Nearly every minute well-spent.

The lament is incessant, and it’s usually about work although not always. Day-in and day-out we chastise ourselves: “I need to expend less time doing _______ , in order to expend more time doing ________.”  We regret not spending more time with family, on  hobbies; recreating, exercising, or doing some other work than what we’re doing. It’s subtle but pervasive: we’re sure we’re failing to meet the requirements of being a good person living a worthwhile life. We feel silent remorse, and with it comes a nervous frustration that bleeds out on those around us.

Yet the self-declaration, “I’m rarely doing what matters most,” is too often an inaccurate assessment. And if it is true, here’s a mind-tweak that will instantly channel you into doing what does matter most.

This new perspective is not about the subject matter. It’s about the mechanics of how that subject matter is processed. As usual, it’s a simple thing, as one descends a layer deeper to look at the systems of life. And of course, the idea is to spend the day adjusting those systems so they produce value, not deplete resources.

The underlying, base fact? There is no single most important element in a life, such as “my family,” or “my health,” or “making money,”  but our instinct is to rank these life-systems in a 1-2-3 order of importance.

Here’s what happens in our heads when we rank primary endeavors: Whenever we’re not immersed in number 1 on the list, we feel guilty.

So, to remove internal remorse – and the personal uptightness that accompanies it – stop ranking the processes of the day.

In my life right now, I am caretaker to my elderly parents. This includes time, money and focused attention: My dad is 93 and lives in a nearby independent living community. A month ago he had a small stroke. Its affected him, and I want to show up every day in order to help him recover. My mother? She’s 94, wheel-chair bound, and in an assisted living facility across town.  I do my best to see her every day, too. I’m a lucky guy because my parents have survived to such ripe ages,  and every additional moment with them is a blessing.

It’s arguable that I should classify this particular life-effort as the most important.

But besides spending time with my parents, I have other systems that must be processed carefully in order to keep my life-machine chugging along properly: my businesses and staff, my writing, my wife Linda, other family, my two business partners, friends, exercise…my non-profit work.

Shall I score these too, in descending order of importance?

Consciously and unconsciously, for most of my adult life I have been good at prioritizing my life-systems and then focusing on which one is most important  (for over twenty years it was my children). Back then, it seemed to me that my single-minded focus was gallant, but in truth it was narrow-minded and even a bit pretentious, and the price I paid was a sense of  failure whenever I was not working directly on life-system priority number 1…and even when I was working on number 1, numbers 2 and 3 were being short-changed!  My base composure was of ruffled uncertainty and there was no winning the game.

But that was then and this is now: The more accurate mind-set I’ve adopted, one that naturally channels my time and effort into Stephen Covey’s “non-urgent and important” quadrant, is this: Don’t rank life-systems. Cluster them.

I group my desired daily system activities. Here are the three elements of my current personal “primary cluster” group. (Why three, and not two or four or seven? Because three just feels right):

• Contribution, especially to my parents
• Making money and wisely distributing it
• Strengthening and calming my mind and body

The key? The components are equally important. This is sensible real-world positioning because we’re dealing with the subjective. These are free-form endeavors; fluid and emotional. And, there is cross-over: Ebbing and flowing in intensity, the separate component systems feed and complement each other. Ranking is pointless.

Most days I spend time in each of the three components (but of course, some days one element gets more attention than the other two). Today for instance, a Thursday morning, it’s 4:30am and I’m at home working on this post, but in another half-hour I’ll put this aside in order to continue my pilgrimage through the Steve Jobs biography. Then, until mid-morning, still at home, I’ll handle some emails, touch bases with Linda as she does some final tweaking of the new Academy product, make a couple of calls, and do my daily 30-minute personal organizing. After that, I’ll probably drive into the office, ten minutes away, to see what’s up and to just hang out with my staff for a half hour or so. In the early afternoon it will be separate visits to my parents: I’ll take Dad to get a haircut…and later, Ma will probably (yet again) beat the tar out of me at Scrabble. Mid-afternoon, I’ll head up into the mountains to do an hour or two of cross-country skiing. I’ll be home and showered by 6:00pm. Then, Linda and I might go out for dinner and catch a movie. Or maybe we’ll stay home and continue our new favorite HBO series, Game of Thrones, or just sit here together on the couch in front of the fire and read (we’re both into really good books right now…). For me, it’s lights-out at 10:00pm. Linda will come to bed sometime after midnight.

