Could the idea of time management be out of date?
As you’ll hear from today’s guest… “attention management” is the new path to productivity.
So what are the implications for your marketing team?
In this episode of #ThoughtLeaderConversations, V2's Roger Courville, CSP sits down with Maura Nevel Thomas, CSP, author of Attention Management: How to Create Success and Gain Productivity Every Day. Maura's been helping busy professionals at places like Google and NASA discover how to accomplish more of what’s important for more than two decades, and she’s ranked in the Top 10 Time Management Professionals in the World. In addition to her six best-selling books, she also writes columns for both Forbes and Harvard Business Review.
As you listen in to this conversation, you will:
Discover why attention management, not time management, is the key to achieving significant personal and professional results
Learn how to identify and change unproductive habits that keep you in a cycle of busyness without meaningful progress
Understand why task-switching every few minutes reduces efficiency and lowers the quality of your work
Explore strategies for managing distractions in your environment, from using visual signals to setting boundaries with colleagues
Find out how to leverage technology to support focus by turning off unnecessary notifications and customizing settings
Learn the importance of recognizing habitual self-distraction and how to cultivate deeper awareness to overcome it
Discover how to create a “do not disturb” bubble for focused work periods to maximize productivity
Understand the psychological impact of living a life of reaction and distraction versus intention and choice
Hear why managing attention enables you to be fully present, accessing your best creativity, empathy, and wisdom, and
Explore tools and free resources to implement attention management techniques in your daily life and work.
Learn more at MauraThomas.com (and don't miss her free courses and materials section in the top navigation bar).
Series: #ThoughtLeaderConversations
Sponsor: V2, LLC, expert virtual and hybrid event production, www.VirtualVenues.com
Host: Roger Courville, CSP, https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerc/
Keywords: #Leadership #AttentionManagement #ProductivityHacks #FocusAndFlow #IntentionalLiving #DigitalDetox
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UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Roger Courville, CSP: Could the idea of time management be on its way out? Well, as you'll hear today from our guest, attention management is the new path to productivity. So what are the implications for you and your marketing team? Well, I think plenty. Hello and welcome to how marketers can empower their productivity. My name is Roger Corville and welcome to another episode of Thought Leader Conversations.
Sponsored by the crew here at Virtual Venues, where you can instantly scale your virtual and hybrid event production team with a crew that helps you focus on something. Other than tech and logistics, but we're not here to talk about us. And I'm really excited to welcome to the virtual stage. Maura Neville Thomas for over two decades, our guest has been helping busy professionals at places like Google and NASA discover how to accomplish more of what's really important.
She's ranked in the top. 10 time management professionals in the world. And in addition to her six bestselling books, she also writes columns for both Forbes and Harvard business review, happy to have productivity and attention management expert, Maura Neville Thomas with us here today. Welcome Maura.
Glad you're here. Uh, tell us more about who you are and what you do.
[00:01:08] Maura Thomas, CSP: Oh, you covered it. I, uh, I help busy teams accomplish more of what's most important. And, uh, I help leaders empower their employees to leave work more often thinking, Oh my gosh, that was such a good day. I got so much done and less often thinking, Oh my gosh, I was busy all day and somehow I got nothing done.
That's my job.
[00:01:33] Roger Courville, CSP: Been there, done that. Hey, I know you work with more than just marketing and marketing leaders. Um, but for the marketers listening to this, I'm kind of excited to. That you're here, given that I know that nowadays in particular, right here, as we're recording this in September, 2024, they're being squeezed to do more with less.
And as you say on your website, maximizing returns begins with changing unproductive behaviors. Tell us how you define that unproductive behaviors and maybe where you even begin to work with a client.
[00:02:07] Maura Thomas, CSP: Yeah. I mean, do more with less. We hear that so often these days, but I feel like most people treat it sort of as a wish, not a strategy, right?
I, we don't, we want to do more with less, but we don't really change the way that we operate and you know, keep doing what you're doing, keep getting the same results. So if you want. To do more with less than you need to change the way that you work. And for most people, the way that we work is a collection of habits that have come about over time, out of necessity, without intention.
And so. So, when we can shine a light on those behaviors and say, Are you really, is this really the most efficient and effective way to do this? Could this be done easier in less time with less effort? The answer is almost always yes. And so, that's what I help people do. And with regard to what are some unproductive behaviors, the most common unproductive behavior that I see is we switch what we're doing while we're working about every one to three minutes on average.
