Ep114: The Art of Self-Management

In today's episode of Welcome To Cloudlandia, I share the story of my unexpected adventure travelling to Buenos Aires for a pioneering knee stem cell treatment.

I describe how my blood and fat cells were transformed into new cartilage and transported across continents for the procedure. I also recount my partner Babs' experience treating an inflamed toe and the vitality we've regained.

Our discussion explores the pursuit of longevity and regenerative medicine's potential to make 156-year lifespans attainable through the normalization of audacious goals.

We delve into hopes for abundant years energized by purpose and new ventures. Additionally, I discuss the art of self-talk and strategies like daily focus tasks negotiated through self-management.

 

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

• Dan shares his transformative experience with stem cell treatment in Buenos Aires, describing the process of turning his own cells into cartilage.
• We discuss the broader implications of regenerative medicine and how it might extend our lifespans and rejuvenate our vitality.
• The episode touches on the concept of setting ambitious longevity goals, like living to 156 years, to guide life's endeavors and encourage significant projects.
• Dean talks about the importance of mental self-management and compares it to a daily negotiation to focus on critical tasks.
• We delve into the balance between productive 'focus days' and the freedom of 'buffer days', and how each contributes to overall productivity and creativity.
• The conversation includes insights on the internal quest for happiness and whether the 'fountain of youth' might be a state of mind.
• Dean and I examine the concept of 'Dean Landia', a metaphor for the mental environment we create and have control over.
• We discuss the entrepreneurial mindset, emphasizing the role of deadlines, and the Danger, Opportunity, and Strength (DOS) and Money, Labor, and Time (MLT) frameworks for success.
• The episode reflects on how personal goals influence our actions and the normalization of extraordinary ambitions to build confidence.
• Dean describes his experience with stem cell treatment for his knee injury and his partner Babs' treatment for an inflamed toe, highlighting the physical and psychological benefits they've experienced post-treatment.

Links:
WelcomeToCloudlandia.com
StrategicCoach.com
DeanJackson.com
ListingAgentLifestyle.com

TRANSCRIPT

(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)

Dean: I wouldn't have it any other way. Welcome, Mr Claude Ladiak. Mr.

Dan: Jackson. Mr Jackson, yeah Well, very pleasant woman who, and you know, I was the first one on today and she said you're the first one to Join the call, the others will join pretty soon and so far, in about seven years, only one person has shown up. So I want to know who the? Others are. Is this the National Security Agency? Is this the Communist Party of China? I'm just trying to get a handle of who the others are.

Dean: I think you're probably right once, two or more Gathered that everybody is.

Dan: Yeah, but I found that just the two of us is more than enough. That's the truth.

Dean: Well, I am excited to hear about all of your Adventures here You've been. You've been all over the world. Here seems like you've been in Chicago. You've been in most exciting Lee Buena Flores. Yes, I'm excited to hear all about the Adventure here.

Dan: Yeah Well, spire Chicago goes. I missed the bullets, so that's all I can report on we're not. We're not in the part of the city that's in the crossfire zone, but anyway yeah. Buenos Aires was interesting.

It's only the second time I've been to South America, and the first time was just to land in Ecuador, co City in Ecuador, and then we took a flight to the Galapagos Islands and this was as the guest of Richard Rossi, who put together, you know, a gathering that went to the Galapagos Islands and you know the plain lands and one of the islands, and then you take a National Geographic boat and I think it's Linblad and National Geographic and then you know we investigated all the sea life and the animal life which are, you know, very distinct from what's found elsewhere, and that was great, but it was mostly just painting out, with a whole bunch of people that were interesting to talk to.

So that's only the first time and that was a long time ago. And then we just do Create the setting here. The context, again, as a result of being a guest of Richard Rossi, has a mastermind group which is called Da Vinci 50, and Babs and I took us two or three years to get our schedule right so that we could Guarantee our attendance at all the different meetings, but the very first one, this was in New Orleans. This was last January. I met a doctor, babs. I met a doctor there from Buenos Aires by the name of Gustavo Mabilia, and, and he told a story about what he's doing with stem cells and these are your own stem cells, white blood cells and fat cells that if you collect them and then send them. It's not an entirely easy process to get them to Argentina, but we got them there and he would then convert them into the stelle, the stem cells that you're having problem with your and your body and I have an orthopedic injury in 1975.

