Defining Hospitality

[00:00:00]
Dan Ryan: Today's guest is a talented public speaker. He's the author of five books, including getting things done. The art of stress-free productivity, which is also one of my favorite books.
He's 35 years been consulting, training and coaching in the U S and globally. He's the founder of the David Allen company. And he's a personal hero of mine because his methadone. Has helped me achieve great things and make the world a smaller place. So ladies and gentlemen, welcome David Allen. Welcome David.
Oh, well thanks
David Allen: Dan. Thanks for the invitation. Always delighted to hang out with somebody like [00:01:00] you and shout about this stuff.
Dan Ryan: Yeah. Um, well I'm honored to hang out with someone like you, because it's not often, you got to hang out with your hero or one of your heroes and, um, I just so my personal journey with getting things done, and I know you've heard me say it is, it was a.
I guess it was about 12 years ago, my son was born and a mutual friend of ours. Danny Passman had a cocktail or a luncheon out in LA and I, he was on a podcast with you or something. He's like come to this thing. And my wife, Alexa was like, even though my son Theo was just brand new, she's like, no, you have to go because you're a whole different person.
Since you picked up that book and started implementing GTD and the art of stress-free productivity and. I think that's just a Testament to how much of an impact you've had on my life and also my wife's life and my, and my, my whole family's life
David Allen: mine too. [00:02:00] Um,
Dan Ryan: and I think while this podcast is about hospitality and defining hospitality, you know, most of the people that I'm working with in furnishing hotels, They're all really incredibly creative human beings, right?
From interior designers, architects. Um, and what I find, what I found through GTD is there's this idea of a clear white space, which to me is like ultimate creativity. Now, while I might not be creating beautifully built environments, I'm a part of that. What GTD is allowed me to do is like become a better writer.
Allowed me to create this podcast has allowed me to start a bunch of different businesses and be a better parent, a better parent, a better, well, my kids might argue with you on that. How creative
David Allen: can you be? Other than that, that ministry that bring souls under the planet and had that responsibility to train [00:03:00] them.
Totally.
Dan Ryan: But I, I think that as I look at all of these people who have benefited from getting things done, um, it's, what's so important is about getting to that ultimately creative place. And I feel like, you know, this idea of where we only, our brain is only designed to hold four things. We are often overloading our brain with things that don't matter, which, which prevents us from being in that creative place.
So tell me about. Your journey with getting things done and how you have kind of gone full steam ahead into this ultimate creative place by using this, and then how you're impacting entrepreneurs and other human beings around the world.
David Allen: Well, if we had about two months, I could then fill in the story, but I'll try to freeze dry it a little for your dam here, basically.
Uh, very much attracted [00:04:00] and engaged in what clear space was like getting a black belt in karate. When, in my twenties where it was critical that you clear your head. If you got attacked by four people in a dark alley, you don't look 2000 unprocessed emails hanging around yourself. So you need to be clear.
So all the stuff of mindfulness people are studying these studies, you know, focusing on your breathing, what I learned that 40 years ago. Yeah. That's what you do. You will make it present. You want to get clear your, and there may be a spiritual reason for that could be if you're, if you're focused in that world.
Uh, but there's very practical reason for that. The clearer your head is the more you're able to deal with surprise and change. And to recalibrate into refocus and be present with whatever you're doing. So that's the whole idea about being present? That's the optimally productive state and being present doesn't mean you work hard or just means you can take a nap without having anything on your mind, you know, or you can tuck your, or you could watch a girl play soccer without having a, on your eyes.
Or you can, [00:05:00] or you can do cook spaghetti better or hire a vice-president better or decide whether to get divorced or adopted or not better. So those are all super, you know, creative decisions that you need to make, but to clear your head is so that your brain is not taken up with, you know, cognitive stuff.
That's taking up real estate that you need to have for other things. Other things, meaning if you're here, have a clear head, there's no system that can give you the answer to a strategic, intuitive judgment call about what to do. That's you, that's the only system called you as a human being. There's no system that's going to make that decision for you.
You have to do that, but a systematic way to engage with all the other things in your life that are taking up cognitive real estate. That's. To do. And you know, if you don't give appropriate attention to anything that has your attention with our big, it's going to take more [00:06:00] attention than it deserves. If cat food pops in your head more than once you're inappropriately engaged with your cat.
Right? So cat food should pop in your head once. Oh. What do you do? Put it on a post-it on the fridge where it goes to the store gets captured. I am now appropriately engaged as opposed to three o'clock in the morning. Oh my God. The cats in my face. Cause they're starving. Well, you know, so, so, so dealing with the small stuff, as critical as dealing with the big stuff in a strange way, and it kind of is in sort of a way.
Dan Ryan: But as we were speaking earlier, I, I mentioned that, you know, this idea of defining hospitality. Okay. You can look it up and see a definition, blah, blah, blah, whatever. But to me it's much more than that. And all of these discussions I've been having with these amazing guests who, from entrepreneurs to architects, designers, um, hotel [00:07:00] operators, um, bartenders, um, There's this idea that kind of an, a thread that runs through everything where it's this idea of.