And we are not, Roger, our best selves in one to three minute increments, right? And you know this, if you have ever left a meeting or a conversation and said to yourself, I probably shouldn't have said that or said to yourself, Oh, I should have said that. Or if you've ever had to send a follow up email because you just dashed off your first email.
And then after an hour or two, you were like, you know, I didn't really expect it. I'll explain myself very well. I probably should've clarified that. That wasn't really a very good message. I sounded rude, right? Whatever it was. And so then you had to do it again and that's this tasks switching every minute or two is the biggest on productive behavior, but it's really hard to switch.
It
[00:04:08] Roger Courville, CSP: really is. And you know, uh, I was looking, I'm looking, I've been looking forward to having a chat with you because decades ago I can actually say that in my life now, decades ago I was one of those people on the lot on the. Uh, you know, on the road teaching and essentially what was Stephen Covey's means of trying to squeeze 50 pounds of spuds into a five pound sack and Covey, our day planners and that kind of thing.
And so, and I just realized that at some point something else has to change. And I was, so I've been looking forward to chatting with you. Your new book talks about attention management, sounds pretty self explanatory, but go a little more into that. What? What's behind that? What's the paradigm?
[00:04:51] Maura Thomas, CSP: Yeah. So the idea is that, so my job is to help people be more productive, right?
And there is a definition of the word productive that guides my work. And that is. Achieving significant results. So how productive you are is how much progress you have made on the results that are significant to you personally or professionally. Now the significance changes with the time horizon, right?
So When we talk about today's significant results, it's probably going to be different than this week's significant results, than this year's significant results, this decade's significant results, and ultimately, this lifetime's significant results. So when I say I help people achieve more of their significant results, be more productive, I mean everything from the most important thing on your to do list today.
to what kind of legacy will you leave behind? Did you live according to your values? Did you, um, kind of achieve the things that you, what will matter to you when you're 105 years old sitting in your rocking chair reflecting on your life? And anything in between that you consider significant. And we have been framing our ability to be productive in terms of time management for decades, maybe for a century.
Or more. But the techniques of time management were created in a world that no longer exists. The techniques of time management, things like, um, you know, start by writing down all the things you want to do today and then prioritize your list A, B, C, D. And then just work from the A's through the B's all the way down to the D's and then just pat yourself on the back at the end of the day that you finished everything on your list, right?
And I think even calling it time management. It's holding us back because we've all had days where we said to ourselves that was such a good day. I got so much done. And we've all had days where we said to ourselves. Oh my gosh, I was busy all day and I got nothing done. And in those two instances, same 24 hours, same amount of time.
The problem is we, because we are switching what we are doing every minute or so throughout our day, everything we are doing takes longer. And the quality is lower. And so, if I could magically give you 26 or 28 or 30 hours in a day, but you still spent it switching what you were doing every minute or two, you wouldn't get any more done, and it wouldn't get done any better.
In the 21st century, not having enough time is not our problem. Our problem is that we have too many distractions. And you can't solve a distraction problem with a time solution. The antidote to distraction is attention. And so what matters way more today than time management is attention management. And we can talk about why even those words are so important.
And the way that the words that we use to think about it are critical. So I think we need to just kick this phrase time management to the curb.
[00:08:19] Roger Courville, CSP: No, I just was going to put an exclamation point behind that, which you just said, we can't, we can't manage time. We need to manage our distractions. And I remember having an argument with a boss one time long ago, um, when I was in the corporate world long before I started my Professional speaking career, we can win.
Okay. So if we make the big push here at the end of the quarter, we're working 50 hours a week, you want 55. How many times can we just go okay. Put on another 10 percent just so we can make our numbers. Not that, not that that's a co equal, um, amount of productivity just by tacking on working more hours.
And of course, at the time I had, you know, a wife and little kids and diapers and I'm just like, there's gotta be a better way. And here she is, the kids with Mara.
[00:09:09] Maura Thomas, CSP: And it's funny that you mentioned 55 hours, because research shows that we start to get less productive, less Um, engaged, less satisfied, less healthy, even after about 45 hours in a work week on average.
Now, you know, there's crunch times for every business for sure, but I worked with a pharmaceutical company once and I was talking about, you know, work life balance and a good average number of hours and what the research shows and the leader, the leader said, Oh, but we're we're in a crunch time right now.
