Welcome to Cloudlandia Ep138: Harnessing Innovation and Collaboration
In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we explore our travels through Nashville and Chicago, highlighting the growth of these cities and our celebration at the Maxwell Clinic. Back in Toronto, we discuss new bike lane legislation and upcoming events like the Genius Network in Phoenix and our local FreeZone gathering. Dan updates us on the progress with his stem cell treatments.
Our conversation shifts to artificial intelligence and its transformative potential. We examine how AI is changing productivity, eliminating routine tasks, and sparking creativity. Inspired by Elon Musk's simulation theory, we dive into philosophical questions about reality, pondering whether our existence might be a sophisticated technological construct.
We explore the rapid evolution of technology, tracing the journey from basic video games to immersive virtual realities. The discussion covers autonomous driving and other technological innovations that are seamlessly integrating into our lives. We introduce three key questions designed to improve decision-making and productivity – insights that could have been groundbreaking in previous eras.
The episode concludes by celebrating teamwork and collective problem-solving. We draw inspiration from historical figures, highlighting how combining diverse skills can lead to remarkable achievements. Our exploration invites listeners to reconsider the boundaries of technology, creativity, and human potential.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
Links:
WelcomeToCloudlandia.com
StrategicCoach.com
DeanJackson.com
ListingAgentLifestyle.com
TRANSCRIPT
(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)
Dean: Mr. Sullivan,
Dan: Mr Jackson.
Dean: Welcome back to Cloudlandia.
Dan:
All the windows repaired, the shingles put back on the top of the house.
Dean: Yeah, we didn't. Luckily, no damage to the house, but lots of trees. We had some hundred-year-old oak trees that toppled up from the roof, didn't?
Dan: make it, didn't make it, didn't make it, didn't make it.
Dean: Didn't make, it Didn't make it.
Dan: Well, they had too many leaves, they caught the wind. That's exactly right there.
Dean: So you have been on a whirlwind tour, You've been all over huh, well, just basically Nashville.
Dan: Where were we before? I'm just trying to think yeah, well, we were in Chicago, but we just came back from six days in Nashville, beautiful, beautiful it was, you know, high 70s, low 80s, but just beautiful. And this was four days at the Maxwell Clinic and then we stayed an extra day because David Hasse and Lindsay, his new wife, got. They were celebrating their marriage and we were there last night and there were. You know, richard Rossi was there. Lior Lior Weinstein.
Dean: Jack Jacobs was there.
Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, jay Jacobs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, jay Jacobs. You know a whole number of people.
Dean: Well, very nice.
Dan: Yeah, right on the river. We were right on the Cumberland. You know it's very nice and they were doing a. When we left yesterday morning it was Marathon Day in Nashville, so we had to negotiate a different route to get to the airport and today they have a big regatta right down the river. All the boats were out yesterday practicing. Do they call them boats? I think they must call them boats. They are boats.
Dean: Skulls, is that the racing thing that they do, you mean?
Dan: Yeah, the racing. They're all skulls, Skulls yeah, yeah, small, medium and large.
Dean: Oh, that's interesting.
Dan: Yeah, but Nashville's growing. It seems like a boom town. Lots of cranes, lots of new projects going up. Nothing to compare with Toronto, but still a decent growth.
Dean: Are you back in Toronto now?
Dan: Yeah, got back yesterday and it's fall. Now it's fall. That's what my friend Glenn.
Dean: I talked to him today. He said it was a little bit cool. Now it's like it's official yeah. Bright, orange tree, everything yeah.
Dan: All the posing that the city was doing. No summer's not over, summer's, not over. All the posing has stopped, so it's you know, what you would expect close to November. And anyway it's good, yeah, yeah.
And we're going through a big thing here because the premier of the province, rob Ford, has decided that bicycle lanes are not good for traffic and he's now passing legislation or he's going to put into place legislation that if a bike lane is causing traffic congestion, the bike lane has to go. And this, of course, is you know. This is the work of the devil as far as a lot of politically inclined people, but it's a disaster. They did a lot of it during COVID.
Dean: There wasn't much traffic.
Dan: They took advantage when they put in a ridiculous number of bike lanes, which you know in Toronto get to about six months a year because nobody rides their bicycle in January and February and anyway. But it's causing, you know, it's causing a wonderfully satisfying outrage on the part of people that I don't vote the same as they vote. Oh yeah.
