Welcome back friends to the Dave Crenshaw Success Project. This is the show where I'm seeking out universal principles of success. So I can teach my kids how to be successful, and you get to come along for the ride. And speaking of my kids, today is a special episode. Occasionally we'll do this I don't know, every couple of weeks of show where I sit down with my kids, and we break down a principle of success,
either. It's something that I've heard from one of my guests something that they talked about, or it's just something that I've seen along my journey that I really want my kids to learn about to help them in their careers and in their life. So first of all, everybody say hi, hello, hi. Oh, hola. And introduce yourselves.
Okay. I'm Stratton. I'm 17 years old. I'm a senior in high school.
My name is Ella. I am 13 years old, and I'm in eighth grade. And Darcy,
my name is Darcy and I am 10 years old. And I go to elementary school.
All right, what grade? Are you in elementary school, fourth, fourth grade. All right. So it's always a lot of fun to sit down with my kids and teach them something. So this week, what I do is I let them know a little bit in advance about what the topic is going to be. So they can think about it and ask questions. So this week is an interesting one. And I found it to be very important, my career. And that
is systems. This is not something that I understood or heard about or learned until, in my early 20s, when I was in college, and yet it most of my career has been built around the concept of systems. So first of all, let me explain to my children, what I mean by that, of course, you to a system is a process or procedure, or pattern of doing things that makes pretty much the whole world go around. So if you think about your body, you have systems, what's the name of one of the
systems in your body? Digestive? Yeah. The Digestive System System? Yeah, that's called the nervous system. Oh, yeah. What's another one?
Respiratory system,
respiratory system, okay, so your body has all of these different systems, let's take the respiratory system for a second, right. So air comes in your lungs, take it in and most basic terms, it turns it into something that's useful, and then you expel what is not useful, right, you breathe out. And that helps you have the oxygen that you need to do pretty much anything, right.
And even if you're exercising, or getting up on stage, or just trying to calm down, breathing the air in and putting it out, helps you succeed. So there are also systems all around you every single day that you experience, without even recognizing it. And there are ways of things getting done that help you enjoy life and do great things. Let's just talk about the most basic system of a business. What's a restaurant you like? Darcy? What's the food that you like to eat?
Panda Express,
right Panda Express? That's a popular one in our family. Okay, so when you go into Panda Express, let's talk about the thing that everyone likes to get at Panda Express, which is orange chicken. Okay. And when you go into a Panda Express in Riverton, which is buy our house or you go to a Panda Express in Los Angeles. Does the orange chicken tastes pretty much the same?
I mean, I haven't been to one in Los Angeles, but I'm assuming so.
Right? It is. It's basically the same thing. And the reason why it's the same experience, no matter where you go is because of Cisco Systems. So they had a company, Chef dietician, I had a few people involved. And they figured out how to make this orange chicken so tasty. And it's you cook it this long, you put this kind of breading you put these kinds of ingredients into it. And they teach their employees to use that system over and over and over now. Have you ever had
orange chicken? That wasn't quite as good as other orange? I've had pretty bad. Oh, yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, hopefully Panda Express. Isn't that isn't the advertising on the show?
Too spicy orange chicken soggy school. And
that's not Panda Express. So that's a different system.
Right. Tastes good.
But it's I think the school needs a better system.
Yeah. Well, exactly. If the school use the same system, as Panda, we would get the same result with the Panda Express. Let's say that you go to Panda Express, and it's different than what you're used to getting. What happened? Why is it not as good as what you're used to getting?
Someone made a mistake? Or skipped a step? Yeah.
