Join Dean and Dan as they follow up on the earlier WHO is faster than HOW episode to talk about how people have been responding to this new 'thought technology'.
Links:
StrategicCoach.com
DeanJackson.com
Transcript: The Joy of Procrastination Ep033
Dean: Mr. Sullivan.
Dan: I hope it's being recorded.
Dean: That's right, one less thing we have to worry about procrastinating.
Dan: That's right. The audience probably doesn't know what we're talking about but it's says, "This interview is being recorded"
Dean: Yes. So, happy New Year.
Dan: Yeah, happy new year. It's been almost four weeks.
Dean: This is our first one back.
Dan: Almost four weeks that we've been out of touch. Did you have a good one?
Dean: I had a great time, I can't believe how fast it went. You think about that, that's the thing that you really realize about time. It just keeps marching on. You think about it now, it's almost January 15th, we're halfway through January now.
Dan: Here's the thing though about all the times that I've had since I've saw you, or talked to you in December. I've used 100% of all my time.
Dean: Me too, there hasn't been a moment that I've skipped.
Dan: There was none of the time that I didn't use up quickly since I talked to you.
Dean: That's so funny I love it.
Dan: I have a tremendous report to you on Who not how.
Dean: Okay, I'd love to hear it.
Dan: Since I've talked to you last I think I've done about five workshops and it is slam dunk this concept of who not how and you know the little diagram that I just innovated on the smart board.
Dean: Which was great.
Dan: The entrepreneur, and I just substitute you, I put you in the arrow and it shows the start which represents a bigger and better future result. You are emotionally engaged with this feature result, you come and you have a choice about how you want to proceed. If you choose, how am I going to do this you're in the soup, you're in the procrastination soup, and if you choose who, then you're very energized and you're world, you almost get the reward for the future result immediately if you go to who because you've just expanded your capabilities by going to who.
Dean: Yes, that's exactly right. You know what's funny is while we were there ... while I was at the last workshop in Toronto, Jeff Walker and I shot a video explaining that concept which he just sent out today as his, he does a Sunday Video, and that was today. How versus who. And it's getting lots of great comments.
I'm seeing even the different layers of this now in my own, because getting to the point where I'm not, I had a visual that was pretty interesting and similar to the way you talk about front stage and backstage, and I thought about how when I'm mapping out a process we usually do it after we've figured out what all the steps that are involved in something. We've been drawn what I call the Milk line, which is where it stops being my unique ability or my unique contribution coming into it and where it starts where somebody else could do it. So, for our podcasts for instance. The fact that you and I dial in and what we're doing right now is we're producing the milk, and as soon as we hang up the milk contribution is over, and everything else is on the other side of the milk line right now, so somebody else could do all these things. And I've started now looking at in advanced figuring that out by imagining that I'm walking into almost like a dry cleaner, or a take away restaurant, where there's a menu, and I'm only allowed on this side of the counter, I can describe to somebody what it is that I want, but under no circumstances am I allowed to go back behind the counter to actually participate in the preparation of it.
And that kind of has been something that's been powerful for me and I've really been experimenting with using the spoken impact filters in that way. Because it takes just as much time for me to go through the impact filter with the person who's actually going to be responsible for putting it all together than it does for me to go through the impact filter alone on my own and then still having to get together with them and have that conversation anyway. It just fits for me so much better.
Dan: Yeah, I find I really do the impact filter first because then I'm ... my attention can be totally on the other person when I get the impact filter, and they're reading my thinking and then they have questions. Words are not precise. Words mean different things to different people. We all form our language and it's usually in terms of specifics, we learn words in relation to specific things that we can visualize, and what one person will visualize with chair will be different from what another person visualizes with the word chair. You know?
Dean: It's like they say, a picture paints a thousand words. A word can paint a thousand pictures.
