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May 28, 2025 • 54min

Ep155: The Allure of AI in Real Estate and Beyond

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we kick off by reflecting on a recent trip to the UK, where London's unexpected warmth mirrored the friendliness of its black cab drivers. Our visit coincided with the successful launch of the 10 Times program in Mayfair, which attracted participants from various countries, adding a rich diversity to the event. Next, we delve into the advancements in AI technology, particularly those related to Google Flow. We discuss how this technology is democratizing creative tools, making it easier to create films and lifelike interactions. This sparks a conversation about the broader implications of AI, including its potential to transform industries like real estate through AI-driven personas and tools that enhance market operations. We then shift our focus to the political arena, where we explore the Democratic Party's attempt to create their own media influencers to match figures like Joe Rogan. The discussion centers on the challenges of capturing consumer attention in a world overflowing with digital content, and the need for meaningful messaging that resonates with everyday life. Finally, we touch on aging, longevity, and productivity. We emphasize the importance of staying engaged and productive as we age, inspired by remarkable individuals achieving significant milestones beyond 60. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS In our recent trip to the UK, we experienced the unexpected warmth of London and engaged with the local culture, which included charming interactions with black cab drivers. This atmosphere set the tone for a successful event launch in Mayfair with global participants. We discussed the sparse historical records left by past civilizations, such as the Vikings, and how this impacts our understanding of history, drawing a parallel to the rich experiences of our recent travels. AI advancements, particularly Google Flow, are revolutionizing the creative landscape by democratizing filmmaking tools, allowing for lifelike scenes and interactions to be created easily and affordably. The potential of AI in the real estate market was explored, using the example of Lily Madden, an AI-driven persona in Portugal, which highlights the challenge of consumer attention in an ever-saturated digital content environment. We analyzed the Democratic Party's approach to media influencers in the 2024 election, noting the need for genuine engagement with voters' lives amidst fierce competition for attention in today's media landscape. The discussion shifted to aging and longevity, focusing on productivity and engagement in later years. We emphasized the importance of remaining active and contributing meaningfully past the age of 60. We wrapped up the episode with excitement about future projects, including a new workshop and book, highlighting our commitment to staying creatively engaged and inviting listeners to join us in future discussions. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr sullivan it has to be recorded because it's uh historic thinking it's historic thinking in a historic time things cannot be historic if they're not recorded, that is true, it's like if, uh, yeah, if a tree falls in the forest yeah, it's a real. Dan: It's a real problem with what happened here in the Americas, because the people who were here over thousands of years didn't have recordings. Dean: They didn't write it down. They didn't write it down. Dan: No recordings, I mean they chipped things. Dean: They didn't write it down. Dan: They didn't write it down no recordings, no recordings. Yeah, I mean, they chip things into rock, but it's, you know, it's not a great process really. Dean: I think that's funny, you know, because that's always been the joke that Christopher Columbus, you know, discovered America in 1492. But meanwhile they've been here. There have been people, the sneaky Vikings, and stuff. How do you explain that in the Spaniards? Dan: Yep. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah Well, writing. You know, writing was an important thing. Dean: Yeah, yeah. Dan: We don't know much. We don't, yeah, we really don't know much about the Vikings either, because they didn't they weren't all that great at taking notes. I mean, all the Vikings put together don't equal your journals. Dean: That's true. All the Viking lore's the not what's happening. So it's been a few weeks yeah I was in the uk, we were in the uk for a couple weekends for uh-huh okay, it was great, wonderful weather, I mean we had the very unusual. Dan: It was great, wonderful weather. Dean: I mean we had the very unusual weather for May. It was, you know, unseasonably warm 75, 80, nice bright oh my goodness. Dan: Yeah, really terrific. And boy is the city packed. London is just packed. Dean: And getting packed dirt, huh. Dan: Yeah, yeah, just so many people on the street. Dean: I always, I always laugh, because one time I was there in June which is typically when I go, and it was. It was very funny because I'd gotten a black cab and just making conversation with the driver and he said so how long are you here? And I said I'm here for a week. He said, oh, for the whole summer, because it was beautifully warm here for the whole summer. Yeah, that's so funny, I hear hear it's not quite. Dan: They're fun to talk to. Dean: Oh man for sure. Dan: Yeah, they know so much. Dean: Yes, I hear Toronto. Not quite that warm yet, but get in there I think today is predicted to be the crossover day we had just a miserable week. Dan: It was nonstop rain for five days. Oh my goodness, Not huge downpour, but just continual, you know, just continual raining. Dean: But it speeded up the greening process because I used to have the impression that there was a day in late May, maybe today like the 25th, when between last evening and this morning, the city workers would put all the leaves on the trees like yesterday there were no leaves, and but actually there were. Dan: We're very green right now because of all the rain. Dean: Oh, that's great yeah. Two weeks I'll be there in. I arrived 17th. Dan: Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to think of the date I'm actually arriving. Dean: I'm arriving on the 6th A strategic coach, you're going to be here, yeah we're doing on Tuesday. This month is Strategic Coach. Dan: Yeah, because of fathers. Dean: Right, right, right right, so we're doing. Yeah, so that Tuesday, that's exciting. Dan: Tuesday, Wednesday, Of course, our week is 19th, 18th, I think it's the 17th 17th is the workshop day and we have a garden party the night before and the day I know we have two parties. Dean: Yeah, I love I can't go wrong yeah and hopefully we'll have our table 10 on the. Uh well, we'll do it at the one, we'll do it at the one, that's great. You've been introduced to the lobster spoons. I hear. Dan: It's been good, that's a great little spot. I didn't overdo it, but I did have my two. I had two lobster spoons Okay, they're perfect. Dean: I took one of my teams there about uh, six weeks ago, and we, everybody got two we got two lobster spoons and it was good, yeah, but the food was great service with service was great. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah all right. Dean: Well then, we got something I'm excited about. That's great. So any, uh, anything notable from your trip across the pond no, uh, we um jump things up um. Dan: Last October we introduced the 10 times program in London so uh 25 to 30. I think we have 25 to 30 now and uh, so when I was there um last two weeks, it'll be, um, um two weeks or last week no, it was last week. Um, I'm just trying to get my, I'm just trying to get my bearings straight here. When did I get home? I think I got home just this past Tuesday. Dean: This past Tuesday. Dan: So it would have been the previous Thursday. I had a morning session and afternoon session, and in the morning it was just for 10 times and in the afternoon it was just for 10 times and in the afternoon it was for everybody. So we had about 30 in the morning and we had about 120 in the afternoon. Dean: Oh, very nice yeah. Dan: And you know a lot of different places. We had Finland, estonia, romania, dubai, South Africa quite a mix. Quite a mix of people from. You know all sorts of places and you know great getting together great. You know couple of tools. You know fairly new tools A couple of tools, you know fairly new tools and you know good food good hotel, it's the Barclay, which is in. Mayfair. Okay, and it's a nice hotel, very nice hotel. This is the third year in a row that we've been there and you know we sort of stretched their capacity. Dean: 120 is about the upper limit and what they've been to the the new four seasons at uh, trinity square, at tower bridge. It's beautiful, really, really nice, like one of my favorites no, because the building is iconic. I mean Just because the building is iconic. I mean that's one of the great things about the. Dan: Four Seasons. Dean: Yeah, and about London in specific, but I mean that. Four Seasons at. Dan: Trinity it's beautiful, stunning, love it. Yeah, we had an enjoyable play going week um we did four, four, four musicals, actually four, four different. Uh, musicals we were there one not good at all probably one of the worst musicals I've seen um and uh, but the other three really terrific. And boy, the talent in that city is great. You know just sheer talent. Dean: What's the latest on your Personality? Yeah, personality. Dan: Yeah, the problem is that London's a hot spot right now and there's a queue for people who want to have plays there. Oh okay, Actually they have more theaters than Broadway does Is that right On the West End yeah, west End, but they're all lined up. Problem is it's not a problem, it's just a reality is that you have some plays that go for a decade. You know, like Les Mis has been in the same theater now for 20 years. So there's these perennials that just never move. And then there's hot competition for the other theaters, you know I wonder is Hamilton? Dean: there, I don't think so, I just wonder about that actually, whether it was a big hit in the UK or whether it's too close. Dan: Yeah, I'm not entirely sure why it was a great play in the United States. I went to see it, you know. I mean it bears no historical similarity to what the person actually was. Dean: No. Dan: So you know, I mean, if people are getting their history from going to that play, they don't have much history. Dean: That's funny, yeah, and I'm not a rap. Dan: I'm not a fan of rap, so it's not the oh God. I'm not the target, definitely not the target audience for that particular play. But we saw a really terrific one and. I have to say, in my entire lifetime this may have been one of the best presentations, all told. You know talent, plot, everything. It's cook. It's the curious case of Benjamin Button button, which is okay. Yeah, I've seen the movie which you. You probably saw the movie. Dean: I did. Dan: Yeah, and this is Fitzgerald. It's Fitzgerald. Dean: Yes. Dan: And it is just a remarkable, remarkable presentation. They have about, I would say, 15 actors and they're literally on stage for the entire two and a half hours. And they are literally on stage for the entire two and a half hours and they are the music. So every actor can sing, every actor can dance and every actor can play at least one musical instrument. And they have 30 original songs and then you know the plot. And they pull off the plot quite convincingly with the same actors, starting off at age 70, and he more or less ends up at around age 25, and then they very ingeniously tell the rest of the story. And very gripping, very gripping very moving and very gripping, very gripping very moving, beautiful voices done in. Sort of the style of music is sort of Irish. You know it takes place in Cornwall, which is very close to you know, just across the Irish Sea from Ireland. So it's that kind of music. It's sort of Irish folk music and you know it's sort of violins and flutes and guitars and that sort of thing, but just a beautifully, beautifully done presentation. On its way to New York, I suspect, so you might get a chance to see it there. Dean: Oh wow, that's where it originated, in London. Dan: No, yeah, it's just been. It was voted the number one new musical in London for this year, for 2025. Yeah, but I didn't know what to expect, you know, and I hadn't seen the movie, I knew the plot, I knew somebody's born, old and gets younger. Yeah, just incredibly done. And then there's another one, not quite so gripping. It's called Operation Mincemeat. Do you know the story? Dean: No, I do not. Dan: Yeah, it's a true story, has to do with the Second World War and it's one of those devious plots that the British put together during the Second World War, where to this was probably 1940, 42, 43, when the British had largely defeated the Germans in North Africa, the next step was for them to come across the Mediterranean and invade Europe, the British and Americans. And the question was was it going to be Sicily or was it going to be the island of Sardinia? And so, through a very clever play of Sardinia, and so, through a very clever play, a deception, the British more or less convinced the Germans that it was going to be Sardinia, when in fact it was going to be Sicily. And the way they did this is they got a dead body, a corpse, and dressed him off in a submarine off the coast of spain. The body, floated to shore, was picked up by the spanish police, who were in cahoots, more or less, with the germans, and they gave it to the germans. And the Germans examined everything and sent the message to Berlin, to Hitler, that the invasion was gonna be in Sardinia, and they moved their troops to Sardinia to block it. and the invasion of Sicily was very fast and very successful, but an interesting story. But it's done as a musical with five actors playing 85 different parts. Oh my yeah. Dean: Wow, 85 parts. Dan: Yeah. Dean: It sounds like. Dan: I thought, you were describing Weekend at Bernie's Could be. Dean: Could be if I had seen it If I had seen it. It was funny? Dan: Yeah, it's kind of like Weekend at Bernie's right, right, right, I don't know. I don't know what I'm talking about, but I know you are. And three of them were women who took a lot of male parts, but very, very good comic comic actors, and three of them were women who took a lot of male parts, but very, very good comic actors. It's done in sort of a musical comedy, which is interesting given the subject matter. And then I saw a re-revival of the play Oliver about Oliver Twist, a re-revival of the play Oliver about Oliver Twist and just a sumptuous big musical. Big, you know, big stage, big cast, big music, everything like you know Dickens was a good writer. Dean: Yes, um, dan, have you? Dan? Did you see or hear anything about the new Google Flow release that just came out two or three days ago? I have not. I've been amazed at how fast people adopt these things and how clearly this is going to unlock a new level of advancement in AI. Here thing kind of reminded me of how Steve Jobs used to do the product announcement. You know presentations where you'd be on stage of the big screen and then the. It was such an iconic thing when he released the iPhone into the world and you look back now at what a historically pivotal moment that was. And now you look at what just happened with flow from a prompt. So you say what you describe, what the scene is, and it makes it with what looked like real people having real dialogue, real interactions. And so there's examples of people at a car show talking like being interviewed about their thoughts about the new cars and the whole background. Dan, all the cars are there in the conference. You know the big conference setting with people milling around the background noises of being at a car show. The guy with the microphone interviewing people about their thoughts about the new car, interviewing people about their thoughts about the new car. There's other examples of, you know, college kids out on spring break, you know, talking to doing man-on-the-street interviews with other college kids. Or there's a stand-up comedian doing a stand-up routine in what looks like a comedy club. And I mean these things, dan, you would have no idea that these are not real humans and it's just like the convergence of all of those things like that have been slowly getting better and better in terms of like picture, um, you know, pick, image creation and sound, uh, syncing and all of that things and movies, getting it all together, uh, into one thing. And there, within 48 hours of it being released, someone had released a short feature, a short film, 13 minutes, about the moment that they flipped the switch on color television, and it was like I forget who the, the two, uh in the historic footage, who the people were where they pushed the button and then all of a sudden it switched to color, um broadcasting. But the premise of the story is that they pushed the button and everything turned to color, except the second guy in the thing. He was like it didn't turn him to color and it was. He became worldwide known as the colorless man and the whole story would just unfolded as kind of like a mini documentary and the whole thing was created by one guy, uh in since it was released and it cost about 600 in tokens to create the the whole thing and they were uh in the comments and uh, things are the the description like to create that, whatever that was, would have cost between three to $500,000 to create in tradition, using traditional filmmaking. It would have cost three to 500,000 to create that filmmaking it would have cost three to 500,000 to create that. And you just realize now, dan, that the words like the, the, the um, creativity now is real, like the capability, is what Peter Diamandis would call democratized right. It's democratized, it's at the final pinnacle of it, and you can only imagine what that's going to be like in a year from now, or two years from now, with refinement and all of this stuff. And so I just start to see now how this the generative creative AI I see almost you know two paths on it is the generative creative side of it, the research and compilation or assimilation of information side of AI. And then what people are talking about what we're hearing now is kind of agentic AI, where it's like the agents, where where AIs will do things for you right, like you can train an AI to do a particular job, and you just realize we are really like on the cusp of something I mean like we've never seen. I mean like we've never seen. I just think that's a very interesting it's a very interesting thought right now, you know, of just seeing what is going to be the. You know the vision applied to that capability. You know what is going to be the big unlock for that, and I think that people I can see it already that a lot of people are definitely going down the how path with AI stuff, of learning how to do it. How do I prompt, how do I use these tools, how do I do this, and I've already I've firmly made a decision to I'm not going to spend a minute on learning how to do those things. I think it's going to be much more useful to take a step back and think about what could these be used for. You know what's the best, what's the best way to apply this capability, because there's going to be, you know, there's going to be a lot of people who know how to use these tools, and I really like your idea of keeping Well, what would you use it for? Well, I think what's going to be a better application is like so one of the examples, dan, that they showed was somebody created like a 80s sitcom where they created the whole thing. I mean, imagine if you could create even they had one that was kind of like all in the family, or you know, or uh imagine you could create an entire sitcom environment with a cast of characters and their ai uh actors who can deliver the lines and, you know, do whatever. You could feed a script to them, or it could even write the script I think that what would be more powerful is to think. I I think spending my time observing and thinking about what would be the best application of these things like ideas coming. Dan: I think that somebody's going no no, I'm asking the question specifically. What would you, dean jackson, do with it? That's what. That's what I'm saying oh not what? Not what anybody could do with it, but what? Dean: would you? Dan: do with it um well, I haven't. Dean: I haven't well for one let's let's say using it. I, years ago, I had this thought that as soon as AI was coming and you'd see some of the 11 labs and the HN and you'd see all these video avatars, I had the thought that I wonder what would happen. Could I take an AI and turn this AI into the top real estate agent in a market, even though she doesn't exist? And I went this is something I would have definitely used. I could have used AI Charlotte to help me do, but at the time I used GetMagic. Do you remember Magic, the task service where you could just ask Magic to do? Dan: something, and it was real humans, right. Dean: So I gave magic a task to look up the top 100 female names from the 90s and the top 100 surnames and then to look for interesting combinations that are, you know, three or four syllables maximum and com available so that I could create this persona, one of the ones that I thought, okay, how could I turn Lily Madden Home Services into? How would you use Lily Madden in that way? So I see all of the tools in place right now. So I see all of the tools in place right now. There was an AI realtor in Portugal that did $100 million in generate $100 million in real estate sales. Now that's gross sales volume. That would be about you know, two or $3 million in in revenue. Yeah, commissions for the thing. But you start to see that because it's just data. You know the combinations of all of these things to be able to create. What I saw on the examples of yesterday was a news desk type of news anchor type of thing, with the screen in the background reporting news stories, and I immediately had that was my vision of what Lily Madden could do with all of the homes