Well, and that's rather than saying mistake, I would say they didn't follow the system or they They broke the system. So there are a couple of things going on here. I want to point out, number one, if there's something that you want in life, no matter what it is, you want to determine what the best system is to follow to get that now I say best, because there's no such thing as a perfect system. There's only the next draft you all of my kids want to be writers, you understand the concept of
drafts, right? You throw something down on paper, you try it out, you read it, and then you make another edit. Well, the systems are the same. In other words, you know, something I've been trying to do a better job is exercising, right. And so there's a system that I follow of stretching, and then going on to the exercise bike, and then I start doing some lifting some
weights. And over time, whether talking through with a professional or just doing it myself, I've learned how to adjust that system to get me a good result. And by the way, that's something I talk about in my book, The result, which is we're in my office right now, and it's up there on on the shelf behind Ella.
I haven't read that yet. Well,
maybe you should.
I haven't read any of your books.
Yeah, it's it's tricky. It's tricky when you tend to get just as much out of it a business book. So let's take this through an example. What is something that you're trying to achieve? What's the result that you want to get right now? I'll let anybody
bathing Stratton in a video game.
I was gonna say, Ella, you want to finish your book?
Yeah. And possibly publish it later? Yeah.
Okay. So the whole process of writing the book is one system. And the whole process of publishing the book is another system. And in between those two, there's the editing process. So which of those is holding you up from getting that result? Right now? Ella? Which system? Are you in? At the moment? I
think she's in both the writing and the editing system.
Well, right now, I'm on one of my drafts right now. So it's more editing, revising, and just getting it out.
Okay. Yeah. And to be clear, too, as a writer, there's copy editing. And there's content editing. So right now you're in content editing, right? You're changing the story. You're making things better with that. So where did you learn how to do content editing? Who gave you the system? For doing that?
I think I just kind of figured it out maybe parts of my creative writing class.
Okay. And the reason why I'm asking this question is because this is a very common issue that people have, let's say, in business, I've worked with people who are the only small business, they're very successful at sales. And they will say, No one can sell as good as I can. That may be true, but there's still a process that they follow to do it. And so what we want to do is slow everything down and think about step by step. What are you doing? So right now, you're early in your career at the age
of 13? You're just figuring it out. But you're starting to create the first draft of your content editing system? What are things and everyone can chime in on this? What are things that Ella could do to improve that content editing process? How would you learn to do better with that?
We'd kind of need to know what she's struggling with first, like, what specifically about the content editing? To not like, is it like, how much time it takes? Or do you not know what, like,
characters?
Yeah, it's sometimes just a difficult scene that I'm having trouble, like, what do I actually want to have happen in this scene?
Okay, I'd like to shoot out an idea. Whenever I'm in a tough spot in writing, there's a few things that I do. One thing is I let it sit for a bit. And I just think about it in the background during the day, or like, think about it before I go to bed. And then I wake up the next morning and like, oh, like, that's the solution. Other thing is, whenever I'm stuck like that, I'm like, oh, I should have
someone read it. That's why I like pester you guys, about reading my writing so much is because I want feedback so I can improve it. So yeah, the system idea that I have is, whenever you're stuck, do one of those things. And then once you figure it out, you go back. So it's like, if this happens, do this and then come back.
To have a little bit of two systems. I asked Mr. Smalley, which is one of my creative writing teachers. And his advice for writing drafts is the first one, you just get everything out. Second one, you get out all the big stuff, you change, big changes. And then the third one, you make all the little changes. And then what I've been doing is I go as far as I can before I need to stop and then I take a break and then come back.
Okay, I want to pause here for a second because someone who's listening to this, they might start thinking, this doesn't apply to me. I'm not a writer. Okay, so I want to talk about the bigger picture of what's happening here. Okay. Stratton just made a suggestion for a system improvement. What I would say is take that in and consider it if for saying yes or no, take it in think about for a little bit. And even you can experiment with it. So you might hear it and say hi, that's not
really a good idea. But you could still try it. And try it for a couple of weeks. And you might be surprised that the idea that he gave you for the system is actually better than you thought I had that the other day, I was out to race in the car around cones for autocross. And I was doing something and a guy who knows a whole lot more than me came and said, Oh, you're doing this in this turn, you should try this. Now. I felt like what he was suggesting, probably wasn't the right thing.
