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The 5 Questions Podcast
Join us as we unlock real estate and business insights, one question at a time.
The 5 Questions Podcast
Stop Screen Addiction: The Reward System That Works | Shannon Coulter
We dig into how Planet Fassa helps families replace screen time with simple, offline activities tied to points and household rewards, and how coaching parents first unlocks lasting change. We also unpack the business model, leadership lessons, and a roadmap that keeps tech as a tool, not the center.
• Origin story from corporate wellness incentives to family play
• How the heart, mind and body points system works
• Parents as gatekeepers of rewards and structure
• Educating adults to break screen habits first
• Positioning a mission product in a crowded attention market
• Pricing with purpose and selling solutions
• Leadership through vision, goals and trust in the team
• Long-term plan for books, app, licensing and guided tech use
• Practical steps to rewire habits and build momentum
Connect with Shannon:
https://sscoulter.com/
The vision is streets full of laughter again. I want people outside looking at each other again. Uh, it's having such a negative effect on us, but our kids are missing out on their childhood. And that's what made me so upset in 2008. And I'm still upset about it now. And I'm glad we're finally having people realize that this has been a problem.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to the Five Questions Podcast, where we unlock real estate and business insights one question at a time. Welcome to the Five Questions Podcast. I am your host, Mario Amar. Our guest on today's show is a creator of Planet FASA, a screen light movement and creative brand helping families reclaim imagination, connection, and real-world joy. She's also a coach and entrepreneur teaching adults to break the chain of tech overuse. Because when grown-ups uh come back to life, kids do too. Welcome, Shannon Kutler.
SPEAKER_00:Hi, thank you so much for having me. It's Coulter. That's okay. It's perfect.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. I mixed my L and my tea.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's okay. No, thank you so much for having me. It's it's wonderful to be here.
SPEAKER_01:Shannon, the concept of the podcast, five questions about business or real estate in this case will be business and uh learn more about you. And uh we get straight to the point. Are you ready? I'm ready. First question I have for you. Um, Planet FASA started as a mission to bring families back together. When did you realize it could also become a business? And what were some of the first entrepreneurial uh steps you took to make that vision real?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, okay, that's a great question. So I started this way back in 2008.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00:And I came out of corporate America. And what happened was I was in corporate America, I was a communications consultant. So I was helping communicate anytime the employees were the audience. And toward the end of my time there, I was doing wellness programs. And so those a lot of them were health incentive programs. So um trying to get people to stop smoking, to start working out. I even did truck driver ones to get them to sleep more. But a lot of them were tied to points and rewards. So people would get points for doing healthy things, and then the companies would give them rewards through um different things. Okay. And it was really driving people. And I thought it was so very cool. And I and I said to my boyfriend at the time, like, why don't we just grow people up like this? So I already had that in my mind. My boyfriend, it's so funny to call him that, but um, he had three kids, right? So he's divorced, and after dating him for a year and a half, I go and I meet these three children and I tell them to go outside and they come in five minutes later and didn't know what to do. Yeah. And I am floored, upset. I think there's something wrong with him and his ex-wife at this point. Like, wow, what did you do to your kids? But I ended up doing research because that's kind of what I did, and I realized that was happening to children across the globe, really. And so because I was thinking about growing up people healthy anyway, and then I turn and I see something really bad is happening with these kids. I actually left corporate America and started a health incentive program for children, which is Planet FAFSA. So uh the name of the company comes from my cat Mu FASA. Okay. Um, but I couldn't call it that because Disney would have come after me. Yeah. And then so I made it FASA, I added an S, and then everything's an acronym acronym. So it's the Planet Fun Activity Story Service Awards. And what it is, and I'll just keep it real quick, the kids would come and not know what to do. I was in my uh early 30s at the time, and I'm like, I can't come up with all this stuff. I'd go out on Google, too much information. So what we developed was um at the time, it was a website with hundreds of activities that mom and dad could go in and click, I have two kids and need a half an hour, and we'd go boom, here's totally simple activities you can do, all in one place, tied to points and rewards. So that's how I brought the two of them together. The first thing I did to be an entrepreneur was got a coach. And then um, I didn't listen to my coach.
