coming out now, which we'll talk about a little bit later too, but we're even having studies now that people who watch lots of reels or potentially shorts or things of that nature, TikTok videos that are video, when you do those types of things, they are even linking it now to shorten attention span, which is a significant concern. Now it doesn't mean everybody who does those things struggles from shortened attention span, but they are finding alarming trends within these areas. So here's what I want to hit you with first because this is what I felt was so alarming. Now what I'm going to give you today is a stat, but it's actually a very conservative stat because I've actually heard it's more than this number. But this is a conservative stat. But right now, based on studies that they've done, the average adult spends around three hours a day on social media. Man, that's a significant amount. 3 hours a day on social media. Now if an adult is spending three hours a day on social media, here's how quick that adds up. That equates to 21 hours a week. That's almost, that's ridiculous right there. 21 hours a week, that's almost a full day. But that's more than a full workday. That's almost a little over double what a full workday is. What do I mean by that? Well, in most cultures and especially in America, the norm for most people is they have an eight hour workday. Now there are those who have moved to schedules like four tens or something like that. And for those people, they have a 10 hour workday. But if you're, if the average person is spending three hours a day on social media, if you add those three hours up times seven days within the week, that's 21 hours of time on social media, that's almost a full day. But when you think about productivity, if you break that out, that's actually almost two full days of work. Actually a little bit more. Because if someone works eight hour days, then their average is 16 hours for two days. That's even more that's actually like two and a half days at that point. If you have someone who works 10 hour days, then this is just over two days of that. Now this would be one thing if that's how people spent their weekend and that's what they did all day Saturday and all day Sunday, which most people have off on the weekends. But that's not exactly how that works. And I'm not saying that'd be any better. But from a productivity standpoint at least, you know, you wouldn't be losing time at work. But most people, when they're scrolling social media, it's at all times during the day and oftentimes it's while they're at work. This is a very, very detrimental issue to productivity, especially in the workplace. Now here's a leadership truth bomb for you. Actually, before I get to a leadership truth bomb, this almost sounds like a leadership truth bomb as well. But I'm going to give you one more stat on this. So if you take the average person who spends up to three hours a day on social media, which I already told you is 21 hours a week, if you actually multiply that, that equates to almost two months out of the year. Oh my goodness, that adds up quick. Now when I told you earlier that I've heard this is actually a conservative statistic, I've actually heard that the average American, well, average adult, but I'm going to say for here in America, but the average adult actually spends three to actually closer to four hours a day on social media. If someone spending four hours a day, I've heard it said that it can be up to almost three months out of the year that they're spending on social media, man, from that standpoint alone, if someone has 12 months in their year, and we all have 12 months in our year, but two or even three of those months are going towards just scrolling time on social media, that means you have anywhere between two to three less months of work or productivity time throughout the year to be successful. And whatever you're responsible for being successful with, whether you're honoring someone else by working in their company or whether you're an entrepreneur and you have your own business, but whatever that is, if God's given you a dream of some sort in your heart and you're not chasing or following that thing because you're too distracted by the social media, you know, I'm going to give you some hard truths today, but you can be the most talented and gifted person in the world. Let's say God created you to create content, whether it be in the form of videos or something of that nature. You could be the most gifted orator in the world. In other words, speaker. You could be the most gifted speaker in the world. But if you never take time to record or put your messages together because you're too distracted by social media, that's like just going over the toilet and dumping your talent in it and hitting flush, man, I'm telling you, that may sound like a strong statement, but that is what it's like with your talent. In fact, it's even more than just that. These are your callings, these are your dreams. These are your assignments from on high that you're going to be held accountable to one day because God's going to ask you if you completed the assignment that he gave you. But in addition to that, man, this is your future. The next time you think about how you wish you were in a different situation, whether if it was maybe a little