It’s going to be a perfect day, hand-crafted, and almost all of it spent within my cluster; nearly every minute well-spent.

What about Linda? Shouldn’t she be listed in the primary cluster? Is she not important enough? It’s not that at all. She’s not included because our relationship is an all-the-time thread that weaves its way through my day, like breathing. It’s the same for my personal spiritual beliefs as well as for my certainties about how mechanical reality operates. Some of the things of our lives are spontaneous and don’t need prompting. No need to state the obvious.

Since clustering is a mind-set, it can be implemented instantly. Again, it’s not about the subject matter. It’s about how the subject matter is processed. Identify the most important system-elements of your life (yes, briefly, on paper), declare them equal in importance, and then spend most of your day focusing on those elements. Don’t keep score. Each day-chunk will flow holistically as the cluster elements smoothly intertwine.

It’s all good!

The delicious bonus? Calmness of mind. Our UK business partner Mike Giles stayed with us here in Bend over the past couple of weeks, and we had discussed the clustering concept as I worked on this post. He’s in LA now, and from there he sent me a favorite quote from James Allen’s book, As a Man Thinketh:  “A man becomes calm in the measure that he understands himself as a thought-evolved being…and as he develops a right understanding, and sees more and more clearly the internal relations of things by the action of cause and effect, he ceases to fuss and fume and worry and grieve, and remains poised, steadfast, serene.”

So, no more ranking! Instead, cluster. And through the day, as you create value in those elements of your life that are most important, there’s no guilt, just calm satisfaction.

Photo by H. Koppdelaney via Flickr used under a creative Commons License.

On the tube, moving toward Heathrow.

______________________

“Because some (train)  platforms on the Underground are curved and the rolling stock that uses them are straight, an unsafe gap is created when a straight car stops at a curved platform. In the absence of a device to automatically fill the gap some form of visual and auditory warning was needed to prevent passengers from being caught unaware and suffering injury by stepping into the wide gap. The phrase “mind the gap” was chosen for this purpose and can be found painted along the edges of curved platforms as well as via a recorded announcement played when a train arrives.” -From Wikipedia, for the term, “mind the gap.”

Friday morning, 1:00 am, February 3rd: I left Bend, Oregon eight hours ago and will soon be in a business meeting in London.

I’m on the upper deck of this British Airlines 747, sitting semi-reclined in the 2nd row behind the pilot compartment. We’re over the east coast of the U.S.. The ship’s engines howl mutely outside. Of the 20 passengers in this small cabin, I’m the only one who is awake and I sit and watch, wide-eyed.  In front of me, a steward surreptitiously opens the compartment door to deliver food to the flight crew and I see inside. It’s very dark, but there is the burst of brilliant jewel-like greens and reds of the instruments. I see the silhouette of a crew member, sitting there.

Originating in Los Angeles, this is a ten hour flight.

What is obvious is the incredible orderliness of it…all these sub-systems executing perfectly, enabling this primary-system 747 to operate flawlessly as it accomplishes its goal of delivering 400 of us across 8 time zones to England. It’s a spectacular example of simultaneous, coordinated system-execution and because I’m in the middle of it all, it’s an easy one-layer-deeper meditation to appreciate the beauty of it. I think again of the term ”mind the gap” that has been haunting me since the first of four recent trips to London. Haunting? Yes, and now I understand the intrigue: mind-the-gap is a clever term that points out the obvious to those who don’t see the obvious. This was me for the first 50 years of my life.

Imagine the multitude of systems that are executing simultaneously here, managed by those three crew members in the cockpit, and monitored by all those other people on the ground as they watch with their own electronic tools. Together, these system-masters keep this monstrous bird up in the air and on-target. There is a small town of travelers up here, and it’s my guess that I’m not the only one who is, right now, appreciating the miracle of it. In addition to the crew, surely there are a few others who are awake, watching and thinking and appreciating…

Two weeks ago, returning from a solo trip to Costa Rica, on the leg from Dallas to Seattle, I emailed Linda, friends and business contacts – all over the world – real-time, from 35,000 feet up. That was also an extravaganza: the complex beauty of the traveling and the simultaneous communicating. At one point I was literally seven miles over Pocatello, Idaho, the home of my old friend Sandra, as I sent her an email while looking down on her city.

