Join Dean and Dan as they talk about the importance of Who over How.
Links:
StrategicCoach.com
DeanJackson.com
Transcript: The Joy of Procrastination Ep031
Dean: Mr. Sullivan.
Dan: Good morning. How are you?
Dean: I'm so good. How are you?
Dan: I just want you to know there's been a big habit change in my life since we've been doing these podcasts.
Dean: What's that?
Dan: On Sunday mornings, I used to read the New York Times, but now I talk to Dean Jackson. You have replaced probably a 50-year habit. I don't find …
Dean: Holy cow!
Dan: I do not find reading the New York Times as interesting as talking to you. Take it for what it's worth.
Dean: That's great. I look forward to them too. It is freezing down here, Dan.
Dan: Yes.
Dean: I mean maybe …
Dan: See, that's the problem, that's the problem of loving where you live. Cold surprises you. See I live in an environment where cold doesn't surprise me at all. I never get blindsided by cold. You, you have disenabled yourself. Yeah, so you get caught by surprise.
Dean: That's so funny. I almost couldn't wear shorts this weekend. It was almost that bad.
Dan: It's kind of demoralizing though, isn't it?
Dean: I've been looking at the weather and I'm thinking about … I'm coming up on Tuesday to Toronto. I'm going to be a little shocked, I think, when I get up there.
Dan: Yeah, it's pretty. It's seasonably cold here.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: We get used to it. We get about six, seven weeks where every week it drops a little bit. If it went up to 50 today, we'd all be melting. It's about 20 Fahrenheit. It's not bad.
Dean: There you go. Can I share with you a line of thinking that I've been having this week?
Dan: Yeah, and I'll give you a real three-workshop report. The shifting of people from how I'm going to do something to who's going to do it because it's been …
Dean: Oh, tell me about it.
Dan: No, you start with yours because …
Dean: Okay.
Dan: Yeah.
Dean: It's really a couple of things have happened and it's a confluence of different concepts here that I've been kind of tying together. There's a new television show that's just come on, and I think, Dan, it's called "Stripped," is the name of the show. Basically-
Dan: Stripped?
Dean: Stripped. Yeah. I think that basically the idea is, I haven't seen it yet. I've just seen the promotions for it, that they basically strip you naked and leave you in your house. They take every single thing out of your house and they store it half a mile away. Every day, you're allowed to go and get one thing. You start this whole thing of thinking through like, okay, what would be the … if I didn't have any of it, right, if everything was gone, what would be the one thing that I would want?
I've been thinking about this idea in the context of a perfect day. When you think about it that if we could wake up and almost like your immigrant concept, right? That you're essentially pushing the reset button. I had been thinking before that before I saw that show, this idea of the elements of a perfect life. One of them being broken down into five elements that are the context for everything and one of them is we. That's the core of everything. You just strip yourself naked and that's what you got. Meaning your physical body, your mind, everything that you've invested in that result called me right now is what you would be left with.
Then the default setting, we come into it that we all get 24 hours a day so we're all … We've got, the way we talk about it now, 100 units a day, waking day, for doing whatever we want. It's really interesting to go through that thought of what would you do if everything was reset? If you didn't have any of the patterns, the relationships, the obligations, the current context that you have. Similar to what you're saying about every Sunday reading the New York Times, right, and now replacing those units with having a conversation about the joy of procrastination and the implications of that. What that's meant in our lives over … Like I agree with you, I think that this is more impactful than reading anything for that same amount of time.
Dan: Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting, Thursday, when you come for your workshop I have an exercise. I have three brand new exercises but the one that relates to what you were just talking about is called Starting Over.
I do a little survey first and I say, raise your hand if you're starting over with something in your life. This could be business or personal. It varies throughout the room and I just get a few examples. People that talk, they're going into a new market so they're starting over in a new market, they've come out with a new product or a new process and they're starting over. They've just hired a key person who is going to free them up so they're getting to start over.
Anyway, the whole concept is just really starting over with something. What I say is, I said, "Now, what I want you to do in this new thing that you're heading towards, what capabilities do you have that you're going to take with you into this new situation?" They can write up to five and I give my examples. I always say what this means to me. Then, the second column is, what relationships would you take forward that you formed? Some of them are longstanding relationships but you would take them. Number three is what opportunities do you take with you? Okay.