that have come on the market in Winter Haven, for instance, every day doing a video report of those, and so you start to see setting up. All these things are almost like you know. If you know what I say complications, do you know what? Those are? The little you know? All those magical kind of mechanical things where the marble goes this way and then it drops into the bucket and that lowers it down into the water, which displaces it and causes that to roll over, to this amazing things. I see all these tools as a way to, in combination, create this magical thing. I know how to generate leads for people who are looking for homes in Winter Haven. I know how to automatically set up text and email, and now you can even do AI calling to these people to set them on an email that every single day updates them with all the new homes that come on the market. Does a weekly, you know video. I mean, it's just pretty amazing how you could do that and duplicate that in you know many, many markets. That would be a scale ready algorithm. That's. Dan: That's one thought that I've had with it yeah, you know the the thing that i'm'm thinking here is you know, I've had a lot of conversations with Peter over Peter Diamandis over the years and I said you know, everything really comes down to competition, though. Dean: Everything really comes down to competition though. Dan: The main issue of competition is people's attention, the one thing that's absolutely limited. Everybody talks everything's expanding, but the one thing that's not expanding and can't expand is actually the amount of attention that people have for looking at things you know, engaging with new things. So for example. You asked me the question was I aware of this new thing from Google? From Google and right off the bat, I wouldn't be because I'm not interested in anything that Google does. Period, period, so I wouldn't see it. But I would have no need for this new thing. So this new thing, because what am I going to do with it? Dean: I mean, I don't know. But I recall that that was kind of your take on zoom in two months. Dan: Yeah but, uh. But if the cove, if covet had not happened, I would still not be using zoom yeah, yeah, because there was nobody. There was nobody at the other end that's exactly right. Dean: You didn't have a question that Zoom was the answer to. Dan: Yeah. And I think that that's the thing right now is we don't have a question that the new Google Flow Because this seems to me to be competition with something that already exists, in the sense that there are people who are creating, as you say, $500,000 versions of this and this can be done for $600. Dean: Well, in that particular field, now I can see there's going to be some fierce competition where there will be a few people who take advantage of this and are creating new things advantage of this and are creating new things, and probably a lot of people are put out of work, but not I. I what is so like? Dan: uh, you know, no, and it's not it's not based on their skill and it's it's on their base. There's no increase in the number of amount of attention in the world to look at these things. Dean: There's no increase there's no increase of attention. Yes, the world to look at these things. Dan: There's no increase. There's no increase of attention. Dean: Yes, which it's so eerily funny, but in my journal last night, after watching a lot of this stuff, I like to look at the edges of this and my thought exactly was that this is going to increase by multiples the amount of content that is created. But if I looked at it, that the maximum allowable or available attention for one person is, at the maximum, 16 hours a day, if you add 100% of their available attention bandwidth, you could get 1, 1000 minutes or 100 of those jacksonian units everybody that we only have those. We only have 110 minute units and we're competing. We're competing against the greatest creators ever Like we're creating. We're competing against the people who are making the tippy top shows on Netflix and the tippy top shows on any of these streaming things. I don't think that it's, I think, the novelty of it to everybody's. It's in the wow moment right now that I think everybody's seeing wow, I can't believe you could do this. And it's funny to look at the comments because everybody's commenting oh, this is the end of Hollywood, hollywood's over. I don't think so. Dan: Hollywood's been kind of over for the last five or ten years. I mean it's very interesting. I think this is a related topic. I'm just going to bounce it off you. The Democratic Party has decided that they have to create their own Joe Rogan, because they now feel that Joe Rogan as a person, but also, as you know, a kind of reality out in the communication world tipped the election in 2024. Dean: Who have they nominated? Dan: Yeah, that Trump being on Joe Rogan and a few other big influencers was the reason, and so they're pouring billions of dollars now into creating their own Joe Rogans. But the truth of it is they had a Joe Rogan. He was called Joe Rogan and he was a Democrat. Dean: Yeah, and he was a Democrat. Dan: Yeah, so you got to work out the problem. Why did Joe Rogan Democrat become Joe Rogan Republican is really the real issue question. And they were saying they're going to put an enormous amount of money into influencers because they feel that they have a fundamental messaging problem. Dean: Look how that worked out for them, with Kamala I mean they had all the A-listers. Dan: Well, they had $2 billion I mean Trump spent maybe a quarter of that and they had all the A-listers. They had Oprah. They had, you know, they had just Beyonce, they just had everybody and it didn't make any difference. So I was thinking about it. They think they have a messaging problem. They actually have an existential problem because nobody can nobody can figure out why the democratic party should even exist. This is the fundamental issue why, why, why should a party like this even exist? Dean: I I can't I? Dan: I don't know, I mean, can you answer the question? I can't answer the question I really don't know why this party actually exists. So it's a more fundamental problem to get people's attention. They have no connection, I think, with how the majority of people who show up and vote are actually going about life, are actually going about life. So you have these new mediums of communication and I'm using Google Flow as an example but do you actually have anything to communicate? Dean: Right, it all definitely comes down to the idea. It's capability and ability. I think that that's where we get into the capability column in the VCR formula. That capability is one thing is why I've always said that idea is the most valuable, you know? Dan: um, yeah, because you know, execution of a better idea, a capability paired with a better ability, is going to create a better result but if it's just a way of selling something that people were resisting buying and they were resisting buying in the first place have you really? Dean: made it. Dan: Have you really made a breakthrough? Dean: Have you really made a breakthrough? That was my next journey in my journal was after I realized that. Okay, first of all, everybody is competing for the same 1,000 minutes available each day per human for attention each day per human for attention, and they can't you know, do you can't use all of that time for consuming content there has to be. They're using, you know, eight hours of it for, uh, for working, and you know four hours of it for all the stuff around that, and it's probably, you know, three or four hours a day of available attention. Dan: Boy, that would be a lot. Dean: I think you're right, like I think that's the thing. I'm just assuming that's the, you know, that's the. Well, when you, you know, in the 50s, Dan, what was the? I mean that was kind of the. There was much less competition for attention in the 50s in terms of much less available, right, like you look at, I was thinking that's the people you know, getting up in the morning, having their breakfast, getting to work, coming home, having their dinner and everybody sitting down watching TV for a few hours a night. That's. That seems like that was the american dream, right? Or they were going bowling or going, uh, you know it was the american habit yeah, that's what I meant. That that's it exactly, exactly. The norm, but now, that wasn't there were three channels. Yeah, and now the norm is that people are walking around with their iPhones constantly attached to drip content all day. Dan: Well, I don't know, because I've never Not. Dean: you drip content, all well. Dan: Well, I don't know, because I've never not you and I have never. I've never actually done that, so I don't actually, I don't actually know what, what people are do, I do know that they're doing it because I can? I can observe that when I'm in any situation that I'm watching people doing something that I would never do. In other words, I can be waiting for a plane to leave, I'm in the departure lounge and I'm watching, just watching people. I would say 80 or 90 percent of the people. I'm watching are looking at their phones, yeah, but. Dean: I'm not, but I'm not yes, yes, I'm actually. Dan: I'm actually watching them and uh, wondering what are they? Doing why? Dean: no. Dan: I'm. I'm wondering why they're doing what they're doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, for example, I never watch the movie when I'm on an airplane, but I notice a lot of people watching the screen. Yeah, so, and you know, if anything, I've got my Kindle and I'm reading my latest novel. Yes, that's basically what I'm doing now, so so, you know, I think we're on a fundamental theme here is that we talk about the constant multiplication of new means to do something. Constant multiplication of new means to do something, but the only value of that is that you've got someone's attention. Yes, and my thing, my thinking, is that google flow will only increase the competition for getting yes, attention, attention that nobody, nobody's getting anyway. Dean: That's exactly right, that's it. And then my next thought is to what end? Dan: Well, they're out competing some other means. Dean: In other words, there's probably an entire industry of creating video content that has just been created, too, based on this new capability. I so I just think, man, these whole, I think that you know, I'm just, I'm just going. Dan: I'm just going ahead a year and we just got on our podcast and it'll be you. It won't be me. Dan did you see what such and such company just brought out? And I'll tell you, no, I didn't. And they say this is the thing that puts the thing I was talking about a year ago completely out of. Dean: Isn't that funny, that's what I'm seeing. It probably was a year ago that we had the conversation about Charlotte. Dan: Well, no, it was about six months ago. I think it was six months ago. Dean: Maybe yeah. Dan: But we were talking about Notebook, we were talking about Google. Dean: Notebook. Dan: I had one of my team members do it for me three or four times and then I found that the two people talking it just wasn't that interesting. It really didn't do it so I stopped't want to be dismissive here and I don't want to be there but what if this new thing actually isn't really new because it hasn't expanded the amount of tension that's available on the planet? Dean: biggest thing you have to, the biggest thing that you have to increase for something to be really new is actually to increase the amount of human attention that there is on the planet, and I don't know how you do that because, right, it seems to be limited yeah, well, I guess I mean you know, one path would be making it so that there it takes less time to do the things that they're spending their time other than it seems to me, the only person who's got a handle on this right now is Donald Trump. Dan: Donald seems to have a greater capacity to get everybody's attention than anyone anyone in my lifetime. Mm-hmm, yeah, he seems to have. Dean: I mean you look at literally like what and the polarizing attention that he gets. Like certainly you'd have to say he doesn't care one way or the other. Dan: He doesn't really care love or love, love or hate. He's kind of got your attention yeah one thing that I'm. He's got Canada's attention yeah. Dean: I mean really. Dan: That and $7 will get you a latte today getting. Canada's attention. Dean: It won't get you an. Americano, but it'll get you a Canadiano, okay. Dan: Yeah, it's so funny because I just I've created a new form and. I do it with perplexity it's called a perplexity search and give you a little background to this. For the last almost 20, 25 years 24, I think it is I've had a discussion group here in Toronto. Dean: It's about a dozen people. Right. Dan: And and every quarter we send in articles and then we create an article book, usually 35, 40 articles, which is really interesting, and it's sort of the articles sort of represent a 90 to 180 day sense of what's going on in the world. You know, you kind of get a sense from the articles what was going on in the world and increasingly, especially since AI came out. I said, you know, these articles aren't very meaty. They don't know it's one person's opinion about something or one person's. You know, they've got it almost like a rant that they put into words about some issues so what I? resorted to is doing perplexity search where, for example, I have one that I've submitted. This was the week when we had to submit our articles and we'll be talking about them in July, the second week of July. So they have to be formatted, they have to be printed. July, so they have to be formatted, they have to be printed, they have to be the book has to be put together and the book has to be sent out. Usually, everybody has about four weeks to read 35 articles. So my articles I have four articles this time and they all took the form, and one of them was 10 reasons why American consumers will always like their gas-fueled cars. Okay, and there were 10 reasons. And then I say, with each of the reasons, give me three bullet point, statistical proof of why this is true. And it comes out to about five pages, and then I have it write an introduction and a conclusion. This is a format that I've created with Propoxy. It takes me about an hour to start, to finish, to do the whole thing, and I read this and I said this is really, really good, this is really good. You know this is very meaty, you know it's got. You know it's just all fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, and it's all put together and it's organized. So I don't know what the response is going to be, because this is the first time I did it, but I'll never get an article from the New York Times or an article from the Wall Street Journal again and submit it, because my research is just incredibly better than their research, you know. And so my sense is that, when it comes to this new AI thing, people who are really good at something are going to get better at something, and that's the only change that's going to take place, and the people who are not good at something are going to become it's going to become more and more revealed of how not good they are. Yeah, yeah, like the schmucks are going to look schmuckier, the schmuckification of America and you can really see this because it's now the passion of the news media in the United States to prove how badly they were taken in by the Biden White House, that basically he, basically he wasn't president for the last four years, for the last four years there were a bunch of aides who had access to the pen, the automatic pen where you could sign things, and now they're in a race of competition how brutally and badly they were taken in by the White House staff during the last four years. But I said, yeah, but you know, nobody was ever seduced who wasn't looking for sex. You were looking to be deceived. Yeah, you know, all you're telling us is what easily bribe-able jerks you actually are right now, and so I think we're. You know. I'm taking this all back to the start of this conversation, where you introduced me to Google Flow. Yeah, and I'll be talking to Mike Koenigs in you know a few days, and I'm sure Mike is on to this and he will have Mike, if there's anybody in our life who will have done something with this. Dean: it's Mike Koenigs that's exactly right. Dan: You're absolutely right. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Mike will have three or four presentations using this. Yes, but the big thing I come down to. What do you have that is worth someone else's attention to pay attention to? Do you have something to communicate? Dean: Do you have something to communicate that? And my sense is it can only be worth their time if it's good for them to pay attention to you for a few minutes. You're exactly right, that is an ability. Do you have the ability to get somebody's attention? Because the capability to create that, content is going to be. Dan: There's's going to be only a few people at the tippy top that have well, that's not going to be the issue that's not going to be the issue that's not going to be the issue, that's the how is taken care of. Yes, that's exactly it. The question is the why? Dean: yes, I put it, you were saying the same thing. I think that that it's the what I just said, the why and the what. Why are we? What? To what end are we doing this? And then, what is it that's going to capture somebody's attention? Uh, for this, and I think that that's yeah, I mean, it's pretty amazing to be able to see this all unfold. Dan: Hmm. Dean: You know, yeah, yeah. But there's always going to be a requirement for thinking about your thinking and the people who think about their thinking. I think that people this is what I see as a big problem is that people are seeing AI as a surrogate for thinking that oh what a relief I don't have to think anymore. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I saw a meme that said your Gen Z doctors are cheating their way through medical school using chat GPT. Probably time to start eating your vegetables, it's probably time to start living healthily. Exactly yes. Dan: It's very interesting. I was interviewed two or three days ago by New Yorker magazine actually. Dean: Really Wow. Dan: Fairly, and it was on longevity. Dean: OK, because you're on the leaderboard right. Dan: The longevity, yeah, and, and they had interviewed Peter Diamandis and they said you ought to talk to Ann Sullivan, nice guy, the interviewer. I said the biggest issue about, first of all, we're up against a barrier that I don't see any progress with, and that is that our cells reproduce about 50 times. That seems to be built in and that most takes us to about 120,. You know, and there's been very few. We only have evidence of one person who got to 120, 121, 122, a woman in France, and she died about 10 years ago. I do think that there can be an increase in the usefulness of 120 years. In other words, I think that I think there's going to be progress in people just deciding well, I got 120 years and I'm going to use them as profitably as I can, and I said that's kind of where I that's kind of where I am right now and, uh, I said, uh, I have this thing called one 56, but the purpose of the one 56 is so that I don't, um, uh, misuse my time right now. Right, that's really, that's really the reason for it. And I said you know, at 81, I'm doing good. I'm as ambitious as I've ever been. I'm as energetically productive as I've ever been. That's pretty good. That's pretty good because when I look around me, I don't see that being true for too many other people and see that being true for too many other people. It was really, really interesting, I said, if we could get half the American population to be more productive from years 60 to 100, a 40-year period. I said it would change the world. It would totally change the world. So I said the question is do you have actually anything to be usefully engaged with once you get to about 60 years old? Do you have something that's even bigger and better than anything you've done before? And I said you know, and my sense is that medicine and science and technology is really supporting you if you're interested in doing that. But whether it's going to extend our lifetime much beyond what's possible right now. I said I don't think we're anywhere near that. Dean: I don't either. Yeah, I think you look at that, but I think you hit it on the head. That of the people who are the centenarians, the people who make it past a hundred. They're typically, they're just hung on. They made it past there but they haven't really had anything productive going on in their life for a long time since 85 years old, very rare to see somebody. Uh, yeah, you know, I mean you think about Charlie Bunger, you know, died at 99. And you look at, norman Lear made it to 101. And George Burns to 100. But you can count on one hand the people who are over 80 that are producing. Yeah, you're in a rare group. Where do you stand on the leaderboard right now? Dan: I was number 12 out of 3,000. That was about four months ago. Dean: That was about four months ago. Dan: I only get the information because David Hasse sends it to me. My numbers were the same. In other words, it's based on your rate of aging. Dean: That's what the number is when I was number one. Dan: the number, was this, and my number is still the same number. And when I was number one, the number was this and my number is still the same number. It just means that I've been out-competed by 11 others, including the person who's paying for the whole thing, brian Johnson. But you know useful information, yeah. Dean: But you know useful information. Dan: Yeah, you know and you know. But the big thing is I'm excited about the next workshop we're doing this quarter. I'm excited about the next book we're writing for this quarter. So so I've always got projects to be excited about. Dean: I love it All righty, I love it Alrighty. Okay, dan, that was a fun discussion. I'll be back next week, me too. I'll see you right here. 1:03:42 - Dan: Yeah, me too. Awesome See you there. Okay, bye, bye,
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May 7, 2025 • 51min

