Dan & Dean talk about the insights they've had since the last episode, including the peace of planning ahead, before moving on to look at Procrastination Priority Mindset 7: Your Best Next Progress.
Links:
StrategicCoach.com
DeanJackson.com
Transcript: The Joy of Procrastination Ep015
Dean: Mr. Sullivan.
Dan: Dean, how are you?
Dean: I am good. I'm given the …
Dan: I just want to tell you I've been getting complaints about our podcast.
Dean: Yeah. We haven't been putting out enough.
Dan: Yes.
Dean: I've been hearing the same thing. I'm going through withdrawal myself.
Dan: The reason is that some people instead of just procrastinating in their own haphazard way, whenever they're supposed to do something they listen to one of our podcasts. Instead of doing what they're supposed to be doing, they're using our podcast now as an organized way of procrastinating.
Dean: Yeah, because it feels … You know what, in the long run, what they're really doing is they are setting things up for their future selves.
Dan: Yes, they are. Not only that it's almost like muscle building by eating ice cream.
Dean: That's so funny.
Dan: We're giving a great deal of pleasure, that's mainly what I'm hearing people …
Dean: We really are. I think we're making a difference. Certainly, we're making a difference for me so that's worth it in itself.
Dan: Well, that'd be like 100% payback.
Dean: Yes, that's exactly right. You have been across the pond, as they say, your once or twice a year to London.
Dan: Sometimes twice but always scheduled for May. It's a scheduled thing that fits in really well with our schedule. This time we learn from our experience because we've been going over for 20 years and we have usually gone to London, spend four or five days, and usually we do business during the first four or five days. We have marketing meetings. I have a special workshop that I do for the London-based clients whoever have me as a coach. I'll take two or three or ten times concepts and I'll put on a workshop.
Then we have an evening of fair where we invite our ten times clients who come over in the UK and also, anyone who is interested. That works out very, very nicely. Then this time I popped in on one of the workshops, the workshops that's been going the longest in the UK and I spend about an hour talking with the coach in front of the group. It was great. Then we have friends. We have friends, client base there and we'll go to dinners. We'll go to lunches.
As I said, we will usually then go and visit someplace else. What I noticed when I was talking to Debs about this when we're planning it about three months ago, I said, "I really find it disruptive to get over and get settled and then have to pack again and travel somewhere, unpack and the repack, come back and unpack and get another three or four days in London," and I said, "Why don't we just stay? Why don't we just stay put?"
We're in so SoHo, We really like the area.
Dean: Right, I love it.
Dan: Theater, restaurant district, my favorite bookstore in the whole world is about a ten-minute walk away. That's Waterstones so I'm picking …
Dean: Is that the bookstore that we've stumbled on that we found in London with you or that was another?
Dan: No. We should have skipped the trip on that one and just gone down the Waterstones. It's five stories. It's right on Piccadilly. It's about four-minute walk from Piccadilly Circus. Five stories, they have three cafés and on every floor they have sofas and chairs.
Dean: I love it.
Dan: Yeah. I mean just a great bookstore.
Dean: I'm going to be in London next month. This will be my shift annual end of June trip to London.
Dan: Yeah.
Dean: I'll put that bookstore on my list.
Dan: Yeah. Waterstones, just a great place. Just a great place.
Dean: Love it. Back in …
Dan: A bookstore is still a big deal in UK. They didn't lose all their bookstores. I mean they still have a book culture. That was great. We've got routines where we'll go on a walk and we'll hit two or three sites that interest us for one reason, art galleries and cafes and bookstores. It's just very, very congenial. It's a tremendous walking. It only takes me, I would say, about a minute and a half to get lost in London.
Dean: Yes. I found that it seemed like when I was there with you we just walked and walked and walked. It seems like you can never run out.
Dan: Yeah.
Dean: It's all very low, much more densely situated that Toronto.
