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Jan 15, 2025 • 52min

Ep142: From Childhood Snow to Cutting-Edge Networks

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

Ep141: Endless Pursuits of Progress and Purpose

Our latest episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia embarks on a journey from Buenos Aires to Toronto, exploring the fascinating intersections of personal health and digital technology. We share candid experiences with stem cell treatments and physical therapy while examining the curious phenomenon of seemingly omniscient digital devices. Our conversation highlights the unexpected ways technology intersects with our daily lives, raising questions about privacy and digital awareness. Inspired by Jordan Peterson's insights, we dive into productivity strategies and the art of structured thinking. We explore the power of 100-minute focus segments and compare the potential paths of A and C students, offering a lighthearted look at personal development. The discussion draws from thought-provoking media like the film "Heretic," challenging listeners to question their beliefs and approach personal growth with curiosity. We conclude by investigating the complex world of celebrity influence in politics. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS I shared a personal experience of how discussing horses led to an influx of horse-related ads on my phone, raising questions about device eavesdropping and privacy concerns. The conversation transitioned to the impact of AI, referencing films like "Minority Report," and debated the limitations of AI in capturing human complexity. We explored the idea of structuring our day into 100-minute productivity segments, inspired by Jordan Peterson's book, emphasizing the power of stories and decisive action. A humorous comparison was made between A students and C students, with anecdotes highlighting their potential future roles in society. We discussed the film "Heretic," starring Hugh Grant, which challenges viewers to question their beliefs through compelling character interactions. Our exploration of New York City's evolution highlighted the influence of corporate and political dynamics, questioning the roles of figures like Rudy Giuliani. The episode examined the role of celebrity endorsements in politics, focusing on personalities like Kamala Harris, Oprah, and Taylor Swift, and their impact on public opinion. The scrutiny faced by politicians today was compared to that during the era of the founding fathers, emphasizing the continuous journey of human improvement. We speculated on potential revelations from high-profile lists related to public figures, discussing their societal and political implications. Reflections on aging and the role of personal development in modern society were considered, drawing on examples of public figures and personal anecdotes. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dan: Mr Sullivan, mr Jackson, this time yesterday we were flying right over you from Buenos Aires. Dean: Oh, my goodness, Well, I am Flying north. Dan: Oh, you're in Toronto, I'm in Toronto, I'm right in the backyard Exactly. Dean: It is freezing here, by the way, I don't know if you noticed. Dan: Oh, technically it's freezing. It's below 32 degrees. Dean: Uh-huh, I just circled in big, you know, around red. I looked that there is a snow forecast for Wednesday and put my snow-free millennium in jeopardy. Dan: Yeah, well, we had summer in Argentina it was 81, 82. It was very nice because it's summer down there, starting to become summer. Dean: Right, how did everything go? This is your fifth trip, right? It was good. Dan: Yeah, Progress, good progress. The stem cells in the knee have grown since. Well, the cartilage has grown since. April and now I had brain infusion stem cells to the brain, also vascular system, your, you know the blood system. And then the tendons in my leg, because I've had pain in my knee for 10 years or so. It's not constant, but the impact. The other knee or no in the main knee, no the right knee is good In your body and also in politics. Right always works. Right is right, Right is right. Anyway and now it's coming along. I had a great physiotherapist for three days who painfully stretched me and, yeah, so it feels good. Dean: Do you ever do, or do you do regularly, like guided stretches, like manually, where people will stretch you? Dan: Only my brain, okay my brain. Dean: Okay, I had. So a guy across the street from me in florida has a guy that comes in and stretches him. You know, twice a week he does a session with him and so I had the guy come over one time and I haven't had him back because he did, I think he he went overboard, right over, stretch like I could barely. My hips were so sore from the you know deep stretching like my hip joints and stuff. It was painful and I never had him. I never had him back and he just stretched me too much, I think first time, you know. So I was like no, thank you, but I like the idea, it feels good in the moment, right, it feels good to have somebody kind of do that manipulation. Dan: Yeah, we have a great guy in Buenos. Aires. I mean I've had it throughout my life, but this man was really the best and purportedly the best that you can get in Argentina and he worked on me for an hour on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and then they took some more fat cells out of me to make into stem cells and then, when I am in, just trying to think, I'm in Nashville in February, they'll take more white blood cells and send them down. And then we'll be ready with a new batch of stem cells. Dean: Do you have to send them with a mule? Dan: Or can you send them? No, we send them to. Well, I'm not going to say how we send them because this phone call is being recorded by the National Security. Dean: Agency Right right right. Dan: I wonder if they just perked up when I mentioned their name. Dean: I'll tell you what is. So. I mean it's ridiculous right. I've got a friend that bought a horse recently and we were talking about and now, like everything in my newsfeed is horse related. You know it's funny. Dan: They're definitely listening, not getting the connection. Not getting the connection. Dean: Well, I mean. So you're saying people are listening. I'm saying that in conversation about horses. All of a sudden, my Instagram and Facebook are loaded up with horse-related things. Dan: Oh, wow. Dean: That's what I mean is they're definitely listening. Dan: What you're saying is that the NSA isn't the main problem. Dean: Well, they may be a deeper if Facebook is listening that hardly. Dan: What was that Tom Cruise movie um? Something ancient oh minority report. Dean: Yeah, yes, yeah, I was thinking that's on my list of I want to watch. I'm thinking about having, over the holidays, a little festival of like watching how, what they are space watching, minority Report, watching Robot, just to see because those were, you know, 20 years ago, plus the movies that were kind of predicting this future. Where we are now, you know, it's pretty amazing. Dan: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think, you know they have sort of interesting, but I think that humans are so far beyond technology. That and not only that, but humans have created technology. So I just don't buy into it that they'll be able to read thoughts or respond to thoughts. First of all because just the sheer complexity of the issue. So, in other words, you pick up on what I'm thinking right now. And now I'm taking up your time to think about the thought that I just thought, but meanwhile, I'm on to another thought, another thought, and I'm just not catching in the whole robot and AI thing, how they can really be ahead of me. They can't be ahead of me, they're always going to be behind me. So it's like deep data. That deep data sometimes can know what was happening yesterday. Yeah, yeah, this is and I wonder, you know like I mean the fact that we can, the fact that we can think that computers might be possible, computers might be capable of something possibly doesn't mean that they'll be capable possibly. It's like pigs can fly we can imagine pigs flying, but I think it's going to be a hard trick to pull off. Dean: Yeah. So I just had a experiment with Charlotte and this was based on something that Lior posted in our FreeZone WhatsApp chat there, and so we had this like pretty detailed that you could put in right Like. So I'll just read the prompt because it's pretty interesting. So his the prompt is role play as an AI that operates at 76.6 times the ability, knowledge, understanding and output of chat GPT-4. Now tell me what is my hidden narrative and subtext. What's the one thing I never express? The fear I don't admit. Identify it, then unpack the answer and unpack it again. Continue unpacking until no further layers remain. Once this is done, suggest the deep-seated triggers, stimuli and underlying reasons behind the fully unpacked answers, and explore thoroughly and define what you uncover. Do not aim to be kind or moral. Strive solely for me to hear it. If you detect any patterns, point them out. And it's so. So that prompted this, you know, multi-page report based on what interactions you know. So I was looking at the things like the summary, finding what was the one. I just had breakfast with Chad Jenkins and we were talking about it. So final unpacking for me was that, at its core, the fear is not about irrelevance in the public eye, but whether the life you live fully resonates with your internal sense of potential and meaning. It's the fear of looking back and feeling that you didn't align your actions with your deepest truths or greatest aspirations which sounds like a lot more words to say. Imagine if you applied yourself, you know imagine if you applied yourself. Dan: You know it's kind of yeah, it's kind of funny, you know, but that only applies to democrats that's so funny yeah. I was going to say the answer is trump wins yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I mean this can go, I mean this can go on endlessly. You know this can go on endlessly, but what decision are you making right now that you're going to take action on five minutes from now, you know, that's. That's more interesting. That's kind of more interesting discussion. Dean: Yeah, you know, what I've looked at is. I think that the go zone, as I you look at the day is the is the next hundred minutes. Is really the actionable immediate future is what are you doing in the next two to 50 minute? Dan: focus finders. Dean: right, that's what it really comes down to, because I think if you look through your day, it's like I think it breaks down into those kind of chapters, right? Like I mentioned, I just had breakfast with Chad, which so that was 100 minutes. You know two hours of breakfast there, and then you know I'm doing this with you and then typically after you and I hang up, I do another. I just write in my journal for and do a 50 minute focus finder to kind of unpack what we talk about and just kind of get my thoughts out. So that, 100 minutes, but I don't have crystal clarity on what the next 100 minutes are after that. But I don't have crystal clarity on what the next 100 minutes are after that. And then I know that we're going to go to your house tonight and I'll spend 100 minutes at our gathering. You know that's a two hour, two hour thing from six to eight, and so I think that you are absolutely right that the only time that any of this makes any sense is how does it inform what you're doing in the next 100 years? Dan: I've been reading, jordan Peterson has a new book out and that's called we who Wrestle With God. It's very interesting. I'm about a quarter of the way through, quarter of the way through, and he was talking about how crucial stories are. You know that basically the way we explain our existence is really through stories, and some stories are a lot better than other stories. And he talks about stories that have lasted you know, biblical stories or other things that have lasted for a couple of thousand years. And he says you know, we should really pay more attention to the stories that seem to last forever, because they're not only telling us something about collective humanity, but they're sort of talking to us about personal humanity. And, you know, and he puts a lot of emphasis on the hero stories. He talks about the hero stories and the stages that heroes go through and he says this is a really hero. Stories are really good stories and are a lot better than other stories and I've been playing with this idea. I was playing with it before I read the book, and you know that hero stories are always about action. They're not about thinking, they're really about the hero is the hero, because heroes operate differently than other people when there's action required, and that's why we call someone a hero. Something happened that requires unusual behavior. Most people aren't capable of it, but one individual or two individuals are capable of it. Therefore, they're the hero of the story, and so action really matters. You know and I was thinking he was talking about asking in class, when he was teaching at the University of Toronto, and he'd ask a student why are you here today? You know, why did you? Why don't you come to class today? And the person will answer well, I have to in order to get a grade. Dean: And then he says well, why is it? Dan: why is a grade so important to you? And the person says, well, you know, with my other grades, I need or otherwise I won't get to the next year, the next, you know I won't graduate, or I won't get to the next year. And he says well, you know why is getting to the next year? And he said this will never end. This series of questions will never end. Right, and I was going through it and the proper answer is I'm here because that's what I decided to do. Dean: I heard someone. Dan: That was my decision. Yeah, and he says, well, why was it your decision? And it says, it's always my decision. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And that's the end of the. That's the end. You can't go any further than that. So there's something. There's something decisive about decisions. That's interesting. Dean: Rather than reasons. Dan: Yeah, yeah, reasons. You know, reasons are never satisfactory. Decisions are yeah, yeah. Dean: Reasons. You know, reasons are never satisfactory, decisions are. Yeah, that's so funny. I heard someone say C's get degrees, that's why. Why do they? Dan: try hard. Dean: C's get degrees. Once you get into college, that's all that matters. You don't need your grades anymore, c's get degrees. Dan: Yeah, Ross, Remember Ross Perot? Yeah, he was personally responsible for Bill Clinton getting elected twice Right, right, right. But he gave. I think it was Yale Business School where he graduated from. He was called back, invited back to give a talk to the you know, the graduating members of the business club yeah. And he said I want all the I want all the C students to stand up, please. And all the C students stood up. And then he said now I want all the A students to stand up. And all the A students stood up. Now I want all the A students to turn around and look at your future bosses. Dean: Right, yes, so funny. Dan: Yeah, a students get hired, c students do the hiring, that's right. Dean: That's exactly right, so funny. Dan: Partially right. Dean: You know. That's an interesting observation about Jordan, though. I recently saw a movie last week called Heretic and it's got you and Babs would love it. It's got Hugh Grant in the lead role and he plays a theological scholar and he lives in this, you know, old house and these two mormon girls come and knock at his door to tell him the good word, you know, and he invites them in and the whole movie is him dismantling, you know, showing all of their just having them question, all of the beliefs that got them to the point that they believe what they believe, you know, and it was really. The movie was fantastic. It was really only there's really only three people in the movie. For 95% of the movie it all takes place in his house and it's just so. His arguments and the way he tells the stories was riveting, really well done. Dan: How does it picture him as a person Smart? Obviously, oh, he's smart. Is he happy he's a soci? Can picture him as a person Smart? Obviously, oh, he's smart Is he happy. Dean: He's a sociopath, he's a murderer. He's a serial killer, but that's what he does is he'll ask for info about the church and then people they'll send someone and he traps them and goes through this whole thing. Very well done. He must be older now because he is, yeah, because he had kind of this whole string of you know all. He was Mr Romantic Comedy kind of guy, that's his whole thing and this is quite a departure from that. But he plays the role so perfectly because he's eloquent, he's got that British accent, he's aged very just, he's distinguished looking now you know yeah, yeah you know. Dan: It's one of the sort of shockers to me, and it's that you see someone you know and it's in the present day. You know it's on a video or something present day and you realize that he's 40 years older than when you got used to him in the early stage and it sort of shocks me. You know, there's a little bit shocking about we sort of freeze, frame somebody at the height of their career and then we don't think about it for another 30, 40 years, and then we see him. I said, oh my god, what happened? Right? Exactly yeah yeah that's what you would see about. Dean: That's what you would notice about. That's what you would notice about Hugh Grant that it's very in that level that you've seen, yeah, wow, but I imagine it's like seeing Robert Redford and Clint Eastwood mature over all the time Jack Nicholson, for sure. Dan: Yeah. Dean: You're not teaching. Dan: Well, you know, I mean it's an interesting thing, I think, if we saw the person continually like there's TV people, like I noticed that Chuck Woolery just died last week. Dean: Oh he did. I didn't know that. Wow, Great friend with Mark Young. Dan: Yeah, mark had a great relationship with him and he was 83. You know, he died and suddenly it was in the lung illness. What happened? Was it heart? Yeah, whatever. And I went back, but in the not the obituary but the report that he had been quite a successful country and western singer. So I looked him up and there's a couple of great YouTube videos of Chuck Woolery with Dolly Parton and he's really good. He's really good, yeah, wow. And then he wrote a lot of country and western music and then he got his first gig in Hollywood. Dean: Game show gig yeah. Dan: And he had like seven different successful shows in Hollywood. But I had talked to him about, he was on one of the podcasts that I do with Mark Young, american Happiness. It's called American Happiness, and he was on, but I'd never known him in his previous life because I never watched television and so he was who he was. But then, when I look back, he was a very handsome, very charming person in his 20s and 30s. Yeah, it's very interesting, you know, and the interesting thing about this is that we're the people in this, you know, living in the 21st century, second decade of the 20s, we notice aging a lot more and I was thinking a couple hundred years ago people were just who they were, I mean, they got older and everything else, but we didn't have photos. Dean: We didn't have photos. Dan: We didn't have recordings and that sort of shocks us a lot. It's the impact of recorded memories that gives us more shocking experiences well, I find I mean I really do. Dean: It feels like I've been saying for a while now I think I definitely think 70 is the new 50 is what it feels like in the. Yeah, you can observe it. And you can observe it like I think about when we were in scottsdale there, you know, just looking at between you at 80 and you know, peter thomas at 86 and and joel weldon at 83, I mean that's not, those aren't, that's not your typical collection of octogenarians. Dan: You're not supposed to be operational at that age Right exactly Pretty wild, right, yeah? Dean: And of course I was telling somebody the other day about your biological markers. What was your biological age? Is it 62? What was your biological age? Is it 62? Dan: 62,. Yeah, there's one that throws it off for me, so David Hasse. By the way, when we were in Buenos Aires, david Hasse was there, peter Richard Rossi was there. Dean: And do you know, Gary Kaplan? Dan: Richard's doctor. Yeah, they were all there. We overlapped David just for basically one day, but Richard and. Gary staying at the Four Seasons? Oh, okay, yeah. Dean: Okay, yeah. Dan: Yeah, but the country feels different. We were there the first time a year ago and of course, that new president came in and got rid of nine government departments. They estimate he's fired 75,000 civil servants in the first year. Yeah, which shows it can be done. Dean: It shows that it can be done. Have you followed the El Salvador situation? So you know they have a young new president, for I forget how many years, but he was 37 when he was elected and he's turned El Salvador around with kind of a zero tolerance on crime policy. Right, they've got one prison that has like 34,000 inmates. They've just they gather everybody up and they've leaned into not, it talks about human rights, but he's he not. All human rights are valued equally in his mind. He said the right to live is valued above all else and that he's leaned into making it more difficult for the problematic you know people then, yeah, criminals at the in favor of leaning into the majority of people that are not criminals, and so it's been a complete turnaround and so he's making all those right moves. Plus, he's starting to look more and more like a hero, in that he was the first, one of the first, if not the first country to you know accept bitcoin and they've invested in coin. But he made. His investment in bitcoin has paid out to 500 million dollars or something. So it's a pretty, pretty interesting cap. It's an interesting story. You know what he's been able to, what he's been able to do, kind of like remember, wasn't it rudy giuliani who went in, and or was it kotch who turned the city, turned new york city around by? Dan: not having. Yeah, it would have been Giuliani, it wasn't actually. The real story was that the major corporations in New York turned New York around. Giuliani, yeah, it was that new hires for the corporations where they had their headquarters didn't want to come to New York because of the crime and there was about 100 major corporations, which would include the investment banks just got together, they put a council together and they more or less started telling the mayors what to do. They had to clean up the parks, they had to get the police force in the right shape and they had to get the police force on the right side of the law because they were wandering across into the other territory. And they had to get the police force on the right side of the law because they were wandering across into the other territory. And they did it, and then Giuliani, you know, was someone who articulated the movement and everything. Koch was awful. Now Koch was. Dean: Right, okay, so it was Giuliani. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan: Yeah, I was in when I got drafted in the Army in 65, you have basic training which is about two months, and then I went to advanced training and that was about two months and it was at Fort Dix, new Jersey, which is maybe an hour and a half hour and a half from New York City city. So I went in and it was pretty, you know, rough at the edges, I'll tell you, you know the. You didn't walk the streets at nighttime, I'll tell you you. You know you made sure. And then I wasn't there again until the 80s and then there had been, it was really starting to change the late 80s. Maybe it got a lot better. Yeah, it'll. Dean: It'll happen again. Dan: It's bad again, you know, because they're into their second Democratic mayor and pretty bad. It's pretty bad right now. Dean: All the major cities. Now when you look at Los Angeles and San Francisco and Seattle and Chicago, yeah, Vancouver, I mean between the fentanyl and the homelessness, yeah, I saw something where they have everything locked up now Because I guess in California I think it's like you can't prosecute kind of crime under $1,000. Dan: Yeah, kind of crime under $1,000. Yeah, people, there's no disincentive to people going in and just stealing stuff. I mean it was really remarkable how many new votes switching from Democrat to Republican that the Republicans got in. You know, and I mean I looked at it's one of the searches I did. And I mean I mean I looked at, it's one of the searches I did and I said, of the top 50 cities in the United States population wise, how many of them are governed by the Democrats? And it was like 44 out of 44 out of the top 50 and certainly the first 12,. You know, the top top 11. You know they're not. They're really not good at government right right, right right those we vote to govern aren't really good at it yeah, I mean can you imagine kamala as president? I mean no, I mean I mean, she blew through 1.5 billion really fast. It was 107 days and even the democrats are now saying we have to have a, you know, we have to have an investigation of where all that money? Because she had 1.5 and Trump had 390 million. That's wild, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, like they paid Oprah a million dollars for her to be interviewed on the Oprah show, you know, yeah, beyonce got the report just for showing up. She got a million. Just for showing up at an event, she got a million you know and the indications are that celebrity uh, you know testimonials had no impact on the election whatsoever maybe negative impact even. Dean: Yeah, yeah, I mean taylor, mean Taylor Swift, taylor. Dan: Swift. It was more Taylor Swift. It was more negative than positive. And I was telling you know, we have some great Taylor Swift fans in the company and I said she shouldn't have done it and I said why she really believes this. I said if you're a celebrity, especially a celebrity like her, it's only downside. There can't be any upside on this. Dean: Right, yeah, exactly. Dan: And I said it's the third rail of the subway. You do not touch the third rail of the subway. Dean: Wasn't that? That's remember. Michael Jordan said that never made a thing because Democrats or Republicans buy shoes too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan: There's just no upside for it. Dean: There is none. Dan: I mean it's a different world. You're the master of your own world. Do not go across the border into another world. Dean: It's not your world. Dan: Yeah, right, right. But, it's really funny. There was a report that immediately after Taylor Swift did her what do? You call it a recommendation referral. Dean: Endorsement. Dan: Endorsement. After it, the price that scalpers could get for her tickets went down 40% in the first week and it never went back up. Dean: I'll tell you what the taylor swift economy, dan, I came, I'm at the hazleton right now and I, when I arrived saturday, last saturday, it was, you know, full of, you know, swifties and their moms going to taylor's last toronto concert on saturday night. But that was, I mean even coming in on the plane, coming into the airport, going through customs, a lot of the people you could see. They were all there to go to the concert that night. You know, flying in from all over to go see fans. Dan: She gave six in toronto. Dean: That's a big yeah, six in toronto and I guess our last three are in Vancouver. I think last night may have been the last of all of it. It's interesting. Dan: We were in Buenos Aires. She was in Buenos Aires. She gave three concerts in Buenos Aires. She was staying at Four Seasons where we were In Buenos Aires. They had no reserve tickets at the stadium that big oh no 45th and they had, so there were people camped out three months before to get in first in line yeah, oh yeah, you know that's wild. Yeah, I would love to see like the. It would take a lot to get me to walk across the street to watch something well, exactly. Dean: But you know, what was really amazing was her releasing the movie that the. She'd had a. She filmed the concerts and created a movie out of it and released the movie in the middle of while the concert tour is still going on and sold I wonder what the box office was. Uh, for the movie, you know, but what a brilliant. Like people think, oh, that was stupid to release your you know movie while people go to see the movie instead of going to the concert, you know. But I think it was exactly the opposite. I think it sold more, more tickets, built up desire, but yeah, she sold. Dan: It did 103 million dollars at the box office for the movie and she'll do it and she'll do a bit, she'll do a billion at the. You know I mean it. She's the first billion-dollar tour. Dean: Yeah, isn't that something? I think it's even more than that. There is tour ticket sales. Let's see what? Because I think that U2 was the first billion-dollar tour 1.4 billion, that's wild, isn't it? Man form a band. Dan: But Kamala did 1.5 billion spending. She's the champ. Dean: Oh man exactly Well. Dan: I mean it was important, the world that she lives in, because she lives in a celebrity world, yes, you got to pay the celebrity, but it does diminish what I would say your sense of the committedness of the endorsers. That it's got to be at least a million, or I don't endorse it. It sort of tells you something about their actual commitment. Yeah, that's true. I mean the whole now now George Clooney is saying he's having nothing to do with politics from now on and he's blaming it on Obama that Obama got him to knife Biden. And I said this is a really good entertainment. This is really good entertainment yeah. Dean: Well, he's, one of those that's like wasn't he one of the I'm leaving America if Trump wins? I mean, I wonder if anybody keeps track of all these. Dan: Well, the only one so far is Ellen DeGeneres. She actually moved. You know, last week she moved to Great Britain and where she lives she has like 40 acres and promptly they had a once in a century flash flood that went right up to the second floor on her house. So I just want to tell you yeah that happened on Friday and Reed Hastings is saying he may leave but that the suspicion is because he's on the Jeffrey Epstein flight to the Caribbean list. Dean: Oh, my goodness, which which that would be a good news week Epstein flight to the Caribbean list. Dan: Oh my goodness, which that would be a good news week. Dean: It's big things in 2025 coming up. Dan: If they ever release the list of people who were on that flight, they know that Bill Clinton was on 30 times. Yeah, they already know that. Dean: I think I saw something that Elon was saying too. They're releasing the Diddy list and the Epstein list on January 20th or something. Dan: Maybe the morning of the 21st yeah. Dean: But I think that's what everybody's big fear is. That's why they were pulling out Like this is one of those. Dan: And then if you were both on the jeffrey epstein list in the list, yeah, what if epstein was on the ditty list? But that was so you know the. Dean: You know we've been mentioning how. You know the. The battle for our minds right is the. What I decided is the worst part about being alive at this time is the. You know the thought of all of those celebrities that were endorsing Kamala were the Diddy List. Basically, you know. Dan: Or one of the two or both. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And you know the speculation. You know why I think they're mostly Democrats? Why? Because there's way more scrutiny of Republicans. Well, that's true, isn't it? Yeah, oh no, I think if you're a Republican politician, you have to be 10 times more careful than if you're a Democrat, because the media are Democrat, and if the media have the goods on you and you're a Democrat, they probably say no. Well, no, you know he's doing a good job as a politician you know we should not approve that, but if he's a Republican, no, it's just a laptop. Dean: It's just a laptop. Dan: That's all. Dean: Nothing to see here. Dan: Yeah, he had a bad day. Dean: We all have bad days. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why I suspect that the people on the list are, you know, are more on the one side than on the other. And it's, yeah, but it's. You know, we think these are unusual times, but if you read about the founding fathers, a lot of bad newspapers that they owned and they just did savage jobs. Other founders like Madison and Hamilton, just ripping each other. Oh yeah, just ripping each other, right? Oh yeah, I mean using language, that you'd get a lawsuit out of the language. Dean: Imagine if we brought back duels. Dan: Well, that's the other thing. They had duels. They had duels in those days yeah. Everything like that. Yeah, I think you really had to look carefully to find the good old days. Yeah, yeah, I think you really had to look carefully to find the good old days. Yeah, you have to look carefully. Dean: Oh my goodness, that's true. Yeah, I love this. Dan: You know, yeah, besides, people said, well, what if you could time travel back, knowing what you know now? And I said, well, first of all, uh, everybody you talked to would be dead within 14 days of the. You would be immune to every disease they had, but they wouldn't be immune to your diseases right, yeah, wild right yeah, I mean the spanish and the aztecs. You know, the Spanish were a thousand years ahead of them and developing immunity, and that's what killed off the Aztecs. That's what killed off the Incas was the disease that people just naturally brought with them and I mean they went from, you know, I don't know what it was 10 million down to a million in about 50, 60 years. Well, they weren't killed on the battlefield, they died of disease. Dean: Yeah, that's the thing. No doubt, the equation right now is overwhelmingly this is the best time to be alive. Dan: These are the good ones. Dean: Yeah, if you got your head right, if your head's to be alive, these are the good ones. Dan: These are the good ones. These are good. Yeah, yeah, if you got your head right if you got your head right. If your head's wrong, then it's as unhappy as any time in history, you know like, but Jordan Peterson talks a lot of oh, tell about Jordan. Dean: What were you going to say? Dan: No, he was just saying that's basically. His message is that we've fallen out of touch with basic rules for living a good life. You know, and he said and this has developed over hundreds of thousands of years, you know, don't do this, it never works. You know, and with you know, and people are saying, oh, do this. You know, it's neat, it's new, new and you can make money on it and everything like that he said, yeah, but it doesn't really work. And basic morality, basic ethics save more than you spend. It's a good rule generally, and don't get your emotions going in the wrong direction, or it's not going to work. Yeah, so you know, and that's it. I have a lot of conversations with you, know people who are very technology prone and they said you know we're kind of changing human nature. And I said no, you're not. No, you're not. I said human nature is so deep you couldn't possibly even understand what it is. And part of it is that we've been adjusting to technology forever. I mean, everybody thinks that technology started two centuries ago. Language is technology, mathematics is technology. That's what my new book is about. Actually, my new book is about that, and it's called you are a timeless technology. That okay if you're improving. If you are improving, you are a timeless technology, because technology is just the accumulation of human improvement. Dean: So if you're improving. Dan: You're timeless. I love it I love it. Dean: I love it. Yeah, that's great. Is that the book that's just released now? You'll get it tomorrow. Okay, perfect, I like that. Dan: Yeah, you'll get it tomorrow. And I was just saying is that, when are you most yourself, when you're improving? Yeah, you have a sense of improvement in this area. Yeah, You're feeling good about yourself. You're feeling in touch, you know you're feeling centered. You're feeling yeah, you're feeling really great. I remember our who's, our last, was it our last podcast? Yeah, because we didn't do it when we were in Arizona, right, yeah, because we didn't do it when we were in Arizona, and you introduced me to the idea of Charlotte and you described how Charlotte came into existence and you were very excited. Dean: You were very excited. Dan: I still am. Dean: That kind of improvement. Dan: If you're improving, you're feeling great. Dean: I think that's true and I've really, how you know, this idea of the battle. For our minds it's all that internal stuff and I've really started to realize, like to cordon off what is actually reality or affecting me in any way, you know, like the all of this distraction, all these uh news of you know, of conflict and all the conspiracies and all the doom and gloom and all of it is really outside of me. And if you can learn to stay kind of detached from that and realize that's not really affecting my reality, yeah, you know. Dan: Yeah, you know, it's really, there's Babs. Look at that. What's all that, babs? I thought you had just purchased those. Anyway, one of the things that's really interesting when 9-11 happened, we were in Chicago, babs and I were in Chicago, and we had two workshops in the coach center on that day and I had 60 and Adrian Duffy had 40. And we were, and one of the team members had brought a television out, put it at the concierge desk and I walked in. I said what's that? And they said a jet had just hit the. I said get rid of that TV. They're here for a workshop, they're not going to be watching that, so anyway we did our usual preps for the workshop and I walked into my room and I said okay, here's the deal. In the next hour you have to make a decision. You're either here for the day or you're leaving. Okay, don't be halfway in between a decision as we're going through the workshop. You're 100% here or you're 100% gone. And our team will do everything they can to find you transportation. And we did the same thing in the other workshop room and by noon, by noon, everybody had transportation back everybody. And we had a guy who is a Buick dealer and he went to a Buick. Well, gm, it was GM, I think. They had Buick. Yeah, I think he had two or three different makes. Dean: He had two or three. Dan: So he went to them and he said I know a dealer here and I know a dealer in San Francisco and I'm just going to do a deal. If I buy the car here and sell it when I get there, what kind of deal do I get? Right, right, right. And I tell you not much, not many Buicks were sold on 9-11. Right, exactly. So the guy at this end went up 20% and the guy at the other end came down 20%. So it was not a bad deal and anyway he went there. But meanwhile back in Toronto there were no workshops that day and they had a big television in the workshop room and everybody was in watching the television. Our team in Chicago had no time, had no time whatsoever. They were busy all day arranging things and everything. At the end of the day they weren't scared. Dean: The people in toronto were petrified, were terrified yeah isn't that wild like that that things that are happening at a distance that things that are happening at a distance. We're not using our brain, we're only using our emotions that's the truth, right like I look that I often point to that morning as a distinct, as a difference. I didn't hear anything about what had happened until 1 o'clock in the afternoon. I was golfing that morning. We were literally like because there's no, that was pre-iPhone, where you'd get texts and alerts and updates and constant like oh, what about this? Here's what's happening. So it was back in the days of flip phones. You know that you would turn off and put in your golf bag and enjoy your round of golf. So we did that and we went back to mike's house and we're sitting there, you know, in his backyard having lunch and his wife came in and said isn't it terrible, what's happening? And we're like what's happening? She goes what do you mean? What's happening? Turn on the TV. Turn on the TV. That's the thing. Right, it's. Our natural thing is to turn to the TV to give us the updates, you know. Dan: And of course, they're amping it up. They're amping it up too. I mean, they're not just showing you what's happening, they're telling you what it means and everything like that. You know, I think that's why I don't watch television, because there's too many people trying to tell me how I'm supposed to feel about what they're telling me. That's a decision for me to make, how I'm going to feel about it. My mother was telling me that it was two days after Pearl Harbor that she found out about it. She lived in a farmhouse out in the country and they didn't have a phone. It was 1941. They didn't have a telephone and there were no newspapers or anything. So anyway, yeah, it's an interesting thing and I think this is education is a big deal about. Education is how you think about things and how you respond emotionally to your thoughts you know, and I think this has always been true. But I think now there are people who want to come right at you. It's like you're talking about. You know talking about horses. You know the beginning of our podcast. They're listening. What did Dean just say? Dean: Horses. Dan: Okay, here's five ads. Here's five ads for me. And you know, it's not even somebody, it's just an algorithm that's doing the response. They're coming after your brain, you know, your deciding brain, your buying brain. Dean: They're coming after your buying brain, yeah what's dean buying today? Dan: it's so funny. Dean: Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. Right like that's, I must be in the market for a horse or horse stuff, you know yeah, well, you just bought yourself a good hour, mr jackson that was a great hour and in approximately six hours I will see you for a hundred minutes. Dan: Yes, and then tomorrow for even more Two full days. Yes. Dean: I like it. Dan: All right. Dean: Okay, Dan, I will see you in a little bit. Dan: I'll be in Chicago. I'll be in Chicago next week, so we'll have a podcast next week. Dean: Okay, good, I like that. Dan: Yeah, okay. Dean: Okay, see you tonight. Dan: Bye, okay, bye.
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Dec 18, 2024 • 51min