Ep154: From Stem Cells to Geopolitical Tensions

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we start with Dan’s recent experience with stem cell injections, a journey filled with both challenges and relief. This discussion transitions into the inspiring story of a Vietnamese massage therapist who built her career in Canada, highlighting the diverse paths in the healing professions. Our conversation then shifts to the political landscape of Canada. We analyze the unique dynamics of minority governments and consider the influence of international figures like Trump on Canadian politics. We also discuss the role of central banking figures in political negotiations and reflect on the contrasts between Canadian and American electoral perspectives. Next, we explore the parallels between political and economic systems, examining the shift from traditional hierarchies to modern digital frameworks. The conversation covers the challenges faced by third-party candidates in the U.S., with a focus on Robert F. Kennedy's independent run, and delves into the economic tensions between China and the U.S., considering their impact on global trade relations. Finally, we reflect on the importance of creative consistency and the power of legacy. Whether it's maintaining a long-term streak of publishing or creating innovative tools, we emphasize the value of continuously producing impactful content. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We explore the intricacies of stem cell treatments and discuss my personal experience with multiple injections, sharing insights on the healing journey alongside Mr. Jackson. The conversation transitions to Canadian politics, where we delve into the complexities of a minority government and the influence of international figures like Trump on Canadian political dynamics. We examine the parallels between political and economic systems, focusing on the evolution from hierarchical structures to digital frameworks, and discuss the challenges faced by third-party candidates in the U.S. electoral system. The geopolitical dynamics between China and the United States are analyzed, highlighting the differing geographical and demographic challenges and the economic tensions resulting from tariffs and trade negotiations. We reflect on the value of maintaining a long-term creative streak, discussing the importance of consistent output and deadlines in driving productivity and ensuring a legacy of impactful content. The discussion touches on the strategic importance of filling the future with new and exciting projects to ensure personal growth and innovation, contrasting past achievements with future aspirations. We explore the significance of creativity in producing meaningful content across various platforms, from books and workshops to podcasts, emphasizing the role of personal reputation and motivation in maintaining a steady output. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan, Dan:Mr Jackson, Dean: there he is. How are things in your outpost of the? Dan: mainland. Well good, I had a convalescence week. They really packed me full of new stem cells. And the procedure is things aren't good if I'm not feeling bad. Dean: That's what I'm saying. It's along the lines of we're not happy until you're not happy. Dan: How's that for a closing argument? Dean: That's good, that's good. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Things aren't good if you're not feeling bad. Dan: I got the procedure on the Thursday of last week, not the week we're just finishing, but the week. So Thursday, friday, saturday and it was almost one week later, exactly on Thursday, almost the same time of day, and all of a sudden the pain went away. Dean: Okay, how long was it Acute onset? Did you have to travel in pain? Dan: Yeah, well, I did, but they drugged me out. Yeah, they had sedatives Right when they were doing the procedure and then you had takeaways. Dean: Yeah, A goody bag. Dan: Nothing like a good drug. Yeah, exactly, especially a pa pain killing drug and and they're real big on this but went full force this time I had eight different injections, both ankles, both knees, even the knee. That's good they do it to reinforce what's already there. Reinforce what's already there. And then tendons the tendons in the calf, tendons in the hamstring, tendons in the quadriceps and then on both hips, both hips, so the left leg is the. You know in the spotlight here and when you're it's like you're experiencing inflammation in the ankle, in the calf, in the knee, in the upper leg and then the hip at the same time the leg doesn't want to, the leg doesn't want to work, right exactly yeah yeah, so that's the big problem, but actually I'm feeling pretty chipper today that's great, so that. Dean: So it took a week to get that. Is that usual or was this an unusual? Because I don't think I've ever heard you mention the pain. Dan: Usually it was a couple of days, but they got me while they had me. Dean: Well, that's good, and today you feel noticeably better. Dan: Now, yeah, I was noticing that we have a long-term massage therapist who comes to our house. Dean: Oh, my goodness. Dan: She's been coming for 33 years. Vietnamese Wow A boat person, actually, someone who escaped on a boat when she was a teenager, actually someone who escaped on boat when she was a teenager. And you know, really, she grew up, her grandmother was. They didn't have things like registered massage therapists, everybody just did massage, you know grandmothers especially, and so she learned from her grandmother. You know, even before she was 10 years old and so she's you, she's 60 now, 60 now. So she's been at this for about 50 years and she's availed herself of almost every kind of therapy training that there is. I mean, it was she was working till she was 45, from teenagers to 45 you know, paid for it before she ever got registered, she ever got. oh, oh my goodness, yeah, and I asked her about that. And the licensing is only really needed if the patient is claiming insurance money yeah. So they won't give me a patient any? Well, I never asked for it, I mean. I find I'm trying to get through my entire lifetime by having as little direct contact with government as possible. Dean: That's the best. I love that. Yes, that's great. Dan: I know they exist and as far as garbage being picked up, streets being repaired, police stopping crime. I have no complaints about paying for that, but I know I have to have some involvement but I don't try to expand it. Dean: That's so funny. What's the tone in Canada? Now here we are, you know, a week after the big debacle. Dan: Well, I don't know the debacle. They basically first of all didn't really decide anything because they had a minority government before for Americans. Americans only have winners and losers, but in Canada you can have someone who's half and half. Dean: They're half winners and half loser. Dan: Yeah, they're like. You know. It's that less than half the country voted for the winner. That's right. But the winner got more votes than the second place because there's more than one party. You know, americans don't believe in anything. That's not a winner or a loss. You know. That's one thing. I've learned since I've been in Canada. Americans, there's only two possibilities You're a winner or you're a loser. There's no halfway. There's no participation prize for showing up and being engaged, I think, the prime minister. He's an economist and we have a thing that it would be like the head of the Federal Reserve. In the United States you have a central bank which is called the Federal Reserve, and in Canada it's called the Bank of Canada, and then in the UK they have the Bank of England, and this man was both governor of the Bank of Canada and the governor of the Bank of England. He's a lifetime bureaucrat. He's never been anything except a bureaucrat and his first job is to negotiate with Trump. Right exactly, and nothing in his background has prepared him for this experience. Dean: Yeah, that's so. It is true, isn't it? I mean the whole, I think it feels like from this view. Dan: They kicked a can both the US and Canada. Dean: And the you know. The very interesting thing is that this vote definitely feels like a not Trump type of sentiment. You know more than it did yes. Dan: There's no question in my I mean there's no question in anyone's mind that Trump was the issue. Dean: Yeah, yeah, Pierre Polyev's probably going. I was so close. If that election had happened any time between November and January, it would have been a whole different story, you know. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was. I think. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I think it was that the you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was. I think. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I think it was that the you know Trump actually putting his gaze on Canada, really, didn't happen until after, you know, after he was inaugurated after he became president, I think you're totally correct. It was from November 5th to January 20th, yeah that would have been Kaliev's window. Yeah, but yeah well, you know there's a little history to this. A lot of people don't know it, but Canada was a major country you know in world affairs pretty well for most of the 20th century, pretty well for most of the 20th century, and part of the reason is that they were the big backup to the British Empire, like in the First World War and the Second World War. The major supplier of manpower and armaments and everything else came from Canada that backed up the British. I mean, the British were really in the eye of the storm for both of the wars, but their number one ally right from the start of the two wars was Canada. Canada was the big player. As a matter of fact, in 1945, the end of the Second World War, Canada had the third largest navy in the world and they had the fourth largest air force in the world. Think of little canada little canada yeah, and they played a huge part in the cold war. You know the rcmp, the, you know the mounties most people think of them as people in red coats riding on horses, but actually they were the. They were actually the dual they were were the combination of the CIA and the FBI. They were all packed in one. And they were a major player, because the United States, canada, was the country that was in between the United States and the Soviet Union. So I'm going to sneeze. Oh, there I go, yeah, that's completed, anyway, anyway, and their intelligence services were first class and everything. And then when the cold war suddenly ended in 1991, the end of 1991, all of a sudden their importance in the world just disappeared. So we've been and they've had to fake it yeah, it's interesting. I mean canada, I guess, and that's basically that and the you know you had some good prime minister you had. You know the liberal crechin wasn't too bad because he was a long time tough guy in the liberal party and harper I thought was, and my experience of being in Canada, which is 54 years, I think, Harper was. Dean: Well, he's always widely regarded as that right. Dan: He's by far the best prime minister and he wasn't confused about what Canada should be for, what it should support and everything like that. And then you came. You know, obviously they got the next character from central casting. You know, they just said send us, send us and he's by hands down. I mean, if you really talk to the liberals quietly and in private, they said you know, he's kind of a disaster, he's been a disaster for 10 years and you know. I mean they just don't have much gas in the gas tank anymore at that party and there's a general pushback against left-wing parties going on in the world right now. You can see it in Britain. They had the elections for local councils. You know local councils, which is it's an odd, you know it's an odd sort of election, but they have it sort of like midterm elections in the United. Dean: States, you know and Nigel Farage. Dan: Who's the you? Know, he was the Brexit, he was the brains behind Brexit. I mean, very clearly, if that had been the general election, he'd be the prime minister right now and he wants to just detach Great Britain completely from Europe and have the attachment with the United States, and I think that's going to happen. What's disappearing is this sort of wishy-washy, left-wing mushy-ness in the world right now. The world's going very binary in my sense. That and a $9 latte you got yourself a deal. Dean: Oh, my goodness. Dan: Is that what it's come to? Dean: Is that what it's come to? Is that what it's come to? The $9 latte? You know, it's so funny. I'm going to be back up in June, of course, and I'll be setting up residency in Yorkville there for several weeks, and last time I was there I was surprised by the. You know I usually get Americanos which are now have been replaced by Canadianos, but it's a whole new whole new, whole new logo. Dan: Yeah, I mean, how can I be against patriotism? Dean: I think so, and it's so amazing, though, to see like just the lengths that they're going. You know, I mean pulling all the. That was the big news when I was there. Dan: And I'm wondering if it's. What I noticed is that Canadians are demonstrating every aspect of courageousness that doesn't cost you anything. Dean: Well, I think that it's going to cost. I mean, you know, there I saw, is it Doug Ford or Mark Ford? Doug Ford was up, you know, in the liquor store in the LCBOs saying how they've pulled all American brands out of the LCBO and that you know they're like taking a stand about. But that total buy of the LCBO is $3.2 billion is what they're saying. The liquor market is $340 billion. So less than 1% of the whole. It's not even too little to measure, even you know. Yeah. Dan: Well, they can do it because the LCBO is Liquor Control Board of Ontario. Dean: The largest. Dan: The largest on the planet, Not just the largest in North America. Dean: the largest on the planet. Dan: There's one bureaucratic office that you know that's, that's a lot of liquor. Yeah well, you know it's, it's a bit. You know you're dealing in symbols here, it's sort of symbol. I mean, it's not yeah, it's not actually. It's not actually real courage. You know it's not real courage. It's symbolic courage you know, it's a symbolic. Symbolic, and you know, but that's part of life too, you know. And you know, I'm really noticing. Do you ever, in any of your video viewing, do you ever watch the Bill Maher show? Yes, I do, yeah, and I watched him in the old days and I watch him. You know, I don't actually watch television, but I get YouTubes. I get YouTubes of it, you know. And Trump invited him to come to the White House or the White House or Mar-a-Lago. I don't know if there is Mar-a-Lago, and you know Barr, who has been. I think actually. Dean: Focally anti-Trump yeah, yeah. Dan: well, trump had printed up a document which said 60 insults that Bill Maher had insulted Trump or Bill Maher had done it. And he wanted to give it as a present to the president and he said you know, these are my 60 insults of you. And Trump said oh, can I sign that Trump autograph? That's the best, and Maher came away and he says you know, can I sign that? And Trump autographed it. That's the best, I autographed it. And Maher came away and he says you know, I want to tell you it's not a crazy man in the White House. He said I was treated, you know, it surprised me how gracious he was and you know how just open to having a chat and everything like that. Well, he's just been slammed by the left wing that he would even show up and that's all this fake symbolism, you know, but attack the only guy on the Democratic side in the United States who is actually positioning himself differently is this guy Fetterman from Pennsylvania. He's the senator and he's someone who really hasn't done anything in his life, but through just the way politics were working, I think he had a state job and then he ran and he's got mental issues. I mean, he's had mental issues, but he's been a voice, a lone voice. You know a singular lone voice of somebody. He said you know politics, you try to find common ground and wherever you can find common ground with the opposition, you sit down with him, you talk about it and the public benefits if you can get an agreement there. Well, he's just been. He's just been cast out, but he doesn't really care. He doesn't really care, so you know yeah anyway, but it's an interesting time and you know what? I've got a thesis that politics takes on gradually. It takes on the form of economics. Okay, so that, however, the economics of society, the structure, you know, how do things get created, produced and where's profit being made Ultimately politics takes on the same kind of structure. So if you think of the industrial revolution, when everything was defined by big pyramids organizations, you know you had people at the top and then you had either big factories or you had big administrative companies that did the work out in the world. For the factories, you know the research, the marketing and distribution out into the world of manufactured products. After a while, government took on the same form, the big pyramids. Government always is the last institution to figure out what's going on. Dean: That's interesting, it's true, right, because everything has to trickle up. Dan: Yeah. So starting in the 70s, you started to get a change in the structure and you went from the big pyramidal structures to basically the microchip networks. Everything started more and more to be on the framework of computers, individual computers communicating with other individual computers, you know communicating with other individual computers, first hundreds and thousands and then millions, you know, and gradually. But the central principle of the microchip is binary, that in the digital code things are either a one or they're a zero. Okay, and so what I noticed over the last, probably starting in the early nineties, you start getting you're either on one side or the other side. But my sense is that politics is just imitating how the economic system it's a digital economic system. That's what we're talking about on. Welcome to Cloudlandia. What allows this amazing communication that we can make digitally depends on ones and zeros. And what I noticed is that the entire political structure, you know all the players in the political structure. You're either on one side or you're on the other side. If you're in the middle, you don't count. Dean: Yeah, and that's you know. It's interesting. You were talking about the third party system. I think that the interesting thing is, the United States is really a three party system. There's three parties, but really, you know, in a two party system, I think that's really what it is, but there's a large majority of people who are more moderate. Right now, it's binary in terms of you're Democrat or Republican. That's really it, and there's never been, there's never been, you know, a real outsider opportunity. I mean, you look at, you know, ross Perot. Maybe he was the got the farthest. Well, they're a spoiler. They're a spoiler. Dan: They're not, they could never be the lead party. Dean: You know, they're just a spoiler party. Dan: Yeah, and the reason is because of the Electoral College. You know that. I remember being at Genius Network in the year before the election, so the election was last November, so it was the previous November and Robert Kennedy was running. Robert F Kennedy was running. And then the Democrats made it impossible for him to be a contender, a Democratic contender. So he went independent and I remember him. He came twice, he came twice to Genius Network. Dean: And. Dan: I remember the first time he came, everybody was excited. You know he's going to be the next president and I said, yeah, yeah, I said well, you know if you want to know how the game's played, you got to take the game box and flip it on the back and read the rules. And I could tell you he could take 30% of the total vote. You know that would be. You know that'd be something like 45, 50 million. Unheard of yeah 45, 50 million and he wouldn't get one electoral vote. Dean: Right. Dan: And I said, and they said well, that's just absurd, that's just absurd. And I said nope, that's how the rules, that's what the rules are. I said, learn what the rules are. And that's why I think it was so easy for them to jump. I mean, if he had run right through to the end of the election and you know, like he was showing up on election night, you know and he got 3% of the three. He could have gotten tens of millions of votes and gotten, maybe, but wouldn't have won a single electoral vote. Dean: Right. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah yeah, I like your approach and mine just being in it but not of it. It's like I appreciate the things Well it's entertainment yeah, it's, you know. Dan: It's entertainment that costs you a lot more than cable, that's exactly right. Dean: And you know what the good news is, dan? There's no tariff. There's no tariffs on good ideas, no tariffs in Cloudlandia Tariff free. I think that's the big thing. Dan: If it doesn't weigh anything, there's no tariff. Dean: That's right. That's right. If it doesn't come in a box, there's no tariff. That's exactly right. That's right. If it doesn't, comeia is so. Fascinating to me is just seeing how unstable the mainland things are becoming. Dan: You start to see the Cloudlandia future. We're in a period where we're going to see the greatest amount of chaos and turmoil in the tangible I'll talk about the tangible economy, yeah, but I think it'll be about probably a decade and then things will be remarkably stable. Dean: How do you see this playing out? Because I've been curious about that too. You see this playing out like so, because I've been curious about that too like what is the end game of all of these? You know the I guess you kind of take this intersection of what you know, the populations and the, you know the movement to cloudlandia, and then these, the political to Cloudlandia, and then the geopolitical climate. You see all these things like what is the unintended? We wonder now I've heard different things about China, all these countries or whatever, that Trump is imposing the tariffs on, the reaction, the rebound reaction of that. Is that something that Peter Zion has talked about? Or is that what's your take? I know you've read a lot and observed a lot. Dan: It's very interesting. I think he's very conflicted. I think Peter Zion is very conflicted right now, and the reason is that he made predictions 10 years ago. I'd say it was 10 years ago, about how he saw the world changing. It produces all sorts of interesting insights. And the first one is that, basically, as a country, the future of your country past, present and future of your country is really determined basically your geography, where you are on the planet and what kind of geography you have, so your placement on the planet. I'll use an example of let's use China as one and use the United States as the other. The China is basically a land country rather than a maritime country. If you look at the map of China, where it shows the cities, most of the cities are inland in China. Even Beijing is not close to the ocean. You have two big ports. One of them is Shanghai, which is actually up the river, but it's got a very wide mouth to the river, and then Shanghai and the other one was Hong Kong, and so they're basically Hong Kong, hong Kong and so they're basically a land-based country, but they border on 13 other countries who have a passionate hatred for China. These are enemies, they're surrounded by enemies. There's nobody who likes them, and one major country that's offshore is Japan, and there's nothing but pure hatred between Japan, and everybody else has an adversarial attitude towards China. So that's China. Then you take the United States. The United States sits with 3,000 miles of water on its eastern shore, 5,000 miles of water on its western shore shore, 5,000 miles of water on its western shore, and then it's got just. The only connector is the Mexican, and it's 200 miles of desert and mountains. And then on the north you have 3,000 miles of pot-smoking Canadians. Dean: Terrorists hiding pot-smoking Canadians. Dan: Yeah, terrorists who had a plan for tomorrow but forgot what it was. So the US really doesn't have to. China has to totally defend itself. You know they have to spend an enormous amount of their budget defending their borders where the US really doesn't. I mean there's they talk about, you know, the Canadian-American border they talk about. You know that, you about that actually there's just nothing there. It's just fields and there's farms, farms certainly in the West, in Manitoba, saskatchewan and Alberta where. I'm sure the farms are partially in the United States, partially in. Dean: Canada, you could just walk right across. Dan: Yeah, oh, yeah, it's you know, and everything like that. So one thing is the US really doesn't have to. By the standards of the world, the US doesn't have to spend much money defending itself territorially. The other thing is demographics, and it's what your population looks like. Do you have mostly, is it mostly young people? Is it mostly middle-aged people? Is it mostly old people? And the US is China probably by 10 years from now will have more people over 60 than people under 20, which means that they become more and more of a top-heavy population. And these people are past working age, they're past investment age, but they're not past being in an expense age. So more and more, the cost of your society is older people, and you have fewer and fewer workers who are producing, fewer and fewer workers who are paying taxes, fewer and fewer workers who are, you know, who are investing, and you have older, older population. That's just consuming and it's just consuming. Yeah, so these are the two big things that you have to think about. It's China and the US and tariff. A tariff that the United States places on China is five times a heavier penalty than one that China places on the US. Dean: And the. Dan: US, like Trump, everybody else in the world. He put it 10 percent, 25 percent, some of 50 percent. On China, he put 145 percent and apparently there's riots going on in China right now because the factories are closing down really fast. You'll see within the next three months, you'll see next month. So it'll be formal new negotiations between the United. States and China. Now that's the central issue as we go forward what's the relationship between these two countries? It's like after the Second World War? What's the relationship between the United States and the Soviet? Union the basic attitude is that we'll just keep applying more and more pressure and wait them out and they'll collapse. So that's what I see the big game for the China. Dean: And do you think that the net of this is that will bring back? Like what is everything? Is that setting up you know what kind of the playbook that Peter Zayn was talking about, the absent superpower of the US, sort of moving away from dependence or interaction with outside? Dan: No, no, I just think it's a one-on-one that the United States is going to have with every other country in the world. So there's 200 countries according to the United Nations. There's 200 countries and every one of them is under some sort of broad trading agreement with the United States. And the US did that basically for security reasons, because they said we'll make it easy for you to trade, but your military strategies and your security strategies have to have to be in alignment with us. And when the Soviet Union collapsed there was no need for that, but it just went on by inertia. Basically, it was just something that carried on. It was a good deal for everybody else, but not such a great deal for the US. And Trump comes in, you know, and Trump is nothing if not a dealmaker, you know. So what he says is every country now you make sure you send somebody to Washington because we're going to do a dealmaker. So what he says is every country, now you make sure you send somebody to Washington because we're going to do a different deal. So I think probably within a year you'll have probably the US will have deals with, if not China, they'll have deals they already do with China, south Korea, india, vietnam in that part of the world, the Philippines, australia, and so everybody will be in the new American deal except China. And probably within a year you'll have more than 100, maybe 130 countries who now have new deals, including Canada. We'll see what Canada does, because Maybe a year from now we'll be back to drinking Americanos at Starbucks. Dean: I wonder. That's what I wonder. Dan: It's just amazing to me, why stop with Canadiennes? Why don't we go to Ontariannes? Uh-huh, exactly, toronto. I mean, if you're going that route, why not go all the way? Dean: Toronto, yeah, York. Dan: Villano. Dean: Uh-huh right, that's the thing I stay on the island there. That's right. That's so funny, yeah, so that's I mean, you know? Dan: I mean I'm just an amateur observer here and I'm just picking up what I see happening. But the big thing is to have every deal that the United States has as separate with each individual country, no broad multilateral agreements. And so the big thing is that the word tariff is a bit of a distractor. It's not actually a tariff. That's the penalty if you don't do the new deal. So that's how they do it. He says let's do a deal because right now you guys can sell stuff into the United States with hardly any expense, hardly any. But you make it very difficult for us to sell our stuff into your country. And so let's do a new deal. Let's do a new deal and so let's do a new deal. Dean: Let's do a new deal. How's this affecting the dollar, by the way? Dan: It's down. As far as I can tell, it's down about five cents. It's from 144 to 139. I think it's 138. I think it's 138.5, something like that, but a year ago it was at 132 or 133. So it's still five, six cents above, yeah, yeah. It's a good deal. Dean: Yeah, Still a good deal. Still a good deal. Yeah, it's so funny. Well, Dan, I've been looking. I've been continuing on the dip into history, continuing on the dip into history phase, looking. It's been a fun thing. Every week I've just kind of been randomly selecting a core sample of my journals from the last 30 years now and it's very interesting to look through and see those things. I've been thinking about streaks too. Like you know, this last your 70s of 40 books in 10 years is a pretty good streak. I was thinking back that Dan Kenney has been publishing his newsletter monthly since 1992. And I think about that. You know 33, 34 years, this year of a you know, around 400 newsletters 16 page, just single space, nothing, no special, no design, nothing like that around it, but just that. You know, essentially just along the lines of what your global thinker. Global thinker was just like a series of essays kind of thing. I guess is what you would call it right, but that's kind of what Dan's done for 34 years. Yeah, pretty amazing. And I was thinking, you know I've done, I've had 30 years now of very consistent output to an audience of one, and I sure realize what a you know what an amazing body of work this is. Dan: I hope that audience of one is appreciative. Dean: Yes, exactly, very appreciative, you know, and it's so funny, right? Dan: You're playing a high stakes game here. Yes, exactly. Dean: I've had one satisfied subscriber for 30 years, you could lose your target market in a bad week, you know. Uh-huh. Dan: Exactly. Dean: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of funny, right, but I could see, you know, all these things they start. This is where they start and they in Manly specifically, and I was talking, this was the very beginnings of the who, not how. So this was August of 2015. And I think it was November of 2015 at the annual event that I sort of talked about that idea of the thing. But it's funny, this was scientific profit making came out of this, that journal, so that looked at the breakthrough DNA process as so very yeah, it's just the, you know, I think, the decision that you've, you know that consistent output gallery, I guess we'll call it or distribution model. It's a very it's really. Do you still journal internally? Or how do you what gathers, the notes and the thoughts that make the quarterly? Dan: books. Well, I have the. You know I have that series, the one new book every quarter. I have the new tools. Dean: Now my goal. Dan: I'm not up to speed yet on the complete capability of doing it yet. But, my goal is to create one new thinking tool every week okay, yes and and that I don't have, you know, a public need for that in other words that the tools are for new workshops. It's to keep the system supplied. You know, and I have. You know, I and I have free zone workshops every quarter, just three of them, but I have four Zoom two-hour workshops every month. So if you line them up and then I have podcast series I have podcast series. So there's really hundreds of activities that are in the schedule really on January 1st, you know on January 1st, you'd look out and say by December 31st how many scheduled public if you call them public impact activities do I have? Dean: You know it'd be over 200,? Dan: certainly yeah. You know one thing or another, and they all require the creation of something new. You know right you know, and one of the things that I've. You're on a really interesting subject here, because each of these has public impact, you know a book does. There are people who read the book, there's workshops, people who attend the workshops, people who listen to the podcast. And then the new tools themselves, which have the necessary. They're necessary to keep the program new. You know the workshops, and I have teams that take what I'm doing and they apply it to the workshops that I don't coach. We have the other coaches. And then the other thing is that, you know, within the last two or three years we realized that the tools can be patents, and so we're up to 61. Now we have 61. And so these are all one thing that they really keep me busy. Okay, and I'm very deadline responsive. I really like deadlines. I really like it, you know, because I mean, for you and me, we've got one problem what's important enough in our life that we would actually focus and concentrate on it, that we would actually focus and concentrate on it. And I find deadlines where other people, my reputation as at stake, really is very important for me because I get real serious. You know, I'm pretty lenient with me failing myself. I'm not lenient with failing other people. Dean: Right, yeah, me too, that's right. Dan: Yeah, my reputation is very important to me, so you know I don't want the word going around. Dean: Dan's starting to lose it you know no way, yeah, no way. Dan: Yeah, he's fading, he's fading, you know, and anyway. So that's really it. But I came up with a concept, just to put a name on something, that what makes people older not physically but physically, ultimately, but what makes you older intellectually, emotionally, psychologically is that your past has more living another day, that your past is going to fill up with stuff. So you have to work at filling your future up so that the stuff in your future is much, it's much more valuable than what you had in your past. So what I try to do is always favor the future in terms of stuff. I'm going to create stuff. I'm going to do that. It keeps getting to be a bigger game in the future than I ever played in the past. So that's sort of the you know that's. You know the essence of the game that I'm playing with my own life, with my own life, right. Dean: Yeah, this is really, I mean, and that's kind of, do you ever see? I mean, there's no real. Dan: I imagine you'll keep this cadence up continuously that there's still to do the to do 40 more 40 more quarterly books in your 80s 57, I'm on 43, I'm on 43 right now, so it's 57. Dean: 57 more. Dan: Yeah, which is oh, no, no no, is that no? Dean: how many are you For the 10 years? Dan: you're still going to go quarterly? Yeah well, I'm on quarter 43 right now so I see, right, right, right, yeah so. And the quarter. Actually, we're starting it this week. We just put one to bed and the next one starts this week. So that's 57 more and that takes me till about 95. I'm about 95 years old. 57 divided by 4 is 16 and a quarter 16 years and one quarter. And then I have my podcast and the workshops and everything else? Dean: yeah, how many of your podcasts are weekly podcasts like this? Dan: no, I don't have any weeklies we have. We have a certain number for each of them and sometimes, you know, I don't think there's any podcast exception. You and jeff would be the most podcast, jeff madoff, that I yeah, and that wouldn't be 52 weeks. That would be, you know, maybe 30, 35, because we have times when we're not able to do it right, exactly off weeks, not many, but we do yeah. Dean: Yeah's very so that's, you know, looking forward. For me, that's kind of a good thing here. You know this. I'm going to join you in this quarterly cadence here, you know, as I look forward for the next 30, the next 30 years, I mean I already write enough volume to do it. It's just a matter of having the stuff in place. If only I owned a company that makes books. You know they don't have to. Dan: They could be you know, books you can write in an hour, 90 minutes say. Well, the big thing with Dan Kennedy, I mean, if you look at his monthly newsletter if he would take three of them and put them into a different format. He could have oh, yeah, oh for sure, Absolutely. Dean: That's my thought, right. My outlet is really these emails that I write. I think they're really episodic thought kind of thing. I think they're really episodic thought kind of thing. So I'm just really going to get into that cadence of having that output. I think that's going to be a nice valuable thing, Because I look back over the, I look at this 30-year inflection point here, you know, and look at what's changed and what's not going to change you know, and it's very interesting when I start getting to the bedrock things, like if I look at lifestyle design, you know, purpose, freedom of purpose, freedom of relationship, freedom of money, all of those things that I'm very like, consistent in my desires and I think everybody is like, for me it's really, I look at it, that you know what's not gonna change in 30 years. I'm, I want to get eight hours of great sleep, everything. I want to wake up, I want to eat great food, I want to have, you know, two or three hours a day of creative work and have fun. And that's really the, that's really the big game, you know, row your boat gently down the stream, that's the, that's the plan, you know. But I think that having these, I think having these outlets, you know, I think that's really been the great thing. When you have all these workshops and the tools, you've got a gallery for everything. Dan: Yeah, Well, and you know, I mean they get better. I mean, I mean the teams that are involved in this. I mean, there, there isn't anything that I do that doesn't involve a team. You know the workshop team, the book team, the podcast team, you know the my artists, my writers, you know? The sound engineers and everything like that. And and it gives structure to their lives too. You know like they basically and they get better things I notice every quarter things happen faster, easier there's. You know we're getting them done. The overall quality keeps improving from quarter to quarter. I can take a book. You know, like if I took book 30 and compare it to book 42, which we just finished on Friday. I mean the quality of it is just much, much higher than it was. Dean: And. Dan: I don't really angst about this you know, I just know when people. They're really good at what they do and the teamwork keeps improving and they keep getting better quarter by quarter. It's going to improve the product and I'm a great belief that quality is a combination of successful consistency and duration times. Duration that you have a consistency where you can get better at something. You do it once. Second time you do it better. Tenth time you're ten times better at it. Compound interest yeah, that's really Like compound interest, yeah. Dean: Yeah, and that consistency over that time, that trajectory is only going up and better. Dan: Yeah and then it pays for it. You know it pays for itself. You can't be in a net deficit money-wise with these things. They have to pay for themselves. Like right now. I would say that the quarterly books in the podcast the podcasts are, you know one person's, you know one or two people, right, exactly the tools totally pay for themselves because that's the basis for getting paid for the workshops. Dean: Right. Dan: And of course they have IP value now. Dean: Do you have your? Are the books available on Amazon? Yeah, quarterly Amazon, yeah, quarterly books yeah, yeah, yeah. And do they sell organically? Do you sell those? 0:48:43 - Dan: Oh, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean it's not a big, you know, it's not a big budget item, you know and everything like that my whole thing is just that the entire production costs get paid for in a year yeah, I get it yeah, yeah that's awesome, yeah yeah, and, and you know, and you know it's part of our marketing, you know it's part of our market but they yeah, and every once in a while one of the little books becomes a big book, and then they write for them. Dean: So then, they really pay for themselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it. Well, it's exciting, it's got a whole lot. It's like a farm. Dan: I have sort of an agricultural approach. These are different crops that I have. You keep the soil healthy and pray for good weather. Dean: Yeah Well, it's quite an impressive like. When I look at my Dan Sullivan bookshelf, you know it's like quite a collection of them and consistently I mean the same look and feel of every book Every quarter. Yeah, amazing. Dan: Thank you. Thank you Appreciate it. Dean: Yeah. Dan: You're being impressed with. This was my intention that's exciting. Dean: Right from book number one, propose a contest. Dan: Let's do it. Dean: I think I could do that too. I'll race you back. We went from roaming the streets of Soho in London to being in Strategic Coach in Toronto with a book in hand. Dan: Speaking of which, I'll have Becca get in touch, but our next call will be in London, so we're in London, we leave next Sunday We'll be in London. So it won't be on the Sunday, though, because I'll be jet lagged and Becca will arrange in London. So it won't be on the Sunday, though, because I'll be jet lagged and Bab Becca will arrange for you With Lillian. Dean: Yeah, that's fine, yeah, so that's awesome. Dan: And then I'll be up. We'll be seeing you in June. We'll be seeing you. Dean: That's exactly right. Dan: Yeah. Dean:* Yeah, awesome. Okay, have a great day. Take care. Thanks, dan, bye.
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Apr 30, 2025 • 49min