SPEAKER_01:So if you want to talk more about that, we can we can keep some for the other questions, but exactly. But uh one point that uh stuck out to me is is you so you have all these activities that are planned in the the website. Are are are those uh online activities or outside?
SPEAKER_00:Offline, all offline activities, but I wanted to keep it um on an app that back then it was a website because uh we need children to learn how to use technology, and that's how we get information to people. But they're offline and they're simple, super simple things, but you're not gonna think about them in the moment as an adult. Okay. You know, like if you name a bunch of stuff like freeze tag, hot lava monster, all this stuff, it's simple, but I wanted to I wanted to give the parents help and I wanted to incentivize the kids with points, you know, because then they're like, oh I'm gonna do that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, this is good because kids get incentivized with, you know, they're trying to win something, even adults.
SPEAKER_00:Um I know, right? Anything with points.
SPEAKER_01:So it's like a recipe book for for games.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, yeah. And I just wanted it to be super simple and I tied each activity to points, um, that heart, mind, and body points, so that kids could get a big variety, and that we are all heart, mind, and body. So we wanted to make sure you're getting all three things.
SPEAKER_01:That brings us to our second question. And now knowing what the product is, you're competing for attention in one of the toughest space, uh, that includes families and and TV screens or or screens in general. How um have you positioned Planet FASA to stand out and reach the parents who need it the most?
SPEAKER_00:It's an excellent question. It has been a journey. And when I came out with this with my husband, um back in 2011, we did a website and that's where when apps came out, horrible timing. And there was no market for this because people didn't understand what screens were doing to kids. So we were really early.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so now I came back out with it. I started coming back out with it, um, really coming out with it earlier this year because people are starting to see the consequences, especially in our 20-somethings. So that's where my class, where you said I was coaching, came in. I realized as I went and talked about this, Mario, a lot of adults are stuck on their screens, and we're never gonna get our kids off of them if we're staring at them. So I'm working on educating adults on what it's doing to them and their brains, and then saying, hey, if it's doing this to your fully formed brain, what are we doing to our kids? The thing that makes my app stand out, there's a lot of activity apps out there. Mine is the only one I know of that's tied to points and rewards. Because I don't want the parents, the idea is like, I don't want the parents chasing the kids down to do them. I want the parents to be like, oh, I want my fasa points, right? Because then I can pick and the rewards they get are like picking dessert that night. It's stuff you're gonna give them anyway. Um, or just incentivizing them. But I want the kids to do that. And the idea is eventually they don't need the app because they're growing that imagination muscle. And then they're like us because we didn't need, we didn't need suggestions when we were little.
SPEAKER_01:They they remember they remember the games that they played from last week, last month, and then they just start playing those games again.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and we just have to get the parents to understand, hey, this thing that seems like an easy babysitter is really damaging your kids. So there's a lot more information now coming out about it that's helpful for me. But yeah, I I'm just I'm counting on us as a culture, uh, we've got to lock arms to save our kids because we're seeing the 20-something year olds right now, and it didn't, it hasn't gone well for them.
SPEAKER_01:No. And I was gonna ask that the you you touched a little bit on it, the the point system and the rewards, the rewards doesn't come from your platform, it comes from the household.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Because I don't know your kids. So you might have a child that, you know, we all have different personalities, but you might have a child that spends two seconds on one of the activities and wants their 200 points. And then you've got another one who like plays for three hours for the 200 points, right? So you're gonna be able to see rewards. You also know what makes your kids excited. So you you might have a child that would want a thousand points to stay up for five minutes. So we just give you kind of like, here's some suggestions, but you set them up. You can determine how many points that it is. So let's say they love going to grandma's house and you're having a hard time getting them to do stuff. You set that for 10,000 points and you pick all body things because you want them to move. So I wanted to leave it in the hands of the parents, grandparents who's ever signed up for it. Another thing that I love about it is the kids get points for talking to their parents. So there's an activity. I give a challenge where they do something different, and then we give um talking points. So they're like, oh, I see you did this, and they can talk about it. It's not just the, hey, you got home from school, you know, what'd you do today? Nothing. You know, that whole thing. So you're like, well, you're gonna get more points. So I know that some people are like, oh, you're you're doing this and giving kids points. I tell people that's elf on the shelf, it's Santa Claus. We we manipulate our children all the time. It's fine. And you don't have to use the point and reward system. But yeah, I thought it would be better for me to leave the answers to those questions and the rewards in the parents' hands.
