The Impact Of Intentional Thinking For Entrepreneurs

Shannon Waller: Hi, Shannon Waller here, and welcome to Inside Strategic Coach with Dan Sullivan. Dan, you made a comment the other day that I found fascinating and fun, and that was, we were talking about just the incredible number of tools you've done, and one in particular called the Fast Filter, which is a shortened version of our Impact Filter. The number that I was looking at in a collaboration conversation we were having was 1,083. And you said that over 600 of those you've done in the last year, which is kind of epic. And I sort of queried you about that and goes, yeah, it's Dan talking to Dan. And I was like, I need to know more about this. So the part that I find really interesting, Dan, is why do you have conversations with yourself or how do those happen? I think people do have conversations with yourself. You are the person that I know that is the most conscious and most aware of that. And you have a structure for it that most people don't. So that's what I wanna dive into today. Tell me about Dan talking to Dan.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, well, one of the things is, I have a rule that I try not to get involved in things that I haven't created new confidence for. So the number one reason why I use the Fast Filter is that there's an event. So for example, I did a Fast Filter today. It was part of a Fast Filter, our podcast that we're doing right now. And I say, now this is how you're going to be during the podcast with Shannon. Okay, I have another podcast with somebody else this afternoon. So I'm not just going to take the confidence that I had for last time because it wears out. I mean, you've done something in the past, but the confidence that you had, especially for that event, you don't have that confidence that carries over to the new event. So very, very specific, you know, from 9:30 till noon. This is what I'm with. So what it says is this is the only thing important that you have to do between these hours. But I have to remind myself because, you know, I may have been thinking about a lot of other things. But the other things that I developed is the person I'm talking to in the Fast Filter is me, but I call him you. Okay. Because this is my thinking about my thinking brain now saying to get the best use and the best value from the two and a half hours of podcasting. This is who you have to be. This is what you have to do. So it depersonalizes it a little bit, and the point is that there's a part of me that just goes off and does all sorts of things during the day, especially as it relates to the internet. I'm sort of an internet junkie, and I don't tell myself when I go on the internet, now you're looking for this unless I am looking for this, okay? But generally, I just let my brain go free, and it's interested in all sorts of things. I remember when the internet first came out that there were search engines, and then the search engines, you know, like Google is a search engine, they said, but you can have a search engine that's just looking for things that are interesting to you. And I said, that would be boring. I'm not interested in what I already know. I'm interested in things I don't know. And they said, well, yeah, but it'll find what you're looking for. And I said, I'm looking for things that I didn't know I was looking for. There's only a few moments during the day when I just have to be totally focused. And the rest of the time, I let my mind wander. So it's about three things during the day. I try to keep it where it involves working with someone else. Or I've got a deadline and I've committed that I'm going to get something done and to do it. So, for example, we did an interview yesterday, the start of a new book. We had another guest who was part of the interview. So before I actually wrote the Fast Filter that we were going to talk about, the actual content, I wrote a Fast Filter of just now. This is the start of a new book. This is really important. You have a guest writer, another writer whose name is going to appear on the front cover. And we've not done this before. So this is how I'm going to be. And this is how the discussion is going to go. And this is what we're going to cover and everything. But that's the back stage direction to me before I go front stage with the teamwork.
 
Shannon Waller: Yeah, it sounds like you're coaching yourself. That is so cool.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I mean, I was coaching myself for 30 years before I learned how to sell it.
 
Shannon Waller: And then you figured out the business model.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I don't think I'm rare in this, but I think being yourself is a full time job.
 
Dan Sullivan: Mm hmm. And I'm the only one I have a direct access to. I don't have direct access to any human being. I think I created thinking tools because it actually gives me better access to other people than just, you know, disorganized conversation and communication.
 