more freedom within your schedule, maybe a little more pay, maybe it's something like better hours or nicer home or bigger, nicer vehicle, or the ability to send your kids to college and not have to rack up debt or whatever the thing is for you, it doesn't matter what it is, it's different for everybody. And for some people, might be they simply want to buy a new timepiece, they want a new watch, or they want a new purse or handbag or something like that, or the new shoes. Or maybe it's just you want to take your family on vacation and not have to load it up on credit cards or debt. Whatever it is for you, there's different things for everybody. Maybe for you, it's just you want to be able to finally get out from underneath the debt of your student loans and you just want to pay that off the next time you jump on social media. Understand that all the wasted time you're putting in on that thing. And again, I'm not speaking against social media, but I am speaking about the dangerous effects of misusing it or abusing it and being on it too long. If you're on social media and misusing it or abusing it, that's like just flushing your future away. It's like dropping your future in the trash or dropping it in the toilet and hitting the flush and just watching that thing swirl down the drain because once it goes down that drain, you ain't getting it back, man. I'm telling you, this is how significant this thing is. Now, I got our first leadership truth bomb for you today. If you're struggling with things like clarity, motivation, or peace. It probably isn't overwhelm, but it might be scroll fatigue. In other words, I've had other shows that I've released even just recently where I talk about being overwhelmed or over taxed and stressed. And certainly those are real things. But at the same time, so many times in life, people either mislabel or misdiagnose things as something else. And if what you say is, oh, I'm so overwhelmed, I'm so overwhelmed. But really that you might be feeling overwhelmed, I'm not. You know, I'm not saying that that can't be real. But if the reason why you're overwhelmed is because you don't feel like you have enough time during your day to get all your work done, but if you're one of these people that's spending anywhere from three to four hours a day on social media, and if large parts of that are while you're at your work, well then no wonder you're overwhelmed. Because if you're required to get 8 hours of work a day or 10 hours of work a day based on your schedule, and you're trying to condense that now into five hours or seven hours because you're trimming three. And I'm just saying three hours, it can be even more if it's four. Consider it like this. If you work an eight hour workday and up to four hours of your day go to social media, that's technically like half your workday right there. You know, there's a real popular book out there by talking about the four hour workweek, but that's not what it's talking about. It's not talking about spending four hours a. So you can spend four hours of social media that at the job. That's not what that's talking about. At the same time though, I want you to understand I get that not everybody's doing this at work, but if you're not doing it at work, and most people are. Now let me clarify this. I'm not saying you're spending all three or up to four hours at work, but everybody checks their social media at work at one point or another. I shouldn't say everybody, but most people. I'll put it like that. Most people check their social media at work at some point or another, but let's just say you have IT Limited. Only 10 minutes during the day, good for you. But if when you go home, you are spending that three to four hours on social media, well, you're now taking time from Something else. Is it your spouse, is it your family, Is it your children? Maybe what it is is you're taking social media time. You're taking time away from times you could be learning, like reading books or doing something constructive if you have a full time job. But God's put something in your heart for you to do. Maybe he wants you to go create an online course or write a book or do something of that nature. Well, if you're doing all that scrolling in the evening time, then you're probably not being that productive doing what he's called you to do. Now, I said that we had some hard truths that we're going to hit hard today. And so this isn't meaning in any way to be pointing fingers at people, but it's to help wake you up. You know, on this podcast, the executive perspective, we focus on three areas. I say this in every show, we focus on leadership, business strategy and personal development. And here on the executive perspective, we have one direction we're focused on moving and that is forward and upward. So in order to go forward and upward, well, we're going to have to tackle some of the times, the tough things that are standing in our way as distractions or hindrances. Now I want to go to our next area and this is where I'm going to help you to understand what doom scrolling actually is, why it can be so dangerous. So first of all, let's define what doom scrolling is. And that's just kind of a popular term they've given for people who scroll on their phones on social media. And I get there's different types of social medias. There's