Welcome to Cloudlandia Ep117:Observations on Perception
In today's episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we take you on a journey through history and our complex relationship with time and its perception.
We discuss hidden economic forces that shaped pivotal history and debate if we live in the "best or worst of times." I share my experience with breaking free from television, only to be pulled back by sporting thrills and gripping shows, a reminder of how addictive media can be.
As we wrap up our discussion, we reflect on exciting developments on the horizon. We celebrate entrepreneurs who have adapted their businesses to thrive online.
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: I'm almost tapping in here.
Dean: Almost. That's exactly right as close as you can get without going over. We're you know we're going to be 12 hours away from it here, it's all very exciting.
Dan: Yeah, yeah, we were talking to Kim Daniel. He now calls himself. Daniel White and he phoned us from birth Australia from the future from the future from the future. So they're already. They're already into New Year's yeah, that's so funny. What a weird world, what a world for a world, you know.
Dean: I saw an infographic that there's an island. There's two islands up where Russia and Alaska joined. They're separated by three miles. You can see the other island. I like it once called tomorrow Island or something. What the American side is. You know 24 hours difference because it's right after the straddle the line divides them is the international date line. So they're three miles away, and yet they're 24 hours apart. Yeah that's really interesting.
Dan: You know people often have these quizzes. You know it's either you're reading the quizzes or you're being asked the quiz.
Yeah, and it's.
Dan: if you had one superpower, what would it be? Have you ever had anything like that, so many? I have you know I think about or you were you were a witness to this question being asked. And mine is that I would like to have tomorrow morning's Wall Street Journal yesterday.
Yeah, exactly Exactly. How great would that be, that could be.
Dean: The thing is literally what you should. That could be a loophole, Dan. Maybe we should go to these islands and subscribe to the Wall Street Journal on tomorrow Island.
Oh man.
Dan: Now take a bit of work. I mean, you still have to learn what to look for, and you know you'd have to have the means by which you could, and but that just reminds me. I think everybody would like to have that superpower.
Dean: They would like to have advanced understanding of the future Well you know what's so funny is one of the things that I wanted to talk about today, because it's, you know, explore. This idea is because I ranked it up there as one of the top concepts of the year for me, and that is guessing and betting, and essentially, what you're saying is it's absolutely true. The reason that would be so valuable is that it would bring certainty.
If you look tomorrow and see what the closing stock price of a any stock was today. If you knew that in advance, that it starts out at X and it's going to be X plus. Y at the end of the day, you're betting with certainty, and that's a pretty interesting. That's what I really thought about the that concept, and I'd love to hear a little more, because well, I think it's, I think it's been.
Dan: It's a thought that's been in the human brain since the first humans.
Dean: Yeah, I agree, you think that not knowing, I wonder where. I wonder how would that have manifested itself then in the beginning? Knowing where, the, I guess what would it be? Knowing where, the where the food is going to be, or something.
Dan: Well, I think, you know, I think probably it manifested itself in the first days of people just noticing the weather, you know, like wherever they were, that you know, that. I mean I think they probably, if you did Colby's back then, like a Colby profile that that the earliest humans really varied in terms of you know what they were skillful at and what they focused on Okay. And. But my sense is that there were some people who were more conceptual, who could notice patterns better than others.
And they could make sort of predictions which you know as it regard weatherers. That regarded, the wildlife around them or the you know. The you know availability of food. They would immediately go to the top of authority and in whatever group they were, because they just had a sense of what was going on and a better sense of tomorrow than anybody else did.
Dean: Yeah, that's really yeah must have freaked, I mean, imagine, not knowing with. I guess the first certainty would be well, even though the sun went away, it's going to come back up again, Yep, and then getting that certainty that, okay, there it is. And wait a minute, it's colder this time of year than what's all this white stuff. I subscribe to the Gary Halbert philosophy. He had a saying that God gave us a sign by planting palm trees in all the places that were suitable for human habitation. So if you wake up and you don't see any palm trees, keep bending south. That's his philosophy.
If you see palm trees.
Dean: You know you're in the right place.
Yeah.