Shannon Waller: The word that was coming to mind as you were talking is intentionality. Even before you set up the content for yesterday's recording, you actually were intentional about how you were going to be, right? Which means you're incredibly focused. And if you're normal, your brain is wandering all over the place. We do. This is a way to harness it in a really enjoyable way. It's not a hard way, but you're talking to yourself, you, you, you, which is amazing. And that allows you to be very present, which I think it's talked about access to other people. Very difficult to connect with other people if you're not present. And in the two and a half hours that we spend together, we're incredibly productive because we're not distracted by a kajillion things. It's interesting because the reason why you created The Impact Filter, you know, the whole context around it was actually intentionality. Let's talk for a minute about that. Why is intentionality so critical for entrepreneurs, especially?
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, I think, you know, you're thinking you're communicating, you're taking action. You're getting results that are specifically useful for you. Okay. And that's why I don't like going to conferences where there's just a whole bunch of speakers. And the reason is they're there for their purposes, but they're using up my time. Most of the time, if I'm five minutes into someone talking from the stage, and they're going to be there for 30 or 40 minutes, and it just doesn't serve my purpose, I just walk out, I go to the lobby. I might sit down and do some thinking on my computer or, you know, get involved with someone who I find really interesting and we talk. But it's just the two of us for, you know, 15, 20 minutes until I hear the applause and I go back in. But the interesting thing is they're very biased in what they're talking about, and I'm not interested in their biases. And I found television all that way about six years ago. So I haven't watched a minute of television for six minutes because it was just nothing that they were presenting and talking about and putting an enormous amount of and none of it interested me. It didn't serve any of my purposes. It's very interesting with artificial intelligence coming on. I've got a favorite, favorite app. People say, you know, there's all these different apps that you can explore. And I said, yeah, but I don't have any need for them, okay? But this one, it's called Perplexity, and it's just the best search engine I've ever found, because I ask it great questions. I ask it really interesting historical questions. I'm very interested in history. You know, for example, I was really interested, where did the Islamic world—the Islamic world in the year 1000 was just a wonderfully creative cultural civilization that was, you know, in the Middle East and North Africa and partially in Europe. And they were creating great art, they were creating great poetry, they were doing science, they were doing mathematics. And it was considered the golden age of Islamic culture, you know, it was about 400 years old from the 7th century, 600s, and it just produced an enormous amount of richness in the culture, and then it stopped. It just stopped. And it was like 1258, there's actually a date when it stopped, and it was the Mongol invasion from Central Europe, Genghis Khan. And they just came in and they just destroyed the culture of all these cities, Baghdad, Damascus, and everything, and these were the heart of learning on the planet, and it just stopped like that. And the way they stopped it is they just killed everybody. That'll stop a culture if you just get killed. So I was sitting there, and I was just asking it questions about 1258. And I said, this is a fascinating, fascinating, I never knew that. And then it just went into retreat. Economically, they went into retreat. Politically, they went into retreat. And it was because, you know, it was probably the greatest invading force in the history of the world was Genghis Khan, because they were superb horsemen.
 
Shannon Waller: Perplexity.ai is such an incredible, you know, research partner. So our client, Evan Ryan's the one that turned us onto it and his company is Teammate AI. And it's just been so fun to use. It's a phenomenal teammate, which is really fun. So going back to thinking about your thinking, Dan, you get to explore your thoughts, have a great research partner and buddy in that particular search engine. But it means really that you can pursue your own thinking and from our last podcast and be sort of immune and un-manipulated by other people's thinking. So it allows you to be fully intentional, fully focused, which I find, first of all, unusual. A lot of entrepreneurs are technically ADHD, and if not, they act like it or feel like it.
 
Dan Sullivan: And we live in sort of an ADHD world. Everybody's trying to grab your attention, you know. And if you don't have a sense of who you are and what you're up to and what you want, you're very, very distracted. And being distracted and not getting anything done, it just feels terrible.
 
Shannon Waller: It does. And for entrepreneurs, there's such a high cost to that. Distracted entrepreneurs, not productive, not profitable, not moving things ahead. You know, everything's squirrel. And it's interesting because you and I have a similar Kolbe profile with lots of Quick Start mental energy. But both of us, I think, are able to and very conscious of being able to focus fast and quickly on things that were really important. And I love that you have that conversation with yourself. I just think that's, you know.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, you do this and you do that, but I'm aware that it's not a division, but there's sort of a teamwork. There's my thinking brain and there's my acting brain. And these are independent from each other unless you create structures that allow the teamwork to actually happen. My feeling is that one of the impacts of Strategic Coach, with all of our thinking tools, that the energy that people get and the sense of confidence they get is that we allow them to be in teamwork between their thinking brain and their acting brain.
 
Shannon Waller: I love every second of this.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. They don't feel this tension. They don't feel that there's a conflict going on between them. You know, I often say, you know, what is happening in the room? They all just got energized. What's happened? They're in teamwork with each other. And then it allows them to be in teamwork with other people who are doing the same thing. I think it releases relief, neat drugs inside your body, dopamine and serotonin, you know, all the good drugs, you know, gets rid of the cortisol and the adrenaline.
 