ones that instead of scrolling, you swipe. I get it, okay. But this is nonetheless, this is what this refers to. The doom scrolling is defined as mindless. I'm gonna say it again because it's kind of a tough word right there. Mindless, endless content consumption. Mindless, endless content consumption. It's often negative in tone or its use and impact. And what I mean by that is it's also. It's often negative in the tone or it has uselessness. It's useless in its impact, meaning it's not doing anything to build you up. Now, there are certainly social media out there that you can go to and you can learn a lot of good things. I have found some things on social media that were very educational and even helped me within my business or things like that, but you got to dig for those things. But the majority of social media is not like that. It's based on Entertainment value and it's meant to capture your attention. They're kind of like social media is kind of like the modern day slot machine. Oh man, that's powerful right there. Except the only difference is that it's not going to give you a payout. Whereas slot machines, as sometimes they did and really what slot machines did, and I know this because I've ran a casino, if you didn't know that in slot machines they give you the promise that they may pay out for you, but they really don't pay out. Social media today is the modern day slot machine. It's a form of entertainment. That's all it is. It's a form of entertainment that's designed to consume your time. In the casino industry, they focus on metrics like time on the machine. They want to know how much money you're putting in that machine. And they know that if they can get that machine to be more enticing to keep you in your seat just a little bit longer, the chances of you putting more money in the machine goes up significantly. Well, with social media, they get you right where you're sitting. Wherever you're at, it hits you in a convenient way on your mobile phone. And they have analytics for that too. They know that the longer that they can keep you on social media, the more advertisements they can run towards you, the more they can sell that space to advertisers because they're locking you in on space. Now, I'm only lightly touching on the surface of this thing, but I want you to understand that these economies, they're calculated. That's why people refer to the algorithms when they talk about something like YouTube or Instagram or Facebook or TikTok or any of the different social medias out there. Out there, they always refer to the algorithms. And oftentimes you hear influencers refer to the algorithms updating. You know, if I were doing this on marketing today, and I could easily do that, and I could tell you how to be successful on social media based around these algorithms. One of the things that they'll tell you is that the algorithms are in a constant state of flux. They're updating every several months. Why? Because they're constantly getting better about understanding the behaviors that they want people to do while on social media. Because the more that they can dictate your behavior to you, and that's exactly what I just said, the more they can dictate to you your behavior to you, because they know the things that will entice you to stay on there longer, the more they can control your time on device. And if they can control your time on the device, it gives them a significant amount of power based on what they can do with advertisements and different things of that nature. And it's an economy in itself. I'm telling you, I'm just barely scratching the surface on that. But these are some real truths to pay attention to. Now here's some dangers or some pitfalls of doom scrolling. First of all, it mimics productivity, but it's really not productivity at all. Sometimes people will try to justify their use of social media, like, well, I'm, I'm researching, or I'm just keeping up with the trends. I'm just catching up on the news or whatever it is. In other words, it mimics productivity, but it's not really productivity. You know what else you can call that? You could call that fool's gold. You want to know why they call it fool's gold? Because it may look the color of gold and it may be nice and shiny, but it's not gold, meaning it doesn't have the same value. It's fake, it's false. It's a pretender is what it is. It's mimicking something. It's mimicking productivity. The other thing that it can do, dangerous pitfalls of doom scrolling. It can shorten attention spans. I talked about that earlier and how they have studies where they show that how it can impact attention spans of people. All people, but a lot of people. The other thing, and this is where things can get dangerous, is that it can feed comparison. It can feed anxiety or even mental clutter. What do I mean by mental clutter? It can give you so much to think about. There's so many things you're occupied with that you just don't have space for other things. You know, someone hands you a book and says, hey, go read this. You're like, oh, I can't, I can't. I don't have any more room to consume information because you've been stuffing useless information in, but it's information nonetheless. Now, you're not a computer. You don't have a hard drive to fill up, and you don't have RAM to fill up. But if