Dean & Dan follow up on last weeks call and discuss the breakthroughs from looking at the question "What would I like to do tomorrow?" before moving on to the thoughts behind Procrastination Scorecard mindset 7: Procrastination Becomes Priority.
Links:
StrategicCoach.com
DeanJackson.com
Transcript: The Joy of Procrastination Ep016
Dean: Mr. Sullivan.
Dan: And Mr. Jackson himself.
Dean: Here we are.
Dan: Yeah, here we are, very short, just a week, but…
Dean: …to think about it. I like this kind of frequency here. It's kind of cool.
Dan: Yeah, I think we'll be at it again next week, I think, and then I'll be seeing you pretty soon.
Dean: That is exactly right. I've got my tour starting up so I'll be heading to New York and then Toronto.
Dan: Yeah.
Dean: Love it.
Dan: Anyway, last time when we were on our call, I talked about this thing of setting up a month ahead of time.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: So this is day number four for me in June and it feels different. It feels very, very different. I'm kind of in the protected zone because I've given it a lot of thought so this is probably the most thought through month ahead of time that I've had in 73 years, so this is a big deal.
Dean: Wow, so that's pretty great. I think that the idea of having it that like, not granular ... what is the opposite of granular, that kind of back row where it feels like it's slowed down a little bit, more maybe ... I was thinking about it after we talked last time that it's almost like there's a higher fidelity to it, if you want to think about it like that, in a way. That there's more layers to it because you're paying attention to it on different levels, as opposed to the word you used once getting surprised in your day.
Dan: Yeah, well just to bring up anybody into the conversation who didn't hear it last time, I was kind of inspired because you brought up a breakthrough for yourself and that breakthrough was that for 15 years, you've been getting up every morning and saying, "What would I really like to do today?" and that was incredibly effective for 15 years, but as a result of our conversations about procrastination and everything that sets you up for procrastination, you made an adjustment to your formula, expanded it into another dimension where now what you say is, "What would I really like to do tomorrow?" so you just moved it ahead in your thinking 24 hours.
It's kind of interesting the progress that we make independently of each other, but being able to check back with in with each other because I want to bring something new back to the conversation and I think that you do too.
Dean: Exactly, yeah.
Dan: So I got thinking, and this has been on my mind for quite a while that I'm, as you know Dean, I'm very, very well managed so I've got a manger in the company for almost every area of my life and that spreads over to my personal life too, but specifically inside the business, if there's an activity that the Dan is gonna be involved, there will be someone who is managing the set-up of that activity and taking care of everything except what Dan is there to do, but at the same time, I'm kind of flying blind in the sense that I'm trusting them to be in charge and they never miss anything.
They're aware of what I'm going to do, but sometimes I haven't look at the schedule ahead, I haven't looked at the calendar and I get surprised. I say, "Oh my gosh, I wish I had thought about this," and the thing that I wished I had thought about it is that if I had greater perspective, not just what's happening in the next hour or this morning or this afternoon, but I was to go much further ahead in the calendar, I might have economized and I might have integrated some activities, if I'd known about them.
Dean: Yeah, since I'm doing this, I may as well ... yeah, it would be worthwhile to do this too while I'm there.
Dan: Yeah, so I just played with this for two or three months. I was playing it through in my mind but I wasn't actually taking action and then at the beginning of May I just systematically throughout the month of May went through and I looked at my June and I just gave thought to each day and then I had an overview of the entire 30 days and I began to see, "Hey, if we move this here, we did this and we could this and I don't actually need to do that in June, I can move that forward into July," and there's some things that were not gonna happen in June I brought into June and this is all with conversation with the various managers and especially with Anna, who is my overall scheduling person.
There were some significant shifts. I counted up 15 changes I made as a result of going through that entire month, but when I hit May 31st and I was looking forward to June, I said, "You know, this is the most thought through, the most conscious month that I'm now entering and there's no reason in the world why that shouldn't be so for the rest of my life."
Dean: What types of things did you change or how has it changed? What have been some of the enhancements or whatever that would ... like what's your observation of how it feels different or how it manifests itself?
