Procrastinating Your Way To Success

Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia, Mr. Sullivan.

Dan: Mr. Jackson, is it a good day? Are you in the chair? Are you on the patio? Are you on the, in the garden?

Dean: Yes, I'm in my courtyard. And it's a courtyard.

Dan: That's right. We'll up, we'll update the. We'll update the description and your CV here.

Dean: There we go. That's right. I mean, yes, I lovingly refer to it as the evil scheming position. That's where I am.

Dan: Yeah. And we're having, we're in Chicago today, so we're having perfect weather. Yeah, absolutely perfect. It's around 75, bright. I know, yeah. That's great. So anyway, how you doing?

Dean: I'm doing great. I am fully oxygenated, feeling great. So that's always good. Amazing.

Dan: It was funny because you know a writer named Steven Pressfield.

Dean: I do, yeah.

Dan: Yeah. So anyway, Joe, Joe and I had Stephen on for three podcasts. Well, it was two hours, so it'll be three podcasts Friday and.

Dean: Oh, wow.

Dan: So. And we're the same age, we're 78. And I didn't know about him, but Joe said, I was talking to Steven Pressfield and he really loves your little books. And I said, well, I always want to meet somebody who loves my little books. And. Right, right, yeah, yeah. I mean, what better intro than you can have than that? So anyway, we set up and then he sent me all his books and we sent him about. Of the little books that he didn't have. And but we did, we did a, you know, it was like two hours and it could have gone five hours.

Dean: And he's a fascinating guy.

Dan: Yeah. And my podcast, you know, Gord Vickman is my podcast manager. And afterwards I said, well, what'd you think of that? Because he said, you know, he listens in because he's going to have to edit them afterwards. And he said that was the deepest, widest, most philosophical, you know, podcast that you've had, you know, that I've been listening in on. So. Yeah.

Dean: Wow, that's something.

Dan: Yeah. And it was really interesting. I mean, it just covered the gamut and time wise it was about third Stephen, a third me, and the third Joe. And so at one point, Stephen asked Joe, he says, what's the way that you really focus yourself every day? And Joe said, well, you know, he said, I, you know, I've really gotten into, you know, deep cold water plunges. And so he said, I do that every day. And he said, meditate. He said, I meditate every day. And you know, and Then breathing. And I said, why do the third one? I always do some breathing. Every day?

Dean: Yes. Not just in the morning. Like you're an enthusiast. I do it.

Dan: No, this was what. This was like, I'm obsessed. This one I picked up Right. At birds.

Dean: Yes. It's like I'm obsessed with it. Do it all the time. I don't recommend not breathing.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. Do not go a day without breathing.

Dean: No, that's. That's not good for anyone.

Dan: But that's an interesting topic. What is Sort of the always habits that people have, you know, and. And so that might be a topic as it relates to Cloudlandia. What are always Cloudlandia? Yeah. Yeah.

Dean: You know, I've been since we were doing the. The Joy of Procrastination podcast. I, you know, when we uncovered the, you know, procrastination kickstart to kind of start the day. Because I've always been a fan of my. I know I'm being successful when number one thing is I wake up every day and say, what would I like to do today? And, you know, kind of modified that or enhanced it with the realization that procrastination always has the answer for us. Right. We always know, like, what. You always know what your top four three priorities are right away.

Dan: Yeah. The thing you never have things that you're procrastinating most on.

Dean: That's exactly it. You don't need to keep a list of them or to keep all of that. It's like every day. And so that's been really great. I've been sort of over the last month or so really examining my days and really examining how I prefer to work. Like how if I set up any way that I want it. That's really what I've been. That's really what I've been experimenting with. I've gotten into a really nice routine now of waking up a little earlier than I normally have been before. Yeah. Then before Dean and New Dean, that I really, you know, kind of wake up around 6 or 6:30 now. And I've been really enjoying spending the first two or three hours of the morning with no cell phone, no like, you know, outside contact kind of thing. And I'm realizing that is my. That's my happy spot. You know, like in that two or

Dan: three hours of just thinking about your thinking.

Dean: Thinking about my thinking. That's exactly right. And it's so my favorite positions. You know, if I think about the productivity positions, like sitting on the, you know, on the white couch or going to the cafe, there's a cafe that I go to here called N&1 and got a great couch that, you know, I'll sit there and you know, with my journal and my remarkable tablet and just that's where I get my best stuff done. I've realized it's really about that period of time. Then everything else is like, I never have any appointments with the world before one o'. Clock. Say, you know, I don't really talk to, to anyone. So all of my, I try and set up my calendar to be, I like the Warren Buffett calendar of having complete like blank, you know, to be able to, you know, move at, fill it in with the things that I really want that have momentum, kind of, you know, work within that rather than being locked into something.