Dan: Language is based on specifics not on universals. There's no such thing as a universal chair, there's just this chair and that chair and a million other chairs but they're all different. So, anyway, I mean it's just been extraordinary the amount of feedback that I get, and what I do is I start the day off with it now, so I've had two workshops, big workshops in Chicago last week. I had fifty and sixty in the room, which are big workshops for me. And I said, I got a little drawing that'll take about five minutes, and I just want you to put this, actually draw this in your workbooks. And I put that and I had six people on Thursday who came up to me at the first break. We start the workshop at nine, we have the first break at ten. And they came up to me and said, you know I could pack up and go home right now, that first five minutes was worth the trip. That's good feedback, you know?
Dean: That's something. It's funny how when a concept really is the right words at the right time for somebody, the impact that it can have. I happen to be, I'm in south beach right now, and I've been here this week. I was speaking at JJ Virgin's mind share mastermind. And those are all, you've been to one of her big events, so they're all...
Dan: Two of them. I've spoken at two of them.
Dean: So, this is her smaller group. Her mind share mastermind groups. There were fifty or sixty people here. And they're all doctors and professionals and practitioners. And often the world’s best at what they do. And sometimes the only one who's figured out some of the things that they have. And when I explained that concept to them, the same thing. They come up and they're just like, "that is exactly the frustration that I have." Especially when they're thinking about marketing things. Their dream come true is to have more people come to them ready for them to help them. And they don't have any interest or aptitude for figuring out the marketing that's going to get those people in front of them. They just get so frustrated to have to figure all that out. Figure out, how do I do this? I think we're on to something here.
Dan: Oh this is really big. I was, another way of looking at it, if you look at the school system, the school system puts all the offices on the individual being, on an isolated individual who has to know all the hows. So, right from the beginning, they say, you stay in your own chair and don't look at what your neighbor's doing. Don't copy, don't write down what they're writing, you can't look during tests, they have to do their test. So, let’s say in an extreme case somebody has nursery school, and they learn their how's, and then it's junior Kindergarten, and then kindergarten, and then grade school, junior high, high school, undergraduate university, and let's say they go on to graduate school. We're talking about ages three to maybe twenty five. So, twenty-two years. The emphasis has been on how, how, how, how, how, and they test against hows, they get rewarded on their how and everything like that, and then they go out into the marketplace and the marketplace doesn't work on a how basis, it works on a who basis.
So they've had no training, they have no habits, they have no mindsets related to who, and yeah.
Dean: I think they're so ... it's really interesting the how is an isolating thing. It's something like when you have finally cracked the code on how to do something, it feels like there's a difficulty for people in letting go of that. They're unique that they've figured this out, I'm thinking about some of these practitioners, and the doctors and things that I've been there this week. It's sometimes taken many many years and hours and experiment after experiment after experiment to figure out how to do something that now, if the truth is told, they could train somebody how to do, they could train another who what it is that they do, in a fraction of the time that it took them to figure out how to do it. But yet, they're reluctant to let that go. Or to pass that on in a way. It almost fields like they guard this as their competitive advantage. I don't know what the psychology of this is. Maybe they feel like nobody else could possibly do this. It took me this long to figure it out.
Dan: Yeah, and you know, I've invested so much, there's got to be important. You've got to give meaning to all the hard work and all the isolation that you put in to get this. Plus, there's just that they're nervous system has been trained that this is where all value and meaning in my personal life is in the how-thing. You know Dean we were right. You and I were right because I never really liked learning how to do things. I never really did it. If I looked at all the things going back looking at childhood, if I would write down my top twenty memories from childhood, it was either just me out kind of wandering and thinking about things while I was wandering or it was talking to people. There is nothing of mastering some activity that would come in my top twenty childhood memories. Not a single, and I could probably push it down to fifty and I still wouldn't get me being involved in how-ing. And yet I was being graded on my how ability and everything else, but it was all the thinking and the conversations. Wandering, I'm a wanderer.
I like just going to some new place and just walking true. But I'm thinking about things while I'm doing it, I'm thinking about my thinking while I'm doing it. I've never gotten much emotional reward out of the mastering anything. Out of the process of it.
Dean: You're right. That is. I love to figure. That's what is really interesting. I love the insight of something because often there's, when you've figured something out as an idea, a what, that can come in an instant, but the actual doing of it, the showing your work thing takes more time, it's not as rewarding. Once you know how it works.
