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Getting Things Done
Ep. 301: David Allen talks with Steve Beimel
00:25:56
Please join David Allen as he talks with Steve Beimel about how GTD artfully ties in with revitalizing traditional Japanese master crafts. You can watch this entire conversation from July 2022 at . -- This audio is one of many available at GTD...
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- [00:11]
A
Hi, everybody. David Allen here. And I'm going to warn you right now, this interview that I'm doing is going to be a conversation with a guy I've known for many more years than you can imagine in many different roles. And so it may go a little bit longer than usual. I don't know. We'll see. Because we have lots of things to talk about. Cabbages and kings. I use the term cabbages and kings, by the way, and somebody didn't know what that was and they had to look it up and would say, oh, Alice in Wonderland. Oh, that's right. We shall talk of cabbages and kings. It may range all around there, but one of the reasons I'm sharing this is there are Steve and I have known each other for years, but what he's involved in right now, the way he's involved in it and what he's doing, I think it's so significant. He's also a serious gtder. We can talk to any of you folks about that who know what the GTD model is and methodology. So let me back up a little bit. Okay. This is Steven Vimel. And Steven is, gosh, I've known each other, I guess we've known each other for what, 40 years, 30, 35 years, whatever.
- [01:23]
B
I have to tell you, Steve, 1974, that's 48 years.
- [01:34]
A
Wow. You know, we don't even know people 48 years old. So it's been a long time. And you know, Steve and I met through mutual interest in our spiritual affairs, you know, that we were involved in. Steve actually was my boss of One of my 35 jobs I had by the time I was 35, one of the best bosses I could ever have. Anyway, Steve can tell you more about that, perhaps. So I've known Steve for a long time. He is a serious Japanophile, as he will tell you, as Kathryn and I both are. And Steve has taken us on several tours just personally in Japan because he could also tell you, totally fluid in Japanese, lost the mud here and married to a Japanese lady and been there for many, many years. A ton of some of the most coolest, subtlest stuff going on in Japan, relative particularly to craft, to architecture, to art, et cetera. So anyway, that will all be topic discussion. So Steve, what would you like people to know who are watching this? And this is obviously, you know, primarily initially, anyway, a crowd that knows gtd, knows me, know the getting things done process. But it also is likely to be spread out just in more the general public. So given that Intro Go ahead. Mr.
- [03:11]
B
I think I'd like to. Well, hello everybody. I think I'd like to. Something I would like to express about gtd and then I would like to tell you about what I'm involved with because I feel that my intention is to do something that will benefit everybody, that to work towards something that will benefit everyone. Like many of us are doing things that to benefit people. What I'm doing, I feel, is it could be something that not only the people of Japan, but the people around.
- [03:51]
A
The world, all people.
- [03:54]
B
So if I could just start with. I have a long history, a very intense history with gtd. And I started at the very beginning probably. I probably started practicing and studying GT about the time you started studying it in some of those early courses that we both took. And I must say that GTD is something that, knowing my personality, knowing my makeup, I would say that I have 100 times more energy and ideas than I have the wherewithal to put into action. And this is something that many entrepreneurs have. And GTD has allowed me not only to be sane with all this, but to move forward with it in a really uplifting and an uplifting way that just allowed me to create things, to have experiences that I could never have had to be involved in several successful businesses and now in what's becoming a life passion work that I'm doing. So for all of you, for all of you, for all of you who have any, any struggles with, with gtd, with, with your process, you know, I hear you. And I also, I know of nothing else on the planet that brings people to this level of clarity and gtd. So I'm probably your oldest client, you know, not in terms of age, but in terms of years. And it's been because of this inclination or this propensity to be very, very overly creative in so many areas. It's really been a lifesaver. So thank you, David Allen. I quote you every day.
- [06:18]
A
Well, thank you, Steve. Let's back up a little bit and do a little bit of more of the mundane ordinariness just in terms of a chronology of kind of how you got to where you are. So you can start with where you want called born. And then, and then and then and then. So.
- [06:34]
B
Well, I'll do a fast forward version. So I went to Japan when I was right out of college and lived there for four years and then came back and that's when I moved.
- [06:47]
A
First of all, why, why did you go to Japan right after college?