I tore my cartilage in the left knee and in those days they would Take out the torn cartilage. They wouldn't do that today, but that's you know, that was the best that was going 48 years ago. And he said oh, we can regrow your cartilage. She said we can the part that was snipped out. We can regrow that cartilage and I said that's cool.

That's cool. Yeah, I was convinced that Babs has a chronically inflamed right toe that really impedes a lot of her walking or exercise and it's inflamed bones. So I didn't know that bones got inflamed. It shows up on MRIs when you do an MRI. So long story short, through dr Hasi, who's our main Medical guide and explorer for us in Nashville, tennessee. He's got a clinic there called Maxwell Clinic. He did all the, you know the coordination before us to. You know, make sure that our stem cells were there, make sure that the they turn it into a magic potion I don't know too much more about it and he arranged with for our trip down. So we went. This is so. Yesterday was Saturday, we're talking on Sundays, it was two. Two Saturdays ago we took an overnight flight to Buenos Aires, where it's now springtime because they're in the other hemisphere.

Yeah, it's more complicated than I'm telling you, but that's the upshot of it for the week and and so, as far as the you know, the brain cells and the vascular cells, the only thing I can say and I have to be, I think I have to be cautious here, but because I have, like a lot of entrepreneurs do, I have the ability to create my own placebo's.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Yeah, okay so all. I can say I've come back after the trip and we had. We came back after seven days and and this week I have felt more energized and more confident.

Dean: Then I can remember recently sounds like quite an adventure and the upside yeah, gonna be. The upside is gonna be a total new development of cartilage in your knee specifically. Second, what's the Hope for it Like? Are you gonna have the knees of a preteen Swedish boy, or are you gonna Just have the normal knees of 79?

Dan: well, basically yeah, I'll basically have the, basically the knee I had before the injury. Okay so that's 48 years, so six months, and the orthopedic is pretty easy for them. I mean, they're doing some advanced work and other parts of the body, but the cartilage is, you know, it's pretty, it's not a complicated thing, right? But what happens is they take my blood cells and my fat cells and they turn, essentially turn it into new cartilage cells and that's. You know, that's what stem cells are that? How?

Dean: does it gather.

Dan: Yeah, well it's. This was all done in Nashville and.

So, what they do is they? You know it's, it's basically a centrifuge and you have an IV in both arms and the blood that gets taken out and it's, and they take the white blood cells out and then you know it's simultaneously they're taking blood out now return it to your body, but they're taking the white blood cells, which is far prior less of your blood than your red blood cells. Okay, actually it was like a two hour, two hour session and it was like a cup full. You know, after a big cup, a big mug full, and so that's the white blood cells and then the fat cells. You go to a plastic surgeon Because they're used to taking you know it's part of plastic surgery of taking out fat cells and so and you get enough they're, they're told how much of each are required for them to basically do a year's worth of. You know we're going to go down probably four times during the next 12 months, starting with the first trip two weeks ago.

And they'll have enough just from that one extraction, extraction of both, they'll have enough. So next time I go down I broke both my Achilles tendons in the 1970s. That was a bad decade. That my in 1970s were just a really bad decade anyway. So anyway, and the Structurally, I mean they're shortened because of the surgery, the tendons, are shorter, but they've developed calcification.

Oh yeah which reduces flexibility, and it's got pain attached to it. So next time they'll Take my same fat cells and white blood cells and they'll turn it into something that gets rid of all the Calcification and my and my tendons. Yeah, so, and that will give me more push-off, it'll give me more flexibility to go along with the new cartilage. So I think probably, you know, probably I'll be gaining back about 30 or 40 years of Running ability out of my legs, you know.

Dean: I always Run for his money yeah.

Dan: Well, yeah, I just want to run again. I enjoy running and I haven't been and it's been too painful to do for the last 10 years. And then the whole thing is the overall, the Direct injection. You're just going after a particular issue, but the IV, the, it goes into your brain and it looks for anywhere where your brain cells Are not performing correctly and it wakes them up. So the stem cells don't cure anything, they just wake up the natural cells that are there and they start growing again.

And the same thing with the Vax vascular system. That's your, but I. I would say that Knowing that now I have the means to repair anything in my body as soon as it's identified as a problem is Very confidence.