Dan: Yeah, it's very dense. It's very, very low. They used to have a rural Saint Paul's Cathedral which is a major site in London. Nothing could be higher than Saint Paul's Cathedral but now they've further out beyond Saint Paul's Cathedral. Now, there's an enormous number of skyscrapers and it's going up now.
Dean: Eben Pagen and I had a great walk all around London. We were there at the same time last year. We'll be there again this time. We had a conversation about that rural and about the architecture and you know that London because they have so few skyscrapers, when they actually do they tend to really be like very interesting architecturally because it's so rare that they have a new one so they kind of like make it something, an occasion.
Dan: Yeah. Now, they're going up with a frenzy right now.
Dean: Are they?
Dan: The skyline is just dotted with construction cranes. It's almost like Toronto. I mean in Toronto is just crazy with cranes. I mean it's expanding incredibly fast, the city here. I got a sense, this is the first time I've been to another city where I thought the new construction was equally surpassing Toronto. London, it's almost all business buildings, in Toronto it's mostly residential, in Toronto it's condos.
Dean: I read off of the …
Dan: Procrastination, I got to share this. I got to share you something upfront because … I'm sure it's doing the same thing with you being the procrastination priority. Number one is the book for procrastination priority comes out Thursday of this week. This was aided greatly by our podcast series. I mean I could point to about half the insights and the book came right out.
This is my quarterly book. I produce the book every quarter so this is the book for this quarter. Something happened to me about two months ago and it hadn't gotten clear enough that I can report it in a previous podcast.
I got this insight and see if this resonates with you. That one of the reasons I procrastinate is that I've allowed my schedule to continually surprise me. I mean I have phone calls set up by Anna who is my scheduler with people and people will say can I have a phone call with you and I said ,yeah, but you have to phone call me and set it up.
It all go into my schedule and I let Anna know that the person is going to phone and is actually going to set up. Then, I don't check when she puts it in. Then, I'm planning to do something tomorrow and I look at my schedule and I've got two of these phone calls and it just took two hours out of my day. I got surprised by it and so I procrastinate on something that I'm doing. I never procrastinate on a commitment. Anytime I have a commitment to talk to somebody or meet something I will never, I don't take in the last year or so I've ever changed the date. If it's in the schedule and it's been confirmed I follow through on it. That's it but that means it's something I'm doing. I said, "Well, I don't have enough time to do that and then I'm in for procrastination mode with it."
It suddenly occurred to me two months ago, I said, "Why don't I be a full month ahead with my consciousness of my schedule. What I mean by this is that when I get to the end of this month which is just a few days off then the entire next month I have looked at my schedule and created … I've got a scheduling software and I put things … I repeated this schedule because I'm going through and I look at the day. I've gone through the entire next month. This is the end of May.
When I get to June 1st I have thought through June more than I've ever thought through any months in my life. I've gone through each day and in going through each day, I've made about 15 improvements to my schedule in June where I've gone back to Anna, I said, "I'm looking ahead here at June 15 and I'm noticing I'm crunched on this day and can we sort this out.
I have this enormous confidence now and … I always do something. If it's good now it's good for the rest of my life. I said to myself starting with June for the rest of my life I'll always be super conscious about the next 30 days of my life.
On June 1st, I'll go through and it happens to be the first day of Genius Networks. We're going to Scottsdale. In the morning I will start July. I'll start going through July. I feel that on 30 days ahead in terms of my consciousness and my awareness and every day during June, I'll look at the entire schedule for June and see if there's more improvements that I can make to June but meanwhile, I'm also becoming conscious of July.
All of a sudden that's just occurred to me that a lot of my travel and a lot are getting paralyzed by time or getting paralyzed by commitments was really coming from the fact that I had not allowed myself to be aware, intelligently aware and creatively aware of the time ahead of me. That's my insight and that's my improvement.
I think what come out of the … I think it's comes out of the procrastination just dealing with the procrastination. Why am I allowing myself to keep getting surprised by my own schedule when I've given my schedule or the right to fill up the days but I haven't taken advantage of her skill.