And somebody on her team was brave enough to say, I've been here for seven years. It's been crunch time the whole time, right? That's not crunch time. That's just toxic work. And just trying to squeeze blood from a stone. It just doesn't. Yeah.
[00:10:12] Roger Courville, CSP: It's a short term solution and for sure. Back to the words you were talking about.
Talk to me a little more about the the language that we use Maybe the self talk that we use Go a little more into that. Why do you think talking about attention management? Or is is so much better of a paradigm shift rather than you this now outmoded idea of time management
[00:10:38] Maura Thomas, CSP: Yeah, it's because um We have all these stories that we tell ourselves about why we have to work the way we work, right?
And there is truth to all of these stories, right? People are demanding, people have high expectations, um, there's a lot coming at us, it takes, you know, it takes more time and effort to do the things that we need to do, like it's a different world, right? All of this stuff, there is truth to that. However, the bottom line is You are in charge of whether or not you are distracted.
No one can distract you unless you allow them. We can't, none of us can control time, but if our attention is to be controlled, we are the only ones who can do it. It is 100 percent in our control. And so, so for example, I had a client say to me once I was delivering a training and a client said, one of the people in the room said, my clients know in advance when I'm going on vacation, but they email me the whole time I'm gone.
So I can't even enjoy my vacation. And my response to him was, they're emailing you while you're gone. And he said, yeah, I can't even enjoy my vacation. And my response to him was. So how do you know, right? How do you know they're emailing you while you're gone? If you are checking your messages during your downtime, that is not work invading your personal time.
That is you inviting it in. So, so being the control freak that I am, I love the idea of attention management. I love this shift because it puts me in the driver's seat. That's the first thing. The second thing is that most of us these days are habituated to distraction. We, we are constantly distracted. We get a distraction every minute or so.
And so even in the absence of the distraction, we get bored and we look for a distraction. If you have ever found yourself just randomly opening your browser for no real apparent reason, or picking up your phone and just looking at it just because you felt like you should, or just randomly stopping what you were doing in the middle to do something else, not just because that or if you've ever felt a phantom vibration in your pocket, you swear your phone vibrated, but it didn't.
You pull it out, look at it. There's nothing there. You know what I mean? We, we have a habit of distraction so that even in the absence of distraction, we seek out, we interrupt ourselves and seek out the distraction. And so the first step in changing any habit, is the awareness. You can't change a habit that you don't know you have.
And so the more you think in your head and say to other people, attention management, and the more Um, you have this idea top of mind, the more you become aware of how distracted you are. And that's when you start to say things to yourself like, I should have closed my door. Oh, I should have put my phone on silent.
Oh, right. I should have been on do not disturb. Why am I getting those notifications? Turn those off, right? Those are the kind of things you become more aware of when you get distracted. And so you start to make changes. And not only do you become. You and the people around you become more aware of how distracted you are.
You also start to become more aware, you and the people around you, of how distracting you are. And so, then, the environment that you are in starts to change. Just with the words, because the awareness becomes high.
[00:14:45] Roger Courville, CSP: I thought confession was the first step. It's been three days since I've looked at my phone and my sponsor, Mara, she's, she's helping me.
[00:14:57] Maura Thomas, CSP: Yeah. I think most people these days are ready to admit, Oh yeah, I'm totally addicted to my phone. And I don't use the word addicted. I use the word habituated because I'm not a mental health professional, but you know, it is a continuum between habit to addiction and I'll leave it to the professionals to decide where that is.
[00:15:15] Roger Courville, CSP: Yeah, I think that's fair. And Jonathan Heights work obviously lately is, has raised the bar on this. Um, I say enculturated because, uh, you know, I, I teach presentation skills among other things, right. And, and helping people do so online. needs means needing to put yourself into a different set of shoes, right.
And too often virtual events or webinars end up being, you know, info bar for PowerPoint instead of realizing that someone in front of a screen has been enculturated by television and movies and and a different psychosocial dynamic that, um, that means they're having an experience that's more like watching television than than sitting in your seminar audience or keynote audience.
And therefore, how do we think about reaching through the medium and blah, blah, blah. So curious. And I'm sure this is in your book. And sorry, I didn't have it. I didn't have enough time to do more than just skim over it. But what do you do about those inevitable interruptions? So I'm also a part time pastor, right?
Last week, I get a phone call and next thing you know, an hour and a half has gone by that wasn't part of that afternoon's plan. I know, you know, executives deal with that as well.