Dean: It's very confidence building you know it's very and.

Dan: I was noticing that I had sort of blot into Sort of why I know I'm wearing down and I know that there's an end to it at some point, but I hadn't realized how much that was until I got the other thought that, no, almost anything that's going wrong with you you can repair now and you can rejuvenate it, and so that's a. That's a huge confidence builder.

Dean: Yeah, and it's really I mean perfectly timely, right as you're entering into, you know, in my ninth decade. Yeah, exactly entering into your ninth decade with the goal of it being the best decade ever which I love that framework, by the way and at a time when normally it would be, you know, physical deterioration happening, you're like physical rejuvenation.

Dan: You're going backwards on that thing, yeah, I mean yeah, you know the there's so many factors that are involved in aging, and some of it is just the fact that your cells only reproduce 50 times. Okay, there's a thing which is called the Haflick barrier. This is a I don't know quite what kind of scientists he was, but he found that every cell in the body and there's 20, I think, 26,000 different types of cells in the body, some number like that they all reproduce only 50 times, as far as they can tell, but they don't do it equally. They don't, they don't. They're not doing it at the same time. Heart muscles might be faster, other cells are slower, but it sort of reaches the limit of everything by the time you're 120. We only have one person on record where there's actual valid records of birth who has lived 120.

She also lived, she also. She got to 122. She died. A French woman who died about 10 years ago.

Dean: And that's the only person that.

Dan: I mean, there's all these claims, you know, you know around the world, the people who lived at 200 and 300 and everything else, but they don't have any valid records which actually established that. So anyway, but but most people don't get to 120.

Dean: Right, exactly.

Dan: Yeah, I mean, even if you only got to 120,. I said, even if you only got to 120,. I said well yeah, I mean, if you're an entrepreneur and you're at top of your game at 60, and you're saying, no, I guess I have to retire pretty soon. Well, the decision to retire is sort of telling your body it doesn't matter how long the body lasts now I mean, it can go really quickly.

But if I know I'll be 18 next May and if I know that I can stay in top form for another 25 or 30 years at the top of my game right now, then that's a big deal.

Dean: Yeah, I look at, I saw me. You know, bob Barker died earlier this year at 99. And the thing that was going around with that, he got to as close to 100 as he could without going over the big showcase showdown. Kind of close to 100.

Dan: But you know George Burns, the comedian, very famous mid-century 20th century, you know, 40s through the 80s or 90s. He had a goal that he was going to do a full show at the Palladium in London, big Venue in London, england, and he did it. And then and I always gave him as an example because he was performing full time in his 90s and then- did an actual 100th birthday.

And then he was in a shower about four weeks later, he slept, broke his hip and he died two weeks later. And I said, George, you didn't understand what you did. You should have set another date for when you were 110. Exactly.

Dean: Isn't that amazing, I wonder? Yeah, I mean, that's kind of a. You've been programming yourself for 156 for as long as I've known you Since 1987, you know since 19, 36 years right now, yeah. Yeah. So that's kind of you know. You're just approaching or just at the halfway mark there ramping up, gaining speed, gaining momentum.

Dan: Well, people say do you really think you're going to live to 156? And I said I know I won't if I don't have it as a goal. Amen.

Dean: Well. Danny just setting yourself up for disappointment.

Dan: Well not me everybody who ends up with my messes after I'm gone. You know when I'm gone. What do I care?

Dean: Exactly, that's the point. I love that.

Dan: I love, I laugh.

Dean: I tell people that all the time, when you said the just for you, it's just going to be live, live, that's better. There, you go, you're not going to experience the disappointment.

Dan: There's a great French philosopher from the 1600s named Blaise Pascal.

Dean: And there's a blaze.

Dan: There's a Pascal wager. And he says you know, when you think about it, all of us regarding if there's anything after this life, it's a guess. You know it's a guess and it's a bet and he says but let's just take a look at the two bets. There's nothing after you die. Okay.

Dean: Okay well that's cool.

Dan: The other one is there's a whole other world after I die. And he says it's not so much which makes the best sense after you die. It's what bet makes the sense right now? Because if you think that there is a whole world afterwards and it turns out there's nothing, well you really haven't lost anything, because you know there's nothing, but what? If you believe your whole life there isn't anything after death, and then you find out that there and they said you know, and you said geez, if only I had.