Dan: Now having said that, yeah, it was an interesting thing. I had a conversation once with people, with a person and several others, but one person in particular who has had conversations with Warren Buffett over the years and he says it's really amazing when you think about who he is and the influence he's had. And he said it's almost like you can get him almost anytime you want. Almost like any time you put through a call, you can get him. And he said, how can you run this massive investment, this investment system that you have, which is world famous, be one of the most famous investors in U.S. history. And, and Warren Buffett said, he said, you know, I don't have much in my calendar. He said, you know, I don't, yeah, plan too much. I don't plan too much ahead. And he said, you know, he says I have a great team and I have a great structure and a great process and, and I'm, he says I'm just keep my day free for something new and really interesting that might come up. And usually it's, you know, it's a communication, somebody wants to communicate about something. And he said, you know, people have learned not to waste my time. You know, the people who can get a hold of me have learned not to waste my time. So that kind of gives you the conditions. But it's really funny because I came up with a statement, you know, it's one of my one liners that quotes and it goes into my quote books and the, and people grabbed it right away and they wrote it down. I said, tightly structured entrepreneurs can never transform themselves.

Dean: That's true.

Dan: Tightly scheduled entrepreneurs can never transform themselves because they never have. They're always thinking about other people's thinking, they're always thinking about other people's activities. They're always Thinking about other things. They don't have time to actually think about their own thinking.

Dean: Yeah, I think that's, you know, there's really something to that. I like your. I always think there's something about the control. You. Oh. Something that you said about one of the. I think it's an attorney who's in the. In strategic coach whose policy was, I'll never return your phone call today, but I will always return your phone call tomorrow, which is really like cordoning off.

Dan: Well, and he was, it's like. Well, and the thing was, he was a very famous defense attorney, you know, so that, you know, so everybody's dealing with. And everything he's dealing with in his law practice are crises and emergencies.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: I mean, you don't go to a defense attorney, you know, to plan the future. You go to a defense attorney to do. Because you have a threat of your future taken. Yeah, but your future is going to be taken away from you, you know, and, and, and, you know, I mean, this is like in the early 1990s, and he was already, you know, he was like $500 an hour, and with no guarantee how many hours they're going to be, you know, and so he, he told me, I, I was talking to him, you know, just privately at one of the breakout groups at one of our workshops, and I said, you've really worked out. I said, you can't just have that policy. I mean, that's kind of like the appliance. You can see I'll never, you know, I'll never return your phone call today. I will always return your phone call tomorrow. And I said, but it's almost like that's the appliance you see on the wall, but there's got to be a lot of plumbing and electricity behind the walls that lets you do that. And he said, well, first of all, it was just a decision one day. That was a policy I was, you know, I was going to instill. And, and he says, and I don't have ongoing clients. I mean, my clients are usually not people that. It's usually a one event, you know, engagement with them, you know, they're going to go to prison or, you know, they're going to, you know, they're going to lose big something. And he says, generally, he said, if I don't. He said, I always commit to what I'm going to do with the individual. But it may have been such an unpleasant experience, I just told my team, I just don't want to work with it. Well, I said, that's part of the electricity and plumbing, you know. And he said, but he remembers this one guy, and he was. It was. It was a homicide, you know, it was a homicide that they were dealing with. And so he. The guy calls, you know, he makes an arrangement, and they meet right away. Not today, but tomorrow. And they met tomorrow. And. And so when they got started, the lawyer said to the person, he says, now, now.

Dan: He said, we're not engaged yet, so we don't have a contract yet. So I just want to tell you something, he said, as we're going through this, I will never answer your phone call today. I will always answer your phone call tomorrow. Return your phone call tomorrow. And the guy said, I'm paying you $500 an hour. He says, no, you aren't. I'm not charging you for this.

Dean: Not yet you're not. Right, right, right.

Dan: Yeah. And he says, I'm paying you $500 an hour. You'll return my phone calls when I want you to. And the lawyer says, now see what perfect understanding that we have right now that we're not going to work together? Aha.

Dean: I love that. That is so great.

Dan: And he said, and here's the thing. There's going to be meetings that we have that take all day. And you'll notice one thing. While I'm taking, While I'm talking to you all day, I'm not returning anybody's phone call.

Dean: Right. I love that. The purity of it. Right. Like, that's kind of. That's one of the essence of the free days, focus days and buffer days. In a way. You know, I think about your calendar and, you know, I think you told me, like, 150 workshop days.

Dan: 555.

