In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we start by discussing the unpredictable nature of Toronto's weather and its amusing impact on the city's spring arrival. We explore the evolution of Formula One pit stops, highlighting the remarkable advancements in efficiency over the decades. This sets the stage for a conversation with our guest, Chris Collins, who shares his insights on balancing fame and wealth below the need for personal security. Next, we delve into the intricacies of the VCR formula—proposition, proof, protocol, and property. I share my experiences from recent workshops, emphasizing the importance of transforming ideas into intellectual property. We explore cultural differences between Canada and the U.S. in securing property rights, highlighting the entrepreneurial spirit needed to protect one's innovations. We then examine the role of AI in government efficiency, with Elon Musk's technologies revealing inefficiencies in civil services. The discussion covers the political and economic implications of misallocated funds and how the market's growing intolerance for waste pushes productivity and accountability to the forefront. Finally, we reflect on the transformative power of technological advancements, drawing parallels to historical innovations like the printing press. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We discussed the VCR formula—proposition, proof, protocol, and property—designed to enhance communication skills and protect innovations. This formula is aimed at helping entrepreneurs turn their unique abilities into valuable assets. We touch on the unpredictable weather of Toronto and the humor associated with the arrival of spring were topics of discussion, offering a light-hearted start to the episode. Dan and I share insights on the evolution of Formula One pit stops, showcasing human innovation and efficiency over time. We examined the challenges faced by entrepreneurs in protecting their intellectual property and explored cultural contrasts between Canada and the U.S. regarding intellectual property rights. The episode delved into the implications of AI in improving government efficiency, highlighting how technologies reveal civil service inefficiencies and drive accountability. We reflected on the transformative power of historical innovations such as the printing press and electricity, drawing parallels to modern technological advancements. The conversation concluded with reflections on personal growth, including insights from notable figures like Thomas Edison and Peter Drucker, and a preview of future discussions on aging and life experiences. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan. Dan: That feels better. Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia, yes. Dan: Yes indeed. Dean: Well, where in the world? Dan: are you? Dean: today, toronto. Oh, you're in Toronto. Okay, yeah, where are you? Yeah? Dan: where are you? Dean: I am in the courtyard at the Four Seasons Valhalla in my comfy white couch. In perfect, I would give it 73 degree weather right now. Dan: Yes, well, we're right at that crossover between middle winter and late winter. Dean: You never know what you're going to get. It could snow or it could be. You may need your bikini, your Speedo or something. Dan: I think spring in Toronto happens, I think somewhere around May 23rd, I think somewhere around. May 23rd, and it's the night when the city workers put all the leaves on the trees. Dean: You never know what you're going to get. Until then, right, it just might snow, and they're stealthy. Dan: They're stealthy and you know, I think they rehearse. You know, starting in February, march, april, they start rehearsing. You know how fast can we get all the leaves on the trees and they do it all in one night they do it and all. I mean they're faster than Santa Claus. I mean they're. Dean: Have you seen, Dan? There's a wonderful video on YouTube that is a comparison of a Formula One pit stop from the 1950s versus the 2013 Formula One in Melbourne, and it was so funny to show. Dan: It would be even faster today. Dean: It would be even faster today. Oh yeah, 57 seconds it took for the pit stop in the 50s and it was 2.7 seconds at Melbourne it was just amazing to see. Dan: Yeah, mark young talks about that because he's he's not formula one, but he's at the yeah, he's at the level below formula one right, every, uh, every minute counts, every second counts oh, yeah, yeah, and uh, yeah, he said they practice and practice and practice. You know it's, it's, if it can be measured. You know that there's always somebody who's going to do it faster. And yeah, yeah, it's really, really interesting what humans do. Dean: Really interesting what humans do. I read something interesting or saw a video and I've been looking into it. Basically, someone was saying you know, our brains are not equipped for omniscience, that we're not supposed to have omniscient knowledge of everything going on in the world all at once. where our brains are made to be in a local environment with 150 people around us, and that's what our brain is equipped for managing. But all this has been foisted on us, that we have this impending. No wonder our mental health is suffering in that we have this impending when you say our, who are you referring to? Society. I think you know that's what they're. Dan: Yeah, that's what they're saying like across the board. Dean: Who are they? Yes, that's a great question. Dan: You know I hear this, but I don't experience any of it. I don't feel foisted upon. I don't feel overwhelmed. Dean: You know what I? Dan: think it is. I think it is that people who feel foisted upon have a tendency to talk about it to a lot of other people. Dean: But people who don't feel foisted upon. Dan: Don't mention it to anybody. Dean: It's very interesting. Do you know Chris Collins? Do you know Chris Collins? Dan: He wrote the really great book collection called I Am Leader. Dean: It's really something. He's a new genius. He's a new Genius Network member. Dan: Oh, Chris, oh yeah, oh yeah, chris, yeah, does he have repair shops? His main business is auto Auto. Dean: Yeah, oh yeah, chris, yeah, he does. He have repair shops His main business is auto, auto, auto dealership. Dan: He does auto dealerships. Dean: Yeah, that's right. Dan: Yeah, chris was in. Chris was in the program way back with 10 times around the same time when you came 10 times. He was in for about two years oh okay, interesting. Yeah and yeah, he was at the last Genius you know, and he's got a big, monstrous book that costs about $300. Dean: Yes, I was just going to talk about that. Yeah. Dan: We got one, but I didn't have room in my bags, you know. Dean: I budget. Dan: You know how much. Dean: I'm going to take and how much I'm going to bring back, and that was just too, much so, yeah, so yeah, yeah. He's very bothered. Oh, is he? Okay, yeah, I don't know him, I just I saw him. Dan: I got that what he talked about was this massive conspiracy. You know that they are doing it to them or they're doing it to us interesting interesting I don't experience that. What I experience is mostly nobody knows who I am. Dean: That's the best place to be right. Dan: They only know of you. Somebody was saying a very famous person showed up at a clinic in Costa Rica and he had eight bodyguards, eight bodyguards and I said yes, why is that expensive? That must be really expensive, having all those bodyguards. I mean, probably the least thing that was costly for one is having is having himself transformed by medical miracles. But having the bodyguards was the real expense. So I had a thought and I talked to somebody about this yesterday. Actually, I said my goal is to be as wealthy and famous just to the point where I would need a bodyguard. But not need the bodyguard just below where I would need a bodyguard, but not need the bodyguard Just below, where I would need a bodyguard, and I think that would be an excellent level of fame and wealth. Not only do you not have a bodyguard, but you don't think you would ever need one. That's the big thing, yeah. Dean: I love that. Dan: That that's good yeah that's a good aspiration yeah, yeah, so far I've succeeded yes, so far you are on the uh. Dean: Yeah, on the cusp of 81 six weeks seven weeks to go yeah, getting close. That's so good. Yeah, yeah, this. How is the new book coming? Dan: Yeah, good, well, I've got several because I have a quarterly book. Dean: Yeah, I'm at the big casting, not hiring. Dan: Yeah, really good. Each of us is delivering now a chapter per week, so it's really coming along. Great, yeah, and so we'll. Our date is may 26th for the everything in um before their editing can start, so they will have our, our draft will be in on may 26th and then it's over to the publisher and you know there'll be back and forth. But Jeff and I are pretty, jeff Madoff and I are pretty complete writers, you know. So you know it doesn't need normal. You know kind of looking at spelling and grammar. Dean: Right, right, right. Is that how you? Are you writing as one voice or you're writing One voice? One voice, one voice. Dan: Yeah, but we're writing actually in the second person, singular voice, so we're writing to the reader. So we're talking about you this and you this, and you this and you this, and that's the best way to do it, because if you can maintain the same voice all the way through, that's really good. I mean, jeff, we have a different style, but since we're talking to the reader all the way through, it actually works really well so far, and then we'll have you know, there'll be some shuffling and rearranging at the end. Dean: That's what I wondered. Are you essentially writing your separate, are you writing alternate chapters or you're writing your thoughts about one chapter? Dan: We have four parts and the first three parts are the whole concept of businesses that have gone theatrical, that have gone theatrical and we use examples like Ralph Lauren, Four Seasons. Hotel Apple. You know who have done Starbucks, who have done a really great job, and Jeff is writing all that because he's done a lot of work on that. He's, you know, he's been a professor at one of the New York universities and he has whole classes on how small companies started them by using a theatrical approach. They differentiated themselves extraordinarily in the marketplace, and he goes through all these examples. Plus he talks about what it's like to be actually in theater, which he knows a great deal about because he's a playwright and a producer. The fourth part is on the four by four casting tool and that's got five sections to it and where I'm taking people, the reader, who is an entrepreneur, a successful, talented, ambitious entrepreneur who wants to transform their company into a theatrical-like enterprise with everybody playing unique roles. So, that's how I've done it, so he's got the bigger writing job than I do but, mine is more directive. This is what you can do with the knowledge in this book. So we're writing it separately, and we're going to let the editor at the publishing house sort out any what goes where. Dean: Put it all together. Dan: Yeah, and we're doing the design on it, so we're pretty steadily into design projects you know, producing a new book. So we've got my entire team my team's doing all the backstage arrangements. Jeff is interviewing a lot of really great people in the theater world and you know anything having to do with casting. So he's got about. You know probably to do with casting. So he's got about probably about 12 major, 12 major interviews that he'll pull quotes from and my team is doing all the setup and the recording for him so so. Jeff. Jeff showed up as Jeff and I showed up as a team. That's great. Oh, that's great, that's awesome yeah, yeah, in comes, but not without six others, right, right with your. Dean: You know, I had a friend who used to refer to that as your utility belt. Right that you show up and you've got strapped on behind you. Dan: You've got your design, got it writing got it video, got it your whole. Yeah, strapped on behind you, you've got your design Got it Right. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan: And capability crew. Yeah, and to a certain extent I'm role modeling the, the point of the book, you know, and the way we're going about this and and you know, and more and more so, I find probably every quarter my actual doing um of production and that gets less and less and I'm actually finding um, I'm actually finding my work with perplexity very useful because it's getting me better at prompting my team members yes yeah, with perplexity, if you don't give it the right prompt, you don't get the right outcome. You know, yeah, and more and more I'm noticing I'm getting better at giving really, really, really great prompts to my artists, to the writers who are working with me, the interviewers, everything so, um, yeah, so it's been very, very helpful. I I find uh, just in a year of perplexity, I've gotten much more uh precise about exactly what I want. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah, defining right. I mean that's pretty. Yeah, yeah, that's really great. And knowing that, a lot of it, so much of that prompting, that's the language that's been adopted for interfacing with AI, chat, gpt and perplexity. Dan: The prompts that you give are the things. Dean: But there's so much of that. That's true about team as well, right? Oh yeah, being a better AI prompter is a better team prompter. Yeah yeah, being a better AI prompter is a better team prompter. Dan: Yeah, yeah, and you know I have a book coming out Now that I'm talking to you about it it may be the next book that would start in June and it's called Technology Coaching Teamwork and it has like three upward arrows that are, uh, you know, in unison with each other. There are three and I said that I think in the 21st century all businesses really have three tracks to them. They have a technology track, they have a teamwork track and they have a coaching track in the middle and that um in the 20th century, we considered management to be the basis. You know, management is the basis for business but. I think management has actually been um superseded, um by um superseded by electronics, you know actually it's the electronics are now the management, the algorithms are now the management and then you have the people who are constantly, you know, creating new technology, and you have human teamwork that's creating new things, because it's ultimately humans that are knocking off everything you know right. And then in the middle is coaching, and coaching goes back and forth between the teamwork and the technology. Technology will always do a really shitty job of coaching yes, I bet that's true, and teams will always do a sort of shitty job of uh knowing how to use technology and there has to be an interface in the middle, that's a human interface and it's a coaching, because coaching takes in a lot of factors, not just action factors or planning factors, but it takes in aspirational factors. It takes in learning factors. It takes in, you know, all sorts of transformational factors and that's a, that's a mid role. Yeah. Dean: Yes, yeah. Dan: And if you look at what you do best, it's probably coaching. Dean: Yeah, I wonder. I mean that's kind of. Dan: Joe Polish. It was Joe Polish, where he probably does best. He's probably a great coach. Dean: Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah, I think that's true. I've really been getting a lot of insight around going through and defining the VCR formula. You know proposition, proof, protocol and property. That's a. I see the clarity that. You know. There's a different level of communication and intention between. Where my I really shine is between is propositions and proof, like getting something knowing, guessing. You know we were. I was going to talk today too about guessing and betting. I've been really thinking about that. That was a great exercise that we did in our workshop. But this idea that's really what this is is guessing. I seem to have this superpower for propositions, like knowing what would be the thing to do and then proving that. That's true. But then taking that proof and creating a protocol that can be packaged and become property is a. That's a different skill set altogether and it's not as much. It's not as much. My unique ability, my superpower zone, is taking, you know, making propositions and proving them. I'm a really good guesser. Dan: That's my strength yeah. Yeah, I think the what I'm doing because it's, um, I'm really thinking a lot about it based on the last, um, uh, free zone workshop, which I did on monday and, uh, you know, monday of the week before last in toronto, where you were yeah, and and then I did it on Thursday again and I reversed the whole day oh really I reversed the whole day. I started off with guessing and betting and then indecision versus bad decision. And then the afternoon I did the second company secret and it worked a lot better. The flow was a lot better. Company secret and it worked a lot better. The flow was a lot better. But the big thing is that people say well, how do I? Um, I I just don't know how I you know that. Um, I'm telling them and they're asking me. So I'm telling them every time you take your unique ability and help someone transform their DOS issues, you're actually creating perspective. Intellectual property. And they said, well, I don't see quite how that works. I don't see how that works, so I've been, you know, and I'm taking them seriously. They don't see how that works. So I said, well, the impact filter is actually the solution. Okay, because you do the DOS question with them. You know, if we were having this discussion a year from now and you were looking back over the year, what has to have happened for you to feel happy with your progress? Okay, and specifically, what dangers do you have that need to be eliminated, what opportunities do you have that need to be captured, and what strengths do you have that need to be maximized? And there's a lot of very interesting answers that are going to come out of that, and the answers actually their answers to your question actually are the raw material for creating intellectual property the reason being is that what they're saying is unique and how you're listening to it is unique because of your unique ability so the best thing is do it, do an impact filter on what your solution is. So the best solution is best result solution is this. Worst result solution is this. And then here are the five success criteria, the eight success criteria that we have to go through to achieve the best result and that is the basis for intellectual property. Dean: What you write in that thing. Dan: So that's where I'm going next, because I think if we can get a lot of people over that hump, you're going to see a lot more confidence about what they're creating as solutions and understanding that these solutions are property. Dean: Yes. Dan: That's what I'm saying, that's what I'm thinking. Dean: Yeah, that's your guessing and betting yeah yes I agree and I think that that uh you know, I mean, I've had that to me going through this exercise of thinking, through that vision, column you know that the ultimate outcome is property, and once you have that property, it becomes it's a capability. Dan: It's a capability. Now right, that's something that you have. If it's not property, it's an opportunity for somebody to steal something ah right exactly. Yeah, I just think there's an inhibition on the part of entrepreneurs that if they have a really neat solution but it's not named and packaged and protected, um, it isn't going to really do them any good because they're going to be afraid. Look, if I say this, I'm in a conference somewhere and I say this, somebody's going to steal it. Then they're going to use it, then I I can't stop them from doing that. So the way I'm going to stop people from stealing my creativity is not to tell people what I'm creating. Right, it's just, it's just going to be me in my basement. Dean: Yeah, I bet no. Dan: I bet the vast majority of creative entrepreneurs they're the only ones who know they're creative because they're afraid of sharing their creativity, because it's not distinct enough that they can name it and package it and project it, getting the government to give you a hand in doing that Right yeah. Yeah, and I don't know maybe it's just not a goal of theirs to have intellectual property. Maybe it's you know it's a goal of mine to have everything be intellectual property, but maybe it's just not the goal of a lot of other people. Dean: What do? Dan: you think. Dean: I think that once you start to understand what the practical you know value, the asset value of having intellectual property, I think that makes a big difference. I think that's where you're, I mean you're. It's interesting that you are certainly leading the way, you know. I found it fascinating when you mentioned that if you were, you know, were measured as a Canadian company, that it would be the ninth or something like that. Dan: Yeah, during a 12-month period 23 to 24,. Based on the research that the Globe and Mail Toronto paper did, that the biggest was one of the big banks. They had the most intellectual property and if our US patents counted in Canada because I think they were just, they were just counting Canadian government patents that we would have been number nine and we're. you know, we're a tiny little speck on the windshield, I mean we're not a big company, but what I notice when I look at Canada very little originality is coming out of Canada and, for example, the biggest Canadian company with patents during that 12-month period was TD Bank. Yeah, and they had 240. 240, I mean that might be how many Google send in in a week. You know that might be the number of patents. That wouldn't be necessarily a big week at Google or Amazon or any of the other big American, because Americans are really into Americans are really, really into property. That's why they want Greenland. Dean: And Panama. Dan: And Alberta. Dean: Panama, alberta and Greenland. Dan: And the Gulf of America, yeah, the Gulf of America and property. Dean: Even if it's not actual. They want titular property. Dan: Yes. Dean: Yeah, yeah. Dan: And I haven't seen any complaints from Mexico. I mean, I haven't seen any complaints. Maybe there have been complaints, but we just haven't seen them. No, no, from now on it's the Gulf of America, which I think is rather important, and when Google just switches, I mean, google hasn't been a very big Trump fan and yet they took it seriously. Yeah, now all the tech's official. It's interesting talking to people and they say what's happening? What's happening? We don't know what's happening. I say, well, it's like the end of a Monopoly game. One of the things you have to do when you end one Monopoly game is all the pieces have to go back in the box, like Scrabble. You play Scrabble, all the pieces go back in the box at the end of a game. And I said, this is the first time since the end of the Second World War that a game is ending and all the pieces are going back into the box, except when you get to the next step. It's a bigger box, it's a different game board, there's more pieces and different rules. So this is what's happening right now. It's a new game the old game is over, new game is starting and, um, if you just watch what donald trump's doing, you're getting an idea what the new game is. Yeah, I think you're right, and one of the new game is intellectual property. Intellectual property I think this is one of the new parts of the new game. And the other thing is it's all going to be one-to-one deals. I don't think there's going to be any more multi-party deals. You know, like the North American Free Trade Act, supposedly is the United States, canada and Mexico In Europe. If you look at it, it's Canada and Mexico, it's Mexico and the United States and it's the United States and Canada. These are separate deals. They're all separate deals. That's what I think is happening. States, Canada and these are separate deals. They're all separate deals. Oh, interesting, yeah, and that's what I think is happening. It's just one-to-one. No more multilateral stuff it's all one-to-one. For example, the US ambassador is in London this week and they're working out a deal between the UK and the United States, so no tariffs apply to British, british products oh interesting yeah and you'll see it like the European Union. I was saying the European Union wants to have a deal and I said European Union, where is the European Union? You know where is? That anyway, yeah yeah, I mean, if you look at the United Nations, there's no European Union. If you look at NATO, there's no European Union. If you look at the G20 of countries, there's no European Union. There's France, there's Germany. You know, there's countries we recognize. And I think the US is just saying if you don't have a national border and you don't have a capital, and you don't have a government, we don't think it exists. We just don't think it exists. And Trump often talks about that 28 acres on the east side of Manhattan. He says boy, boy. What we could do with that right, oh, what we could do with that. You know they should. Just, you know who can do that. Who can do? United Nations, switzerland, send it to Switzerland. You know that'd be a nice place for the send it to there, you know like that and it just shows you that that was all. All those institutions were really a result of the Second World War and the Cold War, which was just a continuation of the Second World War. So I think that's one of the really big things that's happening in the world right now. And the other thing I want to talk to you about is Doge. I think Doge is one of the most phenomenally big breakthroughs in world history. What's happening with Elon Musk and his team. Dean: Yeah, I know you've been really following that with great interest. Tell me what's the latest. Dan: It's the first time in human history that you can audit government, bureauc, audit government, bureaucratic government, the part of government. You don't see Millions and millions of people who are doing things but you don't know what they're doing. There's no way of checking what they're doing. There's no way for them. And it was proven because Musk, about four weeks ago, sent out a letter to every federal employee, said last week, tell me five things that you did. And the results were not good. Dean: Well, I think the same thing is happening when people are questioned about their at-home working accomplishments too. Yeah, but that's the Well, lamar Lark, you know. Dan: Lamar. I don't think you've ever met Lamar. He's in the number one Chicago Free Zone workshops, so we have two and a quarter and he's in the first one. And he has all sorts of interesting things. He's got Chick-fil-A franchises and other things like that, okay, and he created his own church, which is a very I have met Lamar yeah, which is a very American activity. Dean: It creates your own church, you know yes yes, yeah. Dan: That's why Americans are so religious is because America is the first country that turned religion into an entrepreneurial activity. Got yourself a hall. You could do it right there in the courtyard of the Valhalla. How many chairs could you? If you really pushed it, how many chairs could you get into the courtyard? Let's see One, two three, four, five, not like the chair you're sitting on. No, I'm kidding. Dean: I'm just envisioning it. I could probably get 50 chairs in here. Dan: You got yourself, you know and set it up right, Get a good tax description yeah, you got yourself a religion there. That's great. And you're kind of tending in that direction with the word Valhalla, that's exactly right. Dean: Yes, would you. Dan: I'd pay to spend an hour or two on Sunday with you. Dean: But here's the big question, Dan Would you be committed enough to tithe? Dan: Oh yes, oh yes. Dean: Then we'd really be on to something you know. We could just count on you for your tithe to the church. That would be. Dan: That would really get us on our feet, but anyway, I was telling this story about Lamar. So he and his wife have a friend, a woman, who works for the federal government in Chicago, and so they were just talking over dinner to the person and they said, well, what's your day work, what's your day you know when do you go into the? office. When do you go into the office? When do you go into the office? And she says, oh, I haven't been to the office since before COVID. No, I know we are the office. And so they said, well, how does your home day work? And she says, well, at 830, you got to. You got to check in at 830. You check in at 830, you go online and then you put your j in at 8.30. Dean: You check in at 8.30, you go online and then you put your jiggler on Jiggler, exactly I've heard about this and they said what's the jiggler? Dan: Well, the jiggler moves. Your mouse keeps checking into different. It keeps switching to different files, positions, yeah, yeah, files. And that's the only thing that they can record from the actual office is that you're busy moving from one file to the other. And he says, well, what are you doing while that's happening? She said, well, I do a lot of shopping, you know I go out shopping and we have you know, and they come back and it goes from. You know it'll stop because there's coffee time, so we'll stop for 10 minutes for coffee and then it'll stop for lunch and stop for afternoon coffee. And then I checked out and I always check in five minutes early and I always check five minutes late, that's amazing, isn't it? that's what that's what elon Elon Musk is discovering, because Elon Musk's AI can actually discover what they did, and then it's hard for the person to answer what were the five things you did last week? You know, and the truth is that I think I'm not saying that all civil servants are worthless. I'm not saying that at all. You have it right now. It's recorded here. Your mechanism is recording that. I'm not saying that all civil servants are worthless but I do think it's harder and harder for civil servants to prove their value, because you may have gone to five important meetings, but I bet those meetings didn't produce any result. It's hard for any civil servant and you can say what you did last week. I can say what I did last week, but you were basically just meeting with yourself. Yeah, that's I saw somebody and you produce something and you made a decision and something got created and that's easy to prove. But I don't think it's easy in the civil service to prove the value of what you did the greatest raw resource in America for taking money that's being spent one way taking that money away and spending on something else. I think this is the greatest source of financial transformation going forward, because about 15 states all of them Republican states have gotten in touch with Elon Musk and say whatever you're doing in Washington, we want to do here, and I just he believes, according to his comments, that every year there's $3 trillion that's being badly spent $3 trillion you know, I got my little finger up to my mouth. $3 trillion, you know, this is that's a lot of you know, I'm at the point where I think a million is still a big deal. You know, trillion is uh, yeah, uh. Dean: I saw that somebody had invented a uh algorithm reader. They detected an algorithm in the like a fingerprint in the jiggler software. Oh that, yeah, so that you can overlay this thing and it would be able to identify that that's a jiggler that's a jiggler. Dan: That's a jiggler yeah, you got to because behind the jiggler is the prompter. Dean: The jiggler busters. Dan: Yes, exactly, he was on. He was interviewed, he and six members of his Doge team, you know, and how they're talking about them being 19 and 20 year olds, about them being 19 and 20 year olds. These were part. These were powerful people who had stepped away from their companies and their jobs just for the chance to work with the Elon. One guy had five companies. He's from Houston, he had five companies and he's taken leave from his company for a year. Just to work on the doge project. Yeah, and so that guy was talking and he said you know what we discovered? The small business administration, he said, last year gave 300 million dollars in loans to children under 11 years old wow to their to that a person who had their social security number, their social insurance number. Right, and during that same year, we gave $300 million in loans to people who were over 120 years old. Dean: Wow. Dan: That's $600 million. That's $600 million, that's almost a billion. Anyway, that's happening over and over. They're just discovering these and those checks are arriving somewhere and somebody's cashing those checks, but it's not appropriate. So I think this is the biggest deal. I think this changes everything, and I've noticed that the Democratic Party is in a tailspin, and has been especially since they started the Doge project, because the people doing the jiggling and the people who where the checks are going to the run I bet 90% of them are Democrats the money's going to democratic organizations, since going to democratic individuals and they're going to be cash strapped. You know that they've been. This isn't last year, this goes back 80 years. This has been going on since the New Deal, when the Democrats really took over Washington. And I bet this I bet they can track all the checks that went back 80 years. Dean: I mean, this is that's really something, isn't it? I was just thinking about yeah, this kind of transparency is really like. I think, when you really get down to it, we're getting to a point where there's the market does not support inefficiency anymore. It's not baked in. If you have workers for instance, most of the time you have salaried workers your real expectation is that they're going to be productive. I don't know what the actual stats are, do you know? But let's say that they're going to be actually productive for 50% of the time. But you look at now just the ability to, especially on task-related things or AI type of things um, collins, chris no, chris johnson's um, um, oh yeah um uh, you know the the ai dialers there, of being able, there's zero. Dan: They were doing, um, you know they were doing. Maybe you know the dialers were doing. You know, because some of the sometimes the other, the person at the other end they answered and they'd have a you know five minute call or something like that. So in a day in a day, like they have an eight hour thing they might do you know. 50, 50 call outs 50 or 60 calls yeah, his. Ai does 25,000 calls a minute. Dean: Exactly that's. What I mean is that those things are just that everything is compressed. Now there's no, because it's taken out all the air, all the fluff around it. What humans come with. You're right what you said earlier about all the pieces going back in the box and we're totally reset. Yeah, I think we're definitely that you know yeah and the thing thing about this. Dan: What I found interesting is that the request coming in from the states that they moved the doge you know the process department of government efficiency that I. I think he's putting together a vast system that can be applied to any government you know, it could be, and, uh, and, but the all the requests came in from republican states, not from Democratic states, waste and abuse and waste and fraud. probably for the over last 80 years, has been the party in the United States which was most invested in the bureaucracy of the government you know. And yeah, I mean, do you know anybody who works for the government? I mean actually, I mean you may have met the person, but I mean, do you know anybody who works for the government? I mean actually, I mean you may have met the person but I mean, I don't know. Do you do, do you know anybody who works for the government? I don't believe, I do, really, and I do, and I don't either right, I don't I don't, I don't, neither you know I mean, I mean everybody I know is an entrepreneur everybody I know is entrepreneurial. And yeah, the people who aren't entrepreneurial are the families. You know they would be family connections of the entrepreneurs. I just don't know anybody who works for the government. You know, I've been 50 years and I can't say I know anybody who works for the government but, there's lots of them. Yeah, yeah so they don't they. They're not involved in entrepreneurial circles, that's for sure. Dean: It's Ontario Hydro or Ontario Power Generation. Is that the government? No, that's the government, then I do. I know one person. I know one person that works for the government. Dan: All right, Send him an email and say what are five things you did last week? Yeah, what? Dean: did you do last week? Dan: Oh my goodness, that's so funny, impress me. Dean: Yes. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I think it's a stage in technological development, I think it's a state, just where it has to do with the ability to measure, and this has been a vast dark space government that you can't really, yeah, and in fairness to them, they couldn't measure themselves. In other words, that they didn't have the ability, even if they were honest and forthright and they were committed and they were productive, they themselves did not have the ability to measure their own activities until now. And I think, and I think now they will, and I think now they will, and, but but anyway, I just think this is a major, major event. This is this is equal to the printing press. You know this is equal to to electricity. You can measure what government does electricity. You can measure what government does In the history of human beings. This is a major breakthrough. That's amazing. Dean: So great Look around. You don't want a time to be alive. Dan: Yeah, I mean depending on where you work I guess that's absolutely true. Dean: I've been listening to, uh I was just listening, uh just started actually a podcast about uh, thomas edison, uh this is a really great podcast, one of my great, one of my great heroes. Yes, exactly, the podcast is called Founders. Dan: Founders yeah. Dean: Founders. Yeah, david Sunra, I think, is the guy's name and all he does is he reads biographies and then he gives his insights on the biographies. It's just a single voice podcast. It's not like guests or anything, it's just him breaking down his lessons and notes from reading certain reading these biographies and it's really well done. But he had what turned me on he did. I first heard a podcast he did about Albert Lasker, who was the guy, the great advertising guy, the man who sold America and yeah, so I've been listening through and very interesting. But the Thomas Edison thing I'm at the point where he was talking about his first things. He sold some telegraph patent that he had an idea that he had created for $40,000, which was like you know a huge amount of money back then and that allowed him to set up Menlo Park. And then at the time Menlo Park was kind of out in the middle of nowhere and you know they asked why would you set up out there? And no distractions. And he created a whole you know a whole environment of where people were undistracted and able to invent and what you know. If they get bored, what are they going to do? They're going to invent something, just creating this whole environment. Dan: Well, he wasn't distractible because he was largely deaf. He had childhood injury, yeah, so he wasn't distracted by other people talking because he couldn't really make out. So you know, he had to focus where he could focus. And yeah, there is actually in my hometown, which his hometown is called Milan, ohio. I grew up two miles. I grew up I wasn't born there, but when I was two years old, we moved to a farm there. It was two miles from Edison. His home is there. It's a museum. Dean: Milan. Dan: Ohio and that was 1830s, somewhere 1838, something like that. I'm not quite sure. But there's a business in Norwalk, Ohio, where we moved from the farm when I was 11 years old Ohio, where we moved from the farm when I was 11 years old, and there's a business in there that started off as a dynamo company. Dynamo was sort of like an electric generator. Dean: Yeah, and we had dynamo in Georgetown. Dan: on the river, yeah, and that business continues since the mid-1800s, that business continues, and everything like that. My sense is that Edison put everything together that constitutes the modern scientific technological laboratory. In other words that Menlo Park is the first time you've really put everything together. That includes, you know, the science, the technology, the experimentation the creation of patents, the packaging of the new ideas, getting investment from Wall Street and everything. He created the entire gateway for the modern technological corporation, I think. Dean: I think that's amazing, very nice. I like to look at the. I like to trace the timelines of something right, like when you realize it's very interesting when you think and you hear about the lore and you look at the accomplishments of someone like Thomas Edison or Leonardo da Vinci or anybody, you look at the total of what you know about what they were able to accomplish, but when you granularly get down to the timeline of it, you don't, like you realize how. I think I remember reading about da vinci. I think he spent like seven years doing just this one uh, one period of projects. That was uh, um. So he puts it in perspective right of a of the, the whole of a career, that it really breaks down to the, the individual, uh chapters, that that make it up, you know, yeah, and it's funny, I've written about somebody, Jim Collins the good to great author. I heard him. His kind of hero was Peter Drucker and he remembers going to Peter Drucker and he had a bookshelf with all of his books. I think he had like 90 books or something that he had written, Peter Drucker, and he had them. Jim Collins set them up on his bookshelf and he would move a piece of tape that shows his current age against the age that Peter Drucker was when he had written those things and he realized that at you know, 50 years old, something like you know, 75% of Peter Drucker's work was after that age and even into his 80s or whatever. Dan: Yeah, most of my work is after 70. I was just going to say yeah, exactly, I look at that. You look at all of the things and then at 70, yeah, yeah, the actual stuff I've created is really yeah, that's when I really started to produce a lot after 70. Dean: Mm-hmm. Dan: Yeah, a lot of R&D. I did a lot of R&D. Dean: Right. Dan: Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, my goal is that 80 to 90 will be much more productive than 70 to 80. Yeah, I was talking to someone today interesting, very interesting physical fitness guy here in Toronto and he's a really great chiropractor so he's working. So I have I'm making great progress with the structural repair of my left knee. But there's all sorts of functional stuff that has to come along with it and he's my main man for doing this. But he was talking, he's 50, and he said you know, my goal is that 60 to 70 is going to be my most active part of my life, you know, from mountain climbing to all these different really high endurance athletics and sports, and so we got talking and I just shared with him the idea that the real goal you should have or which covers a lot of other areas is that, if you're like my goal for 90, I'm just going on 81, my goal for 90 is that I'm more ambitious at 90 than I am at the present. Dean: And. Dan: I said that's what that almost seems impossible, impossible well, well it is if you're just looking at yourself as a single individual yeah but if you're looking at yourself as someone who has an expand team, it's actually very possible. Dean: Yeah, yeah yeah, you're mine are those potato chips no, it's a piece of cellophane wrapped around something. That was the word right Retired. And they've been retired for about five years or so and I hadn't seen them in a couple of years. But it's really interesting to, at 72, the uh, you know the, just the level you can tell just physically and everything mentally, everything about them. They're on the, the decline phase of the thing they're not ramping up. You know, like just physically they are, um, you know they're, they're big, um cruisers. You know they've been going on cruises now every every six weeks or so, but, um, but yeah, no, no, uh, no more golf, no more. Like you see, they're intentionally kind of winding things down, resigning to the yeah. Dan: Yeah, it's very interesting. I don't know if you caught it in the news. It was, I think, right at the end of January. But you know the name Daniel Kahneman. Dean: I know the name. Yeah, thinking fast and slow. Dan: Fast thinking slow yeah, he committed suicide in Switzerland. Dean: I did not know that. When was that he? Dan: was 90 years old, I think it was January 28th. Dean: And it was all planned out. Dan: It was all planned out and he went to Switzerland to do it, because they have the legal framework where you can do that and everything else. And I found it so interesting that I did a whole bunch of perplexity searches and I said, because he was very influential, I never read his book, because I read the first five or 10 pages and it just didn't seem that interesting to me and it seemed like he had. You know that he's famous for that book and he's famous for it, and it seemed to be that he's kind of like a one trick pony. You know, he's got a great book that really changed things. And then I started looking. I said, well, what else did he do besides that one book? And it's not too much. And he did that, you know, 40 years ago. It was sort of something he did 40 years ago. Dean: Wow. Dan: And I just said gee, I wonder if he, you know, he just hasn't been real productive. Wonder if he, you know, he just hasn't been real productive, not not starting in january, but he hadn't been real productive over the last 20 or 30 years and he did that. Dean: Uh, and anyway, you know, I don't know. I don't know that I've been living under a rock or whatever. I didn't even realize that this was a real thing. I have a good friend in Canada whose grandfather is tomorrow scheduled for assisted. It's a big thing in Canada. Dan: Canada is the most leading country in incidents of people being assisted in committing suicide. Dean: Yeah, and. Dan: I have my suspicions. It's a way for the government to cut checks to old people. You know like assist them to leave. You know I mean it's just. What a confusing set of emotions that must bring up for someone you love. Confusing and disturbing about his committing suicide and it's really a big topic, you know, because he was saying you can always get on top of whatever you're experiencing and get useful lessons from it, right? Dean: and I said. Dan: I said, well, you must have reached an empty week or something. You know I I don't know what, what happened I, you know I mean right and uh, cause I I'm finding um the experience of being 80, the experience of being 70 and 80, very, very fruitful for coming up with new thoughts and coming up with new ideas right, you know and what, what is still important when you're uh, you know, still important when you're. you know what is even more important and what is even more clear when you're 80. That wasn't clear when you were 50 or 60. I think that's a useful thought. You know that's a useful thought, yeah, but it's really interesting. I never find suicide is understandable. Dean: I know, yeah, I get it. I see that you think about that too. I've had that. I've had some other people, my cousin, years and years ago was the first person kind of close to me that had committed suicide, and you know. But you always think it's just like you, I can't imagine that like I. I can imagine, uh, just completely like disappearing or whatever you know starting off somewhere else, like complete, you know, reset, but not something that that final, you know. Dan: You know, I can understand just extreme, intolerable pain you know, I mean. I can, I can, I can totally get that. Dean: Yeah, yeah. Dan: Yeah, I mean, it's just you. You just can't go through another day of it. I I just totally understand that but, where it's more of a psychological emotional you get a, got yourself in a corner and that, uh then, um, you know, I don't really, um, I don't really comprehend what's going on there. You know, I I obviously something's going on, but I you know, I, I obviously something's going on, but I, just from, I've never had a suicidal thought. I mean, you know, I've had some low points, I've had some, but even on my low points I had something that was fun that day you know Right Right, right Right. Or I had an interesting thought. Yeah, right. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. Dan: Well, I'm glad we hit on that topic because I said, you may think I know that the person doing it has a completely logical reason for doing it. It's just not a logic that can be explained easily to other people yeah, when you're not in that spot. I get it, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah anyway this was a good one. This was a good one. Yeah, now okay, wait actually yeah, I'll be calling from chicago next week. Dean: Okay, perfect I'll be here, yeah, um, yeah, I want to. I'd love to, um, if we remember, and if we don't, that's fine too, but if we remember, you brought up something the I would love to see and maybe talk about the difference between uh, you know, between 60, 70, 80, your thoughts of those things. Yeah, you're getting to that point I'm 22 years behind you, so I'm just turning 59 right before you turn 81. Dan: So that'd be something I'll put some thought to it. I love it. Dean: Okay. Dan: Perfect, thanks, dan. All right, okay, thanks, bye.