SPEAKER_01:So this uh podcast is usually about real estate or business. So now that we know the product, we're gonna dive more into the business aspect a little bit.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Um, many purpose-driven entrepreneurs struggle with turning passion into profit. How have you balanced your mission to help families with the need to build a sustainable business model?
SPEAKER_00:That's a really good question. I think the biggest thing that you have to understand, and I have learned this probably in the last six months, it's okay to ask people to pay for what you're doing. Uh, and it's okay to do that because you have, and it really like this really took me a long time. If you have a passion towards something, you know more about it than other people. You are a thought leader in it. Yeah. So, and that took a long time for me. So if if you go out and do podcasts and you talk on podcasts and you're constantly doing the information, you are a thought leader. You have something to offer. Like to me, some of the stuff I say, I'm like, I just knew that, but that's just because that was something that occurred to me. You know what I mean? You can ask me real estate questions and I can show you my imagination. It won't help anybody. I'll come up with some stuff for you know, but I think I think it's really good. It's also good to talk to coaches and listen to them, as I was saying before. And what was really good for me is my passion was to help people. And so I came out and I figured out all the ways that technology is hurting people. And I'm not just going and talking about that, I'm offering a solution. So I really think solutions are a great way to sell your passion.
SPEAKER_01:If you fix a problem for someone, this they need, I mean, you can do it for free, sure. But uh there's two things. Is the person really gonna appreciate it if it's free? And uh second thing, you know, your time is valuable. So, you know, you you put your efforts where you can make some money uh while helping people. So that's that's that's how great businesses are built. I got uh question number four for you. And as your brand and movement grows, what has entrepreneurship taught you about leadership, especially when building a team around a vision that equal parts creative, educational, and as a sh social impact?
SPEAKER_00:I think the one of the biggest things is is I think you need to meet with your team. You need to meet with your team and you need to tell them your vision and you need to make sure everybody is heading toward the same vision. And then you need to trust the people you've hired. Yeah. I really like the book Um Who Not How by Dr. Benjamin Hard Hardy. Like that is very helpful. So there's a couple things like you need to make sure that the people you're hiring understand your vision, are are really working toward that with you. And then you also need to trust them and actually let go of the stuff because as the business grows, you can have decision fatigue, and then everybody's gonna fail if you do that. So it that that's basically been my thing, making sure I have the right people in there, knowing if it's not the right person and parting ways with that person, right? But then um just always moving toward the same vision and letting people do the job that you've hired them to do.
SPEAKER_01:I agree with you. Clarity of where your vision is going and where you want to go, and then uh you pick people that align with that and and you you move as a team. And one of you said something very important, knowing how to let go. And sometimes it's not easy because we get emotionally attached, we become friends, we at the end of the day, it's not creating friendships here, it's running a business. So this and people have a hard time to changing their hats, right?
SPEAKER_00:So they it is hard, especially when it's a small business because you do become friends. So I think that's another another thing to put out there, Mario, is you need to have goals for people to meet because then there's something to measure it against.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Okay, Shannon. Well, it's a short podcast, but we're at question number five already. Um, what's your learn long sorry, what's your long-term vision for Planet FASA as both a movement and a business? Are you exploring um, I don't know, licensing partnerships, media, tech like products? What what's what's the vision for for for for your all of it? All of it all of it.