Dan: Yeah, and then you know you, it's very interesting. Everybody worries about global warming or they are making large amounts of money warning about global warming. I think that's more of a ladder than it is that they're actually worried. I think they've discovered a new way to make money? Yeah, but but if you think of the variations in temperature that humans can deal with, okay. So, for example, in North Africa, in the Sahara, people go about their business when it's 120 degrees up, 120 or plus, you know, in the Sahara.
And at the same time there I've been in Alberta in Canada, when it was 44 below and everybody went about their business.
Speaker 3 Yeah, so that's a difference, that's a difference.
Dan: Fahrenheit wise, that's a difference of 164 degrees Okay. And humans at one end, people are going about their business. That's the other. They're going about their business and they're freaking out about a one degree change, one or two degree change. And I said I mean, who of us doesn't go through that, even you know, in idyllic spots like where you live? Yeah, there's still a variation of 20 to 25, maybe 30 degrees during here, right, Right.
Dean: Yeah, no, it's been. It's been a little cold here Like I. Literally, I almost had to wear socks with my shorts today, dan, it's that's how chilly it was, wow, yeah.
Yeah.
Dean: And I have a hoodie on Wow. Just to stay one because I'm committed. I'm still sitting out in the courtyard have you done trauma?
Dan: Have you done trauma therapy on this?
Dean: No, you know, the funny thing about I mean, what they call the whole climate change is, you know, if we look back, it's a fact, scientifically accepted, that we were in an ice age at one point and somehow, without the aid of fossil fuels and combustible engines, the earth warmed itself out of an ice age. And now we're having a nervous breakdown that we're gonna, because of combustible engines, throw the whole thing off into.
Dan: I don't know, it's just See as an entrepreneur talking to an entrepreneur. That proves to me that there's money to be made in nervous breakdowns.
Dean: Give people nervous breakdowns. That's the thing, yeah, yeah.
Dan: You know, it's like the Jerry McGuire movie. Remember Jerry McGuire movie.
Dean: I do. That's a great movie. Where's the?
Dan: money.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: Show me the money. Show me the money, show me the money. And I think that when you're trying to analyze any event on the planet which is being interpreted in economic, political well, not economic but political, philosophical terms, I say I think your first question has to be okay, who's making the money?
here yeah right.
Dean: That's absolutely true, absolutely true, and it's gonna be. Yeah, I think that you know I was sharing a couple of weeks ago the idea of my contemplation on whether this is the best of times or the worst of times.
Dan: And the answer is yeah.
Dean: That's exactly right. But what I realized is that there's, in terms of every physical measurement, every convenience, access to information, democratization of virtually everything. It's the very best of times. There's never been a better time than now, and on the worst, the best things that I could come up with are the most, you know, the things that would qualify as making it the worst of times, where all the battle for our minds and it's that creating those there's a lot to fixate on. You know that really has nothing to do with us in. You know, in reality, like when it's all mental, the inner game is really the battle, for Dean Landia is strong, you know.
Dan: Yeah, I think it's true, and just to bring you know the latest update, I'm now in my Almost six, five and a half years of not watching television.
Dean: I know I thought like amazing.
Dan: Yeah, and, but this was sort of the test for me this fall, because I'm from Cleveland originally and. I have the normal sports loyalties. Like I rude right, you know, I root for the teams I rooted for when I was eight years old and the Cleveland Browns are having a really quite an extraordinary season as the result of a 38 year old quarterback. Yeah, I've heard his name Joe Flack, oh, oh.
Who was sitting on a. Who is sitting on a couch Watching television or lying on a couch? Six weeks ago, when Cleveland went to their third quarterback of the year, went down and they brought him in. And he's been easily the best quarterback in the league over the last four or five years. Yeah and Just, I mean he's. Here's the Hollywood ending that they go to the Super Bowl and this guy comes off the coach and wins the Super Bowl. That's a great.
Dean: Yeah, it's the Kurt Warner story right.
Dan: Oh yeah yeah, this is even more because Kurt Warner was about 31 or 32, yeah, when it happened, but this guy's 38. He's he played 16 years and nobody wanted in this year. So it's just got all the makings of a great just a terrific Hollywood script you know, and. But ask me how much? What? How many minutes of Watching the Cleveland Browns this fall have I done?
Dean: well, you told me your secret Was that you watch the YouTube summary of the game.
Dan: Well, first of all, I watch whether they won or lost right, okay, perfect yes. If they lost, I don't watch the summary if they win. I watched the video.