The thing that I want to get across here is, you're always contemplating opportunities but a lot of them are on the back burner, and this gives you a chance to am I just wasting my time thinking about that opportunity or I'm going into something new, would I still take the possibility of that opportunity with me.
Dean: Right, yeah.
Dan: They go through that. I only give them two minutes for each column because if you give people a timeframe then their mind works faster brainstorming. It's a form of brainstorming. Then I say, based on this then, are there any changes during the next 90 days that would free you up from past stuff. In other words, is there some past stuff now that you got to get clear and free from? You know what goes forward so the question is what stays behind and what are you going to do about that?
It's very fast. It takes a total of actual thinking time and it certainly takes less than one Jackson unit.
Dean: Right, right. I was just thinking that that sounds like two minutes per call. Yeah, you can do the whole exercise.
Dan: You can do this whole thinking process inside of a 10-minute framework. Then they talk and we put them in groups of three or four people and they each get six minutes to talk about it. It's another two and a half Jackson units. Then we come back and talk about it and it's really amazing. It's really amazing what comes out of the conversation because they realize that they haven't identified their capabilities. I said, "These are constant resources throughout your life." I said, "These real accomplishments. You don't lose these when that change situation. They're really great capabilities, relationships and opportunities, you don't lose them."
Anyway, it's fascinating because it's kind of stripping. It's got a little bit of resonance with the TV show, the stripping thing.
Now let me ask you the question about that TV show, you haven't seen it yet?
Dean: No.
Dan: The basic thesis, so you're naked in an empty house. The stuff is a half a mile away, right?
Dean: Yes, yes.
Dan: Now do you have to go and get it?
Dean: I think that's exactly what has to happen. Yeah. I think they leave you with toilet paper and whatever, some basic necessity things. Yeah, it was really an interesting think then I saw in one thing people walking down the street wrapped in a shower curtain kind of thing, going to get their stuff, bring one thing back.
I think that there is something about starting from zero. That's an interesting thing, is starting from nothing. It fits with Marie Kondo has that book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. That's her default position is gather everything and throw it all in one pile and then pick up each piece and only keep the pieces that spark joy. The default is that you're not deciding what to throw out, you're throwing it all out and you're deciding what to keep. What to bring back.
Dan: Yeah, I was just thinking, I'd have to be amazingly bored with my current life to be interested in participating in that TV show.
Dean: I think you're absolutely right. I am with that because there is something about that immigrant mindset because that essentially just because that's exactly what happened. Let's say, when we look at it right now on a modern day becoming an immigrant by choice, a domestic immigrant by choice, you have the opportunity to keep what you want. Because you're still, yeah, everything you have, the relationships that you had, the knowledge you built, the opportunities that you currently have right now are all things that you could choose to move forward with or you can completely reset it back and say what would do I really want if I really was completely free.
Dan: Yeah. The exercise that we started every 10 times workshop with which is the Moving Future, that's a bit of a stripping away thing because you go back 90 days, write down everything that was great, that was a win. Then you come up to the present and you say, let's write down everything you're feeling really confident about now. Their thoughts of action and then you go forward, what's really exciting about new opportunities.
What it does is it separates everything positive from everything negative. Then I tell people, I said, now after they've done this writing exercise and then they've talked to each other in groups. I said, "Is there anything bad there that we should have put down?" They said, "No, there's nothing bad that we should put down." I said, "Were you thinking about the bad things before you did the exercise thing?" They said, "Yeah. Most of the things I was thinking about were the bad things." I said, "Yeah, mission accomplished."
Dean: That's so often, yeah. It's been received well?
Dan: Which one?
Dean: The new exercise that you were sharing.
Dan: Oh yeah. No, half the people when we do the wraparound at the end of the day, they say, the half does. I had a total of about three workshops. I had about 100 people in three workshops. Half of them, 50 of them would have said that was the highlight of the day.
Dean: Oh, that's so great.