- [06:51]
B
Well, I was in search of world adventure. I Wanted to travel the world and I got to Japan and I said, well, you know, I don't even want to go home, let alone to other countries. This place is exactly what I was looking for. It just seems to. It from that day on to this day, it's. It seems to really answer something inside.
- [07:16]
A
Of me that.
- [07:19]
B
This is. This is the place I want to be. This place I want to live.
- [07:21]
A
And. Okay, and then.
- [07:25]
B
So that went. Then I worked here for four years. I went back and I got. So I learned Japanese while I was in Japan during that four year period. And then I got a job with some Japanese people who. They were immigrants to America. And at that point where I entered, where I met them, they had just. They had, they had. They were in the nursery business, the plant nursery business, and they were nursery growers. They had quite a large outfit. And it was just at a point where a large Japanese construction company invested a big chunk of cash with these two really amazing young Japanese guys to expand their little nursery into a really big place.
- [08:18]
A
This is in Southern California, by the way.
- [08:19]
B
This is in Southern Cal. Yes, Southern California, north of Los Angeles. And you know, I don't know what Moore Park's like now, but at the time it was probably the most idyllic place on the planet. You know, 1500ft above sea level with ocean breezes all the time. 320 days a year of sunshine. Just one of the most gorgeous places. No smog. And so I started working there. And lo and behold, we needed a salesman. And lo and behold, my friend David Allen was just in between jobs. He just finished working in a company with. With Ted, I think, Ted Drake. And I said, well, you know, we did sales and could you help us out for a while? And so he. I mean, as long as you want. So he became a salesman, you know, for me to. I became the general manager of this company. I knew nothing about the nursery business and I invited David to be a salesman, a nursery salesman. And he had no idea. But what we did and we turned this operation, which was really. Was probably the quality, what we were growing was really excellent. But the way the business was run and they had things in shoeboxes and they didn't have letterhead or typewriter. I mean, it was. We kind of built everything from zero. And David created a logo for us and we had a campaign for advertising. We had our own brand. It was so much fun creating with David. We had a really great time together.
- [10:00]
A
I have to have to do it. And a sidebar as part of the job. I got use of your little Datsun truck.
- [10:07]
B
He had a truck.
- [10:09]
A
The truck was great because I would. I don't know how many days a week, two or three days a week. I would travel around to all the local nurseries in Southern California with the back filled with flats of samples of the ground cover that Mitsuha Nursery was selling. And I was growing. What a cool, what a cool thing. And so, you know, I. It was one of my more enjoyable of my 35 jobs I had. Indeed. And I needed transportation then too. And I certainly needed an income. So you know what.
- [10:42]
B
Couple guys in their 20s trying to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. And it was the perfect thing that came along for both of us.
- [10:50]
A
Okay, and then, and then.
- [10:54]
B
Okay, then I went back to. Came. I was at the nursery for a while. I came back to Japan. I got involved with a lot of things. I studied trans translation, Japanese, English translation pretty seriously. Then I got married and went back to the States. And then I became a partner in the nursery. And it really took off. We just. But by 1992 we had 85 employees and it was pretty amazing operation, shipping all over the state. And all that time I was pining to come back to Japan. I just. I was just pining. So I made a big. I made a big shift in my. In my employment. I quit. I quit being a partner in this company. I mean I was still a partner, but I quit being a managing partner and I created a tour company. A tour company for taking people to Japan. And that is called. Was it called the Spree travel. And from 1992 started with four people. And within a year and a half, within a year I had something like eight tours going. And it was. And it just kept going, growing and growing, growing. And I did that until as a CEO until 2005 and then got burnt out from that. Just 75 hour weeks. And then I retired, but became. I still supported Esprit Travel. I still work for Esprit as a kind of a back, back room, back office person creating tours and things like that. And then I retired again about. From that about four years ago and I started an organization called Japan Craft 21.
- [12:56]
A
Well, back up one second, Steve. I'll let you keep on with that thread, but let me back up, do a quick little rewind. You were doing tours. You know, what was so elegant was the nature of your tours. I mean, the University of Chicago used you for architecture and the Smithsonian Institute used you for, I don't know, whatever. So you might Want to let people know what was your area of focus and interest and why you became probably the best in the world of doing tours about what in Japan?