Shannon Waller: Well, being in teamwork with yourself. And I think a lot of people, especially if they're not, that's a good tool. There you go.
 
Dan Sullivan: Being in teamwork with yourself, being in teamwork with yourself.
 
Shannon Waller: There you go. I think that's what we'll call this.
 
Dan Sullivan: It's hard being in teamwork with others if you're not in teamwork with yourself.
 
Shannon Waller: Well, and again, I don't think a lot of people realize the inner conflict, the conversations, the kind of like the battle that's going on, especially in an entrepreneur's mind. It's very, I was seeing a post from a friend of mine says the dilemma of the entrepreneur. And it was 3.03 in the morning, you know, waking up, thinking about things, going, how should I think about this? What should I do? And the fact that you actually delineate thinking brain versus acting brain. And the other thought that comes to mind is in the quarterly workshops. I mean, we have people stop and think about their thinking minimum once a quarter, but it's so powerful how that one day a quarter where they get to, you know, basically put context around their content, as we talked about in our last podcast, and really understand and contextualize their experience, leverages them for the next 90 days. I mean, there's lots of points of connection in between if they want, but at a very minimum. And one of the things I used to tell my clients, like, if I can help you just think 20% more, you will double your income. Like it's amazing how a little bit more thinking time propels those actions to big, big results.
 
Dan Sullivan: Focus thinking time.
 
Shannon Waller: Focus thinking time. Yes.
 
Dan Sullivan: But I think what we're doing is that we're creating teamwork with themselves. And I hadn't said that before, you know, it's just coming out of our conversation.
 
Shannon Waller: Yeah, being in teamwork with yourself is just so, so powerful.
 
Dan Sullivan: Generally, I'm more so at 80 than I was at 70, far, far more at 70 than I was at 50. I just don't have much inner conflict where I am right now.
 
Shannon Waller: And there's a benefit obviously to yourself, but also to other people. I know when I'm around someone who's calm, who's at peace with their own thinking and acting, it is an expansive experience for the people around you. And I know people experience that around you, Dan. I like it when I'm calm and I'm not in conflict. I work hard at that. And you can really tell when someone is not grounded, not centered, squirrely, I can name names. And you're like, oh, just think about your thinking some more, be in teamwork with yourself. ‘Cause it's so evident when they're not. And I just want to leave people with a clear action step because the number one tool for this is The Impact Filter. And that's something that people do have access to, even if you're not in Coach yet, is the Impact Filter. And then basically the Fast Filter is a shorter version of that, which instead of, you know, purpose, importance, ideal outcome, it's purpose. But the best result, instead of eight success criteria, there are five. So it's very similar. But let's just close off with you use that tool. How long does it take you to do your version of the Fast Filter?
 
Dan Sullivan: We spent an hour on that one Fast Filter yesterday. Hour and a half, really. Hour and a half. We have to get a little quicker.
 
Shannon Waller: It was the first one with the three of us, so it was good. And Dan, you also, I think, do a Fast Filter on your day.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, every day.
 
Shannon Waller: Yeah. And then if you're experiencing a lag of energy, you'll do one. Right.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And actually, it was very interesting. I'm ADD clinically diagnosed. I've got a bright shiny thing. Attention. You know, I like things. So as a result, 12 years ago, I was diagnosed and they gave me a drug that helps me focus and gets my energy up called Adderall. I'm not the only person in the world using it. I can tell you that. But it was very, very helpful. Slowed things down. I had a better focus. But over time, it interferes with your ability to sleep because your natural sleep pattern during the day, you know, you should get tired. So I decided to go off of it. And I use the Fast Filter to get off the drug.
 
Shannon Waller: That's amazing. How did you do that? Because I know you would end up doing quite a few Fast Filters in the day.
 
Dan Sullivan: Because I took more than one Adderall a day, you know. Well, one is I establish a rule, don't do anything creative after three o'clock in the afternoon. So if you got to get something done for tomorrow, do it before three. And actually, you know, around seven o'clock in the morning ‘till noon is my best creative time. So, you know, I arranged things so that I wasn't forcing myself to be doing late at night work or late in the afternoon work. But what I did was I said, every time you get the feeling where you'd want to take an Adderall or part of an Adderall, do a Fast Filter. And it would give me instant focus for about two hours.
 