And what I've discovered I?
Dan: what I've discovered is that no football game has more than 10 minutes of actual highlights.
Speaker 3 Right.
Dan: Yeah, and then? The one I like the best is where they just show your team's highlights when they want, which is about five minutes.
Yeah right right, right.
Dan: So rabbit pan. First game was 97 Jim Brown, olive fame and perhaps the greatest running back of all time. It was his rookie season and he broke the one game rushing record Day for touchdowns 200, 200 plus some yards. That was my first and I was addicted. It was like drugs, right. You know, you don't you give the first sample away free, and then the drugs do the selling for the rest of my life. Yeah and so anyway. But, tempted as I may be, this fall I did not watch a minute of television.
Dean: Wow, that's great, and you know I'm watching the.
Dan: I'm not watching the highlights TV, as a matter of fact, I'm looking at the TV. It's across the room for me.
And.
Dan: I don't even know where, I don't even know how you turn it on, oh, boy. Fantastic. It's like the Dark Ages. I've lost abilities that the Romans said. You know the whole.
Dean: You know, on the other side of that spectrum is Yesterday. I had two amazing things happen. So yesterday I Got up and I got coffee, and sometimes what I'll do is I, like Jerry Seinfeld had a series called comedians in cars getting coffee and it's just a fun.
You know they're 10 minute episodes, 10 12 minutes kind of thing. I think I'm someone in, so I sometimes I'm having like coffee, I'll sit there and I'll watch a comedians in cars getting coffee, and so I turned on Netflix to do that. And Netflix has this thing of pushing to your home screen, you know, through your algorithm or whatever, the thing that would be the most interesting to you, probably. And there was a series called money heist, which was a big thing.
You know, in 2020, when we were all in Lockdown based, this money heist series came on and everybody got, you know, fully addicted to it. It was really well done. It was just from Spain and it was Dubbed with English voices, but really well done. So, in any event, the third installment of this money heist series was front and center on my Netflix home screen yesterday and I Ended up no, this was Friday, sorry, I ended up watching the whole series on that Friday and the funniest thing, dan, is that I, for the entire day, thought it was Saturday and I didn't realize until the end of the day that I got an extra day.
Do you have those things where in the holidays the days just kind of blend all together? Because I haven't had.
Or anything you know and the way you do that, in the way you do.
Dan: We each, we all have our own approaches, you know, right on that was so.
Dean: That was the funniest thing. I watched the entire series of Fantastic and, but it felt like I just borrowed from my leap year day.
Dan: Something got that day. Now I'm thinking got.
Dean: I said something got heisted. That's exactly right.
Dan: That is exactly right. Well, you know, everybody makes a big deal about this today, but I don't think it was any different. Everybody wants to make Case that the world and humanity has never experienced before, of what we're experiencing to work, and I resist that thought. And I say well, first of all, we don't know, do we? I mean we? I mean we don't know what was going on in the world when we were five or six years old, you know, I mean yeah.
I mean, we were just struggling together handle on walking and running and Everything else. But people make all these things like Something like this has never happened before in human history and I yeah. I said first of all, vast majority of people haven't got a clue what happened 10 years ago so you know. I mean and you know some of some people it's last week and. Anyway, and I said actually probably, we all want to believe that our own age is something special.
And I said okay, well, that's something to remember that regardless of what age you're in, people want to believe that it's sort of special. Okay, and I get that, but my sense is it's always been special. One it's always been special, or two it's never been special. And but if you go back, and If you go back and read the thinking of people, where we actually have the documents Greek 2500 years ago, totally understandable, translated and Very thoughtful and you could learn a lot from these guys.
Okay so so are there people smarter today than our Air stock? I don't know, because I'm not sure how you would compare a smartness over in 2500 years.
Dean: Well, I mean, I think you can point to certain things. I mean you can point to Even just in. Let's just take medicine. You've just returned from your second trip to Buenos Aires to get stem, stem cells for generating cartilage in your knees Right and others and others.
Dan: So it's turning into. It's turning into repair and also prevention. So they're now doing proactive stuff for you know your brain and your vascular system and everything.