Dan: Yeah. It's interesting because I had someone who has had the biggest fail of a company that I have experienced so far in strategic coach. Every year there's 5 or 10 people who will sell one of their companies or sell their main company. This one, this was a big, big number. Probably the biggest number ever and it had happened two to three weeks ago and he had set the whole thing up with an impact culture and he had … It's very, very interesting because when entrepreneurs sell a company, usually, there's a demand from the buyer that the entrepreneur stay on has an adviser.
I always ask my entrepreneur when they're doing this, would they settle for less of a price if they could get free right away. In other words, let's say they're getting $10 million, part of it now and the rest at the end of two years or three years or is it like a three-year management contract. I say to them, is there a number in your mind that's less than the 10 million which you would take if you could get freed tomorrow? I said, you don't have to do this, you don't have to do this. I'm just suggesting that as a thinking exercise. You've already agreed to the one or this is the one that's being offered. I said, is there a counteroffer that would give you less money but it would give you more freedom.
It's really fascinating because they do the thinking and they'll come back to me. First of all, they ask me, why are you asking the question? Why are you asking the question? I said, because my experience with probably somewhere close to 100 entrepreneurs since I've been coaching in strategic coach who have gone into a management contract and it's the most miserable years of their life. It's absolutely the worst miserable lives.
I said if the check is big enough, are you willing to put in the two most miserable years of your life. Are you willing to do that if the check is big enough? The vast majority of them go for the bigger check and they all come back to me, if I see them and y say, you're absolutely right. I hated those two years. I said, sure. Would there have been a lower check which would have saved you from the misery?
Dean: That's pretty wise because I know people in that same situation and they've like checked out in a way when they get the first installment. Then, they're bound for the next two or three years and the clock is ticking until they're really free. That does make a difference.
Dan: Yeah. The thing is that the buyer hates it too. The buyer hates it too. The team that stays behind, the team that used to be the entrepreneurs but now technically belongs to the buyer, they hate it too. It's a lose, lose, lose.
Dean: It's funny that you say that because I literally just had lunch with a friend of mine, one of my golf buddies that was in that exact situation. This year, this end of December is the final of the three-year employment contract that he had after selling his business. Now he's completely free. He wasn't enjoying. It wasn't the three most joyful years of his life.
Dan: No, because your life is suspended because you don't have the power. You're still showing up for the game but you don't have any power in the game because you sold it away, you sold the power away. I've noticed that people can really lose their entrepreneurial confidence during those two or three years.
Dean: It's cunning. It's an interesting look though too that he's 63 and he's done now, like done, done. Not …
Dan: Done, done.
Dean: … I'm going to … Yeah. Done, done like not I'm going to do something else or I'm going to go down the thing. As long as I've known him, I've known him for 12 or 14 years or something. I would say that for at least 10 of those years, he would joke about counting his pile kind of thing.
Counting his pile and recounting and doing the figures and looking out, is that enough kind of thing. That's been on his radar for 10 years at least and then he finally … He sold at 60. Now he's 63 and done, done. I mean like fishing, and golfing and driving out the rest of my days not thinking about anything to do with work, done. It's just so strange to even think that that's …
I told him about you actually. It's really interesting. I told him it's just so foreign to me to think that I can't imagine being at a point where I'm going to be done. Yeah, it's just funny but yeah, it's a different world.
Dan: Yeah. The thing is that I am 10 years older than he is.
Dean: Right. That's what I told him, you got a 25 year-plan.
Dan: I'm right at the threshold of a project that is the most exciting of my life but it also has the big whack of fear. I'm experiencing fear about that and everything else. We have a book called The Laws of Lifetime Growth but the first law of the book of Laws of Lifetime Growth is always make your future bigger than your past.
I'm at a point at 73, it's the 43rd year of my coaching career and I see that now it's just all preparation and there's large amounts of it from a standpoint of capability, relationship and opportunity, which I'm going to carry forward. There's a lot that I've left behind too.
Dean Jackson: Yeah. When I told him that at 73 years old, you're three years into a 25-year plan. It was really like he just couldn't get his mind around that. That you're in a 25-year plan till he's 95, that's what he was saying, like with that disbelief. Like yeah, until he's 95. Then it'll be another 25-year plan right after that.
