Jon Perry  00:08

Thomas Jefferson set up our country for misery. Good morning, and welcome to the Master Mind Library. I’m Jon Perry, the reach architect.

Derek Egeberg  00:17

And good morning. I’m Derek Egeberg, the Approval Coach.

Jon Perry  00:20

And today we’re going to talk about The Gap and The Gain by Dan Sullivan. With Dr. Benjamin Hardy. Derek, this is actually a book that you came across recently.

Derek Egeberg  00:30

Yeah, fantastic book, it was suggested to me by a couple of other people in the same industry. And believe it or not, this went from obscurity to my top shelf. This is one of my top 13 books that fast, how about yourself.

Jon Perry  00:45

I liked the book, I think it had some prominence, I feel it had some concepts that were put together that I pieced together from other books I’ve read in the past, it does make sense, especially, you know, like the happiness quotient and whatnot. And so I feel that there’s a good message behind it. It’s not new, just the way it’s presented is in a much newer way. And I liked the stories that they use to lead into these points, and I consumed it on audiobook format. And the really interesting thing is on the audio book, the author and the creator or Mr. Dr. Hardy and Dan Sullivan, had like a chat session about the chapter after the chapter was read. So we got a little bit more insight as to the creation of it. And I found out one interesting thing about reading this book a three and a half speed is when they chuckle it sounds a little creepy. Like they’re gonna

Derek Egeberg  01:43

say that sounds like the chipmunks kind of Yeah. Now you opened with Thomas Jefferson, from the Declaration of Independence, talking about the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness Exactly. Now, I think you’re, we open with something interesting and hysterical and a joke. But it is true. And if you look at what they’re talking about in the book, we all strive to be happy. And as Americans, I think we’ve been taught, okay, you got to do these things to become happy in the future. And my takeaway from the book is, no, we have to do exactly what they’re talking about is looking backwards to see how far we’ve come and celebrate those successes. So for me, you know, I didn’t understand what the title gap and the gain was when somebody says, hey, read this book gap in the game. Okay, I’m, I’m thinking football analogies, okay, you know, you got to fill the gaps, and you know, how many yards you’re gaining? And what are you struggling to get to? And that’s not what this concept is. The concept is literally where you are, if you’re looking forward, and you’re you’re debating that you haven’t gotten far enough, you’re in the gap, and you’re trying to figure out why you haven’t achieved something. And when you flip it, and you look backwards, and you celebrate where you are, and you see how far you’ve come. You appreciate your gains. And for me, that’s kind of a an interesting concept, because I’ve never heard it put that way. But so often we go oh, man, I wish I had the x Oh, man, I wish I would have done y. And I think here in in the social media age, I mean, here we’re on, we’re on video. So people are gonna watch it. But But you say, Okay, wait a minute, how many people are stuck on social media and comparing I don’t have that car, I don’t have that outfit. I don’t have this, I don’t have that. Oh my gosh, that person smarter. Oh my gosh, that person’s more good looking, whatever it is. And we don’t celebrate the oh my gosh, I’ve done well enough to have an iPhone or oh my gosh, I actually have a roof over my head and you start celebrating things in in your past that everything can become a gain. And so my other takeaway is he talks about any I’ve heard people say, you know, learn from your past. How many times have we heard that over our lifetime other than a million times? Learn from your past, okay, but turn those pasts into gains, okay, I’m never going to make that mistake again. Or, Oh, I’m gonna learn to use this differently, or I’m going to participate in my life differently to celebrate what has happened, as opposed to oh my gosh, it’s such a tough life. Let me have another drink and go that way. So took a lot of concepts out that we can talk about, but really move from obscurity to top 13 shelf that fast.