All systems are go! The miracle is right in front of us, right now!

Mind the gap.

And no, I’m not drinking wine as I write this,  although it seems everyone around me has been, perhaps to dull the senses in order to fall asleep as I, in my excitement, find it impossible to do.

On life’s gameboard, what else is systems mindset-obvious? Computers, clocks, bathrooms (yes, really), meditating (witnessing the breath in and out of the chest), an athlete cranking up a mountain on skis and the delicate dance necessary to come back down again in one piece: A car, a house, a city, a family, a visit to a hospital…our own bodies…

We’re surrounded and immersed.

Don’t tell me about imperfection or that the world is a mess! (But, if for some reason you personally need to see it as a mess, that perception can be delivered post-haste. Just focus hard on the nearest dysfunction and ignore the other 99.9% that’s functioning perfectly. You won’t be alone. That’s how most people operate.)

Epilog, Sunday afternoon 2pm, February 5^th, Heathrow Airport, London: It snowed 6” last night, and my friend and host for the past two days, Andrew Priestley, got up early and walked me to the tube and then stuck with me for the 30 minute ride from Easley to Heathrow. (Thanks Andrew!)

The tube is an amazing thing in itself, of course, with all the complexity handled behind the scenes, and with only the occasional simple mind-the-gap type reminder for travelers with too much on their minds.

It turned out that most of today’s outbound flights have been cancelled simply because there are just a few planes available. But, lucky me, I’ve managed to jam myself on a still-scheduled flight to LA. It will leave, they claim, at 5:00 pm. I sit here in the vast terminal, amazed, knowing that, according to the service agent I chatted with earlier, “there are 10,000 stranded people below us, on the bottom floor of the airport, and 3,000 above, in the ticketing area…” and, “last night we had to accommodate 10,000+ people in hotels throughout Europe because, due to visibility problems, yesterday’s incoming wide-body flights from North and South America were directed eastward. Those jumbos will return this afternoon, with 16 of them landing each hour.”

Yes, it’s clear there is frustration in the long lines of waiting people. I myself stood in a line for four hours in order to rebook. But mentally pulling back out of it, this is a beautiful thing to witness, the incredible complexity handled so well. Yes, there could be some systems-tweaking here and there, but congrats to British Airways and all the other carriers! Every one of these travelers will ultimately get to where they want to go.

But then again, every moment offers an opportunity to reboot. Once one has the knack, it’s a simple thing to mentally submerge in order to see what’s going on down there. Some of us go back and forth effortlessly.

What’s the end-game of the systems mindset? To be able to get what one wants in life, of course, but more than that, to know that the miracle isn’t somewhere else or in some other time. It’s here, right now. Don’t miss it. Mind the gap.

The Dance of the Systems Mindset

Window Washer Video

One day during Christmas week I was in the office stirring up the dust and generally making a nuisance of myself. While trading good-natured barbs with Andi as she sat at her desk, behind her I saw a guy at the top of a ladder washing the outside of her office window. As a semi-humble student of life-events, I went silent and watched the man do his work. He finished that window and then started the other one right next to it.

Andi got up and stood there next to me, watching. She knew exactly what this was about. It was a thing of beauty. The man was an artist.

I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket, set it on video, and began shooting as the contractor quickly completed three more windows. Then I went downstairs and interviewed him.

Watch this video sequence with a systems mindset critical eye. Especially note:

1. The contractor’s deliberate focused attention; his “I’m here to work!” comportment
2. The fluid, no-waste strokes, all thought-out yet ingrained and natural; all movements precise and exactly the same on each window.
3. How fast he completes the work
4. The excellent result he produces, each time.

Does watching this video strike you in an almost emotive way? If so, you “get it,” or you’re very close.

The artist? Mike Ochoa with Everclear Cleaning Services of Bend, Oregon.

Let’s switch gears. That was back in late December. As I write this I’m solo in Costa Rica, four hours drive east of San Jose on the remote Caribbean coast, just north of Panama. My trip’s main purpose is to shoot a short documentary on John Summers and his family. John’s a surfer who moved here from the states 12 years ago. He met Sharon, a gorgeous Costa Rican; they married and have two beautiful daughters.