Dan: Yeah. Well, now you've really made him miserable. Completely.
Dean: It's so funny.
Dan: Yeah. This time thing, so let me go back to my testing out of the who not how, I'm calling it the who not how approach, okay.
Dean: Okay, perfect. Yeah.
Dan: At various times, during the day there would be a little planning session where somebody's planning something. I said, now, I said, "What's the biggest most exciting vision of your future that you have right now? I just want you to draw, just sketch out something. This is what you do when you're alone and you're thinking but every part of this makes you feel good. You put that up in there but it's bigger and better than what you have right now."
I give two or three minutes and they just put down some thoughts. I said, "Okay, now what doesn't work about that?" A whole bunch of people talk but all of them said the same thing. "Geez, I don't really know how I would do that." I said, "If you wrote that down to make real progress on that over the next 90 days, would you properly procrastinate on the activities that you wrote down?"
Dean: Yeah, probably, yeah.
Dan: People, hands gradually go up sheepishly, hands go up there and I said, "the reason is because of the word how.' I told them about that Dean Jackson had introduced this whole thought to me. On the week, there are about 15 people who listen to the Joy of Procrastination. They said, "Well, if people had been listening to you, they would have known that five episodes ago."
Dean: Yes. Right, right, right. That's funny. Yeah, yeah.
Dan: Yeah. I said, "But what if it isn't about you doing anyhow but actually you just doing a who?" That basically that everything needed to get to that is just a combination of what you already know how to do anyway plus somebody else's new capability that would take you there. Okay. All of a sudden, we got into really rich conversations but half the people talked about the … at the end of the day, they talked about starting over again. A lot of them combined with that, they realized that they're starting over again is switching from a life base on them finding out how to them now finding out who.
They would not procrastinate if there was a very capable who that could be a collaborator.
Dean: When I say that to people, I had a breakthrough blueprint event here in Orlando this week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I have 12 people here.
Dan: Was it cold there?
Dean: No, it's was absolutely beautiful. It was beautiful. It just turned cold this weekend. Up till then it's been the perfect Florida weather.
One of the things that I always have people do when they're describing like if anything could happen, what would that look like. I let a few people share that with me. Then I point out that what's happening is that we're filtering or baffling our ambition by the logistics of what we perceive that we take to make it happen.
We limit our vision because we don't know how or we know how but we think that's going to be a lot of work that I'm going to have to do so they cut it down. It's interesting to see because it's easy for people to have bigger ambition and see a bigger vision for other people in the room because they're not filtering it through their logistics goggles, or the backstory, or their limited understanding of how they're actually going to make something happen.
Dan: Yeah. I'm putting some thoughts here together with a story that you told me about the man who's just completing his three-year management contract. I'm thinking through, and I don't know this because you don't know the internal disposition of anyone else. Let me just walk this through and then we'll come back and take a look at it, but his selling of his company was actually finding a who. It was actually finding a who.
Dean: Who's going to get me out from under this is probably the way he was thinking about it, right.
Dan: Yeah. He did it but it left him done, done.
Dean: Yes.
Dan: That's the problem that I see with that solution. I don't want to be done, done. On the one hand, there's a who and there's a day in the near future when he wakes up and he truly is done but then what? I'm looking at it strictly from an entrepreneurial standpoint here. The fate that's worse than death is for an entrepreneur, in my world, to be done, done.
First of all, I kicked him out. Our coach bouncers will take them out the backdoor.
Dean: There's no observers allowed, yeah.
Dan: No. I'll give him little bit of a working over before they slam the door. The whole point here is I understand why someone would do this. I'll go to the person who had the big sale. He came to his workshop, it was halfway through his workshop here and he came. I said, "Just a couple of thoughts for you. The traps of success are harder to get out of than the traps of failure." I said, "You just had a huge, huge success so give it some thought today. You're here for your workshop. Your last workshop was to get the big sale."
By the way, just as a reference point, he put in his impact filter that was not going to be any management contract. There was going to be a check and he was free. He put that in.
