Ep165: Creating Yesterday to Build Tomorrow

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we explore how changing fundamental time structures unlocks behavioral transformation that willpower alone can never achieve.

Dean shares his 14-hour phone fasting experiment and the profound impact of creating inevitable constraints rather than relying on self-discipline. We discuss how raising decisions to the level of inevitability—physically locking your phone away—removes the constant negotiation with temptation. Dan introduces his new framework for productivity: making your purpose each day to create a great yesterday, shifting focus from anxiety-inducing future planning to confidence-building past accomplishment.

We examine how AI accusations on social media reveal our default skepticism, why technology adds to life rather than eliminating existing solutions, and the critical difference between content and context in an AI-saturated world. The conversation moves through airport infrastructure decay, New York's political experiment, and why surgeons will always be humans using technology rather than replaced by it.

This is a conversation about reclaiming attention, restructuring time, and recognizing that confidence comes from documented wins rather than optimistic projections. Whether you're struggling with digital distraction or seeking sustainable productivity systems, this episode offers practical frameworks grounded in real experimentation.

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

• Dean's 14-hour phone fasting creates inevitability through physical constraint, eliminating the need for willpower by making phone access impossible overnight.
• Dan's new productivity framework: "My purpose today is to create a great yesterday" shifts focus from future anxiety to past confidence.
• Behavioral change requires changing time structure first—Dan's 46-day experiment with creating great yesterdays eliminated his attention deficit entirely.
• Document accomplishments with "No did it" format to remind yourself what life would be like without each completed task.
• AI excels at content matching but struggles with context creation—the key differentiator for human creative and strategic thinking.
• Elon's management approach: weekly meetings asking "What did you accomplish?" interrogates the permanent record rather than optimistic future plans.

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

TRANSCRIPT

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

Dean Jackson:
Mr. Sullivan.
Dan Sullivan:
Yes, Mr. Jackson. I wonder if our calls are being recorded in China. I just wonder. I hope so. I hope so. And transcribed and transcribed. I'd like to see one of our transcriptions in Chinese idiograms. That's it. Exactly. So are you just- I would get it framed and put it on a wall.
Dean Jackson:
Oh, that's perfect. Are you just getting up or are you still up from the big party last night?
Dan Sullivan:
No, we had massage. We have a massage therapist that we've had since 1992. 1992. She comes to our house on Sundays. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Oh, that's fantastic.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's great.
Dean Jackson:
So how was-
Dan Sullivan:
We don't have the ideal climate that you enjoy at the Four Seasons. Valhalla. Valhalla. But we try to make up for it with other dimensions.
Dean Jackson:
That's right. The little built-in spa.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Well, that's fantastic. So the party was a big success?
Dan Sullivan:
That was great.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Yeah. Had Bob's birthday party.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, it was great. Yeah, we had a restaurant. We took it over for ... Restaurants will have private parties and you take over the whole restaurant. And it's right at Front and Bay Street, just almost across from Union Station. And it's Peruvian Japanese fusion. Just shows you what people are putting together these days. And it was great. It was great. And our entire involvement was just showing up.
Dean Jackson:
Yes. I love that. That's the best.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. And Mark Young and his son were there and David Haase and Lindsay came. And Pete Warrell was here. He came ... Yeah. Richard and Lisa. Richard and Lisa were there. And so a lot of people traveled quite a distance to get there. So it was really great. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Absolutely. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. I was texting with Richard Rossi yesterday.
Dan Sullivan:
After 12:00. After 12 o'clock noon.
Dean Jackson:
That's exactly right. Dan, I am a converse.
Dan Sullivan:
You're a new man. You're a new man. You're a new man.
Dean Jackson:
I am. I mean, this is a new normal. It's such a ... I'm realizing what a difference this phone fasting is. It's the best thing that I've ever done for productivity and just the ... I don't know. It's like the brain chemistry. I can feel it renewing. It's something like it's probably not unlike chronic inflammation from dopamine dripping constantly to the repairing of that from now the slow ... I'm manufacturing my own dopamine by really getting into my own brain.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. It's really interesting. I mean, over the years, because I've been continually creating thinking tools for entrepreneurs to look at things from a different perspective. But my feeling is that you can't make other behavioral changes unless you change a time structure, that there has to be a fundamental change of a time structure. And if you change a time structure, then all sorts of things can happen just because of that fact. And you've changed a 14 hour time structure in your life.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Give me some other examples because that's the first time I've heard you say that. So when you say the changing the time structures, what-
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, a simple example would just be that you have three different kinds of days. You have free days days and buffer days. And that immediately changes how you'd get work done. It changes what was sort of an off day. People say, "Yeah, well, I'm taking a day off." But in fact, they did business on their day off. I used to give this example. I said, everybody probably has come across the concept of Neapolitan ice cream. They used to come in the square package
Dean Jackson:
And then
Dan Sullivan:
You-
Dean Jackson:
Yeah, it's one of my favorites. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
And then if you took the cardboard away that protected, it was just this beautiful block. There was chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. And then for some reason you forgot about it and you went away for three or four hours and you came back and it was just neopolitan soup. And which turns out to be chocolate. All things default to chocolate. Like if strawberry and vanilla and chocolate melt, what you have is a lighter shade of chocolate.