Okay. If we're hospitality, somehow we have to be open-hearted and attentive, um, to an empathetic, to really hear what's going on. And again, I haven't really figured out the full definition because these conversations are helping me do this. Um, but David, how do you define hospitals?
David Allen: Well, when I think about when I have felt hospitable or being hospitable towards with people with me, it was heartfelt. It was authentic and it was service oriented. It's like, it's a real communication from a caring place. It says, how can I help? How can I serve? And, you know, that's even taught me how to do that G down.[00:08:00]
No, how can I help? How can I serve? What are we doing? So I think hospitality is not just for the industry. I think it's for the human being, you know, as a, as an experience. But I certainly, in my experience in the hospitality business, you know, as I'd been a customer in that for many, many years, And I'm a serious road warrior, you know, uh, and have been for many years.
Um, that's that to me was hospitable. I could tell when they cared, I could tell when it was an authentic communication, you know, Hey, we don't have that. I'm so sorry. And you know, I'm going to try to do what I can do to fix this, to make this. I to make it okay for you and service oriented called how do I serve you?
What do you need? And how can I help in that process? Not that I have all the answers, but I'm going to be authentically trying to do my best because I care and I want to be of service. [00:09:00] I mean, how, how could you get more hospitable than that?
Dan Ryan: I agree. And I think, and you've said this over and over it, like with getting things done, we.
Do all parts of that at different levels of efficiency and effectiveness of your, of the whole system from capturing to engaging and reviewing and all things in between. And I think one of the things why I was drawn to have you here also is if you're appropriately engaged with everything in this trusted system, then it's much easier to be creative open-hearted and ha and heartfelt, heartfelt Lee attended.
To others so that you can be in a place of service. Um, not just as a hotel server, but even as a guest walking in. Cause I I'm also learning that hospitality is really a two-way street, but you know, but how to be ultimately engage properly with another human in front of you, [00:10:00] all that other noise kind of has to shut down.
David Allen: Well, it has to, as a big word, then I'm a big phrase, you know, come on, you know, the degree to which it does shut down is the degree to which you can be more present in your communications and conversations. Yeah. But you're right. It is a two way street. I need to be honest. When I walk up to the front desk, Hey guys, my room is too close to the elevator, you know, and I don't, I don't like the noise.
Can we change that? That has to be an authentic. Conversation from meat to them so that they understand how to engage with that appropriately.
Dan Ryan: As you were saying that it reminded me, I just read this, um, article that, um, An industry leader within hospitality. His name is Raul layout. He is the CEO of S H hotels. So they have like the backer out hotel. The one hotel is all this, and it was, um, I don't remember the, what it was exactly called, but it had the, it was the idea of basically.[00:11:00]
It's okay to do nothing. It's okay to take a nap. It's okay. To restore recharge. And there's been this other, um, interesting avenue that's percolating about wellness and health throughout these conversations that I've been having. And I was really struck yesterday when someone was asking, Hey, you know, I'm stressing myself over this or this or whatever.
And you're like taken up, go for a walk, give yourself permission to do nothing in. That's shocking to a lot of
David Allen: people.
Yeah. But that's a lot of what the hospitality business can afford people or can, can deliver to them with high value, you know, come here and you get a chance to unhook. I mean, that's a lot of the marketing pitch these days, you know, for a lot of the properties out there now, here's what are you away?
Here's a way to unhook. Here's a way to do that. So, yeah. Yeah, no, that's. Um, [00:12:00]
Dan Ryan: when you talked about the cat food a minute ago and just, Hey, write it down on a post-it note, um, capture it. There's this idea of, and you've shared with me and other people that our brain can only remember four things at once.
Capturing is a great way to get things out of your. Compartmentalize it, and I've actually seen it work in our hospitality industry. Because again, like you said, we all do these things, but there was a really well known, famous general manager, um, from the four seasons in San Francisco, which was the Clift.
Then he went to DC. Then he came back to San Francisco and worked at a four seasons there. Uh, I think it was the millennium. And I remember walking around the property with him and he had. No card, but he would just capture every little thing that he saw, um, that wasn't quite right, that the frontline employees were missing.
And he was picking up little rapper from the ground, noticing fingerprints. [00:13:00] He wouldn't address it right there. And I think what I love about, um, getting things done as well is what he would do is become really close with the frontline employees, the customer facing. Then he would capture all this, compartmentalize it, and then appropriately engage with it.
With that. Person's. So that, Hey, let's take this as a learning and how do we prevent this from happening? What kind of rhythms and structure can we
David Allen: prepare around this? Yeah, no fabulous. And I'm a huge four seasons fan at some point, Catherine, my wife and I said, you know, ideal scene would be able to be able to unhook from the world and just live in four seasons hotels around the world and go from one to the other, uh, another great story by the way, which I'll share with you.
And I'm going to mention a woman's name right now that you should all know she's got a new book coming up. Her name is Nancy Sherman, Nancy, N a N C O. Sherman S H E R M a N well-known to be one of the top boutique hotel managers. [00:14:00] And she was a time I was doing public seminars and I was doing public seminar, uh, at the new Hilton hotel in Miami, the airport Hilton.