Dean: Oh, I remember. Yeah, so you know. I remember walking in Regents Park in London with Jamie Smart. We were walking around and he was telling me, you know he had written his new book at the time Clarity was out and he was saying how, in the 18, people thought that bad smells cause disease and so people would walk around with posies and fragrant things to ward off disease. And turns out that it was germs that caused this disease.
And so when you think about, you know, 2,500 years ago, advancements in medicine, you know we were, I mean, leaching and you know bloodletting and all of these sort of you know superstitious things I think were happening and they were thinking that some diseases were demonic possession. You know that's really what was going on, that bring people had seizure, that they were possessed by the devil or by demons. And so now you fast forward to today and we have DNA that with certainty can point to what your genetic predispositions are, and stem cell, you know, can go in and repair or modify those things.
I don't know.
Dean: I mean, I think that we are, I think, life expectancy. So I think in many ways we're constantly ratcheting forward society, right, and I think, with now access to you know it used to be. If you just take even 50 years ago, you know it used to be that all of the research and development and advancements in medicine were all done in silos, where you know proximity to those people or you know had to be around. And now we're at a point where every advancement that's documented and available is, you know, instantly analyzable by artificial intelligence and machine learning. So we have access to not just our own thinking but the analysis and you know computation skills or whatever, to everything to the hive mind. You know. I think that's really what we've evolved to. Is that you know it's not individual thinkers who you had to. 2,500 years ago you had to be in at the Agora to listen to Aristotle talk, to get the wisdom of Aristotle, or somebody had a scroll that had written down something that he said. You know Now it's like everything I don't know.
It's such amazing things that we have access to everything that's ever been said and can project forward in the style of what Aristotle would say today about certain situations. Like you told me, your story of having something interpreted and written as Shakespeare would write it in the Iambic pandemic right, and so I don't I mean, it's like in certain things any argument that today is not a pinnacle of achievement or Well yeah, I think we I've been, you know, pondering over the years what constitutes smart, because it's very clear to me that you can find examples of people thousands of years ago.
Yeah.
Dan: If the person were in the room and you could understand the language they were speaking they would strike you as being very smart.
Speaker 3 Yes.
Dan: Okay, and the couple of weeks ago in Congress we had three presidents of prestigious universities who, over a period of about 15 minutes, indicated that they're not very smart Harvard, mit and Penn, okay. And they were asked a fairly simple question Would anything happening on your campus in advocating genocide to Jews, with that constitutive violation of code of conduct? And they couldn't answer the question. Somebody 2,500 years ago could answer the question. So my sense is it's kind of like you're as smart as who you hang out with.
Yeah.
Dan: And you're as smart as your ability to deal with the your own unknown factors, like we all have unknown factors, and so my sense is that intelligence and smartness has to do with your creative response, or your either creative or reactive response to kind of the conditions that you're living in. You know.
You know, and, for example, it's pretty well known now that the people of the South Pacific pledged all over just understanding the color of waves. They could see that there were different variations in the color of the water sea water and they could make predictions based on that. I doubt if there's any human beings today who can do that.
Yeah, but I wonder yeah, I mean that's so the thing that I'm saying, I think that human intelligence is kind of a constant and you know, people in the earliest humans were kind of smart in relationship to their circumstances and we probably couldn't survive for a day what they could survive for a year, you know, because we didn't have their knowledge and experience. So I think we have access to great medical breakthroughs right now, but I haven't met a regular doctor yet that knows any of those breakers.
Dean: Right? Well, because there's a whole.
Dan: I just use my general. I just use my general practitioners for drugs drug dealers.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: Good drug dealers.
Dean: Yeah, but there's a whole. You know there's a whole, especially in these medical things. There's a lot of. That's one of these nervous breakdown things that there's a whole lot of. For every advancement or every miracle cure or protocol, there's someone, there's a vocal and official sounding opposition to it.
Yep.
Dean: It's really. This is where it's really difficult.
Dan: You can count on that. Is to discern what the yeah, because somebody's pension is at stake, somebody's reputation is at stake, somebody's livelihood is at stake because of something new, because of something new Because they stopped growing 20 years ago and they've been on autopilot and suddenly they've been interrupted. Something new what we've?
Dean: got to stop. Is you look at something as devices, as vaccines? That's been the. You know the number one kind of contention in the last four years is the whole. You know the on both sides. You know it's either is it a miracle or is it killing you Is. You know and you don't know the normal answer.