[00:16:37] Maura Thomas, CSP: Yeah. So.
It really just depends on what you are doing, and if, see, so the ultimate outcome of attention management to me is that you can recognize the headspace that you are in, in that moment, and ask yourself, will this Mindset that I have right now this this this headspace and and I I have these four quadrants for quadrant module model about Like are you?
Reactive and distracted. Are you focused and mindful? Present are you in flow or are you? Daydreaming and so if you think about It's an oversimplification, but if you think about those four kind of states of being, the ultimate goal of attention management is it gives you the opportunity to recognize more often, what, what mindset am I in and will it produce the best results for this moment?
This thing that I'm trying to achieve. And so, to the extent that we can, it is useful to, if you're going to do something, right, it's useful to sort of put yourself in a little do not disturb bubble for, you know, 20 or 30 minutes at a time. I'm not, I'm not talking about, you know. Go in dark for days, as appealing as that might sound.
But, whether it's 20, 30 minutes every hour, whether it's 60, 75, 90 minutes a couple times a day, whatever it is. And so, just decide. I'm going to put my phone on silent, so I won't know if that call comes in. Now we can set our our focus mode right to say do not disturb unless it's this or unless it's that or two calls from the same number blah blah blah right so do that do all that but then put yourself in this bubble and then also be mindful when that call comes in and you know you can tell in the first five minutes it's gonna like derail your plans.
We have the presence to say you know what I I am I would love to help you with this. And can we, uh, can we touch base in about 90 minutes because I'm wrapping up thing and I have another meeting and then, and then I will be able to be fully with you and we'll knock this thing out. Instead of just the phone rings, so I answer it, whatever happens on the phone, I just go with it.
Right? And so when you start to practice attention management, you can have a little bit more presence of mind to make decisions at each moment to say, is this the right thing? Is this the right path? Is this, you know, and, and so then your day becomes more productive and you don't get derailed as often.
[00:19:39] Roger Courville, CSP: So if step one is awareness. Take someone beyond that, say I've, I've confessed my, my enculturation, my habituation, whichever word was used. Um, I've, I realize, and maybe I even start paying attention to my own habits, right? That's that is a, you're right. We don't even realize what we're doing. Where do you, where do you go from there at, for instance, and I'll let you have a personal plug here.
You've written multiple books. You've got all kinds of free resources on your, on your website. Um, What's, what's kind of a next step for someone listening to this going, okay, I got to do something about this.
[00:20:21] Maura Thomas, CSP: Yeah, yeah, we, we have three primary challenges to our ability to manage our attention. And so we need to regain control first over these three things.
And then other things start to fall into place. So the three primary challenges that we have are our environment, our technology and our habits. And so looking at each of these in turn and. It's not hard to think about, um, you know, some, some suggestions for each of those, but like your environment, we, people who work in an office with other people, even if that's a home office, if other people or pets or whoever, right, are in your house with you, then you have potential to be distracted.
And it might be other people. It might be if you work from home, it might be other things. The dog wants to go out and play and it's really nice outside. And I'd love to go out and play with the dog right now. Right? So how do we manage those distractions in our environment when it comes to other people?
The suggestion that I usually offer to my clients is to. Um, have a signal of some sort that says, don't ask me if I have a minute right now, because I don't. And whether that signal is a closed door or a flag or light or a, Oh, I had a client during COVID who heard my keynote and he's, and then he had little kids running around his house and he decided that his.
His signal was going to be a baseball hat, and he's told his kids, if my hat is on, dad is home and you can talk to me. If my hat is off, I am at work and you better be bleeding if you interrupt me, right? And his three year old could understand that, right? Look for the hat before I, before I bother daddy, right?
Look for the hat. And so, so we need to have the signal, but then a lot of people tell me, yeah, I closed my door. It doesn't matter. It doesn't help. People come through it anyway, right? But having the signal isn't enough. You have to do two more things beyond that. You have to honor the signal yourself, right?
If your door is your signal, and somebody knocks, knocks, Hey, sorry to interrupt, but do you have a minute? Actually, I don't right now. Can you please come back when the door is open, right? You probably only need to say that once or twice before people start to get the message. Um, so you have to honor the signal.
If you allow people to interrupt you, then your signal isn't a signal, right? And then the second thing is that you have to be intentional and judicious. If you just go in your office and close the door and stay there all day. That's not a signal. That's just a closed door. So you have to be intentional.