Dean: Now, he's … Yeah, there you go.
Dan: The other thing is there could be non-compete in the sale.
Dean: Right.
Dan: He had a negotiation with them. They said, "Those two things are unacceptable. We need to have you here and we don't want you out there competing with us." He says, "Well, I guess we don't have a deal." He walked for three days. Then they phoned him up and they say, "Okay, you can have that."
Dean: Wow.
Dan: It didn't cost him any money.
Dean: That's awesome.
Dan: It didn't cost him.
Dean: A lot of it, people, they don't believe that it can actually be true. They don't want to risk someday being free so they're willing to tie it into, well, that's part of the purgatory that they have to go to before they get to the heaven of being free, right? Yeah.
Dan: Yeah. Anyway, I saw him and then he did the Starting Over which was enormously beneficial for him because he said, I was thinking about how am I going to keep myself busy now. Afterwards he said, it's actually who am I now going to create with which is when you think about it is really an amazing job.
If we can re-contextualize what we've talked about up until now, switching from how to who is actually stripping down.
Dean: Yes. It is. Yes, you're right because that takes all that other layers underneath, just the head of it because the who is going to come with a team of whos, exactly.
Dan: Yeah. That's the way I'm feeling right now. There is nothing I'm going to do in the future that's going to involve my thinking about the how.
Dean: Yes, I'm over that. Absolutely. That's been the big thing is this … I'm moving now to where I'm fully embracing the new method in every aspect. Multiplied oral output in all ways, in directives, in projects, in expressing my ideas, getting my ideas out through talking with who rather than depending on me to go off and fill out some paperwork. That's been a block for me for a lot of years.
Dan: Yeah, and the thing is who I choose as my who's all have the same quality or they have the same quality is that by collaborating with these who's, I'm never required to do a how.
Dean: That's the truth, that's exactly right.
Dan: Yeah, and if I'm required to do a how then they're not the right who.
Dean: I just love the fact that most of the people that I have this conversation with, they have money, they have the means to find the who that could save them all of that. Yeah, they don't either for whatever reason give themselves permission or think that shot, and it's pretty freeing when I see people really get it at the … There was a gentleman that was at the breakthrough blueprint that we came with this. We were going-
Dan: I think was one of my 10 times people out there on breakthrough booklet, the blueprint. Come from New York or … Possibly down from New York or Boston or something like that. Anyway, because he said he was going and I forgot to pass this on to you but anyways, he's going to …
Dean: Okay. I have had some strategic coach people come so I don't know who specifically you're talking about but the … This gentleman was from California and we were … It was really interesting because when you take this idea of creating a scale-ready algorithm that is like taking something to the lowest unit of what we're actually trying to replicate, this was a pretty complex thing that he was talking about having to append, that involved people.
The most efficient way to do this involves people but he couldn't see how that would be scalable, so he was thinking at scale first so willing to accept something that was far less efficient and maybe more expensive because he didn't want to deal with the logistics of how something that required actual people would happen.
I've just been so really thinking this thought of I think I shared with you the two economies that are really the two worlds that are really happening now that we've got the cloud, Cloudlandia up here where everything is really happening. That's where we've all got our heads in the cloud. That's where we're perceiving everything through our phones and our computers, our social networks, and all of that. That's where the actual real world is to a lot of people or a good portion of their world and then the mainland, which are the things that are the real … the physical world down below and I think that there's going to become an even wider gap between the people who like dive right into setting up a life in Cloudlandia or setting up a life on the mainland.
The real neat thing is going to be realizing serving people in the cloud where everything is easy, exponential, push button, on demand, infinitely possible. The analog mainland world and creating a buffer where or an interface, as Peter Diamandis would call it, between organizing mainlanders to allow people to take things that would normally be only possible on the mainland but let them stay up in the cloud and let them happen like I shared that idea of those ghost restaurants where that only exist on Grab Hub which is up on the cloud.
I want something to eat which can only happen on the mainland, the physical transfer of the food to my belly. It can only happen on the mainland but by everything else about it I can still keep my head in the cloud and make my choice, I have infinite choices, decide what I want, push a button and then have somebody just bring it right to me. That requires the organization of who's on the mainland to make that happen and I think those are really … There's going to be some tremendous opportunities going forward like that organizing who's.
