Interview: Hero Training with David Allen

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So again, 30 days of free optimizing at Optimize Me. If you're already a member, thanks for your support. Now for the show, You're listening to Optimize with Brian Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimize podcast. Today I'm thrilled to be chatting with David Allen. David, as you likely know, is the author and creator of the Getting Things Done book and protocol. Something that changed my life as I immersed myself into it. We had a prior chat on getting stuff done and shared some big ideas on that. We'll send a link to that interview so you can learn more about that. But for today we're going to talk about Hero Training 101. As you know, if you've been following my work, I've fallen in love with the Greek etymology of the word hero. In ancient Greek, the word heros, heros was spelled H E R O s and didn't mean tough guy or killer of bad guys. It meant protector and the hero had strength for 2 or for 20 or for 2000 or 20 million or whatever the number was and and their secret weapon was love and compassion and empathy. So what I'm excited to do is to create a series with some of my heroes, people who have inspired me and really exemplars of how I aspire to live and ask them what they think it means to be a hero and if they were helping heroes train, what would they teach them? So David, as I shared in our prelude here, you are the first who I am blessed to have this opportunity to have this conversation with and I appreciate you taking the time and I'm excited to explore some ideas.

Brian, I'm a bit overwhelmed because as we mentioned in our little pre call, I'm not sure why I would ever consider myself a hero, but I love your definition of it and I love your research to figure out the etymology out and I think it's really true that a hero is someone I think who is dedicated to something so bigger than themselves so that then they must include other people who are part of that ecosystem, that psychological or spiritual ecosystem. So if you say, look, I care about you, you're part of me, I'm part of you, then I will do what I need to do to protect both of us because we are part of, we're part of all the same thing. So I love that and I think that's true. And in that way that I have a personal mission now to make the planet a planet where we have no problems, there are only projects. And so anyone who wants to play in that level of game called, look, get in the driver's seat instead of play the victim in your life and let's play. And I'll. I'm happy to do that. So I'm happy to be a hero in that regard. If I. Anything I can share, you know, and you know, it's been, I've been graced to have found something that has had so many people buy into this, that has improved their quality of life, you know, for whatever reasons and in multiple ways. So yeah, I love that and I think that's, that's fabulous. So I think, I think it's that, I think it's the, you know, I resonate with it called who's playing the bigger game? Because I don't think you can be a hero unless you play a bigger game. But even somebody who rescues a dog that's running out in front of a car is a hero. They're playing a bigger game. They just said life is better than the risk that I'm going to take, you know, in and of itself. So I think we're all heroes in that way. And I think that's probably a lot of what your message should be or probably will be is that we all are that and we just need to recognize when we do that, those heroic things. And therefore how do we help galvanize that, how do we reinforce that, how do we affirm that? How do we, you know, how do we, you know, nurture that seed or nurture that. Nurture that, that. That quality or that value. Yeah, good work. Cool.

I'll start with the end there. My wife, we're expecting our second child. We have a four year old, we're expecting our second in about 14 days now, which is exhilarating. She's a hero, you know, just that every moment of every day we have an opportunity to live for something bigger than ourselves, you know, whether it's the, with our son, the night feeding and all those things that go into being a mom. And so I think that's absolutely essential, as we are all heroes and the world needs heroes today more than ever before. And then I want to talk about problems and projects, but then your sense of there is no separation between you and I. We were talking about the events we're going to produce at our oasis, and I mentioned Dan Siegel, his work with the neuroscience of mindfulness. He came up with this word that I think is just fascinating, and it's just changed my perception. He says, there's actually no such thing as me and you. So really what we have is a me and a we we can put together into mwe. So his word to capture this lack of separation is mwi. So I've been journaling that more and this idea to expand into life such that we include everyone in our sphere of compassion and love and service. So I was really touched by the way you reflected on that and then drilling into your specific call. And I realize you humbly wouldn't describe yourself as a hero in the traditional sense, but tell us more about creating a world in which there are no problems, only projects.