That was the flagship Hilton hotel at the time. This has got back in the early nineties or when I forget when that was. And so I was. Seminars there. And Nancy happened to be the, the, the head of, uh, you know, uh, uh, whatever you call that the people who manage the, the events going on in the hotel. And it was funny because one of the Hiltons was getting married.
Well, the younger Hilton's was getting married and they wanted to then do that event at the, at the airport Hilton. Because it was the flagship, so all that was going to happen. And she said it was fascinating to watch the staff, knowing that a Hilton was going to show up that the Hilton's were going to show up.
She said what? They started to notice. They never noticed before, [00:15:00] oh my God, we need to clean that up. We need to clean that up. We need to clean that up. So, you know, so sort of an interesting management technique has never know. You never let your staff know when you're going through. Because then they may consider, wow, what if he, or she shows up, what are they going to see?
And you start to see things through their eyes, through a different horizon or a different standard, essentially, in terms of that. So I thought that was a fascinating story about just standards in a hotel, you know, and how you manage. So the fact that your guy, we would walk around and even do that and have those conversations sort of about the standards for people to be aware of those kinds of things.
So he didn't have to do that more than once to say I might do it again. Yeah.
Dan Ryan: And I think that also comes into the, into effect, like to tie it all together, would that, you know, the weekly review or because if you can [00:16:00] almost in a way as you're reviewing whatever you're doing, Almost think about it as, Hey, here's a checklist.
This is all the things that we need to do. And Hey, in a hotel it could be one of the Hiltons are coming or in a business. It could be like a trigger list to just go through and help get everything out of your head that have those
David Allen: surprises. Yeah. Everything's a checklist. Your calendar is a checklist.
Everything is a check. Anything you need to check to locate yourself in space and time to feel comfortable about what you're doing and what you're not doing. You know, come on. I'll tell a Guandique is a fabulous book. The checklist manifesto was just an incredible book. I've written as a surgeon about how, how, how many more lives will be saved as surgeons actually use checklist.
Dan Ryan: I read that book and I think it starts with a horrible story about how. Someone chopped off the wrong leg, his surgeon chopped off the wrong leg. So they put in these checklists to actually confirm multiple times [00:17:00] that, and have you
David Allen: washed your hands, excuse me. And you know, and they say, you know, the pilots use checklists and surgeons don't because the pilots are in the plane.
Believe me. If you had to operate on yourself, you'd have a chance.
Dan Ryan: Totally, you know, there's so many of those great. I call them business porn books that are just amazing. And that, that book is definitely at the top. And I read that one and it was so engaging. It sounds like for those of you who don't like those books, it, it sounds, it sounds like, oh, it's about checklist, but it's, it's really powerfully written, very engaging.
And, um, again, It helped change processes within my businesses. Right. Um, what's interesting about him is I read that book and I was so drawn to it that I was at this bookstore in Menlo park. Kepler's uh, Menlo park, California. I [00:18:00] think that's actually like Jerry Garcia started playing guitar there with the warlocks before the grateful dead started, but there was a new book.
There was a book. I can't remember the name that he wrote that was at the, uh, at the checkout. It was about being a death or something like that. I don't remember the title. I'm going to put it in the show notes, but I picked it up cause I just read checklist manifesto. And it was basically about how death is.
Okay. When we get sick. Um, It's okay to die well and, and, and not be afraid of it. And like, instead of spending all of this money towards the end of someone's life to try and fight the inevitable, like how do we embrace and walk to death? And I was so incredibly surprised to pick that book up and write it.
Wasn't what I was expecting at all. But my dad got really sick right around then as well. And I'm so glad that I read that [00:19:00] book. When I read it by accident, because it really helped me understand the whole process of death and dying. And just also, if it's okay to be present in an aware,
David Allen: oh, wonderful. Now told us great guy, he's a GTD ear.
I asked him if I could interview him. He said, David, I, I just feel like I'm such an amateur. GTD I'd be too embarrassed.
Dan Ryan: He considers himself.
David Allen: At GPD. I don't know. I don't know why, so we didn't further the conversation, but I knew he knew what this methodology was and he bought into it. So
I attributed to him, you know, cause a checklist, my God, everything's a checklist. How many things do you need to get out of your head? So you can check it. Anybody who ever reads a recipe book or a cookbook is looking at checking. It doesn't mean you have to do everything on the checklist or even do it the way the checklist says, but it just make sure you [00:20:00] don't miss something that you don't want to miss.
Did you put enough salt in there? Yeah. But then you can then use whatever creative, Indian spice you want to, but make sure you don't forget this piece or that piece or that piece. And so anybody who uses a calendar who uses recipes, so using it, they're using checklist. So it's like, what's the, what's the big deal.
Dan Ryan: Going back to that idea of those business porn books. Right? Sorry. I keep bringing that up. Did you ever read a book?
David Allen: I haven't heard that before. So I
Dan Ryan: think that you, your book is definitely you're in the business porn chef shelf. Like your, your, your books are prominently displayed
David Allen: on my wait a minute. I have to do a sidebar on this three, four years ago.