- [13:27]
B
Well, Esprit Travel was and is a company which specializes in giving people really an in depth experience in Japan. And so up until that time, basically just about all the tour companies, it may have been one or two, but just about all tour companies were located in the States and they would have an onshore ground operator take care of everything. And so at one point, you could look at every company's itinerary for Japan and they were almost identical. The day order might be different and the order during the day, what people would visit would be different, but it was all the same. And we just, we became a ground operator in Japan. So every meal, every segment of the tour, every hotel, we checked out everything. We organized it and reserved it ourselves. So we had control over that. But more importantly was the experience. The experience has always been the most important thing that people will come here. And yeah, I just wanted people to say that this was the best tour that they've ever taken in their life. And I'm still to this day, I'm getting letters from people from the 1990s and people come on my. Come on my presentations. I give for Japan craft 21, who I haven't seen in 30 years. And they're still recalling those trips from the 90s and the 2000s. Yes, beautiful, beautiful. So one of the things that we specialized in was giving people really authentic experiences with the crafts of Japan. And what's so special about the crafts of Japan? Well, that's. I have a little bit of a presentation planned for you, so maybe by the end of that you'll know that this is, this country, this country is probably like no other country in the world. There's so in terms of crafts, the breadth, the depth and the degree of craftsmanship of master craftsmanship is so huge here that one of the slides I'll be showing shows a scale. And I made this little diagram scale and I put all the crafts in the world, mastercrafts. Not just things people make, but mastercrafts, past generations, generation honed and refined. And with refined, I put in this hand. The whole world is in this hand. And Japan has more than the whole world combined. And that's what I fell in love with in 1971 when I came here. That's why I wanted to come back in 1992 and you know, between a few times as well. And that's why I wanted to stay here and that's what I'm passionate about revitalizing. Because like all good things, many good things do start to get shaky and maybe come to an end. So that's where Japan Craft 21 came about.
- [16:46]
A
In a minute, I'm going to let Steve share his screen and give us sort of his little presentation about how to describe Japan, the Japan craft project that he's doing right now. But I have to back up even a little bit and say it's not just craft, the Japanese craft itself, but it's the aesthetic. The combination of form and function and aesthetic, you know, which Steve can talk to you even better than I. But as many of you know, you know, I, you know, mind like water. The whole idea of the elegance of empty space and a lot of the same stuff people think did I studies in. No, I just resonated with it because you know, me and Zin just sort of came up with the same, with the same conclusions, you know. But Jen could, you know, Steve can speak even more, more to that. But it was also the aesthetic, you know, not just the craft, the aesthetic of both the architecture and the artists themselves. So it wasn't just that they made a really good building or a really good vase, but the aesthetic that was involved in that, the wabi sabi aspect, all of that, the aspect of, you know, sort of the Zen aesthetic which wasn't always there. You know, Steve gave a present, a lovely presentation I saw not long ago, you know, about the history of that. So that, you know, I say it wasn't always there, but it was been there since the 15th or 16th or 17th century in terms of how that affected everything. But that's long enough, you know, certainly to have then generated what Steve was talking about. Anything to say about that Steve, before we.
- [18:26]
B
Oh, do I ever. Are you kidding? You know, I, this is totally unsolicited, so all of you out there listening. This is totally unsolicited that gtd, you know, I have studied Zen and I have practiced Zen and I have, you know, I've been, I've been interpreters for Zen Roshi in Zen Session for Foreigner. And I, I taught, you know, I, one of my, one of my other profession, my, my other hobbies is I'm a very, very part time coach of GTD principles to friends. And, and one of my clients, one of my friend clients was a, is a Zen master, a young Zen master. He's been, you know, he's been in training for years. He's young Zen priest. But, and the combination of teaching him GTD principles of just keep. Just keeping his head clear and free form riding. He actually it improved his meditation. So here. And so I always considered GTT to be. I would. I always refer to as secular Zen because I don't see any difference. And I know the experience that I have from having a clear head is, is that's a pure Zen experience. And.
- [20:01]
A
Well, interesting. Just to that side point, if I haven't talked, told any of you this, you know, at one point, Jim Kim at the time was the head of the World Bank. He brought me in to do some coaching with him and he, he confessed that his mom had turned him on to my book Getting Things Done. His mom teaches at the University of Idaho or somewhere. I believe their comparative religion, Zen theology or whatever. And she gave him my book and said, gee, Jim, this is practical Zen. He had to. He ran the World Health Organization and then was head of Dartmouth College. And then he, he said every time he changed jobs, he had to go reread my book so it could get him onto whatever the next level of game that he was at. And Jim was a great guy. I don't think he minds me saying this. And a practicing Zen practitioner. So we created time for him to be able to sit even at his office at the World Bank. So, yeah, to your point. Thanks. I know that was an unsolicited promotion, but. Yeah. Okay. Okay, Steve, let's take a second and let you share your screen and show people an idea of kind of what you're involved in right now, because I would love for everybody to know about this as well.
- [21:23]
B
So last year at our first JapanCraft 21 awards bank awards ceremony and banquet, one of the people who was. Who was instrumental in getting us. Well, one of the people instrumental in getting us going was. I said in his opening talk, he said, steve, he said this very slowly and distinctly. Steve, you are starting a movement. You're building a movement. And I never thought about that I was building a movement, but actually in order to revitalize a tradition that is many millennia old, you know, I realize that you have to start a movement because it just. It just can't happen any other way. So I just want to go over a few things with you. Japan's historic accomplishments, where Japan stands now in terms of its craft tradition, the causes for the decline, and the way we are making a difference.
- [22:29]
A
Very cool. Well, thank you, Steve. This has been totally fun. Hopefully this was of interest to many of you listening and watching this. And, you know, we'll. We'll revisit this again sometime, Steve. See what your progress is, how many crazy things unexpected that have shown up in your life as you can demonstrate.
- [22:48]
B
So the miracles are happening every day.
- [22:52]
A
Here's a vote for mind like water and outcome and action thinking, you know, yay. You're such a great champion of that. Thank you so much, Steve.
- [23:11]
C
I'd like to give a short message to those of you who've been participating and playing with GTD Connect for a while and sort of remind you that all of us with this GTD methodology and this set of practices go through cycles. You know, I still go through cycles myself initially. There's kind of the inspiration and there's a lot of material to ingest and to get familiar with. And so people oftentimes when they first come onto Connect, are just potentially overwhelmed by how much information there is. In a way, it's just a huge library where we've been able to archive so much different information from so many different perspectives and people and points of view and so understood that it's like walking into a library. Oh, gee, where do I start? So that's oftentimes the initial phase of this and many people after a year or two, you know, probably get on some level or some plateau where they go, well, I kind of got it now. I've got my system here set up and everything's fine and I'm fine tuning. And you may find yourself at that point also finding yourself saying, gee, I'm now becoming a resource of this methodology for people around me, people asking me for assistance and help in this. And we've seen in the forums a number of people now sharing ideas about how to get your teams more involved or families more involved with this information. So some of that information is in there as well. But I think you'll find yourself going through cycles of this and, and you may find that much like if you've ever read a software manual. I remember when I read, when I learned Microsoft Word to begin with, for instance, and I read the manual, wow, this is really cool. And I started to use the tool and didn't need the manual anymore. As a matter of fact, a good example of that right here, the manual for this camera that's taking this picture right now. Initially I read this, got it all set up. That's really cool. And that's really fine. And so pretty much everything was onto cruise control. I didn't need to go back to my library to make this really work. And then of course, as I started to get more sophisticated in terms of the stuff I wanted to do, got more inspired about some things I saw other people are doing. I go, how do I do that? Went back to the manual, oh, God, I didn't realize I could do that. I didn't realize I could do that. I remember at least two or three iterations of going back to Microsoft Word back in the days when there actually was a manual for that, as opposed to just all online and realizing, oh, my God, I didn't realize that. Oh, I could do that now. I could do that now. And I think that's what you might find with Connect too, is that it's a gold mine of stuff. Well, many people have read getting things Done, you know, more than three or four times, and every time they read it, they get something new out of it. So I think you may find Connect the same way and probably even easier because, hey, it doesn't take much to just click on, surf around, see what might be new or what might be of interest to you, and pay attention. There's more than meets the eye in there.