Dan: I'll give you a real contrast. You know the café that we have at our Toronto office, the big café. So, I have a fifty seat, it's about fifty seat, café, and we use it for all sorts of different reasons but what it does is it gives me an office that gets completely cleaned at the end of every workday. So, I have a table and the table, I walk in in the morning and everything's clear, there's no stacks. Stacks of stuff or anything like that. I will never have a neat office, so I got rid of the whole concept of office so I just go to the cafe.
So anyway, but I didn't have a sound system in there. Somebody brought in sort of a tape recorded and everything else, but I wanted speakers and everything. So we had a team member, and he was in the tech department, so I said, I would like you to scope out for me, and I did an impact filter on him, this is what I wanted, and I gave it to him, and it was three months later, and he said, well I'm still doing the research. So, finally the faithful moment arrives it's month number four, and he comes in and he's got a binder that's three inches thick and he's got it tabbed, and he had investigated fifteen different sound systems. And his idea of the meeting that we were having was he was going to take me through all fifteen tabs and explain each of the sound systems that he had gone through. And he went to open the binder, and I took the binder and I closed it and I said, have you investigated all fifteen. He said yes. I said, and you've looked at my impact filter about what I wanted. Which of the fifteen matches up best with my success criteria?
No, no, he said, I just wanted. No, no, I said I want an answer right now. We'll it's number seven here. I said, show me number seven, and the picture. I said that's great, so buy it. No, no, I just. I said, nope. I don't want to hear any of it. If you look at the impact filter, nowhere does it say that I wanted to learn which of fifteen, the research of fifteen. You've added that to the project, but that's not what I wanted, all I really wanted is for you to scope out a system, recommend one, and I'll give you the go ahead to go purchase that system. And he was in pain because he wanted to explain all his how-ing.
Dean: How I came to the conclusion, right.
Dan: But, I didn't care. I love it. But I could see he was in pain. Because he wanted me to give meaning to his four months of investigation but, all I wanted him to do was make a decision which one and we would buy it. So, yes. I turned him into a who, but he wanted to turn me into a how.
Dean: The thing is that that is a skill on its own though. Because what you're describing it's not easy for people to do. Just like it's difficult for him to just tell you the outcome, the rec, I think we should buy number seven and it's the one that fits your best thing, would you like me to do that? His need for you to understand that as entrepreneurs, your explain it to the gentlemen who's doing all the research, what you displayed was an incredible amount of insight that most entrepreneurs would then want to go through and hear all of those things. You know. They feel like they have to keep their hand on the wheel kind of thing. Make sure nothing was missed, see it. Just sort of be able to just let that go.
What I was thinking about Dan was when you made the transition from doing workshops, the big transition that I know from your history of this is you figuring out the strategy circle, building a practice of working with people one on one as your way of facilitating or transferring the knowledge, the how that you had for people to get clarity, work with them one on one. The big transition was going into workshops where you could have a group of people and then that next transition of going from other people doing the workshops and what I'm interested in, that transition looking back on it now, how, because you had a very specific way of, first of all you figured out, well how can I get the results of the one on one in a workshop format, which took you time and courage to kind of make that transition, and you were able to get the results, and I imagine that you then went into how can I get the results with other people. And what was the, looking back on it now kind of thing, how would you how did you or would you apply this thinking to that.
Because I think a lot of people are at that stage where they're letting go of their need to be involved in actually delivering the result.
Dan: Yeah, I mean, real quickly when I first became a coach in 1974, I had no methods. I did have the method and that was I'm good with words, I can ask really good questions. But, I can draw on, I'm a trained artist, I see things visually, so I was able to just take a big sheet of paper and draw out the results of my asking them questions. They would get a lot of value out of it. That was eight years, I did that from 74 to 82. Down in 82, it struck me in one day that all the drawings were kind of the same drawing, which I called the strategy circle. And I said, so instead of it being open ended at the beginning and we start with a blank sheet of paper. We'll start with an actual diagram and it's flexible enough that there are specific information could go on. And that was a big jump because I went ten times in income with this diagram that I could do previously just being open ended about it. And they loved it. And everybody loved the process.