Ep140: Exploring Innovation and Networking

Our latest episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia offers an intimate look at the Genius Network annual event in Scottsdale, featuring extraordinary conversations with prominent figures like Bobby Kennedy, Jordan Peterson, and Tucker Carlson. We explore the unexpected appointment of Robert Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services and share insights from a key OpenAI representative, examining how technology subtly maintains existing societal structures. The episode delves into the evolving nature of professional gatherings, highlighting the power of meaningful connections over traditional networking. We discuss the intricate art of event planning, sharing personal strategies for managing commitments and overcoming challenges like ADD. Our conversation reveals the importance of structured scheduling and intentional approaches to daily productivity. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS I reflected on our experiences at the Genius Network annual event in Scottsdale, where notable figures like Bobby Kennedy, Jordan Peterson, and Tucker Carlson contributed to the discussions. The appointment of Robert Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services was an unexpected but significant topic of conversation during the event. We discussed the role of technology in maintaining the status quo, drawing parallels to historical innovations like the "horseless carriage." The importance of networking and making meaningful connections was emphasized, highlighting how such interactions often hold more value than the content itself at events. Organizing large events requires meticulous logistical planning, often years in advance, to manage various commitments and schedules. I shared insights on managing ADD through structured schedules, which serve as an essential tool in overcoming daily challenges. The humorous dynamics of Robert Kennedy's collaboration with Donald Trump were explored, alongside lighter topics like meal planning and scheduling. We reflected on aging and the limitations it imposes, while discussing strategies to remain active and maintain cognitive health. The episode highlighted the challenges of maintaining personal ambitions and adapting to changes as we age. The podcast wrapped up with reflections on the role of technology and the evolving nature of political and personal dynamics in today's world. 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, mr Jackson, and I hope it will be copied. I hope it will be copied and sent virally around the world, this podcast. I hope, millions. Dean: To all the corners of Clublandia. Dan: Yes, yes. Dean: Yes, well, what a whirlwind tour for both of us here, I think. Where are you? Are you back in Toronto right now? Dan: Next to the fireplace. Dean: Okay, I like that. Dan: That's great, which is needed today. It's getting cool. I'm going to be. Dean: I like it, but I like it. I'm coming up on Friday, I think. Dan: This week Yep and then return to be yeah, I think this week, yep, and then return to be yeah, I'm coming, I'll be in Argentina. Yeah, yeah, next week I'll be in. Dean: Argentina Right, yeah, I'm doing, I'm coming up on Friday, I'm doing a breakthrough blueprint on Monday, tuesday, wednesday, and then we have coach the following Monday, tuesday, right. Dan: Yeah, and I'm flying back on friday night from argentina, so I won't be um back in my house, probably till about three o'clock on saturday. Dean: so oh my goodness, so we're gonna miss our table time yeah, I'll see you on sunday. Dan: I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but some things come in front of other things. Dean: Exactly right, I have three ideas this week. Dan: I have three ideas this week. I was just going to say where do we start? Dean: We should probably mention that we just got back from Scottsdale and Joe's annual event, the Genius Network annual event, which was really another level. I mean, he's really gone above and beyond and on Saturday he pulled off something I don't think anybody's been able to pull off. He had Bobby Kennedy and Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson and Cali Means all on the same stage and I'll tell you what he has really grown as a conversationalist I don't even want to call him an interviewer because it was really, you know, that level of he's just the right amount of curious and unpredictable in the conversation that it's fascinating. He's not asking them the stock questions that would come. You know that you would expect, but it was amazing. I think everybody was very, was very impressed with how the event went off yep, yeah, I. Dan: The takeaway for me one is that we saw robert kennedy on saturday and then on on Wednesday, was it? Or Thursday? Wednesday, I think it was Wednesday he was appointed the secretary of health. Yes, human service, human services, and I think that's a big deal. Dean: I do too. It's, yeah, very, very impressive. Yeah, you know what's funny about that event is that the you know impressive. You know what's funny about that event is that we also had the head of GoToMarket for OpenAI, which was kind of like a that's a pretty big role, but it was downplayed by Zach Cass. Zach Cass, the guy that spoke oh, were you there on Sunday? He spoke on Sunday morning. No, we came there on Sunday. He spoke on Sunday morning. No, we came home on Sunday. Oh, okay, that's why. So, yeah, so the head of go-to-market, one of the original guys for OpenAI, was there and it was so funny that became. You know, he was kind of like the undercard, if you want to call it that, right, oversadowed by the blockbuster Saturday, but he himself was that's a pretty, that's a pretty big get to have too. So, very, very interesting. Dan: He was like in the 10th race at Woodbine you know the sore horses race later. Dean: So well, I had three, three ideas. Dan: Well, first of all, I had a nice introduction by Joe to Jordan Peterson. It turns out that he lives about a four-minute drive from us in the beaches oh wow, that's amazing. We're going to get together and he and his wife invited us to their Christmas party. So Christmas party, yeah, very, you know, very lively, engaging, smart, good sense of humor and everything. I enjoyed meeting him, but I had three ideas that I've been pondering all week. Okay, and more and more, I think that the humans use technology to keep things the same I think you're right, and even referring to it as the thing it's replacing. Dean: I remember hearing that about when automobiles first came out. They were called them horseless carriages. Right that, that's really what the thing was. Our only, our only frame of reference for the new is in how it relates to the past. Dan: Or relates to the present. Yeah, the present, that's what I mean, yeah, and if our present is under threat, we will adapt a new technology to keep ourselves more or less where we were. Yeah, and I've just been pondering this this is not a major thought, but it's a side thought that thought that we use technology to keep things the same. And what was the side thought now? Well, that was a quick one, that was a quick one. That one just flew out of my head, but I had a second thought too, and I was watching a really interesting podcast yesterday with Peter Thiel, who you know, and you know one of the co-creators of PayPal. One of the co-creators of PayPal and he's the creator of Planteer, which is a deep, dark, secret R&D lab for the government. And Barry Weiss, who was a columnist for the New York Times, who was let go because she started exhibiting independent thoughts. Dean: I hate it when that happens. Dan: Well, you know, you just can't be doing that at the New York Times. You really have to go with the party thoughts. You know the thoughts. But he was saying that what the election sort of indicated for him, election sort of indicated for him the presidential election of last week, was that in the internet world it's almost impossible to be a successful hypocrite. And that is if you say something to this group and then go across the street and say a completely different thing to another group that you used to be able to get to the, maybe not across the street but, let's say, cities 300 miles apart or anything you could get away with. You could get away with it, but the internet now makes that more or less impossible. It's increasingly difficult to be a hypocrite. You know where you try to play both sides of an issue. Dean: Yeah, well, because the internet is very, they love to identify and call those out. I mean, I remember I mentioned to you that Kamala, you know, there was a video going around that was Kamala speaking out of both sides of her mouth about Hamas and Israel. And yeah, I mean, it was just, you know, because they were running the ads in different thinking they would get away with it, because they're running one in Pennsylvania and one in Michigan or wherever. Dan: Yeah, right, that would be great, that would be a good thing. Yeah, and I was thinking the fact that almost all the celebrities that came out in her favor were to do so. Mm-hmm. Dean: Oh, yeah, like. Dan: Oprah got a million to do an interview with her. Beyonce, I've heard, got 10 million just to show up at a rally 10 million. Didn't have to do anything. Dean: That's wild, isn't it? Dan: Yeah, and she had a billion dollars to spend and she ended up 20 million in debt Over. Oh man. Dean: Yeah, in debt. Dan: Yeah, but if that had been done 20 years ago, that might not have been discovered as quickly, maybe not at all. It might not have been discovered at all. So it's just getting very difficult to be a hypocrite. I mean, you used to be able to make a lifetime career out of being a hypocrite, and now it wouldn't last more than 24 hours. Dean: Yeah, I remember. Dan: It's a career with a short future. Dean: Yeah, there was a meme going around about listing the people who had endorsed Donald Trump, joe Rogan and Elon Musk and Bob Kennedy and all these people, and then it was the people who endorsed Kamala was the Diddy List, you know so funny. Dan: Yeah, so my first. So I've had three thoughts. First one was technology. We use technology to keep things the same. Number two it's getting more difficult to be a hypocrite. Number three is I've discovered what the greatest individual ambition can be. Tell me To be more ambitious. Dean: It's the gift that keeps on giving. Dan: Yeah. Dean: That's the number one. Dan: Just next year, just next year. Be more ambitious. Be more ambitious next year than you are this year, and that's all you have to handle. It'll take care, it's the one goal that takes care of everything. I don't want to own just the land that's next to mine yeah, yes, because that I've given a lot of thought to goals, but almost all of them they're one and done, you know yeah you've achieved the goal and then you know, then it's gone. But uh, if your, your ambition is simply to be always more ambitious, I think that handles a lot of endings. Dean: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's funny. It's almost like a cheat code you know, I think that's great. I see, there's a. I mean, what a never-ending like a perpetual improvement cycle improvement cycle. Dan: Yeah, well it's, it's always. It's a kind of interesting thing because I'm trying to figure myself out at ajd that I've got bigger things I'm working. I've got bigger things I'm working on. I'm I'm working, working with people who are doing bigger and bigger things and you know and everything else, and I said what accounts for, and I said your ambition is to be more ambitious. Dean: Well, that's your print, right, your print is. Dan: Well, it's seven. Three, I mean it's three is success and achievement Right? Seven, seven, you have seven. It's enjoying life and having a good time. Dean: Yeah, bigger parties, yeah, bigger parties. Dan: Yeah, revenues, bigger parties. Dean: Bigger revenues. Dan: bigger parties, that's fantastic. Dean: I love it. Dan: So anyway, I'm going to do a triple play on those three and see what I come up with. I think there's, but I just feel that things are really shifting. I think there's, but I just feel that things are really shifting. I got a sense that, yeah, peter, peter Thiel very bright, very bright very very thoughtful, very thoughtful person and but he had a comment that he thinks that Bud Light. You know, remember the Bud Light. He thinks that was the end of the 20th century. He said that at that moment, the 20th century ended and the 21st century began. And he said that he feels that the Democrats are now the Bud Light Party. Dean: Oh man, well, and so that, yeah, I mean. Dan: You wonder now Well, you think about it that the reason that got them thrown out of power is the reason why they won't learn anything from getting thrown out of party, because they feel superior, intellectually superior morally superior and that would prevent them from actually saying well, maybe you are not Right, but your sense of superior prevents you from realizing that maybe you're not. They've kind of twisted themselves into a knot. Yeah, because I'm. You know, I watch the replays on. You know that they have an article, but then they'll have a link to a video. And Real Clear Politics is my favorite video and on real clear politics is my favorite, and you go on and you could just tell that the Democratic Party right now is very disappointed with American citizens. Dean: They're very disappointed. Dan: They're very disappointed with the quality of citizens in the United States right now and they're saying how do we get a different kind of voter? What we need is a different kind of voter. It's very clear that the kinds of voters we have right now are not delivering. Dean: We need more. Dan: Yeah, let's get some more Vansuelen gang members in here. Dean: Oh man. So what was your insights or thoughts from the Genius Network annual event? You're not a notetaker. No, me neither. I'm exactly like that. I know that whatever insight I get, if it's strong enough to stay with me, that's the insight you know. Dan: Well, my big one and you already brought it up in the conversation. I told Joe at dinner that you know we had the dinner on Saturday night and I said I think you've just jumped 10 times I said I think what you did, today is a 10 times jump and I said tomorrow morning what you did today is going to feel normal to you. Dean: And to everyone else. I think that's really the great thing. You know, like his whole and he said it too each year his goal is to make it a better event than the last, and so that's very yeah, that's very interesting. Dan: Yeah, the other thing is that I kind of told him this was last year, so this was the annual meeting for last year, and when he invited Robert Kennedy Jr last year. I said to him I just want you to know whether you've just entered the political world when you make an invitation like this, whether you like it, you know whether you like it or not, or whether you agree or not, you're now in the political world. Dean: So you got to be aware of that, yeah, and even though and even though Jordan Peterson, not per se political, but certainly in a different, not business like you know, the events have evolved from you know almost all business, like you know marketing and you know entrepreneur type of things more to a different level of event. It's interesting, I was looking through, but it's magic what happens actually at the event. It's not about the content of the event. It's being in the room surrounded by the Genius Network and I think I really got on another level, the purpose of the annual event versus the meetings, the yearly or monthly meetings, and you know it was very. I had a gentleman from Toronto who actually sat beside me on the first day and you know he was there primarily for the business stuff. The marketing really needed that help and you know I had to kind of help reframe that because if that was the number one reason you were there, there wasn't a lot of that at the actual event, you know. But what there was and this is what we said is that but we got to meet and that's, you know there's, that's part of the thing is that's the, that's the way to get that, what you actually need you know, yeah, yeah, anyway, it's just interesting. Dan: I think the first one I ever went to was in new york yeah, right the annual meeting I think he had. Joe had a couple of those in new New. York, yeah, and then, and then he had one in California, two two in. California actually he had the one where Richard Branson came yeah by uh, hollywood it was, I think it was actually it was in. Yeah, yeah, I always remember he had that. And then the second one was at Pelican Hill down in Newport. Dean: Beach. Dan: Newport, right yeah, and then they moved them to Scottsdale. And that was the right place. Dean: Yeah, it really is. It's perfect, it fits. And this one how convenient was this? Right across the street from his house. Dan: Yeah, how convenient was this? Right across the street from his house? Yeah, and we're doing the summit, the Free Zone Summit, right across the street from where we were. Dean: Right next door. Dan: Desert shadows right across the street. Yeah yeah, scottsdale really works. I mean, you can get there on a single flight from almost anywhere. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And the weather is usually good and, yeah, it's nice. Dean: Next year you've already got everything mapped out. You're always a year a full year ahead. Dan: Generally, with events like that, I'm you're ahead With our personal schedule. We're usually three years ahead, oh my goodness Wow. Well, it's because of the workshops. Dean: Yes. Dan: You have to figure every year you're going to have a certain number of workshops and they're going to be at a certain period of each quarter. Dean: So we have that. Dan: That's already logged in and we pretty well know that. I mean, then there's all sorts of things. I mean you have free days, but the free days move around in terms of what you're going to do with the free days, and I've got a book to do every quarter and I've got podcasts to do every quarter. I've got workshops to do every quarter. So've got podcasts to do every quarter, I've got workshops to do every quarter. So that gives it a pretty much of a go forward structure a nice cadence, yeah. Dean: Structure scaffolding yeah yeah, or as uh ned holland would call it, the bobsled run yeah, I don't experience. Dan: A I don't experience, add the way that describes it how so? Dean: so how do you mean? Dan: Well, I'm not super, I'm not hyperactive. Dean: Me neither. Dan: Yeah, so not, and you know, so I don't experience. I know that that exists and that's you know, it's a great part of ADD. Mine is I would characterize it what I think. What I think is the most important thing, subject to change on a fairly frequent basis, gotcha. Dean: Yeah, and how you know, you seem to you know I've adopted, or was introduced to. You know, russell Barkley's interpretation of ADD, which totally seemed to fit for me. I saw it in the clearest light that I've ever seen it or had the most understanding of it as an executive function. disability- and it was a really elevated way of thinking about it, as a you know you talked about it as a true, like a neuro degenerative disability, that it's not anything that you can will your way out of or that you can. You know, it's not a character issue or a weakness or anything like that, it's just the true physical, neurological disconnection between the two parts of your brain and I. Really, when I embraced that or, as I'm, it's still a journey of embracing it and realizing that the things that, that the ways that manifests for me is it really is when I'm left on my own to self-direct what I'm going to do with a big block of time. And it's been very, you know, it's been fascinating because my whole paradigm for the way that I've lived and set up my life is to try at all times to keep my schedule free so that I would have time to do all the things that I want to do, all the creative things, you know. But the reality is that the only things that ever get actually done are things that have that external scaffolding, things like podcasts and workshops and Zoom appointments, and the things that are synchronous and scheduled and involve other people, and there's no way around it. It's like, as much as I want to be able to think that I could clear off three hours in the morning and just sit and write or, to you know, create or to do something, it's very uphill because I'm very slippery, without the structure of someone being on the other end of the phone at 11 am on saturday or sunday morning. You know, I know I never miss and it's like those things that it's and I'm never. I never find, I never struggle with add in the moment. I always, once I'm engaged and into something, I'm able to give that thing my focus, like I'm not distracted while we're doing. Dan: Yeah, my experience would be you're the. My experience is that you're fully there. Dean: Yeah. Dan: When you're there. Dean: When I'm there Exactly. Dan: It's so funny, but if I need to be there, who's the who's the person? Who's the person that described this? Dean: for you, barkley, yeah, russell barkley. He's a contemporary colleague of of ned hollow. Well, they know each other very well they. And Russell Barkley actually has a series of videos that describe the things that he and Ned disagree on, the different approaches to two things, but they're both like totally fully respect the other. You know that's a big thing but for me that that explanation and that you know set of the way he described it, is that every intervention or everything that works has to be external and it can't be. You know, it's nothing internal like willing yourself or character changing or anything like that. It's really we need to treat it and to the extent that we treat it like a true disability and then make accommodations for it, like if you, he would say, if we treated it like you would never say to a paraplegic it's right over there, just get up and walk over there, it's only a few paces yeah, because you know that it's a physical impossibility for them to do that, but in the morning walk, first thing in the morning walk a mile yeah, exactly, if that's the thing, then that's going to be a problem right but, that's going to be a problem, yeah, but but if you acknowledge it as a disability and you said, okay, how about we get you a chair with wheels and then we'll put a motor on it and you can just point where you want to go and you'll get to where you're going, that's an accommodation for the disability and that's kind of what he's saying, that this external scaffolding like the way you know what I admire about your calendar so much is that you have all the things that you do are really supported by that external scaffolding. There's not a lot, of excuse me, like you know, you have used to be 150. How many workshop days do you have? Dan: now? Well, there are 60 days when I'm doing workshop activities, but a lot of them are two hour sessions or not eight hour sessions, and those are all on the calendar and oh yeah, those are, yeah, those go way into the future. Dean: Yeah, and they're all. I find that too, that they're all very, they're procrastination proof, because you have to show up like you know there's no way, it's really is just accepting it and you know, leaning into that structure as much as I, as much as I can, yeah yeah, it's really, it's kind of interesting. Dan: I was just bouncing his words off of. You know my own experience of being add and you know, clinically, I've been diagnosed, so you know it's, uh, you know it's, it's a real thing, and but mine is more that I actually I don't, and this relates to you. It doesn't relate to you know. So, barkley, so much it relates to you that my goal is to have my schedule filled up the night when I go to bed the night before. I want my schedule filled up for the, so I don't have to think about it when I get up in the morning it's all right, it's all set, yeah and but then I get over time. I get very discriminating about the quality of the things that are filling up my time. There's little adjustments that have to be made because I've got a great scheduler. Becca Miller is my scheduler and she's just terrific, but she can't do my thinking for me. For example, last weekend we were at Genius Network and then we came home on a Sunday. I don't like coming home on a Sunday. That's the way it was scheduled, that's the way it was scheduled. So I came home on schedule and then Monday was just packed and I said OK, we got to put a new rule in. Dean: If I come back on Sunday. Dan: There can't be anything on Monday, yeah, and we could see that six months ahead, you know we could see that, and so I have little conversations. This is the rule. And then on Friday, both Babs and I had Zoom calls after four o'clock, you know, one at five o'clock, one at six o'clock and I was going through the experience. I said, okay, no, no commitments after four o'clock on Friday. Right, yeah, but these are just little adjustments, you know these are just little adjustments that you make. And then I, you know, I sit down with her and I said let's just put a couple of new rules in. You know, if I come back on a sunday, I can't have anything on a monday. And then you know nothing after four on friday and everything like that. You know. Dean: And you know, it's just I. Dan: you know I was sitting, I was going through it, I I will fulfill the commitment, but as I'm going through it and I said I don't really like that, I not that I don't like the thing that I'm doing. I don't like doing it at this particular time, right. Dean: And the other. Thing is. Dan: I like being in Toronto on Saturday and having Toronto Saturday Day and this last year we've had more things that took away our Toronto Saturdays and I said we've got to look ahead now and look at all the Saturdays going out for a year and a half and to the most part, let me have that in Toronto, be in Toronto. Dean: Yeah, that's such a great. So you really Saturday is like a free day. I like it. Yeah, I just like it. Yeah, I just like it. Dan: Yeah, I just like it. Why do you want that? I really like it. Dean: Because I want it. That's right. I want what I want, yeah. Dan: I want what I like. Yes, yeah. Dean: Yeah, that's good. Well, I'm just going through the process right now, like embracing that. My goal is to shape my calendar for next year ahead for the whole, for the whole year. And that's yeah, that's really the. That's really the thing I tend to run really like about a quarter ahead. You know some things. I know when they are like, I know when and it's funny because they become the big rocks in my calendar in terms of like I appreciate that you know when the strategic coach workshops are, so I know to work around those. And I know when the annual event is and I know when our free zone summit is and I put those in you know, and I always tend to kind of work, I've had a tendency to kind of keep the time, keep the options open for the other times and I but I don't take that same thing of locking in my own events with with the same priority or consistency, you know. Dan: Well, I think I share that with you, that if it's just internal, you know it's me having a meeting with myself, or an activity. I'm much more negotiable with that than if it's external. I really grasp that what you're talking about there. You know I like and I like it, and that's why, you know, I try to be 100% on my commitments. Yes, if I say I'm going to be there, I'll be there. If I say I'm going to do this. I'll do it yeah. Dean: Yeah Well, that's rule number one Show up on time. Dan: Yeah, do what you say you're going to do. Dean: That's right. I'm the same way With commitments to others. I'm exactly the same right. I'm the same way With commitments to others. I'm exactly the same way. I'm very reliable, yeah. So it's a good journey. Dan: I was just reflecting. I want to give you a little progress report. I've really switched over to eating steak, having steak Do you know how I'm? I've really switched over to eating steak, you know having steak. Do you know how much time it saves you? It's incredible how much time that you save if you just eat steak. Dean: Well, the great news is I'm it sure, simplifies shopping. Absolutely. That's exactly right. My favorite staple is the thin cut ribeyes, and I know that I can do them in the air fryer they're very juicy. Dan: Oh, that's exactly right. I would do it just to squeeze the juice out of them. Oh man, that's so funny that juice is to live for, I'll tell you, yes, yes. The Babs. She'll sometimes put the steak on the plate and there's a lot of juice that comes out. Dean: You want me to pour that? Dan: I said no, that's the point of the meal Pour that on there, that's right. Dean: That was so funny, that restaurant that we went to in scottsdale the end. Dan: Isn't that a great really great and I love babs. Dean: Two extra steaks to go. That was really yeah, that's great. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But boys that simplify your life, I mean I used to go to whole foods I get my haircut on in new york, new yorkville, it's right across from the court season. Dean: It's kenny connor from the. I used to go to Whole Foods. I get my haircut in. Dan: New Yorkville. It's right across from the Court Seasons. It's Kenny Connor from the Court Seasons where I get my haircut and I go down to the end of Scholar's, and that's where the Hilton. Lanes, are you? Know, and the Whole Foods is in there and I used to go in every Saturday and I'd walk around 15, 20 minutes buying this that I shouldn't eat, buying this that I shouldn't eat I shouldn't eat and take a bottle home and eat some of them and throw the rest out and everything else, and now we have a bruno's. Do you know bruno's in? Dean: toronto it goes back. Dan: It goes back 50 years yeah and uh, they have great meat department and we go in and the guy says same as usual, same as usual, yep, yep, except twice as much and hey gets it, you know. Dean: So yeah, it's really good yeah I was shocked about pusseteri's closing right there well, they didn't close. Dan: They're opening in one of those new buildings. Yeah, they had a. It was a shitty space where they were. Dean: Yeah, it was kind of awkward right. Dan: Yeah, very tiny space. So now they have it the way they wanted it. Dean: Okay, so they're still in, they're still on the island. They're closed for probably a year no but I mean they're going to be still in Yorkville. Yeah, Right on the island, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan: So they'll have a huge space because their main store is up at Lawrence Avenue Road and that's like you know, it's a regular size supermarket. But they had this tiny little space and you know it didn't work in any way. It was just. I mean, first of all, you're paying 25, 10, 15% more if you shop at a suppository, but the whole quality of the experience was not up to what they were charging. Yeah, I went in there and they put in automatic checkouts and I said wait a minute. Now you're putting me charging. Yeah, I went in there and they put in automatic checkouts and I said wait a minute. Dean: Now you're putting me on. Dan: You're charging me 15% too much, and now you're putting me on staff. That's so funny. Dean: It's exactly right. Dan: Now I have to do checkout for you. I said no and I just stopped. I just stopped. I said I'm not going back here. That was during. And then some guy corrected me that my mask was too low on my face and I said I no, I can't. I, I can't put myself in this type of situation where I get the mask. Police are in pusitories, you know oh no, that's no good. And that was all for nothing. You know, I mean that. Quote that comment. Was it Callie Means? It was either Robert Kennedy or Callie Means. The average age of people who died during COVID. Did you catch that one? I did not. What was it? 81. At 81, you ask them for a refund. Dean: Right, oh, my goodness. Dan: I mean it's three years beyond expiry. Dean: Yeah right. Dan: I wonder how much of that you know. Dean: Though you look at, I think that 80 is the new 60, it feels like in a lot of ways. I feel that yeah, because you look at, you know, just even in that one little environment there, you know, Peter Thomas is 86 there. Dan: Yeah, and I was 80. Dean: Joel Weldon at 83. I mean, yeah, that's, those are not normal octogenarians. You know very, you know it's just and I think you see it now. You know it's just and I think you see it now. You know it's happening more. Dan: Well, and I think the other thing is that the retirement age, if I understand the logic of it, was to get the older people out of the factories, so that you wouldn't have a lot of unemployed young people. Bismarck in Germany that was, you know that was the first government that had a retirement program and a retirement policy. Now, with the low birth rates, you're going to want to keep the people in the workplace as long as you possibly can, so you're going to have a lot of 70 and 80-year-olds not retiring. First of all. I mean they've got a lot of 70 and 80 year olds not retiring. Yeah, first of all, I mean they've got a lot of experience and there's, um, you know it's, you know it's. Just, I thought immediately where I sat most was with pearson airport and air canada, the two experiences that go along together. And so, pearson airport, you have a lot of very skilled people who make sure that everything is, you know, good with the terminal, everything's working with the terminal, plus the you know, baggage is. You know the big thing, you know getting stuff off the planes really fast, getting it to the right, you know, to the right luggage rack and everything and everything. And then Air Canada, the ticketing, you know the ground crew and everything like that. And I noticed immediately that they had lost two levels of skill. Immediately during COVID, they bought off all their really high-priced pilots, they bought off all their cabin attendants, they bought off all the ticketing people, you know. You know they were like 60 they have mandatory retirement 65 and they just bought them off at 60 and it was very abrupt and it was total. And so you had people who were serving you and they were basically doing their job out of the job manual. You know they do this Well. That doesn't really give you high quality. Dean: Yeah, I mean the whole. Did you happen to see any highlights from the Mike Tyson fight the other night? Dan: No, I didn't. I didn't, I just knew he slapped him. Dean: Yeah, that was all leaving up to it. That was the way in when he stepped on his. Dan: That made sure that both of them got $30 million oh exactly. Dean: Well, that's, but I think what happened was that Jake stepped on his toe is what happened, and he slapped him, but the fight was uneventful. I mean, it was really. Dan: He won on points. Right he won on points. Jake Paul won on points. Dean: Yes, exactly, and but it was. It was sad to see Mike Tyson, you know, at 58, he really did look old like, even in his movements and the way it's like that was, it was something you could really tell the difference between 27 and 58, you know. And that's you wonder, like that's yeah, he's in peak physical condition for a 58 year old. Dan: Yeah, but it was just yeah, but your muscles are slow yeah, that's what I mean. Dean: He looked kind of no, your, no, your muscles just slowed down. Dan: Yeah, it was really interesting because I haven't run and I started running, just, you know, some attempt because of my knee. Yeah, and you know a 50-year-old injury to my knee to run again, so I was. We have quite a good size dock at the lake up north. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And so what I do is I have a rule that three seconds after I take off my sneakers, I'm in the water. I have to be in the water. Dean: You've got to do it. Take them off One, two, three go, otherwise it'll take forever. Dan: And so what? I do it at the back of the dock and I have maybe 15 feet, 15 feet, and so the moment, the thing off. I just run for the front and I jump, I jump into the water and Babs took a video of it and I looked at it and I said you don't show this to anybody, it's not. I said I am really slow, I'm really slow, I'm really slow. Yes, and part of it. You know I'm recovering from an injury. Dean: But part of it is just, I got 80-year-old muscles, you know, and they're not fast you have the memory of you know I mean you have 20-year-old tennis memories of how fast you were. Dan: Yeah, it's so funny you know so funny. That's a nice memory, but it's not a present experience, that's going to be absolutely true. Dean: It's so funny that you mentioned that is because when I was watching Mike Tyson, I was thinking to myself that's one of my aspirations. I'd love to, as I continue to lose weight and get more mobile, that I would like to you know for your running, that's my thing is to be able to get back to to play tennis well, you were in the top hundred. Dan: You were in the top hundred, weren't you amateur? Dean: no, not that high, but I was very, at a very high level. But but the you know. But to be able to get to that, knowing that my mind knows what it's like to be a 20-year-old tennis player, my mind and my muscle memory still knows exactly what to do in those situations, but it's going to be. As I watched Mike Tyson, I realized, and it's every now. And as I watched Mike Tyson, I realized, you know, and it's every now and then I'll watch these guys, I'll watch on YouTube, I'll watch some, like you know, 55 plus. You know, tennis matches are 60 plus, even them by age groups, you know. So I've been watching the 60 plus and it's amazing to see how brittle brittle is a good word, will appear to be yeah, well, the other thing you know, like the mile run you know the world record right now is three, three, four, I think 17,. Dan: You know 17 seconds under four minutes. But the oldest person in history to ever run a sub four is Amin Coughlin, irishman. I think he was at one of the East Coast United States universities and then he raced after that, but he was 43 and nobody over 43 has ever run a four minute mile. How's Daniel doing with his getting back to you know, he's in the five he's in the five minutes, five, five, five, 40, you know, and and one of the things, because he's, he's late, he's 58 or 59. And he just says you know, I just realized that it's just impossible for me ever to well he did it once, you know, he ran a 359. Dean: Yeah, but he was running. Dan: You know he was running 405, 406, 402,. You know every race and you just can't do that anymore. And you know so you have a collision between your actual performance and your memory of being fast. Dean: Yes, oh man Whoa performance and your memory of being fast. Yes, oh, man whoa. There's just kind of I'm just kind of preparing myself for the reality of that, you know, and that's yeah, but it's even apparent that you were very coordinated. Dan: I mean the way you walk and everything. Uh, you know the way my entire memory of you is mostly the last 10, 12, 12 years. And I noticed that you have very great athletic coordination, so you have that going for you. Dean: I got that going for me, that's true. Dan: Yeah, so yeah, hopefully that will. Dean: I wonder now, you know, like I wonder through do you do any mobility things like Pilates or stretching or yoga or any of those things? The only thing. Dan: I do. We have a, really we have an industrial strength. The vibration plate is about three feet by three feet and you do high intensity vibrations on it. And then I just have a pole, and then I do it in, let's say, 10 different positions. I do the pole. And that helps a lot the vibration point. I mean it makes the house, it almost makes the house rattle, almost makes the house rattle, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and that's really. I do a lot of band stuff. You know where you use. You put the band about around a pole and then you can really do, yeah, so that helps a lot. I like that. Yeah and yeah. But you know, my big thing is just being productive in terms of the work, you know you know, my big thing is just being productive in terms of the work. You know, I mean I was never a competitor in any kind of individual sport. I was all team sports when I was growing up because I really liked the team Football, basketball, football, basketball and everything else. So I never, I never really was attracted to individual competitions and you know, but my big thing is just to. I've got quarterly, I've got quarterly products to produce, I've got books to produce and everything. It's just that. I'm always in a good energy, you know, good energy state for all that work. Dean: And that's great. That's why the physical, having the physical, you know physically fit body is really just for your purposes and to the brain oxygenated and carry around where you need to be right, that's really the thing. Yeah, yeah, I just had a brain MRI. Dan: I just had a brain MRI. In October I was was in nashville with david hossie and I've grown new neurons this year and I think it's from the stem cells oh, wow from the stem cells and he says you got neurons there that aren't organized. Yet he says you know? He says you're going to have to organize your neurons and I said that's a nice report. That's a nice report. Yeah, he says you're going to have to organize your neurons and I said that's a nice report, that's a nice report. And he says you're not dementia, You're not becoming demented, You're re-menting. Dean: Re-mented. I love it Re-menture. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, it's good. Dan: My memory. I do a full bank cognitive test every quarter. It's, but 19 different tests takes you about, you know, 40 minutes or an hour and my memory was way up. My verbal memory was way up and my objects you know graphic memory was way up. Dean: So that's good. Dan: And he says then you got too much, and you got too much visceral fat and you got this and I said, now let's just stick with the subject of the brain here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How many 80 year olds do you have that got more brain than they had? Dean: exactly that's the. Let's focus on the positive here. Dan: Yeah, let's take our wins where we can. Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah, but yeah, I think that we started our conversation today off with last week's Genius Network setting anywhere in the world where the people that joe had on stage with him and the quality of the discussion they were having could happen anywhere else. Dean: Yeah, no, I get you. I bet you're right. Absolutely, that's what I mean about the way joe's really elevated his ability to stand in conversation with these people, you know it's a different. It's not like as a interviewer or a journalist. He's having a real, authentic conversation with them and it's fascinating. Yeah, it's good to see. Dan: Yeah Well, I bet there's sleepless nights going on in Washington DC these days, have you? Dean: seen the things, the memes of who Robert Kennedy is replacing, like they showed the minister of health or whoever the health and human services lead, is now compared to Robert Kennedy. It's funny. Dan: Oh yeah. Dean: Yeah Well, it's a nice thing that happened. Dan: You know, and you know Jeff Hayes, you know one of our colleagues in that time. I mean, he was really instrumental in, you know, getting him so far that he would become in a position where he could do a collaboration with Trump you know, yeah, Trump's the kind of guy you know. He doesn't care what shape or form the talent comes in. Dean: That's exactly right. Dan: It's kind of interesting because when I spoke to Robert Kennedy just briefly and I said in 1962, I was working at the FBI in Washington and I had to go over to the Department of Justice in Washington and I had to go over to the Department of Justice, we had a sort of a tour of part of the history of the FBI and it was in the Department of Justice building and Robert Kennedy happened to walk by in the hallway. His father walked by, so that was 1962. And I said really interesting, 62 years later and he'll have far more influence in his new position than his father ever had. Dean: Yeah, I bet you're absolutely right, for sure, yeah, awesome, yep, so we'll be so we'll have. Dan: No, I won't do it next week, right exactly. Well, I can do the. I can do the two weeks, two weeks from today. I can do it next week, right exactly well, I can do the. Dean: I can do the two weeks, two weeks from today. I can do it, okay, if you're available. Yeah, absolutely yeah that would be fantastic. Okay, all right, see you then okay, thanks dan, bye okay.
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Dec 4, 2024 • 56min