But what did I say? I said, You know what, I'm going to experiment with it. I'm going to give it a try. And the reason why I'm pointing this out is when you start focusing on systems, it removes the ego out of things, you know, ego is Darcy, he, yeah, it's, it's pride. It's like, I know what I'm doing. I know everything I'm supposed to do, and no one can tell me what to do. So if someone comes to you, and they're like, you're doing this the wrong way, what is our
natural reaction to it? Oh, no, no,
I'm not right, or the wrong, push back.
Yeah, we push back. But if you look at it from a system standpoint, you say, Oh, you're suggesting a change to a system? That's not me. That's something outside of me. Let's give it a try. Let's experiment. And that applies when you get out into the workplace when someone is talking to you. We want to not take it personal when they're giving you feedback and instead focus on the system. And even if they're making it personal,
right. And sometimes someone's going to give you feedback and say, You're not good at this. Yeah. Okay. That's hard to take. And honestly, that's not a great way to give feedback. Please don't give people feedback. Yeah. But if someone says that, you say, Okay, what about what I'm doing? What is the step that you think I'm not following correctly? Now, it's not about you. Now, it's not about them. We're looking at the system. And we're analyzing it. And we're
being objective about it. Yeah. Okay, so now that you kind of have an idea of what I'm talking about with systems, what questions do you have about them?
I would say, what's the point of having a system? Why can't you just kind of go with the flow? Yeah.
Well, let's go back to that first example that we had with Panda Express. Why can't Panda Express just go with the flow? There are lots of great chefs out there lots of great people who could work for them. Why don't they just hire 1000 Different great cooks, and have them work in the kitchen?
Well, they need a recipe. They need to know how to make the orange chicken
chef's might be better at making some things and not other things. There you
go. Yeah, like one man's orange chicken is going to be like
orange chicken? Yes. So what we're trying to achieve is consistency, but not poor consistency, great consistency. I love that example. Because I think a lot of people would agree. And not everyone, but a lot of people agree. Panda Express orange chicken is great, right? What makes it great. It's the system. If they don't have a system, you're gonna get inconsistent results. And I seen that all the time with companies that I've
gone in consult. Boy, they have a great week doing something and then the next week, it drops off and it's terrible. Why is that happening? Because no one has documented the process to follow. You can always change that process later. But you've got to start with something written down.
That reminds me of the remember this morning when mom was trying to help me make an omelet. Okay, so yeah, exactly. It was that bad. I knew I was asking mom. Okay, how do I make an omelet because I'm really bad at making an omelet. And she was showing me, I probably should have written down what she showed me because last time she showed me and then I like, two months later, I forgot. But there was a system, there's a way to do it. And when I followed those instructions,
it turned out really well. And if I didn't have those instructions, it would just be sad scrambled eggs,
scrambled eggs with meat cheese. Yeah.
And even li know that you're particularly interested in and good at cooking things. Darcy's coming along low. But you I know you'd like to do that. But sometimes you try something. And it turns out, you discovered something new. Like we do cheese fondue for the holidays, right? But I have the recipe but on the recipe, I have written additional notes that say, you know, make sure that the liquid comes to a simmer before you put
the cheese in. That's not in the recipe I got but it is a change that I made and discovered to the system from reading lots of other things.
So it's good to experiment on the system a little bit.
Yes. And also be open to the unexpected using our friend Bob Ross the happy accidents because sometimes you do it and something doesn't go as planned. And it goes better. Yeah, so if you do something unexpected was better than you can say, oh, let's try that for the second draft of the system. I do that with every speech that I give, right? I look at and I say I said this, because that's kind of how I operate on every speech I give is a little
different. And sometimes I'll I'll say something and go. I've never said that before. But everybody laughed. So I go, I'm going to now make that a part of the system of my presentation. Interesting. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Other questions?
I've been wondering is follow through a big part of a system?