And under somewhere, some guy. Does this is a podcast or some sort of a column that he writes and he does every year. He does the business, the business BS book. So it's like the, the things you need to have on your [00:21:00] book, you don't have to read them. You just need to have them on your bookshelf. So when people walk into your office, they say, oh, you got that.
Oh, you have that book. And my book made it to his list and he said, well, that was one accolade I've never really had before. Yeah on the BS booklet. Well, the BS,
Dan Ryan: but while I prefer to have you on the business porn bookshelf myself, it's, it's more exciting. So a tool, he also, the name of that book, I had to look it up.
It's called being mortal and it's, it's fantastic. But another book that would go on. And another reason why I love doing these conversations on defining hospitality. It's called the E-Myth revisited. Have you read that one? No. Okay. Well basically it's, it's kind of checklisty um, but it takes a story of a hotelier, um, somewhere in central California coast.
And he was so inspired by staying at this one hotel. I [00:22:00] don't think he ever named the hotel, but he basically the hotel, the business. Who ran the hotel, I think, wanted to exit out or something. So he basically, but he loved this hotel so much. He created processes and systems and everything so that everything that he did to make every guest feel comfortable, um, was easily repeatable and trainable by his teams.
And, um, and that's what I love about this, because if you look at hospitality, it's really just about serving. Communicating and it's transferable to every single industry and every kind of business it's all about. Like how can we just be better humans and make those around us feel appreciated and appropriately engaged?
David Allen: Well, yeah, I mean, this is all human stuff, you know, and. In the hospitality industry, the more you translate real human stuff down to practical [00:23:00] operational practices, the better you are. You know, I feel like, you know, walk into four seasons people go, oh my God. Especially if they know me or I can look it up and go, oh, David Allen, nice to see you.
You know? And when those, especially when those are real communications and that they have the freedom to make that real community. Because they've got 16 clients on hold over there and the world banging on the door about X, Y, and Z, they can stop and say, those are all parked where they need to be parked.
Let me know, focus on you because I can go back to where those parking lots are at the appropriate time. And I think that's the critical issue. That's a lot of what GTD is about, is being able to put placeholder. For all the things that you have your attention on and appropriate placeholders, meaning that you know, that you are the appropriate personable, [00:24:00] get back to those at the appropriate time.
So they don't have to be spinning around in that subliminal, you know, uh, ambient anxiety that most people live in.
Dan Ryan: And I'm so glad you said ambient anxiety because. That was a really powerful concept. You had the other day when someone was saying, Hey, I'm I'm I fail at this part of the GTD methodology constantly.
And then you said, well, that's because you're, you're addicted to ambient anxiety, work out that muscle of trying it and that thing and get it to the point of, and really recognize how you feel and how you're engaged and how you're in that flow state and get addicted to that. That was really powerful.
And so for that ambient anxiety, and I know you're not really coaching people anymore. You have a Legion of coaches around the world that are coaching people, but is there a great story you [00:25:00] can share about breaking someone's addiction to ambient anxiety?
David Allen: Not really because it's a gradual process for people. It's not like they wake up with little Tiffany about that and get it overnight. But pretty much everybody I've coached who started to implement some version of what this methodology is starts to, to some degree, raise the bar in terms of how much of that stress or ambient anxiety they're willing to tolerate.
They know they don't have to anymore. So again, kind of a sidebar story, but it does have a point. At some point I was doing a seminar and somebody came up. I said, I'm so excited. This is a great, so tell me about it. Give me some feedback. He said, well, it's like, you'd let me know that happened. I don't think I'm going to need, I don't think I'm going to do what I need to do to get into heaven, but I'm really glad to know what's there.
So [00:26:00] if nothing else that you to know that there's a way out of your ambient anxiety, whether you decide to do that or not, it's up to you, maybe you love to spend, maybe you love the stress. Maybe, maybe, I dunno. Maybe that turns you on. I have no agenda or judgment about any of that. That's up to you. I'm just saying if you want to get rid of it or less.
Here's ways you do that. You get rid of this stuff, that's taking up cognitive space and then creating subliminal, spin that's timeless inside your head and just get that out of your head to do that. So people have done that more or less, you know, overall be hard to say somebody who'd done it totally there probably a few them.
Sort of really get this, but you know, it takes a lot of forms. You know, one of a long time champion of my stuff, a good friend, senior, very, very senior guy at HP at human pocket weekly. He, he [00:27:00] brings his staff and, and shows them his mind map of his world. What's on his mind right now. He does a total view because it's so that you guys know.
What my priorities are, what I'm dealing with. So it's easier for you to make decisions when I have to make, have you give you the freedom to make a decision right now, you're gonna have to come to me. You'll know, kind of what's going on in my world. So there's a view of six lane transparency and a way of objectifying, the things that have our attention and how much value that may have.
Not only for ourselves, obviously for ourselves, but even for people around. What's got your attention. Y you know, th th there's no better question to ask than that. I don't care if we're flying to Jupiter and I'm a hundred years, you know, we got our staff together go, Hey guys, what's got their attention right now.