The only time you call a problem a problem is when you're not in the driver's seat. You say, oh, here's an opportunity, or, oh, God, here's a challenge, or here's something I have to deal with. If you go, here's something I hate, don't like, and I'm not doing anything about it. I'm just going to complain about it. That's when it lands as a problem. So the whole idea of whether it's a piece of paper on your desk or, gee, I need to get a life or a new life or a dog for my kid, or research karate lessons for my kid, or increase the credit line for my bank or whatever all those things are. Most people don't realize how they are engaged. You can call it karmically, but, you know, when we get engaged here in the material world, you're here for a reason, by the way. So, you know, my work is not about getting out of this. It's about getting out of being not in this, but about this. So you are not your work. You do work. You're actually not your life, Brian. You have a life. So who's the who I just talked to, right? So that getting that, getting, touching that. And I don't have to approach it from a spiritual or the sort of even personal development side. I just need to approach it. Call, hey, Brian, what's around your. Look around your life there on what's on Your desk, what's around you, this doesn't belong there permanently. I say, why is that there? What does that mean to you? Because if you haven't gotten appropriately engaged with any of those things, it owns you, as opposed to you owning it. So the whole idea of owning your life, owning all the aspects of your life that you've gotten entangled with, whether that's the cat you have, that needs cat food, the life partner you have, who's going to have a baby or whatever it's called, what's appropriately engaged, what's appropriate engagement? How are you appropriately engaged with your wife right now? How are you appropriately engaged with becoming a baby? How are you appropriately engaged with that? And that's what the methodology I uncovered was. How do you. What's the algorithm you need to apply the thought process, the questions, the answers you need to come up with, and the systematic approach you need to apply to that so that you can then surf through that and on top of it, as opposed to having that overwhelm you. That was the elegance of what I uncovered.

So in this context, when you imagine hero training 101, we have a group of heroes in front of us and aspiring heroes. What's the first thing you teach them?

Get everything off your mind, because anything on your mind is going to take up space. So you don't need time, you need room. How much time does it take to be have a good idea, Brian. How much time does it take to be creative? How much time does it take to be present and loving with your wife? How much time does it take to be innovative or whatever? Those do not require time, and those are the things that people are really after. I want to be present. I want to be creative. I want to feel like I'm touching into who I am and why I'm here and what I'm about and what's my unique signature and how do I express that? Come on, that's the game we're really all in. And for that, people think they need more time because they're letting themselves get overwhelmed. But what they don't need is time. If you had two more hours, you'd have two more hours of overwhelm. But what you need is space. You need room. I need room to think. I need room to be present. I need clarity inside of my head. So the whole mindfulness thing is a lot about trading your attention so that you can get your attention off things that are dragging your mind. I'm too lazy for all that. You know, if I need cat food or Dog food, since we have a dog, you know, I just write down dog food. I don't try to train my mind to not think about that. I need dog food. There are just some very practical techniques about how do you get stuff off your head that you've let, you know, load your head. And a lot of people who get into GTD and my stuff think, wow, this is really Zen. This is really mindfulness. And if you're into a spiritual practice and if you're into those kinds of things, it certainly makes it easier to be able to do those kind of practices. And it certainly makes it more elegant to be able to help clear space here, because you are here. So just focusing on your breathing, that's a technique. You know, how about dump everything out of your head. You know, keep a pen and pencil by you when you, When. When you meditate so that those things that start to pop into your head as you start to relax your head, those are all just techniques. They're techniques to help you get clarity. What you do with that clarity is up to you. Whether you, within that clarity, you allow yourself and have an intentionality to go to higher levels of spiritual awareness, or whether you just use that clarity to be more comfortable, relax more, have more fun in your mind, you know, be able to be more strategic, be able to think about another song you want to write, whatever. So I don't have any agenda about how people use space. I uncovered a methodology about how you create it. So how you use it's going to be up to you.

Let's talk about that. So then how you're using your space, at least in one level, in one area of your life, is to help create a world in which we don't have problems, we have projects. How did you get clarity that that was what you're here to do, at least in this chosen moment. And how would you encourage us to get more clarity on what we feel called to do?

