All Episodes

April 11, 2025 • 16 mins

Send us a text

Support the show

ABOUT NERDBRAND

NerdBrand is a national branding and advertising agency based in Louisville, KY.

Learn more about NerdBrand.
Hear more of the NerdBrand Podcast.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of the
NerdBrand Podcast.
We're going to be talking aboutdistractions, distractions,
because you know we all havethat going on right now.
Hey everybody, welcome to thisepisode of the Nerd Brand

(00:36):
Podcast.
We're talking aboutdistractions, the stock market
things.
I've never seen such a paniccycle of one news thing after
another.
But that's not what we're hereto talk about today.
Today we're going to be talkingabout distractions in business,
and it can come from anywhere,because distractions in business

(00:57):
are actually really really bad,especially if you're like
running a business, if you'redoing the sales and operations
and accounting and things likethat.
Like running a business, ifyou're doing the sales and
operations and accounting andthings like that.
You know, even though you haveemployees, like you know me, you
end up still can be distractedby just some bad things that you
know seem like they're good butthey're not.

(01:17):
I always try to take an approachto things where I try not to be
mean about it when thedistraction comes along.
Sometimes I'm talking aboutpeople, but at the end of the
day, you do have to be meanabout it when the distraction
comes along.
Sometimes I'm talking aboutpeople, but at the end of the
day.
You do have to be prettyguarded with what you're doing
and I do my best to be polite.
But I'm a hard person to getalong with, I think, because I
am very literal.
I'm very much a thinking likethree, six, seven steps ahead,

(01:40):
because I sort of like to haveoptions.
I like to have options for myclients and myself and I think
that it's good for that, becauseI'm a strategist and the
tactics to me are irrelevantuntil we determine the direction
, and sometimes some moments are.
You can go in multipledirections and so if I got a
bunch of distractions coming atme, I can't think along those
lines and I'm actually not doinga service to my clients,

(02:03):
because many of them want me todo strategy and branding for
them.
But you know, if I'm distracted, boy, it's just not going to be
good.
Now, distractions can happen,sometimes just at nobody's fault
.
One thing can happen is fatigueand illness.
I mean you get tired or unwell.
It's hard to concentrate, flatout.
That is a distraction in yourbusiness.
So your personal health has tobe taken care of.

(02:24):
You need to look after it.
You need to make sure you'restaying on top of it.
One of the things aboutpersonal health lately,
especially during flu season, is, you know, not getting the flu.
So you start seeing a lot ofpeople getting the flu and you
decide to all become likeinternal again and doing Zooms
and things like that.
And if people aren't happy withyou, then you know, just tell

(02:45):
them like, hey, you know, look,I'm sorry, but you guys are
coughing up lungs and stuff andI don't want to join the cough
party.
I don't want that.
You know, I kind of like wakingup in the morning and not
having a headache from jump.
So personal worries, which canalso lead to headaches, can be

(03:05):
another distraction.
So, thinking about your personalproblems, it can get you
focused off work.
So many people actually do alot of work to get away from
their personal problems andthat's not too bad.
But you got to have thatwork-life balance thing going.
So be careful with that because, whether you notice it or not,
other people do where personalthings can affect work and some

(03:26):
people that have been doing thisfor a while, we are able to
just switch that on and off.
I mean, I went through a lot ofthings last year.
2025 has been rough as well,but not compared to last year
when I lost a parent.
So you have a lot of thingsthat can be on your plate, from
family to children, to other,just other personal stuff, and

(03:48):
it's all valid, it's all bad, itsucks, shouldn't happen, but it
does.
But how you respond to it isreally what matters.
And so, to quote Rocky, it'snot about how hard you get hit,
it's about how hard you get hitand can get back up and keep
moving forward.
And that's not my Rockyimpression.
For those of you that arejudging that, and that's okay, I

(04:09):
understand it sucks, it's notRocky at all.
So, moving on Daydreaming,don't do that.
That's for children.
That's a quote from a moviethat I can't remember what.
But don't, don't, don'tdaydream, just just don't
Procrastination.
Don't daydream, just don'tProcrastination.
Here's the thing about that onePeople who procrastinate
obviously we put off taskscreates a sense of overwhelming

(04:33):
anxiety.
Therefore, you have a hard timeto focus.
But there's some of you outthere that I know that listen to
this podcast and you like that.
You live for that, so you willprocrastinate.
Here's the thing Careful,because you're maybe causing
anxiety to or on other people.
Maybe they're waiting on youfor stuff and your

(04:56):
procrastination is causing themto become delayed and therefore
they're freaking the heck outand that can be a problem.
So, just, you know, if you'reprocrastinating on something you
got to do, like cutting thegrass or whatever you know, hey,
that's, that's on, that's onyou.
You know, get your jollies offon that, but do don't do it to
where it affects others.
That's not good and that canaffect the business, especially

(05:18):
if you have employees, becausenow you got everybody mad at you
and everybody's just sitting ina hate circle, and that's just
not good.
Anyhow, external distractions,lots of emails from lots of
places, lots of people.
We're in the age of AI.
Use it, it's okay.
But here's the thing Don't askit to do the work for you.