What's not on cruise control on our way to Jupiter. [00:28:00] So, so the capture step is a universal step. This is not something I just made up. It's something I record. Did you have to do, if you wanted to in appropriately engaged with this stuff, that's got your attention spinning around inside that terrible office called your mind
Dan Ryan: and the capture idea and walking around with a piece of paper or however, I need to capture that definitely from on my journey, things ambient anxiety lowered tremendously, but the other Jedi trick.
You beat the drum on constantly. And again, there's like all these different phases of GTD, but it's really that I D the notion of clarifying, because when you said cat food before, okay. Cat food it's captured, but that cat food could just sit there. Is it, my cat is allergic to food and I need to change it.
Is it. I need to go to the store. I need to log into my computer. I needed this. And it's really, uh, taking all those captured [00:29:00] ideas and realize. Not just putting a verb in front of it, but what needs to happen. But the real thing was I had so many things on my lists that were to dues, but they were really projects and it really needed to be blown out in a mind map and think about what all this is, so that I could plan it out and boil it down to the next actions.
Then I was like, oh my God, I feel free and clear and creative and
David Allen: powerful. Well, that's what. It's not about finishing the project is about making sure you finish your thinking about it. And you're thinking about those two key components, outcome desired, actual step required, and you're not born doing that.
That's a cognitive muscle that you need to train.
I
Dan Ryan: agree. And there was training, but it also, and I love the idea and I don't know, I don't remember you writing about ambient anxiety in the books. Is that a phrase you use a
David Allen: lot? Yeah, no. I say, well, fairly new. And even since I wrote, [00:30:00] I don't know if it had the new edition in 2015 where I've used that phrase or not, but even since then, I realized that overwhelm is not the real issue.
It's the ambient anxiety that people tolerate. Yeah.
Dan Ryan: And actually you were on a podcast with a friend of mine, Chloe Carmichael, who was also a guest on this one as well. Um, because she is all about anxiety and listening to that and learning from it. And what I found in having the developing and building and always evolving this system, it tamps down that ambient anxiety.
So I'm not getting. The rush awake at night, or I'm not like, oh, my heart's not skipping a beat about, I forgot to do something because it's all there. And the power is when, when everything is there and captured in the place, I'm actually making a choice of doing it or not doing it. And it almost like gives me the power to not have that anxiety because I know it's there.
I'm not going to forget it and I'll get to it when I have the energy, [00:31:00] um, or the time
David Allen: and the. And the reminder.
Dan Ryan: Yeah,
David Allen: if you don't have the reminder somewhere, you trust your brain, won't let it go. So your brain has to trust that your system is better than it is before it lets go. Um,
Dan Ryan: another thing on the system, look, we all do all of these things.
And for those listeners who don't know, GTD getting things done. Um, is there a
surprisingly yes, because I'm like, have you heard of this and I've sent your book to so many people, I cannot tell you I've sent these, um, little pocket wallets to so many people. I cannot tell you because in a way I know what's driving you and why you're doing what you're doing is because. You want to take this methodology [00:32:00] and implement it, have other people implement it so that the world becomes a better place.
Right. And that's really powerful. And I think that if there's any gift I could ever give someone, it's like, Hey, shut down your ambient anxiety a little bit. I can help you. Everyone's like, I just need more time. I need more time. I'm like, do you, we all have the same amount of time. We're all given the same amount.
David Allen: Yeah. You'd have more time to have more ambient anxiety. Yeah,
absolutely.
Dan Ryan: Um, when you think about you in a dojo, when did you start learning karate?
David Allen: Mm, 1968. How old were you? I was born in 1945. So do the math. 23.
Dan Ryan: So
did you that idea of, of kind of that mind, [00:33:00] like water being appropriately engaged and clear and centered, did you have any notion of that before karate or karate just taught you the hard way
David Allen: by the end of high school, I'd read all of Suzuki and Alan Watts in terms of Zen. So. I was already aware of sort of the clear space idea as best I, as, uh, you know, as a teenager could understand what that meant, but I was very somehow very attracted to the aesthetics of all that. That's why I decided to engage in and learning karate.
I wasn't interested in fighting. I was interested in the, in the marshal, in the idea of a martial art, what was the cause? There were, so there was such a close connection between Zen and the martial. Well, and I had a friend who was really good at karate offered to teach me. And so that's how I got engaged in that.
But that's, [00:34:00] you know, there were several other factors where I was always curious about models. I was always curious about things that affected our thinking and. That's why I was a history major and philosophy and history major in college. Um, and you know, why do people think the way they thought during that time and what was the paradigm that was driving them through it?
I've always had a, I guess, some fascination to curiosity about models and how about models affect our perceptions and our purpose?
I guess all that was sort of involved, you know, and all this kind of came together over the years.
Dan Ryan: And, you know, as you were on your journey to kind of understanding that and also creating this system and disseminating it to the world, um, I guess before GTD, and you would know better than me, it's kind of like that Franklin Covey type.[00:35:00]
Here's an organizer work within this thing. But what I love about yours also, it's like totally agnostic because it's really about the thinking and then the process and you can use any tool. And so often we all get so caught up in the tool that we lose sight of the practice. Right. So as you were developing this and kind of getting it all to come together, like what were some of your inspirations to.