that's the way your mind was designed, that's kind of what's happening is you're filling yourself up with information, but it's useless information rather than good information. And for the person out there says, no, no, I use it in productive ways. Maybe you do. Maybe you're the exception. But remember I talked about that. It mimics Productivity that people say things like, oh, I'm researching or I'm just keeping up, but it's that fool's gold we talked about. The other thing is, it can create anxiety for people depending on the types of videos that you watch or the types of social media you scroll. And then another thing is comparison. You know, comparison has been known to be the thief of joy, especially with social media comparisons. The thief of joy. Why? Because let's just say you're watching things based around fitness and you're watching these people that look like they have perfect physiques or perfect bodies, but you have no idea what they did on the editing of those videos and the lighting to make them look way more attractive or fit than they are. But here you are, and now you're living in comparison mode, thinking you have to keep up with that. Another one. And these are the ones I find kind of funny is when they're going down the street and they're asking people, hey, tell us what you do. Tell us how much you make. And you have someone say, oh, I work at the post office. How much you make? I make 180,000 a year. Whatever. Now, I'm not bagging on the post office. I'm sure there are some good. Some good pays in the post office, but, man, if they pay 180, you'd have to get way up in the post office before you make that. The other ones is sometimes when you have these people and they're coming right out and they're like, hey, what do you do? And they're like, oh, I'm a web developer. Or I'm a developer. It's like, oh, did you go to school for that? Yeah, I went to school for. That would do. I took some night classes. No, I don't know. But they're like, hey, I went to school for two years or whatever. Or I just got out of school. And they're like, how long? One year. What are you making? I make 350,000 a year. No, you don't. Come on. Now, I mean, I know that because I employ people like that. And now, I'm not saying they can't make good money. They can, but it ain't that. And not with just one year of experience. Holy smokes. Unless someone was desperate. Desperate? They are not making that. At least not off of that. Maybe they're selling some pictures of their feet or something, but they ain't making it off of that. All right, all right, I'll keep it clean. Never mind. But anyways, all that being Said the fact is, there's so much false comparison, or you have the people who are showing themselves driving around in the G Wagons or the Lamborghinis or the real big houses, and I think that's awesome. But you have no idea whether if they rented that and went to an open house, but tried to make it look like it was theirs, or if they rented. I'm going to tell you how some of this is done. Some of these people are simply renting vehicles and then renting Airbnbs and they're staging these photo shoots and stuff to make it look like they have these grandiose lives, man. Actually, they don't, man. I'm going to tell you that's significant right there. So watch out with the comparison thing, because if it feeds comparison, comparison is the thief of all joy. Or I shouldn't say of all joy, but comparison can be the thief of joy. Now, the next thing I want to talk to you about are some hidden costs of scroll fatigue. Now, these are hidden costs, meaning that they hide in secret, they're hiding in the shadows. But these are hidden cost mental fatigue without real output. What is that? Well, if you've ever, say, tried studying for a test when you were in school, man, you know what it's like to really hit the books and read, read, read, read, study, study, study, study. After hours of doing that, you might be wiped out or tired, but you had a payoff because you consumed and learned a lot of information. But when someone's consuming social media in the same ways, consume, consume, consume, consume, they can still have that feeling at the end of being wiped out or mentally fatigued. The only thing is, they didn't add anything to their learning. They may know all the new cool dances that are out there or all the songs that are trending on Reels or TikTok or something, but they're not actually learning anything on there that's useful or beneficial. It would have been better for them to go pick up an audiobook and listen to that at least for an hour or something like that, and at least at that point they're learning something, even if it's a fictional book, at least they're doing something productive. But if they can do that on a book that's based around, like, personal development or habits or something like that, now they're actually growing right there. Another hidden cost of scroll fatigue can be loss of deep work capacity. Another one is emotional erosion from constant input and comparison. Man, that's a big one right there. Emotional erosion from constant input and Comparison. You know, one of the things that used to impact that for people is when people used to scroll porn. Now I know when people are like, oh, my gosh, that's a serious thing right there, because when they