Dean: This is going to be a big month here. We've got coming into, so we've got the election coming up. We've got we'll be in Phoenix right after the election for Genius Network and then we'll see you there. We'll see you there and then I'll see you again. I'm going to be back in Toronto. We've got our FreeZone first week in December and then I'm actually going to do a Breakthrough Blueprint event in Toronto the week of US Thanksgiving in toronto monday, tuesday, wednesday prior to our prior to free zone.
Dan: So, yeah, lots going on I might have made it, except I'll be in buenos aires that week yeah, what's your?
Dean: this is that's my big uh goal here. You know, 12 years in and we've still. It's a dan sullless Breakthrough Blueprint event 12 years 12 years Dan we haven't sunk your battles.
Dan: Well, a little bit, you know, a little bit of marketing in our direction would probably help.
Dean: You're susceptible to marketing Right. Exactly I love it.
Dan: Yeah, I'm a sucker for a compelling offer.
Dean: Listen, I'm excited to hear your. I'm interested to hear because you're coming up on. It's been a year now.
Dan: Right for your stem cell Started yeah, just the first week of November last year was the first stem cell injections.
Dean: So one year you've gone four times.
Dan: Yeah, it's pretty good. But what we've discovered is, you know, it's an old injury, it's a torn meniscus in 19, so you know, pushing 50 years and so the cartilage got worn down because of the torn meniscus and now the cartilage is back to what it was regrown. It looks to be like a quarter inch of great cartilage, but there was damage to the ligaments, because when you have an injury like that, your body rearranges itself to cut down on the pain.
Your body rearranges itself to cut down on the pain. And now, so in last week of November, probably close to Thanksgiving Day, I'll get stem cell injections in my ligaments and we'll take it to the next level, you know, but I, yeah, I will get better. And you know I had two torn Achilles tendons within a couple of years of the knee injury, and so I got injections for those two injuries last March. And within five weeks I regained all my flexibility in my ankles.
So that went really fast, yeah, and you can't, you don't really fix them. You know they're because they're a bit shorter because of the injury. When they put them back together again. But, what happened is. There's a lot of calcification that grows up over 40, 40 year period and all the calcification disappeared. It was kind of strange. They said it'll take about five weeks and week one nothing, week two nothing. Week three nothing, week four nothing. First day of the fifth week, all the calcification disappeared.
Dean: Yeah, Wow, that's awesome.
Dan: And I'm sitting here rotating my ankles very proudly, even though you can't see it.
Dean: I can see it in my mind.
Dan: Yeah, I'm doing it. Yeah, a lot of push off that I didn't have and everything, so I'm a great believer.
Dean: Maybe you'll be able to talk to basketball now?
Dan: No, well, it depends on how. I yeah, I mean, it's a function of where the rim is, it's not a function of where the ground is.
Dean: Oh, that's so funny, that's easy.
Dan: That's easy. You just have to know the person who controls the rim.
Dean: Uh-huh.
Dan: Yeah, yeah, but it's been great and you know I've been doing a lot of, you know, interesting articles. There's just so many articles these days on artificial intelligence and you know the hype period seems to have reached its dismal end and you know they're not seeing the returns. You know the big corporations who pile billions and billions of dollars, they're just not seeing the returns and their investors in the stock market are not very happy with big payouts investment but so little return.
I mean you're talking people who put in $100, $200 billion and then they're getting that $3 billion return, which is okay if you own the company 100%, but it's not good if you're a public stock. So I'm watching that and, but meanwhile I'm convinced that it's doing a lot of good. You know, I'm convinced that individuals are well, individuals are just using that to eliminate five hours of work here, five hours of work there.
Yeah, I think it's happening in a billion different places. But one of the things that I think is depriving us of good news here is that I think AI is not good news for the news media, because if there's any jobs that are going to get eliminated, it's going to be news media jobs.
Dean: I wonder, like part of the thing is that there's got to be some interesting you know developments in terms of how people are going to integrate this, you know.