John says he turned around his started-from-scratch business, ProPatio landscaping, via Work the System.

It’s been good, being here. Yesterday’s sequence of events: up at 5am; walk the beach at sunrise (yes, it’s warm! I walk in just swim trunks); breakfast back at the B&B at 7; work on the Academy project for a couple of hours (literally, in a hammock and surrounded by palm trees). Then, a long aerobic hike up into the hills and back; at 2pm, a webinar with Robert Schrobe and Bill Glaser; 3pm, catch-up on emails. Dinner: at 4, off to John and Sharon’s for a fish BBQ and to get some more video footage for the Mini-documentary. The Summers live up in the jungle in a sprawling, rustic house on acreage. Fantastic! Back to the B&B at 10, lights out at 11!

On other days, without going out for dinner, I spend the evening hours working on the last bits of my part of the project, writing and answering emails,  going back and forth on Skype with Mike in the UK,  Linda in Seattle,  Josh, Andi, Hollee, Dan in the Bend office, and with Kyle, our house-sitter…and  a variety of other old and new friends world-wide (this week: Dubai, Pakistan, Australia, Iran, Canada, and elsewhere).

I’ve been working some long hours down here but that’s how I want it.  The work is awesomely satisfying and the people who work with me are a delight.

And, in the course of a day, I can walk the beach and hike in the hills just so much. And I could party-down with my time, but I don’t.

Things happen across time, and each day down here follows  a similar pattern. I wallow in the flow of it. And, comforting, Linda and I Skype back and forth often. She says she’s enjoying her long solo days up there in snowy Seattle, doing the final graphics for the Academy, but also, she says she misses me.

And Mike’s over there in rainy, cold London. We’ve talked about it: Perhaps all three of us will come down here in March after Mike spends February in Bend, working with us to get the Academy machine to stand on its own.

This is the third tropical get-away I’ve had in the last three months: Late October, Baja, Mexico with guy-friends; second week in December, Maui with Linda, and now here, solo.

Yeah man! I’m working the system; profoundly thankful for this life I’ve been granted.

Ashleigh Brillant says it best: The Club called earth has very special facilities – and I’ve been given a lifetime membership!

(Ashleigh Brilliant quote used with permission)

Watch this video on YouTube

Thanks Louie Schwartzberg, for nailing it. It’s the message I deliver in my book: It’s ALL right here, right now, in this instant!

“Getting” this new perception leads to all kinds of great things: everything from carving through the day like a dance, to accumulating more money than one needs (with minimal effort), to calming down, to really relating to those we encounter…

Here’s an excerpt from Work the System, Chapter Four: “This systems rationale is not another feel-good, think-positive invocation, and it’s not about faith. It’s about stone-cold mechanical reality. Think about the processes of our lives and then do the numbers. We wake, shower, dress, eat, go to work, and proceed through the day to return to our loved ones in the evening. Then we watch TV, read, and go to bed early—or stay up late. We go to sleep and then we awake again the next morning. And everything works fine 99.9 percent of the time.

That’s the cursory overview. Break it down and sequentially note the other events of the day’s chronology. It will be thousands of items long as it includes contributing components such as the coffee maker that works every morning; the car that—despite all of its internal intricacies—operates with the turn of a key and then the turn of the steering wheel; the office we occupy; the complexities of the work we do; the paychecks we receive for doing that work. Consider the processes of sharing information back and forth with those around us: one on one, voice mail, cellular phone, e-mail, the written word. Each is a system, and 99.9 percent of the time each works flawlessly!

Envision the system we call a TV. By simply pushing a button, this incredibly complex mechanism jumps to life every time! Beyond the physical TV itself, consider the myriad organizations that put together the programming that appears on it. Then, switch gears and think about the lawn mower, the water that flows from the kitchen tap, the ubiquitous electricity that comes to our homes to animate a host of devices, each a complex system of its own.

Contemplate the clothes we wear, the shopping we do, the work we perform. Consider the gas pumped into our cars at gas stations. In some faraway place, sophisticated mechanisms extract oil from the ground. Then people transport it via high-tech ships, trucks, and pipelines to refineries where it is converted into gasoline via complex refining processes. Next, truckers deliver the gasoline to an uncountable number of convenient locations so we can pump it into our cars whenever we feel like it. We never think twice about the intricacies of the drilling/refining/delivery systems. And these are just a few of the millions of systems that touch our daily lives.