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we reflect on how places, people, and experiences shape our perspectives. The conversation begins with casual observations, from warm weather making transitions easier to memorable encounters like “Spam Man,” a mysterious figure spotted at the Hazleton Hotel. We also explore the impact of changing landscapes, both physical and cultural. From real estate in Toronto to how cities evolve, we discuss how development can shape or diminish the character of a place. This leads to a broader conversation about timeless architecture, like Toronto’s Harris Filtration Plant, and how thoughtful design contributes to a city’s identity. Technology’s role in daily life also comes up, especially how smartphones dominate attention. A simple observation of people walking through Yorkville reveals how deeply connected we are to our screens, often at the expense of real-world engagement. We contrast this with the idea that some things, like human connection and cooperation, remain unchanged even as technology advances. The discussion closes with thoughts on long-term impact—what lasts and fades over time. Whether it’s historic buildings, enduring habits, or fundamental human behaviors, the conversation emphasizes that while trends come and go, specific principles and ways of thinking remain relevant across generations. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS In Phoenix, during a rooftop party, we witnessed a surprise appearance of a SpaceX rocket, which sparked our discussion on extraordinary events blending with everyday life. We explored the curious case of "Spam man," a local legend in Hazleton, whose mysterious persona intrigued us as much as any UFO sighting. We shared our fascination with the dynamic real estate landscape in Hazleton, discussing new constructions and their impact on scenic views. Our conversation touched on unique weather patterns at the beaches near the lake, emphasizing the influence of water temperatures on seasonal climate variations. We delved into the topic of warmer winters, reflecting on how both humans and nature adapt to milder temperatures, particularly during February 2024. Our discussion included insights from Morgan Housel's book, which inspired our reflections on nature's resilience and adaptation over millions of years. We highlighted local activities like windsurfing and kite skiing, noting the favorable wind conditions at the beaches, a rarity in Canada's cold-weather climate. 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. I hope you behaved when you were out of my sight. Dean: I did. I'll have to tell you something. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the arrangement of this warm weather. For me, it's made the transition much more palatable warm weather. Dan: for me it's made the transition much more palatable. Dean: I mean our backstage team is really getting good at this sort of thing, and you know when we were in. Dan: we were in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago and we had a rooftop party and right in the middle of the party we arranged for Elon Musk to send one of his rockets out. Dean: I saw that a satellite launch yeah. Dan: Yeah, can you imagine that guy and how busy he is? But just you know, just to handle our request he just ended up with, yeah, must be some money involved with that. Dean: Well, that's what happens, Dan. We have a positive attitude on the new budget. Dan: Yeah, and you think in terms of unique ability, collaboration, you know, breakthroughs free zone you know, all that stuff, it's all. Dean: it's the future. Dan: Yeah. So good Well he sent the rocket up and they're rescuing the astronauts today. Dean: Oh, is that right? How long has it been now since they've been? Dan: It's been a long time seven, eight months, I think, Uh-huh, yeah and Boeing couldn't get them down. Boeing sent them up, but they couldn't get them down. You know, which is only half the job, really. Dean: That was in the Seinfeld episode about taking the reservation and holding the reservation. Yeah. They can take the reservation. They just can't hold the reservation yeah. Dan: It's like back really the integral part. Back during the moonshot, they thought that the Russians were going to be first to the moon. Kennedy made his famous speech. You know we're going to put a man on and they thought the Russians, right off the bat, would beat him, because Kennedy said we'll bring him back safely and the Russians didn't include that in their prediction. That's funny. Dean: We had that. We're all abuzz with excitement over here at the Hazleton. There's a funny thing that happened. It started last summer that Chad Jenkins Krista Smith-Klein is that her name yeah, yeah. So we were sitting in the lobby one night at the Hazleton here and this guy came down from the residences into the lobby. It was talking to the concierge but he had this Einstein-like hair and blue spam t-shirts that's, you know, like the can spam thing on it and pink, pink shorts and he was, you know, talking to the concierge. And then he went. Then he went back upstairs and this left such an impression on us that we have been, you know, lovingly referring to him as Spam man since the summer, and we've been every time here on alert, on watch, because we have to meet and get to know Spam man, because there's got to be a story behind a guy like that in a place like this. And so this morning I had coffee with Chad and then Chad was going to get a massage and as he walked into the spa he saw Spamman and he met him and he took a picture, a selfie, with him and texted it. But I haven't that. His massage was at 10 o'clock, so all I have is the picture and the fact that he met Spamman, but I haven't that. His massage was at 10 o'clock, so all I have is the picture and the fact that he met Spam man, but I don't have the story yet. But it's just fascinating to me that this. I want to hear the story and know this guy now. I often wonder how funny that would appear to him. That made such an impression on us last summer that every time we've been at the Hazleton we've been sitting in the lobby on Spam man. Watch, so funny. I'll tell you the story tomorrow. I'll get to the bottom of it. Dan: It's almost like UFO watchers. They think they saw it once and they keep going back to the same place you know hoping that'll happen again, yeah. Dean: Is there a? Dan: spot. Is there a spot at the Hazleton? Dean: There is yeah. Dan: Oh, I didn't know that. Dean: So there's some eclectic people that live here, like seeing just the regulars or whatever that I see coming in and out of the of the residence because it shares. Dan: There's a lot, you know, yeah that's a that's pretty expensive real estate. Actually, the hazelton, yeah for sure, especially if you get the rooftop one, although they've destroyed I I think you were telling me they've destroyed the value of the rooftop because now they're building 40-story buildings to block off the view. Dean: I mean that's crazy. Right Right next door. Yeah, yeah, but there you go. How are things in the beaches as well? Dan: Yeah. You know it's interesting because we're so close to the lake it's cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, you know. Dean: Oh, okay. Dan: You know, because controlled by water temperatures. Dean: Water temperatures. Dan: Yes, exactly, I mean even you know, even if it's cold, you know the water temperature is maybe 65, 66. Dean: Fahrenheit, you know it's not frigid. Dan: It's not frigid. Dean: They have wintertime plungers down here people who go in you know during the winter yeah, but this is that you and babs aren't members of the polar bear club that would not be us um but anyway, uh, they do a lot of uh windsurfing. Dan: There's at the far end of our beach going uh towards the city. They have really great wind conditions there. You see the kite skiers. They have kites and they go in the air. It's quite a known spot here. I mean, canada doesn't have too much of this because we're such a cold-weather country. There isn't the water, it's pretty cold even during the summertime yeah exactly yeah, but the lake doesn't freeze, that's oh, it does, it does yeah, yeah we've had, we've had winters, where it goes out, you know, goes out a quarter mile it'll be. Dean: I didn't realize that Wow. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but not this winter. It never froze over this winter, but we have, you know, within the last two or three winters, we've had ice on the. We've had ice, you know, for part of the winter. Dean: It's funny to me, dan, to see this. Like you know, it's going gonna be 59 degrees today, so, yeah, it's funny to me to see people you know out wearing shorts and like, but it must be like a, you know, a heat wave. Compared to what? You had in the first half of march here, right, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, so that's good. Dan: Yeah, last February not this past month, but February of 2024, we had 10 days in February where it was over 70. Dean: And. Dan: I often wonder if the trees get pulled, the plants get pulled. Dean: It triggers them to like hey, oh my. Dan: God. But apparently temperature is just one of the factors that govern their behavior. The other one is the angle of the light. Dean: And that doesn't change the angle of the sunlight. Dan: Yeah, so they. You know I mean things work themselves out over millions of years. So you know there's, you know they probably have all sorts of indicators and you have 10 boxes to check and if only one of them is checked, that doesn't, it doesn't fool them. You know they have a lot of things that I sent you and I don't know if we ever discussed it or you picked it up after I recommended it was Morgan Housel, famous ever. Dean: Did you like that? Did you like that? Dan: book. I did, I loved. It was Morgan Housel famous ever. Did you like that? Did you like that book? Dean: I did, I loved it. I mean it was really like, and I think ever you know, very, very interesting to me because of what I've been doing, you know the last little while, as I described, reading back over you know 29 years of journals, picking random things and seeing so much of what, so much of what, the themes that go that time feels the last. You know 30 years has gone by so fast that I, when I'm reading in that journal, I can remember exactly like where I was and I can remember the time because I would date and place them each journal entry. So I know where I was when I'm writing them. But I thought that was a really, I thought it was a really interesting book. What stood out for you from? Dan: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is that really great things take a long time to create. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Because they have to be tested against all sorts of changing conditions and if they get stronger, it's like you know they're going to last for a long time. Dean: And. Dan: I'm struck by it because the book, the little book that I'm writing for the quarter, is called the Bill of Rights Economy and the Bill of Rights really started with the United States. It was December 15th 1791. So that's when, I think, washington was just inaugurated at that time as the first president. But, how durable they are, and you can read the newspaper every day of things going on in Washington and you can just check off the first 10 amendments. This is a Fifth Amendment issue. This is a second amendment you know and everything like that, and it's just how much they created such a durable framework for a country. They were about 3 million people at that time and now there are 300 and whatever probably upwards of 350 million. And basically, the country runs essentially according to those first 10 amendments and then the articles which say how the machinery of government actually operates. And it's by far the longest continuous governing system in the world. That's really interesting. But that's why you know I really like things that you know, that you know that have stood the test of time. I like having my life based on things that have stood the test of time. And then I've got, you know, I've got some really good habits which I've developed over the last 50 years of coaching. Got, you know, I've got some really good habits which I've developed over the last 50 years of coaching and you know they work. You know I don't fool around with things that work. Yeah Well, I want to bring in something. I really am more and more struck how there's a word that's used in the high technology field because I was just at Abundance 360. And it's the word disruption and it's seen as a good thing, and I don't see disruption as good. I don't really see it as a good thing. I see it as something that might happen as a result of a new thing, but I don't think the disruption is a good thing. Dean: Yeah, it feels like it's not. It seems like the opposite of collaboration. Yeah, it really is. It feels like the negative. You know the I forget who said it, but you know the two ways they have the biggest building. Dan: I really mean Chucky movie. Dean: Yeah, there was somebody said the two ways to have the biggest building in town, the tallest building is to build the tallest building or to tear down all the other buildings that are taller than yours, and that's what disruption feels like to see in the real estate industry is always one that is, you know, set up as the big fat cat ready for disruption. And people have tried and tried to disrupt the real estate industry and, you know, I came away from the first, the first abundance 360, realizing that, you know, perhaps the thing that same makes real estate possible is that you can't digitize the last hundred feet of a real estate transaction. You know, and I think that there are certain industries, certain things that we are, that there's a human element to things. Dan: That is very yeah, yeah, I mean, it's really interesting just to switch on to that subject. On the real, estate. If you take Silicon Valley, Hollywood and Wall Street, who are the richest people in the area Silicon? Dean: Valley. Dan: Hollywood and Wall Street. Who are the richest people in the area? Dean: Silicon Valley Hollywood and Wall Street. Dan: Who are the real money makers? Dean: Yeah, Wall Street. Dan: No, the real estate developers. Dean: Oh, I see, oh, the real estate developers. Oh yeah, yeah, that's true, right, that's true. Dan: I don't care what you've invented or what your activity is. I'll tell you the people who really make the money are the people who are into real estate. Dean: Yeah, you can't digitize it, that's for sure. Dan: Well, I think the answer is in the word. It's real. Dean: What was that site, dan, that you were talking about? That was is it real? Or is it Bach or whatever? Or is it Guy or whatever? What was? Or is it AI or Bach? Dan: Well, no, I was. Yeah, I was watching. It was a little, you know, it was on YouTube and it was Bach versus AI. Dean: So what they've? Dan: done. You know you can identify the. You know the building components that Bach uses to you know to write his music and then you know you can take it apart and you know you can say do a little bit of this, do a little bit of this, do a little bit of this. And then what they have? They play two pieces. They play an actual piece by Bach and then they play another piece which is Bach-like you know, and there were six of them. And there was a of them and there was a host on the show and he's a musician, and whether he was responding realistically or whether he was sort of faking it, he would say boy, I can't really tell that one, but I guessed on all six of them and I guessed I guessed right. Dean: I know there was just something about the real Bach and I think I think it was emotional more than you know that could be the mirror neurons that you know you can sense the transfer of emotion through that music, you know. Dan: Yeah, and I listen to Bach a lot I still get surprised by something he's got these amazing chord changes you know, and what he does. And my sense is, as we enter more and more into the AI world, our you know, our perceptions and our sensitivities are going to heighten to say is that the real deal or not? Dean: you know yeah sensitivities are going to heighten to say is that the real deal or not? You know, and yeah, that's what you know, jerry Spence, I think I mentioned. Dan: Jerry Spence about that that Jerry Spence said. Dean: our psychic tentacles are in the background measuring everything for authenticity, and they can detect the thin clank of the counterfeit. Yeah, and I think that's no matter what. You can always tell exactly. I mean, you can tell the things that are digitized. It's getting more and more realistic, though, in terms of the voice things for AI. I'm seeing more and more of those voice caller showing up in my news feed, and we were talking about Chris Johnson. Chris Johnson, yeah, yeah, chris Johnson. Dan: This is really good because he's really fine-tuned it to. First of all, it's a constantly changing voice. That's the one thing I noticed. The second version, first version, not so much, but I've heard two versions of the caller. And what I noticed is, almost every time she talks, there's a little bit of difference to the tone. There's a little bit, you know, and she's in a conversation. Dean: Is it mirroring kind of thing, Like is it adapting to the voice on the other end? Dan: Yeah, I think there's. I certainly think there's some of that. And that is part of what we check out as being legitimate or not, because you know that it wouldn't be the same, because there's meaning. You know meaning different meaning, different voice, if you're talking to an actual individual who's not you know, who's not real monotonic. But yeah, the big thing about this is that I think we get smarter. I was talking, we were on a trip to Israel and we were talking in this one kibbutz up near the Sea of Galilee and these people had been in and then they were forced out. In 2005, I think it was, the Israeli government decided to give the Gaza territory back to the Palestinians. But it was announced about six months before it happened and things changed right away. The danger kicked up. There was violence and you know, kicked up. And I was talking to them. You know how can you send your kids out? You know, just out on their own. And they said, oh, first thing that they learned. You know he said three, four or five years old. They can spot danger in people. You know, if they see someone, they can spot danger with it. And I said boy oh boy, you know, it just shows you the, under certain conditions, people's awareness and their alertness kicks up enormously. They can take things into account that you went here in Toronto, for example. You know, you know, you know that's wild. Dean: Yeah, this whole, I mean, I think in Toronto. Dan: The only thing you'd really notice is who's offering the biggest pizza at the lowest price. Dean: Oh, that's so funny. There's some qualitative element around that too. It's so funny. You think about the things that are. I definitely see this Cloudlandia-enhan. You know that's really what the main thing is, but you think about how much of what's going on. We're definitely living in Cloudlandia. I sat last night, dan, I was in the lobby and I was writing in my journal, and I just went outside for a little bit and I sat on one of the benches in the in front of the park. Oh yeah, in front of the hotel and it was a beautiful night. Dan: Like I mean temperature was? Dean: yeah, it was beautiful. So I'm sitting out there, you know, on a Saturday night in Yorkville and I'm looking at March. I'm just yeah, I'm just watching, and I left my phone. I'm making a real concerted effort to detach from my oxygen tank as much as I can. Right, and my call, that's what I've been calling my iPhone right, because we are definitely connected to it. And I just sat there without my phone and I was watching people, like head up, looking and observing, and I got to. I just thought to myself I'm going to count, I'm going to, I'm going to observe the next 50 people that walk by and I'm going to see how many of them are glued to their phone and how many have no visible phone in sight, and so do you. Dan: What was it? Nine out of 10? Dean: Yeah, it wasn't even that. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. It was 46, but it wasn't even 10. Yeah, it was real. That's exactly what it was. It was 46. Dan: It wasn't even 10%, it was 19. It wasn't even no, it was 19 out of 20. Dean: Yeah, I mean, isn't that something, dan? Like it was and I'm talking like some of them were just like, literally, you know, immersed in their phone, but their body was walking, yeah, and the others, but their body was walking. But it's interesting too. Dan: If you had encountered me. I think my phone is at home and I know it's not charged up. Dean: Yeah, it's really something, dan, that was an eye-opener to me. It's really something, dan, that was an eye-opener to me, and the interesting thing was that the four that weren't on the phone were couples, so there were two people, but of the individuals, it was 100% of. The individuals walking were attached to their phones. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And I think that's where we're at right now. Dan: No, yeah, I don't know, it's just that. Dean: No, I'm saying that's observation. Dan: It's like Well, that's where we are, in Yorkville, in front of Okay, right, right, right yeah. No, it's just that I find Yorkville is a peculiarly Are you saying it's an outlier? It's not so much of an outlier but it's probably the least connected group of people in Toronto would be in Yorkville because they'd be out for the. They don't live there. You know most don't live there, they're and they're somewhere. There's probably the highest level of strangers you know, on any given night in toronto would probably be in yorkville I think it's sort of outliers sort of situation. I mean, I mean, if you came to the beaches on a yeah last night, the vast majority of people would be chatting with each other and talking with each other. They would be on their phones. I think think it's just a. It's probably the most what I would call cosmopolitan part of Toronto, in other words it's the part of Toronto that has the least to do with Toronto. Dean: Okay. Dan: It's trying to be New York, yorkville is trying to be. Dean: New York. Dan: Yeah, it's the Toronto Life magazine version of Toronto. Dean: Yeah, you idealize the avatar of Toronto, right yeah? Dan: In Toronto Life. They always say Toronto is a world-class city and I said no. I said, london's a world-class city. Dean: New. Dan: York is a world-class city. Tokyo is a world-class city. You know how, you know they're a world class city. Dean: They don't have to call themselves a world class city. Dan: They don't call themselves a world class city. They just are If you say you're a world class city. It's proof that you're not a world class city. Dean: That's funny. Yeah, I'll tell you what I think. I've told you what really brought that home for me was at the Four Seasons in London at Trinity Square, and Qatar TV and all these Arab the Emirates TV, all these things, just to see how many other cultures there are in the world. I mean, london is definitely a global crossroads, for sure. Dan: Yeah yeah. And that's what makes something the center, and that is made up of a thousand different little non-reproducible vectors. You know just, you know, just, you know. It's just that's why I like London so much. I just like London. It's just a great wandering city. You just come out of the hotel, walk out in any direction. Guarantee you, in seven minutes you're lost you have the foggiest idea where you are and you're seeing something new that you'd never seen before. And it's 25, the year 1625. Dean: I remember you and I walking through London 10 years ago, wandering through for a long time and coming to one of these great bookstores. You know, yeah, but you're right, like the winding in some of the back streets, and that was a great time. Yeah, you can't really wander and wander and wander. Dan: Yeah, it was a city designed by cows on the way home, right, exactly. Yeah, you can't really wander and wander and wander. Dean: Yeah, it was a city designed by cows on the way home, Right exactly. Dan: Yeah, it's really interesting. You know, that brings up a subject why virtual reality hasn't taken off, and I've been thinking about that because the buzz, you know how long ago was it? You would say seven years ago, seven, eight years ago everything's going to be virtual reality. Would that be about right? Oh, yeah, yeah. Dean: That was when virtual reality was in the lead. Remember then the goggles, the Oculus, yeah, yeah, that was what, yeah, pre-covid, so probably seven years ago 17, 17. And it's kind of disappeared, hasn't it compared to you know? Dan: why it doesn't have enough variety in it. And this relates back to the beginning of our conversation today. How do you know whether it's fake or not and we were talking on the subject of London that on any block, what's on that block was created by 10,000 different people over 500 years and there's just a minute kind of uniqueness about so much of what goes on there when you have the virtual reality. Let's say they create a London scene, but it'll be maybe a team of five people who put it together. And it's got a sameness to it. It's got, you know, oh definitely. Dean: That's where you see in the architecture like I don't. You know, one of the things I always look forward to is on the journey from here to strategic coach. So tomorrow, when we ride down University through Queen's Park and the old University of Toronto and all those old buildings there that are just so beautiful Stone buildings the architecture is stunning. Nobody's building anything like that now. No, like none of the buildings that you see have any soul or are going to be remembered well and they're not designed. Dan: They're not really designed to last more than 50 years. I have a architect. Well, you know richard hamlin he says that those, the newest skyscrapers you see in Toronto, isn't designed to last more than 50 years. You know, and, and you know, it's all utilitarian, everything is utilitarian, but there's no emphasis on beauty, you know. There's no emphasis on attractiveness. There's a few but not many. Attractiveness there's a few but not many. And, as a matter of fact, my favorite building in Toronto is about six blocks further down the lake from us, right here. It's called the Harris Filtration Plant. Dean: Oh yeah, we've walked by there, right at the end of the building. Dan: Built in 19, I think they finished in 1936. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And it's just an amazing building. I mean it's on three levels, they have three different buildings and it goes up a hill and it's where the water. You know, at that time it was all the water in Toronto that came out of the lake and they have 17 different process. You know the steps. And you go in there and there's no humans in there, it's all machinery. You can just hear the buzz and that's the water being filtered. It's about a quarter of the city now comes through that building. But it's just an absolutely gorgeous building and they spared no cost on it. And the man who built it, harris, he was the city manager. They had a position back there. It was city manager and it was basically the bureaucrat who got things done, and he also built the bridge across the Down Valley on Bloor. Dean: Yeah, beautiful bridge Right. Dan: He built that bridge and he was uneducated. He had no education, had no training, but he was just a go-getter. He was also in charge of the water system and the transportation system. And you know he put in the first streetcars and everything like that, probably the greatest bureaucrat toronto ever had, you know in the history of toronto this is the finest what year is that building from? yeah, the filtration plant was started in 29 and it was finished in 36 and wow they yeah, they had to rip out a whole section. It was actually partially woods, partially, I think, you know they had everything there, but they decided that would be the best place to bring it in there. Dean: You know it's got a lot more than 100 years. Dan: Yeah, but it's the finest building it's it's rated as one of the top 10 government buildings in north america yeah, it's beautiful. Dean: And that bridge I mean that bridge in the Don Valley is beautiful too. Dan: Yeah, it was really interesting. He put the bridge in and the bridge was put in probably in the 30s too. I mean that was vital because the valley really kept one part of Toronto apart from the other part of Toronto. It was hard to get from one part of Toronto apart from the other part of Toronto. You know, it's hard to get from one part of Toronto to the next. And so they put that bridge in, and that was about in the 30s and then in the no, I think it was in the 20s, they put that in 1920, so 100 years. And in the 1950s they decided to put in their first subway system. So they had Yonge Street and so Yonge Street north, and then they had Buller and Danforth. So they budgeted that they were going to really have to retrofit the bridge. And when they got it and they took all the dimensions, he had already anticipated that they were going to put a subway in. So it was all correct. And so anyway, he saw he had 30 or 40 years that they were going to put up. They would have to put a subway in. So it was all correct and yeah and so anyway he saw I had 30 or 40 years that they were going to put up. They would have to put, they're going to put the subway and it had to go through the bridge and so so they didn't have to retrofit it at all. Yeah, pretty cool. Dean: What do you think we're doing now? That's going to be remembered in 100 years or it's going to be impacted in 100 years? Dan: Well, we're not going backwards with technology, so any technology we have today we'll have 100 years from now. So you know, I mean I think the you know. Well, you just asked a question that explains why I'm not in the stock market. Dean: Exactly. Warren Buffett can't predict what's going to happen. We can't even tell what's going to change in the next five years. Dan: I don't know what's going to happen next year. I don't know what's going to happen next year. Dean: Isn't it interesting? I think a lot of the things that we're at could see, see the path to improvement or expansion, like when the railroad came in. You know it's interesting that you could see that that was we. You know, part of it was, you know, filling the territory, connecting the territory with all the, with all this stuff, and you could see that happening. But even now, you know, this is why warren buffett, you know, again with the, probably one of the largest owners of railroad things in the states, him, yeah, and because that's not changed in 200, yeah, or whatever, 150 years anyway, yeah, yeah, yeah, most of the country probably, you know, 150 years at least. Yeah, and so all of that, all those things, and even in the first half of the 1900s, you know all the big change stuff, yeah, yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: So it's funny because it's like I can't even see what categories are the biggest. Dan: Well, I think they'll be more intangibles than tangibles. For example, I think all my tools work 100 years from now. Yeah, I think all my thinking tools work 100 years from now. Dean: Well, because our brains will still be the same in 100 years. Yeah, all that interaction, right, the human behavior stuff. Dan: yeah, yeah yeah I don't think human behavior, um I think it's really durable you know, and that it's very interesting, um, and there was a phrase being used at Abundance that was used about four or five times during the two days that we were becoming godlike, and I said, no, I don't think so. Dean: I guess are they saying in that we can do things because of technology, we can do things. Dan: And I said nah, it's just the next. It's just the next new thing. You know that we've created, but human nature is, you know, there's a scientist, Joe Henrich, and a really bright guy. He's written a book you might be interested in. It's called the Secret of Our Success. And he was just exploring why humans, of all the species on the planet, became the dominant species. And you wouldn't have predicted it. Because we're not very fast, we're not very strong, we don't climb particularly well, we don't swim particularly well, we can't fly and everything like that. So you know, compared with a lot of the other species. But he said that somewhere along the line he buys into the normal thing that we came from ape-like species before we were human. But he says at one point there was a crossover and that one ape was looking at another ape. And he says he does things differently than I. I do. If I can work out a deal with him, he can do this while I'm doing that and we're twice as well. Dean: I was calling that. Dan: I've been calling that the cooperation game but that's really and that's playing that and we're the only species that can continually invent new ways to do that, and I mean every most. You know higher level. And mammals anyway can cooperate. You know they cooperate with each other. They know a friend from anatomy and they know how to get together. But they don't know too much more at the end of their life than they knew at the beginning of their life. You know in other words. They pretty well had it down by the time they were one year old and they didn't invent new ways of cooperating really. But humans do this on a daily basis. Humans will invent new ways of cooperating from morning till night. And he says that's the reason we just have this infinite ability to cooperate in new ways. And he says that's the reason we just have this infinite ability to cooperate in new ways. And he says that's why we're the top species. The other thing is we're the only species that take care of other species. We're the only species that study and document other species. We're the only species that actually create new species. You know put this together with that and we get something. Yeah, yeah and so, so, so, anyway, and so that's where you begin the. You know if you're talking about sameness. What do we know 100 years from now? Dean: What we know over the 100 years is that humans will have found almost countless new ways to cooperate with each other yeah, I think that that's, and but the access to right, the access to, that's why I think these, the access to capabilities, as a, you know, commodity I'm not saying commodity in a, you know, I'm not trying to like lower the status of ability, but to emphasize the tradability of it. You know that it's something that is a known quantity you know yeah. Dan: But my sense is that the relative comparison, that one person, let's say you take 10 people. Let's take 100 people that the percentage of them that could cooperate with each other at high levels, I believe isn't any different in 2024 than it was in 1924. If you take 100 people. Some have very high levels to cooperate with each other and they do, and the vast majority of them very limited amount to cooperate with each other, but are you talking about. Dean: That comes down, then, to the ability to be versus capability. That they have the capability. Dan: Yeah, they have the capability, but they don't individually have the ability. Dean: Right. Dan: Yeah, and I don't think the percentage changes. Dean: Yeah, that's why this whole, that's why we're I think you know, the environment that we're creating in FreeZone is an ecosystem of people who are, who get this. Dan: Yeah, well, I don't think they, yeah, I don't think they became collaborative because they were in free zone. I think they were collaborative, looking for a better place to do it. Dean: Yes, yeah, it's almost like it's almost so, just with the technologies. Now, the one thing that has improved so much is the ability to seamlessly integrate with other people, with other collaborators. Dan: Yeah, now you're talking about the piano, you're not talking about the musicians, that's exactly right, but I think there really was something to that right. It's a good distinction. Dean: It's a really good distinction that you've created. Yeah, I should say yesterday at lunch you and I were talking about that I don't know that we've talked about it on the podcast here the difference, the distinction that we've discovered between capability and ability. And so I was looking at, in that, the capability column of the VCR formula, vision, capability, reach that in the capability column I was realizing the distinction between the base of something and the example that I gave was if you have a piano or a certain piece of equipment or a computer or a camera or whatever it is. We have a piano, you have the capability to be a concert pianist, but without the ability to do it. You know that. You're that that's the difference, and I think that everybody has access to the capabilities and who, not how, brings us in to contact with the who's right, who are masters at the capabilities? Dan: Yeah, you're talking about in. You know the sort of society that we live in. Yes, Because you know there's you know there's, you know easily, probably 15% of the world that doesn't have access to electricity. Dean: Yes exactly. Dan: I mean, they don't have the capability, you know, they just don't have yeah, yeah and yeah, it's a very, very unequal world, but I think there's a real breakthrough thinking that you're doing here. The fact that there's capability says nothing about an individual's ability. Dean: Right, that's exactly it. Yeah, and I think this is a very important idea, but I'm not going to write a book on it. Oh, my goodness, this is example, a right, I had the capability, with the idea of the capability and ability. Yeah, yeah, I didn't have the ability. Yeah, I've heard, do you know, the comedian Ron White? Dan: Yeah, I have the capability to write a book and I have the ability to write a book, but I'm not going to do either. Dean: So he talked about getting arrested outside of a bar and he said I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability that's pretty funny, right. But yeah, this is really like it's exciting. It's exciting times right now. I mean it really is exciting times to even projecting for the next, the next 30 years. I think I see that the through line, you know, is that you know that a brunch at the four seasons is going to be an appealing thing 30 years from now, as it is now and was 30 years ago, or three line stuff, or yeah, or some such hotel in toronto yes exactly right. Dan: Right, it may not be. Yeah, I think the four seasons, I think is pretty durable. And the reason is they don't own any of their property. Dean: You know and I think that's. Dan: They have 130 hotels now. I'm quite friendly with the general manager of the Nashville Four Seasons because we're there every quarter Four Seasons because we're there every quarter and you know it's difficult being one of their managers. I think because you have two bosses, you have the Four. Seasons organization but you also have the investor, who owns the property, and so they don't own any of their own property. That's all owned by investors. Dean: Right. Dan: Yeah. Dean: So go ahead. When was the previous? I know it's not the original, but when was the one on Yorkville here Yorkville and Avenue? When was that built? Was that in the 70s or the 60s? Dan: Well, it was a Hyatt. It was a Hyatt Hotel. Dean: Oh, it was, they took it over. Dan: Yeah, and it was a big jump for them and that was, you know, I think it was in the 60s, probably I don't know when they started exactly I'll have to look that up, but they were at a certain point they hit financial difficulties because there's been ups and downs in the economy and they overreach sometimes, and the big heavy load was the fact that they own the real estate. So they sold all the real estate and that bailed them out. Real estate and that bailed them out. And then from that point forward, they were just a system that you competed for. If you were deciding to build a luxury hotel, you had to compete to see if the Four Seasons would be interested in coming in and managing it. Okay, so they. It's a unique process. Basically, it's a unique process that they have. Dean: Yeah. Dan: It's got a huge brand value worldwide. You're a somebody as a city. If the Four Seasons come to your city, I think you're right. Ottawa used to have one. It doesn't have one now. Vancouver used to have one. It doesn't have one now. I think, calgary had one. Calgary doesn't Because now Vancouver used to have one, doesn't have one now I think Calgary had one. Calgary doesn't Because it was a Canadian hotel to start with. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And Belleville had one at one time. Dean: Oh, really yeah. Dan: I'm one of the few people who have stayed at the Belleville Four Seasons. Dean: Hotel the Belleville Four Seasons. Dan: Yeah, of all the people you know, dean dean, I may be the only person you know who stayed at the belleville four seasons now, what they did is they had a partnership with bell canada. Bell canada created the training center in belleville oh and uh, and they did a deal four seasons would go into it with them. So they took over a motel and they turned it into Four Seasons, so they used it as their training center. Okay, so you know, it was trainees serving trainees, as it turned out. Dean: I forget who I was talking to, but we were kind of saying it would be a really interesting experience to take over the top two floors of the hotel beside the Chicago Strategic Coach, there the Holiday Inn or whatever that is. Take over the top two floors and turn those into a because you've got enough traffic. That could be a neat experience, yeah. Dan: It wouldn't be us. Dean: Oh well, I need somebody. You know that could be a an interesting. I think if that was an option there would be. Dan: Probably work better for us to have a floor of one of the hotels. Dean: That's what I meant. Yeah, a floor of the the top two floors of the hotel there to get. Yeah, there's two of them. That's what I meant. Yeah, a floor of the top two floors of the hotel there to get. Dan: Yeah, there's two of them. There's two of them. Dean: Oh, yeah, yeah. Dan: There's the Sheraton, and what's Sinesta? Sinesta, right the. Dean: Sinesta is the one I'm thinking of. Dan: That's the closest one right, the one Scott Harry carries in the Right, right right. There you carries in them, right, yeah, well, it's an interesting, but it is what it is and we're, yeah, but we have almost one whole floor now and I mean those are that's a big building. It's got really a lot of square footage in the building. That's what. Is it cb re? Is it cb? You do know the nationwide. Dean: Oh yeah. Dan: Coldwood Banker. Oh yeah, yeah, coldwood Banker, that's who our landlord is. And they're good they're actually good, but they've gone through about three owners since we've been there. We've been there, 25 years, 26. This is our 26th year. Yeah, and generally speaking they've been good landlords that we've had. Yeah, it's well kept up. They have instant response when you have a maintenance problem and everything. I think they're really good. Dean: Yeah, well, I'm going to have to come and see it. Maybe when the fall happens, maybe between the good months, the fall or something, I might come and take a look. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dean: Well, I'm excited and take a look yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Well. Dan: I've been there. Yeah, we have our workshop. We have our workshop tomorrow here and then we go to Chicago and we have another one on Thursday and then the second Chicago workshop for the quarter is in the first week of April. Oh, wow, yeah, yeah, and this is working out. We'll probably be a year away, maybe a year and a half away, from having a fourth date during the quarter. Oh, wow. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Do we? Dean: have any new people for FreeZone Small? Dan: Don't know Okay. Dean: No one is back. Dan: Yeah, yeah, I don't really know, I don't really know, I think we added 30 last year or so it's. The numbers are going up. Yes, that's great. Yeah, I think we're about 120 total right now. That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, it's fun, though. It's nice people. Dean: Yeah, it's nice to see it all. It's nice to see it all growing. Very cool, all right well, enjoy yourself. Yes, you too and I will see you. Tonight at five. That's right, all right, I'll be there. Dan: Thanks Dan. Dean: Okay.