Shannon Waller: Wow.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
 
Shannon Waller: So that's amazing, Dan.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Energy was back up. Focus was there and I could get a lot done in two hours. But I don't want to overuse it. But I restrict myself to three important projects a day.
 
Shannon Waller: Which is how you did 600 in the last year. And last question about this, and by the way, everyone has access to The Impact Filter, so we'll put the links in the show notes, but get to know the full Impact Filter, because you do wanna understand the purpose, importance, and ideal outcome. So Dan, the other thing about this is, because I also asked you, how many of them do you actually pass off to other people? Because it's a brilliant teamwork tool. As we were talking about from our last podcast, it sets the context for what it is, the why, for what it is the action is you're looking for. And you said very few.
 
Dan Sullivan: So much of my schedule is structured in the year because I have workshops, which are all in the schedule. I have book recordings, which are all in the schedule. I have podcasts, which are 90% in the schedule and everything. So my meetings are actually project execution. That's where I'm working with other people. But if I get a new idea about something that nobody has really thought about before, I sent him a Fast Filter and I said, I'd like to have a meeting on this. I find because I have to create a Fast Filter, I've become more discriminating. I've become more discerning about, does this really deserve a meeting? I mean, is it important enough to have a meeting? Because if they get a Fast Filter from me, it's 100% on my side. Yeah, 100 percent committed. So it's a go. I want you to think about this, you know, and you have feedback. But I want you to know what the meeting is about before we have the meeting. As you can do thinking before we come into the meeting.
 
Shannon Waller: And there is a phenomenal byproduct of that, Dan.
 
Dan Sullivan: But also, they can't have a meeting with me unless I get a filter.
 
Shannon Waller: And how long are meetings with you, Dan?
 
Dan Sullivan: Very short.
 
Shannon Waller: Which is phenomenal. I mean.
 
Dan Sullivan: But I've already thought through what the meeting is about before we have the meeting. I have a absolute passion for not wasting other people's time.
 
Shannon Waller: And to have your time not be wasted, too. Which is so powerful. And I think a lot of people come into conversations with no intentionality and with no focus. And they're not in teamwork with themselves.
 
Dan Sullivan: I would say 99 percent of the meetings that probably take place in the world, the meeting is to figure out what they're meeting for.
 
Shannon Waller: It takes forever. It's a waste of time. And then they schedule another meeting, which is why people hate meetings in general. And I know and I've you and I've done this numerous times. If I want to have a meeting with you, I fill out a Fast Filter or even a full Impact Filter. If it's a bigger project, like I'll send it to you. And sometimes I'll be like, yes. And we don't even have to have a meeting like this.
 
Dan Sullivan: Let's go with it.
 
Shannon Waller: Let's do it.
 
Dan Sullivan: Or once you counter offer to like, well, this is how you come back and say, well, you know, what's the priority of this new thing? Because we already have a lot of priorities. And I said, yeah, Okay, that's cool. We don't have to have it next week. We can have it in one month or we can approach it in a different way. But all this thinking has happened in a very focused way before the meeting. So we've saved ourselves a lot of meeting time.
 
Shannon Waller: And you've kind of taken, again, going back to being in teamwork with yourself, you clarified your own thoughts. The thing I love, love, love about our thinking tools, and I've said this before, is that I am smarter at the end of completing it than I was when I started. I like anything that has me be more intelligent to myself. So I'm clear about my idea. I'm clear on the purpose. And if I'm not, I stop and I don't have the meaning. It's like, oh, this is actually not such a good idea. So if I can't sell myself, there's no way I'm going to attempt to sell someone else. But you have this great line, I don't brainstorm in public. If an idea comes with an Impact Filter, it's legit. And if it doesn't, you're just talking. And that's an incredible piece of clarity and coaching that you give to your team, that we encourage our clients and our team members to have the same standard.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, it's interesting if I measure back 10 years right now, just turned 80. And if I go back 7 years ago, for every three meetings I had 10 years ago, I only have one meeting now.
 
Shannon Waller: So two thirds fewer meetings.
 
Dan Sullivan: That disappeared. I say, is this really worth having a meeting? Is this really worth bothering people with this idea? But I think the idea has become more important.
 
