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Megan Devito: Imagine that it's eight thirty at night, it's a Thursday in the middle of October, and you're staring at a proposal for Q four that needs to be finalized before tomorrow morning. Your calendar has been scheduled rock solid since seven o'clock this morning. Your brain's exhausted, and the only thing that you're locked into right now is exhaustion. Instead of finalizing the proposal and figuring out the numbers, your hand reaches down and absent-mindedly picks up your phone. And you tell yourself, I'm just gonna check this really quick. I'm gonna I'm gonna look in and see what's happening on LinkedIn for two minutes just to clear my head and reset. But 45 minutes later, you're wondering, what the heck just happened? You've read three industry news threads. You've checked sports scores, you've scrolled past 20 posts on Instagram, and now it's 9:15. You haven't rested, you haven't made any progress on that proposal, and your brain feels even foggier. You're a little anxious, and that decision that you've been putting off feels twice as awful as it did just an hour ago. You didn't lose 45 minutes because you don't have discipline or you don't have the drive to make this successful. You really do. You lost those minutes because when the pressure goes up, when the stakes are highest, your brain looks for the easiest escape route possible. So somehow that phone always winds back up in your hand. And that happens to a lot of people. It's not a you problem. When high performers miss year end goals, failing to finish out those critical proposals or those deals, delaying those really difficult conversations in Q4, it really doesn't have anything to do with their capacity to achieve success. It's preventable. And it's a distraction loop that's fueled by really intense pressure, that's very uncomfortable, and cheap dopamine. In this episode, you're going to learn why your phone magically ends up in your hand, even with the best laid plans to get things done, and how to break that scrolling habit. You're also going to find the energy and success that you want in Q4 without burning yourself out. Welcome back to Peak Performance Mindset. I'm Megan Devito. I'm a performance mindset coach, a swim coach, and somebody who believes that your mental game drives everything. This is the show where the boardroom meets the playing field. You will learn with me how to train and regulate your nervous system, stay focused, and to execute under pressure without having to feel really super calm all the time. About the science about why you avoid things because it's not just you, it's me too. I mean, it's my kids, it's my athletes, it's your colleagues, it's doctors and lawyers and all the people, anybody that has a cell phone in whatever year you're listening to. It's 2026 right now, if you're listening to this in real time anyway. But it's not because there's something wrong with you, it's a lizard brain problem. It's that little part of your brain called your amygdala and your hypothalamus that when the stress comes up, when you start to feel anxious, your brain's immediate priority is to find comfort and safety, not some long-term strategic success. I don't know if I've mentioned to this in a while, but I was a teacher. And one of the things I know from working for a lot of years with kids in an at-risk school is that we always, always, always focus on their Basic survival mechanisms before we try to teach them algebra or government or anything else. You have to feel safe and cared for before your brain will think creatively or be able to follow a path towards the success that you want. Those complex executive decisions require a lot of thinking and that deep cognitive effort and emotional dysregulation that you feel when the pressure is up don't allow for that to happen. They can't coexist at the same time. Your brain has to figure out what in the world could possibly go wrong, which is why you come up with all those scary stories about failure, about what other people will think, about what you can and can't do, about what's possible, because your body feels really anxious and stressed out about something. So the first thing we have to do is we have to hijack that lizard brain. If you don't know how to do that, your brain will take the easy way out. And social media feeds that need. All of that scrolling gives you little tiny micro hits of dopamine without requiring any risk, any action or any effort. It just feeds what you want. Now, it may be things that scare the crap out of you. A lot of times what ends up on our Instagram feed or our LinkedIn feed or any other social media are things that really are not comfortable to us. It might be politics, it might be medical stuff or really sad stories in the world. But the algorithm is so sneaky that it will notice, even if you pause your scroll for a second, because it gave you something. So even when it's things that you don't necessarily want to see, things that make you angry, that's still an easier emotion for you to handle right now. Than it is to do your proposal, which is why that scrolling is dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. The phone people, all of those brilliant computer guys, they knew what they were doing, right? Like we know that there was this huge case with Facebook about how to keep kids addicted to their phone. It's not just kids that they're trying to keep stuck on their phone. They've done it to adults as well. So as you're going through trying to put together all of these big business plans, your phone is keeping you distracted. But it's also keeping you addicted and just a little bit more comfortable than you were when you were trying to write the proposal. So, how is this costing you in Q4? The first thing that's happened is that you are missing maybe a strategic phone call, or you're postponing that conversation that needs to have so that you can get your team on board because it's a little uncomfortable. People might be upset with
