Join Dean and Dan as they talk about amplifying the effectiveness of your procrastination.
Links:
StrategicCoach.com
DeanJackson.com
Transcript: The Joy of Procrastination Ep038
Dean: Mr. Sullivan.
Dan: Mr. Jackson, how are you today?
Dean: So good. I'll tell you-
Dan: Can I tell you an insight, and it relates to the topic of human automation podcast. I think that you are the human that I've automated most in my life.
Dean: I love that. That's the best. Yeah, we're on this semi-weekly, Sunday 12:30, the quarterly lunch at Jacques. Yes, the quarterly workshops. It's perfect.
Dan: And I get access to your best how with the least amount of time and effort.
Dean: That's so great. I love it. Very funny. Well, I was going to tell you that, as I'm sitting here looking out the window here, I just come from outside and it is exactly why people live in Florida in the winter time. I mean, this is, if you were willing to buy the weather, this is what you would order up right here.
Dan: So, that means it's not too humid.
Dean: It's perfect. It's absolutely room temperature with a breeze, so there we go.
Dan: Well, we woke up to a bright, clear, sunny day in Toronto with the temperature lower than freezing.
Dean: Wow.
Dan: Yeah.
Dean: I admire you.
Dan: Just think, if you were here you would be reconfirmed in your reason why you don't come to Toronto in the winter.
Dean: That is exactly right. As much as I love it, you know? It's got a special spot in my heart.
Dan: Yeah. Well, you know, I like the place. But I'm a Northern guy, you know. I mean, it's kind of interesting. I think that, you know ... It was so funny. I was in Washington, D.C. and Richard Rossi got us a limousine driver. This goes back 10 years. He got us a limousine driver. We were driving through a section of Washington, D.C. that, you know, it's kind of a little bit run down and, you know. I said to Babs, we were just talking in the back seat, and I said, "You know, this kind of proves that everybody's gotta come from somewhere."
Dean: Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah.
Dan: The limousine driver just broke out laughing, and he said, "That is a true statement." Everybody's gotta come from somewhere, you know. But you kind of, you know, experiment a lot in your lifetime. You visit here. You visit there. You live for a period of time here and there. But, I think, over time, if you're someone who, kind of, does what you want and kind of gets what you want, you find the place that really suits you.
Dean: Yes, I agree. It's funny how you say that, the way that life goes, because I did a book just recently for a real estate agent. It's called Listing Agent Lifestyle. This just happens to be the 30th year of the start of my entrepreneurial journey. So, I started November of 1988 as a real estate agent. As I reflect back over those 30 years, you know, as much as we kind of crave this sense of order, of getting everything kind of organized and this is the way it is, that I looked back and our lives really, you know, there's no way to have even foretold ending up here from there. You know, starting in 1988, that even the things that are possible now, weren't even imaginable 30 years ago, you know? And I can't even imagine that. We kind of tend to plan our future based on our understanding of the future from the present. You know? When you look at, really, this next 30 years, you wonder, like, really, what's this going to ... what's going to unfold here, you know?
I think back then, when Peter Diamandis did the first, or the first one I attend, but it was the second of the Abundance 360 workshops, and you opened it up with the observation, or the game of saying, "Imagine that we're here, and it's 1915 instead of 2015. And we're all here for the same reason, you know, as entrepreneurs looking forward to what's going to happen in the future, and we're committed to do it for 25 years." When you outlined the changes that had come, from 1915 to 1940, you realize, holy cow. Nobody could have even seen any of that coming. And then, when we look at it now, with the sight that we have of, well, of course, it just made so much sense, you know? It's pretty, yeah, it's an interesting thing. From what I can tell it seems like the ... When I look back, there's sort of like chapters that seem to be in the five year range kind of thing, if I look at the kind of distinct chapters in those 30 years. But that's probably really what it comes down to.
Dan: Okay, so here's the Jeff Bezos question. You know, because Jeff Bezos is famous for his line that he doesn't pay as much attention to what's going to change, as what is not. What's not going to change? So, if I take you back 30 years, to 1988, and you look at what has changed for you, and I'm going to ask the question, what hasn't changed for you?