Dan: Yeah, well I gave an example as I was just explaining that of something I moved from June to July, but there were a number of things that were gonna happen around the middle of June, they were scheduled in for the middle of June onward to the end of June and I looked and I had a day in this first week, so this would be Thursday of this week and I said, "You know, I could move a couple of those things from the 20th right up until next week. I could get them off, I could get them handled," and the time was there and what would have done with Thursday anyway? If I didn't have anything planned, I don't know what I would have done with the Thursday time.
So what I found is that I'm backward condensing. In other words I say, "Look, why don't we at least get part of it started right now. We'll give it some momentum right up front instead of waiting till the end of June so I have time." So I'm only in the fourth day with it, but I notice that there's a shift in my sense of importance of the total of number of things that I'm gonna do during June, not just what I'm gonna do today or tomorrow. That's the biggest thing I've notice so far.
I'm noticing I'm not futzing about with stuff, I said, "You know, get this done now because you'll be continually making room," which is just the opposite of procrastination.
Dean: Yeah, and it's sort of almost like a Tetris puzzle of time. As you see the slot that you can fit something in and that opens up more possibilities for that time that you've moved it from.
Dan: Yeah.
Dean: I think that's really gonna be like getting more actually in that time. That's interesting. I'm interested to hear about that and experimenting with that for me.
Dan: Yeah, it's really interesting. I was at Genius Network in Scottsdale for the first days, the first two days, so Thursday and Friday I was there and I just glanced at the schedule, and what I do, Dean, is I have the schedule so I can see all 30 days and I just look at it for about 10, 15 minutes, early in the morning. So I've done it all four days, I've just looked at the June schedule, so I'm really getting used to it for one thing. Its very familiar territory and even though I'm looking at it again, I notice every time I do that there's more of a sense of real integrated certainly about this month and I'm kinda knowing, you know, this could very well turn out the best and most satisfying month of June I've ever had, but month period.
Dean: Are you looking at a shared Google Calendar or something? How do you coordinate with Anna?
Dan: No, I just have a tool for a completely different reason.
Dean: Okay.
Dan: It's got 35 slots on it so I just shift it over the key, the mountaintop activities. It's not everything I'm going to be doing in the day, but I have my thing of three important things a day that I hold myself accountable, so it's at least 35 times 3, or there's a couple days where there's meetings, which I wouldn't have put as the most important thing, but it's crucial that I show up for the meetings.
Dean: Right.
Dan: Not only that, but it's already in my brain that I'm gonna have a meeting with Elanora, who is my, she's my project manager for the Game Changer Program, which is scheduled to kick off on April 10th of 2018, so I'm in the 10-month period now before that. So what I'll do, because I know I'm having that meeting, I'll get ready for that meeting better because I'm kinda looking at it every day and I said, "Well, since we're gonna have that meeting otherwise, let's really put some pop into it."
In other words, lets achieve a lot in that meeting, but it's three weeks off and in my previous thing I would have seen it on my calendar for tomorrow morning, I'd say, "Oh yes, so I've got that meeting with Elanora," but no previous amount of consciousness or thinking had gone into what I'm gonna do tomorrow, where here, in some ways, not really formal, I'm preparing my mind for that. I think that meeting three weeks off will be better because I've been conscious of it now for a full month ahead.
Dean: This is exciting. I think it's a change for both of us in terms of the overall awareness of the calendar 'cause that's-
Dan: Yeah, and you know we're prime lab rats for this type of thing because of our 10 quickstart in Colby System and also our ADD, both of us are ADD, and you know the complaint off people with our profile, the complaint is that you're constantly getting hit with things and there's this distracting this and I can't keep my mind on the main focus. I lived myself forever, but I've also lived with entrepreneurs as a coaching clients for more than 40 years and there's always getting besieged. They take pride in it because they're quick responders. In other words, it doesn't matter what you throw at them they can quickly respond it but it does take an energetic toll.
One of the things I've notice is that time and energy become very, very precious. Once you get into your 70s, I noticed a really shift when I got into my 70s, I said, "You, know, let's make time wasting a thing of the past."
Dean: Let's just go ahead and make time wasting a thing of the past. Oh, that's good. Well, that's something that gives you an idea.
Dan: That's all right. I mean, I have good health habits and I have-
Dean: Yeah right.
Dan: I'm taking all sorts of outside strategies to keep the show going for decades.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: But, you don't have the sense of time in your 70s that you had in your 20s when you were going to be immortal.