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you. Or maybe you're delaying some product launch or delaying reaching out to somebody because, ooh, that's a big ask. Like that person over there that I really want to connect with, they're so much further along than me. They've got a lot of power. So Instead of doing those things that are really difficult and kind of scary, your phone's right there to give you some dopamine. So you grab the phone and you get distracted. Or maybe it's showing up to meetings really grouchy because of what you saw as you were scrolling to avoid the meeting. Maybe you're overstimulated all the time. You're thinking about what what you think you should be doing because of what you saw, or all of those things on your list that you still haven't finished. So you're a little grouchy, a little tense and definitely overstimulated. And then finally, your brain is shot. You are mentally fatigued rather than feeling really grounded and sharp because the more you scroll and the more you live in that alternate reality, the less able we are to connect with what's actually happening that needs our attention in the present moment. So what happens is all of that friction and those things that are rubbing up against each other start to add up. We get all of these micro distractions that stack up all the way through October, into November, into December. And suddenly all of those Q4 targets that were right there in front of you and really doable are urgent and they're year-end emergencies. And whether you are celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah or New Year's or anything else. It's not the best time of the year to be stressed out and grouchy and frantic. We want to enjoy the end of the year. All of those holidays are sitting there waiting for us. And we're stuck with all of these goals that were really achievable, but now sometimes impossible. So I'm gonna give you a quick outline of what it's like to be able to put your phone down and to focus on what you want. And what we have to do is we have to pause first before we can start executing our plan. The first principle that we wanna talk about is really separating your exhaustion from avoidance. So you have to learn to pay attention to how your body feels. And then start to notice the thoughts and the ideas that are swirling around in your head. Before I was coaching a law on performance mindset, I was helping people with anxiety. And we followed a basic principle. And that is when your body feels anxious, you're not allowed to believe the things that you think. And that holds true whether we're talking about big-time anxiety or the anxious feelings you get if you're getting ready to go into a important meeting. So when you feel that overwhelming urge to scroll During a high-stakes task, I want you to make sure that you stop and you label it correctly. It's not a sign that you need to do something else to distract yourself, even though it's uncomfortable. It's just a sign that you need some attention. And the easy way to do that is to
grab your phone and have digital stimulation. It's just this sign that your nervous system is having a lot of pressure. You need to notice the feeling that, like, this is uncomfortable. Maybe even when it's you already noticed that the phone's in your hand and saying, Okay, that's there. I'm going to choose to put it down without saying, I'll give myself five minutes, because we all know how that goes. It doesn't work out for any of us. That signal that you feel like you need to do something is not a signal to scroll on your phone for a few minutes, but it's also not a signal for you to start digging into your work. It's a signal for you to pause and regulate your nervous system. The second principle is to after you get calm, then we can execute. So we don't want to hustle on an overstimulated mind. We don't want to try and plow through an anxious nervous system. Forcing yourself to work while you're fighting all of those digital cravings, like, my gosh, I just need to do something, just creates this back and forth grouchiness again or almost more frantic or anxious feeling. And that burns up All of your energy, your creative thinking energy, your problem solving energy, and even your physical energy without giving you anything in return. That's not what we're looking for. We want you to get calm so that you can take intentional action. So the sequence has to go calm your body, clear your mind, then execute the decision, whatever that decision is. But if you skip calming your body and clearing your mind, Executing the decision is gonna be really difficult because your brain's going to keep coming up with ways to get cheap dopamine or other things that could possibly be true, even though they're just thoughts that your brain has. So let's talk about what you can do as a high performer. The first thing I want you