(05:40):
I've talked about this in aprevious episode with regards to
marketing and your content.
It's okay to draft an email andhave AI clean it up and act as
your personal assistant, youknow, because it can find some
of the spelling errors.
But I will say from personalexperience, if I get one more
email that says I hope you findthis message well, or it finds
you well, or look, your messageshouldn't find me, that's creepy

(06:04):
, so stop it.
You know, I can tell it's arobot and so can many other
people.
Now, a lot of times I usemessages and use our use AI in
emails because it allows me totake ginormous amounts of
information, typically not inany sort of logical order, and
it puts it in the logical orderfor me.

(06:25):
And the prompt I use for that?
It's pretty straightforwardJust clean it up.
And the prompt I use for that?
It's pretty straightforward,just clean it up.
So again, you find your way onthis.
It's not a magic secret, it'semail.
Um, it's been around since 1994.
So formatting hasn't changedsince then, really.
But at the end of the day, whatyou're saying is important and
so, um, yeah, kind of kind ofyou know, keep those to a

(06:46):
minimum and, uh, you know youcan use AI to help you.
And if you need self-regulationon that, then hire a personal
assistant or a project managerand they will tell you stop,
quit.
So constant interruptions.
I think working in an officewould be very bad for the nerds.
At NerdBrand.
I could see Michaela and Igoofing off, making Mitch mad.

(07:09):
Caitlin would want quiet andseal her door shut and then we
would probably have a problem,as Reba She'd want quiet and
she'd go with Mitch and it wouldjust create these silos.
So it's a good thing that we'reseparate, because I think it
allows us to.
We all know what we need to doand when we need to do it, so we

(07:31):
don't get those interruptions.
And so you know, everybody's gotto kind of deal with their own
um thing in their own personalhouse, uh, for that, so, um, but
you know it, it it can causeproblems staying focused on
things and so, um, you know wegot a campaign we got to do, we
got to get this campaign out, orcampaigns out for this month,
and that's what we're going tofocus on for the client.

(07:51):
And I understand the client maysay, hey, I got this other
stuff and you know, and it'slike, well, it wasn't really
planned.
So either we put this in theback or we move this to the
front.
Something's going to give.
We can't do both and you knowthose are, because what you're
doing is you're creating adistraction and it could harm
you and we're just merely tryingto set a standard.
So you understand that that'snot our goal and we're happy to

(08:14):
help and do the thing.
Of course, however, thepriority is this, and we can't
really have priorities aspriorities, because that's
illogical and non sorry.
We're just not Jesus.
We can't pull that kind ofstuff off.
The other big distraction I knoweverybody knows about is social
media and personal phone usage.
It can take away fromwork-related tasks.

(08:36):
Social media is just a gianthole that all people disappear
into.
You go onto Facebook and youthink I'm just going to see how
people are doing.
The next thing you know you canend up doom scrolling and you
have no idea what's going on,and so be careful with social
media.
Also, if you're running abusiness and social media is
your only channel that you'rerunning for marketing, stop

(08:58):
please.
You know you need some otherones, so it just it could be in
a simple conversation to talkabout that, to be able to fix
that, because, honestly, socialmedia is sort of becoming more
social now.
It's really weird thetransition it's made from this I
don't know annoying thing tobecoming more about the people,
which is weird because it'ssocial.
Get it.
So businesses are not people,and so, yeah, you know it might

(09:21):
have to get a little creative in2025 on social media in ways
that you know require maybe alittle bit more commitment, but
at the end of the day, it'sworth it.
People like to talk to people,not inanimate objects, unless
you're me.
And when you stump your toe onthe bed at night trying to go
pee and then you can yell at aninanimate object, I think that's

(09:44):
fine, though if you live withpeople, you might wake them up
and they yell at you.
But anyways, moving on Ambientnoise, did you know background
noise from other people orequipment can make it difficult
to concentrate.
It's weird.
We all have these little thingsabout us where we don't realize
that, hey, you eat really loud.
I'm sure many people who aremarried right now could be

(10:06):
laughing.
I hope you are, because, yeah,you know your spouse just won't
stop breathing and, um, yousitting like not far away, and
all you hear is and it's yeahthat.
That that could be definitelydistracting for sure.
So finding a quiet place, um,is definitely worth it.

