Podcasts about dan yeah

In this episode of the "Giant Robots On Tour" podcast, hosts Sami Birnbaum and Rémy Hannequin interview Dan Clark, the Founder and CEO of MindJam, an innovative platform providing emotional and SEN (Special Educational Needs) support for young people through gaming, game design, and digital skills. Sami shares a personal story about how his mother, an educational psychologist, introduced him to MindJam, highlighting its impact and relevance. Dan explains that MindJam was born out of the need to support young people who feel out of place in traditional educational settings, particularly those with ADHD, autism, and other neurodivergent conditions. By leveraging popular games like Minecraft, MindJam builds trust and engages young people in a medium they enjoy, transforming therapeutic support into a more effective and engaging process. Dan discusses the inception and growth of MindJam, which started during the pandemic when traditional in-person support became impossible. This shift to online sessions via gaming platforms provided a new avenue to connect with young people, enabling them to open up and build trust in a familiar and enjoyable environment. Dan emphasizes that gaming offers numerous benefits, such as enhancing cognitive abilities, fostering social connections, and providing a safe space for expression. Despite the negative stigma around gaming, he points out that it can be a powerful tool for personal development and emotional support. MindJam has grown significantly, now with 110 mentors supporting over 2,000 young people globally, showcasing the scalability and effectiveness of this approach. The conversation also touches on the broader implications and challenges of integrating gaming into therapeutic and educational contexts. Dan highlights the need for societal perception shifts to recognize the positive aspects of gaming, counteracting the negative media portrayal. He underscores the importance of educating parents, educators, and social services about the benefits of gaming and how it can be used constructively. Dan shares inspiring success stories from MindJam, illustrating how gaming can lead to real-world achievements and personal growth. MindJam (https://mindjam.org.uk/) Follw MindJam on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/MindJamOfficial), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/mindjam/), or Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/mindjamofficial/). Follow Dan Clark on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-clark-58533220b/). Follow thoughtbot on X (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Transcript:  SAMI: Right, we are back again. And this is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots podcast, the Giant Robots on Tour series coming to you from Europe, West Asia, and Africa, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host Sami Birnbaum. RÉMY: And I'm your other host, Rémy Hannequin. SAMI: Let's get into it, Rémy. Joining us today is Dan Clark, the Founder and CEO of MindJam, a platform that provides online one-to-one sessions, providing emotional and SEN support for young people through gaming, game design, and digital skills. Dan, full disclosure on this one: so, about a month ago, right? I get an email from my mom. Now [laughs], this email says, "You've got to check this guy out. Go and take a look at MindJam." And I'm thinking, mom, I don't get these emails from you. This is not the normal sort of thing I'd get from my mom on your average weekday. And I know in the past, like, I've told her that I'm kind of doing this podcast thing, and I'm starting to regret, like, telling her this. Like, what is she throwing my way? But I get into some research...and maybe for some context, actually, which is helpful because my mom isn't just doing research for the podcast, my mom's an educational psychologist. So, she's been doing that ever since I can remember. I remember growing up as a kid, and that was, I mean, she assessed me numerous times. And she works, I guess, similar kind of to the children or people that you're working with, people with ADHD, autism, neurodivergent children, just often who are struggling in school and trying to find where they fit. And I start doing my research. I look into it, hit the website, hit your LinkedIn. And I'll be, like, totally honest with you: We were both just blown away by what you are doing. And this is coming not only from me, and I work in the tech industry, and I've got a history of slight gaming addictions, which we might touch on, but also coming from my mom who works on the other side and works with all the local authorities. She does the kind of tribunals that they have to do to try and get people into the right schools and kids into the right schools. And, literally, we were blown away, and I nearly got lost as well on your website. I found some kind of gaming streams that you do, and I feel almost like we missed a trick here, Rémy, because we could have done this podcast on Minecraft. It's such a nice flow, right, when you're streaming. DAN: Yeah, it makes it easier when you've got that distraction there as well. You can just chat about it. Thank you so much for inviting me on. It's a pleasure being here and, yeah, I'm glad you kind of understand what we're doing here. MindJam itself is four years old now. But I was doing things before in the pandemic, similar. But once the pandemic hit, that was the key moment where everything went online for my support with young people. And, suddenly, the light bulb came on, and I was like, this is a way in. You know, there are so many young people that are struggling, lost, feel they're stupid, and don't fit in. Yet, actually, they're amazing. But, you know, a standard way of sitting in front of them going, "Tell me why you can't go to school. Why can't you do this?" you know, it doesn't work. They don't trust that person. They've got trauma. They've been, you know, battered down by education and by health services. And so, to suddenly have someone who comes in and goes, "Oh, so you love Minecraft. Oh, I love Minecraft, too. Let's join in. Let's go in a world." And then, you can build that trust to then go, "How's your week been then?" Or, you know, and start talking, and you're just on the same wavelength. And, for me, it was something as soon as I sort of realized, it was like, this is...of course, this makes perfect sense. And then, I looked and saw nobody else is doing it [laughs]. So, I started off MindJam just on my own. At first, very quickly, we got working with lots of...in the UK, we have local authorities, which is the councils around, so seeing there is a real, you know, thing that they would work with us. So, that was great, to be recognized as actually a real service, rather than just someone playing games with kids. It's like, no, this is real. This really works. And then, it quickly got bigger than me, and now we are at 110 mentors working for us, and we're supporting over 2,000 young people all over the world. SAMI: That's incredible. DAN: It's a mission of mine, you know, we'll go more into my sort of history, but I've got two neurodivergent children: both autistic, one's ADHD as well. When you see something that you think is going to work for your child, to then suddenly see it's got, like, a two-year waiting list, which most have, it's heartbreaking, and you know it's going to be too late. So, it's always been my mission with MindJam to keep that waiting list as small as I can, but also, obviously, expanding with quality mentors and all that. So, you know, we generally tend to always say about three months before we can sort of get that support for young people. But yeah, it's something very close to my heart that I'm so passionate about and, yeah, it's been a great journey so far. SAMI: You can tell. It's so interesting because, like you say, when you find something that works for your kids. Because when I was younger, I struggled with separation anxiety a lot in school. So, I would have days when I would really struggle to go to school. During my high school period, I went to the Royal Free, which is down in Hampstead, so not too far from where I grew up and not too far from my school. And my parents...I tried to engage with a therapist. But it's almost like, I don't know if I wasn't cognitively or intellectually developed enough to engage in that way, but it didn't work. Ultimately, I did kind of one or two sessions. I remember filling in some questionnaire and thinking, like, I don't get this. This doesn't make sense. And what you're talking about, if I understand correctly, is you're coming to where the child is at. You're coming to a safe space for them, a place where they feel comfortable. It's almost like a world which is predictable. Whereas the outside world is very scary, right? Especially for people who have generalized anxiety disorder, like I said, autism. It's very challenging. And so, you come to their level, and you say, "Right, let's find a place where we all feel comfortable." And then, we can start to engage. And you say, like, you know, the pandemic was a little bit of a light bulb moment. What's been the biggest barrier then? So, you've found yourself kind of going into this and saying, right, this is something which works. It works for my kids. I want to make this available, accessible. What's been your biggest barrier to getting this off the ground and getting it working? DAN: It's the negative thoughts and the way the media portrays and education portrays gaming, basically. That has been the hardest thing is most parents are on board, but they still feel a little bit ashamed of how social media is on gaming and screen time. And they're very worried that they're not doing the right thing. And we come in a way of also educating. We educate the educators. We do training plans for schools, and for social services, and all sorts because there are so many benefits to gaming that aren't recognized. And, you know, gaming is still generally quite new. It's evolved so much in the last even 10 years. It's insane the way the characters have evolved. And the emotional nature of games now is really complex and, you know, young people and older people can get so much from them. But gaming still, in general, people are still like, "Well, get off that. Do something actually worthwhile." It's like, it's so worthwhile. There's so much, you know, strategy game you've got so much from it. And a fast-paced shooting you've got cognitive abilities. The perfect example I've got is, did you hear a couple of months ago a young lad, I think he was 13, he beat Tetris. SAMI: Yes. DAN: He completed Tetris, which is incredible, you know, it's like, oh, wow. And the first thing the newsreader said to them, the media person interviewing him went, "You should get out more." That's the way she portrayed it, rather than going, "What an achievement it is. You should get outside more." I'm literally like, what? What's going on? You know, again, this kid, you know, he's in the Guinness World of Records. What an achievement. He's famous around the world for doing it. It's like, why is that not seen as such a good thing? You know, so yeah, so that was the hard thing was especially schools, you know, they're very frightened of gaming and of change. And so, trying to help them see that, actually, if you meet a young person where they're at in something they love, then you can help inspire them and help find out why they can't deal with the things, why they can't engage with school, and also inspire them for future learning careers. Even healthy gaming comes from having that understanding of how they're gaming. So, if someone's sat up all night gaming, yeah, we all know it's not great for them. But if you just say, "Gaming's evil. Get off it. You're wasting your time. I'm turning that off," they're going to want to rebel against that. Yet if you come in and go, "Oh, wow, I can see why you were sat up all night doing that. But have you noticed that you're not as good at playing when you're really tired or really hungry?" And if you look at the top e-sports players, they're athletes. They exercise; they eat well; they sleep well. So, you know, if you embrace gaming a bit more, you can get that trust and that bond to then help inspire in other ways. RÉMY: I mean, I could talk about it for a long time. It's really refreshing to hear someone talk about video games in such a positive way and talking about the benefits. And you even mentioned strong players like athletes. It's really refreshing. And I'm wondering, how did this knowledge come up to you in the first place? So, I bet you might be someone enjoying playing games yourself. But how did you see all these benefits yourself? Because, unfortunately, it's not something we talk a lot about. As you mentioned, in the press, we hear about all the negativity. Every time there is a strong event, we blame video games, all that. And we forgot all the stories where the video games enhance people, if they have trouble or not. It can be very beneficial to a lot of people. So, how did you see this value yourself? DAN: Yeah, well, yeah, I've always been a gamer, you know, ever since Spectrum 48K, I think you had. I'm showing my age now, but it was mainly when the Sega Megadrive, and from then, PlayStation onwards were my days. And me and my brother used to have great times together on that as well. You know, it was our bonding. But then I think the biggest light bulb to me...before the pandemic, I was a teacher. And I used to teach music and ICT and computers as well, and having my children as well, and both in school connecting with the young people. Because I was a gamer, I could talk about the games that they're playing with them and to see their eyes light up...and you're on a different wavelength with that young person. They suddenly got this trust in you, and they want to tell you all about what they've done on Minecraft, or what the new season of Fortnite's about. And it was having such a beneficial effect on them and same with my family as well. We, you know, both my children are autistic, and we've got, you know, we have a lot of difficulties around that of bonding together as a family, yet our closest moments have been through gaming together. So, Mario 3D World was the first one I remember with my children playing, and we could play at all levels. So, my son was about four and, you know, he was often in a bubble, killed, and floating back onto the screen again. But, you know, we had a great time. And I was suddenly, like, looking, thinking, this is amazing. You know, nobody hears about this side of it that it's bringing us together. And so, from there, I then started doing after-school gaming clubs, so not coding clubs, nothing like that. It was gaming. And the young people they loved it. It was oversubscribed. Masses of kids came to it. We had all sorts of things from Super Smash Bros, if you know that, to, you know, to PlayStation games, Go Simulator, and everything playing. And we just had a whale of a time, and they could really relax and make friends. And, again, it was all coming from the joy of gaming together, basically. And it's, you know, as much as some people might not like it, it's bigger and bigger. It's the biggest entertainment industry now. And, you know, on the other side of it, there are so many careers in it. If your young person has an interest in gaming, see what they're interested, help it, champion it because it's, yeah, you know, there's such a future there. But yeah, that's my story, basically, and where that sort of light bulb came from. And then, I've done a lot of research into the benefits of gaming and how you can use that for connecting with young people. And, you know, so many games now have characters with, you know, emotional things going off, or, you know, you can talk about feelings even in games like Minecraft where the characters don't talk. But you can be like, how must that person be feeling there? And, you know, you can really bring in real-life situations while gaming and also have a lot of fun, which I think is super important as well, which sometimes gets forgotten about. But, you know, real life is really enhanced by having loads of fun, and gaming's fun. SAMI: Yeah. It's so fascinating. As you're speaking, I'm having this internal dilemma, right? Because, in my head, everything you're saying is true and makes sense. And I believe it, and I've seen it. And then, I probably still harbor those feelings that are almost entrenched, like you're saying, in the media with, you know, the person who completed Tetris. And those sorts of feelings are still, like, a little bit entrenched to me in terms of the negative sides of gaming. Like, I guess I grew up probably similar to you, where it was like, "Well, why aren't you outside more?" and the negative aspect of it. I spoke about this in a different podcast, which I've apologized to my parents for mentioning in public. But when I was in university, it's too late now, I also kind of developed, I would call it probably, like, a small gaming addiction. I don't know where it would sit, but I was doing all-nighters Playing Call of Duty, Modern Warfare. And so, there definitely is a negative side. But I like what you say about, well, actually, you can address that in a healthy way. But then, this week, just this week, which is quite uncanny, my seven-year-old comes, and he says, "Daddy, I really want to get an Xbox, you know, my friend's got one." And he's just starting to get to that cusp of gaming. So, in my head, I say, yeah, like that makes total sense, and I imagine the benefits and the fun time me and him could have on an Xbox. But I still struggle with those feelings of...maybe they're my own worries of, well, but what if he neglects his other stuff? What if he goes into like, yeah, with ADHD, he goes into hyperfocus, and that's all he does? How [laughs] can you counsel me out of this concern? DAN: Well, no, I completely understand, and that is where all our fears come from, especially our generation and how it's put through. But I think young people more and more connect through gaming, whereas I think when we were gamers as young, a lot of stuff wasn't online. So, we weren't playing with our friends. We were playing on our own a lot of the time, whereas it's very social now. Platforms like Roblox and Minecraft are the things that are super social, working together as a team, things like that. But also screen time, I can show you that we've got a whole list of benefits of gaming, actually, that I'll share with you because there's studies that even screen time has been proven not to be detrimental the way we're told it is. And I think we must know that through how we work. Most of us work on screens these days, so. SAMI: Yeah, that's such a point of contention in the house because we currently do only on Fridays. So, they get, like, two hours of screen time. I don't know if that's strict. I don't know where I am on that. Do you have, like, with your own kids, or how do you handle that discipline? So, let's say I get the console, right? I bring it into the house to my seven-year-old. Do I limit it with screen time? How would you approach that sort of thing? DAN: Obviously, with a seven-year-old, it's a little bit different from...mine are now 17 and 14. So, we discuss it more, but yeah, definitely, you know, have boundaries. And also, if you're worried about how they're gaming, maybe have the Xbox in the living room, so instead of gaming in their bedroom, they're gaming when you're around, and it's a shared family activity. And then, it's easier to say, "Well, we're going to be having food in a minute. So, finish up on that game." And you can have all that understanding. But I think also, you know, that other side of things of coming from seeing what they're playing. I talk to parents a lot about this, and they get, you know, they see frustrations in their young people when they're trying to get them off. But they don't realize that maybe they're playing something like Fortnite or something that's a bit more online team-based, where if they pulled them off the game in the middle of the match, it could be detrimental to the team they're working with, their rankings. You know, they could even get banned from the game for a few days, you know. So, understanding and them being able to work time management together, being like, "Well, after this game is finished, this is where we're going, you know, we've got to go out. We've got to do this," you know, there is a give and take there. And I'm not saying there isn't negatives to gaming. We need, you know, everybody needs a break as well. But, again, through the understanding of what they're playing, you can have those conversations. If you're not playing them or watching them and don't understand what the game is about, and what the joy is about, there's going to be a gap between you, you know, where the young person is going to be like, "You don't understand me. You don't understand why I want to play this." My kids, you know, we went from the other [inaudible 17:37] because they've had severe problems at school, both of them, through their neurodivergency, and gaming has really helped them both to regulate. And maybe when you're saying about yourself when you had problems, and maybe there was something else going on. And then, the gaming was a way for you to cope, that safe space to go to that was actually working in a way as a little bit of therapy and keeping you grounded, you know, as well. So, you know, there's two sides to see it. But yeah, definitely, I can understand the worries of staying up all night playing it or not doing your homework and playing it, although I have different things to say about homework. But to say it's not actually beneficial is wrong because, you know, you just got to look at something like Minecraft and the amount a young person can learn, everything from biomes, and blocks, and diamonds, or ores to actual mathematics and things. And it naturally leads onto PCs and learning how to code things and who knows where that's going to lead, to creating something completely new. So, I worry for the ones that are heavily restricted on screen time. I worry that they're being held a little bit back. You know, that might sound a bit controversial for some people. But when most jobs are digital and you're not allowed to learn, I mean, the young people I see they're so gifted at such a young age in understanding digital things that they're going to be at the forefront of the new technology. So, it's almost like, yeah, I think it should be embraced with both hands. RÉMY: There's an incredible opportunity to learn new things through video games and to be happy and to share, like you said. And I bet our audience is already quite open to video games, but we never know it. I think it could be interesting if you could provide, like, a very simple, not comprehensive list of famous games and the kind of skills and benefits they provide you. You mentioned Minecraft; you mentioned creativity. But what kind of games and skills benefits you? You could say for our audience to understand more about the opportunity that is out there. DAN: Yeah, I mean, there are so many. But yeah, so, if we look at your normal shooter game like Call of Duty, and Fortnite, and things like that, that is for cognitive ability. You know, getting those dexterity in your hands and learning those [inaudible 20:11] of pressing buttons is more than you think. It's really training that brain and getting that brain working really quick. It's proven to boost your brain power, your gray matter. It's actually proven that gaming, in general, just boosts your gray matter. I mean, we all know about doing brain training games, but all games using that brain, you know, it's much more advanced than sitting watching TV. But then if you go into more things like puzzle games, so things from your Tetris all the way through to more advanced ones like Portal or strategy games like Civilization and things, there is so much you're doing. You're boosting that brainpower, and you're thinking all the time. But then you can get into...yeah, back onto the shooter games as well, they help with spatial recognition. So, it's actually helping to spot things from a distance: dangers or things to collect. You can see them, and it actually enhances eyesight. It is proven to enhance eyesight, which is great. Decision-making and leadership skills, which is a key thing people talk about for business, is all there when you're in your team of shooters. You're playing Overwatch or you're playing, you know, any game like that. You know, there's always somebody leading or, you know, saying what should be best, seeing the best strategies in there. Problem-solving comes into all sorts so, obviously, in shooters and things again, I'd- say, but also your Minecraft. You know, you've got to create a certain thing to defeat the dragon or whatever you're doing. There's always something, or if you're building something. But then, of course, your high-end puzzle games and even things like Mario. I mean, they get so complex in the problem-solving to overcome a level. Again, the brain power, and the brain power seeing these young people that they're way more advanced than we were playing games. The games are so intricate and so hard now. One you never hear about is social skills until...I think the pandemic helped that a bit. People started to see, oh, Animal Crossing, it's a great way to connect with people. And, you know, and Roblox as much as it gets a lot of bad press, for young people to connect and play, and lot of it is almost like playground role playing play, and they're playing together. You know, there's games just based in Ikea, and they're shopping, and [laughs] things like that. It's really good for them to be doing that. And health and fitness surprisingly, of course, is in gaming. So, obviously, a lot of Nintendo Switch games are sort of standing up, you know, playing switch sports and things, but then virtual reality is huge for that. And if you've ever tried Beat Saber, that's a real workout, which is really good. But there's loads of boxing ones. There's one that kids play now called Gorilla Tag, where, oh my God, that is such a workout. I have mentees that I work with, and then we'll be like, "Oh, Gorilla Tag," an hour of that, I am exhausted. Because you're just flinging your arms around like a gorilla trying to move fast. It's amazing. SAMI: I saw a post you did recently about there's, like, a Greek mythology level on Fortnite, like, an educational aspect [laughs]. It's so funny because I remember playing God of War on the PS2, and I learned so much about Greek mythology. Everything I know comes from God of War. And so, there's also that educational aspect. DAN: Yeah, exactly. You get this deep dive into something, and you really find what you're interested in. So, I've got a kid, and he loves this game called War Thunder, which is all about planes, World War planes, and he can tell me everything about every plane and what country it's made. He can spot it a mile off. You know, "Oh, that's a Russian plane from so and so. Its weak points are here. It was built by so and so." And it's like, you're a genius, and it's all come from, you know, this game's sparked this real interest. And, you know, like I said, Fortnite brings it in, God of War, of course. Assassin's Creed is amazing for things like that, history, it goes from Egypt times. And they even now have walkthroughs in the game where...this needs to be used in schools. I don't know if schools embrace it yet, but you don't have any of this story and the killings and stuff. You just are going through history and walking through the towns and things like that, which is brilliant. The latest one for Assassin's Creed was Vikings, wasn't it? And that was brilliant because that brought in the UK and how it was when the Vikings came over. There's so much stuff. I've got a young person, and he loves this game called For Honor, which is all about medieval sword fights. And he got such an interest in weapons that he's then become a blacksmith. He's enrolled onto a college course apprenticeship being a blacksmith. He wants to be making armory and swords for movies. You know, he said like, "Look, Lord of the Rings, that's all made properly, isn't it?" I mean, that's [inaudible 24:50] SAMI: Wow. DAN: Yeah, it's amazing. One other thing that the games bring, which I think is amazing, is mindfulness as well. There's a huge thing of that. Yeah, like I said, going back to maybe yourself when you were gaming at night, and you maybe needed to destress and maybe take your mind off something, you can get into a game and almost...there's a thing called the grind in the game. Minecraft has it a lot, where you've just got to get yourself a hundred diamonds, or whatever [laughs]. So, it's like, you can almost turn your brain off and just do that, you know, and it can be so super relaxing. And you can get into this thing called flow state. A lot of driving games are like that. If you hit every corner perfectly, you're kind of just in this dream-like state where you just...everything's going well. And that brings a euphoria, too. There's so many good things. But now there's loads of games that are actually based around mindfulness. Tetris is one that's been proven for that. But I don't know if you've heard a more recent one called PowerWash Simulator. Now, this game was one of my most favorite for the last couple of years. All you're doing is washing stuff with a power washer. But the way it works, it gives you a little ding when you've cleaned something properly, like a [vocalization]. And it just...you stand back and look at your job. Honestly, it's amazing. But now Oxford University are doing a full study on it because they realize how beneficial it is to relaxing and chilling out, you know, and just making yourself just feeling happy when you need to just de-stress. It's amazing. RÉMY: I can totally relate. I remember a few years ago, I played GTA 5, and GTA 5 is the kind of game famous for arbitrary violence or all this kind of stuff we hear in the media. But I remember me playing and sometimes I wanted to play just to take a bike and to go on the road and to see a sunset. And, of course, we could argue that I can see the sunset out there, but, in a game, it's just a piece of art. At work, recently, we just had a conversation about beautiful games. So, we weren't interested in all the features or how the game would work but just how beautiful it is. And sometimes we just play video games because they're beautiful. And so, they could provide so much on the intellectual level, on the skills, but also, just as piece of art, just beautiful things made by beautiful artists. DAN: Yeah, it is amazing when you see that. And yeah, I get that completely with GTA. It gets a lot of bad reputation, you know, and story-wise, it is very adult. But, you know, it's the biggest game in the world for a reason. And, you know, like you said, you climb the mountain, you look at the view, you know, it is such a lovely thing to do. There was a game, Red Dead Redemption. I had a young lady I was mentoring, and she was situationally mute, which means, you know, she couldn't talk to anybody. She used to type her responses to me. But she loved Red Dead Redemption, loved horses. And she actually created a group from all around the world, where they would all meet her on a Friday in the game, and she would take them on horse trails. And so, this is all in the game, and she would just take them around to beautiful spots, do nice little jumps with the horses, setting up camp, you know, and, I mean, that's [inaudible 28:08]. It's amazing. And yeah, she ended up making a horse game on Roblox, and that doing really well, and her actually working for Roblox themselves. So, yeah, you know, it all inspires them to work on that. And, I think, sorry, I'm going on tangents here, but also, as you say, appreciating art. There are so many different sides to gaming. A lot of people used to think gaming is just coding, and I don't want to be a coder. That's confusing. I don't want to do that. If you look at the credits that roll on a main game, and they go on for, like, about an hour. There are so many different jobs from artists, storyboard writers, level designers, musicians. There's everything there. The coders are just one part of it. So, as I said before, there are so many career opportunities there, either starting up your own business as a self-employed person or getting involved in it. One I love...a lot of the neurodivergent people I work with [inaudible 29:07] is being a games tester. Because the first thing my son ever does is, if he gets a game, he tries to break it. He tries to find where he can walk through a wall, or something like that. So, it's like that job would be ideal for you. It's like, it's amazing. And that's a job. That's a really important job as well. SAMI: Yeah. When you talk about these stories, they are inspirational. Like, I feel like almost, like, a flutter in my heart as you talk about this kid who maybe felt he has kind of no hope or very little opportunities to actually honing in on this Viking game and then being able to go and become a blacksmith, or this other person you mentioned who's now with Roblox. Yeah, I almost wish, like, they had more publicity around them. And maybe we're kind of doing some of that work now. What would you say is your biggest success story? DAN: I guess MindJam in itself I think is just, I mean, it's way bigger than me now. Obviously, it was born from this idea of giving young people the time and the respect. They are doing something that they love to do and is beneficial. That's what I found was everybody...even when I was teaching, we used to have this connection with the kids, and I used to work one-to-one with the, you know, special education needs, young ones. And a great connection talking about gaming, and their eyes would light up. They would talk about their week, and how they were feeling, and what they achieved. But then it would always be, in the back of my mind, we need to get back onto what we're supposed to be doing and, you know, I need to tick these boxes. And there's always something wanted from them. And it's the same if they go and see a health service. There's always something that they want from that young person. Yet if you just approach them and say, "You know, let's do what you want to do." It's child-led. It's low demand, and let's see where that takes us. That's where we got to discovering about the blacksmith thing. And that's why we've got young people making albums and things with MindJam. You know, it goes anywhere. I've got one young person who shows me Tai Chi, you know, that's our MindJam session. It started off from Rocket League. So, it can really go anywhere. But yeah, sorry, going back to the big success, it is every day now I get a message saying how one of my mentors has helped a young person to help the whole family. That is just the best thing in the world. You know, this is something we've created, and we work hard. We work really hard to make sure we've got the best people. You know, and we're well-trained, and informed, and everything. To hear that it's really making such a difference, and, you know, some people say we're saving lives, and, you know, I just have to pinch myself. Me and my wife we were just like, we can't believe it really how amazing it is. But we're just on a mission now to make sure it's accessible for as many people who need it. SAMI: Yeah, I've seen some of the reviews on your website, and they're heartwarming. But, like, it kind of makes sense, right? Like, for some people, this is the only place that they feel safe. They feel comfortable. You imagine all the cortisol that's going through someone when they're in that fight or flight moment, and there's lots of stress and anxiety. And they enter into a gaming world, and they can escape. And all of a sudden, that reduces. You're dealing with a different person. You're dealing with someone who feels happy, who feels content. And then, you're opening up their mind to have other conversations, you know, like you say. I really recommend it to our listeners. Go and check out the stream. You do kind of...I've seen you've done a few episodes of streaming with other mentors. And it's fascinating to see how all of you, whilst you're playing, are in a conversation about, "Oh, how was your week? And how's that been going?" And, you know, something happened over there. And it's like, you're just in a more of a relaxed state to have those conversations. DAN: Yeah, you know, it's been used before, you know, LEGO therapy is kind of like that. You know, that's what MindJam is in a way is play therapy, but there's so much more you can do with the digital platform. And we're at an amazing age as well, where most bits of software are free. I'll click on like, you know, if they want to look into 3D modeling, it's easy to get a copy of Blender. If you want to get into Unity or Unreal Engine, I mean, there's always into...and it's all, you know, what a wonderful time. When we were younger, if I wanted to get into game design, it was so complicated. You didn't know where to start where, you know, so yeah, it's really amazing. And another thing that I love as well is the mentors that work for us. Most of them are really [inaudible 33:28]. I struggled when I was in my early twenties, and I remember seeing a counselor. And it felt like they had no idea what they were...yeah, they're reading from a textbook, you know, and I remember just really patronizing me. And I was just like, you've got no clue. Whereas I think all the mentors we have all said, "I wish MindJam was around when I was a young person." And I thought, that's the key thing for me, their empathy, their understanding. We don't have to solve it straight away. It's just being there and going, "Yeah, that is hard. Yeah, you know, you'll be okay though. And there's, you know, you're not on your own here." And, you know, I think that is...so many people seem to have to try and heal people straight away. And it's like, no, people just need time to talk, and it's the same as adults as well. Yeah, it could just carry on really to all ages really, couldn't it? SAMI: Yeah. And you've also got that buy-in, right? Whereas, you know, I think of myself perhaps going to therapy at that young age. I didn't really buy into it because I was sitting there with an adult who I didn't really know what we were doing. And I was just kind of there for a conversation. And here you've got...you're doing something that they like, and they enjoy. To put my parent and adult hat back on [laughs] because it's something I want to pick your brains on, right? So, working in the tech industry and working in coding, I've read articles about games, which kind of it says that they're more and more...you see it maybe more on the games on the mobile phone. So, they're employing, like, these kind of gambling tactics, so a lot of the stuff where it's treasure chests. And what is it? On Fortnite, it's the packs. On FIFA, it's also, like, you open up the pack and you see what players you get. So, that sort of stuff I also find scary where I feel like you have from the industry...so, whilst you're using the industry in this way, is the industry itself there to promote and perpetuate the benefits that come from games? Or are they looking, I want to get people in; I want to get them hooked; I want to use these gambling techniques, A/B testing, whatever it is? DAN: From all big companies, we get both sides, obviously. So, you got your unscrupulous ones that, oh, go for it. You loot boxes. But I think more and more, especially with young people, they're more and more aware. They're far more savvy than we are in these things. And the good one is EA with, you know, FIFA. They get review bombed because as soon as someone's putting in loot boxes and things, people are just like, you're just after our money. This is a con. It's pay to win. Mobile games are the worst for it, of course. You know, they're quick cash-making things. Again, instead of, like, saying, "All gaming is evil. We should never do it," it's being aware and being aware of what these games are trying to do, which, again, when you're looking at a young child, is having shared gaming experiences. So, you can go, "Ah, can you see what they're doing here? You know, they've hooked us in. We've played this for two minutes, and we've had free play. And now they're asking us to pay five pounds for extra things. That's a bit of a con, isn't it?" And, you know, you can actually bring that awareness, and then they're not going to fall for things like that. But at the other side of it, I see firsthand...I've luckily enough to work closely with Sony. One of their great companies is called Media Molecule. I don't know if you've heard of them. They did LittleBigPlanet, and lately, they had a game called Dreams, which is actually making games on a PlayStation, which is really cool. But they're so accessible. It's all about, you know, making everybody happy, giving people the keys to creativity, and really help making everything accessible. Again, they worked with this wonderful, wonderful artist who created characters, character designs. They'd never met her. She was so socially anxious. She never could leave her house but was actually one of their top artists that they would send the work, send the brief. She'd send this amazing art back, and then they'd pay her. They didn't have to come into the office nine till five for no reason whatsoever. And there's a lovely side, and, of course, there's a business unscrupulous side. And yeah, again, bring that education of that. This is what I think should be in schools. Instead of avoiding the whole issue, is actually talk about being toxic gamers and what that means, and how to deal with toxic gamers, and how not to be a toxic gamer yourself. For those that don't know toxic gamers, it's just people that are really, really mean to everybody, which seems to be a set thing that people do, especially to a new player. It's like, learn how to encourage people in. And there's now games coming out where they ban people straight away if they're being toxic, and it's all about helping that new player feel like part of the team. But again, yeah, let's say if this was actually brought into education, so then we learn about loot boxes and, you know, pay-to-win type games, then young people would be on that same wavelength. They would get it, either that or it would make gaming so lame that no one would play gaming anymore because it's in schools [laughs]. Like, oh, it sucks now [laughs]. SAMI: Yeah, I think that that way that you embrace kind of what gaming is and you say, well, actually, we can see that it's got a benefit. We can see that it's positive. How do we get the absolute most out of this? How can we not hide, stick our heads in the sand to the issues that might be there? And how can we then say, "Let's use this?" And I think, I mean, my mom will be listening to this podcast for sure. But I think it's something which it's quite disruptive what you're doing. I really do feel that way kind of dabbling in gaming, working as a consultant in the coding industry. I actually teach neurodivergent kids as well on the side. And I'm actually mentoring another kid in coding as well. And what you're doing, as I said at the beginning, it's mind-blowing, and we could talk to you for hours. We have a little chat on this podcast, which listeners can't see. And I asked Rémy, like, "Do you have any questions before you want to wrap up?" And Rémy was just like, "I just want to keep listening. I'm loving it." And I'm exactly...I feel like we can listen to...I think me and Rémy game and we dabble here and there as well ourselves. So, it's definitely something which speaks to us so much. But I've got to thank you so much for your time, for taking the time to jump on with us, give us such an insight into the work that you're doing with MindJam. Let's talk about the BAFTA Young Game Designers Award Ceremony Open Day. Give us some info. DAN: Oh yeah. Well, this is a lovely thing. I've luckily enough to be involved with BAFTA on this for a few years. An early success of MindJam was I was nominated as Mentor of The Year and finalist for Mentor of The Year for BAFTA in 2021. And they run this thing called Young Games Designers every year, and it's brilliant because they do...it's two sides to it. One is actually making a game, but then, of course, not all young people are ready to make a game. And, you know, so the other side is a games concept where you could just send in sketches, ideas, things like that. And that's really accessible for lots of young people we work with, of course. But yeah, in July, I don't have the date; it's early July, we have the award ceremony, which is on this Saturday. But then on the Sunday at BAFTA in London, it's an open day for families to come. You have to apply and get a ticket. I'm sure you guys can put the link on here later on. But yeah, MindJam will be there, but there's loads of game places. I think TT Games will be there who make the LEGO games. And there's all sorts of...we have D&D there. We have all sorts and talks on how to get into the industry and things like that. So, it's really a great thing to come to if you're a young person who's interested in gaming. SAMI: That's really cool. So, parents, if you're listening, save up all that screen time so you can use it. A month's worth of screen time [chuckles] at the BAFTA Awards, Young Game Designers Awards Ceremony in the Open Day in London. If people want to get hold of you, Dan, where's the best place? They've heard this. They're inspired. They feel like they've got someone who would benefit from your services. Where's the best place to get in touch? DAN: If you go to our website, it's mindjam.org.uk, and you can email us at hello@mindjam.org.uk. And I think you said this podcast is international, isn't it? So, we do offer sessions all around the world. We have mentors in America, in Australia, in Japan, all over the place basically. MindJam is universal. So, wherever you are, get in touch. And if you're interested in being a mentor as well, get in touch as well, so... SAMI: Definitely, I highly recommend. And I've already got people I can think of that I'm going to be passing your details on to. Listeners, listeners, listeners, our lovely listeners, no one likes missing out on things. Remember that flight you missed? The train that passed you by? Your partner's birthday? I've been there, by the way; I missed one recently. It's a horrible feeling. I cannot deal with you missing out on these things, but I can make sure that this feeling doesn't come about when it comes to our podcast. So, move your thumb. Yes, you, move your thumb. Hit that subscribe button. I can guarantee you, you will never miss one of our podcasts. And you'll hear amazing guests, just like Dan, as we get them in, and we have great chats together on the Giant Robots on Tour podcast. You can find notes and a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, you can email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Check her out at mandymoore.tech. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Bye.   AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. 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In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we have a thought-provoking discussion around AI and its future implications. We introduce Juniper, an advanced voice-based AI capable of tasks from writing to coding, giving insight into emerging technologies. We explore impacts like the attention economy, where value emerges without physical costs. Success stories like Mr. Beast showcase uniqueness and AI's potential to tackle real issues. The episode delivers a well-rounded look at AI capacities and societal changes. References to early smartphone adoption phases parallel today's AI capabilities. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We discuss the potential of voice-based GPT-4.0 AI, specifically highlighting "Juniper" with a Scarlett Johansson-like voice, and its various applications from writing to coding. We compare the current adoption of AI to the early days of smartphones, emphasizing that we are only beginning to understand AI's full capabilities. We explore historical productivity trends, noting a decline since 1975, and question whether modern technology truly enhances productivity or just alters our perception of it. We debate the role of technology giants like Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla in shaping productivity and economic measurement. We reflect on the mid-20th century advancements such as electrification and infrastructure, and compare them to today's computing power and its economic impact. We discuss the concept of the attention economy and the creation of value from digital products without physical production costs, using digital creators like Mr. Beast as examples. We consider the potential of AI in solving real-world problems such as city traffic congestion and climate understanding, rather than just creating new opportunities. We emphasize the importance of practical solutions and specific use cases to fully leverage the capabilities of advanced AI technologies. We touch on the economic shifts in the digital era, including the rise of digital transactions and the non-tangible realm of digital innovation. We highlight the unique nature of success in the digital world, using examples like Mr. Beast and Taylor Swift, and discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by new technologies. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan, who is that person that gives the directions when we start the podcast? Dan: Well, I'm not sure the one that says this podcast this call may be. Dean: You are the first one on this conference phone call, oh my goodness, who is she? Dan: Who is she? She's a bot. She's not real. She's a bot. She's not real. She's not real. She's not real, she doesn't sound. Dean: I've heard worse sounding bots. Dan: Dan, I have been experimenting, playing around with chat GPT-4.0. And I use it primarily in voice mode, meaning, you know, I just say things to it and it has an amazing Scarlett Johansson-like voice that has zero, not at all like Siri or Alexa. You know where those voices definitely sound like. They are bots. This, my GPT-4O I think her name's Juniper is the voice that I chose. She sounds like a real person, I mean, and has like real tone, real inflection, real like conversational feeling to it and I realized that I don't think we really understand what we have here. I mean, I look at it and I think, imagine if that was a real person. Dean: Now, when you say we, who are you talking about? Dan: I mean the collective royal we I I'm sorry I've never been around yeah, I just think we as a when I say we, we as a society or we as the people collectively using this, it reminds me of this Seinfeld episode where Kramer got this or Jerry got his dad, this wizard organizer, and they always use it as a tip calculator, like the least of all the functions that it has. They're just excited that it's a tip calculator, and I feel like that's the current level of my adoption of Juniper. Dean: Yeah, I think the big thing is what you let's say, a year from now, level of my adoption of Juniper, you know, yeah, I think the big thing is what you let's say a year from now. You're using Juniper for a year. What do you think will be different as a result of having this capability, new capability? Dan: Well, I think it's operator, you know, I think it's operator dependent, you know, I think it's up to me what I think if you said to me. You know, I think it's up to me what I think if you said to me listen, I'd like to introduce you to Juniper. She's going to come here and she'll be within. She's going to follow you around. She's going to be here within three feet of you or discreetly out of sight, whatever you, but whenever you call she'll be right there. She is a graduate level. She is a graduate level student. She could pass the bar. She knows everything that's ever been recorded, she speaks every language. She never sleeps, she can write, she can draw, she can do graphics, she can do coding Whatever you like, and she's yours 20 to a month. Have fun, yeah, do you think you'd use it Well? that's my question is that it feels like I'm not using it and I have it. That's essentially what I have. I've got it in my pocket. You know how they said. You know the iPod was launched with the promise of a thousand songs in your pocket. Well, I think this is really like. You know, an MBA or a PhD or whatever you want in your pocket is essentially what we have, and I find it very interesting. Dean: No, I think it's unique, you know, and it's brand new. But what problem did you have that this solves? Dan: Well, I think that it's not per se a problem, but I think that we're I really have been observing and thinking, and I've said it you know in lots of our conversations, that I think that 2020, you know, if we take the 50-year period from 1975 to 2025, that we've pretty much set the stage now for a new plateau launch pad kind of at the same time. I don't. I think that once we understand and people you know, I think it's almost like the iPhone had the app store, that became what Peter Diamandis called the interface moment. Right, that was the you know, that allowed, once people realized that the capabilities of the iPhone to both measure geographically where you are at any precisely at any moment, the gyro thing that can detect movement, the sound, the camera capabilities, the touch screen, all of those things, Well, people realized what the baseline capabilities of the phone were. They were able to architect very specific, you know, starting with games very specific ways to use the capabilities that are very specific ways to use the capabilities that are built into the phone and I think that right now it's almost like it can do anything, and I think that we need to figure out the very specific use cases and I think we'll see people. Dean: You keep saying we, but I don't think we is going to do it. I think you know, who we are. Do we have a cell phone number? Do we have a street address? You know, I think you're having a very interesting personal experience with the new technology. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know if anybody else is going to be in on this, but the big thing is, how are you going to set it up so that you can prove that this is valuable? I mean, let's say, three months from now the time you come back to. Toronto for your next strategic coach pre-zone workshop things you're going to test out and see if the inclusion of this spot with a very sexy Scarlett Johansson voice. This isn't the issue that she sued somebody for. Dan: I think it's, I don't know actually this voice is. It's not exactly her, but it's, you know, it's that tone and things. Dean: So yeah, so. Dan: I don't know that. It's a pleasing voice, much more pleasing and personal than Siri or Alexa, for instance. Yeah, but yeah, I think you're absolutely right it does come down to and I think that's where the paralysis of you know the it can do anything, but you know what would be you know where my mind goes. Dean: It's which, how that I already have, but am I going to assign this capability to so that I don't have to spend any time whatsoever interacting with this bot? But my who's a you know who's a live human being working for a strategic coach would that person actually work? Do this, you know, and actually and I tested out for three months what are you getting done faster? So, for example, we have an AI newsletter that rewrites itself every two weeks and chooses new content, designs it and goes out and it uses up one hour of my Linda Spencer, who's one of my team members on the marketing team, and it's very interesting, I mean we have about 2000 people who read it and they grade it and everything like that. But the only thing I have to do every two weeks she said here's the news, here's the results from the last newsletter, here's the design and contents of the next newsletter, yes or no? And I'll go through. I say, yeah, looks good, send it out, right. Yeah, now, that's not freeing me up, because we never had this capability before. It's a new capability, right, and it's been going for about nine months now and people will talk to me about it and you know everything like that and everything like that. But I haven't seen that it's made a huge difference in the crucial numbers of strategic coach, which are marketing calls. Are we generating great leads that people are talking to us about? Are they signing up for the program? Are they whatever? So the normal measurements. So I think, with any technology, the first thing I would establish before I got interested in the technology is what are the crucial numbers that we have that tell me that our business and myself are moving forward? And then, whatever I'm going to use the new technology for, it has to have an impact on those numbers. Yeah, I think that's yeah, because you know the amount of productivity. I'll use the United States as an example. You mentioned 1975 to 2025, 50 years of individual productivity in the United States was much higher in the 50 years before 1975, since it has been for the last 50 years since 1975. Even though there are these amazing books and that about how productivity is going through the world with the microchip. But the actual numbers which are gathered by the US government, the US Treasury Department, us Department of Labor, indicates that the level of individual productivity has actually gone down in the last 50 years even though the excitement level of productivity has gone through the roof. Dean: By what measurement? What are they deciding? Is product? Dan: Dollars of economic activity per hour per worker. Okay, that's how productivity is measured. Dean: The number of workers. Dan: You have the number of hours they work and the amount of economic dollars that their hour of activity produces. The productivity was much higher total for the entire all workers. Dean: But is it all productivity or personal productivity? Like are you saying no all? Dan: productivity? No, the entire GDP of the economy, measured by the number of workers. Yeah, okay by the number of workers it's going down, it's down. No, yeah, since 1975, it's not as great as it was from 1925 to 1975. So that 50-year period the productivity levels in the United States were bigger than the last 50 years. Dean: Wow, that seems. That's surprising. What do you think that means? Dan: Well, a lot of people are really excited and involving themselves in technological activity that produces absolutely no productivity. Yeah, they're very excited, they're very excited and they're getting very emotionally connected to this activity. But you know, I'm not saying that's not a great thing, I'm not. Maybe they're having more fun, Maybe they're you know, maybe they have. Dean: What actually counts as GDP. Dan: Well, GDP is amount of sales amount of sales. Dean: Okay, so would the advertising sales that Mark Zuckerberg makes for Facebook count as GDP, or is it only in physical, like you know, shippable goods, or whatever? Dan: Well, whatever, uh, you have a dollar spent on something that constitutes a sale to sale. Dean: Okay, so advertising, so Google and Facebook and Netflix and all of those things count as GDP? Sure, okay, all right, then that seems impossible. Dan: It seems impossible, but it's true. Dean: That's pretty wild. Dan: Yeah yeah. I'm not saying that Mark Zuckerberg isn't making a lot of money. I'm not saying Mark. Zuckerberg isn't productive. My feeling is that the technology is created, makes a lot of other people non-productive. Dean: Yeah, and I wonder I mean that's a do you think you know if you measured that in terms of the total population versus the workforce? Is that what? In terms of the total population versus the workforce, is that what you know? I'm just looking for some explanation of this right. Dan: Somewhere along the line, there has to be an economic transaction for it to constitute and everything else. See, this is the difference. Yeah and everything else See this is the difference? China talks about its GDP, but they don't use the same term that everybody else in the world uses. They use the economic value of what they've produced. So they can produce a million machines and they're sitting in a warehouse and they count that as GDP gross domestic product. But there was no sale, it's, you know, they spend it, it was an economic activity. There was a transaction there, but there was no sale. So I think that's the big thing. It doesn't count unless there's a sale. Dean: GDP, doesn't it? Dan: doesn't count as GDP unless there's a sale. Somebody makes money, yeah. Dean: Okay, money Okay, yeah, yeah, I mean, it's pretty. Dan: No, I'm not saying it's not exciting. And here's the. Dean: Thing. Dan: Maybe it's an A&I, it's what I would R&D stage. The last 50 years have been R&D stage. For the next 50 years, which are going to be 100 times bigger of GDP. Okay, that may happen, but it's not happening yet. Dean: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's pretty, yeah, it's pretty wild. I mean you can definitely see, like the capabilities of you know, you can definitely see this replacing many customer service interactions, for sure. For instance, it's like a you can definitely see that going away, that there's not going to be a need for humans manning a customer service telephone center, for instance you know, yeah, I mean if it's good, I mean if it's good you know, and it depends upon the service that's being talked about, but if it's good, you know, maybe it does See, efficiency is not effectiveness. Dan: You know, and effectiveness is that you made a sale. Efficiency is we took all the activities leading up to a sale and we made them more, faster and easier. Yeah, the question is did you get a sale out of it? Dean: Mm-hmm. Dan: Mm-hmm, yeah, so. I don't know, but I think there's a bit of a magician show going with a lot of different kinds of technology, you know. I mean, it was like somebody was saying, you know, they were talking about EVs and specifically they were talking about a Tesla, and specifically they were talking about a Tesla. And he says do you know how much faster zero to 60 is in a Tesla than any gas-powered? Or you know, and I said, to tell you the truth, I don't know. Dean: To tell you the truth. You know. Dan: Geez, you know All the things I've been thinking about since last Monday. I'm sorry, I just didn't get to that one Anyway. And he says well, it's easily a second faster. I said good. I said now, where do you do this? There isn't any way. We're in greater Toronto, the area of greater. Toronto 6 million people, where you can go from 0 to 60 on a city street in two seconds. You know and everything like that. He said, yeah, but boy, you know, I mean, just think of that, how much faster you can go. And I said, yeah, but Teslas don't go any faster in Toronto than any other car, that's true, and usually they're stopped. Dean: Yeah, that's exactly right yeah. Dan: So I think the Tech Magic Show, I think it multiplies people's imagination, but it doesn't multiply their results. You know, I think there's something about it. And I think this is great. I mean what you're telling me. I've had some really boring people on the other end of a phone call and Scarlett Johansson would really liven it up a little bit. Dean: Absolutely yeah, yeah, exactly. Dan: Yeah, I was noticing that Cleveland hired Jack Nicholson and they still use it. It must have been 20 years ago. All the announcements, the regular announcements like don't leave your bags unattended, and things like that, oh right. There's a whole bunch of just what I would call airport announcements, and they have Jack Nicholson doing it and you stop and listen every time it starts. You know it's very effective and I'm sure and I'm sure Scarlett, I'm sure Scarlett Johansson would do a good job too. Dean: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, it's so, it's so funny. I mean, that seems. I'm just dumbfounded by the fact that productivity has decreased in the 50 years that we're talking about here. Dan: Yeah Well, think of the 50 years, though, and you gave me that great book. Dean: Yeah, you gave me the book that was 1900 to 1950, 1925. Dan: But 1925 to 1975, the entire country was being electrified. They're laying in lines and everybody was the farm that I was on. I was born in 1944. That farm was electrified in 1928. So it was only 16 years that they had electricity. Right, and you know they were putting in the entire water systems. The Tennessee Valley Authority was putting in all these dams and the electric plants. You know Lake Mead as a result of the Hoover Dam. They were putting in all those dams and that just produced enormous jumps and the cars were going in, the gas systems, all the infrastructure for gasoline was going in. It was just a monstrously productive period of time. And then all the production that went into the second world war, which they then had as productive capability after the war stopped and so they had all the manufacturing capabilities you know and you know and so. But there's to see the thing is, the real jump that's happened is the jump in computing. There's no question. Dean: There's been a monstrous jump. Dan: It's a billion times since 1970. It's a billion times. That doesn't translate into money, and money is what productivity is based on. How much more money are you making per hour of human labor? How much more money are you making for our human labor? Now maybe somebody will say well, we got to start counting the robots in our GDP. Something is doing work. Yeah, Just I mean wow, wow, wow, the only problem with you know the only thing about robots, though they're shitty consumers. Dean: Yes, exactly that's so funny. Yeah, they don't buy anything you know. Dan: Yeah, A computer is a good worker, you know. It doesn't take breaks, doesn't get sick you know doesn't form unions anything. You know it doesn't go home, it doesn't have a house, doesn't have furnishings doesn't need furniture doesn't go out to eat. Dean: Right, right. We're definitely in a stage right now where there's opportunities more than ever for economic alchemy, creating money out of nothing, seemingly compared to 1975. I'm not sure how that happened, I think, since in the digital world we're essentially creating money out of ether, you know, out of attention, even in a way that if we just take the attention economy or the portion of the money that is derived from the advertising world in, where it was print ads, television ads, radio ads those were things that were kind of happening in 19, right and, but they were selling sort of physical goods, whereas now I remember having a conversation with Eben Pagan about this, when I did a book Stop your Divorce in 1998, when it was when PDFs were just coming to be a thing where you could create a digital document that didn't require printing a physical book and you could email that or somebody could download it. And I just realized that you know, in that we've literally sold $5 million of a picture of a book not physically printing. These thousands and thousands of books, it's literally no zero physical good. That's why I wondered about whether the GDP is only measuring you, because we're definitely in a time where you can create money from nothing and the way that was driven was from Google AdWords. Dan: You can't create anything from nothing. No, I mean nothing physical, any. You can't create any. I don't think you can create anything from nothing there. No, I mean okay, nothing physical. Okay, that's what I mean. Dean: Yeah, like you look at it, that the book, you know we created the book and turned it into a pdf that was put on a website that there's no physical manifestation of it's, only digital. You can only see it online. People would search on Google for save my marriage or how to stop a divorce, or any of the keywords we could magically get in front of those people on their screen. They could click oh, stop your divorce, how do I do that? They click on that. They read this digital. It didn't cost anything other than what was paid for was that we paid google for the, you know, for sending that, you know the ability to display that person, that opportunity to somebody. We paid google every time somebody clicked on that ad and then they would buy the book and it would automatically take them to a page to download the book. There was no inter, no human interaction and no physical exchange. It was all 100 digital and that was where, you know, I started referring to that as alchemy, really like creating money out of of bits. You know, yeah, yeah, that's so that. Dan: Yeah, I think there's no I think there's uh no question that we've moved into a what I call a non-tangible realm of creating value, creating property and everything else, but at the end of the day it all adds up somewhere where this constitutes an economic transaction and as far as the accountants care, they don't care whether it was something physical or sold or everything. There's taxes that are taken out of that. I don't see the remarkable difference. You're using a different medium, but there is work that goes into that. And you had a big payoff with one, but there were another thousand people right at the same time you were doing that and their results? They put in a lot of work, they put in a lot of effort and it didn't produce any money whatsoever. Efforts go into GDP, your efforts go into GDP and there's way more of them than there is of you. So it brings you the overall results down and you know so and we kind of know. We kind of know that. You know productivity numbers. You know, like, on a year I know people talk about well, that productivity is going to go up by 20% as a result of that. Well, that may be true for a single company, but that's not true for the industry they're in, because their new thing going up by 20% may actually make obsolete 5 or 6 or 20 other companies who have had productivity that a year before, but now they have no productivity at all. So their loss of productivity is balanced against the gain of productivity. Dean: Yeah, that's interesting. I guess you think about that. That could be true in all the casualties of the digital transition here, right Like, what do you look at? Dan: Well, certainly the advertising world, certainly the advertising world, I mean before Mark Zuckerberg and before Google, newspapers like the New York Times. Dean: Daily. Dan: Edition was very thick. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And half of it was advertising. Now it's very thin okay because, they don't have the same. Yeah, but there's winners and losers, you know, in this, and you have a technological breakthrough, you have far more losers than you do winners. Dean: Yeah, I'm looking at like I was just listening to an interview with that Tucker Carlson did with someone I forget who, some former CBS correspondent you know, and they were talking about the new. You know what's really changed now is the reach capabilities you know, like Tucker really primarily being on his own platform but using the reach of x has, you know it's the audience is accessible to everybody, as opposed to him in the beginning of their careers, the only way to get reach was to be signed to a, a digital, or assigned to a traditional network where the eyeballs were. But, now the eyeballs are accessible to everybody and it really becomes these are my words, but it's more of a meritocracy in a way that you're you know that it's available for everybody. The cream definitely can rise to the top if you've got a voice that people resonate with. Dean: Yeah, I mean, and Tucker's a star, tucker's a star. He's got his following, he's got probably a couple million followers. Whatever he was big when he was on Fox and he had the top numbers on Fox and everything like that, but there aren't two of them. Dean: Right, and you can't replace him with an AI either. Dean: No, but what I mean is we pick out the winners. It takes a lot of losers to get to a winner, you know and I think this is more extreme in the Cloudlandia world than it is in the physical world- you know. I mean, I think there's a thing called network effect and the network effect is you can only have one Amazon. Basically, you can only have one Amazon. Because, the nature of Amazon is to suck everybody's customers up into one destination. There aren't five Amazons competing with each other, and that's what digital does. A person like Taylor Swift couldn't have existed 20 years ago. They wouldn't have had the reach. Yeah, that's true, and she's got the reach today. I mean she's coming along and she's got a lot of things going for her. She's very attractive, she's very productive, she pumps out songs all the time and the songs seem to resonate with a mood in the public right now. And everybody's got their cell phones and everybody's got that. And what I'm saying is, if you have one Taylor Swift, you can't have two. Well, yeah, that's. Dean: I mean it's, I wonder you start to see that she's just a, she's one voice, right Like I look at, I've been following rabbit holes like up the chain. You know and I start so Taylor Swift is a good example that many of her biggest hits and biggest success have been in collaboration with Max Martin, who is a producer who I often talk about and refer. Second, he's got the second biggest number of number one songs to his credit, right behind. He just passed Paul McCartney or John Lennon, and only Paul McCartney is ahead of him. Now he's about five songs behind Paul McCartney. What I realized is, you know, there's a way that it's kind of like you get max martin's voice is really what is, you know, behind most of the the most popular music, or much of the most popular music, and yet not many people could pick him out of a lineup. And then then I went another layer up. It just dawned on me, like in the last couple of weeks here, that the real catalyst to Max Martin's success was Clive Davis. Who is? Do you know who? Clive Davis is the former, or still, record executive. Dean: He was the head of so far, your records so far. So far, you're introducing me to a lot of new people. Dan: Okay, great well, I, I just love this that. You know, max martin, I've been saying, as that's the thing, like you think about one thing Max Martin's one thing has been making hit records. Right, that's all he's done. Making pop songs since 1996, or what is first number one. But if you trace it all the way back, the catalyst to it because he was in Sweden, there was a group years ago called Ace of Bass and they had a number one song. But when you go all the way back to how that happened, it was because Clive Davis, who was the head of Columbia Records and all its subsidiaries, arista and Jay Records, and all its subsidiaries, arista and J Records and all of these things, he found that song. He's like a guesser and better. He was guessing that song is going to be a hit and he signed Ace of Base to bring them to America. So he plucked this obscure Swedish band out of and brought them to America and on the wave of that, created the opportunity for Max Martin to work with all these great artists that happened to be under the direction of Clive Davis. And if you go even one layer beyond that, the guy that owns Bertelsmann, you know G Music Group in Germany. They own almost all the record labels, kind of thing. It's him seeing Clive Davis and putting up a million dollars for Clive Davis to start this record label. It's amazing that it all, kind of you know, goes back to capital allocation. Dean: But the big thing is none of that has to do with any productivity. Dan: Yeah, that's the thing I wonder, you know, I mean that really. Dean: No, well, what you're talking about is. You mentioned a name. Yes, and he does this and he's very successful and he's famous for being successful. But at the same time that he was doing what he was doing, there were 9,999 who were waiting on tables and doing this on weekends and nights, yeah, okay, and they weren't making any money at all. So what. I'm saying is when you pick a winner out and you see, see how productive they are using new technology you also have to account for the people who are using the new technology and not making any money at all, and therefore it's not more productive. Yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And I mean, you know we haven't talked about him for a while, Mr Beast. Yeah, and people say, see what you can do when you're 18? You won't see anything because he's so unique. And he has such a set of circumstances that there's nothing that he does that is repeatable by another person. Dan: I mean, yeah, he just became just in the last, I haven't heard anything about him. Dean: Is he still doing stuff? I don't know. Is he still doing stuff? I don't know. Is he still doing stuff? Yeah, yeah, he just became. Or is he retired at 28? Dan: No full steam ahead. Dean: He's got a 300-foot. Dan: He just became the number one subscribed channel in the world. He was the number one individual but there was this T-Series channel in India, which wasn't a person a different thing. Now he's the number one thing. He's now working on an Amazon show. He's taking his stuff to to amazon still full steam ahead with his, with his videos, but he's doing a big game show series in uh with under the amazon banner yeah, yeah, yeah. Dean: it's really interesting because you know again I go back that it seems to me that a lot you know and I've made this statement before is that a new technology comes out, or a new form of a new technology comes out. A whole series of people say I'm going to create a new company based on this technology and I want you know, I need some early investors. I need investors to get there, and so there's a whole industry for doing that in Silicon Valley and other places, and so billions are raised, not just for the one you know, not one investment, but for let's say 50 investments. And none of them go anywhere, none of them go anywhere. Dan: You know, nothing happens, okay, but people did make money because it's based on a Ponzi scheme kind of thing that the early investors get paid out by the late investors who end up pulling nothing and everything else. Dean: None of that represents productivity. Right A lot of action, a lot of excitement, a lot of money, but no productivity. And we're seeing that with AI. Goldman Sachs, the big investment bank, came out that, going on two years since open AI, we just don't see that there's any money to be made with this, except if you're like the chip maker, NVIDIA. They make a lot of money and they're very productive, and I think the reason is that I think that AI, if I look at the next 10 years, I think it's going to be very effective, it's going to be very useful and it's going to be very important for solving complexity problems that we already have on the planet. Okay, and you know, a great example is just large city congestion complexity, like Toronto, I think, may have the worst traffic congestion in North America. Dan: I did notice a big difference in that, even in the five years since I was there. Dean: Yeah. And the main reason is that they're making new cars, but they're not making new roads. Dan: Yeah, and I noticed that they've actually added a lot of bike lanes too, which have taken out some of the actual lanes. Dean: Yeah, Actual lanes, yeah, yeah, so without some new kind of solution to congestion and I think AI is the perfect tool for this and that all the traffic lights, all the traffic lights in the city are a single system and you're just changing the frequency of the lights changing and everything around the car changing the frequency of the lights changing and everything around the country, and there's a sort of a master view, how you know you can reduce the amount of people just stuck in the city by 40% if we just get all the lights. That's a complexity problem. Dan: You know and for example. Dean: The other thing is they haven't. You know, for all. The study of weather is probably the most complex system that we have on the planet and to this day they have no notion what effect clouds have on climate. You know they don't. They really. Clouds are just very complex. So if you had the ability to, I mean, they know different types of clouds and different things that happen when you have different types of clouds. They know that, but there's no unification of their understanding of the cloud system. And so you'd have to apply it to that. Now, you're not creating anything new with this. You're solving an existing problem. With this, you're solving an existing problem. My sense is that the best use of technology is always to solve some problem that you already have not create a new opportunity that's interesting. Dan: So maybe that's how I mean yeah, go ahead. I was just saying maybe that's how I should be thinking about my relationship with juniper yeah, what? Dean:what complexity problems do you have? Dan: Exactly what complexity problems do I already have that Juniper could solve for me? Dean: Yeah, like getting out of bed in the morning. That's a complexity problem. When does my first coffee arrive? Exactly yeah, why am I still thinking about this? Why at this late date. Dan: Oh man, that is so funny. Dean: It is funny. Dan: The funny thing is I posted up on Facebook right before we got on our podcast today. I took a picture of my. I have these. I have these Four Seasons Valhalla coffee cups and I took a. I made a coffee before our here and I posted up a picture of it right Pre-podcast caffeination, prior to the prior to our podcast here. So I'm fully caffeinated. I'm on the, I'm on the juice. Dean: Yeah, I will tell you this. Chris Johnson, great thinker in the FreeZone program he's got it's not his system, he's licensed his system from someone else but he had 32 callers to set up meetings with their primary salespeople for his company and he's in the placement business. He finds really good high-level people to go into construction companies and engineering companies. And he was telling us that his 32 human callers could make 5,500 phone calls and produce a certain result in a day of phoning. And since he's brought in his AI system, they can do 5,500 in an hour and produce a better result of people agreeing to phone calls. Well, that's productivity. Dan: Yeah, I guess. So yeah, pretty amazing huh. Dean: And he let go his 32 humans. Oh, my goodness. Wow, so this is AI making outbound phone calls? These are all AI and they've got complete voice capability of responding to responses and everything else. And then they get better every day. They have sort of upgrades every day for it. And that's productivity, that's productivity. Dan: Yeah, there's, yeah, that's a. That's an amazing story. An amazing story, I mean, you start to see, I just look at the things, even when we had the AI panel at FreeZone in Palm Beach. You're just seeing the things, even what Mike Kamix is able to create and the things that Lior is doing. You just think, man. Dean: I think we're early. Dan: Yeah, absolutely, we're early. Dean: Yeah, I mean I think we're in the first or second year of the internet with us, right? Dan: Exactly, I agree. That's why I say, that's why, in my summation here, I'm kind of thinking you know 2025, give it another 18 months. It's only 18 months old now when you really think about it. Right, this is it's 18 months, and give it another 18 months and we'll see that people you're already starting to see that people are taking the AI capabilities and they're honing it into an interface. That is, a logo maker, for instance, or AI. You know that it's already honed into the ability to specialize in making logos based on your prompts, or and I think that's where that's what I meant by the interface moment is people are going to start carving out, packaging very specific outcomes from the capabilities. Like, if we have these capabilities, what can we do and just deliver that specific outcome, rather than the capability to create that outcome that's why it's funny that that's kind of parallel to what I've been saying. I've seen people that are taking and training large language models based on your you know, all of the you know let's call it all the Dan Sullivan content that's been out there and then touting it as you know, having Dan Sullivan in your pocket, that you can ask Dan anything of it in your pocket, that you can ask Dan anything. But I think the ability to ask you anything isn't as useful as the ability to have Dan ask you things. Yes, I think that's the question. Dean: So in the last quarterly book, and the one we're finishing right now. So it was everything is created backward, where the tool we featured was the triple play, and then the next one is called casting, not hiring, where the tool is the four by four casting tool. We call it the four by four casting tool, and this is where I'm asking them questions. Dan: Right, okay. Dean: I don't see any value whatsoever of them asking me questions. Dan: Right. Dean: Because I'm not getting the benefit of the question. Some software program is handling it, so I'm not learning anything and I've got a rule that I don't involve myself in any activity where I don't learn something new. Dan: Okay. Dean: So there's getting the benefits, but plus we'd be competing with ourselves. Dan: I love it All, right Well off, we go. Dean: I will phone you next week I'll be at the cottage. I'll be looking out at a mystic blue lake while I'm talking. Dan: Oh, wow. Dean: It's really good yeah. Dan: Awesome. Well, have a great week, okay, and I'll talk to you next week. Thanks, thanks, dan. Bye.