Dean: That totally fits with my reflection and insight over the last break that we've had here because we haven't spoken in a few weeks. I mentioned it on another call this idea of my number one thing is my number one way that I would define success, I wake up every day and ask what would I like to do today. That's been my definition of success and I've been pondering on a few of our conversations this idea of maybe flipping and adding into that this question of what would I like to do tomorrow.
I start to think that that is the winning question. That's really the winning question is for today, in order for today to be a real win, it requires that you have put some thought into what tomorrow is going to look like because I mean today it was somebody, tomorrow, and I really started thinking about then., how convoluted it is that we're in the day like we can only experience to live today.
In some level we are either faced with the consequences of past deans' actions or repaying the price for past deans' procrastinations or we're benefitting from the foresight of dean to think about future dean and set things up to make it as smooth as possible for today.
That's really …
Dan: I think it's the same principle as I was talking about.
Dean: That's exactly it. That's what I'm saying. That's been the driving spot that I have here that shutting ahead and it's very funny that you're coming to that same conclusion here because I was just looking at my calendar here like I'm moving into, I'm heading to … I'm going to doing a speaking engagement in New Jersey and then from there I'm coming to Toronto. I'm there. I've got my breakthrough blueprint, event, the week of our strategic coach workshop. Then I've got my workshop and then that Friday I'm leaving to go to London and I'm in London for that last week in June and then I'm in Amsterdam till the night and I've already booked. I've already booked all my time at the Hazelton now I'm already booked all the way out through the end of July right now.
Knowing that that feels like wow, it's like every … I don't know. I don't know what the right word is, whether it feels more adult or feels more … Like I don't know what the right word. I don't know.
Dan: Well, I think it has two qualities. If I could again take my experience and move it over to yours it's far more intelligent. The other thing is that it's far more strategic. I mean I'm doing it because it's just the right time period for me of the month.
I'm just noticing that these last couple of weeks in May as I was just putting the finishing touches, the next month, I'm noticing that this is the last time in my life that I will go through a period like the last two weeks where I don't have this month ahead literally and you know my 25-year framework.
This 25-year framework for me started when I was 70. I just turned 73 last week. When I was 70 I projected for my team how I saw things going for the next 25 years and what my commitments were. I think that that idea also has influenced. I mean when you come out with a brand new idea, it's never because of one hand side, it's probably the convergence of about ten ideas but they haven't been unified and then all of a sudden they come together and you get a breakthrough insight.
The thing I know about it is that starting on Thursday, which is the first of June, for the rest of my life now, I'm going to be a month ahead and I'm always going to be a month ahead in my thinking. It's not just that I do it once. I do it continually. I'm continually looking ahead. Instead of being reactive towards the future I'm proacting on the future. I'm taking my strategic intelligence. I'm continually moving forward so that my time is not an area where I continually am stepping on landmines, procrastination landmines.
Dean: Yes, exactly. Well, it's an interesting frame to think. I've been thinking in my journal about that of the identical thought of what if my entire thin, if I take this frame of what would I like to do tomorrow which sets up a future orientation. It sets up a very … because that's the only time you can be strategic is in regards to the future. That's the one opportunity that you have is to be strategic and sort of ask myself that question is what would be … It's almost like projecting into the future and doing an experience transformer in advance.
That's what you were describing about your June 15th when you looked at that and a little bit jammed here. It's almost like you went an experience, ran the simulation on the 15th and realized it would make us better at this.
Dan: Yeah. It's really interesting because I mean I'll report more on it I've gone through the first complete months that I've actually set up my future this way. Two things came out of it. One is that if we haven't had that conversation that was like, none of this would have happened and if we have to have had this whole series of podcast conversations since basically August of last year I wouldn't have come to that inside.
Dean: Yeah. This is changing. I mean changing us. I think that's really ... That's good. I love that's the main outcome of it. Selfishly, that's been the biggest thing and I think there's just the, anecdotally, the comments and the conversations that people have with me is how much they're enjoying along here too.