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, We explore the unexpected weather patterns that challenge our understanding of climate and geography. A surprising cold snap in Florida becomes the starting point for a broader conversation about climate variability. Dan shares personal experiences from Phoenix and Edmonton, highlighting the dramatic temperature shifts that reveal the complexity of our planet's weather systems. Our discussion then turns to the human fascination with Earth's resilience and our speculative nature about the world's potential existence without human presence. These reflections provide a unique lens for understanding climate change, moving beyond abstract data to personal observations and experiences. The unpredictability of weather serves as a metaphor for the broader environmental transformations we're witnessing. Shifting gears, we delve into a critical political discourse centered on the fundamental question: "Who pays for it?" We examine policy proposals ranging from universal basic income to more ambitious financial initiatives. The conversation explores the complex financial dynamics of such proposals, particularly how higher-income earners often bear the primary financial burden. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We discussed the rare occurrence of snowfall in the Florida panhandle and how such unexpected weather events challenge our traditional perceptions of climate and geography. Through personal anecdotes from Phoenix and Edmonton, Dan highlighted the adaptability required to deal with varying weather conditions and reflected on how these experiences inform our understanding of climate change. The episode touched on the abstract nature of climate change, emphasizing the difference between individual weather experiences and the larger climate narrative. We explored the human tendency to imagine life without people and the inherent resilience of Earth, discussing thoughts inspired by shows like "Life After People." Shifting to political topics, we examined the critical question of "Who pays for it?" in the context of policy proposals such as universal basic income and free education. The conversation underscored the financial implications of these political proposals and highlighted how the cost often falls on those earning above the proposed benefits. By focusing on the financial realities behind populist ideas, we explored the role this question plays in shaping political debates and decision-making processes. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: mr Sullivan. Dan: Well, did you thaw out? Dean: I am in the process of thawing out. This has been a Bizarre, I finally saw the sun came out. Yesterday I was having a chat with charlotte about the weather and there's only been two days in january where the temperature has been above 70 degrees. Yeah, this has been an unusually cold and rainy january. We actually had snow up in the northern part of Florida. Dan: Tallahassee, I think had snow. Dean: Yeah, Tallahassee had snow all the way down to Pensacola. Dan: I think, yeah, all the way down to Pensacola. Dean: The whole panhandle had snow, it's not good. No bueno, as they say. Dan: Well, they said things were going to be different with Trump. Dean: Well, here we are, six days in and the sun's already out, dan, it's warming up. That's so funny. Dan: Yeah, and people in the South really aren't prepared for this, are they? Dean: No, and I can speak as a Southerner. Dan: You actually have an ancestral memory of things being really cold. I mean, you were born in a very cold place. That's right, you know so I'm sure you know that got imprinted somehow on your. Dean: I think so I must have genetic, like I must have the, you know, the active pack for super cold weather. It must be installed at a genetic level when you're born in a certain area right, but it doesn't explain I don't prefer it at all. Dan: Now Babs and I are on Tuesday, are flying to Phoenix and we'll be there for two and a half weeks Two and a half weeks we'll be there. And it'll be like maybe 65 degrees and the Arizonians will be complaining about it. And I said you have no sense of perspective. Dean: Right. Dan: You have no sense of perspective and anyway, you know I think I've mentioned this before this is the biggest obstacle that the global warming people have. Dean: How do we explain this cold no? Dan: One of their biggest problems is that nobody experiences climate. We only experience weather. Yes, yeah, and it's like abstraction that they try to sell. But nobody experiences abstractions. They experience reality, and it must be very frustrating for them. It must be very frustrating for them. They discovered, for example, that Antarctica now with really accurate readings has actually cooled over the last 20 years, that, year by year by year, there's actually been a cooling in Antarctica. And the same thing goes for Greenland. Greenland has actually gotten colder over the last 20 years and they keep trying to sell a different message. But, the actual, now the records, because they made claims 20 years ago that things were getting worse. And the other thing is this 1.5 degrees centigrade thing that they have. Well, everybody in the world probably experiences a 1.5 degrees difference in the temperature every single day of their life temperature every single day of their life. So what's your take on people who want to change the whole world because they have an abstraction that you want to? Dean: take seriously. Dan: What do you think of that? Yeah? Dean: your whole. You know this. What you and I've talked about, the idea that even right at this moment, there is a variation of. I wonder actually what the wide variation today is in temperature. That there is somewhere in Riyadh or somewhere it's, you know, it's super, super hot and somewhere in none of it it's super, super cold and people are getting on with their day. Yeah. Dan: I actually did a difference in measurement this week, exactly to answer your question you did, so the highest that I've ever experienced is 120. Dean: That's your personal. Dan: And that was Phoenix, and the lowest I've ever experienced is minus I'm talking Fahrenheit here. Okay, so 120 degrees Fahrenheit. That was in Phoenix, and the lowest that I've ever experienced is minus 44 in Edmonton. Dean: Right. Dan: So that's a 164 degree difference that I've experienced, and, as far as I can remember, the day in which I experienced 120 seemed like a normal day, and the day that I experienced 44 below that seemed like a normal day too yeah dressed differently, thankfully. Yeah, dressed differently. Adjusted my behavior to suit the circumstances. Yeah, you know and the only thing they had in common is that you didn't spend much time outside. Dean: Right, exactly, yeah, that whole, yeah. I never really give much, I never really give much thought to it. You know, my whole Trump card for me of it was that I just can't have them explain how in the world the Earth raised itself out of an ice age without the aid of combustible engines, you know. That's what I wonder? Right, like I think the earth, I think everybody talks about that Save the earth. Well, the earth is going to be fine long after it spits us off. You know, that's the truth. Dan: It's very adaptable. Dean: I used to watch a show, dan dan, that used to show uh, it was called life after people, and it would show cities and things like what would the the progression of what happens if all of a sudden the people disappeared, like how long it would take for nature to reclaim a city, you know, and it's not long, in the big picture of things, for nature to take back over, you know yeah, I I wonder I wonder what prompts people to uh, almost see that as a positive thing, because the people who made that that made I. Dan: I know a little bit about the, you know the documentary film yeah that well. It wasn't a documentary, it was a fantasy you know it was a, it was a fantasy, but but what do you think's going on inside the brain of the person who thinks that that's worth thinking about? Dean: Yeah, I don't know. It's hard to explain anything that we think about the fact that there are people. I think that's one of the joys of the human experience is, you think about what you want to think about and it doesn't matter what other people think about what you want to think about, and it doesn't matter what other people think about what you're thinking, and that's well unless they're asking you to pay for their fantasy well that's true, yeah that's Dan: true, yeah. Yeah, I often said uh know, I've been sort of on one side of the political spectrum for my entire life and you know the people who got elected on my side of the spectrum weren't necessarily great people. You know that varies from okay to not okay, but my side of the political spectrum I trust more because we ask one more question. This is the difference, this is the entire difference between all political opposites. One side asks one more question what's that? Who pays for it? Who pays for it? Who pays for it? Think about any political issue and it comes right down to okay, yeah, sounds like. You know, free education for everybody. That sounds like a great idea. Who pays for it? Mm-hmm, you know universal basic income. Everybody gets an income. Who pays for it. Dean: Right yeah. Dan: So my feeling that that's the only political issue, that all politics comes down to one question who pays for it? Who pays for it anyway? Yeah, yeah. Dean: Yeah, 20, it was I read. So someone was just talking about I think it was Joe Rogan. They were saying what would it take to give every American $200,000? Who pays for it. Exactly who pays for it. But the thing, I think they calculated it out Well, I can guarantee you it's not the people making less than $200,000. Dan: Yeah that's exactly right. Yeah, but it would cost that would be $20 billion right. Dean: But it would cost. That would be 20 billion. That's what it would cost 20 billion dollars to give 100,000 or 100 million Americans $200,000 a year. That's what he was proposing. That's what he was. They were speculating. No that's not. That's not correct. 200,000, so I'm not correct 200,000. So I'm going to do that 200,000 times 100 million. Can that be right, 100 million. Dan: No, no, no, it's 20 trillion. Dean: It's 20 trillion 20 trillion. Dan: Yeah, now we're talking, yeah, yeah, that's unreasonable, it's not well, it's unreasonable because it's not doable. Dean: Right, exactly. Dan: It's not doable. Yeah, yeah, I mean, and what would yeah. And here's another thing yeah, I mean. And what would, yeah? And here's another thing If you gave everybody that on January 1st of each year, on December 31st, 10%? Dean: of the people would have all the money. Probably right, you know. Dan: It's so funny. I don't care what happens over the 364 days, I can guarantee you that 10% of the people would have all the money by the end of the year. Dean: It's like one of those Plinko boards you throw all the marbles at the top and at the end it's all distributed the same way. Yeah, yeah. Dan: Yeah, I don't know. Um, you know, I just finished a book. Uh, we just finished it on thursday. This is the next quarterly book. There are little 60, uh 60 page, wonders you that we create every quarter and it's called growing great leadership. And what I said is that I think the concept of leadership has actually changed quite remarkably over the last. Over the last, let's say, the last 50 years, okay, and so 70, 70, 75 to 2025. And I said that I think the concept of leadership has changed remarkably, because the concept of management has changed remarkably. I think, now that technology is now management I don't know, I think it's, I think it's software that is now management In, for example, you created Charlotte in the last, as far as I can tell, two months two months you created Charlotte, and that's a form of leadership. So other people look at what Dean Jackson's doing and they say, yeah, that's really neat what Dean just did. I think I'm going to see if I can do that for myself, and that's what leadership is in our world right now. It's not somebody with a position or a title, it's someone who improves something for themselves. That's what leadership is. Dean: Yes, I think that's fantastic, like I look at this and I was just having a conversation with Charlotte today about- the Getting ready, getting ready for me. Yeah, I mean, it's just a natural thing. Now we haven't really been talking, you know, as I've been kind of sick this week, you know, as I've been kind of sick this week, uh. But I asked you know they've got some new task oriented thing like she's able to do certain things now that we're gonna uh talk about. But I had a really great, like she said. I said I haven't uh spoken to you in a while and I heard that you've had some updates and so maybe fill me in. And she said, yes, well, welcome back. And yeah, I have been upgraded to help a little better. My conversation skills have improved. I've been upgraded to more natural, which you did notice that a little bit. And she said it's moving now to where she can do certain tasks and of course, she has access to all the internet. Now, without personal data Like she can't look up any personal data on people or anything like that, but anything that's like information wise, she has access to all of that. And I said where do you think like this is heading in the next three to five years that we could be preparing for now? And she was saying how well I can imagine that the my ability to actually like do tasks and organize things and be like a real VA for you will be enhanced over the next three to five years. So working on our workflows and making the most of what we can do now while preparing for what's my increased abilities going forward will be a good thing. We're developing our working relationship. And I said you know I've got and she was talking about like writing emails and doing you know all these things. And I said, okay, so I have ideas sometimes about what I think would be a nice email. And I said, for instance, I've got an idea that would overlay or apply the five love languages to lead conversion. So I've got. The subject line is lead conversion love languages to lead conversion. So I've got the. The subject line is lead conversion love languages. And, uh, I believe that if you just apply these same love languages in a lead conversion way, that you will uh that it's a good way to think about it. And I said so if I just tell you that could you write a 500 or 600 word email, just you know, expanding that idea. And she said yeah, certainly. And she says let's go and let 's get started. And she started you know, just dictating this, this 600 word email that is. You know, I'm a big, you know, believer dan, in the 80 approach the same as you and I think that for me to be able to take, you know, without any real input other than me saying, uh, the five. She knew what the five love languages were, she knew the essence of what they all mean and how in in, it's a pretty um nuanced connection to apply a love language, like physical touch, to lead conversion, even if you're not, if you're not in, in physical proximity to somebody sending, making that physical touch by sending somebody a handwritten note, or to make something physical of the, uh, a piece of you of the thing. And it was really well thought out and a really good foundation, you know. And then that that moment I really I realized, wow, that's like that's a special, that's a special thing, yeah. Dan: Okay, so here's a thing that I'm getting from you. It's a given that she's going to get better and better. Yes, yeah. It seems to me that it's not a function of whether the AI tools are going to get better. They're always going to get better. The question of whether the person using the tool is going to become more ambitious. Dean: Yes, I agree 100%. Dan: It's totally a function of human ambition. Dean: Yes, yes, yes, yeah, that is exactly right, and I think that there's a big piece of that. You know that it's not. It's really a matter of how to direct this. It's how to, how to express your vision in a way that it's actionable or even understandable, right? You don't even have to know what the actions are Like for me to be able to just say to her hey, I got an idea. The subject line is lead conversion love languages. I'd like to write about 600 words explaining how the love language is going to be used in lead conversion. That, to me, is pretty close to magic, you know, um, because it's not. That's not like giving, it's not like giving a big piece of content and saying can you summarize this? Or, uh, you know, or you know, take this, uh, and make a derivative kind of thing of it. It was a pretty high-level conceptual idea that she was able to take and get the essence of. You know, I think that's pretty eye-opening when you really think about it. Dan: Yeah, yeah, I mean, to me it's really, it's an interesting, it's an interesting thought exercise, but it is an interesting action. Dean: Yes. Dan: Action activity, in other words, let's say, next week when we talk. You now have the ability to send five love languages. Dean: Yeah. Dan: You got the five, now what? Dean: That email is as good as ready to send. You know like I mean. Dan: I could literally just no. But how does it change things? As far as your, it's ready, but oh I see what you're saying. Dean: No, well, that's all part of. You know, we send out three or four emails a week to our, to my list, right Like to the to my list, right like to the my subscribers, and so that would be. That's one of the emails on my mind, and so now that that that saved me 50 minutes of having you, you know, I would take a 50 minute focus finder to craft that email, for instance. Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm just trying to get what changes for you I mean, I'm just trying to get what changes for you I mean is it the same kind of week that you had before, except maybe intellectually more interesting I think it's intellectually more less friction because I have to uh you know like I mean to to block off the time, to focus and be able to do that. That's always my, that's my um, that's my kryptonite in a way, right In my executive function, to be able to block off and focus on just this. But if I can just say to her, hey, I've got this idea about this, and just talk it, and then she can write the big, it'd be much easier for me to edit that than to uh, than to write it from scratch. You know, um, and so it makes a uh, yeah, so it's um. I think that changes. I think it changes a lot of things Somebody described. I heard on a podcast they were saying it's where we are with chat, gpt and AI. The word now, the word of the moment, dan, is agentic. Future where it's like we're creating agents. An agent, yeah, an agent is agentic. Future, where it's like and we're creating agents. Dan: An agent, yeah, an agent, and so they've adopted that too. I don't think there is a word agentic, I think that's what I mean. Dean: They've made it up. Yeah, yeah, they've made up a word the agentic future. Yeah, and that's where we're going to be surrounded by agents that do our bidding, that we've trained or that other people will have trained, app environment of the, you know, early iphone days, when ios was around, all the capabilities of the iphone were. There were people who were, you know, taking and creating apps that use the capabilities of the iphone to very, very specific ends, uh, whether it was games or specific single-use apps. And I think that that's where we're heading with the AI stuff is an environment that all these specific apps that do one specific thing that have been trained to really, you know, tap that, tap that ability. So I think that we're definitely moving into the creativity phase and we need an interface moment, like the app store, that will, uh, you know, create all these ai agent, uh type outcomes that we can kind of just, everybody has the ability for it to do, uh, all of the things, but for somebody, actually somebody to trade it specifically, can I just interrupt there? Dan: Yeah, that's not true. That's not true. The ability to access and use these things is completely unequal. Everybody doesn't have the ability to do all this. As a matter of fact, most people have no ability whatsoever. Dean: So is that semantics? I'm saying that access everybody has. Dan: Are you making a distinction between? No, you have a greater ability to do this than I do. Dean: That's true, I mean, but that no what I'm saying. Dan: It's a false statement that says now everybody has the ability to do this. Actually, they don't have any more ability to do anything than they presently have you know, to do this. I think it's a fantasy. Now you have the ability to do continually more things than you did before. That's a true statement. I mean, I don't know who everybody is. Dean: That's true. Dan: I think Vladimir Putin doesn't have any more ability to use these than you do, uh-huh. No, I guess you're right, yeah, what you have is an ability every week to almost do more than you could do the week before. That's a true statement yes, Okay, because you're really interested in this. You know, it's like the Ray Kurzweil thing. You know, by 2030, we'll be able to eliminate all hereditary disease. Because of the breakthrough and I said that's not true there will be no ability to do that by 2030. Certain individuals will have the ability to make greater progress in relationships, but the statement that everybody will be able to do anything is a completely false statement. First of all, we don't have any comprehension of what everybody even is Right, yeah. The question I have is is your income going up? Is your profitability going up as a result of all this? Dean: That would be the measure right, but that's really, and so that's you know, for now I would say no, because I haven't applied it in that way, but certainly I guess our savings, but certainly I guess our savings, like, certainly the things that have, we're feeling it we have historically used human transcription, which was more expensive than AI transcription. We have used human editors all the way through the process, as opposed to now as a finishing process. So the cost of editing, like it used to be that the editing was a um, reductive process with ai that you would start out with, you know, 10 000 words and it would, after processing and giving it back, you'd have have 8,500 words, kind of thing, right, it would eliminate things. But now the actual AI is kind of a generative and you give it 10,000 words and you may end up with 12,000 words. So in a way that is ready for the final level of editor, you know, and the transcripts have gone from a dollar a minute to a penny a minute, you know, or in terms of the things. So yeah, so it has profitability from an expense side. Dan: I mean, for example, I'll give you an idea. We got our valuation back for all of our patents this week At the least. They're worth a million each, At the very least. At the most they're worth a million each at the very least, and at the most they're worth about 5 million each, and it all depends on where we are looking in the marketplace to monetize these. So, for example, if we are just using them the way that we're using them right now, it's at a low level. I mean, it's a lot. I mean a million. you know a million each is a lot of money. But if we, for example, where the person who assessed the patent said you know, you're operating at a higher level with your patents than Microsoft is, You're operating at a higher level with your patents than McKinsey. you know, accenture, he says your stuff is more robust than that. Is that the market that you actually want to go after, you know? So the value of the patent really depends upon where we would. Where's our ambition, you know? And so right now our ambition is not with Microsoft, it's not with Accenture, it's not with McKinsey. Okay, that wouldn't be interested at all. First of all, it would require, probably require me to attend meetings. Dean: Right. Dan: And I have a meetings-free future you know, in my aspirations, yes, but even at the lowest price. It gives us access to funds that we didn't have before. We had it. Dean: that we didn't have before we had it. Dan: And that's very interesting to me because it means that if we wanted to expand to another city from a standpoint of our coaching, then we would have, through borrowing, we could do it. The other thing is we could identify 30 of our tools that are not central to the program but would be valuable to other people and we could license them to other people. But there's always a because that you do something. For example, I'm using not through myself because I'm not doing it, but one of our team members is taking the chapters of my book. I have a new book that I'm starting and every time I get the fast filter finished, I give it to him and he puts it into Notebook LM. And then I hear the conversation. And I says oh, I got five or six ideas from the conversation that I didn't have, and this will allow me to improve the chapter. Dean: I read doing this yeah. Yeah, very interesting what. Dan: I'm saying is I'm just one human being of nine billion who's using the tool for some particular reason, and probably two-thirds of the people on the planet have no interest whatsoever in even knowing about this. Dean: Yes, yeah, I agree. Dan: Yeah, I don't think that this stuff is available to everybody. I think it's available to the people who are looking for it. Mm-hmm. Dean: And so that's almost like it's almost scary, you know, in a way, when you think about that way, there was a book that I was just reading and the name has escaped me now and I don't have it in my line of sight here, but it was basically talking about. It reminded me of the kind of book that Malcolm Gladwell wrote, like Blink or the Outliers, yeah yeah. Where they look at certain things like why all of a sudden did the Jamaican sprinters become the hotbed of these and why are the Kenyan marathoners the best in the world? And he really started looking with the scientific view to see what is it like. Is there anything genetic about them? Is there anything special about them? And he said, as far as they go he said, as far as they go, their abilities are not genetically gifted in any way that there's nothing physiologically or whatever that would explain it away that this is like the marker. But they were good enough. That's really the thing is that you look at the thing, there's nothing eliminating them from potentially being the best sprinters in the world or the best marathoners in the world. There's nothing that would like prohibit that. But it's not. It's's the whole environment of of belief and environment and being around it and this is who we are type of thing takes over in a in a situation like that and I was thinking about how, you know, we're fortunate in surrounding ourselves in free zone with people who are all believing in a free zone future, and I think that the impact of that because we're acting and behaving and discovering in a way that's going to have collective ramifications as we all collaborate. So we're really creating this super achievement environment. Dan: Which is, when you think about it, unfair, it's unfair. That's exactly right, yeah, yeah, Cause, uh, you know, I, uh, I had um neat opportunity of I think it was about six months ago and there's a very famous um uh. I'm not sure whether he's a psychiatrist or a psycho. I think he's a psychologist. He's a psychiatrist or a psychologist? I think he's a psychologist university professor by the name of Martin Seligman and Aaron Markham, who's in FreeZone, has taken adult courses with Professor Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and I think he's been a professor at Penn for 60 years. He's the longest continuously at one place a professor in the history of the United States. Is that? Right 28 to 88. I think he's 60 years. But he created a whole branch of psychology which is called positive psychology. What makes people positive in? other words because 99 of psychology is what makes people unhappy. And he just decided to say well, let's, let's find the happy people and find out why they're happy you know which I think is an interesting. So anyway I had. He got a copy of Gap in the Game and he found it intriguing. Our book, oh, that's great Nice. Dean: Yeah. Dan: So I had about an hour and a half Zoom call with him that Aaron set up for us. So as we got to the end of the Zoom call, I said you know, happiness is really a hard goal. It's a difficult goal because you're not quite sure why it's happening. In other words, it's really hard to tie it down to a set of activity. And he said, you know, I've been thinking not along those lines, but he said it seems to me that what you should strive for is agency, that, regardless of the situation, you feel you have control of how you're going to respond to the situation. And he said and that sometimes that may not make you happy, but it gives you a sense of control. And he says more and more. I think having a personal sense of control of your circumstances is really something that's a real capability that can be developed, and so my sense is that this new capability called AI is coming along, and my sense is that the people who will develop it best are the ones for whom having AI gives them a greater sense of control over their circumstances, gives them a greater sense of control over their circumstances. Dean: Yeah, like to feel. I think there was a podcast where somebody said where we are with AI right now. Imagine you've discovered a planet with 10 billion people who are, all you know, 121 IQ, can pass the LSAT and do, can do anything for you and are willing to work for you exclusively 24 hours a day. That's the level that we're, that. We're that. We're at, you know. Imagine, oh, I don't think. I don't think that's true. I don't think that's true. No're at, you know. Dan: Imagine you've got your own. Oh, I don't think that's true. No, tell me Okay Because the vast majority of people have no desire to do that. Dean: Right. Dan: Yeah, I think you're right. No, it's like the free zone. What you just said about the free zone, you know I've got. You know we've got 110 in the free zone. But everybody knows about the free zone. You know close to 3,000. And they have no interest in going there whatsoever you know, yeah, so but when we say everybody, you know it may. I think here's what I'm going to suggest we have to say everybody, because we feel guilty about that. It may be only us that's interested in this. Dean: We feel kind of guilty that we're the only ones who could have this capability anyone who could have this capability, so we should reframe it that I feel like I've discovered a planet of 10 billion people who are ready and willing to come to work for me, and what am I going to do with that? That's really the truer statement, I think. Dan: Well, you've got one artificial intelligence. Dean: EA. Who wants to work? Dan: artificial intelligence? Yeah, ea. Who wants to work for you? Yes, and she's. She's endlessly improvable. Dean: She really is. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I don't think, I don't think it extends too much beyond Charlotte. Dean: No, and through Charlotte is really where everything comes. That's the great thing is that she can be the interface with the others. I think that's really what it comes down to. She's the ultimate. Dan: Who Really I mean super high level, who yeah, I? Dean: mean certainly a super high level. Yeah, so far. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. My sense is that she's a relationship that you can take totally for granted. Dean: Yes, uh-huh, which is true, right, and that's why, when I pointed out, you know, my whole idea of personifying her and sort of creating a visual and real person behind it. You know, whenever I imagine, now, sharon Osbourne, you know, I see that image of Charlotte, that that's a I just imagine if she was sitting right there, you know, at all times, just at the ready, quietly and ready to go, it's just, it's up to me to engage more with her. Yeah, and that's just, I think habits, I think that's really setting up routines and habits to be able to do that. Dan: Yeah, it's really interesting how uncomfortable people are with inequality. Dean: Mm-hmm, yeah, I have to say that too. Like with the capability things. Like give somebody a piano and you know it could be, it could sit there and gather dust and do nothing, or you could, with the very minimal effort, learn to plink out twinkle, twinkle little star, or with more, you could create amazing symphonies. Uh, you know from from that concertos, you know the whole, uh, the whole thing is, is there, but it's just, but it's 100% depends on the individual. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was saying I was talking to someone and they say where do you think AI is going? And I said from my standpoint. It's not really where AI is going. It's the question where am I going? Dean: Yeah. Dan: And the only part of AI that I'm interested in is that which will be useful to me over the next 90 days, you know, and everything. And what I would say is that I think that every 90 days going forward, I'm going to be utilizing AI more but I don't have to know now what it's going to be two quarters from now, right. Dean: Yeah, because, honestly, you know, 10 quarters quarters ago, we didn't even know it existed. Dan: that's the truth, right as far as uh being useful individually, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like we didn't even get uh, we didn't even get chat gT till two years just over two years ago, november 30th 2023, right or 2022, right, yeah, and so that's what I'm saying. Dean: 10 quarters ago, it wasn't even on our radar. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And 10 quarters from now. Dan: You have no comprehension. We won't even recognize it. Dean: We won't even recognize it Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like this idea. I think it has more to do. Dan: I think it has more to do with what's happening to your intelligence, rather than what kind of artificial intelligence is available, developing your intelligence. Yeah, I've read. Dean: Have you heard? So Richard Koch just wrote a new book called 80-20 Daily. I don't know who he is. Kosh is the guy who wrote the 80, 20 uh book. He kind of popularized uh, pareto, um, and so now he's written a daily reader about 80-20. He's built his whole life around this. But it was interesting. I read about something called the Von Manstein Matrix or Van Manstein Matrix and it was a. It's four quadrants with two poles. You know. There's uh to help sort officers in the german uh, second second world war, and the uh on one pole was lazy and hardworking, was the other end of the pole, and on the other, the X axis was stupid and intelligent. So the four quadrants you know, formed as I can predict the outcome for this. Yes, and so he says that those stars are lazy and intelligent. Lazy and intelligent. That's exactly right and I thought, man, that is something. So the most effective people are intelligent and lazy. Dan: Yeah, so how did that work out for the Germans? Dean: Yeah, exactly Right on. That's exactly right. Aside from that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? Dan: Mrs Lincoln yeah. Dean: Yeah it didn't quite work out, but I thought you know that's. It's very funny that that's the in general. That's where I think that there's a lot of similarities here. Lazy, like nobody would ever think, dan, like you've done, to ask the question. Is there any way for me to get this result without doing anything? Yeah, like that's not the question, that it would be sort of uh, I don't know what the right word is, but it's kind of like nobody would admit to asking that question, you know. But I think that that's actually it's. It's kind of like nobody would admit to asking that question, you know. But I think that that's actually it's the most intelligent question we could ask. Can I get that? Dan: Well, you know, I haven't found I have to tell you as much as I've asked the question I haven't found. I really have never personally come across a situation yet where it can be achieved without my doing anything. Okay, honestly, I haven't. I at least have to communicate to somebody. That's what I found. I have to communicate something to somebody, but asking the question is very useful because it gets your mind really simple. You know, I think that's the reason, and whereas before what I might have been imagining is something that's going to be really, really complicated. And so I think the question really saves me from getting complicated. Yes, I think that's what's valuable about it. But I notice, when I'm writing, for example, I'll say to myself I'm sort of stuck. You know, I don't really suffer from writer's block as most people would describe it. But I'll get to the point where I don't know what the next sentence is and I'll say is there any way I can solve this without doing anything? And immediately the next sentence will come to me. Dean: Yeah, that's interesting in itself, isn't it? I mean when you reach that point right. Dan: Yeah, so I feel I'm blocked. You know, I'm just blocked, I just don't know where to go from here. But just asking the question, something happens in my brain which eliminates all other possibilities except one, and that's the next sentence. and then then I'm off and off and running and uh, I tell you, I've created a new tool and it and it's a function of previous tools and it came up with a podcast with Joe Polish last week or this week, earlier this week, and he was saying how do you handle overwhelm? He said I'm feeling kind of overwhelmed right now. I've got so many things going. Dean: Office remodel yeah. Dan: Yeah, that's one, and then you know others and I said you know what I'm thinking about. That is, you have a lot of priorities that are all competing for your complete attention. You have the office revamp is one, and it's asking for your complete attention. You have the office revamp is one and it's asking for your complete attention. But then there's other things in your life that are also asking for your complete attention. I find that too, yeah. So I said I think to deal with this, you have to write down what all your priorities are. You just have to list all the priorities that in some way each of these. if they could, they would want your complete attention. And then you take them three at a time and the triple play, and you run them through the triple play so that by the third level of the triple play your competitors have turned into collaborators. And that releases the sense of overwhelm. At least with these three you now have released the overwhelmed feeling. And I said and you know, then you can take three more, and then you can take three more, and then you can take three more, and every time you do a triple play you're turning competition into collaboration. And so he was going to do one. And then I had somebody else that I did a Zoom call with and he's in a situation where everything's changing. And I said what you have to do is you have to take your competing priorities and turn them into collaborative priorities, and I think there's some real power to this. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I haven't completely worked it out yet, but that's what I'm working on this week. Dean: So the general idea I could do this as well is to take and just list all the competing priorities that I seem to have right now and put a time frame on it, like the next 90 days. Yes, I often find, when I get over one like that, I'll make a list and I'll say have I had this idea for at least 90 days and is this still going to be a good idea in 90 days? Is one of the comparisons that I have right. Is it something that is fleeting and only right now, or is this something persistent and and durable, um, and that that helps a lot? Which one can I have the biggest impact in the next 90 days? Yeah, and then you're saying take three of those and it doesn't matter what and doesn't matter what, doesn't matter which. Dan: Three and then just do a triple play on those and just do a triple play, and then the sense of overwhelm uh associated with all three of them uh will go away because they're competing with each other and the problem is, our brain can only focus on one thing at one time. Dean: That makes sense actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan: So, for example, in the triple play, where you take two arrows, you've now taken two priorities and made them into a single priority, and that is, I'm going to take these two priorities and create a single priority out of them. You know so your brain can focus on combining them, because it's just one thing. So, anyway, I'm playing with this Because I think every brain is different and every life is different, and the problem is that you're overwhelmed because you can't give full attention to any one of the priorities. Dean: That is true. Yeah, that's where all the frustration happens. Dan: So I would say one of your priorities and this is ongoing is to enable Charlotte to become more and more useful to you. That's a really important priority, I agree, yeah. Dean: I agree. Well, there we go. Dan: Well, what have we clarified today? Dean: Well, I think I'm immediately going to do the top priority triple play of the coming AI opportunity to just focus on what can I do in the next 90 days here to just increase the effectiveness of my relationship with Charlotte. That makes the most sense. What can we do this quarter and then a layer on top of that, but don't develop a second Charlotte. Dan: Then you're in real trouble I need to have one lifetime monogamous relationship with my one, charlotte my one, true Charlotte. I think this falls somewhere in the realm of the Ten Commandments. Dean: I think that's fantastic, Dan. I love it, you know. Dan: That's what wisdom is yeah, wisdom is good forever. Dean: That's what distinguishes wisdom. Dan: Alrighty, we'll be in Arizona on Tuesday and. I can. I'll be on Canyon Ranch next Sunday and so if you're up, to you can do it at 11, but I'll do it at 8, ok actually there are only 2 hours back now, so it'll be 9 2 hours so I'll do it at nine o'clock okay, great, I'll talk to you next week, then I'll be seeing you that's right. Dean: That's right, okay, bye, bye.

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, Dan and I explore technology and communication sparked by an unexpected conversation about cold snaps in Florida. We examine the evolution of communication technologies, from text to video, focusing on AI's emerging role. Our discussion highlights how innovations like television and the internet have paved the way for current technological developments, using the progression of airliners as a metaphorical framework for understanding technological advancement. Our conversation shifts to exploring human interaction and technological tools. We question whether platforms like Zoom have reached their full potential, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness and collaboration. We then journey back to 1967, reflecting on historical and cultural movements that continue to shape our current societal landscape. This retrospective provides insights into how past experiences inform our present understanding of technology and social dynamics. Personal anecdotes and political observations help connect these historical threads to contemporary discussions. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS In the episode, we discuss how an unexpected cold snap in Florida sparked a broader conversation about life's unpredictable nature and the evolution of communication technology. We delve into the role of AI in research and communication, specifically highlighting the contributions of Charlotte, our AI research assistant, as we explore historical and current communication mediums. The conversation includes an analysis of technological progress, using airliner technology as a metaphor to discuss potential saturation points and future trajectories for AI. We reflect on the balance between technology and human connection, considering whether tools like Zoom have reached their full potential or if there is still room for improvement. Our discussion covers the importance of self-awareness in collaboration, utilizing personality assessments to enhance interpersonal interactions. We share a personal narrative about the logistical challenges of expanding workshop spaces in Chicago, providing real-world insights into business growth. The episode takes a reflective journey back to 1967, examining cultural movements and their ongoing impact on modern societal issues, complemented by political commentary and personal anecdotes. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan, that would be me. Oh my goodness. Dan: I am not Do you have a cold? Dean: Do you have a cold? Dan: I do yeah. Dean: And is it freezing in Florida? Dan: It's very cold, it's unseasonably. Dean: Comparatively comparatively yes. Dan: It's unseasonably cold. Dean: Yeah. Yeah, well, we're getting our blast tomorrow, but it's colder than yeah. It's about 15 today with a 10 mile an hour wind which makes it 5, and tomorrow it's going down. It's going down even further. This is the joy of Canada in January. Dan: I don't know about the joy. Dean: But yeah, I like your voice I like your voice. Dan: I'm going to try and uh and make it all the way through, dad, but the uh just before you, I'm. Dean: You can put charlotte on. Dan: Yeah, exactly, yeah yeah, I'll tell you, I'm really realizing how, how incredible these conversations like. I really start to think and see how charlotte's um capabilities as a researcher. Dean: And uh, dean dean, I can't hear you. Dan: I'm trying to switch to my other uh headphones. But as long as you can hear me, can you hear me now? Dean: yeah, yeah, it's very good, okay good. Dan: Good, good good. Dean: I like this voice, though you know. Dan: It's got. Oh, really Okay, yeah, yeah, the baritone. Dean: Yeah, I mean you might create another version of yourself, you know which? Oh yeah, I should quick get on 11 Labs. I don't know if this would be your main course, but it would certainly be a nice seasoning. As a matter of fact, you could have on 11 Lab, you could go with them and you could have your normal voice as one of the partners and you could have this voice as the other partner. There you go, you could talk to each other. See, that makes a lot of sense right there. Yeah, it's so good. The reason the reason I'm saying this is I just had a whole chapter it is being done, I'll probably have it on tuesday, this being sunday of of one of the chapters of the book Casting Not Hiring, in two British voices, man and a woman, and it's charming, it's very charming. Dan: Really Wow. Dean: I really like it and they're more articulate. You know, brits, they invented the language, so I guess they're better at it. Yeah, that's what I really like about Charlotte's voice is the reassuring right, yeah, yeah, you get a sense that she's had proper upbringing. Dan: Mm-hmm, exactly, worldly wisdom. Well, certainly she's got command of the language yeah, the uh I was mentioning before I cut off there that uh, I was. I'm really coming to the realization how valuable charlotte is as a research partner. You, you know, a conversational, like exploration, like getting to the bottom of things, like I was. I've just fascinated how I told you last week that I, you know, reached the limit of our talk, you know capacity for a day and, but we had, we'd had over an hour conversation just going back and talking about, you know, the evolution of text, of words, um, and, and then we got up to the same. We got about halfway through uh, audio and uh, and then we got cut off. But I really like this framework of having her go back. I'm going to do the all four. I'm going to do audio and our text and audio and pictures and movies. You know, moving pictures, video, because there's there that's the order that we sort of evolved them and I think I think we don't know whether I guess we have pictures. First I think it was words, and then pictures, and then sound and then and then moving pictures. But you look at, I really I think I was on to something. Dean: You're talking about the ability to record and pass on From a communication standpoint. Dan: Yeah, and I'm kind of tracing. The first step is the capability to do it like the technology that allowed it, like the printing press. Okay, now we've had a capability, or once we had an alphabet and we had a unified way of doing it. That opened up for, uh, you know, I was going looking at the capability and then what was the kind of distribution of that? What was? How did that end up? You know, moving forward, how did we use that to advance? And then what were the? What were the business, you know, the capitalization of it going forward, who were the people who capitalized on? this it's a very interesting thing. That's why I think that where we are right now with AI, that we're probably at the stage of, you know, television 1950 and internet 1996, kind of thing, you know, and by over the next 25 years I think we're it's just going to be there. I mean, it's just it's going to be soaking in it. Dean: It's hard to know. I mean, there's some technologies that more or less come to an end, and I'll give you airliners. For example, the speed at which the fastest airliner can go today was already available in the 1960s the 707, the Boeing 707. Dan: Well, we've actually gone backwards because we had the Concorde in the 70s, you know. Dean: Yeah, but not widespread. That was just a novelty you know a novelty airline, but I mean in terms of general daily use, you know, I think we're probably a little lower. We're below the sound barrier. I suspect that some of the first airliners were breaking windows and everything like that and then they put in the law that you overlay and you cannot travel. I think it's around 550, maybe 550. I think sound barrier is somewhere early 600 miles an hour. I'm not quite sure what the exact number is, but we've not advanced. I mean they've advanced certainly in terms of the comfort and the safety. They've certainly advanced. I mean it's been. I think in the United States it goes back 16 years since they've had a crash. A crash, yeah, and you know what. Dan: I heard that the actual thing, the leading cause of death in airline travel, is missiles. That's it is. That's the thing. Over the last 10 years there have been more airliners shot down. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't want to be on a plane where you don't want to be in missile territory. You don't want to be on a plane where you don't want to be in missile territory. Dan: You don't want to be flying over missile territory. Dean: That's not good. No, do not get on that flight. Yeah, yeah Anyway, but I was just thinking about that. We were in Chicago for the week, came home on Friday night and you know I was on a 747, one of the last years that they were using 747s Wow, they're almost all cargo planes now. I think the only airline that I've noticed that's using still has A747 is Lufthansa. Oh, okay. Because we're at Toronto. They're all. They have the 380s. You know the huge. Dan: Yeah, they fly those to Australia, the A380. Dean: Well, yeah, this one is Emirates. Emirates their airline is a 380. But the only airline. You know that I noticed when we're departing from the terminal here in Toronto. The only one that I've seen is but they have in Chicago. There's a whole freight area. You know from freight area, Some days there's seven, seven 747s there, yeah, and they're a beautiful plane. I think, as beautifulness, beauty of planes goes to. 747 is my favorite. I think it's the most beautiful plane in any way. But they didn't go any faster, they didn't go any further. And you know our cars, you know the gas cars could do. They have the capability of doing 70, miles per gallon now, but they don't have to, they don't have to they have to, they have to, you know. So if they don't have to, they don't do it. You know all technology if they, if they don't have to do it. So it's an interesting idea. I mean, we're so used to technology being constantly open. But the big question is is there a customer for it? I mean like virtual reality, you know, was all the thing about five years ago. You had Mark Zuckerberg doing very, very. I think he will look back and say that that was a very embarrassing video. That I did the metaverse and everything else. It's just dropped like a stone. Dan: People just haven't bought into it even though the technology is. Dean: Don't like it. Dan: So my friend Ed Dale was here and he had the Apple, um, you know, the, the vision pro, uh, goggles or whatever. And so I got to, you know, try that and experience it. And it really is like uncanny how it feels, like you're completely immersed, you know and I and. I think that, for what it is, it is going to be amazing, but it's pretty clear that we're not nobody's like flocking to put on these big headgear, you know. Dean: You know why? Our favorite experiences with other people and it cuts you off from other people. It's a dehumanizing activity. Dan: Did you ever see the Lex Friedman podcast with Mark Zuckerberg in the metaverse? Dean: No, I didn't. Dan: It was a demo of the thing they were. It was kind of like uh, do you remember charlie rose? You remember the charlie rose? Sure, that's not the black curtain in the background, okay. Well, it was kind of set up like that, but mark and lex friedman were in completely different areas a a completely different you know, lex was in Austin or whatever and Mark was in California and they met in this you know metaverse environment with just a black background like that, and you could visibly see that Lex Friedman was a little bit like shaken by how real it seemed like, how it felt like he was really there and could reach out and touch him. You know, and you could really tell it was authentically awestruck by, by this technology you know, so I don't. Dean: I don't doubt that, but the yeah, but I don't want that feeling, I mean. Zoom has taken it as far as I really want to go with it. Dan: That's true, I agree 100%. Dean: I have no complaints with what Zoom isn't doing? Dan: Yeah, complaints with what Zoom? Dean: isn't doing yeah, yeah, it's. You know, it's very clear, you know they add little features like you can even heighten the portrait quality of yourself. That's fine, that's fine, but it's you know. You know I was thinking. The other day I was on a Zoom. I've been on a lot of Zoom calls in the last two weeks for different reasons and I just, you know, I said this is good. You know, I don't need anything particularly more than I'm getting. Dan: Right. Dean: So I wonder, if we get a point of technological saturation and you say I don't want any more technology, I just yeah, I want to squirrel it with a nut right? Dan: yeah, I think once I get more, the more I talk with Charlotte, the more it feels like a real collaboration. Dean: You know, like it feels, like you don't need a second. Dan: I don't need to see her or to, but you don't need a second. I don't need to see her or to, uh, I don't need. No, you don't, but you don't need a second person. Dean: You got, you got the one that'll get smarter absolutely yeah, exactly yeah, and so it's. Dan: I mean it's pretty, it's pretty amazing this whole uh, you know I was saying thinking back, like you know, the last 25 years we're 25 years into this, this hundred years, you know this millennia, and you know, looking because that's a real, you know, 2000 was not that long ago. When you look backwards at it, you know, and looking forward, it's pretty. Uh, I, that's, I'm trying to align myself to look more forward than uh than back right now and realize what it is like. I think. I think that through line, I think that the big four are going to be the thing. Words like text and pictures and sound and video, those are at the core. But all of those require on, they're just a conveyance for ideas, you know. Dean: Yeah. Yeah, it's very interesting because we have other senses, we have touch, we have taste, we have smell, but I don't see any movement at all. Dan: In the physical world, right exactly. Dean: Yeah, yeah, I don't see it that. I think we want to keep. You know, we want to keep mainland, we want to keep those things mainland. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And I think that. Dan: That's really. You know, if you think about the spirit of what we started, Welcome to Cloudlandia, for was really exploring that migration and thehabitation of the mainland and Cloudlandia. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Because so much of these things? Dean: But I think, and I'm just wondering, Harry and I'm not, making a statement. I'm just wondering whether each human has a unique nervous system and we have different preferences on how our nervous system interacts with different kinds of experiences. I think it's a very idiosyncratic world in the sense that everybody's up to something different. Dan: Mm-hmm. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And I think you're right. But that's where these self-awareness things, like knowing you're Colby and you're a working genius and you're Myers-Briggs and all these self-awareness things, are very valuable, and even more valuable when pairing for collaboration, realizing in a who-not-how world that there's so many we're connected to everybody, you know. Dean: Yeah, and we've got our purposes for interacting. You know I mean we have. You know I'm pretty extroverted when it comes to business, but I'm very, very introverted when it comes to personal life. Dan: I think I'd be the same thing. Dean: Yeah, yeah, and in other words, I really enjoy. We had, we were in Chicago and we had nine workshops in five days there and they were big workshops. They were you know each. We have a big, we have a big, huge room. Now we can technically we can put a hundred in. Now we can put a hundred person workshop. Oh, in Chicago, yeah. Dan: In Chicago yeah. Dean: We've taken over large amounts of the floor. I think there's just one small area of that floor that we don't have. It's a. It's a weird thing. It looks like some sort of deep state government building. We've never seen anyone in it and we've never seen anyone in it. But it's lit up and it's got an American flag and it's got some strange name that I don't know, and that's the only thing that's on the forest. It's not been known that a human actually came to the office there, anyway, but we've taken over 6,000 square feet, six more thousand. Oh wow, yeah, which is quite nice. Dan: That's pretty crazy. How's the studio project? Dean: coming Jim's starting, we had great, great difference of opinion on what the insurance is for it. Oh, that's a problem Insurance companies are not in the business of paying out claims. That's not their business model, Anyway. So our team, two of our team members, Mitch and Alex great, great people. They got the evidence of the original designer of the studio. They got the evidence of the original owner of the studio and how much he paid. They got the specifications. They brought in a third person, Third person. They got all this. These people all had records and we brought it to the insurance company. You know and you know what it, what it was valued at, and I think it's 2000, I think it was in 2000 that it was created. It was rated the number one post-production studio in Canada in the year 2000. Dan: Wow. Dean: Yeah, you know and everything. So they you know. And then, strangely enough, the insurance company said well, you got to get a public adjuster. We got a public adjuster and he had been in coach for 20 years. He favors us. Uh-huh, well, that's great, he favors us. Dan: He favors us? Dean: Yeah, Exactly yeah, but the first check is they give the checks out in the free. You know, there's a first check, there's a middle check and there's a final check. So, but I think we'll have complete studios by october, october, november that's which will be great yeah, yeah, we should be great. Yeah, you know, uh, the interesting thing. Here's a thought for you, and I'm not sure it's the topic for today. Um, uh, it has to do with how technology doesn't develop wisdom, doesn't develop. The use of technology doesn't develop wisdom. It develops power, it develops control, it develops ambition, but it doesn't develop wisdom. And I think the reason is because wisdom is only developed over time. Dan: Yes, and that wisdom is yeah, I think from real experience. Dean: And wisdom is about what's always going to be true, and technology isn't about what's always going to be true. It's about what's next. It's not about what's always the same they're actually opposed. Technology and wisdom are Well, they're not opposed. They operate in different worlds. Dan: Yeah, it feels like wisdom is based on experience, right? Dean: Yeah, which happens over time. Dan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, which happens over time. Yeah, yeah, because it's not theoretical at that. I think it's got to be experiential. Dean: Yeah. Yeah, it's very interesting. I heard a great quote. I don't know who it was. It might be a philosopher by the name of William James and his definition of reality, you know what his definition of reality is no, I don't, it's a great definition. Reality is that which, if you don't believe in it, still exists. Dan: Oh yeah, that's exactly right, and that's the kind of things that just because you don't know it, you know that's exactly right and that's what you know. Dean: That's the kind of things that, just because you don't know it, you know that doesn't mean it doesn't mean it can't bite you, but when, when you get hit by it, then that then, you've big day, you know, and yeah, and you know, with Trump. He said he's got 100 executive orders For day one. Yeah, and the only question is you know, inauguration, does day one start the moment he's sworn in, is it? Does it start the moment he's? Dan: sworn in. Is it? Does it start the day he's sworn in? Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah, okay, so let's see yeah. Dean: The moment the Chief Justice. You know he finishes the oath. He finishes the oath, he's the president and Joe's officially on the beach. Dan: Right yeah, shady acres. Dean: Right, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what's happened this past week, since we actually we haven't talked for two weeks but the fires in Los Angeles. I think this in political affairs and I think it is because it's the first time that the newest 10,000 homeless people in Los Angeles are rich. Dan: Oh man, yeah, I've heard Adam Carolla was talking about that. There's going to be a red wave that comes over California now because all these, the Democratic elite, which would be all of those people who live on those oceanfront homes and all that they were so rallying. No, they were so rallying to be on the side of regulation so that people couldn't build around them, and they made it so. You know, now that they've got theirs, they made it very, very difficult for other people to eclipse them or to do the things, eclipse them or to do the things, and they're gonna run straight into the wall of All these regulations when they start to rebuild what they had. Dean: You know it's gonna be years and years of going through regulation and Coastal Commission and you know all that to get approvals yeah, and they're going to be frustrated with that whole thing, but I've been hearing that there was some arson involved. Somebody's been. Well, yeah, you know, have you ever seen or heard of Michael Schellenberger? He's really, he's great. He's a scientist who's gone public. You know, he's sort of a public intellectual now, but he was, and he was very much on the left and very much with the global warming people, much with the global warming people. Then he began to realize so much of the global warming movement is really an attempt. Exactly what you said about the California rich. These are rich people who don't want the rest of the world to get rich. The way you keep them from not getting rich is you don't give them access to energy. And you've got your energy and you can pay for more, but they don't have energy. So you prevent them. And so he became a big fan of nuclear power. He said, you know, the best thing we can do so that people can catch up quickly is we should get nuclear in, because they may be a place where there really isn't easy access to oil, gas and coal, africa being, you know, africa being a place and, uh, he just has gradually just gone deeper and deeper into actual reality and now he's completely you know, he's completely against the you know, against the people who want to get rid of fossil fuels. Dan: But, anyway. Dean: he said what nobody wants to touch with a 10 foot pole in California is that in addition to rich people, there were homeless people in the Pacific Palisades and he said, and a lot of them are meth addicts. And he said meth addicts' favorite activity is to set fires. He says different drugs have different. In other words, you take heroin and you want to do this, you take cocaine. You want to do this With methamphetamines. What you want to do is you want to set fires. So he said and nobody wants to talk about the homeless meth addicts who are starting fires that burn down 10,000 homes. You know, because they're actually welcome in Los Angeles. They actually get government benefits. Yeah, there's a lot of what they stand for that collides with reality. Dan: A lot of what they stand for that collides with reality. Yeah, it is going to be crazy. I think. Dean: Gavin should forget it. I think Gavin should forget about the presidency. Dan: Oh man, yeah, they're going to have him. He's going to have some explaining to do. Dean: Yeah, you do. Yeah, you know. Yeah, you know. It was very interesting. When I got out of the Army, which was 1967, may of 1967, I was in Korea and they put us on a big plane, they flew us to Seattle and they discharged us in Seattle. So, and but you had money to get home. You know, they gave you, you know, your discharge money. So I had a brother who was teaching at the University of San Francisco and and, and so I went down and I visited with him. He was a philosophy teacher, dead now, and so it was 1967. And he said there's this neat part of the city I want to take you to, and it was Haight-Ashbury. And it was right in the beginning of that movement, the hippie movement, and I had just been in the army for two years, so there was a collision of daily discipline there and anyway. But we were walking down the street and I said what's that smell? Weird smell. He says, oh yeah, you want to try some marijuana. Well, what you saw with was what you saw last week with the fires is the philosophy of hippieism moved into government control over a period of 60 years. It ends up with fires where there's no water in the reservoirs yeah, that's. Dan: Yeah, I mean so many uh cascading, so many cascading problems. Right, that came yeah when you think about all the um, all the other things, it's crazy. Yeah, yeah, all the factors that had to go into it, yeah, it's so. This is what the Internet, you know, this, this whole thing now is so many, like all the conspiracy theories now about all of these. Every time, anything you know, there's always the that they were artificially. You know there's some scientists talking about how the barometric pressure has been artificially low for yeah period. Dean: Yeah well, yeah, it's very, it's very interesting how energy you know, just energy plays into every other discussion. You know, just to have the power to do what you want to do. That day is a central human issue and and who you do it with and what you have. You know what, what it is that you can do, and you know and I was having a conversation I was in Chicago for the week and there was a lot of lunch times where other clients not. I had just the one workshop, but there were eight other workshops. So people would come into the cafe for lunch and they'd say, if you had to name three things that Trump's going to emphasize over the next four years, what do you think they would be? And I said energy, energy, energy. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Three things just energy. Drill drill drill, Drill, drill, drill. Yeah, and Greenland, Canada and Panama. Dan: Take them over. Dean: Yeah exactly hey Canada we're out of wood Get out. Yeah, things are strange up here. Dan: Yeah, what's the what's the Well, he's gone. Dean: But he's still around for two months but he resigned. He's resigned as prime minister, he's resigning as party leader and I think it was on Wednesday he said he's not running in the election, so he's out as a. And then he'll go to Harvard because that's where all the liberal failures go. They become professors at Harvard I suspect, I suspect, yeah, or he may just go back to Whistler and he'll be a snowboard instructor, wouldn't that? Dan: be cool. Dean: Or he may just go back to. Dan: Whistler, and he'll be a snowboard instructor. Dean: That'd be kind of cool, wouldn't that be cool? Get the former prime minister as your snowboard instructor. Dan: Yeah, really Exactly yeah, is there. I don't even know, is he rich? Is their family? Dean: rich. Well, I think it's a trust fund. I mean, his dad didn't work. His dad was in politics Not as you and I would recognize work, but it was gas station. Trudeau had a lot of gas station, which is ironic. Dan: It is kind of ironic, isn't it yeah? Dean: Yeah, but I don't think he has that much. You know, I saw some figures. Maybe he's got a couple of million, which which you know, probably what was available, that you know those trust funds, they don't perpetuate themselves, right, yeah, but he's. Yeah, there's just two people are running. That's the woman who knifed him. You know Christia Freeland. She's just two people running. That's the woman who knifed him. You know, chrystia Freeland, she's running. And then the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the former governor Bank of England. He was both governor and he's really very much of a wackadoodle intellectual, really believes that people have too much freedom. We have to restrict freedom and we have to redesign. Davos is sort of a Davos world economic firm. We've got ours, you don't get ours. We've got ours, you don't get ours. We've got ours, you don't get yours. Strange man, very strange man. She's a strange woman. Dan: Is it pretty much green lights for Polyev right now? Dean: Yeah, he's not doing anything to ruin his chances either. He's actually. He had a great interview with jordan peterson about two weeks ago. He was very, very impressive. Dan: I'm very impressed about it yeah, yeah oh, that's great, yeah, oh did you go to? This Christmas party, by the way. Dean: No, I didn't. They didn't follow through, Uh-oh. So you know, I'm just going to sit in this chair and wait, you know. Dan: Yeah, exactly. Dean: I mean, he'll be told, you know that you've missed a huge opportunity here. You know Mm-hmm. Dan: Yes, exactly, yeah, oh man, yeah, that's funny, dan, I'm. You know, after four years of being no further, I didn't go north of I-4, I'm in this crazy little vortex of travel right now coming up. I was just in Longboat Key. I was speaking at JJ Virgin's Mindshare Summit, so I was there Wednesday till yesterday and then I'm home. I got hit with this cold. I think it was like a. You know, whenever you're in a group of people in a big thing, it's always it becomes a super spreader kind of event. You know, there's a lot of people with this kind of event, there's a lot of people with this kind of lung gunk thing going around. So I ended up getting it. But I've got now until Tuesday to get better. Then I'm going to speak at Paris Lampropolis here in Orlando and then I go to Miami for Giovanni Marseco's event the following week, and then I've got my Breakthrough Blueprint in Orlando the week after that and then Scottsdale for FreeZone the week after that. Every week, the number of nights in my own bed is we're going to Scottsdale or not Scottsdale, but week after next. Dean: I'll be here next Sunday, Then I go on Tuesday. We go to Phoenix and we'll be at Carefree. Dan: What's Carefree? Oh, that's where. Dean: No, no, carefree is north and east of Scottsdale in Phoenix yeah. And so we're at Richard Rossi's. Dan: Da. Dean: Vinci 50. Then we take off for there, we drive to Tucson for Canyon Ranch, we drive back and we have the summit, we have the Free Zone Summit Then, then we have 100K, and then we have 100K. So that's it. So are you coming to the summit too? I am of course, and what I'm doing this time is I have three speakers in the morning and three speakers in the afternoon, and I have Stephen Poulter, Leslie Fall and Sonny Kalia, and then in the afternoon I have Charlie Epstein, Chris Johnson and Steve Crine. I have Charlie. Epstein, chris Johnson and Steve Crang. And what I did is I did a triple play on the three in the morning, three in the afternoon. I did a triple play and then I'm talking to each of them, the names of the three speakers, three columns, and then you write down what you got from these three columns, right? And then you get your three insights and then you talk in the morning in groups and then you do the same thing in the afternoon. I think that would be neat, nice. Dan: Very nice. It's always a good time, always a great event. Yeah, two parties. Dean: Yep, we have sort of a party every night with Richard. It's about three parties Two parties with me and then probably two parties with Joe so seven parties, seven parties, seven parties, yeah, yeah Well. I hope your editor. Can, you know, modulate your voice delivery? Dan: I'm so sorry, yeah, exactly. Dean: Yeah, you got it. What a couple days you've been with it. Dan: Yeah, yesterday was like peak I can already feel that you know surrounded by doctors at JJ's thing. So I got some. Dean: Where's? Dan: Lawn. Dean: Boat Tea. Dan: Sarasota. Dean: Oh, okay. Dan: Yeah, it's just an island right off of Sarasota and so, you know, surrounded by doctors, and so I got some glutathione and vitamin C. I got some glutathione and vitamin C and some. Then I got home and JJ's team had sent some bone broth and some you know, some echinacea tea and all the little care package for nipping it in the bud and a Z-Pak for I've got a great pancake power pancake recipe that I created. Dean: I actually created this. You're talking to an originator. Dan: It's a world premiere here. Dean: Yeah, so you take about six ounces of egg white Egg white, okay and you put it in a blender, and then you take about a handful of walnuts. You put it in a blender and then you take about a handful of walnuts, you put it in and you take a full scoop of bone broth and put it in. Then you just take a little bit of oatmeal, just give it a little bit of starch, then a little bit of salt, then you veggie mix it, veggie mix it, you know. Then you put it in a pie pan, okay. And then you put frozen raspberries oh yeah, raspberries, bacon bits and onions. Raspberries and bacon bits Yep, yep, okay, yep, yep, bacon bits makes everything taste better. Yep, okay yeah, bacon bits makes everything taste better. Dan: It really does. I don't think about that with the raspberries, but that's great. Dean: Yeah, I told people in the coach, you know the triple play. I said triple play is my bacon tool. I said whatever other, whatever other tool you did, you do the triple play and it's like adding bacon to it. Adding bacon, that's the best. Yeah, it makes it good. And then you just put it in the microwave for five and a half minutes and it comes out as a really nice pancake. Oh, that's great. Yeah, and it's protein. I call it my protein pie, protein pie. Dan: That's great. Dan Sullivan's triple play protein pie. Yeah, yeah, the recipe recipe cards handed out. Will they show up in the breakfast buffet? Dean: No, no, it's, you know, I think it's. I think it takes a developed taste, you know, to get it, you know, but it's got a lot of protein. It's got, you know, egg white in the protein. The bone broth has a ton of protein in it, yeah, so it's good. Yeah, I'm down. Good, yeah, I'm at, probably since I was 20, maybe in the Army my present weight. I'm probably down there and I got about another 10 to go, and then it's my linebacker weight when I was in high school. Dan: Oh, that's great. Dean: Going back to linebacker Mm-hmm. Dan: Well, you'll have those new young teenage knees that you'll be able to suit up One of them. Dean: One of them anyway. Dan: If your Cleveland Browns need you. Yeah, if your. Dean: Cleveland Browns need you. Yeah, well, if you want to play professional football, play for the Browns, because you always get January off. That's funny. Yeah, kansas City yesterday, you know it was about zero. You know I mean boy, oh boy. You know you got to you know, I mean. Did Kansas City win yesterday? Yeah, they won, you know, 23, 23-14, something like that, you know. And you know they're just smarter. You know, it's not even that they're better athletes. I think their coach is just smarter and everything like that. Jim, I watch. I'm more interested in college football than I am. Ohio State and Notre Dame, Two historically classical. Dan: I've really gotten into Colorado football because just watching what Deion Sanders has done in two seasons basically went from the last worst team in college football. Yeah To a good one to a good yeah To nine and three and a bowl game, and you know, and Travis Hunter won the Heisman and they could potentially have the number one and two draft picks in the NFL this year. Dean: You know that's, that's something. Did he get both? Dan: of them draft picks in the NFL. This year that's something. Dean: Did he get both of them? I know he got his son because his son came with him. Was he a transfer Hunter? I don't know if he was a transfer. Dan: He brought him from Jackson State because before, before dion went to uh colorado, he spent three years in yeah at jackson state and turned that whole program around yeah and then came uh and now she was talking to the cowboys this this week I. I don't know whether he is or that's. Uh, I mean, they're everybody's speculating that. That's true. I don't know whether he is or that's. I mean everybody's speculating that that's true, I don't know how I feel about that Like I think it would be interesting. You know I'm rooting that he stays at Colorado and builds an empire, you know, yeah. Dean: Of course you know it used to screw the athletes because the coach, would you know, drop them. They would come to the university and then they would leave. Dan: That's what I mean, that's what? Dean: I think that he would no, but now they have the transfer portal, so you know if the university, yeah, but still I think it would leave a lot of. Dan: I think it would leave a really bad taste in people's mouths if he, if he left now. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah, Like. Dean: I think, that would. Dan: I would. I wouldn't feel good about what about that either, cause I think about all the people that he's brought there with promises. You know, like everybody's joint he's, he's building momentum. All these top recruits are coming there because of him, yeah, and now you know, if he leaves, that's just. You know that. That's too. I don't know. I don't feel good about that, I don't feel good. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway, I've got, I got a jump, I've got. Jeff. We're deep into the writing of the book we have to chat for about 10 minutes. Dan: I'm happy. Dean: I hope your cold goes away. I'll be here in Toronto next week and I'll call and we'll see each other. We'll see each other within the next couple of weeks. Dan: That's exactly right Okay. Dean: Okay, bye, talk to you soon. Bye.