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, I reflect on the successful launch of our inaugural CoachCon conference, which brought together 350 members of the Strategic Coach community in Nashville. The vibrant energy of Music City and the exceptional facilities of the Music City Center made for an experience surpassing expectations. Our discussion centers on cultivating the mental fortitude needed to remain anchored amid future-focused hustle. We connect this to aspects like political endurance while acknowledging the enrichment that unfolding daily actions alone confer on tomorrow's potential. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We recap the inaugural CoachCon Conference in Nashville, noting the participation of 350 strategic thinkers and our partnership with Agile for event organization. I share my personal stance on cowboy attire and backyard barbecues, highlighting a preference for distinctively non-Western wardrobe choices. We reflect on aging and the evolution of long-term vision, contrasting my early career's short-sightedness with the strategic foresight demonstrated by successful individuals and families. I celebrate another birthday and contemplate the depth of understanding that comes with each passing year, using the experiences of Kathy Ireland as an example of life's cumulative experiences enriching future visions. We explore the importance of journaling and manifesting desires into reality, discussing how projecting our goals into the future contributes to personal growth. The discussion covers the importance of crafting a future-focused vision, especially as one grows older, to avoid feeling diminished with age. We examine the significance of living in the present moment and how our current actions lay the foundation for future success. Personal insights are shared on the perception of time and the possibility of slowing down our experience of it through heightened consciousness. We speculate on political endurance and the uncertainties in the political arena, likening it to a horse race with a focus on the candidates' abilities to sustain a full term. The conversation includes a mention of upcoming travel plans, expressing a commitment to continue these enlightening conversations from wherever life takes us, whether it be a London hotel or a Cleveland suite. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan. Dan: I am back from Nashville. Dean: That's what I hear. I am excited to hear all about it. It looked like a real party it was a total party. Two parties. Dan: Yeah, so providing some context for the listening audience. We had our very first community conference and I say that because you did not get invited unless you were connected to someone in the strategic coach community and it's our first conference of this kind called CoachCon. And as a result of it. I already committed at my birthday party, which was on the second night, two-day conference, second night and I said we're going to have one in 26. So we're thinking we'll do this every two years Okay, that's amazing. Yeah, and we had 350, which was good for, you know, our first experience. Dean: And. Dan: I will say that we're really committed to Nashville. Nashville is just such a great city to have a conference. It's just. The city itself has an enormous amount of energy and the Music City Center is just a marvelous venue. It is so big it staggers your imagination. It's two blocks long by almost two blocks wide, and if you look at it from the air, from above, it looks like a guitar. Dean: Right, right right. Dan: Yeah, which you wouldn't do in Toronto. Dean: It would have no meaning, it would have no meaning. Dan: It would have no meaning in Toronto. Okay, it would. Dean: And anyway I was working with go ahead. I was just going to say not to say that Toronto has a pretty wonderful convention center facility too, downtown, yeah, but Nashville has a great. Dan: Nashville has a great Nashville has a great convention center. That's the truth. Yes, yeah, as a matter of fact, one of the smart moves we made as a company is that we immediately hired a convention conference company called Agile. I think they're from Kansas City and Minneapolis. They have two branches to their company and so, right from the very beginning, our team members were working with their team members to create the event, and this was a year and a half in planning, and they just are the perfect interface between yourself and then the venue itself, who have their own team. So it's really it's really a triple play of three teams working together to create the event. Dean: And I mean it's such a, it's such an engine. I had such flashbacks, you know, seeing the footage that was coming out of there of the room and the setup and the way everything was. Or you know that we did an event roughly twice that size every month for 14 years. You imagine, like the engine that it takes to put that, to put that on the logistics of it. That was what the main event was. We'd have, you know, 600 or 800 people every month. It was something. Dan: Yeah, are you speaking about one of your? Dean: events. This was with Joe Stumpf when we did the buy referral for the real estate agents. That was what we did. Dan: Oh, that was where you did it, that's where you did it that's where you did it yeah, that's right well, here I'm trying to impress you and you're just tolerating me no, I mean there's some. Dean: There's an exciting energy around a uh, a big event like that. I mean there's, but it's a very different energy. Dan: Yeah, wasn't it in Nashville 14 times. Dean: No, we did. We were all over the country. We did one a month. We did one every month for 14 years. Wow. Yeah exactly so Nashville was in the rotation that's like 168. Dan: That's like 168 conferences. Dean: Yeah, we did over 200, actually is what it was, but that was like a circus coming to town every month, every month, yeah. Dan: Anyway, I was talking to one of the black backstage crew. I was talking to one of the black backstage crew. You know who'd do the get you ready for going on to the front stage and I said we have 350 people. If you had other conferences going on at the same time. Our size, how many could you have? And he says I think around two dozen dozen we could be doing in the same building at the same time. But then when you get outside of the music center it's just filled with all the sorts of clubs yes and broadway, which is their big party street, is about two block, two blocks away, and there's lots of hotels. Dean: There's lots of hotels around, so's lots of hotels around, so you can feed into it. Dan: I was at the Four Seasons in Nashville. Dean: Of course you were. Yeah, did you get a hat and some boots to celebrate your 80th birthday? The Nashville way? Dan: I did not, and I'll tell you, my approach to cowboy hats and cowboy boots is about the same as my approach to backyard barbecues, and that is, I will celebrate my 80th birthday without ever having participated, actually organized one of those, and so it's on the list that I'm going to try to get through my whole life without doing I love it. Dean: That's the greatest thing. Dan: Dan. Dean: I can't tell you how many times I've used the. You know people are going through their whole life hoping to never have to meet you. Dan: I was having. Dean: I had lunch with an attorney friend who's a personal injury attorney and you know he works primarily with people in accidents and I said you know the challenge with his marketing is that it's acute onset and you know nobody is preparing for or anticipating the need to meet you. Dan: And I said in fact most people are hoping to go their entire life without ever having to meet you and if they get to, good for them, you know, yeah, funny, yeah, yeah, some people's marketing challenges are more severe than others yeah that's exactly right, well, yeah you know, as you know to be being that we're right at the beginning, when I started my coaching life, which was 50 years ago, in 1970, the people which was called Top of the Table and the table is a previous organization which started, I think maybe 50 or 60 years before, which was called the Million Dollar Roundtable, and it was a certain amount of sales qualified you and you got to go to the acronym mdrt. That was the thing, and. But in the early 70s they had gotten together and said let's take a top 500 in the world and and establish ourselves as the top of the table. Okay, and so right off the bat, in 74 and 75, I had one who was just a great friend and promoter of what I was doing at that time, because it was just being out there testing out this thing called coaching for entrepreneurs. And then very quickly I got others because they talked to each other a lot without seeing each other as competitors. And one of the things that I really remember is just getting really, really deep into how life insurance agents operate. And it's a tough marketing proposition because you have to engage people in a conversation about what's going to happen after they die. I mean, that's the premise of life insurance and the other thing is you're doing it for other people. And really you're doing it, and I had one of the great ones. These were, in the first instance, they were all Toronto-based, that's where we were, and I remember this one he would deal with, very wealthy. One of the things that attracted to me to these top life insurance agents is that their entire clientele were entrepreneurial. Okay, they didn't have corporate people, they had people who created their own businesses. And I remember this one agent here in Toronto. He said the first thing you have to zero in on again, it's a difficult sale is what the individual, who's a wealthy individual? What do they love that they want to be remembered for having been a great person after their life? What is it that they love that they would ensure and he said so. He had this line of questioning with. That went something like this he said first of all, as we talk about this, do you love your wife? And the person would say no, not really, not really. He says do you love your children? That would be a flat no. And he says no, I don't love my children. He said do you love your employees? And he says no, I don't love my children. He said, do you love your employees? And he says no. Finally gets to number four is do you love your reputation such that after you die, people will say you know he really loved his wife, his children and his employees? He says yes, I do love my reputation, and he says, ok, let's ensure your reputation. He says until you find out what someone loves, you might as well not talk about your legacy, and everybody has a different one. So the big thing everybody has a something that they want to be remembered for. So he says that's the thing that we have to ensure. Dean: And it's amazing. Amazing, isn't it, that there's always the reason behind the reason. Dan: It's funny yeah well, well, there's ultimately. There's the reason, the others aren't a reason you know, and actually that's true, yeah, and you have to find out what makes the person tick. You know, know, I mean everybody who lives for a long time and is very active in doing it has something that's right at the center you know, and I think it's idiosyncratic. Dean: What do you mean by that? Do you mean, that it's? Dan: I don't think it's predictable. Dean: Okay, right. Dan: Yeah, there's a deeper. I don't think everybody is Well. If you have the money to be different, then you're different in the way you want to be different. I mean we're talking about people who can write a check and they can write a big check. And what do they write the check for is the big question. And they're not doing it out of need, they're doing it out of want. Dean: Right. Dan: My contention is don't do things out of need. Do them out of what you actually want, because that represents much more of who you actually are than doing things because you need to do them that's an interesting because that's why or is that why you spent so much time 25 years. Dean: I remember you saying you made a commitment to every day writing what do I want. I journal for 25 years. Yeah. Dan: And because I was coming off a divorce and bankruptcy which coincided on the same day, that was, August, August 15th 1978. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And you know, divorce and bankruptcy qualify as two bad report cards. Dean: Right. Dan: Right right right, yes, I mean any way you interpret it, it's a bad report card and so you know I was kind of in a state and one of the neat things when you go through a divorce and bankruptcy, people don't throw parties for you to have you come and explain it you know they give you a lot of peace and quiet of your own, you know, yeah. So I had about four or five months after August to think this through and I said you know, the reason why these things are happening is I'm not telling myself what I actually want. You know I'm assuming certain things about other people. I'm expecting other people expectations, assumptions about other people and other things. And I said, you know, I think the key here is that I'm not actually telling myself what I want. Dean: And so. Dan: I said myself what I want and so I said so. Nobody cares if I was divorced and bankruptcy, and nobody really cares whether I amount to anything you know you know, and I was 30, 30, 34 years old at that time. And once you hit 30, nobody cares you know, it just, we invest a lot in younger people until age 30 and then they kick you out of the nest and anything that's going to happen in the future, you're going to do it on your own. You're not going to get a government grant to do it. And so I said, well, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to have one goal here. So I said, well, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to have one goal here. For the next 25 years, every day, I'm going to keep a journal and I'm going to write in it something that I want, With one constraint I'm not going to use the word, because I'm not going to use the word. I just want it, I just want it. And I did that, I did it for 25 years I missed want it, I just want it, and I did that. I did it for 25 years. I missed 12 days. There are 9,131 days in 25 years including the six leap year days, and so it's 9,131. And I did them on 9,119 days and my relationship with Babs came out of that. The whole strategic coach came out of that. You know and all sorts of things, like the lifestyle I'm living and you know why today I don't have to think about money at all because the money's there and you know, and the type of people I'm spending my time with. So it feels good, but that that the other thing is I. What it proved is I have the ability to stick with something for 25 years, right on a daily basis on a daily conscious basis. Dean: So still journal. Do you, uh, do you still journal? Dan: well, Dean, that's a really great question. I do journal, but it's in the form of using my tools on a daily basis. Dean: I got you Okay, so you're thinking about your thinking every day, like my fast filter, my fast filters. Dan: Yeah, you know fast filters. I'm saying what I want. It's just mutated into different forms. I want it's just mutated into different forms, but there isn't a day that I go through where I'm not stating something that I'm planning to achieve sometime in the future. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really. That's something I'm coming up. Next April will be 30 years of, you know, daily journaling. Yeah, I mean of sequential, and I actually have all of the journals. It was April 1995. I would journal. I was always someone to write down my thinking, but not in an organized, archival kind of way. But April of 1995 is my journal number one the official like keeping that. Dan: So next year is the 30 years. Yeah, and it's so funny that you know, like you said, I think more than half your life. Dean: Yeah, that's exactly right. I just turned 58 on Friday and that was a you know, you mentioned you know at 30, I noticed that you did it at 29. Yeah, that there's a different you know different experience level at 58 than there is at you know 29. Dan: Oh yeah. Dean: Yeah, I remember when I first started with Strategic Coach in 1997, year one that was, I remember the three-year kind of vision thing was it was difficult for me to even like see three years into the future because everything up to that point had been constantly evolving. You know, and I just remember, as in real estate, you know, when I was young, starting in real estate, I remember there was talk of the, you know, halton hills the town where I was, had just released their 20 year plan and I thought to myself, man, that's like that's forever, that's a lot. I don't never get here. You know, 20 years, I can't imagine that they're thinking that far ahead. And I had a couple of experiences like that. One of the largest sale that I ever made was to an italian family that was land banking. They bought land on the corner of ninth line and steels in halton hills that wasn't going to be developed. Dan: we we're talking about Toronto. Yes, right, exactly Greater, Toronto area. Dean: Yeah, in Halton Hills that was like the outer edge of the greater Toronto area and their expectation was that this was going to be land that would be developed in 40 years and that was almost exactly true as to when it, you know, came about. It's just kind of that was their model. They would, you know, go, they were a development family and they would go out to the edge and buy the land that was inevitably going to be the development. So, you know, they owned a lot of land in Brampton and Mississauga that were, you know, at the time, rural areas that they bought, you know, 20 years previous, in the 60s, at that time, knowing that was going to be developed later on and what an interesting like long term vision, like that. But that tell that story, because I always like to have you know kind of I look at my birthdays, I like to have like a day of reflection and looking forward and you know real and yes, uh, two days ago was your birthday, that's right, yep, and so you know, looking, I have a completely different understanding and experience of what 25 years is, yeah, than I did when I was 29, right, and so it's like, not you know, because I can still remember cracking the you know seal on journal number one, april 1995, virginia Beach. That was the you know day one journal one, and I still I can transport there, you know know, right now. It's just amazing how your mind I'm just like I'm sure you can immediately remember your lunch that you had on the day you got bankrupt and divorced. You know, you probably recall that right there, but you couldn't imagine it was actually a good lunch yeah, that right yeah because it was on the credit card you were about to turn in. Dan: Yeah, the interesting thing about it is I've been working on a concept and I was reminded of it because for our top guest speaker at the conference we had Kathy Ireland, the very famous model. Dean: Oh, wait, it wasn't Joe Polish. Dan: As I said, we had our top speaker. It was Kathy Ireland. Joe was good. He was one of the three main speakers. Right yeah he should be delighted with that. Yeah, he should be delighted with that. Dean: Anyway. Dan: Kathy Erland talked about how her intent was not to become a model. Not that she was against becoming a model, but that was never her intention to be a model. And she was just approached when she was on the beach in Santa Barbara California when she was 17. On the beach in Santa Barbara California when she was 17. And an agent came up to her and said you know, I think there's a niche that if you wanted to become a model, you would really, you know, sort of a tomboy she's. You know, she was very athletic, she was very muscular and she, you know, she sort of had freckles and you know, and she did wonderfully for 15 years from age 17 to 32. And she was on many covers of magazines, especially Sports Illustrated, and but then when she was 32, she just decided to stop and while she was a model, she had taken a crack at creating different kinds of businesses, so it wasn't something new, she said. I always knew I was going to be an entrepreneur and that the modeling gave me a bridge from where I was born, where I grew up, to the outside world. And then she stopped at 32. And for the last almost 30 years's created a three and a half billion dollar global company. And it was really great. We have jeff madoff interviewers, so jeff, is how I know I had. Jeff is how I know kathy, because he had her as a guest at a marketing class that he teaches at one of the New York universities. But one of the things I found in common with her she said I like getting older because you just know so much more, and one of the things I'm really appreciating at 80 is that I can really I can think of my life in terms of at least seven decades. You know, the first one's a bit sketchy, you know, because you hadn't really become conscious. Dean: But you've recalled being out in the woods. Oh, no, no. Dan: I have very good memories below 10. And I think I've enhanced them some, but you have what's possible over long periods of time, you know and what you will stay with over long. I think one of the principal pieces of knowledge that you get as a benefit of getting older is you have a very clear idea of what exactly what you will stick with over a long period of time and we're just, and we're just trading reports here of something you stuck with and what I stuck with over a long period of time, and young people don't have the advantage of doing that that's exactly right. Dean: Yeah, you can't imagine and it's very interesting to see how I spoke things into existence in that journal, leading up to them, like describing what I want, and to see how they started out as a seed in the journal and then became reality. You know, something it's interesting to see and you wonder, you know, part of it is to keep that, you know, keep that rolling, keep it now looking forward in the next five. It's as you say, it's, you know, your I love about you at 80 is that your, you know future is still bigger than your past and that's kind of an exciting thing. Dan: Yeah, I will say. This doesn't naturally occur just by living years. Dean: No, no you have to be. Dan: I mean the. To make the future bigger than your past at 80 takes a lot of. Dean: Yeah, especially when. But maybe that goes to what your print too. Right, just achievement is a thing, that's a motivator for you. For the sake of parties, for the sake of parties. That's all the bigger parties. That's all the bigger parties. That's great, yeah, yeah. Dan: Someone was asking me that. You know, when I looked at the conference that we just had in Nashville, wednesday and Thursday, people said, well, how would you plan a conference? I said, well, I didn't plan the conference. It was my team members to plan the conference. So it was my team members to play in the conference. But I said my attitude toward the conference is what the party is going to be like on the final night. Yes, I work backwards from the party. What has to happen for it to be a great party? Dean: Right. Dan: Well, this is very exciting, that now it's just coincidentally, two years from now, we do it at the same time. Dean: That be, yeah, first week of may is a good day. Dan: It's a good time, it's good and we would do it at nashville and we would do it at the music city. I mean, we're far enough ahead on the schedule that we know it would be your 60th birthday. Dean: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that'll be right in time for peak Dean on my health journey here. You know that'll be Back to my. Dan: That was the year of the peak Dean. That's exactly right, it's almost, like you know, a periodic visit of the northern lights. Yeah, yeah. Dean: No, I think that's very exciting. Yeah, and I've already said even more. Dan: I've already yeah, you put it in the calendar. It'll be the week of your birthday, probably okay, I mean I don't know what the week looks like, but let's find out now. Dean: I'm yeah, but yeah, nashville, early early 2026, may 10th is a Sunday. Yeah, it won't be that, it won't be on a. Dan: Sunday no, but it'll be the week. It'll be the week before, it'll be the week before. But the thing is now that they've done it once and we've got a date in the calendar. First of all, they can put the date in the calendar and they can get the event company plugged in. And they can get the event company plugged in, they can get the reservation at the Music City. They can get the hotel bookings I think the hotel bookings most hotels you can't get in for about six until six months before. Dean: But as early as you can. Dan: And yeah, we had a lot of bookings at the Four Seasons and you know, and we came in from the airport on Tuesday or on Tuesday? No, on Monday we came in, am I right? Dean: here. You came in on the Monday, yeah, because we spoke last Sunday yeah, I think I came. Dan: We came in on the Monday, yeah, and and we. But when we arrived, there was this whole meeting party of Four Seasons personnel. They came up to us and treated us like they liked us oh right, imagine that yeah, which I take regardless of what their motive is it doesn't matter, it still feels just as nice. Dean: Yeah, I think that's great. Mr. Dan: Sullivan is the general manager of the hotel. Oh, we're so happy to have you, Thank you. Thank you very much and a very friendly guy, yeah. So anyway, I'm going to work on this. The value of age. You know, there's a lot of people and I'm noticing them, because I'm starting to notice how people who are getting up in years I won't say they're my age, but they're getting up in years are falling into the general narrative of how people act when they get older and I'm just so convinced that they feel diminished because they haven't constantly worked on having their future bigger than their past. Yes, there's a point where they stop creating their future whenever that was there, was you know, well, and I think that you really have. Dean: It's a discipline that I constantly have to get myself to turn and have my gaze future focused, because as you do get older, you start that there's more to look back on. You know, and you spend a lot of time revisiting the past, but all the action is in the future. Dan: There's nothing, nothing you can do about the about the past, but yeah, but what I do is that I the past, if I remember. It can only be raw material for creating something new for the future. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Like when I go back and I remember a situation, I'll say now what did I learn from that situation that I can use in the future? You know, I don't accept the past's interpretation of itself. Dean: Yeah, say more about itself, yeah. Dan: Say more about that. Yeah, and I had a friend for a number of years who I'd gone to college with and we've, you know, we have been in touch for 20 years and he said you don't have any nostalgia, do you? You don't look back and have an emotional. And I said no, I mean, first of all, I was given a chance, you know, when I was having the experience, to appreciate what it was Okay. So it had a momentary opportunity to really imprint me with its importance. But if I'm looking back from 20 years ago, it's my interpretation of what it means to me going forward, not the interpretation. And I'm noticing, with the boomers, you know, there's nothing more disgusting than a nostalgic boomer. Dean: Yeah, like thinking about back in the day. Is that what you mean? 60s? Dan: well, 60s, you know, that's the usual. The 60s and 70s, you know, and they were going to turn the world on its head. And then they became civil servants, they got jobs as government employees or they became teachers and everything else. And then you get with them and they go back and they say, oh, those were the days, and everything like that. And it's kind of, but I have this notion that up until 30, society really supports you. Society invests in you, the government invests in you, the community invests in you, your parents invest in you, the teachers, everybody invests in you. And at 30, they cut it off and they set you free. And it's like I say about people say well, e know they have very high purchase. When the chicks are born, you know they're hundreds of feet up the eagles, and then on one day the mother eagle, just there's little eagles, they have wings. You know they have feathers, they have wings. She just pushes them all out of the nest. They have wings, she just pushes them all out of the nest. And the ones that don't hit the ground know how to fly. The ones who hit the ground, you don't have to worry about them. Wow yeah, and I think society at a certain point they just push all the 30-year-olds out of the nest and they want to see if you can make anything. Is there anything different or unique, and if there isn't, you just, more or less metaphorically, you hit the ground and you're nothing more than what things were before. Dean: There's nothing new. Dan: There's nothing new, but I pushed myself out of the nest when I was 18 years old, so the time until I was 30 didn't really mean anything. Dean: Right. Dan: But I don't comprehend nostalgia, because my emotions are in the present, they're not in the past. Dean: Yes, yeah, and that's what you realize, even in the future. I think when we were talking in Palm Beach earlier this year about the, you know the main thing is the future is really only shaped by the behaviors and habits and happens Really. Dan: The future is shaped by your present capabilities. Yeah, so I don't want to be looking backwards, as I'm living the present. I want to be fully alive because it's my up-to-dateness with the present that determines the quality of the future. Dean: Yes, yeah, bringing there here. Dan: Yeah, it's really interesting. We had a whole raft of speakers. Dean: Yeah, tell me about some of the highlights. What were some of the highlights? Dan: Well, I didn't get to all of them, because I went to every hour. You had a breakout session. I went to it, but there were different streams and tracks. I mean they're all going to be videoed. I mean they were all videoed so everybody's going to be able to see them. But I went to one and they had a couple of futurists there and I wasn't impressed. I wasn't impressed, and more and more over the last 10 years, since we did the collaboration with Peter Diamandis to create Abundance360, I always knew that people could be trapped in the past, in other words, that they were doing every day trying to hold on to the past. Okay, but I'm just as convinced now that people can get trapped into the future. They can get trapped, that they can't really be aware of what's going on right now because their mind is in a realm that hasn't happened yet and one of the things I know it makes them very nervous, makes them very anxious, anxious. And the thing that I found really interesting about these two speakers, the husband and wife team, was that they were making up all sorts of crazy words to describe what's happening, and you should be aware of this. And they had a word called templosion, which you know temp is, I guess, a Latin word for time, something and implosion, which I guess adds on a notion of explosion and that we're in a period of templosion, where there's hundreds of different ways that you're going to have to choose your life. Dean: And. Dan: I was sitting there and I said no, well, I know, 20 years, or I know 20 years from now, exactly what my life is going to look like. I don't know the details but, I, know it's going to be a direct extension of what I'm doing today. Dean: And. Dan: I know 80 percent of it. It will be expanding. I'll meet all sorts of new people. There's all going to be, but what's happening in the rest of the world and what other people are doing really don't, it doesn't really matter to me that much. Dean: I like that. I mean, that's what I realized in the journaling. I have two things. You something you said about. You know that spending time, you know, in the future is there's a lot of temptation or opportunity to just stay constantly planning and thinking about the future without actually you know, I've been using the word applying yourself. You know, I found that it's in our minds the things that motivate us to actually do something. We only do things in the present. So our own, you know our, you know our behaviors extended over time are what we define as habits, but it's really the behavior that's to be done today. You know, and I realized that writing in your journal and thinking about or planning for, or architecting or doing all these things that are future gazing is not actually applying yourself, it's not actually putting anything on the record. It's the equivalent of to the committee in our brain that actually controls what we do. It's the equivalent of quietly sitting in the corner coloring. Because no matter what anything that you do in your journal. The great deception is that it feels like that's actually making a difference. Right, that you're actually accomplishing something, but it's not. Until you break that barrier of getting it out of your head into and on the permanent record in the form of an action or a behavior. It's not going to do anything. Dan: Well, I think the big thing and I think it's a hard realization. I think it's maybe one of the harder realizations that nobody has ever lived in the future and nobody has ever lived in the past. Yeah, you only live in the moment. You know, and it and a lot of people just aren't capable of being conscious of the moment because their attention is being either dragged back backwards or pushed forwards and they're thinking about next, they're not thinking about next year. They're not thinking about, they can't think about next year because everything's happening right now. They can't think about 10 years ago, because everything's happening right now, and I think being present-minded is hard. Yes, I think it takes really an enormous amount of mental muscle to actually just be aware that things are happening right now and the way you handle things right now basically makes the future. Dean: Yes, that's the only thing that makes the future. It's the brick by brick layer. Dan: You know what I mean it's really the truth. Dean: It's that in the tapestry or whatever, that we can only see the accomplishment of it. But you realize that you can. Dan: I bet in the world of brick layers it's what a person can do in a day that really puts them at the top of their craft. Dean: I think you're absolutely right. Yes, and it's only on the reflection. You know, great walls are only built on the you know, compilation of daily accomplishment. Dan: Yeah. Dean: You know the thing is you can change any of it at any time. You know the thing is you can change any of it at any time. That's what I realized is in reflection, you know, when I was thinking about those, the elements of a perfect life, and really getting down to the, you know how DNA has, you know, the five elements of it, that if you look at the DNA of a perfect life, it's, you know, the elements are me, like everything. If I were to strip me naked and drop me on a deserted island, everything I have there, that's me, the portable things. Then time is life's moving at the speed of reality. 60 minutes per hour in perpetuity and you're always doing something in there, then environments are the things that are. You know. You basically put yourself in or you've been put in to an environment. That is your version of what's happening here, where, geographically, where you are, that where you live, what you have, what you do, all of those things are environments and you could, in theory, all of those things are environments and you could, in theory, move your, so I mean, you could completely change your environment. That's what you're thinking of the immigrant, right of you could leave everything behind and go change the environment and decide everything that you're going to do. Then the element of people meaning all the people that are around you, and money. So the combination of all of those five things are what create what we would call a life, you know, and I love like I find that infinitely entertaining too, you know in terms of yeah, the other thing is that, uh, one of the things that was predicted for me by other people is that as you get get older, time speeds up. Dan: Okay, and since I 70, I've experienced just the opposite. Time slowed down during the 70s and the years just took their time, and I think the reason is, I think it has to do with consciousness. You know, and I think that you know when you're, you know when you're a child, you're learning everything. So you're, you know, you're, everything is kind of new and you're exploring it and everything else, and then, as you get on, a lot of your experience you already knew that. So it's not significant, okay, but I think what happens with a lot of people, they are never actually creating their experience. There he is. I got a phone call that interrupted our phone call oh man, how rude somebody named Stephanie ok and. I immediately hit just to say you have no right. You're trespassing, that's right. Yeah, be gone. Where did I leave the thought that I was on? Dean: Well, you were talking about consciousness. That's what you were saying. Dan: Well, I think consciousness is the number of times during any time period that you're actually conscious of what's happening to you Okay. And I think it's massive when you're a child, because everything's new, right, but as we, let's say, we're now 20, we've actually mastered a lot of things that were new and now they're known, actually mastered a lot of things that were new and now they're known. I think, therefore, the number of situations when you're 20, that you're suddenly struck by something new is less than when you were, you know, four or five or six years old, okay, and so you're moving quickly from one moment of consciousness to another. And when you're six, it might be 20 things a day. That's a long day, but if it's 20 times a week when you're 20, that's a faster week, and if it's 20 times in a quarter, when you're 50 that's a really fast quarter and when it's 20 times, when you're 20 times in a year, when you're 70. I think that whether time is going fast or slow depends upon the number of consciousness things about something new that's happening in your life. And I found over the period of the last 10 years. I was back to having suddenly new conscious things that were happening. You know many times. You know many times a week or a day and time slowed back down, so it's actually being conscious. Dean: That's really, you know, that's almost like Euclidean, that's like euclidean geometry, you know yeah, that that harmonizes with something that I heard about. Why it the perception is that it moves faster is that when we're looking back, the routine reads as one experience, right? So you're looking back at the thing, if you've been, if your life becomes waking up in the same place, driving to the same job, sitting at the same desk, interacting with the same people and you look back over time at that, that all reads as one experience and it's only the new and novel consciousness moments that you were just talking about that get registered and recorded that single experience for some people may have. Dan: Another year just went by. Dean: That's exactly right and that's what oh well, that was fast where that was fast. Dan: Where's the time go? Where's the? Dean: time go. Dan: It's not a function of time, it's a function of consciousness. Right, that's exactly right, and we've had at least five conscious things in the last hour. I love that, Dan. We've done each other a favor over the last 60 minutes. Dean: I'm very excited about the culmination, the 60th. I'm reframing CoachCon as a peak theme celebration. I'm just I'm taking it for me, that's what it's. Dan: Not that you didn't have something to live for before, but we just put some kind of put a cherry at the top of your whipped cream. Yeah. Dean: I've had something that I was already on the path of you know, and that's kind of that's kind of great. Yeah, I just celebrated nine nine weeks of the peak Dean path here, so that's all it's very exciting. Dan: That's been a good nine weeks, hasn't it? It really has. Dean: Yes, it shows the whole you know thing of accountability and the plan and Somebody else's executive function, that's exactly right. Dan: Now I'm looking honestly. Dean: That's the thing Now. I'm looking for that in my you know, in deciding in my productivity now, in all the times that I'm, because I realized what an abundance of time I have you know, and very. I have what you would call very little environmental drag on my life in terms of time, commitments or obligations or people or other things, so it's a huge palette to play on Attempts on the part of other people to use up your life. Yeah, exactly, there's no claims to it, that's exactly right. So I've got no excuse. So now it's just like I get to architect this amazing adventure here. Dan: You know the thing that's going to be the highlight in the election campaign. It might happen in the next week or two where Trump finally sends the judge in the current trial in New York over the edge. He says I'm sending you to jail, and then the United States is just fixated on. Trump. He won't be in a normal cell. Of course He'll have a phone. Of course he'll have a phone and he'll be messages from Rikers Island, which is the main jail and he'll have lineups of everybody wanting to get his autograph and his picture taken in Rikers. And you know he'll be giving campaign speeches to all the prison guards and everything else. And meanwhile President Joe will have to be reminded who he is again and what his job is. Dean: Oh, my goodness. Well, we got six months. That's the exciting thing here. Dan: This is very exciting. This is very exciting. This is very, this is a and. And people say, isn't it a tragedy? I says what's a tragedy? And they said just the preposterousness presidential campaign. And I says, well, it depends on how you look at it. Because a lot of people say, well, this is crucial. You know the future, the world depends upon this. And I said, well, america has so much going for it, the United States has so much for it, it's got so much leadership at every level of activity that Americans are the only people on the planet in the history of humanity that can just treat domestic politics as a form of popular entertainment. Oh man, so I don't think you're approaching this correctly. You think that this is actually important, but it's entertainment. And then the question is who is the most entertaining candidate? And that I can predict yes. Dean: It would be amazing to see it all unfold, how it plays out. I still see Las Vegas still has all the odds makers still have Donald Trump as the winner. Dan: Yeah, I think it's in the 60s. Well, it depends on whether they're doing it with all the candidates or just the main two. But I think the betting markets I check every couple. I think the betting markets I check every couple weeks, the betting market. Yeah, it's been generally 60, 65 and you know and you know, which is surprising, because a lot of the big, wealthy democratic donors could be gaming the market, you know, just throwing a lot of money into the market. But but these are the las ve. I mean Las Vegas puts a bet on everything, so it's probably some legitimacy to what their bets are. Yeah, yeah, and it goes deeper than a particular issue. You know, it's just like. You know, it's almost like which one of them could actually be there at the end of another four years, and I think that's part of it. Holy cow yeah yeah, that's exactly true yeah, it's like a horse race, where you're betting to see if any of them could actually get to the finish line right oh my goodness, we know they could be at the starting gate. We just don't know which one's going to actually finish you know, yeah, that's so that's amazing, yeah all righty are we uh on next week? yes, nope, I'm on a plane trip to london on sunday of next week. So and the week after I, yeah, the week after I can do it from a hotel room in cleveland okay, perfect, but I'll have to give you the. I'll have to give you the date of the time. Dean: Okay, no problem. Dan: And I might have to get you up early. Dean: That's okay. It's my only thing on these Sundays. Yeah it's my only thing, so it's the highlight of my day Okay thank you, thanks, bye, bye.

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, I reminisce about our wonderful experience at the recent Cloudlandia conference at Canyon Ranch in Tucson facilitated by the legendary Joe Polish. We discuss the importance of maintaining an active lifestyle through routines like DEXA scans. Our conversation explores cultivating daily habits that balance productivity and creativity without overcommitting. Wrapping up, we tackle the nuances of time management as entrepreneurs and commitment levels' impact on execution. Discover how dependability and prudent social media actions shape future opportunities, drawing from Kevin O'Leary's wisdom. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dan and I delve into the significance of the series' theme song and its role in their listening routine, based on Chris's reflections. We discuss Chris's trip to Tucson and their perspective on the moderated conference experience led by Joe Polish at Canyon Ranch. We highlight the importance of maintaining consistency and improvement over time, drawing upon the eight profit activators as an example. Dan analyzes a typical day at Canyon Ranch through Chris's recount, emphasizing the value of health checks like the DEXA scan for body composition. We explore the paradox of having ample free time yet facing a lack of productivity due to multiple options. Dan and I discuss the various levels of commitment and how they influence the ability to complete tasks, especially in the entrepreneurial environment. The chapter on trust, money, and social media is explored, examining the challenges of relying on unpredictable and the personal ethos of dependability. We assess the intertwined nature of trust, money, and social media, referencing Kevin O'Leary's perspective on the potential long-term impacts of public actions. reflect on Chris's strategy for managing time and commitments, including his rule against traveling for marketing purposes. The episode concludes with us having a candid conversation about procrastination, commitment, and the challenge of executing tasks without external scaffolding. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dan: Welcome to Cloudlandia. You know, the theme song to this series might be the song that I've listened to more in my life than any other song. Dean: Oh, that's funny I like it. Dan: I was going through the archives and I said you know, I don't think I've listened to any song as much as I have this song. That's so funny. Yeah, I love it Good music though. It's good music. Dean: And good message. Dan: And it, I love it, it's good music, though. Dean: It's good music, yes, and good message. Dan: And it's good message. Dean: It's always a reminder. So welcome back. You've been on the road, arizona. Dan: Yes, how was that? Oh, it was great. We were in Tucson for about five days at Canyon Ranch, and the weather was absolutely superb. In Fahrenheit terms it was roughly about 75. Dean: Yeah, perfect right. Dan: Clear, cool nights, blue skies, no rain and the genius was great. Joe is really in the sweet spot. Joe Polish is really in the sweet spot because he's controlling it now with his interviews and I think that's terrific, because he had six different guests and if they're just giving a presentation, it can be from bad to really great. But what Joe provides, he just does a framework and of course he directs them with questions and he knows the audience, he knows the speakers, so he's doing a great job of moderating and I think that's a terrific move. Dean: I like the new setup too that he's got there, the stage with the kind of environment that's good, nice, the kind of environment that's good, Nice. Dan: Well, let's Proves that, if you just stick with some things long enough, you know it turns really superb after a while if you keep making improvements. Dean: Wow, I can't say enough about that being true. I was really. I've been thinking that about the. I've been going back looking at the eight profit activators as the example of how long you know I would say I've been working on this for 30 years, unconsciously, and the last 20 of it consciously and the distinctions, the reliable, that I've generated from all the ways that we've applied, all the number of data sets and iterations and different applications that are still like, it's just kind of great. It's a shortcut to really identifying what needs to be done, and every new iteration of a durable playbook is adding new distinctions. So much certainty in the things. I just can't wait to see, you know, the next 20 years of that real like dedicated application, because it's not going anywhere, you know. Dan: Yeah, I think you know I'm sort of a stick with things for a long time. Dean: Yes, yes. Dan: And I mean, if people are telling you they're getting value out of it, their checks indicate yes, yes, things going in a workshop and I'm, you know, I'm always seeing new things and and everything like that. But you know, we were. I was just reflecting that this is 35 years for the program, the workshop program, and it's pretty much not too different in 2024 than it was in 1989. I mean 2024 than it was in 1989. I mean it's basically you're doing thinking processes, you're chatting with each other individually, you're having general discussions, there's visuals to represent what's going to happen and all the money's up front. Dean: Yeah, I mean, listen, I call those things durable contexts and what you've got there, like the strategic coach program and the workshops, it's not unsimilar to what 60 Minutes has going for it, the. It's been the same context in sunday night 7 pm tick, tick, tick three long form stories on the most fascinating things in the zeitgeist right now. That's never going to get old. That's really. You know, it's like the same thing. You look at quarterly meetings gathered with your peers thinking about your thinking in a group of people who are thinking the same way. So I think that's the cheat code is understanding what those durable contexts are and allowing the content to fit within that. You know. Dan: Yeah, there was a great old parody, I don't know 20 years ago, and it's the new marketing manager for Coors Beer and he's saying yeah, and he's in a meeting with Mr Coors the current Mr. Coors and he says yeah. He said yeah, we've done a lot of research and you know we feel that the color that we've been using for the labels of Coors beer are not up to speed with what people really like and therefore we're suggesting that we switch the color of the labels. And Mr Coors says I like the color we've got. He says yes sir, yes sir, Mr Coors. Dean: Yes, sir, we're going to go with the color. Dan: And he says we feel that you know the typeface that we're using, the Coors typeface, is from the. It's really from the 19th century. And he said so we're suggesting this new typeface. And Mr Gores says I like the typeface the way it is. Dean: He says yes, mr Gores. Dan: And then he says we're thinking that the bottle is very in old shape, you know, and it's not really up to date with modern design and therefore we're recommending this new shape of the bottle and we want to change the color of the bottle too. And he says to Mr Kors says I like the old bottle and I like the color we've got. Yes, mr Kors, okay, we're all set to go on our new campaign right, that sounds like your conversation when they wanted to change the fonts right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I like Helvetica. We're going to stick with. Dean: Helvetica Awesome, I love it. Well, Dan, what was your? What's a day in the life in Canyon Ranch? You've been going there now for as long as I've known you. Dan: Yeah, 1990 was our first trip, so this is our 55th visit and many years. We've gone twice, twice. Well, it's a nice place, it's very congenial, it's very comfortable and it's well kept up. And, you know, the food is good. They have terrific massage therapists. I mean, they have dozens and dozens of massage therapists, some of them, one of them we have we've been seeing her for 25 years, you know, and there's just a nice quality. It's very predictable, there's no tension, it's very laid back, and so I get up in the morning and, you know, once we're set to go, I'll go out for a walk, and they have a two mile loop around the property oh wow and one of them is quite a challenging hill, okay. So what I could do is I go out and I start working the hill from top to bottom and I do that. I do that for about a half hour. You know. Dean: Up and down, you know gets the heart rate up yeah and now with my repaired knee I was gonna ask do you feel? Dan: the difference. Yeah, yeah, it's. Uh, there's a bit tenderness about especially coming down it's going up is fine, it's coming down. That puts more stress on your knee right and then then we go for breakfast and there's two choices they have sort of a very informal cafe and then they have a restaurant with full menu. And then I do a lot of reading. I read the Wall Street Journal on six days of the week and Babs and I just agree when we're going to rendezvous for lunch. Dean: She does a lot more. Dan: She does a lot more consultations. She does more investigating new things, which eventually I introduced to some of them. But she's much more active. She gets more tests than I do and I do one test probably every year for 20 years since the body composition. Oh, yeah, like a DEXA scan, right, right, dexa scan, yeah, and it's the gold standard as far as I can tell. You know, and then you compare and I got 20 years of records and you know, need some more care. Things are okay here and you know you go there and then the afternoon I'll have at least one massage a day and I do that. But I do a lot of reading. I've got my detective stories, my thrillers, my international geopolitical thrillers, and you know I'll wander around around and I get my steps in, I get my three rings on my apple watch bin and we meet for dinner. We usually do it pretty early and we you know and come home and I'll check the news, internet news and read some articles and then I'm off to bed and multiply that by five days. Dean: Do it again. Dan: Yeah, and you feel revived. Dean: Yeah. Dan: But I, you know, I mean at after 35, 50 years of coaching and 35 years of the company and the program. I don't really get that stressed out for my work. Right, I mean you know I'm in my unique ability. I have certain things to do every day. Dean: There's deadlines. Dan: There's always lots of projects going, and so it's not like to go on to free days, which Canyon Ranch always. Isn't that much of a change for me from? The way I operate on my workday. I'm never doing more than three projects for the day. I have lots of time between projects. I only hold myself accountable for getting three things done a day. My scheduler, Becca, always makes sure I have at least a half hour between anything that involves a meeting with someone else. And yeah, so that's pretty well that I mean. But I get a lot done. I mean I'm more productive at 80 than I was at 60. Dean: So yeah, that's my thing. How much of your time during the week like when you're on a typical home week, work week is scheduled like synchronous and scheduled with other people, versus you saying these are the three things I'm going to work on, or are they always involving other people? Dan: No, I have days when it's just me getting my part of a project done that has to be then sent off to somebody else. But I have days when there's no meetings. The vast majority of them are Zoom meetings, not in-person meetings. Dean: And I have a regular schedule the workshops are in the schedule. Dan: The two-hour catch-up calls that we've introduced for Zoom they're in the schedule. I have podcasts they're scheduled. The only thing that's left up to me is creating new tools. Dean: Right. Dan: You know, and the other thing is new chapters of the current book and that goes off, and then we have recording sessions and so on. But I would say that if I look ahead at a year, 85% of that year is going to be totally known on the first day of the year. Dean: Really, yeah, yeah, like with scheduled slots for when it's happening, yeah. Dan: Very interesting. Yeah, and I've introduced a new rule in 79, that I will never travel for marketing purposes. Dean: Right, exactly. Dan: Yeah, and I will never give a speech. I'll do an interview, but I won't do a speech. Dean: Right or. Dan: I'll put an audience through a thinking tool, but I won't give a speech, so my days of speechifying are in the past, right, right, right. And I won't give any speech for publicity purposes, I only give a speech for marketing purpose. I mean, I'll only do a public, you know, presentation and a movie tool only for marketing purpose. I'll only speak to audiences that are qualified clients, qualified prospects. Yeah, yeah, and that's basically an easygoing tourist's life. Dean: Yeah, exactly, I forgot, that's another thing. Dan: You have a birthday in about three days, right? Dean: That's right. May 10th that's exactly right may 10th. Dan: It's yes, right yeah, so that's what is that friday? Dean: that is friday, yeah, yeah. So that's that one little thing, that one week of time where I'm only 21 years younger than you. I catch up on you for a little bit and then you take over again. Dan: Yeah, I have to give you a teaser before I frustrate you. Dean: Okay, let's hear it. Dan: Yeah, no, it's 20. Dean: You get to be 21 years younger. I got you Right, right, right. Dan: Then it gets taken away from you. Yes, exactly, just when. Dean: I think I'm catching up. Yeah, yeah, a little boost. That's so funny. Yeah, I've forgotten that we're both Taurus. That's something we are very similar. I think that's why we have such an easy friendship. I think because we're essentially a lot alike, I mean our whole being. Dan: I think we're essentially lazy luxury-loving innovators. Dean: Lazy luxury-loving innovators, I like it. Dan: That's pretty true. Dean: It's the truth. You're absolutely right. Yes, yes, yes, in the best sense of all of those words. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think both of us exhibit sort of a lifestyle that's different from what we learned when we were growing up. Dean: That's true, yeah, I don't know what instilled it in us, but it was self-discovered. Really, Nobody taught us this. Dan: And we both like shortcuts. Dean: We both have a passion. Dan: It's very interesting I haven't actually driven a car in the city of Toronto in easily 25 years. Dean: I think that's amazing yeah. Dan: And you know I have a limousine company that handles all my scheduled stuff. And then Babs. You know we're very much in sync in terms of what we like to do for entertainment and for socializing we're very much in sync, and what it's allowed me to do is to really notice shortcuts in the city because I'll see. You know, I'm a real map addict. I like maps. And I'll see something I said. I wonder, if you go through this alleyway here and you come out here, whether it's a shortcut when there's busy times and I got about 20, 25 of them in the city that Google doesn't know about. Dean: Oh boy, okay, yeah, you've got the knowledge. Dan: Yeah, I got. I've got the knowledge. Google stays within the framework of what are considered official streets. You know they it doesn't, and probably they have to do that. I mean, that's not, it's not their job to be doing it and and so one of the limousine drivers said, you know, he went to the president of the company, the owner, and he says, you know, we should have mr sullivan up here, he knows more shortcuts than anyone I've ever seen and and the owner of the company. Why would we want the trip to be any shorter? Dean: Unbelievable, huh. Dan: Isn't that? Dean: funny, that's the best. Why would we want it to be any shorter? Dan: No, and I can see his point of view, I guess. Dean: but wow, I can't tell you, dan, how much I'm looking forward to being in Toronto. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Really am. Dan: Now you're coming in. When are you coming in? Dean: On a. Dan: Monday. Dean: The workshop's on a Monday the workshop is on Monday, right the 20th, so I think I'm going to come in probably the week before. I'll probably come in. I may come in at the very latest the 17th, and so I would be available for a table 10 or whatever table they assign us on the 18th, if that works in your schedule, and then I'm going to do a breakthrough blueprint on the 27th, 28th, 29th. So I'm going to stay for at least two weeks. Dan: Are you staying at the Hazleton I? Dean: believe so. Yes, there are the four seasons. Dan: one of the two yeah, because our wonderful French restaurant in Yorkville is gone. Dean: I know exactly. Dan: Jacques Bistro. You know, they basically packed it in at the end of the previous year, so the COVID year started in March 2020. So right at the end of 2019, they packed it in and their son you know, their son and daughter were. I was leaving this was right at the end of the 2019, I was there and I was going down the steps and he said Mr Sullivan, do you mind if I have your picture taken and we're putting together sort of, you know, a panorama of all the longtime guests? And I said sure, and then they they always closed down for the month of January, july too, yeah, yeah, in January, and they never came back. After January it was closed, and so I don't think they were sensing anything, but I think they had just more or less packed it in without telling anybody Because it's all gone. Now it's some other business. It was a very small restaurant, I know because it's all gone now and it's some other business. Dean: You know it's. It was a very small restaurant. Dan: You know I mean they may do, for they may do for almost 40 years with about at most they might've had 40 seats in the restaurant. That wasn't a very big restaurant Right. But let's Select is good, let's Select they sold. The two partners sold. They had been with it for 40 years and they sold and it's. You know the menu is smaller. There's some things not on the menu that I liked, but you know it's great. Dean: Have you been to? There's the new French restaurant in Yorkville, off of you know where, if you go Bel Air basically that where Bel Air meets Yorkville if you continue across Yorkville in that little alleyway, there's a new French restaurant. I think. Yeah, they didn't last. No, they didn't Okay. No, cause they came in just before. Dan: COVID right, yeah, they didn't last. Oh, they didn't Okay. No, because they came in just before COVID right? No, they didn't last at all. Okay, yeah, and I'm just trying to think. Dean: Sophia Is there another? Sophia is another one. I think it's new, but I haven't experienced it. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah, you know, there were a lot of casualties from the, you know. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Actually, Yorkville has gotten a lot less interesting because restaurants have gone out and retail stores have come in oh interesting. It doesn't have the same entertainment value that it did. Dean: Interesting, I may have to rethink Where's the new? Where would be a suitable place for a guy? Dan: like me, the Hazleton is really good. I mean, they're one restaurant there is really good, but you know I would go for Le Select, just for old time's sake. Dean: Of course, yeah, yeah. Dan: And we'll put it in the menu. I have a whole bunch of medical things. Usually on Saturday I go to my biofeedback program. Dean: I go to osteo-stron and I get my hair cut. Okay. Dan: But I can leave off the two medical things that day and just get my haircut. Dean: Okay, fair enough. Dan: And we'll, yeah, put it in for 1130. Would that be good? That's fantastic. Dean: I love it. Dan: Yeah, yeah, it's not table 10 anymore, but we can get the same table, yeah, and that's where we. Dean: That's where we, that's where we launched the podcast series the joy of procrastination was launched right there. Dan: Yeah, what are you thinking about procrastination now, after all these? Dean: years. I think it's amazing. I mean, I think this whole idea of the you know as a superpower, I think it's absolutely true. What I still I'll tell you what I'm personally working on right now is my ability to do what I say I'm going to do. At the time, I say I'm going to do it without any external scaffolding, and I'm realizing that. You know, I'm just now eight weeks into the health program that I'm doing with Jay and Team Dean all together there, and what I've found is that's working really well because it's created the external scaffolding and support and exoskeleton that allows me to stay on track, or create that bobsled run, as Ned Halliwell would say. And so now my attention in May here now is turning to myself. I have, Dan, an abundance of time. I have, all of you know, a consulting client that I talk to on Tuesdays at one. I have a my real estate accelerator group on Wednesdays at three, and then on alternate Thursdays, I have my co-agent call and my email mastery call, and so, all told, it's four to six hours a week of synchronous and scheduled requirement. Right, Then I basically have 100% of all of my time available, and I do. I've always sort of you know having free time leads to having the ability to be creative and do things, but what I find is I often end up in a paralysis of opportunity. you know of that I could do this I could do this, I could do this, I could all of those intentions. You know that I could do this, I could do this, I could do this, I could all of those intentions you know. But I very rarely get anything done. Fits and spurts right, and so that's what I'm really kind of. I'm really trying to figure out the formula for me on that. Dan: That's why I was curious about you know, you know, I would say this that I, if I didn't have obligations, or commitments. Let's say commitments, yeah, like I have, I have commitments. I wouldn't be very productive just on my own Right. I mean, I won't do something just because I want to do something. To see it, it has to involve my team and it has to involve my clients, otherwise I won't do it Right. And so I always have deadlines related to those two parties, and I really like deadlines. I really like deadlines because, you know, and usually I get it done just before it's needed. And the reason I like that is if I just have enough time to actually and I don't have any more time, I just have enough time to get something done, then I'm totally focused. If I've got more than enough time to get something done, then I'm totally focused. If I've got more than enough time to get something done, then I can be distracted by something else Me too. Dean: I realized I started thinking about a progression of the way things are going to get done. Most certainly is synchronous and scheduled is 100% certainty that it's going to get done. Then kernis and unscheduled is also getting done, like that's what other my consulting clients or the people that I work with we don't have necessarily every tuesday at one o'clock or whatever it may hey, are you available to talk? You know, on this day and we put it in the calendar and but it's not like recurring, that, it's not locked in obligation. I usually keep my calendar. You know I schedule those things about two weeks out. And then the next level up then. So that's synchronous and sort of unscheduled, but we'll do it. Then the next thing is asynchronous with a deadline, is likely to get done, but the thing where I want to be is asynchronous at my discretion and that's the most joyful thing, but nothing ever gets done. Dan: That's the reality, right? Yeah, it's really funny. I was having a conversation about it was with someone at Genius Network. You don't know them and they were talking about how they're really into Zen. Know them, and they were talking about how they're really into zen okay, and and you know the oriental, you know that you detach from, you know physical reality, more or less yes, and, and I said, you know I've read things about them. You know I've read things, but reading things about zen isn't them right you know, it's not them. You know, and and said the one thing I've noticed about people who are really deeply into Zen they're not real go-getters. Dean: Interesting yeah. Dan: Yeah, because for them, the things of the world, they're not really real. Dean: You know they're sort of delusional. Dan: And anyway, and I said, I have a really enjoyable engagement with the world. Yes, and it's entrepreneurial, so that makes it more enjoyable. I have nothing in my life that involves dealing with people who are in bureaucratic, private sector, bureaucratic or public sector. I have no nothing to do with anyone like that, and so everyone I mean my entire environment. I'm hearing an enormous amount of sound. Dean: Sorry about that. Dan: What I notice is that I live in almost like a complete entrepreneurial universe. I mean both business-wise and also socially you know, so I don't really know much about what's happening outside of the entrepreneurial world. I mean, I read it. I mean I read it on the internet, but it doesn't really impact on me. You know, I mean taxes do, inflation does and everything like that, but not in a serious way. And the exchange rate between the US dollar and the Canadian dollar is very comfortable right now. Dean: It's about $1.37. Dan: Okay, yeah, I always enjoy that. Dean: It's a nice offset. Dan: Yeah, people say, why do you live in Toronto with the taxes so high? And I says, well, it all depends on where your money is coming from. Dean: Right right, right right, and you know the patents are. Dan: We're up to 19 now. We have 19 patents so far. And that has its own asset value. And yeah, so it's really nice right now At 80, it's really at age 80. So it's really nice right now at 80, it's really at age 80. It's really nice. Dean: Yeah, is that so? I am curious, though, if so, the deadlines. If we think about that progression right Of synchronous and scheduled, synchronous unscheduled with a deadline and asynchronous at your discretion, where's your power zone? Are you able to spend time productively in asynchronous at your discretion, or does what drives your thing be the deadline? Dan: No, I let other people schedule my life. I let other people schedule my life. Okay, yeah so all the dates in the calendar are someone else's schedule and then they have their schedule for me to get the material in, because it always involves some sort of teamwork. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Before a workshop, you have to get the new artwork in according to the production team's schedule, not my schedule. Right and I have some really good rules with that. If it's 80%, good we're going to go with it, even though. I got a better idea at the last moment. I never load them up with last minute requests because from the audience's standpoint it's 100%. It's only our judgment that is 80%, right, exactly. Dean: They don't know. It's 100% of what they got. That's exactly right. Dan: Yeah, I don't know that there was something better that could have been done. They don't know that, so I'm pretty easy with them. Every once in a while there's a last-minute thing and because I never bother them very much, they're up to it. But if it was a steady diet that they had of the last minute, then you'd lose their ability to respond at the last moment. So I never take advantage of that, except there is some situations where you know it's a good idea to do it. Dean: Yeah, that's exactly right. How much of your time is spent brainstorming and sketching and thinking, like, working out an idea for a thinking tool or the content for a book? Because I imagine that's kind of where it all begins. Right, you're coming to the table, yeah, with the idea this is the book I'm to write, and how much of it is you, uh, I'm really curious about, like because I've discovered you know, my power verbs as part of our discussion through the joy of procrastination. But what would be? Do you have time like that where you're? Do you have a notebook that you use, or do you sketch, or do you know? Dan: I'm pretty much um. I'm pretty much a fast filter person, so yes, uh I get the idea and then I go through and I say this is the best result, worst result, and here's the five success criteria. Dean: And by the time I finish. Dan: By the time I finish, the first fast filter I'm launched and then it's right into the introduction, the chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, you know. So yeah but I was talking to a new member of genius network. A great family actually, a father and two sons all joined and it's called the pompa method and it's, you know, getting rid of all the metals in your body and everything. You're living with mold and everything else and so much of sickness comes from heavy metals in your bloodstream and it comes from very, very serious negative impacts of having mold in your house and I think you would be more in danger of that than we would here in toronto. I think florida's can be sort of damp, you know things. I would say that uncared for physical things in Florida deteriorate pretty fast, don't they? Dean: Yes. Dan: And anyway, and he didn't really know me at all, like there was no prior knowledge, when we met and I started talking and he says you know, I'm doing everything well, but not writing books. And he says I have some sort of block to the book. And I said do you have a book in mind? And he says, yeah, I've got notes and notes. And I said you know, the easiest solution to writing your one big book is not do that. What you want to do is write 100 books. Dean: Right. Dan: Yes, right, yes, book. And he says, well, how do I think about that? And I says, well, do you have a good chapter already? If you were going, to write a good chapter in your you know. You know it's a good idea, it's one chapter, it's one idea. Could you write a book on one idea. And he said yeah, but I've got so much more to say. I said I know you got we all do. I said we all got a lot more to say, but we don't have to say everything right now. We can say one thing right now and I showed him one of my books and he said, oh my God, oh my God, but it's so short. And I said yeah, and you can read it in an hour. Dean: I said it's big type too. Dan: It's 14 point type and it's Helvetica, very easy to read. And it's got lots of subheads. You could get the meaning of the book if you just read the subheads. If you didn't read all the text. Just read the subheads and the titles. You could get the meaning of the book, or you could read the cartoons or you could listen to the audible or you could watch the videos, know everything else. And it was like he, it was like a religious conversion. And he says, oh my god, I've got so much things that could become small books. And I said, yeah, the ebook. Research indicates that if your book is less than 60 pages, you'll'll get 85% complete readership out of it. Dean: Mine are 44. Dan: I only have 44 pages in a book and so, going back to your question, I don't have to do much brainstorming because I've done the same format over now. We're just completing number 38. Dean: Yes. Dan: I totally know One of the big problems of writing a book for the first time. Well, how long is it going to be? Dean: and what are the? Dan: chapters going to be. I know it's got an introduction, it's got eight chapters and it's got a conclusion, and then it's got a little section on the program in Strategic Coach. And then it's got a little section on the program in Strategic. Dean: Coach. Dan: So that's why I like repeating good formats, because you're not doing all this guessing. What's it going to look like? I know, I mean, I know what it's going to look like, I know how long it's going to be, I know what the pages are going to look like I know that. So that forces people to procrastinate and stop and everything else, and I've removed all that execution complexity right up front. And then I've got nine other people who are responsible for the finished product Right right yeah, and. I've got deadlines for them. Dean: The deadlines. Dan: You know they're already in the schedule. Basically it's a two-month project to get the book finished and all my deadline dates are in the schedule. They're just presented to me. These are the deadlines I said okay. I'm cool. So see, I'm being managed by other people's schedules and that takes a lot of the uncertainty on my part out of the way. Dean: Yeah, you know, what's funny is I've been thinking about my, because I'm very reliable in synchronous and scheduled things Meeting deadlines and meeting deadlines. Yeah, I'm never, you're never late, you're never unprepared. That's exactly right. That's why synchronous and scheduled for sure I would say you're never unprepared chat at somebody's event or as a guest on somebody's podcast, where I don't have to prepare what I'm going to talk about. I do it in the thing and that's why having the format that I've chosen for my More Cheese, less Whiskers podcast is the guest, is the focus, and I've been preparing for this conversation with them for 30 years and I bring all of that with it. I don't have to think about it ahead of time. So synchronous and scheduled, 100% gets done and it's right in my go zone. What I have been thinking about is if there were a way to think about signing myself to. Have you ever heard the term an FSO contract? It's in the entertainment business. People will contract with a entertainer's company for services of Dan Sullivan. So it'd be entering into a contract with strategic coach FSO Dan Sullivan and that would be a really interesting thing. If I had a way of thinking about myself, detached from myself, as a thing that I could tap into for services of Dean Jackson, it would be an interesting you know, I'm just applying it to myself. Dan: I don't trust the guy to show up Right, exactly, that's the thing He'll be on the way and he'll see something interesting. And then, yeah, you know you have to track him down. It's too much work, you know but I'm like you I'm very reliable as it comes to you know, you know commitments to other people. I'm very reliable. So I said and it's not work for me to do that. So you know, I just never, ever want to disappoint you know, I just never ever. Yeah, and but when I'm just dealing with myself, well it's, it's really loosey goosey, you know. Dean: Right. Dan: Yeah, He'll find some excuse, you know, you know he's very slippery. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah, the neighbor's dog ate the homework. You know, you know, he's very slippery. Yeah, yeah, the neighbor's dog ate the homework you know, everything like that. Yeah, and I I put myself in the gap when I'm doing that, but what I've done is, over the years I've made things I'm really intensely interested in public offerings, in other words, I'm presenting it to an audience and I just things that I'm really intensely interested in. I've connected now with making money. Dean: Right. Dan: And you know, the making of money really makes things official. Dean: Yes, yeah, so yeah, very, I mean it's taken a long time. Dan: I mean, I'm not saying this, was you know, but more and more as I've gotten lazier. Dean: Right. Dan: Anything that I'm actually interested in doing better make money. Right right right, isn't that funny. Dean: That's still the motivator, even though as time goes on 1600s, early 1700s. Dan: He said the making of money is probably the most innocent thing that humans can engage themselves, involve themselves with. He said making money it's really clean, you know it's sort of a really clean activity and there's an exchange and you feel a real sense of accomplishment and achievement. You know, there's just something about something where it has to be good for both sides. It's got a much higher energy impact to it. Dean: It's good for me, it's good for them, and it's not just double the pleasure, it's 10 times the pleasure yeah, and I mean, you know the nice thing about it is that to do it sustainably, there has to be a durable exchange of value. You know it has to be. Yeah, that's what's so? That's what I mean. That's what's so clean about it. Right Is everybody wins yeah. I love that. That's what I love about marketing, you know, is that it's just such a great. I feel really great about being a connector in businesses who can really add value to people and getting the message out to the people who can need that value as much as possible. Dan: And you know the thing is, it's actually the creation of something new, that didn't exist and then, once the exchange has been happened, it exists something new has been created and you know, and it's a, it's kind of proof that you're real. Yes, right, right it's a, it's kind of proof that you're real. Yes, right, right, you know, I mean you have people involved in various you know involvement of psychiatric treatment and you know they said, well, I don't know if the world is real, I don't know if I'm real, and I said well, if you're only asking your opinion, it's going to be hard to pin down. Dean: Yeah, right on. Dan: You have to get some proof from someone who's not you that you know that what you do is valuable. Dean: Yeah, yeah, that's what the that's the true, that's the great thing about capitalism, you know is that it's? Voluntary. It's voluntary, right yeah? Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was watching. You know the Shark Tank guy. He's Canadian, kevin O'Leary. Yeah, yeah, I was seeing him and he was saying he was just telling the protesters on the campus that it's being noted in the job market who these people are and they don't realize the price that they're paying and they have masks. And he said, doesn't matter, we're picking up your eyeballs. He said that every single person who was involved in the january 6th you know the- yes they. Within about two months, they knew who every individual was and where he was, because the technology is now so good. And he said. They're being used at the university campuses by the police and everybody else and every one of you who's upsetting campus life and is doing that, it's noted that you were doing this and if your resume tries to present you're a different person from who you are in the student protest, doors just will be closed to you. You will never get any direct message that you were in the protest, but you'll notice over the 10 years after you go to college and go out in the marketplace that you don't have much opportunity and it's a really good talk. Because he says you think there's no cost to this. There's a big cost to this talk. Because he says you think there's no cost to this, there's a big cost to this. And he says you think you're inflicting the cost on someone else. I have to tell you, over 10 years the cost will be inflicted on you. And I just thought it was a neat little talk. Dean: Yeah, he's a pretty smart guy, I mean just like as a philosopher, you know. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah and anyway, but I found it interesting that you know this rears up every once in a while. It's a bit like a fever, you know that. But this is very well planned. All these students have been in training for the before they actually show up as a protest. They've been in training by, you know, by activists. You know trainers and the activists who train them are never there. They train them and then you know they're off camera and you know they're tracking down the money sources. These people are being paid, you know. I mean they're actually being paid to do this and everything like that you know and everything like that. But it's an interesting thing how it's harder and harder to do things in secret these days. Dean: I was just thinking that, like back in, you know the fifties and sixties, seventies, eighties, even. You know everything now is is on, everything is on camera. You have to assume that you're every move. Dan: Yeah, they're probably you know, communicating with other people on social media. You know they're yeah they're not just doing this in quiet, for right five, six, five, six days in a row, I mean they what got them out, you know, into the movement was probably social media. Hey, we're going to do this and nothing else. And you should come to a meeting and we're going to do this. And you know, I think late teens and early 20s people don't think too much about that, you know, they don't really think that it shows up. But we're, you know, in our company, we really do extensive social media searches when we have a job, you know, a job applicant. Dean: Oh, you do, oh yeah, deep dive. Dan: Yeah, yeah, deep dive. We had one woman and she came in and you know where our cafe is in the. Toronto office. And she came in and she was sitting out in the, you know, in the reception area and something about her just caught my attention. And then she came in and she was just perfectly done up, you know, I mean her clothes were great. Dean: And. Dan: I watched her as she went through the cafe back to Babs' office and I said she's just too perfect. I said there's something wrong here. And afterwards she left and they were saying, boy, what a resume. She has a resume and everything else. I said there's something too perfect about her. I said I get the sense that something's off about her. So they went searching and they found out that she had a whole separate life as a burlesque dancer. Oh really, wow, that didn't show up. That didn't show up. And she even had a you know like a brand name for who she was in her other work. She had a completely you know and she was in clubs and they're sort of not public clubs and everything like that and not that there's anything wrong with being a burlesque dancer If that's your, you know. I mean, I mean it's not really my, you know my favorite form of entertainment. But you know, but the fact is that she hid the other part of her life, and that's the sense that I got. There's something too perfect about her. There's another side of her that's not being seen, so it will be discovered. If you have another life besides the one that you're presenting, it will be, discovered. Yeah, there's no hiding now, right yeah, and the simple way is just be who you are. Dean: Ah, that's exactly right, that digital split. Yeah, and the simple way is just be who you are. Ah, that's exactly right, that digital split. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, and the people that we really have long-term relationships with invariably are people who just do they. There's not another them. Right, yes exactly Right, right, right yeah. So anyway, did you learn anything about the way I approach things? Dean: I did. I mean, I think that's you know your organizing context. Like you know, I've been thinking about it in this terms of imagine, if you applied yourself, you know, and this is the applied portion of things and it sounds like your, the fast filter is the gateway into the applied world, right it's? yeah that's that starts. That makes it real because you're making it up and then you're making it real with a fast filter, yeah. And then that, when presented to your project manager or one of your project managers, you know you use the term, you know I mean executive function. Dan: You know you're lacking in executive function. I don't think that's true. I think, from a creative standpoint, you retain a lot of total executive function. I think what I've completely delegated to other people is management function. Dean: Yeah right. Dan: It's not executive function, it's executive execution function. I've got the starting execution, but then there's got to be a handoff. Starting execution. But then there's got to be a handoff and after the making it up stage then I have to hand it off to other people. Dean: I used to try to do the management function and I'm just no good at it. Yeah, and you know you're. The thing about the quarterly book is a. You know that's a viable construct. You know that's a durable context, that you're 38 quarters into a hundred quarter adventure, you know yeah, yeah, and that you know. So there's that sort of rhythm, contextual rhythm, that sticks with it. Dan: Yeah, yeah, that sticks with it. Dean: Yeah, yeah. Dan: It's kind of a future time commitment. You know, like I'm not, I'm 40% through a 25-year project, so that means I've got, you know, I've got 2039, that I hit At the end of 2039, I hit quarter number 100, you know yeah right, and you know, and that gives me an incentive to make sure you're there. Yeah, right, exactly. Oh, that's so funny. Whatever it's going to take, make sure you're there, because you know it won't do if it's just 95. Dean: Right, yeah, no, that's exactly right. I love it. Well, I found this very it sounded very interesting. I appreciate it and I'm very excited about table 10 reunion. Yes, so I'll set that up on the 15th or whatever. Dan: Yeah, you know what I'll do is. I'll say to the Maitre D just for today, can this be table 10? Dean: Yes exactly. Dan: It's only table 10 when Dean and Dan are there, that's exactly right. Dean: I know exactly where the table is, no matter what we call it, it's still there. I mean it's still there, I'm going to put it in Dan at 1130 on the 15th Perfect Table 10. Table 10. Dan at 11.30 on the 15th Perfect Table 10. Table 10. I like that. Dan: All right. Dean: Okay, thank you, so much Are we on next week Yep. We'll be back from Nashville Perfect. Dan: Yeah, we get back on Saturday, so this is great. Dean: Perfect. Dan: Well. Dean: I'm sorry I'm going to miss the big birthday bash, but I'm sure it'll be wonderful and we'll have exciting things to talk about next week. Yeah. Dan: Yeah, good. Dean: Thanks Dan. Dan: Okay, bye.