Dan: Yeah. One of the things, and this is not much the topic of what we're talking about, but it's about the how we're talking about things. A lot of people have said you guys are just having a conversation. You're not putting on a performance or a presentation and I said of all the podcast we like first of all that it's two people having a conversation rather than one person more or less broadcasting that. The other thing is it's spontaneous. There doesn't seem to be any game plan to your podcast, except for the fact that you've committed to have them.
There is a structure because we've used the fine set scorecard on this to do that and I wanted to get started on mindset seven here, your next best program.
Dean: Okay absolutely. That's going to be where we were.
Dan: It's really interesting, a lot of people have said it seems to me that the skill here is just have a conversation with another person and record it and then distribute it so that other people can listen to how two people is responding to each other's comments not in a scripted way, not in a predictable way but just …
Well, here's the thought I have about that. I mean already we're 20 minutes, 25 minutes into this and it's run in directions that I didn't know was going to happen when we started.
Dean: Well, because we keep living our lives in between these and having these insights and this is our chance to share them. I mean it's really … I think that there's the thing is that we're not … This isn't theoretical or book report type of stuff. We're actually living this.
Dan: Well, yeah. I'm going to start comparing notes. We're kind of two scouts out mapping out new territory and we come back and say, "Look, what I've done here."
Well, anyway the first one, the first mindset here and there's four on mindset seven. Mindset seven is your next best progress. To bring this back to your comment, there's your next best progress, your previous way of doing it, which you get up in the morning and say what would I really like to do today. Your next best progress would be your answer to that question for that day and that's been going on for how many years now?
Dean: Well, since 1999.
Dan: Yeah, eighteen years, okay. You have to realize that 99% of the world doesn't do this.
Dean: Right.
Dan: They say, oh crap, I got to do this. I got to do this. I got to do this.
Dean: They don't ask themselves, what do I have to do today?
Dan: Your question is infinitely superior on that level that you leave over the last 18 years but now, the next best progress is moved 24 hours into the future. My feeling is that there is going to be a quantum leap.
Dean: I agree with you 100%.
Dan: It's already a quantum leap out of that. That 24 hours of preparedness, that 24 hours of awareness and alertness will have a feedback to what you're doing today because of what you already have identified that you're going to do tomorrow.
Dean: That's it. I agree. It's very exciting like that whole …
Dan: That's an interesting insight. The quality of the life you live today is equal to the alertness that you have about the life you want to live tomorrow.
Dean: And your action today to set up that life in the future. I think that's really it, to realize where the leverage points. We talk about growing ten times and that implies looking for leverage and exponential kind of growth. I think that where you get those things, I would argue that the further out in the future you can plant those seeds today, the bigger the impact they have. I think it's like a compounding interest that investment. The action that you're taking today over a longer period of time is going to multiply and have a bigger impact.
Dan: Very interesting. I mean this is available to everybody. I mean yeah, your time is your own. I mean I didn't have to pay anything for my time. I mean…
Dean: I got so much to say about our time stuff. We can talk about it after but let's go through the …
Dan: Okay. Well, the first one is ...
Dean: Yeah. The first column is you increasingly compare yourself with other people who always seem to be moving forward and resent them for their progress.
Dan: It's a loser. I mean this is a loser, called. Yeah. You see this I mean it's not like it's a rare thing in the world. First of all, this activity comparing of yourself to other people, which I think means that your dead on arrival regardless of what happens if you're comparing yourself with other people. The other thing is you notice that they're handling their lives better than you are. You got strike one, you're comparing yourself. Number two, you feel inferior to them. Number threes, strike one, strike two and strike three is you resent them for their progress and success. I mean you're dead on arrival.
Dean: You project that onto them.
Dan: Right. First of all, the first thing is that you can't compare yourself with other person because you don't know where they're coming from. You don't know what they're doing today and you don't where they're going so how can you possibly compare yourself with someone else.