Dan: Yeah, it brings up what I think is an eternal economic model. It's the greatest opportunity and the greatest payoff is always moving back and forth between two worlds.
Dean: Mmhmm (affirmative). I wonder historically, what would be that? I just started thinking that thought yesterday actually. Trying to think historically have we been in a transition like that in the past that were …
Dan: Oh yeah.
Dean: Okay, so what would be … I knew you would … the answer with your historical perspective.
Dan: I'll give you a real easy one to understand is the spice trade. The spice trade, intermediaries mostly, probably in the Asia Minor, so it would be the Eastern Mediterranean and it would be Turkey and it would be what we call the Middle East today. They brought spice. They would go further to the East, to India and to the Spice Islands which are … While there was a first Spice Islands which was what we would now call Southeast Asia, Malaysia and Ceylon which is Sri Lanka now.
They have tremendous spices. They developed tremendous spices and Europeans, a pretty ugly food. If you got into what we now call Mainland Europe, they didn't have spices because, first of all, it was too cold and spices grow in tropical or semitropical. I mean you have to go back, you have to go back a thousand years to get the metal here but having these spices come in to Europe went viral, that you could have spices with your food and some of the spices would actually preserve the food because most people were eating …
Dean: Yeah, right.
Dan: There are spices that will actually preserve food but they give it a much better flavor and there was a real status attached to the fact that you could serve food with spices, that you had access to spices and other people don't. In order to have to access to spices, you had to have a notion of who, not how because you couldn't create your own spices because it required someone who had access to networks of people who traveled back and forth and brought the spices there.
I think anywhere where you have a sudden emergence of a new capability but is not accessible to all but a few in the beginning has the same characteristic as what you're talking now of the distance between the mainland and cloud.
What's the name that you call it?
Dean: Cloudlandia, yeah.
Dan: Cloudlandia, the same as ... I always said your destination shouldn't be heaven or hell but the courier service in between.
Dean: Right, exactly. Selling the ticket. Right, exactly.
Dan: Selling the tickets. Yeah, you're transporting something that is not available to all back to a place where it's a status issue to have access to this. I was thinking about this in relationship to this great advantage I have when I go to Toronto Airport because we have a number of clients who have their own jets or they have access to jets.
They say, "Dan, you of all people, why are you still flying commercials?" I said, "Well, the flying is neither here or nor there because I fly business class when I do fly apply and I've been in private jets and they're more cramped than the planes that I fly in.
I'm usually reading anyways so I can read in a private jet or I can read in business class and I don't notice that my reading is any better one way or the other.
Dean: Right, I get it.
Dan: I said, my big deal is the …
Dean: The friction.
Dan: … is the friction I have to go through from the time I leave home until the time the plane's in the air is the friction. About 20 years ago, we were in line, I think the pope was here in Toronto. I mean the crowds were out on the street in front of the airline. It was going to take us two hours to get up to the ticket, just to get our ticket.
This porter from the airport in uniform comes up to us and he said, "Would you like to get around all of this." We said, "Yeah." He says, "Come with me." He says, "Don't say anything, just come with me." He had his cart with him so he put our bags on his cart and he went over to a wall and there's a doorway there and he goes through the wall and we go through corridors and we come out about 15 feet from the ticket taker, the person who looks at passport, puts tags and he just stood there and she looked overhead to him and she says, "Come on up."
We came up. We went right … We were looking at two hours, five minutes later, we were through and then he took us through … in those other dates, they took you through US customs and immigration and everything like that and he got us clear and free so I gave him 50 bucks. He said, "Any time you come to the airport, here's my card." He says, just pulling the hat, he says, "I'll make everything smooth" so for 20 years he's made our way totally smooth so much so that there was a huge, huge crowd on November 1st.
The Canadians, it hits November 1st and they go south, a third of the population decides to go south at November 1st. We called him and he got there. He was waiting for us at curb side. He had already gotten the baggage ticket.
Dean: Claim.