Dan: The answer is yes, and the answer is yes.
Dean: Yeah, I mean it's so funny. But true, right Like so.
Dan: I mean the whole thing, that there was some wisdom, that they had before COVID, which they disregarded. One is that what you have to do is go for the 65-year-olds and older and protect them.
Yeah.
Dan: Protect the humans that are over 65. That's because there's a likelihood they've got a lot of other conditions that this will put them over the edge. This new thing will put them over the edge. Okay, no they want to start at six months old, they want to start at a year old, you know.
Yeah.
Dan: I mean, the masks were bigger than the child's head, you know Right, and everything like that. It had nothing to do with medicine. It had nothing to do. It had a lot to do with control. Yes, yes, and I don't know if we've learned anything about vaccines over the last four years, but a large portion of the public has learned not to trust healthcare experts.
Public Right, especially public healthcare, that's what we've learned. Yeah, I mean, that's what we've learned Exactly.
Dan: Yeah, like, don't go to the water hole at sunrise or sunset, right? Yeah, I mean, that's the truth.
Dean: Right.
Dan: I mean creditors show up for easy eating. Yes, you know. So my sense is a lot has been learned over the last four years, but I don't think it had anything to do with vaccines.
Dean: Yeah, yeah, I agree, and that's, I think, from the you know, for the general public, for people you know observing this, it really creates the sense of you know, nervous, breakdown level things, of you know that there it feels like you're there's no right answer, that it's wrong. You know that you're either COVID's going to get you or the vaccine's going to get you and you can't make the right decision. People are not there's no uncertainty in the decision.
Dan: Are your Tesla is going to explode.
Right, exactly, or they're going to you know, and there's the thing, right.
Dean: That's all part of it. That's what your Tesla is going to be shut down. You know that the government's going to control. Yeah, I mean, there's so much, yeah, I love this.
Dan: You know, I mean I'm not. Babs loves her Tesla and she has the same model you do, and she's had it for six years and she loves it and I love Babs, so it works. But I really liked my Beamer. I really liked the Beamer we had before.
Dean: You know what?
Dan: It didn't get any smarter in the garage overnight. And when the car goes into the garage when the car goes into the garage before dark and we close the door. I don't want a smarter car. When I pick up the phone, oh my goodness.
Dean: You know, what's so funny is I think it's so presumptuous, so fun. I wake up, I get in the car and it tells me it's nine minutes to Haven Bakery, haven Cafe. It's like telling me that. Or at Honeycomb Cafe, it's telling me nine minutes, traffic is okay. It's presuming where I'm going.
Dan: Well, why can't you just take a chance? I wonder how the traffic is going to be this morning. To see that there's a pleasure has been taken away from me.
Yeah yeah.
Dean: It's so funny, right? I don't have any, you've got certainty and I just push the button and let it drive me there. So that's the greatest thing you know. It's so funny.
Dan: Yeah it's like you know it's 2001,. Stanley Kubrick's movie. What was the astronauts name? I forget, but that Hal was talking to us. What do you think you're doing? Was it Doug? Or I'm trying to think he's.
Hal Dave.
Dan: Yeah, hal was the computer you know yeah. Which is just IBM. You know, if you take IBM backwards, you come up with Hal, but anyway, and it's saying what do you think you're doing, dave?
You know, like that.
Dan: It's nine minutes to the coffee show, Dave.
Dean: Right. Why are you turning left?
Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, why are you?
Dan: even wondering Goodness, that is funny though that your car.
Dean: You wake up and your car is smarter it was. Oh man.
Dan: Oh, you said it at the beginning. You said it was the beginning. Dean, that's all a fight and competition for your brain, that's what it is.
Dean: It's the absolute truth you know, and I think that you, you know, I think you've cut off the good portion of that access to your brain by removing yourself from programming television and you're becoming the program director.
Dan: Well, think about this as an entrepreneur, that if you want to know the distinction between an entrepreneur, and a non-entrepreneur you know and I think about this a lot because I've been at it for 50 years right now, and I've asked that question a lot, you know. Do you think entrepreneurs are born? And I said well that I couldn't attest to it.