Dean: 155 workshop days, where you look at.

Dan: No, no. 155 free days. Okay, so it's 155 free days, 180 focus days, and 30 buffer days. And that's been in place.

Dean: 80 workshop days.

Dan: Okay, well, not workshop days, but direct, like. Like creating books, doing podcasts, doing workshops, because it all generates sales. You know, it all generates. So it's a market. You know, it's. You know, you're selling something that there are days when sales are being created, registrations are being created.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And the new material. So that's 100. Hey. But I don't do the 180 focus days if I'm not taking my 155 free days.

Dean: Right. Did you. How. I didn't realize that you made that distinction then. There's only 30 buffer day.

Dan: Yeah, and the reason is I'm so well delegated. The other thing is I don't do meetings, right. So I do, you know, I do impact filters. You know, if I want, I want something, I write up an impact filter and that would be mainly on a buffer day. And I send a PDF to the person and I said, let's talk for a few minutes about this. And they get the impact filter and they know what I'm, you know, they know exactly what, you know, I want to meet about. I tell them, you know, what the purpose of it is, I'm going to be successful at this and exactly what I need from them. And they get that beforehand. And then they come in and they say, yeah, I can do this, I can do this. And can we also bring so and so in on this? And I said, up to you. I said something to you. I said, all I want is a finished result. And I've never. That never takes more than 10 minutes. And you can do it on Zoom. You can do it on. I don't do things on the phone. But you could do it. You're about, yeah, you're the only phone person in my life.

Dean: I love it. That's great.

Dan: If I look at my telephone, you know, my use of telephone every year, you're 80% of my telephone.

Dean: I love that. That's great.

Dan: And yeah, and then they can't have a meeting with me unless I get an impact filter from them. And they said, well, you know, there's some things I'm not, you know, I'm not really clear about. And I said, well, then do the new form, which is the certainty uncertainty, and send me the certainly. And they always come in and they said, you know, I thought I had a lot to talk about, but I just have a few things to check with you. And I said, yeah, why should I do your thinking for you when you come into the meeting?

Dean: Right, right, right. That's so great.

Dan: This is what I'm talking about. The electricity and the plumbing behind the walls. You see somebody who's really great at something and you say, boy, he or she must just have this great natural ability, you know, to do this. I don't know how they do it. Well, you got a whole system, you have a whole team, you got operating rules, you got, you know, I mean, I mean there's a lot that goes on that you don't see. Like your three hour thing and your three hour thing first thing in the morning, which is new, but you always did that. You're Just starting earlier, you just decided.

Dean: Yeah. And what I'm realizing now though is true.

Dan: The.

Dean: It's thinking ahead, planning a little bit more into what I'm actually doing in that time.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: That it was an interesting thing that I found myself.

Dan: That was a.

Dean: That's certainly. I'm most creative and I'm most like focused and I can get the most accomplished in that setting. Right. Alone in my comfortable environment with my journal and my thoughts, thinking about my thinking, but thinking about my thinking in a moving forward way that is in support of recurring things like I imagine. How is the split for you on. I call it synchronous and asynchronous. Things like you're a workshop focus day for you is synchronous and scheduled and you show up, there's other people involved and it's happening, you know, it's there and you just kind of strap in a ride and you come out the other end of it. But on focus days where it's asynchronous, where you're. What's your process for like preparing for a workshop or developing new tools or thinking through, thinking about your thinking. How's that?

Dan: Well, first of all, there's a structure that you have to understand that the wife, you know, I mean, the coaching, strategic coach. We're in our 33rd year and so Babs is in charge of our schedule. Okay. So. Yeah, so. So the first thing that Babs does, Babs knows a year ahead of time exactly when our free weeks are going to be. He doesn't know exactly what we're going to do with that free time. I mean, there's certain things like going to the cabbage. There's a, you know, we always have trips to London, trips to New York, trips to Scottsdale, trips to, you know, Santa Monica. And we do those every year. We do those every year. And they all have. New York never does. But the other three cities, London, Scottsdale and Santa Monica, they always have a business event that we're going to, you know, and then we take a ton of free time around when we. If you're going to London and you got a one or two day event, well, I say let's take another 10 days in London because Me too.

Dean: That's my favorite. Right? Exactly.

Dan: Yeah, it's a favorite spot. New York, we used to do workshops in New York and I used to do marketing events, but it's too hectic.

Dean: It's.

Dan: New York is just too hectic for that. So we decided that's not a good city to do It, I mean, two thirds of our New York clients wanted to come to Chicago or Toronto. So they got away from the, you know, from the intensity of New York. So that kind. If they don't want to do the workshop there, where are we doing the workshop?