Dean: Yeah. Well, what hasn't changed is, fundamentally, the things that bring me joy. If I look at that, I actually have a really profound moment that, maybe, three or four years ago, where I had a day where I woke up and it was just a beautiful day like this, and I went to Starbucks and I had some magazines. I was looking at those. I went to a movie, and then I went to the book store and the café there. I went for sushi and came back and sat out on my back porch reading and journaling. I had this, like, real profound reflection, because that, fundamentally, was exactly the kind of day that brought me joy 25 years earlier.
I used to go to the Delta Hotel in Mississauga that's just close to Georgetown, because they had a lobby that had a fireplace and couches and stuff. I would go there and journal and read magazines and think about the future. It was kind of really profound because, you know, I looked back and I would have read Success magazine and Entrepreneur magazine and all those types of things. I was looking at this Success magazine and, you know, my friend Tony Robbins is on the cover of the magazine. I had a full page ad in the magazine. Nick Mathew, another of my friends, had an ad, and Brendan Burchard, and I'm looking, and they have the top 25 influential people in Success magazine's estimation, or rankings or whatever. I've got 11 of them on speed dial. You know, I thought, it's so profoundly different, you know, in that I have way more money. I make way more money. I have a whole different perspective kind of thing. But fundamentally, those things are ... those days are what brought me joy, you know? And you realize that, no matter what, it's the day that is how we actually experience our lives, you know?
Dan: Yeah, and you were enjoyably not applying yourself in the same way that you had not been enjoyably not applying yourself when you were nine years old.
Dean: That is exactly right. I mean, that is really what it comes down to. I think that there was a period where I felt like, you know, I should apply myself more. There is so much I could teach you, you know? And now you've given me permission to say, through your conversations I've realized, you know, that's my secret formula. That's my superpower, is to get excellent results with what seemed like little effort. And I'm all for another 30 years of that.
Dan: Yeah. It's really interesting, because I had three workshops since I've seen you last. We spoke on Sunday, and then Monday and Tuesday and then Friday I had workshops. We're really taking the model of who, not how, much further. You'll see it in a couple of weeks. One of the things that I did and this, it's another one of those kind of mind shifters that emerges just when you deal with entrepreneurs and you keep asking them questions, everyone, you know, on a continual basis of that.
So, what I had them do, I got this big worksheet and it's got eight different parts to it. You haven't seen it yet, but you will when you come on the 9th. What I say is, I want you to say, you know, from your experience now, if you had to say what your unique ability is when you're at your best that you bring to the best situations, what are the three activities? I give them three minutes to do that, one for each activity. Then I say, now, let's take your company as a capability and put it out in the marketplace. What are the, you know, the ... if you had to identify the capabilities at your company. We've talked about you as an individual and your unique ability. Now let's take the capability of the marketplace.
So, if you were doing a collaboration with another company, why would they be attracted to your company? What are the notable aspects about your company that would make them very interested in collaborating with your company? And you do three of those.
For example, we're masters of live events. We do 500 live event days a year in several countries. We serve 25,000 meals a year. We've just got a front stage and back stage. We've got this all handled. So, that's something that if you were entering into a collaboration with us, we, without thinking it, we can just bring that capability to the deal right off the bat. We have other things, too. So, there are three of those.
Then I said, down at the bottom, I want you to write down what your non-negotiables are. In other words, these are your rules about what you will do and what you won't do. An example of mine is that, in Coach, everybody who works for Coach knows that if it doesn't strengthen the teamwork between Babs and Dan, we don't do it. In other words, everything we take on has to reinforce the relationship at the center.
This takes about nine minutes, and they do three of those. And then I have them chat with each other about that. Then I come back and I say okay and they take a break. I come back and I say, "Okay, I want you to take last year's gross income for your company and just write it down." Then I say, "Multiply it by 100." Okay, and some big numbers pop out, you know, in the billions, because a lot of them are, you know, a hundred ... you know, they're doing 15 million, their company is doing 20-30 million. Multiply it by 100 and the number that shows up at the end is billion, not million.