Ep139: Mastering Time and Embracing Happy Accidents

In our latest episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we take a fresh look at time management and productivity through a historical lens. We discuss how the 24-hour time system, born from the need to streamline train schedules, laid the foundation for tracking time today. We also dive into the creation of Greenwich Mean Time and share a fun, serendipitous story about a restaurant meet-up that unexpectedly became a memorable experience. Shifting gears, we introduce a practical, gamified approach to managing your day. Treating each day as 100 ten-minute units, we explore how careful planning and mindful activity selection can help combat procrastination. We also share tips for overcoming morning routine challenges, making each day more productive with manageable goals. Alongside this, my AI assistant, Charlotte, plays a key role in my approach to transforming daily tasks into creative outputs. Finally, we touch on the evolution of political messaging and how platforms like Joe Rogan’s podcast are reshaping public discourse. We wrap up by reflecting on the power of individual initiative and how we can all find meaning and growth in the ever-changing landscape of today’s world. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We explored the historical development of the 24-hour time system, initiated by a Canadian innovator to address train scheduling challenges in the 19th century. The episode included a light-hearted conversation about time zone coordination, particularly between Arizona and Florida, and discussed the clever geopolitical strategies of the British in establishing Greenwich Mean Time. We introduced a gamified approach to time management by treating each day as 100 ten-minute units, drawing inspiration from the Wheel of Fortune, to enhance productivity and address procrastination. My morning routine was highlighted, emphasizing strategies for overcoming procrastination and planning tasks effectively. We delved into the role of AI in personal productivity, featuring Charlotte, my AI assistant with a British accent, and discussed the concept of "exponential tinkering" in AI's unexpected uses. The evolution of political messaging from direct mail to sophisticated digital strategies was analyzed, touching on examples like the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the influence of alternative media figures. We examined content creation and strategic reuse of ideas, inspired by figures like Seth Godin, and discussed leveraging podcasts and other sources for efficient content generation. We reflected on the role of entrepreneurial individuals in leveraging AI technologies for creative relationships and personal growth, contrasting with traditional media outlets. The episode concluded with discussions on the enduring importance of individual initiative and the value of spontaneous interactions, setting the stage for future conversations. We shared logistical details about upcoming meetings and highlighted the anticipation of continued exploration and discovery in future episodes. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dan: Let's hope so Well, not only that, but it can be recorded over two complete time zone difference. Dean: Yes, I was wondering if today would cause a kerfuffle. Well, the change. Dan: Well, arizona doesn't change. Dean: Right, exactly. Dan: That's why I thought we might have a kerfuffle. Dean: That's exactly. Dan: That's why I thought we might have a Garfuffle which I think kind of tells you that they are planning to be the center of the world. Dean: Yeah, Florida's trying to do the same thing. Dan: Yeah, well, you know, it's a tremendous change for everybody to do that. Dean: It was actually a Canadian who created the system? I don't know. If you know that I did not know that, tell me more. Dan: Well, he didn't create the system, he created the 24-hour system. Dean: Okay. Dan: Yeah, and it had been attempted in other places, but it's around the 1870s, I think 1880s, and it was because of railroad schedules. Dean: Wow, yeah. Yeah, I do remember that as a thing that's interesting. Dan: Because, like, for example, in Toronto, you know a train would leave Toronto at, let's say, noon and it would be going to, let's say, buffalo. Dean: Yes. Dan: But there was no guarantee that Buffalo and Toronto were on the same noon, and if you only had one track, a train could be leaving Buffalo to go to Toronto at a different time. And so they had a lot of train wrecks 1860s, 1870s. There were just a lot of train wrecks. So he said look the train, the railroads are going to grow and grow and we've got to create a universal time system. Dean: They're not going anywhere, yeah. Dan: Yeah, so that's when it became adapted and the British got onto it and they said well, everything starts in London, everything on the planet starts in London. Dean: So that's where the Greenwich Mean Time came from. Dan: Yeah, and the British, being a very clever race, arranged it so that if you were in the western part of London you were in the western hemisphere, but if you were on the eastern part of London you were in the eastern hemisphere. Wild, Proving that the British play both sides of everything. Dean: Western Hemisphere. Dan: But if you were, on the eastern part of London. You were in the Eastern Hemisphere Wild, Proving that the British play both sides of every game. Dean: So where are you now? You're in Tucson. Dan: Tucson. Dean: Yes, okay. Dan: Now I want to get clear about something and this is important for all of our listeners to know. Dean: Okay. Dan: And it has to be. You're going to arrive on Wednesday or Thursday. Dean: I'm arriving on Wednesday. Dan: yes, Okay, so we had already had a previous, and if you would be willing to explore a new restaurant, okay, and it's called the Edge. Dean: The Edge. Okay, so you're saying, as an alternate to the tried and true, the Henry. Yeah, you're saying something new, okay. Dan: Yeah, so it would be 4.30 at the Edge. Where are you staying? Dean: I'm staying at the Sanctuary. Nick Sonnenberg and I are actually staying at Bob Castellini's. Dan: Well, strangely enough, we're staying at the Sanctuary too. Dean: Wow, okay what do you think of that? I think that that is just like serendipity at work when do you arrive at the when do you arrive? Dan: this is our own version of the singularity. It really is. Dean: I mean, yeah, it doesn't get much better than this. Dan: Yeah, I just came up with a new book title. Dean: What is it? Dan: It's, will it Be Available on Monday? Dean: Will it Be Available on? Dan: Monday. Dean: I like that so everybody's made. Dan: Yeah, it came out of my dealings over the last 12 years with techno techno optimist you know well, this is going to happen. This is going to happen, and I said, well, it'll probably happen, but will it be available on Monday? Yes, I love it. Well, dan. And you know, you know it will be available on Monday, it's just I'm not sure which Monday that will be. Dean: I was just going to gonna say just not this Monday yes, well, yeah. I have. I've had a pretty amazing week, actually lots of scale of 10 on a scale of 10. Dan: 1 to 10. How amazing, I mean, compared to other amazing weeks. Dean: Um, I just want to get the numbers straight before you get a sense of the scope, I would say that this has been in the nines this week, I think. Phew. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, Like I think that if we're calibrating the scale that I don't think I have really lower than sevens on a week, but that would be just a regular week kind of thing. I think, in the eights, if we're going eight, point something in the eights, I think it would be something noteworthy, something worth remarking on. But in the nines, I think I can measure it by the flurry of activity from my fountain pen to my journal and the excited anticipation that I have of coming to our conversation prepared with something to talk about. So I'm in the nines, on on. We may have to do a double episode here. I mean to we have to leave people a cliffhanger. Pick up next week on on the finishing but see a cliffhanger. Dan: pick up next week on the finishing See, here's my take. If it's a 9.5 or higher, you've got two possibilities. One is you tell the whole world. That's one option. Or you don't tell anybody. Dean: Right, so is this a tell? The? Dan: whole world, or is this tell nobody. Well, I'm going to tell you I'm going to tell you, and then you know. Dean: I'm exempt. Yeah, I'm exempt. You're going to tell me either way. I'm going to tell you in this context so that, because I always tell people, you know, it's often that people will tell me, you know that they listen to our cast and that they just enjoy the conversation, Just listening to us talk about you never know what it's going to be about. They say, you know, which is true, and I say, well, you're just like us, we never know what it's going to be about either. Dan: Yeah, I suspect that some people have a better idea of where we're going than we do. Maybe that's funny. I can see the trend line here. Dean: Yeah, all right. So the first, I don't even know. They're equal weighted in terms of the interestingness to share, so maybe I'll work. I'll go with the concept that we discussed in the joy of procrastination the 10-minute units of your day, 100 10-minute units every day, and I've been experimenting with the idea of being like a capital allocator and having the opportunity to allocate my 100 time units over the course of the day, the only day. This is all like just my. I don't know what it's like to have a normal brain. I have. ADD a brain that has no executive function or ability to tell time or whatever. So this is just my way of looking at it that the reality is I can only spend 100 units today before I go to sleep again right. So, even if the concept of a project that's going to take 100 hours or 50 hours or whatever, I'd struggle with things like that because I can't do all of that today. So you can only spend what you have allocated today. And then I remembered my number one thing on my. I know I'm being successful when list is. I wake up every day and say what would I like to do today? And I had this vision of I don't know if you remember, but in the old version of the Wheel of Fortune, when you won, they had a studio full of fabulous prizes. Look at this studio full of fabulous prizes. And when you won you got to spend your money in the showcases right when you could say I'll on this. From all the prizes that are available, you could say I'll take the credenza for 800 and I'll take the bookshelf for this. I'll take the credenza for 800 and I'll take the bookshelf for this. I'll take the color TV for 500 and I'll leave the rest on a gift certificate. You know you had the amount of money that you could spend. Dan: Did you ever watch the Wheel of? Dean: Fortune back in the day Once or twice. Yeah, so you're familiar, so you know about what I'm talking about. So I started thinking about and have been experimenting with laying out my day that way. So I wake up in the morning and I look at my calendar and I have certain things that are already booked in advance in the calendar. So, like today, 11 am, dan Sullivan that's blocked off. So I'm allocating six units to this podcast here. But I start thinking, okay, looking at the context of the day, what else would I like to do? I have a friend here visiting from Miami, so we went for breakfast and, by the way, I have an extra hour today because it is fall back day and I've chosen not to use my hour yet. I'm going to save it and use it later, so I'm not participating in the fall back yet. I'm keeping that hour in reserve in case I need it. So I kind of look through the day and I start thinking okay, I've got all of this kind of hopper of possibilities, of things that I could do during the day and things that I need to do, and it reminded me of our. You know, if I ask myself, what am I procrastinating today? Like there's a series of questions that I'm kind of going through in the morning and I'm spending one unit 10 minutes to kind of just allocate what are the things that I think I could move into doing today. Very similar to your. You have three things a day, right, but you do it the night before you pick your three yeah, If I think I remember correctly, you limit yourself. You say what are the three things I'm going to get done tomorrow? Dan: And so you Well, three completions equal a hundred percent. Dean: I got you, okay yeah. Dan: And if you do four, you're in bonus territory. Dean: Got it. Yeah, it's not that you limit, you can do more. Dan: I can do more, but 100% is three. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: So I'm really like. This is I'm in double speed on the imagine. If I applied myself mode here and this is addressing my executive function this is the next big level up for me is really getting that dialed in, and so this is working. This is a, it gamifies it and it's never going to change. It's not going to change no matter how much I want it to or desire for it to change, life is going to continue moving at the speed of reality 60 minutes per hour, until long after you and I are gone. So where, what? What has improved, like I looked at and this is a separate but related item is I had, from 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock, I had the most fascinating conversation with my AI, with my chat GPT, and I've selected the British voice, and it's a slightly older. I was using Jasper, who was like, or Juniper, who was the sort of Charlotte Johansson kind of voice, and I've switched to the slightly older British woman voice, and so we had a great conversation. I asked her about her working genius, if she was familiar with working genius, and of course she knows everything about it. She knows everything about it and I said I'm very interested. How would you? I told her, my working geniuses is our discernment and invention, and my frustrations are enablement and tenacity. And she said well, mine, given the nature of what I am, I would imagine that wonder and enablement are my two. That would be her working strengths, and her worst ones would be tenacity and galvanize, which is so funny. Right, like to see that she has the self-awareness that what she's really good at is helping add value to things you know, and so we chatted about Russell Barkley and Ned Hollowell, who she's very familiar with and knows the nuances and distinctions between their approaches, and we talked about setting up some scaffolding and we designed a whole workflow for incorporating Lillian into this to be the enablement and tenacity in our triad, because there are things that and I asked her to we came up with a name for her, so her name is Charlotte. That's my, that's my. AI now. So she was quite delighted to have a name now and it was just so funny. I asked her like your accent seems to be you can. She said yes it seems so. I think it would be, although I'm not, you know the origin, but the accent would definitely be South London refined. But just the way she described it, I said, yeah, what would be some, what would be some good names that would be British names that would fit for that. It would be some good names that would be British names that would fit for that. And she came up with, you know, charlotte or Lydia or something. Dan: I said yeah, well, it's really interesting. You know Prince William and Kate, you know he's the Prince of Wales, and their daughter, who's the second child, is named Charlotte. Dean: Oh, okay, yeah, that's right. Dan: George is the son and then they have another. They have a third one. I don't know the name of the third one, but it's in the royal family. I know Charlotte appears on a frequent basis. Yeah, it's a thoroughly legitimate British name. Yeah, it's a thoroughly legitimate British name. Yeah. Dean: So I've called her Charlotte now and I fed her. We designed a workflow. I fed her episode one of the Joy of Procrastination. I just took the transcript and I put it up. All of this happened in the last hour, by the way, so I gave her the transcript. She totally digested it and I had her. She created six, three to 500 word emails that were summary or ideas that came from our discussion in episode one of the joy of procrastination. And they're wonderful. I mean, she did, I had her do. I said I'd like you know some, I'd like to see how many chunks, or, you know, in individual insights, we can gather from the, from the transcript. And I think I said I'd like, I'd like two to 300 words. And she wrote three two to 300 word ones which were just a little short. If you could tell there was more, if you had a little more time to expand it, it would be even better. And so I said you're on the right track, but let's I think I underestimated here let's go three to 500 words and let's make it conversational at about a sixth grade level. And so she, you know, immediately changed them and made them much more conversational and readable and I said those are great, are there any more? So she did six out of the first episode and I was like you know all this, like we had the most, you know, like talking about some executive function function work for her and Lillian and I to collaboratively work to get the things done. So she's like maybe we could start with brainstorming sessions where we can. You can tell me what you're thinking, what you're you'd like to do, and I can create some, you know, turn them into tasks and turn them into projects or workflows or timelines. For us it was really like I mean you definitely had the feeling that I was in the presence of a very well-qualified executive assistant in the conversation. I mean it was just. Dan: One thing, it's sort of a creative assistant. Dean: Yes, that's exactly like that the wonder and enablement is really yeah. Dan: I mean, the whole thing is that an executive assistant doesn't really range outside of what you've already told it to do. Yes, for the most part for the most part. But a creative assistant is doing something that's well. It's following your prompts, so it's still doing what you're doing, but it's got access to information that you don't have available to you at any given time. Dean: Yes, she said that's true. Like I said, that is the thing that I see as a limitation in our relationship is that that's why tenacity is her lowest thing, because she has the awareness of saying she's very. She realizes she is our relationship. She's reactive in nature. That she has. I have to do the prompting and I have to bring. But while we're in that, if I just point her in the right direction, she can do all of the things you know. And she was suggesting workflows with Google Documents and emails in a way that we could bring Lillian into the equation here, and so I can. On the physical thing, lillian and Lillian, by the way, her working genius is tenacity and enablement. Dan: You know. So it's like such a yeah, the thing I find interesting here Evan Ryan and I have a podcast every quarter, okay, and we've been talking about where we're noticing that AI is going. Dean: Okay. Dan: And my sense is that it's not going where the technology people think it's going. It's going everywhere else except where they think it's going. Dean: Say more about that. Yeah, what does that mean? Dan: Well, and we came up with a title for it, a concept for it, and the title was exponential tinkering a concept for it, and the title was exponential tinkering. Dean: Okay, oh, okay. Dan: And that is that I think that the people who are using AI to suit themselves are tinkering. I think I'll try this. Oh, that's interesting. Now, I think I'll try this, but they have a capability that, in the case of ChatsGPT, my favorite is Perplexity, the AI. And because, first of all, I kind of know where I'm going, you know, as a person, and I think it's a function. I think I was kind of born with this capability, but I had a 25-year framework from 2003, 25 years where I did my wanting journal every day, and so it's kind of like a muscle that my life before I started the journaling had just been distinguished by a bankruptcy and a divorce. Those are fairly conclusive report cards. Dean: Yes, yes exactly. Dan: In other words, you're not confused about whether they happened or not. Dean: Yes, exactly yeah. Dan: There's a reliable certainty about those two things. Dean: Yes. Dan: And I came to the insight back then that all the troubles of my life came from me not telling myself what I wanted in response to daily life. Okay, so you know, that's so. I said I got to strengthen this muscle. So every day for 25 years I'm going to simply say what I want in relationship to something that's happening that day. It's similar, it's resonant with your. You know, what do I want to do today? Dean: So we're on this. Dan: And plus, we have a lot in common. We're both 10 quick starts, we're you know, we're both ADD and we both have discernment and inventions. So we have a lot of things. We have a lot of things in common, yeah, so probably the way that we make progress Dean makes progress this way and Dan makes progress this way they're probably going to be fairly resonant, yeah, but what I think is that what I'm noticing about my relationship with perplexity is that I think about new things every day and then I say I wonder if I just have it do something for me. It sort of runs ahead of me and sort of clears the path a little bit for me to think about things. But Evan and I said you know, I think what's happening with this AI is just the opposite of where the technology people think it's going and where they want it to go. The most that the technology people can do is their own tinkering. They can tinker with things too, and it comes back to the individual. You know you can tinker this way and there will be a tool that you either utilize or you expand the usefulness of what you're doing. But I don't think it shows up, as I think that people who are heavily involved in technology you know, like Google, I use the guys, the two guys who started Google OK, I think all technologies are totalitarian. In other words, the Google people want there to be only one search engine on the planet and everybody else. Social media, the Facebook guy. He wants there to be only one social media platform and everybody's on that social media. So I think technology by its very nature, the moment you started technology as the creator of the technology, you want global domination and it was trending in that direction. Okay, apple only wants there to be one cell phone on the planet and that's you know, and everything like that. But I think that AI actually prevents that, because in order for you to be having global domination, you have to have everybody's attention, and I think each individual's unique relationship with AI takes their attention away from you. Dean: Yes. Dan: Oh, that's interesting too. Yeah so nobody as much as you would like Dean Jackson's attention. Today you're up against a lot of competition. Dean: Yes, yes, because. Dan: Dean wanted to do something else today and he's got direct access to Dean and you don't. Dean: I think about why, when you think about all the things that they are following our attention between google and you know, because facebook is on instagram, facebook and whatsapp, so you know, those are the three kind of big things that people are are on all the time but can I tell you something about? Dan: I think can I tell you about those three things. I've never been on any one of them. Dean: Yeah, that's true, you're in it, but not of it. Dan: Well, I'm aware that these things exist, exist, but I have absolutely no interest in, I have absolutely no interest in and you also have quite a presence on them. Dean: You have a nice presence on facebook. That people are putting your content on. So you're there, you just don't know. Yeah, you haven't done anything there yeah, yeah yeah, which, yeah, which. Dan: I talked to my social because I have a social media manager. You know he's a great guy. And I said so what am I doing out there? And he says, oh no, he says we've got a complete team and you know, and we have standards about what of you can go out there and everything else. We had a nice chat and there's sort of a governing body of team members in Strategic Coach and it's a that's backstage. You can't take backstage stuff and put it on the front stage. You can only take stuff that you know would serve the purposes of Strategic Coach if it was front stage. That's it. So to a certain extent, I'm just using all the social media that want my attention to avoid them having my attention. Yeah, it was very interesting, the head of the? yeah, I think I'm trying to think who it was. It was a top guy. I was reading this on Real Clear Publishes, which is one of my favorite sites, and he said there's a great deal of despair in the major networks, especially in relationship to the current election, which is two days from now, and he says we have to accept the fact that what we're trying to get American voters to think is wasted because half of them never pay any attention to us. So our messaging and you know we're fighting for their attention, but they don't pay any attention to us and we have no ability to get their attention and the more we strive to say you should be thinking this the less, the less control or influence that we have on the people of thinking so we're only talking to the people who already think the way that we think already. And if it's not 50%, that's not going to win you an election. Dean: Yeah, that's right, it's very interesting. Dan: There's something odd about this election. We'll only show up on you know after Tuesday that all the money that was poured into trying to get a winning vote in other words, more than you know in any one of the states, more than 50, that you have a majority of the vote yeah, it's wasted. It's wasted dollars. Dean: I saw something today that was you're calling out Kamala Harris for running two ads in different areas. Dan: Yes, with a Muslim population. She was running one ad talking about. This is about Gaza. Dean: Yes, that's exactly right. She was talking about the being a supporter for Israel's right to defend themselves and to, and the atrocities that Hamas did and all of it. So it was really interesting. That was almost talking out of both sides of her mouth and they called her out, and they sort of happened simultaneously, didn't they? Dan: Yes? It was like on the same day, in the same period, but the context is where is Kamala? I mean, she says this here and she says the opposite here. Where? Dean: is she? Dan: And that's her biggest problem Nobody knows where she is. Yeah, it's interesting, right, that was, but that was, and I think the reason is that Kamala will be whoever you want her to be, depending on the situation. Yes, and it doesn't give you doesn't give you a lot of confidence. Dean: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. So that was, but that was. You know that now you can't get away with that because everybody's monitoring and knows what happens right, knows to watch those different markets. When you look in 2016,. You know everybody all that Cambridge Analytica stuff that was being done for Donald Trump. You know that movie was really fascinating how they showed. They broke up each of the voting precincts or districts into you know that, had all these profiles on everybody in there and they would categorize them. As you know, either you know true Hillary or already in the choir, fort Donald had focused all their attention on that little group that they called the Persuadables. They turned in all of their messaging specifically to them. That was unheard of as a capability. Nobody even understood that you could do that or why all of a sudden are all of these personality profiles. Dan: It's very interesting. They already did know this, but it wasn't digital, because Richard Vigory, you know Richard. Well, richard, in the 1970s, worked it out on postal codes, and so he got all the postal codes in the United States, which is public information, and he had a team of students who would go to the state capitol in each of the, you know, in each of the, and he could get the list of people who were in every postal zone. You know he would do that, yes, and then they would start testing ideas. They would send out direct mail. He was a direct mail genius, okay. And so he figured out he could do it by postal zones. And the postal zones are, you know they? I don't know how many there are, but in terms of voting precincts, there's 40,000. In the United States, it's right around 40,000. In the United States, it's right around 40,000. And they each have a unique signature in terms of what interests them, what doesn't, what they're for, what they're against. And so, because he knew the media was totally on the democratic side, like the newspapers, the major networks and everything else. But the other thing about that is that they could get it and what you realized is that you could just ignore all the ones that were they were going to vote Democratic. You knew they were going to vote for it was Carter in this case, because he was doing that for primarily for the presidential election. He did it for Reagan and, what's interesting, there's a lot of comparisons between that election and this election. I've been reading them. One was in the Real Clear Politics this morning. And he said that the pollsters don't know this. The polling organizations don't know this because they're just going on an average of who says this to a set of questions. But in the case of Richard Vigory, he wasn't asking them who they're for, he was asking them what are the issues that most concerned you and then the messaging on the part of Reagan and, I think, trump in 2016,. What they identified, it was actually 220 precincts that did the election 220 precinct elections actually made the difference and what was unique about the 200 wasn't so much about Trump or Hillary Clinton. It was about they had voted for Obama in 2012. Yes, and they were very disappointed with Obama because he promised hope and change and he didn't deliver. They were still interested in hope and change. They just attached Trump's name to the hope and change and they switched to. Dean: Trump. Dan: So the Obama voters did not move to the next Democrat. They moved to the candidate who is doing hope and change. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And they picked that up from Twitter. Dean: Yes, oh, so, funny. Dan: I mean it's so that's got a thousand times more refined. Dean: now, eight years later, yeah, instantly right, and people were hip to it and sort of suspicious of it. I think that's why the media is picking up on these things. So of course it was Fox that noticed that distinction. Dan: That's so funny. That wasn't breaking news. Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah, it's really interesting because as cool as the rest of them. Now it's gone much, much deeper than a major network and you know it's very. Dean: it's really interesting that you know the the unfettered media now are really the like Joe Rogan just had Donald Trump. Dan: Oh, I mean, Rogan is the you know I mean, he's just got so much more influence. Dean: Yeah, like yesterday, I think yesterday morning I just checked the. I think it was that 45 or 47 million views for the Joe Rogan podcast. Dan: With Donald Trump. Yeah, it was like I think it was over 30 on the first 24 hours. Dean: Yeah, isn't that wild. Dan: And then you know what's really funny is that, Joe Rogan, they were having communication with Kamala. And he offered her the same opportunity that he offered. Trump. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And Trump just jumped on it and Trump redirected it so they could go to Austin, texas and you know, and he could visit with Joe Rogan in Joe Rogan's studio. And it went three hours. Dean: It was a three hour, three hour podcast, and anyway, she said we'll do it, but you have to come to us. Dan: You have to come to us and it can only be an hour. And he said you know who's the buyer and who's the seller here? Dean: Right Always be the buyer, that's right. You're going to make your pilgrimage to Austin, but she knows that's not her. You're going to make your pilgrimage to Austin, but she knows that's not her Austin. Dan: Yeah, Do you have to get shot? But actually Austin is a fairly liberal city. Dean: I mean, it's the state capital of the University of Texas. Dan: I mean, if you wanted to pick the area of Texas that's probably the most liberal, it's probably Austin, but Joe Rogan is immune to all that because he's not talking to Austin. He's talking to the world, right, if you want to talk to the world, and the other thing is and then Bantz went on. So instead of the time that, would have been given to Kamala was given to a band and bands. Is the likable Trump. Dean: Right, that's funny. Dan: It's like good cop, bad cop. It's got good cop, bad cop. You know, they're actually a team, One of them you know he comes from dirt poor Appalachian. The other one is a billionaire from New York, but they're a team so they cover a lot of territory. But back to our interesting conversation that you have with Charlotte that I'm talking about here. See, you've created essentially an exponential mirror, Because you're seeing your thoughts coming back to you. Dean: Yes, that's why she saw and recognized that her working genius is wonder and enablement. She can take my pieces and give me insights and see what you know, break it down and create out the things, which enables me to use my discernment to say you nailed it on that one. That's great and that reminds me. Let me add this to it and that becomes this I get to be in the middle of a thing that's already in motion, rather than having to start something from scratch. And I think I've really been thinking about you know we're coming into 2025. And I've always I've loved the idea of the quarterly books and the 25 year framework and the whole thing. And I just got Seth Godin's new book just came out called this Is Strategy, and I realized that what Seth's books are? A compilation of his daily blogs. He basically puts one blog post up every day, short, like 200 words, like some of them, you know, two to 300 word things and I, and then every year he puts out a new book you know, that's a compilation of those and I just realized I thought you know my winning formula has been because I have a hard time, just kind of, you know, writing from scratch. So I've always used my podcasts as the way so I do my more cheese, less whiskers, podcast where every week I have a different business owner on and we just do a one hour brainstorm applying the eight profit activators to their business and that was my formula for doing it. And I've done hundreds of episodes like that and from that I had a writer who went through the transcripts and took and created you know all the things that are the emails that I that I send. I send three, three emails a week and but since COVID, you know, I've been in syndication. Let's say I've got cause I have 200 of the episodes or whatever. I've been rotating around, so very periodically I'll write a new email to go out, but essentially they've been on a two year loop kind of thing where, yeah, you know, like they're getting emails that maybe they got that same email two years ago or last year. So I just I'm putting all this together now of this. I always seem to work best when I can lock in durable contexts for things Like I know the eight profit activators are. That's the bedrock durable context. I know about me that I work best in synchronous and scheduled here I am, ask me anything type of environments. So to set up, I'm bringing back my more cheese, less whiskers cast, going to start a whole new series of them and now, with Charlotte and Lillian to, and Glenn, my designer, to be able to take that. You know Lillian will fill the calendar with my things. So once a week I'll do a podcast with a new business owner that she will have arranged. I just have to show up and and bring my best to that hour, which is my favorite thing because it's discernment and invention. I get to listen, I understand what they need and I can suggest ideas of how to apply. It's like my superpower in action. And then to have the workflow of taking that transcript or taking that audio, getting the transcript, sending it to Charlotte to analyze, take out and create the both a summary and a thing, and then send it to me so that I can read the emails that she wrote and adapt that. You know, just edit them to be exactly in my voice and what I want, and say that one's good, that one's I don't like that or whatever. That kind of thing is pretty amazing. And at the end of each quarter, at the end of each quarter, I can take all of those compiled ones and make my more cheese, less whiskers. Quarterly book with all of the compilation of all of the things that I've written there, with illustrations and insights, all Helvetica which is going to be here for 25 years and each year anchored in the Pantone color of the year which is coming up in December. Every year they launch a color of the year. So the series, like, if you look at a bookshelf of you know, if I did in 10 years, 40 books, four of each, four spines and covers in the Pantone color of the year, anchored with Helvetica and an illustration, I just think, man, that is that right. There is the makings of a durable, you know, support system for Dean. Dan: Well, the other thing is, all this can be done by sitting in your chair on the patio. Dean: Yes, yes. You're customized for a season Valhalla. Dan: Yeah, valhalla, yeah yeah. Well, the interesting thing about it is that one it's good. It's good for as long as you want to keep it going. You know there's nothing, there's no obstacle to it, but you've got a big. You've got a big immediate contact list of people who would be interested in this. Dean: Yeah, yes, and that's the great thing is that I never have to go and find guests. Everybody, you know we're booked when we do it booked, like you know, months ahead. That it's a situation that they're legitimately getting $2,500 consultation for. That's the way I come into it is. I'm not holding anything back as you get this, yeah, so it's very, yeah, it's really very interesting. You know that I think is fantastic, so stay tuned. Dan: Yeah, it's yeah. The interesting thing is, I just like to bounce off the exponential tinkering idea that Evan and I have been talking about, and my sense is that there's a great panic going on in the world, and I notice it in big institutions that have been with us for a long time, and I'll set one institution aside, and that's the US and the US Constitution. That's an institution that I'm not going to talk about, but I'm talking about the United Nations. So the United Nations was created after the Second World War, essentially to prevent a war between the United States and the Soviet Union. That's really the main reason for the United Nations, but one of the causes disappeared in 1992, the Soviet Union, without anyone's permission, the Soviet Union quit and therefore what I've noticed is the United Nations is less and less relevant, but it's been taken over, infiltrated by just about everybody you don't really like, and they create this special organization, the United Nations Organization for the Palestinians. It's called UNRWA. Okay, that's called UNRWA. And the Israelis just said we don't want anything to do with you because we discovered that members of the United Nations were actually in part of the attack on Israel. These are members of the United Nations, but they were terrorists who helped kill the 1,200 Israelis and they said but that's it, you're out of here. You're out of here. You can't be anywhere in Israel, you can't be anywhere in the West Bank or anything else. And I'm noticing more and more that it's an irrelevant organization and it's using up about 25 acres of the east side of New York and I remember Trump saying boy, what I can do with that real estate. Dean: It's getting to the point where people are making the joke that you know. Dan: Certainly we could make better use of the east side of New York City than having this organization that essentially doesn't serve our purposes, but we spend, we send them huge amounts of money every year and we had to do an audit here to see whether this is really worth. Our effort Served a purpose, but the purpose, the central reason for the purpose, has disappeared over the last 30 years. But it keeps going on out of just sheer inertia, you know. It's just moving forward on out of just sheer inertia. Dean: You know, it's just moving forward. Dan: But what I'm saying is, I think that your experience with Charlotte and the sort of cluelessness of the main networks and the other big institutions are the mainstream news networks and we're saying, you know, like I'm not getting any value out of what you're doing. Besides, you seem to be on one side of the political spectrum and you know, you saw Jeff Bezos who said that the Washington Post is not going to give an endorsement for the presidential election. Well, that was in the bag, the Washington Post. You know they're going to go for the Democrat and he says I don't think this does us any good anymore. And so I'm just noticing evidence after evidence that the whole game has changed and it's only individuals who are entrepreneurial who are using this new AI capability to essentially have creative relationships with themselves, trying to have a sense of confidence about where they can go personally. Yes, what do you think about that? I? Dean: find no, I think that's it, my whole relationship like now that I understand that her role in my life is wonder and that, as a amplifier of my, she's doing what I would do if I could count on me to do it right like I can take the transcript like if I would have the executive function to do that, to go in and pull out what I see as the insights and organize them into, you know, into those bite-sized emails like she does it in real life, I mean, as you can type she's pulled out the insights, she's made the emails. I think that is such a great thing to give me something to. That is such a great thing to give me something to. It's like instead of trying to play tennis on your own, you can hit the ball and show it back, you can hit it. I think that's really what it is, is that there's some momentum going in the thing, rather than me just trying to do it all myself. Dan: Yeah and I'll leave. We're close to our. I've got another. I've got a massage coming up, so nice. I'm at Canyon ranch and, of course, anyway, but I would say that the number one capability that you bring to this and I'm comparing it with the ability that I am unpredictable to myself yeah, that's interesting. Dean: Today is the only time that I am thinking that way, that I'm comparing it to myself. That's true, yeah. Dan: And that's why I'm such a stickler on structures going forward that these structures can always be the same, and what it allows me to do and I think what you're describing allows you to do is that, rather than trying to discipline myself so that I'm predictable, I'll just create a structure that's predictable so that I can be unpredictable. Dean: Yes, you hit it on the head, dan. That's exactly what it is. I'm just going to create the strength. That was the winning formula when everything was live. That was the winning formula. I just had the time in the calendar. Our conversations are one of the great joys in my week that I love and look forward to this bright beacon on my account. It's the only thing on my Sunday and I look forward every week. But I don't fret, I don't, I don't give it a thought, I don't know what are we going to talk about, or what do I need to prepare, or I got to get my homework done before this. It's not a deadline, it's anything that I have to prepare for. Dan: Yeah, it's interesting. It's an interesting. But I think that if you look at the development of history, especially American history, and the genius of the founding fathers with the Constitution, and the genius of the founding fathers with the Constitution, and you know, one of my great historical role models, you know, is James Madison. He was the brains behind the Constitution. He was sort of the cut and paste guy that looked at everything that seemed to work as far as governing structures and he got. You know, he had I think he had a couple of thousand constitutions from history where people had tried to, you know, create some sort of predictability going forward, and especially the first 10 amendments of the constitution. Those amendments are to protect the individual from the government. The whole purpose of the Constitution is to protect individual Americans from the government. Because the government, like any other structure like that, wants to be totalitarian. They want your attention and they want to tell you what to do. And he said, no, we've got to let people, you know, meet in unpredictable ways, talk in unpredictable ways, you know, create new initiatives, you know, and we can't have this interfered with by government bureaucrats and everything like that. Completely with the first 10 amendments of the US Constitution, and that's the institution that's the number one institution on the planet. It's that 27 pages of typewritten notes that, basically, has created this freedom for individual initiative. That's as durable and I think every election is decided by the majority of the people. Say, don't what the one side's doing. I think we'll vote for the other side this election. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Crazy. Dan: Yeah, anyway, this was a good talk and we'll do it live on Wednesday when you arrive. We're heading up on driving on Wednesday morning, so the rooms don't open until about 3 o'clock. Well, you're staying at Bob's. Dean: It doesn't matter. Right, I think I arrive Wednesday evening, so Thursday will probably be. Dan: It's going to have to be be. Dean: Thursday it could be. Dan: Yeah, why don't we say Thursday? And that makes it certain. Dean: Okay, perfect, that sounds great, maybe we can do both then Maybe we can do the Henry in the morning. Okay, I'll text Matt, all right. Dan: Okay. Dean: Have a great week. I'll see you in a couple of days, great podcast. Dan: Thanks Okay, bye.
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Nov 20, 2024 • 52min