Dean: Right, exactly. I think this sense of really intention with the time now. You really know what your big picture is.
Dan: Yeah, so I'm just gonna do it. People are listening to the podcast, so anyone who has a mind to, they can try this for themselves, but I'm gonna live with it for a year before I make any big deal about it because I want to just get 12 months under my belt just to see, was that year significantly, from a measurable standpoint, was it different. In other words, in terms of productivity, but I think the big thing is just, what was the energy like to spend doing that and that's a huge thing for me. More and more my assessment of good days, bad days is really the energy level that I was able to operate at, and a good day is very, very much different from what I call a bad day.
Dean: You know, the great thing is that you're at a point where you can put whatever you want in those times. That was one of the things I got ... even to this day Warren Buffett, I saw a recent thing about him where he takes pride in that his calendar really has nothing on it and that his protocol for getting time with Warren is to contact his assistant the day before you can come and meet with him 'cause he only makes a decision about tomorrow. That's the only ... which is really kind of fascinating. He held up and showed his calendar, it's basically empty and that's the way that he likes to live it.
Dan: Yeah, so the whole word is competing today for one possible shot tomorrow.
Dean: Yeah, isn't that funny.
Dan: There's a real appreciating the value of tomorrow, Warren Buffett's tomorrow maybe at the top of the list of valuable days in the world.
Dean: Yes, exactly. So I thought that was kind of…
Dan: What would you have to do today to get on Warren Buffett's calendar tomorrow?
Dean: I wonder.
Dan: Exactly.
Dean: I wonder.
Dan: Well, I had a client, who was in financial services, a guy from San Francisco, this is back in the 90s and he really had a grasp on time better than any person I ever saw in that industry or any other industry from that standpoint. He only did business the 31 days of January, that was it. The rest of the year, the other 11 months, he had this ten-year project of sailing around the world by himself.
Dean: Oh, wow.
Dan: He broke into 10 voyages and obviously, he wasn't going for time records here but then he would figure out where the beginning was on February 1st and where he had to be at the end of December and then he tried to make as interesting as possible. He'd spend a week, he had a lot of time to do it. He covered basically 1000 miles in a month, it was a motorized sailboat so he could always be making progress when he wanted to. He became famous and he wrote a book on this and he did audio recordings on it, Walter ... just trying to think of his name right now. I'll get a hold of it because this was so unusual.
What would happen was is his team, including a direct assistant would start phone people and saying, "I'm booking now," Let's say it's Dean. I'll make the person you, "I'm booking, Dean, now for January of 2018 and what we have right now is the morning of the 14th at 10 o'clock. I just want to see if you would commit to that, okay?" And they said, "Well, you know it's seven months ahead." "I know but he only works the month of January and it's filling up fast so we have a slot for you, and it'll be for an hour, 10 to 11 on the 8th of January," and the guy says, "Oh gee," he says, "I'm looking here and I have a family vacation," and he says, "Okay, well can we put you down for 2019, next year?"
Dean: Oh man, that is the best.
Dan: And then what he would do is he'd do 10 meetings a day in 31 days. He worked it all, he just totally worked out. He had a team with him, he did no follow-up whatsoever, a decision had to be made within that hour. You had an hour. "I'm not gonna see you again so, ..." and he had everything organized.
That's not a plan that would interest me at all, but I said to people, "It doesn't matter whether it interests you or not it's a plan and it's a system and he worked at it," and he worked at it for about 10 years before he then started the 10-year period when he was doing it. It just proves a point to me that if you have a plan in mind and you give yourself enough time to prepare for it, you can pull it off.
Dean: I'm fascinated by little experiments like that. I heard about this restaurant in New York called Momofuku and I think there's one in Toronto now actually.
Dan: Yep.
Dean: The way that they did it, there were only 14 feet in the restaurant.
Dan: Yeah, okay, it's in the Shangri-La, right down University Avenue.
Dean: It's the same model in Toronto because in New York they only have two seatings a day, they have a lunch or a dinner ... maybe they have two dinners. They have a lunch and an early dinner and a late dinner and you can only book for two weeks out. So if we're trying to book today, you have to be online, they open up the calendar at 10:00 a.m. on the two weeks out day and you can only book two people at a time and that's it. You're either in or that's it, and they've been sold out like that for, when I had heard the story, for years and it's similar ... they did a similar thing in Toronto, have you heard?