Dean Jackson:
Okay. That's interesting.
Dan Sullivan:
And everything gets mixed up with everything else and there's no structure, there's no distinction among your days. And I think you don't get rejuvenated. You're not very productive. And I just think everything falls apart when you mix different kinds of time structure, but you've created a very fundamental 14 hour structure right in from the end of one day to the middle of the next day. And so your brain just reorganizes everything just because you created that structure.
Dean Jackson:
Yes. I'm noticing it for sure. And yeah, it's a profound change. So I'm very excited about that. That's a good progress. Like that's one of my main things that I see looking at. What I've discovered in that, in reflecting on it, like why that works so well is that I've raised it to the level of inevitability. And we talk about that as like the apex ... That's the apex predator of certainty, is that when I put my phone in the lockbox, I've created an environment where it's inevitable that I'm not going to look at my phone for 14 hours because I can't. It's physically not possible for me to look at my phone because it's in the box. So I've eliminated the option, no willpower required. Like if I brought it and I put it in my bag and I went to the cafe or I went to whatever I'm sitting in the courtyard here and I had the phone inside the door in another room, there's still the siren song of the promise of dopamine or the fear of missing out or the something would draw me inevitably to check the phone and then you've reset the ...
Dan Sullivan:
A growling or a whimpering dog
Dean Jackson:
In
Dan Sullivan:
The next room.
Dean Jackson:
Yep.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
That's exactly right.
Dan Sullivan:
And you can't concentrate on anything else because it's drawing your attention. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. And maybe I could just look for five minutes, maybe
Dean Jackson:
.That's what I say. You start rationalizing, right? Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
You start rationalizing and negotiating the things. There's something to it because I was overlaying that with the thought of creating a better past and that-
Dan Sullivan:
So I've got a question for you and this is a big idea that I'm presenting. What if tomorrow the whole world decided to do what you're doing and that- How great would that be? No, but what would happen to the world economy?
Dean Jackson:
I wonder. I wonder. I mean, I guess it would ruin my breakfast plans. What? If I couldn't go to Honeycomb and get breakfast, if everybody else is closed. No,
Dan Sullivan:
Not closed. Their phone was off for breaking hours. Oh, I think that's it. Not that they weren't doing everything else, it's just that they're phone. Oh, got it. What do you think?
Dean Jackson:
I mean, I think it would be- It
Dan Sullivan:
Would certainly change online marketing.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah, absolutely it would. But I think that then people would ... I think it just condenses it. I look at the first thing, within 10 minutes of turning on my phone, by 12:10, I'm completely caught up on anything that I missed. First of all, I check my text messages. That's the thing that you'll see the notifications come on. You've had four text messages or whatever, and that's okay. You can text or reply to those, and then I'll check my email, and maybe there's 150 emails that have come in in that time, of which four or five might be real emails for you. Very few requiring me to do anything, just really conveying information, and then I move into the curiosity things. Then I'll check my ... It's funny, I'll check my sleep score. It's a very interesting thing to ... I check my sleep score far removed from the actual sleep.
When I would keep my phone by the bed, it would be the first thing I would check in the morning. I'd look and see what my sleep score was, so I'd know how I was supposed to feel for the rest of the day.
And now it's funny. I just gauge by how do I feel rather than the sleep score telling me how I should feel.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, checking my sleep score is the only reason why I have a charged up phone.
Speaker 3:
Right.
Dan Sullivan:
Isn't that interesting? Yeah. I mean, my phone could go uncharged for three weeks at a time, but Aura, I'm interested. I'm a scoreboard guy.
Dean Jackson:
Me too.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. I like to know what this ... Yeah. It's not the game, but you want to know whether you're winning or not. You want to know whether
Dean Jackson:
You're ready. I need those crowns, Dan. I'm looking for a double crown day. That's what I need. I need the sleep and readiness.
Dan Sullivan:
I had a very unusual travel day on Thursday, just a couple of days ago. Chicago, we were coming back. We came back a day early because Baby wanted- Oh,
Dean Jackson:
Because of the party, right?