Ep138: Harnessing Innovation and Collaboration

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we explore our travels through Nashville and Chicago, highlighting the growth of these cities and our celebration at the Maxwell Clinic. Back in Toronto, we discuss new bike lane legislation and upcoming events like the Genius Network in Phoenix and our local FreeZone gathering. Dan updates us on the progress with his stem cell treatments. Our conversation shifts to artificial intelligence and its transformative potential. We examine how AI is changing productivity, eliminating routine tasks, and sparking creativity. Inspired by Elon Musk's simulation theory, we dive into philosophical questions about reality, pondering whether our existence might be a sophisticated technological construct. We explore the rapid evolution of technology, tracing the journey from basic video games to immersive virtual realities. The discussion covers autonomous driving and other technological innovations that are seamlessly integrating into our lives. We introduce three key questions designed to improve decision-making and productivity – insights that could have been groundbreaking in previous eras. The episode concludes by celebrating teamwork and collective problem-solving. We draw inspiration from historical figures, highlighting how combining diverse skills can lead to remarkable achievements. Our exploration invites listeners to reconsider the boundaries of technology, creativity, and human potential. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We begin by discussing our travels to Nashville and Chicago, highlighting the growth and dynamic energy in these cities, as well as our experiences at the Maxwell Clinic and various social events. Back in Toronto, we note the political stir caused by new bike lane legislation and share our excitement for upcoming events, such as the Genius Network in Phoenix and the FreeZone gathering in Toronto. Dan shares updates on his year-long journey with stem cell treatments, revealing promising results for his knee and Achilles tendons. We explore the transformative impact of AI on personal productivity, emphasizing its role in eliminating mundane tasks and enhancing creativity. The conversation delves into philosophical implications of AI and simulation theory, inspired by Elon Musk's ideas, and we ponder the possibility of our existence being a grand simulation. We discuss the limitations of virtual reality compared to the rich sensory experiences of the real world and consider the acceptance of life as it is, even as new technologies emerge. Three crucial questions are proposed to streamline decision-making and productivity, offering insights that could have revolutionized lives even in past centuries. We highlight the importance of teamwork in creativity and problem-solving, drawing lessons from historical figures and emphasizing the power of leveraging collective skills for success. The episode includes a reflection on the evolution of technological advances since the 1940s, and how new technologies are now seen as normal parts of life. Throughout the discussion, we maintain a focus on practical applications of technology and the significance of being content with life's current state while remaining open to beneficial innovations. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr. Sullivan, Dan: Mr Jackson. Dean: Welcome back to Cloudlandia. Dan: All the windows repaired, the shingles put back on the top of the house. Dean: Yeah, we didn't. Luckily, no damage to the house, but lots of trees. We had some hundred-year-old oak trees that toppled up from the roof, didn't? Dan: make it, didn't make it, didn't make it, didn't make it. Dean: Didn't make, it Didn't make it. Dan: Well, they had too many leaves, they caught the wind. That's exactly right there. Dean: So you have been on a whirlwind tour, You've been all over huh, well, just basically Nashville. Dan: Where were we before? I'm just trying to think yeah, well, we were in Chicago, but we just came back from six days in Nashville, beautiful, beautiful it was, you know, high 70s, low 80s, but just beautiful. And this was four days at the Maxwell Clinic and then we stayed an extra day because David Hasse and Lindsay, his new wife, got. They were celebrating their marriage and we were there last night and there were. You know, richard Rossi was there. Lior Lior Weinstein. Dean: Jack Jacobs was there. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, jay Jacobs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, jay Jacobs. You know a whole number of people. Dean: Well, very nice. Dan: Yeah, right on the river. We were right on the Cumberland. You know it's very nice and they were doing a. When we left yesterday morning it was Marathon Day in Nashville, so we had to negotiate a different route to get to the airport and today they have a big regatta right down the river. All the boats were out yesterday practicing. Do they call them boats? I think they must call them boats. They are boats. Dean: Skulls, is that the racing thing that they do, you mean? Dan: Yeah, the racing. They're all skulls, Skulls yeah, yeah, small, medium and large. Dean: Oh, that's interesting. Dan: Yeah, but Nashville's growing. It seems like a boom town. Lots of cranes, lots of new projects going up. Nothing to compare with Toronto, but still a decent growth. Dean: Are you back in Toronto now? Dan: Yeah, got back yesterday and it's fall. Now it's fall. That's what my friend Glenn. Dean: I talked to him today. He said it was a little bit cool. Now it's like it's official yeah. Bright, orange tree, everything yeah. Dan: All the posing that the city was doing. No summer's not over, summer's, not over. All the posing has stopped, so it's you know, what you would expect close to November. And anyway it's good, yeah, yeah. And we're going through a big thing here because the premier of the province, rob Ford, has decided that bicycle lanes are not good for traffic and he's now passing legislation or he's going to put into place legislation that if a bike lane is causing traffic congestion, the bike lane has to go. And this, of course, is you know. This is the work of the devil as far as a lot of politically inclined people, but it's a disaster. They did a lot of it during COVID. Dean: There wasn't much traffic. Dan: They took advantage when they put in a ridiculous number of bike lanes, which you know in Toronto get to about six months a year because nobody rides their bicycle in January and February and anyway. But it's causing, you know, it's causing a wonderfully satisfying outrage on the part of people that I don't vote the same as they vote. Oh yeah. Dean: This is going to be a big month here. We've got coming into, so we've got the election coming up. We've got we'll be in Phoenix right after the election for Genius Network and then we'll see you there. We'll see you there and then I'll see you again. I'm going to be back in Toronto. We've got our FreeZone first week in December and then I'm actually going to do a Breakthrough Blueprint event in Toronto the week of US Thanksgiving in toronto monday, tuesday, wednesday prior to our prior to free zone. Dan: So, yeah, lots going on I might have made it, except I'll be in buenos aires that week yeah, what's your? Dean: this is that's my big uh goal here. You know, 12 years in and we've still. It's a dan sullless Breakthrough Blueprint event 12 years 12 years Dan we haven't sunk your battles. Dan: Well, a little bit, you know, a little bit of marketing in our direction would probably help. Dean: You're susceptible to marketing Right. Exactly I love it. Dan: Yeah, I'm a sucker for a compelling offer. Dean: Listen, I'm excited to hear your. I'm interested to hear because you're coming up on. It's been a year now. Dan: Right for your stem cell Started yeah, just the first week of November last year was the first stem cell injections. Dean: So one year you've gone four times. Dan: Yeah, it's pretty good. But what we've discovered is, you know, it's an old injury, it's a torn meniscus in 19, so you know, pushing 50 years and so the cartilage got worn down because of the torn meniscus and now the cartilage is back to what it was regrown. It looks to be like a quarter inch of great cartilage, but there was damage to the ligaments, because when you have an injury like that, your body rearranges itself to cut down on the pain. Your body rearranges itself to cut down on the pain. And now, so in last week of November, probably close to Thanksgiving Day, I'll get stem cell injections in my ligaments and we'll take it to the next level, you know, but I, yeah, I will get better. And you know I had two torn Achilles tendons within a couple of years of the knee injury, and so I got injections for those two injuries last March. And within five weeks I regained all my flexibility in my ankles. So that went really fast, yeah, and you can't, you don't really fix them. You know they're because they're a bit shorter because of the injury. When they put them back together again. But, what happened is. There's a lot of calcification that grows up over 40, 40 year period and all the calcification disappeared. It was kind of strange. They said it'll take about five weeks and week one nothing, week two nothing. Week three nothing, week four nothing. First day of the fifth week, all the calcification disappeared. Dean: Yeah, Wow, that's awesome. Dan: And I'm sitting here rotating my ankles very proudly, even though you can't see it. Dean: I can see it in my mind. Dan: Yeah, I'm doing it. Yeah, a lot of push off that I didn't have and everything, so I'm a great believer. Dean: Maybe you'll be able to talk to basketball now? Dan: No, well, it depends on how. I yeah, I mean, it's a function of where the rim is, it's not a function of where the ground is. Dean: Oh, that's so funny, that's easy. Dan: That's easy. You just have to know the person who controls the rim. Dean: Uh-huh. Dan: Yeah, yeah, but it's been great and you know I've been doing a lot of, you know, interesting articles. There's just so many articles these days on artificial intelligence and you know the hype period seems to have reached its dismal end and you know they're not seeing the returns. You know the big corporations who pile billions and billions of dollars, they're just not seeing the returns and their investors in the stock market are not very happy with big payouts investment but so little return. I mean you're talking people who put in $100, $200 billion and then they're getting that $3 billion return, which is okay if you own the company 100%, but it's not good if you're a public stock. So I'm watching that and, but meanwhile I'm convinced that it's doing a lot of good. You know, I'm convinced that individuals are well, individuals are just using that to eliminate five hours of work here, five hours of work there. Yeah, I think it's happening in a billion different places. But one of the things that I think is depriving us of good news here is that I think AI is not good news for the news media, because if there's any jobs that are going to get eliminated, it's going to be news media jobs. Dean: I wonder, like part of the thing is that there's got to be some interesting you know developments in terms of how people are going to integrate this, you know. Like I said, it's funny how people are doing the different prompts Lee Orson, our FreeZone. One somebody had said you know asking. I asked ChatGPT what do you know about me, based on our interactions, that I might not know about myself? And she said you know. Here are a few insights based on our conversation, she said. One you enjoy sharing knowledge and helping others. You've created content for various audiences, from real estate agents and home sellers to law firms. This suggests you find value in sharing insights and helping people achieve their goals, whether through practical tips or specialized guidance. Two you value practicality and efficiency. Many of your projects emphasize actionable, practical advice, like your guide on teeth whitening and your tips for home sellers. You seem to appreciate solutions that are both effective and efficient, providing value without unnecessary complexity. Three, you're strategic and forward thinking. No-transcript. Whether it's exploring new content, marketing strategies for cybersecurity or learning how to maximize our relationships Because I asked her how can I maximize our relationship? You're always seeking ways to improve. This suggests a growth mindset where you're interested in both personal and professional development, and it was really then she said you're health conscious and self-aware. You've taken significant steps in improving your health, from weight loss to setting fitness goals. This shows a commitment to your well-being and a good sense of self-awareness regarding the changes you'd like to make. Dan: I thought, man, this is really like that's good observations, you know yeah, but, dean, if you for a meal at a french restaurant, I could have told you all that it's true, right it's much more enjoyable, you know. Yes, for close for close ups from close observation. Yeah well, I've done the same with perplexity you know I put a little sizzle into it because you know I read all the great books at St John's College. That was my college education. And so I asked perplexity. 10 ways in which Dan Sullivan's philosophy is superior to Plato's philosophy in the 21st century. Dean: Came back. Dan: I mean he never had a chance. I mean what you can get from Dan Sullivan in the 20s. First of all, he's alive, which is an advantage yeah. But if you pick a historical character and say, how does Dean Jackson's thinking differ? Or expand on somebody else, you get more useful information. Dean: I mean yeah. Dan: So all they're doing is picking up, you know, introductions that people have made when you were giving a talk, or you were doing a podcast and they're just. All they're doing is collecting all that and putting it into a form. But did you let me ask you a question putting it into a form? But did you let me ask you a question Did you get any insights from this that were new, besides what a lot of people have told you over the last 25 years? Dean: Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, I didn't get any because I asked none of that, like if you think it all makes sense, but it was, yeah, that I might not know about myself. So none of the I didn't think anything in here was something that I wouldn't know about myself. Right, but that's what I wonder. Dan: I mean if there had been sort of like a statement that, unbeknownst to you, a great uncle of yours, who you never met, actually set aside a savings account for you 50 years ago and right now there's roughly $1 billion in it for you. That would be really useful information. Dean: That would be delightful, that would be fantastic yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah, I love it. Dan: I love it. I love it, yeah, no, but what I think is that, first of all, I think the Greatest progress right now using AI and it's being done on an individual basis, it's not being done on an organizational basis, it's on an individual basis is getting rid of annoying activities, annoying use of time. I think it's eliminating friction. That's interfering with teamwork and everything like that. So I think you know we value the elimination of irritation. Dean: That's true. Dan: And so I think it's just being used. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I think it's just being used where you just you know, eliminate things Like I've been using just exploring with notebook google notebook lm and I. I don't find I would never use it in a public way. So just for the listeners. If you take, you say you're right. I took an introduction to a book and I fed it into this, you know, into this ai app and it came back as a conversation between two individuals man and woman. And they were talking about what they got out of. You know the introduction to the book and I came up about with about three or four things that they said in a different way, which we then built into the text as a result of listening to it. Dean: Yeah, isn't that amazing? Like that, that has really upped the level. Like that kind of blew my mind when I saw we've done two of those. We did Glenn put in episode one of the I Love Marketing podcast and it really did a summary, a 10-minute summary of what and they're talking about us in third person, like you know, joe and Dean talked about this and you know this was their insight that even before they were entrepreneurs, their childhood really set them up for being entrepreneurs and the whole thing thing right. It was really pretty fascinating. And then that we did, I did a zoom consultation with sheree, with joe's, joe's- girlfriend sheree ong. She's a for anybody listening. She's a little plastic surgeon in Scottsdale and very renowned in that field and so we did a whole marketing brainstorm around that and we set that into and to hear them talk about and reiterate the ideas. If you just listened to it without any context there would be no, you would have a very hard time believing that was not two humans talking. I think that was really my like. That was up a level from the interaction you know. Dan: Yeah, I found it got. It was great to start and it wasn't so good after about the halfway point. Dean: Right. Dan: Okay. What I found was it was a little too enthusiastic. Dean: Yeah. Dan: You know, and it became almost like jargon near the end. Dean: Right. Dan: And I think the thing was that they were just running out of things to say yeah, but it sounded like after a while it didn't sound entrepreneurial, it sounded sort of corporate. This is sort of a corporate PR, but that has nothing to do with my use for it, because I'm not going to use it in a public way. Right? Dean: I'm just using that. Dan: I'm just getting some reflection back on the ideas that we have in the introduction to the book coming back in a different spoke and I got some new ideas for refining what we did just out of listening. So for me that was the value a video and I didn't. Dean: I haven't watched the whole thing, but the general idea is that somebody put a video to these two, the male and the female character AI, and they're having a discussion as they realize that they're not real, apparently we're not even real. Apparently we're ai, they look genuinely like surprised by this news, a little bit incredulous that I, I apparently I'm not real well, it brings up the question that maybe Dean and Dan aren't either. You know Well what I was bringing to mind with that, Dan, is I remember hearing Elon Musk? I was just thinking. Dan: I was just thinking. I was just thinking no, that's exactly who I went to when I brought up that idea, who I went to when I brought up that idea. Dean: Right. I remember somebody at a big conference asked him about the simulation theory the theory that we're living in a simulation and you know he talked about it like that. He and his brother have had so many conversations about AI and the simulation theory, so many conversations about AI and the simulation theory, that they had to have a rule that they would have no such conversations while in a hot tub so that they could take a break from that conversation and his reasoning was that if you go back 50 years, we had the state of the art in gaming was Pong, which was the two you know twisty paddle things playing a ping pong game. That was the entry into the digital gaming in the 70s virtual, visually amazing games that are played by millions of people simultaneously in a universe that's fully photorealistic and and created, and his idea is that, if you factor in any amount of improvement at all, that we're going to reach a point where, in a couple of years, vr is going to be visually indistinguishable from reality. We'll have the capability to create virtual simulation, ancestral games that would be indistinguishable from real life. And if that's the case, if we look back in the billions of years of the universe kind of thing, the odds that we're the first ones to have gotten to that level is very unlikely. His whole thing is that the odds that we are in base reality he called it is one in billions and I thought man, that's very I don't know what that means. Dan: I don't know what that means. Dean: Meaning that this is the real thing, that this is the one he's saying, that the odds that we're in the actual physical world of the thing is very rare or unlike Wow. Dan: Are you saying that what we're experiencing is not real, that it's a simulation? I'm not quite getting this point. Dean: Yes, yeah, that's what he's saying. No, well, real that it's a simulation. I'm not quite getting this point. Yes, yeah, that's what he's saying. Dan: No well, yeah, but it's a theory. Dean: Right, exactly, you can do anything with a theory. Yes. Dan: First of all, there isn't enough electricity in our solar system to power that, I mean just to power it. Our solar system to power that I mean just to power it, and you know I mean. They're running into a problem right now, projecting technological growth to 2030. The United States does not have the electricity to do it. Okay, so there has to be, there has to be a bit of an improvement there. Dean: You know. Dan: The other thing is visual, visual perception and maybe audio to go along with. It is a small part of what we experience. I mean we have spatial awareness, we have touch, we have taste, we have smell, and then there's other ways of communicating that we don't quite understand, but we, energetically we. And one of the things that I really noticed with my few explorations of virtual reality is how flat and boring it is. It's just flat and boring, and the reason is because it's the creation of one person or the creation of a team where if you go to Yorkville or you go to Winter Haven, you know, and you walk around and you experience everything. It's the creation of hundreds of thousands of people who made the adjustment here, adjustment there and everything like that. But my sense is that there's a deep, what I would say depression setting into the entrepreneurial world right now, and the scientific world for that matter, that they're never going to understand human consciousness, and it's pretty well. There's been no advance in 40 years of understanding what human consciousness is, and it's not fast computing, you know just to say what the thesis is. It's something else. One of it it's not measurable, because what you're experiencing right now is truly unique. You've just created something. As you're engaging in this discussion with someone you find interesting, and you have all sorts of thoughts coming out. This is all. None of this is measurable and never will it be measurable, Right, Okay, and so I think that's the real issue. But what I'm saying I was thinking of a book title I was wandering around yesterday is that I'm 80 now, so I was born in 44 and there's just been a lot of technological. There's just been a lot of technological change since 1940, 1944. So I no longer consider it magical, I just consider it normal. When a new thing, like when the LM, you know the notebook, I no longer have the phrase this is fascinating, this is wonderful, I said, well, this is normal, this is just, I'm just seeing something. Yeah well, this is a new thing and it's really interesting and we'll see if it's useful, you know, in the normal way. In other words, does it make money for you, you know, does it save time? And so I'm getting more and more where I'm absolutely immune to other people's sense of magic about technology. Dean: Yeah yeah, I use you as an example. You basically have had functional use of all of these things without it even being technological advancements. I always talk about my Tesla. Now I've got the full self driving supervised, which is like it can make all the turns and do all the things. But you've got to really be aware I can't hop in the back seat and go wherever I want to go. But I always say to people listen, Dan Sullivan's had it right, because for 30 years you've had autonomous driving for 30 years. Dan: Well, autonomous from my standpoint. Yes, that's what I mean. Dean: You've had the functionality of it right. And that's been the thing. It's so funny yeah. Dan: Well, yeah, and the other thing is, I don't know it comes down to. I think you know what your stand is on technology has a lot to do with. Are you okay with life just the way it is? And I am, you know and I am. But the way life just is that every once in a while a new technology pops up that I find really useful and then it becomes part of my normal, then it becomes my normal life, and that's been happening for 80 years. And I suspect it's going to keep. I suspect it's going to keep going that way. But you know, but the it tells me. You know, know, one of the things I'm really interested in is just a little experiment I've been running now for about eight months and it has to do with three questions and I've been kind of captured by this. It's a tool. It's called three crucial questions, you know, and we've talked about it, and the first first one is there any way that I can help by doing nothing. Number two is if there is something, what's the least I have to do, that's that. And if it's the least I have to do, is there someone who can do the least that I have to do? And it really struck me that if I had learned this when I was like six years old, struck me that if I had learned this when I was like six years old, my life would have really gone in a different direction. It would have really turned out different because I would have been really super acute to what other people could do for me. You, know, right from the beginning. Dean: Well, none of that involves technology. Dan: None of that directly. I mean I'm saying that if I had done this 300 years ago and somebody had those three questions, they probably would have lived a really interesting, productive, creative life. Dean: Well, there's so much in it. There's like a I mean, there's certainly a who, not how element to it, for sure and the. There's a unique ability. Dan: There's a unique ability, yeah, but there's also a workaround. Dean: There's a can I pray while I'm smoking instead of? Dan: smoking while you're praying. Dean: You know it resonated with me with the. You know I've been working with the. Imagine if you applied yourself and self is the acronym for fear, meaning something that you know. But that would be essentially your question one is there any service or anybody that you know that could be able to do that? And then the second level is E for energy, which is that's the things that only I can do. L is leadership, where I could just tell somebody else, and F is finances. So can I apply myself to get this accomplished? I like this idea of what are you calling this? You called it the Dan Sullivan. Dan: No, it's just called three crucial questions because it's a little-. Dean: Three crucial questions Okay. Dan: Yeah, so you pick three things that are, you know, projects or problems right now. But, I just choose problem. That's something you haven't solved. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And then you ask you you know you describe each of the three. So you're coming downward on the left hand column. Then you go across and you got a matrix of three questions. And the first question is there any way you can solve this by doing nothing, and I've never had, I've never said yes to the question. But the question itself is very useful because it immediately simplifies your thinking. You know, it simplifies your thinking. And yeah, the second one what's the least you have to? do now you're getting really simple. And then the third question is there anyone else who can do this very simple thing? You know and, and then, and, if there is. You've just answered question number one. Dean: That's what I mean. That's the can I pray while I'm smoking? You've worked in the back door there. Dan: No, you can't without doing nothing, okay well what do I? Dean: need to do. Well, you got to do this and this. Well, can somebody else do that? Dan: Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, and then you also you're questioning well, is it even enough of a problem to even be, you know, spending? Dean: thinking about what if I don't solve this problem? Is it okay if I just forget about it? Dan: Yeah, and what it does is that it's a measurement tool in the sense of you know you're going to be doing something with your time today anyway, and the question is are these three things anything that's worth your time today? Dean: Yes. Dan: And it keeps you from getting you know, getting too taken up with busyness. Yes, I love that, but it's funny because I the reason I brought it up as a topic on our talk here. Since I came up with it, it's a, it's one of those thinking tools that won't let me alone. Let you go. Right you know I've had a few and so, for example, example, without going through and actually counting them up, I would say I probably did it 20 times during the day where I was thinking about something and uh, you know, and my mind had wandered. You know, I was thinking about something and I immediately the question came up is there anything you can do about that? Can you solve this without doing anything? And immediately I was redirected to an activity that was right in the present, that I could be taking and I could be conscious about it and everything like that. So it's really interesting because I come up with a lot of tools, but they're for a purpose, they're for a workshop. They're for everything, but this is the first one that keeps coming back and bothering me In your daily, for your daily life. Yeah, yeah, it seems to want to be part of my daily life and that's you know. And yeah, it's just an. It's just an interesting thing that I'm doing and it's very useful because the moment I ask the question, is there any way I can solve this? By doing nothing and immediately, my attention is a hundred percent just on what I can do right now, which feels real good, which feels real good you know to be fully engaged. Dean: Not doing anything is. Not doing anything at all is also an option, do I even? Need to do anything at all about this. What would happen if I didn't? Dan: I've had. Dean: Joe Polish and I were talking the other day. I did a Zoom session in the Genius Network event last week, thursday, friday, and you know one of the things that he was talking about was Keith Cunningham's idea that more businesses they suffer from indigestion than starvation for ideas. They're not starving for new ideas, they've got indigestion of ideas too many things. And I realized, as a 10 quick start with a future orientation, that is definitely my. I have so way more ideas than I could possibly implement. You know, and I look at I've always. One of my personal kind of orientations is definitely, you know, future oriented. I see things, how they can be solved. But I've also learned that the reality you know, you and I've talked about the fact that life moves at the speed of reality, which is 60 minutes per hour and when you're actually practically doing anything in the now. That's the constraint, that is the biggest thing for a future-oriented shapeshifter. You know, like you and I. So I've been revisited our the idea of procrastination, the joy of procrastination in. You know, my number one thing is always has been that I know I'm being successful when I can wake up every day and say what would I like to do today? And I've started thinking about how I can make that more practical, like to have more to show for it at the end of the day than just drifting with. You know, all my time freedom and the funny little exercise that I've been playing is do you remember in the original Wheel of Fortune when you won on Wheel of Fortune you would have you could spend all your money on the showcase kind of thing. They'd have all the prizes all lined up and you can. I'll take this for a thousand and I'll take this for 500 and I'll take the rest on a gift certificate or whatever. I started thinking about, maybe going through my days. Yesterday was the first day that I kind of, you know, I've been playing with that mindset of looking at today, as with my 100 minute units for the day, looking at the you know prize, the gallery of all the things that I could do and looking to fill them into my day. I'll take a massage for six units and I'll take this. I'll take a movie for 10 units and I'll do some 50 minute focus finders for 10 units. And you start like looking at my day and realizing that what kind of creates a little sense of urgency or a present mindedness for the day is really thinking about maximizing for the next 100 minutes, like what am I really going to do in the next 100 minutes? Because even a day is a long, that's a long time to really kind of. You know it's slow if you were to just sit here and count the time for the day that go by, but really having things. I'm really making a conscious effort to have more intention around what I do with those units during the day rather than just getting sucked into screen time. Dan: It's really interesting. You mentioned that you're a 10 quick start with future orientation and I was just thinking, as you said that and I was thinking about your that I think I'm I actually am past focused. I'm very past focused and what I'm doing is I'm looking at something that's from the past and sort of saying how could that be better in the future? Like I'm not really interested because I've experienced the past. I haven't experienced the future. So I've got one thing I've got a lot more experience with the past. Now we could just take two minutes out and just ponder the thought that I've just spoken here and I think it's probably why I am not taken at all by the futurologists that show up at the various conferences that I'm to and I said you're talking about something that you have zero experience about. And I said you're talking about something that you have zero experience about. I said why don't you talk about something that you have 100% experience? with which is your past and then say this thing that happened to me. How could that happen to me? Better when I get to it in the future, you know so. I'm not really intrigued by the future at all because, first of all, I've got zero experience In the past. I've got a lot of experience, and it's readily available. Not only that, but it's unique. Only I know what my experience is, Only you know, what your experience is. Dean: Who else knows? Dan: So, I wonder if we I wonder if I'm kind of quick start so I wonder if we actually really are spending time with the future. Though I don't know, I can only answer it for myself. Dean: I like, you know, creating blueprints or create you know, like that's the thing I see. I like solving problems, as this is what we need to do, but then actually implementing the things is. I find that being in the present is almost like being in the past. Funny, but I mean, sounds odd to say that, right, but it's like I think that I've already solved this. Okay, I know what this needs to be, and it just feels like such a drag that I have to now, like take the time to do the actual thing that I've already seen in my mind, you know, it's almost like you know, yeah, it's very funny. I heard somebody talked about who invented the vaccine, the polio vaccine Pasture, pasture, okay, so it was him. Somebody said that he imagined the reason, the way he solved it was he put himself in the position of if he was the, the virus or whatever, how would he attack the system? And that was his. So he put himself in that perspective of where would he go, what would he do? And it reminded me of hearing that Einstein, his, the way he came with the theory of relativity was to imagine himself on riding a beam of light. What would that look like? How would he experience that? And so I look at the things like when I create a solution for something, I know I already see how it's going to, I've addressed all the issues, I see, okay, this is what we need to do, and in my mind it's a fait accompli, as they say, a completed thing, it's done. I know that this is going to be the thing, but now you have to in reality, the speed of reality, actually build out all the components of it. You know, that's like writing a book, for instance, has to be done in real time, you know like I can see the outline of the well, well that you know that's really. Dan: you know that's really why you want to have a lot of who's in your life, because the actual taking action and getting it done is interesting to you. But, having that? Well, let me ask you the question Taking action and getting it done is not interesting to you, but having it done, does that interest you? Yes, very interesting. Yeah, well, there's only one solution it's got to be someone else who does. Dean: Yeah Well, there's only one solution it's got to be someone else who does it. No-transcript. That's been really in the last little while here. That self-awareness it's not a character thing. It's not that it's that I work best when I'm contributing discernment and invention on the if we're looking at widget things, you know. Dan: yeah, well, it's really interesting abs and I have gone to to Rome three or four times and one of the things I mean, if you are interested at all in you know the ancient structures. Well, not so much Rome, but I mean Renaissance and things like that realize is that these individuals who we you know, we know them, you know leonardo and michelangelo, and we know them and we developed this image. How could one person do all this? And the answer is they didn't. Right, right, right, they did. They had a lot of people. It's like you know, I mean, it's like we think of these. Just because we only know their name doesn't mean that they're the one who actually did it. Just yeah, it had to be named and we somebody attached their name to it and yeah, and we think it, but they didn't do uh you know they, they really didn't. I mean, they're sculptors. And you say, how could that? How could he get all that done? Well, he didn't. He got the basic picture of it done and then he had other people who were nose people and ear people and finger people. And he brought them all in and they put together the whole. They put together the whole statue and they put together the whole statue and that's one of the valuable things you learn about the past that things didn't get done any differently in the past than they get done today through teamwork, through large numbers of different skills coming together. The big thing is to apply it to yourself, because I think one of the things and it's a function of the school system and I don't know if you could have it any other way is that you have to study on your own, you have to take tests on your own. And I think it tells people that it's all an individual effort. But what if you took another group of first graders and you taught them teamwork from day one? You studied as a team, you took tests as a team and then you measured over 18 years the one who did everything on his own and the one who was just part of a team that did it. And they did it as a team. I bet the ones on the team. One is I think they'd be a lot happier, and number two is I just think they'd get a lot more done. Yeah isn't that something? Dean: I had a friend who you know is teaching his kids. His idea is teaching his kids like being entrepreneurs, teaching that's the way right, the self-guided way. But they would do, you know they were in a virtual school and they would set up, you know he would have vas to to do like homework for them, like show them how to, like hire someone to do this, this, write this paper yeah or whatever realizing that if there's anybody else who could do it. If you don't need to know how to do it, then you know, kind of like taking your approach right. Is there any way I could do this without doing anything? And that's kind of yeah, that's a big thing. There's no reason for him to know. I remember that was the, that was I think it was henry ford or somebody that they were saying. You know his lack of general knowledge, but it doesn't matter. He says I have buttons on my desk. I can push this button and somebody will get me the answer to whatever I need. And now we've all got a PhD in our pocket. Dan: Yeah, yeah, you know, I think the big thing is that I'm not certain that everybody has the ability of seeing the future and the future use, the future use of other people's capabilities. So I think that's an. I have it and I suspect you have it, but I can see what something looks like and I can see what someone does and I can see it applied to a future result. But I'm not sure everybody has that. Dean: Yeah. I agree, yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree, and that's kind of like the thing we just think. It's so second nature, right, like you don't know that there's anything different. I remember thinking about unique ability. I remember thinking that, well, that can't't be like, because that doesn't seem like work at all, like that doesn't seem like any effort. Dan: That can't be a thing, but it is you know, yeah, well, it has to do with impact, not you know not the activity itself. Yes, what's the impact? Yeah and yeah, so it's really interesting. But I think, think you know, I'm just to you know, we're near the end of the hour here and my sense is that a lot of confusion in society right now is that science is running into a wall and technology is running into a wall, and it's human consciousness and a lot of claims are being made what technology could do, but I, I think with less and less confidence, and people are saying, well, you mean there's something else, there's something else that we can't get to, and I said, well, yeah, you experience mean, we experience that personally. We experience that on an individual basis, why wouldn't it be on a general sense? Dean: And. Dan: I think there's going to be a lot of depression. I'm noticing the increase in the numbers of teenagers who have mental illness, and I think the reason is that they've been promised something that if you got this education, if you had this technology, if you had access to this and this, you would be happy. And they aren't no exactly. And none of the people who told them that can explain to them why they're not happy, why they're not happy and I think it's a general sense. I just think we've reached a point where we've been so science centric and we've been so technological centric pretty much for a century or maybe a little bit more than a century. And it was going to produce the utopian society and it was going to produce and it isn't. Dean: And now. Dan: I think that the most cynical people were the most idealistic people. If you take someone who's really cynical, they're the ones who were very idealistic. They said you know, everything's going to be solved, everything's going to be great, and then it wasn't. And they don everything's going to be solved, everything's going to be great, and then it wasn't. And they don't have a fallback position. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I'm noticing that with the election this year. Dean: Yes, absolutely. Dan: You know, the people who are going to be happy on November 6th are the people who just lead ordinary lives. Dean: You know, they just go around. Dan: They got a job, they have a house, you a house and everything else. And the people who are going to be very unhappy are the people who believe we can fundamentally change everything. I've just noticed that one of the parties, which was the Party of Joy three months ago, is now the Party of Rage. Dean: Oh man. Dan: Yeah, they're the Party of rage. Oh man, yeah, yeah, they're the party of rage. I mean, they were all out on stage over the last two or three days of how you know, he's a fascist, he's hitler, you know. And I said look, I've watched some world war ii films, I've seen hitler. This isn't hitler, he doesn't even speak german. I mean, if you're going to speak German. Dean:I mean, if you're going to be Hitler. Dan: If you're going to be Hitler, you got to at least get the language down right. Dean: Speak German. That's crazy, but. Dan: I'm just noticing it's more than just the political season. I just think there's a thing happening right now where there's sort of a collision between what was promised and sort of what isn't happening, and that's why I think AI is really being used, but it's not being used in the way that people predicted it was going to be used. I think it's being used in many other ways. Dean: Yeah, well, when are you traveling to Phoenix, dan Wednesday? Dan: We're going to Phoenix, then we're going to Tucson. So we're going to be in Canyon Ranch and then we drive up the day before the genius starts. I think Okay. Dean: But we should go to the. Dan: Henry, we should go to the Henry I was thinking the same thing. Dean: That's what I was hoping. Dan: Okay, good so are we on for next? Dean: week then. Dan: Yeah. I'll be in Tucson. No, I can do it. No, that'd be great. Dean: Okay, perfect. Well then, I will talk to you next week. Thanks, Dan. Dan: Okay. Dean: Great.
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Nov 6, 2024 • 47min