Ep153: Exploring the Crossroads of Health and Technology

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, I chat with Dan about his recent journey to Buenos Aires for stem cell therapy on his knee. After living with an injury since 1975, he shares how advancements in medical technology are providing new solutions for pain and mobility. We discuss the challenges of recovery and the impressive potential of these therapies, along with vivid stories from his experience in this vibrant city. We also touch on the role of AI in our modern landscape, questioning its reliability and pondering whether it enhances creativity or simply recycles existing ideas. As we explore the implications of AI, we consider how it can assist in achieving desired outcomes without requiring individuals to develop new skills themselves. Sullivan emphasizes the importance of meaningful work and the balance between utilizing technology and fostering genuine human creativity. Our conversation wraps up by highlighting the ongoing journey of personal growth and the need for continuous improvement in an ever-evolving world. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dan shares his personal journey to Buenos Aires for stem cell therapy to rejuvenate his knee cartilage, highlighting advancements in medical technology and the promising future of these treatments. We explore the historical significance of technological revolutions, from steam power to the creation of the alphabet and Arabic numbers, and their impact on communication and societal progress. The discussion delves into the rapid advancements in AI technology, questioning its role in creativity and entrepreneurship, and examining its potential for convenience and efficiency. Dan and I consider the distinction between ability and capability, reflecting on how current technological advancements like AI have amplified capabilities while individual aspirations may lag. We discuss the integration of AI in creative processes, highlighting how it can enhance productivity and creativity without diminishing human input. The conversation touches on the importance of efficiency and prioritization in personal growth, exploring strategies for optimizing tasks and delegating effectively. We conclude by reflecting on the ongoing nature of personal and technological growth, emphasizing the value of continuous improvement and collaboration in achieving success. 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, it's been a while, it's been a while. Dean: And yet here we are. Like no time has passed. Dan: Yes. Dean: Because it's now. Dan: But I've put on a lot of bear miles since I saw you last. Dean: Yeah, tell me about your journeys. Dan: Yeah well, buenos Aires. Yep Just got back yesterday and am in considerable pain. Oh really what happened. Well, they give you new stem cells. So now, they're going after. They're going still on the knee, but now they're going after tendons and ligaments, yeah, and so this may seem contrarian, but if you're in pain, it means that they're working. Dean: Oh, okay. Dan: How's that? For a compelling offer If you feel really bad about this, it means that what I'm offering you is a great solution. Dean: Yeah, with a name like Smuckers, it's got to be good, right yeah? What was that cough syrup that was known to taste so bad? Buckley's, buckley's. Dan: Tastes so bad. Tastes awful Works great. Dean: Yeah, that's right. That's the perfect thing. Tastes awful, works great. So were they completely pleased with your progress. Dan: it's, yeah, I think that the from what I can tell from they. They show you pictures of other complete cartridges. You know, okay, with other people and my left this is my left knee an injury from 1975. 1975, uh-huh, so 50 years, and it progressively wore down. It was a meniscus tear and in those days they would remove the torn part of the meniscus, which they don't do anymore. They have new surgical glue and they just glue it back together again. But this is the. This is one of the cost of living in over a period of history where things get better and so, as a result, I have a cartilage today which is equal and capability as it was before I tore it in 1975. However, all the adjustments my left leg and my head to make, 50-year period of adjusting to a deteriorating capability in my left there was a lot of calcification and stresses and strains on the tendons. So now that they can see the complete cartilage back, they can know exactly what they have to do with the otherons. So now that they can see the complete cartilage back, they can know exactly what they have to do with the other things. So they still reinforce it. So I get new stem cells for the cartilage because it has to be reinforced and so it's a good thing. I'm planning to live another 75 years because I think every quarter over that period I'm going to be going to Argentina. Dean: Oh boy, this is great. Dan: Or Argentina, is coming to me. They're going through their FDA phases right now and he's getting the doctor scientist who created this is getting his permanent resident card in the United States. So I think probably five years five years it'll be available to others. You know they don't have to make the trip. Dean: Well, that's great so now you've got the knee cartilage of a preteen Swedish boy. We were bouncing around the mountains. Dan: Yeah, something like that, yeah, something like that, something like that it's interesting that it wasn't 1975 when the $6 million man started out. Dean: That's what you're going to end up as the $6 million man. We can rebuild. We'll see. Dan: Yeah, but I had. While we were there, we had a longtime client from Phoenix was down. He was working on knees and rotator cuffs in his shoulders. Dean: And. Dan: I was able to say does it hurt? And he says yes, it does, and I said that means it's working. Dean: That means it's working. Dan: Yeah, and I said. He said you didn't tell me about the pain part before you encouraged me to come down here and I said, well, why? You know? Why, pull around with a clear message. Dean: And I said well, why, you know why fool around with a clear message, Right, I remember when Dave Astry had he had, like you know, a hundred thousand dollars worth of all of it done, all the joints, all the like full body stuff, and he was just in such pain afterwards for a little while. But how long does the pain last? Dan: Imagine it's like getting well, if I go by the previous trips, which were not equal in intensity to this one, there was about three or four days. Three or four days and then you know, you're, you're up and around. Yeah, as a result of this, I'm not going to be able to make my Arizona trip, because this week for genius Right, because? I'm going to have to be in wheelchairs and everything. And if there's one place in the world you don't want to be not able to walk around, it's Phoenix. Because, it's all walking. That's the truth. Yeah, up and down. So we're calling that off for now, and yeah, so anyway, and anyway. But they're really thriving down there. They're building a new clinic in a different part of the city, which is a huge city. I never realized how big Buenos Aires is. It's along the same size as London, you know London. Dean: England. Yeah right, you know how big London is. How long are you go on each trip? How long are you there? Dan: We arrive on a Sunday morning and we leave on a Friday night. Okay, so the whole week. Yeah, yeah, it's about eight days, eight travel days, because on Saturday we have to go to Atlanta to catch the next plane. Dean: Yeah. Dan: That's either a dog or a monkey. Which do you have there? Dean: That was a dog, my neighbor's. I'm sitting out in my courtyard. That was my neighbor's dog. It's an absolutely beautiful Florida morning today, I mean it is room temperature with a slight breeze. It's just so peaceful out here in my courtyard aside from working out Well. Dan: you're close to the Fountain of Youth. That's exactly right. How many? 100 miles? 100 miles to the north, st Augustine, that's right. That's exactly right. Dean: Yeah, this whole. Just look at. Dan: The De Leon. That's right yeah. Dean: This whole just look at the day. Leon, yeah, I know my I think we're going to look back at this time. You know like what? You are on the leading edge of big advantage of these treatments. You know the things that are available medically, medical science wise to us, and you realize how. I was having a conversation with Charlotte this morning about the I want to layer in you know the benchmarks technologically around the things that we've been talking about in terms of text and pictures and audio and video and seeing them as capabilities where it all started. You know, and it's amazing that really all of it, aside from the printing press with gutenberg, is really less than 150 years old, all of it, because she asked about the benchmarks along the way and if you went from Gutenberg to different evolutions of the press, to the typewriter, to the word processors in personal computing and digital, you know PDFs and all of that stuff and distribution has really only started. You know full scale in 150 years, along with the phonograph in the mid-1800s, the, you know, photography and moving pictures all kind of happened in that one 1850 to 1900 period. You know, but the big change of course, yeah, 1900 to 1950. Dan: Well, you know it's interesting because it's built like the question of what are the tallest mountains on the planet, and the answer is not Mount Everest. The tallest mountains on the planet are the Hawaiian Islands. Dean: Oh, okay. Dan: You know, the big one, the big island, I think the top peak there, Mauna Loa. I think Mauna Loa is a name of it and it's about 30,. Everest is 20, 29,000 and change, but Mauna Loa is around 32,000. Dean: Is that right yeah? Dan: but it's. You know that's an island that goes right down to the ocean floor and I think the same thing with technology is that we look back and we just take it back to sea level. We take technology back but we don't see the massive, you know, the mass amount of growth that was. That was over tens of thousands of years. That was before you could actual changing technology. I think probably have the perception maybe you know 150 or 200 years where we can see changes in technology over a decade. You know it would be a tremendous thing. It's the perception of change that I think has suddenly appeared on the planet. You know, and I think that the big one, there were three right in a row it was steam power, it was electricity and it was internal combustion. You had those three multiplier technologies Steam 18, no 1770s, 17,. You know it was fully developed probably right at the time of the American Revolution 1776. You had really, dependably, certain steam power right around then. You had to have that multiplier. You had to have that multiplier for there to be significant, frequent technological jumps. You had to have this. Before that, it was slavery. It was animals and slavery that got you, and that didn't change. Dean: Yeah, I mean because the steam. That's what really was. The next big revolution in the printing press was the steam powered printing Steam powered presses. Dan: Yeah, steam presses. Dean: That allowed the newspapers to really take off then yeah. Dan: Yeah, it's fascinating. Dean: You know that you have Charlotte in my who knows all of that. Dan: You better explain that, you better explain that. Dean: I think all of our for the new listeners. Well, there may be new people. There may be new people today. Dan: You know, yes, I don't want my reputation. Dean: That's so funny. Well, even that you know having an AI that we have named Charlotte, my chat GPT buddy, to be able to bounce these ideas off and she gets it. I mean, she sees the thing, ideas off and she gets it. I mean, she sees the thing. But you know, it's really what you said about the islands. You know the sea floor right, the bedrock, the level all the way down is where that is. And I think if you look at, even before Gutenberg, the platform that was built on, for there to be movable type, there had to be type, that had to be the alphabet, the alphabet had to be. And it's just amazing when you think about what would have been the distribution method and the agreement that this was the alphabet. This is what this, this is what we're all gonna do and these are the words. Dan: And I'm fascinated by that whole, that whole development, because all that, yeah, yeah, it's really interesting because, as far as we can tell, it's it's roughly about 3 000 years ago. The alphabet eastern mediterranean is basically, but where it really took on that we notice a historical impact is with the Greeks. Their alphabet and ours isn't all that different. I think it's got a few letters different using our set of ABC. It's like 80%, 80%, 85% similarity between that and the. Greek alphabet. And the other thing is did the culture, or did the country, if you will, that? Had it, did they have any other powers? I mean, were they military powers, were they? Maritime powers and the Greeks had it. The Greeks were, they had military power. They had, you know, they were you know they weren't an island, but they had a lot of ports to the Mediterranean. And did they have ideas to go along with the alphabet? Did they have significant, significant ideas? Powerful because they were that's where the spotlight was for new thinking about things at the same time that the alphabet appeared. So they could, you know, they could get this out to a lot of different people and but it's not. It's not very old in terms of time on the planet. Right when you think about the big picture, yeah, yeah, and you could see how the countries that the civilizations, countries, cultures that did not have the alphabet, how they didn't make the same kind of progress. Dean: Yeah, that's. Dan: I mean, it's really and then the Arabic numbering system was huge, where you had zero, you had nine, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and you had zero, and zero made all this. Nothing made all the difference in the world. Nothing made all the difference. Dean: oh, that's funny, I heard a comedian talking about the Greek salad. It was such a. It gave us so much so early. But really all we've gotten in the last few hundred years is the salad, the Greek salad they've kind of been resting on their laurels, you know. Dan: Yeah, don't forget souvlaki. Dean: Oh yes, souvlaki, Exactly. Dan: Souvlaki is a very big contribution to human progress. Dean: Uh-huh and baklava, Baklava yeah. Yes, that's so funny. I had an interesting thought the other day. I was talking with someone about where does this go? You start to see now the proliferation of AI being used in content creation poll. You know 82% of people don't trust any content that's created to be. You know whether it's authentic or whatever, or real compared to. Dan: AI created and yeah, of course I don't trust that poll. Dean: Right, exactly. Dan: None of that. How could you possibly get a poll? Dean: I know. Dan: I mean how you know your hundred closest friends. Dean: I mean, is that what I mean exactly? Dan: I think that whole thing 82 out of my hundred closest friends who's? Got a hundred close. Who's got a hundred closest friends? You know, like that yeah and you know I mean so. It's ridiculous. What we know is that it's pervasive and it's growing. Dean: Yes, that's true, I can tell. Dan: And you know I was really struck by it, like if I go back two years, let's say, you know the spring of 23. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And yeah, and I'm having my connector calls, especially with the raise owners, and you know so maybe there's 15 people on the call two years ago and maybe one of them is one of these lead scouts. He does things technological, you know, it could be Lior Weinstein or Chad Jenkins, like that, or Mike Koenigs might be Mike Koenigs, and of course they're into it and they're into it and they're making very confident predictions about where this is all going, and I go to three weeks ago, when I had two FreeZone podcasts day after each other, tuesday and Wednesday, and there might have been a combined 23 different people. A couple of people appeared twice, so 23 people and every one of them was involved in some way with AI. That had happened over a two-year period and there wasn't any, what I would say, wonder about this. There wasn't any sense. Of you know, this is amazing or anything. They're just talking about it as if it's a normal thing. So fundamental capability has gotten into the entrepreneurial marketplace and is now considered normal. Dean: Yeah, Just the way like yeah. And Wi-Fi is, you know, internet. We take that for granted. Yeah, I worry, though, that I think like, generationally, where does this head? I'm saying that it just seems like a proliferation of intellectual incest is where we're headed with that, that if all the new you know, generative ai are just regurgitating, assembling stuff that already exists, who's creating the new thoughts in there? Dan: you know, well you say you're worried I'm not worried. Dean: I don't, I mean you're not worried, I'm not worried, I'm just, you're like one of those people who says they're curious, but they actually don't care. I don't, I don't really care. You're right, they want to be seen as caring. Dan: You want to be seen as worrying. Dean: Yeah, thanks for calling me out. Dan: You're not worried at all. Dean: Yeah, that's it. I need you to keep me in check. Dan: Actually, you're luxuriating in your inequality. Dean: Yes, exactly Because I know I'm coming up with original ideas. That's right. Well, has it changed at all? No, I think that's the thing. I'm just observing it. I'm really starting to see. I think I mentioned years ago, probably when we first started the Joy of Procrastination podcast I read an article about the tyranny of convenience and I thought that was really interesting. Right, that convenience is kind of an unrated driver of things. We're like on the, you know, at the we're on the exponential curve of convenience now that there's very little need to do anything other than decide that's what you want, you know, and I think, riding on that level, I just see, like, where things are going now, like, if you think about it, the beginning of the 1900s we were, if you wanted to go anywhere, it was with a horse right. And we're at a situation now I've had it my the new tesla self-driving, they've got the full self-driving thing is, I was, I went to meet with Ilko in Vero Beach, which is about an hour and a half away, hour and 15 minutes away, and I pulled out of my driveway not even out of my driveway, I just pulled out of my garage and I said you know, navigate to the restaurant where we were meeting in Vero Beach, and then I, literally, dan, did not touch the wheel as we pulled into the restaurant All the way. The entire drive was done by Tesla and to me. You know, you see now that we're literally one step away from hopping in the backseat and just waking up when you get there, kind of thing. We're inches away from that now because functionally, it's already happening and I have 100% confidence in it. It's you, it's. It's an amazing advancement and I just think about every single thing, like you know, every possible thing that could be done for you is that's where we're moving towards. Do you know, dan Martell? Have you met dan? Dan: no, I heard his name, so he's a really cool guy. Dean: He wrote a book recently called buy back your time, but his, you know, he's made his name with sas companies, he had a sas academy and he's a investor and creates that. But he said the modern, the new modern definition is, you know, instead of software as a service, it's we're moving into success as a service, that it's delivering the result to people, as opposed to the tool that you can use to create the result. And I think that's where we're going with AI more than I don't think people learn how to use the tool as much as people organizing the tool to deliver popular results that people are going to want. And I think that that's really what you know. Electricity, if you go all the way back, like if you think about that's probably on the magnitude of the impact, right, but even way beyond that. But if you think about it, wasn't just electricity, it was what that capability, the capability of electricity, opened up, the possibility for the ability to have constant refrigeration. You know some of the application of that core capability and lighting, and lighting exactly. Dan: Lighting, lighting, yeah. Dean: So I think that's where we're yeah, looking back you know you know. Dan: The thing that strikes me, though, is it all depends on the aspirations of the individual who has these things available and my sense is, I don't see any increase, relatively speaking, in people's aspiration you don't see any increase in people's aspiration. I don't think people are any more ambitious now than when I started coaching, so they have I'll just quote you back a distinction which you made, which I think is an incredibly important distinction the ability, the difference between an ability and a capability. People have enormous capability, exponential capability, but