Well, one answer to that is, it's automatic. You know, I'm 71. Just get older. You'll get there, get older and stay conscious. I mean, the other part of that is, okay, have an intention to figure out what that is, you know, but, you know, come on, live and learn. So you know, that I, I think if you have an intentionality to figure out, wait a minute, what's the bigger game here? What's driving me? In a sense, it's all about completion. You know, people say efficiency versus effectiveness. I say, ultimately it's all efficiency. If you're here on the Planet. Why, why do you think you're here? Why do you think you showed up? Why do you think you embodied? What are you here to do, by the way? And if you're not aligned up with what that is, there will be something that will be pulling on your attention that all you have to do is start to get subtle enough to recognize what that is and then start to understand that and start to grapple with, okay, why does that have my attention? What do I need to do about that? How do I now appropriately engage with that? So this is about appropriate engagement with your life purpose. Appropriate engagement with the vision that you and your life partner have about lifestyle and career. Appropriate engagement with the goals that you may have set for shorter term stuff. Appropriate engagement with your job description. How are you doing with quality control, by the way? How are you doing with technology, by the way, in terms of these interviews? How are you doing with your health and your vitality? And then how are you doing with the 30 to 100 projects you have about all that stuff? And by the way, the 150 to 220 next actions you have about all those current commitments you currently have. So all I did was start to identify the different plateaus and platforms that we all have. Engagement, karma, if you will. We're here, right? So if you're here, getting appropriately engaged with all the levels that you've engaged yourself with here, you know, is just part of the game now. So I mean, that's. That, you know, you, you ask a big question, that's a big answer, and.

We end it with good luck with that. But the point you're making from the beginning is create the space. And if you're too busy either, you know, rethinking and ruminating and all these about different projects and things you need to do or problems you have, etc. And then blowing yourself up with technology and push notification, this and that, and you have no space from which to tap into this deep intuitive sense of what you're here to do. You can't even take the first step, right?

Well, you could, you could tap, you know, you can get just totally overwhelmed, go have a heart attack and whatever and suddenly lie there and have an, have an after, have an afterlife experience and realize why you're here on the planet. So if you want to do that and get there, be my guest. So people get there a lot of different ways. I'd prefer to do it a much easier way. Having my glass of wine and, and you know, and just sitting here and really being relaxed and Letting sort of the things flow for me in a more flowing kind of way. In that way. I mean, see, if you say I need cat food twice in your head, you're inappropriately engaged with your cat, right?

Yep.

Like, why did it pop in a second time? Is because the first time it popped and you didn't do what you needed to do to manage that commitment.

Yep.

So you don't have to go very far to see how to start to get a lot more clarity. You just have to start to notice what has your attention and then ask yourself, why does that have my attention and what do I need to do to get that off my mind? Whether that's what do I do, what do I need to do with my life or what do I need to do with my dog? You know, the weird and fun thing about what I'm kind of Zen thing about what I do is neither of those is better than the other. That it's all the same thing. It's all the same thing. You know, you and me talking together. There is nothing else. Yeah, yeah. It's all here. If you think it's somewhere else, you missed it.

Yep. Appropriate engagement with this moment is ultimately the game. Right. As a side note, my wife requested that you move into her head. Please tell David to move into my head. One of the things I focus on in my work is the fundamentals. So this idea that in order to properly engage, appropriately engage with this moment, there are obviously a lot of different things that we can do. I like to focus on the simple fundamentals of eating, moving, sleeping, training, your attention, etc. What practices do you have in your life that have helped you stay plugged in from an energetic perspective?

Empty my end basket and all backlog every 24 to 48 hours regularly. So I'm free when something new shows up to evaluate it against very clear inventory of other commitments.

It's almost like you're the getting things done guy.

Well, most people don't realize that, that the bigger your backlog, the more any kind of new input is going to be a pitch. If your backlog is zero, every new input is a new opportunity to influence your world.

Okay, so then what's your number one tip to. And again, for those of you who aren't familiar with David's work, Getting stuff done or getting things done, rather, check out the book, check out our other interview, check out all the stuff that's going on. Best website Again, David is Getting things done dot com. Okay, that's easy. GettingThingsDone dot com. What's the number one tip to help us take that step that you just described.