Dan: Well, we went there and I don't know what the situation was of getting it set up, so I'd have to look into that, but I've heard about this before. There was a very famous restaurant and I don't know what's the situation with them right now, but they were in Charleston, South Carolina and they had a six-month thing. They had a six-month thing and so they had been at ... this was like a 30 or 40 year organization, so they've been at it.
It was a very neat thing because you had to ... and it didn't matter the number of people but you had to commit and the reason why it didn't matter the number of people is that you had to pay full price up front when you made the reservation.
Dean: When you made the reservation, wow.
Dan: Yeah, so when you made the reservation, they had a fixed price menu and they included wine with it. Then they had things that were extra when you were there.
Dean: You had to pay that?
Dan: You had to pay that up front.
Dean: Isn't that interesting? I'm fascinated by that whole model.
Dan: And the whole point was if you didn't show up they kept your money and then they had people who would just phone up late and say, "Is there any chance," and they said, "Yes, we just had a table of four that canceled and we can give you their table, but you have to pay right now to get that table."
Dean: Hmm.
Dan: So you look at the restaurant business, and Dean, you've talked to people in the restaurant business, what are some of the problems.
Dean: Well, yeah, all of the problems right there. The uncertainty of it, you know?
Dan: I have a no receivables but it's less than ... you do too as far as the breakthrough blueprint.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: I get my money up front but this ... you know, we get a deposit and then there's a 30-day period you have to have your deposit in within a week. The balance, you have to have it in a week ahead the workshop. So I've operated without any receivables now since 1984 and that may have just solved us some problems, number of problems but this one takes the cake, what they were doing here, because in the restaurant business, you got problems with food spoiling. In other words, you ordered food and the food spoils fast.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: You got staffing problems and the biggest problem with staffing is over staffing. In other words, you've staffed up for it and these people didn't come and you've just got an enormous number of different issues that that one policy ... and I'm sure they came at it in bits and pieces. We saw the full ... when I heard about it, it was from people from Charleston and they made exceptions. They had a special room for special people and that, they were all sorts of ... just for the general public.
Dean: The thing that struck me about that, the restaurant in New York was that there was no menu. You eat what he prepares for you, that was it and that was ... so it's like, whatever is fresh ... I mean it's sushi, but whatever is fresh and whatever is that day.
Dan: Whatever is on his mind, yeah.
Dean: What do you think that the lesson of this is that ... I think that people are willing to accommodate any rules that you set forward. Whoever is clearer on that is really ... we just don't give ourselves permission to set up the rules in advance to be exactly the way that we want them.
Dan: Yeah, well it's like there's rules of every game. Think about the residential real estate game and you, when you traded your ... selling people essentially exclusive to a territory.
Dean: Yeah, when you make a website, right.
Dan: Yep. If you go into the real estate business, there's some general rules about how it operates and most of the rules are, well you have to do this, then you have to do this, then you have to do this, but the have to do that you are talking about is just what's generally true for most people and most people in any industry are mediocre at best, so you're being told what the laws for the mediocre are.
Dean: Hmm. That's true. Yes.
Dan: But that takes nothing into account that you may have a different approach, you may have a different ... you just maybe ... if you're not better than a mediocre person, than the average mediocre person in any industry, then you shouldn't go into that industry. You're pre-prepared roadkill.
Dean: The great thing about this is just so fascinating, so many ... when we take this kind of experimental approach to it, we get to try on all kinds of different approaches, you know?
Dan: Yeah, there's no cost to it 'cause one way or the other, you're gonna learn something new. One of the things that I say is get your life to the point where anything that happens is useful.
Dean: Yes. Well then you get the experience transformer to either you're celebrating your progress or where working on experience transformer to learn the greatest lesson from it, right.
Dan: Yeah, you're on the winning team or you're on the learning team, both are necessary to go forward.
Dean: That's right.
Dan: So we're at the eighth and final mindset on the scorecard.
Dean: I love it. Procrastination becomes priority.
Dan: Yeah, and let's just talk about that title because that was just our original discussion that was select bistro and the middle of last year, Dean, that you can make procrastination into your priority. So how much truthfulness is there to that after working with ... so we're five months finish for this year and then we got roughly got five months last year, so what's your take on the accuracy, the truthfulness of that statement?