And the other thing is I could renew them into that process. So, it was ten times on the spot but then it became people could go on and every quarter they'd like to go through this exercise. But at a certain point you run out of time, so you said, you know, I bet I could take you know five to ten people and put them in a room at the same time and take them through the diagram and that was the next jump, and that was the workshop and I did that from. So the strategy circle, I did 1982 to 1989, when ten times income. And then going into the workshop went another ten times from 89 to 95. And then I had people who were kind of good coaches and we had created enough of a method around the strategy circle, that they could actually coach workshops. And so, that was a huge jump because we now had 15 coaches, and they do 400, roughly, this year they'll do about 450 workshop days. And I'm not involved in that at all, I'm not involved in any of that activity with them, I put teams in between me and things. And that's what I do, is I keep jumping upwards in terms of what's the highest level workshop. Six years ago I jumped to the ten times level and now in April I'm jumping to the game changer program.
Dean: And then I'm finally going to get to see the Chicago office.
Dan: And then, ten times. By the way Joe stump came back, your buddy Joe Stump, he came back and he started his first workshop on Thursday after 18 years. Anyway.
Dean: He started that with you.
Dan: Yeah, with me, he just joined an existing group, he had been in the program before so we just put him in. And he had a great time.
Dean: He's great.
Dan: But the big thing. Here's the thing. I have a workshop in April. This is the game changer program. That one workshop, which is four days in a year, you have when people sign up they get four workshops. So, it's four days of my time. And then I would say probably about four days of my time to get that updated. So let's say that my time, in the next year. The income from those eight days, during the next twelve months, will be equal for my total revenues for the first four years of the workshop.
Dean: God bless America.
Dan: I'm single handily making America great again.
Dean: That's exactly right. That's so funny. It's so great, isn't it? I'm excited about being part of that workshop, because every time it's like a new level of jump. You elevate and the ten times workshop has been an incredible outcome and catalyst for me in my life. Form the moment you announced it, that's you'll be part of that. Because it's I'm just committed to continue to expand.
Dan: But, here's the thing about it dean, the game changer, and I've really thought it through now, and I've really got a great explanation for it which you'll see in March when you come to your next workshop. But, it's strictly, who not how, because what I do is I say, well you've developed a ten times capability if you take the breakthrough blueprint, it represents a ten times capability over any kind of consulting you used to do in a report. Where you just meet with people, he breakthrough blueprint of the ten times capability, and what the thinking here is, I said, okay, take your best year, which would be the last year, and multiply it by 100, one hundred times. Now, any inclination that you thought you're going to do that, let's say that you could do twice what you did last year, well that thought of going twice is actually a dangerous thought, because the only way you could go twice is more how-ing with the ability you already have, but 100 times, the brain says there's just no possibility of me actually being a how person here. So that means there has to be some sort of collaboration out in the world. With other people who can do the how that would take it to 100 times. And I see that, I see that now, you're not even tempted.
And I'll give you an example, we have a guy in ten times, his name is Norm Dunigan, he's from South Carolina, and he's creating an automated pub, it's a Beer Pub. It's called the tap room and it's a really neat idea. It's a room probably about half the size of the big workshop room in Toronto. Think about half the size. And there's one attendant, front stage in this place. You walk in and you go up to a stand and you show the person your driver’s license and your credit card, and what then is issued is 32 ounces of beer that you get as a bracelet, a bracelet goes on, and RFD bracket. And on three walls of the room are forty different beer dispensaries, and you can get a complete description of the beer, and they have glasses that you can use and you can have as little as an ounce, as much as 16 ounces. But you only get 32 ounces. You only get 32 ounces. That's all you get. So, the traffic moves though this place really quite quickly, people will come for an hour, an hour and a half, and then new people come in.
Long story short, from start to finish, took him eight months to actually create this concept and open the doors. Since then it's been 70 percent profit. Week in, week out, seventy percent profit. And he's in South Carolina so the weather's kind of mild, so he's got an outdoor patio, that's got a heater, he can heat it if he needs to so he's got a massive amount of room. So we were talking to him, and this isn't even his business, his business is waste products, he collects waste products. But he just had an idea for this kind of Pub and just put it together. And now, I said to him, what do you want to do now? Well I'd like to go national. Okay, so let’s start with the idea of one hundred of these. Okay?