Oh my God, if I had known this and he's believing there's a afterlife is a much better bet, psychologically and emotionally, for right now. Yeah, yeah so I'm kind of a. I'm a kind of a Pascal wager kind of guy.

Mm, hmm, that, I mean, is so back then everybody you know lived a life that took the natural course. You know I mean living to 60 and 70 in those days was kind of an achievement, with all the different ways you could die back then disease and you know and violence unless you were, unless you were, matthew's a lot. Yeah, yeah, but birth records.

Dean: No documentation.

Dan: I'm sorry, Matthew's a lot. I'm sorry, but where's your come on? Where's your papers? That's everybody.

Dean: Every time I think about muscle, I think about our Aubrey, aubrey de Grey. Yeah and the Missusola prize. Have you heard any updates on that? I've kind of lost the past. No, I saw video.

Dan: I saw a video of him talking and I got a feeling that that Living living two or three times more than natural, but not being happy right now is probably Not a good bet, because I didn't get the sense that he was a happy. I didn't get the sense that he was a happy person, you know. So I mean you never know, I mean people who never saw aren't necessarily unhappy, and people who smile all the time aren't necessarily happy, you know.

Dean: I mean happiness.

Dan: Yeah, an internal disc, it's an internal disposition, yeah. But anyway, you know I'm just reporting back. I'm sort of a bit of a trailblazer in relationship to this stuff, but I'm only. I will tell you, dean, I was thinking about this when I was in Buenos Aires that if I didn't have that goal of living to 156, I wouldn't be doing this stuff right now.

Dean: Yeah, that's true, right, you're already in traditionally if you speak about like. I'm beyond refund right now. You know, I mean, you're out of warranty. Right now You're an extra innings Actuarial tables. You're an actual outlier.

Dan: Yeah, but I'm really a profit center for the insurance companies. It's just been me paying them, just been me paying them up until now. I love it.

Dean: Dan is so great. I think this is like that's one of the great things of you know being alive at this time in particular, just all the access to these things. That's only gonna get better, as we understand. I remember when I went to the first, the first abundance 360 and Richard Rossi's friend, gary Kaplan, was there with us. I think you've met Dr Kaplan.

Dan: Oh no, Gary. Yeah, Gary, you know, I see him every, I see him at every defense. She 50 maybe.

Dean: You know, he's a great guy Okay yeah. Yeah, I really went to the go out there.

Dan: I went to the go out because silence with Gary, so we had a lot of time to talk.

Dean: So I've known him for a long time, you know, well, I remember when this was. This had to be Almost 10 years ago, right 9, 9 years ago. Anyway, the first abundance 360, not the very first one, the first one in LA Beverly Hills Hotel there, and you know I'm sitting with him and he was Saying you know, when you look at all the medical advancements that are coming right now, this is back then you said it's gonna.

It's gonna seem like we've been Throwing rocks at people to get them healthy, you know, compared to what's actually coming. I mean, yeah, we would describe what you know regenerative, and that's a good word. That's kind of become, you know, newly minted. Regenerative medicine is All the things from the on a cellular level regenerative Regeneration, replacement. You know we're pretty much going to be able to replace everything Before we repair it or repair it. Yeah, replace repair, regenerate right.

Dan: And that's pretty cool. So, yeah, I like well, I think, the hmm, I got involved with Peter Diamandas in I'm just trying to think. There was December of 2011, the first before a 360 meeting.

We didn't have a name for it, but this was in Silicon Valley and and one of the things that sort of connected Peter and Peter and me Was really the fact that we both had this commitment to living way beyond normal age, you know. But I had a thinking process, you know. Of course it's the first hour of strategic coach, which is the lifetime extender.

And he came in at that time and I said you know it's not a goal you can achieve unless you can normalize it as a normal thought. I said you know our brain, and Our brain really resists abnormal thoughts. We, it has to be normal.

So I set myself the goal in 1987 that every time I thought of my lifetime I would just think 156, you know, you know, at that time, life expectancy for males you know of my background and you know the thing was 78, so 156 is twice and so it took me about three years before it was just a normal thought. So whenever I you know I'm pushing 80 now and you know, and I said, well, what's my lifetime, I said 156. So at 80. That makes me very ambitious because I know I've got in my own mind, I've got, a way you know, enormous amounts of time left, really twice a lifetime 76 years.

