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Good morning.
This one's a doozy.
A double spread in the journal, early 1997, Rancho Santa Fe.
The late Jerry Ballinger was walking a room through something he called the Ferrari Mind Tuneup.
And looking at it now, thirty years on, I can see what it actually is.
It isn't about going fast.
It's about laying a foundation so you can go fast in exactly the direction you want to go.
Big difference.
I turned 60 in May, and this whole year has been me going back through these journals... and finding out I've quietly been running Jerry's process on myself the entire time without calling it that.
Quick side note before the steps.
I was doing a lot of mind mapping back then. Mind maps are out, for me.
Too convoluted for the way I think. I think logically and sequentially, one thing leading to the next.
I suspect there are two kinds of people. Mind map people, and process people.
I'm a process person. So here's the process.
First step is fuel.
Not gas in the tank. What you're taking in.
What you know. What you're reading, who you're listening to, what you're naturally curious about and can't help chasing.
Those are all clues. They point at the direction that's actually right for you.
This is the collect part of collect, combine, create. The raw material for your thinking.
Nothing good comes out if nothing good goes in.
Second step Jerry called the 24-hour franchise prototype.
Getting your day right.
And here's the part that got me. I read what I'd written in 1997 and it's still my favorite version of a day.
Bed at 11. Up at 7. Out the door at 8. Here with you at 9. Ten to twelve in my journal hatching evil schemes. Afternoons working and sharing with people. Evenings doing whatever I want.
Thirty years later. Same day.
Whatever you end up doing with your time... what's the shape of it going to be?
Third step. Stabilize, systemize, standardize, optimize.
In that order. And the first one is the one everybody skips.
Deming said you can only observe and make predictable change in a stable system.
So if your days are random and fractal, and you couldn't describe one if somebody asked... there's nothing to improve. There's no baseline to improve from.
That's honestly been my whole year. Stabilizing.
Now here's where it gets fun.
Ned Hallowell, the most-cited psychiatrist on ADHD, talks about the Ferrari mind too.
He said to me one time that the ideal is to think of your day like a bobsled run. You get in at the top, you slide through, and the rails keep you on course.
The opposite of that, the natural tendency, he calls going through your day like a toddler at a picnic.
You can picture that one. Wandering about. Oh look, a butterfly.
I've reached a compromise between the two.
I treat my days like a slalom race.
Total freedom to go wherever you want in between... but you've got to hit the gates.
10:00, phone in the lock box. 11:00, lights out. 8:00, out the door. 10:00, pencils up in the journal. 12:30, lunch and the video goes up. 1:00, appointments start. 6:30, what we've come to call Meat 30, dinner right on time.
That's the great slalom run of the day.
And the more runs you do, the better you get at going fast between the gates.
The gates don't slow you down. They're the reason you can go that fast.
Fourth step. Your unique ability.
That's Dan's framing. Look at everything you do in a week and sort it into layers.
Unique ability is the top one. The things that energize you, that you're best at, that you have unending attention for.
Below that, things you're excellent at. Then competent. Then incompetent.
Tom Peters got at the same idea with his joy scale.
What can you take off the list? What do you want more of?
Fifth step. What service do you want to render?
Everything up to here has been about you. This one's about the outlet.
Given all of it... what result do you help somebody get faster, better, or less expensively by working with you?
For me it simplified right down. We help people build prospect vending machines. Get leads, convert leads.
Thirty years ago that was valuable. It'll be valuable thirty years from now.
People are always going to need new ways to get new clients.
That's a good direction to point a tuned-up mind.
I got a funny email from Rick the other day. Dean, question. Are you saying you can teach me to make fat stacks by hanging out at a pub drinking coffee like you?
And I laughed to myself, because... yes. That's exactly what I do.
Every idea I've ever had, and every dollar I've made in thirty years, went through my brain and my pen and onto a journal page before it ever went out into the real world.
So I'm running the 50-Minute Profit Finder this Friday at 1pm. Free, live on Zoom, and I'll walk you through the exercise myself.
Bring a pen and something to write on. We'll go looking for the lowest hanging fruit in your business, and probably some fruit you didn't know was there.
And here's your nudge for today.
Pick one gate. Just one. The one that would make tomorrow work better than today did.
Put it in the calendar and go hit it.
Show notes: https://deanjackson.com/podcasts/tol/064-structure-doesnt-slow-you-down-it-lets-you-fly/
Join me live on the next free 50-Minute Profit Finder call: 50minuteprofitfinder.com/podcast