Second thing is, what are you using as the basis of comparison between you and the other person that can actually be measured? I think it's …
Dean: You want to hear something interesting, so that whole comparison to just brought up a point about the comparison. I've heard one time this very like it sounds very Zen that all discontent comes from comparison, which sounds very like don't stop comparing yourself. I said that to Homer McDonald one time, the gentleman I wrote Stop Your Divorce with, just a brilliant smart guy. He said or her, he said, "Yeah, that's true." He had this beautiful southern accent that he said, "All happiness comes from comparison too." I thought, he just like flipped it completely out of the water and it's absolutely true, equally true, that all happiness comes from comparison so it's not, the danger isn't in the comparison, it's what your context for the comparison is.
Dan: Well, my feeling because we're just developing the next book after procrastination priority and I've gone back and I've updated the gap and the gain concept.
Dean: I was just going to say that. It's the same thing, yeah, comparing against from sustainable future.
Dan: Well, dates from 1995 but the thing is that there is a difference. One type of comparison really does make you unhappy and the other kind of comparison. First of all, we're comparing creatures. It's what the brain does.
Dean: Yes, exactly.
Dan: It's how the brain is structured is to make comparisons because how else do you come to grips with reality except comparing one experience against another and figuring out the ones that you like and the ones you dislike. I agree with him but the difference is, is that two radically different things are being compared. The type of happiness, the type of comparison that makes me unhappy is where I'm comparing myself to what I visualize being another person's capabilities. In other words, it isn't necessarily that they are the other person's capabilities. I've made up a story about someone else's capabilities. I've made up a story about that somehow they're leading a superior life than me, and I've made up a comparison about the fact that their life is better than mine.
That's all made up. That's a make-belief world. There's no actual quantitative or tangible measurement that you can actually make about another person. Where comparison really does make us happy is where we're comparing ourselves today with ourselves before today.
Dean: The progress.
Dan: Yeah, our progress is measured either in a number which is why money is so useful as a measuring stick in an entrepreneur's life because if I take the breakthrough blueprints having 15 … I'm picking up a number here but having a 15 forward breakthrough blueprints already in the schedule. Having the ones for the next six months already fully paid for is a number and you can go back into the past and say, "Gee, when I did the first one, I didn't even know when the second one was going to be." I just had …
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: Huh? I just had …
Dean: Yes, no, you're absolutely right, yeah.
Dan: I just had a workshop in March, brand new, 10 times, the biggest 10 times workshop we'd ever had and the total amount of money from that workshop was equal to the first three years of total income for strategic coach when we started the workshop program. One workshop which really involves four days of my life over the next 12 months was equal to more money than me working completely for three years. That's a measurement that makes me happy but I'm not measuring myself against someone else. I'm measuring myself against myself.
Dean: Right, that's great. When you say workshop, you mean a new group starting …
Dan: A new group, a new group.
Dean: Yeah, yeah.
Dan: A new group, yeah. I have 12 groups a quarter but our company has 100 and … I'm just trying to think here. Our company has 137 groups a quarter.
Dean: That's awesome, yeah.
Dan: Yeah, but that other 125 groups doesn't involve …
Dean: Other people.
Dan: … any of my time. It won't definitely involve any of my time but it does show up in the revenues.
Dean: That's great, I love that. It's very interesting.
Dan: Yeah. Being just to bring this back to procrastination, I think anytime you compare yourself against someone else, you will probably set yourself up from procrastinating doing any activity which in your mind, even if you do the activity, you're still going to be losing against the other person.
Dean: Yeah, that's what I was saying. I had that insight even in 1999 when I was doing that whole exercise is that that was really the internal-driven framework and saying, "I know I'm being successful when I'm not comparing myself to other people. I'm not comparing in different ways." It often takes conviction to stand by your own internal sense of what success is to you because it's been … I'm surrounded by other very high achievers too. When you look at if I was just strictly comparing myself to my contemporaries in terms of what they would measure their progress over the past 18 years, that there would be different things.