Be a productive, human and keep track of everything. And what mistakes did you make until you arrived at GTD?
David Allen: I don't know. Dan, that's such a big question. There were so many things, you know, it could be very, very long story. I'm in apartment 76, a lot of history, you know, in the development of all this. But I think in the early days to try to give you some sort of a simple answer, uh, you know, I got involved in the.
The sort of personal growth movement, you know, uh, dropped out of graduate [00:36:00] school and got involved in meditation, spiritual practices and the personal growth a little bit in coming from it. This is, I was in Berkeley in 68, so heady times. And of course that was the. As to naturalizations and Lifespring, and a lot of the personal growth movements were showing up at a best salon and other places where a lot of things were being sort of curated and cumulated into sort of personal training where you go for five days, intensives and so forth.
And I got involved in that and, uh, it was, was one of the first people involved in something called insight seminars, which is still around and became a facilitator of that. And I had a lot of great stuff. And a lot of my own personal transformational experiences happened out of being involved with that stuff.
It was kind of like life one-on-one, you know, you were never taught how to give feedback and, and receive it, you know, appropriately, you were never taught, you know, things you need, how to be honest with people you cared about. And, and [00:37:00] just all those good things that these days are kind of taken for granted in terms of, you know, self-help movements out there, you know, that, uh, that have been around for.
40 years, you know, in, in space. So I got involved in that and that then showed me, uh, that they were things you could learn very quickly. You didn't have to change yourself so much, but if you learn some techniques and learned how to approach things appropriately, you could really transform your experience.
One of those pieces in that, by the way, it was a small piece of a, of a whole five day training was about agreements. What happens when you keep an agreement? What happens when you don't keep it in. Right internally and keep an agreement with the butter. You feel wonderful. Don't keep an agreement. You're going to disintegrate trust with yourself or anybody else that agreement involves.
So interestingly, the whole GPD process is about clarifying your agreements mostly with yourselves, but a lot of them [00:38:00] include other people. So I took, there were pieces of what I learned in the personal growth movement. And then we designed a, kind of a funky version of a, kind of a time management training about using some sort of a planner to keep track of your agreements and so forth, and then discovered a great, uh, uh, paper-based tool out of Europe, out of Denmark called the time system system.
We call it time design in the U S and became the first super to that course. It was the classiest coolest. You'll be able to manage all that stuff, but it also had the real experience of how much difference it made to keep track of your agreements and to make sure you didn't break them, or if you had to change them, then you could renegotiate them.
So keep an agreement, finish the agreement. Don't make the agreement or renegotiate the agreement creates a whole lot of clarity. So that was something I learned in that sort of September. You know, um, [00:39:00] grow yourself, learn who you are gonna kind of process back back in the sixties and seventies. And that turned into the fact that we've kind of developed a little training around this that had a lot to do that the corporate world was starting to interest in him because it started to be interested then, and that sort of time management idea, which ultimately self-made.
So I wound up kind of moving from, okay. Here's how here's, here's something you need to do get clear about, but by the way, here's a way you could apply that to your business corporate environment that would give you more room and more space. And I couldn't have said that in 1982. You know, when I sort of create my own first little, uh, consulting practice and then started to take some of these techniques and started to put them together in a model that I could work with clients to, to have them do this.
And then, [00:40:00] you know, it'd work great, a little successful, small consulting business, dealing with small businesses and friends and. Then a big guy in the corporate training world saw what I was doing said, oh my God, we need that in a whole corporation. Could you please design your training around this? You know, that we can reach a lot of people with the methodology and come up with, so I did and it worked, it was highly successful and you know, thousand managers and executives as a pilot program in lucky, 19 83, 84.
And it was so successful. I w I just found myself thrust into the corporate training world with what I'd come up with could have full B. I've never had any formal traditional education in business psychology or diamond mines. Street-smarts, that's all, you're a group.
Dan Ryan: And you become a guru at it. You become an overnight success after 40 something years.
David Allen: Yeah, but probably because I didn't have any pre-conditioning. I didn't have any it's like, well, [00:41:00] what works? What works? What produces clarity, what produces this thing? And so I didn't have any sort of preconditioned information or training about what that is supposed to be. So I suppose that's why my stuff wound up being, I thought I was the last course of the guy to learn this stuff.
I thought people making a lot more money than I'd see in my life, but they'd already figured this out and wrong answer. They were the ones most hungry for this. Cause the most, the people most attracted to this methodology that people who need it, the least they're the most organized professional, organized, aspirational, successful people already.
It's just, they come up to here. They have no more room. They know the value of system. They've got one they've know the value of organizing. They know the value that they can produce because they produced it to get them to where they already, they know if they had more room, they could produce more. They just, haven't got no more room and there's no more space.
So a [00:42:00] lot of my coaching over, you know, thousands and thousands of hours with some of the best and brightest one-on-one at their desk, coaching them with this stuff, which is just by clearing the psyche, clearing it up. They just didn't know how to do that. So I taught them how to do that. What they did with that space was up to.