I don't see their abilities getting any better. Right, I agree. Yes. So it doesn't mean that everybody can do anything. Actually only a very small few of people can do anything yeah. And so I think people's ability to be in the gap has gone up exponentially because they're not taking advantage of the capabilities that are there. So they feel actually, as things improve, they're getting worse. That's why the drug addiction is so high. Drug addiction is so high and addiction is so high is that people have a profound sense that, even though the world around them is getting better, they're not. Dean: Yeah, I just thought. As you're saying, all that you know is thinking about that capability and ability. That's a profound distinction. I think so, yeah. Dan: But also the the thing I'll write it down, and I'll write it down and send to you to know that. Dean: I'm serious about it, okay, but the thing people's desire for the things that ability can provide, you know, is I think there's a opportunity there in if you have the capability to, if you have the ability to apply a capability to get somebody a result that they want and value without having to go and develop the ability to create it, I think there's an opportunity there. That's kind of along the lines of that success as a service. Dan: No on an individual basis yes. But nothing's changed between the inequality of certain individuals and other individuals. Dean: Nothing's changed there. No, I think you're right, it's still distribution. Dan: Except that I think people are feeling it's still distribution, Except that the people who I think people are feeling more unequal. Dean: Yeah, yeah, but the ability to and I think AI gives people, you know, the ability to do create content at scale that they wouldn't have the ability to do otherwise. You know, even though it's mediocre, I think that's really the thing we're going to be able to have a, you know, an onslaught of no, I think it magnifies who you are to begin with. Dan: If you're mediocre, I think you get exponential mediocrity I guess. Dean: Thank you, I don't think. Dan: I don't think it takes a poor writer and makes them into a great writer. No, it does not. Dean: That's what I'm saying. Dan: Because they don't have the discernment between what's good writing and bad writing to start with. Well, how would they know when to get the AI back? I mean grammatically, I mean if they're bad at grammar, correct spelling, but that's not meaning, that doesn't have anything to do with meaning. So, yeah, so you know, I'm noticing. I mean I've normalized it already. I mean I put everything through perplexity. I read a whole paragraph and I run it through and then I'll add context to it, I'll add dimensions to it and I think but I'm the one coming up with the prompts, I doing the prompts, it's not prompting. It doesn't prompt me at all right you know, yeah, it doesn't impress me. Till the day I start in the morning, says Dan, while you were sleeping, while you were having, you know, reading and everything else. I've been doing some thinking on your behalf and I've thought this through. Now I'm impressed. Dean: I wonder how far we are away from that. Dan: I mean infinity away, uh-huh right, because that's not what it does. That's what we do. Yeah, yeah. Where do you think the desire comes from? Where do you think the desire because I see it almost as a desire is that we're completely replaceable? Where do you think that desire comes from? Dean: The desire for that people have. I think if you go down to the that technology can completely replace me. Dan: I mean, it seems to me to be an odd aspiration. Dean: I wonder what the I heard. I saw somebody let me see if I get the words right saying that I don't want to. I don't want AI to create art and writing so that I can do the dishes. I want AI to do the dishes and cook so that I can create art and music. Which is so yeah, I mean, when you look at the fundamental things like why does anybody do anything? What drives desire? I think, if you go back to the core thing, like the life that we live right now is so far removed from the life of ancestors. You know, in terms of the daily, you know, if you just look at what even going to Maslow's needs right of the if everybody we want to have a nice house, we want to have a car to drive around in, we want to have food, meals that are plentiful and delicious, and money to do the things that we want to do, but I think that most people would be content with those things. I think it's a very rarefied exception of people that are ambitious beyond their comfort requirements. Like you look at, why does somebody who you know you look at those things that once somebody reaches economic freedom kind of thing or whatever, it's very it's not uncommon that the people who don't need to continue doing stuff continue to do stuff. You know that can, like you're baked in ambition and I think score right if you look at the things that you're beyond, you don't need that at 80. Dan: I like being fully occupied with meaningful work. Dean: Right. Dan: In other words, I like working, I really do like working. Yeah, and there's no difference between the amount of time working at age. I am 80, almost 81. Dean: Yeah. Dan: At age. I am 80, almost 81. And there's no difference between the amount of hours. If you measure me by a day a week, there's no difference in the number of hours that I'm working which qualifies under work. You know it's a focus day kind of work. There's no difference now than when I was 50. How I'm going about it is very different. What I'm surrounded by in terms of other capabilities, other people's capabilities, is very different. I'm surrounded with it by. Technology is very different, okay, but it's still the same. I have sort of a measure of quality. You know that the work is. I like doing the work I'm good at. The work is meaningful. I like doing the work I'm good at. The work is meaningful, I find the work energizing, I find the work rewarding stays exactly the same and that's what I'm always. So when ai comes along, I said does it affect the amount of meaningful work that I do? And so far it hasn't changed anything and it's actually increased it. It's like I would say it. Actually I find and I can just measure it in projects that I'll start and continue work through until the project is completed. It's gone up considerably since I've had perplexity yeah, oh, that's interesting. Dean: So what would you say, like, what are the top few ways that you like? Integrate perplexity to an advantage like that for you, then? Because? Dan: you're basically, you're an observer of what you know and you're thinking about your thinking that hiring with Jeff Madoff and Jeff is working on the part of the book that involves interviews with people in show business and people who really understand the concept of casting rather than hiring, and the people who've built their businesses on a theater approach. So Jeff's doing that and we have our team supporting him. They're setting up the interviews, we're recording the interviews and we're putting them into print form for him. But the interesting thing about it is that I'm just working on the tool part of the book, the four-by-four casting tool, which is actually going to be five chapters. It's actually five chapters of the book Because the entire psychology of having people create their own roles inside your company is the essence of what casting, not hiring, really means is that you're not giving people job descriptions. You're what a completed project looks like, what a completed process looks like and everything else, but how they go about it they create for themselves. They actually create it. So they're not automatons. We're not creating robots here. We're creating people and we want them to be alert, curious, responsive and resourceful. What does? that mean we want things to happen faster, easier, bigger and better. What does that mean? We want them to create projects with a sense of commitment, courage and capability and confidence. So we're laying this out, so it's like a human being's brain manual, basically, as we're putting together that when you're involved in teamwork, what it looks like like. So what I'll do is I'll write a paragraph on my own time, just on word. I write in maybe a hundred word paragraph and what's going to be the context of this, and then I'll immediately go to perplexity and I said now I want you to take the this hundred word paragraph and I want you to come. I want you to divide it into three 50 word paragraphs and stressing these, and have one distinct idea for each paragraph. But I want the meaning of the three paragraphs to integrate with each other and reinforce each other. But there's a distinctly new thought. So I just give it all directions, I press the button and out it comes. So I said okay now looking at the essence of each of the three paragraphs, I'd like you to give each one of them a really great punchy subhead thing. I got my subheads, but I'm really engaged with, I'm sort of in real teamwork. I'm teamwork with this other intelligence and that feels yeah, really terrific, that feels really terrific. Dean: That feels really terrific, that's great. So you're using it to, you're the. You know I heard somebody talk about that the 10, 80, 10 situation where you're the beginning 10% of something, then let it create, expand that, create the 80%, and then you're the final 10 on weaving, yeah, together and except I would have about five, ten, eighty tens for the complete right. Dan: You know, yeah, and, like in perplexity, you just have the ask me line. I'll go through five or six of those and right in the course of producing what I you know, and I end up totally. I'll probably end up with about 200 words and you know it's broken down and some of them are bullet points and some of them are main paragraphs and everything, but I enjoy that. And then at the end I say now rewrite all of this in the concise, factual, axiomatic style of strategic coach Dan Sullivan. Use a maximum of Anglo-Saxon words, a maximum of active passive verbs, everything in the second person singular. You voice Helvetica and then Helvetica, please, Helvetica new standard Helvetica. Dean: New standard Exactly yes so funny, right, yeah I love that. Dan: But here's the thing, the whole question, I think, in all human experience, when you experience something new, how long is it that before amazing becomes normal and expected? Dean: yeah, yeah, and not long, no, not long. Once we get the hang of something, I think what you've had three expectations that's a good way to think about it. Actually, the way you're using it is very that's very useful yeah, and I don't keep my prompts either. Dan: I don't keep my prompts because then I'm becoming a bit of an automaton, right? So every time I start I go through the prompt, you know. And you know, I kind of have it in my head what the prompts are, but I want to see each time. Maybe I'll make a change this time and I don't want to cut myself out from the change, right, yeah, but my sense is that you went back and you could actually observe yourself learning the alphabet, you know first grade for me or learning the numbering system first grade for me. I bet the Dan who's going through this AI experience at 80 isn't much different from the. Dan at six years old, going through learning how to read and write and doing arithmetic. I bet I'm following pretty much the same pattern and that's a capability, that's a yeah, that is a really capability. Dean: Isn't that funny. It's like I remember I still remember like vividly being in kindergarten in january of 1972 and learning that something happened over the Christmas break there that we switched to, we had a new year and now it's not 1971, it's 1972. I remember just. I'm just. It's so funny how that made such an impression on me that now I knew something new. You know this is. Dan: I don't, you know how you just have total unawareness of something. Dean: And then all of a sudden now I know it's 1972, I know my place in time here yeah, yeah, I used to, I, when I was coaching. Dan: You know the first year of strategic coach program and I would talk about how long things took to get a result. You know. Dean: Yeah. Dan: So I said you know you know. I said the big difference that you're going to find being a coach is that you're essentially you're going from a time and effort economy to get a result just getting a result and shortening the amount of time it takes you to get a result. I said that's the big change that's going to take in the program. And I said, for example, I've noticed because I had a lot of really top life insurance agents in the program in the 1970s and 1980s insurance agents in the program in the 1970s and 1980s and they would talk about the big cases. You know the big cases, you know where they would get paid in those days. They get paid $100,000 for life insurance policy and they say you know those big cases, they can take two or three years. You know, take two or three years before them. And I said, actually, I said they were instantaneous. Actually, you got the sale instantaneously. And they said well, what do you mean? No, I put two. No, I said it took two or three years not getting Getting the case was actually instantaneous. It's just that you spend a lot of time not getting the case. What? if you just eliminated the amount of time not getting the case. What if you just eliminated the amount of time not getting the case and just got the case? Then the results would be instantaneous. I think that's really what we're after. Dean: Yes, I agree. I was just talking with somebody about that today. I didn't use those words, but the way you describe it is. You know that people spend a long time talking about realtors in specific. You know that they're getting the listing happens right away, but they do spend a lot of time not getting the listing here. Dan: Yeah, yeah, I remember. First I think it was certainly in the first five years I had a guy from Alberta who was apparently the top residential real estate. You know he was the top agent for the year. He had 240 sales in one year. And people say how does he do that? You can't do that number of presentations in a year, you just can't do that. I said, well, he doesn't do any presentations, he's got trained actors who do presentations. Right, he said a lot of actors spend 90% of their career unemployed. They've got to be waiters or they've got to do this and that. And he just found really great presenters who put on a great theatrical performance and they would do five or six of five or six of them a day, and he had a limousine driver. He had a limousine service that picked them up he would even have the limousine pick up the people to come for the presentation and they said yeah, but look at the cost. I said what cost? what cost indeed, but there you find the divide line between a mediocre person is the cost. He didn't think it was the cost at all. It was just an investment in him not doing presentations. And then he had an accountant who did all the you know he had a trained accountant who did all the. You know the paperwork. Dean: Yes, yeah, I think that's amazing Duplicating. Somebody has the capability to do a presentation, an actor. They're armed with the right script. They have the ability now to further somebody's goal. I meant to mention Dan. You've got a big day in Ohio this weekend. You got Shadur Sanders, went to the Browns in the NFL draft. Dan: I think they've made some bad moves, but I think that one's going to turn out to be one of their good ones. Dean: Yeah, I think so too. Dan: Especially for the coach he's getting. If you're a pocket quarterback, you do Stefanski, you know. I mean, yeah, he's a good coach. Dean: I forget whether are you a Browns or Bengals. Bengals. Cincinnati they're part of the Confederacy. Dan: They're part of the Confederacy, you know we don't yeah. They're a little bit too south. You know Cleveland. Actually, the first game I ever saw was with Jim Brown breaking the rushing record. His rookie year he broke one game rushing record. That was the first year. Dean: I ever saw a game. Dan: Yeah and yeah, yeah. It's in the blood, can't get rid of it. You know everything. Dean: Yeah, but anyway, but I rid of it, you know everything. Dan: Yeah, but anyway. But I think this is. You know we're zeroing in on something neat here. It's not getting anything you want. It's the result you want. How long does it take you to get it? I think that's really the issue. Dean: Yeah, yeah and people are vastly different in terms of the results that they were but I think that there's a difference too, that you mentioned that there's a lot of room for the gap, and I think there's a big gap between people's desires and what they're able to actually achieve. You know that I think people would love to have six-pack abs if they didn't have to go through the work of getting them. You know if there's a bypass to that, if you could just have somebody else do the sit-ups and you get the six-pack. That's what I think that AI and I mean the new, that amplified kind of capability multiplier is, but it requires vision to attach to it. It's almost like the software, yeah. Dan: Yeah, Meaning, making meaning, actually creating meaning. One of my quarterly books was you Are Not a Computer you know where. I just argue against the case that the human brain is just an information processor and therefore machines that can process information faster than human beings, then they're smarter. Dean: And. Dan: I said, if human beings were information processors. Actually I don't think we're very good information processors from the standpoint of accuracy and efficiency. I think we're terrible. Actually, I think we're terrible. We want to change things like repeat this sentence. It's got 10 words in it. We get about two words, seven or eight. We said yeah, I think I'm gonna go change one of the words right, you know very easy see what happens here, and I think what we're looking for is new, interesting combinations of experiences. I think we really like that. I think we like putting things together in a new way that gives us a little, gives us a little jolt of dopamine. Dean: I think that's true. That's like music, you know. It's like every. All the notes have already been created, but yet we still make new songs, some combination of the same eight notes in an octave, you know, yeah I think it would be. Dan: Uh, what was that song for that celine dion's name from the titanic? You know they were. The two lovers were in front of the boat and then yes, the wind blowing them in there. Seeing the sun interesting song the first time you heard it. But you're in a cell by yourself and there it plays every three minutes, 24 hours a day. You'd hang yourself. Dean: Absolutely yeah. Dan: That's the truth. Yeah, what'd you get? What's a pickup from the day. Dean: I like your approach of you know, of using the way you're using perplexity. I think that's a big planting for me to think about over the next week. Here is this using capabilities to create an ability bypass for people that they don't need to have the ability to get the result that they want. You know, because that's kind of the thing, even though people they would have the capability to create a result but they don't have an ability, comes in many different ways. You know, I think that the technical know-how, the creative ability, the executive function, the discipline, the patience, all those things are application things and if we can bypass all of that, I the that kind of blends with this idea of results but it's being in the process of constantly being in the action and the activity of making something faster and easier. Dan: I don't think. I think it's the activity of making things easier and faster, and bigger and better. I think that's what we love. We love that experience of doing that. And once we've done it once, we're not too interested in doing it the next time. Dean: We're looking for something else to do it with, I think who, not how, fits in that way right of doing you see what, you see what you want, and not having that awareness, even your, you know your checklist of can I get this without doing anything? Yeah, you know, or what's the least that I mean and the answer is never. Dan: No, right, almost never. Dean: Never, yes, right. Dan: Yeah, what happens is I identify just the one thing I have to do. I just have to do this one thing. Then the next question is what's the least I can do to get it? And I say this one thing Can I get it faster or easier? Okay, and then the third thing is then who's somebody else who can do that faster, easier thing for you? And then you're on to the next thing. But I think it's a continual activity. It isn't. It's never a being there you know, because then you're in the gap that's right yeah, yeah, anyway, always delightful dan another, uh, one hour of sunday morning well spent. Dean: Yeah, absolutely that's exactly right, always enjoyable. Are we on next week? Dan: yes, I believe yes, we are perfect, all right, okay here, okay, thank you thanks dan bye okay, bye.
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Apr 9, 2025 • 50min