Yes, they were born, but you know, or you know, is it learned? And I said well, I don't know the answer to that question, but I would say that the entrepreneurs I know were on a path that was decidedly different, probably before they were 10 years old. They weren't going along with the crowd, they were.
they were doing something individual, kind of on their own because, they were very curious about something, and most people who aren't entrepreneurs were more socially addicted. You know what did the group think and what they had, but if you think about that, you're a self programmer. The big thing about entrepreneurs is that we're self programmers, in other words, we program the next day, we program the next week, we program. You know, here we are on New Year's Eve and both of us are programming the next year and it really doesn't have to do with anybody else's programming.
Dean: Yeah, that's the greatest thing. This is going to be a big 2024, it's going to be a big year. I mean you're about, you're going to turn 80 in.
Dan: May, yeah, and it's 50 years coaching 50 years coaching since and the company. The program is 35 years old, so yeah, they're at 35th and yeah, I mean, yeah, they all three of them happened this year, but but I mean we just came off our best year ever. I mean just in terms of you know new people into the program and everything else.
Yeah, we hit 52, which was great. 952 new people in the program that's awesome, and except for two presentations, I didn't have anything to do with that. That's a real, that's a real good measurement for me.
Dean: Yeah, for sure. And now this year, this will be your first year with only free zone workshops.
Dan: No that was.
Dean: This was your first year.
Dan: Yeah, this I stopped, I stopped. I'm just trying to take one. Did that Cross over?
That's what I'm wondering, yeah.
Dan: No, it was January of last year, January.
Dean: Okay, so this year was yeah, I've gotten a full year full year with only free zone.
Dan: Yeah, right, and you know, really caused a lot of tension for a lot of people in the company and everything else and I said, well, it's going to happen sometime. Why don't we just make it happen right now?
Yeah.
Dan: And you know there was pushback and you know the usual sort of thing. But my way of creating change is just to create a vacuum. Yeah, right, something's going to fill it.
Speaker 3 Throw your hat over the fence. Yeah.
Dan: So I announced in the middle of just trying to take care. I announced in the middle of 2021. So it was June of 2021. At the end of 22, I'm not going to do any more 10 times workshops.
Right, yeah, I remember.
Dan: People said, well, how are we going to do this? And I said my security clearance doesn't go that high, I just have no idea. I just know that after the end of next year I'm not going to do any 10 times workshops. Okay, and. I've done this enough in the past. People and Babs and I had already worked this out, so that wasn't Babs and I are saying that something's going to happen. Well, that's not negotiable.
Dean: Right, yeah, that's awesome.
Dan: But we have five coaches, who you know, who had to jump to the next level, and they did a good job and the renewals are more or less the same as if I was doing the workshops at the end of the first year, pointing off here, pointing out there. So you know, and you know, and I think we had 180 people who moved from the signature level to the end times. So that was great.
Dean: Oh, I didn't have a.
Dan: I didn't have anything to do with that, and the more things that can happen in the company that I don't do or don't even know about, the better I feel.
Speaker 3 Yes, yes, that's yeah that's pretty exciting, I'm talking about. I'm talking about. Yeah, no, I bet it.
Dean: I'm sure any dip in the you know 10 times conversions or whatever was offset by people in 10 times who want to stay with Dan moving up to freedom. Imagine that was offset by that. Yeah.
Dan: Well, it pushes. It pushes both ways. But the one thing that we realized, that I hadn't thought of that. Really worked out great, and it's only because of COVID. It's the two hour.
Zoom workshops, yeah, so every quarter.
Dan: I do six two hour 10 times workshops and I do two hour free zone workshops and that little two hour thing, which was only possible because of COVID Nobody, nobody watched Zoom before. Covid has made a world of difference. It's made a world of difference. So I was only going to do that for a year and now I'm going to. I've extended it to the end of 24.
And I like that yeah.
Dan: But I like it, I like it and everybody else likes it, and it seems to work. But I don't think that would have ever happened if I hadn't just said no more full day in-person workshops.
Dean: Right, yeah, that's fantastic, so you're coming up now. This is interesting, then the when did your quarterly book? Did that start on your birthday? That was the end of the end of 2014.
Dan: So next December it'll be book 40.
Dean: Right, okay, there you go. And we're just curious about your intention and your plan for your 80s being the best decades.