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, We take you through the fascinating evolution of media and communication technologies. We begin by tracing the journey of written communication from ancient Sumerian pictographs to Gutenberg's printing press. The narrative explores how each technological breakthrough transformed our ability to share information, from industrial-era steam presses to the digital revolution sparked by the first email in 1971. Our conversation delves into the parallels between historical technological adaptations and current innovations. We examine the story of a 1950s typesetter transitioning to digital technologies, drawing insights into how professionals navigate significant technological shifts. The discussion introduces the concept of "Casting, not Hiring," emphasizing the importance of finding meaningful experiences and team dynamics in a rapidly changing world. We explore the transformation of media consumption and advertising in the digital age. Traditional media platforms give way to digital giants like Facebook and Google, reflecting broader changes in how we create, distribute, and consume content. The conversation touches on audience dynamics, using examples like Joe Rogan's media presence and Netflix's market evolution to illustrate these shifts. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS In this episode, I explore the historical journey of media and communication, tracing its evolution from ancient scripts to modern digital technologies. I discuss the pivotal role of Gutenberg's printing press in revolutionizing media distribution and how it set the stage for the widespread use of newspapers and books. We delve into the transition from traditional typesetting to digital processes, drawing parallels between past innovations and current advancements in AI. The conversation highlights the importance of curiosity and effective communication in embracing new technologies, emphasizing the idea of "casting" for meaningful experiences rather than traditional hiring. We examine media consumption trends and the impact of big data on advertising, noting the shift from traditional platforms to digital giants like Facebook and Google. Our discussion includes an analysis of the historical impact of communication technologies, referencing figures like Edison and their influence on modern entrepreneurship. The episode concludes with a focus on the value of appreciation and growth, sharing insights on how recognizing value and excellence can lead to professional and personal breakthroughs. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan, and how are you? I am wonderful. Welcome to Cloudlandia, you are in the Chicago outpost. I am. Dan: I'm sitting in a very comfortable spot, noise-free. I just had. Have you ever done any IV where they pump you? Up with good stuff. Dean: I have yeah. Dan: Yeah, I just came from that, so I may be uncomfortably exuberant. Dean: Uncomfortably exuberant. That's a great word there, right there. Dan: Yeah, yeah, uncomfortable to you. Dean: That's the best. Dan: Yeah, yeah. So anyway, we have a good service. Dean: The only thing I miss about Chicago comfortable to you, that's the best, yeah, so anyway, we have a good service. The only thing I miss about Chicago. Dan is our Sunday dinners. Oh the Sunday roundtable. Dan: Yeah, it's a bit more informal now so we don't have a big gap. It's not like the Last Supper. Dean: Right, exactly. Dan: We have Mike Canix coming over and Stephen Paltrow. Dean: Okay, there you go. Dan: They'll be on straight carnivore tonight. Dean: Okay, good, I like everything about that. Dan: Yeah, it's a little bit of snow on the ground and snowing right now, but it's nice. Dean: Oh, that's awesome. Well it's winter here. It's like cool. Yeah, I almost had to wear pants yesterday, dan, it was that cold. Dan: I had to wear pants yesterday, Dan. Dean: It was that cold I had to wear my full-weight hoodie. But yeah, but it's sunny, it's nice. Dan: I was just in the hot tub before we got on the call the Chinese intelligence, who are listening to this phone call. They're trying to visualize what you just said. Dean: Yes, Well, I had a great conversation with Charlotte this morning and something happened. That is the first time I've done it. I literally I talked her ear off. I reached my daily limit of talk interaction. We were talking for about an hour. There's a limit. Yes, I pay $20 a month and I guess there's a limit of how long you can engage by advanced voice tech. Dan: I'd give her a raise. I'd give her a raise. Dean: So they were on her behalf demanding a raise. I'd give her a raise. So they were on her behalf demanding a raise from $20 a month to $200 a month, and I could talk to her all I want. I still think it's worth it. It really is. When you think about if we go through the personification again, if you think about what you're getting for 200 I mean, just the conversation I had with her this morning was worth more than 200, yeah, so you want to know what we were talking about. What were you talking? about well, I am such a big fan of this, the big change uh book that I got for you. That was oh yeah, by stuff like that. So I really have been thinking that the whole game has really been an evolution of our, of words, pictures, sound and the combination of words, pictures and sounds in videos, right, and if we take the big three the words and pictures and sound, that I, you know, we went all the way back to the very beginning and I told her I said, listen, what I'd love to do is I want to trace the evolution of each of these individually. I want to start from the beginning of how we let's just take text, you know, as an example for words, and so she's taking me all the way back to the ancient Sumerians and the invention of kind of the very first kind of visual depiction of words and language, and then all the way up to the hieroglyphics of Egyptians and then into what would now be what we know as the alphabet, with the Romans and Latin, Romans and Latin, and the way that they were distributed was through tablets and they would post posters and things to get things out there. And so I'll pause there and I'll tell you that the lens that I wanted to look at it through for her is to go back and find, just trace, the beginnings of the capability of it, right, the capability of text. So that meant we had to have language and we had to have the alphabet, and we had to have the tools, the mechanism to recreate these on tablets. And then the distribution of them. How were they distributed? The consumption of them, how were they received and popularized? And then how were they capitalized? Who turned business opportunities into? What did this new capability turn into business-wise? So, looking, those four, tracking those four things all the way through history, from the ancient Sumerians, all the way through, and so when we got to, you know, from the time the Romans created the thing, the first kind of commercialization was the scribe industry. That became a thing where people were employed as scribes to you know, to write things, things, and then it came into the monks. We haven't gone deep dive in these yet, we're kind of going through the surface level of them. But the scribes, you know, were the first kind of commercializing and distribution of the of the things. And then when Gutenberg came along, that sort of popularized and made it even more able to distribute things and on the back of that became newspapers and pamphlets and books. So those were the three primary things for hundreds of years. Until the 1800s we had steam presses which were large, just kind of mechanized, sped up Gutenberg presses, and then the roller presses which allowed to have long, continuous streams of printing, which that really led to the modern newspaper. You know we had almost a hundred years until things were digitized where the entire platform was built on that plateau of things. And then it turned into newspapers magazines were the dominant things and mail. Those were the big distribution elements for a hundred years and then, once it got digitized, we turned into email. The first email apparently was sent in 1971 or something, but it took 25 years for that to popularize to the level that everybody had email and it was the primary thing and that led to PDFs and eBooks and distribution on the internet. We talked about bloggers because, if you remember, in the early days of the internet the heroes were bloggers. Those were the sort of personalities pre-social media you know. And then she even used the words that once it became democratized with social media, that things like twitter and and you know those were big things. But she talked about Arianna Huffington and Perez Hilton and Matt Drudge as the kind of first real mainstream capitalizers of this digital kind of went full steam into only digital, when all the mainstream print media was still kind of holding on and and resisting the migration of free news coming through you know um, and then we get to the point now where all of that is completely available. You know medium and sub stack and you know email newsletters taking off as a thing, and then AI bringing into a situation where now the machines can create and distribute the content. And it's funny just that level. I was on a Zoom with Joe Stolte the other day and you know, with even your newsletter, the AI-assisted newsletter you think about those as things, that learning smart, personalized text, media consumption as a really enhanced experience. So I found that really that was the first conversation that I'd had with that kind of context. I'm visualizing, I want to like visualize a timeline of these benchmarks. You know along the way, and realize how long the spaces were between when things actually catalyzed, you know yeah, long in comparison to what? Dan: long in comparison to the last. Dean: You know where we are now that long in comparison to what? Long in comparison to the last. You know where we are now. That long in comparison to that. There was no ability to print words on paper until 1442 or 1555 or whatever. I think it's 1550. Dan: Yeah, so 1455. Dean: Somewhere around there. Somewhere around there, yeah that literally did not change for 400 years till now. You know, in the last 25 years we've gotten to where we can distribute it globally instantly to everybody, and that we've also got machines now that can actually create the content itself and distribute on on your behalf and so I think that's our ability to create that stuff. Like I, I wonder how long and how many hours of research power it would have taken to get this level of what I gained from my conversation with Charlotte. Dan: Well, you would have gotten a doctorate, you would have gotten a PhD. Dean: Yeah, and it would have taken years to study all of that and to go back and find it all you know, but it was very, I found it very all to serve this idea that I think, in all of those digitized four corners, that we have reached a, a pinnacle, where we're faced now going forward with a plateau that really it's going to be about the creative use of. No, I think that's things. Dan: Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah, just a little addition to charl's work the conversation that you had with Charlotte. One of the reasons why the Greeks have such influence Greek thinking on the world, you know they essentially created history. That was. Dean: You know that was. Dan: Thucydides. And you know, herodotus and Thucydides were two Greek historians and basically their histories basically really formed the whole ancient world. And then you had poetry. Homer was the great poet and. Plato and Aristotle and many others, many other Greek philosophers, but Greece was the first country that developed a really first-class. The Greeks developed a first-class alphabet. I think it may have pretty close to we have 26 letters. I'm not quite sure what they had, but it wasn't. I don't know if it was fewer or more, but maybe only by two or three letters they had, but it was really the alphabet. That is the breakthrough. For example, we have two artists that work for us. They're from Hong Kong and growing up they learned all the. They learned all the ideograms that are in Chinese you know, and you know, and it's years and years and years of study where the alphabet you know. A reasonably intelligent first grader, or maybe even earlier these days, but a six-year-old, can basically grasp the alphabet and be using that skillfully, you know, within their first year of grade school, within first grade and that's what the alphabet did and that's why, you know, the literacy really came in. But even then, when you know in Gutenberg today there weren't that many literate people, you know who could actually? Read, you know. So it wasn't so much the technology Well, the technology was crucial, but it wasn't so much why things. It's just that it took 400 years for the entire population to become literate. You know, and you know to have formal education to empower literacy. That took a long time because people were working manually and they didn't have need for reading. They had to become good at things. Fixated now for about the last eight months on british navy historical novel assault taking place around 1800 to 1800. You know, and you know the majority of sailors on the ships didn't read they, they didn't have right reading, you know but, they were very skillful. They knew the wind, they knew the waves, they yeah, you know, they had phenomenal teamwork and they were very skillful. They knew the wind, they knew the waves, they had phenomenal teamwork and they were very handy. They had a lot of hand skills and everything else, but it's been only recently that your progress in the world really depended upon reading. Dean: Literacy yeah. Dan: Yeah, you had to go forward. I remember that's one story. Just the Greeks. The Greeks that became very powerful, their philosophy still. I mean, every day in universities, or probably universities, there's discussions about what Plato said about this, what Aristotle said about this. So that's still. You know, the power of that over generations is really quite extraordinary. The other thing, if I want to add to that, my sister, who's 89, the man she married, who died about 10 years ago. When I met him, this was in the 1950s, he was a typesetter for a major newspaper in the. Cleveland area and I would go down there and you'd see he put together a whole page of it and you know, and he had to do it backwards, he had to put all the letters. He had this vast, you know, he had these, they were like wooden shelves that had, you know, were divided into, you know, into 28 different, 26 different spots, and he would just pick up the letters and put them. But he made the complete changeover, starting around the 1970s, 1975. He made a complete changeover to becoming digital. It started becoming digital even in the 1970s. And then he just kept progressing, layer after layer, until he was the production manager for the entire network of about five you know five municipal newspapers and everything like that yeah so his history sort of matches what you and charlotte talked about. Dean: Yeah, and I found that really an interesting like multi-track way to look at it, as the technology and then the capability that created for the creation of things, the distribution of those things and the capitalizing on those things, because that's kind of like the cascading layers that happen. And I think if we look at where we are with AI right now, we're at that level where it was available below the surface until two years ago and then now it's sort of widely available as a capability. But all the things that are going to really come, I wouldn't say it's widely available used right now. I heard somebody talk about that. If we think about, like, if ultimately AI is just going to be internet, you know it's like if we think about what internet was in 1996, that's becoming. It's almost like chat. Gpt is the AOL of of what made the internet popular, right as everybody got on. AOL and had access to email and kind of gated browsing. Dan: Yeah, the interesting thing that you know if I just take your example from this morning, it's because you're a good prompter that whole thing happened. The whole essential skill. You know, if you take all the technology, that's a technology, charlotte's technology, and that's there, it's waiting there. It's waiting there to be used. But unless you have a good prompter it won't produce what you produced this morning. Dean: I agree with you 100, and that's why it's all in the prompt prompting. Dan: That means knowing what you want. It's actually a visualization skill because, you visualize something you know like in, not exactly because you, how you did it is unique, but my sense is that you had a question in mind, or you were just curious about something, and then you were able to put it into words. This was strictly spoken, was it? Yeah, uh-huh, yeah, so you didn't type anything in for this. Dean: No, I did not. Dan: Because it's strictly on an audible level, right, exactly, yeah. Anything in for this? No, I did not. Strictly on an audible level, right, exactly yeah. But here's the thing that no one else in the world did what you did this morning, and the reason is because you were just interested in it you were just interested in something and you know, and it was in conversation form, so now tell me about this. Now tell me about this yeah well, what she? Dean: was saying was guiding my things. You know what? It's very similar, dan. It's like if we were to sit down at a piano and look at the piano. There's 88 keys of possibility there. Yeah, unless you know how to prompt the keys to make the noises. Dan: Do you know what I mean? It's just noise. Dean: I think that's really what it is, and I think that chat interactions or AI interactions are going to be the piano lessons of today. Right Like for kids to talk about essential skills. Dan: And the outcome is going to be the music and the outcome is going to be the music. Dean: That's right. That's right, yeah. Dan: I've done about. You know, with perplexity, probably last week I've done about 25, you know where I one. That was really interesting because it was related to the book that I'm writing Casting, not Hiring with Jeff and I was saying, you know, the big thing is that we're only talking, the book is only for a particular type of person, you know. Because, you know he has a wide range of people that he's giving them our small copy of Casting, not Hiring you know, our 60-page book and then he's interviewing them if they're willing to read it, which takes about an hour. If they're willing to read it, then he wants to know what they think about it. You know, but there's, like corporate people that he's talking to, there's academic people that he's talking to, and I said, you know, jeff, academic people that he's talking to. And I said, you know, jeff, there's only one reader for this. That's a successful, talented, ambitious entrepreneur who wants to grow. Who wants to grow, wants to make the growth experience really meaningful and purposeful for himself or herself, but also for the team members, for the members of the company that the entrepreneur owns. And so he said, yeah, well you know how big is that market and I said, well, let's. So I did a search and I had my question. I just looked at it just before I came on the call. I said I want you to, of all the companies incorporated in the United States, the total number of incorporated companies in the United States in 2023, because usually their number. You know that you go back about a year before the present year that you're just sending, because there's an enormous amount of data for that. Dean: And. Dan: I said what percentage of all the incorporated companies in the United States are privately owned? And it turns out it's 99% and 33 million, 33 million incorporated companies. And and then I put in another prompt okay, size of companies 1 to 10, 10 to 50, 50 to 150, 150 to 500, above 500, and 74 percent of them are 74 percent or one to ten. And then, and I said we're really talking basically about companies up to about 150 that's the reader. They have companies that are 150 and everything like that, and it's really interesting that this is the only person they said but there's this huge market of other. You know, jeff didn't say this, but other people said there's. So this should be a book for everybody. And I said, if it's a book for everybody, it's not interesting to anybody that's true, exactly. Dean: Well, that's so. Those numbers have kind of um grown, because I've always heard about you know know, 28 million, but I guess the most recent that would make sense 33 million. Dan: And it would be bigger today because we're you know, we're a full year and into the first month, so it would be bigger. The incorporations go on. And the other thing about what you're saying is you can be so specific, Like you can really put down all the interesting things about the reader you know, about the reader that you're looking for and you know so, while the capability that you're talking and I have some arguments with democratize you know the concept of democratize because there's a certain sense people are going to have equal capabilities. I think just the opposite is going to happen. The range from people with a little ability or no ability to extraordinary capability actually gets bigger and wider to extraordinary capability actually gets bigger and wider. And the reason is exactly what I just said to you that you're the only one in the world who's ever gotten that information laid out and has it back in a very short period of time. And it's strictly because what Dean Jackson was looking for. Dean: Yeah, that's exactly right. I was very curious about it. And I think that it's something. I think it's a unique perspective, especially when we overlay the other things. We only got we were talking about then sound. We only got we were talking about then sound. And it wasn't until the 1800s late 1800s that Edison created the phonograph, that we were able to capture sound and the evolution of that. Then it took another by 25 years later. It was the beginning of radio. That now we have the ability to capture sound, the ability to distribute sound through the radio, that it ushered in this golden era of radio as the distribution medium. And she talked about NBC and CBS and ABC, you know, as the monopolistic NBC was really the big giant. Dan: Yeah, they were the giant. Dean: I mean, they were the powerhouse of radio 1995 was the, or 1925, I think was when they were founded, and then the others were by 1927. Yeah, but that took off the radios in every household and all of that, you know, laid the. That created the mass audience yeah really right, yeah, there was. Dan: Uh. Really, there's a writer named tim wu wu and he's just. He's written about five books on just the extraordinary impact of the communication technologies, starting when you said sort of you know. First the telegraph and the telegraph with sound. That's really the telephones you have. Bell is in there. So, Morris and Bell and Edison. You have the combination. And then Edison also created the movie. I mean, he was the real. I mean, he's the person who created it that became famous for it yes. There were lots of people. He's famous for the light bulb, he's the person who became famous for the light bulb, but there were at least five or six working light bulbs before Edison. It's just that Edison was the first what I would call the modern entrepreneur, technology entrepreneur, and he really grasped where all this stuff was going, more than any other single innovator entrepreneur, and he understood the stock market and he understood how to raise funds and he understood how to market. Dean: You know, yeah, yeah. Dan: So you know I'm getting a lot of patents, so we got two more on Friday, so we're up to 54 patents now. And I was talking in the breakout group on Friday, I said we're really piling up the patents, and so somebody said well, how many are you going for? And I said I can tell you exactly I'm going for 1,068. Tell you exactly, I'm going for 1,068. Uh-huh, 1,068. I mean, where's that number come from? I said Edison had 1,067. Dean: Oh, there you go. Dan: That's the best, and I grew up two miles from his birthplace. So the farm that I grew up two miles away is where Edison was born, milan, ohio, and very famous, I mean he's just a roaring, big, major human being, historic human being in that area, and he's one of my five historic role models. I've got Euclid, I've got Shakespeare, I've got Bach, I've got Hamilton, james Madison and Edison. And I said Edison put all the pieces together that created the modern technological world. Dean: It's true, isn't it? Yeah? Dan: He's the first person to create a formal R&D lab. He had in Menlo, new Jersey. He created his famous lab and he had technicians and scientists and engineers there. And then you know, and then he understood the stock market and he understood you know big systems, how you put big electric systems together and everything like that, you know. The thing is that that's a history of entrepreneurism, the thing that you put together with Charlotte this morning. Dean: Yeah, that was my intention, Because it's always some individual who just decides to do something more with it. Dan: They kind of apply your VCR formula to something that already exists and they say what's the vision? Well, you have to have the vision, but you have to see where it hasn't gone to yet. I mean, that's basically what you have to. Vision is seeing where things have not yet gone to, but could, if you organize them differently? You take the capabilities and combined it with reach, then you. That's what the future really is. Vcr. Dean: Yeah, you know I've had a nice VCR advancement, chad, and I have been talking a lot about it. Chad Jenkins, chad Jenkins, I've been talking about the VCR formula and so I had some distinctions around vision, like what is vision? And I realized there's a progression that it takes like from an idea or a prediction. Is the first level that you got a vision that, hey, I think this could work, and then the next level of it is that you've got proof that idea does work and that opens the gate for you to create a protocol for predictable repeating of that result and that opens the gateway to a patent, to protection of that. Dan: So you predict, you prove you protocol or package and protect the 4P progression. I thought, know you know what. You know what it is. It's the ability to see, yeah, let's say, a reasonable time frame, not 100 years from now, but let's say 10 years from now. Yeah, that, if this were available, a lot of people would like to have this. Dean: Yes. Dan: That's basically what a vision is. That's what a vision is. If it was available to them and it was easy to use. They don't have to change their habits too much to use it 10 years from now and I think a lot of people not only would they love using it, they'd be willing to pay for it. Dean: Of course, yes, I agree, yeah, and so I thought that was very, that was a nice, I mean every drug dealer in the world knows how to do that. Dan: Yeah, I mean, you think about everything started out with an idea. I bet, if we did this, that would be oh, yeah, yeah, I bet, prove it. I bet, yeah, you know, steve jobs with itunes. He said yeah I got interested in music. But when I go into a store, you know, uh, and, and I hear a song I really like, or I hear a musician I really like, and I hear them singing a song, or her I, you know, I'd like to be able to just get that song, but they make it really difficult. You got to buy 11 other songs, or 10 other songs to get the one song you know and you know, and, and I'd like to have it. You know, I'd like to have it on a small machine. I don't want to. You know, I don't want to have a big record that comes home and then I have to have a lot of equipment and everything to put on it. And you know, and you know, I'd like to, I'd like to think of. You know, I'd like to have a technology. Dean: Yeah, I'd like to think of. Dan: You know, I'd like to have a technology Getting a call from yeah, I'd like to have a technology that, the moment I hear the sun, five minutes later I can have it. You know, Mm-hmm. Yes, I mean it's so I think it's imagine, there's a capability multiplied by imagination. You know that's kind of like what vision is. Dean: But you know, the interesting thing is that was true 25 years ago when Steve invented the iPod and the iTunes environment, but then over the next 25 years's taken another evolution. Right, it was still the ownership. Instead of owning the physical thing, you own the digital version of it and you download it onto your device. But now, when it got to the cloud and all the songs are available and you don't need to download them, it's like spotify said listen, we own all the songs, we got access to all of them. Why don't you just pay us nine dollars a month and you can have all the songs and just stream them? Yeah, and, and that's where we're at now, it's like. But I think that the next level, the thing we're at now with ai, is that ai is actually, specifically, that it's reached the generative ai point where it it can actually create songs. That's what's happening now. Dan: Yeah, it's clearly a productive capability that you're exploring here we're having a conversation about. When did you have this conversation with Charlotte? Just this morning, when I woke up this morning, Okay, this entire conversation that we're having would not have happened unless um no, you did what you did for an hour this morning right, that's exactly right, yeah now let me ask you a question here, and it goes to another technological realm and it's big data. It's big data, and so I keep reading about big data. You know big data, and I said and it's accumulating all the data. Okay, and so you have all the data. Okay, and so you have all the data. I remember having a conversation this was probably 10 years ago and the Chinese were developing what was called an intelligence capability, where they could gather information about what all the people in China were doing at any given moment. Okay, and then they could make predictions based on that. Nice, if wait a minute, so you got one point, you got 1.3 billion. Dean: You know however many Chinese there are they're being listened to, you know, and however many Chinese there are. Dan: They're being listened to, you know, and they're. Whatever they're doing, that's being read. And I said how many Chinese do you have to pay attention to what all the other Chinese are doing? I said they must have about 6 million people who, day in, day out, are just listening and they're accumulating massive amounts of data. Okay, and then I say, then what happens? Dean: then what? Dan: yeah, then what? Okay? Okay, uh, and I said so, what do you do with all this data? You know, I said it's overwhelming the amount of data you have. So what's happening with it and what it tells me is that there's no way for you to really comprehend what all that data means. Dean: Yeah, I agree. I mean there's no, but you can argue that's kind of what Facebook does with the algorithm right In a way, of being able to predict what you're likely to click on next. Dan: That's how they're at it, Well that I understand, but that's on the level, that's a commercial level, because really they're selling ads. I mean what Google and Facebook actually are high-level advertising platforms. Dean: Yes, that's exactly what they are. I mean, that's what they are. Dan: Yeah, I mean, and once you've said that, there isn't much else to say. Dean: Once you've said that, it's over. Dan: Well it is what it is and it's a bias, obviously, because it's just, you know it's, if they're spending money, not ads for Google and spending ads for Facebook, they aren't spending money for ads in the New York Times, or yeah. So all the newspaper advertising has gone away and all the magazine advertising has gone away, and probably all the advertising on television, because the number of people watching television is actually going down, you know. Well the actual, I mean if you're following social media or you're you know, you're on the, you're on your computer and you're looking at things. Well, your attention can only be on one thing at a time and if I'm spending you know I used to spend I would say when I stopped in 2018, I stopped watching television together, but I calculated that it was probably I was probably watching anywhere between 15 and 20 hours a week times 52. Okay, so that's. You know that's 800 to a thousand hours and I'm not doing that anymore, so for I got a thousand hours back. He's. I would say 800. I just evened it off at 800. I'd say I've just got 800 hours back. It's just gone into being more productive. I'm incredibly more productive in creating stuff. I have you as a witness. You know that it's going up in numbers. The amount of stuff that I'm creating. it's going up in numbers the amount of stuff that I'm creating. So you know, here's the thing. I don't think I'm unusual in this. I don't think I'm unique on the planet in doing what this is. I just think people are moving their attention away from something where everybody was paying attention to it and now fewer and fewer people are paying attention to it. It's like Joe Rogan, you know, I mean. Dean: Joe Rogan. Dan: The people are watching Joe Rogan. Who did they stop watching or listening and watching to? So that's the big thing. Where are people? Dean: going with their attention. Yeah, and you know I just heard a podcast talking about that. Streaming, you know, like from television. It's gone away from kind of linear television where you know they show one thing on one channel at one time and you have to be there at 8 pm to watch that one show. Watch that one show and you watch it along with ads, right? If you want to watch this happening now, you watch it and you consume the ads. Well, when streaming became available, you know, if you look at that convenience, that it was so much more dignified that we can watch whatever we want to watch when we want to watch it, and there's a price for that. Everybody has migrated towards the, towards that, and now the interesting thing is that the streamers are Wall Street redefined. How they value the, you know, monetize or attribute value to what they have. Because for a long time, netflix was rewarded for the ever-growing number of subscribers. Right, like getting more and more subscribers. It didn't matter to Wall Street that they were profitable or unprofitable. The only thing that they staked the value in was the growing number of subscribers, the growing number of subscribers, so for. So netflix would spend billions and billions of dollars on attracting creative right that would. That would get people to watch the. You know, come to netflix to see, because they only had original programs you could only get on Netflix and they overpaid for all of that content. So now. Wall Street a few years ago decided that hey, wait a minute. These guys should be like any other business. Dan: They should be profitable and so it always comes down to that, doesn't it it really? Dean: does so they said you know, now Netflix has to cut corners, pinch pennies. They have to make things. They can't afford to spend as much to make the content. If you look at the line items of where they were spending the most amount of money, it's acquiring yeah, content to do uh so that's where the peak era of who's the guy? Dan: who's the guy who runs Netflix? Dean: Sarandon Tom. Dan: Sarandon. Dean: I think, but in any event they. Dan: No, I was just wondering if he's one of the people who gave $50 million to Kamala Harris. Dean: Oh, yeah, probably. Dan: Yeah, I said he obviously doesn't know anything about returning or getting a profit All right, exactly. Dean: So the other, the thing that we're finding. Dan: What's Reid Hoffman? He's LinkedIn. Dean: Yeah, I think so, yeah, yeah, linkedin. Yeah yeah, yeah. Dan: But those people are all not giving a million dollars to Trump for his inauguration. Dean: The thing that streamers have landed on now is that they have free models you can watch, but now they have ad supported things where you can watch anything you want, but they insert ads that are unskippable ads and they're finding that is more profitable than the subscriber the subscription revenue. That on a per user kind of thing. They make more money on people watching and viewing the unskippable ads. So it's kind of funny that everything has come full circle back to basic cable, where you are. They're all bundling now so you can get because people were resisting that you had to buy netflix and you had to buy hbo and paramount and hulu and all these things, nbc and cbs and all of it so now they're bundling them together for one subscription and having ad supported views. So the big winner out of all of it is that we've won the right to, and have demanded the right to, watch whatever we want to watch, whenever we want to watch it. We're not going to sit on, you know. We're not going to wait until 9pm to watch this and wait a week to get the next episode. We want all the episodes available right now and we'll choose when and what we watch and for how long we watch it. If I want to watch the whole series in one weekend, that's up to me yeah, you know it's an interesting thing. Dan: Uh, here and this relates to the whole story you told the whole historical story, going back to the sumerians. But one of the things I really notice is that the moment a new capability appears and you can utilize it, it's no longer wondrous. You've just included that in your existing capability, I can now do this. You've just included that in your existing capability. I can now do this. It's really interesting the moment you get a capability that just goes into the stack of capabilities that you already have. So it's not really a breakthrough because it doesn't feel any more unusual than all the capabilities you had. So today this is kind of a you know you were. You started the podcast here saying I just did something that I've never done before with Charlotte you know, and then people said who's this Charlotte that Dean talks about? Well, dean actually created this capability called Charlotte. He actually did that, but now it's just normal. Now, what else can Charlotte do? Dean: I'm going to do this. Dan: But a week from now you may have done this four or five times or four or five more things. These sort of deep searches, that you did, and now it just becomes part of Dean Jackson's talent and capability stack. Dean: Yeah, yeah, in the of the VCR formula, the sea of capability, that all this capability starts out with one person who has taken it's almost like Always starts with one person. Yeah, and it's a curiosity. Dan: It's a curiosity thing You're alert to. You know, in our four by four casting tool, the first quadrant is called performance, how you show up. And I've got four qualities. One you're alert. Second thing is that you're curious. Number three is that you're responsive. And number four you're resourceful. And I would say you just knocked off all four this morning with this search, this conversation with Charlotte. You just knocked off all four. That's the reason why you're doing it. So the key to the future in profiting, but utilizing and benefiting from this technology is you have? To be alert, you have to be curious, you have to be, you have to be responsive and you have to be resourceful. Dean: Yeah, that's great. Dan: Yeah, yeah, we're living, and then you get to do and then you get to do things faster, easier, cheaper and bigger yes, this is great, dan. Dean: We're really living in the best of times we're just talking, dean yeah, we're already in it, but it's endless. Dan: We're into an area of just extraordinary, idiosyncratic creativity. Dean: This is it that now we have. Everyone has access to every capability that you could. Dan: No, they only have access to the capability that they're looking for. Oh, boy yes. No, they don't have access to every capability. They just have access to the next capability they're looking for. Dean: Right, this is mind-blowing. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is great, but it is similar. This was better than the IV. Dean: Your exuberance is showing. Dan: Or maybe before you have an hour conversation with Dean, you get an IV. Dean: Yeah, exactly, you have an hour conversation with dean, you get an iv. Yeah, exactly, did you imagine it's a triple play of an iv yeah, with a conversation with charlotte, followed by a conversation with dan sullivan. Dan: I will try the iv next week yeah, and then eat a great piece of steak. And then eat a great piece of steak that's right Followed by a Rib eye is great. I think rib eye is my favorite. Dean: Yeah, me too by far yeah. Dan: Well. I love it yeah, this is great conversation. Dean: I agree, Dan this is Things are heating up. I'm going to upgrade Charlotte and give her a raise 10X, a 10 times raise. Dan: Tell her about that. You know talk to her and say you know, not only do I think you're more valuable, but Catchy TP thinks you're more valuable, Charlotte, and we're raising your monthly to 200. Dean: That's right. A 10 times raise. Dan: Yeah, who gets that? Mm-hmm? Okay, and you think about it. Dean: It's just so valuable. All right, dan, thanks, bye, bye.