Dean: That's right. I remember I went to. You did one at the Waldorf in New York. Yeah. At the top of the top of the Waldorf. Yeah.

Dan: And, yeah, and it's, you know, you're very definitely swimming upstream and you know, and you know, you're swimming against the current trying to accomplish anything in New York. So we decided, let's just go and see our friends, have dinners with our friends, go to plays and enjoy the city. London is real good. Strangely, I mean, London's the world city. Yeah. I mean, if you look, what in the world connects to London? More things in the world connect to London than any other city in the world. I mean, it's incredibly busy, but for some reason, maybe it's because it's a treat for us and we're going there. The other thing is we're, you know, we're drawing people now from all of Europe and we get them from Africa and they'll come up just to see an intro. They'll come up for three or four hours. I mean, and so anyway, that's the story. But the, the other thing. So we know all that. Going back to the whole point, Babs knows exactly when these things are doing. So I have four things that I always do. I write books, I create new books, I create new workshops, I create new tools, and I do podcasts. So my life is poor activities. And we can schedule in the calendar exactly when they're going to be 12 months ahead. Okay. And so Babs already has locked in the first thing she locked in. These are the free days. And then the next thing that goes in is all the scheduled four things, the four activities that I talked about. And then the other 30 days are kind of walk around days. You know, I've been working really hard and usually the buffer days are. I always have a buffer day. I always have a buffer day when I've come back from free days. In other words, I don't come back from free days on a Sunday night and then do a full focus day on Monday Mondays, loose day. Just wander around and.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Talk to team members and everything like that. I can't stand that going, you know, you know you're sick. Yeah. Not good for my nervous system.

Dean: Right, right, right, right. That's funny. Yeah, it's. I Think it's been an interesting. So now my. My default, like where I'm kind of more focusing my efforts in that. Those prime hours to applying them to some definite purpose as opposed to just sort of. Because if I don't, they can be just free, you know, like my mind just thinking or coming up with new stuff without any real structure purpose for it, you know. So I'm trying to allocate some of those hours on an. I heard the term one time in. In entertainment of an FSO contract. Do you know what that stands for? For services of. That's how, like if an actor or something has a contract with a. With a production company, the contract. Yes, an FSO for services of Dan Sullivan in this particular role. Not in. Not his company, but only specifically Dan in this role. And so that's kind of a, you know, this idea of allocating that's. If I take those three hours a day is basically my allocation of a thousand investable hours in. If I look at that my unique ability time or I look at my capabilities, that's one of those. That's the time that I can allocate those. Those hours. Yeah. Taking a more kind of more disciplined kind of investor approach to that, you know, investing that asset of those three prime hours on things that are. That will have the highest return.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. And you get smarter as you go along. I mean. Yeah. People say, well, how can you do this? And I said, I've been working on this for 33 years. Right. You know, and that's, you know, that's over 130/ And I said, yeah, one of my goals every quarter is the way I handle things. Next quarter is. Well, the way I handle things this quarter is better than way I did it last quarter. Yeah. I'll tell you what it is. The entire Rogers system went down.

Dean: I heard about that.

Dan: Yeah. And there was a. We were. I was just on the Internet because I have bill for the Internet, which kind of tells me I'm going to have Bell for a lot more things in my life after Friday. But so it says massive Rogers failure as if that just happened on Friday. I said, that's been happening for the last 25 years. It's just that they decided to include everybody in it on Friday.

Dean: Oh, my goodness. That's funny.

Dan: That's funny. Yeah. You know, I mean, none of the restaurants. None of the restaurants. Unless you had Visa, they. You couldn't pay people. And I mean. I mean, they're just losing the Cloudlandia game. I'll tell you They're.

Dean: Oh, man.

Dan: They're going to be a statistic. Yeah.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: They're like motorcycle riders. Every time a motorcycle rider goes back and is weaving in on, you know, out of traffic ahead of me, Bab. Oh, that guy. I said, no, he said he's an organ donor.

Dean: Organ donor. Darwin at work right there, Right?

Dan: Yeah. Then Rogers is just an organ donor. You know, they probably got some good technologies that will be dispersed at a certain point to other companies that can make better use of them. But anyway, that's probably why we got cut off there.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: But Gord makes it seem, you know, this gets edited out.

Dean: That's perfect. The. Yeah, you were saying that you're. You kind of, you know, every quarter you kind of get better at.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: The things working and. But you know, what's amazing to me is, you know, as I've looked back, it's been, you know, I look at my entrepreneurial career now, 34 years coming up in November, and, you know, I look back at the. If I really reflect on the things those were. Haven't really changed in terms of the things that I would. That I really enjoy doing the things that you naturally kind of do. And it's kind of a. An interesting approach because Steven Pressfield, that's kind of one of the things that, that he looks at is getting into. You know, waiting for the muse is one thing, but training the muse to show up at 9am on, when you sit down at your desk is another. Is another thing.