And he says, well I haven't the foggiest idea how to do that. I said, now here's the really interesting fork in the road for you is that you could staff up and bring on all the skills of going national, you could do that if you wanted, and you'd be in a lot of how-ing that you don't like. Or, you could say I need a nationalizer capability and I'm looking for one person who would be as much in love with this idea as I am and so we would collaborate to do that and I would never do more than I'm doing now. I'll just follow the control of the model because it's my model and I created it. And the other person would do the expansion because this is what they do and we've already linked him up with two people from strategic coach who would just love doing this again. But I said, properly you should be able to go 100 times with maybe one or two meetings and no lawyers.
Dean: Wow, I mean. When you were talking about the collaboration that's when we at our workshop we talked about this idea of collaboration versus vendor ship. You know? That was the catalysis that moved things up. You've got your idea, somebody else has their capability which you've just described with that. That's a neat thing, and I'm listening to that for myself because that's very timely advice for me. I look out, I'm in a situation where my blueprint events, I do nine of those a year, I don't really want to do more of those, I don't think that they're as effective if I have thirty or forty people in them. So I think in that same way that it would be a good thing for me to find a who that could do these break through blueprint workshops as well.
Dan: Yeah, and they have to be in ... the thing is, if you're doing nine, multiplied by 100 and there's nine hundred of these ...
Dean: The thing is though, I think that one that level like we look at it. Well you describe it, so right now you're highest level workshop is 50,000 dollars for somebody to be part of the game changer program. So, there are a lot of people who would love that information but are not at a point where they can spend 50,000 dollars on a workshop, but they could spend 5000. Like the way that your, the difference in the price between doing the ten times program with you, versus doing the signature program before. That it opens it up to more people. And I look at it that, that's kind of the thing. You're at the beginning of this, like at the peak of it taking it to the newest and highest levels kind of thing. You're creating symphonies out of your stuff here, that's the way I was describing, I look at my eight profit activators as a framework that is almost like music theory. Every, the way I describe it often is every song ever written is some combination of the eight notes in an octave. And it's the same thing that every business success is some masterful execution of a strategy of applying the eight profit activators.
And so you can equally take those eight notes and you can learn to play twinkle twinkle little star with one finger, or you can depending on your capability take it up and create a symphony with many parts. And so, taking that theory, that music theory or that profit activator theory, and bringing it to a point where any business at any level has access to the thing that's going to take them to the next thing. Because I don't have any interest in personally being in a room with people teaching them to play twinkle twinkle with one finger. You know what I mean? That's the same thing.
Dan: I mean, first of all, we have lifestyle traits that go along with that. It's what we like doing. But, the thing is I came to an understanding over the last month or so that if I can get them to understand the logic of taking it one hundred times, then it's a pretty easy thing for them to go ten times. And I just realized that if I was starting the ten times program today, started it in 2012 but if I was starting it today my first planning model would be going a hundred times and working out the logic because ten times still allows people a little wiggle room for how-ing, but 100 times doesn't allow you any wiggle room at all for how-ing. There's no way.
Dean: When you said that. The first time you presented it was the 10x program. The ten times program was that thinking of, doubling feels like you're just gonna put your head down and work harder and be more efficient, and be more productive. But when you said that originally that ten times lets you put your pencil down and realize you can't do that by just working harder, but then thinking 100 times is even another magnitude beyond that.
Dan: You won't even have a vapor of a thought that I'm gonna do the how on this because there's no way I could do that. And I noticed that there were still people doing how-ing around ten times. I said, well the multiplier is not big enough, we'll go another ten and then we'll flush the suckers out. All those howers.
Dean: That's the first time I've heard you say that. And I already have that thought already. I have that thing, you do the math and you realize that 100 times and you realize. Wow, that's a big business.
Dan: I mean you're going to do it but what would be the logical implications of 100 times. If you're doing 100 times, Dean's just taking to people. Dean isn't doing ... first of all there's nothing to do. Cause the model is this.