In today's episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, Dan and I discuss the paradox of achieving more through minimal effort. Exploring concepts like the 'Crucial ABC Questions' and the 80/20 rule, we uncover how sometimes the best approach is to simply stand still—how inaction itself can be a powerful strategy. We share insights into the transformative nature of strategic scheduling and how it can liberate our lives from daily logistical burdens. By entrusting details to others and focusing only on meaningful tasks, forward-thinking time management elevates our experience and enables richer collaborations. Touching on varied successes, we reflect on the diverse challenges public figures face and the support networks shaping their approaches. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We explore the concept of achieving more by doing less, focusing on the 'Crucial ABC Questions' to isolate growth problems and find their least-effort solutions. Dan and I discuss how inaction can sometimes be the most effective action, particularly when it leads to strategic delegation and efficiency. We delve into the 80/20 principle, highlighting how focusing on the 20% of efforts that yield 80% of the results can enhance productivity. Strategic scheduling is presented as a tool for life liberation, allowing individuals to indulge in what truly matters by delegating logistics to others. We share personal stories and insights on how public figures manage their time and the impact of their support systems on personal and professional growth. I share my approach to problem-solving by considering whether inaction could solve the problem or what is the least effort required to achieve the goal. We highlight the significance of having others manage your structured calendar to allow for freedom of choice and richer life experiences. Reflecting on success and fame, we examine how various degrees of support systems and self-reliance influence celebrities' lives and careers. Strategies for entrepreneurs on managing time and maximizing productivity include asking key questions to reduce time spent on issues and preparing for future growth. We discuss the importance of personal routines and structure in providing a sense of security and time management, and the philosophy of avoiding unnecessary risks. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan, Dan: Mr Jackson. Dean: There we are Back again. Dan: I have a question for you. Dean: Okay. Dan: Are there any problems you're solving today by doing nothing? Dean: Yeah, I love it. It's like a paradox. You know, I had a great time at our workshop this week going through that, the exercise. I've been thinking a lot about it, actually, like I really have over the last several days. I've been writing a lot of things and so I could share some of the things, but yeah, I'd like to hear one. Okay, so let's preface it. I love, by the way, how our podcast is really just one continuous conversation that we jump right into everywhere. Dan: Last one, so for anybody listening. Dean: Let me try and take my shot at explaining your. What do you call the tool? What do you call the thinking tool? Dan: The crucial ABC questions. Dean: The crucial ABC questions. So my understanding of it, having you explain it to me and having gone through the exercise, is that there are some number of goals or obstacles or things that you want to do. Dan: And I call them growth, I call them growth problems. Growth, In other words you have plans for growing something in your business life? For your personal life. But there is a problem. And I like the way, if you solve the problem, then the growth happens. Dean: Yeah, I like the way of thinking about a problem not as an emotional negative thing but as a math proposition. You know something that there is a solution, and that's really what we're looking for here. The problem, finding the problem is really the biggest, the biggest path to getting the solution. Dan: Yeah, you know you mentioned a math problem. That's like multiplication five times X equals 20. Right, okay. If you figure out what X is, then you have the. If you figure out what's relationship is between five and 20, then you've got a solution to the problem and you grow. Dean: I like that. So I think that the preface of identifying the problem you got to have a problem, so identifying the problem and isolating it to one particular thing can be a multi variable problem, you know. But one of the one of the variables of the problem is then to ask yourself is there any way I could accomplish this? By doing nothing, yeah? I think, that's really a great thing. Is there any way I could accomplish this by doing nothing? Dan: And. Dean: I think that alone, you know, is a really good way of doing, of thinking, because it lets you think about, you know, just as a solution. Is there a way to do this with doing nothing? Then, once you acknowledge that in 99 times out of 100, the answer is going to be no, yeah, that you then move on to be, which is what's the least that I could do to accomplish this or to solve this. Yeah, really, I'm a big fan of the. I'm a big fan of, you know, everything fits into the stand. The 80% approach is a great way of thinking about this. Could I get most of what I'm looking for with 80% of this. And you know the corollary to that 80, 20 and what's the 20? 20% of this to get 80% of the result. I think that's a really good. I think thinking paths that opens up for you and then see the magic is is there a? Who could do my minimum? I think that is the ultimate. That's the. You know we identified it as the. That's the way to. That's the way to pray while you're smoking versus smoking while you're praying. Dan: Yeah, yeah. Dean: I'll tell that again because I you told it on our last podcast but I've been thinking of all sorts of different applications of the smoking and praying yeah, the way I heard it was gentlemen goes to see the priest and asks him you know, is it, can I smoke? Well, I'm praying, and the pastor or the priest says well, you know, prayer is supposed to be a reverential thing and you should come with reverence. And so, no, I would say you shouldn't smoke while you're, while you're praying and anyway, and it came back several weeks later and within conversation, was asked go father, when should I pray? And the father says well, the Bible says you should pray without ceasing, should be in constant prayer and communion. And he says, so, should I pray while I'm gardening? Because, yes, being in nature and being with being present, you should definitely pray. Should I pray while I'm walking? Well, yes, you should pray while you're walking. Can I pray while I'm smoking? It's so funny simple syntax change that gets you to the outcome completely different than when you presented. Dan: It's a totally contextual yeah it's a totally contextual change, and so, going back to the three questions, so the first one is the way I can solve this, by doing nothing. If there's something you have to do, then what's the least you have to do. And if there's a least that you have to do. Is there someone who can do your least for you, with the result that you're solving the problem by doing nothing? Yeah but it's an interesting thing. Well, what's changed in your mind? I mean, when you put the three questions together, because this really starts with a conversation that created the entire podcast series that we've been doing for quite a long time? We've done quite a number of years We've done I think this is. The total is about 215. So this is episode 215 of our never-ending conversations, but it originally came back from my appealing. I just dropped a line when we were at a restaurant, los Select in Toronto and I said you know, I've been thinking about procrastination, and procrastination is an avoidance of something that really you're exhibiting. You're actually exhibiting wisdom because you know from your entire history of what works and doesn't seem to be working. The goal you have here, when you say this needs to be done, and you say, well, how am I going to do that? Well, the goal is an appropriate thing, it's exciting, it motivates you know it motivates some kind of action. It's just that you're not the one who's supposed to actually be doing the thing that you want. So it relates directly back to procrastination. Dean: I think, I think that it's in the same family, same root, yeah. Dan: It's a sense of family resemblance Exactly. Dean: Well, so I'll tell you the evolution of my thinking around. It is, you know, lillian is coming by today, lillian my assistant, and so I mentioned to you that one of the ways that I've been kind of applying this thinking is in my eating, in my meals. And you know I went to the process of with Jay Virgin, you know, we kind of outlined some great meal choices, 10 kind of power meals for me that are available here in Winterhaven through Grubhub and Uber Eats to be delivered. And I discovered the pre-arranged delivery you can arrange, you know, up to four days ahead that they will deliver at certain times. And so I've taken that was cut to the point of if I take that, if I want to eat great meals, is there any way I could do nothing about this? Well, there's not really any way because you have to arrange and eat the meals right. So what's the least that I could do and that led me to the pre-arranged things in combination of those meals, and factor my factor 75, that I've got some meals that arrive at my house once a week and they're very easy. They just, you know, require a couple of minutes to eat up, but they're perfectly portioned, already done, and delicious and nutritious and ready to go. And so my next level, thinking of this now from spurred from our conversation this week at in our FreeZone workshop, was to think okay, can I, is there a way I could have my portion of this done by someone? And so Lillian and I are going to experiment this week with her pre-arranging the meals to be to arrive at 12 o'clock and six o'clock, so mainly the 12 o'clock one that I that needs to arrive, because typically I use, I do, the factor meal for dinner. But that's going to be the experiment this week is here's the 10 meals. Dan: I don't really care. Dean: I don't really care which one it is, but let's rotate through them and at 12 o'clock something delicious will arrive at my doorstep without me having to do anything but eat the meal and I think that's, I think that's going to be my workaround for not having to, you know, really not having to do anything but eat. Dan: So does the? You have the 12 o'clock meal and the six o'clock meal. Are they different every day? Well, you got a map. If you just are talking about different combinations of two, and you basically have 20 things to work with, the combinations are in the thousands. Dean: Yes, that's exactly right. I think that's true. And it doesn't really it doesn't. There's no duds. You know I order, like the. I order six meals from Factor. So there's six days of the. You know six of those meal options I order from Factor and there's usually 30 plus meals to choose from. So I do have some favorite ones that and sometimes they're different and each week there are 30, but there's probably they probably rotate in you know several different ones Like yeah, so I'll see which ones I really which ones I like, and I may even be able to with a little bit of coaching. Thank you for reminding me of that. Then I'm going to look at that and see there's only so many variations. I'll just tell Lillian which factor ones I don't like. Dan: Yeah, but it's enormous the number of combinations because you're and there's actually, if you go on the internet, there's things that'll give you the different combinations. Like it'll give the different numbers you know, and it's a lot, it's really. It's really. I'm not sure it's over a thousand, but it's certainly in the hundreds. You know which. Dean: I'm very excited about the. So I'm very excited about that possibility, you know, because that's going to free up and I think there's something you know it's a great analog for everything. The next thing I've been doing is taking that and applying it to my content creation. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And I was just this morning going through the process of, you know, really getting to the point of what my, what is my core thing that I really like to do. So I'll say I'll talk a little bit more about that, but let's explore what you were saying. Dan: Yeah, let's go you know the interesting thing about bringing Lillian into the, you know, into the process we have a caterer who caters the meals for our workshops. So then, they could say 18 or 19 years. You know, and yeah, and my rule is any meal for the catering can be you can. You know, you can make the meals for the clients anything you want to think, but there has to be chicken, turkey chili, chicken chili. Right, right Then there has to be some kind of coleslaw and there should be some parmesan cheese, right? So my variation from day to day is which do I put in the bowl? First the parmesan cheese, the chili or the coleslaw, regardless of what else is on the food line? But then he makes our meals for Babzame at home, and this is lunches and dinners the same setup that you have, and it's really interesting because there's about it probably rotates. The salads have a variation, maybe three or four different kinds of salads, like. What's really interesting is the entrees, and they could vary. Let's say, there's 12 variations, 12 variations, and I never know what's coming for today, tomorrow or the next day. So something familiar, something we like, something we've had before, and then every once in a while he throws in a new one, right? So my sense, with Lillian doing the ordering it adds a little bit of surprise. Yeah, a little surprise, because you're saying, yeah, I wonder what's going to show up today. Yeah, you know, and it won't be the same as yesterday and it won't be the same as tomorrow. Right, and so I think it adds a little variety to certainty. Dean: What it removes is discretion. It removes variation and room for you know if it's all within this band. You get variety, but it's all from an approved playlist. Dan: You know, yeah, On a completely different, on a completely different, a completely different dimension. The way my year works. I don't like scheduling. Dean: Right. Dan: Okay, I don't like being responsible for scheduling. I don't want to be responsible for other people scheduling, so I work, and I've worked with a series of managers who do the various activities and my, you know really great EA Echamiller. Dean: Okay. Dan: And so, if you look at my entire year, I have 210 work days. Okay, so let's just talk about the work days 200. I have 100 and I have let me just think this 100, 250. 250, 250, 250. And 210 work days, which include both focus days and buffer days. Yeah, and 155 free days 155 free days, which adds up to 365. This year I've got a sort of an anxious decision to make because there's one extra day. I'm feeling the I'm feeling the pressure. I'm feeling the pressure that extra day in February. I'm oh geez. You know what will I do with it. You know it's eating me. It's eating me, dean. Dean: Well, you're going to be, is that? Are you going to be in Palm Beach then? Dan: Geez, I don't know. You know because I'm told where to show up. What is? The date of Palm Beach. You know, you know you're defeating me. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Dean: Oh yeah, but I will be told when to go. You will be in Palm Beach, dan, of course. So, no for the summit. That's what I mean. I mean I will be in Palm Beach for that extra day. Well, 29th is when the extra day is I mean the extra. Dan: There's an extra day in February but the truth is 366 days in the year. Dean: So you know, I understand. That's the symmetry, the elegance of it being that February. Dan: Well, that's taken care of them. Dean: We can have a super happy fun day. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a day when I'm responsible for nothing. Dean: I think we should see if we can work to do that together that day. That would be a very nice day. Dan: Yeah Well see, just by expressing the problem life, I've solved it. Dean: Yeah. I think, that's probably a great idea. Dan: Is there any who can do my least effort here? You did it for me. So thank you very much, yeah, anyway, but the whole point is, my whole year looks like this it's all scheduled by other people, and so I have a right of refusal on this, and I have a right of free arrangement. My whole schedule from January 1st to the end of December is scheduled, and then there's free spaces. Every focus day has some free space in it. Every buffer day has free space in it. And then as far as the free days go, it doesn't specify too much of the activities, except things that have to be scheduled ahead of time things that have to be chosen ahead of time, like dinner engagements, but that's all done. I mean that's all done. So what would happen in Toronto? I'd be in the cottage. I wouldn't be in Chicago, because Chicago is strictly a work trip and everything We'll be down in Palm Beach. It won't be just for the conference. We'll have a day before and a day after, and going to Phoenix next week, I'm going to Argentina the next week and everything but everything that needs to be scheduled ahead of time is scheduled by someone else, arranged by someone else, so it allows me just to show up, but all these scheduled things are what I've said, that I want to do, or together, babs and I want to do. And then somebody else works out the scheduling and the arrangements and everything that's needed, putting transportation together, and it just allows me to move from day to day without the pressure of indecision. Have I scheduled that? And I can't believe the number of people who are incredibly successful who are still scheduling their own things. I just can't believe. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this at this point? And they say, well, I don't like someone else telling me what to do. Dean: And. Dan: I says they're not telling you what to do. They're saying this is what you wanted to do and we made the arrangement for you. Dean: Yeah, exactly Great. I mean that's really. I'm laughing, dan, but for years that's been me. I mean I've been resistant to scheduling my take on. I mean it was right in my declaration of independence, kind of thing my freedom charter is my number one way of defining success has been I wake up every day and say what would I like to do today. I realize now that I've missed out on a lot, because it could be so much better if I were to just change one word is I wake up every day and say what would I like to do tomorrow. The future. Dan: I mean, that's really, that's the better, that's the real freedom. Yeah, you just changed smoking and praying. Dean: Yes, that's exactly what. I did, dan is because you're limited by what you can arrange. When your choice is today, when you're waking up and saying what would I like to do today, you're limited by what's available for the day, whereas if I say what would I like to do tomorrow, and tomorrow being an operative word for not today but in the future, what could I arrange today? That's really you know what it's the difference, dan. It's the difference between having conversation like this six weeks before February 29 and coming to the conclusion that, hey, it's a possibility that we can have a super happy, fun day and maybe we can make that happen for us. But if I were to wait until February 29 and wake up and say, what would I like to do? That I'd like to spend the day with Dan, I were to call you on any one of those days and say, hey, what are you doing today? The odds of us being able to spend that day together are slim to none. Dan: Yeah. Yeah, you mentioned your declaration of independence. But I said, if you're severely constrained by the lateness of your, you know, identifying something and getting ready for it, it's really not a great life. It certainly doesn't sound like liberty and it doesn't sound to me like you can pursue happiness. Dean: That's the truth. Yeah, it's really. I mean. Dan: Yeah, it's an interesting thing and, as you know from previous conversations and that I was bound in my late teenagers that I was going to go into theater, okay, and I'll say I dabbled with it for about five years. You know I actually was involved in the theater at, you know, an amateur level. I was involved with it but you know, I was in maybe 10 productions and one role or another. And the big thing that you begin to realize by the entertainment world is that people become stars. And I'm going to say two factors are here. They become stars because they are increasingly freed up from doing anything except entertain you know they're completely afraid of. And I'll say the other factor the reason they want to be a star is because they don't have to do anything except entertain. So there's both an effect and a cause there, but they're exactly the same. They're motivated not to have to do that. And I was reading once about, you know, moving in baseball from the minor leagues to the major leagues the top minor league is a huge jump to the major leagues and I consider sports a form of entertainment, so I'm relating it back to the same conversation. Okay, and the. I remember the shortstop, you know, and there was a year when about 12, 12 shorts in the major leagues came from the same town in the Dominican Republic and it's apparently short. It's the world center of major league shortstops. Dean: Okay, world head club, uh-huh. Dan: And you know, through a translator, because he doesn't speak English through a you know an interviewer asked him what do you notice, the biggest difference, biggest difference of being in the major leagues? And he said I don't have to wash my own laundry. He said I don't have to carry my own bags. Dean: Yes, I love that you know it was something, something a very similar conversation with someone this week who was I talking to about this I think I was talking more, I was having a conversation with Taki about that this week that thinking about, you know, pro sports like thinking about the athletes and the you know, thinking about the structure of the NFL, for instance, if I were an NFL quarterback, that there's very little that an NFL quarterback has to do other than bring themselves to be to perform on the day, right, that there's all of the everything else. Talk about, you know not having to do the carry your own bag or wash your laundry or anything like that. There's a very, very structured way of the of an NFL week. It's broken up into, you know, 16 weeks kind of thing, right as the main thing, and each week starts with a very organized structure and flow to the week where there are free days and focus days and buffer days. Of course Sunday is the big focus day that everybody you're ready for that. But you know Monday they I saw a you know week in the life of a NFL player and so Monday they watch film and get treatment for you know, their injuries or whatever you know body recovery kind of things. Tuesday is an off day, a free day. Wednesday is right back to practice, and Wednesday, thursday, friday, same Saturday is a travel day if they're going to you know a new city or whatever. And then Sunday is game day and everything is all 100% organized around them. There's lots of exoskeleton and lots of scaffolding to keep that. And a lot of hoos, a lot of hoos and mentioning Tataki, like the difference between that and professional tennis or golf even. You know there's some structure around the tournaments, but the individuals you know you're responsible for everything. You know it's all self directed and it's completely meritocracy. There's no signing a 10 year max contract in tennis. You have to win every week in order to win. You know, and I thought that's really. You know, it's really. I could probably do some therapy about my life choices, of why you know choosing tennis and golf as sports as opposed to continuing with team sports. You know. Dan: Yeah, I think the big thing I had a phrase because I actually went to see Frank Sinatra back in, you know back in the 70s. Dean: And. Dan: I came up with this line. One of the things you notice about Frank Sinatra right off the bat is Frank Sinatra does not move pianos. Right, Exactly oh that's so funny, you know he's got a whole team that comes in the day before sets up everything you know. I mean there's with a performance like Frank Sinatra there's literally dozens of people who are specialized, people that handle his whole trip, his whole lodging you know, and everything Great stars, taylor Swift to bring it up to the present moment. Dean: I mean she's probably got an army. Dan: She's probably got an army of people. You know, and uh 55 trucks to you know to bring the entire you know the entire physical set, the entire physical set, including the technology, and yes, and, and everything else, yeah, and. But you can see the difference to me. I remember Keith Richard Richard's of the. Is it Richard or Richard, keith? Dean: Richards. Dan: Yeah, richard. Keith Richards made a documentary film on Chuck Berry who so many of the 60s you have to remember that the stones started in the 1960s and he made a documentary film on Chuck Berry and it was a bit of. Keith Richards described it. He says it was a bit of total, almost admiration and worship for the musical skills of Chuck Berry but at the same time almost a sense of disappointment and kind of resentment towards Chuck Berry because he never built any kind of structure around him. Okay, thank you. And so he did this documentary for him that sort of traced him from his very poor, poor beginnings in the St Louis area and you know, and then. But he never. He went big simply because of his talent and the you know, the media for spreading his talent through the airwaves. And he became famous, but he never really took advantage of it. He really took it. You know he was playing that county fairs and everything throughout his career. Okay, but he inspired maybe hundreds or thousands of people who became successful in music just because of the sheer wizardry of his. You know his songs, his voice, you know his ability to play a guitar and everything else. So they did it and there was Bruce Springsteen was saying that he was like an 18 year old or 19 year old and was a, you know, got a really lucky gig at a fair in Pennsylvania county fair or something like that and as backup to Chuck Berry and he was just amazed. So they all got there about five, six hours. All the musicians got there five or six hours. And you know, four, five, four hours, chuck Berry's not there. Three hours Chuck Berry's not there. One hour Chuck Berry's not there. 20 minutes before the presentation, chuck Berry comes in, ignores the musicians, goes in to see the manager and comes out with a bag that's got his money in it in cash and then he just starts tuning those instruments. And finally Bruce Springsteen goes up to Chuck Berry and says Mr Berry. He says yes, boy. He says what are we going to play? He says what do we going to play, boy? We're going to play Chuck Berry music. That was his prep. Dean: That was his prep yeah. Dan: The name of that movie. Dean: I need to watch that because. Dan: No, just plug in. Keith Richards, yes, Just his you know documentary on Chuck Berry. He'll come up with it. But there's a great scene near the end of the movie where they go back to a theater in St Louis where, when he was growing up, chuck Berry had to sit in the balcony because he was black. It was, you know, wasn't segregated, that they couldn't go to the theater, but they had to sit in a certain section where they didn't have drinking fountains and didn't really have bathrooms, you know. And then they put on an actual performance in that theater as part of the documentary and it just shows the complete circle of him, starting when he couldn't be in the main part of the auditorium, certainly couldn't be on stage, and then being the star, and, but one of the things, they went and visited his home, which he had and this had, you know, his entire life. I think it may have been his parents home, but he had the home and it was pristine. You know it was beautifully kept up, not a, not a, you know, a rundown part of town, but not in a rich part of town either. It was you know sort of a modest house and everything you know, everything was kept up. It was you know, it was nothing rundown about it. And he was just taken through the house and they went to a door and he opened the door and their shelf on both sides were paint cans and paint brushes. And Keith Richards said what's this? He says well, you know, sometimes I didn't have gigs all the time, so I was a house painter. He says I paint houses. Wow, he says yeah, but yeah, but you know, that's in the past. That's in the past. He says why do you still keep? You know the brushes were fresh, the cans were cans. He says why are you keeping that round and check where? He says well, you never know. Dean: Oh, you never know. Wow, I would have to watch this. That sounds fascinating. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I love things like that, so that's really I think that'll be a good find. Good Now, I know what I'm in. Dan: Yeah, it's just a really, but he didn't believe in who's you know he just didn't believe in who's you know? Is there a way I can solve this problem with doing nothing. No, well, yeah, is there a? Way of solving the problem of too much fame and success without doing. Without doing anything? Dean: Yes, yeah, right, right, right. I mean wow, I mean yeah, I'm fascinated that I haven't heard about this before. So I almost like I just love that. Dan: Yeah, it's a long time ago. I mean, it's a long time ago. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Maybe something I saw 25 years ago. Dean: I remember it very distinctly. Dan: I remember it very distinctly yeah. Dean: So what has your insight been? In now, you know taking this out to the check writers as we say. What has been your experience? The reception of the ABC, thinking. Dan: Well, I think it's a very simple, what could very much be a daily tool, because things are always coming up which are things to be solved you? Know, and I mean so. For example, if you handle three of them today, the amount of time you thought you're going to have to spend on them has been severely reduced by simply asking the three questions Is there any way I can solve this by doing nothing. What's the least I have to do, and who could do my least? Well probably you were thinking that might take five or six hours and it probably takes 30 minutes. Okay, right. You know, it sort of takes 30 minutes, and I find usually the thing that the entrepreneur has to do is they have to communicate clear results for the right person, in other words, clear results to be achieved by the right person, with a clear understanding of why the projects were important and what are the measurable success factors of the project, which we call an impact filter. Dean: I was just going to say. If only there was an easy tool to convey that. Dan: There is one. It's called the impact filter, but if you handle that, then you've watched yourself probably four or five hours today which gives you time now to prepare for tomorrow. Okay. So you want to get yourself that you're not looking at today's growth problems. You're looking at tomorrow's growth problems, yes, okay. And you know, and what I've noticed with me is then that day I can put the. You know, this is a newly created tool, but before what I do is I can say okay, all clear and communicated about tomorrow, then I can move it another day in the future. And I keep buying myself days in the future by using this tool. I mean this has just occurred to me, you know, since I have one, as I created the tool for myself. And if it worked for myself, then there's a chance it'll work for the entrepreneurs. But then I have a full quarter now behind me of it working with the entrepreneurs and then I just move it more and more into the future. But I think it's you know, it'll already be in the client website for their tool inventory so that they'll be able to do it. But if you just had a habit of always the day before you're solving tomorrow's problems. I like that, that's when that really works over 25 years. Dean: Yeah, that's the consistency thing. Right is spending some time. What would I like to do tomorrow, and tomorrow being the operative for in the future? Yeah, I've been. I've been constantly evolving and experimenting on myself with different ways of organizing things like that, and you know, the gotten down to the plank, the pixel, the minimum unit of time being the 10 minute, the 10 minute unit where we have 110 minute units in a day, basically to up, deploy. And I've been following those hundreds all the way up right like so. 100 minutes is basically to 50 minute focus finders, which is the thing I have the most, that's, the most immediate control over right what am I doing in the next minutes about about this. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And then the 100, 100 hours is basically 8am Monday morning till noon on Friday, is basically 100 hours of time linearly. And that, you know, if I take that NFL type of structure of week, if you're looking at them that way, that's a big, that's a nice Focus. You know that that feels like that. And then a hundred days is Essentially a quarter, you know, looking at the things, with some little buffer in between them, you know, like giving room for some free days and things Aside, but, and a hundred weeks is really you can do almost anything in a hundred weeks, yeah. Dan: And so, yeah, I think that's the thing is I. I don't use my Apple watch for a lot of things, but the one thing I do is the timer and you know they have a timer app and my my favorite is 30 minutes you know, 30 minutes and and in other words, something may happen that requires a couple hours. I simply say what's going to get done over the next 30 minutes. Yeah, okay, and the thing that I find is true that if I didn't have that 30 minutes, when I look at what did get done over 30 minutes because I had the 30 minute framework, I Always get much more done in the 30 minutes, 30 minutes. Then I thought or I get 30 minutes worth of work done in 20 minutes. But if I didn't have the framework and it would always take me much, much more time, right because, I would take score, a score of commercial breaks. Dean: I know, and that's exactly true, right, like I do exactly the same thing. I've been thinking about what I really do, like my thing is running things through. I've been calling it the Deenatron 3000 that I've got the brain. There that I can operate right and yeah, if I treat it like a wood chipper, that I've got to feed stuff into it. They have it working. But I've got a. But the thing is to pile up. You know, like when I look at the things is to have the hopper loaded up with sequential. What is the? What are the next things that I'm going to do on that Stuff? You know, the 10 hours thing, what are the next 10 hours about? Because I noticed that the Deenatron 3000 doesn't really care what it's working on. It is very open to Suggestion, right, and that's why I would say that jumps yeah. Dan: I would just say that's true about the human brain and yeah. Dean: Generally as long as the brain really doesn't get. Dan: The brain wants to work on something and it does really care what it is. Yeah, it could be good or it could be bad. It does not care. It makes no moral distinctions. It makes you know. You know it Work on bad things just as with as much enthusiasm as working on good things. Dean: Yeah, it'll work on one thing the same way. It'll work on everything you know and if you're putting on the, you know, putting on some direction of it, feeding in, setting up a context for what it is that's Happening this hour, yeah, really, or this 30 minutes, that's, yeah. I think it's just adding, you know, a contextual Management layer in a way. Dan: Yeah, you know, it's like having not and then checking out if you're actually a manager. Dean: Yeah, right exactly. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I'm not a manager. I'm not either. Dan: I'm not a man manager, and you're not either you know I have to delegate Management, I mean. And the other thing is memory you know I delegate memory and I have. I always have someone with me. I remember there was a famous platform speaker, I think in the 90s, okay, and we were at Genius. We remain platform at genius. I'm pretty sure it was genius. It couldn't been the 90s, because genius didn't exist, it was some other. No, I think it was a big you know industry Conference and I was and I was on. I had been on before lunch and this guy joined me at lunch and and he was talking. You know, we should really work together and and so I was interested, you know, interested in the conversation, anything you know. Usually when somebody says we should work Together, usually means that he'd like me to work for him, you know. In any way, and so I just given my talk and I had my team of I didn't have team members, but there were clients Strategic coach clients at lunch with me and he was talking away and we were chatting everything and then all at once he looks at his watch and he says, oh my god, I'm on in three minutes I'm. And he says, here, I just will hand us a bill. He don't have to rake on a rush dog. And this guy was more famous than I was, I mean, as a platform speaker. He was times more famous than I was, but I had spoken in the morning at like 11 o'clock. I had had an hour and Someone came and got me at 9 o'clock and took me backstage and set there, you know. And we sat there and and I had three team members. I never traveled without three team members. Yeah, and the team members take care of arrangements and this person does that, you know, but I would never ever be. You know, just arriving. You know, just arriving, checkberry style. I would never just be arriving, I would already be there, I would already matter of fact, what I'd like to do with speeches is go out and talk to the members of the audience, because I Pick up. Q I pick up. Dean: Q's. Dan: You know, it's like Jay Leno who, if you got there. He was already there two hours ahead of time and he was chatting with you know, and he was just picking up material. Do you know what? Dean: Sorry but go ahead. I was gonna say, just on a similar thing, tony Robbins, who we were playing golf this is maybe ten years ago now, almost playing golf one day we're talking about I know I'm being successful when my declaration of it, we're talking about those things that you know, the number one thing, when I, you know, wake up every day and say what would I like to do the day, and Tony, when we were talking about it, he looked at me and he said dude, I don't have one of those days till March, and this was January, right, and his whole thing was a very different. He had that. He definitely had a what would I like to do tomorrow Approach to his life, because even in playing golf we were gonna. We were filming some video things for a program he was doing. So he arrived at my country club you know, two SUVs deep to six people and that you know assistants with assistants and the camera guys in the sound guy in the body, body guards. Yeah, the whole thing, and that is true, like I played golf with him in in In Fort Lauderdale he was done in Palm Beach, but I played golf with him and literally they arranged the, they arranged the tee time ahead of and behind and have a, you know, to Security ahead and behind that are following the, just following, you know, a hundred yards behind us at all times. Very funny, right by not just keeping these buffers around around whatever, a very different approach yeah it's whatever system he's required. Dan: But you know, I don't know. My feeling is timing and scheduling is idiotic and cratic. It's completely All in individual how an individual, what story they tell about their past and what story they're telling about their future. And that determines what the structure of today looks like that. So it's a structure and my, my sense is I don't, I never like being rushed. Dean: Okay, I always want to be. Dan: I always want to be prepared. Yeah and I don't like sudden surprises. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I really don't like sudden surprises and therefore, in order to Get that Structure around me, I give this, that same right, to all the people who work with me. They don't have to rush. There'll be lots of preparation before him. Then there'll be no surprises. It's very smooth, it's very calm. Everybody gets just to, gets to focus and you know, focus on what they're doing and then this just floats through time. This little system, you know, flows through time. Now, yeah, I deliberately played such a low key person throughout my career that I don't need security. Yeah yeah, yeah, and my, my sense of the sense of success Be as successful and well known as you can without requiring a security person. Dean: Right, yes, yeah. Warren versus Mark Zuckerberg. Dan: Well, Warren Buffett, you know he flies by himself. He flies by himself. You know he's just got his briefcase because he comes in and goes out the same day. And you know he's got a private jet and he gets picked up my limousine company is actually his limousine company when he comes into Toronto and he wants to sit in the front seat with the driver and he just gets to the driver all day and when he arrives at a place or someone's standing, you know they're standing on the curb, you know, yeah, on the sidewalk, and they take him in and he comes out, and you know pretty. You know, pretty much on time, and then he goes home. You know, you know he has his lunch with whoever and then goes home. Mark Zuckerberg has 24-hour security and the number of people involved. For him, his family and his chief officers is like 70. He's got like 70. He's got secret escape rooms, he's got tunnels and you know, and you know, I think, what your structure around you reflects, whether you think it's a safe world or a dangerous world. I think that's great. I think it's a safe world as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I know it's dangerous for others, but I don't feel, I don't feel, or I stay away from places that are dangerous. Right yeah, it's like somebody gets Arrested in Russia and then you know America's got this thing is. You know that the country will come to your rescue one way or another. And I said why are you in Russia? What? Why are you even visiting there? Dean: I went right. Dan: Yeah or China. I wouldn't go to China, you know, I would even go there you know it's like the joke about that. Dean: You know what my yeah, I heard about these guys that were, you know, died in a base jumping Accident. Right, and I said that's this one thing. I know with certainty that my tombstone will never say Died in a terrible base jumping accident. Dan: Yeah, what are those flying suits that people right? Dean: exactly yes, is that base jump? That's what I was talking about and I think it is called. You know, I don't know what it is, but the human flying suits, but that's what they do. They jump off they jump off a cliff and, basically, just like those, they float, they've got a parachute. They've got a parachute yeah. Dan: Yeah, and you know, I've seen videos of the ones where it worked. Yeah, yes exactly. They don't show you. They don't show you the other ones. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, why are you doing this? Yeah? Dean: I'm never gonna die in a park accident. Dan: Yeah, but I think it's, you know, different nervous system. You know, I think every nervous system is unique, you know, yeah, yeah, who's the guy who did in Yosemite Park there was a. It won the Academy Award and he did it with no ropes, you know, he just had his hands and feet. Dean: Oh. Dan: I don't know. Dean: Yeah, well, Linda Well. Dan: Linda, now that's a whole family. Dean: Yeah right rope workers. Dan: Now, this is the guy. He's a free climber. Oh, okay, right, right, and they all capitan is just a sheer cliff from top to bottom. You know, yeah, I think it's a couple thousand feet and anyway, and it usually takes climbers where they're using, you know, they're using the things that they drive into the rock and then they put the, you know, and they usually takes them A day and a half to do it, not you know, which requires that they stay overnight. They have to sleep right and that's you know and everything else. I think he did it top to bottom in about two and a half hours yeah. I just thought wow and he had a film crew at the bottom and at the top and that they were filming the film that became the you know the free solo. Dean: Was that what that was? Dan: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what, anyway, but he just went to top to bottom, okay, and her bottom to top and in a Insanely short period of time. But he told the film crew that they wouldn't get any money. He said I am, you're only getting half the money and you won't get the other half, that if I fall and kill myself you don't catch it on film. Wow you know, and they're kind of leaning out at the top. You know they have, you know they have wires in that that keep them safe, which requires a certain you know a certain amount of courage itself to do that the people at the top but thinking that the guy bait might fall. And yeah, everything you know and everything but different nervous system. I don't have that nervous system. Dean: Me neither, me neither. Dan: Well, we covered a lot of territory today. Dean: We really did yeah. There's a lot of nervous. Dan: There's a lot of nervous systems that couldn't do what we're doing. Dean: Where we go, exactly yeah. Dan: Yeah, well, what's the script here Script it's listening to. It's listening to what he says next. That's so funny. Well, what are you gonna say next? I don't know until he says it right, we know we're gonna start with. Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia. Yeah yeah, anyway very enjoyable. Dan: Always next week. I'm in just arriving in Argentina, so to be the weekend after yeah, I saw that we got a email from. Dean: I love that, you know. Becca and Lillian, just keep us on Triad ever. Dan: I just see it on. Dean: I don't even have to put the Podcasts with Dan on the calendar. What we put on the calendar is no podcast with Dan. Dan: That's the yeah, there's more uncertainty to that, isn't? Dean: there, that's exactly right. Dan: Yeah well. Dean: I'm excited about the possibility of the 29th. And oh, okay that present, but I think that would be fantastic. Okay, okay, thank you, Bye, thanks Bye.

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We discuss the chaotic nature of daylight savings time, including its agricultural origins and debate over its current usefulness. We examine the historical development of measurement systems, particularly the metric and imperial systems, and their impact on cultural standards. I share personal anecdotes about adapting to metric measurements in Canada and look forward to a trip related to a stem cell project in Buenos Aires. We delve into the dynamics of capitalism and intellectual property, using Amazon's business practices as an example of market trend capitalization. We recount war stories from the frontlines of commerce and highlight the significance of trademarks in protecting intellectual property against knockoffs. Peter Zeihan joins us to provide a macroscopic view of global events and dissects the interconnected fabric of our world. We explore the influence of geography on politics, discussing factors such as Florida's appeal for real estate and the impact of political strategies on elections. We chart a course through personal development by focusing on the transformative power of daily habits and the pursuit of personal growth. I detail my health journey and the benefits of mentorship, high-protein diets, and habit stacking, as well as the challenges of technological transitions. We emphasize the neutral nature of habits and the importance of accountability in crafting disciplined routines for a life well-lived. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Hello there, mr Sullivan, mr Jackson. You know, your Loudland announcer, who welcomes us to the call, always promises there's going to be others, but there never is. There's just one, just us. Dan: We're waiting for others to join. I am other. Dean: We're waiting for others to catch up. Dan: That's exactly right. Dean: Well, how? Dan: did you? How do you feel you're an hour short? Yeah, I don't like this. Dean: I've been confused about five times so far today. Dan: Okay. Dean: Part of the reason is my watch and my cell phone are in another time zone and that's reflected. Dan: My computer is still in Toronto. Oh, my goodness, that's so funny. Are you in Chicago right now? Oh, got it Okay. Dean: Yeah, it's a little F you from winter, you know you get this little kick. Dan: Okay, I'll leave, but I'm taking an hour with me. Dean: I mean, I mean it's go ahead. Dan: I was gonna say we can't complain because we got an extra day this year. We got 24 extra hours, so I guess we deducted it from that surplus. Dean: But that's in the past and that is, in the past, yeah, that's right, you know, I haven't really studied where that came from, but I think it has to do with farming Daylight savings. Dan: Yeah, I think it was to absolutely to extend harvest times in the summer. You know, work more. Yeah, I thought we were trying to get rid of it. We, as a you know that's the inclusive version of they thought they were trying, we try to try to get rid of it. Dean: Yeah, no, I haven't. I haven't really devoted an hour and a minute of time to that particular project. Dan: I know, Florida is. I know Florida is like Arizona is considering staying on daylight savings time at all times and not yeah, and I think there were a lot of states that were looking to do that and I thought, oh boy, what a, what a mess that would be. It's already enough of a nuisance that Arizona doesn't participate. Dean: You know I would vote for keeping it. Yeah you know why? Dan: Because it's quirky, it is a little bit quirky, and you know what for me in? Dean: Florida and I like quirkiness and other people, so why wouldn't I like quirky in the time system? Dan: Well, you know, it's the only way that I mark the season changes. That for me is like the transition into, you know, spring, summer, and then I know, when we get to to light savings, we get fall and winter. That's the only thing. It gets darker earlier. Dean: Yeah, it's really interesting because when this is, I'm changing the context here, but it has to do with weights and measurements. You know the metric system is a French creation. It was created, I think, during Napoleon's reign and you know he tried to standardize in uniform, make Europe uniform, because he wanted to be emperor of Europe, you know, then emperor of the world. You know folks like him sort of have those type of ambitions and so up until then, you know you had what is commonly called the imperial system of measurements in in the UK, great Britain. You know pounds and inches and miles, you know and you know, and Fahrenheit, you know, was the measure measured. And then you know, europe adapted the metric system. And but once Brexit happened. This is in 2016, the merchants who were permitted to go back to the imperial system for weights in stores oh wow, growth grocery stores. But the bureaucrats who run the you know who run the system in Britain. Dan: So you have sort of. Dean: I think it's a bit of an entrepreneurial versus bureaucratic standoff. And so it's a real mishmash in Great Britain now, and I kind of like that, because almost everything else about Great Britain is a mishmash. Dan: I think that's so funny. You know, it's like the. Dean: I like mishmashes. My favorite kind of food is a mishmash. Dan: There was a Saturday Night Live skit where the they were, you know, they were founding settlers, founding the United States and deciding, you know, the guy was saying how we would adopt a system of measurements. That would be, you know, there'd be one foot, is the thing, and they'll be three feet in a yard and the whole, you know, just made no sense because the metric system is such an easier system. You know how many feet in a mile. And they were saying nobody knows you know why it'll? Dean: you know why it'll never happen in the United States? Because of sports. Oh yeah, 100 yards for football 100 yards, a 350 foot home run, seven foot center. Yeah, exactly Right. Dan: Right, Right yeah but in Toronto. Dean: Well, they try to impose it on the sports reporting in Toronto, but nobody pays any attention to it. No, you know. Dan: I mean. Dean: I've never switched over. Dan: I've been in Toronto for 53 years, 1973, I think, is when the system international started. So you know, my first grade was Imperial, second grade was Si, so we started learning, you know, metrics and second grade, but I still think in Imperial I mean, it's so funny, we're always doing the conversion you know, yeah, and it's especially scary when it comes to temperature, because zero really means something in Fahrenheit, but it's, you know, it's sort of wishy washy and metric. Dean: Zero is like 32, 32 degrees. Yeah right, Exactly yeah, 32 degrees. The only place where it meets is 40 degrees minus 40 degrees. Dan: So it's exactly the same. Dean: Yeah, but who wants to have that experience? Dan: Oh man, that's so funny. So when is your next Buenos Aires? Dean: trip. It'll be Saturday, two weeks, so two weeks from yesterday. From yesterday and this is our fourth, and this may be then the last quick trip. And it'll probably be six months. Six months Now, we'll do six months and then probably, depending on how it shows up, six months from now. I'm talking about stem cell here stem cell treatments. And how are you feeling? Dan: Are you starting to notice the difference? Dean: I'm feeling great. Yeah, the biggest thing is there's still soreness in my knee. And but I feel very confident about it. You know, I mean before there was soreness in my knee and I wasn't feeling confident because, barring any kind of therapy, it was going to get more sore in the future and I have definite confidence that'll be less and less until the soreness disappears, you know because, the cartilage is definitely regrowing. Dan: I was going to say is there evidence Like do they quantitatively measure the? Yeah, you do it with an. Dean: MRI. The MRI can show what it was, and what I learned is that it doesn't layer from bottom to top like the new cartilage. This is, you know, exactly my cartilage that I lost in through an operation, through an accident, in an operation in 1975, so long time ago. And so in those days they just, you know, it was broken, it was torn, so they cut it out, you know don't need anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they would glue it back together now they have a surgical clue now that they could glue it back together, but the but what it does, it comes in vertically. So it's this constant extension, like it's you know, it's a half of an inch, and then it's an inch. Yeah and it's very interesting how it comes in. It comes in sideways so it doesn't come in. You know it doesn't come. That you establish a base and then it builds on the base. Dan: Right. Dean: So it's anyway, but I can feel the difference going up and down stairs. That's where my you know my daily measurement is really that more and more I'm walking up and down stairs. Normally. Yeah oh, that's great. But the biggest thing is the brain stuff. Because they have an IV, you can't inject things into the brain, you have to. You know a thing called lymph which create a pathway into your brain. So you have the lymph sites one day and then two days later they put an IV and the cells are actually custom designed for the brain so they, once they get into your blood system, they go automatically through the new passage way that the lymph sites have created and then they go into your brain. But I really noticed in my EEG tests and then neurofeedback program that I'm in that my concentration, my focus, you know, not being distracted is improving enormously. Oh, that's amazing, yeah. Dan: That's awesome. So you've got, for example, we're. Dean: You know we're 13 minutes into the podcast and not once have I forgotten that I'm talking to you. Dan: Hey, there we go. I like that, that's good news. Dean: Yeah, you know, you count your progress where you find it. Dan: Yeah, that's so funny. So I have something for us to look at next for next time. I was talking with someone and they were sharing with me this guy, yanis Verifakis. Do you know him? Have you heard of? Dean: him? Yeah, I think I have heard the name, but I'm trying to think where. Dan: So he's just sent me a video called capitalism has mutated into something worse and he's talking about this. You know cloud. You know cloud migration or whatever, and how those things are, you know, really owning our. Well, I don't know enough to say. I just wanted to ask. I'm wondering if you had heard about him. But essentially saying, companies like Amazon, like these big companies, are fiefdoms that control our. You know the way we see things like. You know your Amazon store, for instance, when you go to Amazon, is very different than my Amazon store. You know, based on everything that I all my, all the data that they have about me, kind of thing. You know when it used to be in on the mainland, when you would go to downtown or you'd go to the shop area, you'd have all the stores. Everybody sees the same. Everybody sees the same thing. It's more of an equal landscape sort of thing. But now you know there's advantage in knowing. You know, in having this established. You know data that everybody that's what they really have is access to. You know amazing amounts of data. So this cloud, the cloud, is really changing. Who's winning in the? You know, even in a global sense, but borders and everything don't really matter anymore. It's not about that. I wonder if that kind of resonates with what you know Peter Zion is saying. Dean: But yeah, I think Peter Zion saying exactly the opposite. Dan: Okay, that's why I'm very curious, right Like that's you know yeah, he's saying borders matter more than ever. Okay. Dean: Because of transportation. Okay, so Amazon, you can do anything with Amazon, but it's got to be transported. Dan: Yes. Dean: And transportation is the great constraint you know, and so, for example, one of the problems that Amazon has with crime is traffic congestion in cities. You know so that they're promised that we can deliver it in. You know, if you order this morning, you'll have it by noon. Dan: Yeah, I've had that happen. Dean: If traffic permits. And then there's the labor costs of actually finding drivers that'll do this. You know, for more than just a short period of time. So you always have to be thinking of the labor costs. And yeah so so my sense is yeah, he's of a school. Whoever this man is, I'm suspecting that it's a man. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dean: Does he identify? Does he identify as a man, I mean? Dan: yes, I think so. Dean: Okay, anyway, and yeah, it's the same thing. Capitalism doesn't really change. It simply changes the environment in which capitalism is being used, because it's really a methodology for growth. You know capitalism is? You know, first of all, it's about pricing, and Amazon are the great price competitors in the world. I mean that's. They introduced a whole new way that you know, whatever it was, the total cost of getting it to you and the price you had to pay, they could pretty well out compete anyone else. That's capital. Dan: That's capitalism you know, and they're moving property. Dean: You know they're moving property from. You know, actually the Amazon never owns any property. Dan: You know they they're just really, unless they do create or white label or do things themselves, they're pretty robust at that that. That that's been one of the things. That that's been one of the things that they have as an advantage is that they Create their own brand of stuff, that they see things that are, you know, new products or new things that are Selling, and then they create their own version of it or white label their own version of it you know, and it's very interesting yeah. Dean: Yeah, we've had not like a product per se but we've had a continual Conversation with the Amazon because with the three best-selling books that we did with them Hardy, the book comes out on a Monday and by Friday there's another book called who, not how, and it's the summary of who not how and you know you can kind of create a summary of any book now with artificial intelligence in about 10 seconds, you know 10 seconds, and then there. So our book will be listed on Kindle and you know. And and then immediately, within a month, you'll have a first one in five days, but in a month, if it's really selling, you might have seven versions of summary of who, not how, and we said, you know this is kind of Toddry, you know we talked to them and we've had about five of them, five or six of them taken down Because it's too close to our stuff, it's almost, you know yeah, but that, and did you register the trademark on who, not how? Yeah, that's and that's where we get them. That's what we get them with, because you can't, you can't, you don't have Exclusive control over a book title. You can have 10 books with with you know. With you know, by the same name, there could be 10 books out there called who. That's how. Right but you can't have been hardy, and what they were doing they had you know. Summary you know who, not how, by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy. Well, that that you're crossing the line there, you know, right, you know, and it's like flies and mosquitoes. You know, you just make sure you have good screens. You know and you make sure you close the door and everything but it's a constant. It's a constant thing but you know, and maybe it does as good. I don't know if it does as good. Somebody buys the summary and then they say hey. I better read the book, you know so. Dan: I don't know but. Dean: But it's no different from knockoff Rolexes in Hong Kong. Dan: Yeah, I see what I'm looking at. The thing now, the one right after it is it's not the how or the what, but the who succeed by surrounding yourself with. Dean: Yeah, I mean that's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know it's Babs gets angry at it. I just considered it, as you know, it's like it's mosquito season, you know. Yeah, but I would say capitalism is no different now than it was in In the marketplace of Rome, and but it changes its methods. I mean it changes its presentation. That changes, but this thing about capitalism is changing. Let's create conscious capitalism, let's create humane. There's just capitalism and there's somebody's emotional response to it. Dan: Right, yeah, yeah, that's yeah. Dean: I mean Peter Zion. I mean, I've read so much, peter Zion. I could Sort of tell, you know, one thing we know is that the United States is better at it than any other country. Yeah, it's not universal. Dan: I think it's that like. It's very, it's really interesting. I watched some of his. I watched some of his videos, which I was fine and insightful, and I'm always surprised that you know he gets three or four hundred thousand people a day watching his dispatches. You know they're always it's really well done. He's good at articulating things and it's fascinating to me. Dean: It almost makes you want to go to Colorado too right. Dan: Yeah, it's beautiful, right. I mean it's almost yeah yeah. Dean: He says yeah, I, I'm Very easily communicating to you from thirteen thousand feet Everything which is kind of said you must be really in good shape you know, yeah, so yeah, but he's fairly. He's faster responding than anyone else in the world. An event happens on Tuesday. Dan: And by. Dean: Thursday. He's got an explanation for why it's happening. Yeah he's really remarkable. He's in my lifetime I've never come across anyone like him. Dan: Yeah, it's really like I'm. It's it seems like such a macro level view of things that I'm always. You know I'm kind of fascinated why you're so fascinated with this. Like I mean, when you've read the, the book, you said like seven times or something. Dean: I mean well, his latest book, yeah, seven times complete, yeah, seven times complete. Yeah, and you know, and what I'm looking for is there. You know, with anything, when I read them, yeah, is there sort of a deeper level that he doesn't go into, or and so what I did is I just came out with my latest book, which is the great meltdown you know, and then I Explained that wherever you are on the planet, you're constrained by the cost of money, the cost of energy, the cost of labor and cost of transportation and no two places are equal in risk and Relationship to those four constraints and the US is just that keeping those four costs the lowest of Historically. I mean right back to the beginning. They've just been better for all sorts of lucky reasons, mainly because their geography. Dan: The geography is so good. Dean: I mean we talked about Florida, that Florida is proof that God loves. Real estate agents in the state of Florida. Yeah, because you have on the East Coast. You have three, three waterfront. Dan: That's right exactly the ocean side and two intercoastals, and same all the way yeah the same all the way up the Gulf too. Dean: Yeah, the Gulf that goes all the way to Texas. But thank, you and the north of Florida goes all the way to Virginia. I think Virginia or Maryland is still you know, the inner. And what it does is it prevents large storm shroom actually hitting the mainland, because that buffer zone of the inner coastal, you know, just stops big waves, it stops everything. So, yeah, so any anyway. I mean you don't really have to go into the Atlantic Ocean very much once you start if you're taking a boat trip Private boat trip down the East Coast, if you start at Virginia. Dan: Really go down the intercoastal all the way yeah. Yeah, yeah, started an apple receiver proves that God favors. Dean: Yeah so funny. Yeah but you know, people are always trying to create a standardized global version of reality. That's been happening forever. But those four costs means there can be no standardization because it's I mean, it's different in or it's different where you live than it is in Tampa. Dan: Yeah, it's really interesting. I guess there's regional, like when you think about it's transferable on every level, right, like the whole, because the cost of transportation you know has, you know, the further away, the more remote you are, the more costs to get something to you. And so even if I think now I see kind of the thing that you're talking about, like if you go to a place where the labor costs are lower, perhaps you've got a balance with the cost of transporting the reduced goods that you've done back to where they're going to sell. So it all has to balance out. Dean: Yeah, well, I mean you can take the huge migration from New York, you know, from New York state, to Florida right now. And you know people explain it politically and everything. But just compare the four melt costs between you know the cost of money is lower in Florida, the cost of energy is lower in Florida, labor and transportation the costs are lower. And I mean there's a lot of political issues that make things expensive or inexpensive. But you know, I mean that. For example, the court case where Trump was found guilty, you know, two, three weeks ago for something that's an antiquated law from 150 years ago that's never been inflicted on anybody. That in a business negotiation he said his company was worth 1.2 billion and it turned out it was only 800 million and that's called negotiation. Dan: Right right right. I mean, I mean, I mean right, that's the whole thing. Is something is only worth what someone's willing to pay. Dean: Yeah, yeah. And they said well, this is fraud, but nobody was harmed, you know nobody was like any negotiation, nobody was harmed. You agree on a price and you know the banks made money. The other side made money, he made money. And well, the word is going out now don't invest in New York, don't do business in New York. Dan: I mean the moment that hits and. Dean: but the governor said, well, that's not what we meant by it. I'm sorry. Oh boy the horse is out of the barn, you know yeah right. Dan: I mean that's pretty crazy. I saw Kevin O'Leary was talking about just that, that he was saying he's having some good weeks right now. Yeah, that's the death knell for a New York investment. It's nobody's gonna do anything there, that's easy. Dean: So your melt cost just went through the roof just as a result of that court grilling. Dan: Yeah, this is. That's pretty wild, and so in big news we saw that Super Tuesday last week and Haley's out, but not endorsing Trump. That's not throwing, not, you know not. Dean: Yeah, well, she's likely the warrior in. Yeah, I don't have legs and arms left, but these are mirror flesh wounds. Dan: That's right, I can still bite you. I can bite your kneecap, yeah. Dean: And for the life of me I don't know what her game plan was, because I mean, she didn't do him any harm, but I just don't know. You know what her game was and doing what she did, do it. Dan: Right, did you have to think she? Dean: was bad. She was betting that the court system is going to stop him from being the nominee and that she would Right. Dan: And I was just going to say that was. I thought that that's her game plan is hang in there. As to just the last one standing at the end, yeah. If Trump does get you know taken off the or disqualified or whatever which by the way what do you think the likelihood of that is? Zero Zero likelihood Okay, so and I felt especially after the Supreme Court case last week where it came up, because of the Colorado. Dean: Yeah they sort of the states can't take them off, right. Yeah, and the nine Supreme Court, just as it was nine, did not. Dan: It's not an enormous. Dean: I mean you can't run a rick, you can't run a country this way, and I you can't have 50 states having different rules about who can run for. Dan: Right, exactly. Dean: Yeah, yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: That's what the Supreme Court's for. You know, that's in the Constitution. Yeah and yeah, but I don't really know. I mean maybe she'll get a talk show on, you know, but you know I can't figure out where what her future is based on this performance, you know right. So yeah, but I mean, yeah, politics is, you know, politics is not entrepreneurial, it's an entrepreneurial business, you know you know there's clear cut winners and losers, and she's a loser right now, right. Dan: And it's very interesting to see what the you know the RFK effect here. What's that's gonna who that's going to affect more? Do you know what the projection is or who is that? Dean: going to hurt more. Yeah it's hard to say you know really. No, I mean, I saw him because Joe Polish had a man yeah, genius, and you know. I mean a lot of it. They were talking. They weren't talking about politics. Dan: No. Dean: And then we went to dinner. We went to dinner at somebody's house in Scottsdale and I was kind of say he's really sort of an ideal candidate for the president of the country that no longer exists, like if he had run in the 70s or 80s he would have led the Democratic Party. I mean he would have made it, but I don't think the country exists anymore. That would elect him president. But if he got 3 or 4 percent more of one party's voters, then he makes a big difference. Dan: That's what I meant. He's like the green box on the roulette wheel, but he's the little edge that's going to the wild card in this. That could make it's not just black and red, it's not 50-50. He's a viable third party. I mean it's funny because we're definitely a three-party country in a two-party system. Really, that's the thing. Dean: Yeah, I mean it's made a difference in some elections like 2000. Well, yeah, Ross Perot got Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton would not have gotten elected. But the other one is Gore lost because there were 50,000 Ralph Nader votes in Florida. Dan: That's big. Dean: I mean he lost by 500. He lost by 500. Yeah, that was never brought up. Well, it was the Haining Chats. Dan: Haining Chats. That's right, that is so funny. Those words are fun. I've got some friends named Chad. I've got a couple. Dean: I don't want to hate any of my friends who are named Chad. Dan: Which one do you want, willardson or Jenkins? Dean: Yeah, chad Johnson is one of our coaches. Oh there you go yeah, I've never had so many Chad's in my life, that's funny, it's not a common name either. No, but it must be contagious. Dan: Yeah, I was like go through. I'm realizing Dean's not as common as you might think either. Dean: Yeah, yeah. Nobody gets called Bob or Tom or anything like that anymore. You know they're all the same. Yeah, exactly Exotic names, anyway, but yeah. And so the other problem was that with Gore nobody brought this up, but he lost Tennessee as home state I mean even as home state didn't vote for him. So there was a, you know but it's been more recently, although in 1948, I think, there were four people who got significant votes. Truman, sitting president, won, but he didn't win with 50%. He won, you know, 40, 46. Dan: Yeah. Dean: So yeah Well, I don't think a third party can ever win unless it's replacing one of the, unless it's replacing the one of the existing parties you know, yes, and that hasn't happened since the 1800s. Dan: Right yeah, did you watch the state of the union? No, I don't watch television. No, okay, but I meant the. You saw the highlights, or the summary or any highlights of it. I haven't had a chance yet to even see. Dean: I mean. What I saw is I've seen angry old people talking to themselves on the street. Dan: Right, exactly, and that's a video that very cleverly showed that he's given the same speech four times in a row. You know he's got the same exact talking points and it was so funny they'd show it from, you know, from 2000, and then they'd show 2000, this year, you know saying exactly the same, the same lines, and it's just. It was pretty funny, actually I was amazed. Dean: There was. I love that Well, did you ever? When Disneyland California Disneyland opened up, they had recreations. You know they were in plastic or rubber form of Abraham Lincoln and you know, George Washington and that. Yeah, the hall of presidents, right, right, but they're, you know, their arms moved and their lips moved because they had they had little tubes that had fluid in them and you know it would. They would manipulate the tubes, you know, and their hands would move. And they didn't show this at the state of the union. But were there a lot of those little hoses coming up behind him? I don't know. Dan: Watch Joe move. Watch Joe move. Dean: He's like so lifelike. Dan: Yeah. Dean: It's really. It's really the closest I've seen in. You know, a high stakes election president of the United States is as high as it gets when. It's like the emperor's new clothes, you know. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Nobody wants to mention that he's really. You know, this is the leader of the free world and say, geez, you know. Dan: Oh man. Dean: Yeah, you know. But you know you root for the home team whoever is the captain, you know regardless of who the captain is, you know so. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Anyway, but yeah it's interesting. But you know, somebody was saying I have a longtime Canadian member of the strategic coach goes back to the 80s actually, and I had breakfast with him last and he says you know, I just you know you know, he says I know Biden's bad, but I just can't, you know, I just can't stomach the fact that we would have Trump again. There's something about it, and you know he was going on for about five, 10 minutes. And I've had other situations in Toronto where Canadians are voicing their displeasure and I said you know, I read the US Constitution once a year. It doesn't take long to read, it's only typewritten. It's about 27 pages, you know. Dan: And most of it's just. Dean: You know, it's a set of rules, you know, and I said nowhere in the US Constitution does it say that American politics have to be pleasing to Canadians. Dan: Any more than the Guinea. Politics have to be pleasing right. Dean: Yeah, yeah, I mean, you can be on the happiest convenience matters? Not at all. Dan: That's so funny. Yeah, I can't wait to see how it all unfolds. I mean, certainly it's going to be an amazing six months or whatever we've talked about. Dean: Yeah, no, I just if you just say it's not politics, it's entertainment. Dan: Yeah, that's exactly right, pretty good entertainment, you know. Yeah, yeah, switching topics. Here I was. I've mentioned, I've been playing around with the, with the Adams. Dean: Yeah, did you get the connector for the? I did. Dan: I got that and on Monday I need to Connect with the gentlemen that sent it to me because, yeah, because, yeah, I need to figure out how to yeah the problem I explained. Dean: Yeah, I explained in my email that. Yeah, it's done in FileMaker which no longer exists, so it's hard to Transport it. Dan: It's hard to. He offered to, he offered to transport something that no longer exists. Right, exactly but he offered to help me, walk me through it, so I'm gonna yeah them up on that, yeah cuz. I do want it, I do want to try it, but it's been very interesting to watch this just the way. This is Claire, yeah, yeah, it's just. It's so satisfying to see I've had, you know, it shows I've got ten reps down of my habit of waking up and drinking 500 milliliters of water, first thing that you can stack. I'm looking, you know, to stack all these things. It's been. This was a great week. Dean: I have been working with JJ verge you know, I got your, we got your phone message, you know yes, yeah, where you yeah, yeah, together. A little Dean, you have witnesses now. Dan: Well, that's exactly it, right it's. I said to Joe like, well, behind the scenes, while we were in Palm Beach, there was so much kind of rallying and you know, going around in the most supportive way possible for, you know, to help me get on track. You know, weight-wise, health-wise and, and you know Joe Polish has been just above and beyond you know, in orchestrating and you know organizing all of this I mentioned last week. You know he came and spent a few days with me and really helped me get things on track. And I've been working with JJ. So you know this was my first week, you know, full. Joe left last Saturday, so this was my first week with JJ. But having the daily accountability and systems around, you know what I'm doing. It's certainly a who, not how type of thing is really you know the importance of having a who that's kind of Onboard and guiding things. But I get into this nice I'm accountable for in the more I send JJ, then you know the daily Story of yesterday, kind of thing with. She's got me hooked up on a Coronameter app which basically tracks my macros the protein, carbs, fat and calories of everything that I eat. She's helping with my you know menu selection and all this. So in the morning, after I drink my 500 milliliters of water, I Way every day and take a picture of the of the screen scale. Scale, yes, exactly. And then I send her my aura results for my sleep and readiness and yesterday's activity and Yep our goal. You know I was on average when we were looking at it before. I would average, you know, 2500 to 4,000 steps a day would probably be the average, with you know probably 3,000 plus 3200, the kind of median of what, how many steps I would get in a day. So we've set now 4,000 is the baseline, the minimum steps that I get every day, mm-hmm, and so I send her that activity to show what that is. And then my Chronometer and she's got me focused on Protein. First, eating, my, you know, getting, you know, almost 150 grams of protein per day, which is really it's a lot. I mean, that's it's. I never hunger. I'm never hungry and it's almost like getting into the routine of trying to lead, lead with that and stay well, I mean your body knows when it's had the necessary nutrition, and protein is the champ for giving nutrition. Dean: Absolutely complex, complex carbs and you know, and yeah, I mean yeah, you can. You know you can eat 5000 calories of Simple carbs and you feel hungry. Dan: Yeah, yeah. So this, you know this target. Dean: So I'm plus water make. Water makes a big difference, absolutely. Dan: Yeah, yeah, so it's been great. So the we you know tomorrow will be the you know the kind of Week on week weigh-in. But I'm already down like three and a half pounds from. So you know most 1%, 1% of that's the target I guess is 1% of body weight per week is a good to keep on and You're just getting in the habit and the routine and you know that every week she'll be in the cloud, that's exactly right, that's the goal 57 right now, you'll be 80, I'll be 58 in May. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and so yeah, so yeah. Certainly taking this long-term view of by my Well, it's habits, I mean yes, that's all it is, you know. Dean: What I was thinking, because I knew we probably Talk about this topic today, but I was thinking about just looking at habits as reality and they're either working for you or they're working against you, and that's yes, you know that's not an opinion, you know it's. It's just that you can tell whether the habits are supportive. Or that's supportive and the other thing I was thinking about, the gap in the game. And I think that if you just think in terms of replacing bad habits with good habits. Yeah, you stay in the game. Yes, and I think the gap is that you need to be penalized for your bad habits. You know I think there's a internal thing. You know that you should feel guilty, you should feel shame about your bad habits. I said they're just habits, right exactly. I said they're just habits, right, exactly, I said they're just habits, right, exactly, and that's. Dan: And so this, really this thing like looking at this week here, and I think that I had lunch with Leo or Weinstein yesterday. I went over to the Four Seasons in Orlando and we had a nice three and a half hour lunch and this was a lot of what we you mean Mr Good at everything. Mr. It's so. It's almost unfair, isn't it? Yeah, the guy's just so smart and everything Right. We had some great. We had some great conversations and yeah, this was. You know the fact that there's nothing else you can do but what I'm doing habitually on a daily basis. That's the only path. It's not. That's the thing is there's no, it's not like this monumental effort because it's a big mountain to climb, you know. To get to the top of, you know, mount 100 pounds or whatever, you know, the ultimate benchmark is. But to climb to the top of that mountain just requires that you've got to take steps every day. There's no possible way to get to the top in one day, and that's where it. Dean: And nobody gets more than one day every 24 hours. Dan: That's exactly right. So having that benchmark of 1% a week as what you can safely and consistently lose is just that, it's just stacking those things, and a day a week is the perfect, I think, amount unit of measurement, because it's you can't really that's the most important, more than the daily even you know like the variation in one day. It's more important over a week that you take that. So that's all I'm focused on is the week, and we're already at the routine I've already got. I'm very comfortable with consistency and habit, so I don't need a lot of variety in things. If I find certain things we've got now some meal combinations that really work for me, and if I can just, you know, stay on that track and continue to have the accountability, I think it's an inevitability, you know, is just the watching it happen. Well, it's like you're a profit activator, I mean just moving that to another thing. Dean: I mean, if you're doing all late and they're all contributing to a profit, it strikes me there's no, there's nothing to fix. Dan: Right, exactly. Oh, it's so funny, right. So, yeah, it's so funny. I mean just identifying that the key thing for me is just to continue raising the benchmark, right, like I'm raising my from 4,000 to 5,000 steps it's the minimum on my way to 10,000, you know, yeah, Do you measure steps or does that matter to you? Dean: I mean, it's not my main focus, but if I get the right number of steps, I get the high number of attendees on my activity. You know, and every, you know, every quarter or so I raise the number. You know the stuff. So I do right now probably average around 6 or 7,000. And yeah, and I've done 10,. You know, on some days, you know, when it's kind of walk in nature day, I'll get more than that. But you know but I'm doing a lot of things like my big thing that I've been working on for four months is I never get in trouble with my meals. I get in trouble with snacking between meals, and so I've eliminated that and I'm down, you know, five or six pounds just by doing that. Wow, yeah, yeah. So you know. Anyway, first of all, kudos to just you know. It really strikes me that Dean Jackson doesn't do anything and stick with it unless it makes intellectual sense. That's true, probably, yeah, no, I mean. Yeah, I mean unless I mean you know your habits and you know your. Yeah, we all have a measurement system on what constitutes progress. Yes, and my sense is until you get the way of something you can do every day, yeah, it's an intellectual satisfying, you don't do it. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And a lot of people try to make it emotional, emotional, you know that you know and everything that, but you can't sustain it. Dan: And even if it is, even if you get to the point, I agree with you 100%. By the way, I don't perceive it as emotional, but you know that often that's. You know well what's the cause of this kind of thing you know. But the reality is that even if you were to uncover an emotional issue, that still requires them that intellectually you have to figure out what's the mechanics of what needs to actually happen. You know it's like getting to the bottom of an emotional issue isn't, on its own, going to solve the problem, the same way that you know, figuring out the mechanics of what actually needs to happen. Yeah, happen, yeah. That's really the bottom line, but I'm very encouraged. This feels like a very different level of, you know, systemic change. Dean: That's happened here, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well it's a process you know. The process consists of you know and you keep. Every time I talk to you, you're adding some new habit to it. Yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And my sense is that once you get the momentum of 10 good habits, you're motivated to have 20 good habits. I agree 100%. Dan: Yeah, I agree, because that then becomes a great game. You know, that's the I love to game-a-five things. That keeps us interested, you know. Dean: Okay, I have a meeting in. Five Minutes with Daniel White. Dan: Okay. Dean: And who's staying with us in Chicago? Dan: Chicago. Dean: Awesome. So, but I'll be, I'll. I have you in my calendar for next Sunday. Dan: Awesome. I'm not so we're going to be in Toronto next Sunday. You are going to be because on my calendar it says no Dan podcast. Dean: Yeah, but we have, but I will be there, okay, perfect. Dan: Fantastic. Dean: And in the same time. So Okay, Perfect Okay. Dan: Bye, bye, bye.

In today's episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, I share insights from my experience at the Cloudland Summit. We discuss the carefully constructed approach to selecting impactful speakers and crafting their messages. Dan and I explore deeper implications of habits. From influencing personal growth to organizational culture and nations. Recent tech and political events show how biases stem from ingrained habits. We cover self-tracking progress through a daily habit-scoring system and cooking's role in health, wealth, and innovation. Overall, it's a thought-provoking look at intentional living and leveraging the mundane for extraordinary results. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We discuss the Cloudland Summit and how major tech breakthroughs often come from the convergence of three pre-existing technologies. I share insights from my upcoming book "Everything is Created Backward," suggesting that innovation stems from remixing the past. We explore Perplexity, an AI tool that aids in research by suggesting further inquiries and providing references. We analyze the creation of iTunes as an example of innovation by combining existing elements in novel ways. I introduce the 'Top 50 Tool' I've devised to identify and refine daily habits that shape our lives and future selves. We examine the role of present habits in shaping our future selves and the effectiveness of setting goals for personal growth. We touch on the biases of Google's chatbot and the financial repercussions of such biases on a company's valuation. We discuss the number 51's significance in politics and business and the importance of counting fundamentals. We talk about the transformative power of cooking habits on health and wallets, and the broader implications on personal and national success. We tease the introduction of a new tool designed to track and score daily progress, highlighting the importance of consistent habits. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan, yes, it's Welcome to cloudland at time. Dan: Amen. I heard it's being recorded, so that's half the job right there. Dean: Yeah, and it's never going to let you down. Dan: That's right, Well, yeah what a what a whirlwind week. It was so good to see you and babs and everybody. Dean: We were shooting for one meal and we were shooting for one meal and that kind of ended up as five. Dan: Yes, what what can happen. Oh, that's, yeah. Nothing wrong with that. I like it. They were all playful. Dean: Yeah. Yeah, it was really interesting because I spent probably a day preparing for the Friso summit for our listeners. We just had our annual being the top level of strategic coach and and we have this every year it's it's a meeting Squeezed in between two drinking parties. Oh man, that's funny. Yeah, the meeting is so you can recover for the first from the first drinking parties so that you're ready to go for the second one. Dan: And I'll tell you what. I sold that to those pokeballs short, that was those are delicious. Dean: Yeah, I always find that alcohol is the almost failproof Of 10 times multiplier. There you go one dollar invested in alcohol Somewhere along the line, that always produces the 10 times positive result. Dan: Oh, good, that's noted. Dean: Yeah, I'm not sure that marijuana does that. Dan: Oh no. Dean: Yeah, yeah, anyway, yeah, but I spent a day on that conference and. What I did is we chose the speakers and then alanora called each of them to see if that was okay and we specified the topic, and that was all done by you know, alanora. And then what I did is I wrote a fast filter for each of the speakers, not on what they were going to talk about, but how they were going to talk, okay. And I thought it worked really well. I thought it worked really well. Dan: It really did. I mean the panels were, you know. It seemed like the whole thing moved quickly. Everybody was bringing valuable insight, even just the. The resources they were recommending, especially your. The ai panel, was fantastic, not too much. You know I I immediately came back and started using perplexity and I downloaded perplexity as so let we should probably set the stage for what perplexity is as a chat, gpt alternative and combined with kind of Google and yeah, well, it's interesting because I've done it on about 10 different Questions, you know. Dean: I asked a question and then I get an answer and uh then, but it's got Uh two neat things about it. At down below it has three more questions that you might ask. Okay, three more. Dan: Um, yeah, on the topic. Dean: That first of all gives you the original answer, and then it suggests three more things you might look into. But, at the top it's got four boxes and these are references that you can go to that indicate where it got you know the information to answer your question. And if you do all, if you do the first thing. And what I was asking was mark mills, who is a tech Thinker. He thinks a lot about what technology is doing to the world and he mentioned in one of his books it's called the cloud revolution that if you look at technology, almost all the breakthroughs happen as a result of combining three existing technologies. And he goes back and he goes rake back to Samuel Morris in the mid 19th century with the telegraph, and then he comes all the way forward to not to ai, but to when how the internet came into existence. You know, he puts the internet and talks about the three things that had to be there first before you could even think about Creating this new technology. And the reason is I'm writing a quarterly book right now which is called everything is created backward, and and what I mean by that is that you can't you can't create the future out of the future, because there's nothing there. Dan: Right right. Where's the stuff you know First of all, I've never been rendered in the simulation. Here it's unrendered. Yeah, nobody's ever been nobody's ever been there. Dean: You know they I mean. But the problem with it is that you have to do a awful lot of convincing With something you try to create out of the future, you know and but I gave the anxiety. I just wrote the first chapter, but the actually the introduction, and I use itunes as the example that steve jobs simply took three things that already existed. One was the mp3 player, which he apple already had. The ipod Okay, it already had millions of people already using the ipod, so he had a build-in. He had a build-in audience to go through with something new. The second thing is that nabster had already pretty well figured out how you use the internet to download single songs. Yes, okay and their only problem with their model was that it was illegal. They were stealing, they were stealing and that's that. Never has long shelf life. Dan: They were sharing something they were sharing. Dean: No, they weren't sharing, they were stealing. They were stealing other people's property and making money on it. Yeah, that's called theft, and and then apple had its operating system, so it was the mp3 player, the nabster innovation with the internet and the apple, you know, apples operating system for all of its computers, which it had many more already existing Customers, you know customers were already using it. And then he put it together and he created iJudon. You know it was an app that went on your apple platform and you could download music and then put it in your ipod. Dan: That's great and you're right, like it's. I see the triple play the things now I can. Just I'm looking at it. Dean: I mean, if you look at, artificial intelligence and work backwards as a result of three things. I haven't really analyzed that, but it seems to be three things that had to exist before, and so what I'm suggesting in the book is that the key to your future is actually what you're doing with the past, your past experience, what's available to you, yeah, and so that's. I think that's a tremendous breakthrough. I think this is a keen insight. Dan: Yeah, I mean, what was a keen insight for me? My biggest takeaway from the free zone. Dean: I was looking for a little bit more excitement on your part. Dan: No, I'm totally excited and this is where it's. It's related to what you're saying that when we had the conversation about Looking back at the habits that you've established, oh, yeah, now, yeah, that's what I meant is that, looking working Backwards, like that, everything that we've created right now is the some, you know, the accumulation of all of the Daily habits that I have instilled, right, the behaviors and habits and choices, and that only you know. I think it goes in that. I think that fits with what you're saying, that you can't. It's not about, you know, picking something in the future. When you said, what are the habits, what are the daily present habits of future dan or future dean, of where you want, and that's the real thing is that having to establish, though, those habits? Yeah, I've had a couple more thoughts. Dean: I've had a couple of birth thoughts since we talked in palm beach about how you could approach this, and so one of things and I have a tool that I've created which really hasn't gone into the program at all. It's called the top 50 tool and it's just a page and it's got 50 boxes, okay, and what you do, and what you do is when you have a number of things. So let's just Apply it to the present project. You have 50 existing daily Habits right now. Everybody does, you know everybody in the world and I'm just arbitrarily picking 50. Yeah, my sense is it's if you put all the habits, the little things that you've woven together to produce who you are today. Yeah you know it could be in the hundreds, you know hundreds or thousands, but you know it fills up the time. Yeah, you can account for it. Yeah, in the 24 hours, and then the waking hours. Probably there's probably habits you have at life and nighttime which bear Examination. But I said okay. So the first part of the project is just create a sheet. That's got, you know, it's got 50 boxes. You know five by 10, okay, okay, and number them one through 50. And then just you know, and every day as you go through, observe something else. For example, in our house I do the dishes, okay. Mm-hmm babs cooks and I do the dishes. So usually it hangs around, you know it hangs around. We have supper. You know we have not so much breakfast, but we had lunch and dinner and there's dishes and I just put them next to the sink, close to the dishwasher, and then I go about doing something and then I, and then you know I open the dishwasher and there's a previous meals already, clean dishes there, so I have to unload it and you know, put everything in the shelf and then I load it. Okay, and it's not a kind of how that I really like doing, but it's the agreement, you know Okay, so within the last three weeks I've adapted as soon as the meals finished, I do the dishes, okay. And in order I put the dishes in the dishwasher, and in order to do that, before the meal I look at the dishwasher and I unload it and put everything away so that when the meals finished, it's just a matter of rinsing the dishes and putting them in a dishwasher. Well that's two habits. That's two habits right there. Okay, so they would go down in boxes. You know two of the boxes, okay, but once I do it, and I'm doing it the way that I would like to see it, see me doing it in the future, you know. And you know, and sometimes we have staff in the house and they do it so that it gets taken care of, but it's not my, but when it's just Babs and me at our home and at our cottage. You know, two homes in Toronto, and a home in Toronto, a home in Chicago and then a cottage up north in Canada. Anyway, and I'm the dishwasher, you know. Dan: And I had to do it. Dean: So I said, since I'm gonna be doing this for the rest of my life, I might as well you know kind of improve it so that I actually enjoy the activity. Dan: Yes, I really like this, Dan, Like you're saying the same thing. I mean the things that have been triggered from our conversation about it in Palm Beach. You know, Like you just described, it's one of those things If, even if you ask yourself the question is there any way to not do anything? I mean, the thing is that the dish has gotta get done. Dean: Well, the other thing that's part of my relationship with Babs, you know, and she's commented a couple of times during the last two weeks and she said I really like it that you get it done right away. Yeah. Dan: Oh, there you go. Yeah, that's your target audience. Right there, I'm getting social proof from your target audience. That's the exact thing. Dean: This is. I can tell you, this is my number one target audience. Yeah, so let's say you go through and you fill up your 50, okay. You know, you get them. You know, maybe I'll take you two or three weeks and you just notice little things. You know how you get up in the morning, you know, you know how you get ready for the day and everything, but there's a lot of little habits. There's a lot of little habits there, and then you sort of reach 50 and you say now, how many of these? How many of these tomorrow, can I improve? I'll look at the habit. And then I'll say to myself how would I like this always to be going forward? And then you do it that way. You do it that way, and then you have to attach a point system to it, so you're scoring every day. Because, I don't stick to things I can't score. Dan: Right, well, you may like, dan, there's James Clear just launched his. Adams app, which is Adams A-T-O-M-S, and he's the guy that wrote you know Atomic Habits and this is exactly what you are talking about here. You know you can make, you can create habits that you want you can, and it gives you prompts or you can track. It's almost like wind streak in a way, right when you're adding things on it, but daily you can. So I set up my first habit that I set up just on Wednesday or Thursday I downloaded the app. Actually, I set up that I said I want to start with the first thing in the morning that I drink half a liter of water, the 500 milliliters of water. The first thing that I do when I wake up to rehydrate and do that. So I've done that. Now I've had Thursday, friday, saturday, sunday four rounds of that and it tracks your streak and it shows you your progress and so I've had four total repetitions so far. And the way they set it up is you put a purpose around the habit, like why you're trying to do this right. So the habit is that it's always like a place and a time and a reason. I think right, so it's a vote. And when they do your thing, when they give you the report, it's like congratulations, that's four votes for your healthy dean or whatever You're making. Every day you're making a vote. Dean: I think that's great yeah. Dan: I'm voting for this. So habits is the name of the, or Adams is the name of the app on iTunes. Dean: It's done in the app store, right. Dan: It's in the app store and it's just a yellow stacking yellow with like a white stacking thing. Dean: But yeah, I've periodically over the last dozen years been conferences for James's, you know, and I've always enjoyed his take on things. Dan: Yeah, and that's I mean. I like this Dan a lot. This is kind of gamifying thing. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Now. Dean: I can tell you what my if you call it my top 50 tool. Then there's a little arrow in each of the boxes and what you do is you press the arrow and it takes you to a page where you develop your criteria for what constitutes a great habit. Okay and then you attach numbers to the to that, and there's room, I think, for 10 criteria. Okay, and then you go through, and one of them is that I want to be more and more doing habits every day that are going to last the Rest of my life. Yes so that's that would be one criteria and I give my, I can establish the range, and and then you all you have to do is the criteria for one, and then that applies the criteria to all of them, and Then, as you go along, you start improving the criteria, and the moment you improve the criteria, it improves it for all of them. Okay, and then, as you go through, you notice that certain certain habits get a better importance score than others and it automatically, automatically prioritizes the 50, that this is number one, this is number two, this is number three. Rate to 50. What do you think about that? I really I mean would you? Dan: like to get that. Dean: Would you love to get? Dan: that. Where would one get one of these? Dean: Only from a particular person. Yeah, and it's right. Now, it's a file maker file, a file maker no longer Exists, but that this continues to work. Okay, this continues to work, okay, so I'll just send you the file maker oh, I like that a file maker form and, as you're going along, what it does is it give. I mean, I think the combination of the atom, the atom app and this tool probably Complets the circle it might be. Dan: I mean, I'd love to discuss what you're describing. Dean: Here's the tip sounds like as you go along, there's habits that are less important and they don't belong on the top 50. So there's another backup 50 and that they're in the backup 50. Dan: Okay, the farm team. Dean: Yes. Yes you can't have major league without a farm team. That's exactly right. Dan: I, like you know what's very. What's really interesting about this, dan, is if I was really Reflecting on my accumulated daily habits, right, if I look at what are my observable habitual behaviors? Right, and I went through the way I went through it was looking at the vignettes of each day, like looking at a timeline from the, the moment I wake up and and I was saying, you know, I have established Really good sleep habit of you know, my sleep window is Very uniform, my, you know, I woke up this morning I'm, you know, 8786 on my sleep and readiness score for my or ring. I get enough deep sleep and all that. So I've established that habit of Really a really good sleep window there. Then I started looking at, you know, my observable, if we were just somebody was following me around, logging my movements, like in a computer program or whatever, like just line items like Lining, describing every step or everything that I took part of. It is, you know, look, replacing now looking for the opportunities, like where do I want to establish this habit? And I think that little window of you know right, when I get up the first, you know the first hour of being awake. What do we want those habits to look like? Yeah, would future deans habits be? Dean: You know something there are constraints and deans, future habits. You know what? They are deans present habits? Dan: are yes, that's exactly it. I get it and that's what you're saying. I'm like you. Dean: Do anything in the future now you can't do anything in the future. You can only do things in the present. Yeah, the future. Dan: That's exactly right. Dean: Yeah, but I've been around the tech people and you know I mean, like the environmental movement, no more fossil fuels. That's a bullshit, is such a bullshit goal Because 80% of all the energy on the planet comes from fossil fuels. Okay, the other thing is that the people have these kind of goals are really not very good at getting anything done. Dan: Yeah. Dean: They went to university. They've been in university for six years, you know they've been in school since they were four years old. They've never actually done anything in the real world, you know and. But they're going to change the entire structure of the world and the problem is that it's not a plausible goal. Like no fossil Fields, you know, the other one is no borders. You know the thing we shouldn't have borders. Well, there are borders and people will kill for the borders. Yeah, right, but the thing is the people who set these type of goals in the future are some of the most incompetent people on the planet and it's really interesting that the the way you described it there. Dan: All these people, they're not accountable for the day we have. They're talking. They're just going and admonish people about this future. There's no fossil fuel because it's not actionable. Dean: It's not actually, and what they're trying to generate is tax money. They're trying to generate Donations. They're trying to but without ever producing any kind of satisfactory result you know, yeah, because they're just painting the ideal. Dan: And I wonder, how do we do that in our own lives? I mean, well, the big thing. Dean: Well, one of my things that have occurred to me is that all your goals for the future are actually you Operating, you personally as an individual operating at a higher level of capability, you know I mean you know, if you have a, you have one house and you have a house, another house that's bigger, it's better. You know it's got far more, it's more in the right place, it's. You know it's got about 10 Better criteria that you could say. And you say, well, that's my goal and I said no, that's actually the result of you being a Different and more productive person in the future. So every goal you have to bring back that it's you as a person operating at a higher level. You're making more money, you know, and that's number one. You know, yeah, and in order for you to make more money, you've got to look at what you're doing right now to make money and improve it. There may be, between you and that house, there may be, 10 Improvements that you have to make to how you're making money right now. Yes, yeah, this is yeah maybe eight profit activators. Dan: Which one? Dean: all the profit activators are habits, aren't they? Dan: they are, yeah. Yeah, you're absolutely right with metrics. I mean, that's part of the thing I think is that's measurable, right, everything you're describing. That be a good habit horrible habits. Yeah, huh, yeah, and I was dawned on me how long these habits, many of them, have been established. Like, I like your idea of the ranking of the habits. I mean that's it's, you know the numbering them, you know there's probably a Habit you know, but this is endless pursuit. It feels like you know an endless. Well, it's a daily person. Dean: It's a daily improvement activity. You know because what I'm finding? I've been doing this for about four months. Daily habits, and the first one and what I've been doing is I've been going to Buenos Aires. I've done it three times, for the fourth that's coming up in two weeks. And and there's basically six weeks before visits to Buenos Aires. So I said I'm going to create a 42 day cycle of changing certain habits. Okay, oh, wow, anchors is something right. Well, you anchor it in time, you give it a, and then so that's. You know, six weeks is 42 days. It's an odd time period and that intrigues me, you know. So I've got these 42 improvement, 42 day improvement periods. Dan: And then I say Just a lot to support the 42 is that. You know they say it takes 21 days to establish a habit and 42 is just twice that. So you get two cracks at 21 days to establish. Dean: You just explained why I did it. You just explained why I did that, but I didn't know that. Dan: There you go. No, that's great, though right Like that's a. Dean: I'm doubling down. Yeah, yeah yeah, I hadn't seen that. I had not seen that. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Anyway, but what I did? The first one, it was very simple no snacking between meals. I don't get into trouble with meals. I get in trouble with what happens between meals. Okay, okay. Dan: And. Dean: I aced it, I aced it, I aced it over 42 days, and then I started adding so the second one had two or three habits, the third one, you know, the 42, because I'm getting used to it, okay, and you know. And then all of a sudden I said pay attention to all your habits and just do it right. If there's something you have to do that day, do it the way you would like to have it done in the future, and then give yourself points for that. You know, and so. But there's an enormous Well. First of all, there's a dopamine hit to it, because it means that every day is valuable for learning and growth, and that's a, you know, that's a great thing. Dan: This is fascinating because that dopamine is healthy. Good, you're the beneficiary of the dopamine compared to like watching. Dean: You're your own dealer, yeah. Dan: Be your own dopamine dealer. Dean: Be your own dealer. Dan: That's a great title for a quarterly book, Ben. Dean: I just logged in. Dan: I mean, that's the truth. Dean: You never know. Anytime you talk to Dan, to Dean, you're going to get a new quarterly book out of it. Dan: Sometimes you get a major market book out of it. You never know. Dean: That's a good habit, that's a good habit. I don't know what it is about, dean, but anytime I'm around him I can count about you know, half a year down the road, and something he said is now a book. Oh wait for this. Dan: You know what the elegance of your 42, the 42 days, six weeks is? That you could get two rounds of that per quarter. It's just another nice, elegant fit. Dean: Well, you can get basically 42, you can get two rounds and basically oh right, then a quarter yeah. Dan: You can yeah 12 weeks. Dean: And then you get some free days to. Yeah. Dan: Go wild, I'm better. Yeah, enough of this structure. Dean: Enough of this structure, you know. But the interesting thing about it is you're actually, every time you improve a daily habit, you're exponentially improving your future. Yes, yes. And it's the only way. Yeah. And the thing is, there's certain habits you would like to change today, but you have to change some other habits before you can get to it. Yeah, so yeah, I'll give you an example. I've been listening to people talking about intermittent fasting. Yeah, Like you go a weekend without eating. I said no, I'm not anywhere near that. But what I've noticed is on Saturday and Sunday I can have 16-hour periods between meals. Dan: Okay, yeah. Dean: And I said, you know so, on Saturday we have dinner at three o'clock in the afternoon and then I don't eat again until so that's nine hours before midnight, and then I have, you know, I eat breakfast at seven and then that's 16 hours. Dan: Okay, yep. Dean: And that's intermittent fasting. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And I can do the same thing on Sunday over Sunday night and breakfast. So I said, no, I'll just start off. Once on a weekend I'll do it. And now I'm at the point where I can do it twice on a weekend. You know people said well, you know, it doesn't matter, unless you do it for a couple of days. And I said I can't do it for a couple of days. Dan: Right. Dean: My habits. Don't support it yeah. Dan: Yeah, and I mean I don't know what to do about it. Dean: So whenever people say you should do something, you have to check back and say, ah, interesting, but my habits don't support what you're talking about. Dan: Right, right. Yeah, this is amazing. I mean, I'm not really a dashboard and scorecard, but you're totally in control of that. Dean: You won't. Dan: Yeah, you're the only one who knows the habits? Dean: You're the only one that knows how you want the habits to be in the future. Here. Dan: Yeah. Dean: There's complete agency here on the part of an individual. You know, and you can know all the ramblings of other people about what you should do and you have to do this. No, it's not so. It's bullshit Right. Dan: Yeah, yeah, I mean this is yeah. And then there's a. There's a guy, rob Dierdek. I don't know if you know him. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did mention him. Dan: Okay, yeah, that you know. Everything that we're talking about is exactly. You know what he's on board with. Everything he's talking about is Dave Tuchad, chad Jenkins. Dean: Willard oh Chad Jenkins. Dan: Chad Jenkins I gave him and Steve Dastante actually, yeah, Rob Dierdek back to back two podcasts called the most unrelatable podcast episode you'll ever listen to. And it was him describing to the what ends he goes to track and quantify and establish his daily habits. And it's fascinating, I mean just to see, you know, make things inevitable, you know. Dean: Yeah, and there one thing that makes you appreciate that nervous systems are really different. You know human nervous systems are really. You know, what appeals to one person doesn't appeal to other people, and I think that's a tough nut to crack for a lot of people, because they want what they're doing to be the truth. And I said well, it is the truth. Dan: It is the truth. Dean: It is the truth, but don't go beyond yourself with it. You know, you know and and I think it has a lot to do with your you know your early experiences in life, what you got used to doing, what you like to do, things that you didn't like, and I think and these are forming before we have the ability to be conscious about them. Dan: How many of your habits Dan in on looking at your list are 50 year old oak trees? Oh, yeah, yeah, I mean some of the habits are oh yeah. Yeah. Dean: Some of them are. Some of them are beyond 75 years. Dan: Right, and some of them you know. Dean: I'm probably not going to fool around with those. Dan: No. Dean: Not at first, not at first. Do not take on a 75 year habit. Right, exactly, yeah, but it's really interesting Now, as you know, this happens to if we we can shift the context. I've been very interested in the, the reason why, in the last two weeks, google has lost $90 billion it's market value because of that Right. Because of a stupid AI chat. Okay. Dan: Yeah, I don't know what happened, so you know well what they do. Dean: it's a new chat chat bot that, when you put in directions, it'll create graphics for you. Okay, Okay. I'll give you an example. A guy says can you give me a picture of Vikings? And it comes back and they're all black. Dan: Okay. Dean: Now. Vikings were the whitest people in the world. Dan: Yes, right, right. Dean: Northern European. Not much sunlight, you know. Dan: Yes. Dean: So, anyway, and that says show, give me a picture of the founding fathers of the United States. And there are a whole bunch of them sitting on that table and a number of them were black. So what? Okay, so just giving you the general context, that what's being reflected in the Google chat bot is the dominant political views of the organization. Interesting, isn't it so? And they're getting such backlash. Well, their stock valuation went down by 90 billion in about a week and a half, 90 billion they just dropped, you know, their stock value. Now I would interpret that as someone giving you feedback. Right, right. Dan: Right. Dean: Right, you know, because what a stock price is an estimation of the future value of something you know and what I realize is that now they're scrambling. They had everybody had to work all this weekend to correct the problem. But the problem isn't their chat bot, the chat. The problem is Google's dominant thought process. Okay, so what's being reflected in any organization's cloudlandia presence is what their mainland habits are. I mean I don't think you can communicate too much beyond what your dominant habits are as an individual and as an organization. Dan: Yeah, this is you know, and I wonder if that so you're thinking like the Google things as reflecting their own biases are coming through in the stuff that it's how do I? Dean: that they have a bigger game to change how people think you know I think they do. You know, and you know, and you know, and maybe they shouldn't be that ambitious. Maybe they should just change the way that they think. Dan: Yeah, there's no. It's so amazing to me that there really is no. Like it's difficult now to get objective stuff, to get objective information without that. You know I saw that sort of you see it coming through in the biggest companies like Google, all the media, the mainstream, meta, meta, yeah, that, you see the whole. You know I look at. I was sharing with you the headline, you know, when Donald Trump just won South Carolina by a landslide. You know over 60% of the votes, 39% to Haley, and the headline on Drudge was 40% of Republicans don't want Donald Trump. It was like, what an amazing like flip of not mentioning the historical trouncing that she got in her own home state. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah well, you know you know, in politics and in business the number 51 is really important. I tell people you know, when you own a business. There are two numbers that matter 51 and 49. 51 is the same as 100%, 51 is the same as 100% and 49 is the same as zero. Yeah, you don't understand the difference, the crucial difference, between 51 and 49, you're gonna have a rough life. You're gonna have a rough life. Yeah, and he has won three more tomorrow, and they were. You know, they were equal to the that he's been achieving everywhere else. He's now. There's now been seven states and he's won all seven. Yeah, but 40% of people don't want him. Dan: Yeah, 40% of Republicans don't want Donald Trump. That's right. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the interesting, I think next Tuesday there's 15, you know, there's like 15, it's called. Super Tuesday Super Tuesday, yeah yeah, super Tuesday, and probably he'll be up by 22,. It'll be 22 to nothing by the end of Tuesday night, you know. And he said, and she'll be saying I'm gaining on him. Dan: Gaining on him. Don't give up yeah. Yeah, yes but it's like, it's like 22, 22 flesh wounds. Right, exactly, yes, I'm not dead yet I'm not dead yet Just a stump. Dean: no legs, no arms, but I can still bite you. Dan: Yeah, yeah, I can still bite you I can't quite. Dean: I can't quite figure out what her lawn game is by doing this short. You know her short term activity. I can't figure out what her lawn term plan is. Dan: Yeah, this. I mean what a year this is gonna be. It's gonna be a great year. Dean: This is a I think this is a tectonic shift year, and it's not just in the States. That happened in Argentina when we were down there, the new you know the new government that came in. It happened in Holland. It's kind of happening all over the world right now that people who know how to count are replacing people who don't know how to count. Dan: Yes, so amazing, Dan. I'm excited about the, about this, the 50. I'm excited to get that too. Dean: Yeah, I'll, I'll be in the office tomorrow and I'll have our tech team send you it. And it's just, you know, you just punch on it and it opens up and it's self-explanatory. There's it's called the top 50 tool. And then you know, you use 50 boxes on the first page and then you have a backup page that has 52 and you just start listing them and then you wanna grade them in terms of their priority as a habit, and then I think it fits in really well with what James is doing. Dan: Yes, I'm just that's the only habit I've established on there so far, but I think it's really, yeah, it's really, I think gonna be a great thing because you can anchor it to times, you know, like when you want to, when you want to establish this habit, like you were saying the dinner, the dishes, is what are you, how are you triggering that in measuring? So you're saying-. Dean: Well, you never lose if you do a habit that's from the past and it's not what you want in the future. You don't lose points if you do that. There's no losing points. You can only gain points, okay. Dan: Okay. Dean: So I've got a daily scorecard, okay, and like in the first 42 days, in. I've got a total of 122 points for you know, sticking to no snacks between meals. Dan: Oh good, that's great. So you're keeping like the tally of it. Dean: Yeah, I'm keeping a tally. And then when I go back to Buenos Aires and I said, next time I'm coming back and I you know, I don't remember exactly, but I added two or three more habits, you know, to it and as you're going through the day, you're becoming more and more conscious of your daily habits. If you do it 10 days in a row and you're tracking habits, the next habits on the list will suggest themselves to you. You don't have to go looking for them. You know you don't have to go looking for them, they're looking for you now. Dan: They want to get points they want to get points and they build. You get the momentum of the feedback too, right? Yeah, you know. Did Babs know what you're up to, or did she? Yeah, and just your observation. Dean: She's starting to do it herself. I mean, she was inspired to start. You know, start doing it. She won't do it to the maximum way that I do, because that's not what she does. But she knows she's with me, so she knows things will get better. Dan: Right, right right. Dean: Yeah, I'm around a good habit-forming person. I mean, that's just, I'll just hook on and I know things will get better, but anyway, yeah, and. But you know, what it's doing is that all humans are completely equal and that they only get 24 hours per day. That's true. Dan: That is true, your comment, the speed of reality. Dean: That's the speed. That's the speed of reality. Dan: Yeah, and I don't. I mean, it's funny when you say it. When I first started thinking about it I thought you know, is that too obvious? But it's, yeah, I think it's one of those. It's been right there. Dean: Well, the other thing that I can tell you a lot of the problem they're having in their life is they don't account for that truth, right? Dan: yeah, I think that's really the thing, right. It's tuning into the speed of reality and looking at the only times. The only time we can really have any action is today, and there's a hard stop. I mean, there's a hard stop on it that your sleep, you know, is a. There's no possible way for us to do anything tomorrow. Dean: Yeah, and the only impact you can have on yesterday is what you're changing today. Dan: Yes, and that's the thing I was having. So Joe Polish came up, came back with me from Palm Beach. He just left yesterday, but he spent three to four days with me here and I mean, we went through, we set up my total environment here for success, you know, in terms of eating, and we went through my kitchen and cleared out everything that isn't supporting the habit of future healthy being right, and we went through that kind of it was. So we were talking about the four C's two is the commitment, and then courage and capability. And so we went I don't cook and I've never cooked. I've never. You know, yeah, I've never cooked. No, don't really have any skill in that, but we went. Dean: That means that if we catch you cooking, we know something that's deeply wrong. That or? Dan: deeply right. I mean we went and got an Instapot. I don't know if you've heard of this device, but so the Instapot is a miracle vessel. I mean, you just put stuff in and push a button and then it cooks. It's like. So we went to the grocery store and we got some, you know, some organic chicken legs and chicken thighs and chicken breast, and we got some grass-fed ground beef 90-10 and we got some. We've had some. We've cooked the entire the whole four days that he was here. And so the thing is now I left this with a new capability, right Like. So now I've got and I said to Joe it's kind of like reframing. I think it's almost like getting back to my, to building a primal habit of going to the grocery store and hunting some dinner, hunting food. Right, go, hunt some chicken and bring it home and clean it and cook it and enjoy and eat it, you know, but how easy Rather than having food hunting you. Absolutely, that's exactly right. And so that capability, you know, like we, we literally just take the chicken, wash it some salt and pepper, put it in the pot, put some potatoes in there on top, whole, you know whole, just washed, you know, Yukon gold or gold potatoes, put it in there, press the button 11 minutes and it's the most delicious. Whole, you know whole, some. No, no oils, no anything. It's just so clean, right, You've got organic chicken, you've got the stuff, and it's delicious. And then we, you know, got on the pan. I learned some pan skills right Of being able to, just with some butter in the pan, you know, grass fed, organic butter, of course, and putting. We got some steaks that were like, thin cut. We got some pork chops that were thin cut, ground beef, all of those, just the same thing, just taking the meat, salt and pepper and a little bit of, if I wanted to add any spice or whatever to it, cook it on, you know, both sides, and there you go. We even chopped up zucchini and squash into little medallions and sauteed them in the in the pan. So this capability now of being able to see this is a better habit to do than well driving through somewhere, right. Dean: The big thing is that it's got a future reference, that you have a sense of who you'd like to be in the future as an individual. You know and you can only be that in relationship to the habits that you form right. Because you know, there's part of our day which requires focus. Concentration because it's new stuff, yeah, and therefore the habits have to be good. When we're not focusing directly on the activity, you have to have great habits, you know yeah and and yeah. the book I just came out with the great meltdown is that the US is the top country in the world because it's got the best widespread habits of people using innovative skills to lower the cost of money, lowering the cost of energy, lowering the cost of labor, lower cost and no country in the world can possibly match it. You know, yeah, yeah, the prices of things are up and down, unpredictable around the world, and but the US has a habit of always trying to lower the cost of anything. you know yeah and other countries don't have this, and so you know. You can see the difference between Canada and the United States right now. I mean it's really extreme. From the last time you were here, the difference the average per capita income in the United States is now lower than the per capita income of Mississippi. Dan: Wow, the United States, the in. Dean: Mississippi is number 50 and per capita income and the average. Canadian is now below, below the per capita is in the low Wow, yeah, I wasn't. Dan: it wouldn't have expected that. Dean: Yeah, and not only that, they don't freeze to death in Mississippi. Right that's exactly right. At least I got that going for them and that's basically. You can measure it from when the president, prime minister, came in, has been going downhill since this prime minister came in because he wants to save the world. Dan: Yeah, it's interesting, right, that's been funny to watch the. You know my algorithm, for you know, sending me things, video clips and stuff is now I get a lot of those, Pierre Polly. Dean: Yeah, yeah, smart guy. I had breakfast with him about five years ago. Yeah, smart guy, very smart, yeah, and from Alberta French speaking from Alberta, that's a pretty good. You know, that's a pretty good background. Dan: You know he's got a triple. Dean: That's a triple play Canadian that's a triple play for a Canadian. That's French, french. Dan: I mean that's, he's got it all covered because, it just doesn't get it. Dean: And then his wife is from Venezuela, she's a refugee. So she knows what a country gone wrong early looks like yeah, oh, that's funny. Yeah, yeah, and you know, so so anyway, but you can just see the difference that the United States is better at handling milk costs than Canada is. Dan: Yeah, wow. Well, dan, I'm excited, this is great. Seven days? Yeah, well, I'll tell you the tool I can promise you you'll have the tool by this time. Dean: Not this time, but by the end of the day. Tomorrow you'll have top 50 tool and just play around with it. I mean it's self-explanatory, you don't have to. There's no rule book that comes with it. You'll just play with it. Just remember, in every square where you put something, if you press the arrow it takes you to the criteria page. Okay, perfect. Dan: I'll do it. Dean: Yeah. Okay, then I'm interested in the teamwork between the top 50 tool and the Adams app. That'll be really interesting because I've been lacking a daily scoring system. You know, people won't stay with something unless they can score on a daily basis. That's the truth. Dan: That is true. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I can't wait. Dean: All right. Dan: I'll see you. I can't wait. I'll have it tomorrow. Dean: All righty. Thanks, Dan. I'll be on next week if you are, I am absolutely Okay. Dan: Okay, thanks, dan, okay, bye, bye.