Yeah, yeah, I got 76, 76 years to get things done, so it makes me Totally confident about starting new, big, new big things. And I mean your whole life is either happy or unhappy. Unhappy based on the kinds of conversations you're having with yourself. I agree.

Dean: I agree a hundred percent. I mean, you realize, I was realizing, I've been thinking a lot about this. You know, this straddling of the mainland and the cloud land via, and those thoughts then brought me into the actual game, which is game land is where at all happened and I realized that how much of you know Dean landia is affected by the inputs and circumstances and the Context and relationships and conversations and environments that you voluntarily Put yourself in, you know, surrounding yourself with the environment that's going to shanty people yeah, people, I mean.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: And.

Dan: I just had a thought, and that was triggered by your Dean Landia, that I only have direct access to one human being on the planet. You know, and same goes for you, and a lot of people spend their life. A lot of people spend their life trying not to be, not to deal with the one person they have direct access to you know they're hoping they're going to be saved from the proof that they hope something else will save them from the person that they're actually inside of, and you know so.

so my, my whole point is why don't you just take ownership for the, the relationship that you have just with this one person, and you know there's new dimension, there's new dimensions presenting themselves all the time.

And and the other insight I had and that comes from our conversations, because we're we've got a very similar approach to life on a lot of different fronts and I was thinking, you know, I've been trying to control my brain up until I think, about two years ago. I was going to control my brain and, you know, make sure my brain was focused on this and that. And I said why don't we change the relationship here and take for granted that you want, I have no control over my brain. And the other thing is why don't we just see where it goes every day? Because it's totally unpredictable. I spent one day and just sort of locked in where my brain was going that day and there was absolutely no predictability to what's forever. And I said, okay, why don't we just I'm just going to do it deal with my brain wherever it goes? During that day I wanted to do three useful things for my plans.

You can go anywhere you want, but by the end of the day, I want progress on this, I want progress on that, I want progress on that, okay just have fun, you know, do whatever you want, but by the end of the day, if you and I are going to sleep happily tonight, you know, I got to see progress on these three things.

Dean: Oh, my goodness, Dan, that's so funny. You know, it's like I've been having these exact conversations with myself here. It's like taking over the management. You know, it's all in that vein of you know, imagine if you applied yourself your FELF, these things of taking over the management, you just you hit it on the head that I only have direct control over one human on the planet and that's me.

And I thought about entering and I realized that my brain, my desires, my ambition, my you know vision, the visionary in my brain here is not necessarily the one in control of the, the doing part of my brain, the labor management versus labor right. And so I was thinking about I heard one time that there's a form of contract where a you know production will enter into a contract with an actor or a celebrity, that with their company on an SSO contract which is for services of. So it would be enter, as I thought it's kind of like entering into a contract with my brain here for services of being Jackson and thinking what you just said is like those. If I could just like allocate time and attention to you know I've I've thought a lot about your thing of three, three things a day. How much I'd love to hear from you how, on a buffer day when you are I don't know how you define whether buffer day or focus you've got workshop focus days where those are like the Bob's fled run kind of thing.

That you know what's happening on a workshop day. You get up and I'm sure your car arrives at a certain time and you get taken to the workshop and everything is for my computer, or my computer does, because some of them are virtual.

Yes, exactly Okay. And then but on the days where I never struggle with those, I realized that everything that I do get done has that external exoskeleton or that scaffolding to make sure that gets done. If you're just in the right, all you have to do is, you know, get in the car and the rest of it is taking place, or open up the computer and sit down and you're. You know you're able to focus and deliver the workshops.

But I'm curious about your free range time, where I think I may have, like I crave and do a lot to carve out big blocks of uninterrupted time, only to end up having nothing to show for it. Because, I don't get myself to sit down and do the things that I've carved out all this time to do. I'm curious how, what your experience is on getting Dan to do stuff that requires his own batteries, I guess I'd love to hear your experience.

Dan: Here again, I think we're very similar and I think that's why our podcasts are so enjoyable, because to a certain extent, neither of us wants it to end when we get going. But I have one of our models in the strategic coach is a theater model which is front stage, back stage, and front stage is really, whether you have a viable company or not, it's your front stage your profitable front stage impact is what determines whether you're getting paid to take care of everything else, and I don't have to be motivated for a front stage impact.