Jon Perry  04:22

And I can see why that would appeal to you in such a manner. I mean, when you really think about it, this endeavor of ours is the result of a gain, you know, started reading books actively talking about them four or five years ago. And we were excited to get through one book a month that we could share. And at one point we physically read because I was more reading at the time three books in a month and it was very difficult to talk about them all because we were comparing them That wasn’t fair because they weren’t even the same subject matter. We were comparing them based upon enjoyability. Yet when I look back at it, you know there was a year where we read had 15 books, and we were playing celebrated. We celebrate it. And we did. And that’s, we did that, right? Because we were doing that to grow and to go forward not going, how many more books can I read? How much quicker can I get our goal, we would like to get quicker, the same way that it talks about on the horizon, we want to move in that direction. But there is time. And so we would always move along. We just weren’t going to ever get to an end goal. Goals that talks about there the gap is between there and the goal, the gap and that finit and the finite? And will that actually make you happy? How many times have we heard in our professions, dealing with our clients and our friends, that I’d be happy if I just made a million dollars. Now, I don’t remember where I heard this. I had been saying this for years, and I’ve even experienced myself. Money does not make you happy. It does make misery easier to deal with. It does not make you happy. This talks about those other things in your life that you need to celebrate in order to live in the moment and be happy.

Derek Egeberg  06:06

They had a they had a unique cartoon on on one of the website pages because I did some more digging in one of them talks about if you see the horizon, you’re never going to get to the horizon. And then they flipped, they took the horizon out and they put ideal. And you’re never going to get to your ideal because that ideal is always going to be changing. Like I’ve heard that before when you talk about money. And then as soon as somebody gets there, they say, Well, I’d be happy if I made x more or ahead x more. And then when you get to there, now there’s a new hurdle. And so part of it for me is just realizing, and like you said, we’ve heard most of this stuff presented in different ways. This as as concise and succinct as I can get it to understand, hey, look backwards, celebrate the wins. And one of the simple things that he talks about, and I know you journal, I journal and we kind of write things down. But one of his is celebrate three wins at the end of the day, and you go to bed framing that here’s the three wins, not the 15 things I didn’t get done and the 27 things on my to do list for tomorrow.

Jon Perry  07:16

And the two things that went completely sideways during the day, I didn’t have to bring those up. But thank you very much for them.

Derek Egeberg  07:21

But you know, again, it’s that, oh, my gosh, let’s celebrate three wins. And then one of the takeaways for me is I want to make my kids better. And I want to help them not make some of the mistakes lots of people make. And one of the points that Benjamin Hardy makes is, you know, he was holding his kids to his ideals. And you think, oh my gosh, I’ve done that exact same thing. I may have been a poopy dad doing all of those things, because I’m holding my kids to ideals that somebody of my years on the planet would have, as opposed to a 15 to 17 and 18 year old. And so I actually stopped last night because I knew we’re gonna do this. And I pulled each one of my kids aside and said, Hey, I’m so proud of you for where you’ve come and look at how far you’ve gone. And you know, what you’re doing in school now in sports is very impressive. Are you excited for how far you’ve come? And all three, my kids had a great conversation individually, not as a group. And you think, man, I totally would have missed that, if not for having read this book and realizing, and I have to celebrate how far they’ve come? Or Jon, do we celebrate how far you’ve come? It’s not about me? Do we celebrate how far your receptionist has come and those types of things? For me, the book was that really good reminder to go wait a minute, a wacky over the head with a frying pan. And let’s celebrate exactly how far we’ve come. Because there’s a long road to go. And I would much rather walk that road. happy and excited. Not oh my gosh, I gotta walk the rest of this road

Jon Perry  09:05

like with a horse with blinders on never being able to look around, never being able to look back never being able to reflect, you know, they say that we are doomed to repeat history if we don’t review it. That includes our own history, our own mistakes. I mean, taking on a little bit more personal. How many times have you looked back before you met your wife? And you looked at your dating history and go, Oh, I did this, maybe I should change something different than next time I do it. And you don’t you do the exact same thing because we’re young. We’re a little dumb, naive, very dumb. And right going forward, versus looking at the little things we did right in those relationships. You know, we just saw them as failed relationships. And going forward. How many times in business have we worked with a vendor or partner and something happened and it dissolved and faded away? Well, did we celebrate the little things that were right in that partnership, or did we always nit pick the Things that could have been done better, could have been done wrong. Did we praise those when they did something above and beyond? Or if it was their job? They just did exceptionally well. You know, it might have met expectations on a Gantt chart of job review performance. They just did it with the utmost proficiency and expectations, or did we just go Oh, you just barely met expectations and moved on. But look