Like I said, it's funny how people are doing the different prompts Lee Orson, our FreeZone. One somebody had said you know asking. I asked ChatGPT what do you know about me, based on our interactions, that I might not know about myself? And she said you know. Here are a few insights based on our conversation, she said. One you enjoy sharing knowledge and helping others. You've created content for various audiences, from real estate agents and home sellers to law firms. This suggests you find value in sharing insights and helping people achieve their goals, whether through practical tips or specialized guidance. Two you value practicality and efficiency. Many of your projects emphasize actionable, practical advice, like your guide on teeth whitening and your tips for home sellers.
You seem to appreciate solutions that are both effective and efficient, providing value without unnecessary complexity. Three, you're strategic and forward thinking. No-transcript. Whether it's exploring new content, marketing strategies for cybersecurity or learning how to maximize our relationships Because I asked her how can I maximize our relationship? You're always seeking ways to improve. This suggests a growth mindset where you're interested in both personal and professional development, and it was really then she said you're health conscious and self-aware. You've taken significant steps in improving your health, from weight loss to setting fitness goals. This shows a commitment to your well-being and a good sense of self-awareness regarding the changes you'd like to make.
Dan: I thought, man, this is really like that's good observations, you know yeah, but, dean, if you for a meal at a french restaurant, I could have told you all that it's true, right it's much more enjoyable, you know. Yes, for close for close ups from close observation. Yeah well, I've done the same with perplexity you know I put a little sizzle into it because you know I read all the great books at St John's College. That was my college education.
And so I asked perplexity. 10 ways in which Dan Sullivan's philosophy is superior to Plato's philosophy in the 21st century.
Dean: Came back.
Dan: I mean he never had a chance. I mean what you can get from Dan Sullivan in the 20s. First of all, he's alive, which is an advantage yeah. But if you pick a historical character and say, how does Dean Jackson's thinking differ? Or expand on somebody else, you get more useful information.
Dean: I mean yeah.
Dan: So all they're doing is picking up, you know, introductions that people have made when you were giving a talk, or you were doing a podcast and they're just. All they're doing is collecting all that and putting it into a form. But did you let me ask you a question putting it into a form? But did you let me ask you a question Did you get any insights from this that were new, besides what a lot of people have told you over the last 25 years?
Dean: Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, I didn't get any because I asked none of that, like if you think it all makes sense, but it was, yeah, that I might not know about myself. So none of the I didn't think anything in here was something that I wouldn't know about myself. Right, but that's what I wonder.
Dan: I mean if there had been sort of like a statement that, unbeknownst to you, a great uncle of yours, who you never met, actually set aside a savings account for you 50 years ago and right now there's roughly $1 billion in it for you. That would be really useful information.
Dean: That would be delightful, that would be fantastic yeah.
Dan: Yeah.
Dean: Yeah, I love it.
Dan: I love it. I love it, yeah, no, but what I think is that, first of all, I think the Greatest progress right now using AI and it's being done on an individual basis, it's not being done on an organizational basis, it's on an individual basis is getting rid of annoying activities, annoying use of time. I think it's eliminating friction. That's interfering with teamwork and everything like that. So I think you know we value the elimination of irritation.
Dean: That's true.
Dan: And so I think it's just being used.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: I think it's just being used where you just you know, eliminate things Like I've been using just exploring with notebook google notebook lm and I. I don't find I would never use it in a public way. So just for the listeners. If you take, you say you're right. I took an introduction to a book and I fed it into this, you know, into this ai app and it came back as a conversation between two individuals man and woman.
And they were talking about what they got out of. You know the introduction to the book and I came up about with about three or four things that they said in a different way, which we then built into the text as a result of listening to it.
Dean: Yeah, isn't that amazing? Like that, that has really upped the level. Like that kind of blew my mind when I saw we've done two of those. We did Glenn put in episode one of the I Love Marketing podcast and it really did a summary, a 10-minute summary of what and they're talking about us in third person, like you know, joe and Dean talked about this and you know this was their insight that even before they were entrepreneurs, their childhood really set them up for being entrepreneurs and the whole thing thing right. It was really pretty fascinating. And then that we did, I did a zoom consultation with sheree, with joe's, joe's- girlfriend sheree ong.
She's a for anybody listening. She's a little plastic surgeon in Scottsdale and very renowned in that field and so we did a whole marketing brainstorm around that and we set that into and to hear them talk about and reiterate the ideas. If you just listened to it without any context there would be no, you would have a very hard time believing that was not two humans talking. I think that was really my like. That was up a level from the interaction you know.