In today's episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we reflect on serenity in nature and technology, drawing parallels between Cloudlandia and meticulously raked sand. Woven into our talk is AI and how it's changing everything, from Evan's course helping us out at work to all the crazy experiments shaking things up. We get into how innovation unexpectedly boosted my creativity, which we're calling "exponential tinkering". As our annual event nears, lessons in "exponential thinking" add to the anticipation of a reunited community and potential for growth. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dean and I explore the serenity of Cloudlandia and how it parallels the peacefulness found in Japanese Zen gardens, reflecting on the role of imagination in experiencing digital spaces. We discuss the success of Evan Ryan's AI course within our company and how it has encouraged experiments with AI across different teams. Dean introduces the concept of "exponential tinkering," highlighting how AI is revolutionizing the arts and content creation, with a nod to OpenAI's Sora tool. We contemplate the cultural shift toward immersive experiences like VR, while expressing skepticism about their long-term utility and appeal. Dan recognizes the importance of integrating existing consumer experiences to create innovative products, using Apple as an example. We highlight insights from Mark Mills' book "The Cloud Revolution" on the strategic importance of reshoring supply chains and repurposing shopping centers into logistics hubs. We compare Tesla's success to the sustainability challenges faced by other electric vehicle companies that are more dependent on government subsidies. We share anecdotes about the Soviet-era's illusion of luxury, and how modern-day explorers uncover the true state of Soviet infrastructure. We examine the declining enthusiasm for venture capital in the tech world and the concept of "cruel optimism" that can be prevalent in this sector. Excitement is expressed for our upcoming annual event, stressing the value of 'exponential thinking' and the potential growth of our community. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan how are you, mr Jackson? Dan: Well, welcome to Cloudlandia. I'm sitting out in my courtyard and it's a little bit of a cold, rainy morning. I don't know if you can hear the rain gently falling in the courtyard. It's relaxing. Dean: Do you have an? Dan: umbrella over your head. No, I'm in a. I have a covered, a covered area here that I'm sitting at about. I don't know what you call it, like a lamina or a loja, I don't know how it is, but it's a covered underroof thing, that's attached to my courtyard. Dean: What you're saying is that there's something between you and this guy. That's exactly it. Dan: I'm not getting rained on, I'm under covered, as they say. Dean: Yeah, well, it's sort of a poignant, almost like a Japanese. Stay right, yeah, this almost feels like a Japanese Zen garden. Dan: here I hear the like the little the water coming off the roof of a tile roof, so that it's very Japanese Zen actually, because the there's a spout that drains the water down into a drain. Yeah, so nice. Dean: Yeah, it's very interesting. When I was a teenager I sort of fell in love with Japanese culture. This would be early 60s, late 50s, early 60s and you know I read the literature, I looked at the artwork. I was interested in their architecture, their history, and then in my military. I was drafted into the US military and got sent to South Korea. And I'm an R and R. Rest and relaxation, that's what they called it. Dan: R and R I went to Japan. Dean: I went to twice, oh nice. And my memory is of being in the mountains, at a place where they really didn't speak English I don't know even now if they you know, having Americans who was part of their experience, but it was perfectly understandable. I mean, the hospitality was so great. But I can remember being in one of these little rooms where they had. They had sliding doors that would open up and you could see the mountain, you could see the water. And I remember it raining, but I was warm and I had tea. And I was sitting there and it sort of corresponded to what my teenage visions had been. I always remember that. Dan: That's great. I love it when stuff like that happens. Well, this would definitely be the kind of day that would be conducive to tea. Dean: And sitting out here. Dan: It was kind of a Zen garden that I have in the courtyard, so it's nice. Dean: Yeah, yeah. Speaking of Zen, there's a lot about the jump from the mainland to Cloudlandia that has a Zen-like quality to it, tell me more, tell me more, especially now with the. A lot about it, well, a lot about it. You have to imagine, in other words, that you only get as far in Cloudlandia as your imagination will go. I'm really seeing this. I'm kind of being a creative collaborator with Evan Ryan, still in his 20s, but he's been investigating artificial intelligence for the last 10 years, so he's well into it. So basically his adult life has been and he's got a very thriving business and he's got clients from all over the planet. But he wrote one book which was superb. It was called AI as your teammate and he put it together into a six-module coaching course for companies and our entire company went through that. Dan: Oh, wow. Dean: So it's six to our modules and just to the main. Purpose is just to get people over the hump that this is any scarier than any technology that they've already mastered. It's just a new technology. And it did wonders. It did wonders and I can see the last module was probably four months ago and I can see the investigations and the experiments that are going on across the company, each person sort of focusing on something different. And then Evan is writing a new book and I just shared an idea with him and maybe it be a topic that we would discuss today. But I said, there's all sorts of predictions being made by people about where AI is going and where it's going to take us, and both exciting and scary. The predictions are both exciting and scary and what I realized that all these predictions, no matter how expert the person tried to present themselves, was just one person's prediction. And more or less their prediction for everybody else was simply what they wanted to do for themselves, Right. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And I think Mark Zuckerberg and there's all sorts of people the big tech people and government people and everything, corporate people and I say you're trying to make this a prediction for the world, but it's only probably a prediction for you that this is the direction and what I realized is that there's an exponential breakthrough with AI and it's in the area of tinkering, which is a neat word, yes, Tinkering. So Evan and I talked about it and he's going to. You know, he's developing the idea as exponential tinkering. Dan: And I really like it. Oh, I like that. Dean: That's a good yeah, what a nice combination of words, because, there are kind of two words that are jarring when you put them together, that's very good. Dan: I like that a lot. Dean: Yeah, so what are you tinkering? Dan: with. So I'm tinkering with a couple of things right now and deep into the. Are you talking about technology things? Dean: No, yeah. Well, technology, or specifically AI, are you tinkering at all with it, seeing what it can do? Dan: I'm starting now to. Did you see the latest thing a couple of days ago? The release of Sora, the video creation tool. Now, that was OpenAI did that right. OpenAI has just I think it's only very limitally open to their top tier, you know, data users or whatever, but the demo reels of it you know, showing what it's capable of, and I mean it's certainly you see now where that's the final piece of the puzzle here, like two things have happened in the last 30 days that have really kind of cement where I see this going. I've been predicting here that 20, that you know, almost like the big change 1975 to 2025 will kind of look and the you know all these exponential improvements reaching the top of the asymptotic curve that there's You're using big words. Dean: Yes, so Asymptotic, asymptotic. I think that deserves a subhead for our listeners. Dan: Okay, Well, asyn, in math when you do exponential, it's exponentially increases, increases, and then it reaches a point where it's just marginally like improving slightly. You know, like there's not really the exponential leap, for instance, of going from. If we just take text, we've gone from, you know, writing it on papyrus or having people hand write stuff. Dean: Chiseled as on. Chiseled as in play. Dan: Whatever. And then Gutenberg was an exponential leap in that, but it got better in terms of when we were able to, you know, create digital photocopy and things like that, and we got to the text file where you could digitize text and that became a PDF. And now so everything you know, the functional like improvement in text, has really reached the top of. There's nowhere really to go from everything ever written available instantly on any device you have. And that same thing has been over the last 25 years, kind of cascading series of those with increasing complexity of them, right? I think it's not. That's the easiest thing to fully digitize is text. And then pictures were the next thing, that you could digitize pictures so we can transfer images, then moving pictures right? Audio, sorry, was next after text, audio images or images, videos. Now we're at the point where you know every piece of media video, audio, text or images is completely digitized. It's available on any device at any time you want it. And this next piece that's falling into place is the ability to generatively create, from description, images and videos that you can describe. And so when you take this Sora, and you take Dali and you take the all the things that are converging with the, with the AI, and we'll give them another two year runway, which would even sort of double their time that they've been in our world Mainstream they'll be fully cemented into the mainstream use. And then you look at what's happening with the release of Apple's new Air Pro goggles, or whatever they're calling them. Dean: Vision Pro. Dan: Vision Pro. Dean: And that is. You know everybody who's going to use any of this. Dan: Exponential tinkerers. Dean: Yeah, but that somebody who's doing it tinkerers. Tinkerers is just someone who's doing it for their own purposes. You know they're not trying to create something for anybody else, they're just for example, I gave you the example that I've had a real interest in. You know, I wrote a new book and I had. I was writing a new book and I had one chapter finished and it was how we put our company together, and the chapter was unique ability teamwork. That, basically, a fundamental difference between coach team members and other team members is that we everybody operates according to their own unique ability within unique ability teams. Okay, so that's that, but I've always had a fascination with Shakespeare. You know he's one of my five. Dan: Yes. Dean: You know, five lifetime role models Shakespeare, because he was not only a great poet, a great playwright, a great you know creator of, you know, creator of plays, but he was also a tremendous entrepreneur and he, you know, he created the first company that was self-sustainable and he created a new theater and everything else. So he was very entrepreneurial and seems to have made a pile through theater. And anyway, but I was always fascinated with the language form that was operating in London in the late 1500s and 1600s. So Shakespeare is 1560, 1560, 1660 years and it was called iambic pentameter and it was a structure where there's only 10 syllables per line. You get to the 10th syllable and then you go to a new line, and so I had one of my team members actually go to AI, go to chat GPT and say we would like to translate Dan's copy into iambic pentameter and it was back in 24 hours. Dan: You know came back and I was just fascinated. Dean: I was just fascinated with it because I thought differently about my own thoughts when I saw them come back in a different language form. In English but about a different structure. So I was sitting there, I was reading it and I gave it to some of our team and I said what do you think about this? And they said, wow, I get totally new thoughts from reading it. It's, you know, the basic ideas, but they're in a different language form. And I said now what I'd like to do is I hear it like it here. It's spoken, you know, by someone who was really great with Shakespeare's language. So it was a very famous actor who we have their recordings of, and so we open my team member, Alex Barley, who is British you know. So he's from the UK, so he has a feel for this type of language and he has a feel for theater. And then he worked with Mike Canig's, great friend of ours and. Mike. Mike gave him two or three other AI programs that he could take a look at and about four days later I get this wonderfully eloquent reading of a whole chapter in Iambic content and I listen to it every week. I listen to it every week and it does things for my thinking. Okay, and I've shown it to a few people. This is a you know. A number of people have listened to it and they're all say, wow, that's amazing. Dan: You did that. Dean: Why'd you do that? Why'd you do that? Dan: Why'd you do? Dean: that Just tinkering? I was just tinkering and I just. I kind of said you know, if I put this together with this and maybe put the two of them together with this, I wonder what it sounds like. And I have no intention of, I have no intention of going any further with it, but it really serves a purpose, that it really influences my own thinking and I've noticed that my writing has changed as a result of listening to this for three or four, three or four months, you know, I just I just get a different take on my own ideas. Dan: And. Dean: I call that tinkering, I just call that tinkering. Dan: I like that. Dean: And I believe that with AI, what you have, there was always tinkering in the technology world, but I think what AI does, it makes, it allows tinkering to be exponential. Dan: That's interesting. So there's, I'd say, yeah, you're, there's an artistry to it in a way. Dean: You know, in that there's, it's kind of like doing something for your own pleasure for your own yeah, and your own enhancements you know you see, you see an extension of a capability that you already have, but you can see new dimensions of the capability that you already have and that in itself is the reward, that in itself. And people say well, are you going to? You know, I tell people and they say oh, so are you going to actually produce this? And you know, you know like we produce our books. And I said no, I'm just doing it for my own reasons. Dan: I just like the feel of this. I just like the feel you know and. Dean: I do not think I'm unique in this experience. I think there's a hundred million people doing the same thing with something that kind of fascinates them. Dan: And I wonder if that's the artistic expression gene or something. I mean, that's our internal desire to chase our whims. Dean: You know, in a way, yeah, that's one of the great joys of the the reason I'm saying this is that we're always making the predictions about who the giant tech giant is that's going to dominate this and I said one I don't see it emerging. I think all of them are scrambling like mad so that they don't get left behind. But I don't think the idea of tinkering really exists in that world. You know quarterly stock prices, investments that's what they're looking for, you know, and everything else, but I don't see the dominant player, even. You know, even open. Ai is the dominant player. Dan: Have you had some experience? Have you tried the vision pros yet? Dean: No, I don't like goggles. Dan: I don't need. I mean I'm not inclined either. Dean: They're anti social. Dan: I wonder you know it's going to be. I know there'll be a lot of people at Free Zone next week that have them that are, so we'll get a chance to try that for sure. But I know my kenix has it. Dean: I know Leo as his one of the things that I always look at their past stage right now, but it'd be interesting checking their lives down six months from now whether they're actually using them. Dan: That's what I'm curious about, right Like it's so. Dean: I don't need to be first in with anything. Dan: Right, exactly, yeah, yeah, I think that this chasm it's getting, you know, I think it's getting wider and wider, this that there's even now, nuances of going deeper into Cloudlandia, because I think that's like immersively diving into Cloudlandia and I think that there's. Nick Nanton just posted a thing about some big movie director who was tweeted about. You know, just spent the day editing this is a feature movie, mainstream movie director saying you just spent the day editing in the Vision Pros with, in collaboration with his editor, on a big screen. They are theatrical, like movie screen size and just fascinated. He said. Dean: you know, no headache, no anything so I don't know, yeah well, where I think and I felt five, ten years, well, let's say five years ago when people were talking about visual reality, okay. Dan: Yes. Dean: And Peter Diamonis had a lot of proponents of this at Abundance 360 and I was sitting there and I said first of all, every everything that I've seen I find boring and the reason? because what you're seeing is the creation of one brain, and if it's not an interesting brain to begin with, the result of their creation of a VR program is exponentially less interesting. Okay, and what actual reality is good? You know, I look out in my yard and you have the same opportunity there. I look at them and I've got these seven giant oak trees in their yard, I mean they're a hundred, and ten hundred foot oak trees, and the reason I love those trees so much is nobody created them. There was no intention for this to happen. It was just a lucky acorn. Dan: Right the result of it. Dean: I mean they produce thousands, millions of acorns in our yard and it's just squirrel food you know, and and it's the nonintentionality that interests me, it's not the somebody's intention, okay, and one person's story really doesn't interest me for the first time if it doesn't include a lot of other people's stories you know, in other words. You're putting that together, so I don't know. I mean, I think there's a fundamental obstacle to all technological breakthroughs, and it's called human nature. Dan: Yeah, this is where that's. What I wonder, is the goggles? Them sound like it. Just it feels like, wow, this is a you know, unless we're at a point where I think the improvement of the vision pros is that you can actually see out of them. Dean: Well, you can see out of them and it's got the thing that I think is really going to make a difference, and that's all augmented reality. Yes, exactly In other words, you're looking at a real thing. Yeah, there are useful pictures, useful data, useful messages on it, and there's useful capabilities, in other words, there's like email and, I'm sure, the design. You know design tools and everything that you can do and that, I believe, is good, but it'll only, it'll take hold where the use of this speeds up an economic process that already makes money. But you can speed up an economic process. Dan: I'm seeing that, if everything is, you know, being shaped to drive us deeper into this cloudlandia existence here, that everything's happening in the goggles, that I was just had coffee with Stuart, my operations guy, and we were saying how it seems like there's a trend towards you know, I have you ever heard the term hostile design for architecture where the Starbucks one of the Starbucks here in Winter Haven just went under when it's 10 year renovation and they completely turned it into like a basket robin's? where it's all the character of you know a basket robin's. There's no sense of that third place kind of you know origin that Starbucks started with, where, when Starbucks was first getting started in the 90s, they had, you know, nice design, comfy chairs. It was inviting to come and get a coffee and sit and you know gather kind of thing. And now it's essentially designed with the hey, keep it moving, keep it moving kind of vibe to it. There's no, nothing about the chairs, the seating, it's just literally one long banquette with facing single wooden chairs. You know that, on and round table, so there's no comfort or invitingness to come and linger. Dean: Well, they commoditize, so you know. In other words, yeah they start off at very special places. Yeah, and you know you could go in if you could use it as an office, it could be your office all day if you were I think yeah. Dan: I think that's what happened is that post as we got into the last ten years where it became more, you know, wi-fi is ubiquitous and, you know, demanded in public spaces like that. That you know I was saying to Stuart. My theory about it is that in the 90s and early 2000s the internet was still a place that you had to go to right, like you, yeah, had to go to your computer to go there, and these third places were, of you know, an important part of you're putting that aside and you're coming to this third place to be there and as laptops and Wi-Fi and all these things made it possible that people could go and set up shop in the Starbucks and spend the whole day there, that became defeated, the whole purpose. It wasn't a third place, it was the place. 0:25:06 - Dean: You know, yeah, and the other thing it became every place. You know, I mean, when you commoditize, it's every place. And, and you know, I mean you know. And the other thing is that there was a fundamental change in the Starbucks culture and I can say exactly when it was. It was in the 90s and I think it was probably around 1995. They said there's a risky part of our future and that is we can't guarantee that we're always going to have good baristas okay, because the real right. The real skill I mean of Starbucks is who is? Where the baristas who can do the coffee, just right, and they said we can't. You know, it's too risky and that we become too dependent on these people, you know and they said we've got to make it mechanical and what they did immediately is that their espresso drinks, you know, whatever form it came in, was only 80% as good, but it was predictably 80. The moment you give away quality in order to achieve quantity, you've lost all uniqueness. Yeah. I agree, yeah and that's what they've done. And now the other thing is that they created their own competition because people seeing how a coffee operation works, they went to Starbucks University and got their degree, you know, and it probably take a year to do that and they went out and created their own independent coffee shops. So I think those unique coffee shops still exist, but they're not trying to take over the planet yeah, it's really. Dan: It's interesting. I'm looking for places like that, but you just it's kind of a sad thing. It's almost like you've talked often about the, the black cab knowledge of the drivers in London that they have London, I think London. Dean: London, birmingham and Manchester, I think they have, but the black cabs are the best cabs in the world. Yeah, okay, they're, just there's nothing to compare of what an experienced black cab driver with the black cab experience in the world. There's just nothing like it, and it takes you three years of dedicated study to even pass the test to become a black cab driver, you know and it's very interesting that all of that now can be. You know, anybody in their Honda Civic equipped with their iPhone, has the knowledge right on their phone well, actually it worked out, it didn't work out in London right, because Uber came in and they said well, you know, the Uber guys got it, but they have no feel for the city right and yeah, and so within six months of Uber coming in and actually threatening black cab developed its own Uber software, so now they have the Uber software plus the knowledge of the driver yeah, right it's like AI, an AI program defeating world champion, chess champion okay, yeah and within a year, the chess champions just said okay, we've upped the game and now it's us, plus our AI program, against each other. Dan: Yeah, it's very. You know, it's a-. Dean: Humans are infinitely smarter than technology. Dan: Yeah, it's a fascinating time to be approaching your 80th birthday right now too, you know, looking into the next decade here. Yeah, what are you guessing and betting on for the next few weeks? Dean: I'm betting that people's grasp of their past is now their trump card. Okay, that the future is completely and totally unpredictable, okay as far as I'm concerned. I mean, I think you could predict the future more in the 19th and you know the book you gave me, the 1990, the great change I would think was called the Great Change. If I think back to 1950, where I was alive, I think that the first grade teacher and I had a first grade teacher in 1950, sister Mary Josephia. Sister Mary Josephia, sometime, first grade she says the reason why you're learning this now reading, writing and arithmetic is that when you graduate from high school because nobody went to college in those days- you know, you left high school and you went and got a job. She says everybody's going to be looking in the job market at how good you are at reading, writing and arithmetic and showing up on time and finishing what you start and saying please and thank you and everything else. And she was totally correct. In 1962, exactly what she predicted was true. Okay, so try a first grade teacher in 2024, can she predict anything about what a first grader will experience 12 years later? Dan: Yeah, no chance yeah. Dean: And that's just a general condition on the planet. I just think the future is no longer predictable. So what's the unused resource? The unused resource is your past. Dan: Say more about that. What do you mean? The unused resource? Dean: Well, first of all, it's unique. I mean, if I sat down with you and asked you questions about your past and it went on for a year day in day out for a year. Not one thing that you say about your past during that year is anything but unique to you. That's true. Yeah, exactly that's where all the raw material is for creativity. It's not in the future, you know and it was so funny because I remember four or five times in abundance 360, peter would invite in people from Google, okay, and they had these moon shots, okay, and what was interesting about them? They were predicting new things in the future that hadn't been imagined yet, okay. And it seems to me like sparse ingredients, but it was what they were up to and there was presentation after presentation and they had videos on YouTube and everything else. And I said is there any customer experience in this? No, there was no customer experience. They were just making it up, you know, and they were sort of, and these teams were in competition with each other who could come up with the most convincing thing? That didn't exist. And then I kept track of it and over a 10-year period they shot all those projects down. They never went anywhere. Dan: Wow, yeah, they never went anywhere. Dean: Yeah, and I said, all you do is let's find three examples of things that people are already enjoying, and can we put them together in a new way and create something new where people already have experience? With at least a third of the new thing you know, and that's what Apple does. Apple never does anything. First they sit there and they say MP3 player, napster, making money doing this Internet. Let's put the three of them together and see where they go. Dan: Yeah, that's smart. They were doing triple plays and didn't even know it. Yeah, well, maybe they were, Maybe they were yeah that's your clever observation of it, right, exactly, yeah, put a framework over it. Dean: There's a great technology thinker by the name of Mark Mills, and he wrote a really interesting book called the Cloud Revolution. Okay, and it's really worth a read. Okay, and what he said? If you go backwards 100 years and you look for all the major technological breakthroughs that have more or less been the mainstream of the last 100 years, he says they you always discover it was never one thing, it was always three things. Dan: Oh really. Dean: He uses the radio, he uses electricity, he uses internal combustion, he uses cars, he uses airplanes, he uses, you know, motion pictures and all the major things air conditioning and everything, and he shows the three things that went together before the breakthrough was possible. Oh wow, and part of the reason is you're putting together already existing habits. Dan: Yeah, that's really. You have to piggyback on something that somebody's already doing, right. Dean: Yeah, that gives them their existing habit, even though you're adding. You know you're adding factors that are two other habits. But you have to get people something solid to stand on before you ask them to take a step into the new. Dan: What was the name of that book? Dean: again, it's called the Cloud Revolution. Okay, the Cloud Revolution. Yeah and he uses an interesting example and this is a prediction he's making for the future. He said, with reshoring take place. So that's one factor the supply chains are going to get shorter and shorter in the future, because COVID sort of proved to everybody that relying products that came from a hundred different places and required 5,000 miles of ocean travel to get to us wasn't reliable for the future products you know, foods and everything. So what? The major thing is that you're going to try to have supply chains were important with things as close as possible to where the customers are. And he said that's one trend. Okay, that's reshoring, that's that process of bringing your manufacturing and your industrialization back to close to you. That's one factor. The other factor is no longer obsolete shopping centers, Okay. And he said let's suppose that you just take every obsolete shopping center and you turn it into a combination of warehouse, factory and distribution center, Okay. Okay, All the existing infrastructure is built in. That's already zone. It's got huge parking, it's got some massive, big spaces like the big anchor stores, some massive big spaces. You already have delivery docks, you have truck docks that go underground and people go yes and everything. And he says but it's obsolete for the purpose it was created for. But he says if you think about it as a nexus point for trade supply routes in other? Words the raw material will come in and then supply routes going out to the actual customers. And he says all of a sudden you got a new use. But people are used to shopping centers, people work in shopping centers, you know and everything else he says well, you know, and they have major, usually they're situated where there's major transportation routes, there's major highways, there's, you know. I mean probably the best shopping centers are in places that have, you know, highway access. They have air airline, you know, ups, and so that he says just look, look at a lot of stuff that already exists. Put it together in a new way and people's habits already supported. Dan: That's smart. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I like those things, so that fits in with the whole. Jeff Bezos, you know what's not going to change in the next 10 years model, looking not at what's going to change, but what's not going to change, because that's what you can anchor on. Dean: Yeah, it's kind of like I'm just watching all the EV companies, the electric vehicle companies, with the exception of Tesla, because they've got a unique, established niche. I don't think any of the other companies that are based on a profit motive are making that forward, shutting, cutting back. Volkswagen is cutting back, gm is cutting back, everybody's cutting back, because they're losing anywhere from $30,000 to $70,000 on a vehicle and it doesn't look like it's going to get any better. Okay, and then, but what made it unnatural is the fact that you had to have massive government insistence for it to even get off the ground. Dan: Yeah, you just kind of hit something on the head there, because Elon Musk has definitely thrown his hat over the fence on electric vehicles and it is dominating the market for it, because he's all in on that, which is something that Ford and Volkswagen and all these companies can't do. They're not, they're only like dabbling in the electric vehicle markets, you know. Dean: Yeah they did it because there were massive subsidies, there was math, you know, and the states like California were mandating. You know, you know, and by 2035 we won't have any fossil fuel vehicles. Okay, and you know, if the strong arm of government's gonna come on and just forbid the alternative, well, of course we're going to invest our future in it. But those governments are going to be thrown out. I bet the government in California is throwing out within 10 years, I mean you know, by the way, that that just reminded me of something. Dan: I just watched the Tucker Carlson interview with Putin. Did you see that? Dean: Yeah, Parts of it. I saw a part Okay. Dan: Yeah, yeah, nothing extraordinary about that. That wasn't what I was getting to. But while Tucker was in Russia, he did a series of short Videos that were just kind of exploring what is it actually like in a, you know, post sanctioned Russia that you know, yeah, since they put sanctions in place and you know, and it was funny because he was describing, you know, like every visual that we have of, you know, communism in Russia is, you know, empty shelves and limited supply and limited Choice and utilitarian things. So he went, he did a interesting series where he went to a Russian Supermarket to see, okay, so what is it like like? What's day-to-day life like in Russia under sanctions during wartime? And it was, you know, the most fascinating like grocery store where you go in and it's the shelves are stopped with Everything you could imagine, all these things. It's a beautiful, clean store, very modern. Everything about it was amazing. They filled up their basket with what would be, you know, a week's worth of groceries for a family of four kind of thing, what you would get if you were kind of feeding a, a family of four and they, you know, found everything. They they wanted a beautifully you know, fresh baked bread, all the staples that you could need. They filled them all up. They all him and the producers kind of guessed that they would have, you know, $400 or 400 worth of groceries if they were buying it in America, kind of thing which was their frame of reference and Turns out they got all of that stuff for like a hundred and four dollars is what it's what it costs. Dean: Yeah, don't you find it fascinating that he found the one supermarket in all of Russia where that was. Dan: That's what I wonder. That's what I want. Dean: No, that's not you think he went there just have passers-by on his own, I don't like to go. Oh yeah, yeah, the Soviets had one in Moscow. It was right near the Kremlin. It was called gum GUM, if you look it up on Wikipedia. Huh, capital G, capital U, capital M, and you went in and it was just well-dressed shoppers, everything you know, I think that's that's might have been where he was. That might have been it, oh yeah, and it's, and it's a show place, it's a show play and that's what they found when they found out the history of it. Shoppers would go in and they would come out the front door and then they go around the block, go through the black door Backdoor and give back everything that they had bought, and then it was restocked on the shelves. Dan: Oh boy. Dean: They were all actors. Dan: Oh, wow, very interesting. I wondered the same thing, because they did. He went to a subway station that he admittedly said was the most beautiful. So we never seen a subway station as nice anywhere in in America and it was. They showed the footage of it. You know, beautiful artwork and chandeliers and steam, cleaned cleanliness and, no, no graffiti, all of those things. And it did have the sense of. Is this a show place? Because there's an interesting YouTube channel. There was a gentleman from the UK and his channel is called bald and bankrupt and what he does is he goes just solo with a single camera and he was touring all these Soviet Territories. All the outposts, you know, like that were the height of the thing, to compare, and every one of it is Just like everything is run down. And you know all of the Soviet Union, you know post Communism is completely, you know, run down. And what you would expect, right, what you would that, your Vision of it, and I think that you kind of just hit it on the head. That's that it's more likely. Dean: That's like a show place or a yeah that that subway system was put in the 1930s. Okay, they had the boss of it, was cruise ships, cruise ships came in the fame Because he put in. But there was. There was no Limit on cost and there was no limit on how many people died. Building, they asked, made about 20,000 workers died. Putting in the subway system Okay and and, but if those are not cost you pay any attention to, then you can build anything in the world. But, if you wanted to go to another city and see the subway, they wouldn't let you do that. You could only see the subway. That they, because subways were a bigger deal you know in the 1930s or 1920s. Then they are now. You know, because most people don't use the subways. But in Europe, you know, where people don't have cars and they live in very dense populated areas, subways make sense. I mean 80 percent of the Public transportation in the United States I'm talking about buses and subways and commuter trains is the greater New York area that once you get outside the New York area, only 20 percent of the public public Transportation public transportation exists because everybody's got private transportation. Dan: Yeah exactly right. Dean: I mean you got your own. I mean you got a plush Travel vehicle called the Tesla X. You know it's kind of neat. You don't use it 99% of the time, but it's nice having you know. Dan: You know what I said. I was talking about you. Yesterday the I was had to drive somewhere that was about an hour away, just over an hour Actually. Dan said a new high watermark for my migration north. I went just about a half an hour north of I for the first time since. What's it like? Dean: I mean do you need oxygen? Dan: I mean you know I was using the self-drive, which is just name. You know it's only in named and as it has a nervous breakdown if you take your hand off the wheel for more than 30 seconds at a time. But I said you know Dan Sullivan has it figured out. Dan Sullivan has had self-drive since 1997. Dean: You've had true self drive, self automatic, self drive you know it's an interesting thing, but what I notice, you know I'm just developing the reason. This thing about the past is interesting because I'm writing my new quarterly book right now and it's called Everything Is Created Backward, and what I mean everything that sticks is actually created by starting with the past and picking the best of, and I think three things is really a formula. I mean, there might be things where it's five things, but I think three is useful because you can go looking for three, okay, and what I'm seeing is that the tech world has basically ground to. A lot of people don't know this, but the investment part, the venture capital part of the tech world, has just hit a wall. I mean, there's a massive amount of money available, but nobody wants to invest it because so many things promised as new things in the last 10 years really haven't amounted to anything. It's about, I think about less, maybe around 10% of IPOs. You know, initial public offerings have panned out Okay. That's a high risk that you have a nine you know, a nine to one chance of losing your money if you invest in something new, and I think the hype factor for getting investment has lost its energy. Dan: Yeah, that's changes everything. This changes everything, oh that's no good, then that's a sure sign that it's doomed. Yeah, this changes everything should be your signal to run away. Dean: Yeah, and you know I mean, but it does change everything for certain individuals and this is the mistake. It's like Joe Polish calls this cruel optimism. Dan: You know cruel optimism Okay. Dean: Yeah, and he has a great take on this, and he said that that when it comes to you know, because he's very interested in addictions and how one gets off an addiction, and he says there's thousands of predictions that if you do this and do this, you get a work for you. And he said what's true about it is it'll work for somebody, okay, but it's their willingness for it to work that actually makes it possible. And so there's a lot of human agency to things turning out the way you want. If you take complete ownership and it has to work for you, probably it'll work. But if you think it's going to be done to you and you don't have to do anything probably it won't work. Yeah, that's a very yeah, but I thought it was. But he says it's very cruel Because when it doesn't work and it doesn't work, and it doesn't work, your addiction gets more powerful. Dan: I said to somebody I've been talking about. I've often talked about the difference between, in marketing, a slot machine versus a vending machine, and that's a great analogy. It's often the way that most businesses take on marketing. They put money in the slot machine and they pull the lever and they hope that something happens and they're surrounded in a room by all the other entrepreneurs. Dean: Yeah, we got two out of three. Or we got two out of three oranges. Dan: We got a trend going here, that's right, so everybody's pulling their slot machine and they're all in the same room and somebody hits the jackpot and they all flock over to that machine. Look at the crowd, See see, see, it works. They're like yeah, trying to do the same thing. And then you know every all the testimonials that you see. That's exactly what that reminded me of. It's cruel optimism that sometimes see it does work, but they're usually talking about something that happened quickly and to a great extent and once. And it's not the same as the predictable vending machines. Not every time I put in the dollar I get $10 out. Dean: But you know, one of them has. One of them comes with a dopamine factor and the vending machine doesn't come with the dopamine factor. Dan: That's the truth, isn't it? Yeah, but we're all seeking that excitement of the the lot machine. Yeah, it's a cruel optimism, that's funny. Dean: I think it's a good. I think it's a good title. You know, he everything but and. But. It has that somebody else's formula for the future is going to work for you. You know, so I have a. You know I have a little saying that in order to create a more, bigger and better future, you have to first start by creating a bigger and better past. And the reason is the past is all yours to work with. The future is nobody's to work with. Dan: Right. Dean: Yeah, and so my feeling is the greatest breakthroughs with the new vision pro, you know and you know the other AI technologies that are coming along with it is that my feeling is that the best breakthroughs for this will be actually an industrial work, where you're actually dealing with existing engineering. You're existing with existing infrastructure and I think quality control is going to go way up, as people can check out every system you know and they look at, you know they go backstage, they go into a boiler room and they can do a check with their goggles on of every piece of machinery and they have a checklist, does this check and does this check and nothing gets missed. And I think it's going to. The great greatest breakthrough is going to be an industrial quality control. I think that's where it's going to be most used Wow and warfare. I mean all the 35, the latest jets. They operate as six pilot, six plane units. And all, every one of the pilots is aware of the other five pilots and what they're doing. Okay, and they operate as this six person unit, their radar allows them to see 500 miles out in all directions. Okay, and they can see any threat coming, probably two or three minutes before the threat sees them, which makes a big difference, you know. So yeah, somebody said, all breakthroughs happen in three ways, all human, technological breakthroughs. Number one is weaponry. Okay, that's number one, number two is toys and number three is porn. Dan: So there's a triple play right there in the making. Dean: There's a triple play. I mean, if you can check off the box, if this is good for warfare, it's good for play and it's good for porn you got yourself a winner. Dan: Oh my goodness. Dean: That's funny, I like within three days. The biggest complaint about Apple's new vision pro was you couldn't do popcorn on it. Dan: You can't I mean, it's funny, isn't it? That's the way, that's the thing, oh man. Dean: Now, instead of being horrified by that, you're being told something important. Dan: Yes, exactly that's great. So this, this is the week, dan, this is our yeah, so we'll be in. Dean: Orlando at the four seas, in Palm Beach at the four seasons. So Thursday evening will be arriving there. I've got all day Friday completely free. And but we already have Saturday for dinner and Sunday dinner in the calendar with others who have requested it. Dan: Okay so so I got lots of time. Okay, so that's my plan Initially. I may come down Friday then, but Saturday was when I was going to arrive, so maybe, let's you know, put Saturday lunch for sure, yeah, if that works for you yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah and yeah. Dean: So we're completely, you know, completely flexible with those days All my materials for printing have to be in by Tuesday this week. Dan: Okay, so you're gonna. You're a relax and it's all underway. Dean: Yeah, it gets printed out of Chicago and it'll be sent to the team when they get to Palm Beach. It'll be in the four seasons and they'll just have all the materials for the workshop. Dan: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Okay, well, worst case scenario be Saturday at lunch, maybe Friday. I'll come down on Friday, okay. Dean: What'd you get? What'd you get out of today? Dan: Fascinating, I think this whole. I like this idea of the exponential thinker. Dean: I think that I will be there. You should chat with him about it. There's so many people. Dan: I'm looking, really looking forward to seeing everybody it's. I can't believe it's been a year. Dean: You know, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there, anyway, I think we're gonna have a good. We're gonna have a good, a good event. We have about 70 free zoners and we have another 90 guests. Dan: Oh my goodness, wow, okay, great. Yeah, so hopefully that will yield some new free zoners too. Dean: Yeah, okay, dean, see you on Saturday. Thanks, dan, bye, and just let Becca know, you know, and she'll work things out. Dan: Okay, that sounds great, okay, okay, thanks, bye, bye.

In today's episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we embark on a reflective journey through the lens of history. We examine the perceived hardships of modern life compared to past decades like the 1950s and 1960s. Drawing on personal experiences, I note how some aspects of the human condition remain unchanged despite technological and social evolution. Shifting to practical topics, we discuss strategies for leveraging intellectual property, especially during economic downturns. Adapting to changes and maintaining resilience emerge as significant when transforming ideas into tangible assets. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS In this episode we reflect on how technological advancements have transformed personal and societal challenges compared to past decades. Dan examines the prevalence of mental health discussions in contemporary society versus the silence around such issues in the 50s and 60s. We explore the philosophical implications of our tech-saturated age through the ideas of Italian philosopher Augusto del Noce on atheism and technology. Dan and I question if the abundance of knowledge and advancements in AI truly contribute to happiness or complicate our understanding of the world. We consider whether technology, like virtual reality, adds new dimensions to life or repackages what has always existed. discussions on the military's use of advanced technology, such as eye-controlled systems, and its trickle into civilian life. We share insights on the transformation of media consumption habits and the strategic benefits of converting intellectual property into tangible assets. I underscore the importance of adaptability and resilience, especially when leveraging intellectual property during economic challenges. Dan and I share personal experiences, noting that while the geographical footprint expands, human connection and existence remain constant. We ponder the impact of innovations on our daily lives and the need to adapt to chase tangible achievements in the face of technological change. 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: it would be a tragedy if these calls were not recorded. It really would. Dan: That would be the truth. Dean: Isn't it nice? Dan: that they're automatically recorded and we don't have to remember to do it. Yeah, just feels organic, so welcome back. Yeah, it's been a few, a couple of weeks here. Dean: Yeah, you know, here's a, here's a thought that I was just pondering, that it seems to me that, as cloud by India expands people's real world experience not real world, but mainland experience they're both. Mainland experience seems to be more challenging and seems to be, in some cases, more vaccine and more traumatic. Okay, do you have some exhibits? That's my thought, that's my cheerful thought for the day. Dan: Do you have some exhibits for your argument? Dean: Well, there's such an emphasis now on meltdown, people having nervous breakdowns, which I don't remember at all growing up, you know 50s 60s? I don't remember any talk like this, but now it's constant, every day. You know people. Dan: And it's everywhere right. Dean: Like now this is. Yeah, I mean everywhere that I know it's much of the world in humanity that I don't know, but everywhere I know, it's not so much that the people that I'm talking to, our experience, and it's not that it's a narrative. You know that. You know these are the most trying times that humans have ever had, and I said well, first, of all. I don't even know how you would know that you know? Dan: how would you know? How would you know? Yes, I mean, if you haven't been there, you probably your knowledge of 150 years ago is probably pretty slim. Dean: How about the dark ages? That would have to be pretty yeah. Dan: Well, I, you know, I don't know, you know, I don't know. Dean: I mean, I think it's a comparison, and I think somebody's got a point to make. When they say the dark ages. Well, they probably weren't dark for the people who were in the dark ages. They probably weren't dark for the people who were in them. Dan: Right, exactly, that's so funny. Dean: Well, the Roman. Dan: Empire seemed to have a pretty good time, didn't they? Dean: Yeah, well, you know, life is life. You know, you know, and yeah, it's a discussion I have with people who are talking about the future and I said I'm going to guarantee you one thing about the future is that when you get there, it's going to feel normal. Dan: And we're going to. It's funny. Dean: I think that would be disappointing to a lot of people, because they think that the future is going to transform them. And I said well, not anymore than the past. Did I remember how? Dan: to find the old. I would say these are the good old times. Yeah, like that's the reality. Is wherever right now. It's just the distance of it right Like if you're thinking. You know, in the past, that was just a reflection of a moment in the present. At one point you know, yeah, well, the reason was we were thinking about the future. Dean: The reason was we were. We were at Genius Network this week and the subject of Apple's new Provision goggles came out. Okay, I don't know if you've experimented yet I haven't. And not, but they said this is going to change everything. Dan: And I said wait a minute. Dean: You're in a half. Ai was going to change everything. And you know I got up this morning and you know my life doesn't feel that much different than when the day before AI was introduced. Yes, at. Dan: GVT. Dean: Yes, and I said and so I began thinking about that that you're using basically a Cloud Landia phenomenon to save. That phenomenon is going to change everything. And and I said, well, you know, I mean who's talking. I mean my question is who's talking? Maybe it's going to change you, but you know, for most people there I mean half the world won't even know about it 10 years from now. Dan: Yeah, like that's. You know, it's so funny. It reminds me of the. You know, how do you? It's like asking a fish how do you like the water? Yeah, yeah, they don't have any recollection of what you're reading. The water, yeah, gen Z is now. You know, all the Gen Zs have no idea about a world without Internet and social media and everything on demand. I mean, they have no idea about there being three channels on TV that broadcast everything to everyone at the same time and not when you watch what they put out. I mean, that's pretty, it's pretty amazing, right, and it was in black and white. Dean: In black and white, on a dream. Dan: Yeah. Dean: You had to jiggle with the antenna to make sure that you're receiving that day. Yeah, you didn't think anything strange about it, that's just. You know, that's just what you had to do. Dan: Eating your TV dinner and it's tinfoil plate and your Jiffy popcorn. Dean: I remember those as being quite tasty. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Isn't that? Dan: funny though, dan. I mean, I do think about that a lot. I just I extended the southerly boundary of my footprint on the planet a couple of weekends ago. I was down in. Miami, in Brickle, at Giovanni Marceco's Archangel event. He invited me down and yeah, so it was just a you know another world. You know expand everything happening. You know people bustling around all in there, certainly a lot of traffic, every you know on the mainland things are Largely status quo, you know, and getting more. Dean: Yeah, you got to pick your time. You got to be more intelligent about picking when you decide to travel these things you know, but I got a feeling that's been that way, you know, Since we could transport ourselves. But I think the question I have is. What is it about, the president? That's not okay with you you know, and. I did this diagram, which I'm going to develop into a thinking exercise. I love that. Yeah, and it's, and I think you've seen it, I think you've seen it and what I have is a sheet of paper and the diagram goes from lower left to upper right. Okay, and down at the bottom there's a little circle and that's at the upper left. Upper right is a bigger circle, and underneath the little circle is here, and under above the Bigger circle in the upper right-hand corner is there, and then I draw a line that's got an arrow head you know, it's a straight arrowhead and it's called striving. Dan: And I said I'm. Dean: This is a portrait of your entire life. I'm going to tell you your as entrepreneurs. So I'm just going to tell you your entire life is. You're here and you're striving to get there. Striving, I said how many of you remember, this is the way it was at 10 years old, 30 years old, some of you 50 years old. I can remember 70 years old. Okay, that was just what I say. So let's say you start at 10 and now you're 60 years old and One thing is absolutely true you have a lifetime, 50 year habit every day, lifetime habit reinforced, of being here but striving to get there. I said so With that very pure habit in place. What do you think the chances are? At 60, you're going to be there. Dan: That's it's so, it's profound Right, but it fits in with the cap and the game too, in a way. Dean: Yeah, so actually 10 years ago. The reason I'm bringing this up is 10 years ago I Decided that I'm there and now, the job is not to get anywhere. The job is just to expand the quality and quantity of the there that I'm at mm-hmm okay and, and I had this exercise and you did, which is called your best decade ever, and I decided, when I look back, that I've achieved more Between 70 and a couple months, 80 70 to 80. I've achieved more in the last 10 years than I did in the previous 70 years. Dan: And what do you? Did you set out with that as your intention, or did you know? Is that my? Dean: intention. I just made a decision. I remember that 10 years ago, when I was 70 and yeah, there was, if you remember, there was a big party and I mean, how can I forget? Dan: you just recently forgave me for lying to you. Yeah there was a. Dean: Dirty lying culprit Involved in that and I love him in spite of that. Dan: I love, there we go, thank you. Dean: Thank you and anyway, but I was reflecting that I'm there, you know, I'm there and there's no. And it shows up in two ways, dean, and it is that I've noticed, and I this just occurred to me one day, because people say Would you like to meet so-and-so, and I said not really right really, and I don't have any particular reasons, it's like yeah, somebody said who's the person that, if you could, you would love most to have dinner with and I said Jackson. I said, certainly someone I know, certainly some what I know knows. You haven't met them yet. And I said, nah, I can't think of anyone you know. And they said yeah, but you know, yeah, I mean, is there anyone in the you know that's gonna be different in the future and I said yeah, but that just that's built into the formula. I said you know, every year we bring you know close to a thousand new entrepreneurs into the program and I know a lot of a thousand there's gonna be. You know a handful of them that I really get to know and they're you know, they're bright, they're exciting, they're ambitious, they're creative, they're doing all sorts of interesting things. I so, just as matter, of course, I'm gonna meet them and they said no. But you know, I mean, would you like to meet Taylor Swift? I said no, what would we talk about? And somebody was gonna introduce me Actually the I was described to this person. That person said I'd really like to meet him and it was a famous politician. They'd like to meet this guy. And so they said would you call him because he'd really like to talk to you? And I said but I don't have anything to say. He may think of a reason for meeting me, but I don't have any reason for meeting him, you know. And I've got so many really bright people that I know. That I'm having great conversations with I don't you know, I don't really want to. It would be a lot of effort, you know a lot of effort. Yeah it would be a, it would be a guess and a bet. Dan: Where I'm working with I'm working with guarantees, you know so. Dean: Anyway. But the other aspect of this where's the place in the world? You haven't been yet. I said can't think of any. You know that you'd like to really go to. I say I can't think of any. Right you know, maybe when I'm in London I'll head in the northwest direction rather than you know the other directions. Have already gone in to see what's five or six streets away and I know in. London. You're in London, you're always running into something new. No longer, no matter how long you're there, you're doing that. So I've got those two things and I think it's a function of the decision I made 10 years ago. You know that there's nobody I particularly want to meet. There's no one, a particular Place that I want to go, and I think the reason is because I've decided that. Dan: I'm there. Do you know? What's so funny, dan, is that is very similar thinking to what I did in 1999 with the. I know I'm being successful when I'm thinking about that. It's being is the state of being here. You can only, you can only be in the present doing it's being right being yeah, it's really interesting. Dean: I've been reading this several volume series by this Italian philosopher, truly a philosopher. Augusto del noce died around 1990 and it's on atheism. As it seems, that is Last 25 years of his life. He was just zeroing on this one subject of atheism, which is kind of a new thing on the planet, you know, goes back the beginning of it is maybe 400 years ago and it probably coincides when we to have the tools and we started to have a financing to do things scientifically, you know, and people notice that as they, they develop scientific concepts and then technology enabled them to measure In a way that they hadn't been able to measure. They discovered brand new things and they just said, since we have this growing ability and it seems like it'll grow forever why do we need God? So, why do we need heaven when we can create our own heaven here? And that was a guess in a bet and it's. It Seems to me that they haven't really been successful. But anyway, I was, I was just. I've read a couple of them twice and I'm on a new one right now, and he's just introduced this vast universe of different thinkers who contribute some aspect To what we would call atheism today. You know which is essentially the denial of that One there is a God and number two, that a God is needed. You know that perfectly okay, ourselves. And and since I've been writing that, I've just been increasingly aware of the topic, the subject I started the conversation with, on my part today. Which was, it seems to me, as we develop these incredible technological abilities. So there's no question that AI. I don't know anything about the new ones, so I don't have any opinion on it, but to that it's not making people happy right Like perfect. Dan: You know, there's great words that I heard Peter Diamandis talking about one time a perfect knowledge that you can see that we're moving to a place where we're wearing let's call them sunglasses now you know like goggles, not the big thing that apple just put out, but that's if we liken that to the first cell phones that were those big brick Cell phones. If we, you know, link that down to, if we take the progress of those, you know VR and AR, you know goggles to be more like, you know, super thin Sun glasses that just look like glasses and we couple that with the advancement in VR or in, you know, ai, in our pocket or attached to our Wrist or whatever, however that goes, that we will reach a point where we know we would have access to knowing everything about everything that's known by visual or auditory cues, right like being able to walk through A city and have, through facial recognition, everything about a particular person, or to walk through a forest and see every, you know, animal butterfly, you know all of those things then there's not going to be any mystery of things. I think you know, like if you just Fast-forward these things, the speed. Dean: Friction is what you're getting out of Peter D Amonus saying this. Dan: I'm saying, I'm looking, what Peter D Amonus said he was the one that I first heard say those words perfect knowledge and I'm translating it into when we're headed now, where we see that it's not too far of a stretch to see the combination of chat T AI and the, you know, ar Sunglasses augmented or virtual reality Sunglass or glasses to be able to view the world through those lenses and have reflected up on the screen or in front of us All the data about somebody or about anything that it sees. You know, it's really almost the way. You know, the need for the more friction Involved ways of gathering knowledge would have been like if you had to let's say you saw this amazing Flower or something out on a walk you'd have to remember, remember it or draw or make notes of it. Then you'd have to go to the encyclopedia you know a botany and you'd have to go through, or even go to the library and look in the dewy decimal card catalog system for Flowers and look for a book that you could scan through to find that maybe somebody has documented what this particular, what this particular flower is. The friction of gathering knowledge was so, you know, so involved in friction, and the more that you Knew, the more that you could store in your, in your brain. That was sort of a measure of Intelligence, right, or a measure of the fact that you knew stuff. That's an advantage for Things. But now if we get to a point where everybody has perfect knowledge, you don't. You have to look at it and see okay, that's the, you know Whatever that, whatever that is, or that person is this, or this product is this or that I'll get you. Dean: I'll give you someone who has a yearly experience of I'm very smart. You know him Peter Steven Poulter. The. IVF doctor and he says you know the thrill of being in this field because the all, basically most medical breakthroughs happen in the Pregnancy and like the first year of life. So most you know if you watch where the money goes and Medical science, it has to do with pregnancy, conception, pregnancy, birth and then probably the first year of life and the other one is the last 12 months of life. Okay, and that's Experimenting to see if we can keep someone alive. You know, beyond, yeah, normal and he says that. He says from my perspective as a Doctor and a scientist, he said every year it seems to me that we know 10 times more About pregnancy because he's an IVF doctor and vitro realization, and he's a great you know, and the Statistics gathered by the US government Indicate that's true he's in the top top. You know five and and he says but the problem is that when you know 10 times more, you're is set with the 10 times greater Universe of what you don't know. Dan: That the 10 times new knowledge has opened. Dean: Yes, yes okay. So, and I was just pondering this, as people are saying well, dan, have you tried out? There's a new provision, yet I haven't. Dan: I said no, I haven't. Dean: I haven't answered two questions. I don't have the answer to two questions. They said what's the questions? I said does this Experience a provision? Does it increase or decrease? Dan: I bet it just where would you put your main line, dopamine? Yeah, you don't even have to move your hands anymore. Dean: Yeah, yeah, that's the first question. The second thing, the second question I have if I don't do it, am I missing anything? Dan: I, you know. What's very interesting too is that to me, the visual that I'm getting also is that Even chat, gpt and all of those things are decidedly backward-looking, meaning it's only trained on what's known knowledge. Dean: Yeah, I'll actually. All creativity is backward-looking. Okay, I mean if it's worth anything, you know. Dan: I mean. Dean: I mean, the apple is really great at this, because apples never first to do anything, you know as right. Dan: There's a highly valued. Dean: You know on a consistent basis they're most highly valued corporation in the world. But they've never actually Done anything new. Just do what already exists a lot better. Dan: Wow, yes, so you wonder what is? So the probe and there is anything new. Dean: What I can see about the provision, because the goggles already exist. It's you know, it's an upgrade on you know what, palmer, lucky probably created the bag and then, you know emails already. They say you can do emails with your eyes and you know you can do search with your eyes. Dan: You can you know everything else. Dean: But I said, these things already exist. They're just pulling together and integrating something that wasn't able to be done. That the same time, you know, and you know it's really pricey, I mean it's, you know, I mean it's reassuringly expensive. They've tried other goggles how much is your program? Reassuringly expensive, that's that I'll tell you. The sales team is gonna have that line tomorrow. It's what? And they say, well, why is it? Reassure me? And I said you know, you know who's not going to be in the room. What they're doing is already exists with the US Air Force, and then All the pilots, that everything they, those pilots, do, is done with their eyes. They have this screen. That's not a screen. I mean, there's no screen, but they see a screen. They see the and they operate with five other planes. So almost every Mission where they sent one of the new hyperjets, the pilot feels himself as a group of six. He's a member of a group of six and he can tell exactly what the other five are doing. You know he doesn't have to turn. It said he doesn't because he can see it on the screen. Plus, he can see 500 miles in all direction. This is all done with the eyes. These pilots have to train themselves to do Everything with their eyes. Well, that already exists. You know they're bringing that down to a civilian, civilian thing. But you know the whole question I have are the stakes big enough that I would teach myself a new skill? Dan: Mmm, right, or does it fit, can you? Well, that's it right. This is. I've been Test-driving, by the way, dan the, and it gets good reaction. They can I. Is there any way for me to get this without doing anything Is a good place to start. Dean: Well, check your limit on your card. Yeah, and first of all it's an anti-social activity because you're putting goggles on, so nobody's going to be around you when you have your goggles. But Mike Kenix was there the other day and Mike said you know, he says you have your mind, has no grasp of you until you've done it. And I says that's fair. I said that's totally fair. I understand that the question Is there enough of a compelling offer that I would even want to have experience? And I think that would be measured measured in the mainland, not in, not in Kauvalandia, I think, whether it was worse. I think whether anything is worth it. It really has a function. Does it register? Is it measurable? Progress in the mainland, right, I think you're right. Well, I'll give you an idea, your studio, your great studio which, yes, we'll have our will have a copy of in September or October of this year. I'll see that the team is in there now. We have eight studios. I have eight studios and they're gonna be you know, up-to-date technologically and and but the thing that compelled me to, first of all, for us to Follow your lead and really investigate what your studio is doing, one of our team members whose key to the Execution here came down to Orlando you know, yes you're. And went there and they said it's fantastic and they're very helpful and they'll help us any way we want, and. But the thing was suggest how much you get done in the mainland was what prompted us to look into it. Dan: Yeah, I mean, that's it's so. You know, that was kind of that before you brought it up, even thinking, I remember the day sitting in the cafe writing in my journal about okay, I want to start doing more video stuff, and asking myself the equivalent of that. You know thinking, because I'm definitely trained in thinking who, not how. But I caught myself really going down a how path of thinking okay, what do I need? You know, at least two of these. I need two cameras, I need lighting, I need what am I going to have for the background? I was already visualizing how I would rearrange one of the rooms in my office to be the, you know, always ready studio kind of thing. And then it really dawned on me about that that it's already there. Is there? That's the equivalent of is there any way I can get this without doing anything? And we literally went, you know, straight there and set up, signed a contract and recorded the very next morning. I mean, it's just so funny that the pressure not allowed and I realized that was you know. I was at the end of the 12 weeks. I signed a 12 week contract that. I had already, you know, I had 12 weeks worth of content in you know, created and already documented, and we hadn't even reached the point of what one of those cameras would cost. Dean: Like. Each of them got three cameras that are $6,000. Dan: You know the microphones are $1,000 each. The that sound for the studio environment. I mean the whole thing, the software, the all of it. It's a crazy thing when you really start thinking about it's the only way to do this without doing anything, and that's part it's so parallel you know I've been talking about. Imagine if you apply your self SELF, sphere is things around you. Is there somebody else as a service or someone that you know that could just do this without you having to do anything? Dean: Yeah, the thing is that I'll you know, I can think of some team members that. I'll encourage and we'll you know we'll finance it. Have some finance. Who would be interested in looking that provision and see what application it would have to the normal course of business, of speeding things up, making things easier, you know, and everything, and so funny. I was having a conversation with someone and he said I mean, he was texting you know and about. We were with him for about two hours and he probably texted you know 15 times to our hours and received text and you know and to our he's excuse me, I just have to take five minutes to do this. And so I said what would you see on the average day that you're involved in texting busy? And I said, and I suspect, if you do it on five days a week, you actually do it on seven days a week. Dan: Yeah, exactly. Dean: I don't think you take a weekend off from this habit. So so anyway, and he says well, you know, a light day is maybe a hundred texts and you know, a really filled, filled up day is 400 texts. Dan: And. Dean: I said you know that you're lower number, 100. That's more than I've done in my lifetime. Dan: More than more texts than you've done. Yeah, yeah, 100. I haven't done 100. Dean: I haven't done 100 texts in my lifetime. I mean, yeah and it's, and that would be 95% to Babs, you know and you know, and mostly I use emojis. I've become very Egyptian. I can do. I can do hieroglyphics with emojis and I can get a message and I like it. You know thumbs up times three. You know times. Dan: Smiley guy with sunglasses you know, I mean, you can do a lot of creative work with emojis, but except that we're apart. Dean: The only reason I'm doing this because we're apart, you know we're not in the same location, otherwise we just chat. But the thing is that this person, when I look at what he gets done, I get sometimes more done than he does in a day, certainly in a week or a month, you know, a week, a month or a quarter I get 10 times more done and I don't do any of it. You know, I don't do any of that stuff. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I bet. That's part of the I mean it's not profitable productivity, it's the feeling, it's dopamine busyness yes, I agree 100%. Dan: That's exactly where I that's what I've been catching myself, you know is this is really taking a look at that and realizing how much of this is, you know, really counterproductive. You know a lot of ways. I was saying I had a breakthrough blueprint at celebration last week Monday, Tuesday, wednesday and we were talking about, you know, 19,. I was bringing up the idea that you and I had been talking about the 25 year frames, and you know we're talking about your 70 to 80 best decade ever, and how. You know, three years I'm going to be 60 and then it'll be 20. The next 25 year framework I'll be 85, you know. So, looking back 28 years ago you're not discussed like that takes you all the way back to, you know, 1996, 1995, whatever that, whatever that is and realizing that everything that we look at right now that is so important to our lives wasn't even in existence. Then you know, like we, I still remember in 1997, when internet was just starting to become mainstream and it was definitely a place out there that you went to go to. You know you would go to the internet from your primary world on the mainland and it was a distraction, it was something it was starting to dip into. Maybe you know TV time or something that you would do otherwise. And then I remember, you know, gradually it became more and more, and 2007 I view as the tipping point, when we started with the iPhone bringing the internet with us and the app world becoming vital functions for going through our days. And now we're at a point where it's so woven into our existence that it's like water and we don't even remember, you know, I mean, all the talk now is what would happen if the grid went down. Indeed, dan, what would happen if the grid, the internet, went down? Not the power, not electricity, but let's say that the network goes down. So many things would be, you know, so many things would be messed up. We don't know how to survive without it. I was joking about that article. I remember, in the New York Times or GQ, I think it was magazine had a journalist that they sent, you know, to try and survive in New York City for a week where their only means of contact with the outside world was the internet see if he could make it. And he searched, you know, in this bulletin board, and he found this restaurant, this Chinese restaurant that had a menu and they would. You could order delivery on the internet, you know, and he slowly survived with those things. But now it's so exactly the opposite that it would be challenging to survive in New York City a week without the internet you know, it's just so how things have switched. You're the closest thing you're the closest thing I know of to being, you know, amish in the I've been involved in it. Dean: Yeah, I mean yeah, and one is, my life is not that much different. I mean, I certainly made use of the technology. I mean there's no question and I enjoy the. You know, I enjoy the internet and I mostly enjoy it for YouTube, I would say YouTube yeah, because I can get really in-depth, one-hour explanations of a particular topic you know, and Peter Zion is very good at his eight minute, 10 minute, 15, very, very good at it and. I really enjoy that. And then I'll watch all the action scenes out of Denzel Washington's new Sicily film, you know and. I mean, you don't have to watch a whole Denzel Washington movie to get the essence, you know it's about 20 minutes of really hardcore violence, you know. Dan: Yeah right. Dean: And he, you know, and he wishes the other person hadn't gotten him into this situation. He says no, I was just going about my life here. You know, it would have been better if you left me alone but here we are, you know and you got about 10 seconds to decide whether you're going to live or not, you know. So I'm just looking at my watch right now and three seconds to say you know, and I enjoy that, it's like a little you know palate, you know refreshing. And then I'll go back and I'll look at some question that occurs to me. I wonder you know what happened in this historical situation? Sure enough, you can find one or two or three you know, yeah movies, or you know videos, or something on the internet. you know and you can do that and it's very conducive for my ADB brain to have that activity and people say well, how much. You read a lot. No, I told people you know I haven't watched television at all, and Joe I. It'll be six years that I haven't watched nothing. All the football. I haven't watched any of it, Nothing. I haven't watched anything, but what I've discovered is that no football game has more than 10 minutes of action. And so I just watched the highlights. And then I don't want to see the highlights for the other teams, I just want to see the highlights for my team. That's about six minutes. And I said, geez, all those games I spent watching hour after hour on television. I could have gotten 10 or 15 of the men and the time it would take to do it, but you know, you kind of zero in on what's the dopamine part of the exercise. You know the activity so, but I resist the notion that this is going to change my life. I just resist the idea. Well, this changes everything. And I said, well, you know, speak for yourself you know, change anything for me, right? Dan: And we're both tourists. Dean: We're both tourists, yes, and we will sacrifice no pleasure for something new. Dan: Right, oh man, that's so funny. Dean: Any existing pleasure. We will not put that on the table as a bet. Dan: Yeah, we like our current pleasures, that's right. Dean: Oh yeah, so you know, and the thing is, the world is made up of all sorts, and so you've got to have the people who are, you know, the people who are just crazy nuts about the future, you know and you know, and there's people who say well, you know, as far as human nature goes, I haven't seen anything particularly new in 79 years. Right, interesting, I'm not saying not interesting. I just haven't seen a lot of new stuff happening with the fundamental change in people. Dan: Right yeah. So how are you? How are you looking at your next best decade ever? You're months away, days away. Dean: Yeah, the big thing is that we've discovered a great capability in the last two years, and that is that our thinking tools, coach tools, seem to translate easily into patents. Okay, so we started in April with a big batch. We you know we put in dozens of applications and they're starting to come in and we've got 12 now since April, we've got 12 patents and these are, you know, these have asset values. They're like every patent is like you created a house, you know, and it's got a marketplace value. The moment you get the asset, you know, you get the you know notification from the patent bureau that this is now a patent. And there seems to be something good about our thinking tools. You know strategy circle, pre-focus and buffer days. There seems to be something about our thinking tools that resonate with what they consider to be a patent. You know, something that can be granted a patent. So this is very exciting, because all we're doing is taking stuff that's been created over the last 35 years and giving it an asset value beyond just getting paid for it in workshops, you know. So it's it's growing and we're not doing that. It's a whole team of other people. We just write it a check. And you know a year later, we get back an asset that is, at the minimum, 10 times more you know, greater than our investment. Dan: I mean that's you know 10 to one in a year is pretty good to return that investment. Dean: So I'm very excited about that because we just have vast Dean. You can't believe how much stuff we've got in the store room. You know just a sheer number of ideas that we have and all of them are popping up in my mind. We're going back through documents I created 25 years ago. I said, geez, that was a great idea, but it had no present use so it didn't have a value. But here you can take everything and increase the value. I would say, the next 10 years, the amount of asset value we will create in intellectual property and on patents will equal the total amount of, will be the total amount of revenues we've created since 1989. Wow, yeah. So that's what I'm excited about. Dan: Wow, and that's where the program is. Dean: That's where the program is going. I mean, Dean, if you went through all your, all your notes, all the notebooks that you created and everything else. I bet there's a gold mine there that it can't. Dan: No, I understand that intellectually, I understand that there's lots of that. I get that. I just I can't. When I have a hard time wrapping my mind around is to what end? You know like. I wonder what the. Dean: If you were ever in, you know. First of all, that tells you that its property is the fact that you can barrel against it, not that we need it. Dan: Right. Dean: And I will tell you, we had this scamper a little bit during COVID and we had this scamper a little bit during the meltdown in 0809 where we lost the bottom of our program. I mean the revenues for the people who were at the lowest level. We just instantly lost it, you know, for a year and a half or two years, and unfortunately we went into our own reserves, our own personal reserves. Dan: Absolutely. Dean: And we could. You know we could finance the company but it was nervous. Used up weeks of her time you know, I don't want to hear you just call a number and you say I'd like to. You know the way it's all set up now with the, you know, the appraisal companies and then the loans loan companies. It's all set up and we'll get to know all those people. So the assessed value is up to date every day, and so it puts you in a position where your cash confidence. I like the game that the strategic coach represents and I just wanted to go on and on, and I don't want to be, wasting time with nervous crises, right exactly. Dan: Yes, it's a good way of putting it nervous crises, that's a. Dean: Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's creative crises, but the nervous ones I could do without, right? Oh, that's so funny. Is there any way I can solve this problem? By doing nothing? That's right, I'm not doing anything. Dan: Well, that's as close as you could get. I guess, when you think about it like that seems to me perfect knowledge. Dean: Yes exactly All this numbers. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I don't get the value of knowing everything you know I don't get the value of instantaneously knowing what would. Yeah, and besides, we already created that technology. Dan: Who was that? Who was the famous? You know the old story of the gentleman that said he doesn't need to know those things. He has a button on his desk and whenever I need to know anything I'll push that button and seven men will show up in here and one of them will know the answer to what I'm looking for Henry Ford yeah it was Henry Ford, that's right. Dean: Yes, I could summon someone, but we've already created the technology for perfect knowledge. And you're going to say, dan, what is the technology? Dan: for perfect knowledge. Well, what is it? Dean: Dan, it's called God. Okay, so they don't have access to it. But they said, no, we're going to get off, we're going to get away. You know, and I'm not joking here, because when you read these books, you realize that it's a desire not to be dependent upon at all, upon the entity that created you. And I said, well, I'm okay with it, right, right. And they say, well, it's like you're dependent upon God. And I said, hey, well, first of all, I'm very comfortable to know that he exists, or she, whatever, in this transgender age Anyway. But I have a feeling. You know, I've had a feeling since I was a kid that I'm connected to something that's transformative and it's way above my ability to know things, and you know I'm okay with that, I don't lose any energy over that, but I think there's this one of the. In reading these many books on atheism I automatically translate. When I read a lot that is very deep subject and a person has spent their whole life doing it I always think is there some aspect of this that I can just capture and write a quarterly book on? And it came to me after I've been reading El Noce, the Italian philosopher, for about a year and what I came to is a title. I always go for the title. Dan: Yeah, of course that'll see. Dean: Yeah, and the title is atheism is very hard work. Dan: Oh boy. Dean: It's very hard work. Yeah, these guys people were atheists just have to. I mean, it's 24, seven. I tell you there's no harder work on the planet than being an atheist, oh my goodness. Because they're on the lookout for anybody who even suggests that there's a God, and you know it, they get angry and they you know they have to get into an argument. I said, geez, that's a lot of work, that's a lot of work. Dan: Yes, it's so funny, dan, and observant and true, it's like those things. It's funny. It's like those isms, right, like veganism. Yeah, you know, yeah. Dean: I mean you can't sleep, compel even jelly. I mean you can't relax, you can't sleep. I mean isms. Dan: I mean you know except quick start ism. Right, yes, you watch Dan Tucker Carlson's interview with Putin. Dean: Yeah, I think Tucker Carlson did himself a lot of good, uh-huh. Dan: I think so Absolutely. Dean: Yeah, I mean, he wasn't any different with Putin. Dan: You know, I mean, this is the guy who's gonna get you thrown off the top of the building. Dean: You know he didn't see many more you know, yeah, he's got more sex than he is with anyone Anyone. You know he just Right, right right. As a matter of fact, there's a couple of situations where he just kind of broke out laughing. Yes, exactly. Dan: I can't believe. Dean: You just said that. Dan: Right, but it was very interesting to hear Putin's history lessons. You know, going all the way back. Dean: Yeah, well you know, you gotta look at it from their point of view. They are the easiest country historically to invade. I mean they have about 13 different gateways where enemies can send their troops. It's a flat country, you know. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I mean US has 3000 mile moat on the east and they have a 5000 mile moat on the west and they've got pot smoking Canadians on the north, you know, I see their no threat, oh my goodness. And then you have the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean on the south and then where they're connected to Mexico, it's 200 miles of desert mountains. I mean you can die before you can get across that thing. So the US, but Russia is just the opposite. I mean not only can people invade, they've been invaded 50 times since his 800 number, you know, whatever the year is. I mean Right, they have real honesty, got reason for being paranoid. Dan: Yeah, it's so funny. I thought it was funny when he was saying how you know, he asked about joining NATO. I thought to myself because this isn't the whole purpose of NATO to protect against Soviet expansion. Well, let's get in on that. Why don't we join that too? Dean: But you know you got to look at it from his you know, I mean you don't have to agree with his point of view, but you at least have to know what his point of view is. And if I was his point of view, I mean he was born to nobody and he you know. Through diligence and hard work he got to be a colonel in the KGB. And I have to tell you if you were in the Soviet Union before it collapsed there was no more better job and status in the world than being, you know, a, you know, up and coming officer in the KGB. They got to travel, they had their own stores, they could have somebody arrested and killed. You know, you know pretty easily, and everything else I said you know. You can see it. He took his career, took a real drop when the wall fell. You know so well. Dan: Dan, we said it all. How do we do it? How do we do? I mean, we said it all really, but there's always knowledge though there's always more. Dean: That's exactly right, yeah, the one thing about what knowledge is being made up on a daily basis, so I don't know how the word perfect fits in there, right? I mean, we just created over the last hour, we just created some new knowledge. Dan: That's exactly right. That's what. So it's visually like. It's really interesting. That's my vision of that. It's future blind. You know that GPT it's all only feeds on what's already been created. Dean: Yeah, you know but there's still got to be some, if technology had feelings, which I don't think it does. I think AI should be more nervous about humanity than humanity should be nervous. Dan: Right. Dean: What are they going to come up with today? You know? I mean I feel like we've got it all organized every night and you know, at the morning and the morning we get back and the rock is down at the bottom of the hill again. We've got to push it up. That's so funny. That's so funny. Yeah, I think it's technology that's trying to keep up with humanity, and not the other way around. Dan: Well, I'm excited, dan. It's almost a couple of weeks. Yeah, we've got a calendar date. Dean: Yeah. I tell you we're going down the Thursday before we're arriving in the evening of the Thursday before. So, we've got Friday, saturday, sunday, monday. I think we got four days and we're at the four seasons. Dan: Yes, that's great. When are you leaving? Dean: Wednesday, the day after you know the day after the yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. Dan: So we will have some time. We're on track. Dean: We're on for next week. We're on for next week I like that, okay, perfect. Yeah, great Dan, we'll have a great week then. Great Dan, I will talk to you next week. Dan: Thanks Okay, bye.