Dean: Yeah, no.
Dan: Let me just say the usefulness apart from whether it's true or not, is it useful?
Dean: Absolutely. So I, in my observation have seen that there is a bottomless supply of raw material available for us to draw from and this sense of knowing immediately that I can tap into that at any time because at any given time there are numerous things that I am procrastinating, so I can draw from it. What I've gotten, I think, better at, more mindful at, more skillful at is quickly tapping into that and choosing something to immediately get into action.
I think this is actually a really good conversation to have as a looking back 'cause that was actually great to take it back to the first conversation we had about it because if I look at that, I know that that's always there, I know that there's something on my mind that I'm procrastinating that I can tap into at any time. I know that if I limit it to adopt your idea of the three things, I can clearly what I'm procrastinating right now and what the three most important ones are and decide to take action on those and feel completely peaceful that I'm aware of the others but not hounded by them or hindered by them.
That's really bad the big difference for me, is just being able to go back to that well and really just play with that.
Dan: The other thing ... I continually have an advantage, feeling an advantage ever since we kicked off the project and that is when I am procrastinating and I say, "Okay, well let's go into the procrastinating now, that I'm doing something unique that other people, you know, there's 7.3 billion people on the planet and they're also procrastinating about something, but I have a feeling that I have an advantage here because going into my procrastination is no longer a negative.
Dean: Right.
Dan: This is my secret room, you know?
Dean: Yes, exactly.
Dan: But I'm not alone, I got a buddy. I've a got a buddy I get to talk about, he's got his own room, you know?
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: Yeah, and I was just thinking of the very first statement of the four statements here is you end every day and begin each morning with a sense of guilt about all the things that you should have already accomplished.
Dean: There's a lot people who are in that situation. I mean, absolutely.
Dan: Yeah, no, I was just at Genius Network and high powered group of people, they're writing the big check to be there so they've got something big on their mind and I was just keeping track 'cause my procrastination priority filter is really highly tuned these days and after the first day I picked up about 25 comments, just as part of the conversation from morning till night that struck me that it was coming from guilt about procrastination.
Dean: It is interesting, right, that that guilt-
Dan: And these are achievers.
Dean: Yeah, yeah.
Dan: These are stars that were sitting around the table, very, very accomplished.
Dean: Yes.
Dan: But you could see these little self bits where people would ... it was kind of like they were hitting themselves in the head, not physically but psychologically, they were slapping themselves, "You idiot, you should have done that. You do that ... " It's just my general awareness because I'm also coaching this among 500 people on a quarterly basis and I've done that for three quarters.
Yeah, but I just got a feeling that I've made very, very significant discovery of a secret power.
Dean: Yeah it is an ultimate reframe and again, that whole thing of realizing that you don't have to write it all down. It's there, our mind is absolutely prioritizing our procrastination, its aware of it and to be able to tap into it.
Dan: Yeah, and I've discovered something about our mind and it has to do that it's always filtering what's next, what's the next best thing, but it's doing this ... your mind is doing that but you're not aware that the mind is doing this and so consequently you're holding yourself guilty for being unconscious, you're being guilty, but we're unconscious mind most ... I mean when we're focusing on one thing, we're not conscious of the other thing. It's the nature of our brains that we can only focus on one thing at a time, as a matter of fact, I guess that's what the definition of focused is, you're giving one thing your full conscious attention but then to be doing that, you really got to focus, but then to be punished, well, you're focused on that, why aren't you focusing on that?
Dean: Yes.
Dan: I mean no wonder people are drugging up. There's some drugs apparently where you figure the experiences that you've really got time handled.
Dean: It is interesting to ... when I start that process, like you talk about the sense of time and may have mentioned to you or maybe not, this idea that the first thing that I do when I'm looking to get that clarity ... 'cause often when you're in that guilt your breaking out of ... you're coming from a situation of either feeling frantic because you know that there's a lot that you have to do and you don't know which one or you're coming from that sense of guilt where you that there are things that you should be doing but you're not and which one do you need to do now? That's really where the anxiety comes from, is the sense that they're all equally important and they all need to be done right now or should have been done yesterday or ... that's where it really comes down to it. So I would start-
Dan: Yeah or you should not have gotten yourself into that situation.