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we'll have another episode where we talk about accountability. And accountability is having someone outside of you follow up with how well you're following the system. So follow through, is really important. And also, what is the basic system for follow through? What's the most important thing that you need to have as a foundation what you said you were gonna write, which
comes from what principle? It's the principle that I've made the majority of my career around. I'm mouthing it this time, man.
I knew that
right? No, it's a great question Darcy, because you might have the best system in the world, right? But if you are too busy, or you don't have enough time to follow through on the system, so you take shortcuts, and you don't do everything you need to do, then what happens to the system? Yeah, Darcy gave a thumbs down, right? It doesn't work properly. So you also have to have the time and the attention necessary to follow the system. This happens
a lot with me with my physical therapy, where I have like a system of I do this exercise, then this one and this one and this one, and then I mark off if I did it or not. And then Mom has to check with me to make sure that I did it. But sometimes I feel ah, do I really want to do that. Or I could just go and take a shower instead.
Yeah. And that's another aspect to follow through to which is just that temptation to procrastinate, that temptation to do what is easy, instead of following. But I will say this, though, about follow through and that example, the more you do something consistently, the easier it becomes. So the more you get used to following a system over and over, you can get to the point where you don't even have to think about it anymore. You don't have to put the same kind of mental effort and attention.
So when you're presented with a new system, what does that mean? In the beginning, it's going to be harder. And you just have to accept and be aware that you know what, this is a new system. And you don't get frustrated, you don't get upset when you make a mistake. And I would say for someone listening to this, if you're managing someone and you're giving them a system for the first time, don't get frustrated with them. They need repetition. They need practice. So give yourself more time to do
it. That was a great question. Darcy. Alright, another question about
is there a time when you don't need a system or systems? Do you always need one?
I think systems are always valuable. But sometimes you're going to be in situations where you do not have a system for what's about to happen. I experienced that in my business when something major changes, for instance, starting the podcast, oh, yeah, right. I was not doing that before I had no system in place. So I had to look up what people had said about it. I also needed to consider myself and what I knew, and then Victoria, my system, and I started to create systems
for it as we went. But here's a really important thing. Victoria and I have been working together. And I would also say John are a project manager. We've been working together so long that we recognize that when a system is new, we're going to make mistakes. Or when the system is new, I might say to Victoria, hey, do this. You know, here's the schedule, you should put things out on social media. And then we do it for a couple of weeks. We're like that's not working. So I need to
change what what I said. So we have this agreement or this understanding between us that it's okay, to change it. It's okay to recognize that we made a mistake. And when I correct something and say, You know what, let's do this and said, I'm not getting after her. Yeah, I'm just saying, Oh, that system needs to just okay, a principle to that I would teach a lot of people that I coach, especially like entrepreneurs. I'd say it is kind of a folksy way to say it, but systems are like jello.
What was jello? Yeah, they're like jello. So when you first mix jello at the very beginning, what's it like? Watery? Yeah, it's watery. It's fluid. It flows around. So it's very, very changeable. And then what happens over time? It starts hardening. Yes. Starts to firm up, it starts to take, yeah, it starts to take its shape. So it's the same thing with systems in the beginning. They're fluid. They're All over the place, it's okay to make lots of changes to
it. Your goal is that over time, it starts to set and get firm. And you can still make adjustments, but it starts to settle into something that you can use consistently.
Okay? So would it be a good idea in situations where you don't need a very firm set of rules to follow, to have a system allows a little more flex flexibility? Like, this needs to happen within this timeframe? Yeah, but that's whatever happens during that timeframe? Yeah,
that kind of goes along with the question I was gonna ask. Okay.