Ep152: Exploring Time Zones and Trade

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we start by unraveling the intriguing concept of global time zones. We humorously ponder the idea of a unified world clock, inspired by China's singular time zone. The discussion expands to how people in countries like Iceland adapt to extreme daylight variations and the impact of climate change narratives that often overlook local experiences. We then explore the power of perception and emotion in shaping our reactions to world events. The conversation delves into how algorithms on platforms shape personal experiences and the choice to opt out of traditional media in favor of a more tailored information stream. The shift from curated media landscapes to algorithm-driven platforms is another key topic, highlighting the challenges of navigating personalized information environments. Finally, we tackle the critical issue of government financial accountability. We humorously consider where vast sums of unaccounted-for money might go, reflecting on the importance of financial transparency. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS In the episode, Dan and I explore the concept of a unified global time zone, drawing inspiration from China's singular time zone. We discuss the potential advantages and disadvantages of such a system, including the adaptability of people living in areas with extreme daylight variations like Iceland. We delve into the complexities of climate change narratives, highlighting how they often lack local context and focus on global measurements, which can lead to stress and anxiety due to information overload without agency. The power of perception and emotion is a focal point, as we discuss how reactions are often influenced by personal feelings and past experiences rather than actual events. This is compared to the idealization of celebrities through curated information. Our conversation examines the shift from curated media landscapes to algorithm-driven platforms, emphasizing how algorithms shape personal experiences and the challenges of researching topics like tariffs in a personalized information environment. We discuss the dynamic between vision and capability in innovation, using historical examples like Gutenberg's printing press to illustrate how existing capabilities can spark visionary ideas. The episode explores the complexities of international trade, particularly the shift from tangible products to intangible services, and the challenges of tracking these shifts across borders. We address the issue of government financial accountability, referencing the $1.2 trillion unaccounted for last year, and the need for financial transparency and accountability in the current era. 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, and I forgot my time zones there almost for a second. Are you in Chicago? Yeah, you know. Why can't we just all be in the same time zone? Dean: Well. Dan: I know that's what China does. Yeah, Well, that's a reason not to do it. Then you know, I learned that little tidbit from we publish something and it's a reason not to do it. Dean: then that was. You know I learned that little tidbit from. We publish something and it's a postcard for, you know, realtors and financial advisors or business owners to send to their clients as a monthly kind of postcard newsletter, and so every month it has all kinds of interesting facts and whatnot, and one of them that I heard on there is, even though China should have six time zones, they only have one. That's kind of an interesting thing. Imagine if the. United States had all one time zone, that would be great. Dan: Yeah, I think there would be advantages and disadvantages, regardless of what your time system is. Dean: Well, that'd be like anything really, you know, think about that. In California it would get light super early and we'd be off a good dock really early too we'd be off and get docked really early too. Yeah, I spent a couple of summers in Iceland, where it gets 24 hours of light. Dan: You know June 20th and it's. I mean, it's disruptive if you're just arriving there, but I talked to Icelanders and they don't really think about it. It's, you know, part of the year it's completely light all day and part of the year it's dark all day. And then they've adjusted to it. Dean: It happens in Finland and Norway and Alaska. We're adaptable, dan, we're very adaptable. Dan: And those that aren't move away or die. Dean: I heard somebody was talking today about. It was a video that I saw online. They were mentioning climate change, global warming, and that they say that global warming is the measurement is against what? Since when? Is the question to ask, because the things that they're talking about are since 1850, right, it's warmed by 0.6 degrees Celsius since 1850. We've had three periods of warming and since you know, the medieval warming and the Roman warming, we're actually down by five degrees. So it's like such a so when somebody says that we're global warming, the temperature is global warming and the question is since when? That's the real question to ask. Dan: Yeah, I think with those who are alarmist regarding temperature and climate. They have two big problems. They're language problems, Not so much language, but contextual problems. Nobody experiences global. That's exactly right. The other thing is nobody experiences climate. What we experience is local weather. Dean: Yes. Dan: Yeah, so nobody in the world has ever experienced either global or climate. You just experience whatever the weather is within a mile of you you know within a mile of you. That's basically and it's hard to it's hard to sell a theory. Dean: That, you know. That ties in with kind of the idea we were talking about last week that the you know, our brains are not equipped, we're not supposed to have omniscience or know of all of the things that are happening all over the world, of all of the things that are happening all over the world, where only our brains are built to, you know, be aware of and adapt to what's happening in our own proximity and with the people in our world. Our top 150 and yeah, that's what that's the rap thing is that we're, you know, we're having access to everybody and everything at a rate that we're not access to everybody and everything at a rate that we're not supposed to Like. Even when you look back at you know, I've thought about this, like since the internet, if you think about since the 90s, like you know, my growing up, my whole lens on the world was really a, you know, toronto, the GTA lens and being part of Canada. That was really most of our outlook. And then, because of our proximity to the United States, of course we had access to all the US programming and all that stuff, but you know, you mostly hear it was all the local Buffalo programming. That was. They always used to lead off with. There was a lot of fires in Tonawanda, it seemed happening in Buffalo, because everything was fire in North Tonawanda. It still met 11. And that was whole thing. We were either listening to the CBC or listening to eyewitness news in Buffalo, yeah. But now, and you had to seek out to know what was going on in Chicago, the only time you would have a massive scale was happening in Chicago. Right, that made national news the tippy top of the thing. Dan: Yeah, I wonder if you said an interesting thing is that we have access to everyone and everything, but we never do it. Dean: It's true we have access to the knowledge right Like it's part of you know how, when you I was thinking about it, as you know how you define a mess right as an obligation without commitment that there's some kind of information mess that we have is knowledge without agency? You know we have is knowledge without agency. You know we have no agency to do anything about any of these bad things that are happening. No, it's out of our control. You know what are we going to do about what's happening in Ukraine or Gaza or what we know about them? You know, or we know, everybody's getting stabbed in London and you know you just hear you get all these things that fire off these anxiety things triggers. It's actually in our mind, yeah that's exactly right, that our minds with access to that. That triggers off the hormone or the chemical responses you know that fire up the fight or flight or the anxiety or readiness. Dan: Yeah, it's really interesting. I've been giving some thought to well, first of all, the perception of danger in the world, and what we're responding to is not actual events. What we're responding to is our feelings. Yes, that's exactly right, yeah. You've just had an emotional change and you're actually responding to your own emotions, which really aren't that connected to what actually triggered your emotions. You know it might have been something that happened to you maybe 25 years ago. That was scary and that memory just got triggered by an event in the world. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah, and the same thing with celebrity. Celebrity because I've been thinking about celebrity for quite a long time and you know, each of us you and I, to a certain extent are a celebrity in certain circles, and what I think is responsible for that is that they've read something or heard something or heard somebody say something that has created an image of someone in their mind, but it's at a distance, they don't actually meet you at a distance. And the more that's reinforced, but you never meet them the image of that person gets bigger and bigger in your mind. But you're not responding to the person. You're responding just to something that you created in your mind. Dean: I think part of that is because you know if you see somebody on video or you hear somebody on audio or you see them written about in text, that those are. It's kind of residue from you know it used to be the only people that would get written about or on tv or on the radio were no famous people yeah, famous, and so that's kind of it. I think that the same yeah, everybody has access to that. Now Everybody has reach. You know to be to the meritocracy of that because it used to be curated, right that there was some, there were only, so somebody was making the decision on who got to be famous. Like that's why people used to really want to own media. Like that's why people used to really want to own media. That's why all these powerful people wanted to own newspapers and television and radio stations, because they could control the messaging, control the media. You know? Dan: Yeah, it's really interesting. Is it you that has the reach, or someone else has reach that's impacting you? Dean: Yeah, I mean I think that we all have it depends on whether you're on the sending end or the receiving end of reach. Yeah, like we've seen a shift in what happens, like even in the evolution of our ability to be able to consume. It started with our ability to consume content, like with all of those you know, with MP3s and videos, and you know, then YouTube was really the chance for everybody to post up. You know you could distribute, you had access to reach, and in the last 10 years, the shift has been that you had to in order to have reach, you had to get followers right. That were people would subscribe to your content or, you know, like your content on Facebook or be your friend or follower, and now we've shifted to every. That doesn't really matter. Everything is algorithmic now. It's like you don't have to go out and spread the word and gather people to you. Your content is being pushed to people. That's how Stephen Paltrow can become, can reach millions of people, because his content is scratching an itch for millions of people who are, you know, seeking out fertility content, content, and that is being pushed to you. Now, that's why you're it's all algorithm based, you know, and it's so. It's really interesting that it becomes this echo chamber, that you get more of what you respond to. So you know you're get it. So it's amazing how every person's algorithm is very different, like what shows up on on things, and that's kind of what you've really, you know, avoided is you've removed yourself from that. You choose not to participate, so you're the 100%. Seek out what you're looking for. It's not being dictated to you. Dan: Not quite understanding that. Dean: Well you have chosen that you don't watch news. You don't participate in social media. You don't have an Instagram or anything like that where they're observing what you're watching and then dictating what you see next. You are an active like. You go select what you're going to watch. Now you've chosen real clear politics as your curator of things, so that's the jump. Dan: Peter Zion. Dean: But you're self-directing your things by asking. You're probably being introduced to things by the way. You interact with perplexity by asking it 10 ways. This is affecting this or the combination of this and this. Dan: Yeah, I really don't care what perplexity, you know what it would want to tell me about. Dean: You just want to ask, you want to guide the way it responds. Yeah yeah, and that's very it's very powerful. Dan: It's very powerful. I mean, I'm just utterly pleased with what perplexity does for me. You know like you know, I just considered it. You know an additional capability that I have daily, that you know I can be informed in a way that suits me, like I was going over the tariffs. It was a little interesting on the tariff side because I asked a series of questions and it seemed to be avoiding what I was getting at. This is the first time I've really had that. So I said yeah, and I was asking about Canada and I said what tariffs did Canada have against the United States? I guess you can say against tariff, against before 2025. And it said there were no retaliatory tariffs against the United States before 2025. And I said I didn't ask about retaliatory tariffs, I asked about tariffs, you know. And that said, well, there were no reciprocal tariffs before 2025. And I said, no, I want to know what tariffs. And then this said there was softwood and there was dairy products, and you know. I finally got to it. I finally got to it and I haven't really thought about it, because it was just about an hour ago that I did it and I said why did it avoid my question? I didn't. I mean, it's really good at knowing exactly what you're saying. Why did it throw a couple of other things in there? Dean: Yeah, misdirection, right, or kind of. Maybe it's because what, maybe it's because it's the temperature. You know of what the zeitgeist is saying. What are people searching about? And I think maybe those, a lot of the words that they're saying, are. You know, the words are really important. Dan: Not having a modifier for a tariff puts you in a completely different, and those tariffs have been in place for 50 or 60 years. So the interesting thing about it. By the way, 50 countries are now negotiating with the United States to remove tariffs how interesting. And he announced it on Wednesday. Dean: Yeah. Dan: He just wanted to have a conversation with you and wanted to get your attention. Dean: Yeah, wanted to get your attention. Yeah, have your attention, yeah, okay, let's talk about this. Dan: Yeah and everything. But other than that, I'm just utterly pleased with what it can do to fashion your thoughts, fashion your writing and everything else. I think it's a terrific tool. Dean: I've been having a lot of conversations around these bots. Like you know, people are hot on creating bots now like a Dan bot. Creating bots now like a Dan bot. Like oh Dan, you could say you've got so many podcasts and so much content and so many recordings of you, let's put it all in and train up Dan bot and then people could ask they'd have access to you as an AI. Dan: Yeah, the way I do it. I ask them to send me a check and then they could. Dean: But I wonder the thing about it that most of the things that I think are the limitations of that are that it's not how to even take advantage of that, because they don't know what you know to be able to, of that. Because they're bringing it, they don't know what you know to be able to access that you know and how it affects them you know. I first I got that sense when somebody came. They were very excited that they had trained up a Napoleon Hill bot and AI and you can ask Napoleon anything and I thought, thought you know, but people don't know what to ask. I'd rather have Napoleon ask me questions and coach me. You know like I think that would be much more useful is to have Napoleon Hill kind of ask me questions, engage where I am and then make you know, then feed me his thinking about that. If the goal is to facilitate change, you know, or to give people an advantage, I don't know. It just seems like we're very limited. Dan: I mean, you know, my attitude is to increase the engagement with people I'm already engaged with. Yeah, like I don't feel I'm missing anyone, you know? I never feel like I'm missing someone in the world you know, or somehow my life is deficient because I'm not talking to 10 times more people that I'm talking to now, because I'm not really missing anything. I'm fully engaged. I mean, eight different podcast series is about the maximum that I can do, so I don't really need any. But to increase the engagement of the podcast, that would be a goal, because it's available. I don't. I don't wish for things, that is, that aren't accessible you know, and it's very interesting. I was going to talk to you about this subject, but more and more I've got a new tool that I put together. I don't think you have vision before you have capability. Okay, say more Now. What I mean by that is think of a situation where you suddenly thought hey, I can do this new thing. And you do the new thing and satisfy yourself that it's new and it's useful, and then all of a sudden your brain says, hey, with this new thing, you can do this, you can do this, you can do this, do this, you can do this, you can do this. And my sense is the vision of that you can do this is only created because you have the capability. Dean: It's the chicken and the egg. Dan: Yeah, but usually the chicken is nearby. In other words, it's something you can do today, you can do tomorrow, but the vision can be yours out. You know the vision, and my sense is that capabilities are more readily available than vision. Okay, and I'm making a distinction here, I'm not seeing the capability as a vision, I'm seeing that as just something that's in a very short timeframe, maybe a day, two days, you know, maximum I would say is 90 days and you achieve that. You start the quarter. You don't have the capability. You end the quarter you have the capability. Dean: And once you have that capability. Dan: all of a sudden, you can see a year out, you can see five years out. Dean: I bet that's true because it's repeatable, maybe out. Dan: I bet that's true because it's repeatable, maybe, so my sense is that focusing on capability automatically brings vision with it. Dean: Would you say that a capability? Let's go all the way back to Gutenberg, for instance. Gutenberg created movable type right and a printing press that allowed you to bypass the whole scribing. You know, economy or the ecosystem right, all these scribes that were making handwritten copies of things. So you had had a capability, then you could call that right. Dan: Well, what it bypassed was wood printing, where you had to carve the letters on a big flat sheet of wood and it was used just for one page containers and you could rearrange the letters in it and that's one page, and then you take the letters out and you rearrange another page. I think what he did, he didn't bypass the, he didn't bypass the. Well, he bypassed writing, basically you know because the monks were doing the writing, scribing, inscribing, so that bypassed. But what he bypassed was the laborious process of printing, because printing already existed. It's just that it was done with wood prints. You had to carve it. You had to have the carvers. The carvers were very angry at Gutenberg. They had protests, they had protests. They closed down the local universities. Protests against this guy, gutenberg, who put all the carvers out of work. Yeah, yeah, so, yeah. Dean: So then you have this capability and all of a sudden, europe goes crazy take vision and our, you know, newly defined progression of vision from a proposition to proof, to protocol, to property, that, if this was anything, any capability I believe has to start out with a vision, with a proposition. Hey, I bet that I could make cast letters that we could replace carving. That would be a proposition first, before it's a capability, right. So that would have to. I think you'd have to say that it all, it has, has to start with a vision. But I think that a vision is a good. I mean capabilities are a good, you know a good catalyst for vision, thinking about these things, how to improve them, what else does this, all the questions that come with a new capability, are really vision. They're all sparked by vision, right? Yeah, because what would Gutenberg? The progress that Gutenberg have to make is a proposition of. I bet I could cast individual letters, set up a little template, arrange them and then duplicate another page, use it, have it reusable. So let's get to work on that. Dan: And then he proved. Dean: The first time he printed a page he proved that, yeah, that does work. And then he sets up the protocol for it. Here's how we'll do it. Here's how. Here's the way we make these. Here's the molds for all these letters. He's created the protocol to create this printing press, the, the press, the printing press, and has it now as a capability that's available yeah well, we don't know that at all. Dan: We don't know whether he first of all. We have no knowledge of gutenberg, except that he created the first movable type printing press. Dean: Somebody had to have