Dean: That's funny funny funny.
Dan: The materials are there, you might add some other communication dimensions to it like multi-media. You might do that. But it's not a big deal. It's basically people who are great at carrying on conversations for three days. You know where they're going through the eight profit activators and Joe's getting people to talk about what they're doing. And those people in the workshop are writing things down. So, you can have them taking to each other and that's all very impressive thinking, very constructive learning. But the big thing is that your life doesn't get any more complicated, you know a series of meetings with the other side of the equation, the other capability that you're adding to it. It's not onerous because if you're chosen well and they're a great collaborator then they're doing the how-ing, or they're leading the how-ing on the other side of the line and you don't have to do that how-ing.
Dean: You're absolutely right. That's the whole, it's funny you bring up Joe's stuff because we were talking about that last year. We did a breakthrough blueprint together in San Diego and during that we were talking about our collaboration. We worked together for fourteen years and it was really exactly what you're describing. We have somebody who was in charge of running the team and building the organization and of course I was in Toronto and Florida, so I was never really in the office on the day to day stuff. But we were able to, we did one big event a month and during that event we would have, when I wasn't on stage speaking, we'd have meetings. Our conversations about what we're doing moving forward and it's really like those conversations with the right who's are like fly wheels that they can't ... the idea stuff from concentrate takes more time to execute so every one of those meetings that we would have once a month would fill up the ... would set that fly wheel in motion to actually execute the things that we would talk about, make the adjustments and then be ready to share the results and talk about adjustments at the next meeting in the next month. And so it was really great collaboration.
Dan: I mean it's fascinating to me because what I'm doing now in the workshops ... the neat thing is that people have signed up for the game changer program over starting in September. So in every ten times workshop I have people who are in the room who are already signed up for the game changer program. And they're probably going to be back in that ... that Chicago week, I have the game changer but I have two other ten times workshops, so the ten times is actually the golden ticket. We have, people can go to any number of workshops they want. I have them and so what I do is I put a stool up front and they get up on the stool and they have a mic, and I have a multi-media that goes through the entire logic game changer how it actually gets constructed. And they talk through their model and it's just fascinating to people to hear these models that people have and the kind of collaboration that they're doing. I said you know, here's the thing about each of you. I said, we have this group starting in April, and I expect to fill up the room.
But I said, and you are sitting there and you're thinking about it and you're saying gee, I can see that in developing just my company they way I'm developing it, I'll probably get to the point where making more money by working harder at the model I have just isn't going to make any sense whatsoever. So you're faced with the ultimate decision then, which all entrepreneurs are faced. It's so funny. I said there's a fork in the road. There's the who versus how. But that fork in the road has got another thing, if you go game changer, this is the fork you're taking it's pure unique ability because you can go one hundred times but never go outside your unique ability because what you're bringing into the game is simply the ten times capability that you've already developed, and that's of extraordinary value to the collaborator partner that you've done. That person is working for you as much as you're working of for them. But you've got this 100 times result and it's just gross and expansion and abundance for the rest of the ... more so than at any time in your entrepreneurial career that's one fork in the road.
Here's the other fork in the road. You get really bored with your business and if it does 50% more income it's not of great interest to you because it was doing well already. You get really bored and you retire and then you start declining and there's no more challenge there's no more clapping audience, there's no more stimulation and then you die.
Dean: That's about the appealing path.
Dan: Well, I said but how many people do you know who actually chose this who were entrepreneurs? They were really hot...
Dean: Or you buy a sport's franchise like you said. That's where the entrepreneurs buy a sports team. You know they're on the decline when they buy a sports franchise.
Dan: Short the stock when they do that. It's like Elon Musk, I don't know what kind of game he's playing but every time people bring up the fact that he's not hitting any of his production numbers selling the new low priced Tesla, he says, yeah, we're really getting ready to create that mars rocket. Every time he starts taking about his rocket ships to mars, I say, wow he must really not be hitting his production numbers.
Dean: Over here, over here.