Dean: Yeah, right.
Dan: And then I say, "Now, immediately write down the five reasons why this is impossible." So, they just get the number down on paper, and I said, "Now, just write down five reasons why this is absolutely impossible." The reason I'm telling you this story, Dean, is because those five impossibles are based entirely on how you're doing things right now.
Dean: Yes. Yes, I could see that.
Dan: Yeah.
Dean: I've had a similar conversation with myself. I mean, that's really, you know, it's an interesting thing that, because I've had to think about that in terms of, is that a limiting belief that's just, you know, without any evidence? And so, you know, I've had interesting things where I've set what my ... I've done this kind of thinking, right, of what would it be ... what's the difference between running a $150 million company? What would that look like, you know? And so, immediately, what comes up for me is that I'd have to work really hard for that, first off. Right? I'd have to give up my lifestyle. I really like my lifestyle right now. You know? I'd have to get really good at managing people, because you can't do that alone. I'd have to have a bunch of employees to do something like that. You know, you start to think I'd need a lot of capital. I'd have to raise money to do that. You know, and there's three of the five, you know, the way you're phrasing it right there. Those are the thoughts that I would have.
Dan: And you'd probably have to, you know, spend a lot of time in cold places, too.
Dean: Yeah, exactly. Right. Right. Yeah, I couldn't do that in Winter Haven. I can't do that in Winter Haven. And I couldn't take my summers, you know, and just travel in the summers and stuff like that, right? So I'd have to ... Those are all the, kind of, you're right. Those are the things that come up for me when I would think about something like that.
Dan: Yeah. But if I took you back to when, let's say, you were, you know, one-tenth of just where you are right now. The things that you talk about that are great in your life are, now, are actually better than the way you were doing it 10 years ago.
Dean: Yeah, and you're absolutely right. I mean, you think about that.
Dan: You're applying yourself even less now than you were when you were one-tenth.
Dean: That's the truth. That's absolutely right.
Dan: So the thing is, you know, and what I'm trying to zero in on here is, what part of the how, at any given time ... so, we're sitting here. You know, you use the model of 1915 to 2015. What, kind of, didn't change over that hundred year period, and what did change? And could you have seen what wasn't going to change in 1915? So that was kind of taken care of, and then you just opened yourself to the things that could change.
Dean: Say more about that. Tell me. Help me understand.
Dan: Well, I'm going back, because I've talked to people who were alive; my mother, being one, who was alive in 1915. I think that there is a real borderline between who you are, fundamentally, as a person, and what you like and what you don't like, that doesn't change. But, how you go about arranging things so you can be who you are is kind of constantly changing. In other words, there's part of your life from childhood onward that's continually shifted and adjusted. But it was always for the reason so that you could stay who you were.
Dean: Yeah. It's really, you know, I think about ... It's funny. Sean King was down here last week from Georgetown. Somebody that started in real estate with me. I started November of '88. He started in January of '89. He's still a real estate agent in Georgetown. He brought down ... He had shown me, he had all these real estate ads from the newspapers that we were running back then. I was thinking about, just looking at the page, and it struck me. You know, if you had just bought any of the houses on any of the pages in there, what that would be ... you know, right now, what that's worth. So you look at it, that 30 years from now, what's going to be there? Your beautiful enclave, you know, your beautiful place, and the beaches there is going to be a haven, 30 years from now even. Then you think, that's not going anywhere, right?
It's a really interesting exercise when you do start to think about what's not going to change, you know? Like I think, when you look at the staples of things, and when you look at, you know, your friend Harry Rosen. How much has changed? Styles have certainly changed over ... How long has he been in business?
Dan: Well, he started, I'm just trying to think. He was born in 1929, and I think he opened his first shop when he was 21, maybe 21. He was 21, so that would have been the 1950s.
Dean: Yeah, so 60 or 70 years almost. Exactly. So, you think about the styles have changed, but fundamentally, we still wear clothes.