You know, and workshops is an example, podcasts is another example, creating new thinking tools is another example, and writing books is another example, or videos or audios. So these are all front stage. In other words, if I can get this done, then it has a multiplier impact out in the world on other people, and that either me directly interacting with the world, or our coaches or our team members interacting with the world, and that ends up in profitability. Okay, so those are my focus days, but some of the days that are not focused days, I have to be preparing for those days. Okay, but anytime.

I think of front stage impact preferably. I don't need to be motivated to do that, I love doing that.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: And that's my usefulness to myself, that's my usefulness to everybody I engage with. But just going back to my decision over the last two years of just letting my mind wander, when I'm not directly engaged in front stage impact activities, my brain can do anything at once. It can go anywhere and so I don't really care. Before I used to care. I'm not making use of my front stage, my back time, I'm not making it.

I said leave it alone, just let it go where it wants to go, let it run, let it go out and frolic, let it explore and everything else they really run. So I mean, it took me till practically age 78 to come to this agreement with my brain, and so I'm either in hyper focus, actually doing the things that make money and spread the reputation and do all sorts of good things, or it's free reign. I really don't care.

Dean: And to me what it does.

Dan: It frees me up from the tyranny of time and effort. That you're absolutely maximizing the use of your time. I said I don't care about my time and I don't care about my effort, as long as I make a front stage a profitable front stage impact. If it takes me an hour to do that, and it's an hour if it takes me a full day workshop, then it's a full day workshop, but I don't really care about the time and the effort, I just really care about the impact. And then backstage.

I just say brain, go and do whatever you want to do, think about anything you want to think about, and I couldn't care less. You don't have to justify your existence. My brain doesn't have to justify its existence when it's not on stage.

Dean: That's very interesting when you're creating a new tool. For instance, you introduced a tool on Friday for our pre-melt connection. Call yeah, your melt tool, and what's happening? How does that come about? What's your process?

Dan: for that.

Dean: That's one of the key outputs that you're providing is new IP and thinking tools for the thing, so how does that come about? If your mind goes, you mentioned you've read Peter Zion's book seven times now.

Dan: Yeah, the end of the world is just the beginning. I think it's the most important book in the world. I'm reading and I read it seven times. So it's Peter Zion.

Dean: Z-E-I-H-A-N.

Dan: And the book is called.

Dean: The.

Dan: End of the World is Just Beginning and he's written. This is the fourth book that he's written since 2014, where he's just predicting that everything we were expecting to happen 10 years ago ain't going to happen that way, and a whole new world is going to happen.

Dean: And he's got very plausible readings.

Dan: I'm not going to explain the book here but it has a profound impact on me.

But it seemed to me that he was operating at a macro geopolitical level and I said well, is there a simple sort of set of gauges, if you will underneath, that determines in any place at any time whether things are moving forward or they're stagnating or they're falling behind? And I came up, it just sort of fell out of. He doesn't talk about this directly, but after I'd read it a whole number of times, it just struck me that it was the cost of four things that determine this, and one of them was the cost of money. How much is it cost you to get money? And that comes in two forms how much is it cost you to get a loan and how much is it cost you to get an investment? Those are the two main, the financial vehicles that underlay growth. And then your profitability is the third one. Are you keeping a lot of what you're making?

Dean: That's savings.

Dan: And then the cost of energy and all of its different forms and the cost of labor getting really top notch. You have access to other people's skills, and how much is it cost you to do that? And then the cost of transportation, because we live in a physical world and to move a pound costs money including your own pounds and that costs energy and I just started playing with this.

I know we did. I was mentioned on a previous one of our podcasts Mike Kenix, we did it on that and everybody I talked about it. It had a simplifying effect on their thinking. I said this is a good tool. That's all I do If you come up with an acronym and it's. M-e-l-t. And I said I think we're going into a great meltdown next 30 years where everything of those four factors is going to cost more, and you can see it. Yeah, I mean you can see it.