Yeah. And so the answer to that, I'll go back again, to your example of writing. What is a system that you start with when you're writing a book or an essay? That allows flexibility? They're shaking their heads at me. Nobody? Create an outline. I don't do that table. Okay. All right. Well, that's, I've started doing a plot map for this last, yes, there you go.
plot map, outline Table of Contents, whatever you want to call it, you create an overall structure that says these are the points that we need to hit how we get to those points, we don't know yet. So it's the same thing with a system, you can say, if it's a long system, like a six month system, you can say at the three month mark, we're going to hit this at the one and a half month mark, we're going to hit this at the one week, and then you start to build the
system from it. So I think it's great to start with a structure that's very open and very loose, that allows change to occur.
And then once you start figuring stuff out, that's when you lock it down a little
bit. Yeah, you start documenting. Yeah, that's
you go. In the start, I had no idea where it was going. And then now, in one of these later drafts, I'm like, Okay, this is what's gonna happen in this chapter. Yeah, this is the length,
usually, it's well, and you always want flexibility in your system for feedback from other people, whether it's writing feedback, or like customer complaints in a business, I'm assuming, like, if enough customers complain about one thing, that probably means there's a flaw somewhere. And that's right, right.
And we can even have a system for assessing that. I have that to a degree, I typically ignore the first time something goes wrong. I just flat out ignore it. Unless it's egregious, right? Unless it's like someone's life threatening or something like that. But most of the time, I just let it go. Why? Because if something happens once, it's just an incident, yeah. But if it happens twice, that means
there's a pattern. So if someone comes to me about one of my courses and complains about something, I'll go, alright, that's interesting. But I don't take action. But if I hear it multiple times, like with my time management Fundamentals course, people were complaining, it was too long. And I saw that several times. And I thought, Alright, for the next version, I've got to do a better job of being more concise and tightening this up. So I focused on shortening it by an hour. Yeah,
people did that with my writing, I got feedback, and also eavesdropping on people talking about my writing and creative writing.
Sounds interesting. Talking about and I actually
got really good feedback. They're like, the dialogue is really snappy, it's good. And the descriptions are good. But there's too much description at some points, and it gets repetitive. And so what I've tried to do is kind of pull that back in a little bit. And then hopefully, I'll get feedback for the new, like, version of the writing thing.
That's great. So let me talk about two more things. So when we talk about systems, most people focus on how, right that's really what most of our conversation has been about is about the how, what are the steps? What did what do you follow, but there are two other parts to successful systems. One is the who, not the band, the WHO that did Bob O'Reilly, The Who, but the meaning the person who is the person that's trying to follow the system, you can give me a system for slam dunking a
basketball. Here's how you put your feet How'd you hear you push off, but it's not going to change the fact that I'm five foot 10. Okay, and foot three. Right? And, and sometimes, and let's take that same example. Let's say that we liked the jazz Lowry marking, and said, Here's how you dunk the ball. Well, he's seven feet, right? So the way that he does it would be radically different than what I have to he doesn't have to get as much elevation, right? Yeah, I don't have to grab a ladder,
right? So you have to consider who is following the system when you do it. When you're asking an introvert to make sales and be outgoing and network with people. It's going to take a different internal system for them to do it. Let's flip the coin. Let's say you've got someone who's an extrovert and they're always happy talking to people and doing things and then you ask them to sit down and be an accountant.
Doesn't happen.
But you lose your mind. But boy, that's a really really tough system for them to follow. I'm an ex lover, I will never do that. Well, then that's something to consider right? As you're developing your career, you get what I'm saying the who is a very important part of the system that I have a long lunch break. Then the other one is with what? So when I say with what, what am I talking about?
With? No with what meaning what resources do I. So when you're, when you're creating a recipe, to some degree, that recipe is only as good as the ingredients that you put in it, your effectiveness as a writer will be limited by the computer that you're using. If you're using a computer from 2001, that has 256 megabytes total of memory, that's going to slow you down and make it harder for you to be a writer. Right? Yeah. So you also have to consider what are
the tools that I'm using? If I'm exercising, what's the equipment that I'm using? If it's Panda Express, what's the sauce that I'm putting in there, always consider the tools that you have available, use the tools that are the best available for you to use. Because that will make it easier for you to follow the system as well. Gotcha. Cool. So I think we've got a pretty good
understanding of that. And I think someone listening to this now understands the concept of systems, let's just talk about what we're gonna do, right? Because it's not about the knowledge that you get, as as much as it is about the action that you take on that knowledge. So I want you to think for just a minute, you don't have to immediately come up with an answer. But what's one action you could take in the coming week and the next seven days to make systems a part of what you do?