Dan: Yeah, I found it got. It was great to start and it wasn't so good after about the halfway point.
Dean: Right.
Dan: Okay. What I found was it was a little too enthusiastic.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: You know, and it became almost like jargon near the end.
Dean: Right.
Dan: And I think the thing was that they were just running out of things to say yeah, but it sounded like after a while it didn't sound entrepreneurial, it sounded sort of corporate. This is sort of a corporate PR, but that has nothing to do with my use for it, because I'm not going to use it in a public way. Right?
Dean: I'm just using that.
Dan: I'm just getting some reflection back on the ideas that we have in the introduction to the book coming back in a different spoke and I got some new ideas for refining what we did just out of listening. So for me that was the value a video and I didn't.
Dean: I haven't watched the whole thing, but the general idea is that somebody put a video to these two, the male and the female character AI, and they're having a discussion as they realize that they're not real, apparently we're not even real. Apparently we're ai, they look genuinely like surprised by this news, a little bit incredulous that I, I apparently I'm not real well, it brings up the question that maybe Dean and Dan aren't either. You know Well what I was bringing to mind with that, Dan, is I remember hearing Elon Musk? I was just thinking.
Dan: I was just thinking. I was just thinking no, that's exactly who I went to when I brought up that idea, who I went to when I brought up that idea.
Dean: Right. I remember somebody at a big conference asked him about the simulation theory the theory that we're living in a simulation and you know he talked about it like that. He and his brother have had so many conversations about AI and the simulation theory, so many conversations about AI and the simulation theory, that they had to have a rule that they would have no such conversations while in a hot tub so that they could take a break from that conversation and his reasoning was that if you go back 50 years, we had the state of the art in gaming was Pong, which was the two you know twisty paddle things playing a ping pong game.
That was the entry into the digital gaming in the 70s virtual, visually amazing games that are played by millions of people simultaneously in a universe that's fully photorealistic and and created, and his idea is that, if you factor in any amount of improvement at all, that we're going to reach a point where, in a couple of years, vr is going to be visually indistinguishable from reality. We'll have the capability to create virtual simulation, ancestral games that would be indistinguishable from real life. And if that's the case, if we look back in the billions of years of the universe kind of thing, the odds that we're the first ones to have gotten to that level is very unlikely. His whole thing is that the odds that we are in base reality he called it is one in billions and I thought man, that's very I don't know what that means.
Dan: I don't know what that means.
Dean: Meaning that this is the real thing, that this is the one he's saying, that the odds that we're in the actual physical world of the thing is very rare or unlike Wow.
Dan: Are you saying that what we're experiencing is not real, that it's a simulation? I'm not quite getting this point.
Dean: Yes, yeah, that's what he's saying. No, well, real that it's a simulation. I'm not quite getting this point. Yes, yeah, that's what he's saying.
Dan: No well, yeah, but it's a theory.
Dean: Right, exactly, you can do anything with a theory. Yes.
Dan: First of all, there isn't enough electricity in our solar system to power that, I mean just to power it. Our solar system to power that I mean just to power it, and you know I mean. They're running into a problem right now, projecting technological growth to 2030. The United States does not have the electricity to do it. Okay, so there has to be, there has to be a bit of an improvement there.
Dean: You know.
Dan: The other thing is visual, visual perception and maybe audio to go along with. It is a small part of what we experience. I mean we have spatial awareness, we have touch, we have taste, we have smell, and then there's other ways of communicating that we don't quite understand, but we, energetically we. And one of the things that I really noticed with my few explorations of virtual reality is how flat and boring it is. It's just flat and boring, and the reason is because it's the creation of one person or the creation of a team where if you go to Yorkville or you go to Winter Haven, you know, and you walk around and you experience everything.
It's the creation of hundreds of thousands of people who made the adjustment here, adjustment there and everything like that. But my sense is that there's a deep, what I would say depression setting into the entrepreneurial world right now, and the scientific world for that matter, that they're never going to understand human consciousness, and it's pretty well. There's been no advance in 40 years of understanding what human consciousness is, and it's not fast computing, you know just to say what the thesis is. It's something else. One of it it's not measurable, because what you're experiencing right now is truly unique. You've just created something. As you're engaging in this discussion with someone you find interesting, and you have all sorts of thoughts coming out. This is all. None of this is measurable and never will it be measurable, Right, Okay, and so I think that's the real issue. But what I'm saying I was thinking of a book title I was wandering around yesterday is that I'm 80 now, so I was born in 44 and there's just been a lot of technological.