I'm gonna work on this. strategy for the next 40 minutes. So I'm going to close my door and then when I'm done with that, or when I get to a stopping point, then I will open the door and I will allow interruptions. Right. So, so that's environment, the technology. I mean, we can figure it out, right? Turn off the notifications, turn off the, a lot of people think.
They say to me, Oh, my phone buzzes all day. I just ignore it. It might feel like you're ignoring it. It might seem like you're ignoring it, but that those signals are actually registering in your brain. and distracting you and taking up some cognitive capacity, and they're contributing to your constant distraction.
So you get habituated. You just start to expect the buzz, the buzz, the buzz, the buzz, the buzz, and then when the buzz goes away, you're like, why isn't there, where's the buzz, right? Like, there should be something. And so, that constant buzzing that you feel like, you might feel like you're ignoring, it's actually way more detrimental than you think.
And so, I still see so many people who have notifications for email. I mean, do you really need a notification to tell you that you have new email? Let me, let me
[00:24:41] Roger Courville, CSP: just Your browser now. I mean, it's crazy.
[00:24:43] Maura Thomas, CSP: I know. But I mean, think about the email. It's like, let me end the suspense for you. You have new email.
All the time, any minute of every day, you have new email. Turn it off. Because, because you get the notification, new message, new message, yeah, no kidding, new email, right, or even text, um, not text, but, um, chats, right? Teams messages, Slack messages, whatever it is. They are relentless. Turn off the notifications.
You're going to check it 27 times a day anyway. It, you'll see it. It's not going to, right? So. Exert more control. Use the focus feature. Customize it on your computer on your devices. Really take back control of your technology because your attention is now the product, and the world is literally conspiring to steal your attention from you.
And so and you have no hope of taking back control if of your attention. If you don't control your technology. So that's the second piece and then the third piece we've talked about, which is the habit. It's time to recognize the habits that you have. It's time to recognize how they are impacting your life and take back control over those habits and, and the awareness is the first step.
And that's why using the phrase and keeping top of mind, the phrase attention management is so important.
[00:26:17] Roger Courville, CSP: Yeah. I was just, even as you were describing a couple of the things there, I was thinking about the nature of. of reinculturating ourselves or, or setting a desire for a new intention and moving in that direction, which we're going to typically do imperfectly.
Any, any habit we change is going to be imperfect. Um, you know, I was starting my speaking business a lot of years ago, you know, you're out there. Trying to get the cashflow neutral and then, and then, you know, make a living. And I got mouths to feed and insurance bill, you know, insurance to pay and my assistant and an office and blah, blah, blah.
And so I would hit some slow time, right? So my business tends to be cyclical. I'm sure yours is too at some point, but you get to certain times of the year, right? Thanksgiving week or, or between Christmas and New Year's and then level of that noise starts to drop. And I've noticed myself experiencing some anxiety rather than being able to simply go, ah, I got a little break time, right?
Going, wait a minute, if the phone's not ringing, I'm not making money. So, right. And, and, and noticing that within myself and, uh, it, it actually took a couple of years to, to actually help my family realize that it's going to take dad a couple of days to come down. Um, it's a whole lot different now because I've been doing it for so long, but.
Um, but actually recognizing that, Oh yeah, it's hard for me to even take a day off.
[00:27:51] Maura Thomas, CSP: And I think sales and marketing professionals in particular, um, I think there's a, there is a personality style that is attracted to, um, the sales and marketing careers and that, um, sometimes that tends. to be people who are a little bit of, um, maybe adrenaline junkies.
And so, yes. So, so the, when we are fully present, when we, I won't even go so far as to say when we are only doing one thing at a time, it feels unnatural. It feels uncomfortable. It feels like something is wrong. And if you just. examine that feeling for a minute. I think most people would be like, Oh, that's probably not a good thing.
Right. And, but we have become so habituated and think about it this way. When we are growing and changing, we are moving outside of our comfort zone. And so by very, by the very definition, moving outside of your comfort zone is uncomfortable. And so we have to be able to just sort of, Live in the discomfort so that we can get to the other side and recognize this is not a.
bad thing because the more distracted you are, the more distracted you will be. But the reverse is also true. The less distracted you are, the better you'll be able to be fully present and to be, um, to do one thing at a time and to fully marshal all of your knowledge and wisdom and skills and abilities, but also your, Humor and your diplomacy and your tact and your empathy, right?