would do that, it would make them emotionally insensitive. Well, social media, while it's not the same thing, it's hitting on the same centers of your mind. In other words, when people are doing scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll at first, when you first start doing it and you see images, your mind is getting dopamine hits left and right. It's like you're high on dopamine, but after a while looking at social media, you're not getting the same. So in order to reproduce that same dopamine hit, you got to do it longer or you start looking for stronger things or something of that nature. But your body starts trying to consume more to get the same dopamine hit effect. But it's just a nasty loop that your body's caught in and that your mind is caught in. You have to be mindful about these hidden costs of scroll fatigue that can be so significant to your life. Now, again, I'm going to say it again. I am not against social media, but I am against the abuses or misuses of it, especially when it comes to impacting your productivity or your future or your promise. The next thing we have underneath the hidden cost of scroll fatigue is disconnection from your own voice, values, and vision. Man. That's powerful right there. Disconnection from your own voice, your own values. It can help reset your values of what's acceptable and what's not to you with your personal values, your vision, what's really important to you. You can be spending a lot of time watching someone else's vision on there, but it doesn't mean it's getting you any closer to yours. In fact, not only is it not getting you closer, it's moving you further apart. Now, I have another leadership truth bomb for you here. The scroll will slowly numb your mind and steal your momentum. That's a strong one right there. This scroll will slowly numb your mind and steal your momentum. Next, I'm going to talk to you about why leaders need to take this seriously. Remember, I said it earlier on this show, but this podcast focuses on three main areas. It focuses on leadership, business strategy, and personal development. And one of the things that I teach here often, and I say on repeat, is that when you're a leader, someone is always watching you. So here's why it's important, why leaders must take this seriously. Leadership demands mental clarity, but it also demands vision and presence. I'm going to say that again. Leadership demands. In other words, it demands. It not just requires it, it forcefully requires it. It demands clarity, vision, presence. And if you're in a constant state of distraction because of social media and doom scrolling, then you're not living up to your full potential as a leader and there are people who are counting on you and waiting on you to show up. Another thing is your team will always follow your example and distracted leaders create distracted cultures. That's a powerful one. I'm going to say that again. Your team will always follow your example and distracted leaders will create distracted cultures. Man. If you have one person on your team who's suffering from the scroll from the doom scrolling and they're losing three to four hours a day of productivity, let's just say they even do it after hours on their own time. Let's just say they even do it after they put the kids to bed or after they say goodnight to their spouse. Or maybe they're not married, but they do it at the end of the night. If they spend three to four hours doom scrolling, man, they could be going to bed much later than they're supposed to. And when they wake up in the morning tired and exhausted, they're not at their best for you that day or for themselves. And then if they drag into work and they're struggling, man, if they got to get like two, three cups of coffee in them and they can't really get going until like 10:00, you're not getting a lot of productivity out of that person. This impacts things. And now if you're that person who I just mentioned, but your team's watching you and now your distractedness is now creating a distracted culture, man, you get you and now two or three people following in your example, now you're not producing very much at all. That's a significant thing right there. You don't want to be doing this. People want to work for places where they know they're being productive, they're contributing. Are there some people out there who just want to gobble up a paycheck and not have to produce any work or any type of output? Absolutely. But those aren't the kind of people that listen to this show. And I'm being straight up about that. They're not. This is a high performance podcast. This is a podcast that comes from the trenches of my coaching and my executive management experience that I've done for years and years and years. When I'M working with my clients one on one, and with advanced mindset coaching and high performance coaching, I'm taking them through the trenches to get rid of all the distractions, to get rid of the things that are holding them back. Because we have one direction that we move, and it's the same direction we move on this podcast. We move forward and upward. And so many times the things that I teach about here are things that I've gone through the trenches with clients one on one, or they're things that I've done in my management and executive career that I'm