Dan: Well, I'll do 40 more books because I'm not to 100 yet. So, and they're getting better. I mean, I can tell the feedback from our longtime clients. They said you know the books are really, they're really getting more interesting. They're not just program tools that you're explaining, you're doing right, doing all sorts of different things, but the insight I had, dean, was that a lot of people spend years, even decades, on books Okay, which, yeah, aren't finished, which aren't finished, right, and they they maybe have 20 or 30 chapters and each of the chapters are kind of interesting, not equal to each other but their interest.
I said, why don't you just take one of the chapters and turn it out as a book? And of course you and I went through the early days when you could do this quickly, when you had the 90 minute book idea and are continuing to do that. And then I think it was who was it that came up with they could turn a book around in a week for you if you just send it in for them. Who is that Amazon? Is it Amazon?
Yeah, I think it's Amazon Exactly.
Dan: Yeah, amazon yeah, and we use.
Dean: yeah, I mean it's yeah.
Dan: And yeah, and perfectly good, you know, perfectly useful, and but we've got our own. You know print shops here in Toronto and it's a lot cheaper than in the US. We found out that a point to realize for you living in the States that getting a book printed in Toronto is about 40% cheaper than getting a book printed in Chicago, dollar for dollar. You know Canadian dollar.
Dean: Wow, Even after the exchange rate right.
Yeah, yeah.
Dean: After the exchange rate yeah, yeah, you're, yeah.
The other thing is yeah, my head.
Dean: You know it's not a unique. You have a one of one style of book. That everything about it, from the double cover to the thickness of the color cover, to the paper stock on the inside and the color scheme, and you know it's one of one. There's no, there's nothing else like it.
Dan: Yeah, and I've told people you know you're sitting on books. I mean you're always talking about writing the book. But where's the book? You know, why don't you just get the book finished? And they said well, you know, you know. I said I said you're thinking about it too much, you're not executed. I said just get the book out there. I said it's not going to change the world, it's not going to be a bestseller, they're not going to make a Hollywood movie out of it. So Right.
And what it does is it gets some old ideas in your head out so that you can have some new ideas.
Dean: Yeah, the truth isn't it. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what a collection to going all the way back to book number one and then to book, you know, whatever you're at now I'm working on 7 right now.
Yeah, yeah.
Dan: Well, I get a lot out of it and of course we've got great teamwork inside the company when we started with your team actually the first one.
Dean: I remember the first couple Thinking about your thinking that was the first book.
Dan: And then you know, some of our team members said well, we could do this, and we could do this, and we could do this. And I said that's great. Plus, the technology just keeps improving. I mean, if you think I started that in. Where's the technology today compared to where?
it was in 2014,.
Dan: You know.
Yeah, yes.
Dan: So my cartoonist Hamish McDonald. I estimate that every year I get the productivity capability of another Hamish just because of the upgrades to software and hardware.
Dean: To the tools he's able to use and deploy.
Dan: Oh.
Dean: Yeah, oh yeah.
Dan: I mean, like I'll, we're right at the end of the book I'm working on. So we're just working on the conclusion and the program where we describe strategic coach. Those are the last two sections. So on Tuesday I'll sit down and we'll sketch out what the cartoon is going to be for the conclusion. I've got the outline, with the outline copy all done, so we can read it.
Yeah.
Dan: And we'll sketch it out and we'll have another meeting on Thursday and he'll be 90% finished Full color.
Yeah.
Dan: And we do a little tweaks and then in the last 10 minutes we say well, let's look at the next section and he'll sketch it out, and on Monday of the following week he'll be finished with the cartoon. Book one that was a 10 day process for. That was a 10 day process for one sections cartoons.
Dean: Right, well, it's wild. And now I guess you know I mean book 36,. You've got all of the ear. You've evolved it into all of the ways to consume. Now you know that you've got the cartoons and the audio and the video.
Dan: Yeah, so we're going to do one new thing that Dean and we could talk about this. We're going to do one new thing, probably the first quarter. I'm going to take one of the books and we're just got it down to choice of three and we're going to create an AI chat on just that book. Okay, so the entire knowledge base will just be the words that are in that particular book. And then we'll use, and Leor Weinstein is helping us with this.
Dean: And then.
Dan: So in addition to the audio, the video, the cartoons, the text, you'll also get the AI and you can ask the book questions and it'll answer you.