There's just been a lot of technological change since 1940, 1944. So I no longer consider it magical, I just consider it normal. When a new thing, like when the LM, you know the notebook, I no longer have the phrase this is fascinating, this is wonderful, I said, well, this is normal, this is just, I'm just seeing something.
Yeah well, this is a new thing and it's really interesting and we'll see if it's useful, you know, in the normal way. In other words, does it make money for you, you know, does it save time? And so I'm getting more and more where I'm absolutely immune to other people's sense of magic about technology.
Dean: Yeah yeah, I use you as an example. You basically have had functional use of all of these things without it even being technological advancements. I always talk about my Tesla. Now I've got the full self driving supervised, which is like it can make all the turns and do all the things. But you've got to really be aware I can't hop in the back seat and go wherever I want to go. But I always say to people listen, Dan Sullivan's had it right, because for 30 years you've had autonomous driving for 30 years.
Dan: Well, autonomous from my standpoint. Yes, that's what I mean.
Dean: You've had the functionality of it right. And that's been the thing. It's so funny yeah.
Dan: Well, yeah, and the other thing is, I don't know it comes down to. I think you know what your stand is on technology has a lot to do with. Are you okay with life just the way it is? And I am, you know and I am. But the way life just is that every once in a while a new technology pops up that I find really useful and then it becomes part of my normal, then it becomes my normal life, and that's been happening for 80 years.
And I suspect it's going to keep. I suspect it's going to keep going that way. But you know, but the it tells me. You know, know, one of the things I'm really interested in is just a little experiment I've been running now for about eight months and it has to do with three questions and I've been kind of captured by this. It's a tool. It's called three crucial questions, you know, and we've talked about it, and the first first one is there any way that I can help by doing nothing.
Number two is if there is something, what's the least I have to do, that's that. And if it's the least I have to do, is there someone who can do the least that I have to do? And it really struck me that if I had learned this when I was like six years old, struck me that if I had learned this when I was like six years old, my life would have really gone in a different direction.
It would have really turned out different because I would have been really super acute to what other people could do for me. You, know, right from the beginning.
Dean: Well, none of that involves technology.
Dan: None of that directly. I mean I'm saying that if I had done this 300 years ago and somebody had those three questions, they probably would have lived a really interesting, productive, creative life.
Dean: Well, there's so much in it. There's like a I mean, there's certainly a who, not how element to it, for sure and the. There's a unique ability.
Dan: There's a unique ability, yeah, but there's also a workaround.
Dean: There's a can I pray while I'm smoking instead of?
Dan: smoking while you're praying.
Dean: You know it resonated with me with the.
You know I've been working with the. Imagine if you applied yourself and self is the acronym for fear, meaning something that you know. But that would be essentially your question one is there any service or anybody that you know that could be able to do that? And then the second level is E for energy, which is that's the things that only I can do. L is leadership, where I could just tell somebody else, and F is finances. So can I apply myself to get this accomplished? I like this idea of what are you calling this? You called it the Dan Sullivan.
Dan: No, it's just called three crucial questions because it's a little-.
Dean: Three crucial questions Okay.
Dan: Yeah, so you pick three things that are, you know, projects or problems right now. But, I just choose problem. That's something you haven't solved.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: And then you ask you you know you describe each of the three. So you're coming downward on the left hand column. Then you go across and you got a matrix of three questions. And the first question is there any way you can solve this by doing nothing, and I've never had, I've never said yes to the question. But the question itself is very useful because it immediately simplifies your thinking. You know, it simplifies your thinking. And yeah, the second one what's the least you have to?
do now you're getting really simple. And then the third question is there anyone else who can do this very simple thing? You know and, and then, and, if there is. You've just answered question number one.
Dean: That's what I mean. That's the can I pray while I'm smoking? You've worked in the back door there.
Dan: No, you can't without doing nothing, okay well what do I?
Dean: need to do. Well, you got to do this and this. Well, can somebody else do that?
Dan: Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, and then you also you're questioning well, is it even enough of a problem to even be, you know, spending?
Dean: thinking about what if I don't solve this problem? Is it okay if I just forget about it?