I couldn't look at some of their progress and not be as happy with my own progress by comparing that way but as far as living in that random …
Dan: Can I ask you a question about these 18 years? Would you say that you've totally stuck with this for 18 years? In other words, an odd day, an odd moment here or there or an odd though here or there, but would you say for 18 years you've been really, really consistent with this just using your own internal basis for comparing your progress forward?
Dean: Yes, absolutely. That's been a guidepost for me. The interesting thing is even I had a conversation with Tony Robbins about this rippling golf one day and we're talking about the I know I'm being successful when because he knows about those too and he was talking about my number one is I wake up every day and say, "What would I like to do today?" He looked at me and he said, "I don't have one of those days until March." This was in January. You look at the thing that his every word along the lines of what you're describing then that every minute of every day of every months of every quarter is backed out in that kind of granularity.
To be able to have a day where he had complete control over the day was not until three months from now. It's different. It's a different level of approach. Now, for 18 very successful years I wake up and go to sleep feeling like I am being successful because I know what my definition was internally. That doesn't mean that I can't change this definition and see what that turns into. That's where I think what we're seeing is this transition of me being a more future-oriented definition of success in a way.
Dan: Well, you're taking a very powerful 18-year commitment and you're adding a new time dimension or not commitment but capability, proven capability over 18 months but you're adding a new time dimension to an already existing capability.
Dean: Yes. That's … and we'll see in 18 years where that goes but I already feel like …
Dan: Yeah, but the fact is you'll know it in 30 days.
Dean: I already know it. Yeah.
Dan: You don't have to wait. I mean, I'm already feeling the impact of …
Dean: Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Dan: … of having June already thought out but I'm not at June yet but it's impacting May. In other words, this forward awareness, this forward intelligence and forward strategic creativity because I've already made 15 improvements to June which I would not have done if I had just been approaching it in my previous way of looking at things. I've got a great person and I'm scheduled and I never miss a meeting. I'm never late so I've got a lot of things handled compared with my previous life. I'm operating at a much, much higher level of effectiveness. All of a sudden, I realized yeah, but you keep getting surprised. You keep getting surprised.
You know the surprises were fun surprises, I wouldn't have any objection but they're not fun surprises.
Dean: Right, right, right.
Dan: They're stressful surprises. Yeah. I like challenge but I don't like stress.
Dean: Right on.
Dan: We don't mind challenging ourselves. We don't mind challenging ourselves but we do mind getting suddenly challenged by someone outside or something outside, yeah. The next paragraph now, we make a big shift from the loser in column one to this person so I'll just say the paragraph here. You've always dreamed about a way of freshly focusing and motivating yourselves to start each day. That's absolutely true for you, what you've done but now you're almost multiplying the power of what you've created over the last 18 years.
Dean: Yes, I agree with that. That's really been the … Yeah. I think it still fits even within the framework. Now, I've realized that what I really want to do today, you know what would I really like to do today is set up the best possible tomorrows. It's that. I want to set up the most joy. I want to be at the service of future dean. I realized that that you're either …
Yeah, each day you can either be at the service of past dean because he'd put things off and then now you have to do something that he didn't do or I could be at the service of future dean and set things up for me. It's really easy for president dean when it gets here.
Dan: Yeah, you see this is a shift from a one-dimension dean to a two-dimension. Yeah, you're double dimensioning dean now. The thing is that that the power of the second day is a tremendous motivator for the first day.
Dean: It really is. That's what's kind of fun because now you know what kind … It's almost like a triple joy in a way. You get a sense of feeling like this is a fun thing now and an anticipation of this is going to be a great … when it actually happens, something that comes up that you have set in motion for future dean becomes really valuable for him is a really great thing.
Dan: Can I ask you a question about that? You've been doing this for how long now? This two-day…
Dean: Yeah, yeah. It's bringing it back to I would say in the last 60 days since we've been … like this thought have been …
Dan: Yeah, because I think you …
Dean: … forming and evolving.