Derek Egeberg  10:25

at the society that Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy are are talking about doing this in it is the instant gratification, it is the social media quick access to see anybody’s anything. And we’re so comparative, that you say, oh, there’s a shirt, there’s a purse, there’s a car, there’s a house, oh my gosh, I didn’t do this right. And and we focus on the failures, and, and lack, as opposed to this abundance and joy of moving forward. And yes, you’re going to chase your column ideals, but you know, set a goal. And then if you said, Hey, Jon, in five years, you want your business to double? Cool in two years, do you do say, Hey, here’s where I am, compared to where I started. And I’m going to celebrate because I’m moving in the right direction. And look, we’re making more money, or we have more customers, or we have more staff, whatever it is. But you celebrate that when you don’t beat yourself up and go, Oh, my gosh, I thought I’d be here faster. You you pat yourself on the back and say, My gosh, I’ve done a good job I’ve grown, I’ve changed, I’ve become better. And for me again, it’s that sometimes the books you and I read are these huge just mountain of of great data, lots of information. But it takes a lot of sifting to go through and does. And like you’re talking about when you’re listening to the audio of these two talking after the chapter, you get a sense of they genuinely believe it. It’s not like you read some books and you think does the author really believe that? Do they practice what they preach? Yeah. And and you hear about how you know, Dr. Hardy is, is doing this with his family, you realize how Dan Sullivan really created this on a whiteboard or a blank sheet of paper for one of his groups, and didn’t realize what he was sketching out until later.

Jon Perry  12:24

And one guy absolutely didn’t get it and left.

Derek Egeberg  12:28

And I think that’s the same in life. Look, some people won’t get the book. No, some people won’t like the book. It’s on my top 13 because it speaks to who I am at this moment. Now what’s what’s interesting gap in the gain? What happens if I grow exponentially over the next two years? Will this still be on my top 13 list? Might it change and move from your I don’t know where it is? Is it your second shelf? Might it move from second shelf to top shelf in a year, because you change or grow one way or the other? So what I really love about the Master Mind Library is it it gives us a chance to sample books, some you like more than others, some I like more than others. But you realize that they’re going to ebb and flow in and out of what we also need mentally.

Jon Perry  13:14

Exactly. And I think that it helps reframe our mental positions, we get a little bit of a reset with each book because we always try to pull something out of it. That can be amazing where we learn something about someone and frames it all differently. I mean, they talk about the speed skater Apollo Ono in the beginning and how he always came up a little bit short at the Olympics. And over this past weekend. There was a Major League Baseball playoff series, most dominant team in the sport the Los Angeles Dodgers run differential of over 300 runs versus their competitors this past year won more games than all but a handful of teams in the history of baseball on a regular season. lost to the Padres, who they’ve traditionally dominated they beat them all six series this past year. And yet the Padres are the ones that are going to go on to the championship series. And the Dodgers season has come up short, the Dodgers have been in the postseason for 12 years in a row now. They’ve won one World Series, they’ve been to a couple World Series, yet they just aren’t getting to the next level. At what point in time is it just where’s the gap measuring whereas the gain measuring you know, do I think that the Padres are absolutely, absolutely looking at as a gain like we did this and now we’re doing this and we’re moving on to this and they’re celebrating all the things they had three champagne showers in the locker room, you know, first when they made the playoffs when they moved on from the first round of the playoffs? And then when they bow they’re moving on. Are they going to continue that run?

Derek Egeberg  14:52

No. But you’re right. Are you measuring the gap? Are you measuring the gains? What are you taking out of it daily? And then look at your team Okay, I think one of the things that I really enjoy is the Master Mind Library and doing this having somebody else to bounce these things off of. And it doesn’t matter whether I mean, here we are recording on video, it doesn’t matter whether there happens to be a mistake on the audio or the video, are we moving ahead and is becoming better and better and better? And if you make a mistake, then you go, okay, that’s life. What did you learn from it? How do you make it better and you move on. So whether you whether you booted a ground ball, whether you you know, created a fielder’s air, you you just absolutely should not have swung at that pitch, whatever those things are, it you can either beat yourself up, and you can look ahead at all the mistakes you made. Or you can look backwards and say, oh my gosh, look how far we’ve come. Come on, guys. Let’s get after it. And let’s, let’s win this one.