All you have to do is read the news every day. Most of this is going up, energy is costing more, labor is costing more and transportation is costing more. And I said so. You know, I think it's a neat way. So what I did is I just introduced a tool to the free zone entrepreneurs, just two days ago, when you were there and I said if this is true, let's just suppose that it's true, that these costs are going to go up for everyone else and what's your biggest advantage and opportunity over the next 30 years? And that's just. That would be a thinking tool, and it has two qualities it's a sudden new thought, it provokes your interest, but it brings your right back to what you, as an entrepreneur, can take advantage of. So those are my criteria for a new thinking tool for a strategic coach. It took me from the time the thought occurred me to Friday, because that's the first time I did it.

It took me six months of playing around with the idea, checking with other people you know conversation and then just looking at the news and saying, is the news going in the direction of the theory? You know?

Dean: Yeah, and then. So when you like to get it to that tool, state that's part of your when you're letting your mind wander. It's so funny, dan, I've been talking about this idea of the self-milking cow, the idea of embracing your bovinity and realizing that you're the one that can create the milk. And if you set up an environment like I've moved towards, is that we basically have things divided into three divisions. I call it the pastures, which is me out roaming the pastures, you know, exploring and being a happy cow.

And then we have got a milking shed and the milking shed is set up for me to come in and be, milked, essentially to turn my thoughts, free range thoughts, into, you know, into digital milk, meaning that we're recording something about my you know I'm doing it either through a podcast or through a Zoom or interview or whatever we've got with my team. And then we have the processing plant, where they take the digital milk and they process it into podcast, courses, tools, anything like that.

So I'm curious, like it sounds like one of your pasture roaming activities is reading things like the like Peter Zion's book and your six you know your of daily input from real clear politics and the Wall Street Journal and All the things that you do. You put those all in and then ruminate on them and and then outcomes the things. When you're turning it into a tool, though, are you consciously like? Are you starting with, like illustration, journaling, doodling? What's your, what's your kind of creation process for?

Dan: yeah, I do, because our tools come in in One page written. There's boxes and the box. You know the number of boxes, the kind of boxes you have so with with the melt tool. All I did was have it's called your great meltdown and your great meltdown DOS. Okay, so DOS is a previous tool that we have in coach is that and any human activity. There people are responding to dangers that they're fearing loss of some sort. The other thing is opportunities, where they're excited about the possible gain of something.

Dean: And then their strength.

Dan: These are the things that they already have going for them. And I said I think all human beings, every day, operate within a unique DOS framework of things that are fearful about, things are excited about and things that they're confident about. So what I did is I did a matrix and matrixes are cool, so the cool way of structuring where you have MLT, money, energy, labor, t and then I had four arrows going up for, I think, cost, and then down the side I had danger, opportunity, strength. And then I said to the entrepreneurs, because they're familiar with the DOS, everybody At the level that you're at in coach, the free zone. This is an old tool.

This is, you know, 20 years old and some of you have been there 20 years and I said so from your standpoint that all of your clients and potential clients, customers, are going to have the danger of rising melt costs. What's your opportunity in this? Okay. So what's there the opportunity with dangers? What's the opportunity? Yeah. What's your opportunity with other people's opportunities? And what's your Opportunity with other people's strengths? And then you go through it and there's another exercise which I won't go into right here, and you come back and then you just have a general conversation, you have breakout sessions and conversation, and the room goes crazy, you know, and because everybody's done thinking about their thinking, they've talked about their thinking, and they come back and they hear everybody else's thinking and that's what produces the workshop.

But the thing that triggers all this motion is that I have deadlines to create new things.

Dean: Yes, I got it and that's really how it all comes out and that's, I think, do you have a sense of what your, how much of your time? Is that free range versus you know the structured workshops? And so I guess it's getting left, or more and more Free range.

Dan: Well, I would say even on my most intense front stage days. Still, the majority of the day is free range and then when I don't have that type of thing. It's all free range, yeah, but it's not a. Yeah, without a commitment to someone else to deliver something, giving myself deadlines is worthless. Yeah, me too.

Dean: I've discovered that about me giving myself a backstage free range deadline.

Dan: Well, first of all, I think free range and deadline is a contradiction in terms. Right.

Dean: Yeah, this is what I like about the, you know is doing a workshop or scheduling a milking session. Is I know that if I've got a milking session Scheduled, like I've been going to the studio?