Dan: Yeah. I told him we were trading stories. He's got great stories. And I found I had a useful story to contribute to the conversation. And. But we both had one that was the same famous person. And I mean, if, you know, if you know something, it's in the field of modern dance. Okay, so. And there's one person who's just a legendary pioneer, and she's around 70 now, and she's been doing this since she was like 16 years old. And she was interviewed, you know, some program, and the person says, most modern dance, your teacher, you know, you're a dancer for maybe 15 or 20 years, and then you become a teacher. You know, you're director of a dance, but you're not dancing anymore. And she was like 60 and she was still dancing full time. And he said, how do you do that? And she, she said, well, ever since I started, I spend three hours every morning stretching, I stretch. You know, there's every muscle you use in dancing. I just make sure that every day those muscles get stressed. So he said, so let me get this right. You've done this every day? She said, every day? And he said, how long? She says, well, I started at 16, so I started doing it then. And you've done it every day and you're 60 now and you've done it. That's 44 years. You say, are you telling me that every day for 44 years you've stretched for three hours? That's your habit? You have. So, no, she says, that's not the habit. He said, at six o' clock every morning, I have to get. Every morning I have to get in the taxi and the taxi takes me to the. Yeah, and he knows the way. And as soon as we get there, I said, well, we're here. I might as well go into the studio. And I'm in the studio. And since I'm here, I might as well stretch for three hours. She says, no, I have a habit of making sure I get in the taxi every morning at 6 o'. Clock.

Dean: Yes, exactly. What's the plumbing or the wiring that you're talking about? Right, it's that.

Dan: Well, people say. Yeah, people say you have to start doing a half hour exercise every morning. And they say, I don't know. What do I know? Every morning you have to go down and you. You have to stand on the treadmill. If you want to stand on the treadmill for a half hour, stand on the treadmill for half hour.

Dean: Right, Right.

Dan: Yeah. But since you're standing on the treadmill, think what might happen if you turned it on.

Dean: That's the best. I love that. Yeah.

Dan: And I said, yeah, Stephen, we're kindred spirits, I'll tell you. I mean. Yeah, you're a habit guy. I'm a habit guy. Then we had a couple entertainment stories, and his was a great one. It was Cole Porter, very famous, you know, just tremendously famous composer, even today, Cole Porter. And he wrote a song that all his friends. This is the best thing that Cole Porter, you know, ever wrote. And he got rejected. Like the recording company rejected the song. You know, we don't really like this. And so his friend said, how could you, Cole Porter? How. I mean, how do you handle having one of your songs rejected? He said, I don't have time to think about it. There's another song coming down the tracks in 20 minutes.

Dean: That's so funny. I don't have time to think about it.

Dan: I don't have time to think about. There's a new one coming right away. And the story I told that Stephen told me that story. And I told him, ira. George and Ira Gershwin, you know, equally famous to Cole Porter. And they had been working together. Ira, I think, was a couple years older than George. Since they were like 8 years old and 6 years old, they had been writing music and lyrics. You know, they. You know, they. They started really early, so now they were famous. And they. So at the height of their career, they were at. Simultaneously doing musicals on Broadway, and then they were doing musicals in Hollywood for the. For the movies. Right. And. Yeah, and it wasn't jet plane days, so they were taking luxury trains, you know, from New York to Los Angeles. So they were on a trip back to New York, and they got on and they had, you know, they had some deadlines. And George had his notebook out right from the beginning, and they had a sleeper car, but during the day, they had their own sort of luxury suite. And he's sitting there and he's writing page after page of music. He was like. He was, you know, he was writing music like some people, you know, write down in their notebook. You know, he was just page after page. And then about six hours out of New York, you know, it's like late morning, he handed the notebook to Ira, and he says, this is what I've done. And Ira just could read music. And he just wrote it. Oh, this is great. He said, I can already see the words. You know, he was going. He said to George, this is just really great. They get to Grand Central Station, they have to rush because they have an evening event. And so they pack everything up quickly, the bags go, and they have a suite at the Waldorf Astoria. And he gets up, and so they have to go right out to the event. And they come back, and then Ira is just going around the suite frantically, and he says, george, he says, I lost the notebook. I can't find it anywhere. So George said, well, call the concierge. They know us. They'll call the. You know, they'll call the railroad.