Dan: It's very interesting, yeah, very interesting about that. What's really interesting about that is that he just experimented a little bit of going into women's clothing. He didn't do it for very long, because he began to realize that there is a big sharp distance between style and fashion. It makes the men's business, men's clothing business, a little bit easier than if you're merchandising women's clothing, and realizing that men will pick a style and they can basically stay with the style. You're a good example, Dean.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: I mean, if I were a clothier to Dean Jackson, I would be pretty well 100% what I knew I could present to you next year that would make you 100% happy.
Dean: I think that you look back, you could ... The great thing about it is that I'm totally set up to be a time traveler because my uniform is, basically, it's completely compliant, from 1915 to today.
Dan: Yeah. I can make a prediction about you that I can make about few other people. I know if I'm time traveled into the future 25 years from today, I know what you're going to be wearing that morning.
Dean: That's right. Something comforting about that.
Dan: Yeah. Well, you've taken a part of your life that, one as it suits you. The other thing about it is that you don't want to give it any further thought to it than what you've given to it.
Dean: That's right. That's right.
Dan: You know, I would be about halfway between the average other man and you, in terms. Like, for example, I spent eight years under the tutelage of Harry Rosen and got jackets and suits and everything like that. Last year, I went through the entire year with one exception, which was a ... I'm just trying to think. It was a funeral. I always dress up for a funeral, because if you're dressed up you can dress down; but if you're dressed down you can't dress up.
Dean: That's true.
Dan: So, you know, I wore a suit and tie to the funeral. But outside that, I didn't wear a tie throughout the rest of the year. I've arranged my life, both personally and also business life, so that a tie is never necessary.
Dean: Right. Me, too. Yes.
Dan: And the nature of the business, as strategic coach, it's all the workshops, all the marketing now, it's casual. You know, it's sort of a business casual. You know, people will come to their first workshop dressed in a suit and tie. I say, "Well, you know, you can ...” I said, "You'd probably feel better if, at the end of the first hour, you lose the tie." You know, some people are as addicted to their way of dressing as you are, but I said, you know, very seldom will they come back for their second workshop dressed that way. I don't make a big deal about it.
Dean: There's something comforting about ... I mean, there's something. I've noticed that you have, sort of a, I won't call it a uniform in the way I have one, but I certainly have some, a category of look. I mean, the pants and then that, you have those tailored shirts that you wear that are all different colors.
Dan: Yeah. And then, I wear sweaters. I have really gone to wearing, you know, long sleeve sweaters. During the winter I wear like a ... there's all sorts of really nice sweaters these days. But they're mostly dark blue. I wear mostly dark blue sweaters. And it's really interesting that this, going back to my exercise in the workshop. What I ask people to do is to go back to 100th of where you are right now. So, for us, that would be the whole year of 1991. So, 1991 we were 100th of what we are today. So, it's 27 years ago. I thought that was a great year, what we had achieved in 1991 was a really great year. Then I ask people, so, you know, on a sheet of paper in the lower left-hand corner, put the little circle, and that's the year that you were 100th of what you are now. And then, in the upper right-hand corner, a much bigger circle of where you are today, where you're 100 times bigger.
Now, on a line between the lower left-hand corner and the upper right-hand corner, just put a circle every time there was a jump in capability, and mark the that was that was responsible for that jump in capability. They do it, and there's, you know, right off the bat, if I give them a couple minutes, there's about five or six jumps. But what's really interesting, what got them from where they were to what they were wasn't anything with the how that they were doing. It was the who that brought a new how into their life. So, your whole history, back with an individual, has really been who, not how.
Dean: Yes. Wow, that's really ... when I look back at that, that's absolutely true. I mean, you know, you look back at ... Yeah. I mean, that's profound. That's pretty profound, when you look at it, because it's ... I haven't gone 100 times from even my very first year.
Dan: Probably from your very first month.
Dean: Oh, maybe from my very first month, sure. Yeah.