now showing you so that you can be at your best. My greatest desire is to help people, and I want to help people rise and I want to help them be able to connect with their best life and their best potential so that they can live their best life. I'm talking their best self is what I want to help them connect with. So when we focus on these things, understand the importance of it. This is such an important deal. Now I have another leadership truth bomb for you. If you're addicted to distraction, you can't fulfill your true potential. Man. I'm going to say that again. If you are addicted to distraction, you cannot fulfill your true potential, man. That's a big one right there. You know, most people, and there may be some here saying I never would have thought of it, about being addicted to distraction. You know, if you ask most people, are you addicted to anything, most people would probably tell you no. And for most people, maybe that's true, but maybe they have some addictions that they don't recognize as an addiction because they equate addictions as being destructive or harmful or damaging to themselves or to others or their relationships around them. But you very much can be addicted to things like social media. Absolutely you could. At the same time, if social media or doom scrolling, simply if you go back down to the root, not just the fruit, but if you go to the root of that issue and really at the end of the day, it's distraction that you're addicted to. Then whether if it's social media or it's something else, if you're addicted to distraction, you're never going to fulfill your true potential. That's a big one right there. That's a sticky, sticky, sticky leadership bomb. What I mean by that, meaning it sticks, man. That resonates that, that gives for some deeper thought. Now the next thing I want to do is go over some practical steps on how to reset. Now, this isn't an end all, be all but I don't want to just point out a problem to you. I was taught very early on in leadership that anytime you present a problem, make sure you also present a solution. And the people you present it to may not think it's a great solution, but at least present a solution. And that doesn't mean present a problem and then present a crappy solution, but at least. So you can say you presented a solution. No, you present a product or I'm sorry, if you present a problem or point out a problem, make sure you present a solution to go with it. So I'm going to give you some practical steps on how to reset on the doom scrolling. So the first one, the most important thing is learning to track your time. If you don't track your time, you won't have awareness over it. So there's different things you can do, and I'm not saying these are the most effective because there's easy ways around them, but these are some simple things you can do. You can use your phone screen time report there. All the phones now are built nowadays of smartphones with reports you can put on them where it's at least telling you how much time you're doing. Now they won't lock you out of it all the way because they don't want people mad at their products. But they're trying to give you awareness so that if you see it, at least it's alarming to you. Now before today, if you had saw two to three hours on there or three to four and you're like, yeah, not a big deal. But now you heard me and you're like, holy yikes. I learned today, talking or listening to Neil, that if I do three hours a day, that's up to 21 hours a week, which is like two full work days that I'm losing right there and potentially up to two months. That's a big deal right there. And so while that's a big deal, be attention to that. Understand what that means. If you don't want to use those reports. There are tracking apps that people have created, apps that will help you track this as well. Awareness always precedes change. So just remember that awareness always precedes change. You may want to do different, but if you don't know what you need to do different, then you're going to have a hard time doing different. Awareness always precedes change. And this can be effective because if I had to give you an example, I remember years ago, a couple years ago I was working with a nutrition coach and she was having me carry around a journal and mark all the things that I ate during the day. And she'd have me track it for a week. And at the end of the week or the beginning of the next week, we would get together and meet. And I remember one time she sat down with me and she handed me a highlighter, and she goes, neal, here's a highlighter. I want you to go through your meals last week, and I want you to highlight for me every time that you ate vegetables. I knew I was in trouble because, man, I went through that whole list and holy cow, you know, if I was eating, say, three or four times a day and I did that for seven days, I might have had, like, two things that had highlighted on there. Now I know don't judge me. Now I know there's others out there, like, holy cow. You know, I just wasn't consuming vegetables. But you know what? I made a change in that, and now I love vegetables. And I can always tell with my system and my body when I'm not getting enough, but I love vegetables. But at the time, I needed some awareness because awareness will proceed. Changes. Well, you