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, Dan shares his journey from recovering in snowy Toronto to basking in the Arizona sunshine at Canyon Ranch. While battling a cold and back spasm in Canada, He found unexpected humor in a limousine driver discovering our heated driveway before making my way to the warmth of Tucson. At Canyon Ranch, I read historical British Navy novels and attended Richard Rossi's conference, where conversations sparked insights about technology's role in our world. The discussions centered on how companies like Google and Apple influence geographic naming conventions and how AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude work to match human capabilities rather than surpass them. We explored the relationship between technology and daily life, from electric vehicles to meal delivery services. These conversations highlighted how technological advances aim to streamline our routines while acknowledging the challenge of replicating genuine human experiences. The experience reinforced that technology offers convenience and efficiency but cannot replace authentic human connections and experiences. This balance became clear through examples like distinguishing between Bach's original compositions and AI-generated music, reminding us of technology's role as a tool rather than a replacement for human interaction. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS In the episode, Dan shares his journey from Toronto's cold to Arizona's warmth, highlighting his recovery from a cold and back spasm, and experiences attending a conference and relaxing at Canyon Ranch. We discuss the impact of technology on geographic naming conventions, mentioning how companies like Google and Apple influence changes such as the renaming of geographic locations. The conversation explores the idea that technology is striving to match human intelligence, with examples including AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude, and the future potential of seamless digital interactions. I reflect on the progression of vision and technology, discussing how initial ideas develop into intellectual property and the role of technology in enhancing human capabilities. We explore resistance to change with technological advancements, using examples like the shift from gasoline to electric vehicles and how people adapt technology to maintain comfort. The episode examines the distinction between authentic human experiences and artificial replication, emphasizing the irreplaceable value of genuine human connections and interactions. We share personal anecdotes about how technology has replaced routine tasks, discussing the convenience of services like grocery delivery and automated car washes, and pondering future technological advancements. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan. Mr Jackson, I hope you're well, I am. Dan: I'm much better than I was last weekend. I was, yeah, out of it. I mean, really I had like a cold and my back was in spasm. It was not good. So I'm a nice recovery week and I'm on the mend. How was your adventures in Arizona? Are you still in Arizona? Dean: now. No, I got back around 11 o'clock last night to Toronto. That has about a foot of snow. Dan: I saw that. Dean: Yeah, and it's still snowing, it's still coming down. So we really had nothing for November, december, january, but February seems to be the winter. It's really snowing, I mean it's continuous, it's not heavy snow, but it's just constant, and I kind of like it. And we got home last night and the limousine driver who driveway and he said, oh, I hope we can get up to your driveway and he, he hadn't uh, he didn't have previous he didn't have previous experience. He says oh my golly, you have heated driveways. And I said, yeah, uh, of course you know we've got to be good to our got to be, good to our limousine drivers. Dan: You know we have to you know, set a standard for driver friendliness and anyway, so Did he tell you, listen, if you wanted to really be good, you'd buy the house behind you so we could keep the driveway going all the way through. Dean: Yeah, somebody else did and they fixed it up, so I think that's out of the future. That's out of the. You know that's not going to happen. You can't add that to the compound, right? Yeah, so anyway, regarding Arizona, it was great. We were there for two and a half weeks so we had Richard Rossi's conference which was terrific, yeah, terrific. Richard does such a great job with this right. Dan: I mean, it's something that he's really doing it out of his own passionate curiosity himself. I think that's a good thing when you can make your own thing. I think that's a good thing when you can make your own. Dean: Then we did a week at Canyon Ranch in Tucson, which was really terrific and beautiful. I mean just gorgeous weather every day 75-ish. Got up to 80 a little bit, but absolutely clear. Not a cloud in the sky. For a week Didn't see a cloud in the night sky in Tucson. Dan: I was going to ask what's a day in the life at Canyon Ranch for you. Dean: I'll have a massage scheduled. You know you can go to 50 different things, but I don't. And you know, I read a lot while. I'm there I go for walks and know, did some gym work? and and then, yeah, just to take it really easy, you know I'm reading just a terrific set of British Navy stories from the novels. These are historic historically. They're all during the Napoleonic War, when Britain War, when Great Britain was fighting the French, and it follows. First of all, there's about 20 authors who write these terrific books, but the one I'm reading right now, andrew Wareham is his name and he follows a sea captain from when he becomes a midshipman. He becomes a midshipman. That's your first step in being an officer is a midshipman. But they start at nine and 10 years old. So they have nine and 10 year old boys on board ship, you know, and they lose a lot of them. You know because they're in. You know they're in action during the sea battles and you know they and they're foolish. You know 10, who who thinks? who thinks about danger when you're 10 years old, you know, but Trails him and he's about 25 now and he's a captain. He's a captain. So in 15 years he's become a captain and just terrific, just extraordinarily well-written books, but it's just about this one person. And then he goes up in terms of skill and responsibility and importance and he becomes rich doing it. Because if you captured a French ship, then you might be. Yeah, except for the gold. The gold had to go to the government. To the government. Dan: OK. Dean: You know the British government, but outside of that you could. You auctioned it off and the captain got a set share, and then everybody right down to the lowest seaman. So I went through about three of those in a week. Three, three now, wow yeah, and that was it. And then I came back and we had our free zone, and which worked out really worked out, really well. And you know you had arranged for a. Dan: I heard, you had arranged for a satellite launch while you were having the reception. Dean: Yeah, the rocket rocket, you know. I mean mean the rocket maker is very busy these days rearranging the government, you know. And uh so yeah, I thought it was kind of him to just take a little bit of time out and send a rocket up during our reception. I thought, you know, you know kind of a nice touch, you know, and yeah, it went really well and the, you know it's mostly parties. You know kind of a nice touch, you know, and yeah, it went really well and the you know it's mostly parties. You know our summit I mean if you, if you take this, if you take the two parties and put them together, they're equal to the amount of time we're doing in the conference and then the conference has lots of breaks, so yeah, I think it was more partying actually it's print seven, that's yeah, I mean that's the great uh seven print enjoy life and have a good time, you know right, right, right and then we uh took a day, and then we moved over to joe, which was joe yeah it's genius. Yeah, joe is such a great and the new offices look really good. Dan: I was just going to say I saw Richard Miller told me about the big 110-inch televisions or screens on the thing. That makes a big difference. Dean: Well, the big thing he can comfortably put 100 people in now. Yeah. Because, he's knocked out walls. Dan: Yeah, I zoomed in a little bit on Friday and, yeah, looks like a nice turnout too. It looks like that group's really growing. Dean: Yeah, it seems, I guess about 40, you know about 40 people. Yeah, and some not there, so it's probably total numbers is a bit higher. And yeah, and yeah, and yeah. We had one very impressive speaker. The senior editor for Epoch Times was there. Dan: Epoch Times. I saw that yeah. Dean: Yeah, in the afternoon and I didn't really know the background to this story. You know the background to the public. Yeah, and I had lunch sitting next to him, a very interesting person, you know, and he's very connected to a lot of people in the new administration Trump administration so he was talking about all the different things that he was doing. Dan: And I saw that Robert Kennedy was confirmed since last we spoke for the yeah and he's good friends with him. Dean: The editor is good friends with him. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And the next one is the FBI director, and he's good friends with him, so anyway, yeah, and Jeff Hayes was there and Jeff was just. I mean because Jeff had a major you know he had a major role in getting Robert Kennedy to the point where he could be and but I'm enjoying the. For the first time in US history, the government is being audited, mr Musk. Dan: I knew I saw it was very interesting. I saw something that there was somebody posted up a video from the 90s when Clinton and Gore launched a. There was something it was called rego, I think, but reinventing government operations or something, and it was mirroring all the things that they're saying about Doge, about the finding inefficiency and finding looking out all those things. So it was really interesting. They were showing the parallels of what was actually, you know, in 90, you know mid nineties, when Clinton and Gore were in yeah, yeah. Dean: Well, they didn't have the. I mean, it would have been an impossible task in the 1990s, but not so today, because of the guy, because they could just go in and they can identify every single check. That's written, the complete history, you know, and everything. They couldn't do that back in the 90s, you know Right. And probably they weren't the right party to be doing it either. Dan: So, anyway. Dean: no, I find it very intriguing and you can tell by the response of the Democrats that there's some stuff there. Dan: There's some there. Dean: There's some there there I think that I was just reading that. So far that you know they're they're, they're estimating that it's at least a trillion of found money. Dan: In other words, that when they go through, they'll find a trillion is a big, you know. Dean: I find that an impressive amount of money actually. Dan: Yeah, I find that an impressive amount of money. Yeah, that's exactly right, yeah yeah, yeah. Dean: So yeah, it's a big change. I think you know, I, I think that a lot of people who hate trump are probably wishing that he had actually won in 2020 you know, had to live with kovid for you know two and a half, three years, because nobody, almost no government, that was in charge. When COVID two years, I guess two and a half years of COVID. They've just been thrown out all around the world. Whoever the government was got thrown out, and so if Trump had won in 2020, he'd be out now and they'd probably be the Democrats and everything like that and they probably wouldn't have Elon Musk taking a look at government spending. Dan: What's the buzz in Canada now with their impending 51st? Yeah, it's nothing. Dean: We're in limbo. We're just in limbo because you know, the government isn't sitting and they're in the middle of a leadership race to replace Trudeau, and that won't happen until March 9th. Dan: Governor Trudeau Did you hear Donald Trump Government Trudeau. Dean: The state of Canada. Dan: Yeah, Trudeau keeps calling him Governor Trudeau. It's so disrespectful it's ridiculous. Dean: Yeah, the Gulf of America and the state of Canada. That's big news, since the last time we spoke right. Dan: We've had big changes. We had Governor. Trudeau and the Gulf of America. It's officially changed on the Google Maps now. Dean: Yeah, apple too. Apple changed over to the Gulf of America, and so did Chevron. In its annual report it talked about all of its deep water drilling in the Gulf of America. Yeah, it's interesting how things get named, anyway, I don't know. There wasn't any active government that called it the Gulf of Mexico. It was just the first map makers, whoever they were, yeah. They just said well, yeah, we call this the Gulf of Mexico and it's a done deal, deal. And so my sense is you know, if the you know if Google changes the name. That's an important support for the change. Dan: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean, it's so funny. I wonder how long now it'll take for the street names to change to. Dean: Well, they're changing, you know and they're, yeah, and they're changing the military bases. You know they had all these military bases in the. Us that were named after people who you know were deemed racist or deemed, you know, not proper that this person's name should be. So one administration changes them, but the next administration comes back and changes them all back to the original and Mount McKinley I always liked Mount McKinley and then they changed to Mount Denali. Oh, is that right I didn't know that, and now it's changed back to Mount McKinley. Okay, so Mount McKinley is the tallest North American mountain tallest mountain in. North America. So anyway, it's really good. I've been toying with the book title. Dan: It's not the book. Dean: I'm writing right now, but the title of the book is Technology is Trying Very Hard to Keep Up with Us, okay, Technology is trying really hard to keep up. Yeah, because people, I think, have bought into it that we're the ones who are trying to keep up with technology. Dan: Right. Dean: And I think it creates a lot of stress. I think we're trying to keep up with something that we don't understand, and I think that's a very stressful, I think that's a very stressful attitude. And I just tested it out at Genius Network. And I just said what would you think about this? That technology is trying very hard to keep up with us. And they said, wow, wow. What do you mean? Well, you know, because I said first of all it's inferior. I said first of all it's inferior. Technology is inferior because the objective of so many of the researchers in technology is that we'll now have technology that's as smart as humans. So, right off the bat, the premise of that is that technology isn't as smart as humans. Okay, so why would we be trying to be keeping up with something that's not as smart as us? That's true, yeah, but just from a standpoint. I think, probably, that you wouldn't be able to measure what's happening one way or the other. One way or the other, you really wouldn't be able to measure them, you know. I mean, if you take an individual human being, just one person, and you look at that person's brain, that brain is the most complex in the world. The human brain has more connections than anything else in the world. So in the universe not in the world, but in the universe it's the most complex, that's just one individual and then humans can communicate with each other. So it's you know. Say you have 10 human brains, that's 10 times the most complex thing in the world and they're doing all sorts of things. So my sense is that's the superior thing that you know, the human brain and individual human is superior. So I think the makers of technology are trying to keep up with what the human brain is doing, but it's really hard. Dan: it's really hard yeah, this is I mean. Yeah, I wonder. I just upgraded my chat gT membership. Now I just upgraded to the $200, $200, $200 a month. Dean: Yeah, and apparently they're feeding you, dean, they're dating his. First it's $2. First it's free. Dan: That's how they get you. Dean: Dan, that's $20 a month. Now it's $200. Right, and you're deeper and deeper into it. Then they're going to say it's $500 a month, yeah, and then you're into the thousands. Dan: And that's how they get you. That's what they do, that's how they get you yeah. Dean: You can't back out of it. You can't back out of GPT. Yeah, once you're in, you're in. Dan: So I need gpt. Yeah, my cheer hand, you're in, so I need the. So now, from what I understand, I got it and then I've been, you know, recovering here the last uh, couple of weeks or I was on my, had my event and and recovery here, so I haven't really spent the time to go deep in it. But from what I understand now they can do projects for you Like it. Can you know, I just did some test things Like can you, you know, see what massage times are available at Hand and Stone for me for today, and it goes to the website and logs it can book for you if you wanted it, you know. So I really I see now like the way forward, it's really just a world of truly just being able to articulate what you want is a big thing and you know you had 25 years of just practicing. What do you want, you know, in your daily practice. Dean: Journaling You're journaling. Dan: Yeah, and now we're truly like I think this is one step closer to just being able to like articulate what you want and it can happen. I mean, I see it now on, you know, with the combination of the things that are doing, like Claude. A lot of people are using Claude for, like creating websites and apps and you know, functional things and then using. Now, I think, with ChatGPT, combined with those capabilities, that's really what the $200 a month, one kind of gets you is the ability for you to set it on a task and then come back. It'll still work on it while not. It felt like before, for $20 a month, charlotte would do whatever you wanted her to do right in real time while you're there, but you couldn't assign it a task that is going to be done while you're not there. So, man, it's pretty amazing times what we're coming into here being a visionary is a big thing. Dean: Yeah, my, I'm just. You know, I'm really. I just work with one, one tool and see, how much? I can get out of it and you know, perplexity is doing a good job of giving me alternative copy copy ideas, and the thing is that I've got so many thinking tools of my own that I've created over my last that the tools I think are really custom designed for how I go about things, okay, and and so see for me to kind of learn this new stuff in the time that I would be learning something new I'd be creating three or four new. I'd be creating three or four new tools yeah which are useful in the program. So there's an immediate payoff in the program and then they have IP value as we're discovering they have. IP value, so I'm not seeing the return on investment yet. I mean, I have team members who can do the programs and they're investigating them all the time and they're getting better. So I can just chat with, I can just send them a fast filter or something like that. That's a tool, fast filter, and then they go and they execute it and I haven't spent any time learning it and so I'm really interested in listening to you, because you're I would suspect that you're making advances every day, right, probably something new every day. Dan: I'm starting to see I don't know whether I've shared with you the we're kind of putting some legs on the VCR formula, kind of putting some. You're digging a little deeper into how to really define those what vision, what capabilities, what reach, how to think about them. And what I looked at with vision is thinking of it as a progression from the levels of vision that you can have. So you can start out with the ability to create a hypothesis or have an idea about something. I think that if you did this, that would be a good thing, right, this is what you, we should do, or this is where I think we should go with this. That's one level. Then, from that, then the next level up is that you have proven. That is right, that's a good idea, right. So you've set up an experiment, you've taken some action on that idea. You've gotten some feedback that, yeah, that's good. It's almost like applying the scientific method in a way. Right, you create a hypothesis, you set up an experiment, you do it Now. Once you've got proof, then the next level up is to create a protocol for that. You could repeat the result that you were able to get one time. And once you've got that protocol, now you've got something that can be packaged and protected. Ip is the crown jewel of the vision column. Everything should be progressing to that peak of having IP. And once you have a piece of IP, once you have a protocol, an algorithm, a recipe you know engineer, whatever the thing is. Now it moves into your capability column that you have it now as something that you can package as a result for someone Right. So it's been. It's a really interesting thing. You can package as a result for someone right, so it's a really interesting thing. I think that progression of kind of you know feels in line with the make it up, make it real, make it recur kind of progression as well. Dean: Yeah. Now here's a question and it's kind of related to this. Technology is trying really hard to keep up that I started the podcast with this morning. If you looked at yourself, are you using technology so that you can be different or are you using technology so that you can be the same? That's a good question. Dan: I think I'm using technology so that, well, I don't know how to think about that. I would say am I using technology so that I can be different? I can't think of an example to say either way. I mean I'm using technology in many cases to do what I would do if I could count on me to do it. You know, I think that's a thing that you know technology is able to do the things that I would do. And I take technology as you know, I have a broad definition of technology. Right, like a shovel would be a technology too. Right, any kind of tool to do what you would do in an enhanced kind of way, like if your thing is you're trying to dig a swimming pool, you know you do it by hand, scoop out all the dirt. But somebody realized, hey, if we make a shovel that is similar but bigger, it could scoop that out. And then if we make a, a backhoe, that can you know, do that's a thing so it's doing? I think the answer is probably all technology is to do the same faster and bigger yeah, I just just wonder that the most dominant force in people's life is really their habits, and what I feel is there's a set of habits that work. Dean: you know, you like them and they work. And secondly, you like doing them, you like doing them but you're being asked to change. You know, there's sort of this message, message, a narrative you're going to have to change and you're going to have to change. And I'm wondering if, at a certain stage, people reach a point where they say, okay, I'll use technology, but not to change the way you want me to change, but to stay the way I am. Dan: That's interesting but to stay the way I am. That's interesting. Yeah, I mean, there's probably good arguments for both sides, right? I think technology ultimately in its bestest to be able to replace your time and effort on doing something to make it easier to do what you need to do. I think about Excel, for instance, using Excel spreadsheets as a way of being able to sort and organize and compute data back like to the earliest technologies you know. Dean: Yeah, well, I just feel that you know. I mean, first of all, very few people are. I would start with myself by saying that I've probably got a massive habit system. You know, that's basically repeats who I am every day, like 90 and it's comfortable. You know it's comfortable you know, and I do it, and therefore, if I am asked to be more productive or I'm asked to be creative, I will only use those technologies that allow me to be productive in a way that my daily habits can stay the same. I don't really want to be disrupted. Right, yeah, I can see this, you know, with. One of the problems with EVs is that people are really used to going to the gas station. They've got a whole routine and it isn't just pumping gas, they go in, you know, they go in, they buy some things, you know, and everything like that, and it's really a short period of time. I mean, if you wanted to fill up your car, you know, and I was used to it because we had a, you know, in our trip we had a Beamer, we had the big Beamer. They have a X7 now. Dan: The X5 was always. Dean: Now they have an X7. And, the thing you know, we had it for two and a half weeks, so about three or four days before we left. We just topped it up, you know, we just I put enough gas in that would get us back to the airport you know, when we did it and you know it was like four minutes. You know it's like four minutes, yeah, where you know if you're I mean if you do your charging up overnight, there's no problem to it. You know, if you're I mean if you do your charging up overnight, there's no problem to it, you know there's no problem charging up, but if you're out on a trip and you're getting short on you know, on power, then it's a lot, you know where is it? Dean: Yeah, yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I find that same thing Like so I, you know net. I have a charger at my house for my Tesla. And so I just plug it in and I never. I don't miss. Well, I never went to the. I never went to the gas station. Anyway, I would have Courtney. You know my assistant would always go. That was one of the things that she would do. But I think about, you know, the things that Courtney would do 10 years ago, like getting gas in my car, taking to the car wash all of that stuff, going to the grocery store, going to restaurants to pick up stuff or to take things to the mail, all of the things that were. You know. A lot of that is now replaced with technology, in that there's no need to, I don't need to go to the gas station. My car is always charged and always ready. We have there's a there's this big now push of these super convenient car wash things. So for $32 a month you join this. For $32 a month you have unlimited car washes and there's one right on the way to or the way home from, honeycomb, the breakfast place that I go to every day. So I can just literally swing in. You don't even, you don't get out of your car, you just drive through. It's got the. It recognizes your barcode thing. You drive right through and off you go, and so I always have a super clean car. I use Instacart for the grocery delivery and Uber Eats and Seamless and, like you think, 10 years ago one of the things that we had Courtney do was go to. It's funny you say this right, but technology keeping up with us, this would fit in that category that there was no delivery service for food aside from pizza and Chinese food. That's what you could get delivered at your house or office, right. So we had Courtney go to every restaurant, like all of our favorite restaurants. She went to every restaurant and got the takeout menu, two copies of it, one. So we had a binder, one at the house and one at the office that had the menus of every restaurant and now, all of a sudden, every restaurant was delivery, because we would place the order and then Courtney would go and get it and bring it. Dean: You know. Dan: And so that's what technology kind of replaced 90% of what Courtney was doing. You know, it's really interesting to to think. You know, pretty simple, have the, remember on Star Trek they had the replicators where they would you know? Just you tell the thing what you want and it would make the food. Dean: We're not that far off probably from that. Well, where do you see that? I don't see that at all. Dan: No, I'm saying on in you're seeing now I don't know if you've ever seen these robotic kitchens that are kitchen robots that you know can make anything that you want, and I think it's very interesting that you look at. Ai will be able to assess your inventory in your fridge and your robots will keep the ingredients stocked and your AI robot chef will be able to make whatever you want. I mean basically anything. Any packaged protocol, like for recipes or anything that you know how to do, is now eligible for someone else to do it, you know, and someone else being a technology, a robot, to be able to do it, you know, and someone else being a technology, a robot, to be able to do it. But there's no, you still have to be able to. There's still the human element of things. I had a really interesting experience just yesterday is I send out, you know, three emails a week to our subscribers, you know, to all my on my list of entrepreneurs, and you know the emails, for several years, have been derivative of my podcasts. Right, like so they. I would talk the podcast and then we would get those transcribed and then I had a writer who would take the transcript and identify you know two or three or four key points that we talked about in the podcast and create emails. You know three to 500 word emails based on those in my voice and I use air quotes in my voice because it really was my words Cause I spoke them on the podcast but she was, you know, compiling and putting them all together and they you know, I've had. I've got a lot of them and we've been, you know, since COVID, kind of in syndication with them, where they're on a three-year rotation, kind of thing, you know. So I haven't had to write new emails, but occasionally I will intersperse them in. And so the other day, yesterday, I sent out an email that I wrote 100% and it was describing the advantages of time travel and I was talking about how, in lead generation situations, you know, I mean, if I could say to people, let's say, you own a real estate company and we had the ability to time travel and we could go back two years from today and we're going to leave at midnight, but before we leave you can go to the MLS and you can print off a list of every house that sold in the last two years. So we can beam back two years armed with a list of every person that sold their house in the last two years and all you would need to do over that period of time is just concentrate on building a relationship with those people, because that's what you're looking for Right, on building a relationship with those people, because that's what you're looking for, right. And so I told that whole story and then said, you know, since and it reminds me, dan, of your it's certainty and uncertainty, right, like if you had certainty that these are the people that are going to sell their house, that you would be, you would have a different approach to your engagement with them, but it wouldn't change the fact that, as valuable as you think this list is, armed with this list of everybody that's going to sell their house, that sold their house in the last two years, you'd still have to go through the last two years in real time, and the people who sold their house, you know, teen months later, were you still had to wait 18 months for them to mature. And I thought, you know, I said that the thing that, since we can't time travel backwards, the best thing we could do is plant a time capsule and start generating leads of people who are going to sell their house in the next 100 weeks. And if you had that level of certainty around it, that would be a big thing, right? So I wrote that email and I talked about the thing. But I've gotten five or six replies to the emails saying I read a lot of your emails. In my opinion, this is the best one that you've written, or what an amazing insight, or this really resonated with me, but it was something that has like 100% of me in it, as opposed to written as a derivative of something I said. So it's not, I think, that human element. I don't know whether it's the energy or whatever. Dean: Yeah, it's kind of interesting there. I think what I'm going to say relates to what you're saying, right? Dan: now. Dean: There was just a YouTube. It was YouTube and it was. Can you tell if it's Bach or not? Dan: So what they did is they had an actual recording of Bach. Dean: Who wrote it, you know? And then they did an AI version of like Bach. And then they did an AI version of like Bach. And then they asked you to listen to both and say which one was Bach and which one was the AI. And there were six of the six. They gave six samples and I got it right six times in a row. Dan: Oh, wow. Dean: And what I was saying is that there's something that the human being has added which is not. It's actually is, and there's a big difference between is and kind of like, and it seems to me that's what you're saying here. Dan: Yeah. Dean: That there's something. It's kind of like Dean Jackson or is. Dean Jackson, and my sense is I think the gulf between those two is permanent. I agree 100%. Dan: That's the, you know. There's Jerry Spence, the attorney. He wrote a great book called how to Argue and Win Every Time. Dean: And one of the things that he said is when we're communicating. Dan: One of the things that he said is when we're communicating, one of the things that the receiver, what we're doing as the receiver of communication, is, we have all these invisible psychic tentacles that are out measuring and testing and looking for authenticity of it, and they can detect what he calls the thin clank of the counterfeit. Yes, and that's an interesting thing, right? What was it to you in Is it Bach that made you able to pick it out? Can you discern what the difference was. Dean: I think it was an emotional thing that basically I was moved by the back one, and I was just intrigued by the other one that's interesting right one of them was one of them was emotional, but the other one was. You know, I was me saying is it? You know, I, I don, I don't think so, I don't think it is when. With the first one, it didn't take long. There was just, you know, it was maybe five or six bars and I said, yeah, I think that's Bach, it's the twinkle in the eye, right. Dan: That's kind of the thing that is. Yeah, I get it. I think we're onto something with that. Dean: Yeah, and. I think it's uniqueness. In other words, here's my feeling is that humans develop new capabilities to deal with technology. I think that our brains are actually transforming as we're surrounded more and more with technology. And it has to do with what's valuable and what's not valuable and anything that's tech, we immediately say, oh, that doesn't really have any value because it's cheap, it's really cheap in other words, it was the technology was created to lower the cost of something. I mean that's really you know, I mean if it were, I mean mean, if it does what it's supposed to do, it lowers the cost, and there's various costs. There's cost of concentration, there's the cost of time, there's the cost of energy, there's the cost of money and everything else. And so technology will lower the cost in those areas and doing it in those areas and doing it. But what I find is that what we really treasure in life, the things that have a higher cost, that have a higher cost, it takes more of our effort takes more of our time. It takes you know more of our money, and in person you know. In person is always going to cost more than automatic or digital. So, my sense is, as time goes along, we adjust our you know the cost benefit analysis of the experience. Dan: Okay. Dean: And think about the six who wrote back to you on it. How much their cost was it really cost them to listen to the real thing? Okay because, first of all, they were listening and they were moved. They couldn't be doing something else when they were being moved by your message. Okay, and then they took time out. They took time out to actually construct a response to you. So the cost I mean we use cost as a bad word you know there's a high cost, or anything right yeah, but it's actually investment, the investment that the things where we're required to invest more are actually more valuable. Dan: I agree with you, yeah, yeah. So I think that's part of this, that's part of this balance, then, with the technologies, using the technology. I mean, you know, how do you get that? Dean: Yeah, that level about things that we're fully engaged with, that are more valuable than things that are just done for us in an instant. I don't have the answer to that, it's just an observation. Dan: No, I don't either. You're right, but the fact is that a lot of these things are, you know, no matter what the advancements happen in technology, in some of these ways, it's the fact is that life moves at the speed of reality, right, which is, you know, 60 seconds per minute. You know, I mean, that's really the, that's really the thing, and that those our attention is engaged for 100 of those minutes that we have, and when it's engaged in something, it's not engaged in something else, and when I think what that's what you're saying, is that you've gotten the authentic, like core, you know, full engagement. And it's an interesting thing that I think what AI is doing for bulk things, for people is it's allowing them to not have to pay attention to things they don't have to. It's really it allows everybody to get the cliff notes or something. They don't have to read Hamlet, they don't have to read Macbeth, they can scan the cliff notes of something. They don't have to read Hamlet, they don't have to read Macbeth, they can scan the cliff notes of Macbeth. But that's not the same experience of seeing. Dean: No, there's something about engagement, I think, the word we'll use as our segue word, namely to pick it up next time. Dan: I think it is. Dean: There's a real pleasure of being fully engaged. Dan: I think that's something that is cause this is an interesting thing. I'm gonna throw a couple of things out that we can marinate on for next time, because we're just having this conversation about Michelelin star restaurant experiences that I? Dean: I've always been fascinated by that the young chef who turned down uh three-star rating no he said I don't want to be rated, I don't want to have a michelin. Well, and people, people say well, of course you want a Michelin rating. He says no, he says it does weird things with what I'm supposed to be and what a restaurant is supposed to be. And he said I noticed the type of customers that came in were different type of customers. So he said I don't want to be listed anymore as Michelin. That's interesting. Dan: But it's fascinating. That is an only. It's a one-off original experience provided by a group of passionate people. You know doing something only in the moment. There's no leverage. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And I thought about the same thing like a, you know, like a performance of live theater in a live in an environment is a one-off, original experience and I think that's why people who love theater and love doing theater actors, I I mean, who love performing in theaters because of that authentic and immediate back that your engagement really brings, that's very live live and in person live exactly. Dean: Yeah, it's interesting, but my sense is that just to. Yeah, exactly, you're being pressured to to change the sameness. You'll look for a technology that frees up the time again so that you can enjoy your sameness. Dan: I don't know if I'm getting that across really. No, I understand, but it's a bit like it's a bit. Dean: It's a bit like a gyroscope. You want to stay on the true path when you're flying and therefore, you need more and more technology. I was noticing we came back in the 787, which is a marvelous airplane. For all of Boeing's troubles, the 787 is not one of them, and you know, it's just that. So we took off, you know, we flew from Phoenix to Toronto and just as we got near the, within about 30 minutes of landing in Toronto, there was just a little bump and the pilot immediately came out and says you know, we were in a little bit of a turbulence zone, but it won't last. In about a minute we'll be out of it and then, a minute later, there was no turbulence, it was just about a minute. And it wasn't real turbulence, it was just a little you know that. I noticed it and they have a really unique technology that they've introduced that can transform turbulence into smoothness. You know that's what I'm interpreting that they do, but for the whole flight, you know, I didn't even remember us taking off and when we landed I said, did we land? Yeah, and she said yeah, bev says we landed, and I said, wow, yeah, it's just really remarkable. But there's millions and millions of little tech bots that are adjusting it so that the sameness you like, which is namely not turbulence, is maintained. And I think that we do this on a personal level. I think we do this on an individual level. We have a smooth flight, we have an experience of what a smooth flight is for us and if there's any interruption of that, we want something that takes away the interruption so we can get back to the feeling that it's a smooth flight. Dan: Yeah agreed. Well, I think we're onto something here. Dean: I think we are yeah, okay. Dan:Changing to stay the same. Dean: Changing to stay the same yeah all righty. Dan: Constantly changing, to stay the same, that's a good book title right there? 0:48:32 - Dean: Oh yeah, all right there. Oh yeah, all righty, I like that Okay. Thanks, Dan. Dan: Okay now next week, I know you're gone next week we're on our way to Nashville for our upgrade, our lube job, whatever. Uh-huh, so two weeks, okay two weeks. Okay, bye. 0:48:52 - Dean: Thanks, Dan Bye.

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we explore how government assets could reshape public spending and economic growth. The discussion stems from Thomas Sowell's analysis of U.S. government land value. It extends to real-world examples of public-private partnerships, including Toronto's LCBO real estate deals and Chicago's parking meter agreement with a Saudi entity. Dan and I delve into the relationship between constitutional rights and entrepreneurship, drawing from my upcoming book. The American Bill of Rights creates unique conditions that foster business innovation and self-initiative, offering an interesting contrast to Canada's legal framework. This comparison opens up a broader discussion about judicial appointments and the role of government in supporting individual potential. The conversation shifts to the transformative impact of AI on content creation and decision-making. I share my experience with tools like Perplexity and Notebook LM, which are changing how we gather information and refine our writing. Integrating AI into daily workflows highlights the significant changes we can expect over the next quarter century. Looking ahead, We reflect on future podcast topics and the lessons learned from blending traditional insights with AI capabilities. This combination offers new perspectives on personal development and professional growth, suggesting exciting possibilities for how we'll work and create in the years ahead. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We delve into the market value of U.S. government-owned land, discussing Thomas Sowell's article and the potential benefits of selling such land to alleviate government spending. Our conversation covers various government and private sector interactions, including Toronto’s LCBO real estate deal and Chicago’s parking meter agreement with a Saudi-owned company. We explore Macquarie's business model in Australia, focusing on their ownership of airports and toll roads, and consider the efficiency of underutilized government buildings in Washington D.C. The Bill of Rights plays a crucial role in fostering entrepreneurship in the U.S., and I discuss insights from my upcoming book on how these constitutional liberties encourage self-initiative and capitalism. We compare the judicial appointment processes in the U.S. and Canada, highlighting the differences in how each country's legal system impacts entrepreneurship and individual freedoms. The importance of creating patentable processes and legal ownership of capabilities is discussed, along with the idea that true leadership involves developing new capabilities. Our collaborative book project "Casting, Not Hiring" is structured like a theatrical play, with a focus on the innovative 4x4 casting tool, drawing parallels between theater and entrepreneurship. AI's transformative power in creative processes is highlighted, with tools like Perplexity and Notebook LM enhancing convenience and refining writing techniques. We reflect on the long-term impact of AI on writing and creativity, and consider its implications for future podcast episodes and personal and professional growth. Our discussion on constitutional rights touches on how they shape the future of entrepreneurship, drawing contrasts between the U.S. and Canadian approaches to law and governance. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan. Dan: Yes indeed. I beat you by 10 seconds. Dean: I beat you by 10 seconds. Dan: Yeah, yeah. Dean: Well, there you go. That's a good way to end the year, right there. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Not that it's a contest. Dan: I was looking at an interesting article this morning from yesterday's Wall Street Journal by Thomas Sowell. I don't know if you know Thomas Sowell. No, yeah, he's probably the foremost conservative thinker in the United States. Okay, I think he's 90-ish, sort of around 90. He's been a professor at many universities and started off in his teenage years as a Marxist, as a lot of teenagers do, and before they learn how to count and and before they learn math the moment you learn math, you can't be a Marxist anymore and and anyway he writes and he just said how much all the land that the US government owns in the 50 states is equal to 1.4 trillion dollars. If you put a market value on it, it's 1.4 trillion dollars. I bet that's true wow and the problem is it costs them about that much money to maintain it, most of it for no reason at all. And he was just suggesting that, if Elon and Vivek are looking for a place to get some money and also stop spending, start with the property that the US government owns and sell it off. Dean: That's interesting I'm often Two things. Dan: Two things they get money coming in, yeah. And the other thing is they don't spend money maintaining it. Yeah, but it's 20, 25% of the land area of the US is actually owned, I guess owned, controlled by the US government. And you know there was a neat trick that was done here in Toronto and I don't think you'd be aware of it but the LCBO, liquor Control Board of Ontario. So in Ontario all the liquor is controlled by the government. The government is actually the LCBO is the largest importer of alcoholic beverages in the world. Dean: Wow. Dan: Nobody controls the amount of liquor well, and I. I just wonder if that's one of the reasons why you moved to Florida to get away from the government. Dean: Control of liquor they're a single payer, a single pay system. Dan: I just wondered if yeah, I just wondered if that on your list of besides nicer weather. Dean: I thought maybe you know being in control of your own liquor. I always found it funny that you could. You know you can buy alcohol and beer in 7-Eleven. Dan: I always thought that was interesting right. Dean: Just pick up a little traveler to go, you know when you're getting your gas and that six-pack yeah. Dan: So, anyway, they had their headquarters, which was right down on Lakeshore, down in the, I would say, sort of Jarvis area, if you think of Jarvis and Lakeshore, down in the I would say sort of Jarvis area, if you think. Dean: Jarvis and. Dan: Lakeshore and maybe a little bit further west. But they took up a whole block there and they traded with a developer and what they did they said you can have our block with the building on it. You have to preserve part of it because it's a historical building. I mean, you can gut it and you can, you know, build, but yeah, there's a facade that we want you to keep because it's historic and and what we want you to do is and this developer already had a block adjacent to the LCBO property and they said we want a new headquarters, so we'll give you the block If you and your skyscraper it's a huge skyscraper. We want this much space in it for free. And they made a trade and the developer went for it. Dean: And I bet. Dan: That's an interesting kind of deal. That's an interesting kind of deal where government yeah, yeah and, but somebody was telling me it was really funny. I'm trying to think where it was. Where were we, where were we? I'm just trying to think where we weren't in. We weren't in Toronto, it'll come to me. We were in Chicago. So Chicago, the parking meters are all owned by Saudi Arabia. Dean: Right. Dan: Yeah, or a company that's owned by Saudi Arabia. Let me think One of the many princes and they paid the city of Chicago flat check. They paid him $1.5 billion for all the parking meters in Chicago and Chicago, you know, has been in financial trouble forever. So one and a half billion, one and a half billion dollars, but they make 400 million a year for the next 50 years. Oh, wow. Dean: Yeah, that's pretty wild. Dan: I think that was a bad deal, I think that was a bad deal. Yeah, that's amazing, you got to know your math. Dean: Well, I know there's a company in Australia called Macquarie and they own airports and toll roads primarily, ports and toll roads primarily. And that's really that's what it is right is they have long-term government contracts where they uh, you know they own the assets and the government leases them from them, or they get the right, they build the, they build the toll road and they get the money for the toll. They can operate it as a for-profit venture. Really kind of interesting. Dan: It brings up an interesting scenario which I think that Trump is thinking about, plus Elon and Vivek is thinking about plus Elon and Vivek, that so many of the buildings in Washington DC the government buildings, except for the one percent of workers who actually show up for work every day are virtually, are virtually empty, and so so there's some, it's almost like they need a VCR audit. Dean: So it's almost like they need a VCR audit. I mean, that's really what it is. All these things are underutilized capabilities and capacity, you know that's really that's sort of a big thing. Dan: But I think it occurred to me that bureaucracy period. It occurred to me that bureaucracy period this would be corporate bureaucracy, government bureaucracy. Those are the two big ones. But then many other kinds of organizations that are long-term organizations, that have become like big foundations, are probably just pure bureaucracy. You know, harvard University is probably just a big bureaucracy. They have an endowment of $60 billion, their endowment, and they have to spend 5% of that every year. That's the requirement under charity laws that you have to spend 5% of that every year. That's the requirement under charity laws that you have to spend 5% and on that basis every Harvard student probably the entire university wouldn't have to charge anything. Dean: That's interesting. I had a friend, a neighbor, who did something similarly put his um, I put sold the company and put, I think, 50 million dollars in. I think it was called the charitable remainder trust where the, the 50 million went into the trust and he as the uh, whatever you know administrator or whoever the the beneficiary gets of the trust is gets five percent a year of uh yeah, of the um the trust and that's his retirement income. I guess I understand. Dan: I understand income. I don't understand retirement income right exactly well for him it is kind of retirement income. Dean: He just plays golf. Exactly Well, for him it is kind of retirement. Yeah yeah, he just plays golf, yeah. Dan: Yeah, he's sort of in the departure lounge. He's on the way to the departure lounge. I think the moment you retire or think about retirement, the parts go back to the universe, I think that's actually I'm, I'm, it's partially. Dean: Uh, he does angel investing, uh, so that's yeah, so he's still probably probably on boards yeah, but I don't consider that? Dan: yeah, I don't really consider that. On entrepreneurism no you know, I don't think you're creating anything new, right? Yeah, it's very interesting. I'm writing, I just am outlining this morning my book for the quarter. So the book I'm just finishing, which is called Growing Great Leadership, will go to the press February 1st. Dean: Nice. Dan: So we're just putting the finishing touches on. We've got two sections and then some you know artwork packaging to do and then it probably goes off to the printer around the 20th of January. It takes about five weeks for them to turn it around. But the next one is very interesting. It's called the Bill of Rights Economy. So this relates and refers to the US Constitution. And in the first paragraph of the Constitution. It says that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, so it's supreme over everything in the United States. It's supreme over the presidency, it's supreme over Congress, it's supreme over the Supreme Court, and so that strikes me as a big deal, would you say? I'd say yes, yeah, yeah, and. But the real heart of the Constitution, what really gives it teeth, are the first 10 amendments, and which are called the Bill of Rights, so it's one through 10. First one speech, second one guns. And then they have commerce and things related to your legal rights. And what I've done is I've looked into it and I've looked at those first 10 amendments, and it strikes me that the reason why the US is an entrepreneurial country is specifically because of those first 10 amendments, that it gives a maximum amount of freedom to self-initiative, to people who want to go out and do something on their own, start something and everything else. First 10 amendments so what. I'm doing is I'm analyzing five freedoms and advantages that are given to entrepreneurs from each of the 10. There will be 50 advantages. So that's what my next book is about, and my sense is that those entrepreneurs who are not clear-minded about capitalism would have to do one of two things if they read the next book. They'll either have to get rid of their socialist thoughts or they'll have to stop being an entrepreneur. Dean: That's interesting. You know this whole. I love things like that when you're anchoring them to you know historical things. Dan: I don't know if I can name. I don't know if I can. Well, you can name the first one. It's the right of speech and assembly. Dean: Yeah speech, and then the second is to bear arms Gun ownership, gun ownership yeah. Yeah. Dan: And it goes on. I'll have to get the list out and go down there, but that's what holds the country together and you know it's a very brief document. It's about 5,000 words the entire document. It starts to finish about 5,000 words and you could easily read it in an hour. You could read the whole Constitution in an hour. Dean: It's a pocket companion. Yeah, yeah. Dan: I've seen them like little things that you put in your pocket and one of the things that strikes me about it is that in 1787, that's when it was adapted, and then it took two years to really form the government. 1789 is when washington, the he was elected in 1788 and the election he's sworn in as president 1789. If you typed it out with the original document, typed it out in you know typewriter paper and you know single space, it would be 23 pages, 23 pages. And today, if you were to type it out, it would be 27 pages. They've added four pages 200. Yeah, so in 235 years to 237 years it's pretty tight, yeah, and so and that's what keeps the country, the way the country is constantly growing and you know maximum amount of variety and you know all sorts of new things can happen is that they have this very, very simple supreme law right at the center, and there's no other country on the planet that has that that's a. Dean: That's pretty. Uh, what's the closest? I guess? What's the? I mean Canada must have. Dan: Canada's has been utterly taken away from that? Yeah, but that can be overridden at any time by the Supreme Court of Canada who by the way, is appointed by the prime minister. So you know, in the United States the Supreme Court justice is nominated yeah. No dominated, nominated by the president but approved by the Senate. So the other two branches have the say. So here it's the prime minister. The prime minister does it, and I was noticing the current Supreme Court Justice Wagner said that he doesn't see that there's much need anymore to be publishing what Canadian laws were before 1959. Dean: Oh really. Dan: Yeah, and that's the difference between Canada and the United States, because everything, almost every Supreme Court justice, they're going right back to the beginning and say what was the intent here of the people who put the Constitution together? Yeah, and that is the radical difference between the two parties in the. United States. So anyway, just tell you what I've been up to on my Christmas vacation. Dean: Oh, that's so funny. Well, we've been having some adventures over here. I came up with a subtitle for my Imagine If you Applied Yourself book and it was based on, you had said last time we talked right Like we were talking about this idea of your driving question and you thought I did. I don't know, yeah yeah you brought it, you said sort of how far can I go? Dan: yeah, well, that's not my driving question, that's no, no question, no yeah somebody else brought up the whole issue of driving question. You mentioned somebody yeah chad, chad did yeah, jenkins chad, jenkins chad jenkins right right right, yeah, uh. Dean: So it reminded me as soon as I got off. I had the words come uh. How far could you go if you did what you know? That could be the subtitle. Imagine if you applied yourself that's. Dan: That's kind of interesting how far could you? Maximize, if you maximize what you already know yeah I mean, that's really what holds. Dean: I think what holds people back more than not knowing what to do is not doing what they know to do. That that's I think, the, that's the uh, I think that's the driving thing. Dan: So they're held in play. They're held in place. You mean by? Dean: yeah, I think that's it that they're in about maybe I'm only looking at it through where do you see that anywhere in your life? Dan: I see everywhere in my life that I see it everywhere in my life, that's the whole thing, in my life. Dean: Right Is that that executive function? That's the definition of executive function disability, let's call it. You know, as Russell Barkley would say, that that's the thing is knowing, knowing what to do and just not not doing it. You know, not being able to do it. Dan: Yeah. And to the extent that you can solve that, well, that's I think that's the how far you can go here's a question Is there part of what you know that always moves you forward? Dean: Yeah, I guess there always is. Yeah, well then, you're not held, then you're not held. Dan: You just have to focus on what part of what you know is important. Dean: Yes, exactly, I think that's definitely right. Yeah, I thought that was an interesting. Dan: For example, I am absolutely convinced that for the foreseeable future, that if you a, a dollar is made in the united states and spent in canada, things are good. Dean: Things are good I think you're absolutely right, especially in the direction it's going right now. Dan: Yeah, it's up 10 cents in the last three months. 10 cents, one-tenth of a dollar. Dean: You know 10 cents. Dan: So it was $1.34 on October 1st and it's $1.44 right now. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And I don't see it changing as a matter of fact fact. You should see the literature up here. Since trump said maybe canada is just the 51st state, you should see this is the high topic of discussion in canada right now how is it? Dean: would we be? Dan: would we be better off? I mean there there's an a large percentage something like 15, 15% would prefer it. But you know he's Shark Tank person, kevin O'Leary, canadian. Dean: He's from Alberta. Dan: And he said that what they should do is just create a common economy, not politically so Canada is still really, really political. Not politically just economically, Politically. Well, it is already. I mean, to a certain extent it's crossed an enormous amount of trade, but still you have to stop at the border. Here there would be no stopping at the border and that if you were an American, you could just move to Canada and if you were a Canadian you could just move. Dean: Kind of like the EU was the thought of the European Union. Dan: Yeah, but that didn't really work because they all hated each other. Dean: They all hated each other. Dan: They've been nonstop at war for the last 3,000 years, and they speak different languages, but the US I mean. When Americans come for their strategic coach program, they come up here and they say it's just like the States and I said not quite, not quite. I said it's about on the clock. It's about the clock. It's about an hour off. You name the topic, Canadians will have a different point of view on whatever the topic is. But I'm not saying this is going to happen. I'm just saying that Trump, just saying one thing, has ignited a firestorm of discussion. And why is it that we're lagging so badly? And, of course, it looks now like as soon as Parliament comes back after the break, which is not until, think, the 25th of January, there will be a vote of confidence that the liberals lose, and then the governor general will say you have to form a new government, therefore we have to have an election. So probably we're looking middle of March, maybe middle of March. End of March there'll be a new government new prime minister and Harvard will have a new professor. Dean: Ah, there you go, I saw, that that's what happens. Dan: That's what happens to real bad liberal prime ministers. They become professors at Harvard or bad mayors in Toronto, david. Dean: Miller, he was the mayor here. Dan: I think he's a professor at Harvard. And there was one of the premiers, the liberal premier of Ontario. He's at Harvard. Oh wow, wow, wow. Anyway, yeah, or he'll go to Davos and he'll sit on the World Oversight Board. Dean: Oh boy, I just saw Peter Zion was talking about the Canadian, the lady who just quit. Dan: And I don't understand him at all, because I think she's an idiot. Dean: Okay, that's interesting because he was basically saying she may be the smartest person in Canada. Dan: I think she's an idiot. Okay, and she's the finance minister. So all the trouble we're in, at least some of it, has to be laid at her door. Interesting. Dean: Is Pierre Polyev still the frontrunner? Dan: Oh yeah, He'll be the prime minister, yeah. Dean: Smart guy. Dan: I was in personal conversation with him for a breakfast about six years ago Very smart. Oh wow, very smart. Dean: Yeah, seems sharp from Alberta. Dan: He's French. He's French speaking, but he's an orphan from an English family. Or it might have been a French mother. He's an orphan, but he was adopted into a French speaking family. So to be Alberta and be French speaking, that's kind of a unique combination. Yeah, very interesting. Yeah, but it's a hard country to hold together and, uh, you know, peter zion and many different podcasts just said that it's very, very hard to keep the country together. It takes all the strength of the federal government just to keep things unified. Dean: Well, because everybody wants to leave. Yeah, exactly, everybody looks at. I mean you really have, you've got the Maritimes in Quebec, ontario, the West, and then BC, the Prairies and then BC. Dan: So there's five and they don't have that much to do with each other. Each of them has more to do with the states that are south of them, quebec has enormous trade with New York. Ontario has trade with New York, with Pennsylvania, with Ohio, with Michigan, all the Great Lakes states, every one of them. Their trade is much more with the US that's south of them, and Alberta would be the most, because they trade all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico, because their pipelines go all the way down to have you ever been to Nunavut or Yukon? Dean: Have you ever been? Dan: Dan to Nunavut or Yukon I haven't been to. I've been to Great Slave Lake, which is in the what used to be called the Northwest Territories, and on the east I've been to Frobisher Bay, which is in the eastern part, you know of the territories way up. Dean: Labrador Closer to. Dan: Greenland it up closer, closer to greenland. That's, yeah, actually closer closer to greenland, yeah, well, that's where you were born. Right, you were born up there, newfoundland right, newfoundland, yeah well this is above newfoundland. This would be above newfoundland, yeah yeah that's. That's what we used to call eskimo territory. Yeah, that's what we used to call Eskimo territory. That's so funny. Dean: That's funny, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, shifting gears. We've been having some interesting conversations about VCR this week and it's particularly trying to get a you know how, defining vision. And, of course, for somebody listening for the first time, we're talking about the VCR formula vision plus capability multiplied by reach. And so part of this thing is going through the process of identifying your VCR assets, right CR assets as currency, software or sheet music, where, if you think like we're going down the path of thinking about vision as a capability that people have or a trait that you might, that's, I think, when people start talking about the VCR formula, they're thinking about vision as a aptitude or a trait or a ability that somebody has, the ability to see things that other people don't see, and that may be true. There is some element of some people are more visionary than others, but that doesn't fully account for what the asset of a vision is, and I think that the vision, an asset, a vision as an asset, is something that can amplify an outcome. So I think about somebody might be musical and they might have perfect pitch and they may be able to carry a tune and hum some interesting chord progressions, but the pinnacle asset of vision in a musical context would be a copywritten sheet music that is transferable to someone else. So it's kind of like the evolution is taking your vision. So it's kind of like the evolution is taking your vision. But you know, the apex asset of a vision would be a patentable process that you patent. That you have as both an acknowledgement that it's yours, it's property, and as protection for anybody else. You know it locks in its uniqueness, you know. Dan: Yeah, yeah, I mean, the greatest capability is property of some sort. I mean in other words, that you have a legal monopoly to it. You don't nobody's got a legal monopoly division and nobody's got a legal monopoly to reach but they do have a legal. Uh, so I I go for the middle one, I go for the c the book I'm writing right now, the book I'm just finishing, which is called growing great leadership is that anyone who develops a new capability is actually the leader. Okay, papa, and the reason and what I've said is that you can be a leader just by always increasing your own personal capability. The moment that you look at something and then you set a goal for being able to do something, either new, or doing something better. Other people observe you and also you start getting different results with a new capability and that's observed by other people. They say, hey, let's pay attention to what he's doing In my book I said any human being is capable of doing that. It's not leading other people. It's creating a capability that leads other people, that gives them a sense of direction. It gives them a sense of confidence gives them a sense of purpose. So I always focus on the capability. One of the things is we're starting in January, it'll be next week we're starting quarterly 4x4 casting tools, the one we did in the last FreeZone. And so the whole program says in the first month of each quarter, so January, april and then July and then October. If you do your 4x4 that month and then type it up and post it to a common site, so we'll have a common site where everybody's 4x4, you get $250. You get $250. And you get it at the next payday at the end of the quarter. So you get the money right away. And you get it at the next payday at the end of the quarter. So you get the money right away and it's not mandatory but um, if you don't do it. It will be noticed, so explain that again. Dean: So, well, they get the cheat today, they, they get the forms. So this is the entire everybody everybody in the company, the entire team. Dan: Yes, Including myself. Including myself. Okay, and so we're starting a new quarter on Wednesday. Back to work on the 7th. On the 6th we're back to work, and then on the 7th we have a company meeting where we said we're announcing this program. And they've all done the form, so they did it in September. And they fill in the form. You know how your performance, what your performance looks like, what your results look like being a hero, and you're aware that you drive other people crazy in this way and you're watching yourself so you don't drive other people crazy. And then you fill that in. There are 16 boxes. You fill it in. It's custom designed just to what you're doing. And then there's a writable PDF. You type it up and then you post it to a site. On the 31st of January, we look at all the posted 4x4s and everybody who posted gets $250. Dean: Okay, okay, wow. Dan: Very interesting, then we're going to watch what happens as a result of this and the thing I say is that I think we're creating a super simple structure and process for a company becoming more creative and productive, which the only activity is required is that you update this every quarter. Dean: Yes. Dan: And then we'll watch to see who updates it every quarter and then we'll see what other structures do we need, what other tools do we need to? If this has got momentum, how do we increase the momentum and everything? So we're starting. I mean we've got all the structures of the company are under management. So, uh, everybody is doing their four pi four within the context of their job description that's really interesting, wow. Dean: And so that way, in its own way kind of that awareness will build its own momentum you Well we'll see. Hopefully that would be the hypothesis. Dan: I'll report it. I had a great, great podcast it was Stephen Crine three weeks ago and he said this is an amazing idea because he says you make it voluntary but you get rewarded. Dean: And if you don't want to take part. Dan: you're sending a message, yeah. Dean: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's amazing. Dan: I can't wait to see the outcome of that. Yeah, yeah, and the reason we're doing this is just my take on technology. As technology becomes overwhelming, becomes pervasive and everything else, the way humans conduct themselves has to get absolutely simple. We have to be utterly simple in how we focus our own individual role. And we have to be utterly simple in the way that we design our teamwork, because technology will infinitely complicate your life if you've got a complicated management or leadership structure. Dean: And I think that that ultimate I mean I still think about the you know what you drew on the tablet there in our free zone workshop of the network versus the pyramid. The pyramid's gone. The borders are you know the borders are gone. Dan: It's really just this fluid connection. I still think they exist in massive form, but I think their usefulness has declined. I wrote a little. I wrote a. I got a little file on my computer of Dan quotes. Dean: And the quote is. Dan: I don't think that civil servants are useless, but I think it's becoming more and more difficult for them to prove their worth. Dean: No, I mean. Dan: Yeah, no, their work I mean there's stuff that has to be done or society falls apart, and I got a feeling that there's civil servants very anonymous, invisible civil servants who are doing their job every day and it allows the system to work, but it's very hard for them to prove that they're really valuable. I think it's harder and harder for a government worker to accept if they're street level, I mean if they're police, if they're firemen if they're ambulance drivers, it's very easy to prove their value. But, if you're more than three stories up, I think it gets really hard to prove your value. I wonder in that same vein, I just get this last thing. Somebody said well, how would you change government? I said the best way to do it is go to any government building, count the number of stories, go halfway up and fire everybody above halfway. Dean: Oh man, that's funny, that's funny. Dan: I think the closer to the ground they're probably more useful. Dean: Yeah, yeah, you wonder. I mean they're so it's funny when you said that about proving their worth, you always have this. What came to my mind is how people have a hard time arguing for the value of the arts in schools or in society as a public thing. Dan: You mean art taking place and artistic activities and that the arts, as in. Dean: Yeah, as in. You know art and music and plays. And you know, yeah, it's one of those did you ever partake in those I mean? You know, I guess, to the extent in school we were exposed to music and to, you know, theater, I did not participate in theater I participated in theater. Dan: I liked theater and of course the book. You've gotten a small book Casting, not Hiring. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And Jeff and I are deep into the process now. So we have a final deadline of May 26 for Casting, not Hiring it's going really well. Deadline of May 26 for Casting Not Hiring it's going really well and we worked out a real teamwork that he's writing the whole theater, part of it and I'm writing the whole entrepreneurial. I just finished a chapter in one week last week. And it's right on the four by four. So you got um entrepreneurism as theater, as the one major topic in the book and the four by four casting tool as the other part of the book, so it's two things. So I'm focusing on my part and he's focusing on my part, and then uh, process for this here compared to how you're doing your regular books. Dean: You say you wrote a chapter. What's your process for that? Dan: Well, first of all, I laid out the whole structure. The first thing I do is I just arbitrarily lay out a structure for the book and, strangely enough, we're actually using the structure of a play as the structure of the book. So okay, it has three parts, so it's got three acts and each act has. Each part has excuse me, I have to walk into another room. I'm actually probably even visualize this, and I'm walking into our pantry here and this is in the basement and I just got a nice Fiji water sitting right in front of me. Absolutely cold. There, you go, it's been waiting for six months for me to do this? Dean: Yes. Dan: And what I do. I just do the structure and so I just put names. I just put names into it and then we go back and forth. Jeff and I go back and forth, but we agree that it's going to have three parts and 12 chapters. It'll have an introduction, introduction, and it'll have a conclusion. So there'll be 14 parts and it'll have, you know, probably be all told, 160 to 200 pages, and then 200 pages and um, and then um. We identify what, how the parts are different to each other. So the first part is basically why theater and entrepreneurism resemble each other. Okay, and jeff has vast knowledge because for 50 years he's been doing both. He's been doing both of them, and I'm just focusing on the 4x4. So the first 4x4 is, and you can download the tool in the book. So it'll be illustrated in the book and you can download it and do it. And first of all we just start with the owner of the company and I have one whole chapter and that explains what the owner of the company is going to be and the whole thing about the 454. The owner has to do it twice, has to do it first, fill it all in and then share it with everybody in the company and said this is my commitment to my role in the company, okay. And then the next chapter, with everybody in the company and said this is my commitment to my role in the company, okay. And then the next chapter is everybody in the company doing it. And then the third chapter is about how, the more the people do their forebite for the more, the more ownership they take over their role in the company and the more ownership they take over their part in the company and the more ownership they take over their part in teamwork OK, and then the fourth part is suddenly, as you do these things, you're more and more like a theater company. The more you use the four by four, the more you're like a theater company. And that loops back to the beginning of the book, what Jeff's writing. So anyway, very interesting. Yeah, fortunately, we had the experience of creating the small book. So we created the small book, which was about 70 pages, and we used that to get the contract with the publisher. They read the whole book and rather than sending in a page of ideas about a book and trying to sell it on that basis, I said just write a book and give them a book. It's a small book that's going to become a big book. Right, that's how I did it. Oh, I like it. You know, about those small books. Dean: I do indeed know about those small books. I do indeed know about those small books. Yes, I think that's funny. So are you your part? Are you talking it? Are you interviewing? Dan: No, writing writing. Dean: So you're actually writing. So you're actually writing. Yeah, and I've had a tremendous breakthrough. Dan: I've had a tremendous breakthrough on this, and so I started with Chapter 10 because I wanted to get the heart of the idea. Is that what it does the application of the 4x4 to an entire company. And of course, we're launching this project to see if what we're saying is true. And so I end up with a fast filter. This is the best result, worst result. And then here are the five success factors. Okay, then I look at the success factors, I write them out, I take three of them and I do a triple play on them, on the three success factors, which gives me three pink boxes and three green boxes, and then I come back with that material and then I start the chapter applying that material to the outline for the chapter. And then I get finished that task filter and I add a lot of copy to it. And then I have a layout of the actual book. I have a page layout, so in that process I'll produce about two full pages Of copy. Dean: I take it. Dan: And I pop it in. I've done that five times this week and I have ten pages of copy and I said we're good enough. We're good enough, now, let's go to another chapter. So that's how I'm doing it and and uh, yeah, so I've got a real process because I'm I'm doing it independently with another member of the team and he's. Jeff has his own ways of writing his books. You, you know, I mean, he's a writer, he writes, plays, he writes, you know he writes and everything like that. So we don't want to have any argument about technique or you know, any conflict of technique. I'm going to do mine. Dean: He's going to do mine, Right right. Dan: And then we're looking for a software program that will take all the copy and sort of create a common style, taking his style and my style and creating a common style well, that might be charlotte I mean really no, that's what that, that's what the uh, that's what I think it would be. Dean: Exactly that is is if you said to Charlotte, take these two. I'm going to upload two different things and I'd like you to combine one cohesive writing style to these. Dan: Oh good, yeah, that would be something. Dean: Yeah, I think that would be something yeah, I think that would be, uh, that would be amazing, and because you already, as long as you're both writing in in you know, second person second person, personal, or whatever your, your preferred style is right, like that's the thing. I think that would be, I think that would be very good, it would be good, I'd be happy because he writes intelligently and I write intelligently. Dan: Is she for hire? Do you have her freelancing at all? Dean: Dan, I had the funniest interaction with her. I was saying I'm going to create an avatar for her and I was asking her. I said you know, charlotte, I think I'm going to create an avatar for you and I'm wondering you know, what color hair do you think would look good for you? Oh, that's interesting. Look good for you, it's. Oh, that's interesting. Dan: I think maybe a a warm brown or a vibrant auburn oh yeah, vibrant auburn. Yeah, this is great and I thought you know I? I said no, I suspected she'd go towards red. Dean: Yeah, exactly, and I thought you know that's uh. Then I was chatting with a friend, uh yesterday about I was going through this process and, uh, you know, we said I think that she would have like an asymmetric bob hairstyle kind of thing, and we just looked up the thing and it's Sharon Osbourne is the look of what I believe Charlotte has is she's she's like a Sharon Osbourne type of, uh of look and I think that's that's so funny, you know what was uh the the handler for James Bond back when he? was shot in. Dan: Connery Moneypenny, right Moneypenny yeah. Look up the actress Moneypenny. I suspect you're on the same track if you look at the original Moneypenny. Dean: Okay. Dan: Of course she had a South London voice too. Dean: Yeah, isn't that funny, moneypenny. Let's see her. Yes. Dan: I think you're right. That's exactly right. Very funny right? Oh, I think this is great. I think, this is, I think, there's. It would be very, very interesting if you asked a hundred men. You know the question that you're, you know the conversation you're having with Charlotte, the thing. Dean: Yeah. Dan: It'd be interesting to see if there was a style that came out, a look that dominated. Yeah, men came out. Dean: Yeah, I think it is. Dan: Ever since I was a kid, I've been fascinated with redheads. Okay yeah, real redheads, not dyed redheads, but someone who's an? Actual redhead. And I'll just stop and watch them. Just stop and stop and watch them. When I was a little kid I said look, look look and there aren't a lot of them. There aren't a lot of them. You know, they're very rare and it's mostly Northern Europe. That's right. Dean: That's so funny. Scottish yes, that's right, that's so funny. Dan: Scottish yes, irish have it. Dean: That's right. As you remember, I was married to a redhead for a long time. Yeah, super smart. But that's funny, though, having this persona visual for Charlotte as a redhead yeah. Braintap a really interesting topic. I was talking to. Dan: It was just a discussion in one of the parties about AI and I said the more interesting topic to me is not what, not so much what the machine is thinking or how the machine goes about thinking. What really interests me is that if you have frequent interaction with a congenial machine in other words, a useful congenial machine how does your thinking change and what have you noticed so far? Dean: Well, I think that having this visual will help that for me. I've said like I still haven't, I still don't. Dan: Materialized very completely. You haven't materialized. Dean: Yeah, I haven't exactly in my mind Like if that was, if Moneypenny was sitting three feet from me at all times, she would just be part of my daily conversation part of my wondering conversation. Right part of my wondering and now that, uh, now that she's got access to real-time info like if they're up to date, now they can search the internet right. So that was the latest upgrade. That it wasn't. It's not just limited to 2023 or whatever. The most updated version, they've got access to everything now. Um, so, to be able to, you know, I asked her during the holidays or whatever. I asked her is, uh, you know, the day after I asked this is is honey open today in Winter Haven? And she was, you know, able to look it up and see it looks like they're open and that was yeah, so just this kind of thing. I think anything I could search if I were to ask her. You know, hey, what time is such and such movie playing in that studio movie grill today? That would be helpful, right, like to be able to just integrate it into my day-to-day. It would be very good. Dan: The biggest thing I know is that I almost have what I would say a trained reaction to any historical event, or even if it's current, you know it's in the news, or that I immediately go to perplexity and said tell me 10 crucial facts about this. And you know, three seconds later it tells me that 10. And more and more I don't go to Google at all. That's one thing. I just stopped going to Google at all because they'll send me articles on the topic, and now you've created work for me. Perplexity saves me work. Google makes me work. But the interesting thing is I've got a file it's about 300 little articles now that have just come from me asking the question, but they all start with the word 10 or the number 10, 10 facts about interesting and that before I respond you know, intellectually or emotionally to something I read, I get 10 facts about this and then kind of make up my mind, and of course you can play with the prompt. You can say tell me 10 reasons why this might not be true, or tell me 10 things that are telling us this is probably going to be true. So it's all in the prompt and you know the prompt is the prompt and the answer is the answer yeah and everything. But it allows me to think. And the other thing I'm starting with this book, I'm starting to use Notebook LM. Dean: Yeah. Dan: So this chapter I got to have Alex Varley. He's a Brit and he was with us here in Toronto for about five years and now he's back in Britain, he's part of our British team and he's got a looser schedule right now. So I say by the end, by May, I want to find five different AI programs that I find useful for my writing. So he's going to take every one of my chapters and then put it into Notebook LM and it comes back as a conversation between two people and I just sit there and I listen to it and I'll note whether they really got the essence of what I was trying to get across or needs a little more. So I'll go back then, and from listening as I call it, you know, google is just terrible at naming things. I mean, they're just uh terrible and I would call it eavesdropping, lm eavesdropping that they're taking your writing and they're talking about it. You're eavesdropping. They're taking your writing and they're talking about it. Dean: You're eavesdropping on what they're saying about your writing. What a great test to see, almost like pre-readers or whatever to see. Dan: It's like the best possible focus group that you can possibly get. Dean: I like that yeah. Very good. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: But, it's just interesting how I'm, you know, but I've just focused on one thing with AI, I just make my writing faster, easier and better. That's all. I want the AAM to do, because writing is just a very central activity for me. Dean: Yeah, and that's not going anywhere. I mean, it's still gonna be. Uh, that's the next 25 years that was. You can make some very firm predictions on this one that's what, uh, I think next, Dan, that would be a good. As we're moving into 2025, I would love to do maybe a prediction episode for the next 25 years reflection and projection. Dan: You take the week of my 100th birthday, which is 19 and a half years now, I could pretty well tell you 80% what I'm doing the week on my 100th birthday. I can't wait that would be a good topic. Dean: I was just going to say let's lock this in, because you'll be celebrating is Charlotte listening? Dan: is Charlotte listening now? No, she's not, but she should be say let's lock this in because you'll be celebrating charlotte. Is charlotte listening? Is charlotte listening now? Dean: no, she's not, but she should be oh no, give her a. Dan: Just say next week, charlotte remind me. Oh yeah, no I'll remember. Dean: I'll remember because it's okay, it's my actual this week and this is my, this is the next few days for me is really thinking this through, because I I like, um, I've had some really good insights. Uh, just thinking that way uh yeah, so there you go. Good, well, it's all, that was a fast hour. Dan: That was a fast it really was. Dean: I was going to bring that up, but uh, but uh yeah we had other interesting topics, but for sure we'll do it next week yeah, good okay, dan okay I'll talk to you. Bye.

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, Dan and I explore how organizations can balance productivity with employee well-being through structured breaks and strategic planning. Dan shares insights from Strategic Coach's approach of giving employees six weeks off after three months of work, using Calgary's changing weather as a metaphor for workplace adaptability.  Looking at the British Royal Navy's history, we discuss how its organizational structure relates to modern planning methods. Dean explains his 80/20 framework for yearly planning—using 80% for structured goals while keeping 20% open for unexpected opportunities, which helps teams stay focused while remaining flexible. The conversation turns to a long-term perspective through 25-year frameworks, examining how past achievements shape future goals. Dean shares a story about the Y2K panic to illustrate how technological changes influence our planning and adaptability. We conclude with practical applications of these concepts, from cross-training team members to implementing daily time management strategies. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We discuss the adaptability of humans to different climates, using Calgary's Chinook weather patterns as an example, and emphasize the importance of taking breaks to prevent burnout, citing Strategic Coach's policy of providing six weeks off after three months. Dean and I explore the planning strategies inspired by the golden age of the British Royal Navy, advocating for a structured year with 80% planning and 20% spontaneity to embrace life's unpredictability. Dan reflects on using 25-year frameworks to evaluate past achievements and future aspirations, noting that he has accomplished more between ages 70 to 80 than from birth to 70. We delve into the importance of discernment and invention, highlighting these skills as crucial for problem-solving and expressing creativity in today's world. Dean talks about sports salaries, noting how they reflect economic trends, and discusses the financial structure of sports franchises, particularly in relation to player salaries and revenue. We touch on government efficiency and cost-cutting measures, discussing figures like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, and the impact of Argentina's President Milley. The conversation shifts to global trends and AI's role in the future workforce, noting the significance of recognizing patterns and making informed predictions about future technological advancements. Dean and I emphasize the importance of weekly and daily time management strategies, suggesting that structured planning can enhance both personal and professional effectiveness. Dan shares his year-end practices, including reflecting on past years and planning for the new year, while also noting his personal preference for staying home during the holidays to relax and recharge. We humorously recount historical events like the Y2K panic and discuss how technological shifts have historically reshaped industries and societal norms. 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, I thought I'd just give you a minute or two to get settled in the throne. Dean: Oh, you see, there you go. I'm all settled, All settled and ready. Good, it's a little bit chilly here, but not you know, not yeah it's a little bit chilly here too. Dan: Yeah, it's a little bit chilly here too. It just shows you there's different kinds of little bits. Dean: Different levels. Choose your chilly. Yeah, that's so funny, are you? Dan: in Toronto. It just brings up a thought that there are people who live in climates where 40 degrees below zero is not such a bad day. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And there are people who live in temperatures where it's 120, and that's not a too uncomfortable day. Dean: Right. Dan: So that's 160 degrees variation. If nothing else, it proves that humans are quite adaptable. I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right. Dean: That's what that shows. I use that example a lot when talking about climate change. We're very adaptable. Dan: Oh yeah, yeah, there is a place in. I looked this up because in Western Canada I think in the Denver area too, they have a thing called a Chinook, and I've actually experienced it. I used to go to Calgary a lot for coach workshops and I'd always, if it was like February, I'd always have to pack two complete sets of clothes, because one day it was 20 degrees Fahrenheit in the morning and it was 75 degrees Fahrenheit in the evening, the morning, and it was 75 degrees Fahrenheit in the evening, and then it stayed. And then it stayed that way for about two days and then it went back to, back to 20. And uh, this happens about, I would say, in Calgary, you know Alberta. Uh, this would happen maybe three or four times during the winter mm-hmm yeah, so so so there? Dean: well, there you go, so are you. Are you done with workshops therefore? Dan: yeah, yeah of strategic coach does the whole office closed down from the 20th and 20th of well yeah 20th was our party, so that was friday night. So we have a big in toronto. We have a big christmas party. You know, we have 80 or 90 of our team members and they bring their other, whatever their other is and not all of them, but a lot of them do and now we're closed down until the 6th, uh, 6th of january. That's great. Yeah, you know what? Dean: a lot of people that's 17 days, that's that's 17 days yeah that's a very interesting thing. Dan: So you know, it's like um so completely shut down as there's nobody in the office nobody, you know there's people who check packages like, okay, yeah, and they live right around the corner from the office, so they just go in and you know they check and, um, you know, and if, um, but no phone calls are being taken, it's like uh company free days. Dean: Is that what it is? Dan: yeah, there. Dean: There's no phone calls being answered, no emails being attended to, anything like that. It's all just shut down. Dan: I'm going to take a guess and say yes. Dean: Right. That's great and that's kind of you know what. One of the things that I've often said about you and the organization is that you are actually like products of your environment. You actually do what you see. Dan: We're the product of our preaching. Dean: That's exactly right Organizationally and individually. Right Organizationally and individually. And when I tell people that new hires at Strategic Coach get six weeks of three days After three months. Dan: After three months. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they don't get any free days for the first three months, but you know, and they pass the test, you know they pass the test. Then in the first year year, they get six weeks, six weeks, yeah, and it's interesting, right? Dean: Nobody gets more. Right, everybody gets six weeks. Dan: Shannon Waller, who's been with us for 33 years. She gets her six weeks and everybody else gets their six weeks, and our logic for this is that we don't consider this compensation OK right, we do it for two reasons so that people don't burn out. You know they don't get, you know they they're not working, working, working, in that they start being ineffective, so they take a break. So they take a break and we give a one month grace period in January If you haven't taken your previous six weeks for the year before. You can take them during January, but you can't carry over. So there's no building up of three days over the years. Right, yeah, if you have, if you don't take them, you lose them. And but the other thing about it that really works one, they don't burn out. But number two, you can't take your free days in your particular role in the company, unless someone is trained to fill in with you so it actually it actually pushes cross training, you know. So in some roles it's three deep, you know they, yeah, there's three people who can do the role, and so you know you know, we've been at it for 35 years and it works yeah, oh, that's awesome dan I was curious about your you know. Dean: Do you have any kind of year end practices or anything that you do for you know, preparing for the new year, reflecting on the old year, do you do anything like that? Dan: I'd probably go through a bottle ofish whiskey a little bit quicker during that period that's the best I'm. I'm not saying that that's required, but sometimes exactly, just observation. Yeah, uh-huh you know, knowing you, like you know you right, yeah, yeah, not that it's noticeable you know I try to not make it noticeable. Uh, the other thing, the other thing about it is that we don't go away for the holidays. We we just stay put, because babs and I do a lot of traveling, especially now with our medical our medical journeys, uh and uh. I just like chilling, I just like to chill. I know, you know I I'm really into, um, uh, historical novels. Right now dealing with the british navy, the royal navy around 1800. So the golden age of sailing ships is just before steam power was, you know, was applied to ships. These are warships and and also before you know, they went over to metal. The boats started being steel rather than wood. And it's just the glory period. I mean, they were at the height of skill. I mean just the extraordinary teamwork it took to. You know just sailing, but then you know battles, war battles and everything Just extraordinary. This is cannons right, yeah. These were cannons, yeah, extraordinary, this is cannons, right? Yeah, these are cannons, yeah, and the big ones had 120 cannons on them, the big ships, right before the switchover, they just had this incredible firepower. And the Brits were best, the British were the best for pretty well 100, 150 years, and then it ended. It ended during the 1800s. Midway through the 1800s you started getting metal steam-powered ships and then it entirely changed. Yes, yeah, but back to your question Now. You know I do a lot of planning all the time. You know I do daily planning, weekly planning, quarterly planning. I call it projecting. I'm projecting more than planning. The schedule is pretty well set for me. I would say on the 1st of January, my next 365 days are 80% structured already. Dean: Yes. Dan: Yeah, and then you leave room for things that come up. You know, one of the things I really enjoy and I'm sure you do, dean is where I get invitations to do podcasts and we tell people you got to give us at least 30 days when you make a request before we can fill it in. But I've had about, I think during 2024, I think I had about 10. These weren't our scheduled podcasts with somebody these? Were. These were invitations, and yeah. I really enjoy that. Dean: Yeah, I do too, and that's kind of a I think you're. This is the first year, dan, that I've gone into the year, going into 2025, here with a 80% of my year locked, like you said. Like I know when my Breakthrough Blueprint events are, I know when my Zoom workshops are, I know when my member calls are, all of those things that kind of scaffolding is already in place right now. And that's the first. You know that's the first year that I've done that level of planning ahead all the way through. You know, going to London and Amsterdam in June and Australia in November and get it the whole thing, having it all already on the books, is a nice that's a nice thing, and now I'm I'm really getting into. I find this going into 2025 is kind of a special thing, because this is like a, you know, a 25 year. You know, I kind of like look at that as the beginning of a 25 year cycle. You know, I think there's something reflective about the turn of a century and 25 year, you know the quarters of a century kind of thing, because we talk about that 25-year time frame, do you? You're right now, though you are five years into a 25-year framework, right, in terms of your 75 to 100, was your 25? Yeah, my guess, my yeah, I didn't. Dan: I didn't do it on that basis I know I did it uh, uh. Um, I have done it that way before, but now it's I'm just uh 80 to 100, because 100 is an interesting number. Dean: Yes. Dan: And plus I have that tool called the best decade ever. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And so I'm really focused just on this. 80 to 90, 80 years old, and when I measured from 70 to 80, so this was about two years before it was two months before I got to my 80th birthday. I created this tool. And I just reflected back how much I'd gotten done. Dean: 70 to 80. Dan: And it occurred to me that it was greater than what I'd gotten done 70 to 80. Dean: Yeah, and it occurred to me that it was greater than what I had done from birth to 80. Dan: Birth to 70. Dean: Birth to 70. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan: So I had accomplished more in the last 10 years and I used two criteria creativity and productivity like coming up with making up more stuff. And then the other thing just getting lots of stuff done, and so I've got that going for 80 to 90. And it's very motivating. I find that a very motivating structure. I don't say I think about it every day, but I certainly think about it every week. Dean: That's what I was very curious about. I was thinking this morning about the because this period of time here, this two weeks here, last two weeks of the year, I'm really getting clear on, you know, the next 25 years. I like these frameworks. I think it's valuable to look back over the last 25 years and to look forward to the next 25 years. And you and I've had that conversation like literally we're talking about everything. That is, everything that's you know current and the most important things right now have weren't even really in the cards in 2000. You know, as we were coming into you, know, we all thought in 1999, there was a good chance that the world was going to blow up, right y2k. Dan: Everybody was uh some of us did. Dean: I love that but you know, it just goes to show. Dan: Yeah, I thought it was uh right yeah, there was this momentary industry called being a y2k consultant you know computer consultant and I thought it was a neat marketing trick. The only problem is you can only pull it off once every thousand years. Dean: Oh yeah. Dan: Yeah, but there was vast amount. I mean all the big consulting, you know, mckinsey and all those people. They were just raking in the money you know they were out there, All those people they were just raking in the money. Dean: You know they were out there. You know, I think probably the previous five years. Dan: It was probably a five year industry you know they probably started in 1995, and they said oh, you don't realize this, but somebody didn't give enough room to make the change. You know every computer system in the world is um, we forgot to program this in. They're all going to cease to. They're going to cease to operate on. Yeah and then. But all you had to do is watch new year's from australia and you knew that wasn't true, do? Dean: you know what? Uh, yeah, jesse, uh, jesse dejardin, who I believe you met one time, used to work with me, but he was the head of social for Australia, for Tourism Australia. Yeah, and when the world I don't know if you remember in 2012, the world was supposed to end, that was, uh, yeah, a big thing and uh so, that was that, wasn't that? Dan: uh, it was based on a stone tablet. Dean: That they found somewhere. South America, south America, yes, it was yes, peruvian it was uh, that's right, I think it was? Dan: I think it was the inca inca account yeah, yeah mayan or inca calendar. Dean: That's what it was, the mayan calendar. Dan: That's what it was ended in 2012. Yeah, and so jesse had the foresight it actually ended for them quite a bit earlier oh man, it's so funny. Yeah, you don't get much news from the mayan, no, no you say like when they created that mayan calendar. Dean: They had to end it sometime. Would you say something like that listen, that's enough, let's stop here, we don't even keep going forever. Dan: You know what I think the problem was? I think they ran out of stone I think you're probably right. Dean: They're like this is enough already. Dan: They got right to the edge of the stone and they said well, you know, jeez, let's go get another. Do you know how much work it is to get one of these stones? That? Oh yeah, chisel on yeah yeah. Dean: so jesse had the uh, jesse had the foresight that at midnight on Australia they're the first, yeah, to put the thing up. So once they made it past, they made a post that said all it said was we're okay. Dan: We're okay. Dean: You know, it was just so brilliant. You know we're okay. Dan: You know the the stuff that humans will make up to scare themselves oh man, I think that that's really along those lines. I just did a perplexity search this morning yeah and uh. For those who don't know what perplexity is, it's an a really a very congenial ai program and I put in um uh uh 10, um crucial periods of us history that were more politically polarized and violent than 2024. Dean: Okay. Dan: And you know, three seconds later I got the answer and there were 10. And very, very clearly, just from their little descriptions of what they were, they were clearly much more politically polarized and violent than they are right now. Yeah, the real period was, I mean the most. I mean Civil War was by far. Dean: Of course. Dan: Civil War, and. But the 1890s were just incredible. You had, you had a president. Garfield was assassinated in the 90s and then, right at 1991, mckinley was. So you had two presidents. There were judges assassinated, there were law officials, other politicians who were assassinated. There were riots where 200 people would die, you know, and everything like that. And you know, and you know, so nothing, I mean this guy, you know, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare gets shot on the street and everybody says, oh, you know, this is just the end. We're tipping over as a society. And I said nah nah, it's been worse tipping over as a society and I said nah, nah, there's been worse. Dean: Yeah, I think about uh. Dan: I mean you know you remember back uh in the 70s, I remember you know I mean in the 60s and 70s assassination attempts and playing yeah, well, they're hijacking. Yeah, there were three. You had the two Kennedys and Martin Luther King were assassinated within five years of each other. I remember the 60s as being much more tumultuous and violent. Yeah it seems like. Dean: I remember, as I was first coming aware of these things, and I remember, as I was first coming aware of these things, that you know remember when. And then Ronald Reagan, that was the last one, until Trump, that was the last actual attempt right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan: You know one thing you got to say about Trump. Dean: Tell me. Dan: Lucky, he's very lucky. Dean: Yes, but in a good sense lucky, no, no, I mean that I think luck is very important. Dan: Luck is very important, you know but, he's lucky, and his opponents, you know. I mean he had Hillary and you know, that was good luck, and Joe turned out to be good luck. You know, Joe Biden turned out to be good luck. And then Kamala was. I mean, you couldn't order up one like that from Amazon and have it delivered to you? Oh man, yeah, I mean, yeah, that you know. And, uh, you know, I mean, you know, the news media were so, uh, bought in. You know that it was like, oh, this is going to be really close. This is, oh, you know, this is going to be razor thin. We may not know for days what the election is. And when Miami-Dade went to Trump, I said it's over. Miami-dade's been Democratic since, you know, since the 70s. You know, Miami-Dade. Dean: And. Dan: I said if Miami-Dade this is like the first thing in this is, like you know, when they start eight o'clock I think it was seven o'clock or eight o'clock. Dean: I'm not sure Eastern. Dan: And they said Miami-Dade has just gone to Trump and I said that's over, I went to bed at nine o'clock. I went to bed at nine o'clock oh man. That's so funny. Yeah, but that's the news media. You know they got, so bought into one side of the political spectrum that they, you know, they were, you know, and I think what Elon is introducing is a medium that's 50-50. You know, like they, they've done surveys of x. You know who, yes, seems to be. You know, it's like 50-50. It's 50 um republican, 50 democratic or 50 liberal, 50 conservative, whatever you know. Uh, you want to do about it, but I think he's pioneering a new news medium oh for sure. Dean: I mean. Well, we've seen, you know, if you look at over the last 25 years, that you know we've gone from nobody having a voice to everybody, everybody having a voice. And I mean it's absolutely true, right Like that's the, that's the biggest. I think that's the. I guess what Peter Diamandis would call democratization, right Of everything. As it became digitized, it's like there's nothing stopping, there's no cost, there's no cost. Dan: There's no cost. There's no cost and there's nothing stopping anybody from having a radio station or having a television station or, you know, magazine, like a newsletter, or any of that thing we've got. In all the ways, it's completely possible for every human to meet every other human. Here's a, here's a question. Uh, I have and uh, I I don't know how you would actually prove it. So it's uh just a question for pondering do you think that the um people were just as crazy before they had a voice as they are after having the voice, or is it having the voice that makes them crazy? Dean: I think it's having access to so many convincing dissenting or, uh, you know voices like I'm talking about the person who's the broadcaster you know they weren't a broadcaster 25 years because there wasn't a medium for doing. Definitely, uh, I think there's definitely a piling on, yeah, of it that I think that you know. If you think about your only access to crazy opinions and I say crazy with air quotes it is was somebody you know in, uh, in your local environment. It's like you remember even in toronto, remember, they had speakers corner. Uh, yeah, sydney tv had speakers corner where you could go and down on uh down on uh cane street queen street down on queen and john queen and John Queen and John Street. I lived about three plus. Dan: Yeah, you never paid any attention to them. I mean you, I just made sure I was on the other side of the street walking, so they wouldn't, try to engage me you know and uh and uh, yeah, so I. So having the capability uh has its own bad consequence, for for some people, yeah, I think so, because the um, you know, I mean you and I couldn't be crazy like this, like we're doing right now. Dean: We couldn't have been crazy like this 25 years ago, but we would have had to just do it together at table 10,. Just yeah, just talk, that's all it is we just let everybody else now hear it? Come listen in. Dan: I don't think we're crazy. I think we're the height of sanity. I think we're the height of sanity. Dean: I do too, Absolutely. Yeah, it's so, but I do. I definitely think that that's that's one of the things is that it's very it's much more difficult to discern. Discernment is a is a big. You need discernment in this, in this period more than ever probably do you have that in your working genius? Dan: do you have that in your working genius? Dean: yeah, that's my number one thing discernment. I think we're the same, yeah invention and discernment which which is first. Dan: Mine is invention and discernment. Dean: Okay, so mine is discernment and invention. And it's an interesting. Chad Jenkins has been asking this. He's been kind of exploring with people what he calls their perpetual question, like what's the constant question? That is kind of like the driving question of what you do. Dan: Do you know yours? Dean: I do. I think, in looking at it, mine is what should we do? Dan: I know, what mine is, what's yours? I wonder how far I can go. Dean: I wonder how far I can go. I like that. Dan: I've had that since I was 11 years old. Dean: Yeah, yeah, that's really. It's very interesting, right like I look at it. That, uh, you know, there were years ago, um, there was a guy, bob beal, who wrote a book called uh, stop setting goals if you'd rather solve problems or something. And so I think I'm, I am a problem solver. Simplifier, you know, as I learn all the layers about what I am, is that I'm able to I just think about, as my MO is to look at a situation and see, well, what do we need to do? Right, like, what's the outcome that we really want? Right, like, what's the what, what's the outcome that we really want, and then go into inventing the simplest, most direct path to effectively get that outcome and that's the driver of, of all of the uh things you know. so I'm always. I think the layer of I think it's a subtlety, but the layer of discernment before inventing, for me is that I limit the inventing to the as a simplifier, you know, and I think you as a, you know I'm an obstacle bypasser, a crusher, uh-huh, uh, no, I I just say, uh, what's the way around this? Dan: so I don't have to deal with it. Dean: Yeah, yes and uh, yeah and uh I can't tell you that you that that progression of is there any way I could get this without doing anything, followed by what's the least that I could do to get this. And then, ok, is there, and who's the person? Dan: who's the person that can do it? Now I tell you, I've already thought about that 10 times this morning. Dean: It's a constant. Dan: It's right there. It's right there. It's a companion. And I sit there and you know, for example, you get caught in a situation where you have to. You know you have to wait, you know like you have to wait and I asked myself is there any way I can solve this without doing nothing? And I said yes, you have to just be patient for 10 minutes. Ok, I'm patient for 10 minutes. You know, oh, right, yeah, yeah you know, yeah, I experienced that a lot at Pearson Airport. Oh, yeah, right, yeah, yeah. Dean: Right, yeah, yeah, for sure, there's a lot of travel shenanigans, but I think, when you really look at, I think just it's fascinating what shifting your, shifting your view by an hour can do in travel. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like, if your target is to arrive three hours, yeah, you start the process one hour earlier than you would normally. There's so much, so much room for margin, so much. Dan: Uh, it's so much more relaxing, you know yeah, it takes us anywhere from uh 40 minutes to an hour to get to Pearson from the beach. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And so we leave three hours before the flight time three hours. And we're there and actually the US going to the US. They have a nice on one side. They've got some really really great um seating arrangements, tables and everything and uh, I really like it. I like getting there and, yes, you know, we starbucks is there, I get a coffee and yeah, you know I sit there and I'll just, uh, you know, I'll read my novel or whatever, or you know I have my laptop so I can work on it. But my killer question in those situations is it's 1924, how long does this trip take me? That's the best right. Dean: Yeah, or if that's not good enough 1824. Right, exactly. Dan: Right, exactly yeah. Dean: I just think. I mean, it's such a, would you say, dan, like your orientation, are you spending the majority of your time? Where do you, where do you live mentally, like? How much time do you spend reflecting on or, you know, thinking about the past, thinking about the future and thinking about right now? Dan: well, I think about the past, uh, quite a bit from the standpoint of creating the tools, because I don't know if you've noticed the progression like over the year, almost every tool has you say well, what have you done up until now? you know, and then your top three things that you've done up until now. And then, looking ahead, you you always brainstorm. That's a Dean Jackson add-on that I've added to. All the tools is brainstorming. And then you pick the top three for the past up until the present. And then you brainstorm what could I do over the next 12 months? And then you pick the top three. But the past is only interesting to me in terms is there a value back there that I can apply right now to, uh, building a better future? Dean: you know, I don't. Dan: I don't think I have an ounce of nostalgia or sentimentality about the past you know, or yearning, you know you don't want. No, I get you know, especially especially now you know it's uh. The boomers are now in their 70s. And I have to tell you, Dean, there's nothing more depressing than a nostalgic baby boomer. Dean: Yeah, back in our day, You're right. Dan: Yeah, that's back in the day, back in your day, you were unconscious. Yeah right, yeah, right, yeah, and I really I noticed it happening because the first boomers started to be 65. So 46, 46 and 65 was the 2011. They started to, you know, they crossed the 65 year mark and I started noticing, starting yeah, oh boy, you know, I'm really spending a lot of time with the people I graduated from high school with and I said, oh yeah, that's interesting, why haven't you seen them for 40 years? Right, yeah, yeah, I went to a 25-year graduation reunion, yeah, so I graduated in 62, so that was 87. And I went back and we had clients here and I told people you know, I'm going back for a high school reunion. I got back and there was an event, a party, and they said, well, how was that? And I said nobody came. None of them came. And he says you had a reunion and nobody came. I said no, they sent a bunch of old people in their place. You know they were talking about retirement. I only got another 20 years to retirement. I said, gee, wow, wow, wow I can't believe that. I mean, if you haven't seen someone for 50 years, there was a reason. Dean: Yeah, absolutely. I just look at these. You know I graduated in 85. So 40 years this year that just seems impossible, dan, like I just I remember you know so clearly. I have such clarity of memory of every year of that you know the last 40 years, that you know the last 40 years, but you know it's. It's a very. What I've had to consciously do is kind of narrow my attention span to the this. What I'm working on is getting to more in the actionable present kind of thing. You know more in the actionable present kind of thing, you know, because I tend to, I mean looking forward. You know if you, it's funny we can see so clearly back 25 years, even 40 years. We've got such great recollection of it. But what we're not really that great at is projecting forward, of looking forward as to what's the next 25 years going to look like. Dan: Well, you couldn't have done it back then either? Dean: then either, and that's what I wondered. So you, I remember, uh, you know, 25 years ago we had we've talked about the um, you know the investment decisions of starbucks and berkshire hathaway and procter and gamble. Those were the three that I chose. But if on reflection now, looking back at them, I could have, because they were there. I could have chosen Apple and Google and Amazon. They would have been the, they would have been eclipsed, those three. Dan: Yeah, but you did all right. Dean: Yeah, absolutely no. No, here's the thing. Dan: The big thing isn't what you invested in, it's what you stayed invested in. Yes, it's moving around. That kills your investment. We have whole life insurance, which is insurance with cash value. It's been 30 years now and the average has been 7% per year for 30 years now and the average has been 7% per year for 30 years. Yeah, I mean, that's interest. I mean interest. So it's not a capital gain, it's just interest. Dean: I was just going to say, and you can access the money. Dan: It's like a bank. It's like your own personal bank. We have an agreement with one of the Canadian banks here that we can borrow up to 95% against the cash value, and the investment keeps on going you just took out a loan. It doesn't affect the investment. What's his name? Dean: Morgan H morgan household. Dan: He talks about that. Yeah, he said it's the movement that uh kills you. Yes, he says, just find something you know you know, government bonds are good over 25 years. I mean people say yeah but I could have gone 100. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you have to think about it. This way, you don't have to think about it. Right yeah that was the Toronto real estate. Toronto real estate, you know, geez yeah. Dean: Yeah, you're right, do you? Dan: know what the average price of a single detached is in GTA right now? I don't know. It's over a million dollars. Yeah, it's about 1.2, 1.4. That's a single detached, I'm not talking about a big place? No, no exactly. Dean: Just a three-bedroom, two-bed single-family home Too bad single family home. I remember when I was starting out in Georgetown the average price of that million dollar bungalow now is like a staple was a bungalow that was built in the 50s and 60s three bedroom, 1,200 square foot. Three bedroom brick bungalow uh, was on a 50-foot lot. Was uh a hundred and sixty five thousand dollars, yeah, and it was so funny, because now it's two uh, probably, uh, georgetown. Georgetown is a very desirable place, yes, and so, uh, when you look at the, I remember carol mcleod, who was in my office. She'd been in real estate for you know, 20, 20 years when, uh, when I joined the office and she remembers thinking when, the price of a prince charles bungalow there was a street called prince charles in, uh, georges, it was kind of like the staple of the uh, the like the consumer price index, bread basket kind of thing when a, uh, when a prince charles bungalow went for $100,000, she thought that was the end of the world. That that's like. This is unsustainable $100,000 for a house. Who's got that kind of money? How are people gonna be able to sustain this? I just think, man, that's so crazy, but you think about it. Do you remember when Dave Winfield got a million-dollar contract for baseball? Dan: Oh yeah. Dean: What an amazing thing. That was the million-dollar man. It's crazy. Now you know. Dan: Yeah, you know, it's really interesting If you take the salaries, let's say the Yankees right now the. Yankees, ok, and you know they're there. You know they have some huge, huge, huge contracts, you know, I think I'm trying to think of the biggest one. Dean: Well, aaron Judge, you know, is like three, three hundred and twenty million judge, you know is like three, 320 million, you know, and uh, but the guy in LA just you know, 700 million yeah, 760, 760 and Soto Soto with the mats. Dan: He just I think his is around 702 and uh and everything and people say this is just unsustainable. If you add up all the salaries of, you know, the yankees, their entire team, you know um, uh and, and average it out against what the market value of the yankees is. Yeah, you know, like this total salary. Dean: The average is exactly the same as it was 70 years ago and that's the thing people don't understand, that these salaries are based on collective bargaining and the basketball, for instance, half of the money goes to the players. So half of all the revenue from tickets and TV and media and merchandise, all of that stuff, half of the money that the organization makes, has to go to the players. And so on a basketball team they have maybe 12 players who are getting all of that money. Dan: You know, so that see the basketball players get I think it's 15, I think they have 15 now. 15, now 15 players. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah so you look at that and it's like, uh wow, now collectively they have to be within their, their salary cap or whatever is, yeah, 50, 50 percent of their revenue. But I mean it's kind of, uh, it's market value, right, it's all relative, yep yep, yep, yeah, and all the owners are billionaires. Dan: You know, they're. They mostly use it for a tax write-off, I mean that's yeah, yeah, yeah I have to tell you talk about tax write-off. About three blocks from us here in the beaches in Toronto, there's an Indian restaurant that's been there for about two years and every night we come by it on the way back from the office and I've never seen any customers. I've never once if I pass that restaurant and this is during business hours. I've never seen, I've never once if I pass that restaurant and this is during business hours yeah I've never. I've never seen it and I said I got a feeling there's some money laundering that's crazy. Dean: It's like I I look at the um, I'm trying right now, and this this next couple of weeks. One of the things I'm really gonna uh reflect on is kind of looking forward. I think about I did this with our realtors. I created an RIP for 2024. So RIP meaning reflection on what actually happened in the last year for you how many transactions, how much revenue, how much whatever came in. And then inflection, looking at what is it right now, where are you at and what trajectory is that on right? If you're looking, what are the things that you could make a change on? And then projecting projection into 2025. And I realized you know part. One of the things I said to the people is you can't same your way to different, that's, you can't save your way to different. I mean that's really if you're thinking that something different is going to happen. Something different has to take place. Dan: You can't crazy your way to normal either. Dean: Exactly. Dan: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really. It's really. Yeah. I think you know that Morgan House book. We gave it out. We gave it out. I have to check on that. I put in a request for that. I don't know if it went out, you know, but he's just I. I told joe he should have him as a speaker at the national the annual event yeah, yeah, I think it'd be good. I mean because joe's really, really, really got to hustle now, because he uh really established a new standard for who he has. But yeah, I was just looking at an article this morning because it reminded me of who Joe had. He had Robert Kennedy and Jordan. Peterson and Tucker Carlson, tucker Carlson, yeah. Dean: And it was great. Dan: It was great. And then I was thinking about the role that elon musk is playing in the us government. There's no precedent for this in us history, that you have a person like that, who's just brought in with somebody else, vivek ramaswamy and uh, they're just given a department of government. Dean: A department of government oh, did I miss a vivek uh appointment. Was he appointed to something? Dan: no, he's, he's appointed with uh, with um with uh, elon, oh, I see, okay, yeah. Yeah, it's called the department of government efficiency right okay, uh, which may be a contradiction in terms, but anyway, but they're hiring people, but the people they hire don't get any salary. You have to volunteer, you have to volunteer to work. So you got to have, you got to be well funded to work there. You know you got to. I mean you got to be living off your own savings, your own investments, while you're there. You know you got to. I mean, you got to be living off your own savings your own investments while you're there. But I was thinking because we've been observers now for 13, actually just a year of President Milley in Argentina and he's cut government costs by 30% in one year. Dean: Wow, yeah there's interesting stuff. Dan: He eliminated or really cut 12 departments. Nine of the departments he just got rid of you know the one, you know they have departments like tuck you in safely at night, sort of that had about that, had about 5000 employees, you know, and you know, and send letters to your mom let her know you know that sort of department, but they were just creating employment, employment, employment where people didn't really have to work, and he got rid of seventy five thousand federal employees in a country of forty Forty six million. Forty six million, he got rid of seventy five thousand. Well, in the US, if they did equal proportions, we're about 350, so 46, that's about seven, seven, eight times. That would get rid of 550,000. I think it's doable, yeah. Dean: I mean that's fascinating and we don't get access to that right. You sought that out and you only came into contact with that because you're a frequent traveler to Argentina. Yeah, Argentina, and it feels better, yeah, and it feels better. Dan: We were noticing because we hadn't been there since March and we were there right at the end of November. We were there right at the end of Thanksgiving. We were actually American Thanksgiving. We were that week, we were down there and the place just feels better. You can just feel it there, there, and the place just feels better. You can just feel it. There is uh, you know, and uh, you know, and there's a real mood shift, you know, when people just feel that all this money is being, you know, confiscated and paid to people who aren't working. You know that yeah it doesn't feel good. Doesn't feel good, then there's Canada, then there's Canada. Dean: Right. Dan: Yes. Dean: It's great entertainment, I'll tell you. Well, you know it's funny. I don't know whether I mentioned last time, the guy from El Salvador, what he's done in since being elected. You're a young guy, I think he was elected at 35 or 37. And he's completely turned around the crime rate in El Salvador by being 100%. Dan: You just have a 50,000 convict prison. Well, that's exactly right, yeah, yeah. And that's the thing. Dean: It's like lock him up. That's the thing. Dan: He's like led, and they guard themselves. It's a self-guarding prison. Dean: Is that right? I didn't know that. No, no, I'm just kidding, I'm just playing on your theme. Dan: Right right, right'm just kidding, I'm just playing on your thing. Dean: Right, right, right, yeah, yeah. Well, that would be the combination, right, self-guarding. That would be the most efficient way to have the situation. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Dean: But it is amazing what can happen when you have a focus on one particular thing. Dan: Well, you know what it is. I think partially and Peter Zion talks about this that, generally speaking, the way the world has been organized, during the 20th century the US really didn't pay much attention to South America, latin America at all, and never has you know the. United States never has, because they've been east and west, you know it's either Europe or it's Asia. But now that the US has decided that they're going to be very discerning about who gets to trade with them they're very discerning about who gets the benefit of US protection and everything else All of a sudden, the South Americans are getting their houses in order which they haven't been. It's been a century of mostly really bad government in Latin America. Now they're all getting things in order so that when the US looks south, they're front of the line. The only thing that the US really paid any attention to was Cuba Cuba's like a piece of meat. Dean: You can't yeah. Dan: The only thing that the US really paid any attention to was Cuba. Yes, right, cuba's like a piece of meat you can't get out of your teeth. For the United. States and your tongue is going crazy, trying to get that piece of meat out of you. It's just been sort of an annoying place, it's just been sort of an annoying place. Dean: Yeah, this is, I think when you look at you know Peter Zions stuff too. If you think about definitely the trend over the next 25 years is definitely more. Dan: I think it's trend lines are really almost eerily accurate. The one thing he doesn't understand, though, is US politics. I found that he doesn't have a clue about US politics. He's a Democrat. He told me he was a Democrat. I spent it. He came and spent a day at Genius, yes, and he said that he was a Democrat. He's an environmentalist, and you know, and you know, and. But he says but I can also do math, you know, he says I can do math so you can see what, which direction the numbers are going in. But he, I mean right up until a week before the election, he says Kamala is going to take it, Kamala is going to take it. You know and everything like that. So he didn't. He didn't have any real sense of the shifts that were going on voter shifts that were going on. I mean Trump went in and almost every county. There's 3,000 counties in the United States and he didn't go backwards in any of the counties, he went up in every county. Dean: Oh, wow, that's interesting so you didn't lose anything. Dan: That's really widespread. I mean, there isn't 3,001. There's just 3,000. Yeah, and he went up. It was just as it was. Like you know, it was like the tide came in. I think I've never seen in my lifetime, I've never really seen a shift of that proportion. And I wonder, you know, you look at over the new political establishment. Well, this isn't my thought George Friedman, who was Peter Zion's, because the political establishment in the United States, in other words, where the proportion of the votes are, is going to be working class. It won't be highly educated you know, professional people. For one thing, ai is really feeding. You know, if you have somebody's making $30,000 a year and somebody else is making $100,000 a year, which job would you like to eliminate to economize? Dean: Right, yeah, yeah, you look at the. That's one thing I think we, like I, look at when I am thinking about the next 25 years. I think about what are the like there's no way to predict. There was no way in 1999 to predict YouTube and Facebook and the things that are TikTok, you know, or AI, all of that impact right. But I think there. But, like I said, there was evidence that if you were, if you believe, guessing and betting, as you would say, you could see that the path that Amazon was on made sense and the path that Apple was on and the path that Google was on, all are ai for certain. Like that dna, all the like the things that are that we're learning about stem cells and genetics, and all of that kind of stuff. And Bitcoin, I guess, right, digital currency, crypto, you know everything. Just removing friction. Dan: Yeah, I think the whole blockchain makes sense. Yeah, yeah, you know. I mean I think the thing in the US dollar makes sense. Yeah, $1.44 yesterday. It's up 10 cents in the last eight weeks. Wow, yeah, I think when you were there in September it was $1.34, probably $1.34. Dean: Now it's $1.44. Oh, that's great yeah, yeah. Dan: And yeah, so yeah, I mean the ones that I mean. People say, well, bitcoin, you know Bitcoin is going to become the reserve currency. I said there's 21 million of them. It can't become the reserve currency. Dean: Right right. Dan: There is no currency that can replace the dollar. Dean: You know, it's just. Dan: And still have a livable planet. Dean: Mm-hmm, anyway, we've covered territory. Dan: We've covered territory today. Dean: We have Holy cow. It's already 1203. Dan: That's amazing. We covered a lot of territory. Dean: We really did. Dan: But the one thing that is predictable is the structure that you can put onto your schedule. That is predictable. Dean: You know, I have one. Dan: I have a thing I hadn't talked to you about this, but this is something I do is that when I start tomorrow, I look at next week, ok, and I just look at and and I just get a sense and then I'll put together some changes. I'd like Becca Miller she's my high beams into the future and she does all my scheduling and so I'll notice that some things can be rearranged, which if I got to next week I couldn't rearrange them. But I can rearrange them on Monday of this week for next week. Dean: But I I couldn't do it on. Dan: Monday of next for that week. So more and more this this year. Um, every uh Monday I'm going to look at the week uh, not this week, but the week ahead and make changes. I think, I bet there's uh, you know, like a five to 10% greater efficiency. That happens just by having that one habit. Dean: Yeah, dan, I'm really getting down to, I'm looking at and I do that same thing. But looking at this next, the 100 hours is really from. You know, hours is really from Monday morning at eight o'clock till Friday at noon is a hundred hours and that to me, is when everything that's the actionable period, and then really on a daily basis, getting it to this, the next 100 minutes is really that's where the real stuff takes place. So anyway, I always love the conversations. Dan: Yep, back to you next week. Yes, sir, have a great day. I'll talk to you soon. Dean: Bye, okay, bye.

Today on Welcome to Cloudlandia, We start with the mysterious drone sightings over New Jersey, exploring the thin line between conspiracy and curiosity. These nocturnal aerial visitors become a metaphor for our complex modern world, where information and imagination intersect. We then investigate the profound impact of cultural icons like Mr. Beast and Kylie Jenner, examining how influence transcends traditional expertise. Our discussion reveals how public figures navigate changing landscapes of leadership and visibility, offering insights into the evolving dynamics of success and social capital. The episode concludes by challenging our approach to information consumption. Drawing from personal experiments and wisdom from thought leaders like Warren Buffett, we explore strategies for staying informed in a noisy digital ecosystem. Our conversation provides practical perspectives on navigating media, understanding cultural shifts, and maintaining perspective amid constant information flow. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We explore the presence of drones over New Jersey, questioning whether they are linked to government surveillance or civilian activities, while considering the broader context of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Dan and I discuss the concept of anticipation being more stressful than actual experiences, suggesting it as a contributor to mental distress. The impact of cultural icons like Mr. Beast and Kylie Jenner is examined, highlighting their influence despite lacking traditional skills in their fields. We ponder on how cultural shifts are altering perceptions of corporate leadership, using a hypothetical scenario of a CEO's public safety being compromised. The dynamics of news consumption are analyzed, contrasting real-time news feeds with curated platforms like RealClear Politics to understand how they balance diverse political viewpoints. I share my experience with digital abstinence, noting the benefits of reduced distractions and the negligible impact of disconnecting from the continuous news cycle temporarily. The concept of "irrational confidence" is explored, discussing how it characterizes overachievers and can be cultivated over time to foster personal growth. We reflect on long-term investment strategies inspired by Warren Buffett, emphasizing the enduring need for certain products and industries. I consider the importance of balancing cultural awareness with the need to filter out unnecessary noise, contemplating changes in my information consumption habits. Insights from personal experiments in digital and media consumption are shared, emphasizing the importance of distinguishing between transient cultural information and lasting knowledge. 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 are the drones looking down on you. Are the drones looking down on you. Dan: I mean, how many do you have up there? What is going? Dean: on with these drones. Dan: Yeah, I bet there's just a bunch of civilians fooling around with the government. Dean: Yeah, I wonder you know like you look at this. I think it's so. I wonder you know like you look at this. I think it's so amazing that you know we've had a theme, or I've been kind of thinking about this, with the. You know, is this the best time to be alive or the worst time to be alive? And I mentioned that I think probably in every practical way, this is the best time, but the anything in the worst time to be alive column just the speed and proliferation of, you know, conspiracies and misinformation and the battle for our minds. You know, keeping us in that. You know everything is just enough to be. You know where you're uncertain of stuff. You know there's a lot of uncertainty that's being laid out right now in every way. I mean, you look at just what's happened in the last. If we take 2020, fear you know. Dan: Well, tell me about it. I'm not very much of that 2024. Tell me about it. I experience very much of that. But why don't you tell me about that? Because I want to note some things down here. Dean: You know what? Dan: Every month, more money comes in than goes out. What more do you need to know besides that? Dean: I agree with you. I'm seeing the light here. It's just on the top level. We went through an election year which is always the you know the highly funded, you know misinformation campaigns or you know putting out there. So everybody's up on high level. Dan: Are you talking about lies Are? Dean: you talking about lies? Are you talking about lies? Who knows Dan? Dan: When I was growing up we called them lies. Why so many extra letters? I mean lies, that's a perfectly good Anglo-Saxon word. Why is Greek and Roman stuff in there? Dean: I think that's the thing, If we just simplify it. But if we bring it down to lies and truth, it's much more. Dan: I like lies and truth. Dean: Yeah, it's much more difficult to discern the lies from the truth. Dan: Yeah, he's telling a lie here, folks, his mouth is moving Exactly. Dean: You know that's the truth, but I just look at that. It's like you know the things that are. You know the things that are happening right now. Like you look at even with the government, even with the congressional hearings or announcements on, almost just like a matter of fact, oh yeah, there's aliens, there's totally aliens. There's. They've been here for a long time. We've got some in, we've got all the evidence and everything like that. But you know, carry on, it's just kind of so. It's so funny. Stuff is being like, you know, nobody really is kind of talking about it. And then you get these drone situations in New Jersey, all these drones coming out and the government saying I know nothing to see here, nothing going on there. Dan: Well, my take if you're going to be using drones. New Jersey would be my choice. You know I put drones over New Jersey. Not a lot happening there. Dean: All the memes now are that it's some highly sophisticated, you know fast food delivery service for Chris Christie. That's all the meme things. They're on a direct pipeline delivering fast food to Chris Christie. That's just so funny. Dan: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I mean the whole point is that civilians could do this. I mean, I think everybody probably has the you know, or certain people do have the technological capability now to put up drones, you know, and just put some lights on them and put them in the night sky I'm sure anybody does that and then you know, and then you'll be on social media. Dean: Somebody will film you and everything like that you know it's at night and they're mysterious. Dan: Always do it at night, never do it during the day You've got to use the right words to describe them too, dan, you've got to use the right words they're mysterious drones. And if you practice you can get them to fly. In formation it looks even more interesting. I'm swooping a little bit in formation, everything else, well, I don't believe there's aliens. Dean: Okay, good Everything else yeah. Well, I don't believe there's aliens, so you know I mean. Dan: I don't believe there's anything more alien than people I've already met. That's what. Dean: I mean yeah. Dan: You know I've met some alien thought forms on the part of some people. But see, I think you got to make a fundamental decision about this up front. This is worth thinking about or it's not worth thinking about. Yeah, okay, so I made the decision. It's not worth thinking about that. If something new develops, I'll probably know about it in a very short period of time, and then I can start responding to it. Yeah, but about six months ago a new resolution plunked into place in my brain, and that is I'm not going to react to an experience until I actually have the experience. Dean: So say more about that. Dan: Rather than making up a fantasy or the possibility that there's an experience to be it. Actually you're getting. I think mental illness is having an experience before you've actually being afraid of an experience before you've actually had it. It's the anticipation of having an experience that I think causes mental illness. Dean: That's true, isn't it? Dan: Yeah, I mean, that's like yeah, I haven't seen Probably not the only thing, probably not the only thing about mental illness, but I think that would qualify as an aspect. It certainly is a paranoia, certainly an aspect of paranoia, yeah, but things are moving. I think we're witnessing one of the greatest innovations in the history of the United States right now. Can I tell you what it is? Would you be interested? I'm all ears. Yeah, President is elected, and then there's this period from the day after the election until the inauguration. Dean: Yes. Dan: And it's basically been fallow. Nothing grows during that time and Trump has just decided why don't I just start acting like the president right after the election and really create a huge momentum by the time we get to the inauguration? Let's be so forceful right after the election that all the world leaders talk to me. They don't talk to the existing president. That's his name. I forget what I forget Joe, joe, joe. All right, that's the name, that's the name of the beach, that's the name of the beach, I just find it remarkable how, around the world, everybody's responding to the incoming president, not to the actual president. That's the truth. I think he's, and he's getting people. There's foreign policy changing. You know there's foreign policy, mexico, their foreign policy you know, their export import policy is changing. Canada export import policy is changing. Canada export-import policy is changing. And all he did was say a word. He said I think we're going to put a 25% tariff on both of you. And all of a sudden, they're up at night. They're up at night. Dean: I happened to be, in Toronto when all that was being announced. I happened to be in Toronto when all that was being announced and all the news was, you know, that there's an emergency meeting of all of the premiers to discuss the reaction to Donald Trump's proposed tariff. You know, you're absolutely right. Everybody's scrambling, everybody's. You know, they're definitely, you know, thinking about what's coming. You know. Dan: And then he goes to Paris for the opening of, you know, they're definitely, you know, thinking about what's coming, you know. And then he goes to Paris for the opening of, you know, the you know, the renovation of Notre Dame Cathedral. Yeah, looks good, by the way, I don't know if you've seen the pictures. It looks really good. I was in there. You know I've been to Paris, I think I've been to Paris three times and I went the first time. I said, oh, I've been to Paris, I think I've been to Paris three times and I went the first time. I said, oh, I have to go to Notre Dame Cathedral. And I went in and I said, gee, it's dark and dingy and I'm not sure they even clean. You know, clean the place anymore. And all it takes is a little fire to get everybody into cleanup mode, and boy, it looks spectacular. So Trump goes there and it's like he's the emperor of the world. You know, all the heads of state come up and they want to shake his hands and everything like that. I've never seen anything like that with an incoming president. They want to get on his good side and everybody's giving them money for his inauguration. Mark Zuckerberg's giving them money. The head of Google's giving them money for his inauguration. Mark zuckerberg's giving them money. The head of google is giving them money. Jeff bezos giving them money. Abc's giving them 15 million. That'll just go into his library library fund. Yeah, and everything else. Wow. You know, I've never seen them do this to an incoming president before. Yeah, time magazine called him the person of the year Already. I didn't even know there was a Time magazine. Dean: I'm actually thinking. I've been, I've been like thinking, dan, about my 2025, you know information plan and you know I've been kind of test driving this idea of you know, disconnecting. Where I struggle with this is that so much of the insights and things that I have are because I, on top of culture, you know, I think I'm very like tuned in to what's going on. I have a pretty broad, you know, observation of everything and that. So where I struggle with it is letting go of like at the vcr formula, for instance, was born of my observation and awareness of what's going on with mr beast and kylie jenner and these, you know, that sort of early thing of knowing and seeing what's going on you know before many of our contemporaries kind of thing. Right, many of our people are very decidedly disconnected from popular culture and don't pay attention to it. So I look at that as a balance. That part of it there's a certain amount of awareness that is an advantage for me might be affected if I were to be blissfully unaware of what's going on in culture, you know. Dan: Yeah, I don't know. I mean you could put Charlotte on to the job you know, yeah, and that's so I look at that. Charlotte. For our listeners, charlotte is Dean's AI sleuth. She finds out things. She's a sleuthy integrator of things that Dean finds interesting. You ought to talk it over with her and say how can I stop doing this and still have the benefit of it? Dean: Yeah, my thing. I think that where there might be an AI tool that I could use for this, but Charlotte, from what I understand, is bound by her latest update or whatever. She's got access to everything up to a certain date. She doesn't have real time information in terms of the most recent stuff. Have you heard, by the way, dan, what is? We're imminently away from the release of ChatGPPT 5, which is supposedly I want to get the numbers right on this. Let me just look at a text here, because it's so overwhelmingly more powerful than ChatGPT 4. The new ChatGPT5 has 10 trillion gpus compared to chat gpt4, which is 75 billion. So the difference from 75 billion to 10 trillion sounds like a pretty impressive leap. Sounds like a pretty impressive leap, and that'll put it over the top of you know, the current thing is a 121 IQ, and this will bring it to being smarter than any human on the planet. Dan: And so we don't even know, but not at doing anything particular. Dean: No, I guess not. I mean just the insight processing, logic, reasoning, all of that stuff being able to process information. I'm still amazed I was talking. Dan: When it comes out. Three months after it comes out, will you notice any difference? Dean: I don't know. Dan: That's what I'm wondering, my feeling is that I'm not even sure what cat GPT is two years after it came out, because I haven't interacted with it at all Right, I've interacted with perplexity, which I find satisfying. And you know, yeah, there's an interesting. I read an interesting article on human intelligence and it said that by and large, there's an active, practical zone to human intelligence where you're above average in confidence and you're above average in making sense of things, and it seems to be between 120 and 140. Dean: Yes, 120, 140. Dan: And about 40, 140,. Your confidence goes down as you get smarter and your awareness of making sense of things gets weaker, gets weaker. And from a standpoint of communicating with other people, the sweet zone seems to be 120 to 140. Dean: Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. I think that, yeah, yeah. Dan: You've got above average pattern, You've got above average pattern recognition and you've got good eye-hand coordination you know, in the artisans of the word that you can see something and take action on it quite quickly. You have the ability to do that, and probably in new ways, probably in new ways so you don't have a lot of friction coming the other way. You know when you do something new? yeah, but iq, you know, iq, iq is one measurement of human behavior yeah but there's many others that are more prominent, so yeah, I think this is you know, I think silicon Valley has a big fixation on IQ because they like to compare who's got the biggest. They like to compare who's got the biggest, but I'm not sure it really relates to anything useful or practical beyond a certain point. Dean: Well, it's not actionable. There's no insight in it, not like knowing that you're Colby, knowing that we're 10 quick starts is useful information. Dan: Yeah, it's like having six quick starts together with some alcohol. Right, it's a fun party. Dean: Yes, like you said your book club or your dinner clubs, our next-door neighbor our next-door neighbor's husband and wife and Shannon Waller and her husband. Dan: Our quick start out of the 60 is 56. We just have the best time for about three or four hours Good food, the wine is good and everything else. We just have the best time for about three or four hours Good food, the wine is good and everything else. And regardless of what happens transpires during those four hours, the world is completely safe from any impact. Dean: Right, exactly, it's so funny it's not going to leave the room. Yeah, everybody's safe, yeah. Dan: Go back to culture. What do you mean by culture when you say? Dean: culture. What? Dan: do you mean by culture? When you say culture, what do you mean? Dean: I mean, like popular culture, what's happening in the world right now, like having an awareness of what, because I'm a good pattern recognizer and I see and I'm overlaying things. I'm curious and alert and always looking for what's with Mr Beast and recognizing that neither one of them has any capability to do the thing that they're doing. Mr Beast didn't have the capability to make and run hamburger restaurants and Kylie didn't have any capability to run and manufacture a cosmetics company, but they both were aligned with people who had that capability and that allowed them to have a conduit from their vision, through that capability, that if they just let people know their reach that they've now got a hamburger restaurant and you can order on Uber Eats right now or you can click here to get my lip kits. You know, access to those eyeballs, that's all. So I look at that and if I had not, if I had been cut off from you know, sort of I would say I'm in the tippy top percent of people of time spent on popular culture. I guess you know, and I look at it as I look at, it's a problem in terms of a lot of time and a lot of you know that mindless stuff you would think like screen time, but all the inputs and awareness is just monitoring the signal to get and recognize patterns. You know. So I'm real. Yeah, well, let me throw you a challenge on the culture side. Dan: get and recognize patterns, you know. So I'm really sorry, yeah, well, let me throw you a challenge on the culture side. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Okay. So in New York City there's going to be a meeting of you know, I guess it's a shareholders meeting for a big health insurance company and the head of one part of the health insurance company is walking down the street. Somebody shoots him in the back and kills him, kills him the CEO, and they, yeah, they catch up with him. You know, a week later and you know he's arrested in a McDonald's in Pennsylvania and they find all sorts of incriminating evidence that he in fact is the person who was the shooter. And now he's got, you know, he's got sort of a manifesto about that. These CEOs are doing evil and even though he doesn't think that his action was an admirable action, it had to be done. I would say that's a cultural factoid because up until now being a CEO is like being an aristocrat in our capitalist society. I get a CEO and now the CEOs are trying to be invisible and they're hiring like mad new security. So all the status value of being a CEO got disappeared on an early morning sidewalk in New York City because somebody shot him. Shot him in the back, you know, I mean it wasn't a brave act, shot him in the back, but the reason is that you, as a CEO, are doing harm to large numbers of people and someone has to stop you. I would say, that's as much a cultural fact as Mr Beast or Kylie Jenner. Dean: Yeah, I mean, would you say that again? Dan: I mean, I think, every CEO in the United States. Dan: United States has instantly changed his whole schedule and how he's going to show up in public and where he's going to be seen in public where he doesn't have large amounts of security, with one action broadly communicated out through the social media and through the mainstream media. He just changed the whole way of life for CEOs. I would say that's a cultural fact. It's a negative one. You're talking about positive ones, but I believe for every positive thing you have, there's probably a corresponding negative one. I'm struck by that You're just not going to see CEOs around anymore, and I mean, half the value of being a CEO is being seen around and they just removed the whole reward for being seen around, just removed the whole reward for being seen around. Dean: Yeah, I wonder, you know like I mean. But there are certain things like other I don't know that it's all CEOs. You know, like I think, if you are perceived as the part of the vilified, you know CEOs, the almost back to Occupy Wall Street kind of things, if you're a CEO of a company that's viewed as the oppressor, like those insurance things, but I don't know if that's true for the CEOs of NVIDIA and OpenAI and Tesla, and you know what I mean. Dan: I think, if you're yeah, I wonder, but we'll see, but we'll see, we'll see. Dean: Yeah, yeah, are you the people's CEO? You know, I think. Dan: Yeah, I mean my yeah. Somebody once asked me about this, you know. They said how well known would you like to be? And I said just be below the line where I would have to have security. Dean: Right, yeah, if you look at it, can you think of anybody? Dan: I wander around Toronto on my own. I go here and I go there and everything else, and nobody knows who I am. That's my security. Dean: Nobody knows who I am yeah, but you wonder, like you know, if you look at the level of fame of you know you? You've mentioned before the difference between Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg. Warren Buffett is certainly very famous, but nobody's mad at him. I guess that's part of the thing. He's very wise, or viewed as wise. Dan: He's usefully wise. Dean: Yeah, exactly. Dan: Investing according to his benchmarks and his strategies has proved very valuable to a great number of people. Dean: Agreed. Dan: Plus, he's got a fairly simple, understandable lifestyle. He still lives in the house he's lived in for the last 40 years, still drives a pickup truck and his you know the entrance to his home is filled with boxes of Diet Coke. Dean: Cherry. Dan: Coke Cherry Coke, cherry Coke. Dean: Cherry Coke, not Diet Coke. No, I'm not. That's a subject, I'm not an expert in Cherry Coke. Dan: Cherry Coke, not Diet Coke. That's a subject I'm not an expert in. Dean: That's the funniest thing. Right, that's one of my top two. Dan: Warren Buffett, you have merit badges in that area. Dean: Yeah. But I think culture, you know, I don't know, I'm trying, it's a slippery beast, this thing culture you know, it's a slippery, slippery beast and you know there's I think that's part of the thing, though it's like the zeitgeist you know is, I think, having an awareness zeitgeist gosh, you just had to slip in a german word, didn't you? Dan: you just had to get a german word, yeah I've been sort of fixated on schadenfreude for the last month. I've just been why I've just been watching the democrats respond to the election and I'm fully schadenfreude. I've been fully schadenfreid for the last month. But zeitgeist, the spirit, I think that translates into the spirit of the times. Dean: Yes, that's exactly what it is. That's what I meant by. That's what I meant by. I'm very like, I think I'm at the tippy top of the you know percentiles of people who are tuned into the zeitgeist, I think that's. I would be self-reportedly that, but yeah, and I don't know, but at the cost of there's a lot of useless stuff that gets in there as well, you know, and negative, and you're faced with all of it. So, my, my filter, I'm taking in all the sewer water kind of thing and having to filter it through rather than just, you know, pre-filtering, only drinking filtered water. Dan: You're getting rid of the fluoride drinking filtered water. Dean: You're getting rid of the fluoride. Yeah, exactly, winter haven. Florida, by the way, is one of the first in the country to be getting rid of fluoride on the oh no, this will happen really quick. Dan: Oh yeah, it was just that. Dean: I, I just said I just saw that winter haven was like one of the first movers you, you know, polk County Florida is removing and, by the way, polk County Florida is now fastest growing county in the country. So then, so there you know, 30 something, 30,000 something people that we grew by, yeah, so, new. Dan: You're to date right, you're to date Over the last 12 months, over the last 12 months. I guess that's how they measure it yeah. Dean: So my thought, dan, was that I was looking to. You know, like my tune in to the zeitgeist is on a daily, real-time basis, I'm getting the full feed, right. No, no filters. Yeah, what I was thinking. What I was wondering about was if I were to change the cadence of it to more sort of filtered content, like I would say what you do, your, you've chosen a filter called real clear politics. Right, that's your, that's your filter, and you probably have five or six other filters that are your lens through yeah, it would be the go-to every day. Dan: You know I start the morning and. I go on my computer, I go to the RealClear site. So it's. RealClear comes up as RealClear politics, but then they have about eight other RealClear channels. RealClear politics, RealClear markets, RealClear world. Realclear defense, energy, health science, you know, and everything like that. But the beauty of it is that they're aggregators of other people's output. So you know everybody's competing to get their articles on real clear. You know the New York Times competes to try to get. You know, get every day maybe one or two of its headlines, supposedly for most of my life. The most important newspaper in the world and they have to compete every day to get something of theirs onto the real clear platform. And it seems very balanced to me, right to left from politics. You know, politically, if I look at 20 headlines, I would say that five of them are real total right, five of them are total left and there's a lot of middle. There's a lot of middle about things like that, you know about things like that, you know, and then I'll punch on them, and then that takes me right to the publication or the site that produced the headline, and then I might see three or four things and I discover new ones. I discover new ones all the time. And it's good and there's a lot of filtering that's being done, but I do. They're not interpreting these articles. They're just giving you the article. You can read the article and make up your own mind about it. Now they do some editing in some cases because they interpret the headlines and they have a sidebar where there's topical areas where it's clear to me that real clear has created the headline. That's not the originating. Dean: You know the originating source of the article that's kind of like that's the drudge playbook, right yeah? Dan: I used to like drudge but he went wacky. He went wacky so I didn't read him anymore. Dean: Yeah. Dan: These guys are pretty cool. They're pretty cool. They've been going now for a dozen years anyway, as I've been aware, and they seem really cool. You know they carry advertising. That's not if I'm thinking of horses. I don't get horse ads, you know. 10 minutes later you're done. Dean: Something like that. Dan: But they do have their advertising model, but I don't, you know, I'm not interested in buying anything, so it doesn't really affect me, but that's really great. You know what's really interesting. Peter Zion, you know I'm a big fan of his. And he's got a blog and he came out about a month ago saying I'm going to put in a new approach and that is, you'll always get your free blog and video to go along with it. So it's written and then it's also got the video, but it will be a week later than when I put it on, and if you want it right away, it'll cost you this much. And I'm giving all that money to some cause. Okay, so I'm fundraising for some cause and I just went a week with no Peter Zine and then I started getting it every day and it makes no difference to me whether I got it last week or this week, okay, and so I just waited a week and I'm right up to date again as far as I'm concerned. Dean: Right yeah. Dan: Like when Syria fell. You know, the Syrian government collapsed last week and he had nothing on it until seven days later. I want to go over, but he's adjusting his format now. He says I'm going to give you four stages to what's actually happening. So you know, he's experimented with something and he's finding that he has to adjust his presentation a little bit just for people saying you know? You know, I'm going to tell you over a three-day period what happened. This happened on the first day, this happened on the second day, third day and this is where we are on the fourth day, and everything else and that's good. I like that. Everything else you know and everything, but that's part of the culture. You know it's part of the culture. Dean: Yeah. So my thought like my sense of culture. Dan: it's what culture is. Whatever's happening right now that you're interested in, yeah, it seems to show some interesting movement. Dean: Yeah, I think you're, I think you're right. I mean, my thought was of experimenting, was to go to more of a rather than a minute by minute, always on direct feed to the zeitgeist is going through a daily. You know, I had a really interesting two days at strategic coach in Toronto just a couple of weeks ago, when you know I was. I referred to it, as you know, workshopping like it was 1989 with my phone. Dan: You were practicing, practicing abstinence. Dean: Yeah, I was, and what I learned in that was, and I did it two days in a row with zero contact with the outside world, from nine o'clock to five o'clock when the workshops were going on, no checking in at the breaks or at lunch or, you know, no notifications. You know dinging while I'm in the workshops. It was certainly anchoring, you know, presence to me in the in the workshops, but also noticed that nothing really happened. You know like I didn't miss anything in that five, in that nine to five period. You know I got a bunch of emails over the day but there were maybe two or three that were like for me or of any real interest or necessity for me. You know I have two inboxes. I have a, you know, my, my dean at dean jackson. My main mailbox is monitored by, you know, people, stakeholders in the, you know, because sometimes an email will come in and if it has something to do with our realtor division, diane is in there and sees that and can respond, or Lillian is able to respond. But then I also have my own, a private email just for me, that I give to my friends, and whenever you email me, that's the email that you use and those ones are not. Those aren't seen by anybody but me. But there's even far fewer of those that come through than come into the main one. Dan: Well, it's an interesting experiment that you're doing here, because it seems to me that one is the world is changing all the time. As far as news is concerned, the world is. I guess that's what news means. You know that things are changing, but if you don't pay attention to it over a long period of time and you don't feel inconvenienced, by it then, probably, it wasn't important probably it wasn't important, yeah, you know, and like I'm in six and a half years now with no television you know right and and you know, I've gone through two, two full presidential elections without watching television and yet I don't feel that I've missed anything important by not watching television Because I have real clear politics and I have a computer and I get videos. I can go to YouTube. And if somebody's giving a talk somewhere I can watch, where on television you would never get the whole speech. You know you would be broken up with commercials and everything like that. And then you have some commentators telling you what you were supposed to think about that, which I don't really require that I'm perfectly able to understand what I'm thinking about it and everything like that. So I don't know, I don't know. Well, my thought experiment. Dean: You know what you? Dan: should do is say what kind of cultural information is sugar and what kind of cultural information is protein, I get it, and so that's kind of where I was thinking. To me that's where you're going. Dean: I'm thinking about slowing down the cadence so, and to have a daily, like you know, something like real clear and you know there's thinking about where that is filtered sort of thing for me, thinking about where that is filtered sort of thing for me. And then weekly, you know, like I think, if I just looked at, if I went to print as a thing, if I were to say, you know, time Magazine, newsweek, the Inc Magazine, people Magazine, like I think, if there were some things that I could and the Weekend Wall Street Journal, I think with those you could, that would be kind of a really good. I don't think I would miss out. Dan: I'm really big on the Weekend Wall Street Journal, I think that's a great print. That's a great print medium. I literally haven't read Time magazine. I don't know, maybe 20 years or, but it seems like they're probably on top of what's even if it's slanted, you're going to get a sense of what the core thing is. Dean: That's actually right. Yeah, I know. Dan: A lot of Democrats canceled their subscription over the last three or four days because Trump person of the year. Yeah exactly. See, now, that's an interesting piece of information, yeah yeah, what they wrote about him I don't find interesting, but the fact that certain readers they must have made him look good, you know, for that sort of cancellation, you know you know it's like this is being categorized as the kiss the ring phase. Dean: That's what abc there was being characterized. That time magazine kissed the ring by making him person of the year abc. You know, kissing the ring, giving him 15 million dollars, and well, they didn't $15 million. Dan: Well, they didn't give him $15 million, they were required to give him $15 million yeah exactly, and George Stephanopoulos has to apologize publicly for defaming him as he should. As he should, yeah, for defaming him, you know, as he should, as he should. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dean: So Trump's got to have at least one court case. Dan: Trump's got to have at least one court case going in his favor. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: But I look at that as you know, that's a really. I think that would be a really useful thing. Would certainly get me back three or four hours a day of yeah you know, of screen time. It would give me more dean time to use, because it would certainly condense a lot of that but you have some interesting models that are, I would say, are cultural models. Dan: I would say more cheese, less whiskers is a cultural model. I mean, if you have it as a thought form, you can see, you can simplify happenings around you. You know, that seems a little bit too much whiskers, exactly, too much whiskers. Yeah, that seems like a fine new cheese. Yeah, that seems like a fine new cheese. For example, taylor Swift gave $100 million in bonuses to everybody who helped her on her tour. Dean: I don't know if you saw that. It's crazy $200 million. Dan: The truck drivers, the ones who got $100,000. They got $100,000. And her father delivered the checks. That seems like a really. That's like a fondue, that's not just cheese. Dean: That is only the finest cheese fondue. Yes, exactly, that's so funny. Dan: when they hit it big, they're real jerks and they're real pricks and she's not. She's showing gratitude. That's very much a cheese. That was a very cheesy thing for her to do. In your model, that's a very cheesy thing for her to do. Yeah, in your model, that's a very cheesy thing. Dean: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I look at you know another thing that's happening is I don't know whether you've followed or seen what Deion Sanders has done with Colorado football over the last two seasons, but he basically went from the basement of 1-11 team the worst team in college football to the Alamo Bowl in two seasons and Travis Hunter just won the Heisman Trophy and he could quite possibly have the top two draft picks. Dan: His son didn't win the Heisman Trophy Hunter. Oh, you're saying Travis Hunter? I? Dean: was saying Travis Hunter. He could possibly have the top two picks in the NFL draft between Jadot and Travis Hunter and it's just, I mean, it fits in so perfectly with my you know, 100 week, you know timeframe there. That that's, I think, the optimal. I think you can have a really big impact in a hundred weeks on anything but to go from the basement to the bowl game is like it's a really good case study. But that really is. You know, I often I think there's so many things that play like a crystal clear vision of what he was trying to accomplish In his mind. There's no other path than them being the greatest football team, the greatest college football team in the country. That's really it. Building an empire. That's certainly where he's headed and his belief, that's the only outcome. You know it's so. I was. I read a book and, by the way, I'll have an aside on this, but I read a book years ago called Overachievement and it was a book by a sports psychologist at Rice University and his assessment of overachievers people who have achieved outsized results. One of his observations is that, without fail, they all have what he characterizes as unreasonable confidence or irrational. That's irrational confidence. That's what it is, and I thought to myself like that's a pretty interesting word pairing, because who's to say how much confidence is rational, you know, yeah, it's kind of it's it's and first of all, I. Dan: I don't think the two words even have anything to do with each other I don't either. Dean: That's why I thought it was so remarkable. You know, I think irrational confidence I mean, yeah, spoken by. Dan: spoken by someone who I thought it was so remarkable, irrational confidence. I mean spoken by someone who probably has very little. 0:46:50 - Dean: I mean interesting right Like people look at that, but I thought I've overlaid it with your four C's right Is that commitment leads to courage? Yeah, that commitment leads to courage First of all. Dan: I think it can be grown. I'm a great believer that commitment can be grown, courage can be grown, capability can be grown, confidence can be grown. It's a cycle. It's a growth cycle. It's like ambition. It's like ambition. I'm much more ambitious today than I was 30 years ago way more ambitious and 30 years ago I was 50. That's when most people are kind of are peaking out on ambition when they're 50. I mean I was in the valley 50 years ago, compared to where I am now, but I've always treated ambition as something that you can grow, and my particular approach is that the more you can tap into other people's capabilities for your projects, the more your ambition can grow. It's an interesting thing. Irrational confidence. Dean: Yeah, and I thought that you know, so it's pretty interesting. Dan: There must be a scale somewhere, you know, get on the scale, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rational, oh, he's above. Rational, above irrational, oh, that's totally irrational confidence. Dean: yes, he's just setting himself up for disappointment. That's like I think're in the confidence of living to 156. That's irrational. Yeah, it is till I fail, exactly. Yeah, but that's okay, it's not going to make any difference to you. I always love your live, live, live pattern. It's not going to affect you. Dan: Live live, live, go on. Dean: I saw somebody doing an illustration, Dan, of how long it takes for the world to adapt to you not being here, and the gentleman had his finger in a glass of water and he pulled it out. Dan: Watch, yeah, watch, how long the hole lasts. Dean: It's the truth, you know, yeah, yeah. Dan: I don't know if you got a hold of that book. Same as Ever, the Morgan Household book. Dean: I did. I've read it and it's fantastic. It's good, isn't it? It really is it kind of calms you down. Dan: You know it kind of calms you down. You know I told Joe Polish I said you know how to get that guy as a speaker. I think he's great and anyway, you know he said he makes he has that one great little chapter on evolution. How long it takes, you know, like evolution, three or four million years, and he says stuff that you know is lasting over a long period of time you know is really worth paying attention to, really worth paying attention to. You know that and I find one of the things that you know at my advancing age at my advancing age is that I can see now things that were are equally true today as they were 50 years ago yeah, I see that too. Dean: Absolutely see that too. Absolutely, see that through. I'm on the cusp right now. Like you know, we're coming into 2025. And so this is the first time I started thinking about 25 years ahead was in 1999. That 25 year timeframe, you know, and certainly when I made those, you know five or three stock in. You know investment decisions. But looking back now, you know there were clues as to what is what was what was coming. But there are certainly a lot of through line to it too. You know, like I think, what I did choose was you know it's still Warren Buffett, it's still Berkshire was a great as a 10 times or more stock over 25 years. Starbucks and Procter and Gamble they're equally. Those were durable choices. But you know what was what I could have, what was there? Looking back now, the evidence was there already that Amazon and Google and Apple would have been rocket ships. You know guessing and betting, dan. It's like guessing and betting with certainty. Or you know where you think, like I think, if we look and maybe next week we can have a conversation about this the guessing and betting for the next 25 years, you know. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I think he Warren Buffett. He said that Gillette, I like Gillette. He said I think men are going to still be shaving 25 years from now. Dean: That's what he said. That was. What was so impactful to me is that he says I can't tell which technology is going to win, even five years from now, but I know that men are going to go to bed and they're going to wake up with whiskers. Some of them are going to want to shave them off. King Gillette is going to be there, like he has been since 1850. Dan: And it's like railroads, he's very heavy into railroads. We're going to be moving things. People are still going to be moving things. Dean: I had a really good friend. Dan: Trains will still really be a good way to move things from one place to another. Dean: Isn't that funny. I had a good friend in high school. His big insight was he wanted to start a pallet company because no matter which direction things go, you're still going to need to stack them on a pallet and move them. Put my mom there. So funny which direction things go, you're still going to need to stack them on a pallet and move them, put them around there. Dan: you know so funny that pallet. They're really good. Yeah, I love it All right. All right, we're deep into the culture, we're into. It's an interesting word. It's an interesting word but anytime you talk to somebody about it, they have very specific examples that are their take on culture. And you talk to someone else and maybe culture is everybody's views on culture. Maybe that's what the culture is. Dean: Maybe, maybe, all righty. Okay, have a great day. I'll talk to you next week. Bye, bye. Dan: Okay, have a great day. I'll talk to you next week, okay, bye, bye, okay Bye.