Jon Perry  15:53

I think that part of it is also looking at your past warts and all going forward. You know, like you said earlier, we live in a very social media, instant gratification society, you know, people on Instagram curate their absolute best image to present forward.

Derek Egeberg  16:10

Now wait, you’re saying that’s not all exactly how life looks on social media? That it’s that it’s maybe staged? A little bit, say it isn’t. So

Jon Perry  16:20

ironically enough, I just finished the book on Instagram, no filter. And part of the mentioned is that there’s an algorithm that shows that at least eight years ago, when or five years ago, when this book has been put together, that there’s a huge number of a thing called with the younger generation, the high school students, probably not young college students. Now they had what they call the fence to Graham account. Have you heard this term before? It’s a fake Instagram account, it’s a private account, that’s the one they share with their actual friends. That’s the one that they you know, show that they’re more human, and less than perfect. You know, and it kind of scares me, because I know that it’s partially peers that encourages, but going back to the beginning of what we’re talking about, how much is it the parents expectations on their children to be this perfect, you know, entity. And so part of the reasons why they created the stories from Snapchat, it was it was a disposable way to share a moment of their life without it being a permanent being marched on their account, their record, per se. And so. And that’s one of the things that helped propel it back a little bit when it was starting to go down because there’s less posts because they all had to be perfect. And the whole frame of the page had to be perfect. Yeah.

Derek Egeberg  17:41

So you know, it’s interesting, you talk about that. Back in the day, you used to hear people say, you did a good day’s work. You know, and and again, we live in an agricultural community. Some people who are in big cities may not understand that. But you know, you see some of these farmers that they’re out before sunup, and they’re out till after sundown, and they’re they’re putting in a good honest day’s work. They’re not on social media, they’re not on you know, they’re working, and you go home and you go, man, that was good day’s work, I got accomplished everything I needed to, and you celebrate that as a win. As opposed to I can see there’s people who look in the field and go, there’s nothing growing, you know, all you do is move some dirt around, all you did is open up some irrigation. And you don’t understand the little wins each day that you can celebrate when the crop is harvest. And again, you go back to are you hunting? Are you farming, which we’ve learned in other books, but you know, the farmer spends weeks and sometimes months tending that crop before you can harvest it. And then you celebrate the harvest. I mean, what was Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving was celebrating the last harvest before it, you know, and sometimes we just need to, I need to sit back and say I gotta celebrate my gains, not the gaps. And I guarantee you, you and I could sit here and name 100 gaps for each other.

Jon Perry  19:08

It’s easy. It’s easy to focus on the negative. It’s easy to Meijer in self pity, you know, that is one of the challenges that we got to overcome as just a society to get better you know, it’s easy to play the victim at times, be self victimizing, put yourself in the worst light, the worst situation, everything is going against you, versus celebrating the things that you’ve done to eke forward. You know, one of the things with depression is they say that a good day might be a day that I put on my pants, I may not brush my teeth that day. I put on my pants, I accomplished something. To some people that sounds ridiculous to some people that goes how hard is it to put on their pants, and yet, they can’t ever be in the shoes of somebody who has such crippling anxiety that just getting out of bed seems like climbing Mount Everest.