(10:27):
I was at a place that actuallyhad cube.
It was a cube farm and it wasan engineering firm, so it's
just kind of expected to findone of those there.
And this is all before.
Covid and my creative directorMitch and I we were touring the
facility and we were standingthere talking to the marketing
director and five feet awaysomebody was having a
conversation with someone elseand we couldn't hear them and we

(10:54):
just noticed it and we werejust like hey, man, how is it
that we can't hear or overheartheir conversation and we're
whispering?
Do we need to whisper?
And he was like no, you don't.
He said we piped in.
We have obviously acoustics andtiles in the ceiling, on the
walls, but we pipe in whitenoise at a certain frequency and
it cancels out, um,conversations that are nearby,
like that.
So everybody can be in a workrelated environment in this cube
farm so you don't hear what'shappening in the next cubicle

(11:16):
over.
I found that fascinating afterworking in engineering for 14
years.
My word, that could have beenso useful.
Uh, because we had some noisyand some nosy neighbors back in
the day with that and uh, and Ijust think that was really neat
that they invested in that.
So, yeah, technology does exist.
I will confess that it was a $1billion a year company we were

(11:41):
at, so if you're thinking aboutdoing it, you might want to keep
that in mind.
Brings me to loud colleaguesconversations, loud behaviors
from coworkers is disruptive.
So you know you don't want tobe like, hey, y'all stop having
fun.
You know if you're an owner,but at the end of the day.

(12:01):
Yeah, everybody's kind of haveto remember that.
Maybe a little bit of somehousekeeping, maybe kind of
revise the employee handbook tomention like, hey, be respectful
, remember everybody's frontdoor.
Yeah, I don't know, you've gotan HR person.
I'm sure they can find a niceway to say it.
I am not that guy to take theadvice from, but you know, I I
do like to hear, um, people inthe company have fun.

(12:21):
I like to hear humor, laughter,people enjoying their jobs.
I don't know, just weird for memaybe, but um, it's nice to
know that there's people outthere that like what they do and
I have them Noisy equipment.
I remember always having to dealwith carrying a printer running
every 10 minutes.
And when I was at this placewith this cube farm, at this

(12:47):
firm, we had this giant.
It was a giant plotter, is whatit was.
And oh my God and by that Idon't mean like it stood up and
it printed out like a laserprinter, I mean it had a pen, it
was a pen plotter.
So if you're older, like my age, you're going to know what I'm
talking about.
For those that are younger,it's literally on an arm, on a
flat table, and on that arm thatgoes up and down on the Y axis,

(13:11):
on the X axis, is literally apen with ink in it and it just
does that all day and it drawsout an image and that's what we
used and we plotted out, that'show we printed out, plotted out
prints and this thing is on ahard table, okay.
So this was just noisy and Inever understood why we couldn't

(13:35):
put it in another room,soundproof that room and run an
x, just an extension cord.
So just just some advice there.
Um, and the early 2000s, thatwas weird.
Disorganization, that's adistraction.
Now I'm the king ofdisorganization, which is why I

(13:55):
have Michaela who helps me getorganized.
It's just one of those things.
And you know, michaela hasrejoined our team after a hiatus
and now she's back and so she'sgetting her hands around the
new basically, except for me andMitch, who are the OG nerds I
mean, she's getting her handsaround the new team and the new

(14:16):
client lists and everythingthat's going on, and so she's,
you know, that's thedisorganization is like her
biggest pet peeve.
So if you're disorganized,watch out.
You know, don't make me sick,michaela, on you.
But anyways, a disorganizedworkspace it can lead to
confusion and it's harder tofind what you need and it's
going to be harder to get thejob done.
And then, finally, multitasking.

(14:37):
I know there's a lot of peoplethat are really good at it, but
if you try to do too many thingsat once, you can end up losing
focus and you'll loseproductivity.
I mean, it sounds like you'regoing to get a lot of things
done at once because you'remultitasking, but at the end of
the day, you're probably gettinga lot of nothing done.
Or you're maybe getting alittle bit done here and there,
but there's some things that arejust completely dropping off
the map.

(14:57):
And so those are some things tothink about.
When talking about distractionsin a business, these can be
revenue killers.
If you're still listening atthis point, the advice to really
emphasize why not to do thesethings and fall into this trap
is because they're revenuekillers and you will see the
cash flow taper off down to theright, and you don't want that.

(15:21):
You want to go up to the right.
You don't want to go down tothe right, you want to go up.
So be careful with some ofthose distractions, and they're
usually people, well-meaningpeople, people that you just
wouldn't expect it from, but youknow you do have to have some
safe boundaries and there's aton of books out there about
this stuff.
I don't really have any offhandto recommend, but if you'd like

(15:42):
to know of any, you can find uson Facebook at Nerd Brand
Agency, or you can listen tothis podcast and just tune in
next time at nerdbrandagencycomslash podcast for the next
podcast and listen to see howyou can keep your nerd brand
strong.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Cold Case Files: Miami

Cold Case Files: Miami

Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides.  Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer  Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.