Yeah you know, on Thursday morning, 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock, and I know that you know I'm prepared for For being milked at that at those times, you know. So I'm either, yeah, doing something myself. Some of the best things that I've done have been just preparing myself to record a State of the Union or a new, you know, record myself as a thought. I do find those a little more that I have to. You know, if I have to have that time set aside, right, that's how I've been.

How I did the convert more leads book was I Could free range, I get my thoughts together for this section of the book and then I go and talk that out. So it gives me that structure. One thing that I have realized and that's been very helpful is this idea that Reality you know, the mainland, the real world here, applying yourself, moves at the speed of reality, which is 60 minutes per hour. And, yeah, if I'm going to embark on a project that's going to take 20 hours, that there's no possible way to allocate or Put in those 20 hours without actually putting in the 20 hours and that I can't do it.

All at once. So the only thing I've got an infinite. I've got an infinite Opportunity list of all of the things that I could possibly do, but what I've been experimenting with that's very helpful is Just loading in my next 10 hours. What if I? What can I do in the next 10? 50 minute focus sessions that I have?

you know that's really that narrow. That helps me prioritize and make a decision, which is the first step of you know my acronym of playing golf a goal, optimal environment, limited distractions, six time frames. So a goal is the decision of what am I going to do at Tuesday from 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock I've got two potential hours that I can allocate there and what am I going to do in those times. You know, that's really been a big help.

Dan: Yeah, yeah and. I, you know and I've got a reputation that goes back, certainly the full extent of the Coach program, which goes back. I mean we'll be 35 years Next November. We're in our 35th year of the coach program. Dan always delivers. Yeah, and I have a Absolute commitment to never in any way undermining that reputation. So whatever it takes, dan always delivers, okay me too. And you know if you handle that, whatever it takes to deliver, you know life gets real, simple.

Dean: Yeah even though it's sometimes. You've seen that illustration of the you know assignment made, accepted, deadline here the timeline, and then the little five percent at the very end and the 95% all allocated is goofing off. And then five percent, all the work done, while crying.

Dan: No matter what.

Dean: Yeah, well done, you know, yeah, yeah yeah, because your, your entire reputation is just in terms of commitment, is that you've made to other people? Yeah, and I think, though, our ability to our ability to always deliver, I think has really been, you know, honed because of our, the requirement of us always pulling a rabbit out of our hats growing up.

Dan: I think yeah, even in any assignments or anything like that.

Dean: We've gotten Really good at improv theater you know, yeah, I.

Dan: Well, I think the other thing is if that's true, you always deliver then, what people can't see about that? Are you happy with the time you spend that other people can't see?

And I would say that I'm up about 1,000 times over the last 30 years. I'm really happy with the free range time. I'm really happy with all the work backstage that I have to do. I used to be grueling. It was working nights, it was working weekends under severe pressure, and that's not true anymore, because I've got a sense of the framework of the project. I got the sense of the timing of the project.

And I said you know and then you know, I've kind of worked out what the deal is with my brain. My brain always delivers at the end of the day. And I says, well, there's two of us that always deliver my brain. If I set my brain three things by the end of the day, have this self, I don't care what you do, You're not accountable for any of your time, but by the end of the day I want these three things delivered. And then I've got my commitments to deliver a front stage.

So I've just worked out a two-way deal here. I love it.

Dean: That's great. Well, Dan, I never yeah.

Dan: I think we're kind of cosmic soulmates, you know, both the payoff and the problem. I think we're. Both of us have tried similar landscape in terms of coming to grips with ourselves. I agree. Yeah, I find these conversations infinitely interesting One takeaway that you got from today, and I'll tell you mine.

Dean: So that's my big takeaway for today. It's given myself permission to just roam the pastures, to enjoy my free range, as long as I just hold up my end of the bargain right. That was a night. I got a lot out of that.

Dan: Yeah, and I think that I do really interesting podcasts also with Shannon Waller which is called Inside Strategic Coach and people always want to know. Our clients especially want to know how we do, what we do backstage. And I'll just drop this as a topic for her, because I think this the greatest tension that entrepreneurs have is not front stage, but the greatest tension is backstage.

Dean: Yeah, yeah, I agree, I agree. Well, I'm excited about next week. Yeah, I want to talk again even more conversation. I look forward to it. Thanks, steve, this is really great, thanks.

Dan: Steve, okay, I'll talk to you next time.