NFA Finance

What are your favorite 5 apps on your phone?

Honestly, I don’t know if I have five favorite apps.

My answer could change by the minute depending on what I’m doing. I use YouTube constantly. I use email, text messaging, WordPress, the 75 Hard app, Zillow, ChatGPT, Grok—you name it.

But does using an app all the time make it one of my favorites?

I’m not sure it does.

Right now, I’m using Zillow heavily because I’m selling my waterfront home on Siesta Key. That doesn’t mean Zillow is one of my favorite apps. It means Zillow is a tool that happens to be important for the job in front of me.

The same thing applies to YouTube.

I use YouTube every day, but I’m not sitting around mindlessly consuming videos. I’m building the Modern Day Dealer channel. I’m publishing videos, studying performance, responding to people, creating Shorts, hosting weekly live shows and working toward monetization.

YouTube isn’t entertainment for me. It’s part of the machine I’m building.

WordPress is another app I use constantly. That’s where I write and publish these blog posts. It gives me a place to document my ideas, tell my stories, promote my projects and build something that I actually own.

Then there are AI apps like ChatGPT and Grok. I use them to think through ideas, research subjects, organize thoughts, create content and move faster. They don’t replace my judgment or experience. They help me take what is already in my head and turn it into something useful.

My 75 Hard app serves a completely different purpose. It keeps me accountable. It helps me track the commitments I’ve made to myself—the workouts, the diet, the reading and the discipline required to finish the day correctly.

Email and text messaging are simply how business moves. Calls, leads, opportunities, conversations, deals and responsibilities all run through them.

So if I had to name five apps I use the most right now, the list might be:

1. YouTube
2. WordPress
3. ChatGPT
4. Zillow
5. 75 Hard

But those aren’t necessarily my five favorite apps. They’re the five tools that best match this particular season of my life.

Six months from now, that list could look completely different.

Once the house is sold and I’m operating the new dealership, Zillow may disappear from the list. It could be replaced by auction apps, inventory software, banking tools or something I haven’t even started using yet.

The apps change because the job changes.

That’s also why I don’t spend much time consuming social media. I’m not opening these platforms because I’m bored and need somebody else to entertain me. I’m opening them with a purpose.

I’m there to publish.

I’m there to work.

I’m there to build.

Technology can either consume your attention or multiply your effort. The difference usually comes down to intention. Are you opening the app because you decided to use it—or because it trained you to keep coming back?

That’s the bigger question.

Honestly, if I could accomplish everything I wanted without using any apps, I probably would. I don’t love staring at a phone. I don’t love notifications. I don’t love the feeling that everything in modern life requires another login, another password and another platform.

I don’t love apps.

I love what I’m building with them.

To me, the phone is no different from a toolbox in a garage. You don’t have to be emotionally attached to the wrench. You just need the right wrench for the job.

Today, my phone helps me sell a house, build a media company, grow a blog, strengthen my discipline and develop the next business.

Tomorrow, the tools may change.

The mission won’t.

—Nicholas Francis
Modern Day Dealer