Dean: Right, exactly.
Dan: But you have to follow through now.
Dean: Yes, and so I always start that thought process 'cause I do it with my journal and write down the options kind of thing to get to the three and typically within 10 things I've found the top three that I want to focus on, there's usually about 10 things that are right at the front of my mind like that, but I always start that process and I can do the whole thing in about five minutes.
I start that process with just breathing and I take my watch off and I look at the second hand I just focus all of my attention on watching the second hand sweep for a full minute, just in silence, just kind of bringing my attention to that. What you notice is that you can literally slow your brain waves down, calm that anxiety there, just in that one minute of watching a second hand sweep in silence. It sounds like a simple thing but it's amazing what a perspective that is. So, it leaves me now calm.
Dan: The other thing about it is that you may want to keep your mind on that activity even within a minute because your attention might be pulled away. First of all, that's a very long minute
Dean: It is, absolutely.
Dan: When you're conscious of a minute it's a very long minute.
Dean: Exactly.
Dan: Realizing If that were in the last stages of human history, where you're talking about the sweeping hand of your watch, it's gonna be understood by listeners.
Dean: Yes, exactly, exactly, yeah.
Dan: It is. It's like tick, tick, tick what, what's ticking?
Dean: Oh that's so funny.
Dan: Yeah. I've been told by parents their kids don't know what a clock ... they say, "What is it up there on that wall?"
Dean: How do you read a clock, yeah.
Dan: Yeah, how did they read the clock.
Dean: That's an…
Dan: Yeah, there are probably children that can't read cursive handwriting if you showed them…
Dean: I think that's true, absolutely.
Dan: Handwriting you know and they don't know their addition tables, their multiplication tables and their division tables, they don't know any of that really good stuff ... full time religion.
Dean: I think the thing that I get from that perspective of starting with that minute is then ... and this helps prioritize the things because I look at it and I look at the ones and I realize, first of all, that every minute that I spend can only be spent in the moment. I can't spend the tenth minute from now until it gets here, so I have to do that.
Dan: No, it's very, very interesting about that. That was just a thought that I was having, but none of us has actually ever experienced the future.
Dean: No.
Dan: And we've also never experienced the past.
Dean: That's true.
Dan: We can only experience the continuous, a continual progression of present moments, but only when we're in the moment. We don't experience five minutes ago, you only experience what's happening right now and it seems like a simple thing but I know people who have twisted their life out of share out of thinking on or the other, that they're actually experiencing the future. You're not experiencing the future, you're just experiencing a thought about the future in the present, same thing in regards to the past and it's an important thing because I know people who can't live in the present because their minds are taken up with thoughts about the future.
Dean: Amazing, isn't it? In fact, that contact.
Dan: And I think that relates a lot to why they procrastinate. They're actually feeling that they're experiencing in the future in the present, but they're not, they're just experiencing a thought in the present, they're not experiencing ... I've never experienced the future.
Dean: Right.
Dan: And I think your clock thing, that watching it reminds them of where they actually are.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: That's the only place where you actually can be though ... you're protected from the past and the future because you'll never be in either one of them.
Dean: That's what it does for me, absolutely. So with that context from that granularity, I get a sense of when I'm looking at the things that I'm evaluating, of the things that I'm procrastinating, of what prioritizing them, I look at it and I realize that, first of all, I can do something in the moment and I can only do that today, right?
So if I'm looking at this thing I can sort of control today, but my question is always looking at the things and really putting into perspective, like what would happen if I didn't do anything on this today, at all. Putting it in perspective of what really has to happen here? When does this really need to get done and in some cases, it really does have to be done and I can get to work on that, but that question, that tapping into that procrastination realm here, that mind, that list of things that's constantly in that secret room in our minds here, it has been a big breakthrough and then this process of then changing my verb on them, right? Like if I don't know, to really looking at it that, if I don't know it's brainstorm is the first thing. So if I just say, "I need to brainstorm this," that's something that I can do without any delay and it's amazing in 10 minutes what kind of clarity you can get with a focused brainstorm on anything.
Dan: Oh yeah.
Dean: That's really what's fascinating to me.
Dan: I see two things happened. You've taken the time pressure off but the other thing that you've ... 'cause you don't have to act on it. All you have to do is brainstorm and the second thing is that taking off the pressure actually gives you full access to your best thinking.