You know, unfortunately, there's not one. There's really, you know, the five steps of how you get anything under control, whether that's your kitchen or your life or your company or your country or whatever, is the first thing you have to identify. What's not on cruise control, what's not the way you want it, right? So when you walk into your kitchen, you know, if you've got guests coming over an hour and you'd have been gone for the day and looks like your kitchen's been attacked, the first thing you notice are things that are not where they need to be, the way they need to be, right? So you first identify what's not right or what's not the way it needs to be. Then what do you do? You decide what those things are. That's a dirty dish. That's bad food. That's good food. That's a spice. That's a clean dish. That's a dirty dish. Then what do you do? Number three, you organize dirty dishes go here, clean dishes go there. Spices go there, right? Then you step back and number four, reflect. You look at the whole game and look at how much time do I have until they come look at the recipe. Step five, engage. Pull out the butter, melt it, right? So the five steps that you use to get anything under control, whether that's a meeting or your company or your consciousness or anything, I just identified those five steps, and they all have very different best practices and tools. So that. So there's not one thing you could capture everything off your mind. But if you just make a bunch of lists and don't do anything with them, you're still stuck. So it's not one. That'd be. The first thing to do, by the way, is to just unload, get it all off your mind. I need cat food. I need a life. I need batteries. I need. Get it. Research the new credit line of the bank. I need to. I need to, you know, get a new cell phone. You know, God knows, you know, most people have. Most people, it takes one to six hours just to even identify all those things that are pulling on their psyche. You know, stop using your head as your office. It is an absolutely shitty office. And the brain scientists have now identified that basically about four things is all you can hold in your head and manage the relationship between them and manage those reminders appropriately. So most people have hundreds, not four. So that's the first step. But you can't just leave it there. If you leave it there, then you're just a list maker. And I got list all of God, whatever. But then you have to then do the clarify step, which is. Okay, wait a minute. Why did I write down mom on this list? Why did I write down bank or doctor or website on this list? Oh, God. Okay, well, because I need to look into maybe updating my website. Great. What's the next step? So deciding next actions and outcomes. I need to update the website and I have a next step about how to do that. It's something that no computer or no program can do. That's your forebrain that has to make those decisions. That's step two. So capturing and then clarifying and then organizing results. Once you decided that's a phone call I need to make, that's a website I need to surf, that's whatever. Then you need to park that somewhere. You'll be reminded of it when you could potentially do it. So capture, clarify, and organize. If I had to boil it down to three, those are the three most tactical, operational, obvious, immediate things for everybody to do to start to get some more control and more focus in terms of their life.

Hmm. That's awesome. And I often joke in these interviews, you know, we could talk about that for a weekend. I'm actually recruiting David now to see if we can produce an event, a weekend event with him at our new.

I'm an old Ohio alumni, believe me. Sure.

Well, so asterisks. Hopefully we can actually continue this conversation over the course of a weekend with David to drill in. Obviously, we can talk about any one of those five elements for a very long time. And that's a really cool high level. And I think also just to bring it back to the kitchen, you know what you want in your kitchen, you want a at least a respectable, beautiful, you know, functional kitchen for your guests who are coming in. Well, okay, what's that vision of your life, right, that you want to see in these different domains and the categories you can improve, etc. And again turn those problems into projects. And then the next action. That's been one of the most key ideas, obviously, the two minute touch it once, get it done rule. I say that casually as if it's not a big deal. It's a huge deal. And that has completely changed my life. And then just that next action. What I do every morning, I go to bed. It's a sport for me to go to bed early and get up early before the family gets up, do my quick meditation and a little bit of movement and then my deep work before I go online. It's what needs to get done. I refresh on the goals that I have and my purpose, and then it's what needs to get done. What's the most important creative thing I need to do, whether it's 60 seconds or 60 minutes, that's going to move me forward most powerfully toward my goal. So that next action on a meta and then on an instant, appropriate engagement, moment to moment to moment, is so powerful. You didn't say anything about your own practices, Eating, moving, sleeping. You open to sharing anything that you've learned over the years that has really worked for you?

Sure. My basic ritual is the night before I look at my calendar for the next day. Because given my practices, my calendar has the hard landscape. What do I need to be doing, where and when? What do I need to know about tomorrow and do tomorrow? Not to move to three days later, but absolutely has to get done. So I need to. I have a hard landscape orientation map. I look at that so I can know how long I can sleep. Love sleep. I sleep as long as I can. I'm not a motivational speaker, Brian. I do not get up early like you. I sleep as long as I can. I thought I was lazy, but now cognitive scientists have proven that I'm just smart.