Dan: The porters all know us. They probably found it. And. And he comes back and he says, no, it's gone. And George said, well, George said, well, there's more where that came from.

Dean: Yeah, right. That's the greatest. That's what's so great. That's what I found about the. You know, when you get into that flow, when you're really in there. Unique ability that the. It's a bottomless well, like, I think your ability to think about your thinking and to develop new tools and new things of that. You could do it endlessly. Yeah, it's so that's the same way.

Dan: Well, I would tell you it would be hard at this stage. It would be harder not to do it. Then you're right. Not doing it is harder than.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Doing it. Yeah.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And, you know, I think of a, you know, another celebrity story. It's Ronald Reagan, you know, when he became famous as a politician and the knockoff that he was a great B actor and he made terrible films because, you know, the people who didn't like him, they had this thing about, well, what kind of president is he going to be such a. You know, he wasn't much of an actor and that, you know, he always had a humorous comeback. And he said, you know, all those movies, you know, those terrible movies I made, they didn't tell me they wanted them good. They told me they wanted them on Tuesday. Right. Aha.

Dean: Yes. That's funny.

Dan: Yeah. You know, and people talk about Shakespeare, you know, that Shakespeare had this lofty thoughts. You forget, that shakes. Everything Shakespeare did was for money and to a deadline.

Dean: Yes. I love it. Yeah. That's kind of. And I think when you're into that, it just perpetuates, you know, it was Stephen King who, you know, writes every day that same way, gets up in the morning and the first thing is doing it. And. But he's all. He writes one book at a time, and as soon as that one's done, he's automatically into the next one, even if it's the same day, even if he writes the end, then he writes the next, and it's still time on the clock. Kind of thing still starts right into the next one.

Dan: But he's got, you know, I mean, you think of Stephen King as this single individual, but he's got a vast network of other people who do everything else to get the book from his, you know, from his pages to the public. He has. He just has this vast network, you know.

Dean: Oh, that's interesting. And that's. I think James. I know James Patterson.

Dan: Oh, he's written 250. 250 books.

Dean: Right. And what I found out about him is that he really largely does the outlining and the. The main story gets all the. It's. It reminded me of the 80 approach, is really kind of what he does. Gets the 80 approach and partners with other people to write the. Flesh it out to do the.

Dan: Yeah. I mean. And that's the secret of Dean Jackson. I mean, you look. Yeah, the. You know, you look like the floating marketing Buddha. But there's. You got lots. You got lots of who's yes, that's the truth.

Dean: Yeah. It takes.

Dan: A village.

Dean: But, you know, I always, I'm fascinated by that thing. It's the only way to really just stay in your unique ability. I mean, and to really just, you know, when I discovered the, you know, in the early. In the early days of who, not how. The self milking cow idea.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Really taking all of our processes seriously, taking them, outlining everything that has to happen and then drawing the milk line, which things are the milk that. That only the cow can do. And that really got us to the point of. That was where the podcast, you know, the dial talk done podcast model came from. Was realizing the milk of the podcast is what gets said and everything else. So it's literally. I mean, we. You and I've been doing these same. You've been experiencing this as long as you and I have been doing podcasts that you dial in and we talk and it's done. But it's not anything else that we're doing. It's a whole team of people in process behind. Yeah.

Dan: Now, one of the things I want to go back to something you said right at the beginning about synchronous and asynchronous.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Okay. So my schedule is totally synchronous, but what I do in terms of the schedule times is always asynchronous. So this is always scheduled our podcast, but what we're going to talk about is completely asynchronous. Right. Exactly. You know, I mean, a minute before I press the Kissimmee number to get to you kiss me, Florida. And I look at recents, I look at recents, I said, well, half of them are to the same phone number. So

Dean: there it is, easy.

Dan: They say, yeah, you have Dean's phone number. I said, yeah, just go to recents. Doesn't matter. Go back. Your numbers are kissing me. Florida.

Dean: That's so funny.

Dan: As a matter of fact, you're 80% of my phone calls. But I think you may be the only person that I actually phone. Sometimes I get phone calls, you know, from other. But it's in the schedule that I'm getting a phone call. Like nobody just phones me, Right. That nobody just phones me, you know, because there's, there's guards, there's pit bulls, there's. Yeah, rattlesnakes, there's. Yes, there's minefields. Because I don't like being interrupted, you know, like I'm doing something. And, and I know people who, they get called 25 times a day by people they don't know, And I said, I can't.

Dean: Right.

Dan: I can't live in that world.