Dan: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just pick a discreet period where everybody else ... Yeah. You know, and I had mentioned, because this who not how has been a huge fundamental conceptual breakthrough in the entire strategic coach program, and I said, "I want to tell you that I only came up with who not how because of a who. If I hadn't been doing the podcast series with Dean Jackson on the topic of the joy of procrastination, I would never have come up with the concept of who. Here's how, because he brought it to our discussion one Sunday." This was the Sunday before you were at your workshop. You were there the next Thursday, and I had you just stand and tell everybody what your insight was there. As you were doing that, I was drawing a diagram up on the flip chart, and the rest is history. I mean, it was that.
So I said, you know, "Why do you think that any breakthroughs in your future are going to be different from the most significant breakthroughs in your past? The most significant breakthroughs in your past were who breakthroughs. They weren't how breakthroughs. So, why do you think it's going to be any different in your future?" But, we tend to use the who to get where we are. But then, we say well, the future's going to be about how.
Dean: Yes. You are so right. Wow. I'm just, like, I'm having a profound mind shift right now. We're experiencing it live, and it's being permanently recorded. I wish we could record my brain waves as we're going through this. But this is a very significant piece of information. You know-
Dan: Yeah, it is. I was just trying to figure out, why does our brain do that? And maybe it is because it's a lack of recognition as an acknowledgement that our past is about than that who, and that if you would increase by using the concept of who to go back and actually examine how your past actually happened, maybe it would strengthen you more to also be confident. Well, that's how the future is going to be, too.
Dean: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, it's just, now, not shapes. I'm going to go back and rewatch. It's really, it's fascinating to me now when I think about this, because the ... when you look at the biographies of people who have great achievement, and the biography was kind of telling the tale of how they did it. But, married right in there, I think right below or right in front of us, is there will be a who that has been there that was really the catalyst, more than the how. Yes.
Dan: Yeah, and I think that it just carries through with ... I mean, and that's why I think that biography are generally deceptive or misleading when the, depending on who the biographer is. But it's a series of jumps, you know. If you've led an interesting life, the jumps have been discontinuous jumps. They haven't been incremental jumps. Who have just incrementally improved every day for 40 or 50 years doesn't make for a very interesting biography.
Dean: Right. Yeah.
Dan: Yeah, by the people who just met someone and their life changed. That's certainly the case with all the prominent individuals in my life. I mean, you prominent among the prominent. But Babs, you know my meeting Babs, my meeting Joe at college, boom. All of a sudden, there's this, you know, it's like you're jumping into another universe. It doesn't take any time and it doesn't really take any effort to make that jump.
Dean: Yes. Man, oh man. I was thinking about, you know, you look back at ... I was just seeing something about Barry Diller, and how, going back, how he was such good friends with David Geffen now, but they actually met in the mail room at, you know, William Morris or wherever they started out here in the '50s, or whenever they started out. It's like ... or, in the '60s. That's really where it all began. It's interesting to see all those stories. I'm rethinking them now, because you always, everybody ... it's so funny. It's like, how they do it? That's culturally the question that we're always in pursuit of. Well, how did they become so successful without really ... and, I've been thinking about it, who did they become so successful because-
Dan: Yeah, I think the reason is, is that, you know, people who do the descriptions of other people's lives, people who document other people's lives and analyze other people's lives, generally are how people. And, therefore, they're not uniquely gifted at recognizing who, because it's kind of their belief that that's not how they got to where they were. It was hard work and they passed the right tests and they took the right subjects and everything else. But they have a tendency to impose the how they had to do on humanity. You know, everybody gets where they are through diligent, hardworking, long time doing how.
But it wouldn't even be true about their own life. Their own life, you know, they're kind of telling the lie about their own life. They're misleading themselves, that it was a result of how-ing. When in fact, the junctures, if you went back and looked at their juncture, they came to the attention of a certain teacher who gave them a lot of extra time and wrote a great testimonial letter that got to the right person, and then a door opened and everything else. This is true of everybody's lives. This is, you know...
No, it's just really, really-
Dean: Or somebody who recognizes something in a person. That's exactly.