And what about the human body? Consider the amazing complexity of chemicals and mechanics that make it work. For each of us, as we progress through the day, billions of cells simultaneously cling to each other making us who we are. And all the while, as we function moment to moment, trillions of concurrent electrical signals execute without direct supervision.

Incredible!

Consider the miracle of what you are doing this moment, viewing and translating the characters on this page—or perhaps you are listening to my words in the audio version. You are transferring my thoughts to your mind where you instantaneously interact with what I am saying, making immediate judgments, agreeing or disagreeing, line by line. This is happening now, in this instant.

Yes, these complex systems sometimes fail. Nonetheless, it’s a numbers game and it is unquestionable that the systems of our lives, taken together, work perfectly more than 99.9 percent of the time.

So far, I have focused on human systems, which are just a fraction of the total at work in any given moment. Uncountable natural systems add to the numbers and dwarf what man has created, and they all work perfectly according to their scripts.

Once one accepts the world’s beautiful systems dance for what it is, the mystery of it goes even deeper. Consider that primary systems depend on subsystems, and those subsystems depend on sub-subsystems branching outward and downward, further and further, to subprimal levels.

And see that these processes repeat themselves over and over, as they incrementally create new forms and dissolve old ones.

The world is alive and it churns ahead with power and purpose!

Stop for a moment and attempt to draw it all in. The depth and intricacy of life’s fabric is astonishing beyond comprehension. Grasp the beautiful complexity of life’s workings and know that all by itself this world gurgles and percolates along with no overall human supervision. The countless systems that comprise life surge on and on while most of us remain oblivious to the mystery of it, to the sheer beauty of it.”

Effective 1/1/2012: For a free pdf copy of the third edition of Work the System, go to workthesystemacademy.com. Enter your email address, download the pdf, and then, after that,  there is the opportunity to also download the audio version for free.

(My good friend Dennis Hanson passed this video on to me. THANKS Dennis!)

The above interview was recorded and edited in London last month, by Andrew Priestley. (Here’s Part 1 of the interview). Andrew had recently had a bad customer service experience in a London coffee shop, and that led to a discussion of organic business processes.  Thanks Andrew!

In the past several weeks we’ve been to London, Maui, Seattle and now we’re home in Bend, Oregon again. Mike Giles, my business partner from London has been with us for the last week (he returned to London yesterday) as we finish tweaking our Academy product and get our consulting effort off the ground. The “soft launch” of the Academy went very, very well, with sales triple what we had anticipated. It’s been gratifying to get the project off the ground as we’ve been working on it for a full year now, with Mike visiting us three times and Linda and I traveling to England three times as well. Production was done in both countries with the video training sessions taped right here in Bend. It’s our aim to consolidate administration for the company, and future production, to be here in Oregon. Easier that way. Mike is a global traveler and he’ll spend some significant time over here as he heads up the marketing end of things. He’ll be back to Bend in January for an extended stay. The major launch of the Academy is scheduled for January 17th.

Here’s something new that we put together for marketing purposes: See the video, ”Testimonials,” located in the lower right hand corner of  the front page of my main website. The background music piece, Riders of Rohan, is by David Arkenstone who gave me permission to use it here. I’ve been listening to his work since the 80′s. Perfect skiing/climbing music.

About “the software”: Yes, it’s ready to go but I want to go through things one more time. It WILL be released soon! Here’s the latest info, posted on the site.

The second printing of the Third Edition is going out soon. I’ve made dozens more tweaks! That’s the thing with building a machine: You can build it but the tweaking never ends.

Last week, Linda and I had five fun and productive days in London, escaping back to the U.S. just in time to miss the big public union strike scheduled for today, set to paralyze the city.

We met with Kevin Harrington, Jairek Robbins, Mark Nathwani and his lovely wife Sonny, and Sohail Khan among other marketing/consulting leaders.

The above video was ad-hoc, taken and edited by business consultant extraordinaire Andrew Priestly of London. This was Saturday evening, in the “speaker’s room” at The Shift Event, in Piccadilly. Thanks Andrew!  (That’s my business partner Mike Giles, hovering in the background.)