In today's episode of the IC-DISC show, I sit down with Dan Corredor, the owner of Strategic CFO, to discuss how his firm is revolutionizing the accounting landscape through near-shoring in Mexico. We explore Dan's journey starting in Colombia and arriving in Houston, where his bilingual skills have helped Strategic CFO carveout a unique niche. Our conversation reveals how Strategic CFO blends accounting expertise with innovative strategies to strengthen businesses from the inside out. Through insights on US GAAP, technology, and building capable teams, Dan shows us why accounting is about more than compliance - it's about fostering strategic growth. Near the end, Dan offers us personal anecdotes about cultivating early savings habits and his culinary interests. Our discussion provides a blueprint for navigating accounting challenges with an international perspective and strategic foresight to propel businesses higher.   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dan Corredor's firm, Strategic CFO, is leading a cost-saving revolution by near-shoring back-office accounting services to Mexico, significantly reducing costs compared to traditional US-based services. Strategic CFO was acquired by Dan Corridor in 2017 after the passing of founder Jim Wilkinson, and Dan has continued to evolve the company while maintaining its legacy. We discuss the importance of differentiating between bookkeeping and accounting, where bookkeeping involves recording transactions and accounting involves analyzing and interpreting financial data according to US GAAP. We highlight how an effective accounting team can steer companies beyond outdated systems, and how technology is transforming financial statement preparation. Dan emphasizes the symbiotic client relationships that result from a combination of coachability and strategic foresight in financial matters. There's a discussion about the challenges in the US accounting landscape, including talent shortages and wage inflation, and how near-sourcing with Mexican talent offers a solution. The near-sourcing model involves Mexican employees supervised by Texas-based controllers, ensuring quality control while offering CFO-level support to US companies. We touch upon the personal side of Dan Corridor's journey, including the importance of early financial savings and sharing personal culinary favorites, to connect with the audience. Strategic CFO brings a unique international perspective to each client they serve, emphasizing their hands-on approach and operational expertise. We wrap up with anecdotes and stories that provide insight into the practical application of financial strategies and how companies can scale efficiently with the right accounting support. LINKSShow Notes Be a Guest About IC-DISC Alliance About Strategic CFO GUEST Dan CorredorAbout Dan TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dave: Hi, my name is David Spray. Welcome to another episode of the IC-DISC Show. Today, my guest is Dan Corredor, the owner of Strategic CFO. Strategic CFO is like many virtual CFO service companies, except that Strategic CFO has an interesting twist that they implemented a little over a year ago. They use what Dan calls near-shoring similar to offshoring, but done in Mexico, where it is very near, and we go into great detail about how they have developed a model that allows for providing professional grade back office accounting for 60% less than a traditional US-sourced solution. There's a lot of great ideas in here, whether you're looking at developing a professionalized accounting group or not. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Good morning, Dan. Welcome to the podcast. Dan: Good morning David. Thanks for having me. My pleasure, my pleasure. Dave: So where are you calling in from today? What part of the world are you in? Dan: So we are in Shurgland, texas, which is a suburb of Houston, houston, gotcha. Dave: So let's so. You're a native of Houston. Dan: No, I was actually born in Bogota, colombia, in South America. Dave: Okay. Dan: My family moved to the States when I was a baby about six months old, grew up First 10 years in Ohio, moved to Houston area in 1976, and we've been here ever since. Dave: Oh wow, Did y'all speak Spanish at home then? Dan: We did. That was my first language. My dad always said speak Spanish at home and I don't care what you speak outside of house. We learned English outside the house when I went to school and we still speak Spanish today, and my kids do as well. Dave: That's awesome. I'm so jealous. My heritage is German and both of my grandmothers were born in the Dakotas in German communities. They only spoke German until they started school, but then they married non-German guys and then it was during World War II where, you know, speaking German was kind of frowned upon, so we lost the language. I'm always jealous of you truly bilingual folks, and bilingual with no accent in either language, because I'm assuming your Spanish has a nice Colombian accent. Dan: Right, it's pretty good as well. Yeah, it's certainly paid off. I really think that I've gotten a couple of jobs I've had in my career because most of the time I spoke Spanish and could be in Latin America. Dave: That's awesome and good for you for keeping it going to the next generation. I'm told that's easy to kind of let it slide. Dan: Especially as kids grow up, you know, get a little bit older and they start talking back in English and we have to kind of remind them. But it works. You know, my kids are not 20 and 21, and they both are fluent Spanish and English. Dave: That's awesome. What a great skill set to launch them into the world with. Dan: Yeah, we're proud of them. Dave: That's great. So you end up in Houston at some point, at least when you went to college. Dan: Yes, I went to University of Houston, got an accounting degree there and I started working in Houston in oil and gas production first, and then oil and gas services. So yeah, it's always been in Houston, except for two years in Dallas and then almost about four years as an expat in Mexico. Dave: So other than that, always based in Houston- Okay, yeah, I tell people you go through it's like the stages of grief. I tell people that like it's the stages of Houston, right, like when you first get here at least this is what I went through you hate it. There's like it seems like an ugly city. It's flat, you know the traffic, the humidity in the summertime. Then after a while you start to tolerate it and then at some point it kind of gets in your blood and if you ever move away you're like, wow, I really miss that place. That place has got a lot going for it. Dan: Yeah, I've always enjoyed it. You know I've always liked the Houston area and love Texas. Houston has been great. I love the climate, except for these January February days where you know we made it up in 32 degrees. I don't like that. But I don't mind. It has grown a lot. The last few years has experienced a tremendous amount of growth. Dave: Especially where you are. Yeah, I remember when Sugar Land was the middle of nowhere, the country it was nothing. Dan: It was nothing. I remember going to school elementary school we'd go to private school, st Thomas Memorial, and I'd tell kids where I live and I thought I was crazy. You live where you know, but it was only a 30 minute drive back then, so I know. Dave: Well, let's talk about strategic when. When did you become involved in strategic CFO? When did you acquire it? Dan: So I acquired the business in October 2017. The business has been around since the mid 90s. The founder, jim Wilkinson, was a colleague of mine and I actually met him in the 90s and it was ironic. I met him because my brother-in-law and his family hired Jim Wilkinson back in 96 or 97 to help him on a project as a CFO and my brother-in-law said, hey, you got to meet this guy. He's a really nice guy. You know, in Houston is your area. So I met him back then and you know, jim and I had similar backgrounds in regards to the type of things. We worked on our personalities, so we would do lunch and breakfast, you know, quarterly or every six months. Over the years Never worked with each other or for each other, but we'd networked a lot and we'd run into each other. We stayed in touch. We even referred business back and forth to each other, so that you know Jim is the founder and started this business, started the brand, did a great name, developing the brand, the strategic CFO, and he started our online business where we sell a membership subscription and some coaching workshops. Jim was very much a strategic coach. He loved the academic side of accounting and operations. He was very involved with the entrepreneurship program at the University of Houston, so all that really strengthened the business. And, unfortunately, jim went to bed one day in 2017 in the summer and didn't wake up and passed away. So it was really sad. I unfortunately didn't hear about his passing for two or three months afterwards and I was not able to attend his funeral, but I heard it was a beautiful funeral with, you know, a thousand people. So that was Jim. You know he was a network, he had lots of friends and you know so when he passed, I was at a company called Opportun and I was a restructuring group and I was finding an opportunity to love that firm. They've done a great job over there. But when Jim passed, you know, I thought to myself. You know, I've always been, you know, kind of un-perno myself. I've always had the back of my mind wanting to do something on my own. So when Jim passed, I approached the family and asked them what are they going to do with the firm? And they really didn't have a plan of action. So they put me in touch with their attorney and, make long story short, I acquired the firm in October 2017. And it's been great ever since. This is a year six. I can't believe we've already been here six years and we've had a great firm, great growth. We've got really good people. The brand continues to build and strength and it's a well-known brand and I meet a lot of people that a new Jim you know, and they go yeah, I knew Jim, you know, and congrats for taking over Jim's business. You know, so to me it's a privilege to take on his legacy. Dave: Yeah, no, I really like Jim. I think the last time I had dinner with him he had a restaurant I forget where it was in West U that he liked to go to and we'd had dinner or drinks probably after work one day, but that was about a year before his passing, and also like you. Well, no, I think I did hear about it, but I was out of town, I was in, I was out of state and was not able to make the funeral. But same thing I heard. Yeah it was well attended. Well, I'm glad that you reached out to the family because I'm sure they were. His wife was likely in shock from the whole thing. And so that probably worked out well that there was somebody that she knew him had a clean relationship with. So that's great. So talk to me about who are the companies that you all are best set up to serve what's really your sweet spot and who you really can add value to Right. Dan: So people ask us what are the typical companies you work on and boy it's a wide range Our clients, our smallest clients probably seven million in revenue, and our largest client is literally a 13 billion public and trade company. Dave: So it's a wide range. Dan: Now what's right down kind of the middle of the fairway? It's that typical entrepreneur or family owned business that started small and grew and is now doing 40, 50, 80 million hours in revenue and they need to professionalize the back office. It's the companies that started with very basic financial statements and cash reporting and things like that and have bookkeepers and then they move on and now their bank or their partners or investors somebody or the business owner needs professional financial statements. So we professionalize the back office, we professionalize your financial statements. I always explain to business I have this same discussion almost every single day with business owners there's a difference between bookkeeping and accounting and everybody knows bookkeeping. Everybody does bookkeeping. Bookkeeping is entering transactions into a system. You enter a PAR, you push a button, generate a report. That's bookkeeping. We don't do bookkeeping. We don't do that clerical, administrative entering transactions. We will do it as support staff, but we do accounting. We apply accounting principles based on US GAF to those transactions and it starts with everything on the P&L and everything on the balance sheet. You can go to line by line and there are some accounting principles that apply to each one of those transactions. Perfect example Yesterday I was at a client meeting. It's been a fairly new client and they have a lot of manual processes and the transactions on the bookkeeping side. And we said, hey, we can automate this and then all you're going to need is the controller and the accounting manager. And his response is wait a minute, but if you automate all this transactions, I don't need anybody. And I was like well, you're automating the bookkeeping, you're not automating the accounting. Somebody has to apply the knowledge of accounting principles to all those transactions to make sure you have the right P&L and the right balance sheet. But if you just do the bookkeeping, then all you have, in whatever accounting system you're using, is transactions in a system that are really meaningless because you don't have the right margins, you don't have the right assets, you don't have the right liabilities, because you're not applying accounting principles. So oftentimes we find ourselves as a firm educating and coaching the business owners on what is accounting. Why do they need financial statements based on US GAAP? It's not just for the public and credit companies that are trading on the Dow Jones, it's not for those billion dollar companies Every business if you don't have the proper financial statements the financial we call it financial tools, because it's more than just financial statements. If you don't have good financial tools, how do you make decisions in your business? How do you know what projects are making money and not making money truly based on accounting principles, not on a cash basis? So we have to often educate them. So our ideal company is one. Well, one is the entrepreneur or business owner that wants to listen, because we have some that they don't know what they don't know and they think. I had one business owner not too long ago, probably four months ago, telling me that these financial tools and financial statements are just purple unicorns. I was like, okay, so if somebody doesn't want to accept the fact that I've been doing this for 32 years and we know what financial statements are and how they improve your business, if that business owner thinks that they know more than we do, we can help them. If they don't want to be coached, if they don't want to listen, we can't, and we've run into those. We've run into business owners that they think they know everything. They've run their business 20, 30 years, which they run very well. They have good widgets that they make, but they don't know anything about financial statements or accounting principles. So that's the ideal client when it's coachable when it allows us to bring process and procedures and US gap so that they can have not only good financial statements, which are all historical in nature, but also what do we do with that data? Now we have to interpret that historical information, forecast it, analyze it, look at margins so that the business owner can make better decisions about the future. And we that's hence our name, strategic CFO we always want to think strategically. What do we do with that data? To interpret it so that we can properly forecast and know where the business is going and keep it financially healthy. The balance sheet and the P&L are going to describe to you the health of the business and we want to make sure it stays healthy. So that's the ideal client. Dave: So it sounds like yeah. So it sounds like really it's. Companies are kind of a victim of their own success. You know, companies who have, I mean, a $5 million company who stays static for 20 years, you know probably can't add as much value, but that $5 million company that quadruples in revenue over five to 10 years, where they outgrow their accounting system, their processes, the team. It sounds like that's where the opportunity starts, with you all. Dan: That's right. That's right when they want to grow, they want to professionalize the back office, have professional finance savings. Now there's a lot of companies do what we do and since I bought the firm, I've always thought how can we differentiate ourselves? How can we really stand out and bring something to the table? So initially, the first five years of voting the business, I thought that you know we're and it's true, we are very different because we do have a tremendous amount of operational experience. Myself speaking, I've been CEO of companies with as many as 2000 people. I've been general manager of business. When I was in an expat in Mexico, I was general manager for that business after first being the CFO. So we've got tremendous, got tremendous operational experience. I've been interim CEO for one of our clients as strategic CFO. We have that operation, and operations and accounting always have to talk to each other, Sure, but about a year and one month ago, year and two months ago, we really came up with a differentiating factor where yeah. So we, you know I've always been against outsourced accounting and I've been asked previously if we do outsource counting. I've always said no and I don't want to do it because the companies that exist today that do the traditional outsource accounting. I have two main problems with them. Number one is that they are very far removed from the operation. They are located somewhere else. They never said foot in the business, so there's not that connection with operations. Number two is that those companies do outsource accounting. They're working on 10 other clients at the same time, so the business doesn't really get the biggest bang for their buck, and that always bugging as being an operating guy. So, out of a need, one of our clients who came to us said Dan, we love y'all, we love these two people you have here. They're doing a great job, they find us. They finally got us professional accounting, financial statements and these tools and we budget and forecasting all this stuff. But we can't afford you because we're charging U of S rates and we have to charge US rates. We have to pay our people good wages, fair wages. We have to have a little margin in it. We're not going to become millionaires out of this, but we have to have a margin. So I told the owner. I said you know what? You're right, you can't afford us, you're too small. They were seven million in our business. So I went to the drawing board and came back a couple months later and we have developed now a product called mirror sourcing. Mirror sourcing is outsourced accounting, improved and on steroids. We took those two things that I don't like, which is far removed from the operation and working on multiple clients at once. So what we've done with mirror sourcing we will hire an accounting team and it's it starts. It could be a team of two kind of the typical model. It could be one, it could be 10. We actually have one that's 20, but the typical model is a controller and accounting manager. We hire them. They're dedicated to your business and they are on live every day. They only work for you. They are on teams. You go to the group and teams and join a meeting. You're talking to your accounting teams, like having them down the hall Monday through Friday. So that that eliminates that they only work for you, they're not working for anybody else. Number two the onboarding of that team and quarterly visits are on site. So the business owner, the operating team, the clerical staff. They get to know the accounting team because the onboarding is there and on according to the basis. They fly in and they sit there and they do a quarterly review review with you and they're usually there three to five days with you at the office, working with you, hand in hand. So now you start developing that relationship. Now you have a connection between the accounting team and the operations and it's dedicated team and we're able to offer that at a 60% savings. That's six zero, wow, that's huge. Yeah, because the team happens to be located in Mexico. Now why Mexico? Mexico? I spent four years in NexFAT there. I got to work with all the big four firms, got to establish a good network over there in Latin America and Mexico and Columbia and other places. There are very strong professionals. And let's just talk about accounting. The accounting professionals. The accounting professionals that we hire usually have big four experience. They work for US companies. They're all bilingual, they speak very good English, they all know US GAAP and they just happen to work remotely for that period of time between their visits and the wages and economy in Mexico is much different than US. A controller in the US will easily a qualified controller. Let me start with that, because I've seen people labeled controllers that aren't. A qualified controller is the $150,000 person in the US. An accounting manager is going to be $85,000, $90,000 person. In the US. You're spending with benefits and 401k and taxes and everything else. You're going to spend over $300,000, $350,000 on just two people for a small 10 million dollar business. That's a big pill to swallow, sure, we realize that. So we've brought that cost down. So for $12,500 a month, which is less than half of what you'd pay here, you get a team of two qualified professionals dedicated to your business that are providing this professional accounting. We started this out of a need with one company we're up to 10 and we had a very. I have got a contact at a very large public-traded company and I was telling her about this over dinner. She came back to me a couple of days later and she goes you know near source thing you told me about, can you scale that up? I said absolutely. Make long story short. We've opened up an office in Monterey, mexico, only for this publicly-traded company of 13 billion and we now have yeah, we now have I think we're at 22 accounts and that's probably going to be over 30 or 40 accounts because again, any business will benefit from reducing costs. So this large public-traded company is shifting some accounting rules and it could be AP accounts, payable accounts, receivable fixed assets, inter-company cash applications, whatever the needs are. We're able to provide that a huge savings. So with that we've developed near source and it's a successful model. It applies to any business anywhere in the US but we're able to finally bring professional accounting the work done remotely but it's on-site business every three months for 60% savings. So that's a new differentiating factor for our firm at strategic CFO and we think that's going to really take. It has taken off. We think it's going to be a change, game changer for us and our future as a business. We'll continue to do everything we're doing. We're not leaving that, but we're just adding to our revenue stream. Dave: That's really. I really appreciate the innovation of that, and it also just seems like the college students just are not enamored with entering the accounting profession right. There just seems to be staffing shortages and whereas it seems like these countries outside the US there's a greater enthusiasm to do the work. Dan: Yep, there's a large pool. There's a large pool there. You're right. I heard numbers as high as 30% less enrollment in accounting in colleges over the last couple years than historical. So there are less people entering the accounting profession. A lot of them have retired. A lot of people have simply left the accounting profession. It can be grueling, it could be long days and long month ends and long quarters, long year ends. So people have found other ways to make a living and that means it's supply and demand. That means the ones that stay in place, that are controllers and account managers. The wages they're demanding higher wages because there's less of them and there's high turnover. That's. The other thing is that companies, if they hire us in our near sourcing team, if there's tone or turnover, that's our problem, it's not the company's problem. We will fill in a role, fill in a position, if somebody leaves the near sourcing team and we have such a large stack of resumes that we're able to do this quickly. So now we've got now over 30, 35 accounts in Mexico working for us and we hope to double that number in 2024. So we are going to have a very large pool. We have a formal legal entity, we've got Bank account in Mexico, we've got any in Mexico. Payroll in Mexico. We're paying our taxes in Mexico, so it's all legit. It's all meeting all the guidelines and labor requirements that we do in Mexico. But even with all that, we're able to save US businesses a tremendous amount of money. Dave: That's awesome, and I was just reading about a new Department of Labor ruling making it even more difficult for companies to have contractors. There's always this desire by the federal government to have as few people classified as contractors as possible, and it seems like your model avoids those issues as well, because these aren't even US contractors. Right, that's right. Dan: That's correct. Yeah, they're all our employees but they're through a Mexican entity that we have down in Mexico. I failed to mention that. Each team is supervised by one of the controllers we have here in Texas. That controller is available if the client says, hey, I need to see somebody tomorrow. You know, all right, fine, controller myself can the car and go see the client and a month end all the. We have quality control. The controller here in Houston reviews a month and reports, meets with the team several times during the week. So the controller usually supervises three or four teams and that's how we're splitting it up. So the controller is busy full time. We'll continue to hire local controllers in Houston because we need more supervisors and are supervising these accounting teams in Mexico. So we do have local support and, being the strategic CFO, our specialty is CFOs, so we actually bring that to the table also. So a company, by signing up with us for the near sourcing, yes, they get the team, but they also get the support of our firm at the CFO level. So I've attended many bank meetings, many business owner meetings you know, strategic meetings with business owners because they are our clients and we're able to provide that CFO support by them joining our near sourcing model. Dave: Now I really, I really love that and I, you know, our clients tend to be similar to yours, you know, except all of our clients are privately held. You know median annual revenues probably 60 or $75 million, and so here's a question so there's obviously a cost to professionalizing the back office accounting function. Dan: What are? Dave: some of the financial benefits to having more. So, as I mentioned, there's a cost to professionalizing your back office, right, but I'm sure there's also financial benefit. What are some of the financial benefits that you've seen from companies who do upgrade their accounting function, the quality of their financial statement? I mean, I can imagine some benefits, but what are some of the benefits you've seen? Dan: Great question and oftentimes a new business owner that I meet will ask me the same question. So my response is if you do not do this, if you do not spend money on professional accounting we call US GAAP accounting whatever books and records you're keeping are wrong Period they're wrong. The most common example is cash basis account. If you manufacture widgets or you install something or you have contracts and you do not have the professional US GAAP accounting, you do not have a true picture of your margins Period Because it's cash basis. The world we live in is a world of accrual accounting and I don't want to get into accounting and accruals and all that, but it's a timing difference. The easiest example is an invoice and a counter-sealable. That is, in essence, the most basic example of an accrual. We have a timing difference. That's the economy we live in. Unless you sell the company that does not need professional accounting like we provide, is the guy who has a hamburger stand and sells burgers for cash and receives every day, for example, a little bit bigger than the hamburger stand or hotdog stand. We really can't help. For example, a fast food business that's point of sale. They sell a burger and fries and they collect At the franchisee level. At that small business level, they're not going to benefit from US GAAP accounting. Now the company that owns them and has multiple franchises will, because they've got accruals, they've got vendors and they've got this and they've got that and they buy machines the cash basis transaction. In the most simplest explanation, if I sell you something for cash and I don't have any inventory and I don't have any receivable or any payable or anything else, and I don't buy equipment, they don't need us. But that's a tiny business. That's what the US government calls a micro business. The companies we deal with are not micro businesses. The company we deal with have employees, they've got insurance, they buy equipment, they have inventory or they have complicated services or they have contracts that go over 30 days. There's some nuance and by not having professional accounting, you don't have a good financial statement. If you don't have a good income statement, how do you know your margins? How do you know what you really have? How do you know if you're losing money? By having them, not only do you have good reporting tools, but we've also increased your enterprise value. I've had several investment bankers tell me over the years that the difference between having the professional accounting versus not is at least a multiple of one of enterprise value. That's huge. If you've got a business that does a million dollars of EBITDA, that's a multiple of one. We just added a million dollars of value by bringing a professional accounting to your business. Not only does it help you in the short term which is running the business, because now you understand your margins and you're able to forecast and plan your cash flow and determine if you're going to reinvest in your business but we're also adding value on a long-term basis enterprise value those are the benefits and we're never going to cost you that added value that we bring to the table. We're not going to cost you a million dollars a year, but we're adding that value and what about Most business owners? Dave: will listen yeah and I can also imagine that, let's say, their bank starts requiring reviews or audits. I'm guessing that the audit fees by the accounting firm are probably going to be less if you're providing them professional financial statements that are gap basis already. Dan: That's right. So if somebody, first of all, I would recommend that everybody go through an audit because it's just good to have. But if you're required to have an audit, yes, an audit firm which we do not do audits we're not a CPA firm, but an audit firm will come in and do an audit First of all, they cannot complete an audit if you don't have professional accounting Right. So what the audit firm is going to tell you is you need to hire somebody, get your books and records per US gap so we can audit you. Otherwise, we're going to audit you and you're going to have a qualified opinion because you don't meet any of the accounting principles. And the audit firm cannot do that service for you because they get conflicted out. Dave: They can audit their own work. 30 years ago, I think they had more latitude. Dan: Yes, yeah, before my prior employer, enron, before Enron in 2000,. You know, the Sarbanes Oxley was formed. A lot of accounting principles were changed at that time. I think it was at that time that it was required that if you have to split your services, if you're going to be auditing, you can't be consulting and you can't be auditing your own work. So, and we've been hired by companies that are going through an audit, and audit firms have contacted us and said hey, I have a client, here's what they need help on to get their books and records to this professional level. And we are hired by the client. The audit firm comes in later, after we're done, and they can complete their audit and we're able to save us some money by doing that. Dave: But yes, I know that makes sense. What do you enjoy most about your role with the company? Dan: I love dealing with businesses that trust us and I've got, and most of our clients do, 95% of our clients do, or 99. We may have one or two that don't believe yet because we're still new, but I love getting involved with the business owner or business owners that trust us and they allow us to deliver over time. Because it takes time, it doesn't happen overnight. It'll take three or four months to develop a relationship. It'll develop six or eight months to finally get things really where they're seeing the deliverables. But I love seeing the transformation and we've got many examples in our firm of transformation where a company started with no financial reporting that was accurate to really good financial reporting and cash flow forecasts and budgeting and financial models where we interpret that data and everything's working. So watching that transformation is very rewarding. That's what I love the most and I love dealing with business owners on the operating side where we can add value as well. Dave: Sure, yeah, no, I can certainly relate to that. Well, I can't believe how fast this time has flown by. I've just a couple of kind of fun questions for you. Are you ready for some outside the box questions? Bring it on, I love it Awesome. So let's say you could go back in time and give advice to your 25 year old self. What advice might you give to your 25 year old self with the benefit of you know, the last few decades? Dan: If I were to go back to my 25 year old self, I'd say start saving money early. And that's what I tell my children. We had a discussion over Christmas In your early 20s. Unless you're really smart and talented and I wasn't you don't understand the time value of money and compounding interest. Dave: Yeah. Dan: Like you do now. And if I literally told my kids to go for Christmas, we had this exact same discussion. I said you know, take 25% of your paycheck and put it away in some account that you're never going to touch, yeah, don't even think about it. And by the time you're 50 or 60, you're going to see a huge nest egg and it's going to feel very rewarding. That's something I would do differently. I was. I got married late, you know, I was 34. So I worked hard. In my 20s I was already working for very large companies in nice positions controller roles. In my time I was 30 controller roles. So I was busy with making good money but also spending money, you know, getting the nice. I was really focused on getting the nice car, you know, traveling and, you know, not so focused on planning ahead and planning a family. Then I stumbled onto my beautiful wife and said, oh my God, I got to get married, you know. And then you know, soon after, kids, and then you know the house, and then but so anyway, that's the long response I would say early, mid 25, start saving early. Dave: Okay, yeah, I see I read a study once that said and it was a crazy number Like if you saved a certain you know amount of money you know call it $10,000 a year from the time you were 22 until you were 30, and then you stop saving, you never saved again. You'd have more money, like when you were 65 or seven. Then if you started saving at like 40, and you saved that $10,000 a year for 25 years, like you'd end up with less money than saving for eight years early on, which just demonstrates that whole time value of money. I think Einstein said the compound interest was the most amazing invention in the history of the world, or some crazy thing. Dan: It's crazy that the effect on that dollar saved early on is huge, you know, and I think I would do that different. Dave: Okay, well, here's the last question. I guess I have one and a half questions. I have the last fun one and then the last one will just be if there's anything we did and you covered, that we should have but the fun one is barbecue or Tex-Max barbecue. Okay, that's usually the most common answer. I stole that question. We helped Chris Hans, like the managing partner, and Boiler Miller. We were able to help them launch a podcast, and that's one of his standard questions that I've copied. I find it to be a fun question. Dan: It's a tough one. I almost said Tex-Max it's a tough one, or? Dave: I guess I should have asked you barbecue Tex-Max or authentic Colombian food. Dan: Yeah, I'd still go with barbecue or Tex-Max. Yeah, club with food is okay. I find it to be a little bit blander, but it's okay, that's good, I'm gonna knock it. My Colombian friends will hate me, but I don't know. It's good. Dave: Well, is there anything that I didn't ask you that you wish I? Dan: had. Well, maybe you know one other comment that I'd like to add about our firm, which is a little bit differentiated. Facts is, we have a lot of good international experience, not just myself, but my managing director, oscar Pinoe, cindy Dinn. They both have tremendous audit and international experience, oscar also interesting. If we haven't made it, let me tell you Oscar's story. We actually met in a small town in Argentina 23, 24 years ago when we were both at Weatherford. I hired him when I was in at Weatherford as controller for Latin America and he was an accountant that I hired. He ended up staying at Weatherford for 20 plus years, did very well, grew throughout the. You know the ladder at Weatherford and he left Weatherford a couple years ago and joined our firm. But we've got tremendous international experience, tremendous operational experience that could also add value to companies. Dave: So okay, well, yeah, that is great to know. Well, Dan. And then, if people want to learn more about the services, what's the best place to learn more Best? Dan: place to go to is our webpage, strategiccfocom. There's two C's in the middle there strategiccfocom. Or just call my cell phone. You know I don't mind people call my cell phone 713-501-7481. But we're still small enough that we touch every client I do. I like meeting all our clients and spending time with them. We're very involved with all of them. Myself and our managing directors are available to any one of our clients at any time. So yeah, we'd love to continue Jim's legacy and continue to build this firm. Dave: That's awesome. Well, Dan, thank you again for spending time with me today. I know the listeners are really good. Thank you, David. More and especially this near sourcing model. I think that's really intriguing, and I hope you have a great day. Dan: Thank you very much, appreciate your time and thanks for having me All right. Special Guest: Dan Corredor.

In today's episode of Welcome To Cloudlandia, Dan and I reflect on the lost art of letter writing and how corresponding through history has helped shape our podcasting discussions across time. We speak about the meaningful routines that have guided creative minds, from the structured elegance of Victorian letters to our own cherished Sunday rituals. We also explore memory-boosting techniques like visualization and repetition, applying them to maximizing focus and managing time efficiently through life's challenges. The discussion spotlights approaches for evaluating routines that enhance well-being as work dynamics evolve, touching on parallels with societal shifts like the Great Depression. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dean reflects on the joy of podcast recordings and the historical significance of letter-writing, drawing parallels between Victorian correspondence and modern podcasting. Dan discusses the role of structured routines in creative individuals' lives throughout history, including segmented sleep schedules influenced by lighting and caffeine. We explore the ABC questions as a tool for personal growth, helping to identify challenges that lead to immediate development when addressed. Dan compares time management to a strategic investment, emphasizing focused work sessions and revisiting effective past habits for increased productivity. We examine the impact of COVID-19 on workplace habits and the lasting effects, akin to those experienced during the Great Depression. Dean highlights the SELF acronym for personal efficiency and discusses the changes in commuting and work relationships due to the pandemic. Dan emphasizes the importance of aligning with one's natural rhythms post-retirement and the significance of consistent sleep schedules for overall well-being. We delve into the life game analogy, illustrating the impact of 'crowding out' bad habits with good ones for a harmonious existence. Dean discusses the importance of delegation and efficiency in daily routines, sharing his meal planning strategy that ensures balanced nutrition and time-saving. Dan speaks on being selective about new habits at his age, focusing only on those that will last or reinforce existing beneficial habits. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan. Dan: I'm Mr Jackson. Dean: You know, I look at my calendar and I get this little ding on my phone that tells me we're coming up to podcasts with Dan, and it's always this little spur of joy that comes over me and I wonder where will our adventures take us today? Dan: Yeah, it's a tough bet. Dean: I'm guessing it's going to be somewhere wonderful and I'm betting on that. Yeah, yes. Dan: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know it's a nice structure because, other than my podcast with you, sunday's not a very interesting day for me. Dean: Exactly. It's the highlight of the day and we've picked a good time. Dan: We've picked the perfect time. Dean: It kind of invisibly, you know, non-obtrusive in the day, we get the morning kind of ease into it, and then right around now is when we start thinking, okay, what are we going to do today? And here it is, and then we've got the rest of the whole day after this. Dan: You know I read the last year a history of Victorian England. So this is basically 1830s till you know 1890s and 60 years, and there are people, you know very notable leaders and you know notable for other reasons, who would write up to 30 letters a day. Yes, and have them delivered by courier if they were in the city. Dean: Yes. Dan: If in London and there were some individuals that they wrote to virtually every day and then we get a return, yeah, and so the interest, the interesting thing about it is that the stain in touch with certain people and trading ideas goes back a long time. Dean: Yes. Dan: The UK probably had the first best postal service, you know which, and they had great courier services. Since I said, yes. And so our podcast is like sending a letter, you know, and, but you don't have to wait for the response. Dean: I really like that. You know, because all the way back you think about all of that. You know the back as far as we can see, even almost. You know, every book of the New Testament in the Bible is letters. It's, you know, letters to, to. You know Paul's letters to the Ephesians or to the Colossians or to that's. It's an interesting thing. I read a great book Richard Rossi turned me on to it years ago about the daily routines of notable people, like all the way back in time, and it was very interesting to see. You know, in the 1800s and the 1700s there, whatever is kind of known about the routines of, you know, different composers or writers or artists or whatever. It is pretty, pretty similar among creative people all across the board. They would, you know, they would kind of wake up and ease into the day with some coffee and you know, reading or whatever. Then they would do some, they would do some work and then they would break for lunch and maybe go for a walk and then do their. There was almost exclusively. They all did their correspondence where it was. You know what you were just talking about. They'd get their letters and they'd write their letters and that was the equivalent of. Dan: And read their letters. And read their letters. Dean: Yeah, read their letters and then in the evening they would meet with friends and you know and not, and then read or whatever before going to bed and they were pretty much typically all in bed Pretty early. That was the routine of the thing. Because there were less dopamine, I think was harder, you had to earn dopamine back then Right, yeah, yeah, I mean, I didn't get excited. Dan: What keeps you excited? Did you also you know, when you were reading about the letter writing habit to do also come across the fact, which I found interesting, that and this obviously would be, you know, upper class people, because it required light, but that they wouldn't sleep through the night, like they wouldn't go to bed and sleep. They would have couple of sleeping periods where they'd go to bed and then they'd get up in the middle of the night and required light. So they obviously could afford candles or oil lamps, and they would. They would spend a couple hours writing and reading and then they go back to bed for their second, for their second night time, did you? Dean: come across that I did a couple of a couple of times and that was, I think, a pretty common practice back when people would kind of go to bed with the sun right and as the sun went down they would kind of not long after that go to bed. But it wasn't I don't recall it being the most common thing because a lot of these people were I don't know when that practice. Actually I'm familiar with it. I'm not sure when it was popular and when it stopped. Dan: I think you had to have light you know, generally speaking, light was hard to come by. You know, one of the things that I'm always a bit irked about when they show, you know, movies that are historical movies, you know, in other words, they're dealing with a historical period and it's, you know, it's a palace or it's a castle or something, and it's right. There's hundreds of candles, you know, like hundreds of candles or there's fires? I don't think so. I think it was pretty dark. I think it was pretty dark. I mean, the biggest thing which created nighttime you know, awake nighttime for us was probably kerosene you know, which you could have kerosene lamps and then gas lamps, you know you had gas systems and yeah, where you didn't have to individually fill the. And, as a matter of fact, we were both in London over the during the last 10 years when they were digging up the entire city to replace gas lines have been put in the 1880s and 1890s. So it was they had been in the ground for 130 years and my sense is that there is a case to be made that it was lighting and also caffeine that created sort of like a second day for people. I just talked about a second night, second sleeping night, but also the all of a sudden when you had light available or places that had light and you had caffeine, people would work. You know, into the evening people would work. I think caffeine to a certain extent created productivity. You're not well you're a coffee drinker aren't you. Dean: I am. Yeah, I have coffee in the morning. Yeah, I'd say two o'clock is the latest, but primarily it's only in the morning. Dan: Yeah, I don't have anything after noon, after 12 noon. I don't have coffee, but you were talking about the habits of famous people Coffee was a good piece of it. I have a new tool I'm creating, you know, just to get people in touch with kind of things they always do without really reflecting on it. And it's called best lifetime habits. Okay, and generally speaking, a lifetime habit is a habit where you do it pretty well every day. Dean: Yes, and I think that's. I have some of those for sure, like everybody does. Yeah, and you know there's. The thing is like. I think it was you that once said nobody looks for new habits except for the ones they are already accustomed to, right? Dan: Once we already have. Dean: And for me I've, because it's constantly the fun game, you know, of trying to systemize your. You know, systemize things, look for the best way to, you know, be get as much happiness and productivity as you can out of your days and kind of go with the flow. I've really determined that my the flow, for me it really falls into zones and I remember I had a great conversation with Ned hollow well, and you know he was saying and I've shared this with you before that you know he was saying when you think about my days, like a bobsled run and set up the bobsled track that you get in at the top and it slides and winds you through the course and you end up at the end with touching all the touch points that you want kind of thing, and otherwise we end up going through the day like a toddler and a picnic. And that is absolutely true of me and I'm sure of you. So my hybrid of that, my most recent iteration, because I'm constantly evolving it, thinking okay, this is the you know, this is the new routine here. So my, I've been looking into zones and the thing that is absolutely true always and will continue to be true, is the constant of life moving at the speed of reality, 60 minutes per hour, seven days a week, you know, 24 hours a day. That whole thing is very that's a locked in place system that we can't nothing we can do about that. We can only move through that time in in real time. And so there are certain things I look at that my I try and set up my hybrid of the bobsled run is a compromise. That is like setting up a slalom run for skiers. You know when you go you have to go through certain gates. You know you have to go around this gate to get to the thing. So my basic things are setting it up, that I like to. If I set a constant of waking up at 7am, which is a natural and normal thing for me to do, I don't think there's any reason for a human to wake up at 5am. But you are different than me and that's a total different world, right? So I wake up at 7am, I can do that effortlessly without an alarm clock and it feels good, right? Then this first zone I look at, my next like gate that I'm trying to get to is 10am is the perfect time for me to do focused you know, focus finders 50 minute focused sessions from 10 o'clock till noon, and that's a big zone for me. That if I can steer everything to that, where I am in my the spot where I'm gonna do whatever, the optimal environment for my focused work is 10 to 12 is the perfect time for that. I've. Recently I went through with Jay Virgin. I went over for dinner with Tim and Jay and you know we were talking about, you know I had her go through with me and we picked out some power meals for me from Grubhub and Uber Eats to have on rotation right. So we picked 10 meals which are delicious and wonderful and protein first sort of meals with protein and vegetables. And I found the. I've been using the pre-arranged delivery on the app where I can last night set up to deliver one of those meals at 12 o'clock so that I don't have to think about it. And at 12 o'clock I know that my first meal is arriving at noon. Then the next zone then is the afternoon, is the time for anything. Any appointments that I have or any Zoom workshops or client appointments or talking with anybody happens Tuesday, wednesday, thursday between one o'clock and six o'clock, and so that zone is reserved for any time obligations that I have for involving other people. And then six o'clock is the second time when either one of those meals arrive or I've been subscribing to a meal service called Factor 75 and they deliver these great meals that you get a weekly shipment of it. So I get seven of these meals, six of these meals, sorry delivered once a week and they're all hermetically sealed and chilled and all you have to do is warm them and they're delicious and the right calorie balance and everything like that. So it takes variation out of that process there. And then the other zone then is seven o'clock to 10 o'clock in the evening and then reading, and in shutting it down I'm in bed, basically, or on my way there, by 10 and lights out by 11. And so that routine, that zone is really the most natural thing. There's lots of ways for me to optimize within that, and I think that it really comes down to really preparing in advance for those two hour my focus sessions. I can tend to be ready to do the focus work but not know specifically what it is that I'm going to work on, so I've been really focused on using those times. To use my golf analogy a goal, optimal environment, limited distractions, fixed time frame. So I lay out my when we were talking about who, not how, in the initial stages, one of the you know, basecamp one is to who up. A thousand hours was the goal and I started really thinking about those thousand hours as capital allocation. But then realizing you can really, I can really only allocate, you know, 10, 20 maximum of those hours in a week. And so it's being more intentional with those allocations and realizing that not all the hours are equal, you know. And so realizing that the if. I focus on if I can get two or three of those focused hours in a day. That's a win for me. Oh, yeah, you know. Dan: Yeah, yeah, the I just during the last quarter and it just relates to the last point, and I've got a lot of comments on the previous points, but the last thing you said was this freeing yourself up. And so during the last quarter I am still going and it's called the ABC questions and it's I think you did this. I think you did this yes. Dean: I just got my package just arrived. Dan: Yeah, I called for Thursday yeah, yeah. Dean: And the. Dan: Zoom workshop on. Thursday, and but what was interesting about it is that these are the. What you're applying it to is what I call growth problems. Dean: Okay, and I've never, never. Dan: Used that word before, but it's a problem which, if you sell that, there's growth that immediately follows and then and then a area of your life time money. You know relationship, yeah. And so you just brainstorm and then you pick three of them and write them out, and then the first question is there any way you can solve this problem by doing nothing? Okay, and I've done about six of these and I'm going to turn it into an actual, you know, an actual tool that I use on a frequent basis. Okay, a desktop tool, and the answer is usually no, but then you immediately identify the thing that you do have to do. Okay, so, and six cracks, that would be 18 growth problems. I've never said yes, there is something I can. This is something that I can solve by doing nothing. Okay, but, it forces you to think about it. Then the second question is what's the least you have to do to solve the problem? And now we're into who, not how, territory. Dean: Yes. Dan: Okay, the moment you say no, there is something I have to do, but usually it's just a communication. And in my world you use a fast filter to communicate. You say this is you know, this is the project, this is the best result, this is the worst result, and these are the five measurements of success. Okay, and then the third question is there a? Who can do my least? Dean: Yeah, exactly, it's like the do you know what it's all in the syntax right Is when you think about is there any way you could do nothing? No, that's impossible. You have to do something. Okay. So what's the least I could do? And then can I get somebody to do that, and the answer then is that you're doing nothing which is fantastic. It's like it reminds me of a story, dan, of the gentleman, the guy that went in to see the priest and was asking him if it was okay to smoke while he's praying, and the priest said well, praying is a very reverent thing. You should be respectful, you see, yeah, so you can't. Yeah, so no, no, you can't, you shouldn't smoke while you're praying. Dan: It's the wrong question. Can I pray while I'm smoking? Dean: That's exactly it. Dan: Cause a few months later he comes back and he said father when should I pray? Dean: And he said well, the Bible says you should pray without ceasing. And he said should I pray while I'm gardening? Well, yes, you're in nature. You should pray while you're gardening. Dan: Can I pray while I'm? Dean: walking. Can I pray while I'm smoking? Of course you can. Dan: Of course you can, exactly yeah. Dean: So I think you've stumbled on that same logic. Dan: Well, the thing is, it's gotta be able to humor to it. Yes. Dean: You know people say well. Dan: I said well, think it through. You know, yeah, and I said, the reason is that entrepreneurs of a certain nature anyway, my years in mind have a tendency to immediately throw themselves into a new possibility and it upsets your schedule. You know, it upsets your schedule, it upsets your team work and everything else, yes. So my whole point is you know, I've got a lot on my plate. Is there any way that I can get away with just 10% effort, just 10% effort, where I was thinking of 100% effort for the day? Is there any way that I can get 100% result with a 10% effort. You know it's always you know. But going back to the habit thing and my, you know your best lifetime habit, I would ask two questions best lifetime habits that you were doing it once but you haven't been doing it, and the other one is things that you're doing and they can be reinforced Because a lot of people, if they think about their life, they can think about at a certain time. You know they did this and it was great for them, but somewhere, for some reason, they got off track with it and just ask them if they you know, would it be worthwhile getting back on track with this particular habit? Dean: You know, while I'm thinking about it, dan, you're that progression of can I do nothing? What's the least I can do? Is there anybody that could do that least? That really harmonizes with my acronym, for you know, imagine if you applied yourself S-E-L-F, and it's the interesting thing is that S is for meaning is there some service or person or you know, something that you could, that could eliminate the need for you to do that? And if that, if you don't have something in your sphere, then the next thing would be E, which is energy, which is your energy. What do you have to do? L is leadership, meaning could you instruct somebody else to do what needs to be done? And F is finances. You could finance it. So, is there a way? No, it's about applying your self, your sphere, your energy. That's the one we want to least do leadership and finances. And so the only thing you're applying your energy to do is to figure out a way that you could turn it into a leadership opportunity to ask somebody else to do it. Dan: Yeah, and it's really interesting. Have you thought about that? Or what a profound change that the restrictions of CODET have have, how they've impacted people's work habits? Have you given any thought to that? Dean: I think about it all the time. I mean your own, obviously your own obviously yeah, but yeah, I have a feeling I told somebody. Dan: I said you know, I talked to a lot of adults when I was a kid who had talked about the great depression and how things that have been available weren't available and how their you know, their daily, weekly behavior changed as a result of the Great Depression. And I have a feeling, covid, which I mean the United States the Great Depression lasted 10 years, 29 to 30. And it didn't end until Pearl Harbor when the Second World War started. For the United States it didn't really end, so it was 10, 11 years. It was the you know, great depression and people's attitude toward money, towards work, you know where they lived and everything else was really altered by the, you know, by that 10, 11 year period here it was about really, you know, it was about two and a half years, let's say, and it's still being affected, you know, and what happened is that people's habits changed in a very significant way you know, And I was saying, you know, it's going to be hard to get a lot of people back to their job, you know. And what happened is that they were so busy they didn't have time to think about why they were busy. And so I said, you know, they were out for three months and they said I never realized how shitty the commute is. I called it the three shitties. The first thing, that's three shitties. Yeah, how shitty it was and how shitty the work was. You know, I would go through a shitty commute back and forth every day. The work was really shitty and the, you know, the people I was working with were really shitty. Dean: And. Dan: I never realized it because I never had time to think. You know, and now I have time to think and I think that it's a fundamental, lasting shift, like it'll last for the rest of people's lives. But, you know, the younger people will, you know, kind of be forced to adjust to what the older people's habit change was. You know, Of course, younger people's habits were enormously changed and the biggest thing, they're finding that truancy rates are at an all time high. I mean schools are back and you know they're back in person. But COVID taught kids that you know showing up for school is optional. Dean: Yes, yeah, and it's so. I mean, what's happening at Strategic Coach now regards to, you know, remote working, and how have you adapted to that? Dan: Well, we have one rule and the rule is everybody has to be there on Wednesday, and the reason is that Wednesday's, wherever it is, whether it's in London, or whether it's in Los Angeles or Chicago or Toronto, Wednesday's always a workshop day. It's always a workshop and so more people have to be in anyway because of the workshop and we just said Wednesday and people said well you know, you know I'm not, you know I'm not on the front stage on workshop days, so why do I have to come in? And I said and Bab sorry, this is not me, bab, the other team leader says because the rule is on Wednesday, you're here. Yeah but yeah, but the rule is Wednesday, you're here, Okay. Dean: So we have that. Dan: And then the other thing is now we have four workshop days a year, every quarter starting. We're just starting this. It's a full day workshop but it's just for the teams wherever they are and we have to get, and they have to be there in person so they can meet other people. I mean we had 23 new hires from January to January you know, and they haven't met the best. Majority of you know people that they're working with and everything like that. So we're making adjustments. You know we're making adjustments. We had our best year ever, so it can't be all bad. You know we had our most sales and I mean you know the boxes that you would check off. That says that this is a great year. We got all the boxes last year, so it's not like we're in trouble or anything because of the new arrangements or anything else, but there is a value in people really firsthand getting to meet the people that they work with. Dean: And in. Dan: June, everybody in the world comes to Toronto. You know everybody in our. You know California, chicago. Dean: London and. Dan: Toronto everybody's here for two days, for two days. But you know, you just make adjustments to things as they go along. Dean: Yes, but that's very yeah, that's good, I think that's. Dan: But you know, it's really interesting that if you take the money that people don't have to spend to commute and then the time saving, it's quite a bonus that they've gotten in a very short period of time. Dean: Yes, yeah, I mean you think about just the hours back of the commute. Even if it's 30 minutes, like even if you're local, it's still 30 minutes. Dan: Yeah, and there's not just the time, there's the getting ready for the 30 minutes. Dean: That's what I mean, yeah. Dan: So 30 minutes is an actual commute time. It's an hour, you know, do it. So it's twice a day and our team works 220 days. So, that would be 440 hours and then discount the one where they have to come in, but it would be 80% of that. And yeah, so you know, 80% of 440 is, you know, 350, somewhere around 350. So that's 350 hours. And then there's the gasoline cost, and I don't think any of our one or two of our team members have an electric car. But you know, Right, yeah, so anyway, but there's, you know, there's everything involved with the car parking. Dean: So, dan, I'm curious now about your day, how your, you know, or we kind of rhythm do you run your personal operating system? Dan: Yeah well, mine is really based on four things. It's doing workshops, it's everything involved in creating a book and podcasts, and then it's the preparation for those things. So three things that are products, and then there's three things I don't. I hardly do any marketing or selling anymore, I just think I have two three hour sessions a year. So from being the main salesperson 30 years ago to being just a little special treat you know, and that's that's an enormous time saving. I mean, I used to go to trade shows where it was like a four or five day trip, you know and you know and. I never travel for marketing. Right now, I would just. I just wouldn't even entertain it. The answer would be no. Somebody says hey, yeah, we'll make you a P. I said no, not going to do that. And the reason is we got great, you know, our marketing and sales that other people are doing is doing the job. Yeah, so that's it. So so that remains the same before COVID and after COVID. It's just that there's very little travel involved in most of that. Dean: That's great and so, but in your what about your daily rhythm or how you're, the day daily routine of, if we're writing this for the, for that book 100 years from now? Talking about the 2020s. The great Dan Sullivan, how he would spend his day. Dan: Well, I differ slightly, and when I get up, then I understand. Yeah, because if I'm not up by 530, it's unnatural. Yeah, you know, I I like getting up at 530. Tell me automatically I'm an hour and a half ahead of you. Dean: Yeah, but you know I think it's so funny. I had breakfast with Robin Sharma in Toronto when I was up last and you know I was joking with because he of course very famously started the 5am club as the thing and you know it's. I joked with him. I said I feel like people it'd be a you know, better for people to join the nine hour club, to get nine hours of sleep than it would to get up at 5am. Dan: Yeah well, I did a sleep course during the summer, Great. Yeah yeah, Michael Bruce. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I had to log a diary every day. Dean: I remember and you were he was staggering, usually making you stay up till 1030 or something, 1030 was 1032. Dan: Yeah, I mean, what it was is to make the time you got up constant. And he started us off with me and then Babs. Babs joined me. But he sleep deprived me and then we gradually got off my sleep sedative, got off my Adderall. Dean: So I haven't had. Dan: Adderall. I've only had one Adderall in the last six months and then, and so the reason was drugs like that, including the sedative. You don't have to get sleepy to go to sleep, because you take a sleep sleep. And you don't have to be rested when you get up in the morning because you take an Adderall you know so, but what gets lost in that is your natural sleep pattern. So yeah, now I'm, it's about 17 hours. He says that's the right period that you get at least 17 hours of waking time. But, I don't. I need 16, you know I. You know you modify it as you go on, but it's been great, you know. But you know I'm up early. I've always been up early. I grew up on a farm sports, I was in the army. You know I always get up early. I like, I really like getting up early you know, but of course, finally, I'm not a late night guy. Dean: Right yeah, so your, what time are you asleep Then? Normally? What time is your? Dan: wake at eight hours so we're in bed and out in eight hours, and that agrees with both of it, I mean when you're living with someone you got to and you're in the same and you're in the same bed. Well then, you know you're going to synchronize the hours, yeah, yeah. But it was kind of funny because New. Year's is a totally uninteresting day to me. New Year's Eve, right. And people say so, did you stay up? And I said, ah, we were in bed at nine, you know. And I said you know, you know when it was, you know when it was midnight somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. That's when I went to bed. Dean: Yes, right, it's so funny. Dan: Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I mean, my best creativity is in the morning. Dean: Yes. Dan: And I think yours too. Dean: Yeah, yeah, that zone, you know I like to, so I try, and I like to have one 50 minute session for me in that seven to 10 zone where I can just be a toddler at the picnic in my journal, thinking thoughts that I didn't know I was going to think. Right, that's, that is great for me and I've taken into, I've adopted your, you know your practice for 25 years of asking what do I want? That's really what that is about. Is my thinking, about my thinking in that time, right, in that 50 minutes and that way. But I also want to then make sure that I'm being the steward of those two hour block, the focus sessions, so that I'm allocating and stacking up here I mentioned, you know I have a thousand hours of that, but I can really only, I only focus and this is always. But my latest iteration is that I'm only stacking up, kind of the next 10 hours. What is the thing? How am I going to allocate the next 10 hours? And of those, what are the two or three today? Dan: that. Dean: I'm going to, that I'm going to do, and that's been. You know so much. I've got such a great, you know, such an abundance of ideas and things that I could do. You know it's the. It takes really curating and discipline in a way to to realize that in order for those things to get done, they have to happen in real time. You know, and that's because the what and how kind of things are shape shifters, you can puzzle on those and figure those. You figure out what you need to do and how, how it needs to be done or even who is going to do it. But the all, the applying yourself, happens in the when and the where. That's the most important thing. That's what I lack in my. That's my executive function disorder right. Dan: You know all you can you know to be useful to other people. The only thing you can do is actually tell you. Tell other people what you do, not, what they should do. I never even tell people what they should do, and my reason for that is we only get to play in the present, you know so the only game day we have is the hours available to us. You know, from rising to, you know going to bed. Yeah, we're all playing on the same synchronauts, yeah, but who you are in the present is really a function of your story about what your past is and what your story is about your future. We don't actually live in those realms and that tells me that who people are in the present is absolutely unique, because the story they tell themselves about their past and their future is completely made up by them, and they might communicate 1% of that to somebody else, but the 99% is them having a conversation with themselves both forward and backward and forward. So you know, unless you can understand what people's past and future is, it's hard for you to comprehend how they actually arrange their dates. Dean: Yes. Dan: And yet it makes total sense to them. It makes total sense so, more and more as I go along you know I have to even with people I've known for a long period of time and talk to a lot. You know I always have to remind myself that in understanding this person, I have probably less than 1% of the information that they have. Dean: Yeah, the inner world. What's going on in there? Dan: Yeah, and for most people they're not even conscious that they're making up their past. You know? I mean past is the past. You know that happened. I said well, yeah. I'm not disputing the fact that it happened, but your interpretation of what happened is the important thing here you know, and two people can have what looks like to be an identical experience and come up with very different stories about what the you know what the situation was. And so and the other thing is the future. So you know, and I follow, I've got a file on my Evernote and it's about people who think they can predict the future. You know. Dean: Wow, okay, yes. Dan: And I said, they can predict the future, but they can't even predict their tomorrow. Dean: Right, that's interesting. Dan: It's like climate. You know climate. Dean: Yeah right. Dan: Climate actually doesn't exist, it's a thought. You know and what climate is in a particular location, 365 days of temperature and you know weather conditions. Yes, the average weather conditions for 365 days. That's what climate is. It's a abstraction that gets created by averaging a large number of a large number of days. You know. Dean: Yeah. Dan: People have talked about the climate and I said well, you know, the real problem with getting people really engaged emotionally with the climate is there's not a single person who's actually experienced climate. We just experience weather. Dean: That's an interesting thing that, really, when you think about what you passed, is it's the tapestry of this woven thread of all of the things that you actually did. Yeah, I mean, it's certainly it's the weather of, it is the when and where of what did you do? Yeah, what were you? Dan: Yeah, and there's a lot of abstractions, like society. Dean: I've never experienced society. Dan: I experienced Dean, I experienced Babs, I experienced Joe Polish. I don't know the things society I've never. You know society should do this. I don't think society got the memo, you know. Dean: Right. Dan: Society is not Consistently yeah, or? We're destroying the world? I said I don't think so. I don't know what's the world, you know? you know, you know, and we may be destroying ourselves, you may be destroying yourself, but I don't think we're destroying the world, you know. I mean you know the world's taken. Asteroid hits. The temperature has gone up 100 degrees. It's gone down 100 degrees. You know where I'm talking to you right now. You know, 15,000 years ago it was under 100 feet of water. You know, and you know, I'm right on the shore of Lake Ontario. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And yeah, the shoreline used to be Castleoma. You know how high Castleoma is you? Dean: have to go up to get the Castleoma. Wow, so my, so my Yorkville was underwater. Dan: Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah, that's what's going on, actually. Yeah, quite a bit of us going on. So the big thing is that people create these abstractions and then the abstractions become their reality, over which they have no controls. I mean, if they didn't have any control over their personal reality, boy, they sure don't have any control over things that are an abstraction, you know, and isn't it interesting, though, that so much of everything is an extra abstraction. Dean: When you look at these things, you know we look at all the things, the collective abstractions that we all participate in is certainly most geography. I believe that Africa exists, but it's only an abstraction to me, because I've never been to Africa Me either. I've never been to Buenos Aires, but I'm going to take your word for it that it's really there. Dan: Yeah. Dean: That's interesting. Dan: And it's closer to Africa than it is to Toronto. It's actually closer to Antarctica than it is to Toronto. Dean: You can't go to Antarctica, Dan everybody knows that. Dan: Yeah yeah. Yeah. So the big thing why habits are good on a daily basis is because they're not abstractions. These are neural pathways that you're creating in your brain that encourage you to do this tomorrow rather than a whole bunch of other stuff that you haven't thought about. But my sense is, you know, and the thing I'm going to get across here, that success is a function of productive habits, times, longevity, you know it's productive habits, namely that you're doing this on a daily or frequent basis and you're doing that over years, and it's like compound interest, you know, and yeah, but, you have to make the deposits, to make the transfer. Dean: It's so funny. I was playing around with a visual metaphor for how the constant moving of the speed of reality. Have you ever seen the? Have you ever seen the video game, the guitar hero? Have you seen on visual or anything? Dan: No, I haven't. Dean: So guitar hero is a game where you have this guitar but you've got, instead of strings, you've got these color buttons on the neck of the guitar. So it's yellow, green, blue, red, you know whatever those things are. Then your imagine, do you know how the title sequence to star Star Wars is coming, like when the words are coming at you and you're kind of moving. Okay, so you're looking down the neck of a guitar and you're moving towards it, or it's moving towards you, and as the notes get to this line, you press the red button and then, when the green comes to the line, you push green and then you push yellow or whatever it is to make to play the song that's coming, but it's moving and if you miss it you miss the points, right. So I thought about the way that musical Tetris that's exactly it. Okay, there's perfect example. Tetris is coming at you. So you've got this. You know, as it's moving, we're in control. Our focus can only be on one thing at a time, right? So if you're focused on, you know in our hundred ten minute units that we're getting throughout the day our ten Jackson units. As we were referring to our hundred Jackson units is that we can be in one lane kind of thing for that. So we're moving the joystick or the controller over to be in this activity. Right, and looking back at the record of what we're leaving behind is the wake of what we actually did in those minutes. Right, so you could be neutral where you're just sitting there doing nothing, but you could be in the sleep lane for eight hours. Of that on the record you could be. You know you wake up at 5.30 and by six o'clock I think you're working out by then. Right, is that your trainer arrives. So you look back at the. You look back at the permanent record that you're leaving in your wake is at six, is yellow, with your trainer or whatever, consistently over time that you're getting into those things and the more you know erratic those things are, it leaves less of a pattern over time, right, but that's where you get that. So the consistency, my observation of it is to, if I could try and tighten up those things so that in those bands that from 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock, I've established the consistency over time of dedicating those two hours to the most important things that I can be doing, that's going to have an impact, you know. Dan: Yeah, well, it's all very interesting, you know, because I think a lot of people just don't comprehend who they are today as a function of consistent past habits, yeah, and who they're going to be in the future is a series of consistent habits. And you know, and I was reading, charlie Munger is the width and wisdom of Charlie Munger, warren Buffett's partner, who just died about a month ago, and he said you know, you can have a lot of raisins, but they're in addition, it's half raisins and half turds. We call the dish turds. Dean: So you have a lot. Dan: You have good habits, but you have a lot of bad habits. We call the result bad habits, even though there's good habits along the way. So I think you know it's part of your self knowledge is to increase one and decrease the other. Dean: Yeah, I was just thinking about my, you know. You look now the deposits of over time, the 12 o'clock and six o'clock perfectly balanced meal Delivered without any variation. Or you know, human error in that thing that over time that tapestry is going to be a different pattern, right? Dan: Yeah, and the thing is because a lot of other things are responding to it, you know I mean your brain is noticing a difference, so it's got to make adjustments. You know your brain yeah, make adjustments in your social life. Yeah, make adjustments and everything like that. That's why you don't have to think about 30 things If you got three good things to think about the other 30 will have to adjust to the three. Yeah, and I never try to change bad habits, I just tried to crowd them out with good habits. Right, I think what I, you know, evolved in thinking today, I want you to pay a lot of attention to them, you know. Dean: Yes, I think a realization I had today, dan, is I was thinking to myself could I establish that meal system without doing anything? Is that literal? Well, I don't have to cook and I don't have to buy groceries to do anything. I only have to decide which I want and place the order. But if I look, that's the least I could do. But now, as I think about it, I could get Lillian, my assistant, to do to. I said these are the 10 meals, let's rotate them around, and I want them to arrive at 12 o'clock and six o'clock and not have anything to do. So there is a way that I could do that without doing anything. Dan: Yeah, yeah, and they're not wasted because they go in the fridge, you know. Dean: So oh no. I would eat them anyway. I have to eat them. Yeah, I have to eat. Yeah, exactly. Dan: Yeah, well, of course. I mean that's the way ours are done. You know Christopher, who's the caterer for our workshops, he does Babs on my Meal and lunch and dinner, and then our back to our EA, looks at our schedule, whether we're going to be at home or not, and then she, you know we have guests in the raving house, and then she asks us questions about it and we, you know we'll give the answers. And then she's in touch with the caterer and the meals arrived. You know the meals arrived and basically lunch and dinner, like for the weekend. They would come on Friday afternoon and their guests for Saturday and Sunday. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I love that, yeah, yeah, I mean, and you know. But the big thing is I noticed, going on the 80, I'll be 80, you know four months, hey, yeah, and what I noticed is that I don't really start anything new these days. If it's not something I'm going to stick with for the rest of my life, okay, or it's going to reinforce something else that I'm going to stick, that I'm already doing, that's going to last for the rest of my life. Dean: So yeah. Dan: Yeah, so I'm very selective about anything new, you know, and you know, people say hey this is really interesting. So I said, don't think so. I don't think this is going to be a rest of my life experience you know, and so but on the other hand, I'm going a lot deeper into things that you know. I'm really interested in things that really support the new things, that support the thing that I'm already doing. Dean: I'm really yeah, and our podcast is one of those. Yes, one of those. Dan: Yeah, so you can. You know pretty well, figure, as long as you're up to it, I'm up to it. Dean: That's great. I like it, yeah, yeah. Well, it's been an amazing conversation, as always I had no idea what adventure we were going to go on, but this was really enjoyable conversation. Dan: The one thing I should tell you is that when you're in Argentina, it's not uncommon for dinner to start at nine o'clock at night. Dean: Right. Dan: Okay and which which, so you can take dinner time and then, after dinner and going to bed, which kind of dictates that Argentinians get up later. They get up later in the morning and I said this tells you why the US and also they have the two hour break. Dean: Yes, the middle of the day, you know and. Dan: I said. So this kind of tells you why the US is ahead, because Americans get up early and work all day. Yeah, I think on a one developed countries. Americans work a lot more than certainly anybody in Europe. Americans work a lot more than anyone in. Europe, I think probably anyone in South America, probably not. Southeast Asia. I bet Southeast Asians work more than Americans do. Yeah, but anyway. But that's just the habit of the culture. It's a workout. I mean, america is a work culture. Dean: Yes, I love. It, okay, well, I guess I will see you on Thursday. Dan: Oh well, have a good day I got a lot of great stuff for Thursday. Dean:It's all very exciting. I'm going to read the. I got the new book for the or yesterday, so I'm going to read that. Dan: Awesome, all right. Dean: Okay, Dan, I'll talk to you next week or I'll see you Thursday. Dan: Okay, thursday Thanks, thanks, gene.