Dan: Yeah, and what it does is that it's a measurement tool in the sense of you know you're going to be doing something with your time today anyway, and the question is are these three things anything that's worth your time today?
Dean: Yes.
Dan: And it keeps you from getting you know, getting too taken up with busyness. Yes, I love that, but it's funny because I the reason I brought it up as a topic on our talk here. Since I came up with it, it's a, it's one of those thinking tools that won't let me alone. Let you go.
Right you know I've had a few and so, for example, example, without going through and actually counting them up, I would say I probably did it 20 times during the day where I was thinking about something and uh, you know, and my mind had wandered. You know, I was thinking about something and I immediately the question came up is there anything you can do about that? Can you solve this without doing anything?
And immediately I was redirected to an activity that was right in the present, that I could be taking and I could be conscious about it and everything like that. So it's really interesting because I come up with a lot of tools, but they're for a purpose, they're for a workshop.
They're for everything, but this is the first one that keeps coming back and bothering me In your daily, for your daily life. Yeah, yeah, it seems to want to be part of my daily life and that's you know. And yeah, it's just an. It's just an interesting thing that I'm doing and it's very useful because the moment I ask the question, is there any way I can solve this? By doing nothing and immediately, my attention is a hundred percent just on what I can do right now, which feels real good, which feels real good you know to be fully engaged.
Dean: Not doing anything is. Not doing anything at all is also an option, do I even? Need to do anything at all about this. What would happen if I didn't?
Dan: I've had.
Dean: Joe Polish and I were talking the other day. I did a Zoom session in the Genius Network event last week, thursday, friday, and you know one of the things that he was talking about was Keith Cunningham's idea that more businesses they suffer from indigestion than starvation for ideas. They're not starving for new ideas, they've got indigestion of ideas too many things. And I realized, as a 10 quick start with a future orientation, that is definitely my. I have so way more ideas than I could possibly implement. You know, and I look at I've always. One of my personal kind of orientations is definitely, you know, future oriented. I see things, how they can be solved. But I've also learned that the reality you know, you and I've talked about the fact that life moves at the speed of reality, which is 60 minutes per hour and when you're actually practically doing anything in the now.
That's the constraint, that is the biggest thing for a future-oriented shapeshifter. You know, like you and I. So I've been revisited our the idea of procrastination, the joy of procrastination in. You know, my number one thing is always has been that I know I'm being successful when I can wake up every day and say what would I like to do today? And I've started thinking about how I can make that more practical, like to have more to show for it at the end of the day than just drifting with. You know, all my time freedom and the funny little exercise that I've been playing is do you remember in the original Wheel of Fortune when you won on Wheel of Fortune you would have you could spend all your money on the showcase kind of thing. They'd have all the prizes all lined up and you can.
I'll take this for a thousand and I'll take this for 500 and I'll take the rest on a gift certificate or whatever. I started thinking about, maybe going through my days. Yesterday was the first day that I kind of, you know, I've been playing with that mindset of looking at today, as with my 100 minute units for the day, looking at the you know prize, the gallery of all the things that I could do and looking to fill them into my day. I'll take a massage for six units and I'll take this. I'll take a movie for 10 units and I'll do some 50 minute focus finders for 10 units.
And you start like looking at my day and realizing that what kind of creates a little sense of urgency or a present mindedness for the day is really thinking about maximizing for the next 100 minutes, like what am I really going to do in the next 100 minutes? Because even a day is a long, that's a long time to really kind of. You know it's slow if you were to just sit here and count the time for the day that go by, but really having things. I'm really making a conscious effort to have more intention around what I do with those units during the day rather than just getting sucked into screen time.
Dan: It's really interesting. You mentioned that you're a 10 quick start with future orientation and I was just thinking, as you said that and I was thinking about your that I think I'm I actually am past focused. I'm very past focused and what I'm doing is I'm looking at something that's from the past and sort of saying how could that be better in the future?
Like I'm not really interested because I've experienced the past. I haven't experienced the future. So I've got one thing I've got a lot more experience with the past. Now we could just take two minutes out and just ponder the thought that I've just spoken here and I think it's probably why I am not taken at all by the futurologists that show up at the various conferences that I'm to and I said you're talking about something that you have zero experience about. And I said you're talking about something that you have zero experience about. I said why don't you talk about something that you have 100% experience?
with which is your past and then say this thing that happened to me. How could that happen to me? Better when I get to it in the future, you know so. I'm not really intrigued by the future at all because, first of all, I've got zero experience In the past. I've got a lot of experience, and it's readily available. Not only that, but it's unique. Only I know what my experience is, Only you know, what your experience is.