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, wanted to get ready. And so it was supposed to leave at 3:45 in the afternoon. It left at 7:30.
Dean Jackson:
Oh my goodness. 7:30.
Dan Sullivan:
And this is because of weather in Toronto. And Chicago was great, bright and sunny, cold, but bright and sunny. And then we got on at 7:30, but we taxied for 45 minutes. It's a big airport. We had the taxi. Then we took off. We arrived at ... Well, I'm just trying to think. It was 7:30. No, we took off at 7:30, 7:30, because we arrived in Toronto at 10:00, but there was a time shift. And then we sat on a runway for an hour and a half because they didn't
Speaker 3:
Have a gate.
Dan Sullivan:
Oh, man. And then we got to the gate and we had to wait 45 minutes because the jet way didn't work. And then we got off the phone. We went to baggage and we were ... It was now got to baggage around 12:30, and an hour and a half later, our bags had not arrived.
Dean Jackson:
Oh
Dan Sullivan:
My
Dean Jackson:
Goodness.
Dan Sullivan:
Babs got in touch. She just caught somebody who had a walkie-talkie, and the bags hadn't even been taken off the plane at that ... So at two o'clock, we got in the limousine to come home, and we finally went to bed at 3:30. Unbelievable. And this afternoon, we were told our bags were going to arrive at the house and everything like that. But it's really, really interesting. And I was cool and calm during the entire
Speaker 3:
Period.
Dan Sullivan:
I was just saying, Dan, from now on for the rest of your life, be delighted and surprised when things actually work. Don't
Speaker 3:
Get
Dan Sullivan:
Angry when things ... Treat total big systems falling apart as the norm for the rest of your life now. And just be delighted when things actually work. So that's great. I think that's a fundamental mind shift change.
Dean Jackson:
It really is. Absolutely.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, what an adventure. I think Pearson is now the worst airport in North America. I think it's just ... I don't think they ever recovered from COVID. Oh,
Dean Jackson:
Wow. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. And it's old and it's ugly. It's kind of ...
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
They haven't had money for maintenance and the carpets. They had carpets which were dark and dreary to begin with, but you get a sense now that it's dirt.
Dean Jackson:
Wow. That might get you rethinking the private plane idea.
Dan Sullivan:
No, no, no.
Dean Jackson:
No? Okay.
Dan Sullivan:
Not that bad. No, no. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
Got
Dan Sullivan:
It. No, no, it's just really interesting. But O'Hare is actually spruced up the airport in Chicago and LaGuardia, New York. Oh boy, what a makeover they had in New York. It's a beautiful, beautiful airport now. Oh,
Dean Jackson:
Really? I haven't been in
Dan Sullivan:
... Yeah, they're doing the same thing with Kennedy, which is basically international flights and everything like that. So they're ... Well, it's a race now to see whether they can complete it before the true impact of having a socialist mayor really kicks in.
Dean Jackson:
Oh my goodness.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. This is a great experiment. This is a great experiment. Yeah. And-
Dean Jackson:
It's going to be. It's
Dan Sullivan:
Got a great housing director. The housing director, she believes that there should be no more private ownership of property in New York. It should all be collective governed by the government. It's just wild. This is going to be an interesting experiment. I mean- Yeah, exactly. I want to make sure I'm really stocked up with popcorn for this one. Stocked up with popcorn. That's the
Dean Jackson:
Best.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. I'd even go for a big Pepsi and popcorn for-
Speaker 3:
Okay, there you go. Yeah, yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. That's so fun. I'll take a Trump dietary approach for this one. Yeah, exactly.
Dean Jackson:
So funny.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Well, Dan, I had an interesting experience this week. I've been posting and writing five original thoughts a week, right? They're going through that experiment. That's what this 14 hour thing has really allowed me to do is to get that time to focus on those things. And I've been posting them and sending them as emails, post them on Facebook, on Instagram, or not Instagram, LinkedIn, and they get sent out as emails. I don't do all of that, but it happens. And I write them. My job is to write them. And I wrote a post, I wrote a thought about Quentin Tarantino, and I had seen an interview with him on Charlie Rose, and he was explaining to Charlie Rose the impact of a lunch that he got to have with one of his hero directors, Terry Gilliam, who Quentin ... It was before he'd actually made any of his movies.