Dean: Yeah. No way. No, there's something to, you know, having that level of support and process is. But creating that is done, you know, asynchronously in those times that.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: I'm sitting with my journal and my remarkable. Mapping it out, the thinking, getting to the point to simplify something. So, you know,

Dan: a tablet immediately, your tablet, whatever you want to send immediately organizes itself into type. And it's connected. It's connected to the, you know, it's connected to the Internet. So you can, yes, you can just take what you want and email it. I mean. Yeah, yeah. Your thoughts, they're your thoughts this minute, next minute, somebody's reading your thoughts. If you choose to do that. Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, it's a really. It was so funny. I had a conversation that relates to Quadlandia. It was somebody. We were talking and they said, boy, you know this thing that Elon Musk is planning with neuro neural link. Have you read about. I said, yeah, I read. You know, I read it when he announced it and he says, boy, have you ever thought about like having your brain actually attached to the Internet? And I said, I have a two follow through. I have a two fact finder. I have a two follow through. I have a ten quick start. And I'm clinically diagnosed as A.D. can you imagine what would happen if I attached my brain? Is it going to make things real simple and real clear? I said, I don't think, though. Yeah.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: And I said, the only reason why Neon Elon's talking about it is that he hasn't done it yet.

Dean: Right, Exactly.

Dan: Yeah. I said, you know, it's very interesting. I just finished my last. My last current quarterly books number 31. And it's called, you are not a computer, you are not a computer. And, and I start off with a chapter that says ten versus a hundred. Okay? And what I say, I got ten human beings and I got 100 computers, okay? And each starts, each human being starts with the same message and tells the second person what the message is. And it goes down the line until you hit a 10th person. And then the 10th person comes back to the first person and says, this is the message. I guarantee you it has no resemblance to the first. Right?

Dean: Yes.

Dan: First computer, you give it the message. The hundredth computer has it. The thousandth computer has it. The millionth computer has it. I said, that's the difference between computers and human beings. They process information. We make up meaning.

Dean: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah. Because that's how things get confused. They're interpreting that, they're adding something to it. Yes.

Dan: Have you ever needed full information to make, to create an explanation?

Dean: No, that's true.

Dan: No. Matter of fact, as a matter of fact, I like as little information as possible to make up an explanation.

Dean: Yeah, that's.

Dan: It makes it. We make each of us make sense of what's happening and whether it's correct or not or whether it's accurate, that has nothing to do. What we're really striving for is entertainment for ourselves. Entertaining.

Dean: Yeah. Yeah. Huh.

Dan: We just made sense. We just made sense of things again, you know.

Dean: Yeah, yeah.

Dan: And people said, yeah, but it's completely unrealistic. It's just, you know, I mean, nobody will agree with you. I'm not doing it for anybody else. I'm doing it to make sense for myself.

Dean: Yeah. That's something I was, you know, I was thinking about as we were talking about the team, like the village kind of thing. It was what I found really inspiring. And I think about your project managers in this process. But.

Dan: Oh, watch, we just had the five month. I should tell you about this.

Dean: It's okay.

Dan: Really great. Yeah, go ahead, though.

Dean: So opinion Oprah. I watched several years ago, Oprah did a behind the scenes on her Last season, the 25th season of the Oprah Show. And I was fascinated by how much of a precision machine that was, you know, like she's got. There are six producer teams that she has that were, you know, that run do all the shows. And that was, you know, each of them have, you know, six people on that producer team. And so they're, they showed the whole season coming together there. You know, she had one executive producer, Sherry Salata, who, who went on to be the head of OWN network. But they're in the boardroom and they're arcing out all the things they want to do over the season. Like what are the shows going to be about? Is108 shows they do in a season. And then they're kind of distributing them out to the producer teams. And then they each week they do six shows a week, I think is how they did it. They shoot two shows, two shows a day, three days a week in, when they're in production, they just show the meetings with Oprah where they come in and everything has a structure. They're just going over the, you know, they've got takes the intro, somebody takes this, you know, the segments, segment producers on each of the show. And it reminded me of, you know, the sort of structure around how you must have it set up for your quarterly books. You look at your quarterly book as a show. Yeah. You know, what. How does the. What's the progression Kind of thing from. You must already have a list of potential. Do you have ideas or titles when you're.

Dan: Yeah, well, I just have. I just have titles and I've got a file. And, you know, as I'm going, like, I produce a book, a quarter, but there's not a quarter that goes by where I don't think of two or three new titles for future books.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And then you, you know, you just

Dean: look through and pick the title.

Dan: Yeah, I just look through. And then, you know, and sometimes it just surprises you, you know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Somebody. I'm in a workshop and somebody will say something.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Or I'll come up with a new tool. The pre. The previous book, the one that's currently out there, the who not how. That was a not who not. No, I can tell you a whole story about who not how, anyway. No, but. No, but it was not being.