In today's episode of "Welcome to Cloudlandia", Dan and I discuss the unexpected cold weather that recently swept through Florida and Ontario. We talk about how the weather can affect our moods and the emotional connection between climate and architecture. We share personal stories about winters and pay tribute to oak trees that stand steadfast throughout the seasons. We also consider community planning and how neighborhoods can either embrace nature or ignore natural elements. Additionally, we explore innovative housing, such as modular and 3D-printed designs, while considering ideas on population growth. The future of shelter looks promising. Finally, we wrap up by examining the impact of advertising on media polarization and the changing news landscape. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dan and I discuss the unexpected cold in Florida and Ontario, touching on Seasonal Affective Disorder and the psychological impact of weather on mood. We pay tribute to the significance of oak trees and their presence through the seasons, exploring how community planning can integrate with nature. Dan reminisces about the grandiose architecture of the Gilded Age and contrasts it with the simplicity and utilitarian focus of modern home designs. We explore the historical context of Craftsman-style homes and the influence of income tax and antitrust laws on architectural styles. We delve into the topic of U.S. population growth predictions and Peter Zeihan's perspective on the country's capacity to double its population without feeling more congested. The conversation shifts to the current political landscape, analyzing the dichotomy between Biden and Trump, and the challenges faced by third-party candidacies. We examine the accuracy and influence of betting markets on political forecasting and their reflection of public sentiment. Dan describes the impact of the pandemic on education and considers potential long-term effects on future generations. We discuss the shift from advertising to subscription models in media, considering the New York Times as a case study and touching on media polarization and the influence of digital giants. The episode concludes with reflections on the concept of climate as a statistical average of weather and historical climate patterns, challenging the narrative of global warming. 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 Well well, well. Is it hot or cold? Didn't forward that to me. Dean: Well, it is middling. I would say it's a little bit of a cast, but I think it's on its way. We had yesterday like the first day in several weeks that I felt a warmth in the air. There's been. We've had a bit of a cold overtone to everything. Dan: Yeah, I think cold in Florida in January is worse than cold in. Ontario. Yes In your brain yeah. Dean: And especially disappointing for people who come from Canada expecting. Dan: I was contemplating this on the plane flight we flew it to Chicago yesterday afternoon and I was complaining at how oblivious I am generally to weather. Like I know, there are people who I don't know what the exact term is, but they have seasonal, seasonal mood disorder or something like that. Dean: Seasonal affective effective disorder. Yeah, Sad. Dan: Seasonal affective disorder. Right, yeah, and you know I don't exactly know what goes on there, but the only thing I can say I don't have it, yeah, exactly. Dean: I don't mind overcast either. That's funny, but you know I am 24 years now into a snow free millennium with only two asterisks, and those asterisks are both because of you. The only time I've seen snow in this whole millennium is on the occasions when I've been in Toronto in the winter because of the cold In the winter, because of going to 10 times when you started the 10 times program, and then I believe there was one time in Chicago that there was some snow, usually three out of the four dates you get away with no snow, but there's always that December till, you know, april time when it somewhere in there you might end up with some snow. Dan: Yeah, well, we have snow on the ground, I mean fresh to overnight, but the sidewalks are already dry, naturally, and I already arranged. Dean: I already arranged, with the powers that be, to put the asterisks beside my thing, because although I've seen snow and been in the presence of snow, I've not had snow touch me, so the purity of it is intact, although the technicality of it is. Dan: I've been in snow, so yeah, I remember our very first client from Australia mid 90s, from Sydney, and he came to his workshop in Toronto one winter and his wife came with him and he got a call from her while he was at the workshop that she had gone outside in a snow head fell on her. Dean: In Australia or in no. In in Toronto, all right, a snow head falling on her. Dan: It's the first time in her life that a snow she was talking about a flake. Dean: She was talking about a flake yeah yeah, I got it A snow. Yeah, usually you can have as many as you want. Dan: Front all you want, yeah. But I have very memorable childhood winters of hiking through fields and woods in the snowy season, and you know, and of course when you're six years old, the snow is deeper than it is when you're 80. Yeah, but I, so my I have a real warm spot in my heart about snowy treks, you know, and imagining that you're a member of, you know, an arctic exploration, everything things that you do, you make up, you know, you make up, you know romantic images based on your reading regarding snow. But I like the forest seasons. I'm a real fan of the change from one season to the other. And then, you know, we have these massive oak trees in our lawn. We have seven that are you know well over 100 feet and and they're real friends because we've had them now for you know, for at this particular spot, we've had them for 20,. This is our 22nd year. And you know and I just you know they're kind of friends, you know they're kind of dependable friends. Oaks tend not to disappoint, you know they're not they're never late, they always show up, you know that's exactly right. Yeah, and but, it's just interesting to watch the change of the scenery and our lawn based on what happens to the oak trees over the course of an entire year. Dean: Well, you, you have not yet been to the four seasons, Valhalla but we are surrounded by 150 year old oak trees. It's like a park. Right out in front of my house. I have a big one that spans over the driveway. It's beautiful. Dan: I think these are called they're in the south there's this variety. They're called pin oaks. I don't know what the actual name Live oak. Well, live oaks are the best. Dean: That's what I think we have, because they're they spread. You know, they've got quite a nice canopy. Dan: When an oak tree is alive, that's the best. Dean: Oh, I see, oh, yes, that is. Dan: You know, You're always a bit worried about the dead ones, the dead oaks are the best yeah, oh my goodness you crack me up. Dean: I'm constantly amazed that they come and so that tree in front of my house. We've got them all throughout the whole neighborhood here and they come and they'll like lop off entire branches, like entire, not just the little things but big things, and they'll just keep going and grow right back and shape the way, because often it'll they have to trim around because the limbs will come over my house right and if it were to fall it would be a problem. So they always keep it outside the perimeter of the roof. Dan: Well, it must have been interesting because, to you know, the zoning in your place must have taken into account that you can't cut down the oak trees. Dean: Yeah, that's true, that's everything is built around them and our H away takes care of all of the landscaping. So everything it's all uniform. It looks like a park so you don't have, you know, different levels of care being taken. Everybody's at the whole, the whole place looks great. Dan: So no opportunity for status right. Dean: That's exactly right and they owe that tightly deed restricted. Like you're, absolutely right, Like it's. You know, every house is the same brick. There's approved tile, they're all tile roof. You have to have a tile roof, you have to have copper flashings, you have to have this Valhalla brown as any exterior paint the windows, everything. It's all you know. They started in the late 80s building in here and they've, you know, as recently as two years ago. The last, the last home was, was built in here, but there's only 50 homes in here but you wouldn't be able to tell. You couldn't tell which ones are new and which ones are from, you know, 1980s, and that's. It's kind of nice, it's cool, but we've had you know I say it's funny. You say it's an interesting thought that no opportunity for status in here. Because so when I moved in here 22 years ago now 2002, I was by far the youngest person in here and thought I was would joke that 20 years from now I'll be old enough to live in here. And this is a my neighborhood like. Right beside me, three of the four houses to my right were referred to at the time as Citrus Barron Row, where these guys were, all you know, in their 70s and 80s and had built the Citrus. You know they were all sort of competitors in the Citrus business in Polk County. At one time Polk County produced more Citrus than the entire state of California and so so these guys were all there. My neighbor across the street was the guy who started Steak and Shake, the restaurant chain, and when he died he he left $20 million to Indiana University for the Kelly School of Business Wing there, and the my neighbor who moved in there is now the own company called Colorado Boxed Beef and they are like an Omaha Steaks type of thing. So anyway, fascinating people but very like low key. You never know about any of them that they're who they are, and I think that was part of the intention of the community, you know when they built the community. But it's very interesting. Dan: Yeah, it's really interesting the reason I brought up the status thing, relationship to a, you know, a design community, you know just use the word design community and the first one actually was in. I think it was in New Jersey. And it was called Levittown and it was designed by a man by the name of Levitt, and that was the first design community that was where individuals could buy homes. I mean there were sort of during the industrial age, growing you know in the 1800s there was, there were company towns. you know where the corporation, the company, would design all the homes and you know, they would do it on the cheap. They would do it on the cheap, and they're actually. There's a town outside of Chicago called Pullman. Dean: And. Dan: Pullman was the cars. Oh yeah, pullman cars right. Pullman. Dean: Pullman cars, Rail rail cars, right yeah. Dan: And the railways. Yeah, and that was a design company town and all the businesses were owned by the company and the only people who could live there were people who worked for the Pullman. So you've had that type of thing. You've had that type of thing, you know. You know it's probably from the beginning of industrialization, hershey, Pennsylvania, kind of that way too. Dean: Yeah, Kohler, Wisconsin yeah. Dan: Kohler, wisconsin. Yeah, and so the. But I think Levittown was actually. It's worth it for people to look it up. It's a very interesting thing. Dean: Yeah, I remember seeing some documentary about it. Dan: And it was huge. I mean it was huge, it was in the thousands of homes. Dean: Yes. Dan: And yeah, and then you know, the idea caught on. Dean: Yeah, well, that was what, as the evolution of you know, as cars became the big thing in the highway system, you know you could have. That was where the suburbs really began. That was one of the first suburbs of Firecall. Yeah, yeah, very interesting that actually started that really started in. Dan: I read the history of the Victorian age and Great Britain which, last you know, is basically from the beginning of Queen Victoria, which was, I think, 1820s, 1830s, right up until she died and she was in for more than 60 years. And but the big thing was the expansion of the London rail system. You know it kept going further and further out and you know London Americans who have no idea of what you know a city train system looks like, because London has seven that I visited. They may have more, but they had seven major railroad stations and these are huge. These are as big as you know. They're like Grand Central Station but there's seven of them. And then the lines go out like the, you know like the, like a clock face that go out, you know and, but they kept pushing them further and further out, and one of the big things was that you could live right on the rail system and they started building these suburban towns, not with the uniformity that you're talking about with you know, with your, your community, but but that whole idea of the suburbs became a big thing, you know, and and that it changed things economically, it changed things politically, changed things culturally. Dean: And that's. Dan: That's very interesting thing. And you know and contrast that with where we have our home in Chicago, that right after the war it was sort of a factory or it's right near the airport and they built all these boxes you know, and they were just streets and streets. Yeah, yeah, and they were the same. They were, you know, not big but completely uniform, and I think around that happened probably for a period of 10, 15 years, straight up till the 60s, and then the. Park Ridge, the town that I live in, passed a law that if you build the house, it couldn't be. It had to be different from the two houses on each side of you. Dean: Oh, wow, that's interesting. I wonder about that, Like the. This evolution would be an interesting, like you know, seeing the architectural journey because, if you go back to, have you ever been to Newport in in Rhode Island? Yeah, newport, rhode Island, have you ever been to see the? Vanderbilt mansions and all those things. Dan: Well, they were called cottages. Dean: They were called Newport cottages, exactly. I love that yeah. Dan: Yeah, they had 40 rooms, you know yeah. Dean: So when you look at it in a world pre-income tax and pre-antitrust all of those things- I think income tax probably made a difference. Probably. But, you look at that, that gilded age of where opulence was the thing, that's where you get all those, you know, huge mansions, in New York City even, and the whole thing. People were, they were big and there's nowhere. You know, across the street from me there is a new development. So one of the Valhalla was kind of out, you know, surrounded by 350 acres that one Citrus family owned for years, right there's almost a mile on Lake Eloise of Lakefront, and there was no houses on it, it was all just orange groves. And so recently, you know, a few years ago, they sold the land and now they're starting to develop this neighborhood, this new, you know, giant subdivision called Harmony, and the houses they start the first phase, like in the last, in the last year, they've, you know, made quite amazing Headway on it. But damn, the houses that they're building have as much character as the houses in the board game monopoly. They're just little Boxes that they're putting right beside each other on all of these things. And the two-story houses look like the hotels In monopoly, you know, and there's no, they're just boxes with windows and a two-car garage and a driveway and Zero Character. You look at the homes that were being built in the, you know, in the 20th year. They 1800s, 19, 120s. The homes were all Craftsman style homes, you know, like there was some artistry to them. Now, in every way, it's really come full circle to pure Utilitarian. You know, utility, just what's the? yeah right angles with very little, you know very little. Dan: Yeah, it's really, really interesting because you know there's kind of a Van vanity that goes along with the times. You know another yeah well, we do things better than people did a hundred years ago. Well it was very interesting that a hundred years ago you could go to the Sears and Roba catalog. Yeah and you could go, where you could buy a house of the and, and they would have pages and pages of different styles, and, and what you would do is you would order it you know, yeah, and you had to pay. You had to pay for it. You know you had to send a money order. You had to Western Union that you know you had to send a telegram and then the money would be secured at the other end and about five days later, by train and truck, your house kit would arrive, and then you had to engage with a local builder and the local builder would just follow the manual and would put up a house, and some of these houses were 10, 12 Room houses, you know yeah yeah, they had big porches and everything else. And then you could modify them. I mean, you could modify them, you could paint them whatever color you wanted it. There's actually a town in Michigan, frankenmuth, which is sort of a German theme. It's sort of one of those theme towns. You know where. It's a German town, so they have a big October fest there every year and you know they have German restaurants and I suspected happened because there were a lot of German immigrants to that area of Michigan. But they have more intact lived in Sears and Roboc houses than any other community. Dean: Oh, wow and and. Dan: But if you go to, you know, if you go to Google and you just put in Sears and Roboc houses images, you'll see the bit, you'll see all the pictures of these houses in there. It would be considered sort of lavish today, these houses, you know. But it was just you know it just arrived by train. You know it was big curtain after curtain. Everything Funny that we've kind of come. Dean: We've kind of come full circle on that. Now. The biggest trends are, you know, pre modular manufactured manufactured homes yeah, that they deliver, and even now 3d printed homes and I think it's probably gonna be a combination of that of 3d printed and Modular yeah, interior things that's gonna be. But you know, you look at it, it's like we're still have you seen in any? I don't haven't followed it, but population projections for the United States over the next 50 years. Have you seen what's the projection? Dan: So they're three, you know, they're mid is probably, you know, and that's a lot of illegal people who became legal you know, so there's a ton of illegal People in the country right now right and everything. But they estimate. You know that the US is going to grow pretty much at. You know, if you look back 30 or 40 years probably, you know probably the same rate of growth to you know, one or two percent per year that population grows and but they're the Peter Zion in his books and I thought about him a lot on the pre bird podcast. Yeah, but he said that the United States still has so much land. Oh yeah not, that's not settled. I mean it's. You know, it's geographically established. And everyone but he said the US could. This was. He was using three 330 million as the base number there and he said if you doubled the population 660 million the country wouldn't feel any more crowded than it does now. Dean: Yeah, that's very interesting and I can attest to that for Florida in itself, yeah, but we was Hard. Dan: As for it is like 30 million now, I think it is. Dean: No, it's on its way to 30 million in by 30. By 2030 it should be 30 million. Yeah, it's 20, 24 million or something right now, but we're the fastest growing. They are alternating between Texas and, but we grew last year at 1200 people a day, you know. So we're growing a city the size of Orlando every year. Yeah, and there's plenty of part of the reason. Dan: Part of the reason, I think, is the retiring baby boomers. Dean: Oh, yeah, yeah. Dan: And in other words, that I may be an anomaly, that I'm 80 and I'll be 80 in May and I don't feel the cold doesn't bother me. You know, right, cold weather, but there's a lot of people, you know, I mean if you have arthritis. You know the cold bothers you, you know and other things. But you know, I know I have no thought of ever and Babs would be with me here. No thought of ever living as our permanent home anywhere but Toronto right and. But we visited, our favorite is Arizona, so we go to. Arizona a lot during the year, yeah, and. But I have no, you know, I mean there wouldn't be anything under. Well, one day We'll be able to go and you know they'll spend. Dean: You know, spend you know, six months, yeah, some warm, and that doesn't really. That's playing into Florida's hand in that it's still part of the dream for many people. Oh yeah, it's you know you when we were talking about guessing and betting, that you know I think that's a pretty certain guess that from you know what's not going to change in the next 20 years, that you know right now still we're in the middle of the, the baby boom, baby boomers turning 65, there's going to be 10,000 people a day turning 65 right now, which will be 2028. Dan: 2028 is the year when all people born during the baby boom era are now older than 65. Yeah, 2028. Dean: Yeah, so you look at that and it's like in the Northeast that is almost like you know. It's almost like mandatory military requirement. Back it up. This is where you get shipped to. Dan: This is where you get shipped to yeah, yeah, yeah and, of course, the Northeast is by far the most expensive from a government standpoint is the most expensive part of the country. Yeah regulation and taxes. Dean: Yeah, you know. Dan: I would say from New Jersey right up to the Canadian border. You know that there's a movement south. I mean, obviously Florida has great attractions. You know, other than, but even economically, that your tax and regulations are way more tolerable than in the. Northeast. Yeah, you know I kid people who are from California, you know I. You know who are in the plant base. New York not so much New York, but California. It's easier to pick on New York than it is, or pick on California than it is. New York, california was the dream place. You know, you went to. California. That was the great dream, and I said so at some point. Are you thinking about moving to the United States? Dean: That's funny. Yes, exactly. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got a client who's from Montana Bozeman, and he's. I said why is Bozeman so popular? And they said it's, it's. It's the closest place in Montana that you can be near the United States. Dean: Okay, it's so funny, those places, there are lots of those like. We've got a client in Miami, in South Beach, and they said that's the refrain, that's their clients. What they like about South Beach is that it's so close to America. You know, you can certainly be in it, but not of it there. That's the truth, you know, yeah, yeah, I think that's kind of what you know every, that's what's kind of buoying. You know Ron DeSantis, his, you know his polling is. You know, the only reason he's even in the running is because of you know people looking at what he's done for Florida. His whole campaign was make America Florida. Dan: But that would be, you know, that would be candidate who just has had no United, no experience outside of Florida. Dean: Absolutely Right, I think that's it. Dan: Each of the states is a country and people. You know people have their. You know the whole notion that everything should be like one place. Dean: Yeah Right, that's not it. Dan: I mean, there were a lot of rookie mistakes that he made. You know you, yeah. The other thing is that he's running up against somebody who's done two complete national campaigns before this one. He's a great organizer I mean President Trump is. Dean: I think everybody is. I think everybody is baffled by his. I mean, it's not even close the lead that Trump has over everybody else in the polling and in the you know the things. It's just what a year this is going to be, you know, to see how this all plays out. Yeah, and I think some cases. Dan: some cases are going to, especially at the level of the Supreme Court, and one of them is, of course, the appeal to the Colorado move. Dean: Oh yeah. Dan: Trump can't be on the ballot and I think if the justice the justices, I mean it'll the Supreme Court will overturn it, but I think the justices would be smart to make it 9 to 0. Yeah, because this is and it's just an interpretation of one of the amendments the 14th Amendment, and that's you know, and, and they're going to establish that, and then that becomes the precedent. So all the other states, like Maine or anybody else is thinking about it can't do it you know, and that's the role of the Supreme Court are to interpret the Constitution. Dean: Yes. Dan: But that'll be seen as a big win. And then there's another one that he has where there's a special prosecutor who's after him and there's he appealed the special prosecutor that he needed to ruling and they said, no, this is your issue, you have to go through the court system. And that was a win for Trump. And and the whole point is everybody's desperately trying to get the actual trials because he's been indicted in before the election. But there's all sorts of ways that you can delay it into the future. You know, and anyway, so I was reading that the whole notion of January 6 and the insurrection, you know that's the key issue here, that January 6. And insurrection, but none of the charges against him are mentioned. The word insurrection, you know they mentioned. You know it's tax things that he hit documents with him, you know you know when he left the White House and everything like that. But I don't think they're going to stand up to scrutiny and but everyone that he wins now is like his poll numbers go up when he's indicted. His polls numbers go up when the retirement is overturned his poll, numbers go up. Dean: Yeah. Dan: But he's 24 seven. The thing that the media know is that when they have anything about Trump, they get higher viewership and there's more advertising dollars and so they're caught because they'd like to take him down. But everything they do to take him down increases his poll numbers. Crazy, yeah, but it's interesting. But it's interesting like the. You know, my Jeff Maddoff and I did a podcast last Sunday and we were comparing the phenomenon of Taylor Swift, the phenomenon of Trump. Oh, wow. Completely different. You know completely different world and everything but but each of them has created a movement that people feel that they can participate in. Yeah this is. Nobody in the music industry has what she has as a movement and nobody in the political realm has what he has in the. You know it's a nationwide movement. Yes that you feel you can participate in, and but it's amazing to me how heavy the field is. Dean: You know, in terms of like, it's really only Biden and Trump. There's no real viable, no candidate. I mean even as much of a. You know we saw Robert Kennedy in Genius Genius network and you know they as running as an independent, which is, you know, that's a non-starter and there's no, that's not a difficult. That's not a difficult bet to guess. Even if he is a reasonable, you know it has some things and you start to see now even know there's nobody coming Behind, is not even any alternatives. You know like you look at Vivek Ramaswamy and yeah, you know, although he kind of has Obama Undertones to reminds me, like as a speaker and articulator, communicator, but I don't know, for me he it's just the tone, that it's more important to him to be right, that he was a win. The argument you know through, yeah, clever Elecution yeah. Dan: I don't know how that win the battle, but lose the war. Dean: That's what it feels like to me. Right like that is just kind of that. It just has. Dan: It's more important to him the real motivation is to prove that he's smart enough, or whatever you know yeah, and you know, I mean first of all the times we're in dictates whether people think that somebody's viable or not. And I mean this is a time of tremendous change. I mean, it's probably the Most change since the second world war. I would yeah that, the overall changes that we're going, and and everything gets Shaky and unhinged just when you have a big, when you have I just looked at like last night. Dean: It was so funny. I looked at the you know the odds Makers, the. I found a cumulative thing and it's it's all trump. Trump is the the Betty market. Dan: the bedding, yeah, the bedding market is all on trump, and that's yeah. Dean: Yeah, and the betting markets. Dan: They were wrong with trump the first time. They you know they were they. I mean they had Hillary, like Day before the election they had heard like at 85, 90 percent, you know, yeah. So so people say yeah, yeah, but that was a fluke, that was a look and I said, yeah, but what if the candidate candidate himself, is the fluke? Dean: Right, exactly. Dan: No, but I did. Dean: Of all of the field. It wasn't. It's not like an 80 percent thing there, I think it was like 40 percent Likely, which is the top of all of the. Dan: That was against the field, including everybody including, but what you go head on head, they all have trump Biden and it's like 60 versus 60 40, you know oh, wow, okay that's interesting and yeah, and that's what people are betting on, but that those, the betting markets, can be gained and and I'll give you an example was brexit, which happened, you know, in the may, in may or june, I think of 16 before the presidential election, and the interesting thing is that debates are a big thing in Great Britain and they're televised and there were 10 of them in the six months leading up to the actual vote on brexit Britain leaving the European Union and and I watched them and with every debate the Leave side had all the emotional issues. The Stay side had a lot of intellectual, intellectual arguments and they were you know, they're British, they're very articulate. It was, you know, it was well said on both sides. But the the thing that really cracked the back against the stay side Was the european union decided, about three months before the campaign started, that they were going to regulate the electrical, electrical charge of teapots in Great Britain and everybody had to get rid of their teapot because they were using not too much. And this was coming from Brussels, you know, from the European union. You just lost it. You screw around with her because every If you have to change your tea cup, then every every day at three, three to five o'clock. You're talking right, get out of the european. You're not talking about. Dean: You're talking about the football players. Dan: You're saying let's leave Britain those suckers. They can't tell us, you know. So it's always like the bud light. One thing in the united states I said that was a crack, that was like an earthquake you know, that you're fooling around with our beer, can't you know you can't yeah you know, you can't fool around with our beer, can't I so funny you know and I think it's always comes down to a gut issue very emotional that everybody gets like everybody gets they're pulling around. It's like you know, when they closed down all the schools, all the states that closed down the schools for it, they didn't close down the schools, they, they closed, I mean the individual schools for one reason or another. Can you know? Could you know have special reasons or anything? Else yes there wasn't coming from the top. There was no really on the schools and they did enormous damage. We now know that there was enormous damage Done to those people right at the early stage, when they're starting to learn how to socialize or, you know, and I think we're going to see a damaged generation, maybe two damaged generations in the future, who, you know, had too much time on their hands alone. Yeah, my, my feeling is, and it strikes me right now, that trump just has a monopoly on all the gut, emotional issues. Dean: I agree, like you look at, it's pretty amazing how Cloudlandia has really shaped the way we think about these elections, like I think, as cloudlandia has really become the primary place that the elections have. Probably you know, it seems they've become more contentious or more divide, dividing, and I don't know how to clear enough Remember you know what that happened. Dan: Yeah, no way that happened. Yeah, and there I had a really good article on this and I had to do with how the media gets its advertising dollars. Right, okay and, first of all, the media got their advertising dollars taken away. Okay, because facebook and google have 70 percent of the ad money. Now just those two companies. Yeah, okay, so a lot of the media had to turn to a Subscription model so for example, let's take the new york times. Yes and you know not my, you know it's not a paper that represents my political interest, but I always found it an informative paper. There were always good articles up until I would say, probably 10 years ago, okay, and and the reason was they made their money from newspapers that went to the street every day. Know that and whoever wanted to buy the new york times would buy the new york times. Yes but they were very thick papers. The daily new york times was a paper and you know a lot of the pages. I mean 40 percent of the space was. Advertisers you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what happened then? When the, the advertising dollars went away, they had to go to a subscription model and therefore they just moved to the part Of the population whose politics agreed with the new york times, and they lost everybody. His politics didn't agree with the new york times. And the same thing happened on on the other side of the political spectrum. So, for example, great bark, which is now a powerhouse On the, you know, on the internet that a strictly an internet. That's strictly an internet media company. Dean: Yes, town hall. Dan: Yeah, news news max town hall. These didn't exist. They really didn't exist. You know, 10, 15 years ago but, what people going to drift from the you know the media sources that they used to go go to because it just favored one side of the political spectrum. Look for new opportunities and these other, these other real, clear politics is another one real court pox has as emerged, and so that's what polarized things was the disappearance of advertising dollars. Dean: Or the. You know, it's really interesting that you just brought something up that I thought about, that. You know the New York Times print edition, you were any. You had to get the whole newspaper and so you're getting all of the things, but when you're online, it's all parsed out to the individual articles the clickbait and who they're attracting, and then it made more sense to lean into the audience that you are attracting, right, that's. So the bias became more pronounced, I think right or evident. You couldn't, on balance, balance it out in the entirety of a print edition of the newspaper, because it's only individual articles and pages that are getting attracting the traffic, you know. Dan: Yeah. Dean: That's something. Dan: Yeah, so I mean there's many other reasons besides that particular one. But from an economic standpoint that was the main economic reasons why polarization has happened, and you know, and it's become much more subjective to the reporting has become much more. You know, they're not reporting on the facts, they're interpreting the facts and commentating on the facts. So you don't have reporters anymore, you have commentators. You know. You know the reporters are building them the political message into the reporting of the facts. You know, and I mean, for example, you can't get any reporting on global, on weather you know weather, you know extreme weather without somebody interpreting as just another sign of global warming, which is, global warming is not a scientific issue, it's a political issue, right, right, right, yeah, yeah, the science doesn't support it. I mean, yeah, it's going up, but we're coming out of an ice age. Dean: You know, we've been coming out of an ice age for 10,000 years, and that's what I meant, that's what I always fall back on that, dan, that somehow we lifted ourselves, the planet somehow lifted itself out of an ice age without the aid of combustible engines and fossil fuels. Yeah, so somehow that was the it was possible. You know it was happening before. Dan: Yeah where I live in Toronto. I was under about 500 feet of ice Right. Dean: Right, right. So, the big thaw. Dan: Yeah, it takes a while, you know, for glaciers to actually, you know, and it's just a gradual warming up and then there's periods when it, you know it dips down. You know that you got ups and downs and you know the temperatures. You know the temperatures, you know, and there's fluctuations. You know the the heat. Climate doesn't actually exist. Climate is a statistical average. All the weather, like, yeah, where Valhalla, where you are, the climate in Valhalla is totally determined by 365 days of temperate. You know of weather and they're just measuring it and they call that the climate. But, nobody experiences. Nobody experiences climate. Dean: We experience weather. Dan: Yes, climate is just, it's just an abstract term to measure. You know, all the weather in one place and climate change Even, yeah, even, in Valhalla, probably, where you, where you are, are you shaded by the oak trees? Dean: We not particularly. I mean it's, they're there. No, it's not. The whole house is not shaded by oak trees, but there is shade in the neighborhood, yeah. Dan: Yeah, but it's really interesting that if you where you go for coffee. It might be an annual average. It might be one degree warmer where you're getting your coffee than where people live. Dean: Oh, global warming. Dan: Yeah, well, you know, it's kind of like I was thinking about all these yeah. Dean: It's like you know Deming I was sort of in rereading Deming lately and you know one of his, his, the funnel experiments, where they would, you know, move and adjust the funnel based on the last result. So it's kind of, and that created the greatest variation by you know adjusting with each data point, as opposed to you know adjusting the system. Dan: Yeah, well, here's the thing, that one of the you know you had the polar bears as one of the symbols of global warming. Remember the polar bearer thing? This was Al Gore. He got on the. You know the polar bears, the actual, actually the population of polar bears, and there aren't a lot of them, but you know, they're in a particular latitude, above a certain latitude line, going or going around the world, and their populations actually increased since he started making a prediction that they would be gone right now. So they've actually increased. But the other thing, that the other thing is really interesting are the Maldives. The Maldives about a thousand islands in a cluster in the Indian Ocean and the Maldives have been petitioning the UN that they need to get a lot of money because you know they're sinking in the sea. The average height of the islands. You know, and there's, you know, there's a thousand, I think there's a thousand in the what's called the Maldive Islands, and you know, it's about two feet above sea level. So they said well, you know, in 30 years we'll disappear. So we have to have massive money to redirect our population. And but actually the the geography of the Maldive Islands, maldives, has actually increased over the last 30 years. They've got now more land than you know, than they had. You know. And all of a sudden you say, well, why'd that happen? Well, they said, we're trying to figure out why it happened, you know, and what about the problem we're? Trying to. We're trying to figure out why it happened. You know which? One is that everything that we were saying before was based on ignorance. Dean: That's a good explanation. Exactly. Dan: Yeah, but what I was going to say? I was just thinking about this the other day. When you look at every cause, you know political cause, you know whatever cause you have, it's about money. Okay. Dean: Yes. Dan: And every movement is a money making machine. Dean: Yeah, that's. It's pretty cake or wrong really following the money. Dan: It all comes down to Jerry McGuire. Show me the money. I'm going to explain any movement on the planet. Where's the money moving? Is the money coming in or is the money going out? Dean: Yes. Dan: Yeah, it was so funny because the Israelis, I think, 10 days ago, killed, I think, the number three Hamas guy who was living in Beirut. Wow, he was worth four billion a year. You know he made like four billion a year. And they've got the top six and they said you know we're going to find you and we're going to. You know we're going to kill you, but the top guys who don't live in Gaza, they live in Qatar. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Qatar. The pronunciation is Qatar. They're living in Istanbul, they're living in Beirut and I bet these are nervous people. Dean: I bet yeah, yeah, could you imagine? I mean, that's kind of. It's an interesting. I had dinner with Leigh, or Weinstein, the other night, two nights ago, and you know we were talking. I didn't realize this, but you know he said there's only 15 million Jews in the world, the world, yeah, I would have thought it was way more. I mean, that seems such. Dan: Well, it tells you the impact of the Holocaust or the Second World. Dean: War yeah. Dan: Without the Holocaust, there'd be now 35 to 40 million 40 million Jews. I saw a projection once. That's how devastating. Dean: It was, yeah, at one point. Yeah, the Holocaust was probably 40% of the Jews. Which, yeah, if you implicate, I mean track that out. It's just like you were saying, yeah, probably 30 or 40 million, that would have. That would have been. I mean it's pretty, it's crazy, and the eight of them are in Israel or whatever, right, so that's. Dan: No, it's not that high. Dean: No, it wasn't it. Dan: Actually Israel, just to surpass the United States, had six for the, you know it's not a fast growing a population. Dean: Israel matters. Dan: And I think they're at. The Jewish population now is could be maybe seven. It's on the way to seven, yeah. Dean: Okay, so I wasn't that far off, yeah. Dan: I think New York City itself has, New York City itself has two million. Dean: Wow. Dan: Two million. Yeah, yeah, that's wild. Yeah, you know they have a lot of history, you know. I mean, you want to know about what's happened to them over 3,000 years. Yeah, they've got a lot of history to talk about, you know, and what a self-granted is, and so so, anyway, yeah, it's really interesting, but they're not confused about who their enemies are. Dean: Right, yes. Dan: Anyway, I think it's meal time for you. Dean: Yes, that is exactly right. I have wonderful. Dan: What are today arriving? Dean: Well, today Dan today, Dan, I have the Tuscan grilled pork chops arriving today with some broccoli, it's so good, it's very good and so yeah, I'm excited this so far this has been a really good. You know, removing of discretion in the pricing. Dan: Row number one do not give Dan Dean Jackson discretion. Dean: Right, exactly so. It allows, it allows rational Dean to make decisions for future team. Dan: Yeah, and I get to enjoy them and it's projected into the future. Dean: Yes. Dan: We're into the future. Dean: Yes, which is great, and so that, just for people listening, have discovered with in collaboration with Jay Virgin, we discovered we've chosen 10 power meals for me that are available on Grun Uber eats, and, using the pre order feature, I'm able to establish these deliveries at 12 o'clock and six o'clock and so bookend my days with these pre healthy meals. So so far, so good. Personal wisdom, yes, fantastic. So stay tuned. Dan: Yeah, anyway, this was really good and this is about weather and location and dwellings. Dean: And very interesting discussion. I love it. Well, have a great day, dan. A week, great week in Chicago, and then are we on for next week. Yeah, yeah. Dan: I'm back in Toronto next week. Okay great, I can try. Yeah, all right. Okay good Thanks, bye, bye, okay.

In today's episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we take you on a journey through history and our complex relationship with time and its perception. We discuss hidden economic forces that shaped pivotal history and debate if we live in the "best or worst of times." I share my experience with breaking free from television, only to be pulled back by sporting thrills and gripping shows, a reminder of how addictive media can be. As we wrap up our discussion, we reflect on exciting developments on the horizon. We celebrate entrepreneurs who have adapted their businesses to thrive online.   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dean talks about time perception and the fascination with having foreknowledge of events, particularly in the context of financial markets and the desire to possess tomorrow's news today. We explore the human ability to adapt to a wide range of temperatures, humorously comparing our ancestors' robust survival skills to modern reactions to climate change. Dean reflects on the concept of whether we are living in the best or worst of times, citing both the remarkable conveniences of modern life and the psychological challenges posed by the battle for our attention. Personal anecdotes include Dean's success in abstaining from watching television for over five years, despite being tempted by his loyalty to sports teams and the immersive experience of a Netflix binge. There's a discussion about the skepticism surrounding medical advancements and the difficulty in discerning credible health information in an era of conflicting opinions. We examine the impact of technology on spontaneity and control in our lives, touching on smart devices and drawing a parallel to the controlling nature of HAL 9000 from "2001: A Space Odyssey". Dan shares insights on entrepreneurship, reflecting on the adaptability required to thrive in the digital age, such as the growth of his coaching program and the shift from in-person workshops to online formats. We delve into the process of book production, noting the importance of releasing work to make room for new ideas and discussing technological advancements that have expedited the process. Dean talks about integrating AI chat into books to allow readers to interact with content and contemplates whether AI could help guide readers through material by asking questions. Coordination for an upcoming trip to Chicago is mentioned, where Albie will be joining Dean and Dan, indicating excitement for the visit and the promise of future stimulating discussions. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan. Dan: I'm almost tapping in here. Dean: Almost. That's exactly right as close as you can get without going over. We're you know we're going to be 12 hours away from it here, it's all very exciting. Dan: Yeah, yeah, we were talking to Kim Daniel. He now calls himself. Daniel White and he phoned us from birth Australia from the future from the future from the future. So they're already. They're already into New Year's yeah, that's so funny. What a weird world, what a world for a world, you know. Dean: I saw an infographic that there's an island. There's two islands up where Russia and Alaska joined. They're separated by three miles. You can see the other island. I like it once called tomorrow Island or something. What the American side is. You know 24 hours difference because it's right after the straddle the line divides them is the international date line. So they're three miles away, and yet they're 24 hours apart. Yeah that's really interesting. Dan: You know people often have these quizzes. You know it's either you're reading the quizzes or you're being asked the quiz. Yeah, and it's. Dan: if you had one superpower, what would it be? Have you ever had anything like that, so many? I have you know I think about or you were you were a witness to this question being asked. And mine is that I would like to have tomorrow morning's Wall Street Journal yesterday. Yeah, exactly Exactly. How great would that be, that could be. Dean: The thing is literally what you should. That could be a loophole, Dan. Maybe we should go to these islands and subscribe to the Wall Street Journal on tomorrow Island. Oh man. Dan: Now take a bit of work. I mean, you still have to learn what to look for, and you know you'd have to have the means by which you could, and but that just reminds me. I think everybody would like to have that superpower. Dean: They would like to have advanced understanding of the future Well you know what's so funny is one of the things that I wanted to talk about today, because it's, you know, explore. This idea is because I ranked it up there as one of the top concepts of the year for me, and that is guessing and betting, and essentially, what you're saying is it's absolutely true. The reason that would be so valuable is that it would bring certainty. If you look tomorrow and see what the closing stock price of a any stock was today. If you knew that in advance, that it starts out at X and it's going to be X plus. Y at the end of the day, you're betting with certainty, and that's a pretty interesting. That's what I really thought about the that concept, and I'd love to hear a little more, because well, I think it's, I think it's been. Dan: It's a thought that's been in the human brain since the first humans. Dean: Yeah, I agree, you think that not knowing, I wonder where. I wonder how would that have manifested itself then in the beginning? Knowing where, the, I guess what would it be? Knowing where, the where the food is going to be, or something. Dan: Well, I think, you know, I think probably it manifested itself in the first days of people just noticing the weather, you know, like wherever they were, that you know, that. I mean I think they probably, if you did Colby's back then, like a Colby profile that that the earliest humans really varied in terms of you know what they were skillful at and what they focused on Okay. And. But my sense is that there were some people who were more conceptual, who could notice patterns better than others. And they could make sort of predictions which you know as it regard weatherers. That regarded, the wildlife around them or the you know. The you know availability of food. They would immediately go to the top of authority and in whatever group they were, because they just had a sense of what was going on and a better sense of tomorrow than anybody else did. Dean: Yeah, that's really yeah must have freaked, I mean, imagine, not knowing with. I guess the first certainty would be well, even though the sun went away, it's going to come back up again, Yep, and then getting that certainty that, okay, there it is. And wait a minute, it's colder this time of year than what's all this white stuff. I subscribe to the Gary Halbert philosophy. He had a saying that God gave us a sign by planting palm trees in all the places that were suitable for human habitation. So if you wake up and you don't see any palm trees, keep bending south. That's his philosophy. If you see palm trees. Dean: You know you're in the right place. Yeah. Dan: Yeah, and then you know you, it's very interesting. Everybody worries about global warming or they are making large amounts of money warning about global warming. I think that's more of a ladder than it is that they're actually worried. I think they've discovered a new way to make money? Yeah, but but if you think of the variations in temperature that humans can deal with, okay. So, for example, in North Africa, in the Sahara, people go about their business when it's 120 degrees up, 120 or plus, you know, in the Sahara. And at the same time there I've been in Alberta in Canada, when it was 44 below and everybody went about their business. Speaker 3 Yeah, so that's a difference, that's a difference. Dan: Fahrenheit wise, that's a difference of 164 degrees Okay. And humans at one end, people are going about their business. That's the other. They're going about their business and they're freaking out about a one degree change, one or two degree change. And I said I mean, who of us doesn't go through that, even you know, in idyllic spots like where you live? Yeah, there's still a variation of 20 to 25, maybe 30 degrees during here, right, Right. Dean: Yeah, no, it's been. It's been a little cold here Like I. Literally, I almost had to wear socks with my shorts today, dan, it's that's how chilly it was, wow, yeah. Yeah. Dean: And I have a hoodie on Wow. Just to stay one because I'm committed. I'm still sitting out in the courtyard have you done trauma? Dan: Have you done trauma therapy on this? Dean: No, you know, the funny thing about I mean, what they call the whole climate change is, you know, if we look back, it's a fact, scientifically accepted, that we were in an ice age at one point and somehow, without the aid of fossil fuels and combustible engines, the earth warmed itself out of an ice age. And now we're having a nervous breakdown that we're gonna, because of combustible engines, throw the whole thing off into. Dan: I don't know, it's just See as an entrepreneur talking to an entrepreneur. That proves to me that there's money to be made in nervous breakdowns. Dean: Give people nervous breakdowns. That's the thing, yeah, yeah. Dan: You know, it's like the Jerry McGuire movie. Remember Jerry McGuire movie. Dean: I do. That's a great movie. Where's the? Dan: money. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Show me the money. Show me the money, show me the money. And I think that when you're trying to analyze any event on the planet which is being interpreted in economic, political well, not economic but political, philosophical terms, I say I think your first question has to be okay, who's making the money? here yeah right. Dean: That's absolutely true, absolutely true, and it's gonna be. Yeah, I think that you know I was sharing a couple of weeks ago the idea of my contemplation on whether this is the best of times or the worst of times. Dan: And the answer is yeah. Dean: That's exactly right. But what I realized is that there's, in terms of every physical measurement, every convenience, access to information, democratization of virtually everything. It's the very best of times. There's never been a better time than now, and on the worst, the best things that I could come up with are the most, you know, the things that would qualify as making it the worst of times, where all the battle for our minds and it's that creating those there's a lot to fixate on. You know that really has nothing to do with us in. You know, in reality, like when it's all mental, the inner game is really the battle, for Dean Landia is strong, you know. Dan: Yeah, I think it's true, and just to bring you know the latest update, I'm now in my Almost six, five and a half years of not watching television. Dean: I know I thought like amazing. Dan: Yeah, and, but this was sort of the test for me this fall, because I'm from Cleveland originally and. I have the normal sports loyalties. Like I rude right, you know, I root for the teams I rooted for when I was eight years old and the Cleveland Browns are having a really quite an extraordinary season as the result of a 38 year old quarterback. Yeah, I've heard his name Joe Flack, oh, oh. Who was sitting on a. Who is sitting on a couch Watching television or lying on a couch? Six weeks ago, when Cleveland went to their third quarterback of the year, went down and they brought him in. And he's been easily the best quarterback in the league over the last four or five years. Yeah and Just, I mean he's. Here's the Hollywood ending that they go to the Super Bowl and this guy comes off the coach and wins the Super Bowl. That's a great. Dean: Yeah, it's the Kurt Warner story right. Dan: Oh yeah yeah, this is even more because Kurt Warner was about 31 or 32, yeah, when it happened, but this guy's 38. He's he played 16 years and nobody wanted in this year. So it's just got all the makings of a great just a terrific Hollywood script you know, and. But ask me how much? What? How many minutes of Watching the Cleveland Browns this fall have I done? Dean: well, you told me your secret Was that you watch the YouTube summary of the game. Dan: Well, first of all, I watch whether they won or lost right, okay, perfect yes. If they lost, I don't watch the summary if they win. I watched the video. And what I've discovered I? Dan: what I've discovered is that no football game has more than 10 minutes of actual highlights. Speaker 3 Right. Dan: Yeah, and then? The one I like the best is where they just show your team's highlights when they want, which is about five minutes. Yeah right right, right. Dan: So rabbit pan. First game was 97 Jim Brown, olive fame and perhaps the greatest running back of all time. It was his rookie season and he broke the one game rushing record Day for touchdowns 200, 200 plus some yards. That was my first and I was addicted. It was like drugs, right. You know, you don't you give the first sample away free, and then the drugs do the selling for the rest of my life. Yeah and so anyway. But, tempted as I may be, this fall I did not watch a minute of television. Dean: Wow, that's great, and you know I'm watching the. Dan: I'm not watching the highlights TV, as a matter of fact, I'm looking at the TV. It's across the room for me. And. Dan: I don't even know where, I don't even know how you turn it on, oh, boy. Fantastic. It's like the Dark Ages. I've lost abilities that the Romans said. You know the whole. Dean: You know, on the other side of that spectrum is Yesterday. I had two amazing things happen. So yesterday I Got up and I got coffee, and sometimes what I'll do is I, like Jerry Seinfeld had a series called comedians in cars getting coffee and it's just a fun. You know they're 10 minute episodes, 10 12 minutes kind of thing. I think I'm someone in, so I sometimes I'm having like coffee, I'll sit there and I'll watch a comedians in cars getting coffee, and so I turned on Netflix to do that. And Netflix has this thing of pushing to your home screen, you know, through your algorithm or whatever, the thing that would be the most interesting to you, probably. And there was a series called money heist, which was a big thing. You know, in 2020, when we were all in Lockdown based, this money heist series came on and everybody got, you know, fully addicted to it. It was really well done. It was just from Spain and it was Dubbed with English voices, but really well done. So, in any event, the third installment of this money heist series was front and center on my Netflix home screen yesterday and I Ended up no, this was Friday, sorry, I ended up watching the whole series on that Friday and the funniest thing, dan, is that I, for the entire day, thought it was Saturday and I didn't realize until the end of the day that I got an extra day. Do you have those things where in the holidays the days just kind of blend all together? Because I haven't had. Or anything you know and the way you do that, in the way you do. Dan: We each, we all have our own approaches, you know, right on that was so. Dean: That was the funniest thing. I watched the entire series of Fantastic and, but it felt like I just borrowed from my leap year day. Dan: Something got that day. Now I'm thinking got. Dean: I said something got heisted. That's exactly right. Dan: That is exactly right. Well, you know, everybody makes a big deal about this today, but I don't think it was any different. Everybody wants to make Case that the world and humanity has never experienced before, of what we're experiencing to work, and I resist that thought. And I say well, first of all, we don't know, do we? I mean we? I mean we don't know what was going on in the world when we were five or six years old, you know, I mean yeah. I mean, we were just struggling together handle on walking and running and Everything else. But people make all these things like Something like this has never happened before in human history and I yeah. I said first of all, vast majority of people haven't got a clue what happened 10 years ago so you know. I mean and you know some of some people it's last week and. Anyway, and I said actually probably, we all want to believe that our own age is something special. And I said okay, well, that's something to remember that regardless of what age you're in, people want to believe that it's sort of special. Okay, and I get that, but my sense is it's always been special. One it's always been special, or two it's never been special. And but if you go back, and If you go back and read the thinking of people, where we actually have the documents Greek 2500 years ago, totally understandable, translated and Very thoughtful and you could learn a lot from these guys. Okay so so are there people smarter today than our Air stock? I don't know, because I'm not sure how you would compare a smartness over in 2500 years. Dean: Well, I mean, I think you can point to certain things. I mean you can point to Even just in. Let's just take medicine. You've just returned from your second trip to Buenos Aires to get stem, stem cells for generating cartilage in your knees Right and others and others. Dan: So it's turning into. It's turning into repair and also prevention. So they're now doing proactive stuff for you know your brain and your vascular system and everything. Dean: Oh, I remember. Yeah, so you know. I remember walking in Regents Park in London with Jamie Smart. We were walking around and he was telling me, you know he had written his new book at the time Clarity was out and he was saying how, in the 18, people thought that bad smells cause disease and so people would walk around with posies and fragrant things to ward off disease. And turns out that it was germs that caused this disease. And so when you think about, you know, 2,500 years ago, advancements in medicine, you know we were, I mean, leaching and you know bloodletting and all of these sort of you know superstitious things I think were happening and they were thinking that some diseases were demonic possession. You know that's really what was going on, that bring people had seizure, that they were possessed by the devil or by demons. And so now you fast forward to today and we have DNA that with certainty can point to what your genetic predispositions are, and stem cell, you know, can go in and repair or modify those things. I don't know. Dean: I mean, I think that we are, I think, life expectancy. So I think in many ways we're constantly ratcheting forward society, right, and I think, with now access to you know it used to be. If you just take even 50 years ago, you know it used to be that all of the research and development and advancements in medicine were all done in silos, where you know proximity to those people or you know had to be around. And now we're at a point where every advancement that's documented and available is, you know, instantly analyzable by artificial intelligence and machine learning. So we have access to not just our own thinking but the analysis and you know computation skills or whatever, to everything to the hive mind. You know. I think that's really what we've evolved to. Is that you know it's not individual thinkers who you had to. 2,500 years ago you had to be in at the Agora to listen to Aristotle talk, to get the wisdom of Aristotle, or somebody had a scroll that had written down something that he said. You know Now it's like everything I don't know. It's such amazing things that we have access to everything that's ever been said and can project forward in the style of what Aristotle would say today about certain situations. Like you told me, your story of having something interpreted and written as Shakespeare would write it in the Iambic pandemic right, and so I don't I mean, it's like in certain things any argument that today is not a pinnacle of achievement or Well yeah, I think we I've been, you know, pondering over the years what constitutes smart, because it's very clear to me that you can find examples of people thousands of years ago. Yeah. Dan: If the person were in the room and you could understand the language they were speaking they would strike you as being very smart. Speaker 3 Yes. Dan: Okay, and the couple of weeks ago in Congress we had three presidents of prestigious universities who, over a period of about 15 minutes, indicated that they're not very smart Harvard, mit and Penn, okay. And they were asked a fairly simple question Would anything happening on your campus in advocating genocide to Jews, with that constitutive violation of code of conduct? And they couldn't answer the question. Somebody 2,500 years ago could answer the question. So my sense is it's kind of like you're as smart as who you hang out with. Yeah. Dan: And you're as smart as your ability to deal with the your own unknown factors, like we all have unknown factors, and so my sense is that intelligence and smartness has to do with your creative response, or your either creative or reactive response to kind of the conditions that you're living in. You know. You know, and, for example, it's pretty well known now that the people of the South Pacific pledged all over just understanding the color of waves. They could see that there were different variations in the color of the water sea water and they could make predictions based on that. I doubt if there's any human beings today who can do that. Yeah, but I wonder yeah, I mean that's so the thing that I'm saying, I think that human intelligence is kind of a constant and you know, people in the earliest humans were kind of smart in relationship to their circumstances and we probably couldn't survive for a day what they could survive for a year, you know, because we didn't have their knowledge and experience. So I think we have access to great medical breakthroughs right now, but I haven't met a regular doctor yet that knows any of those breakers. Dean: Right? Well, because there's a whole. Dan: I just use my general. I just use my general practitioners for drugs drug dealers. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Good drug dealers. Dean: Yeah, but there's a whole. You know there's a whole, especially in these medical things. There's a lot of. That's one of these nervous breakdown things that there's a whole lot of. For every advancement or every miracle cure or protocol, there's someone, there's a vocal and official sounding opposition to it. Yep. Dean: It's really. This is where it's really difficult. Dan: You can count on that. Is to discern what the yeah, because somebody's pension is at stake, somebody's reputation is at stake, somebody's livelihood is at stake because of something new, because of something new Because they stopped growing 20 years ago and they've been on autopilot and suddenly they've been interrupted. Something new what we've? Dean: got to stop. Is you look at something as devices, as vaccines? That's been the. You know the number one kind of contention in the last four years is the whole. You know the on both sides. You know it's either is it a miracle or is it killing you Is. You know and you don't know the normal answer. Dan: The answer is yes, and the answer is yes. Dean: Yeah, I mean it's so funny. But true, right Like so. Dan: I mean the whole thing, that there was some wisdom, that they had before COVID, which they disregarded. One is that what you have to do is go for the 65-year-olds and older and protect them. Yeah. Dan: Protect the humans that are over 65. That's because there's a likelihood they've got a lot of other conditions that this will put them over the edge. This new thing will put them over the edge. Okay, no they want to start at six months old, they want to start at a year old, you know. Yeah. Dan: I mean, the masks were bigger than the child's head, you know Right, and everything like that. It had nothing to do with medicine. It had nothing to do. It had a lot to do with control. Yes, yes, and I don't know if we've learned anything about vaccines over the last four years, but a large portion of the public has learned not to trust healthcare experts. Public Right, especially public healthcare, that's what we've learned. Yeah, I mean, that's what we've learned Exactly. Dan: Yeah, like, don't go to the water hole at sunrise or sunset, right? Yeah, I mean, that's the truth. Dean: Right. Dan: I mean creditors show up for easy eating. Yes, you know. So my sense is a lot has been learned over the last four years, but I don't think it had anything to do with vaccines. Dean: Yeah, yeah, I agree, and that's, I think, from the you know, for the general public, for people you know observing this, it really creates the sense of you know, nervous, breakdown level things, of you know that there it feels like you're there's no right answer, that it's wrong. You know that you're either COVID's going to get you or the vaccine's going to get you and you can't make the right decision. People are not there's no uncertainty in the decision. Dan: Are your Tesla is going to explode. Right, exactly, or they're going to you know, and there's the thing, right. Dean: That's all part of it. That's what your Tesla is going to be shut down. You know that the government's going to control. Yeah, I mean, there's so much, yeah, I love this. Dan: You know, I mean I'm not. Babs loves her Tesla and she has the same model you do, and she's had it for six years and she loves it and I love Babs, so it works. But I really liked my Beamer. I really liked the Beamer we had before. Dean: You know what? Dan: It didn't get any smarter in the garage overnight. And when the car goes into the garage when the car goes into the garage before dark and we close the door. I don't want a smarter car. When I pick up the phone, oh my goodness. Dean: You know, what's so funny is I think it's so presumptuous, so fun. I wake up, I get in the car and it tells me it's nine minutes to Haven Bakery, haven Cafe. It's like telling me that. Or at Honeycomb Cafe, it's telling me nine minutes, traffic is okay. It's presuming where I'm going. Dan: Well, why can't you just take a chance? I wonder how the traffic is going to be this morning. To see that there's a pleasure has been taken away from me. Yeah yeah. Dean: It's so funny, right? I don't have any, you've got certainty and I just push the button and let it drive me there. So that's the greatest thing you know. It's so funny. Dan: Yeah it's like you know it's 2001,. Stanley Kubrick's movie. What was the astronauts name? I forget, but that Hal was talking to us. What do you think you're doing? Was it Doug? Or I'm trying to think he's. Hal Dave. Dan: Yeah, hal was the computer you know yeah. Which is just IBM. You know, if you take IBM backwards, you come up with Hal, but anyway, and it's saying what do you think you're doing, dave? You know, like that. Dan: It's nine minutes to the coffee show, Dave. Dean: Right. Why are you turning left? Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, why are you? Dan: even wondering Goodness, that is funny though that your car. Dean: You wake up and your car is smarter it was. Oh man. Dan: Oh, you said it at the beginning. You said it was the beginning. Dean, that's all a fight and competition for your brain, that's what it is. Dean: It's the absolute truth you know, and I think that you, you know, I think you've cut off the good portion of that access to your brain by removing yourself from programming television and you're becoming the program director. Dan: Well, think about this as an entrepreneur, that if you want to know the distinction between an entrepreneur, and a non-entrepreneur you know and I think about this a lot because I've been at it for 50 years right now, and I've asked that question a lot, you know. Do you think entrepreneurs are born? And I said well that I couldn't attest to it. Yes, they were born, but you know, or you know, is it learned? And I said well, I don't know the answer to that question, but I would say that the entrepreneurs I know were on a path that was decidedly different, probably before they were 10 years old. They weren't going along with the crowd, they were. they were doing something individual, kind of on their own because, they were very curious about something, and most people who aren't entrepreneurs were more socially addicted. You know what did the group think and what they had, but if you think about that, you're a self programmer. The big thing about entrepreneurs is that we're self programmers, in other words, we program the next day, we program the next week, we program. You know, here we are on New Year's Eve and both of us are programming the next year and it really doesn't have to do with anybody else's programming. Dean: Yeah, that's the greatest thing. This is going to be a big 2024, it's going to be a big year. I mean you're about, you're going to turn 80 in. Dan: May, yeah, and it's 50 years coaching 50 years coaching since and the company. The program is 35 years old, so yeah, they're at 35th and yeah, I mean, yeah, they all three of them happened this year, but but I mean we just came off our best year ever. I mean just in terms of you know new people into the program and everything else. Yeah, we hit 52, which was great. 952 new people in the program that's awesome, and except for two presentations, I didn't have anything to do with that. That's a real, that's a real good measurement for me. Dean: Yeah, for sure. And now this year, this will be your first year with only free zone workshops. Dan: No that was. Dean: This was your first year. Dan: Yeah, this I stopped, I stopped. I'm just trying to take one. Did that Cross over? That's what I'm wondering, yeah. Dan: No, it was January of last year, January. Dean: Okay, so this year was yeah, I've gotten a full year full year with only free zone. Dan: Yeah, right, and you know, really caused a lot of tension for a lot of people in the company and everything else and I said, well, it's going to happen sometime. Why don't we just make it happen right now? Yeah. Dan: And you know there was pushback and you know the usual sort of thing. But my way of creating change is just to create a vacuum. Yeah, right, something's going to fill it. Speaker 3 Throw your hat over the fence. Yeah. Dan: So I announced in the middle of just trying to take care. I announced in the middle of 2021. So it was June of 2021. At the end of 22, I'm not going to do any more 10 times workshops. Right, yeah, I remember. Dan: People said, well, how are we going to do this? And I said my security clearance doesn't go that high, I just have no idea. I just know that after the end of next year I'm not going to do any 10 times workshops. Okay, and. I've done this enough in the past. People and Babs and I had already worked this out, so that wasn't Babs and I are saying that something's going to happen. Well, that's not negotiable. Dean: Right, yeah, that's awesome. Dan: But we have five coaches, who you know, who had to jump to the next level, and they did a good job and the renewals are more or less the same as if I was doing the workshops at the end of the first year, pointing off here, pointing out there. So you know, and you know, and I think we had 180 people who moved from the signature level to the end times. So that was great. Dean: Oh, I didn't have a. Dan: I didn't have anything to do with that, and the more things that can happen in the company that I don't do or don't even know about, the better I feel. Speaker 3 Yes, yes, that's yeah that's pretty exciting, I'm talking about. I'm talking about. Yeah, no, I bet it. Dean: I'm sure any dip in the you know 10 times conversions or whatever was offset by people in 10 times who want to stay with Dan moving up to freedom. Imagine that was offset by that. Yeah. Dan: Well, it pushes. It pushes both ways. But the one thing that we realized, that I hadn't thought of that. Really worked out great, and it's only because of COVID. It's the two hour. Zoom workshops, yeah, so every quarter. Dan: I do six two hour 10 times workshops and I do two hour free zone workshops and that little two hour thing, which was only possible because of COVID Nobody, nobody watched Zoom before. Covid has made a world of difference. It's made a world of difference. So I was only going to do that for a year and now I'm going to. I've extended it to the end of 24. And I like that yeah. Dan: But I like it, I like it and everybody else likes it, and it seems to work. But I don't think that would have ever happened if I hadn't just said no more full day in-person workshops. Dean: Right, yeah, that's fantastic, so you're coming up now. This is interesting, then the when did your quarterly book? Did that start on your birthday? That was the end of the end of 2014. Dan: So next December it'll be book 40. Dean: Right, okay, there you go. And we're just curious about your intention and your plan for your 80s being the best decades. Dan: Well, I'll do 40 more books because I'm not to 100 yet. So, and they're getting better. I mean, I can tell the feedback from our longtime clients. They said you know the books are really, they're really getting more interesting. They're not just program tools that you're explaining, you're doing right, doing all sorts of different things, but the insight I had, dean, was that a lot of people spend years, even decades, on books Okay, which, yeah, aren't finished, which aren't finished, right, and they they maybe have 20 or 30 chapters and each of the chapters are kind of interesting, not equal to each other but their interest. I said, why don't you just take one of the chapters and turn it out as a book? And of course you and I went through the early days when you could do this quickly, when you had the 90 minute book idea and are continuing to do that. And then I think it was who was it that came up with they could turn a book around in a week for you if you just send it in for them. Who is that Amazon? Is it Amazon? Yeah, I think it's Amazon Exactly. Dan: Yeah, amazon yeah, and we use. Dean: yeah, I mean it's yeah. Dan: And yeah, and perfectly good, you know, perfectly useful, and but we've got our own. You know print shops here in Toronto and it's a lot cheaper than in the US. We found out that a point to realize for you living in the States that getting a book printed in Toronto is about 40% cheaper than getting a book printed in Chicago, dollar for dollar. You know Canadian dollar. Dean: Wow, Even after the exchange rate right. Yeah, yeah. Dean: After the exchange rate yeah, yeah, you're, yeah. The other thing is yeah, my head. Dean: You know it's not a unique. You have a one of one style of book. That everything about it, from the double cover to the thickness of the color cover, to the paper stock on the inside and the color scheme, and you know it's one of one. There's no, there's nothing else like it. Dan: Yeah, and I've told people you know you're sitting on books. I mean you're always talking about writing the book. But where's the book? You know, why don't you just get the book finished? And they said well, you know, you know. I said I said you're thinking about it too much, you're not executed. I said just get the book out there. I said it's not going to change the world, it's not going to be a bestseller, they're not going to make a Hollywood movie out of it. So Right. And what it does is it gets some old ideas in your head out so that you can have some new ideas. Dean: Yeah, the truth isn't it. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what a collection to going all the way back to book number one and then to book, you know, whatever you're at now I'm working on 7 right now. Yeah, yeah. Dan: Well, I get a lot out of it and of course we've got great teamwork inside the company when we started with your team actually the first one. Dean: I remember the first couple Thinking about your thinking that was the first book. Dan: And then you know, some of our team members said well, we could do this, and we could do this, and we could do this. And I said that's great. Plus, the technology just keeps improving. I mean, if you think I started that in. Where's the technology today compared to where? it was in 2014,. Dan: You know. Yeah, yes. Dan: So my cartoonist Hamish McDonald. I estimate that every year I get the productivity capability of another Hamish just because of the upgrades to software and hardware. Dean: To the tools he's able to use and deploy. Dan: Oh. Dean: Yeah, oh yeah. Dan: I mean, like I'll, we're right at the end of the book I'm working on. So we're just working on the conclusion and the program where we describe strategic coach. Those are the last two sections. So on Tuesday I'll sit down and we'll sketch out what the cartoon is going to be for the conclusion. I've got the outline, with the outline copy all done, so we can read it. Yeah. Dan: And we'll sketch it out and we'll have another meeting on Thursday and he'll be 90% finished Full color. Yeah. Dan: And we do a little tweaks and then in the last 10 minutes we say well, let's look at the next section and he'll sketch it out, and on Monday of the following week he'll be finished with the cartoon. Book one that was a 10 day process for. That was a 10 day process for one sections cartoons. Dean: Right, well, it's wild. And now I guess you know I mean book 36,. You've got all of the ear. You've evolved it into all of the ways to consume. Now you know that you've got the cartoons and the audio and the video. Dan: Yeah, so we're going to do one new thing that Dean and we could talk about this. We're going to do one new thing, probably the first quarter. I'm going to take one of the books and we're just got it down to choice of three and we're going to create an AI chat on just that book. Okay, so the entire knowledge base will just be the words that are in that particular book. And then we'll use, and Leor Weinstein is helping us with this. Dean: And then. Dan: So in addition to the audio, the video, the cartoons, the text, you'll also get the AI and you can ask the book questions and it'll answer you. Dean: Do you think, dan, this is? I've had this in this conversation. Maybe we could have a whole discussion around this, but because I you know this is a very real capability of AI right now, but I think that there's. I would rather have the AI ask me questions and guide me through the process than me having to ask the questions. Yeah because that requires me having included yeah it requires work. Yes, that's exactly right. We're inquiring, you and I, how that's exactly right, and I would much rather I would love to have an AI coach me through applying this to me. So it was hey that hey, hey, hey yeah. Dan: Well, I think you should go get in the car and take a 15 minute, 15 minute drive to the car. Dean: I think that's not you know, because somebody else. No, no, no that's brilliant. Dan: That's brilliant. Let's talk about that. Yeah because somebody else that actually indicates some intelligence, doesn't it? Dean: Yes, but the thing is that you know that application where, if I could go through a track, it's like a guided thing. If you could train the AI as a coach in this to guide somebody through where they're at and how this would apply to them, like somebody had, because somebody was training up a Napoleon Hill that you could chat with Napoleon Hill and you could ask him any questions. And I just realized that much better experience. Dan: You could have one from Jerry Spence. Yes. Dean: How great would that be right, Jerry Spence coaching. Dan: Well, he would ask you all sorts of adverts questions before you know that's, that's his book is great, by the way, you put me on to him. Yes, you know more or less his autobiography. But nice person, I mean he comes across. I mean probably a prick if he was the opposing lawyer in a trial, but he seems like, if you had him on your side, you'd feel good about him. Dean: That's exactly true. I need to reread that again. That how to argue and win every time is one of my top wisdom books. Dan: Yeah, Anyway what did we cover today? What are two or three things that we covered today? Dean: So follow the money, follow the money. Dan: Yeah, we found out about what the Hamas is about. All the money was in Kedr, you know the country of. Kedr. The three top people were worth 6 billion, 5 billion and 4 billion. So that's what Hamas is all about is about money, you know, and their racket. Dean: That's amazing. Dan: Anyway, yeah, but okay, follow the money. What's in the other thing? Dean: Yeah, I think your strategy. It's always amazed me this last five years of your disconnecting from programming. Dan: Yeah other people's programming. Dean: Other people's programming. Yeah. Dean: I think that's a big thing. One thing we did not get to talk about that I want to maybe present next time is I watched another Russell Barclay video and they're talking about executive function and the. It's really an interesting distinction but the difference between you know what and how, knowing what and how is not effective. That the ADHD brain is not. It's not inhibited in the knowing what and how to do. It's the when and the where. That is where executive function comes in and I found that that's absolutely the truth in a real. It sounds so simple and obvious, but it's the absolute truth. That's the thing about you know. Imagine if you applied yourself. Applying yourself is only evidence in the when and the where, both where, when and where. Future and when and where is this going to happen and when and where did it happen? You know what actually happened. That's the an often those don't align. I find for me that's the biggest. That's the biggest disconnect is knowing what I want to do, knowing what you know, how it needs to happen, even projecting when and where, but the alignment of you know missing the exit kind of be interesting with the intention. Dan: That'd be an interesting question, yeah because, the appropriateness of things is really not the what or the how the appropriateness is really the when and where it makes appropriate or inappropriate, you know yeah. Yeah, great topic. Dean: Yeah, how about for you? What was your take away from today? Dan: Yeah, I think that the big thing that I'm zeroing in is the bet that human nature is fairly constant and that changing times simply means humans using different capabilities that they've already developed for new purposes, but the basic human nature remains fairly constant, and the more I mean it was, you know, was Jeff Bezos was asked what do you think's going to change most in the next 10 years, and he said the thing I'm most interested in what are the 10 things that aren't going to change? Yeah next 10 years, because you can actually bet on those. Yeah bet on those better than what is going to change Awesome. Dean: Well. Dan: I think we, I think we, each of us, says on our part today I think so Absolutely. Dean: I can't believe it. Let this quickly Alas, it did so, yeah, and. Dan: I'm we're in the schedule for Albie in Chicago next week. But we're in the schedule, so I'll talk to you from Chicago. Dean: I love it. That sounds great. All right, happy New Year, dan, to you and Babs. Have a wonderful night. Okay, we'll talk to you soon. Bye.