He was up at Sundance. And
He asked Terry Gilliam, he said," You have this ability to get your vision on the screen, and it always is beautiful, and how do you do that? "And he told Quentin, he said," Well, first of all, it's not your job to get your vision on the screen, your job is to get your vision in the minds of the cinematographer and the director of photography and the lighting director and the costume directors to convey your vision with such clarity that it ends up on the screen. "And he said that just magically unlocked what he thought was this special thing that directors had to have that he didn't know what to do to do that. And it just freed him up. It reminded me so much of a who, not how, type of thing. It's essentially what he was saying. So I wrote a nice post about that and the post was titled That's Not Your Job.
And then I told that story and it got so far 260,000 views on this post. That's great. And so it's
Dan Sullivan:
Really- Is that an all time high?
Dean Jackson:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. For me, I've never had a written post go like that. I mean, I haven't had a video one go that high either, but for a written post, that's something ... And I mean, it's been shared almost 300 times and lots of comments and 1800 likes and reactions. But the funny thing is there were a few people and some in particular that made comments that this is AI, this is an AI slop. It was so funny, right? They're accusing that this was written by AI. And
I was like, it's such an interesting thing that that's where our minds automatically go. Like the majority, overwhelming majority was, " This is great. This is fantastic. I needed this or to see this. "But then it was interspersed, there's probably three people out of all of them that had some assertion that this was AI, like dismissing it. And so I just kindly, I would put, because I do them all by hand in my remarkable. So I took a screen cat, like a picture of the PDF that comes off my remarkable, and I just commented underneath it and said," Nope, not AI handwritten by me in my remarkable smiley face picture of the page that I wrote in my remarkable. "One guy in particular, like a real insistent on the thing saying," Well, maybe you hand wrote it, but that doesn't ... "But he never said those words.
There's no way that he ever said that. So I found the clip where he said it, and it was just like so ... The guy was so insistent on that. It
Dan Sullivan:
Was
Dean Jackson:
Wrong. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Maybe the skeptics were AI.
Dean Jackson:
Ah, that could be too. He's a bot. Maybe he's a bot.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
But it was just ... I mean, two things struck me about that because I always, I'm hypervigilant and stay aware to what's observing what's going on for me. Of all the comments and all the reactions and the stuff, the ones that stood out were the ones accusing it of being AI, which I immediately had to jump into action to correct. It's so funny, right? The negative reactions are the ones that spur us into action.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
I don't know, that's human nature, right? But it's just so-
Dan Sullivan:
Well, you can untrain yourself. You can untrain yourself for that. I mean, the big thing is that it was a huge win.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
I mean, you have to accept that it was a huge win. Yeah. And they're bottom teaters. They're ankle bitters. And the one thing I've learned, I just don't pay any attention to the criticism. I just don't pay any attention because that day, the person who was ... I'll call it negative. They were negative. They were dismissing you.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
They were dismissing 20 other things that day too. I mean, you shouldn't feel real special about their attention for you because that's their shtick, that's their stick. And their mother doesn't like them living in her basement, but what are you going to do? That is exactly right. I mean, that's the thing. Yeah. They haven't had a date and they haven't had a date for a year and a half now, and they're unhappy about that. They're doing it to stir you up doing
Speaker 3:
That.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. So anyway, I mean, you should just have Charlotte say ... Charlotte, go through all these and just show me the 50 great ones. Just show me the 50 great ones.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Right. Yeah. But it's funny, but you're right. It can retrain and maybe just move past them. But I just put it up there for ... Because if anybody sees it, then they'll see the handwritten thing. What I found very interesting is that that's the bigger symptom that we are always thinking that this is AI. And it's the fact
Dan Sullivan:
That what I'm noticing is AI is good at content, but it's not good at context.
Speaker 3:
Well, right, like that.
Dan Sullivan:
If you go deeper and deeper into context, you begin to realize that it's not good at ... It's good at matching up content, but it's not good at creating a new context for understanding something. That's what I think is- To say that's just AI. Well, there's no thought in that whatsoever. You thought a fly landed on your forehead and you automatically slapped it and slapped the fly, but it wasn't really a thought. It was just a nervous reaction. And for them it's just a nervous reaction.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. But I went scale out of 200,000, you had three. I think you're on the winning side. Yeah. I think you're right. I think
Dean Jackson:
You're
Dan Sullivan:
Right.
Dean Jackson:
It was funny because what you said about context, that's what I kind of pride myself on is that making contextual connections to things.
And I was ... The very next post that I wrote was the subject line or the title was High Status Chimps. And it was about ... I read a study where they were rewarding a test group of chimpanzees with rewards of grapes or juice, and they would allow them to exchange, like to pay with grapes, to look at pictures of other high status chimps in the group, like in the alpha or the leaders of the thing. They would gladly pay grapes to look at pictures of them, but they wouldn't pay anything to Look at the normal people, normal chimps in the thing. And I thought it so mirrors our society. When you think about all these things that inexplicably become very popular just because celebrities or other people are wearing them. The high status chimps are wearing Von Dutch trucker hats and all of a sudden everybody has to have a Von Dutch trucker hat.