to do is to practice building some physical stress in yourself. and this is gonna be uncomfortable. A lot of the things that we need to do to be successful, not only in Q4, but throughout the year, is to put ourselves into situations that are uncomfortable. We are a very comfortable society right now. Everything comes up comes to us pretty instantaneously. We have all the knowledge at our fingertips. And it's not doing us any favors. So the first thing I want you to do is I want you to take your phone and I want you to hide it from yourself. Yeah, I want you to hide it from yourself. Out of sight, out of reach, out of mind. Because when you are trying to do some really intentional, kind of uncomfortable and difficult work, you don't need that focusing, like pulling your focus to the side. During those really deep work blocks. I want you to put whatever your phone, your iPad, or anything else in another room or inside a closed drawer, or put it in the refrigerator, put it wherever you have to do so that it's not within arm's length. And when it's out of sight and you start focusing, you're less likely to resort to grabbing that phone. But you don't want to put it on the desk next to you. You don't want to put it in the drawer in front of you. You want to make it inconvenient. This is the same thing I used to tell people. When they were trying to they were anxious and they say, Well, when I get anxious, I will just grab like a cookie or a Pop Tart or anything. And I'm like, Well, stop buying them because then you have to drive all the way to the store or keep them all the way in like a different room of the house. If you can do the same thing with your phone, you're less likely to inconvenience yourself because again, your brain will take the easiest way than you are to walk all the way down the hall and get into the drawer to get your phone. The second thing gives you a two-minute buffer. It helps you create that intentional friction between that impulse and the action. So if accessing your phone takes that physical effort, your prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of your brain, has time to pause and choose. Yeah, obviously you could pause and choose to go get the phone, but if you're really in the middle of some deep work and noticing you're feeling uncomfortable, you're less likely to do it. The second part of that best practice that I want you to follow is the like doing a little triage work to your attention span. So we're going to take this from that Q4 framework. The first thing I want you to do is to finish. I want you to identify one, just one, non-negotiable strategic priority every single day that gets most of your thinking energy before you do anything like scrolling. So Basically, what I'm saying here is make a rule for yourself and follow it. But it doesn't have to be a laundry list of rules. We don't want a giant to-do list. We wanna choose one priority, one thing that is going to take a ton of your mental energy. And then I want you to treat yourself with some scroll time. So instead of saying, I'm gonna scroll and then I'm going to work on the presentation, you're gonna say, I'm gonna finish the presentation or get to a like lengthy stopping point in the presentation. And then I'm going to walk to wherever the phone is, pick it up, scroll for 10 minutes, put it down, walk all the way back to my presentation. It's allowing you to still have that little bit of dopamine, but not constantly throughout the day. And if you can give yourself that longer stretch, your brain kind of warms up to not having to fight that thought of maybe I can't do it. This is too hard. I don't know what to say. You have to give yourself the space to feel uncomfortable first though. The second thing that you have to do is to let go of the expectation that you need to be constantly reachable or plugged into your newsfeed or to your your friends or anybody else during those work times. We have this crazy feeling that if somebody calls me, I need to answer. What will they think if I don't text back right away? What will they think if they if I don't answer the phone? What if I miss an important
call? Guys, this is all new stuff, okay? Because I'm old enough to remember when we drive all over the place without a phone in our car and everything was fine. You do not have to constantly be reachable or plugged in. And this is really a change in mindset. This is something we can work on together. And just seeing your phone as a tool rather than a necessity that is glued to you at all times. Everything will be fine. And if you are struggling with that thought, we need to talk about. How this is already true for you. The third thing is that you have to lead. You have to set a standard for focused, present execution for your team. Your staff will tell if your presence or not. If you're always scrolling to avoid conversations or you're always snappy and grouchy, if you are kind of like, I'm not sure I'll have to think about it for a while, and your focus is here, there, and everywhere. You're setting a standard for everybody else that you work with. And as a leader, as a high performer, as an executive, That is not the standard that you want to set. You have to do it yourself before you can do it for them. That is not the easiest thing to do all the time, is it? But that's one of the benefits and also sometimes one of the hangups of being the person that everybody's looking to for the next answer Lets