Dan: I think you mentioned this in a much earlier … It's not the last one.
Dean: No, no.
Dan: The last time…
Dean: It's been a little while.
Dan: I think … yeah. I think of this little because I remember the first time but you didn't have the track record yet to talk about it.
Dean: No. Now I see what's happening. Since we've been having this conversations, I've spent a lot of time towards the end of last year really planning out this year like I mentioned to you on one of the things coming into the year with all of my breakthrough blueprints already on the calendar and already scheduled out and all of the …
Dan: And probably mostly sold out because they go fast once you put the date on the calendar.
Dean: That's it. Absolutely, and so the whole … It's been a great thing in that knowing that yeah, I don't have to … I'm not scrambling in a way. It's like you're not trying to get out, it's like I've set up things a lot of … There's a lot of flywheels going on by having taken that approach that what I thought going into the years I'd like to have three emails a week going out. I'd like to do my More Cheese, Less Whiskers podcast to release it every Sunday. I'd like to record them on specific days and all I want to do is dial in. You know you mentioned I don't even know who I'm talking to until the morning up.
I look on the calendar, I see who they are and then it's always a surprise and a delight because there's no preparation for them or even our podcast. I know I'm talking to you and I know it's going to be great but we don't have any homework or preparation. There's nothing to procrastinate coming to it but I know because of Anna and because we've agreed already on when we're going to do them that I just show up.
Dan: We're always 12 months ahead.
Dean: Yeah. I love them. I'm fully embracing this.
Dan: I wanted to get to the third mindset here.
Dean: Sure.
Dan: I have seen this. I have seen this a lot in entrepreneurs. You are in a business market and industry where progress is predictable and guaranteed if you just do the same thing every day. I mean, for us that you think about the Kobe profile of the two of us and our general predilections towards wanting lots of variety. This statement truly would be almost grounds for suicide.
Dean: Agreed. Yes, yes…
Dan: Yet I know people who had locked themselves into this and I think they've chosen to have no variety in their life to avoid having no surprises in their life.
Dean: Those people would be follow through implementers, is that really the … Would that be kind of the profile there?
Dan: Yeah. They could be really, really lacking in personal ambition. In other words, that …
Dean: Oh right.
Dan: They've learned the trick. In other words, there's like a trick. Here's the way they were 20 years old and they said, "If I just spend 10 years mastering a trick, that trick will just work every day for the rest of my life without me giving them new tricks, without me having to learn any new tricks." That's why I'm always suspicious of ambition and growth and achievement when people are in their 20s.
Dean: Say more about that.
Dan: People will say, well, can you imagine them being like this when they're in their 50s? In other words, they're real active, they're real big risk and everything like this. I say, "Well, ordinarily, maybe 20 years ago I would be very, very impressed with that." I said, "I don't know what the game is that they think that they're setting up. They may be working like mad and they're really striving right now but they're actually doing all this work now in the belief that …
I've got people in the program who are in a position to actually retire when they were 30 because of what they had done in their 20s. Even if they just only put their money in CDs.
Dean: Right, yeah, yeah.
Dan: They could have lived off of it. They could have lived off of it at a comfort level higher than the general public.
Dean: I could see how people get that way too. There's like if you're a financial advisor and you focus on if you just get $100 million under management you'd got a million dollar income, yeah.
Dan: If you're a real estate guy and you have a thousand properties that are generating monthly rent, well, I have to tell you location, location, location. If you're in a reasonably good location, just the general growth of the planet will probably take care of you for the rest of your life.
Dean: That's really true, yeah, exactly.
Dan: It seems to me that you and I are pulling off a massive solution here and the reason is because we absolutely thrive on variety. We absolutely thrive on good surprises. We actually grow by unpleasant surprises. At the same time, we're introducing a level of predictability into this.
Dean: Yes. I like it.