And it's so funny that that's ... I don't know that AI would make that connection.
Dan Sullivan:
Well, it all comes back to the programmers, the programmers. And this is the one thing that I am ... The first person that I've seen that has really gotten a grasp on this is a detective story writer by the name of Michael Conley. He created the Lincoln Lawyer. I don't know if you saw it.
Dean Jackson:
Oh yeah, I love that.
Dan Sullivan:
A Lincoln Lawyer, he created a detective
By the name of Heronima Spash. His name is, but it's called Harry Bosch. And it was very interesting. It's his latest novel. And the setup is that a teenage girl is killed by her teenage boyfriend because she rejected him. And it's premeditated, so it's first degree murder. And he's homicide, first degree homicide, and he's in jail. But the mother of the murdered girl launches a civil lawsuit against the AI company that the boy had a chatbot who encouraged him to kill her daughter, that basically. And it's back and forth in the court. And what goes is that the detective, the detective and the lawyer, this is the Lincoln lawyer story. Harry Bosch is involved in it, but not the Lincoln lawyer. And I think it's John Cusack. I think John Cusack, the lawyer. But anyway, he goes, he says, "Who's the programmer on the chatbot?" And it turns out he's a, what's the name of that?
He's an incel. He hates women. He hates women. And so the AI company to avoid an actual trial on this, they pay out 60 million just for the trial to go away. That's how it ends. So it's not entirely a satisfactory ending, but it just shows you that they've created a front to say that AI is the thing, but I think in the legal cases, they're going to go after the programming team that created a certain chatbot.
These people are going to start showing up in courtrooms, courtrooms and everything like that. But it's the first time I've seen where the law comes in. And no, no, no. To the AI companies, no, no. We're going to go deep and deep into your workings and we're going to find out the individual who is responsible. You won't be able to blame it on technology. Yeah. So it's the first time I've seen this superior, but it just shows you the world that we've actually entered into that, like all other worlds, the lawyers are the ones who make the money. Oh, there you
Dean Jackson:
Go. I wonder what's going to happen when the self-driving cars start to, if it becomes a problem. I've often thought that, right? Who's going to be- Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. It's a real
Dean Jackson:
Issue because- Responsible.
Dan Sullivan:
Well, it involves ... First of all, are you going to be able to get insurance for them? Well, the insurance company-
Dean Jackson:
Well, that's why Tesla's starting their own insurance.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
So this is funny. I'm picking up my new Tesla in two weeks. It's here. And just today, they were- We shouldn't have to pick it up. You shouldn't have to pick it up. I was just going to say, I told Lily, seven, send it over to me, right? Yeah. Take this one back.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. I don't think you should have to get out of your chair Lyft to
Dean Jackson:
Think about that. Exactly. Bring it over. But one of the options, we're at the point where we have to show, we have to arrange the insurance. And one of the options was to get Tesla insurance. So Tesla is offering insurance now on their vehicles, right? Because think about it, they've got access to all the data, the safety data, which would be a maybe red flag for other insurers, but they might see it as a bigger risk, but Tesla's seeing it as a ... Knowing what's coming, that it's actually going to be much safer than human drivers. So they're willing to and create the opportunity to do that. So interesting.
Dan Sullivan:
I think it'll become probably normal in that part of everyday life that you're out on the road and some cars have drivers and some cars don't have drivers and everything like that. And it'll become kind of normal, but it won't be a ... Everybody talks about a technology. Well, this will eliminate everything that exists. Technology only adds to it, never eliminates things. I mean, if you look at anything that technology has come into ... Yeah, for example, I'll give you an idea of the middle house that we built, they put in really fancy electric house type of technology, and it's just a total pain in the ass. Yeah, total pain in the ass. So the new cottage that we built up north, we just had ... If you want to switch off the light, you have to click a button. You
Dean Jackson:
Switch off the light. Yeah, yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. We just switch off the light because ... And there's a point at which if something goes wrong, it could shut down the entire house. I mean, if a light bulb goes out, it's one light, but if there's something wrong with the overall system, nothing works. And I think we resist centralized control. And I think this is sort of like if a single company through electronically can actually shut down an entire traffic period, like if all the self-driving cars just stop, they've had that happen where you have power out. The other cars work, but all the Waymos, I think it happened in San Francisco. They had half the city went dark one night and all the Waymos were blocking traffic and like the normal cars couldn't get around the Waymos. And that'd be grounds for a lawsuit that I would just do them. So I think that the centralization is not a good idea, generally speaking.