I don't know what you're saying about me right now, but we're good.

So that's the first thing I do, is see what the hard landscape is. I also get up in the morning, I drink a glass of lemon water to cleanse my system. I have a cup of fabulous French breast light or medium roast coffee from our great coffee roaster here in Amsterdam. And I have a protein drink with good fiber in it. That's about the only thing I do consistently in my life. Everything else I do what I feel like, when I feel like it, open mind. Then it's like. Then it's like, hey, hey, what's got. You know, I have a very simple. You know, come on. At 71, I'm kind of old and cranky right now. What really has what my priorities is, what most has my attention and what do I need to do to take that pressure off? And that could be anything. Could be anything. What most has my attention right now, you know, that plant needs water. You know, that was one thing. This afternoon I went over there and got that plant looks a little wilted. Oh, my God. I need to go fix that. What most has my attention. We're low on firewood, you know, let's go take a walk with the dog and go, you know, get some more firewood for the fireplace. What most has my attention, you know, I really need to sit down and rethink, you know, what we're doing about this big project right now and where I am with it and what I need to do. So I just start to pay attention to what has my attention and don't put any rules on that.

And you can do that because you've created the space in your mind.

There's no backlog.

Yeah. Respond to life as it occurs.

My email, I'm working right now. I just had my, you know, my second cataract operation yesterday. So my. I've now got a new lens in my left eye, you know, so I've been a little bit out of whack, you know, for the last 24, 48 hours. So, you know, I got about three pages of emails. So I just been slowly kind of catching up here. But it started at zero because before I went for this operation, I said, I am going to be very functional for the next 48 hours. So let me handle all the immediate time sensitive kind of stuff I need to deal with so I can relax and not have to think about anything while all that's going on. So that's how I. But that could. That's going to look very different for the next two days.

Yeah.

You know, I'm flying to Utah on Sunday, you know, and so, you know, so a lot of stuff going on and it's fun. I love that, you know, I'm. My life is different all the time, which is what I really like. My style and my, you know, kind of work that way.

Yeah. And again, the spontaneous, appropriate engagement with life created through the spaciousness.

Yeah. Ask a Zen master. Look at how they live.

I'm asking, by the way, I'm asking one right now. What do you mean some of.

Some of them very quiet on top of mountain and some of them are down in the world doing the nitty gritty, man. They're just functional and digging in and driving and working and whatever. And you know, if you say either of those is not Zen, you missed it.

Beautiful. Reminded me of a great book called Trying not to Try on the Neuroscience of Wu Wei. Of just that. That different approaches to arrive at that. We'll save that for another chat.

Yeah.

What are your thoughts?

Oh, come on. You know, people say, gee, David, your stuff is really just Zen. I said, no, they just came with the same stuff I did. No, no, no, no. That's that's probably not. Not appropriate acknowledgment of the discipline and time those folks put into it. But.

But the discipline and time to actually master your art. It's really that. I mean, there's a. I kind of. When I approached it, it was almost like approaching a martial art in a way. You know, there's kind of that white belt humility of. Wow. What I was doing just wasn't quite working. That that systematic disciplining of our behaviors to reach a true master level is one that requires exactly the same level of diligence. Right? Yeah.