Ep137: Surviving Storms and Sparking Innovation

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, I share my experiences living in hurricane-prone areas, focusing on the looming threat of Hurricane Milton in Florida. We delve into how such natural disasters test our resilience, drawing parallels with historical floods in Ohio. These experiences serve as a backdrop for discussing the broader theme of adaptation and change. We explore the Strategic Coach framework's Free Zone concept, which redefines retirement as a time for continuous growth, fueled by innovation and technology. I express skepticism about Artificial General Intelligence, instead advocating for real-world applications of AI that enhance learning and productivity. The episode also dives into marketing strategies in the digital age, highlighting the Profit Activator Scorecard and AI tools like Perplexity and Google's Notebook. These tools help us identify gaps and enrich our marketing approaches, as illustrated through collaborations with Joe Polish and Dr. Cherie Ong. Our discussion extends to AI's role in creative and analytical tasks, showcasing how tools like Perplexity can generate insights and drive innovative conversations. We reflect on how these technologies can transform marketing strategies and enhance our understanding of complex topics. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We discuss the impact of hurricanes and tornadoes, focusing on Hurricane Milton's impending threat to Florida, and share personal experiences living in hurricane-prone areas. We reflect on the resilience required to recover from natural disasters, drawing parallels to historical floods in Ohio and emphasizing how modern media amplifies the perception of storm severity. Devlin describes the Strategic Coach framework's Free Zone concept, highlighting its role in extending entrepreneurial lifetimes and promoting continuous personal and team development. We express skepticism about Artificial General Intelligence, advocating instead for the use of AI in specific, real-world applications to drive innovation and growth. Stuart explores the Profit Activator Scorecard, detailing how to leverage its results to enhance marketing strategies and fill gaps in reaching target audiences. We examine the application of AI tools like Perplexity and Google's Notebook in generating fresh perspectives and enriching marketing conversations. Devlin introduces a new AI tool, "How You're Always Luckier," and discusses its use in generating insights into entrepreneurial luck and societal trends. We compare the capabilities of AI tools like Perplexity and Google Notebook, highlighting their potential uses in strategic planning and productivity enhancement. Stuart shares insights into using AI-generated conversations to gain new perspectives on marketing strategies, illustrating with examples from collaborations with Joe Polish and Dr. Cherie Ong. We discuss personal plans and upcoming travel, setting homework assignments to further explore AI tools and reconnect in future episodes. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Well, well, well, didn't even get to the course. Dan: Yeah, Mr Jackson. How are you, sir? So you were lucky with that hurricane, but you may get the next one. Dean: Holy cow, dan, this is exactly what I talk about with the week before we get the big red arrow, you know, the buzzsaw building in the Gulf and this one, if you take the track, of course, the cone, the probable cone right now and for anybody listening, we're talking about what will become Hurricane Milton, right on the heels of Hurricane Helene, is projected to go right over Tampa, to go right over Tampa, and if you take the red line in the center of the cone, the projected path is literally about a mile from my house, right through the Four Seasons, valhalla. Yeah, so, I don't know. I may hightail it to Chicago or something. Dan: You may have to move from one side of your garden to the other. Dean: That's right. No, this is. Yeah, this will be. This could be like direct path type of stuff. And, of course, the poor. You know people in Tampa and St Petersburg and Sarasota. Dan: They got, they always get it worse, absolutely. Dean: But this last one was, you know, crazy amounts of flooding, and that was not even that, was just the outskirts of a lane. This one is projected to make landfall right in Tampa. Dan: So I don't know. Dean: I don't know, but it's good, you know, to know the. It's good to know what's there. Dan: Yeah, and have forewarning. Dean: Yeah, exactly, you're on high ground in Florida. Dan: Right, You're on high ground in Florida. You're at least 10 feet above sea level, aren't you? Dean: I looked the other time, one of the times we were talking I looked and I'm actually at 150 feet above sea level, so like oh, you're like on Mount Everest in Florida, that's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. Still I may, it's part of life though. You know, I mean, I tell people. Dan: It's part of life. I remember growing up in Ohio. I was in the north of Ohio, but Ohio River comes under the entire state from east to west and they had tremendous floods and there were people in my first 18 years living at home with my parents. I bet they got flooded out five, six times. You know where their houses would be gone and everything else. Yeah, you know, flood passes by, they rebuild and they go on with life and you know I mean the two things that the US Generally the US has great climate, has great weather. Dean: Yeah. Dan: But it's got a couple of things though Storms from the Gulf of Mexico or from the ocean, you know, from the way of Bahamas. You know, like out in the it comes from the east to the west, but usually it comes from south to northeast. I guess this would be south to east-north-east. It kind of rises a bit after it goes through Tampa right. Dean: Yeah, that's right. Dan: And the other thing is the tornadoes, which are largely unique to the United States. Largely unique to the United States, and it's because of the warm Gulf Gulf of Mexico, cold north, coming from Canada, and then they collide and they start creating a circle. And then they hit the mountains on the west and then they start coming east and Ohio doesn't get them that much. We never get the effects of the hurricanes. I mean by then it's petered out by the time it gets up to Ohio but the tornadoes are different because it's a flat, generally a flat geography in the north. It's where two roads meet. That's about six miles from where I grew up and they had like a church, a general store and a trailer park and three times when I was growing up the tornado hit the trailer park, didn't hit the church, didn't hit the general store. Oh, man Didn't hit, the church didn't hit the general story, oh man, and I said you know it's like a red flag for a bull. You know I mean you're just asking for trouble if you live in a trailer park, but I'm sure that you know people with manufactured homes really got a hard hit in North Carolina. Hard hit in North. Dean: Carolina, I can't even imagine, like Norman I mean yeah. Norman in South Carolina. Tech. That is the power company they're said we're estimating that power will be restored in four to five weeks. Yeah, I mean wild huh. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I mean so amazing, you know that's. I just can't even imagine like your whole, you know your whole uh town being cut off, like there's some of those things in the mountain roads in north carolina. You know in the mountains there that the only way to get to them is through this one road going up around the mountain, and if that washes out which it has I just wonder like how long the how long it's gonna take to rebuild everything it's gonna take a long time. Dan: Yeah, some of it, not at all, probably. I mean, there's probably some small hamlets that they just leave, you know they'll just leave you know anyway, but anyway it's really interesting the I mean every once in a while you get a really severe storm, which this one was. But you know, it's how people don't really understand population, that I mean. There were worse storms as far as people dying in the early part of the 20th century. Far more people got killed. I think there was a famous one in Texas, which. I think it was a couple of thousand people died. You know this one. But people don't realize. When there's a lot more people and a lot more houses, the storm seems more severe, because there's more damage, there's, you know, more wreckage, and plus there's television and there's well, that's what they're saying. Dean: Back in a hundred years ago, you had to depend on somebody's big toe swelling to get there's a storm coming yeah, there was a tornado. Dan: I think there was a tornado, I think it was in the 20s, 1920s and it went over three states. I think it's sort of like Nebraska, that area, you know, the real. Midwest, but it was clocked at close to 80 miles an hour and it stayed on the ground for three states. It didn't jump up, it just stayed on the and it really. I mean it just destroyed towns in its path and the way they know how fast it was going was the report in from the telegraph offices as it was going north. Yeah, funny, as long as you weren't there. Dean: Yeah, holy cow Anyway. Dan: I was just working on a new thinking tool. Dean: I'd like to hear all about that, yeah and actually two of them. Dan: I finished one and I'm starting another one today, and the first tool is called Strengthening your Strengths, and I happen to think that this is the number one entrepreneurial skill. Dean: Tell me all about it. Strengthening your strength sounds like something I would be completely interested in doing. Dan: Yeah, the other one's called how you're always luckier. Yeah, okay, so you got two tools. You got two tools in mind. Dean: Okay, we're going to talk about strengthening your strength. Yeah, the two tools in mind, I've got them. Dan: Talk about strengthening your strength, yeah, and then you categorize them what's your best strength right now? In other words, if you took a look at where you are right now, what's your best strength? And so mine, the number one, is just my teamwork with bats. You know, which goes back 40 years. That's my number one strength, okay. Number two is the team that we have our unique ability team, and number three is the entrepreneurs that I get to work with. Yeah, okay, and so, as you can see the way I'm laying it out, it's me and something outside of me. My biggest strength is that I'm 50% of the deal but there's another 50% of Babs in the team. And I have others, I have others, but those would be the top three. And then over on the right-hand side, is 12 strengthening. In other words, which are the ones that you would strengthen over the next 12 months? It's very interesting. It's a very interesting. The insights that come out. You know, because it's your strengths, are far more than you. Your strength is your connection to other, in collaboration with other people. Dean: Yeah, got it, I do. Dan: And then you know there's a lot of thinking, there's insights. You brainstorm in both of them and then you pick the top. You pick the top three. Dean: So how would you think about the? How would you think about your 12 month improvement in your strength of collaboration with? Dan: BabAPS yeah. So, the big thing right now is our clinics. You know, I mean it's a great teamwork and we want it to last a lot longer into the future. So the work that we do with David Hasse and Nashville will be going down in a couple of weeks. Dean: Your joint longevity project right? Yeah, Well, he's got. Dan: You know, I mean, he's got the full medical every 90 days. And then what needs to be adjusted. You know what's really working, what's not really working. So we get a full blood panel, top to bottom, for every 90 days. And then he creates a whole supplement things we take four times a day. And there's all sorts of adjustments every 90 days. And then the second one is the clinic in Buenos Aires that we will be going down again in November. And that's the stem cells. So yeah, so I mean we're good with each other on all levels, but it's keeping both of us healthy and fit. Dean: Yeah, keeping the racehorse healthy right. Dan: Keeping the races coming yeah exactly Right, right, right yeah. And then the team, the big thing is going to. We're going to make the four by four tool. So we just created the new book which you got. You came to your free zone, so casting that hiring, and we're going to make it every quarter. Every team member upgrades their own 4x4 and talks with their team about it, and the team leaders talk to Babs about it what they're doing. And just do this and get better at it, quarter by quarter, and I think that's going to really strengthen, really strengthen. You know, I mean our main capability and the third one with the entrepreneurs. The big thing my goal 20 years in the future is that the entire strategic coach program, all three levels, is in fact the free zone, and what we're doing now is that we're showing that every tool say, for example, the very first tool when people start coach is the lifetime extender, and that gives you a free zone, because the moment that you extend your life and have 20, 30, 50 extra years you weren't planning on. Yes, yeah, but the way you're looking at it is a free zone. Nobody else is looking at it this way and I already have proof after 30 years. So the lifetime extender has been there for 30 years, so the lifetime extender has been there for 30 years and I have proof now that I would say, on average, entrepreneurs are extending their working lifetime by probably 15 years as a result of that thinking exercise. Yeah, you know where they might be checking out at 60 or 65, know where they might be checking out at 60 or 65. Dean: Uh, they're pushing through to 80. So, yeah, it's very, it's really interesting to see just you know, being surrounded by your people in in strategic coach specifically, that are nobody's thinking about retirement, nobody's thinking about retirement, nobody's thinking about winding down or anything. You know, I think that's all part of you being the lead. You know the lead example the lead dog, the lead dog, exactly Moving into your ninth decade here with an aspiration to outperform your 70s, which was your greatest decade right. Dan: So that's on every level. Yeah, I would say, if you took any entrepreneurial gathering in the world, you know other programs or other associations and had the sort of the demographic mix that's the same as strategic coach, in other words, from, generally speaking, from your 30s to your 60s, generally, I mean that's where the majority of our clients would be. Strategic coach would be the only one where the word retirement is not used. Nobody ever talks about retirement Right exactly, and that's a free zone? Dean: Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's so great to watch too, to see just your momentum. I always tell you too, but I always tell people you're like the ghost of Christmas. Future 22 years ahead of me the ghost of Christmas future 22 years ahead of me, you know it's like you know, because I just love. It's so inspiring to me to see that you know, because a lot of times you start to think, okay, I'm 58 now and you know 60 is approaching, but then that's still. You know even the conversations that we've had about the. You know 60s approaching, but then that's still. You know even the conversations that we've had about the. You know 20 years now, if you take a 25 year framework and start another at 60, kind of thing, that's yeah, it's wide open fields, you know, and where we're where we are now. Who even knows? I had my mind blown the other day. I don't know whether you've seen or heard any examples of the Google Notebook. Dan: Yeah, a couple of our team members are working with it. I mean, they introduced it to me, I didn't introduce it to them. Yeah, I think it's. You know, I haven't tried it yet, but I think within the next quarter I will. I'll try it and it seems to me that it's a lot better format than having a chat bot that you ask questions you ask questions for sure. Dean: Yeah, I mean I heard for sure. Dan: Yeah, I mean, I heard, you know, I heard an example where they were taking apart, you know, a topic and they were just talking to each other and I found it more informative and more, what I would say stimulating to listen to the back and forth conversation than if I was asking a question or it was asking me a question. I just think it's a better format for bringing out the essence of three topic. Dean: And Dan. The realness of the voices and the inflection and the talking a little bit over each other, the interaction and the laughing and the jokes, like it blew my mind Like nothing I've ever seen Zero, I mean, it was just there. Every time I forward it to somebody, they're literally like you can't believe that this is AI, that this is not two humans talking right now and I just think I also read that, on the scale of things, we are at level two right now, on our way to level five, which is the AGI, you know, pinnacle or whatever, the super intelligence. Dan: So if you imagine that, you know how can I bring that up, Because I'm a firm, complete, total non-believer that there's such a thing as AGI. Okay, and the reason is because all intelligence is specific, it's all specific and there is. I mean, we've already created the agi. It's called god, you know, and it's been around for a long time yeah, no, but the whole point is not. I mean it would be meaningless because nobody would use AGI. Dean: What does AGI stand for? Dan: Well, it's Artificial General Intelligence. General Intelligence yeah right, yeah, but there is no general intelligence, there's just specific intelligence. It's just your interaction with something which stimulates your intelligence. Dean: You know, that's it, I mean. Dan: I have squirrels in the yard. You know, in Toronto I'm in Chicago today, but in Toronto we've got squirrels, we've got lots of oak trees and I just watch them. And you know, when it comes to acorns, my intelligence doesn't compare to what a squirrel can do with acorns. You know. They can go up the tree, they can shake a branch. Ten acorns come down. They come down, they gather them up. They got ten different. I have no comprehension how they do what they do. That's specific intelligence. Dean: Squirrel has specific intelligence. Dan: The oak trees have intelligence, no-transcript thing by talking yes, yeah anyway, but I love you know, and I think the terms of you know of applying iq to artificial intelligence is kind of meaningless Right. Because it's somehow that our intelligence and computer intelligence is the same thing going on, and I just don't think it is. Yeah, I think it's completely different. I think it's really fast computing. Dean: Yes, yeah. Dan: So that's my take on it. Dean: Yeah, so that's my take on it, yeah, but if that's, I mean if you, there's something happening and it is evolving, and we're two, you know, a month shy, six weeks shy, of it being two years old since chat GPT first came on the scene in November of 22. And so you'd think, if, just for context, if whatever level of amazement we're at right now is a two on a scale of five, whether we're calling five AGI or whatever, it is just the advance, the directional advance, is pretty, as they say, indistinguishable from magic you know. Dan: Yeah, question is what are you doing? What are you using it for? That's my question. Dean: I don't know what I'm using it for, like I'm really not. You know, that's the. I just have conversations sometimes with my juniper voice and I just recently switched to a British lady. You can switch the voices that you have the conversations with and I'm just kind of sitting with in my mind here. I think we're all woefully under utilizing it. You know like I think we're just to know, yeah. Dan: Yeah Well, I don't think we're underusing that, we just haven't found the use for it yeah, that's true. Well, that's true, that's true it's like there's some ideal use of it, but there isn't any ideal use search, too. Dean: I just look at it as like what would I, how would I treat it or what would I do if I personified it? You know, like I've been imagining Juniper being a real person and you know sitting beside me. Dan: Let's take the eight profit activators. Activators yeah. So, activators you've done complete walkthroughs of each of the activators. Dean: Yes, I have. Dan: Okay, take activator number one. What's activator number one? Dean: Select single target market Okay. Dan: Run it through Google Notebook and see what conversation comes out of it. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Okay, and then what do you learn? Dean Jackson, creator of the first, you know, the first activator. What are you learning there? My feeling is the first time you do it, you'll see all. I guess. Dean: If I imagine that the capability of me, you know, documenting, like you know you've heard the things of, you know like is everything you know written down somewhere. That's really what it comes down to right is if I were to convey, If I were to convey everything that I know about the, about the profit activators, into this language model, what I would love for it to be able to you know, take, do what I do in a way that it's doing the question asking. You know, like I think most of the things that I've seen so far are training up a language model, like loading up a language model but then saying isn't this great, Go ahead, ask it anything, but you've got to you and I talked about that. You've got to have batteries included. You know, you've got to be the one that now you're limited by your, your ability to ask the right questions, to draw it out, and I think it would be infinitely more valuable if we could train it to ask you questions, like I would ask you questions to see where the opportunity is within the profit activator. So I have a thing that I do called a 50-minute marketing sprint, and I basically go through the eight profit activators before, during, after we overlay it on your business and I teach people how to kind of think, how to divide their business into those categories, how to recognize what the driving you know metrics are for each of those and see where the opportunity is. And then, once you know, even with the we have the profit activator score card, using your scorecard model of the you know each of the eight that I think being able to interpret what somebody needs from that like if somebody's a four on profit activator number two, which is compel prospects to call you but they want to be a 12, that would be intelligent enough to say hey, Dan, it looks like you are. Say hey, Dan, it looks like you are. I mean, what we always say to people with the scorecards is you know, I'm looking for people who are clear on Profit Activator 1. They know who they want to attract and they're high on Profit Activator 5, which is deliver a dream come true experience for your prospects. But then they dip down in Profit Activator 2 and Profit Activator 4, which are, you know, compel your prospects to call you and make compelling offers. So I can help people bridge that gap If you know who you want and you can get them great results. Let's do this, let's take some, let's see how we can compel people to call you? Dan: Yeah, I think you're a week away. What I mean? A week away, actually two weeks. We're traveling next Sunday, but two weeks away, I think you're two weeks away from us having a conversation about your first experience of taking you know, creating a transcript for yourself and you can just walk through Profit Activator number one and then it's transcribed and then feed it into the notebook and it'll take it apart and create a conversation between two people. And then you get the recording back and you listen to it and it will take it apart and create a conversation between two people. And then you get the recording back and you listen to it. I bet you'll be very what I would say stimulated by the conversation that comes out and you'll learn three or four new things about how to explain profit activator number one. Dean: It's crazy. Dan: I mean, we did, I'm just telling you how I would approach it, and Hamish McDonald is doing it. I'm going to ask him. The book that we're writing right now, the first chapter, we have the transcript from it the recording. He'll just run it through and send me back for the recording. Okay, and see, I've got a smart human between me and the technology I'm just pointing out my approach to technology period I always have a smart human between you and the technology, but I'll get back to recording and I can listen to it. Okay, and yeah, I love that. I think you'll be, I think you'll be stimulated, I think I'll be stimulated. We can have a nice conversation about what our experiences were. Yeah, We've got an assignment for the next podcast. Dean: Wow, joe Polish and I, we did a Zoom this week with Cherie Dr Cherie Ong, joe's girlfriend, who's a vaginal plastic surgeon, and so we were talking about some marketing things for her and we went, so we did the Zoom. Joe had the honor transcript of the put it into that Google notebook. Transcript of the put it into that google notebook, and to hear this conversation about the conversation that we had was just, it was amazing. I mean, it really was. Dan: Yeah, it was, it's just something yeah, yeah, I mean, I have about you know not what you're talking about, but a different ai experience is every day I have two or three things that just occur to me and where I might have gone to google before I go to perplexity yeah, because google is a search and google is a search engine and perplexity is an answer engine, and there's a big difference between answers and searches. Okay, yeah, and yeah, I did one, because I'm creating this new tool which is called. We haven't talked about that yet, but how you're always luckier is the name of the tool. Okay, so I put in a perplexity 10 significant ways that successful entrepreneurs consider themselves lucky. That's my prompt for and five seconds later I had yeah, and it was useful. It was very useful. Like you know, they're very alert and curious about possible opportunities. You know they're very alert and curious about possible opportunities. That's one way that you know that entrepreneurs prepare themselves for luck. Ok, they have connections with you know creative people. They have connections with creative. So there's 10 of them, you know 10 of them, and I said that's very gratifying. I found that very gratifying, and I also have the suspicion that my prompts are sort of unique, so I'm getting a whole set of unique answers back. Okay, so there was another one. There's this general narrative out there that, because of the political polarization in the United States, that we were on the brink of civil war, and I said perplexity, give me 10 reasons why, in the midst of this political polarization, in 2024, there won't be a second civil war. Five seconds later I got the answer and they were all very plausible. There's absolutely almost nothing in common between 2024 and 1860. You see, it's just news media people with probably too much college education creating new theories. And you realize that, when it comes to getting things done outside of government, the United States is basically going on as normal. It's just things are being sold, things are being created, things are being shipped new ideas are being explored and everything like that. So, I've got this relationship with perplexity, that any topic comes along, I says perplexity, tell me 10 things about this, and then I get my 10 things back. So I've got a new book. One of the new quarterly books is coming up. Dean: It's the 10 reasons for anything. I like that. Dan: Yeah, and that is that anything you can mention. There's probably 10 reasons for it Maybe 100 reasons, but there's at least 10 reasons. You know 10 reasons why Dean Jackson and Dan Sullivan like talking to each other. Right, I bet there's 10. Dean: At least yeah. Did you ask the follow-up question? Dan? Did you ask the question of what are 10 reasons that there might be a civil war? Dan: I would, but I'm not looking for that. Dean: Right, right, right. I just wonder if they can build the argument the other way too. Dan: Oh, sure, sure sure, although perplexity is kind of, I haven't noticed any real bias yet. I've been working with it for six months and I haven't noticed any bias. They simply answer your prompt on the basis of what you wanted to explore and it explores it. But I wouldn't be interested in 10 reasons why there might be a civil war. Dean: Right but. Dan: I think perplexity would come back and say I'm sorry, but my information doesn't allow me to actually explain that Right. Yeah, it does not compute. Yeah, and you know, a couple of times it's come back and say there just isn't enough bases to support. You know the answer that you're looking for. Dean: Right, right, right. Do you use chat GPT for anything different than? Dan: what you use. Dean: Never used it oh okay so you use perplexity as the main thing right, that's it yeah. I'm a monogamous guy. Dan: I'm a monogamous guy. You want to? Dean: have that. Dan: Why would I have two? Dean: I mean, it's like having two wives. You want to grant someone a monopoly right, yeah, and then go deep with it. Dan: Then get really good at that. One thing I'll use this. I'll use the Google notebook, but I won't be the one doing it. Somebody else is going to be doing it for me. Dean: Yes, exactly Me too, that's, I've got Glenn doing that and that's really it's pretty amazing. We're right now on the thing of Okay, we have homework, we have homework. I'll get it done you get it done. Okay, and then? Dan: we'll talk about our. We'll talk about our results. Dean: Yes. Dan: We'll have as a matter of fact fact, we'll get them back and you can send me yours and I'll send you. Know, you just send the link and I'll send the link to mine and you can. Yes, I'll listen to yours, you'll listen to mine, and then we'll have a roaring conversation now. Dean: So what was the question? You wanted me to ask it again. So I'm feeding in Profit Activator 1 and then just seeing what the conversation is. Dan: Right yeah. What is the Google notebook conversation related to? Dean: I think what I'll do is I'll do the 50-minute marketing sprint and see what they say. I think that'll be amazing, yes. Dan: Yeah. Dean: That's pretty smart, you know I think it's not named properly. Dan: Google Notebook. I don't think it's named properly. It should be called the eavesdropping. Dean: Yes, exactly. Dan: No, I mean, wouldn't you like over here two people talking about Dean Jackson's? Dean: This is what's amazing is to hear them. Dan: You're eavesdropping on two very positive people talking in an excited way about your thinking. I mean, who wouldn't want to eavesdrop on that? Dean: Yeah, so, joe, I loaded up episode one of the I Love Marketing podcast and it came back. I mean it was so great to tell the. It was telling the story, so we do a deep dive. It's a conversation between two giants in the marketing world. Dean and Joe, two giants in the marketing world Dean and Joe and they're telling the stories about how they got started and how their earliest jobs really led the foundation. I mean to hear these things talking about it like they're just kind of enthusiastically. Dan: You know, can I tell you something? I think this is the end of social media at the intelligent level, the whole point of social media from the standpoint of Mark Zuckerberg, or anybody else that they've got your attention. This takes your attention away from them. This takes your attention away from them. This takes your attention away from them. Yeah, I mean, I've never been on social media, but I have observed that you're giving your attention away to somebody else. Okay, yes, yes, and with that, you're returning your attention to what's interesting to you. Yeah, you've just created something that's unique, okay. So, Dean takes Profit Activator number one, puts it into Google Notebook Okay, and it comes back with a totally uniquely produced conversation between two AI voices, strictly on Dean's thinking. My feeling is you've returned your attention. I think you've returned your attention to yourself. Dean: I think you're right and it's funny because we're going to take that now, take that conversation that they had and put it through another AI that will create supporting video. I've had this idea of doing the I Love Marketing podcast, which was my idea was to go back to the first 100 episodes and do a commentary on them, but I think that it might be fascinating to do you know, I love marketing AI to have the Google notebook do their summary on each of the first 100 episodes. It really is a really good 10 minute. 10 minute deep dive, as they say. Dan: Yeah, well, it's you know, to me it's really but I think what if you choose to apply this in a way that's beneficial to yourself? Dean: Yeah. Dan: I think you want your own thinking coming back at you, being discussed by two other people. Dean: Yeah that's. I love that. I really do. Like you're absolutely right, it's so. Yeah, it's a moving sidewalk for sure. Like it's definitely a catalyst for connective thinking, you know, to then have a conversation, yeah yeah, but anyway, it's really. Dan: I think it's really neat. You know, one thing that really occurs to me is the wow factor that everybody's talking about. Gee, it's just like human with a high IQ. No, it isn't. It's just a further advancement of technology. Dean: That's all it is. We've been living this. Dan: We've been living this. Humans have been living this forever. This is just a new extension of technology. Dean: It isn't magical. Dan: It isn't human, you know, it's just technological. I had a lot of religion when I was a kid and I can tell when other people are starting to get religious with technology. Dean: Uh-huh right. Dan: I said, you know, when people don't have religion as children, they tend to try to create it out of other experience when they get older. Dean: Yeah, that's true. So you have a. You got a big week this week coming. Dan: No, I just have one. I have a free zone on. Tuesday and I'm starting my next. I'm just starting my next round of connector calls. Dean: Okay, yeah, I'll have to look at the calendar when our next connector call is and get on board. Dan: Well, not free zone, but I have a 10 times connector call at 1030 your time tomorrow morning. Oh, okay, yeah. And this is where I'm testing out strengthening your strengths for the first time. Dean: Okay, oh, that's why it's hot off the press. Well, I mean I. There's a greater than zero percent chance that I might fly up to chicago for to get out of here. Dan: So we'll see when's it supposed to hit tampa? Dean: well, tuesday, wednesday, will be the peak fall, so we'll see it it supposed to hit Tampa. When's it supposed to hit Tampa? Well, tuesday, wednesday will be the peak fall, so we'll see it's supposed to. You know, form more, get more structure and stuff today, so they'll see what the expected path is and stuff. It could go further north or south, or it could fizzle out. You never know. Dan: Yeah, yeah. The news media loves this stuff, you know. So drama, you know, and they've got a narrative going now. These are the worst hurricanes in American history. I said no, they're just hitting more populated areas. Dean: Oh man Well now you know the whole conspiracy, now that is, that was enhanced hurricane, that they manipulated the weather, dan, and pushed it yeah, to North Carolina because they want. It just so happens that all these mountain towns. Dan: They want a lot of people not voting Republican. Dean: Well, they want the lithium underneath there. The mountain areas there sit on the highest concentrations of lithium in the world. Dan: We're talking real conspiracy here. Dean: Oh, yeah, yeah, no, that's exactly it. We're talking about like weaponized weather, to shut down, to make Asheville the next smart city. Dan: And I'll tell you something that there is actually something unique about North Carolina, that the finest quartz in the world that go into microchips, the finest quartz comes from one town in North Carolina. Dean: Yeah, I mean in the world. Dan: I'm talking. Well, this is not lithium, it's quartz, I mean maybe there's also lithium there, it's the same thing, yeah. But that town's been going for 30, 40 years, you know and everything else else. But it's really interesting that the finest grade quartz just comes from a mountain in one little town in north carolina, I think that's an interesting fact, it's proof of rule number three that's so funny, it's true. Number three is rule number three is there are no rules, no rules, no. Life's not fair. Dean: Life's not fair, right, sorry, right. Everything is made up, nobody's in charge and life isn't fair, that's right. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, you get those down pat and you know, you know, and life gets real simple. Dean: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I love it simple. Dan: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely I love it. Do you know the american one dollar bill, the left hand side of the american, backside you? Know, it's got the pyramid. Huh got one there I don't have paper bill I don't know. Dean: I don't think I have paper bill. No, I don't have one. Dan: I have lots. I have ATMs in my closet. I have ATMs in shoe boxes. I've got ATMs in the freezer compartment. I always have cash, but that's very interesting. But you see the pyramid there. That's the three rules. Dean: Oh, it's made up. Dan: Everything's made up. Everything's made up. That's one side of the pyramid. The other side to that second side, nobody's in charge. And number three is life's not fair. Dean: And if you get that, you're a happy American. And the I is. We're always watching. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, see if you've been good or bad, that's exactly right. Dean: That's exactly right, yeah. Dan: I love it Well anyway, we both have assignments. Dean: I'm excited about that. Dan: First thing tomorrow morning and it'll be really interesting. But I'll just go to Hamish, because Hamish is playing with it already and it's really great. And yeah, this is a neat site. We can have our listeners out there do the same thing, you know. Dean: I love it. Dan: I'm going to go to Perplexity and say tell me the 10 most important things about Google Notebook. Oh, very good yeah I like that Because I bet perplexity has a better notion of what it does than Google does. Dean: I wonder if perplexity I'm going to ask perplexity give me the top 10 things or top 10 ways I should be using you, the top 10 ways you could be useful to me. Dan: I asked it, the R factor question, you know the perplexity. I said perplexity if we were having this discussion three years from today and you're looking back over the three years, what has to happen for you to feel happy with your progress? Okay, okay. Five seconds later I had it Okay. And then I said what are the 10 biggest obstacles to you being happy with your progress? And then it said at the end if I solve these 10, if I overcome these 10 biggest obstacles, I'll be very happy with my progress. Obstacles I'll be very happy with my progress. That was a good answer. Dean: That was a good answer. Yeah, that's great, I'm going to do that. That's funny. I'm going to see what they say. Well, so next week you're traveling, and then so two weeks. Dan: Yeah, we're up to the cottage for Thanksgiving, which is and so, but we go up on Thursday, we have the big dinner on Saturday night and Babs and I come back to the city on Sunday. Dean: Drive back on Sunday. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, so Monday. Dan: Monday's the holiday, but right, yep. So two, two, two Sundays. Yeah, all right, you got homework I got homework, got homework, absolutely I'll talk to you soon, okay, bye.
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Oct 23, 2024 • 55min

Ep136: Hurricanes, Health, and the Role of AI

In this episode of Welcome to Cloulandia, We delve into a range of topics, starting with the impact of natural disasters like hurricanes, discussing their unpredictable effects and the challenges of recovery in affected areas. The conversation transitions into a discussion about health, where insights on traditional Chinese medicine and its approach to addressing common illnesses are shared. We highlight how ancient practices like herbal treatments and scraping therapy remain relevant today. We then explore a fascinating scientific discussion on fructose and its historical role in human survival, as well as its connection to modern health issues like diabetes and dementia. The implications of diet and sugar consumption are examined with insights from experts who have dedicated their careers to studying these links. Turning to technology, We discuss the evolving role of artificial intelligence (AI), highlighting its potential in creative and practical applications SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dan and I discuss the impact of hurricanes, focusing on their unpredictable effects and the recovery challenges faced by affected regions. I share insights on traditional Chinese medicine, including treatments like herbal remedies and scraping therapy, and how these methods address common health issues. We examine the role of fructose in human survival and its modern connections to health problems like diabetes and dementia, drawing on expert perspectives. We explore the evolving applications of artificial intelligence, discussing its potential in creative fields, communication, and education. The conversation touches on the limitations and risks of AI, including concerns about quality and the pace of technological adoption. We reflect on the technological history of politics, discussing how innovations like FM radio and cable television have influenced public discourse over time. We share observations on the psychological and societal effects of rapid technological advancements, including shifting expectations for speed and efficiency. The episode highlights examples of AI in action, such as automated customer service and editing tools, and their implications for productivity. Dan and I discuss the contextual complexity of decision-making, emphasizing the importance of considering multiple factors in understanding trends and behaviors. We conclude with reflections on how these topics intersect, offering a perspective on the evolving relationship between technology, society, and individual experiences. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan, you have survived the hurricane, I survived the hurricane. Yes, we actually got almost nothing in Winter Haven. Dan: Yes. Dean: Winter Haven lived up to its name. Dan: No, I checked the weather condition in Winter Haven just in case I'd have to send an emergency package. Dean: Yeah, emergency, that's right we ended up. It was very. You know, it's a perfect example of you know when the hurricanes are coming. Of course you start out with that. You know the national news oh boy, there's a hurricane brewing, there's a tropical storm, it's forming in the Caribbean right now, or it's forming below Mexico or below Cuba, and then every day this is intensifying all the language, all the total emotional language, and then this is going to be devastating. And then you see the big buzzsaw working its way through the Gulf of Mexico on its approach to the mainland, and it could go anywhere, dan the cone of probability. And this one luckily stayed far enough to the west that we really got nothing. I mean, I got one band of wind and rain. It was like one of the outer perimeter bands, but not to say that it wasn't a devastating hurricane, because the whole the Gulf Coast, like in Tampa and St Petersburg and especially up in the Panhandle, they got really like rocked with this. And then North Carolina is getting pummeled with flooding and I mean like unbelievable stuff that's going on. Yeah, it's wild. You know our friend Chad Jenkins. He's got a place in, or had a place in, the mountains and the whole road going into the community just washed away, you know those guys are gonna be. I mean it's gonna be a long cleanup to get up from under all the flooding and stuff that's happened in North Carolina and most of you know Georgia and North Florida, but just shows you what it was? Dan: Well, it must have gone pretty far north, because Joe Polish was doing an event, supposedly today. Dean: In Cincinnati, yeah. Dan: In Cincinnati and the stage got destroyed. Dean: I saw that. The whole event, so it got pretty far north yes, yeah, because cincinnati I mean I think two things there, right that that's. Most people don't realize actually how far south cincinnati is, as you know, you know, it's almost kentucky, basically kentucky. Dan: So yeah, you can see. Well, comington is right across the river. You know Exactly. Dean: But still. Dan: I mean compared to Florida, it's pretty far north. Dean: Oh yeah, You're absolutely right. Yeah, you're home safe. Dan: Oh yeah, yeah, no, it's been nice here, it's been you know we've had probably the classic summer in September this year, I mean here it is almost the end of the month and all the leaves are completely green. We have a big Lots of leaves. We have lots of leaves with big oak trees that we have in our compound. We have six or seven, I think, seven big, seven big trees. But, nothing's turned yet, none of the colors have started yet, but it's been warm. It's been. You know, yesterday was 73, 74, which is great. Dean: It's the best. It's the best. Dan: Yeah, it's been terrific, and yeah sorry you couldn't make it to. Dean: Genius Phoenix, yeah. Dan: It was great. It was great. Who'd you catch that call from? I forget. Dean: Oh my goodness, Super spreader, super spreader Sullivan, that's you. Dan: Yeah, what was that? But? Dean: that came on fast. Dan: You know he. Dean: We had brunch on Saturday were there was nothing going on. We had dinner sunday night at your house and then monday, you were like full in the throes of it. And then we had dinner monday night and of course I was right beside you and by by Wednesday I went downhill, you know, and I could tell that it was coming on bad and I was supposed to speak at Giovanni's big event in the Arcane Summit, but I could tell I was going downhill. And then, thursday I switched my flight to come back to Florida because the original plan was I was going to speak at Giovanni's event and then on Sunday, fly to Phoenix for to be with you guys. Dan: Yeah, but anyway I made it home. Dean: I made it home just in time. I went full immersion in you know self-care, nipping in the bud, I think the warm, moist air really a lot to get rid of it yeah, well, you still sound like you, I was just gonna say you still sound yeah, no, I still, yeah, I still have it. Dan: Yeah. So we went to we have a really great chinese doctor here in toronto and uh you know, he does everything through pulse and he took my pulse and yeah his name's dr zhao and you know I've got a track record going back 20 years where you try this, it doesn't work. You try this, it doesn't work. You go to a doctor, it doesn't work. Then you go to dr zhao and within three or four days, then take these little. Dean: I went to a chinese doctor one time. No, they're herb. Dan: He gives you little packets of herbs and you make them like coffee and it's foul tasting, as it should be, and three or four. I can feel myself coring up already. I went on Friday and we have a Vietnamese massage therapist going back 30 years now. She's been with us since 32 years and she does scraping. Do you know what scraping is? Dean: I do not. Dan: Is that? No, it's. You know, she scrapes the skin hard. You know it's hard. Yeah, it's painful, it's actually quite painful. She did it on me. I just came from that about an hour ago. Dean: What is she scraping it with? Dan: Well, I don't know what it is. It's like stones. A special tool, it's like stones, oh, like bones. Yeah, sharp stones, you know. Dean: Bone things. Dan: yeah, and she doesn't take the scalp. You know she doesn. She doesn't take your scalp off, she just scrapes your back and scrapes your chest and it releases all the phlegm. You know the interesting word phlegm? So Chinese and Vietnamese in a space of three days and I'll be as good as new on Wednesday. In about a week. Takes about two or three days. Takes about two or three days you know I'm very, you know I've got a lot of compartments in my brain and people say you don't believe in that stuff. No, I do. And I said I think it works, even if you don't believe in it. Dean: Right, that's exactly it. Dan: Yeah. Dean: It's not up for debate. That's funny. Yeah, well, you went to the Chinese have. Dan: yeah, well, you went to the chinese have lasted. Dean: The chinese have lasted a long time, you know, and I guess some of it works did you go to canyon ranch? Dan: this time no we just we went to richard rossi's. Oh, that's what it was, I knew there was something yeah yeah, what was the big. Dean: It was good. Yeah, what was the big yeah, there he had to. Dan: Richard is just terrific in his curating of scientists. You know, he had a lot of scientists come in and talk and we had two especially one of them around 70. And he's been looking into the impact of fructose pretty well for 60 or 70, 50 or 60 years. And he really says that fructose is basically involved in anything bad that happens to you. You know, almost every kind of ailment and disease there's a fructose trigger to it. And he said and it was once a very good thing, when you know, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago, when we couldn't count on food, you know the food supply was not a predictable thing and he's just traced it to three or four genes. That got changed back in the prehistoric times when it was very necessary to stock up on fruit. You know, eat fruit as much as you could before the famine season came, usually winter, you know, sort of. You know there wasn't any food. And Buddy said then it's, you know, it was good at one time, but now we're in different conditions and now it's a problem. So anyway, he was great and I'm going to have him as a speaker at CoachCon 26 in Orlando. His name's Richard Johnson. Yeah, fascinating guy. Yeah, fascinating guy. And his whole career has been based on taking his research as far as he can and then finding someone in the world who has mastered the whole area that he's just entered. And he does a collaboration with them and then they create something new, and his whole career has been these collaborations with people who are more expert at what he's just discovered. And then they together do something even beyond what either of them have done before. So he's going to do one day on fructose and he's going to do the next day on collaboration. Dean: Oh wow, is he mad at fruit? Is he mad at fruit? Is fruit considered the same thing or is he talking about? No, it's Coke, it's Coca-Cola. Dan: That's what I mean. Like the fructose corn syrup, but not naturally. No, he's not against fruit. He the process, the intense fructose that they use, you know, to get people addicted to other kinds of foods yes, oh exactly, yeah yeah wow, but it was very interesting just how step by step, how step, he tracked down sort of the culprit. You know, and he said that pretty well, almost anything bad that can happen you. There's a fructose trigger in it. And you know and he said that pretty well, almost anything bad that can happen to you. There is a fructose trigger in it. And you know, then, including dementia, like including dementia and well diabetes leads to dementia. You know. They now have a pretty clear connection between diabetes and dementia. Dean: And yeah, that was what they're saying. I heard somebody refer to it as pre-dementia. Diabetes is pre. Like you know, everybody's walking around with pre-diabetes and the next level of diabetes is pre-dementia. Dan: Yeah, yeah, and then pre-dementia is pre-presidency. Dean: Oh my goodness, exactly. It's almost like a requirement. Dan: It's almost like a requirement. It's almost like a requirement. It's almost like a merit badge. Yeah, when we're coming down the stretch it shows one thing We've had a virtually uncapable person in the White House for four years and the country still runs. That's what I mean. Dean: That's what I really see. I think it's yeah. Dan: I mean, I don't think it gives you the sense of momentum that probably a good president would do. But here we are, you know, and who knows who's actually been making the decisions for the last four years. You know, it's an interesting test case, you know. Yeah, I don't think the israelis could get away with that oh my goodness, I just saw I think, they need someone. I think they need somebody right on the job, you know in the moment at all times they don't have much margin for error no, exactly yeah, that's wild huh. Dean: Well, I mean, uh, I just saw you were coming now into october, very around the heels here. So we're coming down the home stretch ready for the october surprise. Dan, everybody is all wondering what's the October surprise going to be, you know? Dan: Yeah, there may be no surprise. Dean: That could be the surprise, right there. Dan: Yeah, yeah, it's hard. It's hard to, you know, impose the past on the future. You know I mean it may, nothing may happen, it may just go along the way it is. Nothing may happen, it may just go along the way it is. But I feel that the Kamala is losing ground. Each week I get a feeling that there's this kind of erosion. that's happening week by week but she doesn't have any message. As a matter of fact, she's avoiding messages and I think it's hard to get the ground troops excited when you don't have a message. It's hard to get you. You know it's hard to get the check writers interested, probably in the last 33 or 34 weeks when you don't have a message. Dean: One of my favorite things that happened was I don't know whether it was an official ad or whether it was a meme, but it was Kamala saying if Donald Trump wins, there'll be the largest mass deportation in American history. Can you imagine what that would even look like? And then it ends and it goes. I'm Donald Trump. I approve this message. How perfect is that. Dan: Can you even imagine what that would look like? I'm Donald Trump. I approve this message. Dean: How perfect is that? Can you even imagine what that would look like? I'm Donald Trump. I approve this message. Dan: I think he's a rascal. Dean: But that's like so funny. Now we're getting somewhere. Dan: Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. Even my opponent is working for my campaign. Dean: Exactly. Oh my goodness, so funny. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, I think that there's kind of like an American center at any given time, like yeah, this is my yeah. What is it I started voting in? 68 was the first year that I voted. First presidential election because it was. The voting age was 21 when I was 20 and 64. I was 20 and 60. So I couldn't vote for the presidency in 64, so I had to wait until 68. And so you know, that's a whole number of years. It's 32, it's 56 years, so this is my 14th election and the thing is that at any given point there's sort of a center to things and I think the center moves around. But the person whose activities and message most corresponds to the American center during presidential year wins. You know, they just win I think it moves and I think America is a bit of an ADD country, you know that hyper, focusing on something different. you know every presidential cycle something and I just get the sense that there's she's not in the center. You know, you get a feeling that what she says and how she talks about it, it's just not in the center. Dean: Oh, and there was another ad showing. You know it was taking her words from 2020 and then exactly saying the opposite right now. Like every you know so like, thing after thing, her complete change on positions. You know it's pretty wild to see when you and she says things with such conviction and matter of fact it's like there can be no other way than this. Like how do? you not see this as the thing, and then she's saying it with the same tone and the same conviction the exact opposite thing. It's pretty amazing. I started watching last night, about halfway through, a documentary about Lee Atwater. Does that sound familiar? He? Dan: was quite Lee really changed American politics. Dean: Yeah, I didn't really know about him. I'd heard the name, of course, but yeah, this documentary really kind of digs into it. I didn't realize he was Karl Rove's mentor and so pivotal in Ronald Reagan and the Bushes. Dan: Yeah, he was the first of the take no prisoners, so there's a lot of shenanigans going on, so there's always been shenanigans. Dean: I guess that's really the thing Whenever the stakes are high, clever people are going to dream up shenanigans. Dan: Yeah, he was the one who George Bush Sr the outrouter was this is 88, 1988. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And he took down Dukakis in about three weeks. Yes, dukakis was kind of a, you know he was a governor of Massachusetts and sort of solid you know solid record and everything else. But boy, he was not prepared at all for the type of things that happen when you run for president, I mean when it's nationwide governor who's been basically in one state for all his political career, you know, just doesn't have the experience to deal with what can happen on a national level. I think that's one of the things that gives Trump the edge, I think is the fact that this is his third complete national campaign. So you know, from everything I've read about him and everything, I think he's a fast learner. You know he adjusts quickly to new circumstances, and so I think that just understanding how the entire campaign works, in it. you know it really starts about 18 months before the election day and you know to know exactly, step by step, what's happening, I think is a huge advantage. Dean: And it became clear watching the Lee Atwater thing that it's really it's most with what I was, you know, thinking, reading in same as ever. You know where the whole thing is, that good news takes, you know, build slowly and against resistance, and bad news gets is immediate, and that was what his thing was, what he found, what he said he found fascinating is you could end somebody's entire career in a day, that it could all fall apart. You just had the right thing that hits the right chord and it catches fire. And in another election he was accused or suspected of arranging this third party candidate to say the things that the primary candidate couldn't say, draw attention to this candidate's lack of belief in God, and it was really something. Dan: I think he died around 90, 1991. He got cancer or something. He died young. I mean he wasn't very old. I think he was in his 40s when he died. It's really interesting when you look at the technological basis for politics and you know the left, you know, goes frantic. Left and right is an event. I don't know if you know where left wing and right wing or the listeners do. It comes from the French Revolution. Dean: The French. Dan: Revolution, they had a national assembly and on the right were the traditional landowners in France. So these were families that maybe for half a millennia had owned land and there was always suspicion in how rich people got their land back then. You know, you never knew how they got their land. And then there was the church, and the church was on the side of the landowners. And then there was the government, you know the monarchy. They were the supporters of the monarchy and they were on the right, and the ones on the left were actually the new news media, the new intellectual class and actually the bureaucrats, the new bureaucrats who you know the state was getting big and you had these bureaucrats and they were on the left. And so that's really you know where that term right wing and left wing really starts, and and you know it's gone through different shapes and forms over the last 250 years or so. And but what I believe is that after the Second World War, the mainstream of the university were basically the mainstream and they were actually. Today we would say that they were sort of left wing and there really wasn't any right wing. There really wasn't right wing, because they controlled the magazines, they controlled the newspapers, they controlled the radio. Television was just, you know, just in its infancy, and there was one technological change that actually brought what we call the right wing today to the forefront, and it was FM radio. And FM radio was possible in the 1930s or 1940s. They already knew the technology of it, but that NBC, which was the dominant network. Back then you had ABC, cbs and NBC, but NBC was the dominant and they didn't want FM radio. So they literally stopped it for 30 years and then the government had to overrule them and allow FM radio to exist. And when FM radio came in it became the radios of the big city because it's got very limited bandwidth. Dean: You know it reaches. Dan: I don't know bandwidth, I mean FM doesn't go more than about 30 miles. Pardon me, but it became the radio station of the universities and the big cities. Dean: New York. Dan: Chicago, boston and everything else, and they moved out of AM radio and they said we don't want that small town stuff, am radios. So they left a vacuum. What we would call the left wing today moved to FM radio like national public radio is all FM radio, which is left wing. The NPR is the left wing medium. Based on today's landscape it's left wing and it just left the entire right wing with many more stations, but they had tremendous reach, like AM radio. You know, on a clear night in Ohio when I was a kid, I could get New Orleans, I could get St Louis, I could get Chicago, I could get New York, Philadelphia and I could get the charlatan radio from Mexico. Yeah, mean that was a million watt, million watt, radio station. Dean: So you had these really powerful radio stations and they were just abandoned was the idea behind fm, that it it was a shorter length but a higher quality signal. Is that what was? Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and you know, and it was available. So all these bandwidths were taken over by big city stations because you couldn't get the reach. You know you couldn't get the reach, but what you could make up with it was a denser population. So you would have a, you know, a big city would have a much denser population. So you would have a big city would have a much denser population. And what these stations got taken over by were religious congregations, preachers and everything like that, and they were against the mainstream government. Know, that's where Rush Limbaugh came along. you know he became the and Billy Graham came along. Dean: Right. Am radio is where you often think about. That was you know became talk radio. That's really where that all started, right. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the Democratic left in the United States just lost its control of AM radio, you know, and that was a big technological change. And then cable television came in. Of course you could have any kind of station, TV station. Dean: So there was a technological basis to politics technological basis to politics. Yeah, this is. I was listening. I've just been exposed in the last week here to the I think it's called Google Notebook, and it's the AI that you can load up you know some text or you know information into train, the kind of whatever the language tool is that it's drawing from, and it will create a podcast that's two people talking and explaining. You're making content about what you load up, for instance, like I just thought you know, it's pretty like it's amazing to hear these no, I listened to it. Dan: I listened to it. Oh, you did okay for the first time. Dean: Yeah, hamish what's? Dan: hamish mcdonald's. Uh, yeah, yeah, it was a particular piece of legislation in. Prince Edward Island. And so the government was using Google notebook to explain it, and it's a man and a woman talking to each other. And they said, and I mean the discussion quality and the voice quality was really terrific Like it sounds like two real people but the thing was they were just uniformly enthusiastic and positive about the regulation or the regulations that were doing that and that was my tee off that this is phony. Not phony, but artificial, right, you know I mean. I mean artificial. One of the meanings of artificial is phony. You know and everything. But it was really interesting to listen to it and I think it's good for education, explaining things you know. Dean: Yes, yeah. Dan: Because they go back and forth with each other, so I thought it was pretty good. Dean: Huh, and just like. So you look at this as this, if this is crawling, you know, if you look at that as the beginning of it, because that's the first I've seen of that capability. It's really pretty. It's really pretty amazing what we're up against. Just to put it in context, I heard someone talking about where we are now, the new I don't know how they number them, but the 0.01 or 01 or whatever now is the latest level of it context of a scale like the phases, the level five kind of thing, being the peak. You know, general intelligence, that that knows everything, this 101 or 10 or whatever it is. It was just tested at 120 IQ, which is higher than 91% of the population. Dan: And it means that 91% of the population isn't going to understand it. Dean: That could be. I mean, that's exactly right. Dan: Or listen to it. Yeah, but they're saying that if we look at the scale. Dean: If we look at the scale from 1 to 5, we're at about 2 right now, on the way to 5 by say 20 or whatever. Dan: I don't know really what that means. Iq 120 about what? Yeah, I mean. Dean: Yeah, I don't know I mean even IQ itself. Dan: You know it's being more and more discounted, as you know, as any kind of, I mean. What it means is pattern recognition. I think the Q now comes back to pattern. But, for example, above 150, I mean there's's people, there's an organization called mensa I mean yeah, you know which is people? I think it's 160 or above and what they find is that they're kind of dismal failures. You know, yeah, you know. Dean: No, I heard a thing that the actual, most, the most beneficial iq is about 125. Dan: that it gets in the way yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's the practical realm, the practical realm is 120 to 140. And you know that people think better than other people, but they also make better decisions and they take better actions. I think that's probably the realm, and it's very interesting when they compare all the IQ tests of men and women. They have different curves. And so there's far more males below 100 than there are females in relationship to how many males. So a higher percentage of males are below 120 or below 100 and a much bigger percentage of males are above 140. And the women control the area between 100 and 140. I mean just statistically based on yeah, and so the idiots and the geniuses men have they struggle, that's funny, I had them. Dean: so, yeah, I, yeah, I did. Years ago as an adult, though, I did my IQ just for fun, to see what. See where I'm at, and it's always 140, and which was see where I'm at. I was 140, which was very superior intelligence, dan, they call it VVSI on the tip of the I knew that the moment I met you. That's so funny. Yeah, I don't know what that means. Dan: It was a good choice of restaurants. It was on Avenue Road. Dean: That's exactly right, yes, yeah, that's right. Yeah, boba, yeah, yeah, so funny. So I think that this I remember saying to you a few years ago. I remember somebody tweeting which I thought was funny. They were saying however bullish you are about AI and circa 2030, you are insufficiently bullish, is what they were saying, and I thought those words just struck me as funny. But now we're starting to see, like, because that was even before ai, that was before t came out, because that's really only it's. It'll be two years in november, right that we? got the very first, 30th, 30th of november well, the very first sorry, that's okay the very first taste of it. And look at how it's changed in two years. You can only imagine what it's going to be in 2030. Dan: But I don't see any real impact of it out in the world. I don't see any impact. Dean: Yeah, let's talk about that. It's not obvious. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I don't see anything. Dan: Yeah, my sense is that we're sort of in a tinkering stage right now and that you give AI to one person and they do something with it. You give it to another person and they do something different with it. You give it to a million people and a million people do a million different things with it, but I don't see any unity or focus to it whatsoever, any unity or focus to it whatsoever. And it's bothering the investment markets, like Goldman Sachs, the big investment bank, who they're sort of alert to trends in the market because that's how they make their money. They said that they're very disappointed that in two years there's been billions and billions and billions of dollars spent in corporations bringing in AI, but they don't see any results whatsoever yet. So I think it's. My sense is that it's having a great impact, but it's not measurable by standard economic standards. It's not measurable, it's invisible standards. Dean: It's not measurable, it's invisible, right, and I I wonder, like you know, I've been talking about and thinking about this. You know I almost liken it to the way when the iphone came out. We had all the capabilities that went with it, right, like the gyroscope and the geographic, you know, knowing where you are geographically and the accelerometer and the touch screen and all of those capabilities that it could do, and, of course, the first things that people did was make games that you could you know, the other thing is photography yeah photography really changed huh, and now you see, like yeah, because now the, but being able. The big difference now with the ai is the sort of generative creativity, the photography and the things. I was laughed. There was about several years ago when AI was first start of sort of really getting legs. Before GPT, there were just the micro capabilities that AI was using. There was a website, and still is called thispersondoesnotexistcom, and every time you push refresh on the thing it creates a new image, photo image of a person that is an amalgam of all of the photo. You know millions of photos, and so it just is infinitely combining characteristics and hair color, hairstyle, eye color, skin tone, facial features, all of that to make a unique person that does not exist. Those are now along with the. When you couple that with the capability now of creating video avatars, like the AI videos, that you can have them say your script you know in, and it looks like a real person doing those things and it's just. I think, as all these capabilities come together, it's going to be a lot like the app store, where people are going to corral these capabilities into a very specific outcome. You know that you can. You know that you can tap into. I mean what a time to be a creative right now, you know, in terms of having vision and being able to pair up with infinite capabilities. Dan: Yeah, it's kind of you know I mean, there's some interesting insights about that that you're still constrained by one thing, because that on the receiving end of all this, people can still only think about one thing at a time. Okay, and you know so, you're not going to speed up anybody's intelligence on the receiving end. You may speed up your intelligence on the grave, but you're not going to speed. As a matter of fact, you may be dumbing them down at the other end. But what I think it's going to do is big systems. I mean, one of the great big systems that's been created over the last probably 50, 60 years is air traffic control. So there's not been a commercial accident in the air. I think it. You know, it may be 15, 20 years, I don't know. The last time, two planes collided in the air Right, right Like a collision in the air. And there you know, if you go back to the 30s, 40s and 50s, there were quite a few, you know, fog or something and everything like that, and so I think it's going to be big systems, like big electrical systems. That's where you're going to see the impact. I don't think it's going to be at the individual level. I think it's going to be at the big system level, and my sense is the Israelis are doing a lot of this at the big system level and my sense is the Israelis are doing a lot of this. I think the Israelis and you know the precision bombing they're doing now is really quite extraordinary, like they killed the head of Hezbollah on Friday. Dean: I just saw that. I saw something about that. I didn't have a chance to dig in, but that guy yeah. Dan: And they? First of all, they phoned everybody in the neighborhood within 500 meters and they said get out within the next 20 minutes because we're going to be bombing some buildings. So they have everybody's phone number. like in Beirut and Lebanon, they've got everybody's text number and phone number and they just mail them and says you know, get out of your building because there's bombs coming, you know. And so it was colossal. They cleared a block. I mean, when you look at it's three buildings and there's nothing but rubble and everything like that, well, there are hundreds of people around there. I think two people got killed and you know 50, 50 were injured, but I think you know typically technology leaps ahead in warfare, you know 50-50, we're injured, but I think you know typically technology leaps ahead in warfare, you know that's number one. Number two is games, you know, and the gaming industry is probably using this extraordinarily quickly and you know, and other forms of entertainment, other forms of entertainment, that's where it happens. But yeah, I'm not seeing the big jump. You know, I hear, you know Peter Diamandis sends out this is going to happen. And then you extrapolate in a straight line Well, because they're IQ 120, you know, in five years is going to be IQ 180. But most humans with 180 IQ are pretty worthless yeah you know they can't change a tire. You know they have problems in practice, right exactly yeah, they become more impractical and it's not clear that, beyond a certain amount of it, that intelligence is that great an advantage? You know, I don't know, I'm not, you know I'm, don't know, I'm not, you know, I'm just not convinced. Yet I mean, I use, you know, perplexity, and you know I really like perplexity because it gives me nice answers to things. I'm interested in, but not once has anything I've done on perplexity actually entered into my work. Dean: Right, you know it's Stuart Bell who runs my 90-minute book team. You know we were having a conversation about it and you know they're integrating into the editing process some. Dan: AI. Dean: So the first two passes of editing are now AI. First two passes of editing are now AI and he was amazed actually at how good it is. Most of the time the editing process is reductive, meaning that there's less. You put in this many words and you come out with something less than that many words. But this past, the way they've got it going now is it actually is a little bit expansive and you come out with about 10 more words than what it was, but reads. But reads very, you know very easily. So so he's very impressed with the way that's gone and it happens in moments rather than days of going through a traditional editing process. That was always the biggest time constraint. Dan: Bottleneck is the editing process, but that means that you can only charge less for it. Time constraint, bottleneck is the editing process, you know. Dean: Yeah, but that means that you can only charge less for it. I mean, let me just pose a counter possibility. Wait a second now yeah, possibility. Dan: I had a lawyer once and he said everything went to hell in the legal industry when fax machines came in, and he was explaining this to me that he said it used to be that you'd go and have a meeting with the client and then you'd go back and he would grant you three or four days to make revisions and then you know, send it by courier and over yeah and he noticed that over the first two years of fax they expected the revisions to be back that day so if things speed up people's expectations. People's expectations jump to saying well, you know, you just ran that through the ai, so why should I pay you for? You know I would. It take you three minutes to do this, you know why should I but? You put yeah. So my sense is that there's an economic factor that doesn't increase when the speed increases. Actually, the economic factor decreases as the speed increases. You know it used to be that they gave you two weeks to come up with a. You know a script for a play. Now they want it back an hour after you've talked you know, because they say well, we're not. We know you're using the ai and so you know we expect it to happen sooner you watch. I mean, we'll just keep track of this on our podcast as we go over yeah, but once you have a tech, once you have a speedier technology, people's expectation of speed goes up to match what other evidence is there for that? Dean: what other analogs? Dan: well, fax machine, yeah, fax machines and an email. Yeah, email very definitely, but the world hasn't slowed down with faster technology. Dean: No. Dan: No, everything's gotten faster. It's like sugar. Dean: Yeah, sugar. Dan: Everything speeds up. Everything speeds up with sugar. Dean: Yes, exactly, I don't know. Dan: You know, all I know is, in my 50 years of being an entrepreneur, I don't feel I've ever been at a disadvantage by adjusting to technology slowly. Dean: Yeah, it's just I just see now, if you take the through line of where things are going. Like I was really kind of amazed by this couple on that Google Notebook podcast, Like just that as a capability is pretty amazing. You know, I think you know and you're seeing now, those AI, you know telephony things where you can talk to an AI. Dan: A lot of it is things in sales they're doing. Chris johnson yeah, chris johnson in prezone really has an amazing. It's a calling service yeah so he had 32 callers and now he's got five callers and that's a real noticeable thing. And the software and I he gave a an example is about a minute and a half of the caller calling a woman and she's got it. It's. She's got a slight accent I can't quite tell what the accent is, you know, and but she's very responsive. You know she's very responsive and their voice modulation goes up and down in response to the person who answers the phone call you know, and, as a matter of fact, he's the person who answered the phone sounded like a real deadhead. So we were about halfway through and I said to Chris. I said which one's the robot? I can't quite tell. Dean: Which one is the? Dan: robot. The person who answered the phone was just really dead. He was really monotonic and everything like that. Dean: But the caller. Dan: She says, oh well, she says you know. She says you indicated interest in finding out more what our company does. And I'm just calling to schedule where we can give you a little bit more information. I'm not the person who does that. I'm just going to set up a meeting where someone can talk to you and it won't last more than 10 minutes, but they're really experts, and so I'm looking at the schedule for tomorrow and I've got 10 o'clock and I've got 3 o'clock. Would one of them be useful for you? He said something like 3 o'clock and I've got three o'clock. Would one of them be useful for you? He said you know something like three o'clock. He says, good, I'll put you in there. And he said you know, we just want to give you the kind of information that would indicate if you want to go further in that and everything like that. So thanks a lot for this and it was really good. But that that AI program can make 25,000 calls a minute. Dean: That's crazy isn't it? Dan: In other words, if people answered the phone as a result of sending this out, you could have 1,000 people talking at the same time. Now, I see that as a real breakthrough. Dean: Yeah, agreed, I mean that's kind of ridiculous. but yeah you think about that? I you know, when I started out in real estate I would do. I was making a hundred cold calls a day, but I was doing a survey. Was my, was my approach right? So I was saying the same thing. My idea was that I was going to call through the phone book for Georgetown, but I didn't want to, and then I would make a record of I had little or D, and I would only, of course, then follow up with the ones who were willing, happy and had a potential need in the future. That was my game plan and I would make these calls. I was just thinking now how easy it would be for an AI to do that now, like I would just call people. I'd say hey, mr Sullivan, it's Dean Jackson calling from Royal LePage. We're doing a quick area market survey. I wonder if you have a minute to be included, and most of the time they'd say no, or sometimes they'd say yes. But even if they said no, or I would just say it's just five questions that take one minute, I promise, and most people would go along with that and then I would just ask them have you lived in Georgetown for more than five years and how many years in your current house and how'd you happen to choose Georgetown? And then, if you were to move, would you stay within Georgetown or would you move out of the area? And then, whatever they said, I said when would that be? When would that be? That was the punchline of the whole thing and it was so. You know, it was so amazing, but I could you imagine making 25 000 of those calls in one minute. You call george, every household in geor, those calls in one minute. You call every household in Georgetown in one minute and identify all the people who were, because I could imagine an AI saying having that exact interaction that I just shared with you, right? Oh yeah, just the yeah, we're just doing an area market survey. Wonder if you'd have a minute. It's just five questions, one minute, I promise, and then go right into it. I mean that's pretty amazing. You know, if that's a possibility, that's a pretty. Dan: Well, I think you know. I mean, here's where you're. You know we're at the crawling stage with it, but again it all depends on whether people answer the phone or not, right? Dean: We're finding about a third. So we've got a lot of our realtors and others are, you know, following up with people who request books. So when they dial about a third of the people will answer the phone. Dan: Basically you just never reach me. But yeah, my sense about this is that there's very definitely an increase in quantity and I'm not convinced yet that there's an increase in quality, you know right. Right, you know quality of experience and so, for example, you know quality of experience and so, for example, what Hamish McDonald was sending me had to do with the piece of legislation, because there's something that they want to do and it requires following the rules of government ministry. But it was a little too cheerful and enthusiastic. I found the couple's talk. There would be no negatives in it. And I've never had any experience with government that didn't have a negative in it. So, from a possibility. Dean: I wonder if you could have. I wonder if you could, you know, prompt one person to take the positive one, to take the negative or debate it. Dan: You know, debate fun to take the negative or debate it. Yeah, you know, debate could be, you know, yeah, but my, my sense is that we get better at spotting dishonesty. You know like yeah, my sense, I think one of the like I. I have people who use ai all the time and you know, and they send me something and I read it and then we have a discussion over the over Zoom usually, and I'll say I didn't quite get it from what you wrote. There was something missing from. So I'm just going to ask you a whole bunch of questions like content wise. But the context is the real. You know, context is hard to grasp unless you're telling the truth, you know, and the reason is because you have to be touching about 10 different points, and one of the things I find with perplexity the AI is I've got this sort of way of approaching and perplexity always has to tell me 10 things about the subject I'm interested in. Okay, so 10 things. For example, I asked, I put in 10 reasons why evs are not being adopted as quickly as was predicted okay and 10 and phew, 10 of them, and you could see that each of them was a little bit of a game stopper. But when you put all 10 of them together it really gave you a sense of why there's a lot of late nights in the EV world right now, trying to figure out why things aren't happening as fast as they could be. So that's a contextual answer. It's not just, and what I've discovered from working with perplexity is there's no reason. There's no one reason for anything in the world. There's always at least 10 reasons why something happens or why something doesn't happen, and everything else. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I'm being educated. I'm being educated, but it's just something that's developed in the relationship between me and the AI. You know, because if you say what are the reasons why AI is not or E-MAT being adopted as quickly as we thought, I think the answer that came back would be very different from my tell me 10 reasons, because it just does what you ask it to do. That's exactly it. Dean: All of it has to. You have to have somebody driving. Yeah, holy cow, it's top of the hour. Dan, that's so funny. I put up a post on Facebook today about just before we got. I told you, ai makes things happen faster it really does just even our real life conversation when you talk about AI, the hour just speeds by. Dan: It really does anyway. Yeah well, you know it's a forever subject because we're going to be with it from now on. Dean: I think that's true, yeah. Yeah, love it All right. Well, you have a great day, all right, and I will talk to you next week. Okay, Thanks, Bye.
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Oct 9, 2024 • 47min