The “soft” launch of the Work the System Academy product is underway.

-sc

This is a quick post! Time for a catch-up. Thanks everyone for your support and kind words!

Love that video (above). It’s for The Shift Event,  coming up in London Nov 25-27. We’ll be heading over there soon as I’ll be making a presentation. They’re giving me an hour and I’ll talk about the systems mindset (and how things can get better with just a tweak in one’s perspective).

It’s been back and forth from our home here in Bend to Los Angeles, too, as we roll out the in-house consulting leg of the business. I have avoided consulting in the past but now admit I am thoroughly enjoying working with our new associate, Josh Fonger, installing the Method; taking businesses from chaos to calm. Fun!

Monday (finally!!) we release the Work the System Academy product. Go here for information. And, in the meantime, my business partner Mike Giles, Josh, Linda and I are building our ”Be-a-WTS-Consultant product” (we don’t have a name for it yet). Launch will be in the Spring. Also, I’m doing a half-dozen political presentations in various locations within Oregon this month. And, we’re getting ready for the 2nd printing of the 3rd Edition of Work the System. It’s been busy! Love it, building those machines!

Here’s a short interview I did a couple of days ago, with Jim Blasingame.

In October I spent some fun time in Baja, Mexico, with Maverick1000 friends (Yanik Silver’s mastermind group), racing across the southern end of the peninsula for four days. It was a blast, just ripping as fast as we could for the whole time. Can’t do that stateside…met and chatted with Steve Saleen while down there. Cool, very nice guy.

-sam

Hammer-time: On top of Stone Mountain, Georgia.

I’m writing this because Chris Ducker put a bug in my ear, via a recent post to his own subscribers, that maybe some of you might be interested in my typical daily routine. There are two routines really, very different from each other, and I love them both as they are exactly as I have designed them to be. My wife Linda and I are sprinters: Top speed for a while as we build a machine, followed by a veg-out, lay-back session. The sprints last for weeks or months, but not the lay-backs – they’re short-term because we get fiesty and want to get back to work building something. Right now we’re at the end of a full-sprint session, creating our Work the System Academy product with our UK based partner Mike Giles who, BTW, is also a sprinter. (The internal launch of the Academy product is the 26th. The full-bore release is in the first week of November.)

In our daily routines, do we employ the systems mindset strategy? Every moment. Why? Because it works. Do we think about it? Only to observe, and to occasionally reflect gratefully that our life-condition is the result of it.

Non Hammer-time Routine (machine-maintenance and hanging out)
4am- 5am. Up for shower, breakfast and some news on TV. Linda’s only halfway through her 8 hour sleep session. I’m quiet as I prowl the house (shower in the guest suite at the other end of the house, headphones for the early morning TV news, etc.)

6am-10am. Creative and/or study: on-going machine maintenance;  writing or a quick show-up at the office just to stir up the dust and/or hang out. Email responses. (Note: when I refer to a “machine,” I am referring to a stand-alone business, non-profit, or political entity that, when built, will spew out value and dollar bills without constant input. Well, yes, ultimately the political gig won’t be stand-alone and it won’t be spewing dollar bills).

10am-2pm. Friends, reading, coffee shop, more reading, yard work, whatever.

2pm-3pm. I’ve hit the wall: take a nap, or plow though the down-time if what I’m into that day is particularly intriguing.

3pm-5pm. Workout, and hanging-out some more. Linda and I cycle or hike. I might go climb something nearby, solo. Maybe we’ll see a movie together, or I’ll go solo again and read some more. Perhaps some machine maintenance. Email catch-up, if I feel like it. I try hard to respond to all incoming messages. (That will not be possible soon and I am perplexed at the thought of not being able to personally write people back).

5pm-6pm. Quiet dinner with Linda, at home or a restaurant

6pm-midnight: TV or outside movie, read, work on a machine

midnight-5am: Sleep

Hammer-time Routine (intensive machine-building).
5am-11pm, 7 days a week: Here’s the attitude. Flat out construction. That, and the essentials: eating, exercise, sleeping and very short mental breaks as necessary. I cram in the regular living essentials (do my part of keeping the house orderly, my two hours per week doing Centratel work, personal hygiene, extended family matters, etc.). Linda and I feed off each other as we, for whatever reason, and working on separate projects, are at identical hammer-time energy levels. We’re a potent, awesome team. It’s total flow.