You know, my, my job was not to give them input about what they should be thinking about. My job was to get them clear so they could think freely and creatively,
Dan Ryan: I think. And that's another thing. This idea of a mind sweep or a brain dump and just clearing out the Ram and the brain. And I don't know if there's a trigger list somewhere.
I'll see if I can find a trigger list. I want to put it in the show notes because somewhere I'll find it, I'll put it in there, but I would anyone listening, I would just say like set an hour, two hours. And just a clean white piece of paper, a bunch of paper and follow [00:43:00] this mind sweep. It's crazy when you get everything out of your head and you can, that's the fastest way to scratch at that clear whiteboard of creativity.
So I challenge everyone to try that and just see what happens then, then there's a whole other thing about, okay, well now what do I do with all that? Then you can get the book or the audio book or whatever. You'll walk them through it there. Um, but
David Allen: by the way, you don't have to even do that guys. Once you get that stuff dumped out of here, just look, look at each one and say, is that something I need to move on?
Yes or no. If no trash it, put it in a reference somewhere or say, let me re let me incubate that and review it in three weeks. Right. If it is something you need to act on and say, well, great. What would the next action looks at? Or feel like if I were actually was only gonna finish that, what would I do?
And he emailed us in the website to serve, but something to talk to my [00:44:00] partner about what, what, what's the next thing I would need to do on that. And by the way, if that one action won't finish it and say, well, what's the project and define the outcome that you're after that one action is not going to finish to keep track.
And then then organized type thinking in some sort of appropriate list that you see, here's the errands I need to run. Here's the things that I did talk to my wife or my husband about, or my partner about, or here, here's the things I need to surf the web about or whatever, you know, this ain't rocket science, unless you're building rockets
Dan Ryan: and then you can still use
David Allen: it.
And so, so, so yeah, if anybody listening to this just got what I just said. You don't have to get, you don't have to go read all these things. You don't have to do that. Although if you do, you'll see there's a lot more to this than meets the eye and building this in as a more habitual behavior in a more systematic behavior.
Yeah. You might get inspired for an hour or two or [00:45:00] three and then have a cool thing. And then you're going to fall off the wagon very fast. Unless you build in some sort of a systematic process and habitual process about doing this kind of thinking, doing this kind of capturing, doing kind of clarifying and organizing consistently, as opposed to just once I still do this guys, I'm 76.
I still have stuff I've just thrown right here. I don't know. I don't know yet what I need to do with this, but I know I need to do something with it. So I printed about. So I'm still in the same game and it will be probably the light die. So it's just how you, how you keep the cognitive space clearer, because I'm a freedom junkie guys.
Come on, you meet me. You're going to see one of the most addicted to spontaneous don't fence me in, you know, kind of guys you'll ever meet. People often think they're so surprised they beat me. They think, well, God, you've gotta be the most anal retentive OCB kind of [00:46:00] guy ever. It's like not, you're going to meet, you're going to meet somebody who said the recent, I love spontaneity and creativity and just the freedom to do this.
That's how I came up with all this so I can stay there
Dan Ryan: and that's really.
David Allen: Well, stay there. You know, you can stay there if you want to just go get a rice bowl and cave and get a little paintbrush and whatever, maybe that'd be your life. But if you want to, you know, I like to maintain the apartment. We just bought an Amsterdam and I, my artwork and my, my wine that I love to drink, you know?
So then gorgeous wife and two wonderful dogs that we work with. So to maintain my life. I still need to manage all that stuff so that I have room to practice my flute and to practice my acrylic painting, which I'm learning to do now. So, you know, all those are anyway, I'm preaching to the choir probably for a lot of the folks listening to [00:47:00] this, but I'm just to remind, I'm reminding you about a lot of stuff that you already do.
I'm just hoping I'm putting in a context where you see it in a more as, as Dan framed it to begin with. You know, we all do this, but most people don't do this in some sort of consistent, uh, templated way that then allows you to then live about life. You know, I don't even think about this stuff. I just do it, but it's like, I brush my teeth and I take a shower like you do too.
And the reason is if you don't, you feel uncom. So if I don't do what we've been talking about, I just feel uncomfortable. I got ambient anxiety can start just spending in which I hate
Dan Ryan: when you talked about the, um, the flute, the painting and the fun, joyous, spontaneous things. Um, there's another powerful idea where, you know, some people know that they want to have fun and let live, live, laugh, love, um, you know, [00:48:00] But for you, you shared this thing of like, Hey, and it's a powerful idea. It's how do you appropriately engage with that fun and joy?
And you had a really cool example of like, Hey, make a project out of it, do a thing, just fuck it up. Just try something, but put that thing in your horizon of focus and just have fun.
David Allen: Yeah, no. I taught myself to play the flute 30 years ago when I was traveling by myself. And I thought that was a, I want to get back into music again.
And that was the only thing I could travel with. It was easily travel with it in its suitcase and had enough solo music. You could play on the flute. So I taught myself to play. You know, 30 years ago, at some point it got stolen and it was a fabulous and I didn't, I didn't have the money at the time to come back and get as good, a good flute again.
So I just kind of let it go. And I've got a planet, 2.5 year, you know, quota of my hobbies that I explore. And then I pretty much whatever. So I let [00:49:00] that go. And then about three years ago, I went, geez, I should get back on the flute. Again. One of the first things I did was put on my project list, get new flu.