talk about the third best practice. The third best practice is really creating little resets for recovery from this dopamine addiction that so many of us are experiencing. Are we finding people that we're jealous of yet that are off the grid? Because more and more people are going back to basic flip phones, like those early flip phones that came out where you could just call someone and text We're going back to that because there was something really to be said for our focus, our attention, our presence in that moment. We were almost more successful without those phones than we are with them now. Are there stats on that? Maybe. But they've also made us get into this place where we're constantly overworking, we're overwhelmed, and we're burning out. So I'm gonna really encourage you to give yourself a chunk of time to give this a shot. I coached a guy a while back and his goal was to get off Facebook and off Instagram and start being present with his wife and his kids. And he was really worried about what that would do for his business success. Guess what? It was great. He was more present at work and he was more present with his wife and kids, and he didn't miss the social media. Now, it was rough in the beginning, but you can do it. He did it, and I've done it, and I know you can do it as well. Let's talk about replacing all of that scrolling with something that gives you a little high return instead of just cheap dopamine. The first thing we want to do is create a nervous system reset. Two minutes of box breathing. If you don't know what box breathing is, I just was listening to the benefits of this again on was listening to MS Now last night. There was an interview, and it's a guy who was talking all about meditation and how beneficial it is. How professional athletes are using it. We know that Kobe Bryant used it. We know that Michael Phelps used it. We know that there are not only athletes, but politicians, executives that are practicing this. Navy SEALs are using this. The military is teaching it to our combat soldiers because it's so beneficial. This is going to help calm your nervous system so that you can be sharp. Box breathing is simple: it's breathe in for four seconds. Hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds. So you're just breathing in a box. It's just an extended exhale, extended inhale. The further you can exhale, the lower you're gonna get your cortisol to go down. And the clearer you're going to think, the calmer you're going to feel. The second way that you can really get into this place where you can feel calm enough not to grab your phone is to do some sensory deprivation. Not like a dark chamber where there's nothing going on. I'm not talking about like some sort of torture. I'm talking about five minutes of stepping away from all the screens to look outside, take a walk without your phone and without your AirPods, touch some freaking grass. This is kind of the epitome of the whole thing. But to walk away from all of that visual noise and audio noise that we get from our phones and to just be in the world. Now. Especially if you can get outside and get some fresh air. There are actual studies about the benefits of the sun and the trees and the like the different chemicals that they put off and how much like the vitamin D and just that light on your face benefits you. Go outside, take some breaths for five minutes and come back in and just notice how much clearer your thinking is and how less anxious or tense or stressed out your body feels. This is a great thing to do before you walk into your next board meeting or presentation. You're going to be more centered. You're going to be calm. You're going to be clear. You can learn more about breaking your dopamine addiction in episode 74 of my former podcast that was called More Than Anxiety. I've got some great tips and information that I shared from the book Dopamine Nation in that episode, and the link is in the show notes here. And finally, if you want to finish Q4 strong to stop relying on willpower to resist your phone when you are totally exhausted and kind of sick of it anyway, design an environment that protects your mental bandwidth. Regulate your nervous system when all of that pressure gets too much, and give yourself a full focused presence so that the goals that you're chasing actually become your priority and they become possible. It is absolutely possible, but you Got to have a clear head and a calm nervous system to do it. Finally, leave a comment below or drop me a DM on LinkedIn. What is the digital distraction that is stealing your focus right now? Is it Instagram? Is it TikTok? Is it just all of the things at once? I would love to know what you have to say. And I'd love to know how you're doing. Like, are you giving it up? Are you not? Are you like you couldn't pry it from my cold dead hands? Or please get this away from me. You can find me on LinkedIn. It's under Megan Lefever Devito . And if pressure, overthinking, or digital fatigue is affecting your leadership performance or your team's execution, let's fix that. I have a link in the description where you can book a free performance audit. I have one for executives and one for Athletes. That's a great way to see what's stealing your attention and what needs a little more attention on your part so that you can start making the changes that you want to make. And until next time, remember pressure is not a problem. Your untrained mindset is.