You don't want just a single factor to stop everything. Everything becomes legal and everything becomes political once you enter into a certain realm. Yeah. Yeah. What I noticed with a lot of the technology people, they want a politics free world, but ain't going to happen.
Dean Jackson:
It's so ... Yeah. There was a comedian that talked about the difference between why he likes escalators better than elevators, because even worst case scenario, if an escalator stops working, it just becomes stairs. A stairways. Yeah. Not a comfortable stairs, but not a comfortable staff. Yeah. But the worst case is it's still in stairs. You can't ...
Dan Sullivan:
You're not losing the functionality, right? To be caught in a little room for 10 hours is not enjoyable. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Exactly. That's so funny. I saw Elon on Peter DiMontis' podcast and they were talking about surgeons and how within three, four years maximum, the best surgeons in the world will be robots and-
Dan Sullivan:
No, no, it won't be.
Dean Jackson:
It's not me. Don't shoot the
Dan Sullivan:
Message. You know you're dealing with Las Vegas when you get a statement like that. No, this isn't true. I mean, this is not true. The best surgeons in the world will be making use of technology. Well, first of all, the da Vinci ... When I had my prostate operation in 2016, the surgeon wasn't at the table. He was in a tent over in the corner with what's called the da Vinci robot. So if they mean that, well, sure, but that already existed 10 years ago. I mean, Elon is just a total hyper, and Peter goes along with it.
Dean Jackson:
It's funny to hear Peter ... So he was talking ... Yeah, Elon just loves to make these controversial statements, but he said he definitely wouldn't be going to medical school right now. That was just a blanket statement that's not probably the best thing to do right now, is to go to medical school.
Dan Sullivan:
Well, I think that's a true story that wouldn't be a good idea for Elon to go to medical school right now. Right. Yes. It's so funny. But you get the ... I mean, Elon's a bit like Trump, except Trump isn't autistic.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was thinking about Elon, and we were talking about creating a better past, and it struck me that I remembered hearing about Elon's approach to management, and I think he brought that to Doge, was having weekly meetings where the question was, "What did you accomplish this week? What did you do this week?" And it struck me that that is really an interrogation into the past, which is the permanent record, which is what you did.
Speaker 3:
And
Dean Jackson:
That was better than meeting and saying, "What are you going to do this week?" Which everybody could optimistically embellish and say all the right things. And this is what I'm going to do, everybody's plan, but nothing tells a bigger story than what actually got done. That's the only thing that matters.
And so what an orientation, even for the week that if you're preparing ... You think about the person who's on the other end of that meeting being asked that, that you would certainly behaviorally learn that the important thing is not going to be to talk a big game like this is what I'm going to do and be optimistic and hype up what your week is going to look like and know that you better actually be prepared for creating a better past this week so that in the meeting you can show what you actually did. What a shift, actually.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. I mean, that's what the gap in the game is. You just measure back, you're always measuring backwards. People are measuring forwards. They can accomplish great things, but they don't see it that way. They see ... I haven't made any progress at all. Well, I'm 46 days into the new time system that my purpose today is to create a great yesterday. So I've created for 45 days, I've created a great yesterday, and it's been by far the most productive 45 days of my life, and also ADD free, totally. My attention deficit has just disappeared, totally.
Dean Jackson:
I mean, that's really interesting.
Dan Sullivan:
All our attention problems comes from a concept called the future.
Dean Jackson:
And the options for the future, the indecision.
Dan Sullivan:
You got things three years down the road that are bothering you today. You have, "Well, what if this happens and what if this happens and what if this happens?"
Speaker 3:
And
Dan Sullivan:
The problem is that you have a thing in your mind called the future.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. I mean, that's true, right? And
Dan Sullivan:
Spending- The past. I mean, the past is real. And the thing is, you're in competition with the entire world for the future. If you're looking at the past, it's strictly 100% your deal because nobody has access to the information. You're the only one that's got any access. If you go back three days, Dean, and you write out a hundred thoughts you had and a hundred things, nobody else in the world even knows what you write down. It's totally your material. So go where your ownership is.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
So I'd love to hear more about how that's changed. So the 45 days, so the process is that you're starting the day with my purpose today is to create a great
Dan Sullivan:
Yesterday. My purpose today to create a great yesterday. Yeah. So you become really ... Little small things count. And I noticed that I'm very much useful around the house, just putting something away and I'll be there and the dishwasher is all filled up from the night before. I say, "Well, let's just take 15 minutes and put all the dishes away." But that counts as much as writing a new chapter of a book.