Dean: Yes, absolutely. That's kind of a cool thing and now couples with my idea of now, what would I like to do tomorrow is brainstorming, brainstorming ahead of time and thinking breaking down to an actionable thing that I can schedule for my top three things tomorrow and that makes it ... you wake up and you've got that sense of ... I really have had the most relaxing first five months here of the year in terms of the level of clarity and just the things that I've set into motion that are recurring and the things that I'm been better habits. It's made a big difference.
Dan: Yeah, for me the five months, I've gotten most out of the least effort.
Dean: Yes.
Dan: In five months of my life.
Dean: Yep, that's interesting that we're both ... yeah, I was thinking that ... I said that to somebody yesterday as we were looking at what we accomplished in May and saying like, literally it was a record month for us revenue wise and I was really almost like, say it's probably a record for me in terms of the minimal amount of stress that actually did too.
Dan: Yep.
Dean: Which is kind of a really cool thing, you know?
Dan: Yeah. People would kill themselves for that kind of month and they do.
Dean: Yes, exactly.
Dan: Yeah, just going along to our second you always suspected that uniquely successful entrepreneurs have mastered unique personal energizers that you lack. Okay, well, I'll let you in on the truth, it's true.
Dean: Yes.
Dan: I consider the two of us uniquely successful entrepreneurs.
Dean: I agree. I think that's awesome.
Dan: and we're mastering a whole unlimited universe of unique personal energizers in this process.
Dean: Yes.
Dan: Yep, and I would never have done this on my own.
Dean: No, and that's something that I think having these conversation and having this awareness and just the recognition from the moment that we had the conversation at The Select that this was something. The recognition immediately to be able to look at something we could pursue and develop and that's why I kinda like when looking back, like we just described, looking back at the things that ... the practices and the ... I love the personal energizers, I love that thought, but looking back at what we've actually implemented as a result of having these conversations is fascinating.
Dan: Yeah, well, it's fascinating but it's also surprising because with a lot of my concepts in the program, you know, I get very excited about the concept and then I go into it and put it in a form where other people can get it, but once I've gotten it, there's no more getting. In other words, this one just seems to go on forever.
Dean: It just is the gift that keeps on giving.
Dan: Yeah, you keep pulling the cord and new things keep happening and in a certain sense it would make sense to me that there would be so much discovery ... now that I've had 10 months under my belt with this one, but an area that is by its very definition is non-discussable.
Dean: Yes
Dan: There's a lot of discussion about procrastination, but it's directed at the person's failure or the person's, their lack of discipline, so there's lots of discussions about procrastination, okay, and that's part of the problem, those types of conversations actually reinforce the procrastination because it's right off the sign outside is, "This is negative territory. Try not to do what the person inside is getting punished for."
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: But the whole approach from the beginning is really, really surprisingly good things inside but you gotta real sneaky to get in. It's almost like ... only a few people ... we only 14 seats.
Dean: Exactly.
Dan: And we don't know what the menu is gonna be when you get inside.
Dean: Right.
Dan: So the thing about this is I think the original flip, which allowed us to get on this territory is something that is universally, forever thought as something bad and a failing of each individual human, is actually an incredible resource, an incredible advantage if looked at properly.
Dean: Yes.
Dan: So I think that's ... yeah. I think the thing that Joe Polish is doing with the addiction thing, he said ... probably doesn't really help with the addiction thing to put people in prison for it, probably doesn't make them smarter by putting them in prison for it.
Dean: That's probably true.
Dan: Yeah. That's on a societal basis but here people are putting themselves in a permanent prison from a very early age for their whole life because they bought into a certain mindset about procrastination.
Dean: I got the procrastination, yeah, exactly, it feels like it's a deficiency, right? Yeah, I'm a procrastinator.
Dan: Yeah and it's really interesting. I've had some opposite conversations with people where they're fiercely insistent that they don't procrastinate, they're not a procrastinator and they get emotional about it, "No, I don't procrastinate." And I say, "Ooh, why all the energy on this?" If you weren't a procrastinator you'd say, "Nope, no. I just don't procrastinate," but they get defensive and they say, "No, I'm not a procrastinator at all," and I says, "Err, not even once?"