Dean: Who else knows?
Dan: So, I wonder if we I wonder if I'm kind of quick start so I wonder if we actually really are spending time with the future. Though I don't know, I can only answer it for myself.
Dean: I like, you know, creating blueprints or create you know, like that's the thing I see. I like solving problems, as this is what we need to do, but then actually implementing the things is. I find that being in the present is almost like being in the past.
Funny, but I mean, sounds odd to say that, right, but it's like I think that I've already solved this. Okay, I know what this needs to be, and it just feels like such a drag that I have to now, like take the time to do the actual thing that I've already seen in my mind, you know, it's almost like you know, yeah, it's very funny.
I heard somebody talked about who invented the vaccine, the polio vaccine Pasture, pasture, okay, so it was him. Somebody said that he imagined the reason, the way he solved it was he put himself in the position of if he was the, the virus or whatever, how would he attack the system? And that was his. So he put himself in that perspective of where would he go, what would he do? And it reminded me of hearing that Einstein, his, the way he came with the theory of relativity was to imagine himself on riding a beam of light. What would that look like? How would he experience that?
And so I look at the things like when I create a solution for something, I know I already see how it's going to, I've addressed all the issues, I see, okay, this is what we need to do, and in my mind it's a fait accompli, as they say, a completed thing, it's done. I know that this is going to be the thing, but now you have to in reality, the speed of reality, actually build out all the components of it. You know, that's like writing a book, for instance, has to be done in real time, you know like I can see the outline of the well, well that you know that's really.
Dan: you know that's really why you want to have a lot of who's in your life, because the actual taking action and getting it done is interesting to you. But, having that? Well, let me ask you the question Taking action and getting it done is not interesting to you, but having it done, does that interest you? Yes, very interesting. Yeah, well, there's only one solution it's got to be someone else who does.
Dean: Yeah Well, there's only one solution it's got to be someone else who does it. No-transcript. That's been really in the last little while here. That self-awareness it's not a character thing. It's not that it's that I work best when I'm contributing discernment and invention on the if we're looking at widget things, you know.
Dan: yeah, well, it's really interesting abs and I have gone to to Rome three or four times and one of the things I mean, if you are interested at all in you know the ancient structures. Well, not so much Rome, but I mean Renaissance and things like that realize is that these individuals who we you know, we know them, you know leonardo and michelangelo, and we know them and we developed this image.
How could one person do all this? And the answer is they didn't. Right, right, right, they did. They had a lot of people. It's like you know, I mean, it's like we think of these. Just because we only know their name doesn't mean that they're the one who actually did it. Just yeah, it had to be named and we somebody attached their name to it and yeah, and we think it, but they didn't do uh you know they, they really didn't.
I mean, they're sculptors. And you say, how could that? How could he get all that done? Well, he didn't. He got the basic picture of it done and then he had other people who were nose people and ear people and finger people.
And he brought them all in and they put together the whole. They put together the whole statue and they put together the whole statue and that's one of the valuable things you learn about the past that things didn't get done any differently in the past than they get done today through teamwork, through large numbers of different skills coming together. The big thing is to apply it to yourself, because I think one of the things and it's a function of the school system and I don't know if you could have it any other way is that you have to study on your own, you have to take tests on your own.
And I think it tells people that it's all an individual effort. But what if you took another group of first graders and you taught them teamwork from day one? You studied as a team, you took tests as a team and then you measured over 18 years the one who did everything on his own and the one who was just part of a team that did it. And they did it as a team. I bet the ones on the team. One is I think they'd be a lot happier, and number two is I just think they'd get a lot more done.
Yeah isn't that something?
Dean: I had a friend who you know is teaching his kids. His idea is teaching his kids like being entrepreneurs, teaching that's the way right, the self-guided way. But they would do, you know they were in a virtual school and they would set up, you know he would have vas to to do like homework for them, like show them how to, like hire someone to do this, this, write this paper yeah or whatever realizing that if there's anybody else who could do it.