Dan: Yeah, it was kind of interesting because, I'll tell you a little tale. I can tell it in two minutes. I was, I'm just trying to think here. It was 1960s, 1960. It was the 1960 presidential election. My mother always let me stay home the day after an election, because we stayed up late to see the routines, and that was the Kennedy/Nixon election. So, the next day I didn't go to school, but the day after I went to school. Your parents had to write you a note and why you weren't there. She wrote a note that Dan had stayed home for the presidential election, which went late into the night, and therefore that's the reason. This came to the attention of the school principal. He sent my mother a note saying well, we have a very good education here, too. You know, my mother had alluded to the fact that this is part of Dan's educational process, and the principal ... and therefore he's going to have to serve a penalty period. You know, eight penalty periods ... or, six penalty periods, an hour each, for each of the hours he missed. That was standard procedure. There wasn't any.
Dean: Right, period, yeah.
Dan: Yeah, this wasn't a negotiable topic right here. Okay, so my mom said, "Well, that's fine. You go serve it. Do your homework when you're doing that." So I did, and I did my homework. There was something, the principal took interest. He says, "So, you're really interested in politics, aren't you?" And I said, "Yeah," and I explained that my mom had really gotten me hooked on that and I'd really read a lot of things and everything. It wasn't as usual experience for the students in 1960 that they were interested in anything.
So anyway, we got talking and he says, so ... A year goes by, and he says, "What are you thinking about after high school?" And I say, "Well, I don't know. There isn't money for... " You know, my parents didn't have money. So he said, "If you're interested in Washington, D.C., I have a brother who is the agent in charge of the FBI in Cleveland, Ohio." He said, "He has the right to create two or three job offerings in Washington, D.C. if you're interested." So he says, "Would you be interested in, you know, when you left school, going to Washington, D.C. and then maybe you can go to school part-time?" I'm just going to communicate that, but it's because of the way I handled. I didn't show any resentment at all that I had to do penalty period, and then we started talking, found out that I was really interested in politics. I was interested in Washington, D.C. The thing was, I just accepted my punishment at those were the rules and that was the price I had to pay for staying home, which impressed him. I went and met his brother, made a good impression. Got a job at the FBI. Went to Washington. Started school in Washington, D.C.
But that was a huge jump in my life, making that jump. I left two days after high school. I was out of my 18 years in Ohio in one day. I made a jump to Washington, D.C. JFK was president. I worked for the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, and it was a huge jump for me, conceptually. But that's a who. That's not a how. That's a who.
Dean: Right, right, right. I mean, this is fantastic. How then, thinking about it, like, when I asked that question, all those limitations that I put up in front of the hundred times, is our how obstacles, right?
Dan: Yeah, and what I tell people ... Yeah, and I tell people. I said, "What do you absolutely know? If you were to go 100 times, it couldn't be..." I say, "What do you absolutely know?" And the answer is right there for them. Well, we can't do it by going how. We could only go 100 times by going who. And I said, "10 times might not convince you, that you can't do anyhow. But I'll tell you, 100 times would."
Dean: Yes, that's true. That is true. Wonder now, this opens up a whole new line of thinking, then. This proactively thinking about who ... yeah, where does that, then ... How do you proactively think who? It's kind of you're immediately back at the how.
Dan: Well, I think that there is a distinction that I'm seeing. I mean, first of all, I'm grappling with the same thoughts that you are, about that well, I'm doing some sort of how. I mean, every day, both Dan and Dean are doing some kind of how that we both hit that it has to be a conversational how.
Dean: Yes. And in that conversation, what I'm figuring out, the thing that's happening is that I'm figuring out how to do things that people want as an outcome, and package ourselves as a who so that they don't have to know how to do that, right? So, I can describe, I attached myself to an outcome for people. I become the who for that outcome. They need marketing. They need to, you know, how can we improve our marketing? And I become a who for that, and with the same, well, for people who want to write books, or for people who want to do podcasts, that we're becoming the who for them bundling up and helping people avoid ...
Dan: Yeah. I mean, it's almost like, in both our cases, we go about it differently. But the meaningful how in both of our lives is to identify the how's that other people don't want to do. Yeah, I think that's ... you know, and I don't think we're unique in that way. I think that another world is kind of propelled forward by other people identifying the unpleasant and the incompetent how activities that people get involved, and creating bypasses for them. What that does for people is that, you become an important who in their life, because you've created a solution which, basically, takes a lot of frustration and irritation out of their life, not just now but going forward, and I think that ...