Dan: The tickets, yeah.
Dean: Claims.
Dan: Which I think is a little bit outside the rules. He says, "Just come with me." We walked up to the ticket person and he says, "Show her your passports" and we showed our passports. She says, "Good." That's great. She says, "I only do this for Eddie. I do this for Eddie." I've got a who.
Dean: Yeah, perhaps while we're dining next Saturday, we can exchange a piece of paper with the number of this magic worker for my trip back on Sunday. That's such a great thing. I love that.
Dan: Yeah, and people say, yeah, I mean, someone asked me, "Do you feel badly that you just go ahead of other people? Well, I said, "I would feel badly if they went in front of me."
Dean: Yeah, exactly.
Dan: I said, "I don't think they'd feel badly if they just got ahead of me," so I say, "No, all fair in the friction zone." If you can find things then we have the eye scan, we don't wait in line, the normal thing. They take our fingerprints and eye scan and everything else and that cuts down on the friction. Generally speaking, from the moment that we got out of the limousine to the point where we sit down in the appropriate section, there are very nice little restaurants they now have on the concourse. It's 15 minutes, that's not so much of a hassle in the 21st century.
Dean: No, exactly. That's the thing, that's just part of the realization is there's not many situations in the life where knowing the right who doesn't make things better.
Dan: Yeah. My feeling is this is probably, if you … you go through the complete spectrum of people who really have it good and people who have it really bad, the only separator, the spectrum from really bad to really good is the mastery of who.
Dean: Yes, that's exactly right.
Dan: It's available to anyone who has the mindset. It has nothing to do with anything except mindset. This porter at the airport is loved. I mean over a 20-year period that also what I suspect he does is that I always over … I pay him three times the going rate a porter and I have.
It doesn't matter whether it's a busy day or a non-busy day, he gets three times the going rate and we give him … At Christmas time, he gets a big bonus and everything. My feeling is that he spreads it around.
Dean: That's great. They're thinking like in everything, when I started thinking about even the … I just had a brand new thought about this what and then how or who is that, I think just that outward focus again is coming down to when most people think about well, what do I want to do? I want to make more money in my business and they immediately starts thinking, well, how can I do that rather than who do I want to be a hero to.
Dan: Yeah. It's interesting where the zeroing in on procrastination has brought us. I mean first of all, we had a mindset that hey, there's something really interesting and useful about procrastination, rather than saying, hey, I'm really guilty. I'm really guilty about my procrastination, you're really guilty about your procrastination therefore we're not going to go talk about it. We just did a compact one day with saying, hey, let's trade notes on that.
That's actually, yeah, and then we've gotten into it and what have we discovered? We've discovered all sorts of interesting things.
Dean: Absolutely.
Dan: There's a whole series of sub skills that have come out of this but the one big one is that the thinking about any future achievement on your part in terms of how will automatically slam you up against procrastination. It will, absolutely. Thinking about who, we'll bypass that.
Dean: Yeah. Immediately for you up to think even bigger thoughts. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Dan: Yeah.
Dean: I love it.
Dan: I mean and I don't have to read the depressing columnists in the New York Times anymore.
Dean: I can't tell you how much these conversations have been just a delight. I mean I really enjoy. They go by so fast but the thinking that it stimulates over the last 15 months or whatever it's been have been just tremendous growth in my thinking. Thank you for that.
Dan: You know what I'm really grateful for? Looking back and this is a long book, that neither of us really applied ourselves in school.
Dean: Right, exactly, yes, yes.
Dan: We would have developed the wrong mindsets altogether.
Dean: I think you're absolutely right. We were right.
Dan: We were right. That's t-shirt material. We were right.
Dean: That's so funny. I love it.
Dan: I'll see you on Thursday.
Dean: Okay. Yes. I can't wait, I will see you Thursday. How about we-
Dan: Table 10, is that what you reserved?
Dean: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, Saturday for sure. Yeah, okay, good.
Dan: The family is eager to see you again.
Dean: Okay, perfect. I love it.
Dan: Okay.
Dean: I'll see you Thursday, Dan. Bye-bye.
Dan: Okay, bye.