So today, I'm getting haircut and every morning, I wake up the set time I do the certain order, but now I'm gonna have to wake up a little earlier and learn how to style my hair different to match this haircut. So it doesn't look like a hot mess when I wake up every morning.
Okay, so how could you document that system? I'm going to push you just a little bit further, you're gonna go get your haircut today, what are ways that you could make notes? Because I've dealt with this same thing, right? So how could you get some ideas about steps of how to do that? What our
plan is, is we're going to get the haircut and then we're going to ask what is the quickest and easiest way to style this hair? And then I'm gonna go home and try to learn how to do that myself.
Awesome. So what I would suggest is to take notes. Oh, yeah, definitely do that. It seems like a silly example. And someone listening to this might go, Well, that's overkill. What you're doing is you're practicing documenting systems. So we're gonna use something kind of silly and kind of fun to get your first experience of documenting a system. And that will create a habit for you to do that in the future for things that are much more important. Yeah, okay, great.
So for editing the podcast, I need to have the right balance of working on it and taking a break. Otherwise, I get really burnt out. So I think I need to find the right balance. And I've tried doing this, but the right ratio of working for break for the podcast editing, so I can get the most done. I've already like changed how fast I edit it.
But I think actually writing that down, like the specific speed I do, or how much break I have, after an hour or an hour and a half of working will actually help me be a little more efficient.
That's great. And I would add something to this too, for both of you. It doesn't have to be super formalized. Just writing something down on a piece of paper is better than not writing anything down. A quote that I heard some time and I use it regularly is a dull pencil is better than a sharp mind. Don't make your mind dependent on it, get it down in writing. So
that makes sense. I have to do that a lot when I'm like, I have this idea for my story. And then I have three more ideas and it's just swimming around. I don't know what I was thinking about anymore. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay, that's great. Darcy, what example? Or what action will you take next week to do a little bit more following systems?
I could try to make a system for like, I'm trying to keep my room clean.
Okay. I know mom would appreciate that.
Not gonna happen, but I
can try. You can try. Okay, so what, let's talk about this for a second. What's one thing you could do each day? To do a better job of cleaning your room doesn't have to be big. Just one thing you could do every day. It's a little bit better. Put my laundry away. Okay, great. So you could write that down, maybe on a post it note and put it on your door. Say remember to put your laundry away before you leave the room or something like that. So write it down and put it someplace
where you can see it. And then that way, you've started a system of one step, but it's still helpful to do that. Sounds good? Yeah. Okay, now I'm putting my myself on the spot because I didn't think about this. So one system that I'm still working on, and I need to do a better job of is going to bed at a consistent time. Because my body will perform
better. And so what I need to do is I'm going to write down, here is the specific time that I'm going to go to bed and here are the steps that I'm going to take prior to that. That'll make it easier for me to go to bed at that time. Okay. All right. Well, thanks everybody for doing that. And for those of you who have been listening along, think about what we've discussed today with systems and think of one thing you can do this week to make systems more a part of your
life. And if you do that, it will help you move further along on the path of success. Say Goodbye, everybody. Bye.
Bye. You've been listening to the Dave pincher Success project hosted by my dad, Dave pincher, and produced by invaluable Incorporated. Sound Editing was done by my brother Stretton contract research and assistant production by Victoria Bidez. Voiceover by me, Darcy Crenshaw, and the music is by Ryan Brady via pond pipe licensing. Please subscribe to the Dave pincher Success Project on Google podcasts, Apple podcasts, or wherever you like to get your podcasts. Please don't forget to
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