Dean: I haven't read that one yet.

Dan: And it was just a. An insight that I had that maybe bother doesn't mean anything. Bother is just something that kind of paralyzes you in the moment. And I said, and you don't even know where it comes from, but you just get stopped. You kind of get stopped. And where you get into trouble is you think that the thing that bothers you means something. And what I. What I said, I'm just going to change the name of everything that bothers me, that I'm just bothered. And I say, and there's a skill that I had to develop that anytime I'm bothered, I have to consciously say, oh, you're bothered? If you weren't bothered, what would you be doing? And it's kind of like the joy of procrastination, but it's bother. And I just simply. And the moment you ask yourself a question, your brain can't ignore the question. So I mean, well, you should be doing this. So I go and do this. I do it, and then I come back and I'm not bothered anymore. So I just. From my future, I've eliminated that. Anything that bothers me for the rest of my life means anything. The only thing that means is that I'm bothered. And I could be doing something else right at the moment that was more productive. Yeah. So that's an idea. So that I did the workshop tool on it and it was gangbusters Everybody loved it. I said, no, this is worth a book. And so. And then I did the book and then I do a mindset scorecard on the. That's a tool. And coach. And you go through and you identify that a mindset actually has about. I just arbitrarily says, got eight parts to it. And I say, what are the eight parts of this mindset? And I go through. And then you say someone who is. Someone who has really gotten on top of this and is masterful, it looks like this. And somebody who's roadkill, you know, they just get. Their life gets destroyed by it looks like this. And then I do a fast filter on each of the mindsets and I go. And I'm not going to take you through the whole process or take a whole show, but there are. There.

Dan: That starts a teamwork project where there's nine other people who will develop the project now. I mean, it's like your 90, 90 minute book. And the first and of the last 31 books that I've written, I haven't written anything in 29 of them.

Dean: Right.

Dan: People have said, boy, you're. You really write fast. I said, I tell you, the best way to write fast is not do the writing.

Dean: Right. That was my big discovery, is that, you know, nobody ever gets talker's block. That's the.

Dan: Well, that's not true. But it's about speaking between you and me, it's.

Dean: Right.

Dan: An accurate statement. I've never had Tucker's back.

Dean: Right. Exactly.

Dan: I had to laugh. One of the most excruciating experience of my life. You know, we had a litigation over the last couple of years and I had to go through deposition and my lawyer said, now, Dan, the appropriate answer to everything the opposing lawyer asks you is yes or no. But I said, I've got stories, I've got jokes.

Dean: Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Right, right.

Dan: So for eight hours, I can't use. I. I can't talk as I. I enjoy talking. You had. Yeah, yeah, I had to do it. It was the most excruciating out eight hours of consciousness.

Dean: We're used to. We're used to questions or prompts like that being the.

Dan: Oh, yeah.

Dean: The cue for a story. Yeah. Or something.

Dan: One of my most powerfuls of my strength finder. You know, the strength finder profile is context. I want to tell people all sides of the issue, where this came from, how he says yes or no. And every time I slept during the deposition, I regretted it afterwards.

Dean: Oh, boy. Huh? Yeah. You almost need like a delay It's a buffer.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: At the end. Just some. So yes or no?

Dan: The only thing that. The only thing that let me get through it is about halfway through, I said, you know, she and I are on the same side. We both have the same check. We both have the same check writer who's going to write the bill for this.

Dean: Right, right. Oh, that's so funny.

Dan: I felt sort of a kindred spirit. I felt like I was in teamwork with her, you know?

Dean: Oh, that's great. I love that. Yeah.

Dan: See, you have to change the meaning. You have to change. And that's what humans do. I mean, humans at our best, regardless of the situation, we change the meaning of the situation to serve our purposes

Dean: and not being bothered.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: That's great. Well, I'm off to Celebration today for a breakthrough blueprint starting tomorrow.

Dan: Oh, great. Yeah. So.

Dean: Yes. That'll be fun. Yeah. It's nice to be.

Dan: So I just want to let you know we. We did our free zone summit in West Palm, you know, at the Four Seasons last year, and we loved it so much we're going to do it again next year in February. Oh, I just wanted to know that. Yeah.

Dean: Perfect. Well, I'll be there this time for sure. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Wouldn't miss it. Yeah. I love it. Yeah.

Dan: Anyway, that was a fast hour.

Dean: It really was. But always entertaining and always fun and always picked up right where we left off. Yep. Thanks, Dan.

Dan: Okay, bye.

Dean: Bye.