Dan: Yeah, I mean quite frankly, just to give an added insight into what you're doing by moving it from this morning, what do I most want to do, most please me for the next 24 hours to this morning looking ahead at tomorrow what do I want the 24 hours to do tomorrow. If you just do that every morning, set up tomorrow, I can guarantee you, your second day is always going to be better than the day before.
Dean: I agree. I've noticed that after experimenting with it, where I first got the thought dam was when we had the conversation of you kind of end the day with what your three wins are going to be for tomorrow. You mentioned that you like to set up what your three things are tomorrow at the end of the day. I guess that sets up your subconscious working on things as you wake up and you know what they are. I noticed a slight difference in that in doing it that way.
What I found was that you really can't … If I'm ending my day with a thought of what are my three going to be tomorrow, I haven't been able to have any time to have an impact on making those things better today. If I start the day with thinking about, in addition to what I've got going on today, but start the day thinking about what can I do tomorrow, that I have the whole day to set something in place that's actually going to make tomorrow better.
Dan: Yeah. The only thing I would say as an addition to what you said there, I still do my thing at nighttime. What were the three today and what are the three for tomorrow. I'm doing it now in a context where I've already given massive amounts of thought because of my month ahead schedule. The main reason what this allows my nightly practice to do is to remove any sense of negativity from previous day and not to be anticipating any negativity for tomorrow. It has to do with the quality of my sleep, not so much what's going to happen tomorrow.
Dean: Right, I get it. It's so funny because that whole … it brings a sense of stability there. I always used to describe, especially in the real estate world as real estate agents or you know, there's been … and for most people entrepreneurs in general, I used to describe and do describe their time climate as a storm front that's just passing through their calendar. Just like the weather, you can predict what's happening today and tomorrow. Once you get past two weeks it's really just like meteorologically more difficult to predict …
Dan: Yeah, you're blindfolded in throwing darts in a dart …
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: Which weatherman or weather service in the world has ever been accurate more than four to five days ahead and then maybe by chance?
Dean: … for you for now. I mean, you're able to predict the weather. You're able to do right now as you know exactly what's going on every day in the month of June.
Dan: Yeah, what I've seen is some real crunches that could really throw me off track as In look through the various … First of all, the days during June are not equal to each other in terms of what's already scheduled for them. Then I could see some real crunches and I kind of went after the problem spots first before I looked at the positive opportunities to do something else. The other thing and we can talk about this at a future podcast is what I've noticed I probably increased the amount of teamwork for June, about 25%, simply by seeing things where it would be good for someone to know about this a week ahead.
Therefore, I'll create something for them. It will be a meeting or it will be a project. I said, they're going to hit this cold and if I give them a really good heads up a week before, their participation and their contribution is going to be significantly greater.
Dean: That's great.
Dan: Last one. Why don't we just wrap this up? We're at the hour but we can go on. The last mindset, which is the transformative mindset is that you're very excited that from now on, your biggest procrastinations today will always create your best progress tomorrow. That's the whole theme of the podcast right there in that one statement.
Dean: It really is. I love it.
Dan: Yeah. You know where procrastinations are little … They're kind of little knowledge explorers. I mean, all the progress that we've been talking about today with them because we're looking at procrastination from a totally different direction.
Dean: I agree. It's so great. I'm grateful that we get to have these conversations. I can't tell you how much …
Dan: Yeah, me too.
Dean: … of an impact it has in my world.
Dan: Yeah, I think one of the impacts of the podcast is that everybody can tell that we're loving the experience.
Dean: Yes, I agree. It's really making a difference.
Dan: Well, I'll be seeing you very shortly.
Dean: Yes, I'm very excited about that.
Dan: Very shortly but we have another one of these a week today so not too far off.
Dean: Awesome. Well, I'll talk to you then.
Dan: Okay. Dane, have a great week.
Dean: Thanks Dan. Okay. Bye, bye.
Dan: Okay. Bye.