But we're going outside of ourselves here. In other words, you were making a jump that my best how-ing will be removing the unpleasant how-ing from other people's lives. In other words, think of the breakthrough blueprint. A lot of people put in an enormous amount of work without ever realizing whether any of that work is profitable or not.
Dean: Yes.
Dan: And what you did, let's just base your entire business on the eight profit activators. You know, you're going to put in some time on something. You're going to show up and you're going to work the day. What if you knew that everything you were doing during each of your days was the very best thing that would lead to profitability? That's basically what I understand the logic. There's a logic chain of eight things. Each of them is important, but if you put them together in a single system and you don't do any activity other than what's in that system, you're going to be increasingly profitable forever.
Dean: Yes, that is true. And it's a system that is going to be here in 30 years. That's really, that's the thing, because the eight profit activators are universally present. They are back-tested 30 years. They were just as relevant, and they will be going forward. But the mechanisms and the availability of different ways to maximize them will change. But it's like music theory, in a way. Like how all music has been, over the centuries, all adheres to the same music theory; that once you understand and know that, you have the same framework to write something equivalent to Bach. You know?
Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I see that-
Dean: Do you see that?
Dan: I'm just saying that if you took a corporation the size of Amazon, or you took, from your field, an individual real estate agent and you identified the eight profit activators for the individual agent, what had to be done to be continuously and increasingly profitable? And you then applied it to Amazon, they would be the same eight profit activators, regardless of whether it was a single individual or a...
Dean: Right.
Dan: ... you know, globally disrupting and transform a Dean corporation. It would be the same eight. So, your how, I mean, we all have to do a how until you get to the, you know ... I don't know what it's like at the level of God, but I do know the way, until we get there, I kind of know what the framework is going to be. But, the other aspect about it is you are reducing the amount of how for yourself because you can teach other people how to manage each of the eight profit. You know, some of them can be automated. Some of them can be human automated. Some can be technology automated, and some of them can be human automated as you go. But yeah, I mean, it's really interesting. But, you know, if you went back and looked at where you got all your ideas from for the eight profit activators, there's probably some pretty prominent who's who gave you insights into each of them.
Dean: Yeah, it's really, as I look at this, I look at this as a ... Yeah, it's really about opening up and seeking out being in positions where those who's can appear. I mean, putting myself on the high probability things, because it's kind of like where you look at it ... I've seen it's really the things that I've done, I think about my own how we've gotten to this point, or who, that it's been on the back of the eight profit activators. What I've done in real estate is, I've applied those eight profit activators to the biggest challenges that real estate agents, or their desires. Right? They want to get listings. They want to find buyers. They want to get referrals. They want to multiply their listings. All of those things, and they want to convert leads, and I've applied the eight profit activators to make those things push button, where we can be a who for somebody. Like, on the real estate side. A real estate agent, all they need to do is kind of point to the area where they want to get listings on a map, and we can do everything else for them. We can be that who to execute that.
Now, I'm going about that on the same thing. I'm having an experience where I work with a franchise organization that is, I've been working with two or three of their franchisees, to apply the eight profit activators to maximizing what goes on in their ... in those individual units. And then, this year, we're now at the point where that's immediately distributable to hundreds of franchisees across the country. We're already seeing the multiplying effect of that by deploying that. I think about what you really, what it comes down to, is the two sides of that. You know, it's like, if I think about becoming a who packaging up something, and then finding a who, who immediately could benefit from that, what I've figured out, that's an immediate, like, you go directly to the full distribution, as opposed to linearly and gradually building it up.
Dan: Yeah. Yeah, and that's where you're a game changer, because they already have the capability. You know, let's take an individual franchise organization. There's great capabilities packed into that, that is already there before you even enter onto the scene. But then, you have a framework where everything they've already created can be thought through. In other words, you've got a complete the analytical model, first of all. And then, you shine the light. Each of your eight profit activators shines a light on something they either are doing or not doing. Doing that, they're either doing it well or they're doing it poorly, and that there sits an improvement that can be made, you know, within a quarter, within a half year, whatever the time period is. But the sudden upgrading of those eight different areas in their entire franchise organization is a huge shift. And you're simply taking what already exists, but reframing it.