Dean: Do you think, dan, this is? I've had this in this conversation. Maybe we could have a whole discussion around this, but because I you know this is a very real capability of AI right now, but I think that there's. I would rather have the AI ask me questions and guide me through the process than me having to ask the questions. Yeah because that requires me having included yeah it requires work.
Yes, that's exactly right. We're inquiring, you and I, how that's exactly right, and I would much rather I would love to have an AI coach me through applying this to me.
So it was hey that hey, hey, hey yeah.
Dan: Well, I think you should go get in the car and take a 15 minute, 15 minute drive to the car.
Dean: I think that's not you know, because somebody else. No, no, no that's brilliant.
Dan: That's brilliant. Let's talk about that. Yeah because somebody else that actually indicates some intelligence, doesn't it?
Dean: Yes, but the thing is that you know that application where, if I could go through a track, it's like a guided thing. If you could train the AI as a coach in this to guide somebody through where they're at and how this would apply to them, like somebody had, because somebody was training up a Napoleon Hill that you could chat with Napoleon Hill and you could ask him any questions. And I just realized that much better experience.
Dan: You could have one from Jerry Spence. Yes.
Dean: How great would that be right, Jerry Spence coaching.
Dan: Well, he would ask you all sorts of adverts questions before you know that's, that's his book is great, by the way, you put me on to him. Yes, you know more or less his autobiography. But nice person, I mean he comes across. I mean probably a prick if he was the opposing lawyer in a trial, but he seems like, if you had him on your side, you'd feel good about him.
Dean: That's exactly true. I need to reread that again. That how to argue and win every time is one of my top wisdom books.
Dan: Yeah, Anyway what did we cover today? What are two or three things that we covered today?
Dean: So follow the money, follow the money.
Dan: Yeah, we found out about what the Hamas is about. All the money was in Kedr, you know the country of. Kedr. The three top people were worth 6 billion, 5 billion and 4 billion. So that's what Hamas is all about is about money, you know, and their racket.
Dean: That's amazing.
Dan: Anyway, yeah, but okay, follow the money. What's in the other thing?
Dean: Yeah, I think your strategy. It's always amazed me this last five years of your disconnecting from programming.
Dan: Yeah other people's programming.
Dean: Other people's programming.
Yeah.
Dean: I think that's a big thing. One thing we did not get to talk about that I want to maybe present next time is I watched another Russell Barclay video and they're talking about executive function and the. It's really an interesting distinction but the difference between you know what and how, knowing what and how is not effective. That the ADHD brain is not. It's not inhibited in the knowing what and how to do. It's the when and the where. That is where executive function comes in and I found that that's absolutely the truth in a real. It sounds so simple and obvious, but it's the absolute truth. That's the thing about you know. Imagine if you applied yourself. Applying yourself is only evidence in the when and the where, both where, when and where. Future and when and where is this going to happen and when and where did it happen? You know what actually happened.
That's the an often those don't align. I find for me that's the biggest. That's the biggest disconnect is knowing what I want to do, knowing what you know, how it needs to happen, even projecting when and where, but the alignment of you know missing the exit kind of be interesting with the intention.
Dan: That'd be an interesting question, yeah because, the appropriateness of things is really not the what or the how the appropriateness is really the when and where it makes appropriate or inappropriate, you know yeah. Yeah, great topic.
Dean: Yeah, how about for you? What was your take away from today?
Dan: Yeah, I think that the big thing that I'm zeroing in is the bet that human nature is fairly constant and that changing times simply means humans using different capabilities that they've already developed for new purposes, but the basic human nature remains fairly constant, and the more I mean it was, you know, was Jeff Bezos was asked what do you think's going to change most in the next 10 years, and he said the thing I'm most interested in what are the 10 things that aren't going to change? Yeah next 10 years, because you can actually bet on those.
Yeah bet on those better than what is going to change Awesome.
Dean: Well.
Dan: I think we, I think we, each of us, says on our part today I think so Absolutely.
Dean: I can't believe it. Let this quickly Alas, it did so, yeah, and.
Dan: I'm we're in the schedule for Albie in Chicago next week. But we're in the schedule, so I'll talk to you from Chicago.
Dean: I love it. That sounds great. All right, happy New Year, dan, to you and Babs. Have a wonderful night. Okay, we'll talk to you soon.
Bye.