Today on Welcome to Cloudlandia, we explore the effectiveness of small gatherings and the meaningful conversations that can be had through them. We talk about how small workshops help establish a richer exchange where each voice can fully engage. We examine the nuanced difference between self-promotion and truly understanding clients, inspired by Walter Payton's philosophy of emphasizing outcomes over features. Entrepreneurs rethink their approach after test-driving innovative thinking tools highlighting benefits. Later, we unpack exercises that optimize communication and outcomes. The 'who, not how' focus and 'self-milking cow' concept streamline processes.   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dean explores the influence of group size on workshop conversation quality and how smaller groups encourage more unified discussions. A new thinking tool inspired by Walter Payton is discussed, which prompts entrepreneurs to emphasize outcomes and benefits in their market presentation. We touch on the importance of 'field reports' over 'book reports' for showcasing tangible, real-world business success stories. Personal testimonials from entrepreneurs highlight the Strategic Coach program's transformative effects on both their personal lives and businesses. Dean shares insights on achieving "dream come true" outcomes for clients, stressing the importance of being genuinely interested in clients' experiences. A health practitioner's journey is spotlighted, from selling a low-cost ebook to offering a comprehensive service for reversing type 2 diabetes. The concept of the 'self-milking cow' and the 'who, not how' approach is examined for improving efficiency in lead generation and client relationship management. Initial success stories from the real estate division's accelerator program demonstrate the practical results of innovative business models. Dan shares his personal health journey with stem cell therapy and neurofeedback, noting improvements in cognitive function and overall wellness. We discuss the role of blockchain and smart contracts in protecting intellectual property, with a nod to Dean's experiences after returning from Argentina. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan. Ah, mr Jackson, welcome back to. Dan: Cloudlandia. The world is still going on as it was before. Dean: It was the best times it was. Mr Times, welcome back. You've been expanding your footprint on the planet. Dan: I have. I have yeah, I've got to do something about that. I'm maybe a new pair of shoes or something like that. Yeah, we were at Genius in Scottsdale and then we were in Chicago for a week and we did the smaller free zone workshop, which is different because you know, it was about 20. We had about 20 and it's very interesting. I've never really quite figured out what is the optimal size group where you get the best conversation but it's just different. You get different kinds of conversations. I agree, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dean: I find out with my breakthrough. Blueprint events same thing, Like. what I find is 12 is the maximum size If you want to have one conversation. We're around one boardroom table, everybody could see the whites of everybody's eyes and keeping the conversation all front and center. When you get even to 14 people, you get into a situation where you end up having fractured conversations. You got a conversation over at this end of the table and it's less. Yeah, it's harder to have a breakout conversation in a small group of 10 or 12 than it is in 14 or 16 or 20. Dan: Yeah, very interesting. Yeah, we push for the 40 to 50, and then we have individual breakout groups throughout the day and make sure it depends on what your objective is. I think with your case it's very important that they get a unified sort of understanding of the eight profit maximizers. Dean: Activators. Dan: Yeah, activators, yeah, I think you should make a maximum, since you're going for profit anyway, I think you that's right. Dean: Yeah, that's exactly right. Dan: You're putting in the work. You're putting in the work anyway. Dean: That's the advanced program. Dan: We'll start out with the activators yeah, yeah, first they learn the activators where they're again. We just gave you 50 more years of future, just in a single conversation. Yeah, I tried out two new tools and the thinking tools in the free zone workshop and one of them really had a big impact and it's from a quote from Walter Payton, who is a very famous, running back in the national football league Hall of Fame, chicago Bears and he had and I heard this about seven, eight months ago Reddit and it has just kept bouncing around in my head and usually when that happens over a period of months, I'm supposed to do something with the thought and the thought is when you're good, you tell everybody. When you're great, everybody tells you. Dean: Right, that's very good, and so I like that yeah. Dan: And I came up with a one page layout structure where they can put in certain experiences, and but you know, I had them do. One was when you're good, what do you tell them? And then the other column was when you're great, what do they tell you? And then we had a brainstorm for two minutes each for each column and they wrote down about five things on one and five things down on the other and the statements were starkly different. They were for me. I did the sample copy and they were starkly different. Yeah, and I wonder what you think about that, because I haven't really put names to what's happening there. But, it seems to me that, first of all, we're using our experience on the left hand side, which is the good side, as a contrast to the great side, and we're saying this is what we do and this is how we present it, and this is the steps that you'll go through, and this is this. These are the names of the tools that you're going to be using. Dean: But on the other side. Dan: They're completely different and they the comments they come back or how they've taken the tools and used them and what they've done to their life. Dean: That's my initial thought, that I think that on the left side the good side I think that people would tend to focus on features of what they and on the right side would be reporting of benefit. I think that's a good. That's probably accurate, that they're talking in terms of results and the left side would be talking about the process and result, ideas and outcomes. I think you could have a whole vocabulary of left and right. Dan: Very interesting, because what I did then is pick the three best from both sides, so there's a little lower column and they pick the three best. I says you can rewrite them based on your first draft, your first draft and now you do a second draft. And then I say I'd like you to go to the triple play sheet and see if you can combine left and right in three of the arrows. That starts the triple play. And they did. And then they go through the pink boxes and then they go through the green boxes and then they go into breakout groups and they talk about. They came back and to a person when we got back they said I've got to completely rethink how we're presenting ourselves in the marketplace. Dean: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? The whole when you start looking at it's a difficult thing for people to think about presenting outcomes or the benefits of promised land, the destination, and especially if you are at the hypothesis stage that you're projecting what the results, the intended results, are, compared to reporting on the documented, actual results. That's whether it's a theory or a real thing. I think that's probably part of when you're good, when you think you've got an idea that some outcome is going to be and you think that this process is what's going to get the outcome, and you have to, you know, hype that up a little bit to get people excited or in intellectually involved in the idea that this outcome is possible, which is very different than a field report. I call it often difference. We use the term of book reports versus field reports and yeah, but he's got, a field report is an actual, documented, here's what happened on the outcome kind of thing as opposed to. I think if we go this way, we'll get the results in theory. My calculations tell me. Dan: Yeah, what was interesting was people zeroed in on your statement and it was mentioned two or three times that the left hand side, where you're telling your good story, it's a convincing argument. The right hand side, it's a compelling offer. Dean: Yes, that's the. That's exactly it. That was my thought. Yeah, that's why I say that is that a compelling offer is 10 times more powerful than a convincing argument, and that's when you're at the level when you're at the level where you can make a compelling offer is because you have certainty around it. Right, that's what's compelling. I think I was thinking about that a lot like the guessing and betting is that when you're what you're trying to, if you're focused on the left side, the good side you're trying to present enough convincing arguments to get people to place a bet on there but they're the one you're trying to get them to place the bet, and that's the whole purchase order versus receiving doc. analogy of that you're going to the purchasing department trying to get them to write and fund a purchase order to get a future delivery of a result or an outcome, whereas if you were able to go to the delivery, you're able to go to the receiving doc with the results that you're met with open arms. It's interesting, right? That's a yeah. Chris Rock, the comedian, once said about crack nobody sells crack, crack sells itself. You got some crack in your mouth. People will be knocking on your door at three in the morning. Dan: You don't have to go out in the cell. Yeah, oh man yeah, the sample does the selling. Dean: That's exactly right. That is exactly right yeah. Yeah, and I think that's really the thing when you look at the. What was the? What was some of the highlights of the great side? Dan: What were some of the highlights that stood out, or even yeah, I was just thinking because I was a genius network last when in not this past Friday and Saturday, but the week before and. I didn't have any presentation during the during the two and a half days. Yeah, that was I was streaming, by the way, yeah and. But I was running in the hallway when we were out on breaks. I was running into strategic coach clients who've been in the program for 20, 25 years, but this is the first time I've met them because, they've had other coach. They've had other coaches and at least three of them came up to me and they almost had tears in their eyes. I said I just want to tell you this has transformed every part of my life. Dean: Wow. Dan: Just being in the coach Wow. And I talked to them where they were before they came in the coach and what the difference was as a result of going to the workshops and and it was pretty, pretty steady throughout the two days when I was just out wandering, when there was, someone else would be with them and they'd say things like this saved my life and everything like that. And I was just noticing but I really didn't tell the other person what strategic coach was, except that it had a transformative effect. And I think the there's another thing. We I talked about convincing argument and compelling offer, but I think the other thing is that on the left, you're aiming for a transaction. On the right, you're hearing about a transformation. Yes, agreed, yeah, yeah, that's. And I told people that if you don't, if you don't have anything that you can think of, that you would write down. On the right hand side, on the great side, I said marketing isn't your problem. Dean: Yeah, that's exactly right. You've got to be able to. You've got to, and once you're able to document the outcome, that's what. That's funny, because that's exercise number one that we do. I have a breakthrough blueprint starting tomorrow at celebration, and one of the way the first thing we start out is with the dream come true on both ends. We define the equation as what would be the dream come true for you. First off, what is it that you're looking to build? What do you really want from your business here? Let's start with that, and what are you really good at? I get to get people to strip away the goggles that they've been looking through of their existing business. This is what typically they get caught in. That left side of this is what we do, but I say I was trying to get them to think we're talking about new. Now. We're talking about business, new business that you haven't already done. So what are you capable of right now? That's why I say that people like what is it? What's the best thing that you could do for somebody? If they would just get out of the way and let you do it for them Without not what you can convince them to pay for or not what you can constrain through the current delivery system that you have in place, just what is what's the best outcome that you could create for somebody would be a dream come true for them and then who? would that person have to be? And that's where we then segue that into profit activated number one, which is select a single target market. Dan: It's really interesting that and that's another distinction. Taking what you just said and going back and looking at the when you're great, when are you great tool, if you died and people showed up at your funeral, which side would they talk about? Yeah, I went through Jesus. I went. He told me about all sorts of profit act. It was really great. I'm not sure it did him any good. We're at his funeral so. I don't know if it did take any good, yeah, but I just think that one thing that it requires for you to fill in the right hand side, the great side is that you, first of all, you have to be interested in what people's outcomes are. You have to be interested in what their actual experience is there and you have to take them seriously. You're getting real market research? Dean: Yes, yeah, that's why I say this is. It's amazing to see what people talk about when they imagine the best thing they could do for somebody. What they're capable of is far more than what they're currently offering to people, and it's so funny because that's the way that their business is set up is to. Their delivery pipes are calibrated for what they think they can convince people to pay for. It's not anything to do with what the outcome is. It's very interesting to me to see this play out again and again, because people light up when they get into describing the outcomes, because that question demands an outcome. It's not about what's your best, what's your process, it's about. That's why I say what's the best thing that you could deliver for somebody? The dream come true experience for them. That would be that you're capable of what's the best result you could deliver, and it's amazing to see that people are often there. We went from had one conversation with a Health practitioner who was doing they had a real protocol for reversing type 2 diabetes and they were selling a $17 Eba about it right, like trying to get people, and I was saying how could you? What would be the best thing that you could do for somebody if you could Charge $17,000 for it, what would be? What it's not knowing the protocol, it's complying with the protocol, is the issue right? And if you could deliver the result, if you could reverse their diabetes in spite of them? That's where the real Thing would you know. And where I got that was I had read at that time, I had finished reading, I think it's Alan Dyke world had a great book called change or die. And Did you ever read that book? Dan: doesn't rain. A bell no. Dean: Oh, it was very interesting. I give you the short kind of summary version of it that the premise of the book is if your life depended on you changing, do you think that you could make a change? And and yeah, the evidence says no. The evidence says no where you can't and the evidence that they used. They took different scenarios, one of which was heart patients, cardiac patients, people who have just had bypassed surgeries, and you would think like that's a life or death situation, that People you've had it and I'm sure the doctor says you listen, you need to Straighten up here and fly right. You need to change your ways or you're gonna die and they go back and some crazy number like 80 plus percent of people who have had bypass surgeries One year later have made no significant changes in their lifestyle. And it's it was very interesting. So Dean Ornish created a protocol where he convinced mutual of Omaha to Divert cohort of people who were eligible for bypass surgery that the insurance would pay for, which at the time was Over a hundred thousand dollars for per patient to have that. So he diverted them into an intervention program where they sequestered them for 30 days and controlled every ounce of food that went in there in their body. They had access to counseling and group work and Meditation and stress management and yoga and physical therapy all of these things. Starting stripping back to just really addressing the why, the issue of why are they doing? The behaviors that led to this, this issue and the average after the 30 days result was an average weight loss of 28 pounds, of reduction in the angina by 96%. People who couldn't climb a flight of stairs were walking Two miles. This whole complete turnaround of Things in 30 days. And then at 30 days, they sent them home with access to a chef and a personal trainer and counseling and group you know, group counseling as well for a year and then they were on their own after the year and At the end of three years, 77% of the people had Maintained the changes that they made in the in the program because they built the change from the inside out and Also from the outside in. At the same time, it was they were removed from the environment that made their bad decisions and took their Took willpower out of the equation, took the other things, that just totally immersion for 30 days where they saw the benefit of the things without having the white knuckle the. Willpower to comply with the protocols. I thought, man, that's very interesting, because that's the same thing that happens in any type of Change. Right, that was just a really good, that was just a really good example of it. Can you see the same thing? Dan: my approach. Yeah yeah, my approach would be different. They won't make a change if they don't have a new future. That's bigger than what the life that they've been leading. So that must happen. That must happen in the test that they In the vision. They envision themselves almost acquiring a new capability by making the change that creates a bigger future. It's really interesting in the political campaign. I'm just looking at it and it's driving the Striving. The journalist is driving the pollsters, is driving one side of the political spectrum. Absolutely crazy that With Trump you have at least four indictments which the Prosecutors are hoping him to put him in jail there by making them in there eligible for the election next year. But actually there's nothing in the Constitution that says that's true, doesn't say you can't be under indictment and get elected president of the United States. But the other thing is that his numbers keep going up with each new indictment and they can't comprehend that and because on their side of the party and indictment would be the end of your career. And they're trying to figure out why an indictment on his side the other thing is, as far as I can tell, the president Biden right now is Trying to get us to believe that things are really good. Things are really good and that Biden economics has Really been a breakthrough for the United States. It's just that when people don't go to the grocery store, they don't feel that way when they go to the gas station. They don't feel that way. And and that their line seems to be. Who you gonna believe? Are you gonna believe us or you gonna believe your own line? I the nearest. Are you gonna believe here? And but what Trump says is mega, make America great again. Let's make a great again yeah, and it just seems to be to me a more compelling offer. Then, yeah, things are better than you've ever had them before. It just seems to be a better offer. Yeah, one seems to be a tempt at a convincing argument and the other one is a compelling offer and part is a lot of American yeah, I think his whole thing that if you stack it up, it is all. Dean: Let's talk it out. Think about that. Is that what's happening on the left side and the right side? No no correlation between left and right politically. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I just. Coincidentally, it turns out that Trump's Big things are all compelling offers. Make America great yeah. Build the wall America first him. Drain the swamp yeah. Those are all outcomes that are Compelling in themselves. Dan: Let's prevent China from cheating us and soft the way we've been yeah let's stop the endless wars, the endless wars and Everything. And he's just picking up and I think he's operating on the right side of the First of all is he's operating on the great side because he's got to work great and there's as compelling offer make make America and just you. Dean: I was gonna say you talk about great. I saw an interview where he was. They were pressure him into picking a side between Ukraine and Russia, like who's in the wrong? This was prior to Israel and I'm not same kind of thing and his answer was I want people to stop dying. That what a great like Car right it's. I want people to stop dying. They're killing themselves, they're killing each other. That's yeah. Dan: Yeah yeah, and it just struck me that they are making up stories on the left-hand side About, about he's a dictator and he's appealing to the worst instincts of the American people and everything like that. But my real sense is he's speaking a completely different language that people on the left don't understand. They, they, they talk, and it's the difference between Talking about efficiency and talking about effective. You know they'll say, well, we're doing things more efficiently than we were before. Yeah, it's just that you're doing things more efficiently that we don't really want. Dean: Right. Dan: Yeah that's. I'm glad you're making yourself feel good about what you're doing, but nothing that you're doing really makes us feel good. And anyway, I just find it find it interesting that one of them has a greater grasp of what people's experience. Dean: Actually, is yes, yeah, that's, yeah. That's a pretty, it's a compelling exercise actually. Get a great have a great, a great outcome. So what, then, is the action from that? What? What's the? Yeah, when you presented that as an exercise, to what end? What's the next? What's the? Dan: the I made it like got my results in the go-around when we were wrapping up the exercise because every person in the room said I've got some redesign To do in terms of our message and what we're actually doing to generate great site commenter. Are we doing the things that would generate that, the same thing as I think one side is doing and the other side is being on the one side, you're describing what you're going to be doing with them and on the other side. You're going to describe how you're going to experience as Result of going through the protocol as we are going to know what would be an example of people having completed the Profit activator, so you're later. What would be some of the things that they would say a year later? Dean: Yeah, so certainly my, I have. I have an engine that delivers leads for a. I've generated a thousand new prospects from a book that I wrote and as a download, and then on the lead conversion Process that they're they've, they're collaborating with people at a higher level in terms of the delivering the outcomes for people, opening up a whole new who now, I'm excuse me, who, not how opportunity up like a perfect example that we're going through right now in our real estate division is I have, excuse me, all of the things that that people can do to get certain outcomes. Everything that we talk about is tied to a, a key metric, a deliverable outcome for people, and so I went through and looked at each of the outcomes that we're delivering, meaning, let's say, for getting referrals and repeat business. Our key metric for that is that we manage their relationship portfolio for a 20% annual yield. So our thing is that they have a hundred and fifty people that know them, like them, trust them, and that they should be able to generate 30 transactions from that outcome now I went through and looked at all the things on the left side that you have to do to get that and I started looking at it from the self milking cow a the who, not how, way of what. If we were responsible for helping them, that kind of the Jordan Peterson model, right adapted for this Situation. What would we do if we were responsible for helping them? And I started realizing there's very little that requires them. I could do Under with our team. We could do do almost everything for them and the things that we can't do could be done in 130 minute phone call a week with a coach. And so we could, from that 30 minute milking session, get all the milk that we need to pasteurize and turn into the products. We could Identify who their top 150 are. We could get them set up in there in their go agent CRM. We could we have the world's most interesting postcard that we could print and mail To all of their people. We can create a Google map that drops a pin when all of their top 150 are and then each week we could have a conversation with them and say, dan, who are you showing houses to this week? Who are you going to see about selling their house this week and we could look on the map and See if you're showing houses in the beaches. You could look and see okay, I've got four people in my top 150 that live in the beaches in the certain neighborhoods where I'm going. If there's a townhouse complex, say Riverrun, we could send an Email or a text to those four people and say hey, dan, I'm showing houses in Riverrun this week and there's only a couple for sale right now. Have you heard anybody Talking about selling? Maybe we can match them up with this couple for a job bro or whatever it is, just do market making activities. So, those things alone, we could do all of the work and I went through for all of the outcomes getting referrals, multiplying your listings, converting leads, finding buyers and getting listings. Those are the, the bankable results that we, that we focus on and I identified that we can literally do every piece of it, and since I've started describing that to people, we just launched our accelerator program in November and I've been positioning it as a personal trainer. Like working with a personal trainer, where you will meet with you once a week, except, unlike working with a personal trainer, we're gonna do the sit-ups and you're gonna get the six pack. That's really, that's a compelling offer, right? Yeah we'll do the sit-ups you get. The six pack is as compelling an offer as we can make. And so we're now six weeks. Six weeks into that proof Certainly proof that life's not fair, exactly. So we're six weeks in and it's very, but it's really. We're positioning it as a combination of Really super skilled virtual assistant who's actually gonna do the work, compared to a coach who just tells you what to do but it's not gonna do it for you. So it's really all that sweet spot. But even then, dan, it's still getting everything set up and going through things I said so much of it is just about Getting things into orbit. Like once the systems are set up and once the things are in place, it's much easier. But you have to go through this, the van Allen belt, where you're getting pummeled with meteorites and space junk and Fear, and there's all these thoughts that that people have because it's new to them and they're good, everything they've got to make sure everything fits with their brand, and there there's a lot of questions and then what's gonna happen and all of that, that stuff. But very already people are getting Results. We'd send some may, sent out their first world's most interesting postcard, got a eight hundred thousand dollar listing and as a referral and then sold that person another house. I'll all and closed it all in this first six weeks. Somebody else did. Some of the listing multipliers had an open house. Mm-hmm found a buyer for that house and so it all works. It's just the getting understanding what those the bankable results are, what the outcomes are. Dan: Yeah, the interesting thing I did another tool in addition to the when are you great, and it's called crucial ABC questions and what you do as you have people brainstorm, growth problems. In other words, there they have a real opportunity for growth, but there's a problem and and you have them do that for a couple minutes and they can do it in their personal life, they can do it in their business life, whatever suits them. And Then you ask them take each of the growth problems and you ask them three questions, abc. And a is there any way I can solve this problem by doing nothing? And the answer is usually no, they have to. They have to communicate something. They have to. They have to communicate. Maybe it's a decision they have to make and and, but that clarifies them that it's a lot simpler than them, because when you hear about problem, this is gonna is gonna require a lot of time. There's gonna require a lot of effort and I'm already doing a lot of things and now I got a selfless problem. But if you ask the first question, is there any way that the problem can solve itself? All of a sudden, it clarifies your thinking down to a very simple level and then the question be, as what's the least that I will have to do to solve this problem? Dean: Okay, and again. Dan: It refines what you came up with. Question a and. I have to communicate, what's the fastest way I communicate and to whom? And in such a way, that's it for me, then I don't have to do anything, I just have to communicate. I just have to communicate one thing. And then the third question, which I think I'm gonna see what your response to it is who's the? Who can do my least? Dean: I Agree with that a hundred percent. That fits now neatly with a tool. I've been working on that's. I've been calling three L's and Whenever we're not getting something done, it usually falls into three Categories. It's either a logic problem, meaning we don't know what to do. That's so we got to figure out. Do you know what to do about this Situation? And then, if you do know what to do, the next thing is a logistics Problem. Do you know how to do this or what actually needs to be done, what are the sequential steps? And I like that idea of what's the least that you can do logistically to get this handle and if you know what to do, and and you know what needs to be done and how it needs to be done. The third is Olympic problem that there's some emotional block, something that you're not taking action because your thinking is off on this, and that is watered down From I heard somewhat Andrew Tate. Actually, I heard a thing he talked about. There's only three reasons that he was using Broke, the only. There's only three reasons you're broke it's either lazy, arrogant, or You're lazy, stupid or arrogant and I thought those are like down the emotional words all the way up to 11. But I started looking at it that if you take stupid as the dialing the thing is Yours. Dan: As much easier to take your three else as much easier to take and the reason is you can be a perfectly good person, intelligent person, a creative person, but you don't understand the logic of the situation. That's perfectly acceptable and you don't know the logistics yeah you don't know what the logistics and the limbic one is. You hadn't thought about it, but now that you bring up the topic, yeah, there is an issue. Yeah, I'll give you a really great example of that. We had a Prezone client about three or four years ago and he came up with a great technological breakthrough in the medical industry that allowed, using virtual reality, allows students and medical colleges to experience every organ and his case it was the face and the head because he was. He was a cosmetic surgeon and he and he and instead of seeing that as a two-dimensional illustration in Textbook, they put gone goggles and they actually walked into a room. That was the inside of the organ and then it had 17 different elements to it that spoke to you when you put a laser beam on. So he had laser beam, he was at his oculus you know oculus flies around and then he had a laser beam and when he talked to it would explain itself and then it would say how it was connected to another thing in the organ and he could just go in 360 degrees and the whole the organ would announce itself to us. It would describe itself to him and the. He showed it to medical schools and they went Gaga. He showed it to technological companies and they went Gaga and. Anyways, that's where he was when he demonstrated it to us in free zone. And then, 90 days later, I came back and I said how's it going? You got, have you launched with anything? He says nah, there's, there's some, some issues. I haven't started out yet and Anyway, and I couldn't see how any of the issues would relate to being successful in the marketplace. All you have to do is walk somebody through it. It's crack, right, show them, show it to them right, have them just go through and it sells itself. So then 90 day, another 90 days, so we're a half a year down the road and we're talking you still. I said I had to chat to you about this and he said I said yeah, I said let me take a, let me take a, you know, let me guess what I think your problem is here. And yeah, he says okay. I said it's okay for you to split half of what you've earned up until now, but it's not okay to split 50% of the future. And he said yeah, that's exactly it. And I said how long have you known that this day was coming? And he said 17 years. And I said okay, that's good, you're practiced at it. And I said so if it's three years from now and nothing's changed, is that okay for you? And he says no, it's not. I said two years, no. I said one year, no. I said next 90 days and he said no. I got him down to two weeks and he started everything in motion the first week after the program. And that's a. That's a that might be all three. Three packed into one. Dean: It's the progression right, like it's usually. It is the way you just described, that's it's Olympic thing and that clarity, once you really understand that, that's the big and it gets you. That's more like you can walk through then what the action is. Dan: But you realize that yeah, yeah, but I don't like that notion of stupidity and lazy. There's lots of reasons people are broke. They're not Exactly. Dean: And that's what I said in. The noble thing of the lazy is really that it could fall down into that they don't know the logistics of what to do or they're busy is a very noble thing that they would go into, that they're too busy, and then that's what I did is that's how I dialed them down to logic. Dan: Yeah, I try making a. I find moral insults never work. Dean: Absolutely. That's exactly right and that's where, when you break it down clinically like that, the logic, logistics and limbic, those are the. Dan: Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I think you got a winner. Dean: We'll put that up there with VCR formula. That's good. Dan: You got a winner. Have you gotten a smart contract on the two of them yet? Dean: No. Dan: I have not. Yeah, you should give Kerry Oberbrunner a call. He can have them date stamped today. Call him. Call him and he'll, just within 24 hours, he'll give you a black chain smart contract, both of them. Dean: I like it. Dan: Yeah, I like it. That way nobody will be able to steal break into the season's Valhalla and steal your latest ideas. Dean: It's all happening right here. Yeah, the idea lab at the four seasons, valhalla. Dan: They'll probably just take off over the golf course and you wouldn't be able to track them down. Dean: That's right, exactly so funny. Are you in Toronto for a while now, or what's your First a? Dan: week, and then we're back to Buenos Aires next Saturday. Dean: We go back to Buenos Aires another week. How's your new knees? Dan: The knee, we were told takes six months for the missing cartilage to regrow. So they said you won't really feel a difference for three months after we did it, so we're a month away, but I will tell you the IV that we did for RAIN, where they put stem cells into our brain is noticeable progress. I really will notice the difference and it shows up in another sort of therapy that I'm doing, which is neuro potential, and I think I've described this to you and I do it once a week when I'm here, and I've done it three times since I came back from Argentina, and what it is that they put sensors on my hip 19 sensors, and it's like a net. We're, we're, you have to go to do that again Right at Alan Expressway in Shepherd. It's just above and I had to check whether I needed a passport or I need right extra oxygen with me or shot, yeah, yeah. Dean: And they told me. Dan: No, yeah, they told me they probably advanced, and they. You can just Come from the beaches to that area now without any worry, you can actually do it without worry now. And but what it is? It's 40 minutes I've done. I had done 30 in the last year and showed noticeable progress. And I'll tell you what the progress is that I've been diagnosed with a backward brain OK, and I've been doing a backward being that in the middle of the night I'm doing creative, productive work that I should be doing in the middle of the day, yeah, and in the middle of the day I am attempting to dose and and that would probably be one of the reasons why Adderall was a very attractive drug for me, because it woke me up Over a long period of time has negative effects on your nervous system. So anyway, I came back and here's how it goes, dean, when you go through the 40 minutes, probably five, six times, the screen will go black and the sound goes out, even though the movie keeps going on. So you're watching a favorite movie. I chose Foils War really whopping good British production from 15 years ago, about a homicide detective who is solving murders during the Second World War. So that's called Foils War, and he's getting resistance from higher officials because there's dodgy dealing going on with higher officials in the British government that are wealthy people who are trying to protect themselves. So anyway, it's very grossing, and usually five, six times during the 40 minute period the screen will go black and then what happens is you don't have to do anything, your brain just notices that things have gone dark, the sound's gone off, it was correct, it was the input back. So it's a constant feedback. And then you get better at it. And then the technician you have a technician sitting with you and she, they're all she's. She will increase the difficulty for next time and that's gone out now for about 30, 30 sessions. Before I went to Argentina and, and really noticeable results, when I do intelligence test, mental test, you can see the difference. That's actually done it and now mostly so. Anyway, I come back a week after we got back I went to my first session and I go 40 minutes and no blackouts and no, no loss of sound, and I get to the end of the session. Now these technicians are very rigorously connected that they give human feedback for what's going on. They're just, they're just adjusting the sensors or whatever they're making notes, but they're making notes, but they're not telling you what the notes are. Dean: No reinforcement or stimulus. Dan: I get to the end of the first session and she looks at me with a big smile and she said that was fantastic. She said I've never seen that before. Yes, she said, I've never seen anyone go through all 40 minutes without this being going out. Now it did blur a little bit, but it never, went black and the sound didn't go up. Okay, that was three weeks ago. And then two weeks ago I did it again and it just edged into the black once, even though she had increased the difficulty. She had increased the difficulty just a little bit, went in half a second and then it came back and that was it. And yesterday I went in 40 minutes and no black, no sundown, even though she had increased the difficulty again. She said this is quite exceptional. She said I have not seen this kind of progress being made. I think it's because of the stem cells to my brain, which I will get again the week after next month? Dean: Wow, are you still going to osteosteostrong, or is that the place? Dan: Yeah, I was in osteostrong yesterday. Yeah, Interesting. I haven't been doing much other work exercise so I've maintained basically where I am with osteostrong and really good. I mean they have a thing called double standard. When I do double standard, I'm strong enough my legs, my arms and everything else. So it means that I haven't lost any strength over the last 14 months. I haven't lost it, which is good, which is very good, and actually I've actually gained strength. I've showed plenty of progress. Dean: But so far. I had a nice Zoom with our osteopath friend from London who was in the three years on Intra. Dan: Tehira, tehira, tehira, yes. Dean: He's very passionate about osteo. Dan: Very passionate, yeah, very passionate, yeah. He just needs to do one little mindset change. Is mindset change? Do you want to know what it is? I do, of course. He wants to save the world. Dean: Yes, I got that great tune. He wants to save them from something that doesn't present as an imminent danger. It's a chronic long. You don't have any evidence that there's anything wrong, until you fall and break your hip. Dan: He's got a limbic obstacle, you hit it on the head. Dean: You hit it exactly there. It's so funny that you said he wants to save the world. My advice to him I said we've got to prove evidence. It's so funny because I hadn't heard you go through that exercise. But all the things that he was talking about are left side things. That are the things I was showing. I said to him it's very interesting, but what could you do that would make let's call it that liver puddleans. How could we make headline news that liver puddleans have the strongest bones in the world or that there's eliminated? The downside of this that was something that, if you're going to save the world, you've certainly got to start. I heard that one time Bono from U2. There was a movie called Killing Bono, but for years they would be dubbed as the second best band in Dublin. If your goal is to be the biggest band in the world, you've certainly got to be the biggest band in Dublin. If we're going to save all the world from the negative impact of osteo health. How could we start with liver pool and make liver puddleans that help with bones in the world. Dan: My attitude is can you do it with one person? Dean: First question can you do it with? Dan: one person. I said, if you can do it with one person, I think you know 50% of what's needed to do it with 10 people. Dean: Then you get to 10. Dan: Now you know 50% of what it takes to get 100 people. Just work up your capability and confidence. That way it's a lot easier. Dean: That's the scale-ready algorithm. Once you figure out how to do it, once you've got some evidence. But until you do it a second time or for 10, you're so right on. That's how we approach marketing problems. Dan: I called the Singapore model. Singapore was a lawless Southeast Asia primed all the criminals within the 1,000 miles of Singapore. This is where they went. They had their warehouses there, they did their deals there, they recruited people. Singapore became independent of Great Britain in 1965. It was mainly the work of one family, the Lee family. They're still in charge. It's 60 years down the road and they're still in charge. It's a big harbor, it's one of the better harbors in Southeast Asia. They said let's get together some muscle People who know how to give hard knocks to hard people. They went in and they said in the first six months we cleared the entire block that surrounds on land, the block of houses and buildings that surround the harbor. At the end of six months they're crime-free. They did it Not without pushback but they overcame the pushback. Then they said over the next six months, let's clear two blocks in from what we've already achieved. Dean: They did Now they had three blocks. Dan: This was the most important real estate from a commercial standpoint in Singapore. Then they said now we're going to go four more blocks in. By the end of the next six months we'll have seven blocks. The criminals all got the message and left the city. Dean: Wow, that's pretty amazing. Yeah, that's the wisdom right Is getting it into the thing of one. Dan: Get a foothold that you can learn from. Dean: Yes, I agree. Dan: Yeah, I think that saving the world First of all, I don't even know what the world is. I don't know what saving. That means I wouldn't know where to start. I wouldn't know how to keep score. When do I actually get to be happy? Dean: Yes, so amazing. I love it. I can't believe it's been an hour, but this was fantastic yeah. Dan: I'll be just arriving Next week. I'll just be arriving and playing this series. It'll be the wheel. I'll just see Becca, because we're time difference, two hour time difference. Let's see if we can sneak one in during the week. Dean: Okay, I'll never no no. Dan: Dean and Dan, don't do sneaking. No, that's exactly right. Dean: I'll leave it in tension. Dan: Becca will be with us. We take Becca with us, so Becca will do it. I just do it right at the Four Seasons Hotel and playing this series. Okay, no, anyway great to chat. Dean: Okay, dan, I'll talk to you soon. Bye.

In today's episode of Cloudlandia we weave through various topics. Dan shares his journey with stem cell treatments, from the miraculous changes in his mobility and pain to the improvements in Babs' condition post-injections. As we delve into regenerative therapies, discover the future of diagnostics where AI and DNA merge to transform healthcare. I also recount surprising neurofeedback session benefits and reflections on technology's paradigm shifts over time. Our discussion explores Indify's pioneering artist venture capital model and investing in human potential, drawing inspiration from visionaries like Musk and Jobs. Lastly we examine managing our digital lives, I offer tech fasting insights and preview Toronto's upcoming free zone community event with excitement.   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dean discusses his personal experience with stem cell therapy, describing a noticeable improvement in his chronic pain and mobility two weeks post-injection. Dan highlights the significant pain reduction in Babs' big toe following her stem cell treatment and mentions the vascular IV treatments they both received for energy improvement. We explore the impact of artificial intelligence on diagnostics, transforming biological signals into digital ones, which Dean experienced firsthand from the early days of the internet. Dan recounts the advancements in technology, from limited television channels to the current convergence of AI and DNA, which he has observed over the years. We delve into Indify's venture capital model for independent artists, discussing the strategy of partnering with musicians for a 50% ownership and the successful returns seen since 2020. Dean reflects on the importance of investing in human creativity and potential, drawing parallels to the entrepreneurial mindset and success stories like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs. Dan talks about the art of digital survival, sharing his personal experiments with tech fasting and the creation of a 'red box' to manage the influx of digital information. We examine the shifting media landscape from advertising to subscription models and how Dean has adapted his consumption of news and current affairs through an aggregator. Dan and Dean discuss the inescapable nature of human biases, the illusion of complete neutrality, and how being aware of our biases can influence conscious decision-making. The episode concludes with an announcement of Toronto's upcoming free zone event in June, coordinated by Tammy Coville, and a look forward to creating new memories in the city. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia. Dan: Ah, you have a very resonant place to this morning. Dean: Well, you know what I did. I came in on the app today and so we'll see. And over the last week we had some intermittent disruption. So to try this this week. Maybe it's a different level of unpredictable variety I called it unpredictable variety, that's right, we roll with it and yeah, and there we go, yeah. So everybody wants to know, dan, how is the $6 million man doing with his biomegase here? Dan: Yeah, yeah, pretty good. So we're talking on a Sunday and just the past Thursday was two weeks. And you know I got to figure in the placebo factor here, and I think I mentioned this last time that when you have a pain and you don't have any solution for it, you try to avoid the pain, and so you kind of? A you kind of a focus on it. You rearrange your posture and your body to avoid the pain. Dean: Yes. Dan: But since I had the stem cell injection, I came back and the pain didn't seem any different. But I was confident about it that I now had a pain that in, according to prediction, in six months I won't have the pain. And so I'm not avoiding the pain and I'm you know, I'm walking downstairs without holding out to the rail and just depending on my leg. But I will say in the last two or three, three days I've I have noticed an improvement, so that I'm getting from. You know, we have top to bottom we in some cases I'm going to flights, yes, and and yeah. So I told Dr Hasse David Hasse, who's in the free zone with us because he's the arranger for all this. Anything else I do, I go through his clinic, so he's the one who arranged everything in Buenos Aires yes, and I tell him. I said I'm, I'm naturally a self producer of placebo's. Dean: And I said I think it's part of my. Dan: I think it's part of my character. I had nice said actually isn't strategic coaches? Not what strategic coaches? Producing your own placebo's, that's the best. Dean: I love it yeah. Dan: Yeah, so anyway, all friends, but I will tell you this we had three different treatments. I did and Babs had a fourth one. So Babs had a big toe, inflamed bones and her big toe. And the pain is way, way down after two weeks. And both of us had vascular IVs, so this is where the stem cells are put you know it's an IV, so it goes in over 40 minutes. Dean: It wasn't an injection. Right, right Right. Dan: But it's, the stem cells are geared just to your vascular system, so just you know, the veins has sent. And so I feel quite a bit more energy, and again, I'm not discounting the placebo effect. And the third, the third thing that I did Babs did vascular two and I did brain cells. So these what they do is that they put lymphocytes in on day one and then on day three they give you a IV for the, for your brain cells and the lymphocytes. I don't exactly understand what they are. Okay, I know they're neither Republican or Democrat. I do know that. Dean: They're NDP. Dan: Right, exactly, yeah, I know that I know they don't have a political characteristic about them, but what they do is they actually create pathways through what's called the blood brain barrier. Okay, and what I understand is that the brain is very protective of itself, so it doesn't allow any foreign thing to come in To the brain. But it'll accept limbo sites and they're just little, they're kind of temporary pathways and they die after about a week or two. But what happens then is the stem cells that are geared to your brain can go through those pathways and and I'm doing a program called neuro potential, which is bio feedback program, and I'm doing a neuro potential program called neuro potential Bio feedback program, and I did session 30, 29 and 30. I've been doing that for about a year. And what it tests you on is when you're watching a movie and I picked a favorite movie which was foils for British detective, homicide detective series Long time ago, 15 years ago. Very intriguing, very good acting. And so I went Saturday ago and I did it. And usually what happens during the course of the session? You're watching the, you're watching the screen and then all of a sudden the screen will go black, the sound will go out, but the movie goes on and your brain notices this and it readjust itself so that the screen comes back and the sound comes back. And normally during a session it'll happen four or five times and there's nothing you can do. All you do is the brain just adjust itself and that adjustments are actually making improvements to how your brain operates. And I've been doing it and my EEG tests, which are a battery of screen tests that I do every quarter, indicate that my brain has improved quite a bit over the last year. But this session, the first time now I'm talking about a week ago, saturday not once during the entire movie did the screen black out and or the sound go out. And the first time it ever happened. And the technician they have technicians there who you know they will. They put your sensors on your brain and then they you know they're there all the time and she said I've never seen that before. She said I've never seen it, certainly haven't seen it with you, but she said I've never seen it with anyone. And these people are these train? These people are trained not to be enthusiastic. Dean: And they're just there, related to your, to the stem cells or yeah, well, it's the only thing that's changed, it's it's gotta be right, yeah, it's gotta be, and she up the difficulty. Dan: So when I do it fairly easily, she'll up the difficulty and the and yesterday I went and it sound went out three times but the screen did not go black and and she said that's amazing because she said you're even stronger this week than you were last week and that was a real breakthrough week. So I think, that's and this is the only thing where I have outside reference. That's testing. So, yeah, so, but my energy has been real good from the overall. But I think the big thing is that I am now convinced this specifically from the stem cell thing that we're going through and also other things that I've been doing for the past year that now anything in the body, if it can be diagnosed, if there's something off, if something's not performing right, something's not working period or, worse than that, it's something wrong is happening. I now am convinced that if it can be diagnosed, it can be repaired and it can be regenerated. So that's yeah and, and I've been and I've been going on. I've been going to faith for the last 36 years in this regard that this would come. Dean: Yeah, and I mean you know, you look at, I heard Joe Rogan had well, he always has all kinds of interesting people, but he had no. Gary Brecca on. I don't know him no well, he's kind of an interesting story, I don't. I mean, you know, like anything. When you hear him on you know he kind of breaks into the scene. He's the guy that kind of turned Dana white around. Dana's lost all kinds of weight and reversed his oh yeah, I know Dana white, he's the. Dan: Yeah, you see ultra fighting. Dean: Yeah, that's exactly right, yeah, yeah, the US, and so he. This guy's background was as a I don't know what the right word for what he did, but it was some sort of for insurance companies. They would predict your lifespan. So it was like advance. What do they call that in insurance mortality rate guessing as the rate of the yeah yeah, so actuarial. I guess, would be kind of based on statistical groups kind of thing, and what they do is this is based on records, on your, on measuring, like genetic markers and and blood work, and they can predict, he says, within you know months of somebody's life expectancy and mm-hmm very interesting, right. So Dana came in and he had, you know, very elevated triglycerides and you know certain other markers that were really kind of degenerative. And he's 53 years old and his they marked his life expectancy at 63.6 or something like that and it was really like an eye opener for him to see that have that sort of you know, mortality check on what you're, what's going on in your body, and he basically says all these things are, you know, they're starting to give out years and years before they're actually the end of it. So it's not a mystery kind of thing, it's just that way you know, and so he's, you know, done all the things that he recommended and he's already added, like you know, 12 years to his life expectancy already, and that it's kind of, I think, when you're right, that we're at a stage where we're started learning all the repair models of things that yeah to be able to to regenerate. I'm still amazed that even the fact that DNA exists like how do you even tune into something like that, right? Like how did somebody even discover that's a thing is just like beyond my imagination. Dan: You know it's yeah well, electron microscopes was the. Yeah well, I mean with you know the actual day break through there's some great stories about that aren't really on point here, but we could go into them. But the point I'd like to bring. This is all cloud landia. This is all these are cloud landia capabilities that have come into existence, because the I was talking to Peter DM on this, about this, and I said it's clearly a lot of things that were predicted by a lot of people 10 years ago happened, happened okay they haven't happened to the degree that they're happening, but they're not to the degree. But I would say that the application of digital measurement to your body has gone way beyond what anyone was predicting at the ability to, at the most minute level, to sell your level of actually measuring and then having comparisons. You know comparisons because these are large model. These are large model. You know, when somebody says you are, you know a certain age, like if you take Dana White and they said 53 and they his prediction was for 63 what they were doing was measuring against millions and millions of other tests that they've done on other people right that used to take yours to put the facts together and now it takes minutes. Dean: Yeah and it wasn't even possible. Dan: Years ago I put those no, no, yeah, no, I mean, you know I, my first doctoring counters were in the 1940s, so this is 80 not quite 80 years ago, and the best you could hope for back then was that the doctor had a good bedside manner well, three out of four doctors prefer Chesterfield cigarette actually it was camels actually it was camels, and it was. It was actually seven out of those seven out of eight who a doctor. Seven out of eight doctors who smoke prefer camo camels. No, this is a great. This is a great ad campaign. We shouldn't be frivolous about this. It's really sold a lot of camels, I'll tell you. Dean: I wonder what those things like. If we look forward, you know, fast forward, 40 years from now, what are we going to look at? As you know, so stupid and obvious back in you know that we haven't been paying attention to well yeah, you know, I always say that a depressed utopian, a utopian who's depressed. Dan: Our people get depressed by the absence of things that haven't been invented yet. Yeah, exactly, there's so much that has been. I'm missing all these things. I said what exactly are you missing? Well, I don't know, but I'm missing it. Dean: I don't know yet yeah, exactly I don't know what I need, it's so funny, I just saw somebody in on Facebook, one of the there's a local group called it. You know, if you grew up in Georgetown, you remember, you may remember group and it was pretty these things. And somebody showed you know Georgetown cable was. You know halton cable was becoming available and they were offering, you know, service on on the nine channel for our listeners. Dan: Today, we're not talking about George town in Washington. Dean: DC. Right, exactly, we're talking about. Dan: We're talking about your town, a lovely veil north, and is it more west than north? Dean: I'm trying to think it north. I know the go train goes there, that's exactly right, it's the last outpost on the on the go train and that was the thing they were offering now service on channel two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, eleven and thirteen, and I remember those days, like you know, 1970 something when we got our first color television and I got the table you know that was, that was the thing. Wow, what a world. Yeah, but just back to the. Dan: You brought up a subject right at the beginning of our talk here DNA. It's actually been the merger of artificial intelligence and DNA that's producing all the amazing diagnostic tests. Because they can now do, then? What they do is they convert biological signals to digital signals okay and now they can do 10,000 tests either on something that exists in the time that it would takes to do one manual test ten years ago. So 10,000 to one, that's, that qualifies as exponential in my world, I would say so yeah, I would say so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'm banking on that. You know, and as you know from our conversations of a long time ago, that I was Babs and I were on this path in the 90s, you know, in the 1990s so we're 30 years down the road now but I knew you could tell. I mean, I read a lot. You know, the internet has been a great tool for me of just letting my brain go wild on the internet and it finds this and kind of. I find your brain kind of finds what you were looking for, but you didn't know you were looking for it, that's the way I explain it do you? Find that I do. Dean: I had some experimenting this week, actually, based on our conversation last week that you know you mentioned. You kind of let your brain just go and do what it wants, but let's just I mean almost like with an agreement that let's just, at the end of the day, let's get these three things done, and I don't care what you do or when you do it, but let's just go ahead, let's get these three things done. But I got a. Dan: I got. I've been thinking about our conversation too and I said but it's finding it for some reason, and I think using a I language here, that's somewhere in the past you gave your brain a pump prompt, just like with a chat, gbt, you gave it a prompt that. If you ever come, if you ever come across something like this, alert me to this. You know so my sense is that you've been programming your brain To look for a certain things Since you know. Since the beginning, you've been prompting your brain to look for certain things and All of a sudden it comes across a plane and then you wake up and say, gee, that's neat, that's neat. I didn't know that, but somewhere in the past you gave some sort of prompts, I think, to tell your brain, if you ever yeah, you know, if you ever. Dean: See something like this Just let me know right away, because I'm interested in it one of the things that I came across this week was, you know, in relation to our conversation about melt, about money, energy, labor and transportation all going in rising cost of those, and I, you know, been thinking about money, like access to money, and I'm seeing there's more and more versions of intelligent money coming, you know, being the thing of Empowering Creators in a way. So I looked at, I found out about a company called in defy, which is taking a venture capital kind of approach to creators, musicians, particularly independent artists who are, you know, making Music, and they're partnering with them for, you know, 50% ownership of Whatever comes out of what they're they're producing and it's really, you know, they may not produce, like, compared to the music Label industry, the model where they would, you know, sign an artist and do a full album and of those things these are really but those who are already existing. Dan: That was already. Yeah, here's their here they're doing music and musician futures. Dean: Yes, that's exactly what it is and that's a really interesting Model, like typically there, you know, with a particular like a song, for instance, they may invest $30,000 to produce a single Song and artists, but they're showing that the you know, the typical Return on, even like them, that to be they're not talking about hits, but things that either they showed investments of their typical investment of $30,000 has returned $110,000 so far per one of those that they've done. Yeah, and they started in 2020, you know. So over that period of time, they've kind of tripled their investments and I thought, partner, you know that that level of you know, in the entrepreneurial world I don't know whether that's that you know the rising cost or you know, corollary to that, the diminishing supply of them capital I don't know whether there's different rules for Plotlandia and creative things as opposed to, you know, large scale physical capital, you know. Dan: Yeah, my sense of that is that the smart investors, whether it's in the mainland or whether it's in Plotlandia, are the same person. There are the same, and my feeling is that the smartest investors invest People. They don't fast on things, they don't really invest on things. And so my sense is that the Example you just gave this person has proven in the past that they're actually creative and they always seem to be coming up. They always seem to be coming up with new things, and Some of them have monetized and some of them haven't monetized. So that's the guess, and that's the bet you know. In other words, I'm guessing that you're going to. You already come up with something in the past that turned out to be money-making and I'm betting I'm just gonna Bet on you as a creator that you're going to come up with some good stuff that, properly captured, properly packaged and properly distributed, is going to be money-making. Dean: Would you say I agree. Well, yeah, Patron days it's been oh yeah, yeah in a way yeah. Dan: Yeah, go totally, totally. I mean entrepreneurs are you and I and All the folks that we hang out with are we're self patrons. Yes the difference between an entrepreneur and non entrepreneurs, an individual who's betting on Himself as the future. Well, you did that a long time ago and you know, and I did it a long time ago, and, and so that's why I'm not taken by things. You know, I'm not really taken by things. You know, betting on things like I'm talking about a product or a tech right, I'm not betting on that. I'm betting on the thing possibly being a tool that some really smart human is going to maximize. It's gonna, you know, it's gonna do something. And I was thinking about that with Elon Musk, because there's no reason for his valuations Related to Tesla. You know, if you took the normal valuations of a car company the number of cars you got, the distribution system, you got his. The Tesla doesn't make sense. The valuation that he has for Tesla makes no sense whatsoever. By right, historic automobile standards, right, and somebody was saying that they you know this is, you know this is, you know this is a scam. I said you're missing the point here. They're not betting on the Tesla car. They're betting on Elon Musk coming up with always new things. Dean: That is true, and he, yeah, he's, yeah, he's come up with quite a few. Yeah, I think. Dan: Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was on that track, but he died. He, you know, he died. I mean because, really, if you take a look at Apple's extraordinary, it's stuff that all goes back to Steve Jobs. Yes and I mean not a big thing since not a really big thing since 2008, right since the iPhone right, I mean, that's really the iPhone. Dean: Yeah, yeah, that decade of, you know, 92,000, 8. That's really. That's where everything happened. I think was a joke about it. Yeah, we talked about it in our analysis of the last 28 years. That none of it you know, but Apple was close to bankruptcy, that they were in trouble 28 years ago he had to borrow from Bill Gates. Yeah, exactly that's. That's kind of that's pretty amazing, right, when you think about everything that's turned around since then and thinking about even Jeff Bezos, who you know, who knew. Dan: Yep, yeah, and you know and so so the the thing about betting, but I always bet on people. You know my whole approach is that this is a person you know who proven track record and part of it is that they cannot do what they're doing. You know one of my yeah that I look at somebody who cannot do the thing that seems to be most valuable and. So I don't have to worry what they're doing when I don't see them. Dean: What's he? Dan: doing I what's? What's he doing today? Dean: I know exactly what he's doing. Dan: He's doing what I bet on. Dean: He's doing what I bet on him doing you know and you know. Dan: So it's a very interesting thing. So, but I think I was going back because we had this conversation. I said, you know, if I go back because I've really been an entrepreneur since really the beginning of the Microchip age in the 70s. They started using the word microchip, I think early 70s, but I read about it in 73 and I started my company in 74 1974, so 50 years next year and. I would say that the microchip itself Breakthroughs and. The ability for there to be something that has a personal computer, which came up, you know, within the first ten years of the microchip and then graphic user interface, which made the personal computer available to everybody, okay. And then the internet, probably software somewhere in there, the whole notion of software, that it didn't have to be hardware. Usefulness of the computer did not have to be hardware, it could just be a program. And then I would say the internet, and then the iPhone, and now artificial intelligence. Dean: Yeah, artificial intelligence that I think what's happening there is. Nobody could really have predicted. I mean, maybe people who knew were predicting, but I don't think people really had a sense of what was really possible with this until now, and I think as a species right now, we're clueless about where this is going. Dan: I said you know. I said you can say anything you want about where it's going and probably you'll be right, but there's going to be a million other things happening to that nobody could have predicted. Dean: Yeah, I mean it's really. Dan: I mean, where are you crossing into this world? I mean, what are you do? We have three or four projects. We have three or four projects going that. Dean: I'm involved in the company. Dan: And so where are you? I'm at the experiment where you experiment. Dean: Yeah, I'm experimenting in the personal, like my personal experience with it. We're not using it as it's not integrated in any way into my company that you're you know our stuff yet, but I can see that it could be. I mean, I looked at, you know, one of the things that we do we have a subscription for. We have two different versions one for realtors, one for financial advisors of a postcard newsletter called the world's most interesting postcard and it's essentially a carrier for referral programming that you as a realtor or a financial advisor would send to your top 150 relationships so that you are programming them to notice conversations about real estate, to think about you and introduce you to the person that they had the conversation with. And it's been, you know, a phenomenal game changer for the amount of referrals that people get, measured as a you know, return on relationship, the percentage of repeat and referral business you get from your top 150 relationships. I haven't had four years we've been doing it for 12 years now a monthly postcard where we have someone research and put together there might be 16, you know just short interesting facts that you put on the front of the postcard and it's got a nice design and so it's easy to read. It's kind of just like you know interesting things and the. I started thinking about, well, if I did what, if I did one specifically for for financial advisors, that all the facts and stuff are money related. And I just asked chat GPT one day. I said can you write to you know 10 short interesting facts about the history of money? And it started, you know writing the things. And then I asked it to you know, make it a little more interesting things. And it, you know, put it out. And I said you can be 20 more. And it was like boom, all interesting. Dan: Yeah, absolutely I say yeah, and you're, you're, you're designing, though, as you go along, there's probably an interactive thing going on between yeah right, I'm just you know there's two a I a. Breakthroughs consist of two a you know the first day I as artificial intelligence, the second one is called actual intelligence. Dean: Yeah, exactly so. Dan: I'm bringing the actual intelligence. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I said it was so funny, Dan, because I said to it Well, these are great. How many do you think you could? It said well, I can make an infinite number of these. How many would you like? And it was just so funny that I ended up with like 50 of these you know, and just instantly done and I thought you know that's a really interesting thing. Again, those are, you know it's content related. I came, I had this idea of you know I think there are 400 and something cognitive biases that are, and I just started how many, how many of you mastered it Right exactly. And you know it's an interesting thing. I said can you make a three minute video script describing confirmation, bias, the facts about what it is and how it might be, how it might be deployed or come into play and how to defend against it? And it wrote this amazing like just you know, intro this, then scene of this, and then this, and narrator says that there's the script. You know, and it was just. I mean, when you look at the putting together of the different things, I saw this. I saw someone do a demonstration of you know having it write some. It was writing ads, video ads for something, and it they had gone to one of the gone to 11 labs. I think is a place where you train your voice. So it's got your voice. And then it went to another place that had your digital, you know avatar, you know from video of you, and then it combined this AI written script with your voice through your face on your avatar on video and it's instantly translated into any language where your mouth moves and your mouth is saying the words in Japanese or German or French or whatever and I just man, it's just such a like you can see, that's a you know. The distribution of Content like that, you know, is amazing. But then it's still so that's everything I've seen has been Content related, you know kind of yeah, creation and as a multiplier for content creation. But then the bigger you know we've had the conversation that the bigger you know. Picture of that is that our brains we still can't consume At any more than the speed of reality, which is 60 minutes per hour right, it takes us. Dan: Yeah, and the other thing is that we can only think about one thing at a time, you know? I mean, we can't think two things at the same time. Humans just can't do this and you know, and, as you say, it's reality, world, time-based, you know, and really Successful people have learned firsthand just what can get be gotten done in an hour a day and and, and then also it's developed a sense of discernment about just what's worth having your mind on for an hour for a whole day and you know and that you know, and I've dropped I'm noticing I'm shedding all sorts of things as I Approach 80. Just I dropped televisions. I'm in my sixth year now dropping television and and people say, but you're a big sports fan. And I said, oh, I've got a trick. I said I wait till the game. I I've got. I wait till the game, as though I'll use Cleveland Brown says an example and I just checked. I checked the score. You know the scores are in now. It's some beyond game time. Did they win or lose? Well, if they lost, I'm not interested. If they won, then they have a 10-minute video of the highlights and that's my game, you know. Dean: And. Dan: I know they've won and then I just get a chance to see how they won. Okay, if they lose. I don't watch it because I, because that doesn't do me any good, doesn't do me any. I'm already disappointed they lost. Why would I pile on and people said, yeah, but you're missing? All the excitement of the game. And I said I said yes. I said I want to be excited about other things. I don't want to be excited about, yeah, people who are one third of my age, I think. I'm coming through for me or not coming through for me? I want to see the final result. Dean: I've been contemplating Dan because, I I find that embarrassingly. Much of my time is screen-sucking. You know, as our friend, there's a lot of, there's a lot of screen-sucking and I would count television and YouTube and tiktok and Facebook and Anytime my eyeballs are sucking dopamine in through my screen as that time. And I've been experimenting with, you know, disconnecting from the the dopamine device you know, and so this morning was one of those times. I'm trying to get to a point where I can get as far into my day without having any, you know, digital input, and I think that there's a real Face that I could go, you know, all the way till noon with no Contact with the outside world and that, I think, would be a better thing for me. But it's amazing how your body like I went over to the cafe this morning to get some, get a coffee and just sit outside and you know I didn't take my phone I woke up. I still wake up in the. You know the first thing, you know, I checked my phone or whatever. I left it here and I went to the, the cafe, and it's amazing how your brain is Is like saying you know, wait a second, what if anything? What if you? What? Dan: if you break down. Dean: What if you're what? If you get an accident or you need to call somebody here, what? What about that? And then I realized I don't know a single person's phone number. I don't know what single phone number except my office, you know, and not there's nobody there, but that's, it's very funny to me, that's where your mind goes. And then I had that. I took real money because normally I use my Apple pay on my phone to pay for it and so. I had real paper money with me and it was just. It was so interesting to sit at the cafe and just watch everybody you know, all you know, even together screen sucking the whole time and I've been experimenting, see like how much can I Disconnect from that in a proactive way, right, like well, it's interesting. Dan: It's interesting because in the year you're applying the concept of intermittent fasting. Yeah, exactly that, yeah, you're going through. You know I'm going to spend three hours or four hours when. I fast you know yeah. Because your brain will find something to do if you're not right now. Dean: Yes, I'll talk with you fixing. I mean, I remember this is something interesting. I was really going as far as like, how far Down can I go with this? Right, like what would I truly be missing? I do. I use my phone all the time for everything. I mean texting, email, ordering food, you know all of the stuff. Entertainment talking, and I was. I remember there was a show about the royalty, I think it was called the crown, and maybe it was a movie about the queen, but I remember this was struck me as very like, very interesting is that every day at a certain time 5pm, maybe, noon or sometime they would bring the queen a red box. Was everything that she needed for the day, everything that needed her attention, kind of thing. Dan: And. Dean: I thought how neat would that be. What would be interesting if I could, at 5pm every day, get a box that has every thing that I need, like any emails that have come in, any texts that have come in, any you know articles of interest. That would be, you know, something that I would need and I wondered about that getting rid of. Like you know, I check on that judge report and you know I the news. Like seeing different things that are going on in the world and I thought to myself I wonder what happened if I went to, like you know, paper subscriptions to Newsweek, time magazine and the Wall Street Journal as the my connection to the world. Dan:I've gone beyond that because I used to get five papers a day. I got two Toronto papers. I got the Wall Street Journal, I got New York Times and National Post. Well, national Post was Globe and the Post for the two Toronto papers, and then the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and the fifth one was Business, business Investor's. Dean: Daily. Dan: Yeah, right, yeah, investor's Business Daily, and. But I began to realize that I all those papers. The only thing I was really interested in was the Opinions section. Okay, where the people wrote oversight articles. In other words, they were looking at us something and they were writing that. And then you know politics. I began to notice that in the newspaper world they were making most of their money after a while on subscriptions, because the advertising dollars were being taken away by Facebook and Google and yeah, and they had to go to digital versions on a subscription basis, and what that did is that it polarized the media in the sense that, for example, the Wall Street Journal, I would say 80 to 90% of its subscription probably is center or center right on the political spectrum. There's center right and the New. York Times is barely center, mostly to the left, and I noticed that the Globe and Mail is now center to the left and the Globe and Mail or the Post is still somewhat into the right into the right and the investors business daily only has Opinions on Saturday. They only have a real commentary section. So, yes, Okay. So what I began looking for, I said, well, still hit or miss, because there may be some good stuff or not good stuff. So I went to this aggregator which is called Real Clear, comes out of Chicago and all they do is aggregate article headings and they're almost all. They're all commentary, Okay. So every morning and six days a week they do an update at three o'clock in the afternoon. So you get up in the morning and they have that, and then at three o'clock in the afternoon they have an update. They don't do this on Saturday. Okay, there's one day when they don't do it Right but then they have all sorts of real clear. They have real clear politics, they have real clear policy. They have real clear market real clear world real clear defense, real clear energy, real clear health, real clear science, and those are more. They're picking up a periodicals rather than daily, yes, and so I just get up in the morning and I look and I click on three or four of them and they come for the New York Times as lucky if they get one every day, and some of them have paywalls so that when you go to their thing they're saying well, you can read the article if you pay for a subscription, and that counts them out. You know, I'm not going to pay, I'm not going to sign up for a subscription to get one article. Right so yeah, so, so, anyway. So that's what I've done. So and I'm down now to. Babs gets the post because she likes knowing Toronto things, but I don't bother looking at the, for the last two or three weeks they've had great articles. It's mainly how our Prime Minister is going down the drain which I always find comforting reading. And then the Israeli, israeli Amos situation and that's been a great clarifier, Boy. You really find out where people stand with this particular issue. That's been a really great clarifier herself. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah, yeah. So anyway, but that's how I handle it, I handle it. That's been sort of my red box. Real clear is my red box. Dean: Right yeah that's interesting. Dan: You know what they call that the thing that the clean gets. I don't know what they call it. They call it the red box. Okay, that's what I thought, that's what you know that red, you know that red box she gets every day you know what they call it the red box. Dean: That is so funny, but I thought about experimenting with that, getting a red box and the government has to prepare them for. Dan: The Prime Minister's office has to prepare them for her Right, exactly yeah. Yeah, because they're both in town once a week. The Prime Minister has to come to the palace and you know and deliver in person. You know some of the crucial issues. This is not recorded. No one ever goes. Dean: Right A weekly audience with the Queen Right. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and the King now I guess? Dan: Yeah, I guess the King. Should we send the red box to the King? Dean: It's kind of hard to say. Dan: It's kind of hard to say, you know it's kind of hard to say King. How do you say King? You know? Because he was in for seven, seven years or so. Yeah, there was a great play, actually was called the interview. I saw it, and I saw it in London, right around the corner from the hotel. Dean: And. Dan: Helen Merrin was the Queen. Helen Merrin was the Queen and that what they did is all the Prime Ministers that she's had, starting with Winston Churchill, right up until last year. I guess there were a whole bunch of Prime Ministers over the last two or three years, so anyway, but she that just talked about it was all made up, because nobody really knows what's that, but they just used topical issues of the time and you know, and whether she got along with the Prime Ministers or not, or and everything else, and it was very, just a really terrific, really terrific play. Dean: I saw Napoleon on Thanksgiving Day. What'd you think? Dan: What'd you think I? Dean: didn't like it Did you see it. I haven't. It was as we like to say, Dan. There was a lot of middle in that movie. Dan: It was all middle it joined in progress and just never left the middle. Dean: There were only two scenes that were repeated six times. There was the drama in the palace and then there was battle scenes with horses and bayonets and cannons and on and on the same battle scenes, again and again, and then back to the palace and it was really. I didn't enjoy it at all, I didn't have. No, it was my shortest movie review ever. I looked at the camera, shook my head and said Nope, and then I hashtagged it Nope, olean, yeah, yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah, and, but I have no real historical knowledge of, you know, of Napoleon, but I did. You know, the most interesting thing was at the end they did a summary of all the people that were lost in battles, like 6 million people. In his period of being the king he lost in battle. That was. That's crazy, you know, 6 million seemed like that, seemed like a lot. Dan: Well, we must use all of them up, because his final battle was 1815. That's when Waterloo was you know the final battle, and then there was not a major European war until the beginning of the beginning of the first World War. So it was 99 years so he must have used everybody up because it took a whole century to stack up again. Yeah, and you know, yeah, I mean a lot of American history, american history really, you know, from the British fighting the French. You know that's really where the American thing starts, it's. I don't know what they call it. You know they call it the seven years war here in Canada, but in the United States it was called the French and Indian war. You, know, and this was 1817, 50s, 1763, seven years. But this is where all the American colonists got their military training, which they then used to go to for self fighting the British. Oh wow, 1717. So George Washington was an American born. You know, they were all British. I mean, they were all British. Yeah, all the colonists were British. And then and anyway, but that takes you right up until he I think Napoleon comes in around 1793 and he was in for 22 years but he totally changed Europe. I mean, he was like a major earthquake that went right across the continent and that really changed things. You know, Hitler was great, Hitler was great. Admirer of Napoleon, yeah. Dean: And that right. Dan: He made, and he made the same mistake. Dean:He invaded. Dan: Russia. Right right right, right right. Dean: That's yeah. So I'm going to save you from from that yeah. Dan: Well it's not a it's not a topic that I'm really interested in. Dean: Right, I've never heard you talk about Napoleon. No. Dan: I just you know, but he, he not only was a significant military person, he was very significant politician. Because that's where we get the metric metric system is from Napoleon. Dean: That's right yeah. Dan: And they didn't have any standard measurements in Europe. Okay, you know, I mean the British had their own. But you know, the British is kind of an organic thing that's developed over time feet inches, feet yards, and everything, stones, yeah, and the lightfully accent, and it's idiosyncratic, it's eccentric, eccentric. The British are eccentric, you know. And he wanted this 100, everything, as you know, and it took all the fun out of it, took all the fun out of measurement, right. Dean: You imagine. Dan: American, American baseball and metric, you know. Dean: American football and metric. Dan: Yeah Well, even the Canadian football. They use yards and peeps and you know everything like that, you know all the funny. Yeah, track and field they don't, because that's more of a European thing. Yeah, yeah, world stage Anyway well, it's really interesting, but I'd like to pick up a little bit more on this couple themes that we've developed over the last a few talks, and one of them, and what I think, is that every human being is a confirmation bias. Okay, say more about that. Well, you're biased according to the experience that's proved useful or not useful, okay, okay, okay, so you've used a term you know to great movies that are not worth seeing a lot of the middle. Okay, yeah, so there's a lot. I don't remember if there was. I don't remember if there was a beginning and or an ending, and Battles and battles. That's right and palace, you know, but I think that really thing because I think that it's impossible for human beings not to have the bias. Yeah, I think that's what I do, what I do think as the smarter human beings know what their biases are and Choose them. Yeah they actually choose them. Yeah, and, and you know, as it just strikes me that this whole notion of neutrality neutrality that you can be unbiased is, I Think it's just silly how could you? Possibly be on. I mean, that's right in the world. You wouldn't survive. Dean: Yeah, yeah. And the words of Milton Friedman to field on at you. Where do you propose we find these angels to organize society Without regards the personal interest or bias? I don't even trust you to do that, Phil. Dan: I've watched that about. I've watched that about ten times. Yeah, that's such a great thing, because you can just see that Phil Donahue just has this sort of fluffy, waffly form of logic. You know, all, all, basically emotion based. You know emotion, yeah, I mean, he didn't have. Our Perspective new Prime Minister here is getting a lot of fight. When you finish here, go on Google and say here, paulie of you know, you know how to spell it, don't you? Dean: yes, okay. Dan: Takes down reporter. Just he just took down a reporter and it was one of the most masterful take downs of reporter Ever, and he did it while chewing an apple. Dean: Oh, I love it. Dan: So he's being interviewed, and he's, and the person says, well, you know, you know, you're taking a very ideological approach. He says ideological, what's that? Well, what's ideological? And the reporter says, well, you know, it's more emotion based. And he says name a name, an example there. Name an example, well you know, and it gets round that he's reproducing Donald Trump and you know that's the ultimate killer, that's the kill shots. You know you call somebody Donald Trump, he's not right. No. And he says, well, a lot of the experts. And he says experts, name one expert and and the reporter did not have a specific piece of information, that was all this fluffy narrative and you could just see the guy was flailing and meanwhile Pierre Polyov is just eating, example, and he says do you have an actual point to this interview? There's some. And the guy you could just see the guy you know. You know they didn't show that, show him in full, but I bet you know there was a puddle under his feet when he was finished. Yeah, yeah, and he's just learned how to deal with this whole issue that they try to catch you on their words. Dean: Yeah, exactly, I don't even know, what that word means. Dan: I mean do you know what that word is? You just used a word I don't know what that word is and he says well, you know, you're doing left versus right and he says Name a time when I've actually said that I've never said love first right. I don't believe them love first right. So I believe in common sense and I'm kind of bored the side that has common sense. So we haven't had any of you just aren't used to it because we haven't had any common sense for the last eight years. So anyway, and he's. I think he's a phenomenal debater, you know because he's been in he's 44 years old and he's been in parliament for 19 years. I think he's a phenomenal debater, you know because he's been in. He's 44 years old and he's been in parliament for 19 years. You know, he's been there since he was 25 and wow, yeah, but it's really interesting to watch it. You know, I mean, and I'm very biased towards his side of. Dean: You have a cognitive bias around him. Dan: I have a total. I have a total cognitive bias. That's funny. Dean: I love it. Dan: Yeah, okay, so anyway, fascinating where this is going, but I think this AI thing is a Much what should I call it here? I think it's a Catalyst for a real mind change and how we think about everything. I think the team with interacting with this technology Is actually introducing us to how we actually think about things. Dean: I think you're right, because you have to bring that to it. Yeah, so you are. You are off to Phoenix. Dan: Yeah, we fly out on Tuesday and then we're there until Saturday morning. We're there until Sunday morning because I can't take more than two days of Sitting in a room and so we're off to Chicago and then we have a Chicago week, we have a. I just have one workshop. I have the free zone on Thursday. Yes, yeah, so so anyway, you know, yeah, it's been a good year. It's been actually it's been a very Sailing kind of year. I haven't had any real-time crunches or anything else. Been a great right, that's awesome. And so then we're back, are you? And yeah, and so June 12th, june 18th, is our first free zone in Toronto. Dean: Oh, you've set the date already. Dan: Yeah, oh great. Yeah, and now I'll just forward Tammy, who is the wizard mastermind of scheduling here, tammy coville. Dean: And I'll just send you. Dan: I'll just forward her announcement. It just came through two days ago, so I'll just yeah. Dean: And we're doing it in June. Dan: I mean, it's not nice starting it off in June? Dean: I love that. I love that I do miss Toronto. Yeah, I love it. Dan: Toronto misses you, I think Toronto misses you oh Honey. I love it. Yeah, there's no more table 10 anywhere. I haven't found a table 10 anywhere. Dean: We're gonna need a new. We'll need a new venue. Dan: Oh well, we'll go. I mean less elective still there and they're still good, so we'll go okay good Okay, perfect Okay okay, dan, have a great trip two weeks. Dean: We'll be back. Dan: I'm sorry. Two weeks, two weeks, okay, perfect, yeah, okay, okay, I'll talk to you then. Dean: Thanks Okay, bye, bye.