Dan: Over here pay no attention. Pay no attention to those production numbers. The whole thing is that, I'm sitting here at 73 as I've reminded the listeners before. And I'm looking at this game changer thing, and I said this is the most exciting entrepreneurial move of my entire life. I'm so excited about this. Because it's all about who is doing this and who is doing this. And I've got fifty who's in a room who are all collaborating. What kind of learning is there?
Dean: I can't wait. It's going to be amazing. This is even just in the panels that you've had. The game changer panels, the catalysis panels, are some of the ideas that have come out of just four or five people bouncing ideas and building on each other. You see how that gets a little ... I like it.
Dan: You know why we're having this conversation right now Dean. Because we were right at six years old.
Dean: We were right at six years old, we got it. I was able to hold off for fifty one years on still maintaining the ability to achieve excellent results with what seems like little effort and not having to get myself to try harder.
Dan: Yeah, and you know I was looking at your interview on the movie. The movie that we put out there when we were talking about the grind of being an entrepreneur. And you know people luxuriating in the awfulness, the grind of that ... It's a very powerful portion of the...
Dean: I think it is true that that's something that ... the thing is we sort of fetishize the hustle, you've got to be sun up to sun down, working hard, grinding it out, sacrificing, all these things and we kind of reward that behavior.
Dan: The fact that your fifth wife doesn't like it any better than the first four is of no consequence. But this is really exciting and you know, this is the joy of procrastination podcast, and I think we've really better than anything I've ever seen identified the reason for procrastination and it's the fork in the road after you've fallen in love with the future possible result when you take the how route rather than the who root. That's why you procrastinate, because it's going to take you into energy draining how work, and that's why you procrastinate and I fell very solid with the insight on this one.
Dean: Me too. That's great. What's your next big thing that's happening there as you're starting the year?
Dan: The big thing is to fill out the seats now. I mean, buy some seats is really the task right now. We're halfway. We have twenty five out of fifty. But my feeling is that we're within the three months window now, so we've got about fifteen who said absolutely on there, no applications yet, and no check. No reality until there's an application and a check. But my goal is February 28th heading towards April 10th that we'll be at forth. We'll have forty outside and that'll be a big deal for us. But I've already worked out the workshop, you'll be quite amazed what the workshop actually looks like. Because it's not really simple and it's very very exciting for me right now. That was another goal by February 28th I would have the entire model of the program worked out and then the first workshop, I'm doubly clear about the first workshop. Anyway. It's really neat. It's as neat as the original strategy circle that got me going. I think it's the most interesting dynamic that I've created since the original strategy circle.
Dean: I can't wait.
Dan: It's that whole thing that my basic operating principal is that when I get excited by an idea I say, I'm going to put on a play. I'm selling tickets to a play. Well, what's the play about. Well, what do you want to play to be about?
Dean: It's going to be awesome.
Dan: I don't know what it is, but it's going to be great, trust me.
Dean: That's the thing. How many people, you have your favorite authors, and your favorite movie makers, and you've earned the right, or you've earned a group of people that that's all you need to say. Sometimes your favorite writers, they say I'm writing a new book, or I'm making a new movie, and everyone is, they're in no matter what.
Dan: That's where you're credibility. By the way, movie not to be missed is The Darkest Hour with Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill. Hands down he's going to, not that this is a sign or anything great, but he's going to win the academy award. I mean, an amazing, amazing performance.
Dean: Is that the one with the trailer where he's yelling at him to tell him to stop interrupting him while he's interrupting him?
Dan: Yeah, stop interrupting me while I'm interrupting you.
Dean: That's great.
Dan: No, but some really great ... very gripping movie. We saw it on Christmas Day. They just opened it because they have to get it in before New Years for the Academy Awards. So, they just opened it in a couple of theaters here in Toronto and we went to see it. Just sheer pleasure and very gripping I mean. Anyway. So it was a great movie.
Dean: That's awesome. Well, I can't wait. I take your movie recommendations very seriously. So I will immediately proceed to the theater to see Darkest Hour.
Dan: Alright.
Dean: I will look forward to our next Joy of Procrastination conversation.
Dan: It's a need which is in a schedule.
Dean: Thanks Dan.
Dan: Thanks Dean.