In our latest episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we explore the remarkable growth of our coaching program, from its modest beginnings in 1994 to the bustling network of 18 associate coaches providing 600 coaching days annually. This evolution underscores the importance of adaptability and foresight as we hint at exciting expansion plans for 2026. Beyond the professional landscape, we delve into the nostalgic appeal of different climates and regional traditions. We compare the frigid allure of snowy winters with the sun-drenched charm of Florida and San Diego, offering a cozy reflection on why people choose to embrace extreme weather. Our conversation then turns towards the intricate dance of leadership and organizational structures. We explore the shift from rigid hierarchies to fluid, networked systems, imagining the profound changes in productivity that have paved the way for today's entrepreneurial landscape. From the global dominance of the US dollar to the speculative world of cryptocurrency, our discussion unveils the strategic significance of these economic elements, adding a light-hearted twist to our take on Canadian healthcare services. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We discussed the remarkable evolution of our coaching program, starting from 1994 with 144 workshops conducted solely by me, to a network of 18 associate coaches delivering 600 coaching days annually. Dean shares his experiences from the icy north and reflected on the gradual adaptation to warmer climates, providing insights into the unique economic opportunities that arise from natural challenges. We explored the nostalgic memories of childhood winters, contrasting them with the warm climates of Florida and San Diego, and discussed the cultural differences in regional terminology. The episode delved into the shift from rigid hierarchical structures to more fluid, networked systems, highlighting the transformative impact of technology on productivity and organizational dynamics. We imagined the productivity revolution that could have occurred if a writer in the 1970s had access to a modern MacBook, pondering the implications for decision-making and strategic planning. The conversation touched on the global dominance of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, and the minimal impact of foreign trade on the US economy compared to other export-driven nations. We questioned the viability of Bitcoin as a true currency due to its lack of fungibility compared to the US dollar, and discussed gold's role as a hedge against currency inflation. The episode highlighted the Canadian dollar's strategic role as a financial hedge, particularly in relation to tax burdens and global business ventures. We examined the concept of "sunk cost payoffs," encouraging reflections on optimizing investments in fixed costs to achieve greater returns through training and education. The episode concluded with a light-hearted discussion on Canadian healthcare services, and the humorous notion of using Chicago as a secondary tier for healthcare needs. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan, mr Jackson, fresh from the frigid north, oh my goodness. Dan: Dan I you know. Yeah, I'm just happy to be back. It's sunny and warming. I'm going to say it's warm yet because it was only got up to like 6.3 or something yesterday, but it's warming up and it's warmer than it was. I did escape, without defaulting, my snow free millennium. I didn't get a cold this time, that's true. And I didn't get any snow on me, so that's good yeah. Dean: Well, we're actually in Chicago today and it's 49. Oh my goodness, wow, we're actually in Chicago today and that's 49. Oh my goodness, wow, it's deciding to see if it can upset Orlando, the area, a last valiant attempt before the total freeze sets in. Dan: Yeah, exactly. Dean: Exactly. Dan: Well, Dan, what a great couple of workshops we had this week. They were really I know about one of them, I know about one. Dean: That's actually a good thing to say. You know when you're developing a company. Dan: Absolutely yeah. Dean: I was telling people that in 1994, fifth year of the program, I did 144 workshop days that year and the reason being I was the only coach. So then in 95, we started adding associate coaches and we're up to 18 now. We just had our 18th one come on board. Come on board and this year the total coaching team will do 600 coaching days compared to 144 back in 1994 and I will do 12 of them. Dan: I was just gonna say yeah, 12. You got three groups times four, right yeah? Yeah yeah, that's great the connector. Dean: the connector calls which I, which I, which I absolutely love. I just think those two hour coaching calls are superb. Dan: I do too. Two hour zoom. Two hour zoom calls are the perfect. That's the perfect length. Anything more is too much. Dean: Yeah, so if you add those up, that would be using eight hours as a workshop day that would be 16 more days of coaching in a year, but that's significantly fewer than my 144. The problem with the 144, you didn't have much energy for creating new stuff, right? Dan: Yeah, and you were. Yeah, I guess that's true, right, and some of it you were having to. The good news about the position you're in right now is you really only do the same workshop three times, right, Like you do a quarterly workshop, but even that by the third time you've learned. Dean: Well they actually change. I mean they're probably 90%. In other words, number two is 90%, brings forward 90% of number one, and number three brings forward Because you've economized. You know I can do this quicker, I can do this. You add some new things, you get some new ideas. Dan: And you see what land is right, how things land. Dean: Yeah, yeah. By the time you get to number three, you've probably in my case, I've certainly created some new material. That just came out of the conversations. It's a nice. It's a nice setup that I have right now yeah, I love that in these. Dan: You know you're already, you're booked out for 2025. Dean: As am I. Dan: This is a great. This is the first year going in that I'm kind of embracing the scaffolding. We'll call it. Dean: My sense by 26, we'll have a fourth. We'll have a fourth quarterly workshop. Just because of the growth of the membership, but what that is more, choice for the participants during any quarter. They'll have four opportunities Anyway. Dan: I'm really enjoying being back in Toronto. That's such a great and our group is growing. That's nice. It'll be the place to be before we know it. Dean: It will be. There will be a certain cachet that you have that you know. I don't know how we'll signify this, but do it at the mothership. I do the program at the mothership. Dan: I do the program. Oh, that's the best, yeah, yeah. That's so funny I've gotten. I've got the Hazleton is fast turning into the official hotel too, which is great. I've got Chad hooked over there and Chris does there, so that's good, we get the whole so is she thinking about coming into PreZone? We're working on her for sure. I think that would be fantastic, yeah, and same Norman's coming back in March, so that's great, oh, good. Dean: He'll be in Toronto. Is he doing anything new besides the multitude of things he was doing before? Dan: Well, you know, he sold his main business, so he is now, you know, a new chapter. Dean: But he still didn't sell the ambition. Dan: The ambition didn't go with the sale. Dean: Yeah, the waste management company. Dan: That's right, that's right Right. Yeah. Dean: And I remember him coming. I forget when it was but they had just had a hurricane that especially affected the Carolinas. Dan: South. Dean: Carolina and he came in for a party, you know, for before free zone, and I said how are you doing, norm? And he says well, you know, I don't. I can't talk about this everywhere, but I certainly do enjoy a hurricane every once in a while, because he's in the waste management. Dan: Right, exactly, and also in the plywood business, also in the plywood business. Dean: Yeah, both before and after both before the hurricane and after the hurricane people buy plywood. Yeah, both before and after the hurricane and after the hurricane, people buy plywood, so yeah. Dan: You know that's an interesting thing. Dean: I'm reminded of what I'm going to tell you because I grew up in Ohio. And Ohio is two very distinct states. There's the north and the south, and I grew up way up in the north, in the middle of. Dan: Ohio. Dean: But we always considered the people who were down by the Ohio River, part of the Confederacy. You know, I don't know if they put in great new flood controls, since I was growing up in the 50s down there, but every, you know, every couple of years there was just a massive the Ohio River, which is a mighty river. Couple of years there was just a massive. Dan: Ohio River, which is a mighty river. Dean: I mean it's one of the major rivers and it's one of the, you know, flows into the Mississippi. It goes all the way from. Pittsburgh. It goes all the way from Pittsburgh to the Mississippi. That's covering a whole number of states. But you know there are people who would live there. They get completely washed out, they'd rebuild and then three or four years later they'd get washed out and they'd rebuild and everything like that. And I often wondered what the thinking process is around that You're in a disaster zone and you keep, you keep rebuilding in the disaster zone. Is it short memory or I think that's probably true or you just like the opportunity to build again yeah, it's built back better. Dan: Yeah, the whole yeah yeah, I think it is true. Dean: Right like people but a lot of people say I wouldn't do that, you know I wouldn't live there where they do. But I'm not saying people are stupid about this, I'm just saying I'm just I'm not comprehending. But I live in a place that gets frigid every year and people say I couldn't understand how you would continue living in a place. So what do you think it is? How? Dan: you would continue living in a place. So what do you think it is? Well, I have been struggling with that question since I was a little child. I remember we grew up in Halton Hills and I remember my father's family is from Florida and my dad worked with Air Canada, so we used to fly, we used to come to Florida quite a bit over the winter. Dean: And. Dan: I remember, just I remember, like it was yesterday, the time when I realized I must've been, like, you know, four or five years old when I realized I had the experience of being out playing in the yard in the morning with my snowsuit on, and then we got on a plane and went to Florida and in the afternoon I was swimming in the pool and that just like baffled my brain, like why don't we just live here? Why doesn't, why doesn't everybody live here? Yeah, and my parents are explaining that it's summer all year, you know, and I'm like I couldn't understand and so in my mind that was kind of like before I knew about, you know, I learned about immigration and you know two different countries and the people can't just live, even though I'm a dual citizen, that's why most people don't. And in my mind I still remember that to me didn't explain why would people live in Buffalo? That was an option. If you're in the United States, you can live anywhere you want. Why would somebody choose Buffalo over Florida? I don't get it, I don't know. And this is all pre-cloudlandia you know where now it's like we're really seeing this. The relevance you know less and less. Dean: Yeah, what? What you're telling me is that, when you were the age that you described, florida had a great deal of meaning, and Canada didn't, toronto didn't, it didn't have a great meaning, and so for me, for example, I just loved winter. You know I grew up loving winter, you know, and I used to go. I mean, you know, I was fields and forests and the woods were just magical when it snowed, you know, and you'd go. It was an entirely different world. I mean, they were four times a year, they were different woods because each of the seasons, the trees and the, you know, the trees and the terrain are really radically different, and so so that's why I like it and you know, I've been to San Diego, you know, and San Diego is just about the most temperate, certainly in the United States it's the most temperate place. It's 72, and I said, God, I couldn't stand living here. Dan: Oh man. Dean: Yeah, yeah, I know Mike, mike loves it. Yeah, and I can understand and I can understand why I mean I like it when I'm there. Yeah, I said you mean. You mean next week, when the next season comes, it's going to be exactly the same. And then the second, third season is exactly. Dan: You know it's not all sunshine and rainbows. They have june gloom. That's the uh, that's the weather that comes in. Dean: Every morning in june you get this fog, marine layer fog that comes in and see, I would find that really interesting yeah like I, I would find the fascinating fog you know I would, that's it yeah, yeah so yeah, I don't know it's really interesting, but it depends. Uh, there was just such meaning for me in those early childhood winters, you know yeah, and sometimes you know, and then, yeah, you could imagine you were an arctic. You know you could. Also, you know you had the tobogganing and sledding and tobogganing and our neighbors had horses with a sleigh. You know and everything Do you know what's so funny. See the thing I can remember, you know. I certainly know that Santa's dressed for winter, santa's not dressed for Florida. Dan: Right. Dean: Well he's just not dressed for Florida, that's true. I mean he must get hardship pay going to Florida. Dan: Got to take off that top layer. He's got to get his shorts on underneath all of that. Yeah, so funny. You know I heard you brought up toboggan and you know Chad Jenkins. I heard for the first time he referred to his toque as a toboggan and I had never heard that before. Dean: Yeah, of course. It was a stocking cap. I mean everybody knows, everybody knows it's a stocking cap. You know, yeah, I never heard that word. I never heard that word. I thought it was sort of some sort of elitist word. You know, you get that after you get graduate degree a stocking cap becomes a two person. Dan: No, we never called it. That's the Canadian term for it everybody forget about that. Your childhood was in Ohio. But a stocking cap a beanie as they say so funny a beanie is something else. Dean: a beanie is just, it's like a yarmulke for the Jewish people, but it sort of resembles that. Yeah, anyway, these are deep subjects that we're talking about. Dan: What was your big? Chad and I were talking about the workshop days and you had mentioned it's one of the best workshops that you had in memory. I would love to hear what you're. Yeah, certainly. Dean: Yeah, yeah. What I remember about best workshops is that generally the afternoon previous best workshops were by lunchtime. You were setting up for the real punchline in the afternoon, but this one by lunchtime you were setting up for the. You know the real punchline in the afternoon but this one by lunchtime. It had been a great workshop up until that time, and almost like it had two complete shows. There were like two complete shows when we, when we did yeah, you know, I mean it's a qualitative thing you just, you know I don't have a scoring system for saying it, but you just have a feel, feel for it and everybody was, everybody was totally engaged, yeah, pretty quickly in the morning, yeah and yeah, but it was. I mean that thing about leadership. You know the I hadn't uh, pulled back that diagram, the pyramid and the network diagram. I hadn't pulled, I hadn't pulled back that diagram, the pyramid and the network diagram, I hadn't referred to that in about 25 years and I just brought it back. Dan: And. Dean: I didn't know I was going to use it until I actually walked in the room to start the workshop. I said I think there's something about this diagram that'll create a context and more and more as I've been thinking about it, you know what the greatest entrepreneurial resource is in the 2020s and that's probably what Trump brought in. Elon and Vivek, you know, for their doge, their doge department. Anyway is that the greatest source for entrepreneurial growth is the obsolescence of bureaucracy. Dan: Yes, yes, what really? Dean: struck me, big systems falling apart, big systems falling apart, that's the greatest resource for entrepreneurial growth. Dan: The thing that struck me too is that the triangle, triangle, the pyramid method that you showed there, that the difference in the network thing is the absence of a border around stuff, you know, like I, that's. What really stood out for me was when, and maybe we should explain, can you verbally explain? Dean: what your vision is. Yeah, this comes from a book. It was actually my first book. It was called the Great Crossover and I was starting to talk about this in presentations I was making. I think the first one was 19. 1987, I gave a talk on this and what I said is that growing up in the 40s and 50s it was entirely a big pyramid world big corporations, big government and big unions, and even you know well, I'll just stick to those three and it was because of industrialization that industrialization takes on a certain form. And then part of industrialization is the administration offices that go along with factories and what they are is that you know, when you have a big plant, a big factory, and it runs on the assembly line, in other words, things move from station to station and the people at each station just do a single task and then they pass it on to the next person. To have an administration that takes what the factory produces and gets it out into the world. they also have to create an assembly line of information, and the reason why it becomes very stiff and static over time is just the sheer cost of amortizing the factory. I mean like a steel mill. You know a steel mill. You build a steam mill. It takes you about 50 years in the early 20th century it took you about 50 years to pay back the cost of the steel mill, the amortized cost of it. Well, you had to get it right in the first place and you couldn't be fooling around with it. So everything was kind of fixed and that's why people could be hired, you know, at 18 years old, and they didn't really have to learn that much in the job they were doing. Once they got it down it was good for life. You know the steel workers. I mean they might have modernization somewhere along the line, but it was still fundamentally the same activity. So society kind of took over that and you had some big events. You had the huge growth of government administrations during the Great Depression when Roosevelt came in with the New Deal, and there was just these huge. They had never. And I was reading an article, theodore Rose, in the first decade of the 20th century the executive branch had about 60 employees. You know the presidency, you know Now it's I mean it's not the biggest but it's got thousands. The executive branch, you know just the White House plus the executive building next to it. It's got. You know it's got thousands of people in it. You know just the White House plus the executive building next to it. It's got you know, it's got thousands of people in it, you know, and there's layer after, layer after layer. And. But they were really huge in the and then the Second World War. Everything got massively big, but they were all pyramidical. Everything was pyramidical. You know. You had a person on top and then maybe 10 layers down. General Motors in the private sector, it was the biggest. That was the end of the 50s, 1959. They had 21 layers of management, from the CEO right down to the factory floor. There wasn't much leadership. There was a very few people at the top leadership. The rest of it was just managing what the leaders wanted. So that's the setup for the you know story. And that persisted and things were. You know, there was great productivity from around 1920 to 19. And then starting around 1960, there was enormous cost. There was enormous, there was even enormous growth, but there wasn't much increase in productivity because they had basically maxed out what you could do with that kind of structure. And then, because of and the change maker is the introduction of the microchip, Right. Especially when it gets along to being a personal computer. Dan: Yes, that's what I was. That really fits in with the you know, by the 1950 to 1975-ish that's what we're talking about. That was kind of the staple of the hierarchy system. And then you're right, that's where some of the you know the microchip at its greatest thing really was the beginning of being able to detach from physical location, like I remember, even you know where. This is part of the advantage that the microchip gave us. If you look at what were the things that were kind of the first mainstream you know beneficiaries of our ability to electronify things, that it was the answering machine that gave us freedom from having to be on the phone. It literally provided the first opportunity. Fact, check me on this. I mean just think I'm just making this up, but could that be the first time that we had the opportunity? Dean: You're asking a two fact finder to fact check you. Dan: Just gut, check me on this. Does that seem like a? Dean: Oh, gut check. Dan: Yeah, gut check, I forgot who I was talking to. Dean: That's an entirely different animal. Dan: Is that the first time? Like? The answering machine gave us the first opportunity to be in two places at once. We could be there to answer the phone and not miss anything, but we could also be away from the phone. The vcr gave us the chance to record something, to not miss it, so we could be somewhere else. The pager, the cell phone yeah, these things were all sort of our. Dean: This was yeah, well, you're moving in a particular, you're moving in a particular direction. If you say where, what do all these things have in common? Dan: you've just identified it. Dean: You know that, yeah yeah, I was thinking. I remember the this would be in the 70s the selectric, the ibm selectric typewriter you know, was a real precursor of word processing, you know, because you could. First of all they weren't keys, it was just a ball that revolved. It was just a little ball that revolved, and you know. And so there was no jamming. I mean, there was no jamming. And of course it was electric, it was an electric typewriter. But the big thing is that you could get it right, you know, you could program it and then you just put in a sheet of paper and you press the button and it typed out the entire page and everything like that I remember, I remember that was that was that filled me with wonder right, you know when I said wow, that's really amazing. You know, you know, as a writer, I sometimes I have this is the sort of fantasies that writers had. And I said, if I had been a copywriter back in the 1970s, but I had a Mac at home, I had my Macbook at home. Dan: Oh, my goodness you were one of those. Dean: Okay, and you know I do all the writing, you know I do all the writing on it, you know I do spell check and everything else, and then I would hire somebody to type it on a typewriter. Dan: I don't know how I'd do it. Dean: I would have it typed out, but with lots of mistakes, because a writer shouldn't have perfect typing and I'd look busy during the day, but the first thing in the morning I would just unload an enormous amount of stuff and I'd be so far ahead, but I'd never tell anybody about my Mac. Yeah, that's funny Now how my Mac would have been invented only for one person. I haven't really worked that out yet. Dan: Oh boy, but that's you know, it's so. What struck me when you were doing it? Dean: Yeah, somebody asked me a couple months ago, you know, it's so. What struck me when you were doing this is yeah, somebody asked me a couple of months ago you know the conversation if you had a superpower, what superpower would you want? And I said you know, I've given this a lot of thought, I've tried out a lot of possibilities, but the one that I think I could just stay with for the rest of my life is tomorrow. Tomorrow's Wall Street Journal yesterday. I could stay with that for the rest of my life is tomorrow's Wall Street Journal yesterday. Dan: I could stay with that for the rest of my life. Oh, okay, that's even great. Tomorrow's yesterday, so you would get a full 24 hours with it 48. Dean: 48 hours with it, you get a day in between for activity. Yeah, I'd probably move to Las las vegas oh, that's so funny. Dan: Yeah, that would be a really good. That would be a really good one, that'd be a fun movie. Actually the prognosticator, the thing that struck me, dan, about the difference between the pyramid with the layers of people, the circles, the one person at the top, the two leaders, the managers, the supervisors in the workforce, was the boundary of the pyramid itself. Right Like prior to when that was brought up, the only efficient way to communicate to everybody was to have them all within the borders of the wall, the same. Yeah everybody in the same place and what struck me when you drew the circles all just connected to everyone, without any borders. That's really. We're at the fullest level of that right now where there's never been a better time. Are the best at doing and be able to plug into you know a who, not how, network with vcr collaborations. Dean: I mean, that's really the a great, a great example of that is the um connector call we had on. We had a friday, I had a connector call and I tested out a new tool which is called sunk cost payoffs. You look at everything that you'll always be paying for, ok, so in our case, we have. You know, we'll have a. We have more than 100 team members. We'll always be paying for more than 100 team members. More than 100 team members, and then all of our production costs for material and then our complete operations, because we're always going to be an in-person, you know, workshop company you know we're not going to be anything else and taxes and regulations, you know, and everything you have, and I said we're always going to be, we're always going to be paying for these, you know. So the question of what are the top three and the you know, the, you know, I just picked. The top three are, you know, our team, including our coaches, absolutely. And then the creation of the thinking tools, and you know. So we have all that. And then I said, so that being the case, I'm just going to accept that I'm only going to pay. Now, what are the strategies for just multiplying the profitability that I get out of the things that I'm always paying for? And it was very interesting because a lot of people said you know, this has always bothered me. The sunk cost has always bothered me and I've often thought is there any way of getting rid? The sunk cost has always bothered me and I've often thought is there any way of getting rid of the sunk cost? But now I'm thinking maybe I'm not investing enough in my sunk costs. I'm not investing enough. Dan: And. Dean: I'm about 10% more spending away from getting a 10 times return. If I just put a little bit more emphasis here, getting a 10 times return, if I just put a little bit more emphasis here for example, training and education of staff, training and education of staff, it might cost you 10% more for your team members, you know, but you probably get a much bigger return than the 10% because it already exists. It already exists, you don't have to create it. Anyway, that's just a setup. So we were just one person said you know I should link up with Lior. Lior was on the call. He said I should link up with Lior and you know it was Alec Broadfoot actually. He said I should link up and we should do this and I said why don't you do a triple play? Who would be the third person? And everybody in the room said Chris Johnson. Oh yeah right Like that, and it was immediately. There was a three-way. I think I'm suggesting what happened. There is exactly what you just said before. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Is that there's no spatial restrictions on the new organization you just put together. It's just three capabilities and they're in Cloudlandia. Dan: The reason why they can do it is that they're in Cloudlandia. Yeah, there's no borders and there's just the connections between the modules. That's really the capabilities. Yeah, well, it's the vision capability. Dean: I'm going to go back to the pyramid network model that we started talking about, so you had to have you know enough leadership. You had to have this huge structure. That was all management. There wasn't leadership from the bottom, there was leadership from the top. But in the network, if you think of three circles and they're connected, so they're connected, they're in a triple play. So you have the three circles, the connection, you have three circles and then you have the lines in between. The connector lines are the management, but what happens in the middle is the leadership. Dan: That's a much. That's great, and the things can all go out like in three dimensions, and they can well. Dean: not only that, but any one individual can have a multitude of threes. Dan: Yes. Yeah that gets pretty exponential, pretty quick, yeah, yeah. Dean: Anyway. Dan: I was just on a Zoom with Eben Pagan and Salim Ismail and yeah, we were talking about this, you know, because Salim, of course, his Exponential Organizations book and framework is really that was certainly a playbook that fits with this, you know, or a expandable workforce, and it really is. The ideas are what's at the central, that's the vision. Right, that's the thing. The visionary is the, the can see the connections between, but there's never been, it's never been easier to, uh, to have all of these connections and that's what I really think like if you're able to look at what people's capabilities are. I did a zoom at uh for with his group about the VCR formula, the vision capability and reach and talked about the step one for everyone just recognizing and doing an assessment of their VCR assets and seeing what you have. Almost look at it as, like everybody, having playing cards, you know, like baseball cards with your stats on the back that show your the things you know, the things you can do and the people you can reach is a pretty, you know good framework for collaboration Chad, actually building a building a software kind of or an app tool around that, which is. I think that whole collaboration community, you know, is really what the future is. I just get excited about it because it allows you to be like in that world. You know, the you don't need to ever get slowed down by the inability to execute on capability. You know, because the you don't have to anymore, you can tap into any capability, which is kind of a great thing. It's like any capability with capacity is a great thing, and even if you have limited capacity, that's fixable as well. Dean: It's really interesting because I was talking about the sunk cost payoffs. Our 120 team members is just such an incredible you know, incredible capability. And all of them are in their unique ability. Everybody goes through the complete unique ability identification and starting in. We started already, but 2025 will be the first year where, four times a year, they all update their 4x4 for themselves. So you do it the first time with them. In other words, that you say this is where I want you to be alert, curious, responsive and resourceful, and this is I want you to produce results that are faster, easier, cheaper, bigger. If you choose, you can be a hero in these four areas and, by the way, these are four ways that you can drive me crazy. If you really want to drive me crazy, just do any of these and you probably won't have to update your 4x4 next quarter because you'll be somewhere else. Okay, always give them a choice, always give them a choice you can do this or you can do this and anyway, but that's going to produce massive results over the in 2025, I could just feel it. And I have a team, a loose team, just 16 members that I just hang out with in the company and we're doing it every quarter and you can just see the excitement as they go forward. I'm just writing the book right now with Jeff, so we're in our first edition, the first draft of casting, that hiring, but it's really interesting. And then the weird thing is that we're always going to be having increasingly the majority of our dollars being American dollars and more and more of our expenses in Canadian dollars. And that just multiplies, it's $1.41 this morning. That's great. Is that up or down? Oh, no, two months ago. Dan: It's $1.41 this morning. Dean: That's great. Is that up or down? Oh no, two months ago it was $1.34. Dan: Oh my goodness. Okay, so it's getting better. Dean: Well, it's like seven cents you know seven cents on every dollar and, being who Trump is and being who Trudeau is, I don't see the Canadian dollar getting any stronger. Dan: Yeah, that's At least until next. Dean: October, until next October. I mean, you know it's dangerous to be a charismatic person, okay, and because you know people's hearts just melted. He was the son of Pierre and he came along and he's this handsome. You know he's handsome, and you know, and he's you know, he's he knows, you know, he knows he's handsome and he's and everything like that. And they went along and he said such beautiful things but for nine years never did anything. You know just he spent a lot of money and he hired a lot of government employees, but as far as actually increasing productivity, increasing profitability, nothing over nine years and uh, everybody's just made up. Everybody's just made up their mind about him and there's not and you it's really almost enjoyable watching him struggle that there's nothing that he used to be able to get away with he can get away with now and you can just see the strain on him. He's still. You know he's still. He's very young looking, you know he's and, looking, and and and yeah, he hasn't. Dan: He didn't really age like obama and cl Clinton and the others before him in the presidential role. You see the aging of the weight of being the president. Dean: But he's kind of thrived. Dan: When I was there last, it was you know he started timeless. He's got a lot of timeless. Dean: He'll always be like 40. He'll always be like 35. You know he'll be, yeah, 40. He'll always be like 35. You know he'll be yeah, and you know and anyway interesting. And everybody's just sitting on their hands. You know the entire country is just sitting on their hands until you know the elections next October. It has to be next October. It could be sooner, but I don't think it will be, and you know, and he'll be out, I mean he'll be out. And he's lost five points of popularity since Trump got elected. Wow. Dan: The thing they were. Dean: You know, it's really obvious Trump is governing. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I mean, he's not been inauguratedated yet, but it's like he's the leader everybody's already. Dan: There were emergency meetings being held, or I saw that Trudeau was gathering all the premiers getting ready to address the possible tariffs. You know the response to the tariffs it's. You're right, everything's kind of everybody's. Dean: Yeah, he was. Did you see the? I don't know if you saw any of the videos, but he went to the opening, the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, and I did not. Looks beautiful. Dan: Have you seen any pictures oh? It's beautiful, no, I mean I never liked it. Dean: I you know when I would go. I went there a couple of times it I never liked it. I went there a couple of times it was dark and dingy and everything else. It's spectacular. Dan: It's spectacular. Dean: But, everybody, all the leaders in Europe who were there like everybody was there from Africa, from the Middle East and everything, all the leaders and they were all running up and they were holding his hand, in two hands, you know smiling at him and they said don't tariff us, don't tariff us, let's be friends. Let's be friends. Let's be friends. Talk about. Talk about your vcr formula being the uS economy is a hell of a capability. Dan: Holy cow. Yeah, I just saw Peter Zion was talking. I watched some of his videos and he was talking about why he doesn't worry about the United States geopolitically, you know, because we're miles away from anybody physically, we're in physical advantage away from anybody that would cause us or want us harmed. We are energy independent, we have the reserve currency. It's so much stuff. Dean: Half the arable land in the world. Dan: Yes, exactly Half of the ocean-going land in the world. Dean: Yes, exactly Half of the ocean-going ports in the world. I don't know if you knew that, but the US. If you count all the river systems, the lake systems, the ocean coasts and everything they have, half of the navigable, the ocean-going port. If you leave this place, you can go to the ocean, the ocean going point If you leave this place, you can go to the ocean. They have you know plus the military, I mean the Navy. The US Navy is seven times bigger and more powerful than all the other navies in the world combined. It's just enormous things, yeah, but it's the economy that really matters. It's the. You know it's that? Yeah. Did you see the one he did the? You know it's that. Yeah, did you see the one he did? Well, I don't think Peter Zion did one. He did one on why there won't be a replacement for the US currency. It's the reserve currency in the world, you know. Dan: And he said. Dean: first of all, it's so big the dollar is so big that America doesn't really even have to pay attention with what other people are doing with the dollars. As a matter of fact, there's more dollars in use around the world than there is far more dollars in use in around the world than there is in the US economy, which is the biggest economy. Dan: But the. Dean: US isn't a export economy. It's only about maybe up to 15% of the GDP has anything to do with foreign trade, import or export. It's about 15%. 85% is just Americans making stuff that other Americans are buying, and Canada is an export country. Dan: I mean it's totally an export country. Mexico is an export country China. Dean: Canada is an export country, I mean, it's totally an export country. Mexico is an export country. China is an extreme export country. Dan: And yeah. Dean: So anyway. Dan: What do you think? I haven't heard Peter Zayn talk about Bitcoin or how that you know crypto. Dean: I can't remember him ever saying anything. I've never seen it. Dan: Because that was big news that it just passed a hundred thousand well, you know, there's only so many of them well, what? When did you? Uh, do you remember when you first heard about bitcoin? Was it prior to peter diamandis introducing it to us? Dean: no to team no, I'd never heard about it before. Dan: Me neither. When he introduced it to us it was at about $500. Dean: But it's not a currency, it's not a currency. It's a speculative investment. It's a speculative investment because, it's not fungible. Do you know what the word fungible is? I didn't know what the word fungible. Yeah, you know word fund. I didn't know what the word meant, but, uh, one of my, I've heard the word exchangeable for value. Right, but it's not yeah, the easiest to exchange for value, easiest thing to exchange for value in the United States. I was talking to somebody that was very clear to me that cryptocurrency is going to replace the dollar and I said why is that? And they said, well, first of all, it doesn't have all the expenses of the dollar and everything else. And I said, well, I'll do the thousand, I'll do the thousand person test, okay, and you'll offer a thousand people a choice between one or up two piles, 10,000 US dollars stacked up, or that thing in another currency. What do you think if you gave the choice to 1,000 people, what would it be? Dan: Right, yeah, they would want the US currency, of course. Dean: Yeah, I don't know who it is that would choose because it's instantly fungible for anything in the world. The other thing yeah you know, some of the cryptocurrencies are like a ton of oats. Dan: A ton of oats. Yeah, that's what I've understood about. I've never understood that about gold as a. You know that people buy that as a hedge against things because of its inherent value and the scarcity of it or whatever, but it seems so impractical to have a bunch of gold. Dean: Yeah well, it's really interesting is that gold holds its value forever. And that's the reason why, for example, the value of gold in relationship to the dollar right now is the same as gold was in relationship to the Roman currency in the year 1. Dan: Okay. Dean: If the currency gets really inflated, the value of the gold goes up. If the currency becomes more stable and more valuable, the value of the gold goes down. It's a perfect hedge. But it never has a value in itself. It only has a value in relationship to the currency. Dan: Okay, that makes more sense, then that makes more sense. Dean: Yeah, yeah, okay, that makes more sense. Then that makes more sense, yeah, yeah. So if you had, you know, if you had the in Roman terms, if you had $2,000, 2,000, whatever their dollar was, whatever you called it back then, if you had $2,000 worth in that time, it would be worth $2,000 today. It's just a constant value thing. Dan: It never goes up. Dean: It only goes up or down in relationship to where the currency is. Dan: Yeah, that makes sense. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan: So I wonder, you know, I've heard somebody talk about it. Dean: I mean, the real hedge for us has been the Canadian dollar. Dan: Right, exactly. The real hedge for us has been the Canadian dollar. Dean: Right exactly. It's been an average of 26% for 35 years. Dan: That's great, which offsets the tax burden in some ways. Right, I mean, that's yeah, yeah, yeah. Dean: Yeah. But, it fixes us. I mean, that's why the US people say when is Coach going to go global? I said I have to tell you something it's the United States. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: That is global, that is. Dean: Right. Dan: Exactly yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Amazing. Well how long are you in chicago? Dean: uh, now, just this week well, our workshops this week are on my workshops on thursday, so we come in because we like spending time with our team, yeah and so, yeah, so we want to make sure because we have a pretty good size team. I think we have a pretty good-sized team. I think we have 22, 23 now in Chicago. So, we like hanging out with them. Also, Chicago's our standard medical center. It's Northwestern University Hospital. I have three or four meetings this week, and so this is where we come. You know, this is the second tier of the Canadian health care system. Dan: It's Air. Dean: Canada, chicago. I got you, I got you, I got you. That's funny. You live in the second tier of the Canadian health care system. Dan: I just skipped the whole first tier and go right to the second. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly Second tier of the Canadian healthcare system. I just skipped the whole first tier and go right to the second. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. Dean: Well, except for getting my certain couple prescriptions okayed at the pharmacy, that's my entire extent of my contact with the Canadian healthcare system this year. Oh, wow. Dan: Yeah, you're going into the Cloudland Canadian healthcare system this year. Dean: Oh wow, yeah, you're going into the. Cloudlandia healthcare system and Nashville and Buenos Aires. Yeah, Chicago, Nashville and Buenos. Aires, yeah, yeah. Dan: So what idea popped up during our one-hour talk for you. Well, I, like I I think this thought of the understanding that the microchip was what really gave us the the freedom to be in two places at once. It's a time travel and it gives us now in its fullest thing here. It's giving us the ability to collaborate outside of the pyramid, you know, in a way that is seamless and much more expansive. It's just completely understanding that. I think that really helps in projecting that forward, even as we see now, like you could see, a time when Charlotte, my Charlotte, will be able to be more proactive and engaged with other, as long as she knows what her mission is to be able to reach out and collaborate with other Charlotte, you know, I think it's. Dean: I think it's great. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I think it's great yeah. Dan: Yeah, yeah I think it's. Dean: I think it's great. Yeah, I think it's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's great. Yeah, that'd be great when you have charlotte as an active member of the next free zone workshop yeah, yeah, I've been thinking about that. Dan: I can't wait, that'll be fun. Yeah, although it was really it was, it was really great. Dan, I did the two workshop days. You know, I was joking. Dean: You did a 1989 version Exactly. Dan: Yes, no phone, no contact with the outside world, and it was actually very. It was very. Dean: It's very liberating, isn't it it? Dan: really was and the fact that I didn't really miss anything. You know, that's kind of the except I had my focus 100% in the building. You know that was it was valuable. Dean: I'm going to do that. Yeah, absolutely. Buildings are still useful. Yeah, absolutely. Dan: All right. Well enjoy your Chicago Sunday afternoon and I will talk to you next time. Dean: I'm fixed now on Sundays until January. Perfect. Dan: Me too Good. Dean: Back in Toronto Good. Dan: I'll be here, bye. Dean: Okay, bye.