We cannot marshal our resources fully. All the things that make us the best version of ourselves, those are not available to us in one or two or even three minute increments. Right? We are better versions of ourselves when we are calm and collected and present and in a moment and we almost never allow ourselves that place.
A
[00:30:16] Roger Courville, CSP: couple more questions. Would a good app help? Is there such a thing as an app that would help you grow in this context of attention management?
[00:30:25] Maura Thomas, CSP: Yeah, there, um, there are, and I used to think that they were a good thing, and I would be like, yeah, if you want to try those, that's fine, but I always kind of suspected, like, if we're relying on an app, then we're never building the skill that we need, and there's some research recently that has, um, that has validated that feeling, Where it, if you are just forcing yourself, um, through some of these apps that restrict your time on a certain website or they don't allow you to go, like you've got full screen with your word processing thing and they don't allow you to go anywhere else or whatever.
It's just a crutch and you never. Um, I mean, maybe they can get you over the hump at the beginning instead of like going cold turkey, right? Maybe, maybe they can help in the short term, but I don't recommend them in the long term because We need this skill. Human beings, now more than ever, need the ability to be fully present with each other, with our responsibilities, with, um, with the world around us.
I mean, it's getting Even a dangerous place with, I mean, you've seen all, you've read all of the tragic stories about people who were distracted driving or trying to get the Instagram picture and fell off the cliff or what, right, whatever it's now more than ever, we need this skill. And, and then with the advent of AI and like a human relationships and, and.
Human connections are so important, but if you can't be present, then you can't, um, you can't cultivate those kinds of relationships.
[00:32:20] Roger Courville, CSP: I'm an old Gen Xer and just to put an exclamation point behind what you just said, um, I'm just going to talk to those in our audience who are of a certain vintage. We live in a world that we didn't grow up in.
[00:32:40] Maura Thomas, CSP: I, I call,
[00:32:42] Roger Courville, CSP: I
[00:32:42] Maura Thomas, CSP: call, I call Gen X just to, to add to what you're saying and then I'll let you finish.
Um, the, I, I think Gen X is the transition generation. We are the last ones who knew what it was like before. The internet.
[00:32:58] Roger Courville, CSP: Yeah. Old timer, even telling those stories, being able to dial five digits on a rotary phone or TV. I was in high school, you know, that kind of thing. So crazy. All right. Tell us a little more about how people can get in touch with you.
And a little bit about the resources that are available at morathomas. com and it's m a u r a if you're just listening m a u r a thomas. com What are the people gonna find there?
[00:33:28] Maura Thomas, CSP: Uh, at morathomas. com forward slash books. You'll find Links to purchase all my books. They are available in all formats everywhere books are sold, but that's one central place There's also a free resources page that you'll find in the navigation bar and that has Um, it has some digital detox resources.
It has like an email management mini course. It has some discussion guides, um, the discussion guides that go with all the books. So if you want to have like on your team, like a little book club or something like that, um, all kinds of resources there. And then, um, those are probably the first two places to start, but there's, there's a blog that has probably 300 or more articles as well.
[00:34:14] Roger Courville, CSP: Well, Thank you so much for dropping us more than one, a whole bunch of wisdom nuggets on us today. Last question is what question should I have asked you that I didn't?
[00:34:29] Maura Thomas, CSP: I think, I think for me the most important question is why? Why do I do this work, but also why, why does this matter? And I think the reason that this matters is because we all Wake up every morning and bring our unique gifts to the world. But I find so many people are bringing their gifts to the world in a way that is overwhelming and stressful and depleting, right?
You might have heard the expression busy is the new fine. Right? Right? How are you? I'm busy. I'm busy. I'm exhausted and, you know, and I just really want to help people bring their gifts to the world in a way that inspires and motivates and energizes them. And importantly, I want to make people realize that we have a choice every single day.
We can choose to live a life of reaction and distraction, or we can choose to live a life of intention and choice. And that decision is 100 percent ours every single day.
[00:36:00] Roger Courville, CSP: Thank you again to our wonderful guest, Mara Thomas, Mara Neville Thomas, and you can learn more about her and connect at, uh, marathomas. com as we mentioned. And again, don't miss her free courses and materials at the free resources section in the top of her navigation bar. Thank you again to our sponsor today, Virtual Venues, where you can instantly scale your virtual and hybrid event production team.
And we'll catch you on the next episode of Thought Leader Conversations.
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