Dean Jackson:
Right. From a practical standpoint, it's improving everything around you. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Because you're not creating tomorrow, you're creating yesterday.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. And that's ... The
Dan Sullivan:
Moment you think of tomorrow, your heartbeat goes up. The moment you think of yesterday, you relax because-
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Well, it's too late to do anything about yesterday. There's some-
Dan Sullivan:
No, but tomorrow morning, today is
Dean Jackson:
Yesterday. That's exactly
Dan Sullivan:
Right. So what do you want to remember? What do you want to think about today, tomorrow morning? And I want a great, great feeling about today. So what do I have to do to have a great feeling tomorrow morning about what I did today?
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. This may be a fundamental shift to my ... I know I'm being successful when, I can wake up every day and say, "What would I like to do today?" But what a profound shift to wake up and say, "My purpose today is to create a great yesterday." Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. I'm just experimenting with it. I like a little time experiment, but it's funny because Leor, where I got the idea from was Leo
Dean Jackson:
Weinstein,
Dan Sullivan:
And he wanted to create a great past for his children. I love it. So he was in the workshop on Tuesday, and he was very grateful that I had taken that idea that I had gotten from him, and I was ... And it's going to be a quarterly book. It won't be the next quarterly book, but the title of the book is Yesterday, Creates Tomorrow. That's the title. And I've got it pretty scoped out already, but I think the future is like a drug. It's like a drug, and my sense is that ... But confidence doesn't come from the future. Confidence comes from the past.
Dean Jackson:
Yes, there it is.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. So that's kind of the whole thing. Anxiety comes from the future, create today so that tomorrow you have greater confidence. And I think your confidence level has gone way up because of you have this 14 hour thing that gives you this 14 hour of ... When you're free from your cell phone, gives you a lot of confidence. And you can guarantee that this will do the same thing in the future. There's 14 hours, you know, absolutely that for the rest of my future, I have 14 hours of freedom that I did not have until I made this decision.
Dean Jackson:
Yes. I look at that, the way I look at my weekly writing, like my objective is that this week, so by Friday I have ... That's what made this week great, is that last week I wrote five emails, so that going into the week, that's creating that better past. So each week is about creating that better past of having written ... I go into the week with that asset of having written those five emails, other than the burden or the anxiety about having to write them in real time.
Dan Sullivan:
Before your phone fasting, you'd get up in the morning and you might have five ideas, but it was in competition with everything else in the world.
Dean Jackson:
Yes, that is exactly right.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. You've gotten rid of a evil entity that was inhabiting your-
Dean Jackson:
Yes. It's true. Yeah. Now my next ... I'm moving into my ... I think that the did is a power word, right? Did implies that it's done, that this is what I did as opposed to, this is what I'm going to do. That's really what is moving things to did on a daily basis. But what I've discovered is ... I was thinking about this inevitability, like putting my phone in the lockbox. What I'm moving on to now is to create my ... What's the dietary equivalent of that for 21 meals in a week, 21 belly filling opportunities as I started calling them with Norman Dunnigan when we were calculating the-
Dan Sullivan:
What happened there?
Dean Jackson:
And then he didn't come back again. I don't know what's going on. I mean, the disappearing dunnigans is the mystery of 2025. I don't know. He's radio silent, so I don't know what's up. But in any event, we were ... The inevitability of putting my phone in the lockbox means that I'm not going to touch it. And now I'm trying to create that kind of structure with my meals of how can I remove choice or ... It's like everybody ... It's funny, I was saying to someone the other day, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face, like Tyson used to say, right? So everybody's got a plan until someone offers me some birthday cake. Last night
Dan Sullivan:
It was a really good cupcake. It was a terrific-
Dean Jackson:
You see what I mean? It's like such
Dan Sullivan:
A ... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was really ... Well, they had a big cake and I didn't want a piece of the cake, but somebody came around with a nifty looking cupcake. And I said, "Well, I mean, you look at the cake and you look at the cupcake, first of all, it's much better packaged. It's an entity in itself and everything like that. "
Speaker 3:
Yes, yes,
Dan Sullivan:
Yes. So- Everybody, that's great. Everybody's got a plan until they're offered a cupcake. That's exactly right.
Dean Jackson:
Oh man, that's how they get you, man. That's how they get you.
So that's my thing. I'm trying to remove choice from that. And I think my ... I've had intermittent success with doing ... I have several meals that are exactly what I'm looking for. I know the winning form. I don't know if I shared with you the three Ls, the logic, logistics, and limbic, the three levels, right? You got to have a logical plan. My logic is that if I ate 21 meals that had 180 grams of protein and 2000 calories for the day total, that that's the winning formula, that would result in about a three pound a week weight loss, right? You're in enough of a caloric deficit to get that and that the ... Then you have to move on to the logistics of how to make that happen, right? So break that down into the 21 meals, but then the wild card is it's got ... The plan has to be executed and taken past the limbic committee, where that's where the birthday cake comes into it, right?