Dean: That's exactly right.
Dan: Yeah.
Dean: And that's really so-
Dan: See, that's a huge game changer. That's a massive game changer, because you're not going outside your framework at all. I mean, you're totally within your capability. You're simply taking the capabilities that operate 100% within your company, and you're just combining them with a massive capability that's outside of your company. You know, there's some sort of deal. There's you know, which can be ... You know you've got a game changer deal where, writing up the agreement wouldn't take more than a page, and discussing it wouldn't take more than an hour.
Dean: Right, yes. You're right, and that's a-
Dan: You don't need meetings and you don't need lawyers, not that I have anything against lawyers, because you could do this with a law firm and have the same results. Now, my saying is that if you really have a game changing collaboration, a handshake will do it. I reported that I had a great evening dinner with Alice Cooper. He and his business manager, Shep Gordon, had shaken hands 45 years ago, and there was never anything. Well, that's a collaboration. That's a game changing collaboration.
Dean: Yeah, I mean, that's... Yeah, Shep mentioned that in our podcast. He said that they sat down, because they weren't really successful in the beginning, and they sat down and said if we're really going to do this, let's go all in and do it and we'll stick with it until we're all millionaires.
Dan: That was their agreement.
Dean: That's an interesting thing.
Dan: Yeah. Anyway, another marvelous tour at horizons.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: So, what's your takeaway? What's your takeaway from today?
Dean: I think it's, like, jump start. So, part of the thing is that my thought would be, you know, when I look at 100 times, my limiting thoughts would be building to 100 times. But, the fact is, that once I have ... it goes back to this idea of the scale ready algorithm. That's what I really have the ... That's my unique ability, is to figure out that. And, when I do, it's now immediately, instead of finding how to scale that, is to ... I mean, my number one priority should be finding who's that I can collaborate with, who either already have a big distribution that could be immediately impacted by me creating a scale ready algorithm. And that's really it. I think that's the thing. I really think that's the ... that could be the game changer for me, you know? Rather than creating it, and then going and scaling it up from the ground up, where you have to have that sense of I've gotta do it myself. Like, I've gotta build this, you know? None of that excites me or is in my wheel house. You know?
Dan: Yeah. I mean, the one that I, you know, talking about profit activators. The one that I have really zeroed in on is probably the single most important kind of mind frame was James Madison and the U.S. Constitution which, more or less, took effect in 1789 when the U.S. was 3 million people. Now they're, you know, 100 times bigger. If you wrote it out on single space type-written sheets, in 1789 it was 21 pages. 230 years later, it's 27 pages. They've added six pages in 230 years. You know, it's still the same basic framework, and it's probably the greatest growth algorithm in the history of the world. I mean, not just ... And it came up because they were saying that James Madison was a much better programmer than Mark Zuckerberg, because James Madison's platform can include Mark Zuckerberg, but Mark Zuckerberg's wouldn't include James Madison, just because of the issues that Facebook's been having, which I find intriguing. I mean, this is for maybe future podcasts, just the bane of getting the basis of what you're doing with your business model, so that it engenders respect and credibility, the more that people find out about you. That's just a topic for a future discussion.
I'll be ... I'm just trying to think when I'm seeing you next.
Dean: I guess we're going to see. I'm going to come to-
Dan: I'm going to see you in Chicago. I'm going to see you at our house.
Dean: I'm going to plan to come to Chicago Sunday probably. And then Monday-
Dan: Yeah, you haven't seen our house yet.
Dean: I've got time, exactly.
Dan: Yeah. Bring your woolies.
Dean: I know, exactly. Okay.
Dan: All right, wonderful talk.
Dean: I think we're on schedule for next week, too. Thanks, Dan.
Dan: Wonderful talk. Okay, bye.
Dean: Bye.