Well, that's why I rewrote the book. I mean, I did a new revised edition of GTD last year because, you know, it really needed to be framed as a whole lifelong lifestyle. You know, art and. Art and craft of how you manage the flow of life's work. And that won't end until your life does. How do I manage these things? I get engaged with in the most appropriate way. And, you know, that's an art about how you do that. So, yeah, it's a lifelong way to do it. The cool thing about it is that we use an image now of the surfer on a surfboard. I talk about mind like water, but sometimes water feels like a huge wave, but the huge wave is cool. If you got a good surfboard, you can surf it, right? Not only that, good surfers have an ankle tether. So if they fall off, then get back on real quick. So that's what GTD provides. It provides the board to be able to surf on top of the world of water. You know, that can take all the forms that it takes as we. As we navigate through our life, but also gives you. And come on. If you're not falling. If you're not falling out of control and unfocused at least two or three times a day, you're probably not playing a big enough game. So it's not about always being in some sort of a sartorial, you know, you know, meditative state. You know, it's about being engaged with your world. And then when starting, the real key is recognizing when you fall off of being on. That's probably the biggest thing that most people don't know and don't recognize. They don't recognize when they fall off of being on or they. Or they don't. They both don't recognize it or don't. Or haven't built in an appropriate trigger of uncomfortableness that when you fall off, wow, I'm feeling stressed now. I'm feeling A little worried. I'm feeling a little bit. Then they don't apply the technique. What do I need to do to get that off my mind? That's why I say there are no problems, there are only projects. But that gets very subtle because the problem could be, wow, I'm worried about our cash flow. I'm worried about where my kids is, the kid you're about to have born out there getting the right college, you know, my God knows what you're thinking about or what's going to start to grab your attention out there. And so starting to recognize when those things are grabbing your attention. Okay, what do I need to do about that? What does that mean? Why did that have my attention? And that'll teach you a lot about who you are. So, you know, you don't have to go off into some meditative state necessarily. I mean, you do in some way because you have to. This world is to listen to the other worlds that we're all involved in. So, you know, I'm a huge fan of that and practitioner of that. But still, you don't have to go very far. All I have to do is look at people's to do list and ask them the five whys of everything that's on that to do list, and I'll get them back to why they're on the planet.

I look forward to that exercise at our event as well.

Well, why do you want cat food? Well, because I have a cat. Well, why do you have a cat? Oh, because we like pets. Why do you like pets? We like the fact that they sort of open our hearts. Why do you want it, like to have your heart open on a regular basis? Well, because sometimes it closes down. It's really nice to have that. Well, why is that important to you? Because I'm a human being and we're all one.

I joked in my last chat, that's one of those mic with Jim Kousis, the leadership guru. That's kind of a mic drop moment. Exactly. There's our five whys. Explore those five whys to come back to MUI and the oneness of all and your heroic opportunity to serve profoundly and do what you're here to do in this moment, properly engaged, etc.

But I think, Brian, my message is if you try to get to those, the top why before you handle that I need cat food, you're gonna screw it up.

Well, you said in our last chat, you said that the sublime is reached through the mundane, to paraphrase, and that it's through the Most mundane, appropriate engagement, to use the terminology we're talking about today, through the most mundane moment to moment appropriate engagement with life, we reach the divine, we reach the sublime. And that really struck me in our first chat. And it sounds like the same basic theme we're exploring now.

Right, sure. Well, it's, you know, my spiritual energy field is, is very much aligned with the esoteric Sufism. Sufism. So if you read the esoteric Rumi or if you read the esoteric Sufis, it's really all about that. It's all right here, it's all right now. And here is where the romance and the roses of life and the deliciousness and the aromas of life, you know, where you can access. Doesn't happen automatically. You have to have an intentionality to be able to move past these levels or through these levels or into these levels, into those sublime levels. So it won't happen automatically, but it is. Trying to ignore these levels is the old age. So being in this world, but not of it, that's, I think, the challenge and that's sort of inspired me.

Yeah, beautiful. Is there anything. We've obviously simultaneously covered a lot and just scratched the surface of what we could discuss. Is there anything that comes to mind as we imagine, again, aspiring heroes and heroes in training? Any other wisdom do you think would be relevant?

You know, you know, what comes to mind, Brian, is look around you. In the 10 acres that you are in, who can you help? How can I add value, how can I add even just to my own appreciation of the ordinariness of my life and not, not try to look and not try to say, that's not heroic. I need to go do some heroic thing. Outside of all that, oh my God, everybody's got enough to do. Look at the heroism inside of the ordinariness of your life. I mean, I think that's what I try to do.

Beautiful. David, thank you so much for your practice, your work and taking the time today. GettingThingsDone.com learn more about David and his work. And yeah, I just appreciate you and I'm excited to find a way to get you out here and play together in Ohio. Thank you, David.

Let's do that. Thanks, Brian. This was fun.