It's not a logic problem. The logic completely makes sense for my plan and the logistics makes sense, but it's harder to systemically bypass the limbic. And that's what the ... Putting the phone in the lockbox essentially mutes the limbic thing. And so I need ...
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. It would be interesting to see over, let's say a year, what else besides time ownership does this phone fasting impact on? It's probably a lot of things, probably a lot of things, because you've changed a time structure. Yes. I'm just really, really
Speaker 3:
Convinced. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
The more I think about it is that you can't change behavior unless you change the time structure in which the behavior is happening.
Speaker 3:
Yes.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's really interesting because the US government just came out with their new food, their new food model, and the essence of the new food model is more protein, less sugar.
Speaker 3:
Yeah,
Dan Sullivan:
That's exactly it. I slapped myself in the forehead and I said, "Who knew?" Who knew? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I thought, "Oh, why? Why am I 81 and I'm just discovering this? " Yeah,
Dean Jackson:
Exactly. So funny, right?
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A giant bags of chips is not good for you.
Speaker 3:
No,
Dean Jackson:
That's exactly right. Surprise, surprise. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. No, I remember when sugar came out, sugar was like, that was a positive feature. It had sugar for energy, for your kids. Oh yeah, give your kids energy. Yeah. They would bake it right into the name. Now everybody tries to hide sugar as the thing, and they use all the sneaky names for it.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. That doesn't mean watching the experiment in New York. I'm not going to have extra popcorn.
Dean Jackson:
Popcorn. That's exactly right. That's what it's called for. So funny. I love it. So I'm going to experiment with this. My purpose today is to create a great yesterday. I'm going to bring that into my daily
Dan Sullivan:
Dashboard. Yeah. But here's the thing that only works if you document everything you do. So I document, like I have just a little computer box, notebox where ... And I said, "I did this, I did." But here's the trick. When you write the thing down that you did, you say, "No did it. No did it. " And there's a big difference and I'm not entirely sure why, but you get to the end and what it tells you is you did all this, but what would your life have been like if you didn't do it? And I'm just telling you the experiment as it's going along, but there's something about that you wrote the entire list, but then you go through no, no, no, no, no. And I'm not entirely sure why it works, but there's a totally different emotion attached to it.
Dean Jackson:
I don't understand what you're saying. So no, no,
Dan Sullivan:
No. Like say something you did. Okay. So no phone fasting. So you did phone fasting for 14 hours, but when you're writing it down, say no phone fasting because it reminds you what your life would be like if you hadn't done that.
Dean Jackson:
Oh, I see. Okay.
Dan Sullivan:
No five ideas. You write down five ideas and that attaches you to tomorrow. But somehow if you put the word no before it, it actually reminds you of what life would have been like if you hadn't come up with your five ideas.
Dean Jackson:
Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you're documenting what it would have been if you hadn't done
Dan Sullivan:
These. Yeah. You wouldn't have gotten anything done. You did 40 things, but if you hadn't done them, it would have been a shitty yesterday. It would have been a shitty
Dean Jackson:
Yesterday. No sleep crown. Yeah. Yeah. No sleep crown, no readiness crown. Yeah. No phone
Dan Sullivan:
Calls. It's like best result, worst result on a impact filter. You remind yourself if you didn't do this where you'd be, so that it's
Dean Jackson:
... Yeah. I heard someone talking about that they have a five year journal that is like five little rectangles on like one page for each day has five different blocks on the thing. And the idea is that you go each day and you just write like a one paragraph or one sentence summary of the day. And he said he's on his third year of it now and he's realizing like how the patterns that evolve in his things, that he was working with the same things three years ago. Yeah. So that's an interesting experiment too. Do you document this anywhere or just an interview
Dan Sullivan:
For yourself? No, I do it for the day and then I erase it. And then I started ... I don't save them because ... I mean, it's just about today. So when I wake up tomorrow, it's about a new day. It's about a new day that it's going to be ... So I don't want to save it because first of all, I'm not going to go back and look at it. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
All right. Fascinating. Dan, I enjoy these conversations so much. I'm in
Dan Sullivan:
Arizona next week, so I'll be phoning you, but I'll be phoning you earlier for me, but your time where you
Dean Jackson:
Are. Perfect. I'll be here. Okay. Okay. Bye. Thanks, Dan. Bye.