Derek Egeberg  20:01

And they they talk about empathy in the book, and learning to empathize with the person who is on the other end. Because we don’t understand everybody’s everything. And again, as a society right now we’re very much into nobody else’s opinion matters. It’s only the speaker. And you know, when whether you say politically, you know, the woke culture or the cancel culture, whatever else, what you’re really saying is, your opinion matters. But nobody else’s matter. And I don’t want to get into the politics of it. But you talk about the empathy in the book. And yeah, we have to empathize with that person who A good day is getting their pants on. And I know, good friends of mine who have struggled with depression and things like that. And I don’t understand it. But I have to learn to empathize and say, you know, dude, good job way to pull it out. And let’s celebrate that as a win. placation For me, doesn’t help. But just making sure that, you know, when that is aired, they have the security to know it’s okay to say that, and they’re not going to be judged that way. So for me, going back through the book, there’s a lot of wins. And you started out talking about Thomas Jefferson and life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And you know, what’s interesting to me is you said victim earlier, we’re not victims, because that line was in there. And I know, that’s not how you feel. But what when Thomas Jefferson says, the pursuit of happiness for me you think, yeah, we are, we all are pursuing this dream of the American dream and life liberty. And we have to celebrate the happiness looking backwards and saying, my gosh, look how far we’ve come. So, you know, even to the author’s opinion, if if you had turned the prison just a little bit and said, and celebrate the success of becoming a free society and a republic, and we’re in control of our own destiny, and nobody is under you know, we’re not under anybody’s thumb anymore. And you think, Oh, my gosh, how amazing is this, the struggles that, let’s say, George Washington, and the revolutionists went through to have this amazing country. And we have to celebrate those successes. We don’t, we don’t have to go man, you know, if you had crossed the river in a different spot, you might have ended the war a day earlier, or something like that? No. And now you say, okay, celebrate our gains. So for me, the takeaways are, man, I have to make sure I’m seeing my kids or my co workers or my friends, for their gains, not trying to fill the gaps that I see, celebrate my gains, not the plethora of gaps that I see. And then finishing the evening with what are the three wins for the day and realize that no different than working out in a gym, you know, you work out every day, and you see your muscles get stronger. That’s one of their concepts is you celebrate those wins every day, and you celebrate the gains and you start to be more in the gain, as in the gap. Dr. Excuse me, Dan Sullivan talks about, you know, somebody asked him, Well, how do you stay out of the gap? And he goes, I’m not, I’m in the gap five or six times a day. But it’s the noticing you are and then pulling yourself? Out? Yeah,

Jon Perry  23:18

the analogy I think they use was charting a boat or a yacht down, of course, you know, you have your nautical path, which is the most efficient thing. And realistically, I’ve never boated. I’ve been on the boat a couple times. But I’ve never, I would never call that boating,

Derek Egeberg  23:32

rubber boat and

Jon Perry  23:34

ferry to Catalina once you know. But the point is, is that the waves and the and everything, keep it so that you’re never going in a straight line on that water. The main thing though, is you kind of know your course. So then you realize if you’re going off course three degrees, you can correct three degrees to get yourself back on course, I think that’s what being aware of being in the gap is, is that you know, that you got to focus on then getting back into the game. If you’re always in the game, then you’re actually in the gap does another thing that they mentioned, because again, you’re you’re into a little bit of a self delusional point, my always being thinking that you’re in the right place. You’re not that you’re ignoring other factors. And you’re not even being aware of that, at that point, trying to focus. If you’re not aware of the gap at all times. You want you can, you always gotta be aware of the gap. You can celebrate the wins, you just got to be aware of your course and beyond be ready to correct when you get to that point. It’s

Derek Egeberg  24:30

perspective. And it’s the goal. So for me, same as you haven’t have done a lot of boating but done a lot of flying. And when you talk to pilots, I’ve got a couple of friends who are pilots, you’re off course 90% of the flight. Now, how many flights? Have you ever landed at the wrong airport? None. None. So if every plane is off course 90% of the time and the pilots making little corrections as you’re flying, weirdly enough, we all land at the correct airport. I mean, so if you You know you can make those corrections. Do you celebrate the win of Man has great landing great flight? Love it? Or do you go man pilot you are off course 90% of the flight, you should have your pilot’s license taken away. No, you celebrate the win of safe landing you got where you’re going. And now we can set the next goal or the next destination. And I hear a lot of books talk about, you know, should you set goals? Should you not set goals? And here’s the terminology is they here’s the goal, you’re striving for the goal, but the success isn’t looking forward, the success is looking backwards at how far you’ve gone towards the goal. And I think that’s the missing piece that that move this to the top shelf for me is that Lego being put in the the wall, if you will, of you know what we all have really high goals that we’re striving for. But and you read books that say, well, the rearview mirror is smaller than the windshield, look out the windshield, don’t look in the rearview mirror. But the happiness part of it the game part of it is looking in the rearview mirror and going and I’ve come a long way. Oh my gosh, if I can come this far in my life, what what can I do going forward from here with the knowledge of how to achieve this. And so that that to me is the conclusion on my side is the gap and the gain is a perspective of it is okay. And it is very much suggested if you had a doctor’s prescription look in the rearview mirror, celebrate how far you’ve come down that road doesn’t matter what the road is, doesn’t matter if it’s chock full of potholes. And it’s the most twisted, curvy thing you’ve ever had. What did you learn from it? And how is that going to propel your gains forward?