Shannon Waller: As you become even more discerning than you were 10 years ago, you have an incredibly good sense of what makes sense to proceed with and what doesn't.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I have a question, you know, I say, is there any way we can solve this by doing nothing? And then I said, what's the least we can get away to solve this problem? And then, is there somebody else who can do the least so I don't have to do it? I find I get more and more refined. But the other thing is my goals are bigger for the future. It's very, very interesting. I have a Fast Filter that I review every day, and it's five really big goals. Okay, so the first goal is 156 year lifetime. And then I say, related to my 156 year lifetime, what can I do today that improves my chances? Okay, number two is create 1000 thinking tools by age 100. A quarter that way there, but there's going to be a lot more thinking tools over the next 20 years. Number three is $1 billion in patent value from all of our thinking tools by 2044. Another one is that the total value of all the Strategic Coach clients, when I'm 100, is $15 trillion in asset value. What can I do today to do that? So what you're doing is I've got these five big contextual goals that I'm going to take in the rest of my life. What's the actual action that I can take just before I go to bed at night? What are five actions I can take that nudge it along, you know, nudge it in the right direction? There's a fifth one here. Let me check.
 
Shannon Waller: Is it make Babs happy?
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, that's a given. Yeah. Oh, 100 quarterly books by 2039. And when we're working on number thirty nine, you know, those are the thing. And then I just say today, I'm on all my actions. I'm going to take five things that support these five goals. You know, it just locks me in with where I'm going. And it's cool. It is cool. And I don't think anyone else in the world is working on those five goals.
 
Shannon Waller: No, I guess.
 
Dan Sullivan: They're working on five of their own. Which they probably don't know.
 
Shannon Waller: That's my point. I've known of these separately. I didn't know you had a Fast Filter on them.
 
Dan Sullivan: I review them every day, you know. Yeah. But it doesn't put me in The Gap because I just have what I can do today. But I'm reinforcing them in my brain every day, you know.
 
Shannon Waller: I'm so going to do this for myself like, today. I love that. So, Dan, one of the things that's interesting, it kind of explains why you're so easy to be in teamwork with, according to me, and that is because you're in teamwork with yourself. You're aligned, you're intentional, you're focused, and you're present. It's a breeze to work with you, and I work with you a lot. We have three things in three days. We're spending a lot of time together this week, which I love, but it makes it really easy. So I think one of the things that from a teamwork angle, if you want to be in great teamwork with people, be in teamwork with yourself first, and then using a communication tool like thinking process, like the Impact Filter, lets people in on what's most important to you, lets people know what the purpose, importance, ideal outcome is, what the best case scenario is, if it works out, you know, how you feel about it. The worst case, if you don't take action or if it goes poorly, and then the eight success criteria or five in the Fast Filter, it's like, it's really, really clear. And then people can go, yes, it's like this massive invitation to teamwork outside of yourself. So the whole process is just elegant and simple. I like it a lot.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And, you know, I've been coaching entrepreneurs. This will be 50 years this year. But I've been coaching myself that I can specifically pinpoint when I started this process. And it was at age 20, you know, so I had about 10 years, 20 to 30, because I started coaching entrepreneurs when I was 30. So I had about 10 years of just getting my act together before I started creating a process where they could get their act together. This is what I do. You know, people said, you know, where do you see yourself 10 years from now? I said, doing basically what I did yesterday, but a lot better.
 
Shannon Waller: Well, that must be so confidence building, Dan.
 
Dan Sullivan: And it's relaxing. That's I'm not worried about a changing world. You know, I've always been able to spot somebody who was trapped in the past. I'm noticing more and more people trapped in the future. They're so fixated on a totally unpredictable future that they can't get anything done today.
 
Shannon Waller: Yeah, that's a great insight.
 
Dan Sullivan: That's what being trapped in the past, you can't take advantage of today. So that's a podcast.
 
Shannon Waller: That's a podcast and an exercise. This is how it happens, everybody. So, you know. So, Dan, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for kind of letting us in on the back stage process of Dan. I know that I do it, not as much as you do, but when I do it, it works. It's just one of those things. So bringing that to higher level awareness and being consistent about it is key. I'm leaving with a ton of really fun action ideas to be in better teamwork with myself. So yeah, thank you.
 
Dan Sullivan: Just another pitch for the Fast Filter. It saves on drugs.
 
Shannon Waller: Yeah, it does. Get your brain focused on points. That's definitely the way to go. Dan, thank you so much.
 
Dan Sullivan: Thank you, Shannon.