If you don't need to know how to do it, then you know, kind of like taking your approach right. Is there any way I could do this without doing anything? And that's kind of yeah, that's a big thing. There's no reason for him to know. I remember that was the, that was I think it was henry ford or somebody that they were saying. You know his lack of general knowledge, but it doesn't matter. He says I have buttons on my desk. I can push this button and somebody will get me the answer to whatever I need.
And now we've all got a PhD in our pocket.
Dan: Yeah, yeah, you know, I think the big thing is that I'm not certain that everybody has the ability of seeing the future and the future use, the future use of other people's capabilities. So I think that's an. I have it and I suspect you have it, but I can see what something looks like and I can see what someone does and I can see it applied to a future result. But I'm not sure everybody has that.
Dean: Yeah. I agree, yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree, and that's kind of like the thing we just think. It's so second nature, right, like you don't know that there's anything different. I remember thinking about unique ability. I remember thinking that, well, that can't't be like, because that doesn't seem like work at all, like that doesn't seem like any effort.
Dan: That can't be a thing, but it is you know, yeah, well, it has to do with impact, not you know not the activity itself. Yes, what's the impact? Yeah and yeah, so it's really interesting. But I think, think you know, I'm just to you know, we're near the end of the hour here and my sense is that a lot of confusion in society right now is that science is running into a wall and technology is running into a wall, and it's human consciousness and a lot of claims are being made what technology could do, but I, I think with less and less confidence, and people are saying, well, you mean there's something else, there's something else that we can't get to, and I said, well, yeah, you experience mean, we experience that personally.
We experience that on an individual basis, why wouldn't it be on a general sense?
Dean: And.
Dan: I think there's going to be a lot of depression. I'm noticing the increase in the numbers of teenagers who have mental illness, and I think the reason is that they've been promised something that if you got this education, if you had this technology, if you had access to this and this, you would be happy. And they aren't no exactly. And none of the people who told them that can explain to them why they're not happy, why they're not happy and I think it's a general sense.
I just think we've reached a point where we've been so science centric and we've been so technological centric pretty much for a century or maybe a little bit more than a century. And it was going to produce the utopian society and it was going to produce and it isn't.
Dean: And now.
Dan: I think that the most cynical people were the most idealistic people. If you take someone who's really cynical, they're the ones who were very idealistic. They said you know, everything's going to be solved, everything's going to be great, and then it wasn't. And they don everything's going to be solved, everything's going to be great, and then it wasn't. And they don't have a fallback position.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: I'm noticing that with the election this year.
Dean: Yes, absolutely.
Dan: You know, the people who are going to be happy on November 6th are the people who just lead ordinary lives.
Dean: You know, they just go around.
Dan: They got a job, they have a house, you a house and everything else. And the people who are going to be very unhappy are the people who believe we can fundamentally change everything. I've just noticed that one of the parties, which was the Party of Joy three months ago, is now the Party of Rage.
Dean: Oh man.
Dan: Yeah, they're the Party of rage. Oh man, yeah, yeah, they're the party of rage. I mean, they were all out on stage over the last two or three days of how you know, he's a fascist, he's hitler, you know. And I said look, I've watched some world war ii films, I've seen hitler. This isn't hitler, he doesn't even speak german. I mean, if you're going to speak German.
Dean:I mean, if you're going to be Hitler.
Dan: If you're going to be Hitler, you got to at least get the language down right.
Dean: Speak German. That's crazy, but.
Dan: I'm just noticing it's more than just the political season. I just think there's a thing happening right now where there's sort of a collision between what was promised and sort of what isn't happening, and that's why I think AI is really being used, but it's not being used in the way that people predicted it was going to be used. I think it's being used in many other ways.
Dean: Yeah, well, when are you traveling to Phoenix, dan Wednesday?
Dan: We're going to Phoenix, then we're going to Tucson. So we're going to be in Canyon Ranch and then we drive up the day before the genius starts. I think Okay.
Dean: But we should go to the.
Dan: Henry, we should go to the Henry I was thinking the same thing.
Dean: That's what I was hoping.
Dan: Okay, good so are we on for next?
Dean: week then.
Dan: Yeah. I'll be in Tucson. No, I can do it. No, that'd be great.
Dean: Okay, perfect. Well then, I will talk to you next week. Thanks, Dan.
Dan: Okay.
Dean: Great.