SPEAKER_00:So um with my break the chain course, that's something I'd like to go in uh and have companies do is like a continuous learning for people. I would be happy to uh license that because this isn't about me. This is about getting us to understand how technology is kind of warping us and taking us apart from each other. For Planet Fonsa, right now I've got books that go with it, and then then an app that's coming out in 2026. The idea is to just keep growing kids' imagination muscle, like I said, so they end up being more like us. The future of that, oh my gosh, my I would love to have stuffed animals, major dream, but eventually, and this is gonna sound really weird to people, but eventually I'd like it to be a website. So, how does that work? I do believe we need to teach kids how to be on technology. I said that in the beginning. We're naive to say they're not gonna use it. They need to know how to use it. There's beautiful stuff if you use it the right way, kind of like everything else in the world, right? So the idea is with my seven characters, each would have an imagination that the kids could go to. They're still earning points offline. And when they get enough points, that could be Mario. One of the rewards they get is 20 minutes online with one of those characters. But the idea is when they're with the character, they're doing something productive. Like right now, you and I are doing something productive on the screen. I've got a character who's married motherly. She could teach them how to bake brownies, and then they can go off and earn more points, actually baking brownies with their sister or something. So that's the end goal for the business. The vision is streets full of laughter again. I want people outside looking at each other again. Uh, it's having such a negative effect on us, but our kids are missing out on their childhood, and that's what made me so upset in 2008. And I'm still upset about it now. And I'm glad we're finally having people realize that this has been a problem. We see what happened to Gen Z. They were the first uh generation to go through puberty on social media, on smartphones. It's had a horrible effect on them. And so I'm glad we're stepping up and saying, hey, let's not do this again to another generation. And I do want to say, because that sounds so depressing, the good news about all of this is our brains can be rewired. So everybody can change from this. Like we just need to get offline and see how awesome it is again. So that is my vision for both things.
SPEAKER_01:And uh, talking about rewiring, sometimes it could happen faster than you think. Uh people sometimes are afraid or scared of changes because they see this big mountain, but it all it takes is uh a couple of weeks, couple of months of of intense efforts or routine changes, and you're there.
SPEAKER_00:And I I like to use this analogy. It's the analogy that you were eating poorly. You were eating poorly, you've gained a bunch of weight, and you decide, you know what, I am even if you haven't gained weight, you just feel bad, right? So you're like, I'm gonna start eating healthy. So you start eating healthy, you start eating healthy, then you're on a road trip, and the only thing on the road is McDonald's. Okay. You go and eat that McDonald's. How do you feel? You're like, you go, how was I eating this all the time? That's the same thing with screens. You're gonna start doing stuff off the screens with your kids, going for walks, and you're gonna be feeling so good. And then when you go back and doom scroll, you're gonna go, uh, so yeah, that's my analogy, but I think it does work, and that's how you start rewiring your brain.
SPEAKER_01:So, what is the website where people can go and test the product or or register for it?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so ssculter.com. So s is in Shannon, S is in Sue, that's my name. Shannon, you know, SSculter.com. And that's when you go there, there's links to the planet FASA, there's links to break the chain and everything out there. And so the app will be available hopefully March 2026, and you can sign up for updates on that.
SPEAKER_01:Shannon, it was a pleasure to have you on the show today. Um, I really appreciated your insights, your uh, your your contribu contribution to the world. And uh it starts with the kids and then and the parents also uh, you know, we all have our efforts to to make to make better families. Uh and I hope that people, our listeners, will uh go and test your products with their families because it would I I think it's it's a great model, it's a great um addition to uh maybe how often do they use it? Every day or they can use it every day.
SPEAKER_00:I think it would be awesome if you told your kids like every day you find something that they love, if it's picking dessert, and you say every day you get to pick dessert if you get 200 faucet points. So they come home and say, give me an activity. And then, as I said, as they start doing that, you're gonna see them doing it on their own.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So well, once again, thank you so much for being on the show today.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks for tuning in to the Five Questions Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, like, and hit the notification bell on our YouTube channel so you never miss an episode. Stay tuned for more insights and tips to transform your real estate and business game. See you next time.