In today's episode of Welcome To Cloudlandia, I share the story of my unexpected adventure travelling to Buenos Aires for a pioneering knee stem cell treatment. I describe how my blood and fat cells were transformed into new cartilage and transported across continents for the procedure. I also recount my partner Babs' experience treating an inflamed toe and the vitality we've regained. Our discussion explores the pursuit of longevity and regenerative medicine's potential to make 156-year lifespans attainable through the normalization of audacious goals. We delve into hopes for abundant years energized by purpose and new ventures. Additionally, I discuss the art of self-talk and strategies like daily focus tasks negotiated through self-management.   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dan shares his transformative experience with stem cell treatment in Buenos Aires, describing the process of turning his own cells into cartilage. We discuss the broader implications of regenerative medicine and how it might extend our lifespans and rejuvenate our vitality. The episode touches on the concept of setting ambitious longevity goals, like living to 156 years, to guide life's endeavors and encourage significant projects. Dean talks about the importance of mental self-management and compares it to a daily negotiation to focus on critical tasks. We delve into the balance between productive 'focus days' and the freedom of 'buffer days', and how each contributes to overall productivity and creativity. The conversation includes insights on the internal quest for happiness and whether the 'fountain of youth' might be a state of mind. Dean and I examine the concept of 'Dean Landia', a metaphor for the mental environment we create and have control over. We discuss the entrepreneurial mindset, emphasizing the role of deadlines, and the Danger, Opportunity, and Strength (DOS) and Money, Labor, and Time (MLT) frameworks for success. The episode reflects on how personal goals influence our actions and the normalization of extraordinary ambitions to build confidence. Dean describes his experience with stem cell treatment for his knee injury and his partner Babs' treatment for an inflamed toe, highlighting the physical and psychological benefits they've experienced post-treatment. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: I wouldn't have it any other way. Welcome, Mr Claude Ladiak. Mr. Dan: Jackson. Mr Jackson, yeah Well, very pleasant woman who, and you know, I was the first one on today and she said you're the first one to Join the call, the others will join pretty soon and so far, in about seven years, only one person has shown up. So I want to know who the? Others are. Is this the National Security Agency? Is this the Communist Party of China? I'm just trying to get a handle of who the others are. Dean: I think you're probably right once, two or more Gathered that everybody is. Dan: Yeah, but I found that just the two of us is more than enough. That's the truth. Dean: Well, I am excited to hear about all of your Adventures here You've been. You've been all over the world. Here seems like you've been in Chicago. You've been in most exciting Lee Buena Flores. Yes, I'm excited to hear all about the Adventure here. Dan: Yeah Well, spire Chicago goes. I missed the bullets, so that's all I can report on we're not. We're not in the part of the city that's in the crossfire zone, but anyway yeah. Buenos Aires was interesting. It's only the second time I've been to South America, and the first time was just to land in Ecuador, co City in Ecuador, and then we took a flight to the Galapagos Islands and this was as the guest of Richard Rossi, who put together, you know, a gathering that went to the Galapagos Islands and you know the plain lands and one of the islands, and then you take a National Geographic boat and I think it's Linblad and National Geographic and then you know we investigated all the sea life and the animal life which are, you know, very distinct from what's found elsewhere, and that was great, but it was mostly just painting out, with a whole bunch of people that were interesting to talk to. So that's only the first time and that was a long time ago. And then we just do Create the setting here. The context, again, as a result of being a guest of Richard Rossi, has a mastermind group which is called Da Vinci 50, and Babs and I took us two or three years to get our schedule right so that we could Guarantee our attendance at all the different meetings, but the very first one, this was in New Orleans. This was last January. I met a doctor, babs. I met a doctor there from Buenos Aires by the name of Gustavo Mabilia, and, and he told a story about what he's doing with stem cells and these are your own stem cells, white blood cells and fat cells that if you collect them and then send them. It's not an entirely easy process to get them to Argentina, but we got them there and he would then convert them into the stelle, the stem cells that you're having problem with your and your body and I have an orthopedic injury in 1975. I tore my cartilage in the left knee and in those days they would Take out the torn cartilage. They wouldn't do that today, but that's you know, that was the best that was going 48 years ago. And he said oh, we can regrow your cartilage. She said we can the part that was snipped out. We can regrow that cartilage and I said that's cool. That's cool. Yeah, I was convinced that Babs has a chronically inflamed right toe that really impedes a lot of her walking or exercise and it's inflamed bones. So I didn't know that bones got inflamed. It shows up on MRIs when you do an MRI. So long story short, through dr Hasi, who's our main Medical guide and explorer for us in Nashville, tennessee. He's got a clinic there called Maxwell Clinic. He did all the, you know the coordination before us to. You know, make sure that our stem cells were there, make sure that the they turn it into a magic potion I don't know too much more about it and he arranged with for our trip down. So we went. This is so. Yesterday was Saturday, we're talking on Sundays, it was two. Two Saturdays ago we took an overnight flight to Buenos Aires, where it's now springtime because they're in the other hemisphere. Yeah, it's more complicated than I'm telling you, but that's the upshot of it for the week and and so, as far as the you know, the brain cells and the vascular cells, the only thing I can say and I have to be, I think I have to be cautious here, but because I have, like a lot of entrepreneurs do, I have the ability to create my own placebo's. Dean: Right. Dan: Yeah, okay so all. I can say I've come back after the trip and we had. We came back after seven days and and this week I have felt more energized and more confident. Dean: Then I can remember recently sounds like quite an adventure and the upside yeah, gonna be. The upside is gonna be a total new development of cartilage in your knee specifically. Second, what's the Hope for it Like? Are you gonna have the knees of a preteen Swedish boy, or are you gonna Just have the normal knees of 79? Dan: well, basically yeah, I'll basically have the, basically the knee I had before the injury. Okay so that's 48 years, so six months, and the orthopedic is pretty easy for them. I mean, they're doing some advanced work and other parts of the body, but the cartilage is, you know, it's pretty, it's not a complicated thing, right? But what happens is they take my blood cells and my fat cells and they turn, essentially turn it into new cartilage cells and that's. You know, that's what stem cells are that? How? Dean: does it gather. Dan: Yeah, well it's. This was all done in Nashville and. So, what they do is they? You know it's, it's basically a centrifuge and you have an IV in both arms and the blood that gets taken out and it's, and they take the white blood cells out and then you know it's simultaneously they're taking blood out now return it to your body, but they're taking the white blood cells, which is far prior less of your blood than your red blood cells. Okay, actually it was like a two hour, two hour session and it was like a cup full. You know, after a big cup, a big mug full, and so that's the white blood cells and then the fat cells. You go to a plastic surgeon Because they're used to taking you know it's part of plastic surgery of taking out fat cells and so and you get enough they're, they're told how much of each are required for them to basically do a year's worth of. You know we're going to go down probably four times during the next 12 months, starting with the first trip two weeks ago. And they'll have enough just from that one extraction, extraction of both, they'll have enough. So next time I go down I broke both my Achilles tendons in the 1970s. That was a bad decade. That my in 1970s were just a really bad decade anyway. So anyway, and the Structurally, I mean they're shortened because of the surgery, the tendons, are shorter, but they've developed calcification. Oh yeah which reduces flexibility, and it's got pain attached to it. So next time they'll Take my same fat cells and white blood cells and they'll turn it into something that gets rid of all the Calcification and my and my tendons. Yeah, so, and that will give me more push-off, it'll give me more flexibility to go along with the new cartilage. So I think probably, you know, probably I'll be gaining back about 30 or 40 years of Running ability out of my legs, you know. Dean: I always Run for his money yeah. Dan: Well, yeah, I just want to run again. I enjoy running and I haven't been and it's been too painful to do for the last 10 years. And then the whole thing is the overall, the Direct injection. You're just going after a particular issue, but the IV, the, it goes into your brain and it looks for anywhere where your brain cells Are not performing correctly and it wakes them up. So the stem cells don't cure anything, they just wake up the natural cells that are there and they start growing again. And the same thing with the Vax vascular system. That's your, but I. I would say that Knowing that now I have the means to repair anything in my body as soon as it's identified as a problem is Very confidence. Dean: It's very confidence building you know it's very and. Dan: I was noticing that I had sort of blot into Sort of why I know I'm wearing down and I know that there's an end to it at some point, but I hadn't realized how much that was until I got the other thought that, no, almost anything that's going wrong with you you can repair now and you can rejuvenate it, and so that's a. That's a huge confidence builder. Dean: Yeah, and it's really I mean perfectly timely, right as you're entering into, you know, in my ninth decade. Yeah, exactly entering into your ninth decade with the goal of it being the best decade ever which I love that framework, by the way and at a time when normally it would be, you know, physical deterioration happening, you're like physical rejuvenation. Dan: You're going backwards on that thing, yeah, I mean yeah, you know the there's so many factors that are involved in aging, and some of it is just the fact that your cells only reproduce 50 times. Okay, there's a thing which is called the Haflick barrier. This is a I don't know quite what kind of scientists he was, but he found that every cell in the body and there's 20, I think, 26,000 different types of cells in the body, some number like that they all reproduce only 50 times, as far as they can tell, but they don't do it equally. They don't, they don't. They're not doing it at the same time. Heart muscles might be faster, other cells are slower, but it sort of reaches the limit of everything by the time you're 120. We only have one person on record where there's actual valid records of birth who has lived 120. She also lived, she also. She got to 122. She died. A French woman who died about 10 years ago. Dean: And that's the only person that. Dan: I mean, there's all these claims, you know, you know around the world, the people who lived at 200 and 300 and everything else, but they don't have any valid records which actually established that. So anyway, but but most people don't get to 120. Dean: Right, exactly. Dan: Yeah, I mean, even if you only got to 120,. I said, even if you only got to 120,. I said well yeah, I mean, if you're an entrepreneur and you're at top of your game at 60, and you're saying, no, I guess I have to retire pretty soon. Well, the decision to retire is sort of telling your body it doesn't matter how long the body lasts now I mean, it can go really quickly. But if I know I'll be 18 next May and if I know that I can stay in top form for another 25 or 30 years at the top of my game right now, then that's a big deal. Dean: Yeah, I look at, I saw me. You know, bob Barker died earlier this year at 99. And the thing that was going around with that, he got to as close to 100 as he could without going over the big showcase showdown. Kind of close to 100. Dan: But you know George Burns, the comedian, very famous mid-century 20th century, you know, 40s through the 80s or 90s. He had a goal that he was going to do a full show at the Palladium in London, big Venue in London, england, and he did it. And then and I always gave him as an example because he was performing full time in his 90s and then- did an actual 100th birthday. And then he was in a shower about four weeks later, he slept, broke his hip and he died two weeks later. And I said, George, you didn't understand what you did. You should have set another date for when you were 110. Exactly. Dean: Isn't that amazing, I wonder? Yeah, I mean, that's kind of a. You've been programming yourself for 156 for as long as I've known you Since 1987, you know since 19, 36 years right now, yeah. Yeah. So that's kind of you know. You're just approaching or just at the halfway mark there ramping up, gaining speed, gaining momentum. Dan: Well, people say do you really think you're going to live to 156? And I said I know I won't if I don't have it as a goal. Amen. Dean: Well. Danny just setting yourself up for disappointment. Dan: Well not me everybody who ends up with my messes after I'm gone. You know when I'm gone. What do I care? Dean: Exactly, that's the point. I love that. Dan: I love, I laugh. Dean: I tell people that all the time, when you said the just for you, it's just going to be live, live, that's better. There, you go, you're not going to experience the disappointment. Dan: There's a great French philosopher from the 1600s named Blaise Pascal. Dean: And there's a blaze. Dan: There's a Pascal wager. And he says you know, when you think about it, all of us regarding if there's anything after this life, it's a guess. You know it's a guess and it's a bet and he says but let's just take a look at the two bets. There's nothing after you die. Okay. Dean: Okay well that's cool. Dan: The other one is there's a whole other world after I die. And he says it's not so much which makes the best sense after you die. It's what bet makes the sense right now? Because if you think that there is a whole world afterwards and it turns out there's nothing, well you really haven't lost anything, because you know there's nothing, but what? If you believe your whole life there isn't anything after death, and then you find out that there and they said you know, and you said geez, if only I had. Oh my God, if I had known this and he's believing there's a afterlife is a much better bet, psychologically and emotionally, for right now. Yeah, yeah so I'm kind of a. I'm a kind of a Pascal wager kind of guy. Mm, hmm, that, I mean, is so back then everybody you know lived a life that took the natural course. You know I mean living to 60 and 70 in those days was kind of an achievement, with all the different ways you could die back then disease and you know and violence unless you were, unless you were, matthew's a lot. Yeah, yeah, but birth records. Dean: No documentation. Dan: I'm sorry, Matthew's a lot. I'm sorry, but where's your come on? Where's your papers? That's everybody. Dean: Every time I think about muscle, I think about our Aubrey, aubrey de Grey. Yeah and the Missusola prize. Have you heard any updates on that? I've kind of lost the past. No, I saw video. Dan: I saw a video of him talking and I got a feeling that that Living living two or three times more than natural, but not being happy right now is probably Not a good bet, because I didn't get the sense that he was a happy. I didn't get the sense that he was a happy person, you know. So I mean you never know, I mean people who never saw aren't necessarily unhappy, and people who smile all the time aren't necessarily happy, you know. Dean: I mean happiness. Dan: Yeah, an internal disc, it's an internal disposition, yeah. But anyway, you know I'm just reporting back. I'm sort of a bit of a trailblazer in relationship to this stuff, but I'm only. I will tell you, dean, I was thinking about this when I was in Buenos Aires that if I didn't have that goal of living to 156, I wouldn't be doing this stuff right now. Dean: Yeah, that's true, right, you're already in traditionally if you speak about like. I'm beyond refund right now. You know, I mean, you're out of warranty. Right now You're an extra innings Actuarial tables. You're an actual outlier. Dan: Yeah, but I'm really a profit center for the insurance companies. It's just been me paying them, just been me paying them up until now. I love it. Dean: Dan is so great. I think this is like that's one of the great things of you know being alive at this time in particular, just all the access to these things. That's only gonna get better, as we understand. I remember when I went to the first, the first abundance 360 and Richard Rossi's friend, gary Kaplan, was there with us. I think you've met Dr Kaplan. Dan: Oh no, Gary. Yeah, Gary, you know, I see him every, I see him at every defense. She 50 maybe. Dean: You know, he's a great guy Okay yeah. Yeah, I really went to the go out there. Dan: I went to the go out because silence with Gary, so we had a lot of time to talk. Dean: So I've known him for a long time, you know, well, I remember when this was. This had to be Almost 10 years ago, right 9, 9 years ago. Anyway, the first abundance 360, not the very first one, the first one in LA Beverly Hills Hotel there, and you know I'm sitting with him and he was Saying you know, when you look at all the medical advancements that are coming right now, this is back then you said it's gonna. It's gonna seem like we've been Throwing rocks at people to get them healthy, you know, compared to what's actually coming. I mean, yeah, we would describe what you know regenerative, and that's a good word. That's kind of become, you know, newly minted. Regenerative medicine is All the things from the on a cellular level regenerative Regeneration, replacement. You know we're pretty much going to be able to replace everything Before we repair it or repair it. Yeah, replace repair, regenerate right. Dan: And that's pretty cool. So, yeah, I like well, I think, the hmm, I got involved with Peter Diamandas in I'm just trying to think. There was December of 2011, the first before a 360 meeting. We didn't have a name for it, but this was in Silicon Valley and and one of the things that sort of connected Peter and Peter and me Was really the fact that we both had this commitment to living way beyond normal age, you know. But I had a thinking process, you know. Of course it's the first hour of strategic coach, which is the lifetime extender. And he came in at that time and I said you know it's not a goal you can achieve unless you can normalize it as a normal thought. I said you know our brain, and Our brain really resists abnormal thoughts. We, it has to be normal. So I set myself the goal in 1987 that every time I thought of my lifetime I would just think 156, you know, you know, at that time, life expectancy for males you know of my background and you know the thing was 78, so 156 is twice and so it took me about three years before it was just a normal thought. So whenever I you know I'm pushing 80 now and you know, and I said, well, what's my lifetime, I said 156. So at 80. That makes me very ambitious because I know I've got in my own mind, I've got, a way you know, enormous amounts of time left, really twice a lifetime 76 years. Yeah, yeah, I got 76, 76 years to get things done, so it makes me Totally confident about starting new, big, new big things. And I mean your whole life is either happy or unhappy. Unhappy based on the kinds of conversations you're having with yourself. I agree. Dean: I agree a hundred percent. I mean, you realize, I was realizing, I've been thinking a lot about this. You know, this straddling of the mainland and the cloud land via, and those thoughts then brought me into the actual game, which is game land is where at all happened and I realized that how much of you know Dean landia is affected by the inputs and circumstances and the Context and relationships and conversations and environments that you voluntarily Put yourself in, you know, surrounding yourself with the environment that's going to shanty people yeah, people, I mean. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And. Dan: I just had a thought, and that was triggered by your Dean Landia, that I only have direct access to one human being on the planet. You know, and same goes for you, and a lot of people spend their life. A lot of people spend their life trying not to be, not to deal with the one person they have direct access to you know they're hoping they're going to be saved from the proof that they hope something else will save them from the person that they're actually inside of, and you know so. so my, my whole point is why don't you just take ownership for the, the relationship that you have just with this one person, and you know there's new dimension, there's new dimensions presenting themselves all the time. And and the other insight I had and that comes from our conversations, because we're we've got a very similar approach to life on a lot of different fronts and I was thinking, you know, I've been trying to control my brain up until I think, about two years ago. I was going to control my brain and, you know, make sure my brain was focused on this and that. And I said why don't we change the relationship here and take for granted that you want, I have no control over my brain. And the other thing is why don't we just see where it goes every day? Because it's totally unpredictable. I spent one day and just sort of locked in where my brain was going that day and there was absolutely no predictability to what's forever. And I said, okay, why don't we just I'm just going to do it deal with my brain wherever it goes? During that day I wanted to do three useful things for my plans. You can go anywhere you want, but by the end of the day, I want progress on this, I want progress on that, I want progress on that, okay just have fun, you know, do whatever you want, but by the end of the day, if you and I are going to sleep happily tonight, you know, I got to see progress on these three things. Dean: Oh, my goodness, Dan, that's so funny. You know, it's like I've been having these exact conversations with myself here. It's like taking over the management. You know, it's all in that vein of you know, imagine if you applied yourself your FELF, these things of taking over the management, you just you hit it on the head that I only have direct control over one human on the planet and that's me. And I thought about entering and I realized that my brain, my desires, my ambition, my you know vision, the visionary in my brain here is not necessarily the one in control of the, the doing part of my brain, the labor management versus labor right. And so I was thinking about I heard one time that there's a form of contract where a you know production will enter into a contract with an actor or a celebrity, that with their company on an SSO contract which is for services of. So it would be enter, as I thought it's kind of like entering into a contract with my brain here for services of being Jackson and thinking what you just said is like those. If I could just like allocate time and attention to you know I've I've thought a lot about your thing of three, three things a day. How much I'd love to hear from you how, on a buffer day when you are I don't know how you define whether buffer day or focus you've got workshop focus days where those are like the Bob's fled run kind of thing. That you know what's happening on a workshop day. You get up and I'm sure your car arrives at a certain time and you get taken to the workshop and everything is for my computer, or my computer does, because some of them are virtual. Yes, exactly Okay. And then but on the days where I never struggle with those, I realized that everything that I do get done has that external exoskeleton or that scaffolding to make sure that gets done. If you're just in the right, all you have to do is, you know, get in the car and the rest of it is taking place, or open up the computer and sit down and you're. You know you're able to focus and deliver the workshops. But I'm curious about your free range time, where I think I may have, like I crave and do a lot to carve out big blocks of uninterrupted time, only to end up having nothing to show for it. Because, I don't get myself to sit down and do the things that I've carved out all this time to do. I'm curious how, what your experience is on getting Dan to do stuff that requires his own batteries, I guess I'd love to hear your experience. Dan: Here again, I think we're very similar and I think that's why our podcasts are so enjoyable, because to a certain extent, neither of us wants it to end when we get going. But I have one of our models in the strategic coach is a theater model which is front stage, back stage, and front stage is really, whether you have a viable company or not, it's your front stage your profitable front stage impact is what determines whether you're getting paid to take care of everything else, and I don't have to be motivated for a front stage impact. You know, and workshops is an example, podcasts is another example, creating new thinking tools is another example, and writing books is another example, or videos or audios. So these are all front stage. In other words, if I can get this done, then it has a multiplier impact out in the world on other people, and that either me directly interacting with the world, or our coaches or our team members interacting with the world, and that ends up in profitability. Okay, so those are my focus days, but some of the days that are not focused days, I have to be preparing for those days. Okay, but anytime. I think of front stage impact preferably. I don't need to be motivated to do that, I love doing that. Dean: Okay. Dan: And that's my usefulness to myself, that's my usefulness to everybody I engage with. But just going back to my decision over the last two years of just letting my mind wander, when I'm not directly engaged in front stage impact activities, my brain can do anything at once. It can go anywhere and so I don't really care. Before I used to care. I'm not making use of my front stage, my back time, I'm not making it. I said leave it alone, just let it go where it wants to go, let it run, let it go out and frolic, let it explore and everything else they really run. So I mean, it took me till practically age 78 to come to this agreement with my brain, and so I'm either in hyper focus, actually doing the things that make money and spread the reputation and do all sorts of good things, or it's free reign. I really don't care. Dean: And to me what it does. Dan: It frees me up from the tyranny of time and effort. That you're absolutely maximizing the use of your time. I said I don't care about my time and I don't care about my effort, as long as I make a front stage a profitable front stage impact. If it takes me an hour to do that, and it's an hour if it takes me a full day workshop, then it's a full day workshop, but I don't really care about the time and the effort, I just really care about the impact. And then backstage. I just say brain, go and do whatever you want to do, think about anything you want to think about, and I couldn't care less. You don't have to justify your existence. My brain doesn't have to justify its existence when it's not on stage. Dean: That's very interesting when you're creating a new tool. For instance, you introduced a tool on Friday for our pre-melt connection. Call yeah, your melt tool, and what's happening? How does that come about? What's your process? Dan: for that. Dean: That's one of the key outputs that you're providing is new IP and thinking tools for the thing, so how does that come about? If your mind goes, you mentioned you've read Peter Zion's book seven times now. Dan: Yeah, the end of the world is just the beginning. I think it's the most important book in the world. I'm reading and I read it seven times. So it's Peter Zion. Dean: Z-E-I-H-A-N. Dan: And the book is called. Dean: The. Dan: End of the World is Just Beginning and he's written. This is the fourth book that he's written since 2014, where he's just predicting that everything we were expecting to happen 10 years ago ain't going to happen that way, and a whole new world is going to happen. Dean: And he's got very plausible readings. Dan: I'm not going to explain the book here but it has a profound impact on me. But it seemed to me that he was operating at a macro geopolitical level and I said well, is there a simple sort of set of gauges, if you will underneath, that determines in any place at any time whether things are moving forward or they're stagnating or they're falling behind? And I came up, it just sort of fell out of. He doesn't talk about this directly, but after I'd read it a whole number of times, it just struck me that it was the cost of four things that determine this, and one of them was the cost of money. How much is it cost you to get money? And that comes in two forms how much is it cost you to get a loan and how much is it cost you to get an investment? Those are the two main, the financial vehicles that underlay growth. And then your profitability is the third one. Are you keeping a lot of what you're making? Dean: That's savings. Dan: And then the cost of energy and all of its different forms and the cost of labor getting really top notch. You have access to other people's skills, and how much is it cost you to do that? And then the cost of transportation, because we live in a physical world and to move a pound costs money including your own pounds and that costs energy and I just started playing with this. I know we did. I was mentioned on a previous one of our podcasts Mike Kenix, we did it on that and everybody I talked about it. It had a simplifying effect on their thinking. I said this is a good tool. That's all I do If you come up with an acronym and it's. M-e-l-t. And I said I think we're going into a great meltdown next 30 years where everything of those four factors is going to cost more, and you can see it. Yeah, I mean you can see it. All you have to do is read the news every day. Most of this is going up, energy is costing more, labor is costing more and transportation is costing more. And I said so. You know, I think it's a neat way. So what I did is I just introduced a tool to the free zone entrepreneurs, just two days ago, when you were there and I said if this is true, let's just suppose that it's true, that these costs are going to go up for everyone else and what's your biggest advantage and opportunity over the next 30 years? And that's just. That would be a thinking tool, and it has two qualities it's a sudden new thought, it provokes your interest, but it brings your right back to what you, as an entrepreneur, can take advantage of. So those are my criteria for a new thinking tool for a strategic coach. It took me from the time the thought occurred me to Friday, because that's the first time I did it. It took me six months of playing around with the idea, checking with other people you know conversation and then just looking at the news and saying, is the news going in the direction of the theory? You know? Dean: Yeah, and then. So when you like to get it to that tool, state that's part of your when you're letting your mind wander. It's so funny, dan, I've been talking about this idea of the self-milking cow, the idea of embracing your bovinity and realizing that you're the one that can create the milk. And if you set up an environment like I've moved towards, is that we basically have things divided into three divisions. I call it the pastures, which is me out roaming the pastures, you know, exploring and being a happy cow. And then we have got a milking shed and the milking shed is set up for me to come in and be, milked, essentially to turn my thoughts, free range thoughts, into, you know, into digital milk, meaning that we're recording something about my you know I'm doing it either through a podcast or through a Zoom or interview or whatever we've got with my team. And then we have the processing plant, where they take the digital milk and they process it into podcast, courses, tools, anything like that. So I'm curious, like it sounds like one of your pasture roaming activities is reading things like the like Peter Zion's book and your six you know your of daily input from real clear politics and the Wall Street Journal and All the things that you do. You put those all in and then ruminate on them and and then outcomes the things. When you're turning it into a tool, though, are you consciously like? Are you starting with, like illustration, journaling, doodling? What's your, what's your kind of creation process for? Dan: yeah, I do, because our tools come in in One page written. There's boxes and the box. You know the number of boxes, the kind of boxes you have so with with the melt tool. All I did was have it's called your great meltdown and your great meltdown DOS. Okay, so DOS is a previous tool that we have in coach is that and any human activity. There people are responding to dangers that they're fearing loss of some sort. The other thing is opportunities, where they're excited about the possible gain of something. Dean: And then their strength. Dan: These are the things that they already have going for them. And I said I think all human beings, every day, operate within a unique DOS framework of things that are fearful about, things are excited about and things that they're confident about. So what I did is I did a matrix and matrixes are cool, so the cool way of structuring where you have MLT, money, energy, labor, t and then I had four arrows going up for, I think, cost, and then down the side I had danger, opportunity, strength. And then I said to the entrepreneurs, because they're familiar with the DOS, everybody At the level that you're at in coach, the free zone. This is an old tool. This is, you know, 20 years old and some of you have been there 20 years and I said so from your standpoint that all of your clients and potential clients, customers, are going to have the danger of rising melt costs. What's your opportunity in this? Okay. So what's there the opportunity with dangers? What's the opportunity? Yeah. What's your opportunity with other people's opportunities? And what's your Opportunity with other people's strengths? And then you go through it and there's another exercise which I won't go into right here, and you come back and then you just have a general conversation, you have breakout sessions and conversation, and the room goes crazy, you know, and because everybody's done thinking about their thinking, they've talked about their thinking, and they come back and they hear everybody else's thinking and that's what produces the workshop. But the thing that triggers all this motion is that I have deadlines to create new things. Dean: Yes, I got it and that's really how it all comes out and that's, I think, do you have a sense of what your, how much of your time? Is that free range versus you know the structured workshops? And so I guess it's getting left, or more and more Free range. Dan: Well, I would say even on my most intense front stage days. Still, the majority of the day is free range and then when I don't have that type of thing. It's all free range, yeah, but it's not a. Yeah, without a commitment to someone else to deliver something, giving myself deadlines is worthless. Yeah, me too. Dean: I've discovered that about me giving myself a backstage free range deadline. Dan: Well, first of all, I think free range and deadline is a contradiction in terms. Right. Dean: Yeah, this is what I like about the, you know is doing a workshop or scheduling a milking session. Is I know that if I've got a milking session Scheduled, like I've been going to the studio? Yeah you know, on Thursday morning, 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock, and I know that you know I'm prepared for For being milked at that at those times, you know. So I'm either, yeah, doing something myself. Some of the best things that I've done have been just preparing myself to record a State of the Union or a new, you know, record myself as a thought. I do find those a little more that I have to. You know, if I have to have that time set aside, right, that's how I've been. How I did the convert more leads book was I Could free range, I get my thoughts together for this section of the book and then I go and talk that out. So it gives me that structure. One thing that I have realized and that's been very helpful is this idea that Reality you know, the mainland, the real world here, applying yourself, moves at the speed of reality, which is 60 minutes per hour. And, yeah, if I'm going to embark on a project that's going to take 20 hours, that there's no possible way to allocate or Put in those 20 hours without actually putting in the 20 hours and that I can't do it. All at once. So the only thing I've got an infinite. I've got an infinite Opportunity list of all of the things that I could possibly do, but what I've been experimenting with that's very helpful is Just loading in my next 10 hours. What if I? What can I do in the next 10? 50 minute focus sessions that I have? you know that's really that narrow. That helps me prioritize and make a decision, which is the first step of you know my acronym of playing golf a goal, optimal environment, limited distractions, six time frames. So a goal is the decision of what am I going to do at Tuesday from 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock I've got two potential hours that I can allocate there and what am I going to do in those times. You know, that's really been a big help. Dan: Yeah, yeah and. I, you know and I've got a reputation that goes back, certainly the full extent of the Coach program, which goes back. I mean we'll be 35 years Next November. We're in our 35th year of the coach program. Dan always delivers. Yeah, and I have a Absolute commitment to never in any way undermining that reputation. So whatever it takes, dan always delivers, okay me too. And you know if you handle that, whatever it takes to deliver, you know life gets real, simple. Dean: Yeah even though it's sometimes. You've seen that illustration of the you know assignment made, accepted, deadline here the timeline, and then the little five percent at the very end and the 95% all allocated is goofing off. And then five percent, all the work done, while crying. Dan: No matter what. Dean: Yeah, well done, you know, yeah, yeah yeah, because your, your entire reputation is just in terms of commitment, is that you've made to other people? Yeah, and I think, though, our ability to our ability to always deliver, I think has really been, you know, honed because of our, the requirement of us always pulling a rabbit out of our hats growing up. Dan: I think yeah, even in any assignments or anything like that. Dean: We've gotten Really good at improv theater you know, yeah, I. Dan: Well, I think the other thing is if that's true, you always deliver then, what people can't see about that? Are you happy with the time you spend that other people can't see? And I would say that I'm up about 1,000 times over the last 30 years. I'm really happy with the free range time. I'm really happy with all the work backstage that I have to do. I used to be grueling. It was working nights, it was working weekends under severe pressure, and that's not true anymore, because I've got a sense of the framework of the project. I got the sense of the timing of the project. And I said you know and then you know, I've kind of worked out what the deal is with my brain. My brain always delivers at the end of the day. And I says, well, there's two of us that always deliver my brain. If I set my brain three things by the end of the day, have this self, I don't care what you do, You're not accountable for any of your time, but by the end of the day I want these three things delivered. And then I've got my commitments to deliver a front stage. So I've just worked out a two-way deal here. I love it. Dean: That's great. Well, Dan, I never yeah. Dan: I think we're kind of cosmic soulmates, you know, both the payoff and the problem. I think we're. Both of us have tried similar landscape in terms of coming to grips with ourselves. I agree. Yeah, I find these conversations infinitely interesting One takeaway that you got from today, and I'll tell you mine. Dean: So that's my big takeaway for today. It's given myself permission to just roam the pastures, to enjoy my free range, as long as I just hold up my end of the bargain right. That was a night. I got a lot out of that. Dan: Yeah, and I think that I do really interesting podcasts also with Shannon Waller which is called Inside Strategic Coach and people always want to know. Our clients especially want to know how we do, what we do backstage. And I'll just drop this as a topic for her, because I think this the greatest tension that entrepreneurs have is not front stage, but the greatest tension is backstage. Dean: Yeah, yeah, I agree, I agree. Well, I'm excited about next week. Yeah, I want to talk again even more conversation. I look forward to it. Thanks, steve, this is really great, thanks. Dan: Steve, okay, I'll talk to you next time.

In today's Welcome to Cloudlandia episode, Dan shares his experience with stem cell treatments, from his different injections to increased energy and improved brain function. Next, we explore the fascinating realm of intelligent money exemplified by Indify and how it empowers creators by potentially disrupting the music industry through musicians' futures. Lastly, we make a special announcement about our first Free Zone event in Toronto this June. Join us for insights on innovative concepts that can upgrade our lives.   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We delve into the world of stem cell treatments, starting with my personal experience and how it has improved my energy levels and brain function. We discuss the concept of intelligent money and how platforms like Indify are empowering creators and musicians, potentially disrupting the traditional music industry. We explore the concept of investing in people and emerging technologies, citing examples like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs. We reflect on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in content creation and the importance of discernment in information consumption. We discuss the concept of media polarization and share our personal experiences with the shift from newspapers to online news aggregators. We mention a play we saw about the Queen's relationship with various Prime Ministers, shedding light on an intriguing historical fact. We explore the topic of neutrality and bias in AI and discuss how it might impact our thinking processes. We announce our first Free Zone event happening in Toronto in June and share our past experiences in the city. We discuss the idea of digital detox and share our strategies for reducing screen time and the benefits we've experienced. We reflect on our experiments with AI in generating interesting facts and video scripts, emphasizing its potential as a multiplier for content creation. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia. Dan: Ah, you have a very resonant place to this morning. Dean: Well, you know what I did. I came in on the app today and so we'll see. And over the last week we had some intermittent disruption. So to try this this week. Maybe it's a different level of unpredictable variety. I called it unpredictable variety. That's right. We roll with it and yeah, and there we go, yeah. So everybody wants to know, dan, how is the $6 million man doing with his biomegies? Dan: here. Yeah, yeah, pretty good. So we're talking on a Sunday and just the past Thursday was two weeks, and you know I got a figure in the placebo factor here and I think I mentioned this last time that when you have a pain and you don't have any solution for it, you try to avoid the pain, and so you kind of? A you kind of a focus on it. You rearrange your posture and your body to avoid the pain. Dean: Yes. Dan: But since I had the stem cell injection, I came back and the pain didn't seem any different. But I was confident about it that I now had a pain that in, according to prediction, in six months I won't have the pain. And so I'm not avoiding the pain and I'm you know, I'm walking downstairs without holding out to the rail and just depending on my leg. But I will say in the last two or three, three days I've I have noticed an improvement so that I'm getting from. You know we have top to bottom we in some cases I'm going to flights, yes. And and yeah, so I told Dr Hasse, david Hasse, who's in the free zone with us, because he's the arranger for all this. Anything else I do, I go through his clinic, so he's the one who arranged everything in Buenos Aires. Yes, and I tell him. I said I'm I'm naturally a self-producer of placebo's. Dean: And I said I think it's part of my. Dan: I think it's part of my character. I had nice said actually isn't strategic coaches, and that was strategic coaches producing your own placebo's. Dean: So I love it yeah. Dan: Yeah, so anyway, all friends, but I will tell you this we had three different treatments. I did and Babs had a fourth one. So Babs had a big toe, inflamed bones and her big toe. And the pain is way, way down after two weeks. And both of us had vascular IVs, so this is where the stem cells are put you know, it's an IV, so it goes in over 40 minutes. Dean: It wasn't an injection. Right, right, right. Dan: But it's, these stem cells are geared just to your vascular system, so just you know the veins, as I said and so I feel quite a bit more energy, and again, I'm not discounting the placebo effect. And the third, the third thing that I did Babs did vascular two and I did brain cells. So these, what they do is that they put lymphocytes in on day one and then on day three they give you an IV for the, for your brain cells and the lymphocytes. I don't exactly understand what they are. Okay, I know they're neither Republican or Democrat. I do know that they're NDP, right? Exactly, yeah, I know that. I know they don't have a political characteristic about them, but what they do is they actually create pathways through what's called the blood brain barrier. Okay, and what I understand is that the brain is very protective of itself, so it doesn't allow any foreign thing to come in To the brain. But it'll accept lymphocytes and they're just little, they're kind of temporary pathways and they die after about a week or two. But what happens then is the stem cells that are geared to your brain can go through those pathways and and I'm doing a program called neuro potential, which is a bio feedback program, and I'm doing a neuro potential program and I did session 30, 29 and 30. I've been doing that for about a year and what it tests you on is when you're watching a movie and I picked a favorite movie which was foils for British detective homicide detective series Long time ago, 15 years ago, very intriguing, very good acting, and so I went Saturday morning to the hospital. And so I went Saturday ago and I did it. And usually what happens during the course of the session? You're watching the, you're watching the screen and then all of a sudden the screen will go black, the sound will go out, but the movie goes on and your brain notices this and it readjust itself so that the screen comes back and the sound comes back, and normally during a session it'll happen four or five times and there's nothing you can do. All you do is the brain just adjust itself and that adjustments are actually making improvements to how your brain operates. And I've been doing it and my EEG tests, which are a battery of screen tests that I do every quarter, indicate that my brain has improved quite a bit over the last year. But this session, the first time now I'm talking about a week ago, saturday not once during the entire movie did the screen black out and or the sound go out. And the first time it ever happened. And the technician they have technicians there who you know they will. They put your sensors on your brain and then they you know they're there all the time and she said I've never seen that before. She said I've never seen it, certainly haven't seen it with you, but she's, I've never seen it with anyone. And these people are these train. These people are trained not to be enthusiastic. Dean: And they're just there, related to your, to the stencils or yeah, well, it's the only thing that's changed. It's gotta be right. Dan: Yeah, it's gotta be, and she up the difficulty. So when I do it fairly easily, she'll up the difficulty and the and yesterday I went and it sound went out three times but the screen did not go black and and she said that's amazing because she said you're even stronger this week than you were last week and that was a real breakthrough week. So I think, that that's and this is the only thing where I have outside reference point. That's testing. So, yeah, so, but my energy has been real good from the overall. But I think the big thing is that I am now convinced this specifically from this stem cell thing that we're going through and also other things that I've been doing for the past year that now anything in the body, if it can be diagnosed, if there's something off, if something's not performing right, something's not working period or, worse than that, it's something wrong is happening. I now am convinced that if it can be diagnosed, it can be repaired and it can be regenerated. So that's yeah. Dean: And. Dan: I've been and I've been going on. I've been going on faith for the last 36 years in this regard that this would come. Dean: Yeah, I mean, you know, you look at, I heard Joe Rogan had well, he always has all kinds of interesting people, but he had Gary Brecca on. I don't know him? Dan: I don't know him. Dean: Yeah Well, he's kind of an interesting story, I don't know. I mean, you know like anything, when you hear him on you know he kind of breaks into the scene. He's the guy that kind of turned Dana White around. Dana's lost all kinds of weight and reversed his. Dan: Oh yeah, I know Dana White, he's the. Yeah, you see ultra fighting, yeah, that's exactly right, yeah, yeah, the US. Dean: And so he. This guy's background was as a I don't know what the right word for what he did, but it was some sort of for insurance companies. They would predict your lifespan. So it was like advanced what do they call that in insurance? Mortality rate, I'm guessing. Dan: Yeah, it's the actuary, the actuary, yeah, yeah, so actuarial. Dean: I guess would be kind of based on statistical groups kind of thing. And what they do is this is based on records, on your on measuring, like genetic markers and blood work, and they couldn't predict. He says within months of somebody's life expectancy, and very interesting, right. So Dana came in and he had, you know, very elevated triglycerides and you know certain other markers that were really kind of degenerative and he's 53 years old and his they marked his life expectancy at 63.6 or something like that. And it was really like an eye-opener for him to see that have that sort of you know, mortality check on what you're, what's going on in your body, and he basically says all these things are, you know, they're starting to give out years and years before they're actually the end of now. So it's not a mystery kind of thing, it's just that way. You know, and so he's, you know, done all the things that he recommended and he's already added, like you know, 12 years to his life expectancy already, and that it's kind of, I think, when you're right, that we're at a stage where we're started learning all the Repair models of things that, yeah, to be able to, to regenerate, I'm still amazed that even the fact that DNA exists like how do you even Tune into something like that, right, like how did somebody even Discover that's a thing, is just like beyond my imagination, you know it's, yeah well, electron microscopes with the yeah well, I mean with you know, the the actual day breakthrough. Dan: There's some great stories about that aren't really on point here, but we could go into them. But the point I'd like to bring. This is all cloud land. Yeah, this is all these are cloud land media capabilities that have come into existence, because the I was talking to Peter de Amonus about this and I said it's clearly a Lot of things that were predicted by a lot of people 10 years ago haven't happened. Okay they haven't happened to the degree that they're happening, but they're not to the degree. But I would say that the application of digital measurement to your body has has gone way beyond what anyone was predicting at the ability to, at the most minute level, to sell your level of actually Measuring and then having comparisons. You know comparisons because these are large model. These are large model. You know, when somebody says you are, you know a certain age, like if you take Dana White, and they said 53 and they his prediction was for 63. What they were doing was measuring against millions and millions of other tests that they yeah, I'm not other people that Used to take yours to put the facts together and now it takes minutes, yeah and he wasn't even possible years ago that I put those together. Yeah, no, I mean, my first doctor encounters were in the 1940s, so this is 80, not quite 80 years ago. And the best you could hope for back then was that the doctor had a good bedside manner. Dean: Well, three out of four doctors prefer Chesterfield's. A great Actually. Dan: And it was. It was actually seven out of those, seven out of eight. Who a doctor? Seven out of eight doctors who smoke prefer camo camos. No this is a great. This is a great ad campaign. I mean, we shouldn't be frivolous about this. It's really sold a lot of camos. I'll tell you. Dean: I wonder what those things like. If we look forward you know, fast forward, for the years from now. What are we going to look at? As you know, so Stupid and obvious back in you know that we haven't been paying attention to. Dan: No, yeah, you know, I always say that a depressed utopian, utopian who's depressed. Our people get depressed by the absence of things that haven't been invented yet. Yeah, exactly, geez, there's so much that has been. I'm missing all these things. I said what exactly? Are you missing? Well, I don't know, but I'm missing it, yeah. Dean: It's so funny, I just saw somebody in on Facebook, one of the there's a local Group called it. You know, if you grew up in Georgetown you remember, you may remember kind of group and it was pretty these things and somebody showed you know Georgetown the cable was. You know halting cable was becoming Available and they were offering, you know, service on on the nine channels for our listeners. Dan: Today we're not talking about George town in Washington DC right, we're talking about. Dean: We're talking about. Dan: George town, a lovely veil Norris. And is it more west than north? Dean: I'm trying to think it north and more what I know, the go train goes there. That's exactly right. It's the last outpost on the on the go train and that was the thing they were offering now service on channel two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 11 and 13, and I remember those days, like you know, 1970 Something when we got our first color television and I got the table you know that was. That was the thing. Wow, what a world yeah. But, but just back to the. Dan: You brought up a subject right at the beginning of our talk here DNA. It's actually been the merger of artificial intelligence and DNA that's producing all the amazing diagnostic tests. Because they can now do, then, what they do is they convert biological Signals to digital signals okay and now they can do ten thousand tests, either on something that exists In the time that it would takes to do one manual test ten years ago. So ten thousand to one, that's that qualifies as exponential in my world. Dean: I would say so. Yeah, I would say so. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'm banking on that. You know, and as you know from our conversations of a long time ago, that I was Babs and I were on this path in the 90s, you know, in the 1990s, so we're 30 years down the road now, but I knew you could tell. I mean, I read a lot. You know, the internet has been a great tool for me of Just letting my brain go wild on the internet and it finds this and kind of I find your brain Kind of finds what you were looking for, but you didn't know you were looking for it, that's the way I explain it. Dean: Do you find? Dan: that. Dean: I do. I had some experimenting this week, actually Based on our conversation last week that you know you mentioned. You kind of let your brain just go and do what it wants, but let's just I mean almost like with an agreement that let's just, at the end of the day, let's get these three things done, and I don't care what you do or when you do it, but let's just go ahead and let's get these three things. Dan: But I but. Dean: I got a. Dan: I got. I've been thinking about our conversation too and I said but it's finding it for some reason, and I think, using AI language here that somewhere in the past you gave your brain a prompt, just like you do with a chat GPT you gave it a prompt that. If you ever come across something like this, alert me to this. So my sense is that you've been programming your brain to look for certain things since the beginning. You've been prompting your brain to look for certain things. And all of a sudden it comes across something and you wake up and say, gee, that's neat, that's neat. Dean: I didn't know that. Dan: But somewhere in the past you gave some sort of prompts, I think, to tell your brain. If you ever see something like this, just let me know right away, because I'm interested in it. Dean: One of the things that I came across this week was in relation to our conversation about melt, about money, energy, labor and transportation all going in, rising cost of those, and I've been thinking about money, like access to money, and I'm seeing there's more and more versions of intelligent money coming, you know being the thing of empowering creators in a way, and I've looked at, I found out about a company called Indify which is taking a venture capital kind of approach to creators, musicians, particularly independent artists who are, you know, making music, and they're partnering with them for, you know, 50% ownership of whatever comes out of what they're they're producing and it's really, you know, they may not produce like, compared to the music label industry, the model where they would, you know, sign an artist and do a full album and all those things. Dan: These are really but those are already existing. That was already existing. Yeah, yeah, here they're here they're doing music and musician futures. Dean: Yes, that's exactly what it is and that's a really interesting model, like typically they're, you know, with a particular like a song, for instance, they may invest $30,000 to produce a single song and artists, but they're showing that the you know, the typical return on, even like they're not to be they're not talking about hits, but things that they showed investments of their typical investment of $30,000 has returned $110,000 so far per one of those that they've done. Yeah, and they started in 2020, you know, so over that period of time, they've kind of tripled their investments and I thought, partner, you know that, that level of you know in the entrepreneurial world I don't know whether that's that you know the rising cost or you know the that, the diminishing supply of capital. I don't know whether there's different rules for Plotlandia and creative things as opposed to. You know large scale, physical capital. You know capital, physical world. Dan: Yeah, my sense of that is that the smart investors whether it's in the mainland or whether it's in Plotlandia are the same person. They're the same, and my feeling is that the smartest investors invest on people. They don't invest on things. They don't really invest on things, and so my sense is that the example you just gave this person has proven in the past that they're actually creative. Dean: And they always seem to be coming up. Dan: they always seem to be coming up with new things, and some of them have monetized and some of them haven't monetized. So that's the guess. And that's the bet you know. In other words, I'm guessing that you're going to. You already come up with something in the past that turned out to be money making. Dean: And. Dan: I'm betting I'm just going to bet on you as a creator, that you're going to come up with some good stuff that properly captured, properly packaged and properly distributed is going to be money making. Dean: Would you say I agree. I mean, do you think you're kind of heading back to the patron days? Oh yeah. Yeah in a way, yeah, yeah. Dan: Oh, totally, totally. I mean entrepreneurs are you and I and all the folks that we hang out with are we're self patrons? Dean: Yes. Dan: The difference between an entrepreneur and non entrepreneurs and individual who's betting on himself as the future. Well, you did that a long time ago and you know, and I did it a long time ago, and so that's why I'm not taken by things. You know, I'm not really taken by things. You know, betting on things like I've talked about a product or a tech. I'm not betting on that I'm betting on the thing possibly being a tool that some really smart human is going to maximize going to. You know it's going to do something. And I was thinking about that with Elon Musk, because there's no reason for his valuations related to Tesla. You know, if you took the normal valuations of a car company, the number of cars you got, the distribution system, you got his the Tesla doesn't make sense. The valuation that he has for Tesla makes no sense whatsoever. By right, historic automobile standards, right, and somebody was saying that they you know this is, you know this is, you know this is a scam. I said you're missing the point here. They're not betting on the Tesla car. They're betting on Elon Musk coming up with always new things. Dean: That is true, and he, yeah, he's, yeah, he's come up with quite a few. Dan: Yeah, and I think Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was on that track, but he died he, you know he died, I mean because, really, if you take a look at Apple's extraordinary, it's stuff that all goes back to Steve Jobs. Dean: Yes. Dan: And, and I mean not a big thing since, not a really big thing since 2008. Dean: Right, since the iPhone, right. I mean, that's really the iPhone yeah. Yeah, that decade of, you know, 90 2008,. That's really that's where everything happened. I think was. I think about it. Yeah, we talked about it in our analysis of the last 28 years. That none of it. You know Apple was close to bankruptcy, that they were in trouble 28 years ago he had to borrow from Bill Gates. Yeah, exactly, and that's you know, that's kind of. Dan: That's pretty amazing right. Dean: When you think about everything that's turned around since then, and thinking about even Jeff Bezos, who you know, who knew. Dan: Yeah, yeah, and you know, and so so the the thing about betting, but I always bet on people. You know, my whole approach is that this is a person you know who proven track record and part of it is that they not do what they're doing. You know, one of my views is that I look at somebody who cannot do the thing that seems to be most valuable, and and so I don't have to worry what they're doing when I don't see them. Dean: Right, what's he? Dan: doing? What's? What's he doing today? I know exactly what he's doing today. He's doing what I bet on. Dean: He's doing what I bet on him doing, you know and you know. Dan: So it's a very interesting thing. So, but I think I was going back because we had this conversation. I said, you know, if I go back because I've really been an entrepreneur since really the beginning of the microchip age in the 70s. They started using the word microchip, I think early 70s, but I read about it in 73 and I started my company in 74 1974. So 50 years next year. Dean: And. Dan: I would say that the microchip itself is one of the real breakthroughs. And then the ability for there to be such thing as a personal computer, which came up within the first 10 years of the microchip and then graphic user interface, which made the personal computer available to everybody, okay. And then the internet, probably software somewhere in there, the whole notion of software, that it didn't have to be hardware. Usefulness of the computer did not have to be hardware, it could just be a program. And then I would say the internet, and then the iPhone, and now artificial intelligence. Dean: Yeah, artificial intelligence that, I think what's happening there is. Nobody could really have predicted. I mean maybe people who knew were predicting, but I don't think people really had a sense of what was really possible with this until now, and I think as a species right now, we're clueless about where this is going. Dan: I said you know. I said you can say anything you want about where it's going and probably you'll be right, but there's going to be a million other things happening to that. Nobody could have predicted. Dean: Yeah, I mean it's really. Dan: I mean where are you crossing into this world? I mean, what are you do? We have three or four projects. Dean: We have three or four projects going that I'm involved in the company and so where are you? Dan: I'm at the experiment when are you experimenting? Dean: Yeah, I'm experimenting in the personal side, like my personal experience with it. We're not using it as it's not integrated in any way into my company that you're you know our stuff yet, but I can see that it could be. I mean, I looked at, you know, one of the things that we do we have a subscription for. We have two different versions one for realtors, one for financial advisors of a postcard newsletter called the world's most interesting postcard, and it's essentially a carrier for referral programming that you as a realtor or a financial advisor would send to your top 150 relationships so that you are programming them to notice conversations about real estate, to think about you and to introduce you to the person that they had the conversation with. And it's been, you know, a phenomenal game changer for the amount of referrals that people get, measured as a, you know, return on relationship, the percentage of repeated referral business you get from your top 150 relationships. And so I had four years we've been doing it for 12 years now a monthly postcard where we have someone research and put together there might be 16, you know just short, interesting facts that you put on the front of the postcard and it's got a nice design and so it's easy to read. It's kind of just like you know interesting things and the. I started thinking about, well, if I did what, if I did one specifically for for financial advisors, that all the facts and stuff are money related. And I just asked chat GPT one day. I said can you write to you know 10 short interesting facts about the history of money? And it started writing the things. And then I asked it to you know, make it a little more interesting things. And it, you know, put it on. That said you can be 20 more. And it was like boom, all interesting. Dan: Yeah, absolutely. I said yeah, and you're, you're, you're designing, though, as you go along, there's probably an interactive thing going on between yeah, right, I'm just directing, you know, there's two. Ai's AI breakthroughs consist of two AI's. You know the first AI is artificial intelligence. The second one's called the actual intelligence. Dean: Yeah, exactly so. Dan: I'm bringing the actual intelligence. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I said it was so funny, Dan, because I said to it well, these are great. How many do you think you could? Well, I can make an infinite number of these. How many would you like? And it was just so funny that I ended up with like 50 of these you know, and just instantly done and I thought you know that's a really interesting thing. Again, those are, you know it's content related. I came, I had this idea of you know I think there are 400 and something cognitive biases that are, and I just started. Dan: How many of you mastered it Right, exactly, and you know it's an interesting thing. Dean: I said can you make a three minute video script describing confirmation bias, the facts about what it is and how it might be, how it might be deployed or come into play and how to defend against it? And it wrote this amazing, like just you know, intro this, then scene of this and then this, and narrator says that there's the script, you know, and it was just. I mean, when you look at the putting together of the different things, I saw this I saw someone do a demonstration of you know, having it write some. It was writing ads, video ads for something, and it they had gone to one of the gone to 11 labs. I think is a place where you train your voice. So it's got your voice. And then it went to another place that had your digital, you know avatar, you know from video of you, and Then it combined this AI written script with your voice through your face on your avatar on video and it's instantly translated into any Language where your mouth moves and your mouth is saying the words in Japanese or German or French or whatever, and I just Just such a like you can see. That's a you know, the distribution of Content like that, you know, is amazing. But then it's still so that's everything I've seen has been content related, you know, kind of yeah, creation and as a multiplier for content creation. But then the bigger you know we've had the conversation that, the bigger you know. Picture of that is that our brains we still can't consume At any more than the speed of reality, which is 60 minutes per hour right, it takes us. Dan: Yeah, and the other thing is that we can only think about one thing at a time, you know. I mean, we can't think two things at the same time. Humans just can't do this, and you know, and as you say, it's reality, world, time-based. Yeah, you know, and really the successful people have learned firsthand just what can get begin gotten done in an hour a day, and and then also it's developed a sense of discernment about just what's worth Having your mind on for an hour for a whole day and you know, and that you know, and I've dropped, I'm noticing I'm shedding all sorts of things as I Approach 80. Just I dropped televisions. I'm in my sixth year now dropping television and and people say, but you're a big sports fan. And I said, oh, I've got a trick. I said I wait till the game. I I've got. I wait till the game, as though I'll use Cleveland Brown says an example and I just checked. I checked the score. You know the scores are in now. It's some beyond game time. Did they win or lose? Well, if they lost, I'm not interested. If they won, then they have a ten minute video of the highlights and that's my game. Dean: You know and. Dan: I know they've won and then I just get a chance to see how they won. Okay, if they lose, I don't watch it, because I, because that doesn't do me any good, doesn't do me any. I'm already disappointed they lost. Why would I pile on and People said, yeah, but you're? Missing all the excitement of the game and I said, I said yes. I said I want to be excited about other things. I don't want to be excited about young people who are one-third of my age. I did coming through for me or not coming through for me? I want to see the final result. Dean: I've been contemplating Dan because, I I find that embarrassingly, much of my time is screen-sucking. You know, as our friend, there's a lot of, there's a lot of screen-sucking and I would count television and YouTube and tiktok and Facebook and Anytime my eyeballs are sucking dopamine in through my screen as that time. And I've been experimenting with, you know, disconnecting from the the dopamine device you know, and so this morning was one of those times. I'm trying to get to a point where I can get as far into my day without having any, you know, digital input, and I think that there's a real Face that I could go, you know, all the way till noon with no Contact with the outside world and that, I think, would be a better thing for me. But it's amazing how your body like I went over to the cafe this morning to get some, get a coffee and just sit outside and you know, I didn't take my phone, I woke up, I still wake up in the you know the first thing. You know, I checked my phone or whatever. I left it here and I went to the, the cafe and it's amazing how your brain is Like saying you know, wait a second, what if anything? What if you? What? Dan: if you break down. Dean: What if you're Get an accident or you need to call somebody here? What? What about that? And then I realized I don't know a single person's phone number. I don't know what single phone number except my office, you know, and not there's nobody there, but that's. It's very funny to me, that's where your mind goes. And then I had that. I took real money Because normally I use my Apple pay on my phone to pay for it, and so I had real paper money with me and it was just. It was so Interesting to sit at the cafe and just watch everybody you know, all you know, even together screen sucking the whole time and I've been experimenting like how much can I Disconnect from that in a proactive way? Right, like well, it's interesting. Dan: It's interesting because in the year you're applying the concept of intermittent fasting. Yeah, exactly that, yeah, you're going to. You know I'm going to spend three hours or four hours where I fast, you know yeah. Because your brain will find something to do if you're not right now yes autophagy Remember this is something interesting. Dean: I was really going as far as, like, how far down can I go with this? Right, like what would I truly be missing? As I do, I use my phone all the time for everything. I mean texting, email, ordering food, you know all of the stuff. Entertainment Talking and I was. I remember there was a show about the royalty I think it was called the crown, and or maybe it was a movie about the Queen, but I remember this was struck me as very like a very interesting is that every day at a certain time 5 pm Maybe, or noon or sometime they would bring the Queen a red box. Oh yeah, box was everything that she needed for the day, everything that needed her attention kind of thing, and I thought how neat would that be. What would be interesting if I could, at 5 pm Every day, get a box that has Every thing that I need, like any emails that have come in, any texts that have come in, any you know articles of interest. That would be. You know, something that I would need and I've wondered about that getting rid of. Like you know, I check on that judge report and you know I the news, like seeing different things that are going on in the world and I thought to myself I wonder what happened if I went to, like you know, paper subscriptions to Newsweek Time magazine and the Wall Street Journal as the my Well they're. Dan: I've gone beyond that because I used to get five papers a day. Yeah, you got two to Toronto papers. I got the, I got the Wall Street Journal, I got New York Times and. National Post well, national Post was globe in the post for the two. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Toronto papers, and then the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and the fifth one was business, business and best investors daily. Yeah, right, yeah, investors, business daily, and. But I began to realize that I all those papers. The only thing I was really interested in was the opinion section. Dean: Okay, where the? Dan: people wrote Oversight articles, in other words they were looking at a something and they were writing that. And then you know politics I began to notice that in the Newspaper world they were making most of their money after a while on subscriptions because the advertising dollars were being taken away by Facebook and Google and yeah, and they had to go to digital versions on a subscription basis. And what that did is that it polarized the media in the sense that, for example, the Wall Street Journal I Would say 80 to 90 percent of its subscription probably is Center or center right on the political spectrum. There's center right and the New. York Times is Barely center, mostly to the left, and I noticed that the Globe and Mail is now center to the left and the Globe and Mail or the post is still Still somewhat into the right. Into the right and the investors business daily only has opinions on Saturday. You know they only have a real commentary section. So, yes, okay. So when I began looking for, I said, well, still hit or miss, because there may be some good stuff or not good stuff. So I went to this aggregator which is called real clerk, comes up Chicago and all they do is aggregate Article headings and they're almost all, they're all commentary, okay. So every morning and six days a week they do an update at three o'clock in the afternoon. So you get up in the morning and they have that, and then at three o'clock in the afternoon they have an update. They don't do this on Saturday. Okay, there's one day when they don't do it Right but then they have all sorts of real clear. They have real clear politics, they have real clear policy. They have real clear market real clear world real clear defense, real clear energy, real clear health real clear science and those are more. They're picking up a periodicals rather than daily, and so I just get up in the morning and I look and I click on three or four of them and they come for the New York Times. It's lucky if they get one every day. Some of them have paywalls so that when you go to their thing they're saying well, you can read the article if you pay for a subscription, and that counts them out. You know, I'm not going to pay, I'm not going to sign up for a subscription to get one article, so right. So, yeah and so, so, anyway. So that's what I've done. So and I'm down now to Babs gets the post because she likes knowing Toronto things, but I don't bother looking at the, for the last two or three weeks they've had great articles. It's mainly how our Prime Minister is going down the drain, which I always find comforting reading. And then the Israeli, the Israeli Amos situation and that's been a great clarifier Boy. You really find out where people stand with this particular issue. That's been a really great clarifier herself. Yeah, yeah, so anyway, but that's how I handle it. I handle it. That's my sort of my red box. Real clear, it's my red box. Dean: Right, that's interesting. Dan: You know what they do you know what they call that? The thing that the queen gets. I don't know what they call it. They call it the red box. Dean: That's what I thought. Dan: You know that red box she gets every day. Dean: You know what they call it. Dan: They call it the red box. Dean: That is so funny, but I thought about experimenting with that and getting a red box and the government has to prepare them for. Dan: The Prime Minister's office has to prepare that for her, exactly yeah. Yeah, because they're both in town. Once a week, the Prime Minister has to come to the palace and deliver in person some of the crucial issues. This is not recorded. No one ever knows. Dean: Right A weekly audience with the queen Right. Dan: Yeah, yeah. Dean: Yeah, and the king now. Dan: I guess I guess the king. Should we send the red box to the king? It's kind of hard to say. It's kind of hard to say it's kind of hard to say king, I'd say king, you know because she was in for seven years or so. Yeah. There was a great play. Actually it was called the Interview. I saw it, and I saw it in London, right around the corner from the hotel. Dean: And. Dan: Helen Merrin was the queen. Helen Merrin was the queen and that what they did is all the Prime Ministers that she's had, starting with Winston Churchill, right up until last year. I guess there were a whole bunch of Prime Ministers over the last two or three years, so anyway, but she had just talked about. It was all made up, because nobody really knows what's that, but they just used topical issues of the time, and you know, and whether she got along with the Prime Ministers or not, or and everything else, and it was a very, just a really terrific, really terrific play. Dean: I saw Napoleon on Thanksgiving Day. What did you think? Dan: What did you think? Dean: I didn't like it Did you see, it. I haven't. It was as we like to say, dan. There was a lot of middle in that movie. Dan: It was all middle it joined in progress and just never left the middle. Dean: There were only two scenes that were repeated six times. There was the drama in the palace and then there was battle scenes with horses and bayonets and cannons and on and on the same battle scenes, again and again, and then back to the palace and it was really. I didn't enjoy it at all. I had no. It was my shortest movie review ever. Dan: I just looked at the camera. Dean: I shook my head and said nope, and then I hashtagged it nope, olean, yeah yeah yeah, and, but I have no real historical knowledge of, you know, of Napoleon but, I, did you know? The most interesting thing was at the end they did a summary of all the people that were lost in battles, like 6 million people in his period of being the king, he lost in battle. That was that's crazy, you know. 6 million seemed like that seemed like a lot. Dan: Well, we must use all of them up, because his final battle was 1815. That's when Waterloo was you know the final battle, and then there was not a major European war until the beginning of the beginning of the First World War. So it was 99 years. So he must have used everybody up because it took a whole century to stack up again. Yeah, and you know yeah, I mean a lot of American history, american history, really, you know, from the British fighting the French. You know that's really where the American thing starts, it's. I don't know what they call it. You know they call it the Seven Years War here in Canada, but in the United States it was called the French and Indian War. You, know, and this was 1817, 50s, 1763, Seven Years. But this is where all the American colonists got their military training, which they then used to good for self fighting the British. Oh wow, 1717. So George Washington was an American born. You know, they were all British. I mean, they were all British. Yeah, All the colonists were British. And then anyway, but that takes you right up until he. I think Napoleon comes in around 1793 and he was in for 22 years, but he totally changed Europe. I mean, he was like a major earthquake that went right across the continent and that really changed things. You know, hitler, hitler was great. Hitler was a great admirer of Napoleon. Dean: Yeah, and that right. Dan: He made, and he made the same mistake. Dean: He invaded. Dan: Russia. Right right, right right. Dean: That's yeah. So I'm going to save you from from that. Dan: Yeah, well, it's not a it's not a topic that I'm really interested in Right, I've never just talked about Napoleon, no. I just you know, but he, he not only was a significant military person, he was very significant politician. Because so that's where we get the metric. Metric system is from Napoleon. Dean: That's right yeah. Dan: And they didn't have any standard measurements in Europe. Okay, you know I mean the British had their own. But you know, the British is kind of a organic thing that's developed over time, feet, inches, feet, yards and everything, and it's the light and the lightfully accent and idiosyncratic. It's eccentric and eccentric. The British are eccentric, you know, and he wanted this 100. Everything is, you know, and it took all the fun out of it, took all the fun out of measurement. Dean: Right, you imagine. Dan: American, American baseball and metric, you know. Dean: American football and metric. Dan: Yeah. That's even the Canadian football league uses yards and feet and you know everything like that, you know all the buddy, yeah, track and field they don't, because that's a more of a European thing. Yeah, yeah World stage. Anyway, well, it's really interesting, but I'd like to pick up a little bit more on this couple of themes that we've developed over the last few talks, and one of them, and what I think, is that every human being is a confirmation bias. Okay, say more about that. Well, you're biased according to the experience that's proved useful or not useful. Okay, okay okay, so you've used a term you know to grade movies that are not worth seeing a lot of the middle. Okay, yeah, so there was a lot. I don't remember if there was a beginning end or an ending end. It's just battles and battles. Battles and battles, that's right, and palace, yeah, but I think that really thing because I think that it's impossible for human beings not to have a bias. Yeah, I think, that's absolutely I think as the smarter human beings know what their biases are and actually choose them, yeah, they actually choose them, yeah. And and you know, as it just strikes me that this whole notion of neutrality, that you can be unbiased is, I think it's just silly, how could you? Possibly be unbiased. Dean: I mean, that's right. Dan: In the world, you wouldn't survive. Dean: Yeah, in the words of Milton Friedman. To fill down at you, where do you propose we find these angels to organize society without regards to personal interest or bias? I don't even trust you to do that, phil. Dan: I've watched that about. I've watched that about 10 times. Yeah that's such a great because you can just see that Phil down to who just has this sort of fluffy, waffly form of logic. You know, all basically emotion based you know emotion yeah. I mean, he didn't have our perspective. New Prime Minister here is getting a lot of fights. When you finish here, go on Google and say Peter Polly of you know, you know how to spell it, don't you? Yes, okay, takes down reporter. Just, he just took down a reporter and it was one of the most masterful takedowns of reporter ever, and he did it while chewing on Apple. Dean: Oh, I love it. Dan: So he's being interviewed, and he's, and the person says, well, you know, you know, you're taking a very ideological approach. He says ideological, what's that? Well, what's ideological? And the reporter says, well, you know, it's more emotion based. And he says name a name, an example. Or name an example, well you know, and it gets round that he's reproducing Donald Trump and you know that's the ultimate killer, that's the kill shots. You know you call somebody Donald Trump. Dean: Is that right? Dan: No. And he says well, a lot of the experts. And he says experts, name one expert and the reporter did not have a specific piece of information. That was all this fluffy narrative and you could just see the guy was flailing and meanwhile Pierre Polyov is just eating example, and he says do you have an actual point to this interview? And the guy. You could just see the guy. You know they didn't show him in full, but I bet you know there was a puddle under his feet when he was finished. That's so funny, dan yeah yeah, and he's just learned how to deal with this whole issue that they try to catch you on their words. Dean: Yeah, exactly. Dan: I don't even know what that word means. I mean, do you know what that word is? Dean: You just used a word. Dan: I don't know what that word is. And he says well, you know you're doing left versus right. And he says name a time when I've actually said that. I've never said love first right. I don't believe them. Left first right. So I believe in common sense and I'm kind of bored the side that has common sense, so you know we haven't had any of. You just aren't used to it because we haven't had any common sense for the last eight years. So that's not used to dealing with. So, anyway, and he's I think he's a phenomenal debater. You know because he's been in, he's 44 years old and he's been in parliament for 19 years you know, he's been there since he was 25. Wow, yeah, so, but it's really interesting to watch it. You know, I mean, and I'm very biased towards his side of the political spectrum. Dean: You have a cognitive bias around him. Is that what you said? I? Dan: have a total. I have a total cognitive bias. That's funny. Dean: I love it. Dan: Yeah, okay, so anyway, fascinating where this is going, but I think this AI thing is a much. What should I call it here? I think it's a catalyst for a real mind change and how we think about everything. I think interacting with this technology is actually introducing us to how we actually think about things. Dean: I think you're right, because you have to bring that to it. Yeah, so you are, you're off to Phoenix. Dan: Yeah, we fly out on Tuesday and then we're there until Saturday. I were there until Sunday morning because I can't take more than two days of sitting in a room. And so we're off to Chicago and then we have a Chicago week. We have I just have one workshop, I have the free zone on Thursday, yeah, so so anyway, you know, yeah, it's been a good year. It's been actually it's been a very sailing kind of year. I haven't had any real time crunches or anything else. Great, that's awesome. And so then we're back, are you? And yeah, and so June 12th, june 18th, is our first free zone in Toronto. Dean: Oh, you've set the date already. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Oh great. Dan: Yeah, and now I'll just forward to Tammy, who is the wizard mastermind of scheduling here, tammy Colville. Dean: And I'll just send. Dan: I'll just forward her announcement that just came through two days ago, so I'll just yeah, and we're doing it in. June. I mean, isn't that nice starting it off in June. Dean: I love that. I love that I do miss Toronto. Yeah, I love it. Dan: I think, Toronto misses you, I think Toronto misses you. Oh, that's so funny, I love it. Yeah, there's no more table 10 anywhere. I haven't found a table 10 anywhere. Dean: We're going to need a new. We'll need a new venue. Oh well, we'll go to the old bed We'll go. Dan: I mean less selected still there and they're still good, so we'll go. Okay Good, okay Perfect. Dean: Okay, dan, have a great trip Two weeks. We'll be back. Dan: I'm sorry. Two weeks, two weeks, okay, yeah, okay, okay, I'll talk to you then. Thanks, okay, bye.

In today's Welcome to Cloudlandia episode, we embark on an intriguing exploration of the realm of AI and technology. We examine fascinating experiments involving text conversion to a unique speech structure that aligns with your heartbeat. Lastly, we delve into discussions around marketing education and share snippets from our upcoming trip.   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We discuss the transformative impact of artificial intelligence on content creation, exploring how it's being utilized in Hollywood and our personal experiment of converting a book chapter into Iambic Contameter with the help of AI and a Shakespearean actor. Dean highlights a fascinating experiment conducted in the Soviet Union where foxes were genetically modified into dogs, shedding light on the intriguing topic of canine intelligence and their comprehension of human language. Dan and I delve into the evolution of television, discussing its early stages where it was used to re-enact radio shows, and its transition to the current landscape of diverse media platforms like Facebook. We share insights on the challenges of implementing strategies in businesses and how we've addressed them in our own ventures, highlighting our successful thought leadership newsletter and real estate accelerator program. Dan emphasizes the importance of normalizing new technological advancements in the realm of AI, arguing that the future doesn't arrive until we've normalized it. We touch on the concept of hierarchy versus network in corporations and ponder on the potential obsolescence of middle management jobs due to AI advancements. We discuss the role of AI in marketing strategy, underlining the significance of identifying high margin products and generating leads for potential customers. We express concern over the current state of higher education and speculate on its potential crisis in the face of rising vocational training and AI. We delve into the future of work and systems, discussing how AI is making certain jobs obsolete, particularly in the middle white-collar sector, and how it's affecting the education system. Finally, we briefly discuss our upcoming trip to Buenos Aires, sharing our excitement and some interesting facts about the time difference and geographical position of South America. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dan: Wow. Dean: Mr Sullivan, wow, yes, Recorded entrance grad it's so good. We're living in increasingly turbulent times. Dan: That's true, but I'll tell you what the great thing about it is. At this particular moment, at this particular outpost in the mainland, it's the absolute perfect temperature. The fourth season of the Valhalla, absolutely like room temperature, with a slight breeze, quiet, six, perfect. Dean: Well, at our global domination compound in Toronto, we're having a perfect whole day. Dan: A whole domination compound. That is true. Dean: I don't want to own the whole thing, I don't want to own the whole world, I just want all the property next to mine. Dan: I was excited about your idea of getting the house behind you to have that whole drive through, but they give it up on that. Dean: That might bring the furies down on us. So far we've escaped scrutiny, anyway, yeah. Well, one thing that I thought would be interesting is kind of a Cloudlandia. It's that Taylor Swift's movie, her tour movie, has done, I think, worldwide with you, as down 150 million in two weeks and both weeks. Dan: Yeah, she's only playing it Thursday to Sunday because she doesn't want kids neglecting homework, so she doesn't. You can't go see it on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. You can only go see it. Dean: Well, I think she neglected hers and where she is Exactly, but I think she's alone Brilliant, I mean the fact that her tour alone. Dan: Her live tour was one of the biggest tours ever. Now the recording of it. I think she's going to make another billion dollars with it. Dean: Yeah, but the interesting thing about it is she bypassed Hollywood altogether which is the mainland, and they just wanted their 20% for being Hollywood, and she just bypassed it. And that comes right after the strike that shut everything down, for one of the griefs being, of course, being live streaming, the other one probably being the AI that's replacing a lot of the 80% work in Hollywood. In other words, first draft scripts and everything else can now get done with AI, and then you bring in the craftsman to actually, you know, take it the final 20%, yeah, and these are definitely. Dan: I think that's a seed there, true. I think that's especially true, dan, for content. You know, let's call it streaming or television or documentary content, that is, book report content. That is like writing a. You know, if we were to do a documentary about the you know evolution of print starting with Putin or starting with the you know Chinese on papyrus, you know back in 1012 or whatever, A long time ago, that I think that that would be the kind of thing where AI would be able to write a script research, write a script. That would be 80% of what you would need to do a compelling documentary about that, compared to the creative act of creating something new. You know, I don't know. Dean: Yeah it's really interesting. On a previous episode I told you about the little experiment I'm doing with converting my chapters of this particular book. So this is my book number 36 and the 36th quarter, and it's called Everything, everyone and Everything Grows. That's the name of the book. It's the backstage. It's the backstage description of strategic coach since 1989. We put our backstage together and as I was going through, I've been reading a lot of books on Shakespeare and there's something consciousness altering about the speech structure that they used. It wasn't just Shakespeare, it was of the time. It was, you know, around 1600 in Great Britain. It was called Iambic Contameter and it was 10 beats per line. Okay, and Mike Canig's, knowing that I'm interested in this, sent an article which has to do with they've scientifically proved that Iambic Contameter actually your heart, matches the beats. After you listen to a minute or two somebody doing Iambic Contameter, your heartbeat gets in sync with it. The 10 beats. Dan: Is that right? Dean: Yeah, because it's thumb, you know, and anyway. So I had. I've got a great team member by the name of Alex Barley, and Alex is from the UK, he lives in Toronto but he was actually born in Sherwood. Born and grew up in Sherwood Forest which is an interesting fact. Yeah, sherwood Forest is a big area and then among the trees there's seven little towns and he was born in one of the towns. Dan: And his father actually has. Dean: His father actually has a club that opened in 1604. Dan: So and remember we have. We have someone in strategic culture. Does those forests getaways? Dean: or has Gary Fletcher? He's in Friso. Dan: He's actually yeah, yeah. Dean: Yeah and anyway. So I had him take a chapter that was on unique ability and unique ability teamwork and I had him converted into Iambic Contameter. And it was startling to get it back, because all the ideas are there but the ideas are put together in a different way. And it was just. I just found it fascinating and I said, boy, if I had a really great Shakespearean actor, you know, somebody who could really speak the language and listen to it rather than just, yeah, reading it. So I was talking to Alex about it and I said my favorite would be Richard Birkin, okay, and? And he said, see, I really wouldn't know how to do that. So we went to Mike Canix and Mike knew how to do it. And so Mike gave Alex a couple sites where you could go to and experiment with them. And about two days later from the time of my request to Alex, I got back Richard Burton. And it was Richard Burton, it was totally Richard Burton, and I've listened to it about 15, 15 times, and every time I listen to it it has a greater impact. And I played it for team members and the team members say, boy, I'd like to have that to listen to before I go to bed at night and everything like that. And so I asked him and did it. You know, when you first made the translation, in other words, you had the AI voice he says no, it was just, it was just sort of mechanical. And he says so what I did is I got actual recordings of Richard Burton and I would listen to it and then I would go through and I would change the timing, I would change. And he says I put in some breath intakes and he said I would you know? He says he rushes ahead, then he speeds up, and then he does it's very unpredictable with Richard Burton and he did this all. So it's actually AI times. The craftsman. Dan: That's a. Dean: B percent plus the human craftsman, you know, because a human ear, you know, just has infinitely greater sensitivity to how things actually work than they calculated. You know a mechanical thing and went to it. It went to deliver it evenly. Dan: You know and. Dean: Richard Burton in particular, has the way of making words explode just by saying the word and then he was kind of built a delivery to William Shatner in a way like different. Yeah but I had never put yeah, I'd never put William Shatner and Richard together in my brain, yeah but the interesting thing about it. The interesting thing about it was we've done two chapters now and you could see Alex is getting more inventive and you know, and he's really getting into the poetry and it's in rhyme. So with iambic pentameter. You can have it as prose or you can have it as rhyme and. I said well, since we're going the route of Richard Burton, I should put it in. But I was struck because I'm only going to use this for backstage with coach. I'm only going to use this with, and the Baron of the Four Seasons, valhalla, I might talk to the warlord talk to the warlord there, I mean, because he's almost backstage, anyway, anyway, but it just does something. But what I'm noticing is changing my writing style as I go forward, because I've got that voice in my ear and I'm writing that to sort of meet the voice halfway, you know halfway. Dan: Oh, that's right. Dean: Yeah that it's an easy pick up. I mean I can't talk like that, I don't sound like that and everything, but it's how I am doing. My writing has been changing as I've listened listening to Richard Burton telling me what it sounds like in Shakespeare's age. Dan: This is. You know, a couple of things jump out at me. You know, as you're talking about that and Alex's joy in tinkering, and you know it's a creative act. Using these, using owning technology like a good dog yes, Right. That's really what he's doing there. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And it reminded me of Peter Diamand is talking about these cent powers, the chess masters, paired with an AI that they can override or direct or run things by, or amplify their calculations or confirm their hunches. That's really the way forward, isn't it? It seems like that's the. Dean: Well, what it suggests is that if you're a mechanical human being, this new form of mechanical will wipe you out, but if you decide to take refuge in being creative, they'll probably just offer you a deal. Dan: Yeah, I mean it's interesting, what's there? There are a hybrid for this, like a creative machine or a. I mean there's something here, because even the AI is not doing it on its own. Some people are going to distance themselves. What we've seen mechanics do is distance themselves as a skilled operator of these new advantages. Dean: Yeah, it's really interesting. There was an interesting lab test that was done in the Soviet Union before the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was that they wanted to see if they could turn a fox, turned foxes, into dogs. They could do it through basically two-year generations. In other words, a fox had two years old as a fully grown fox. So you just have a two-year from birth to adulthood and they went through 10 generations where each generation they picked a fox that was more docile, it didn't have aggressive, it wasn't paranoid, it was sort of friendly and docile. And by the 10th generation, the genetic product GMO, had enormous number of dog characteristics. It was friendly, it would come up and it would take dog characteristics and they decided to put the dog fox or the fox dog and an actual dog and they chose I think it was a German shepherd, and they put it through a and this. They had it in the puppy stage, so it was about six to eight months old, and they put it through an obstacle course that they was designed so that the animal couldn't solve it. They would hit a wall where they just couldn't solve it. And it was very interesting that the fox dog, when confronted with the final barrier, just curled up, went feral. He just went into a, wrapped himself up. He was just defeated and he wrapped up. The moment that the dog actually hit the thing he turned around and he searched out his owner and he says hey buddy, hey buddy, I need your help here. Okay, your turn, yeah. And they said they don't know if they can teach that, they don't know if they can. Actually they can genetically. Dan: I was just writing. It's funny when you said that I was writing down nature versus nurture. But what was it that they change it genetically to modify it? But were they also? But they didn't, they couldn't Domesticated it. Dean: They couldn't genetically reproduce the teamwork that's probably part of the inheritance of dogs. In other words, they trace it back 30,000 years since humans domesticated wolves to produce dogs, and that's a lot of generations of canines. And anyway, but it tells me kind of that's why I wrote the book Owning Technology Like a Great Dog is that we've got We've got this 30,000 year experience in the animal stew of kind of working out teamwork with dogs and certain breeds are better, certain breeds are good for this, certain breeds are good for that and we've kind of developed kind of a real deep knowledge. And they can do about 150 different tasks at this stage. Some of them can know as much as a thousand words. If you say a word, they know exactly what it refers to. It always refers to an object. It refers to an activity. They're not high on the concept level, I hope they have a good memory of. Dan: Have you seen those? Yeah, and there's concepts of people setting up all these buttons on their floor that are labeled that a dog can push the yellow thing and it says a single word like walk, and so it knows to push that when it wants to go for a walk or a treat it can push treat, and I wondered about whether that, I mean it, seems real. So you're kind of confirming that they are able to build that kind of vocabulary. Dean: Yeah, there was a professor in, I think, south Carolina. He was near retirement and he was a psychology professor and he just wanted to see how many words and he got sort of a border collie type. Border collies are just super smart and they're super responsive. And he got the dog to a thousand words of everyday objects. The dog you could. He knew all the dog's names, of all the dogs in the neighborhood, and the dog had a very definite opinion about each one of them. Dan: So he said Max. Dean: If he said Max, his tail would wag, and if he said Irving, it would just go. Dan: Doesn't like Irving. Dean: First of all, you know right off the bat that a dog gets named Irving. It probably has a difficult environment. Why would you do that? But Fred Feisman I don't know if you've ever met him. He's a coach client, probably 15 years. Dan: He's in 10 times. Dean: And he was a cowboy in British Columbia for 10 years. Where every May he and another cowboy would take out 3,000 head of cattle and move them through elevations of pasture land. So in British Columbia you can have 4 levels of 4 levels, you know, geological levels, okay, and that would take them out to the high grazing area and then they would gradually bring them in. And so it was Fred. It was a partner and a dog. And I said if you had to lose one of them, the dog or the partner, which one, which one would you lose? He said lose the partner, just me and the dog could take care of all 3,000. Because the dog always knew which steer was the lead steer and would get the lead steer. He also knew the route. He also knew the route and plus he checked for predators like wolves, coyotes, bears and everything else, and you know, would you apply? Dan: Why are tigers? Dean: and bears. Oh my yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And so, but it was really interesting. He said a great trail dog is it's you know. He says you can't put a price on how good they are, but they're not doing anything more than they were taught. Dan: Right, yeah, that's interesting. I just got my. I got a I bought with my copy of how they use technology like a good dog. I don't own technology like a good dog, so I'm looking forward to reading it. I mean, yeah, that's really about Gotten to dive in there. Dean: Ownership. I mean, it's not a question of owning technology or owning your dog you actually own your rights, right, yeah, and you know, it's really about ownership more than it's about dogs or technology. You know, but the big thing is that I think that in learning how to interact with AI, we're going to learn about learn a lot about what human intelligence actually is. I think we're going to learn more from this interaction than we've learned from all the psychological studies possible, because it's going to be interactive all the time against the best result, you know, and correspondingly, I mean we'll have more knowledge about it, but more knowledge about us will be built into the programming of the AI. Dan: Have you seen anything recently that has wowed you or changed your opinion about the usefulness or the future of AI? Like this, like in terms of sounds, like your Richard Burton experience has shaped some new enthusiasm. Dean: Well, what I get is that all the breakthroughs will be specific. It'll be individual and specific. So right now I don't know how many in the first two or three months, you know, plugged into chat, gpt, and then, of course, there's hundreds of other there's hundreds of others, specialized AI, and my sense is that it's transforming the world, but there would be no overview on how that's happening, because it's happening in a hundred million different situations in a different way. Dan: So if anything so the ability to have an oversight or an overview of this, I think it was impossible on day one, yeah, and it reminded me of like, as I was kind of reflecting on it is I mean the use that I'm using of. Dean: Who would think of that? And right, there wouldn't be anyone else, that would even well. If, why would you do that? And I said I found it kind of neat. Dan: Yeah, you know I was looking at it, thinking back on like this, as one of the major things of the big change of 1975 to 2025 that. Ai as the platform. I don't know whether platform is the right word or what it is just like. Television was a. That was the big capability that was brought and started out with. You know, just the ability to, you know, have the three national channels and broadcast things. But in the earliest stages of television, nobody really knew what to do with it in, in that they were just bringing radio to television. They were re-enacting, like turn the camera on and do radio theater. Dean: Yeah yeah, I mean, I remember the 1950s sort of programs that were kind of dramatic and they'd have the opening of the curtain. They'd have the opening of the curtains, you know, and because they well, they're putting on a show. Dan: So what do you do? Dean: Well, you, but yeah, and. But here's the thing that the networks were still networks that were broadly shared, you know they were in competition with each other. But it was. You were on one network, you're on the network, I think, with you're on a billion different networks you know, and each of them each of the networks is being uniquely custom designed for particular purposes by particular people for you know, and everything like that, and my sense is the whole notion that there's going to be an overarching system like Facebook or something like that. I don't see that happening. Dan: I mean. Dean: I'm guessing embedding. And you know, I'm guessing embedding, just like everyone else. But I don't really care how other people are using it, I only care how I'm going to use it. Dan: Yeah yeah, yeah, I think that's and you probably got. You've probably cornered the market on turning thinking tools into Richard Burton. Readings of Iambic pentameter. Dean: Yeah, you know, I want to see if anybody's trailing me, and I haven't picked up on anything so far. Dan: It's a blue ocean strategy. Dean: Yeah, the other one we're doing. I don't know if you know Joe Stolti. He's. Joe is the runner of the. You know, the AI newsletter that Evan Pagan and Peter Diamand. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Joe 100K yeah. Yeah. Dean: So I met, I met Joe at 100K and he just said what it will do, and so we've been going. Now I think we've got 12 episodes out and they do an interview with you online. You know thought leadership, other people you like, articles you like and everything else. And then they keep fine tuning what it is that you really want. But our last we've had in the last seven episodes we've had five of them with more than an 80% open rate for the entire issue. And then, and we had one I had one interview. It was a podcast interview with Mike Canix. We got a 95% open rate. Okay. Dan: That's wild. Dean: And it takes no work on our part. It creates the issue you know, so it gives you the results from your previous issue and then it shows you what the next issue is, based on the rates of the last issue. But, you're learning a lot about what we're learning a lot about what people really like listening to and what they like. You know, so it's an interesting thing. Dan: And he's great to work with. Dean: I really like him and his team. So yeah, it's called dailycom, I think it's called dailycom. Okay, yeah, it's great, yeah, it's great, and I mean we'll put out probably. Dan: Well, you like the idea of not having to do anything. That's happening. That's pretty good Well it's all existing creativity. Dean: A lot of it is existing articles that's existing. So we're repurposing I mean, we're getting a repurpose out of existing articles and all the content is original content. Dan: You know I love that I'm just realizing that's for guessing and betting people's fondness for things that do the things they would like to do, especially if it's things that they would do if they could count on them to do it. You know, that's kind of a there's a good thing there. We recently in my Go agent world here our realtor we've launched the new real estate accelerator program. Where we're actually doing it's a who, not how, model of implementing the listing agent lifestyle elements in someone's business. So I've created that framework of the you know core five things that people you know the bankable results that they can get referrals and multiply their listings, get convert leads, find buyers, get listing. Those things I've got you know core programs and shortcuts and programs for them to do them. I was having in conversation with Diane, the who kind of runs that division with me, she I was saying you know, what we've been doing is we've been selling gym memberships essentially to Go agent, where we've got all of the stuff, all the tools, all the IP, everything you need to implement it, and you just come on in and access it and do what you do what you want, and we observe that very few people you know actually do the stuff that we know, this is the secret sauce of gym memberships 40% never go up. They pay for the whole year and never show up once. That's exactly so. We're running that same model and for someone you know, I like to see people get the results, you know. And so I've been doing these you know workshops where I thought, okay, we'll do these implementation workshops where we'll spend you know five weeks and we'll do a weekly session on each of the things as like a booster to get you focused on here's what to do, kind of thing. And I observed we've done that for a year and realized that improves the, that improves the implementation, but still overwhelmingly people are not able to rally themselves to do the things that they know to do. And so we decided, well, what if we just did it for them? And I recorded a video. I said you know? I said you know, I realized that I would be a really great real estate VA if I came to work for you and did all the things that I know in your business. And I said I know how to. I've been spending 35 years putting all of these pieces together and I know exactly what to do. And I went through and I outlined here's what I would do if I came into your business, because I realized that really we could implement all of it in somebody's business with one synchronous 30 minute, you know, check in at a fixed time with somebody that would then see, you know, three to five hours of implementation in a week, kind of thing for it and I was sharing it that it's like having a personal trainer instead of just a gym membership. You're meeting a personal trainer at the gym and the difference is that we're going to do the six, the sit ups, and you're going to get the six pack. That's really how the difference and every single person I've talked to, dan is on board with this, because of course you're selling the reward. We do the sit ups, you get the six pack. Dean: Yeah, you're selling the. You're selling the impact without the effort. Dan: Exactly right. Dean: Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, yeah but you know there's still. I bet, if you work out your percentages, even that people won't go for. You know, because they have an escape from fantasy land about who they are and what they want to achieve. You know, one of the things that Peter Diamanas has the sixties regarding the digital revolution you know digitize the deceptive, the demonetization, dematerialization. There's democratization yeah, yeah well as the sixth one, I'm saying yeah, it's democratization in that the possibility as democratic, the utilization follows the same as anything that 10% will outdo 90%. Dan: Yeah, I think that's true. You know there's so many everybody. That's a really interesting thing that there's just like in truth. You know, in political democracy there's opportunity, but not everybody takes advantage of it. Everybody has the opportunity to have a YouTube channel and reach the entire world, but there's only one, mr B. Dean: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know, he's number two in the YouTube world. I think there's somebody who's got more. I don't know who it is, but he's got the last one. I heard 201 million subscribers, followers 201 million. Dan: Yeah, I think he's the number one individual. I think, yeah, yeah. Dean: Yeah, yeah. Well, it's very interesting. You know the good for a young guy. You know, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, you know he's got a future, this guy. He's going places, you know you can tell him almost right away. He can tell him almost. you just get a feel Anyway the but the thing that I'm talking about, you know, I mean, the thing that I'm feeling is that I had a line one day. Peter Diamonis and I were going back and forth and he was talking about the future this, the future that, and I said you know what I've noticed about the future? When you get there, it feels normal. Dan: Yes. Dean: Huh, as a matter of fact, it doesn't arrive until you've normalized it. Dan: Yeah, can you say more about that, because that led you to that Well we don't like abnormal. Dean: Humans don't like abnormal. They like normal. Okay, and if you're asking them to do something new, that's different. Uh you have to show them how to go through a normalization process where they get used to it. You know they get used to it and that's why I've been noticing that tech. