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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. David Allen here, for those of you who may not know me. And I'm going to be sort of the host of this podcast, though it's going to be more of an inter. More of a conversation than an interview or even a podcast. With me on here is Ana Maria Gonzalez. Ana Maria, is. Are you in Medellin right now?
- [00:33]
B
I am in Medellin right now, yes. I'm joining from Colombia.
- [00:36]
A
Yeah. And Ana Maria, I will give you a minute or two in a minute to introduce maybe anything you want to let people know about you and Daniel Bourd. I guess I'm saying that in Portuguese. Correct. And Daniel was really the instigator of this conversation because of his interest, as we'll talk more about in high level executive coaching, of getting things done, the GTD methodology. So let me turn it over to you, Danielle, and let people know what you'd like them to know about you, what you do, anything else you'd like to say as an introduction. So go ahead.
- [01:21]
C
Thank you, David. Thank you. And Amaria, very, very glad to be here with you both. For me, this conversation carries a very personal meaning. I was one of the very first professionals ever certified as a GTD coach more than 15 years ago. And being part of this pioneering group shaped both my career and my worldview. So my worldview is totally different with gtd. And over these years I have the privilege of coaching maybe hundreds of executives and being able to talk about this one on one experience, the coaching, which is something that I really like to do, is really a privilege. So let's talk about GTD coach and I. I threw the ball to you. Anamaria. Hello.
- [02:15]
A
Yeah. So Anamaria, tell let people know what you'd like them to know about you. But what you've done as our certifying as our master certifier of coaching around the world. So take it away.
- [02:32]
B
Okay, thank you. So what would I like you to know about me in relationship to my role of, you know, the super master trainer for the David Allen Company. I certified trainers, master trainers and coaches around the world. And given that this call is focused on coaches, we have a good number of coaches, maybe around 30 worldwide that have been through our program. And the work that I do is to make sure that even though it's remote and I don't get to see them do the work and I don't get to see the client do the work, it's incredible the connection be given our program between the client, the coaching training and myself to the point that I Sometimes scare myself because I let the coach in certain know the in training I think this client is going to want this and they're going to want that and when you show up, they're going to have this. And it's exactly what happens. Because we have a program that it's so well structured through the basis that we've created that it allows me to really have a window into that session and be there like as I was in person. So it's a very hands on program even though it's done remote. So it sounds a bit of like a contradiction. I love doing it because it's my way of coaching. I don't get to do that much coaching interaction, Daniel, like you do, but I do it through the coaches in training. I've been with The David Allen Company now 26 years and I continue to love the results that happen during coaching. And certainly if we're going to be focusing on high level executive coaching, it is transformational and it can certainly bring to the person being coach. I don't know if it's necessarily a greater jump in their careers if they want that, of course, but certainly will bring them greater peace, greater clarity, being more strategic, being more present and probably getting to spend more time on what's meaningful and important to them. So this program is bulletproof for sure.
- [04:51]
C
Yeah. Lots of things coming to my mind. One regarding the results of the GTD training or GTD coaching. I always start coaching, selling the gtd. Many times the executive already know, read the book or did some training. But I want to emphasize the benefits. And I always ask the executive if he gains 5% in terms of productivity, if he gains 5%, how happy he would be just speaking about productivity. And they all say, wow, that would be wonderful. Can you imagine 5% from now on on my life just in terms of productivity. And last week I was speaking with C level person from bank, a huge bank here in Brazil, the biggest bank. And we did the coach one month ago and we were just speaking and he said that he gained at least 15% of productivity with this training. As David was saying, I thought, okay, I probably have not much to teach him on how to work because he has more than 10,000 employees behind him and he climbed the corporate ladder already and the GTD training in one month improved in his words like 15%. So I think the impact is brutal. But he said that this was not the most important part. He said that the most important part was that he was feeling less stressed, he was able to be more present and it is so good when we hear this kind of feedback that the guy is having a life now and he's more productive and less stressed. This is what we sell. And it is so good to hear back, oh, I'm getting this. And that's wonderful. And I'd like to bring another point here. I started using GTD because I read the book. There was no training at that time, like 20 years ago. And when I contacted David and Katherine in Ohio, California, and I said that I want to be a representative here in Brazil, I thought that I was already a gtder. I thought, okay, I already know how to use this thing. One of the requirements was that I had to bring a coach to Brazil to teach me how to use. I don't know if you remember this, but I brought Julie to Sao Paulo and I thought, I'm losing my money bringing someone, paying everything and losing my time because I already know this thing. And it was like a cold shower. When I showed her my system, I was very proud. I have my system. I have my list. I am GT deer. And then she started to. Going a little bit deeper with the concepts, with. Okay, she was very polite. It's a good system. You're wonderful. But then she started to make some notes about my project list, about my next action, definitions about my horizons of levels. Then I understood that I. I wasn't using GTD at all. I was just scratching and using very wrongly, not having all the potential that it has to. To. To present to us. So in that day, I understood the value of a coaching because sometimes I think I understood. I think I'm doing everything all right, but when there is someone just beside me look at my system and saying, okay, guy, it's beautiful, but maybe you get this wrong. Let's make it right. And the thing is, we are not going to do it right just because the book tell us that this is right because. But because there are huge benefits in doing it right. The friction that we. We have when we are walking reduces a lot when we really take it in a. In a. In in a profundity. So this is what came to my mind in just this. This beginning. And another thing that I really appreciate in the coaching is that we can address the points that are very important for that person. Because one thing that I did in the beginning, very mechanically, is the mind sweep or the capture all over the office face to face. So we walk through the office and get everything that there was there. And so what is this? Is this in the right place? In the beginning, I was Kind of. I don't think the word is ashamed, but I think that the person might not see value on doing that or open their purse or open those things. Are they going to see value on this? And it is remarkable. One CEO of a company, we did this in his office and he, he hired me to train all his directors based on this walk through his office. One thing that in a training set or in the book, maybe we didn't get that value. And it was so wonderful because he said that it was a woman. She said that it was the first time in like 20 years that she had that feeling of an office without noise, without things calling her attention, but she didn't know what to do. She felt the noise, but she didn't have any technique or on how to make it quiet. And it was a huge benefit. I think the one on one experience allows us to have this kind of personal dance. What's hurting, what's not hurting? What are you proud of in the way you work? And what I love is of course presenting things that the person thinks this is valuable. But on the other hand, I love to learn with them because they have many techniques, they have many things they develop during their career and they share with us. They share, oh, I'm doing these. What do you think? And many times, certain parts of the system they already have, what I see is that they already have some kind of system and many times it's just a kind of tweaking and making it a little bit smoother and better.
- [12:00]
A
You know, one of the things that I discovered, and I literally spent thousands of hours, you know, one on one, doing this work and I'm still kind of nervous if I do that coaching with anybody because I don't know what I'm going to find. I have no idea. Because everybody, everybody's so different. To your point, Danielle, everybody's so different in terms of where their pain points are or where their weak suits are or where you know, or what most has their attention. So I learned after all these years that that was my primary question in coaching was what most has your attention right now? Is it your, your email? Is it your filing system? Is it the stuff piled up on your desk? Is it, is it your staff? Is it delegation? Is it follow up to, you know, what, what is it? Meetings? You know, the, the, the main thing that, the, the two main things that, that from my experience with a lot of executives, that they feel the two things that most are in the way of their productivity are meetings and email because they're just not handled with a really fine GTD focus. And doesn't mean that's easy because what's happened with the digital world is every. There's a lot more volume and a lot more speed with the amount of things that people are having to then address and deal with. So again, every, every client I ever had, and I've had hundreds, was a totally unique experience. Still would be, you know. Yeah.
- [13:41]
C
I'm remembering about two clients that they, they asked me to, to work on Saturdays because they, they couldn't do during the week. One is a partner at Accentery and he asked me to go to his house on Saturday morning because. And he had already read the book and he said there is value here. But I don't know how to put this in place. This guy, now he has a global role in Europe. Again, I worked with him and then he put all his direct reports to work with me also. But I remember so many simple things that if we are not working one by one, it's difficult to see. In his case, he loved Moleschini, those notebooks, Moleskinis. And he had a pile on his home and whenever he goes to a meeting he grabbed a different one. I think this one is good for this meeting. And so just speaking with him about this habit that he had about capturing in different places all over the place, it was like life changing for him. And imagine lots of, lots of people. And just this is a very simple example. And another one which, which was a president of a paper company. Again, we worked on Saturday and he was at his office at this time. And I presented him the concept of having a complete project list. This is the list of the projects that they are important to you or you are responsible for doing it, or you have to look over it. And I presented a few concepts and then we met again like two weeks later. And he came with 40 plus items in his project list. He was amazing. Wow. Now I have a project list. So you can imagine if you read sometimes it is so simple you have to have a project list. You have to understand what is project in terms of gdd. But it is so simple that I think we tend to underestimate the power of having it. And when we are working together and we can show. I always show my list to the clients and they see, okay, this kind of stuff you put there. Okay. When they get the mini, then they can start playing like Lego. For me, GTD is kind of a Lego. You present lots of concepts and how they tie together and then the person start to build his Own construction. I just remember again, your thoughts sparked lots of thinking here. I coached the president of Chemical company and he wrote a testimonial for me after the coaching. And he said that the biggest value he saw was not on the big things, because the big things on, on his life, on his professional life were already in place. They have budget rituals, they have committees ritual. So when he stepped into the CEO position, there were already lots of rituals that he had just to follow. The multinational, he was the CEO, but those rituals were in place. So he said that the most value he get was from the small things. The car that was not working, the things that all those personal stuff that was a mess that he could organize. And again, he shared that he had much more mental space now because he was not worrying about the cars, about everything. On his life, they usually have very complicated life, those guys on this. They usually have more than one house, lots of cars and lots of things happening. So they have two companies, one is the professional company and they have the personal company with lots of commitments. And when they understand that they can use this for manager, those small commitments, they, they see lots of benefits in that.
- [18:12]
A
You know, you remind me of very. Almost exactly the same situation. I was brought in. I had coached the CEO. He was number two guy in very large financial organization. And then the president retired and so he got promoted to be president. And so he wanted me to come in and spend a day with him to, to sort of regroup now that he's got a new job and sort of get clear about all that. And so I came in and. And it took us about an hour to get clear about that because he had all the rituals. They were already set up, the committees were already set up. He had the direct reports were already there, they were already reporting to. And he. All that was there. We spent the whole rest of the day in his personal life because he had investments that he needed to manage and he had a teenage son that he couldn't get to do anything. He was trying to get him and getting into, into the right college. And he had, he had a second house. He commuted, this is in Washington D.C. and he commuted down to North Carolina every weekend. And so he had had multiple houses, multiple investments, multiple people that he needed to manage about all that. That it took most of the, the rest of that day just to address all of those things. So to your point, it's often a surprise to these folks how valuable getting a handle on the, the ordinary things of life, you know, that become not very ordinary if they're if, if they're not managed appropriately.
- [19:59]
B
And I have another, again, a couple of reactions. We found, Danielle, that many times when we coach the high level executive back then, a lot of it in New York City, then they hired us for their wives because their lives are very complex. Like you said, they have two or three houses. Somehow the wife was always pregnant for child number three or child number four, or they were building something else or something was being remodeled, modeled or the schools or the colleges. So we were actually brought in to also do you know, the GTD coaching for the wife because they understood that even it's an enterprise. It's just that it's not the bank that they're, they have the role, you know, as the CEO or the whatever, but their personal life, it, it's another enterprise. And when that's under control, obviously, then they can better focus at work and everything just moves smoother, right? And more elegantly and with less tension. So that was also something that our good beloved Marian Bateman, who we all remember, she often had to go and coach the wives. I did it a couple of times, but it was more of a Marian thing. David, I think Marian obviously, probably she identified. I was more like, I will go in and change your life. A little bit more rough in my approach. Marian obviously was more soft. But we did a lot of that, so don't undermine that. Daniel, when you're working with high level executives, it may be something that they ask you to come do because they see the value and the power and the other thing, by the way, it's.
- [21:44]
A
Not always a wife. Sometimes it's a husband.
- [21:47]
B
Correct? Well, the partner, I should say that was.
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C
But I think this is changing. It's much more. My husband did. Correct, correct.
- [21:56]
B
I did it also a couple of times. The, the, the husbands who actually were the staying home husband because again, it's another company, the home, the personal. It's. It's. Somehow we were led to believe that that didn't require the same rigor or the same work. It does. Because again, when we understand the definition of work, that it's anything that needs to be completed, then everything is work, regardless of its nature, Right? If it meets the definition. And many years ago, when I was working for Copezul, as you know, down in Rio Grande do Sul, I worked with all the top executives. And one of them, my dear friend Zapparoli, who knows, if he hears this one day, I still remember him and I sent him my love. He was the executive in charge of the control room, which was a very stressful job, just by the nature of it. Cause again, if anything went wrong, the whole thing will explode. But that didn't stress him at all, at all. What stressed him was were all the projects that he had not somehow downloaded and put into his system, which resulted in 120. And after we did that complete projects list and they had the biofeedback machines, I think that's where they call back then that they would put some things on your brain to measure your level of stress because they had to do it for all the control room operations operators. If they had a certain level of stress, they could not be doing the work because it meant that they were incapable. Right. Saparoli's stress level dropped significantly because it wasn't the work that by nature was a stressful job. Let's say it was every. All the noise in his head. So we were able to see the difference. And. And it was not a small list. It was 120 projects. There was no way that. Because I tried hard and we moved some, but all those 120 belonged there. They didn't belong in someday maybe they didn't belong anywhere else. They belonged there. That was the level of complexity that he was managing. So it's impressive what this work can do.
- [24:01]
C
The capacity of keeping the commitments is something that really improves all the interfaces, but also the capacity of being present. Because many times we are not present in our commitments, in our relationships. And I think this is a huge benefit. Also true.
- [24:23]
B
I have also found regarding intersections that definitely they improve. But out of the coaching session people identify many times those relationships that they have attention on and that they can turn into a project. Because again, there are no problems, only projects. So it's no longer a problem, it becomes a project. Just by the fact of identifying that situation and making it a project and then having control over it. It's life changing.
- [24:54]
C
No, this is, this is huge. This is huge. Being able to pay attention to what has attention. Because sometimes this kind of problem is there all the time. But we don't pay attention. We don't know what to do. It is there. And now you can capture and you can do the next steps. Yeah, that's perfect.
- [25:13]
B
We pretend that we're not paying attention, but we're actually paying even way more attention than it deserves because it doesn't go.
- [25:20]
A
And we don't promise that we'll solve everything that somebody considers as a problem. But what we can do is coach people into being appropriately engaged with the situation. An appropriate engagement may simply be Researching to find out if you can change it. And there's an action step you would need to take to do that. So there's still action to take. Even though it may not be the final solution to what you think the problem is, it could be the final solution to becoming appropriately engaged with it. So that you then don't be. It's now on cruise control, as we say that, that you know, you, you. You know exactly what you need to be doing to move the needle on it, to move things forward and to make progress on it. So you find out that you either can't make any progress on, in which case you accept it, ignore or play with it, or, or it changes and you do what you need to do to change it. Yeah.
- [26:24]
C
You know, the appropriate. Engage it. I think it took me like six or seven years to understand. What does that mean? I think now I, I have a better vision that I had a few years back because it is great. It's not just doing it. It's not just completing appropriate, engaged. It's. It's different. Yeah, I'm, I am comfortable. Again, another word that you use. And my attention. How is the tension in this subject? Is this appropriate? Is this what I can do? And now I am appropriate, Engaging. Yeah, that's. That's wonderful.
- [27:04]
A
Yeah. Because most people think, oh, I'm not going to do gtd. It means I'm going to work harder, I'm going to have to work longer hours. I'm going to have to do everything. And it's like, no, not, not at all. It's. It's about getting you appropriately engaged so that you can relax or go have a beer or go to the beach or do what you want to be doing without that stuff nagging at you. It doesn't mean that all that goes away. It just means that you are now in a situation where you're in the driver's seat as opposed to being run over by it.
- [27:37]
C
Beautiful. Yes.
- [27:38]
A
Okay, we're at the end of our hour, folks, so. And I think that's probably as long as we want to go the terms of people's attention out there to, to. To watch or listen to this. So final comments. Ana Maria, you first. Any final comments you'd like to leave to everybody out there who might be seeing or hearing this?
- [28:01]
B
I don't have much more to say other than if you're thinking about it, go for it. GTD coaching is the most effective way to install and implement getting things done and change your life. So go for it.
- [28:14]
A
Daniel.
- [28:17]
C
I Think after more than 15 years coaching GTD around the world, because I've been to many countries, I continue to see every week the impact of this method on people's life. Clarity, control. So it's a privilege to, to, to work with this thing and be able to present it to, to others. And thank you so much, David and Maria. You don't know how much this means, mean to me to be here with you both speaking about gtg. Thank you so much. Very, very important and special for me. Yay.
- [28:57]
A
Well, you spent, you spent 15 years on. Maria spent 26 years. I spent 43 years doing this work and I still learned, I still learned about it. I still learn. I still going, wow, I wonder, I wonder how this call is going to go. I wonder what to do next about this. And I still have to empty my in basket. I still have about 40 emails I'm going to have to then deal with. So the fact that I'm turning 80 years old in this month, that I don't, I don't, I don't get to not do any of this. I still have to, as we say, you know, eat my own dog food. I still have, I still have to do in everything that we teach. So people say, well, David, how, how much have you fully implemented all this? I say, yeah, well, I didn't do all this in one day. You know, it was a long string of things that I learned piece by piece by piece by piece. At a certain point, maybe, maybe 10 or 15 years later, I pretty much had figured out a pretty intact and simple system that worked and still works for me. So anyway, thanks for all of you who are listening and watching and thank you, Danielle, for the work you've done and your enthusiasm about this particular aspect of our work. And Annemaria, as you know, I love you dearly and you've done such a great job in certifying coaches and making sure that the quality control is there, you know, for getting things done. And yay.
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C
So you.
- [30:27]
A
Bye everybody. Have a great, whatever you're having. Bye.
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B
Bye. Thank you. Daniel, good to see you. Bye, David. Thank you.
- [30:34]
C
Thank you both. Thank you so much.