So this sort of creative idea became a very real thing. Okay. If I get that, that's going to help me start to get back into that. I don't have to have some sort of, oh, I should be doing more music again. Yeah. How are you going to do that? What's going to trigger you to be engaged in that process again. So anyway, the hospitality business, you say, wow, we should, one of my clients at one point was the Marriott.
And it was Cancun that was similar to Mexico. I can protocol no, no. One of the islands, when the Caribbean islands and they had just created a new project called they need to create a new bar, I don't know, out on the beach. And so actually I [00:50:00] came in and I worked with their senior team, so Hey guys, what's the project.
We need to have a new bar out there. Great. Where's that who owns that? What's that? What did that thing to do? So somebody had a creative idea that was going to help, you know, would their business, you know, uh, was to be able to do that, but nobody had yet sat down and said specifically, here's the outcome we want.
Great, wonderful. Who's going to do that too. Who's committed. Are you guys committed to do this? He was doing it. Great. And so what's the next step? What do you need? Oh, you got it. Great. What's the next step? Are you going to figure that out? You let us know by when, so this whole process GTD is not a cult.
It's not something it's good business. It's about outcome and action thing. So certainly in the hospitality business, especially when the pandemic ease, you know, the restrictions are being eased and you have a little bit more room to think about, okay, now, how are we going to take advantage of the fact that we [00:51:00] may have more people coming in?
We may have more access into right now, what new things should we do? What cool things, anybody doing that kind of thinking, but at some point you're going have to go with. So there's the brainstorming aspect of that. And there's the kind of visioning aspect about, oh, that'd be really cool if we could, are we, here's what we need to do, or here's our ideal scene for the, by the end of 2022 or 2023 and then go, well, great.
So one of the things we need to do, these are the horizons of focus that identified in GPD. So at a team level, certainly in the hospitality. Like, well, okay. What do we need to do that? We're not currently doing, what's not on cruise control right now. What could we do that we're not currently doing? That's not on cruise control right now.
And I think those are the key questions for your industry.
Dan Ryan: I love that. And it's also it's it's it's outcome and action. But also what I heard you say in there, it's also like assigning and [00:52:00] embracing accountability as well. I'm sure.
David Allen: Yeah. Well, that's where, that's where you graduate this from the personal to the team level.
Totally.
Dan Ryan: Um, David, if you. Well, I gave you, I, you step into a time machine right now and you're going back to your 23 year old self
David Allen: and it's the first 50, 53 years ago. Yeah,
Dan Ryan: well, you're good at,
David Allen: you're better at math than me, but
Dan Ryan: I want you to go in, I want you to stand in front of yourself, putting on that geeky for the first time.
Okay. And. What advice does your current self give your 23 year old self as you're putting on that gave for the first time,
David Allen: keep going, stay engaged, relax, trust your inner voice that you don't know that you even have yet [00:53:00] much less how to recognize it, but it will be there.
I love that.
Dan Ryan: David, this has been so incredible. If people want to get in touch with you or learn more about GTD, how do they, how do they contact
David Allen: you? Well, sorry. Our home base is, you know, getting things done and.com. So you go there, you'll see a lot of what this is about. Um, if you're interested in more in depth training and, or.
Based upon what country you're in. You can click under training and coaching and then type in your country. If you're in the U S and Canada, uh, what's now crucial learning. They were vital smarts, great partner. We have the doing trainings, public trainings or whatever about this, more in depth. Uh, GTD focus is our sort of senior coaching partner that we have for the U S.
Uh, [00:54:00] so, you know, you would find there, there, if that's what you're interested in, or if there's anywhere, anywhere else around the world, just type in your country. And you'll see who the local partner that we certified and that's, this is not a mail order certification. This is rigorous certification. Okay.
Our coaches and trainers in these, in these regions. And that's where you really take this in a lot more depth. If you just want to kind of circle around, just go to getting things done.com/youtube, and you're going to you'll see my web talks, you'll see my, you know, dozens of my, sort of two minutes and six minutes or whatever interviews or, you know, things like that, where you can just get a little more sort of my take on all this.
Those are, those are the best ways, you know, we have a free newsletter, so I can go to the website. I think there's a way you can click on that. And if you, if you want to sort of stay in touch with what we do and how we do it,
Dan Ryan: wonderful. Well, David, um, I want to thank you for your time, and I know you don't [00:55:00] want anyone to visit Amsterdam cause you want to keep it a big secret, but I'm going to go there and, uh, I'd love to have a.
Beer or a meal with you. So I just want to say thank you so much for your time and just your inspiration over all these years.
David Allen: Anytime Dan, that's been fun.
Dan Ryan: Awesome. And also, I want to say, I want to thank our listeners. I hope that this talk between David and myself, a hero who's helped me get to where I am.
Um, it helped change your idea of hospitality and helps foster a more heartfelt, authentic way to communicate, or at least scratch that, that, and leaves you wanting more. So thank you everyone. Uh, if it did inspire you, please share it and, uh, we'll see you next time. Thank you.
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