Oddly enough, in these periods I find myself stepping up the workouts, longer and harder, taking an occasional day or two to go off to climb or ski something halfway serious.

Right this minute, I’m sprawled on the couch in our Seattle Apartment. It’s just after midnight and we’ve been hard at it all day. No sign of letting up for Linda. She’s been at it since 9am. She’s six feet away, ensconced in her multiple computer monitors and a set of headphones, tweaking one of the Academy training videos. I ask, “are you happy?” And she says, “yes. I am,” with a sly grin. And adds, “I could be happier if I was making more progress!” Then, asks, “Did Dan order my new jumbo monitor?” Dan is our chief IT guy. I say “yes.” She says “oh boy!” and disappears back into her little world. I’m wasted; been going since 5am, and headed to bed. It’s my guess that Linda will stumble in around 3am.

So, we’re near the end of several months of full-on hammer-time. It’s been our choice to work hard and it’s been incredibly satisfying, and soon we can kick back again. It’s all good.

If only my boss had attended the Work the System Academy…

Hey everyone!

Help! I need your input for the Academy product. Do you have a Working Procedure for your business that you’re proud of? If so, could we use it as a sample in our upcoming Academy product’s “go-to” appendix?  Of course, you can remain anonymous if you wish. It would be a great help. Send whatever you have to my attention:  info@workthesystem.com.

Linda and Mike Giles and I have been hammering away hard on our new Academy project. We’ve been to London twice; Mike’s been over here to stay with us at our home here in Bend, Oregon twice.We started the project last January at a reasonable pace but for the last two months the three of us have been putting in 14 hour days/7 days a week to create the stand-alone, bolt-on “Breaking Free Business Product” (as my daughter Jenny has so aptly described it. Thanks Jen!)

As it was with the Centratel turn-around twelve years ago, some initial heavy-lifting is required to create a machine which generates revenue without our presence.

What have we created?  The Academy is an incredibly comprehensive multi-media guide for fixing a business; a bolt-on installation of the Work the System methodology so any business owner can make freedom and wealth happen in 30 to 90 days!  The product will launch October 1st in a limited get-the-kinks-out joint venture effort. General release, with full-blown internet joint-venture participation, will be November 1^st (or maybe sooner). There are 20 audio/video training sessions and much backup hardcopy material, along with, finally, a software product to keep documentation organized. Linda is doing the visual art and video construction, I’m the content-guy and audio editor, Mike is a marketing/website genius. In the course of all this we’ve turned our house into a recording studio and have developed a full-fledged internet marketing production company. Fun!

I will advise you the day the launch occurs. There will be a TON of information on our new Academy site.

We are training consultants too, to go into businesses and install the system. More on that  soon.

The Third edition of Work the System is being shipped this week and will be available hard-cover October 1st, in book stores and through this website. Work is vastly improved. (In itself, it was a six month epic to get this Third Editon just the way I want it. Tweak, tweak, tweak!)

You can download the Third Edition PDF right now (go to the shopping cart), and the audio will be finished and ready to purchase on October 1^st or so. I did my final audio recording today, and our local audio-guys, Tim and Jay, at Tim Underwood Productions here in Bend, are wrapping it up this week.

After almost three years of weekly posts, it has just felt right to take a break  for the summer, but soon I’ll be back in gear as my time begins to free up again. Fresh posts will begin again sometime next month.

Linda and I have been back and forth from Seattle, and to the east coast, but mostly staying here in the NW for the summer in order to get this work accomplished. But it’s been a great summer! Hope yours was equally fun and productive.

Send me your working procedures! Thanks!

More on the Work the System Academy soon.

Photo by egor.gribanov via flickr used under a creative Commons License.

Sam Carpenter, Josh Kaufman

A few weeks ago,  my daughter Jennifer and I visited Josh in his home town of Fort Collins, Colorado. If you are even just a little bit interested in business, listening to this interview will be more than worthwhile. His book is The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business and it’s a best-seller.  His website is personalmba.com. I highly recommend you buy Josh’s book. It’s an easy-read and, if you’re in business for yourself, or you work for someone else but have leanings toward self-sufficiency,  this is mandatory reading. Josh is believable, and is a very nice guy. Buy this book. -sc