Dean: Yeah, right. I'm not the procrastinator, you're the procrastinator, yeah.
Dan: "Not even a teeny little bit?" Anyway
Dean: Well, that could be a symptom that they're in column three.
Dan: Yeah.
Dean: You have no reason to procrastinator in any area of your life because other people are doing all of the thinking and follow through.
Dan: Yeah, and that's a strategy. What I've noticed, column three is really interesting on our scorecard thing 'cause it's called conventional success. Another thing that I notice about people who design their life to be conventionally successful, after a while it's gotten so solidified, there's no moving parts. So they're sense of success is that they made their life into something that is so predictable that there's no moving parts to it whatsoever. They live in a particular place, they only know certain people, they only do certain things, they don't need to know anything new, they don't have to learn anything new and as a result of that, they don't procrastinate because they've fixed their future so that nothing new is required.
Dean: You're right.
Dan: They may be really set up. They've got the money that's supports that lifestyle and everything else, but my feeling is they did all of that because they hate having the feeling of procrastinating about something new that needs to happen in the future and then I can completely believe that people do that, I've met them.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: And finally, just to wrap up our hour here, is you use procrastination ... whoops, I have to get all the syllables in there. You use procrastination each morning to identify and achieve your three best improvements for that day. And as we've discovered, you can also do it for the next day or you can take a look at a whole month at a time and get a handle on things. These are flexible, these are jumping off points, they're not ...
Dean: It's really interesting, I would love at this point, since we've gone through the entire scorecard now, it would probably be good to let people know they can go and get the scorecard at thejoyofprocrastination.com to see where they are on these eight mindsets and to see how they've improved or moved their score after listening from episode one to the episode here now when we're finished with the scorecard, not that we're ever finished talking about the scorecard. It's taken us this to get to all of the…
Dan: I created this about two months after we started the project, and the first two months of the project actually gave me a lot of material to grade the scorecards, but we've been using this now for ... we're into our tenth month of using this and maybe that's a nice measuring stick, a complete round of the scorecard and now we're finished round one and now we'll go on to round two, so it would be good to go back and start with mindset one next time when we get together and see ... where are we here ... everybody procrastinates and you always blame outside circumstances for problems that are actually caused by your procrastination, yeah. It would be interesting to see where our thinking has gone from 10 months ago, like the going back through, we're going back and covering conceptually the same material, but we're doing it from a completely different experience base.
Dean: Yep, that's it. You can never step in the same river twice.
Dan: No, so it would be interesting. We should have a little discussion in your workshop when you come, you may be front of the room and just talk about what ... and what's neat about it is this quarter I have the actual book. So the book came in on Thursday.
Dean: Oh, that's great. Good.
Dan: Well, we'll send it to you. I'll have Anna put in the Fed Ex tomorrow night so that you can take a look at it.
Dean: I'd love that, yeah, perfect.
Dan: Yeah, and really did well on this one because one is that I'm actually living through the concept as I'm writing the book. You just have such practical, understandable experiences to talk about with it. I love it. I get freed up from the world, you know? I'm a great news guy, news junkie, as you know, and the world is a bit frantic right now. If you sit back and just look at the ... Trump pulls out of the Paris Agreement and says Trump just ended the world, you know.
Dean: Right, I know, yeah.
Dan: I don't know if that's true, you know? I wonder if that's true, but a decision to change an agreement within the world. How uptight to have to be about everything else in your life to see that danger?
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: Or whatever it is. I think people get themselves into severe procrastination nightmares and then all sorts of ... they start imagining all sorts of other kinds of monsters.
Dean: I think your absolutely right. Well, I will look forward to ... I think we are talking next week and then I'll see you in a week I'm sure.
Dan: You're in Orlando?
Dean: I am, yes.
Dan: Okay, so you'll have the books on Tuesday 'cause Anna will send them. She'll get them out tomorrow afternoon.
Dean: Perfect, I can't wait.
Dan: Yeah, and remember they only take an hour.
Dean: That's exactly right. I love that.
Dan: When you get it on Tuesday, don't delay too long in reading it.
Dean: I'm gonna go into the future and put it on my calendar, that's one of my top three for the day.
Dan: Okay.
Dean: Thanks, Ted.
Dan: Good. Okay, bye.
Dean: Bye.
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