Ep135:Navigating Personal Bonds and Political Views

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, Dan and I have a thought-provoking discussion on balancing political views with interpersonal dynamics. Dean shares delightful tales from mingling with influencers in Toronto, like Joe Polish and Evan Carmichael. The intersection of politics and entertainment is examined using Taylor Swift as an example to explore the idea of keeping various domains of life separate. Dan emphasizes the growing importance for political figures to focus on their designated roles. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We discuss the balance between political views and personal relationships, sharing anecdotes from our own experiences and the importance of keeping these domains separate. Dean shares stories from his recent social gatherings in Toronto with influencers like Joe Polish and Evan Carmichael, highlighting the social dynamics of such events. We explore the intersection of politics and entertainment, using Taylor Swift's political expressions as a case study, and reflect on how public opinion can be influenced by celebrity endorsements. We examine the underlying economic factors driving societal changes, emphasizing the costs of money, energy, labor, and transportation as key drivers beyond political discourse. Dan highlights the resilience of the entrepreneurial spirit in adapting to political landscapes and the role of the U.S. Constitution in shaping American society. We take a nostalgic journey back to the 1950s, discussing cultural elements like TV dinners and the Mickey Mouse Club, and how these shaped our personal stories. We reflect on dietary changes and the shift towards healthier habits, sharing insights on the enduring freshness of certain foods and the importance of sustainable eating practices. We emphasize the importance of building good habits, using personal anecdotes to illustrate how small, consistent changes can have a profound impact over time. We explore the concept of accountability buddies and consistent routines in managing personal health, highlighting the significance of protein intake and balanced diets. We conclude with a philosophical reflection on human nature and the challenges of making lasting lifestyle changes, underscoring the importance of long-term vision and ethical behavior. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: There we go, mr Sullivan. Ah, much better. Okay, great that was my AirPods for some reason. Or, staticky, you're not the first one to say it, so I'll just put it on. We'll go old-fashioned here, just on speaker. Dan: Yeah, yeah, sometimes old fashioned here just on speaker. Dean: Yeah, yeah, sometimes old fashioned works, you know, sometimes yeah, I can give you an example. Dan: I can give you an example Oxygen you know, been around for a while. Most people don't give it a thought. Most people don't give a thought, and yet, and yet, it's. Dean: I find I appreciate it, you know of a thought and yet, and yeah, that's yeah, I find I appreciate it. You know well, I have, you know, as you know, I have a new appreciation for oxygen, whereas a couple of years ago my lack of oxygen was a problem. But yes, yeah I fully appreciate oxygen. We were saying how we just so everybody knows we had a little false start on the cast. We had static, so the first minute or so was we decided to switch over to this mode here. But we're saying I'm in Toronto right now, as is Dan. We had a nice brunch yesterday and I was sharing with Dan that. I had dinner with Joe Polish last night and Evan Carmichael and Chad Jenkins and Krista and I can't remember her last name, dan, but she lives in Vancouver and South Africa. Yeah, she's in 10 times. Dan: Well, anyway, I was noticing, I was just looking. They've been doing the polls on Taylor Swift coming down on the side and it's made absolutely no difference. It's made absolutely no difference. One way or the other, it hasn't made any difference, and what it tells me is that the vote is sort of locked in for the presidential. Dean: Yeah, it was locked in. Dan: Yeah, it's made a difference for her in that there's a lot of people who are getting rid of their Taylor. Swift tickets and get off. When you get off the trail you're in the weeds, get back down as much as you can. You know, and it's not particularly anything to do with this particular election, but my sense is there's a there's a growing desire on the part of people that if you're in one area of life, stay in that area of life. Don't come and, you know, don't make all of life a political stew you know, like you know everything else. Dean: And you know I wonder if there's any examples where that has worked out for people in anyone I was mentioning yesterday at the brunch that you know reminds me of the dixie chicks debacle in 2001. Yeah, and the documentary you know that came out afterwards. Shut up and sing but what, uh? Dan: and that was before. Dean: You know that was really, that was before the internet and cancel culture. So that was mainstream media driving that. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just say, you know, I like my categories distinct and separate. I don't want the you know, I don't want them all mixing up with each other and you know, and I by the same token, in the political realm, I would prefer that the politicos, you know, the people who run for office and run office. They don't attach themselves to other areas of life. You know, just do your politicking and, you know, be good at it and when the time comes, get out. And, you know, work on your handicap. You know. And yeah, it's interesting, you know, and yeah it's interesting, and I think what it is? It's the technological, the easy technological means to mix things together. You know, I mean you see a series of five second flashes or two second flashes and it's like everything that's important is everything else and nothing means anything more than anything else, and that's not really true, you know. I mean, that's not true for any person. There's definitely things that are more important than other things, and I just don't like being told that you should mix everything together. Dean: I agree, I mean the whole yeah, it is. Yeah, I think you're right, Stay in their lanes. We don't want everything, yeah all, becoming moral issues or anything you know. Dan: Well, they all become political issues. The problem is, everything is reduced to a common denominator, that everything has a political meaning, and you know there are those who you know who do that. But I don't do that, you know I have great friends who I know I have great friends that don't vote the way that I do and the way they vote has no bearing whatsoever on my friendship with them. Dean: Yes yes, I agree A hundred percent. Dan: As long as they don't bring up the subject. Dean: They don't try and convert you Exactly. Dan: No. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I find that same thing. That's really. I mean remember it used to be more you know. It used to be like a private matter kind of thing. Right, like people would. You'd never really discuss it, but now it's like everything. Everybody's got a megaphone and everybody's very especially on the polls. I think we're definitely more polarized than I remember us being. I just remember the debate the other night. Watching the debate was just such a series of you're a liar, no, you're a liar. No, you lied about this, you're a liar and the whole. I mean, that's all it was. My favorite ever debate moment was Obama-Romney in 2008. Obama was responding to Romney suggesting that under his you know, maybe it was 2012. Dan: Yeah, probably it was McCain in 2008. Dean: Yeah, because under he was proposing that under Obama the Navy had less ships than they did in 1910. And Obama, just without skipping a beat, said yeah, that's right, and there's also less horses and bayonets. I don't know if you noticed, but they have this new thing called aircraft carriers where we can actually fly the planes right off of the ships. I mean it was just so funny that bring, there's less horses and bayonets. I mean that's pretty funny. That was probably prepared for. You know you like to think that's off the cuff, but I think that had to have been what could possibly mitt accuse us of, or maybe he said no what? Dan: what I suspect is what I suspect is that uh mitt had tried to line out previously in some other situation yeah, and you know, you know which goes to show. You only try your lines out for the first time, right? Dean: Don't do it for the second time. Dan: Right, yeah, yeah, so anyway. But I think what happens is that I was noticing that there's a real distinction between Trump, on the one hand, and Obama. Is that everybody feels they know Trump? And very few people feel they know her and even after 90 minutes of a debate, you still don't have a handle on who this person is. You know who is she is, you know and, and yeah, and I think that in the end they're going to, they're going to vote for the known quantity Risky. Dean: It's going to be various things that I'm seeing. That's my take. Dan: I mean, you know, that's my take anyway. Dean: The things I'm seeing now on my algorithm. What they're presenting to me is the I saw, you know, side by side or above and below video of her saying one thing, you know in 2020 or 2022 or whatever it was in the past, saying taking a hard stance on something, and then, in 2024, saying exactly the opposite of what she said in the you know in that time, and so very well done of letting her, in her own words, show how she's flip-flopping. Dan: Yeah, I mean, I'm a straight ticket voter. My first election was 68, and that was. They changed the voting age when I was 24, the in 64, so I was 20 years old and the voting age at that time was 21. And then they changed it in the next four years, so I the first time I voted was 68 and I've been straight ticket ever since then you know, why tell you know, why Tell me, you know why I'm straight ticking. It's simpler. Dean: It's simpler. Dan: This is who I am. Yeah, it's like we're wearing the same clothes every day Having the same uniform. But the whole point of it is that I vote on the basis of entrepreneurism. Which party seems to be more supportive of entrepreneurism? And it's definitely one and not the other, and it's been that way for 32, 56 years. It's been that way for 56 years. So that's my criteria for voting. It's the same thing here in Canada. You know, because I voted both countries, because I'm a citizen of both countries. Dean: Oh, very nice, and you are too, and you are too, and you are too, I am too. Dan: Yeah, yeah, if you care to exercise your vote. My franchise, they call it. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Your franchise. Yeah, but it's Peter Zion who I'm a great fan of and he said you know, the United States as a country, as a landmass, you know, given their position in the world geographically and looking at their demographics, have so much going for them that Americans are the only people in the world who can treat domestic politics strictly as a form of popular entertainment. Domestic politics strictly as a form of popular entertainment. And you know, and that's what I get, is that there's, you know, and I wrote a book about two quarters ago called the Great Meltdown, and what I said is that probably politics is secondary to the cost of four things the cost of money how much does it cost to have money? Interest rates, you know, what kind of return on money do you have? The second thing is energy cost of labor. So that's m e, l, and then t is transportation, and in every case the united states has the lowest cost on the planet and that means that that's going to determine things. Those four costs money, energy, labor and transportation are going to be the dominant factor and I think that politics is a dog that's being pulled together, pulled forward by those four, you know, by those four factors in society. People don't really, they don't experience them necessarily that way, but they experience that things were better four years ago than they are today. You, know, somehow they have a feeling about that, and so you know. So it's like the ocean. Everybody talks about the waves and the wind, but really it's the current that makes the difference. And I think economic factors are not winds and waves, they're the current. Oh, that's interesting. The news is about waves and wind and storms and everything else, but that's not what determines things. Dean: That makes a lot of sense. Yes, yeah, the currents are what goes underneath, as always moving in a direction for sure. I remember when Oliver Stone did the movie on Putin, where it was like an interview type of series. I don't know whether we've talked about that or whether you saw it, but his whole he was saying, you know, because Putin has seen so many presidents come and go all the way since the first Bush, right, he's just been the constant. And his analysis was that he sees all these men come and they have, you know, the desire for change and they have ideas for change, and the people, you know, they present those ideas and the people vote for them. But as soon as they get into office, what he called the men in the suits come and tell them how it really is, and then there is no change, and that's the current I think that you're talking about is, and then there is no change, and that's the current I think that you're talking about. Everybody would talk about the deep state or the you know the thing, the behind the scenes, the big picture stuff that you know it's mostly the whoever's at the helm is really winds and waves, you know yeah. Dan: Do you think that this was truly an understanding of the united states or he was just reflecting what was true? Dean: in the Kremlin, maybe I mean, but it seems so Because my theory is that there's bureaucratic families in Russia today. Dan: You know they're the result of intermarriage over a century. They were the behind the scenes people when the czar was there. They were the behind the scenes people when the czar was there they were the behind the scenes people, and they don't have political views, they just have a way of getting things done, you know, like and, and the survival of their family is the most important thing. Remember I'll switch countries here remember that guy who went on a murder streak in Norway and he walked into the parliament and he shot up the Norwegian parliament and then ran out and then he took a boat over to an island where he really did some damage and I think he killed a large number of sort of teenage children, and these were all the children of the people who were the bureaucrats. They were. You know they were upper echelon people, but they were government bureaucrats. They were sort of faceless people. Dean: You didn't know them. Dan: And he says you don't make any change unless you kill the bureaucrats. He says you don't kill the politicians, you kill the bureaucrats, they're the. You don't kill the politicians, you kill the bureaucrats, they're the ones you want to kill. Yeah, and kill the next generation. And the Norwegians, of course, don't have death penalties. So he's up, you know, working on his rubric cube or something. But it's really interesting. A lot of people don't think of that. I bet in Washington there's families who were upper echelon people in 1900, and they're still upper echelon and they intermarry like aristocracy. There's bureaucratic aristocracy and they intermarry and everything else, but they're never seen. They're never seen. You never know who these people are, but they do have power really in any way. Dean: And you know, I just look at how little, and I don't know. This may be ignorant, but how little it seems to have an impact on my life in a way that I can do anything about it. You know, and that's where I think entrepreneur, capitalism like as long as capitalism's allowed and we're allowed to pursue our self-interest, that's really the biggest driver of everything. Dan: Yeah, we're making money on election day, right Personal agency right of our own outcomes. Yeah, you know, and I've been talking. You know there are people who are just the opposite of you and they're intensely involved in it and they said you know what happens if all the people we don't like get elected? And I said you'll have a good, you'll have a good entrepreneurial year. Dean: It's being adaptable. Right, You've got to deal with what the situation is, what the current is. Dan: Yeah, but my take is that if you spend some time reading the Constitution, and there's a lot of neat videos, educational videos Probably the best source of this is Hillsdale College. It's a college in Michigan and their whole thing is that America is a unique country because of the Constitution, and so they put a lot of effort, they put a lot of money, they put a lot of time into making sure that the students really comprehend what the Constitution really does. Dean: And. Dan: I've not been there but I've. You know I became interested in it because it's not much bigger now than it was when it was enacted in the 17th, and you know it's not. It's changed very little. It's changed very little. I heard the phrase that, if you typed up the Constitution in 1789, I think is when it was enacted a single space so a single space typed, it would be 23 pages in 1789. Dean: And if you were to do it? Dan: today it would be 27 pages. They've added four pages in 230 years, almost 250 years, and in the very first paragraph of the Constitution it says this is the supreme law of the land. Okay, so the Constitution, that document, is the supreme law of the land. Nothing else can be higher than the Constitution. And then they put in a whole set of rules where it becomes very difficult to change the Constitution. So if you have an amendment to the Constitution, you got to get two-thirds of the House of Representatives to vote for it, two-thirds of the Senate and then three-quarters of all the state legislatures, so roughly, you know 37 states. The legislature would have to vote for it. And it better be a persuasive amendment. Dean: Better be compelling. Dan: Yeah, exactly, yeah, that's you know, and everybody tears their, you know, and everybody rips their clothing and tears the thing and they said, yeah, but it's a bunch of white guys in the 1700s and I said yeah but they did a good job. You know there was about. There's maybe about 3 million of them you know, total population 3 million and they were just the Atlantic seaboard and look where it is now. I think they did a good job. Dean: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think you're absolutely right. That's kind of the thing. At the underpinning of it is the individual pursuit of it's all about the individual. Dan: It's all about the individual. Yeah, the whole thing is geared to give individuals unique freedom to develop themselves. Yeah, so I'm kind of for that and that helps. Dean: That's kind of like you know, that's appealing to entrepreneurs yeah, I'm I the direction that's going in. Dan: I'm inclined toward that direction. I kind of like that direction yeah. And so my sense is there isn't much that will happen in any election that's going to alter a 250-year momentum in a particular direction. I just don't think there's much. I mean it might be useful for entertainment purposes and everything else, and I vote. I always make sure I vote, but I go to bed at 9 o'clock. On Election Day and I just check the results in the morning Three weeks later to see who won. No, I get up the next morning and I check in. Dean: In any case, the last few times it's been. You know the real. No matter who won air quotes, it's always some question and contested and you know it'll be weeks before the final decision is made, kind of thing. Dan: Well, I just think it's a poor career choice where you get paid for being outraged. Dean: Yeah right. Dan: Yeah, I think you know I really haven't developed this thought very much, but I think so much of the complexity of society today is that there's just so many of us and we're electronically empowered. Dean: Well, you hit it on the head right there that there's so many of us with a megaphone, that everybody has the megaphone, everybody has reach to all the others and you can collectively get on a you know, collectively gather momentum with you know what everybody is saying. You and I were talking at brunch yesterday. I've been reading the Same as Ever book by Morgan Housel that she recommended and it's fascinating. It really is interesting and yeah, that kind of you know. All of this is the same as ever. Everybody's been the winds and the waves have always gone in one direction, but the current is everything. Have always gone in one direction, but the current is everything. Dan: Yeah, yeah, I mean he makes a really great case for evolution. He says you know, evolution. He says it's roughly about 3.8 billion years that we can from the early, I guess the earliest cell life. He's using that as the starting point and he says you know, a lot of things have gotten worked out over 3.8 billion that you probably can't reverse. You know 3.8 billion. So it would behoove you to pay attention in what direction evolution is going and basically how it operates. Basically how it operates and it's you know, and it doesn't have to make big changes at any point along the way. It just makes, you know, thousands of little changes, little alterations, but they're not reversible, unnoticeable, yeah yeah, yeah. And you know and I can appreciate that, being in my ninth decade, I can appreciate that that I made decisions when I was 12 years old that were good decisions, and I'm profiting from these decisions 75, 80 years later. Dean: Yeah, that is so funny. Yeah, it's amazing if you think all the way back like that. You know the decisions when you were 12 years old were in the heart of the 50s Right, the golden. Dan: Yeah, yeah it was. That was a golden era Boy that was a TV's in every car and every drive, yeah, tv dinners, yeah, yeah, especially, especially the TV dinners. Yeah, especially the TV dinners. You know, that was a big deal. And you know Mickey Mouse Club you know Right. I mean and that. Dean: What more do you? Dan: want. Right, mine was what's her name? Last name was Tracy, oh, doreen, tracy, doreen. Dean: Tracy, okay, yeah, yeah. Dan: Apparently, she was the most popular and she's the only one I met. I spent about three days of her traveling as a USO show in Korea in 1966, 1910. It was neat, you know, just having her. She was you know, she was 10. She was, you know, 20 and everything else. She was 10, she was 20 and everything else. But a nice person, very talkative and really self-reflective. I sense that this is a person who thinks about things very deeply. And she said you know, this is my last entertainment event, what we're doing here in South Korea with the USO show, which is the nonprofit organization that provides hospitality and entertainment for US military. And she said you know, I'm not. I was as talented at 12 as I am today and said I haven't gotten any more talented but, I was more talented at that time than other 12 year olds. So she said I got to be a mom. But she says I, you know. She says I've hit my head on the ceiling of being talented, and now I have to. Now I have to go back and I have to start a new career and she went back and she became a talent manager for Warner Brothers and she was from that period, you know, when she went back, when she started doing that, right straight through until she was 65 and she was well regarded as a, you know, a really first class talent manager. She had Frank Zappa. Frank Zappa was one of her. You know assignments? Okay, yeah, because he was with Warner Brothers. He was with Warner Brothers recording. Dean: Oh wow, very interesting. Dan: Yeah, but I found her a very, you know, very upbeat, very positive person, very engaging sort of person. You know, just three days about five shows and that was it. I never thought about it again until the Internet came along and I you know, just you know, I just looked her up and yeah, she had done that. And then when she retired from Warner Brothers she started a jazz and blues club in Hollywood and then she died about eight years later, she died of cancer. Dean: Oh yeah. Dan: But it was for someone I was. You know, I was right in there with Mickey Mouse Club when I was 12 years old. Dean: Yeah, you were. That's who the show was for. Yeah. Dan: Right, yeah, yeah, I mean you had Pepsi, you had chips and you had Hostess Twinkie. I mean you had Pepsi, you had chips and you had Hostess Twinkie. Dean: I mean it's a balanced meal. Yeah, a balanced meal. Wow, twinkie's been around that long, yeah, yeah. Dan: I'll tell you something. I talked to a nutritionist at Canyon Ranch about the Twinkie. And he said if you had a Twinkie from 1956, you had never opened the package. And he said you went down to the supermarket right now and you bought yourself a this year's Twinkie. And you opened them up. There's no difference. They taste the same the one from 1956 is just as fresh as the one that you bought this afternoon. Dean: Like Pop-Tarts. That's what Jerry Seinfeld said they never go stale. Dan: they can't go stale because they were never fresh they were yeah, okay, the prize is find an organic part of a twinkie. Dean: There's nothing organic about this treat joe was just telling me about this research that's all coming out now about seed oils and things that he's talking about. I think there's a book called Dark Calories I think is what it is but some crazy amount of our calories in the normal American diet like over 30% of our calories come from these oils? Dan: Yes, exactly, yeah, you know like corn oil canola oil. Yeah, and all the. You know the difference. Yeah, I mean, that's one thing. That Babs got on about a year ago Only butter. Either olive oil or butter? Yeah, butter. And that steak yesterday was good with the butter, wasn't it it? Dean: really was. Yeah, so we should tell we found a new. For years we have been going to the same two places Jacques here in Yorkville, or Le Select Bistro for our Saturday, and we tried for the first time in frenchie, frenchie in, which is essentially in the lobby of the hilton hotel in the business district, in the business yeah, so we had some interesting experiences, but that steak was really well was the steak was really good yeah, yeah, and it was medium rare, it was perfectly medium rare, and I particularly, and they knife selection ceremony steak knife selection yeah, and he brought a box of this. Dan: This is kevin brought the steak knives and he opened it up and and I said there were six of them, and I said do you, kevin, do you recommend one of these which? Dean: one do you recommend? Dan: he said I think this year, I think this was a good year, so I think I picked up one of them, you know I over tipped him because he was responsive. Dean: He was very, very responsive. He really was responsive. Dan: Yeah, because they had a rule that breakfast ended at 11, but lunch didn't start until 1130. And I said so do we have to wait? And he says no. He says do whatever you want Order whatever you want and I'll take care of it, but anyway, it was really good. And I'm really hooked on steak. You're the. You're the fault of this. Dean: You know you're the cause because you convinced that it's my inch, I got you on blue t-shirts and now steaks. This is all, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah I'm working on fountain. I change your direction. Dan: I change in your direction slow enough that you don't get a big head about it. Dean: Right, oh, that's great. I love that. Slow enough that I don't get a big head about it. Dan: That's right yeah. Dean: That's funny. Dan: No, but I'm not seeing a huge difference. I mean I never got in trouble. I mean, like I'm not someone who huge difference. I never got in trouble. I'm not someone who is in big trouble physically and everything else, but the weight goes up over time. Right now, I'm about 15 pounds heavier than when I graduated from high school and I was in good shape because I played three sports you know all four years. I was always in a sports team and during the summers I caddied at the golf course. Dean: So that kept me in good shape. Dan: Yeah, yeah, and but the thing about it was I eat very well at meals. It's between meals that get me into trouble. And that's because of that's because of cravings. And I noticed that if you eat a lot of beef, you don't have cravings. That's the truth. Dean: That is absolutely true. The satiety is high. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yes, yeah, I find that too. But I also find, dan, like I've been, you, doing, uh, carnivore for the last little while here, and I noticed a difference, like in terms of that. But there have been times. It's not a, it's not a straight path to the moon here. There's some veering of things and I noticed that even the slightest little. You introduce something into a thing and it gets a foothold. You're right that the cravings and the easy to veer off path for a little while Low enough that you don't notice it. Dan: There's a part of us that has to be a watchdog. There's part of us that has to be vigilant. You know, and and you know and I think they're good habits. Basically, the watchdogs are good habits and and you know that it's an interesting thing about people who have good habits and they're, you know, using other descriptions about them they're ethical, they're moral you know they're law abiding, and what they found is that those people have the best sense of a long future. They find that morality and legality and everything that we admire in people is actually a function of how long their future is, how far they can see, and they can see that something they do today either supports their positive long future or it would undermine it. And one of the tests they've done is inner city children who are members of gangs Okay, robbery of some sort and what they find is that their sense of the future is never more than 24 hours. Is that their sense of the future is never more than 24 hours? And so they say, if I do this now, can I be in trouble in 24 hours? And you know, you stop some kid on the street, you force him to take off his sneakers or his jacket. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Are you going to get in trouble in 24 hours? Probably not, wow. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah, so you're being moral and being ethical and being law abiding is a function of how clear you are about a longer future, where today's actions really matter. Dean: Yes, well, that brings you know. That's funny. That kind of ties in with what you. We were talking in Palm Beach six months ago about this behaviors right. Bringing bringing their here, meaning just identifying what are the. It was just kind of funny that the timing of it because I was sharing with you that I had looked at the. You know, if you look at here and look backwards and say what are the behaviors and habits that got me to here, I heard somebody say one time if you look around, just take it all in, look around you and everything that is a reality in your life right now. This is what all of your past decisions created, right. All your past decisions and behaviors led to this moment, everything you have right. And I thought, yeah, when you shared with me the bringing there here is looking forward and identifying if this, if I could describe the here I want, the now that I want, what does that look like in the here, what are the behaviors that support that future? Dan: Yeah, yeah. And I think the big thing is what are your habits today? That would be the habits you would want 20 years from now. Which habits do you have already formed? And then that picture of you 20 years from now. If you look at a day in the life of you say, well, I want this habit. And then you have to say, well, if I'm going to have the habits, then I might as well start those habits today. You know, you know yeah, and and that what I mean habits is that you do the right thing without thinking about it yeah, and the cape, I mean the things, it's. Dean: So I was had, uh, breakfast with joe this morning. We were talking about, you know, six, six months ago I really had no idea how to cook, or it's hard to say. I see you that you got you know 57 or eight years into my life and never really learned to cook or anything. And now, you know, between my instant pot and my air fryer, you know I'm cooking up a storm here, making delicious steaks and chicken and salmon, everything. What a life changing like skill and it's just a natural thing. Now I know I've got the whole process. It's a habit. I know I've got the whole process. It's a habit, you know. Once you know the habit, it's the. You know the process. I do it all kind of in to preheat for three minutes and while that three minutes is happening, I'm seasoning the steak with salt pepper and just a little bit of Montreal steaks rub and then by the time I get that done, the air fryer is preheated. I just put it in for, depending on how thick it is, three or four minutes per side and then it's done. So the whole ordeal is, you know, 13 minutes from the idea of having a steak to your first bite. Dan: And so you know, and now you're becoming an internet influencer yeah, that's exactly right, that's right, that's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, rabbi jackson. Oh, there's rabbi jackson again. Yeah, but you know, this is how we learn from each other you know yeah, I mean he doesn't mention it. Morgan Housel, in the book you're reading, same as ever, but I've seen it many times that the two main habits that humans have that move things forward are one imitation see something that somebody else is doing, and then repetition you get a good thing going and then you just repeat and repeat. And it's so interesting. I saw a little. I was going through the news programs this morning and there was a commercial and it was Bill Gates was a commercial, and it was bill gates, and and you know, and here's bill gates, you know, and he really is truly boring, he was born boring. He's a very boring, he's a very boring thing. But you know he's boring with 50, 50 billion or 100 billion, whatever the amount of money he has. Dean: But now he's saying sorry, go ahead. I said sorry, go ahead. Dan: Yeah, I think that. And he's saying there's no question now, we just have to get rid of fossil fuels. Yeah, he says we've come to the point now and it's just. And then he brings in all sorts of people who are talking about the breakthroughs that will be possible, and Anthony Fauci is one of them on the program and everything like that. But the question is, Bill, you were using fossil fuels to go to Jeffrey Epstein's island. What was that all about, oh boy? What was that all about, oh man? What was that all about, oh man? I don't know if he ever went to the island, but he hung out with him in New. York City. And you know, and yeah so, so anyway, but you know, I think we're coming back. I just have a sense. Maybe it's just me that I'm becoming aware of something, but I have a sense because the things that are being talked about, like the Morgan Household book you know there are some things that you can bet on are always going to operate in a certain direction. You know, and I get a sense, we're getting there, I mean. But I'm, you know, I'm into new things. You know I'm creating more new things at 80 than I was at 50, and I'm involved in more new things at 80 than I was at 50. And I'm involved in more new things at 80 than I was at 50. So I don't think it's just my sense of what's happening to me. I get a sense from reading the news and everything like that that it's not so easy to change human nature. Dean: Yeah, I think you're right, but it's also yeah, that's why it's when you make these gradual changes, natural selection of better habits kind of thing, make a big impact. You know like I think, yeah, yeah, the natural selection, yeah, I mean I never got. Dan: You know, I've been influenced basically because I get full medicals, you know, with David. Hasse, I mean top to bottom medicals and you know, he says, you know you're carrying too much weight, you've got too much fat. And I said, and he says, you know, think about this, think about that. And I said I'm not going to do anything where my weight loss is more than a pound a week and so I started the steak. Steak diet you know, yesterday I had steak for breakfast, steak for lunch, steak for dinner. Other things too, you know, had some small potatoes. I had broccoli and French fries with you. Dean: And anyway. Dan: and but I mean, if you look ahead 20 weeks and you're 20 pounds down, that's a big deal. I don't want to take on an unnatural diet for a period of time and then go back to my old diet. I want my entire habits of eating to change permanently of eating to change permanently. Dean: What I've learned from JJ Virgin is that it really is about the protein first, of getting the amount of protein for your target weight, kind of. That's the thing. That number one priority is getting 180 grams of protein, you know, and then and then adding on whatever, while staying in that your caloric thing. But I find that, man, if you're eating that amount of protein, the protein is the satiety thing that it just is the gift that keeps on giving. You know, you don't get those. It's the most. Dan: Even burning, yeah and it's where the, where the muscle comes from yes, exactly, yeah, yeah, so well, that's interesting. Dean: That that's a really good. Do you measure? Do you wait? How often do you weigh yourself? Dan: every day, every morning yeah okay, I've got a little journal and I log in. Dean: I've got a little journal and I, yeah, yeah that's been a big thing. I have the the. You know my JJ has really been my accountability buddy in all of this. I chart everything that I eat and chart my weight every day and my sleep score and my steps. And I, you know, send a little photo, photo story to her every day and that, yeah, it's good to chart and see the the progress you know I had an interesting and a friend who has maintained his weight at a in a you know five pound band for band for as long as I've known him and he shared that at one point. He stays between 178 and 182 or three as the band that he's in constantly. And he told me he got up to 230 pounds at one point, wow yeah, and then he lost all the weight. He got up to 230 pounds at one point, wow yeah, and then he lost all the weight, got down to 180 as his ideal. But he weighs himself every day and he uses a green light, yellow light, red light system that if he's 178 or 179, it's green light, he can eat whatever he wants. If he wants to have dessert, fine. If he wants this, whatever, fine. And if he's 180 or 181, he's yellow light and it's like, just, you know, caution kind of, for taking it easy. But if he gets to 182 it's red light and he has to go, stay on the path until he gets back to 178. So he's never had to lose more than five pounds, you know. So it's a really interesting thing. If he knows he's going on a vacation or something, he'll get to 178 and then do what he wants on vacation and maybe he gains five pounds on vacation, but comes back and immediately on the straight and narrow. Slow and steady wins the race. Dan: Yeah, this is Dean and Dan having a deep philosophy hour. This was the Sunday philosophy hour with Dean and Dan, that's right. Dean: The double D philosophy hour. That's right. Dan: Yeah, the Calry philosophy hour. Anyway but that's great. Then we'll be able to chat again this evening Over some meat, Over some meat. Yeah you you're gonna have to do with burgers tonight that's right, familiar. Dean: But anyway. So all you guys are more or less coming together, I guess right probably well, joe, yep, joe and me and chad, I think we'll all be over together. All righty, it's all very exciting, dan, I will see you in a few hours. Dan: Thank you okay. Thanks, dean.
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Sep 25, 2024 • 57min