know, the other thing she did for me is she didn't just say, hey, what are you missing? That's the good stuff. She also said, all right, now give me that Hyler back. And I'm going to give you a different highlighter. This is a different color. And now I want you to go through and highlight all the times that you ate fast food last week. And don't judge, because I know yours will be looking just as colorful as mine did. Man, I might have had. If the yellow highlighter was for the veggies, and I only had like two or maybe three on there, man, if the blue represented the blue highlighter represented the fast food, I might have had, you know, like five or six on there. I'm not sure. But it just. I. There was a lot more on there, though, than the veggies. Well, you know what? It was those things that helped me, and she gave me a visual representation to be able to track that. So when I talk about the screen reporting apps and the tracking apps and stuff, those things can be of value if you know how to use them. The next thing on some practical steps to reset is establishing scroll boundaries. This is so important for any area in life. You've got to have healthy boundaries established, whether if it's in relationships, whether if it's in work, whether if it's in playtime or hobbies. Doesn't matter what it is. You have to have healthy boundaries established. Well, here are some healthy boundaries that you can establish to help you avoid the scrolling time block for social usage. In other words, maybe start treating it instead of just going or defaulting social media, maybe start treating it like a reward system instead. Maybe set your stuff something at the beginning of the day that if you can go through, you know, two hours of work effectively, you'll give yourself a 15 minute break with a timer where you get to take a quick 15 minute break and scroll social media or catch up on the latest things. And then when the timer goes off, you put that away and you get back to another two hours of work or whatever it is until you go on lunch. And I'm giving an example. I'm not saying you have to do it like this, but it's something in that nature. In other words, no endless swiping. You're giving yourself productive gaps where you can do this types of a thing. Another thing that I would tell you about this is no scroll zones, man. What do I mean by that? Well, this got popular a few years ago on no phone zones because I remember one time, even for me and my family, we went out to eat dinner. This is back when I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I don't live there anymore. I now live in Fort Worth, Texas. But when I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I remember one time we went to a local restaurant that was one of our favorite restaurants to go to. And I went to the. I ordered our food, we all went and sat down at the table. And then I told my wife I was going to go wash my hands while I'm waiting for the food to come. I proceed to go to the restroom and I come back. And when I come around the corner, I see my wife and my three children sitting there. We hadn't had our youngest one, Tristan yet, but. And so as I, or Tristan, we did have Trist, I think, but he was a baby, so he was. He didn't have a cell phone, but everyone else had a cell phone or they had a little iPad or something and every person at the table was either on their phone or they were on their iPad. Now, you may want to judge me, but you shouldn't because you're doing the same things. But when I walked up and saw that, the Lord got my attention on that and I came and sat down and told my wife the picture I saw. And the fact was I'm no better than that because I was at the restroom. But had I not been at the restroom it had been someone else who was walking and saw our entire family doing that. And they would have saw me as the spiritual head of my household, sitting right there on my phone, leading by example, man. Just telling you, awareness precedes change. But when I saw that, I told my wife, we got to have to, we're at the table. No more cell phones and no more iPads. We just got to be able to focus and have family time and talk to each other. She loved that idea and so did my family. And it became a very successful thing. Well, that being said, sometimes you need to have no scroll zones when it comes to social media. A no scroll zone could be early morning, that there's no social media before going to work. Maybe, maybe it's pre bedtime. This is a big one right here. No social media before going to bed. This is really big because I coach a lot of people and talk with a lot of people and even high performers, and they tell me how they struggle with being tired the next day at work because they stayed up too late. And when I asked them what they did, they talked about how they were just scrolling away on social media. This is a big one. But in addition to this, if you're having trouble sleeping or getting regular sleep or good sleep, it could be your circadian rhythms are all over the chart and just off the chart and they're all out of whack. Well, sometimes what they have found, not sometimes, but what they have found through studies. And I'm not a doctor, so, you know, but I read a lot and I study a lot and I work with a lot of people on that, work with a lot of