that. It had to start with the vision of it, the idea. It didn't just come fully formed right. Somebody had to have the proposition. Dan: Yeah, yeah, we don't know. We don't know how it happened. He know he's a goldsmith, I mean, that was so. He was used to melding metals and putting them into forms and you know, probably somebody asked him can you make somebody's name? Can you print out? You know, can you print a, d, e, a and then N for me? And he did that and you know, at some point he said oh, oh, what if I do it with lead? What if? I do it with yeah, because gold is too soft, it won't stand up. But right, he did it with lead. Maybe he died of lead poisoning really fast, huh yeah, that's funny, we don't know, yeah, yeah, I think the steel, you know iron came in. You know they melted iron and everything like that, but we don't know much about it. But I'll tell you the jump that I would say is the vision is that Martin Luther discovers printing and he says you know, we can bypass all the you know, control of information that the Catholic Church has. Now that's a vision. That's a vision Okay. That's a vision, okay, but I don't think Gutenberg had that. I mean, he doesn't play? Dean: Definitely yeah, yeah, I know I think that any yeah, jumping off the platform of a capability. You know what my thought is in terms of the working genius model, that that's the distinction between wonder and invention. That wonder would be wonder what else we could do with this, or how we could improve this, or what this opens up for us. And invention might be the other side of creating something that doesn't exist. Dan: I mean, if you go back to our London, you know our London encounter, where we each committed ourselves to writing a book in a week. Dean: Yes. Dan: You did that, I did that. And then my pushing the idea was that I could do 100 books in 100 quarters. Dean: Yeah, exactly. Dan: Yeah, I mean, that's where it came from. I says, oh, you can create a book really fast to do that. And then I just put a bigger number and so I stayed within the capability. I just multiplied the number of times that I was going to do the capability. So is that a vision, or is that? What is that? Is that a vision? A hundred books, well, not just a capability right. Dean: I think that the fact that you, we both had a proposition write a book and we both then set up the protocols for that, you set up your team and your process and now you've got that formula. So you have a capability called a book, a quarter for 25 years you know that's definitely in the, that that's a capability. Now it's an asset your team, the way that you do it, the formatting, the everything about it. But the vision you have to apply a vision to that capability. Hamish isn't going to sit there and create cartoons out of nothing. Create cartoons out of nothing. You've got to give the idea. The vision is I bet I could write a book on casting, not hiring, how I'm planning on living to 156. So you've got your applying vision against that capability, yeah. Dan: It's interesting because I don't go too far out of the realm of my capabilities when I project into the future. Yeah, so, for example, we did the three books with Ben Hardy, you know and great success, great success. And then we were going further and Hay House, the publisher, started to call us, you know, after we had written our last book in 23, around the beginning of 20, usually six months after. They want to know is there another book coming? Because they're filling up their forward schedule and they do about 90 books and they do about 90 books a year. And so they want to know do we have another one from you? And we said no not really. But then when I did Casting Not Hiring as a small book, and I did Casting Not Hiring as a small book to write a small book, in other words, I'd committed myself to 100 books and this was number 38. I think this was in the 38th quarter. And then Jeff Madoff and I were talking and I said you know, I think this Hay House keeps asking us for another book. I think this is probably it and we sent it to them. I think it was on a Thursday. We had a meeting with them the next Wednesday, which is really fast. It's like six days later I get a meeting and they love it, and about two weeks later the go-ahead came from the publisher that we were going to go with that book. Two weeks later, the go-ahead came from the publisher that we were going to go with that book. And so I've developed another capability that if you write a small book, it's easy to get a big book. Yeah. So that's where the capabilities develop now. Now when I'm writing a new quarterly book, I'm saying is this a big book? Is this a big book? Is this the yeah? Dean: well, I would argue that you know that you've established a reach relationship with Hay House. Dan: Yeah, yeah, because they're a big multiplier. Dean: That's exactly right. So you've got the vision of I want to do a book on casting, not hiring. I have the capability already in place to do the little book and now you've established a reach partnership with Hay House that they're the multiplier in all of this right Vision plus capability, multiplied by reach. And so those relationships that you know, those relationships that you have, are definitely a reach asset that you have because you've established that you know and you're a known quantity to them. You know. Dan: Yeah, well, they are now with the. You know the success of the first three books, yeah, but it's really interesting because I I don't push my mind too much further than that which I can. Actually, you know, like now I'm working on the big book with jeff jeff nettoff and with the first draft, complete draft, to be in a 26, and we're on schedule. We're on schedule for that. You know. So you know. But I don't have any aspirations. You know you drop this as a sentence. You know you want to change things. I actually don't want to change things. I just want to continue doing what I'm doing but have it more productive and more profitable. Is that a vision? I guess that's a vision. Dean: Yeah, I mean that's certainly, certainly. I think that part of this is that staying in your unique ability right, you're not fretting about what the you've made this relationship with a house and that gives you that reach, but there's nothing you're and they were purchased. Dan: They were purchased by random house, so they have massive bar reach. Dean: Wow yeah. Dan: I don't know what the exact nature of their relationship is but things take a little bit slower backstage at their end now, I've noticed as we go through, because they're dealing with a monstrous big operation, but I suspect the reach is better. Yeah, once it happens, right. Dean: And resources. Yeah, yeah, cash as capability, that's a big, you know that was a really good. That's been a big. Distinction too is the value of cash as a capability. Cash for the c, yeah, a lot, as well as cash for the k. But cash for the c specifically is a wonderful capability because with cash you can buy it solves a lot of problems. You can buy all the vision, capability and reach. That was a lot of problems. It really does. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was out at dinner last night with Ken and Nancy, harlan you know, you know Ken, and and we were talking. He was talking about he's. He's 30, 33rd year and coach and he started in 92. And coach, and he started in 92 and and he he was just talking about how he has totally a self-managing company and you know he has great free days, and you know he just focuses on his own unique ability. You know so a lot of strategic coach boxes to check off there and he was talking and he was saying that he's been going to some other 10 times workshops. You know where people are and he spoke about someone who's actually a performer musical performer and he just saw himself as back in 1996 or 1997 as the other person spoke, and and, and he asked me the question he says when is the crossover when you stop being a rugged individualist and then you actually have great teamwork around you? Dean: And I said it's a really interesting question. Dan: I said it's when it occurs to you, based on your experience, that trusting other people is a lot less expensive than not trusting them. Dean: Right, that's a good distinction, right. That people often feel like I think that's the big block is that nobody trusts anybody to do it the way they would do it or as good as they can do it or they don't have it. You know, I think, even on the vision side, they may have proof of things, but they're the only one that knows the recipe. They haven't protocol and package to, you know, and I think that's really, I think, a job description or a you know, being able to define what a role is, you know, I think it's just hiring people isn't the answer, unless you have that capability, that new person now equipped with a, with a vision of what they, what their role is. Dan: You know yeah, yeah, I said it's also been my experience that trust comes easier when the cash is good. I think that's true right? Dean: Yeah, but they're not. I think that's really. Dan: I think the reason is you have enough money to pay for your mistakes. Dean: Yes, exactly, cash confidence. Yeah, it goes a long way. Dan: Yeah, I was thinking about Trump's reach. First of all, I think the president of the United States, automatically, regardless of who it is, has a lot of reach. Yes, for sure. Excuse me, sir, it's the president of the United States phoning. Do you take the call or don't take the call? I think you're right, yeah, absolutely. Take the call or don't take the call. I think you're right, yeah, absolutely. He says he's just imposed a 25% tariff on all your products coming into the United States. Dean: Do you care about that or do you not care about it? I suspect you care about it. I suspect. Imagine if he had a, you know if yeah, there was a 25% tariff on all strategic coach enrollments or members. Dan: Yeah Well, that's an interesting thing. None of this affects services. Dean: Right. Dan: Yeah, Because it's hard to measure Well first of all, it's hard to detect and the other thing, it's hard to measure what actually happened. This is an interesting discussion. The invisibility of the service world. Dean: Yeah, it's true, right. And also the knowledge you know like coming into something, whatever you know, your brain and something going across borders is a very different. Dan: Yeah it's very interesting. The Globe and Mail had an article it was in January, I think it was and it showed the top 10 companies in Canada that had gotten patents and the number of patents for the past 12 months, and I think TD Bank was 240, 240. And that sounds impressive, until you realize that a company like Google or Apple would have had 10,000 new patents over the previous 12 months. Dean: Yeah, it's crazy right. Dan: Patent after patent. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And my sense is, if you measure the imbalance in trade let's say the United States versus Canada there's a trade deficit. Trade. Let's say the United States versus Canada there's a trade deficit. Canada sells more into the United States than the United States sells into Canada, but that's only talking about products. I bet the United States sells far more services into Canada than Canada does into the United States. I bet you're right. Yeah, and I bet the services are more profitable. Yeah so for example, apple Watches, the construction of Apple Watches, which happens outside of the United States. Nobody makes a profit. Nobody makes a profit. They can pay for a job, but they don't actually make a profit. All they can do is pay for jobs. China can only pay for jobs, thailand, all the other countries they can only pay. And when it gets back, you know you complete the complete loop. From the idea of the Apple Watch as it goes out into the world and it's constructed and brought back into the United States. All the profit is in the United States. All the profit is in the United States. The greatest profit is actually the design of the Apple Watch, which is all done in the United States. So I think this tariff thing is coming along at an interesting period. It's that products as such are less and less an important part of the economy. Dean: Yeah Well, I've often wondered that, like you know, we're certainly, we're definitely at a point where they were in the economy, where you could get something from. You know. You know I mean facebook and google and youtube. You know all of these companies there's. No, they wouldn't have anything that shows up on any balance sheet of physical goods. You know, it's all just ones and zeros. Dan: Yeah. I mean it doesn't happen anymore, but because we have. You know, nexus, when Babs and I crossed the border, we have trusted, trusted traveler coming this way which also requires us that we look into a camera and then go and check in to the official and he looks at us and all he wants to know is how many bags do you have that have? Dean: been in. Dan: And we tell him. That's all we tell him. He doesn't tell us anything we're bringing into the United States and he doesn't tell us anything we're bringing into the United States. And then, when we come back to Canada, we just have our Nexus card which goes into a machine, we look into a camera and a sheet of paper comes out. And the customs official or the immigration official, just you know, puts a red pen to it, which means that he saw it, and then you go out there. But you know, when we started, coach, we would have to go through a long line. We'd have our passport, and then the person would say what are you bringing? And then we'd have to fill in a card are you bringing this back into canada? Dean: exactly, yeah, you remember the remember and what's the total. Dan: You know the total price of everything that you purchased, everything. Dean: And I used to think. Dan: I said you know, I was in Chicago and I just came up with an idea. It's a million dollar idea. Do I declare that I had the good sense not to declare my million-dollar idea because then they would have taken me in the back room. You know, if I had said that, what are you? Why are you trying to screw around? Dean: with our mind. You'll have to undergo a cavity search to. Dan: So what I'm saying is that what's really valuable has become intangible more and more so just in the 30 years or so of so of coach you know that and it's like the patents. Dean: you know we've had all the patents appraised and there's an asset value, but yeah, because this is an interesting thing that in the or 30 years ago you had to in order to spread an idea. You had to print booklets and tape. I remember the first thing what year did you do how the Best Get Better? That was one of the first things that you did, right? Dan: Right around 2000 or so. In fact, you're catching me in a very vulnerable situation. That's okay. Dean: I mean it had to be. Dan: Okay. Dean: But I think that whole idea of the entrepreneurial time system and unique ability, those things, I remember it being in a little container with the booklet and the cassette. Dan: You know crazy, but that's but yeah, because I think it was. I think it was, was it a disc or a cassette, cassette? So yeah, well, that would have mid nineties. Dean: Yeah, that's what I mean. I think that was my introduction to coach, that I saw that. Dan: but amazing, right, but that just the distribution of stuff now that we have access yeah well, it just tells you that the how much the entire economy has changed in 30 years. From tangible to intangible, the value of things, the value of what do you? Value and where does it come from? Dean: And yeah. Dan: I think all of us in the thinking business. The forces are on our side, I agree. Dean: That's such a great talking with Chad. Earlier this morning I was on my way to Honeycomb and I was thinking, you know, we've come to a point where we really it's like everything that we physically have to do is being kind of taken away. You know that we don't have to actually do anything. You know, I got in my car and I literally said, take me to Honeycomb, and the car drives itself to Honeycomb. And then, you know, I get out and I know exactly what I want, but I just show them my phone and the phone automatically, you know, apple Pay takes the money right out of my account. I don't have to do anything. I just think, man, we're moving into that. The friction between idea and execution is really disappearing. I think so. So the thing to be able to keep up, it's just collecting capabilities. Collecting capabilities is a. That's the conduit. You know, capabilities and tasks. Dan: Well, it's yeah and it's really interesting. But we're also into a world where there's two types of thinking world. There is there's kind of a creative thinking world, where you're thinking about new things, and there's another world thinking about things, but you're just thinking about the things that already already exist yeah, my feeling is and usually that requires higher education college education you know, and all my feel is that they're the number one targets of AI is everybody who does a lot of thinking, but it's not creative thinking. Ai will replace whatever they're doing. And my sense is that this is why the Doge thing is so devastating to government. I mean, I'll just test this out on you. Elon Musk and his team send every federal employee and at the start of the year there were 2.4 million federal government employees and that excludes the, the military. So the military is not part of that 2.4 million and the post office is not part of those are excluded from. Everybody else is included in there. And he sent out a letter he says could just return by return email. Tell us the five things that you did last week. And it was extraordinarily difficult for the federal employees to say what they did last. That would be understandable to someone who wasn't in their world. And I think the majority of them were meetings and reports, uh-huh. Yes, about what? About meetings and reports, uh-huh. Dean: Yes, about what? About meetings and reports yeah, we had the meeting about the report. Dan: Yeah, and then scheduled another meeting To discuss the further follow-up of the report. Dean: Yeah, At least in the entrepreneurial world the things are about you know, yeah. Dan: I mean if you said I sent the memo to you and said, dean Jackson, please tell me it would be interesting stuff that you wrote back. I mean the stuff that you wrote back and you say just five, just five. You know, I can tell you 15 things I did last week, you know, and each of them would be probably an interesting subject. It would be an interesting topic is the division between that bureaucratic world. The guess coming out of the Doge project is if we fired half of federal government employees, it wouldn't be noticed by the taxpayers. Dean: Right, it's like a big Jenga puzzle. Dan: How many can? Dean: we pull out before it all crumbles. Dan: Yeah, because there's been virtually no complaints, like all the pension checks came when they should. All the you know everything like that. The Medicare, everything came. Dean: But what? Dan: they found and this is the one, this is the end joke here that they just went to the Small Business Administration and they examined $600 million worth of loans last year and 300 million of them went to children 11 years or younger who had a Social Security number. Dean: Is that true? Dan: Yeah, and 300 million went to Americans older than 120 who had an active Social Security number. Dean: Wow, now, that's just. Dan: Yeah, but that $600 million went to somebody. 0:48:51 - Dean: Yeah, it went somewhere. Dan: right, they were checks and they went to individuals who had this name and they had Social Security number. We had this name and they had social security number and those individuals don't those individuals. The person receiving the check is not the individual who it was written to. So that's like 600 million. Yeah, and they're just finding this all over the place. These amazing amounts of money and the Treasury Department last year couldn't account for $1.2 trillion. Dean: They couldn't account for where it went.2 trillion, you know. Dan: You know, that seems dr evo's one trillion exactly. Yeah, well, it's going somewhere, and if they cut it off, I bet those people are noticed yeah, I bet you're right, I think there's. This is the great audit we're in the age of the great. We're in the age of the great audit. Anyway, I have daniel white waiting for me, okay this was a good one, daniel yeah, it was good, this was a good one. This tangibility thing is really an interesting subject and intangibility Absolutely. Dean: All right, thank you, dan. Say hi to Daniel for me Next week. Dan: I'm booked socially all day, so take a two-week break.
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Apr 3, 2025 • 1h 6min

Ep151: A Journey Through Technology and Personal Growth

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.
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Mar 26, 2025 • 51min

Ep150: Unexpected Skies and Local Legends

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.
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Mar 5, 2025 • 59min

Ep148: Unexpected Snow in the Sunshine State

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.
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Feb 26, 2025 • 51min

Ep147: Cultural Ripples and Modern Innovations

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.
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Feb 19, 2025 • 55min

Ep146: The Tides of Media and Innovation

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.
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Feb 19, 2025 • 49min

Ep149: Finding Balance in a High-Tech World

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.

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