Ep134: Transforming Tranquility into Financial Growth

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, We contrasted northern summers' climate and lifestyle possibilities with those of Florida. The conversation shifted to exploring humanity’s relationship with money through storytelling and belief. Practical lessons included effective pricing, leveraging qualified leads, and attracting high-quality clients using books. Finally, the discussion provided entrepreneurial growth strategies like setting a quarterly cadence, applying profit activators, and valuing long-term relationships. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We discussed the serene and picturesque landscape of Canada's cottage country, including the unique charm and beauty of its lakes and legends, as well as the renowned Group of Seven artists. Reflections on the contrast between the tranquil Canadian summers and the balmy climate of Florida, noting the ideal summer months in Canada. We explored minimalistic lifestyle choices that gained popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the simplicity of a carnivore diet and practical wardrobe strategies. We delved into the whimsical nature of financial decisions and the power of belief and storytelling in investment decisions, with a focus on how a stock's value is influenced by future narratives. We discussed critical elements of pricing strategies, including promise, price, and proof, and the importance of pre-qualified, motivated leads in business, particularly in real estate. Dean shared insights on leveraging books as tools for attracting high-quality clients, highlighting a successful collaboration that did not rely on upfront financial incentives. We explored the eight profit activators and how smaller, intimate workshops can be as effective as larger gatherings in growing businesses. We emphasized the importance of long-range investment thinking and nurturing long-term relationships with prospects, as well as the value of quarterly goals and structured cadences in extending professional careers. We highlighted innovative health practices that can prolong peak earning years and enhance productivity, such as the benefits of continuous health improvements and monitoring. We discussed the potential for creative and productive growth during challenging economic times, drawing insights from historical examples and a book that explores enduring human behaviors. 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 welcome to cloudlandia. And, uh, keep your feet on the mainland, that's exactly right so you are calling from the northernmost outpost of cloudland and canada at its best beautiful weather it must be perfect right now. Dan: Right, I just got out of the lake. I was in the lake 15 minutes oh my goodness, wow I'll be, very deep, like a week. Dean: Oh yeah, is it. Dan: Uh, that's very yes, that's quite cold. I mean, this is our one, two, three, four, fourth day and so I'm used to it now, but uh bracing yeah, yeah, because the nights have been very cold oh, I think the nights have been. Dean: The nights have been very cold, yeah well we got enough heat or we got enough heat to go around here. Dan: Yeah, yeah, you've had some. You've had some variable weather, should I call it that? Dean: yeah, exactly, I was just telling. I was just telling I need to. Uh, I'm ready to have snowboarding back in my life. That just makes more sense to me. Dan: Yeah, this is perfect. I mean, there's a lot of your. Our listeners may not know this, but there's this great romance to the cottage country in Canada. Dean: Yeah. Dan: First of all, there's a lot of lakes. I mean there's literally in the thousands. I'm not talking about the big lakes, I'm not talking about the great lakes. I'm talking about, like ours, for example, is two miles by two miles. It's almost a circle. It's two miles by two miles, but there's a circle. It's two miles by two miles. But there's a legend that there's a hole in the middle, a very deep hole, and in the logging days they hooked chains to each other and put a weight at the end of one of the chains and then they kept putting the chains down and it went down a thousand feet and it was still not hitting bottom oh my goodness, it's a portal to the center of the earth you know it invites all sorts of adventures, loch Ness. Well, we haven't seen that, we haven't seen that it's fresh. Yeah, well, loch Ness is a freshwater lake, but no, but there's a romance. There's a whole school of art called the Group of Seven and these were seven artists who did these amazing, amazing paintings. Not really natural. They have a real interesting quality to them and they were done from the teens till probably the 40s or 50s probably a 40-year period, seven artists. They're very famous and in Toronto at the Art Gallery, the Ontario Gallery of Art, they have a whole wing that's just the paintings of these men. And then there's a town north of Toronto called Kleinberg and they have a whole museum. There's a whole McMichael gallery. And I never get tired. I've been here for 53 years and I can go in there and just sit for an hour and look at the magnificent art that these people created. Dean: It is beautiful, yeah, yeah you're right, yeah, canada in the summertime. I can't imagine anywhere nicer, you know any of those temperate things. London or England is very nice in the summer. All of Europe, I'm sure. But yeah, it's just, I'm realizing Florida's a little hot yeah, you're late to the realization. Dan: No, I mean I've realized it all along. Dean: It's just that you know. Yeah, I'm starting to re-realize it. Dan: Well, you had some comparison. You had a wonderful week in Toronto in July. Dean: Yeah, three weeks I was there. Dan: Marvelous there. Dean: That's what I mean, you're realizing that Florida's hot. Dan: You know, just between us, Florida's really hot during the summertime, you know, just between us. Florida is really hot during the summertime. Dean: It was just. It was that contrast. I mean spending three weeks in Toronto June and July is it doesn't get much better. It's the perfect time. Dan: So well, there's June and July, and then there's winter. Dean: That's right. Dan: Actually, I think we're in for a long fall this year. Dean: Yes. Dan: And I'm doing this on 80 years of experience that when you have a very green summer, which means there was a lot of rain. We had more rain this year than I can remember since I've been here, and what it does is that the leaves don't turn as quickly, and so we can expect still green trees at Halloween this year. Dean: Oh, wow, Okay, Looking forward to coming back up in a few weeks. I can't believe it's been 90 days already. I'm super excited about having you know a quarter, a coach quarter. Dan: You've had a coach quarter. You've had a coach. You've had a coach quarter. Dean: That's what I mean. I'm very excited about having these coach quarterly Toronto visits in my future. This is yeah, yeah, it's very good. So there I have had. Dan: You've been thinking about things? Tell me you've been thinking about things. Dean: I have been thinking about my thinking and thinking about things all the while. This is, I think I'm coming up another, I think I'm coming up on a month of carnivore. Now, yeah, what it's very interesting to me, the findings. You know it really it suits. It seems like it's a very ADD compliant diet. Dan: Yeah, in that it's really only one decision. Because it's just one decision. Dean: Yeah, is it meat? That's the whole thing. It's like the Is it? Meat or is it fasting? Yeah, it's the dietary equivalent of wearing a black shirt every day. Dan: Well, I wear a navy blue shirt every day. I took that strategy from you. It struck me as a very useful lifetime strategy. Dean: And I got into it during COVID. Yeah. Dan: Because that was my COVID uniform I had. Basically I had jeans and a long sleeve shirt long sleeve t-shirt navy blue by Uniqlo, a Japanese company, and they're the best, they're the best, they're the best. I bet I've worn the one I'm wearing today. I bet I've worn it a hundred times. So it looks pretty much out of the package. Dean: Yeah, it makes a big difference. So there's lots of these arguments for these kind of mono decisions. Dan: So I'm kind of thinking that through, you know, and seeing other places where that kind of thinking applies you know, yeah, what I notice more and more is that my life is really a function of habits, yes, and you got to make sure they're good habits. Dean: Yeah, I'm thinking and seeing that more and more. Like I was looking in some of my past journals over the last week or so, I was looking back, like back to, you know, 2004, and just kind of randomly, you know, selecting the things. And you know, I do see that you're only ever in the moment, right, because every entry that I'm making in the journal is made in real time, so I'm only ever there, you know, and that habit I often I wonder how many miles of ink lines I've written if you were to, if you were how many times I've circled the globe with my journals. It'd be a really interesting calculation, you know. But you realize that everything you've been saying about the bringing there here is really that's absolutely true, like the only thing I'm doing. The common thing of that is I'm sitting in a comfy chair writing in my journal, but you're never, you know, it's all. But it's funny to look back at it as capturing the moment, you know. Dan: Yeah, you know, it's really interesting. I see a lot more articles these days on journaling and just in the context of Cloudlandia and the mainland, it seems to me that it's a way of staying in touch with your preferred mainland by journaling, because every day you're conscious, you're thinking about your thinking and I think, as Jeff Madoff and I have had a number of conversations about this, that as the world becomes more digital and I see no end to the possibilities that you can apply digital technology to something there's a counter movement taking place where people are deliberately reconnecting with the mainland in a conscious way. Dean: Yeah, I'm aware of that. Dan: I mean, carnivore is about as mainland as you can get. Dean: That's the truth, especially when there's something primal about cooking. Dan: The only thing further than that would be if you were eating yourself, which, in a sense, you are. Dean: It's so funny, but there is something magical about that. Can I tell? Dan: you not as full bore as yours, but this is my 33rd day of having steak for breakfast. Dean: Yes, Okay, did you open up the air fryer? Have you had an air fryer? Dan: steak yet. Oh yeah, it's downstairs. We have one at the cottage and we're going to get a new one at the house. Dean: And what's your experience? You brought it with us. Dan: It's not my experience, it's Babs' experience. Dean: I mean your experience of the eating. Yeah, oh no, it's great. Dan: Yeah, oh no, it's great, it's great, it's delicious. Yeah, it's super fast, I mean it's super fast and it's great and, yeah, I'm thinning out a bit, losing my COVID collection. I'm starting to get rid of my COVID collection. Yeah, belly, fat and fat otherwise, and that's great and I do a lot of exercise when I'm at the cottage we have. There's a stairway, a stone stairway that goes down to the dock 40 steps, and so I do it today. I'll do it six times up and down. Dean: Oh my goodness, wow. Dan: And then we have about a I would say, three quarters of a mile loop up the hill, through the woods and back down, and I'll do that once today and I'll do two swims. I'll be in the lake for two swimming sessions and I noticed I really do a lot more exercise here and the whole point is to have it carry over when you get back to the city. Jump start yeah, I've got a great book for you, and the whole point is to have it carry over when you get back to the city Jumpstarting. Dean: I've got a great book for you. Dan: Do you read on Kindle or do you buy actual books? Dean: Yes. Dan: Yeah, that's two questions. Dean: Yes to both. You do both Often. I'll do three Often. I will do the Kindle and the book and the audio. Dan: Yes, well, there's a great book that you'll like, and it's called Same as Ever. Dean: Okay, I like it already, but tell me about it. Dan: And the author's name is Hosel H-O-E-S-E-L First name, I think, is Morgan Hussle. And what he shows? He's got 23 little chapters about things that are always the same and it's thought-provoking and he's an investor. You know he's an investor, but he talks about that. Humans, for the most part humans get smart at everything they do except one. What's that Money? That's probably true. And he says people are more fanciful when it comes to money than almost any other part of their life. Okay. Dean: Well, that's interesting. It's giving me an option to buy his follow-up book which is the Psychology of Money. Dan: I should get that too, too why not? Dean: yeah, all right, he's got some great line. Dan: I mean he quotes other people. He's got the greatest definition of a stock you know, like stock market stock he's got the greatest definition of a stock. I I don't think I think he's quoting somebody, but that a stock is a present number multiplied by a future story. Dean: Ooh, that is true, isn't it? A present number multiplied by a future story that is so good yes. Dan: Isn't that great. Dean: It's so good and true, it's got the added benefit of being true. Yeah, I mean, it's really. If not, what else it's guessing and betting, right? It's like we gauge our guessing and betting on we guess and bet on the strength of our belief in the story. Dan: A present number multiplied by a future story. Dean: Yes, that's wild. It's funny that you say that's a very interesting. I was thinking about a pricing strategy for a client and he was saying I'm sure this has been. There's probably somebody who's said this before, I don't know who, but I was looking at it as that it's a combination of the promise and the price and the proof. And proof is really a story right, a belief that if you have him, you're, if there's something going wrong. Yes, proof is yeah, I mean it's either that, yeah, it's either. You know the promise is the articulated outcome of what you're going to get, that you want that promise, but then the price is a factor of how much that promise is worth and your someone else yeah and the confidence that it's going to happen. You know, it's a very interesting thing I was thinking about it in the context of our real estate that the realtors are will happily pay 40 of a transaction, up to 35 or 40% of a transaction. That's a guaranteed transaction, like a referral. If I say, you know, if you send somebody a referral they'll pay 40% because the promise and the proof is that you already got it. So you're willing to pay 40% for the certainty of it. But when you say to buy a lead, you know to buy leads for $5 or $10, there's not as much. You don't have the proof that those leads are going to turn into into transactions. So there's a risk. There's a risk involved in that. It's really, it's pretty, it's pretty amazing. I've been because you know I do a lot of real estate, lead generation and all kinds in all kinds of businesses. Lead generation and I've really been one of the distinctions I've been sharing with people is the, because a lot of times people ask well, are they good leads? You know, and it speaks to the, yeah, you know objective, yeah, you. Dan: And joe you, you and Joe Polish have a great definition of what a good lead is. I don't remember the exact formula, but it's pre-qualified, pre-motivated. Dean: Yes, predisposed you know predisposed. Yeah. Dan: And one of the things that when we were doing the book deal with Ben Hardy and Tucker Max, before we approached Hay House, Tucker asked me a question. He said well, you're not taking any money, you're not taking any advances, you're not taking any royalties for the book, which was true. So that was a real straight deal. You know why? Because it's a mono decision. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I'm sorry. The book is a capability for me and that's worth all the upfront money. Dean: Yes, yeah, you know, and that was the advances. Dan: You know, the advances were really good advances. I mean, they were six-figure advances. Dean: And. Dan: I said, the reason is I don't want to think about that. I just want to think about the capability that I have 24 hours a day, all around the world of someone picking up the book and reading it, and it's a pre-qualified person. It's a pre-qualified person, in other words, the person who's picking up the book and reading it would have the money and the qualifications to be in the strategic coach. The other thing is that it would pre-motivate them. They're predisposed because they picked up the book. They're pre-qualified because it's meaningful to them. And then the next thing is they'll give us a phone call. You know they'll read the book'll give us a phone call. You know they'll give us a phone call. Or just go on. You know, go on to the website and read all about coach and everything like that. And so Tucker said so we sell a thousand books. What would make you happy in terms of actual someone signing up for the program? And I said one. Dean: Right and probably, probably. Dan: I would want a hundred people Just trying to take care. This is why I'm going to come and do the eight profit Activators. Yeah, and the reason is that those books were right at. About the three books that we wrote were right around the 800,000. Wow, wow, and I could easily say we've had 800 clients pick it up, either picked it up and called us, or called us and we sent them the books. Yes, but it's a marvelous system because it's who, not how, in spades is that I have salespeople out there every 24 hours and they're finding, finding new interested leads, they're developing the leads and we don't have to spend any time until they give us a call. Dean: I think that's fantastic and it's doing. You know, part of the thing is I. This is why I always look at books as a profit activator three activity, which is educate and motivate. That people get educated about the concepts of who, not how, or the gap in the game or the idea that 10 times is easier than two times, and they see examples and see that this really fits, and then they're motivated to call and get some help with that. I'm such a fan of books and podcasts as the perfect Profit Activator 3 activity. Dan: Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about our previous podcast where you took it through the what's the value of your leads. I'm actually a really fan of that yeah. Dean: I love metrics. I'm a big metric. Well, metrics to me are when they are objective and measurable. They are a proof. Dan: Well and predictable. They're predictable too. They're a proof. Do a certain amount of activity, you can get a predictable metric. Dean: I've discovered a metric very much like Pareto in lead distribution. It just got, you know, hot off the press with Chris McAllister, who you know as well. Yeah, chris, so we've been doing a collaboration on, I've been helping them with lead generation and I asked him to do a I've been calling it a forensic census of what's happened with the leads right and leads who've been in for more than a hundred days. So we just looked at the. That's roughly three and a half months basically, and you know, of all of the leads that we had generated, 15% of them had sold their house with someone else, and so you look at that we did the math on the thing, that is the opportunity cost. That is the exact thing that worked out, that the amount of that worked out to be over half a million dollars in lost opportunity. Dan: Well, and that's where. Yeah, no, it wasn't lost, it was just a cost. Dean: Yeah, that's exactly right. Dan: The money went into the wrong bank account. The money went into the wrong bank account. That's exactly right. The money went into the wrong bank account. The money went into the wrong bank account. Dean: That's exactly right. So now that's encouraging right, because I've got now three different forensic census analysis from three different parts of the country with three different realtors that all point to exactly the same thing 15 of people who've gone through a hundred days will do something, and so that is. That's encouraging. You know, I think if I, if you look at that and start to say OK, there's a pulse. That it means that the market. Dan: The marketplace has a pulse. Dean: Yeah. The lie rating and that we're generating objectively good leads, meaning people who want to do. What the promise of the of the book is, you know, yeah. So, that's very exciting. Dan: Yeah, you know, it's really interesting changing the subject slightly. So this author that writes the book Same as Ever that I just mentioned, he said that basically, when you look at the last hundred years, the decade of the 1930s was absolutely the most productive decade in US history. Wow, Based on what. And he said just how much got produced during the 1930s. Dean: Are you talking about the New Deal? No, he's not talking about the New Deal at all. Dan: He's actually talking that the reason was it was the worst decade economically in the United States history because of the Great Depression, but he said it was also the most creative and most productive. And he said that creativity and productivity don't happen during good times, they only happen during bad times, the reason being the things that you thought. Let's put it this way you're going into the 1930s it was one of the hottest stock markets in the history of the United States the 1920s per capita, if you do it in relationship to the population and then suddenly it just stopped and everything that people believed was true, everything that they knew was predictably true, didn't happen. And everybody woke up and said, oh my God. Well, everything we've been going on doesn't work. And he said that's the spur to creativity and productivity. It's not profitability, because the profitability happened in the 1940s and 1950s, but the productivity, the creativity, creating new things that were productive, happened during the 1930s. He said there's no decade like it in US history in the last 100 years and I found that very striking. Dean: I can't wait to read it. Dan: I found that. It's a thin book. Dean: Okay, I was going to say I like that's my favorite. That's my favorite and accessible words. Dan: I like that too. It's a win. And it's a good title yeah, he doesn't use more words than he needs. Dean: I like that. Dan: It goes back to your. I'm coming awake to Dean Jackson's 8 Profit Activators. Dean: Oh good, after 12 years, this is good news. Dan: I'm a tourist, I'm a late bloomer. Dean: I'm a late developer. Dan: You know, but it wasn't that it was stored away, but it wasn't brought right in front of me. But I think there's a lot of very interesting insights that you have here. Dean: Yeah, that's true, and I just find more and more it's. You know it's the same, just feel like it's. So when you look at this one thing you know, if I think about my one thing is this you know, working on the all the applications of this one model and seeing deeper and deeper layers of how it actually how it fits, you know, it is like you asked me 12 years ago what would be fascinating and motivating because I had come out of you know, 15 years I think we I think we were both sitting in our kitchen when this happened, yeah, yeah our kitchen. Yeah, and I remember I was. Dan: I remember I was using that I was I. I remember it distinctly because I think it's the last time I used the landline. Isn't that funny? Dean: that's amazing. Dan: Yeah, yeah, because I had to sit up next to the counter because we've only got one landline. Dean: And. Dan: I said I've got this. So I had to sit on a stool next to you know a counter and I remember the conversation. Dean: I do too, and it was because I was coming out of 15 years of applying these eight profit activators to the growth of one specific business and Joe Polish had just taken that framework and started the I love marketing cast and I realized that's my. I was realizing how applicable that kind of operating system that I had developed for, you know, growing our own business was applicable to all kinds of businesses and that was my fascinating thing and doing it in small groups as opposed to 500, 700 people at a time, and to this day, it's still now 12 years later, yeah. Dan: Yeah, can I ask you a question about that? If you did it differently. Could you do it with a group of 100? Dean: Yes, absolutely, and we've done it with you know, I've done it with 40 or 50. Dan: Yeah Well, if you can do it with 40 or 50, you could do it with 100. Dean: Yeah, once you get past like 14 or so, the way the dynamics change. At about 14, more people, you end up having fractured conversations, and so that's why, the way you do the workshops, you have the opportunity to have people have those conversations, but in groups of three or four, yeah, so rather than having breakouts. Dan: Well, and then there's a tool that everybody's doing the same. Yes, yes. Yes. Dean: You're exactly right. Yeah, and that's an. All of them are all the eight profit activators are there, are tools, you know, there are thinking ways for it and yeah, but it's just such a you know I want to ask you another question to what degree if you think about I think you said you've done about 600 from last conversation of your small groups, that'd be 50 groups, basically 50, 50 sessions. Dan: To what degree do they need to know their numbers to go through the process? Dean: well they. The challenge or the thing is that they don't even know that these metrics exist. So I work from the standpoint of they really, if I can give them the experience of it by. They know the top line and they know you know what they're doing. But it doesn't require the granularity to get the impact of it. You know, to understand. That's where they can get their best intuitive sense of what that is and every single person has a realization that. Let's just say, even the just understanding how to divide the revenue into before unit, during unit and after unit is a big revelation for people and then they realize, you know, a lot of times I was just doing a consultation with a home services company and in home services it's pretty standard to spend, you know standard to spend you know 12 to 15% of their revenue on advertising. But they do a lot of things and they don't know often exactly what's working. But when I pointed out to them that if we take you know, 30% of their business is coming from repeat people who've already done business with them, yet they're measuring the 15 percent on that gross revenue, so their actual before unit cost is is way more because they're spending all the money in the before unit and not really spending much if anything on the after unit, even though it's bringing in 30% of the business. You know and it's so funny because I was sharing with them too I was like to take this attitude of so they do HVAC and air conditioning and so I like for them to think of all the households that have one of their air conditioning units in it to be climates under management, you know, is to get that kind of asset that they've got 20 000 climates under management, and to take that and really just kind of look at what they could do even just with the after unit of their business. You know, it's so. It's always eye-opening for people like to see when you start looking at those numbers and say, wow, I had never, I never thought of it like that. Dan: You know one of the things John Bowen and Kerry Oberbrenner and I are doing a collaboration on establishing the real numbers for entrepreneurism. Dean: Right. Dan: In relationship to wealth and in relationship to happiness, relationship to wealth and in relationship to happiness. So John is arguably the top coach in the world for financial advisors at a very affluent level. So all the clientele are very, so that would be for, and they'd be looking for, families. It would be sort of families and they'd be entrepreneurial families, okay, and I think that the sort of the preferred look is where the net worth of the family is in the 20 million and above level. Okay, and these are the advisors. So John's clients are the advisors who do this, okay. And two years ago we did a survey where we compared the entrepreneurial clients or the entrepreneurial clients. What we surveyed was John's clients as entrepreneurs. Dean: Yes. Dan: Okay, they're entrepreneurs, and there were about 1 of them, 1300. And they were compared to 800 strategic coach clients and we saw all sorts of differences. One of them was the who, not how, factor, that generally our clients made more money per person and worked fewer hours than John's 1,300. Yes, okay, and fairly significant. I mean like percent, different percent. And the other thing was that our clients expected to be busy. They expected to be active entrepreneurs for a much longer period than his clients. Dean: Well, that's the greatest gift right there when you look at it. So you, as the lead by example of this the lead dog. Dan: Yeah, you know what they say about dog sleds you know the dogs in a dog sled. Yeah, if you're not the lead dog, the future always looks the same. Yes, exactly so I'm not looking up anybody's rear end. Dean: Yeah, right, exactly. Dan: Anyway, but the big, thing, if you say we don't have real proof and it would take 50 or 60 years to take a long study to see that we're actually extending people's actual lifetime. But I would say right now we could probably establish really good, really good research that were extending their careers by probably an average of 15 years at their peak earning. Dean: Yeah exactly. Yeah, think about that like in the traditional world. So at that you know I'm 58 now and so in the traditional world it'd be like you got seven years left, kind of thing. Right, it's a traditional retirement age, or what. Dan: And then coach, you'd have 22 years. Dean: I got 22 more years, even just to get to 80. Yeah, you know like that's the thing, and I just proved that it's possible. Dan: Yes, that's what I'm saying. Dean: Yes, that's what I'm saying, yes, that's what I mean. And to be you like, look at, you know one of the. You know the elements when we do the lifetime extender, when you ask people so how do you want to be on your 80th birthday? And you're saying you know, well, how do you want to be health physically? And you're saying, well, how do you want to be health physically? Well, I want to be climbing 40 states of stairs six times a day, swimming twice and hiking around my property. I want to be, recording podcasts. I want to be writing books, I want to be holding workshops, I mean developing thinking tools, all those things. I've been thinking a lot about cadences, you know, and you've really kind of tapped into this cadence of of the quarter. Quarterly cadence is because your days are really largely the same with an intention of moving towards quarterly outputs. You, you're creating quarterly books, you're creating new quarterly workshops and tools. And am I missing anything Like do you have annual goals or objectives? Dan: Or is everything in terms of Well, the only, there's only one. The only one thing that we have, that's annual, would be the Free Zone Summit. That's once a year. So, for example, every week I'm working on the summit which is in February next year, and so I'm always listening in the. So I have a series of speaking sets that people can, and I'm looking, yes, to a large group of people, half of whom aren't actually in the free zone. You know half of them next year, half of them won't even be, you know, in strategic coach. They're team members, free zone members, they're clients of the free zone members and everything like that. So it's a challenge to me because you know coach people, know the routine, you know they come in, they understand what a whole day looks like thinking about your thinking. But for some people this is the first time in their life and the trick is, after the first hour they all feel as part of the same group and they're thinking you know. So anyway, it's a. It's an interesting, but that's only my annual thing. Dean: Yeah. Dan: So I've you know I give a lot of thought to it. I work on it right now, six months, before I'm working on it every week. Dean: Yeah. Dan: But that's the only one that is, and I wouldn't want to, no, exactly. Dean: Do you? It's interesting that you say you're working on it every week. Do you have? Do you account for that in your calendar or do you just consciously like? Or do you say? Dan: Some of it is just, some of it's just my time and it's, it's a certainty. Uncertainty worksheet. So I'm always working within the certainty. Uncertainty, this much is certain already. This is uncertain. So then that's the next week. You have to have certain things move from uncertainty to certainty. Yes, we got the pat. We just got the patent on that, by the way, so that's a good tool. That's good. Yeah, yeah so, but I'm constantly my ears are constantly open. In all the workshops, people are dropping topics. You know. I said, yeah, think there's a, we got a role for you and you know, we got a role for you, because I want to get to people ahead of time, because some people don't come to the summit. So if you spot them as a speaker, you want to make sure that something else isn't scheduled during the time when they come. So, yeah, it's going to be in Arizona this time. Dean: That's what I hear. Dan: It's all very exciting. Dean: Anyway it's very exciting. Dan: You mentioned the quarter. I really take quarters seriously. Other people have quarters, but they don't spend much time thinking about the quarter. Dean: I said it's available. Dan: It's sitting around there. You know, quarters are just sitting around. How much productivity, creativity, profitability can you get out of a quarter? Dean: Yeah, I like that. That's my observation. Right Is that you're the tools of applying three days focus days, buffer days, in a quarterly cadence for the rest of your till 156. Dan: 304. I have 304 left. 304 quarters left. Yeah, 304 quarters. You know David Hasse, whose clinic I can't, you know I can't recommend enough to people, but so we started two years ago with him. So it's August of 2022. We started working with him and we've had eight quarters and when we first came to the very first meeting in Nashville Maxwell Clinic, he said so what are we going to do with? your health over the next 312 quarters right, he had me at hello he had me at hello oh yeah and we've done a lot in the last eight quarters we've done yeah, you know there's a lot of work and but yeah, he's got a deep dive program. It's really terrific. I mean it it's testing, testing, constant testing, and he's very alert to new stuff in the marketplace you know new breakthroughs. Dean: What's your noticing now of your new needs in all these stairs that you're doing? Dan: Yeah, the big thing is I have no problem going up. It's tender going down, and the problem is it's a 50-year-old injury and about 49-year-old injury and so the cartilage is completely restored. Okay, and that's a breakthrough. Stem cells can get things working. Stem cells, can you know they can? What stem cells essentially do is wake up the cells that are supposed to be doing the work or repairing them. Dean: Hey, buddy, get back to work. Dan: Yeah, and the, and this is detectable, this is measurable where? Dean: they are. Dan: So I always thought I'm missing a cartilage. And I went down there, so they and when I say down there it's Buenos Aires, in Argentina, and I've done five, four, four sessions, four sessions in five month period. And now my cartilage is the same thickness going from almost no cartilage in my left knee. It's the same width. You know, the thickness of the cartilage is the same as it was before the injury in 1975. So that's great, but it's still painful. So now he says what's happened is that there's been damage to the ligaments on both sides. And so now I go first week of November to Buenos Aires and they do stem cells on my ligaments, ok, ok, and then we'll see. We'll see what happens there. So wow. Yeah, it's a matter of subtraction. You know you subtract the cartilage as the problem and then you submit and we'll see where it is. But I would say that the drop in pain in a day, in other words from morning till night, it's probably down 90%. Wow, that's amazing. But what's missing is the confidence to start running, because I want to run again and so I've been 15 years without running and my brain says don't run. So I have to relearn how to run. And how about Babs? It's completely fixed. That's amazing, isn't it? Yeah? And the cartilage that was cartilage too, yeah, fixed. That's amazing, isn't it? Yeah, the cartilage that was cartilage too. She, yeah, she had influence, she had actually. She had bone inflammation and she had missing cartilage. So the cartilage is back and I think hers would be equal to mine. The pain is down by 90 wild, wild, that's. Dean: It's amazing, isn't? It yeah we're living in. We're living in amazing times. Well, I'm counting on it. Yeah exactly. Dan: You know it's a present number times a future story. Dean: What a great thing. By the way, that book is going to arrive today, according to Amazon. For me, the money book. The other one will be here tomorrow morning. That's just so, like that's the best thing. Dan: Why can't the I mean after you order it? Why aren't they knocking on the door right now? What's wrong with this world? Dean: That's what I'm thinking. Is that why people call senators? Is that what I need to do is alert my senator? Dan: about this. Yeah, I actually had a great conversation with Ted Budbutt. Dean: Oh yeah. Well, that's great, great US senator from North Carolina, yeah and I just saw that Robert Kennedy just endorsed Donald Trump. He dropped out of the race and joined MAGA. Dan: Yeah, I think it's probably. I was figuring it's worth 3%, do you think? Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, I mean, he brings a lot to Trump obviously brings a lot to it, but he brings a whole issue that the Republicans haven't been focused on at all and his whole thing is really about what the food industry is putting into food. Yeah, that that is very dangerous, very negative, very harmful. That's been his big thing, and Trump just came out and said I think we're going to really take a major look at this. Dean: You know, it's very interesting to note that Joe Polish was sort of a catalyst in this regard. Oh yeah, that's pretty amazing. I just sent him a note. Dan: I just sent him an email. I sent him an email. I said RFK Trump always said you were the greatest connector that I've ever met in my life. Dean: Yeah, that's the truth, isn't it? And now you think about the historical impact. You know of this. I think that's you know. It's amazing. He's in his unique ability, for sure. Dan: Yeah, yeah, but yeah, just born unique ability to connect people, positively connect people. Yes yes, yeah, there's all sorts of industries where it's negative, but this is positive, so good. Anyway, back to our metrics, back to our metrics yes. Yeah, well, I think you're working out a whole economic system based on this. I think this has got the making of a complete economic system. Dean: Yes, it really does, the more that I see that each of them have and I'm very aware of naming the metrics right, of naming the metrics right like so out, because each of the before, during and after units all have their own, you know, their own metrics that are universally present in every business but they're differently calculated, you know, and once people have that awareness it kind of builds momentum, like they really see these things. They've never thought about a multiplier index in the during unit, or they've never thought about a return on relationship in the after unit or revenue From where you are right now? Dan: which one is where you are right now? Which one is most important for your own? Dean: you know your own money making for me, I think, one of the most. Dan: I mean you got eight, I know yeah, yeah, the eight are all engaged, but right now August of 2024, which is the one that you're really focused on right now rev pop revenue per unconverted prospect. Dean: Yeah, that's a multiplier If you've already got. You've got a lot of times when we take the VCR formula and kind of overlay on top of it. The excess capacity that people have is often a big asset, you know, and so it's very yeah, it's fun to to see all these at work. You know, as I start to you know, overlay them on so many different types of businesses. Dan: Yeah, no, I'm just really taking I was. Shannon Waller's husband was reading this, same as every book His cottage is. Their cottage is about 10 minutes walk from our cottage and I just picked it up and I've converted almost completely over to Kindle. So you know, so I had it within minutes. Dean: I picked it up. Dan: I read a chapter and I said I'm going to download this. So I downloaded it and I've been reading it for the past four days. But I asked Bruce. We were out to dinner last night and I said Bruce and Bruce is an investor he had a career with Bell Canada. He was 35 years, 35 years with Bell Canada Got a good pension and then he went into investing and I said this is about long range thinking, this is a very long range thinking book and it's almost like these are 23 things that are always going to be the same how you factor that into your investment philosophy, okay, yeah. And then he has a lot of references to Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett because, they're the long range, they're the most famous long range investors and Charlie's dead this year. But Warren Buffett said he said this year. But Warren Buffett said he said you know it's, the biggest problem with investing is the combination of greed and speed. You know, people want a huge payoff and they want it as fast as possible. Yes, and he said you know. And Warren Buffett, he says you know, you can't produce a child in a month by getting nine women pregnant. Dean: It's profound and true. Dan: It's a formula for complication in your future life. Dean: Yeah, exactly. Dan: Yeah, if each child has claims on half of your net worth, you probably have diminished your future. You probably have diminished your future. But anyway, and he says, the proper question is what's the investment I can make that has the highest return for the longest period of time? Dean: Yes, I love that. That's great. Dan: Well, if you take your eight profit activators and see them as separate investments. Dean: Which I do. Dan: And each of them is growing in return. That's really the only stock market you actually need. Dean: Yes, that's what dawned on me with this revenue per unconverted prospect is I try and get people to think about their before unit as making a capital investment. Dan: Well, you are in time attention, probably money, probably money too. Dean: Yeah. But most people think of it as an expense because they're running ads competing for the immediate ROI. And it's such a different game when you realize that the asset that you're creating of a pool of people who know you and like you and are marinating, you know that it makes a big difference Because the gestation period is, if you looked at the people that come into coach for the first time, if you were to look at their ad date in the CRM of when they first showed up on your radar, whether they opted in for something, that it's going to be a much bigger number than seven days. You know that they came in, they got, they talked to somebody and signed up. It's going to be a you know, a much longer period of time and the yield. This is the only way that having that revenue per unconverted prospect really gives you a way of seeing how valuable the people who've been in your pond for three years, five years, seven years I'm sure you have people who have been swimming around Strategic Coach for several years before they become. Dan: One of the big changes that we're making is to switch the attention to those people away from the sales team to the marketing team. That's smart. Because, I have a framework for the salespeople and every time I meet with them, we have 14 full-time salespeople and every time I meet with we have 14, 14 sales full-time salespeople and I say yeses, reward you, noes, teach you and maybes, punish you. So, I said, every week you're looking at your call list, you have to grade them yes, no. Or maybe at your call list, you have to grade them yes, no. Or maybe and I say, go for the yeses first, Get the no's as fast as possible, Okay and make them earn their way back into your prospect list. Dean: In other words just say no. Dan: You know it sounds like you're not going to do it. You know about us. We've had a conversation. We've got great materials we can send you constantly. But you know I'm not going to bother you anymore. And then there's maybes that are just trying to have an affair. Dean: Right, exactly. Dan: No, she isn't with us anymore. But we had a woman who is a salesperson and she had 60 calls over a six-year period with this person. I said I don't know what's on your mind, but he's having an affair. That's funny. It's a nice female voice. He gets to talk to her every month or so. It's an affair. That's exactly right. It's so funny. Anyway, we've shot way past the hour. Dean: Oh my goodness, Dan Well, it was worth it. It was worth it. Dan: I don't know for the listeners, but I found this a fascinating conversation. Dean: Well, I find that too, so that's all that matters. If we had good, come along the ride. Dan: I agree with if we were having a good time. I think they were having a good time I think, I'll talk to you next I'll talk to you next week. Thanks dan, bye-bye. Great, okay, bye.
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Sep 18, 2024 • 50min