Jon Perry  26:49

I agree completely. So I think that the last chapter in the book summarizes really what I’m trying you to get, and that is life, liberty and the expansion of happiness. There you go.

Derek Egeberg  27:02

So for your open, would you have suggested Thomas Jefferson add that? Or are we okay with listening and chasing this dream? Knowing that we have perspective

Jon Perry  27:18

that’s a historical document exactly. I don’t know if there’s, that’s one of the most famous lines in our country’s history,

Derek Egeberg  27:27

I wouldn’t change,

Jon Perry  27:28

I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t change it. I think though, as time evolved, there’s a lot of stuff that’s in the Constitution that needed to change. As far as are the amendments, that’s why we had the amendments times change things, I wouldn’t necessarily change that line. I do think that the idea of living in happiness and expanding your happiness to growing as a person by reflecting upon how you’ve gotten there, versus what else you need to do to get to that ideal. It’s something that we all should take to heart. And if we can, then maybe everybody will understand each other a little bit more, be a little bit more patient with each other, have a little bit more empathy. And who knows what the future will hold. If that comes true.

Derek Egeberg  28:14

Yeah. So if if and when that happens, because that’s gonna take some work. And as Martin Luther King says, you know, darkness does not stop the darkness, only light can stop the darkness. We have to be genuine and we have to be real. And we have to look at some of those look column gaps, we have to look at the gaps, we’ve gone through and realize the gains that we’ve gotten from there and gone forward. So you know, if you say, whether it’s a societal change, like, my kids are online, a lot, your kids are going to be online more and more as they grow up. And your daughter is precocious. Very. So, you know, do we celebrate those amazing wins, and, and help our kids and our friends and our family and our co workers have the perspective. And I love the the diagram in the book. So for me, you know, you draw the little circle of where you are, and call that success. And you put a goal way out in front, and you put the past or the gap, you know, way in the back where you’ve started. And if you’re looking backwards, it’s very easy to see how amazingly successful people are and how they’ve grown. And if you only focus on some idealic future, that has to be, as you said, filtered in perfect. Yep. You’re never going to get there and and you know, when we we studied for this again, spent a little time on social media last night, and there’s pills to be instantly skinny. There’s bracelets that are going to make use skinny, there’s instant things for, whether it’s complexion and hair and everything else. What I’m really reading though, is we’re not perfect. There’s so many things that you’re not perfect. Which means should we not post who we really are, you know, geez, am I too fat? Do any more hair? Do I need my complexion, whatever those things are? No, let’s celebrate the gains. And like I say, I hope my enthusiasm for the book isn’t over the top. But just that perspective that I think a lot of people who are striving in business, you beat yourself up daily going, and I didn’t get this done, oh my gosh, this didn’t get done. This didn’t come together perfectly. I didn’t return this call, oh, this project, whatever it is. Now we’ve come a long way and you’re supporting a big group, a big operation of friends, family. Let’s enjoy the happiness that we’ve celebrated and built so far.

Jon Perry  31:01

Sounds good to me.

Derek Egeberg  31:02

Okay. So, you open How do you close this with that? That one liner?

Jon Perry  31:08

I think, again, you know, life liberty and the expansion of happiness is the path forward that this book preaches. And I think it’s something worth buying into and bringing it into my own life by expanding my happiness by looking upon my past success or my past achievements to build upon my current success.

Derek Egeberg  31:31

Very good. So from my perspective at the Master Mind Library, this is you buy the book, you buy the audio book, and you go through both because you do get to hear both of the authors having some additional dialogue that is not in the book. Well worth the read and the time on both of them from Derek Egeberg, the Approval Coaches perspective.

Jon Perry  31:51

absolutely worth it from Jon Perry, the Reach Architect,

Derek Egeberg  31:53

and for now, this is the Master Mind Library. Have a great week everyone. Have a good