professionals. And what I will tell you is what they have found is that the blue light consumption you get from electronics, it resets your circadian rhythm. And when you're scrolling on social media endlessly, especially right before bed, it can impact that. Now, a lot of the newer phones are having what they call our night mode, where it's actually supposed to help reduce that or change that. And you put those based on a schedule or sometimes. Now the new different screen covers or things that they might have blue light filters to help you with that. But when we're talking about no scroll zones early morning, how you start your day and pre bed, how pre bedtime, how you finish your day, these are really big, important times to maybe make no scroll zones. So it helps you with that. Other times you might have like deep work blocks where you say, okay, I'm going to go on a sprint, you know, if I Were talking about time management principles. I could talk to you about the Pomodoro model where you turn around and you said, all right, I'm going to work for a 20 minute sprint, 10 minute break, 20 minute sprint, 10 minute break or so, or whatever that is. But on this one, you do deep work blocks where you say, I'm going to give myself an hour to do deep work or two hours to do deep work. And I'm not even allowed to touch my phone when you do things like that. It'll help you with your productivity vastly. Help you with your productivity tremendously. The other thing is learn how to replace the habit loop. Sometimes people just pick it up out of habit. They found that even with people that when they smoke, a lot of times their bodies are addicted to the nicotine and stuff. No doubt about that. But a lot of times when people have a hard time breaking the smoking habit, even if they do the nicotine patches or things like that, which still feeds their body nicotine, but it's weaning them off of it, it's the habit of wanting to pick something up, put in their mouth, put it in their mouth and put it in their mouth. That's why they try to break those habits or reform those habits in different ways, where they're putting something different in their mouth, chewing on a piece of gum or chewing on a carrot or something. But it's not just what your mouth's doing, but it's also the hand motion. So that's just an example. But with the phone, wow. People have habits with that too. Replace idle scroll time with intentional input. Now you can do things like podcasting, like listening to this podcast, reading books or going for walks or maybe even journaling. These are all things that can help you in tremendous ways. And as we get ready to close today's episode, I want to share with you a final thought or a closing thought as we get ready to finish. And I want to just encourage you that and remind you that you weren't created to be just a consumer. I'm going to say that again. In fact, I'm going to make it a little more direct. High performer, you pay attention. You listen to me right now, Champion. You weren't created to be a consumer. You were called to be a creator, a leader, a builder. Start taking your focus back, man. That's powerful right there. I want to remind you and encourage you that I believe in you, Champion. I believe you have greatness on the inside of you. You just need to cultivate it and then bring it on the outside so that everyone else can see and experience it as well. But I believe in you. I know you're built for greatness, and I know you have greatness on the inside of you guys. Before we go, I want to remind you to swing by our website@neal Reyes.com where you can connect with all of our teaching resources, and we have a bunch of them. In addition to that, I also want to encourage you that if you're enjoying this podcast, then please follow it, please subscribe to it, please go ahead and share it with someone, and if you could leave us a review or a rating, that would help us tremendously. You know, this is a new podcast, but we've already got a bunch of episodes out, and this podcast is growing like wildfire. And I just want to thank all of you who are coming back day after day and listening to it and sharing it. Thank you so much for that. We appreciate that support. But one of the reasons why I ask for you to follow it and for you to give us ratings and for you to give us reviews is that the more you do that. I talked about algorithms earlier. The more you do that, the more the podcast platforms put us higher in the list, and the higher we are in the list, the easier it is for people to find us and the more they can consume this information. You know, I created this podcast to give, not to get. And what I mean by that is I created this podcast because of the information I wanted to sow into people, the stories that I've been through and the experience that I have that I want to show into people, because it really is the desire of my heart to help people rise and connect with their best self and their best life. And I want to see people fulfill their true and best performance. Champion, before I let you go, I'm going to remind you one more time because I don't think you can hear it too much, but I want to make sure you hear it from me today. I believe in you, Champion, and I believe the greatness you have in you. Go out and smash it today. Thank you and have a blessed day.