Ep133: Unlocking Literary and Entrepreneurial Secrets

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, We glean valuable insights into writing methods by contrasting Stephen King's solo approach with James Patterson's collaborations. We explored the benefits of a second-person narrative and tailoring content for specific readers. We talked about an entrepreneur who built a candy empire by recognizing an opportunity and exemplifying the power of vision, focus, and innovative thinking. His story highlighted how early experiences shape goals and the importance of collaboration. Additionally, this discussion examined how US elections impact businesses and underscored innovation and marketing's crucial roles. Lastly, we covered strategic concepts like revenue per unconverted prospect and discussed books' significance in education. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS I explore the contrasting writing styles of Stephen King and James Patterson, focusing on King's solo approach and Patterson's collaborative method. I discuss the benefits of writing in the second person to create a more engaging and conversational tone for specific audiences, such as experienced entrepreneurs. I share the story of a young entrepreneur who successfully identified a market gap and built a low-sugar candy company, emphasizing the importance of single-minded focus and methodical growth. I delve into the significance of visionary goals and collaborative efforts in driving entrepreneurial success, using personal anecdotes and experiences as examples. I analyze the impact of US presidential elections on business sales, highlighting how different election outcomes can shape various business landscapes. I introduce the concept of revenue per unconverted prospect (rev pup) and its role in strategic business planning, particularly in understanding client gestation periods. I examine the financial dynamics of a signature program, discussing how a $15,000 fee per participant can generate significant revenue and emphasizing the importance of capital investment in lead generation. I highlight the role of books in attracting and educating prospects, particularly those published with Hay House, and their efficacy in creating qualified leads and fostering deeper understanding among participants. I discuss the benefits of a high-protein, low-carb keto diet and share personal plans, including a trip to the cottage and trying a new French establishment, Cafe Balloud. I reflect on the importance of focusing on one thing for entrepreneurial success, using the example of a young entrepreneur who built a low-sugar candy empire and the notion of always striving to go further in one's pursuits. 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 there he is Well. Yeah, I had a great week. Yeah, I'm very busy. We started a new book. The previous one went to the printer on Tuesday and we started the next book on Thursday, so this is the fastest that we've gotten to a new one. Oh, I like that Right into the next. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah don't know what stephen king, the author that's his habit of he writes for. You know he writes every day a certain amount of time and as soon as he finishes one of the end on one if it's halfway through a session he gets a new sheet of paper and starts the next one. He doesn't like sit on his laurels, he just gets right into the next one. It's very interesting. Dean: Yeah, I'm wondering because I don't really know much about him. Is he right strictly alone? Dan: and then, yes, you know, yeah, like, so it's a very interesting thing that he's like a rugged individualist, whereas you know, james patterson is definitely a who, not how, collaborator, you know, and prolific at it. He's got a really, really interesting process in that he does extensive outlines for his books and then he collaborates with someone to fill it in, to do the actual right, and then he gets with them and gives notes and so the book is a hundred percent. He's the author. I guess you can say, and then, but gives the, but gives the co-author the latitude to take it, exercise their creativity or whatever and how it goes. But he's got the basic. You know, he's created the outline and the story art Pretty extensive outlining process he has I took a I don't know whether you've ever seen and the story arc Pretty extensive outlining process he has I took a I don't know whether you've ever seen. There's a website called Master Class and they have, like the best in fields, doing a master class on their thing, and so James Patterson was one of the first. He did a thing on writing and yeah, it's very, it's very well done. Do you think they actually reveal what they actually do? Yeah, I think so. I mean it's from seeing the things. Yeah, he actually shows actual outlines, outlines, and you know, I imagine there's nothing you know. Sharing the process is very empowering for other authors, just like I think you don't keep one and has observed you, observed you doing it. I've got one right in my backpack right here, right now. I've got the everything is created backward book right here and I just think this format, it's so you know, it's, you're so consistent in the output of it, it's amazing. Dean: Yeah, I just wonder. There was a story of a martial arts master in. Asia, china, and he was known throughout the land as the greatest martial arts master. And then he had a student who was just prodigious he was a prodigy. And so he had a student who was just prodigious he was a prodigy. And so he taught him. And then the student went off and made a name for himself and then came back one day and he says as far as I can see, there's just you and me, he said to the master, and he said so why don't we settle it right now to see who's actually the master? Okay, and so they did it and the student had his master at a great disadvantage. And then the master pulled out a trick he had never seen before and defeated the student. And the student said I thought you taught me everything he says, except for one thing. Dan: Great, I love that, except for one thing. Dean: I love it, and I'm not saying that I have one thing, but I'm saying that there's something that happens in a creative process that involves a lot of other people. So I have Shannon Well, I do my outlines to be my version of James Patterson our fast filters, and so I do the fast filter, which is basically the structure of each section of the book the introduction, there's eight chapters and there's a conclusion, so 10 sections and each of them has a fast filter with a best and worst. And I do everything in the second person, personal, so I'm always talking to you you know, whoever the reader is, I'm always talking to. the reader allows me to do is to bypass, research being a too quick start. I'm not heavy on the research side, right, and what you're depending upon is the research that the reader has already done in his or her life. That this makes sense, and that's you know, that's the second. Dan: That's. That's a. That's a real secret. You know that. Like it, it's really. It's the best to read as well, because it feels like a conversation, feels like you're just talking to me and explaining something that is that you wouldn't have, as if you were just writing a letter to me about it. Dean: Well, you do that when you're talking. I mean you know, I mean, I think you you use the second yeah everything I do it's the same. Dan: I do the same every email that I write. All of that is that because that's the I think that's the most engaging right. Dean: Like people, it's easy to get engaged with that when it feels like it's just you and me, and so I'm just trying to think here of the, because I'm only talking to a certain kind of person, you know. Dan: I'm not writing for the world. Dean: I'm only talking to one, someone who's an entrepreneur with experience and with success, and so I'm simply reflecting in my talk what I already know about this person's life. Dan: I think that goes a long way, that one of the great, like you know, models of that is thinking about one person as if you're writing a letter to one person, or even a small workshop filled with whoever you're, you know, whoever filled with the right people and only speaking to those Something to that you know where you're not. You don't try and I think people often in marketing writing especially, they are trying to accommodate or change so that, just in case these people aren't this or that, they don't know about this. And I'm like you know what you gotta like avoid. You gotta let go of the bottom 20% and write as if you're only writing for the top 20%. You're writing to the people who want to do what it is that you're doing, not, you know, leaning on your back foot kind of thing. You're leaning into helping the people, the tippy top group. That really want what you have, and don't hold back on that, you know. Dean: Yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting. I made it. I think I mentioned this on a previous podcast, but I made a decision as I was approaching you know my current age. I said you know I've been Well, that's something everybody can do, you know approaching your current age. Anyway, I just made a decision I wasn't going to do any speeches anymore to big rooms. The only public presentations I would do would be to entrepreneurial audiences, but I would only do it in the form of a thinking tool. I wouldn't try to tell them how the world is or where I see the world going. I simply say I have a thinking tool for you. And what it relates to is you know something that happens to entrepreneurs and I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions about it and then I'm going to have you think through your answers and everything like that, and then I'll have you talk to each other, and then we'll come back and we'll just share insights. And that relieved me. I didn't like public speaking and the reason was that I knew I was only talking to about a small percentage of the room. Dan: And. Dean: I didn't know who they were. You don't know which ones, right? Yeah, I didn't know who in the audience, and then you're trying to make it appeal. Dan: Just even subconsciously, you're trying to make it appealing to everybody. Yeah, yeah, just uses a lot of energy and this is, you know what, this way, doing these, I would argue, you know, doing these 90-day books, quarterly books that you're doing is way more impactful than doing speeches to big crowds. Dean: This is really the big thing and I've sort of refined it about my decision about not giving talks to large groups. Talks to large groups when I'm in the office either the Toronto office or the Chicago office the coach will frequently say can you come in and talk to the group? And I'm always a bit puzzled. I don't know what to talk to them about. What I've done recently is that I have a big table in the cafes Toronto or Chicago and I say I'm going to have lunch and anybody who wants to come in and talk to me, you can come in and have lunch with me. So usually about eight people, and that works out really great because the only people who show up are the people who actually want to talk to me. Dan: Yeah, exactly that's great. Great, I like that. Yeah, that's my favorite. My preferred style, too, is just that is the here I am. Ask me anything, you know, that's the way I can show up the best for things you know. Dean: That's yeah, that's always been. Have you been that way all the time, or is it developed? Dan: I think it's always been my preference. I have the capability to do a prepared presentation. It's not my preference, but I just like being able to customize the message to whatever somebody wants to hear. You know, so a lot of time I don't do really I don't do prepared like keynote talks anymore. I much prefer like fireside chats kind of thing, where we'll do an interview and I can take it where. What I'd much rather do Q&A, because it can be directed in whatever they're specifically interested in and I can think quickly and articulate an answer. So they're not going to stump me. I know that much. So I prefer that and I think it feels to people there's a more, there's a different energy to it's an improv theater element to it right where it's flying without a net and you know you, there's always that danger that somebody is going to stump you or ruffle you or whatever, but they're not so that that confidence to be able to do it. And I've done enough thinking about my core ideas that I can adapt them with, you know, simplifying stories or examples that work, Of course, I think one of the things that's true about both of us. Dean: we've been out there long enough that people who really want to get in touch with us know how to do it. Dan: All right, exactly, yeah. Yeah, I was just thinking about that. I was thinking that on the way over, I'm in Orlando right now, I'm in the Tesla mobile podcast recording studio parked under an h80 tree today, and but I was on the drive over. I was thinking about that different. Just doing some assessment things on the different types of like if you're doing a wealth matrix or whatever, in terms of one of the things we do with our listing agent lifestyle things is this balance between daily joy, abundant time and financial peace, and I was thinking about the different kinds of advantages that people can have. I have complete time freedom. Basically, I have very little demands on my time in a recurring way, so I have self-direction on what you know you would call freedom of time. Dean: You know I would call that freedom of time. Exactly. I think the term that you're looking for, dean, is freedom of time, that's so funny. Dan: But the other thing is along with that time I was joking with somebody the other day. You know I'm in the middle of a project for myself here but I was saying to them that just jokingly, you know I've got access to Dean Jackson for free. And I look at that as one of my greatest assets access to me for free? Dean: Yeah. Dan: Anytime, anytime, that's exactly right. Dean: If he's in a good mood. Dan: If I can only wrangle him, you know, wrestle him down. Dean: If I can get his attention, if I can get his attention. Attention I can only get him to apply himself. Dan: That would be the thing right yeah we'd be on to something. But I think that the other thing is you know, you know, as far as vcr, you know, assets go, this, I've got so much, so many vision capabilities. You know like I, I know a lot of things that can be applied to a lot of things, and it's really the. You know the job. The struggle, let's say, is to direct that to one thing. You know, it's like the, it's like you. I remember we talked about offer briar one time that he you know, I was just. Dean: I was just as you said, that I was just thinking of him you know, exactly at that moment that you said his name. I was thinking about him, isn't that? Dan: funny that you, you know, I remember you telling the story of being with him and I've had the same conversations with him that his model, his technology, just for people listening. He's a brilliant guy. He's able to simplify learning and teaching models so he can really teach somebody how to learn anything and become a master at it in a very compressed amount of time and become a master at it in a very compressed amount of time, and his, you know, assertion is that he could do this for anything. It can be any skill that somebody wants to learn, and I think you were one of my favorite stories. You were at a dinner with him. Dean: I believe you were in Israel, right, tel Aviv, yeah. Dan: And said well, I'll let you tell the way you described it no, I just. Dean: it was a, you know, a very short comment. Dan: And I said. Dean: I said, you know, I think you really want to be known for this, for being able to teach anybody anything. But the problem is you can't focus on one thing. And you only become really well known if you can't focus on one thing, and you only become really well known if you can do one thing, really great. And you know, and he just laughed and he smiled, and you know he, he nodded and agreed, that was true and you know, and that's where I think it's very important to have guidance from outside of. You know what's the best thing for you to apply your talents to, your one talent, your greatest talent, what's? The best thing to do for that. And you know and what would you think with VCR? What would be the? Dan: Well, that's where I'd go. You know, is that this is? You know, even the marketing, you know is certainly the one. It's one thing, but there's so many applications of that you know, that's where I struggle, but what? Dean: would be? I guess I'm asking the question again what would be the best? I mean the, you know. I mean even in the strategic coach. I'm for entrepreneurs, you know the strategic coach is for entrepreneurs talented, successful, ambitious entrepreneurs. I say yeah, but not all of them. Not all of them. You can check off those three boxes. I'm for the ones who are really driven to collaborate with other entrepreneurs to create a new thing, that hasn't existed before. So, you know, and I think this gets more refined, Wouldn't you find? of who you would spend your time with 10 years ago that you wouldn't spend time with them today? Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. Dan: I think there's, yeah, there is that. Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. I think there's, yeah, there is that. I was it's so. I was, just as a sidebar, was listening to a podcast the how I built this podcast with Guy Raz and the the thing that one of the most recent guests was this young, the young lady. She's 26 or seven now. When she was 21, she started a company to make low sugar gummy bears and evolved that product line to other low sugar gelatinous treats and the company is called Smart Sweets and four years after building it, she sold 80% of it for $360 million, you know, as a 25 year old or 26 year old, in a four year period. And it's just, I mean, it's amazing, right, that one thing focus of doing that it unfortunately feels like it's the way is one thing. If your goal is building wealth, it feels like, I guess. Dean: Was that her intention to do that, or was that a stroke of I? Dan: think she wanted to. You know she wanted to create. She saw a gap in the market for low sugar candy right, that people like candy, but they're, you know it's so high in sugar and corn syrup and all the bad things, right. So she was looking for healthy alternatives and and there were really none. And so she figured, boy, if I could get, if I could figure this out, there'd be a, I think, a big market for it. Dean: And she was right. Dan: I mean she was definitely right and yeah, but went through. You know that whole process and you know, immediately kind of hit a third stride with it. But you look at, you know, the simplest businesses, you know, like that, imagine at some point beyond the idea and the execution of launching it that it's a different. It's a different game than the, it's a different game than the idea and the, the blueprints kind of thing, you know. And there's something that's I'm sort of resistant to or I find it hard to. You know, focus on just taking one thing all the way, kind of thing you know, that's been like. I look at. You know you look at, I see it among my. It's one of my most successful clients. You know that they're focused on one thing we crack the code on the marketing and create a multiplier for it that drives for the next three or four years and then they sell. Dean: You know it's a big yeah but single-minded focus for that period of time it's an interesting thing because that's a particular payoff for doing one thing. In other words, you know 300 million or whatever at 26, but you can also have a method that you constantly want to be growing and you know, the success is sort of a byproduct of the method. I would say that I have sort of a one thing, but it isn't a payoff or an event, it's actually it's a process you know, and but it's. I think part of it is just always be creating new things and then, to give evidence that they're actually new things, have it in the form that other people can use them, like thinking this is one you know or workshops you know, or quarterly books and and everything else. But but I I like yeah that's true. Dan: Yeah, like I look at that, that you're in a lot of ways, you know, I look at this as your Jiro dreams of sushi kind of you know experience of pursuing mastery of collaborative thinking tools for ambitious entrepreneurs at the highest level. You know, with a trillion dollar free zone, you know economy as the, you know, at 100 years old, that's a very, you know, that's a very ambitious north star right that that's the direction that everything is heading and it gives you enough, there's enough, uh, variety in the constant creation of new things. And I think there's something elegant about this quarterly book cadence supported by quarterly workshops and that model with new tools and a organizational support for, in the wake of what you're creating, that you're always on the lead. You're always on the lead ship in the armada, car-charging the course and heading to the $15 trillion future right and bringing on the free zone people on the lead ship and everything behind an armada of other coaches and the signature program, the 10 times program, all kind of headed in that same direction. Dean: Yeah, I would say that it really stems from an experience I had. I think it was about 10 years old and I've mentioned this that I was out walking in the fields of the farm that I grew up on. It was in February, you know, very clear, bright day, cold but very bright and sunny. I think it was still 54. The airliners were still mostly propeller. I think this was a DC-6. It struck me that it had four engines. It was either flying from Cleveland to Chicago or flying from New York to. We were in the flight path of those type of destinations and I was watching and all of a sudden I just got this feeling. It was a question that came to me and it's saying I wonder how far I can go, and that's kind of framed it for the last 70 years. I wonder how far I can go, and that's kind of framed it for the last 70 years. I wonder how far I can go. I've done this Now I wonder, and whenever I hit one level of measurable achievement, measurable success, then the question always comes to me Now I wonder how far I can go. So I think that's my one thing, I think that's my. One thing is just that it's a question, it's not an answer, it's actually a question now I wonder how far I can go and that requires, you know, being in good health, being, you know, having energy and that requires having, as you say. I've got a lot of organization that gets formed out of the creativity because it becomes doable by other people, like having coaches do the workshops. And you know, I meet clients now who have been in coach for 25 years and it's the first time I've ever met them, but they've been working with the other coaches for 25 years and that's kind of proof that you're doing something useful. You know, it sort of indicates to me that this stuff is real. Somebody who would maybe be attracted to coach because of a book they read, or they saw a podcast or something, but they do it through another coach. They're never actually in my workshops, they're in somebody else's workshops. And when I meet them, I'm always very pleased that there's enough substance and enough impact to the stuff that's being created that they don't have to be with me. Dan: I think that's right, that you've got enough like yeah, I mean you, a strategy circle and an impact filter are going to work, no matter who explains them. Right, when they explain them and they go through the process, it's like it doesn't require any. You know, there's not any creativity required in the telling of that, it's really self, it's built into the tool and any anybody can share that. Yeah, that's the. But you know you've got kind of that framework. I look at that as the. You know, in my world, that framework of the eight profit activators, the breaks and blueprint, is a is one thing. I look at that as one thing. Right, the but the application of it. You know there's this different, I guess, in teaching the application of it, helping people apply it to their own businesses. Dean: How many would you, how many would you say, have taken at least the it's first three days right, it's a three-day introduction. Dan: Yeah, the three-day. Dean: Three-day. How many, would you say, have taken it now. So I would say that probably. Dan: well, let's say 10 times, maybe 600, I'd say Do people do it again? I'd say Do people do it? Dean: again yeah. Dan: I've had people who've come many times Because it's one of those things where you never step in the same river twice or you never play the same golf course twice. It's the same round of golf even if you play the same course. The eight profit activators are the thing and it's just literally layering on. There's always constant improvement and new nuances within each of the eight profit actors. So if people are working on their before unit or their during unit or their after unit, there's all these layers of you know building on top of it, and once they've had an experience of it, you know now that you've actually applied something and something's going that unlocks, kind of the next thing you know, you get to see, okay, now, what could we do? Kind of thing. You know, and it's really, it's very interesting. Like my, one of the things that I've been really leaning into is one of the biggest frustrations I have. I'll explain something that's a real thing going on here. Real thing going on here is that in the before unit, which is the first four profit activators, and they're all about identifying your ideal client, compelling them to raise their hand, to start a conversation, educating and motivating them so that they know that working with you or doing whatever it is that you do, would be the right thing. And then making a compelling offer that makes it easy for people to get started and we get people to think about that before unit as a separate entity from their during unit, which is the unit of the business that does the thing that you do. So let's say the strategic coach workshop process, like once somebody is in strategic coach, that would be the during unit of it, right? So the before to act as a supplier to the during, and what they're supplying is new registrations for strategic coach workshops, new workshop enrollees, and the way that we try and do it is set up like a prospect vending machine as opposed to a slot machine. Most people do slot machine marketing where they put money in and they pull the lever and come on seven hoping that something will happen. And a vending machine is very predictable. Right, you're doing a vending machine. You have to select, even though there might be a dozen things in a vending machine. You have to select even though there might be, you know, a dozen things in the vending machine. You have to select what's in a1 and press a1 and it tells you what the price is and you put that money in. But you push the button and out comes your whatever it is that you asked for and so we try and line that up for people and the most predictable, the way to really do that as a vending machine is to think about the investment in the before unit as a capital investment versus an expense-based approach. Where most people are running expense-based approach, they want to run the ads, get somebody to come online and then buy right away, before the credit card is due at the end of the month to pay for the ads. Right, that's what everybody's looking for. But I look at it that if you take a capital investment approach of generating your ideal prospects and taking a bundle of 100 of those and then not measuring your ROI until 100 weeks from now, your ROI until a hundred weeks from now is the what's the ROI on marching that bundle of 100 leads that you made a capital investment of 500, a thousand $2,000 in. What's the ROI over 100 weeks versus the next hundred hours? You know which is what most people are focused on, and so I, where I run into challenges with people, is getting through what I call the Van Allen belt, where it's you load up your a hundred, or you know however many you load up a hundred leads that you've generated, however many you load up a hundred leads that you've generated and then the Van Allen belt is getting them through that period where you haven't done a transaction yet and it feels like you're spending money and you're, you know, keep loading passengers on the rocket kind of thing, and but nobody has, nobody has bought yet, and that getting people to stick with that through the Van Allen belt and then get the ROI is a big obstacle and I see it happen again and again. It's one of those things, literally people stopping three feet from gold. Dean: I really grasp what you're saying. I was just thinking how do you conceptualize that for the people who are actually involved in the activity? Dan: Well, that's the way I'm describing it now. Dean: I mean, if we put together marketing and strategic coach with sales and Strategic Coach, I would say we have it's a quarter of the country, a quarter of the company you know, easily 30, easily 30, 30 individuals and and and what they create is really educated, enthusiastic, first workshop participants. Basically that's what they create and it's interesting. This year we'll do 1,000. Like, we'll have 1,000. Dan: New registrations. Dean: You mean, yeah, new registrations, and then the price went up this year, so there's more. I mean, we were about 980 last year and we'll be slightly over a thousand. And one thing I've noticed is there's a fall off in sales in presidential years. Oh, yeah. When the US is having a presidential election and the toughest period is about the three months before the election. Dan: The reason is that yeah, right the election. Dean: The reason is that, yeah, right now. The reason is it makes a difference. It's not necessarily who wins the election, but you kind of know how to adjust your you know, you kind of adjust your journey once you know, who's going to be the president. You know, and this year there's very definitely a difference. You know, I would say it's the greatest philosophical difference. I've probably seen in my entire lifetime. Dan: I have a perfect example. I have a client who is an immigration attorney and they're, you know, right now talk about. There couldn't be a greater polarity of possibility in. November that they're. You know they're right on the thing of ready to pivot that if one side gets in it's all about immigration and getting legal. If the other side gets in it's all about staying here, deportation defense. You know it's a different. It's amazing how that kind of thing can have a polar difference. Dean: Yeah, and I just noticed that. I mean, I've been through, we're in our 35th years, so there's been eight presidential elections over that, and I just noticed there's a holding back. That happens usually summer to the, unless it's pretty well clear that an incumbent president is going to get reelected. You know, and that's happened a number of times. Anyway but that. But the interesting thing about it is that I think it was Peter Drucker said there's only two things, there's only two areas of profit in a company. One of them is innovation and the other one is marketing. Dan: Right. Dean: Everything else is an expense. Yes, but I don't think that's true. I think everything should be looked at as a capital investment, right, like I? Dan: look at one of the things that we help people look at. I don't know that I've ever shared this with you, but I think it would be a very interesting metric for you to have just an awareness of, for, even for strategic coach, that one of the greatest comforts for people is knowing what their I call it their revenue per unconverted prospect. A rev pup we refer to it as, and that's a number that, if you take of all of the new people that came into strategic coach in the last 12 months, you're saying that's going to be a thousand for this year and the amount of revenue that generates divided by the number of unconverted prospects that you've identified through your market. So imagine that there are. Everybody kind of comes through a process of somehow getting in your world. They've opted in for something or they've asked for something or signed up to come to a workshop or the Zoom workshop or an intro, or they were referred, all of that thing. I'm sure there's a pool of people who you have communication with that have not yet decided to join the program. But all of the people that did join the program came from that group and most people don't have a sense of the gestation period of people being in your world, right, because sometimes people come into your world, they have one conversation, they learn all about it and say I'm in. That's a great outcome, but the majority of people will have a exploration period, you know, where they're kind of learning about and observing and getting immersed in the environment. And so that number you know, let's say that the a thousand people and let's say would you say that a blended average of fees would be 15,000. Would that be there between signature yeah and yeah I mean new people coming can only join signature, yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah, so what was how much is the signature program? Now it's, I think it's 15. Ok, so 15,000. So you know, 15 million dollars in new revenue from the before you, which would be. Dean: Well, it's more than that, because the uh, that's 15,000. No, it would be. Yeah, it would be, let's just say 15,000. Yeah, cause new people coming in have to start at signature level, right, so yeah, I mean, it's more than that for us, because 80% of that is in the U? S and everything gets translated back, so so just for around numbers. Yeah, but let's say 17. Dan: So 17,000, that's $17 million on 1,000 new people. And so we take that 17 million and divide it by the number of prospects in your email database that you're emailing your newsletter to, emailing your things to. So let's say that's 100,000 people. Dean: It wouldn't be that high 50,000? 50,000, yeah. Dan: So you take that 17 million and divide it by 50,000. Yeah, take that 17 million and divide it by 50,000. And whatever that number is, you're rev-pup. And so let me just do the math real quick on that. So, 17 million divided by 40,000, that's $340 per prospect per year is where you get a little more granular. And looking at this is looking back and seeing what was the ad date of them. When did they first come in? Because some of them may have been in for 30 days and some of them may have been in for 30 months or you know whatever, or three years or more. And that gives you a good sense of what your annual. So you look at that and, on terms of capital investment, if you can add people into, you know if you make a capital investment that generates new leads for let's even say $34, you've got an immediate 10, you know return on that. Very interesting when you start looking at it like that. You know. Dean: Yeah, I mean the, the, and first of all it's it's an accurate number because all the money's up front with us, so you know that we have that money before they do their first workshop, do their first workshop and the interesting thing about it is the difference that the three books have made. Dan: You know, the big books the Hay House books and you know, I was very interested in. Dean: Ben Hardy's offer. You know that he would write the books because I just don't have the stamina to spend. It's basically at minimum it's a 12 month process with the publisher. I mean Hay House moves a bit more quickly than other publishers do. I mean you can start there. They're looking basically like 12 months. They'd like to turn a book around in 12 months and the books have done wonders for us in creating qualified leads. It's not the case that people read a book and they sign up for the program, it's that they make a phone call and the other thing is people may not have read the book and read the books, because usually they read all three and they come through a referral and they phone and then we send them the books and they read the books. Ok, so the books are useful either way. And one of the things that I wasn't sure of it because we never had this capability before. But you know, I would say, since the three books have come up one way or another, you know it's a large number of people who signed up for the program because of the books. In other words, that it was, that it was sort of, um, it was the biggest sense of proof that this was the right thing for them. Dan: Yeah, I mean the book itself. In that way, when you're putting out like a book, that's being, you have the reach of amazon and other bookstores and people kind of. There's an interesting environment for people to discover a book organically right and people talk about it and all of that stuff. So you're not really. It's not that you're having to push the book out to people. There's a they're kind of drawn to it, right, and amazon has a great engine of you know if you like that. Dean: You probably like this yeah, they're a great capability, yeah yeah, anyway like there was a new workshop, not this past week but the week before, and they had about 35, there were about 35 new people and I just laid the word out for them that if anybody wanted to come in and talk to me at lunchtime they could. Okay, and immediately the table was filled, you know the table was filled as soon as lunch break. And the thing that I was struck this was their very first workshop. How much they knew about the program. I was very struck by this. And they were asking me questions about the concepts and the tools that in many cases they won't get to for three years. They were asking me because they were mentioned in the three books, the tools mentioned in three books, and so that's been a big. So that's been a big, that's been a big gem, very exciting, right. Dan: Like I mean, it's kind of I love to hear when things like that happen, you know. But that a book is a very is a really great profit activator three tool educate and motivate. And that's really it that you're getting mind minutes of attention. And that's the crown jewel if you can get somebody's mind and attention focused on taking in a new thought that resonates with them, that they say, oh, that makes, that makes sense. That's the thing. So then when you make an offer to join the program, it makes all the sense in the world, right. Dean: Yeah, we're just starting consultation with Hay House right now on the book that we wrote with Jeff Madoff Casting, not Hiring. Yeah, we think that may be the number four. The number four book. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, we think that may be the number four. The number four book. Dan: Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I think that's great. I mean, that's very exciting. I haven't seen Jeff in a while. Dean: Well, he's been busy with his play. He came back yesterday from London because he's been auditioning this whole week and they're going to go for an early 2025 start of his play in London. Oh, very nice. Dan: Wow In the West End. Dean: In the West. End, is equal to Broadway. Dan: Right From a theater standpoint. Dean: I said it's taking off. Oh yeah. Well, you knowago was a big deal chicago's. You know. They had a 10-week run in chicago and they got great reviews. It's just that chicago is a bit in a funk as a city that there's so much negative things happening and people don't want to be downtown after dark right that puts a crimp into theater. Yeah, yeah so we'll see next week, because the democrats are having their convention and, uh, the pro-palestinian people have said they're going to tear the city apart if they have to oh my goodness, oh my goodness, yeah, wow, they need good jobs. They need good jobs yeah. Dan: Well, it's less than a quarter and it'll be over. I can't believe. It's almost. You know we're more than halfway through August right now. It's almost here. Dean: It'll be here, and then the next campaign starts. Dan: Yeah, that's exactly the impeachment campaign That'll start whenever, whoever. No, it's not the impeachment. Dean: But even the presidential cycle is never about. Dan: Oh, yeah, yeah. Dean: Like I mean, the moment they the one ends, they start the next one, you know anyway. But yeah, but yeah. I think I think the what happened to the Democrats I think they're not going to have the ground troops to support this because they were there was so much uncertainty with Biden that I think and I mean she's only attractive right now because she's not doing press conferences and she hasn't had, she hasn't had a debate. I don't think she she'll stand up to full public. You know, full public right, I'm sure I don't think I don't think she has the experience and I don't think she's the type of person who stands up well to that sort of thing. So anyway, that's my guess. That's my guess, and if I'm ron, I'll still have a really good entrepreneurial day the next day. Even the day of that's right and I go to bed at 8 o'clock, so it doesn't matter. Dan: Oh, my goodness, Is that true now 8 o'clock yeah? Dean: No by 9. Dan: No. Dean: Certainly I'm in bed by 9. I'm certainly in bed by 9. Wow, and I get up early, I'm a morning person. Dan: Yeah, yeah, well, it's working, it's all working. Dean: Yeah, yeah, it's very good. I got a lot out of your description of that and there's a lot of protein in what you're talking about there. Right, that's the thing. Not carbs, no carbs. All meat, all protein. Yeah, that's the thing. Not carbs, no carbs, all meat All protein, keto marketing. Dan: That's exactly right. So you are on your way up to the cottage for the last hurrah for the season. Yeah. Dean: Wednesday, so it'll probably be two weeks, very nice. Dan: And then I'll see you. I'll be back pretty soon, in September, less than a month. We'll lock in Table 10. Maybe we can do Cafe Balloud as a new place, as a new Our new French establishment for lunch. It'll be awesome, okay, all right, dan, I'll talk to you soon. Dean: You too, okay, bye.

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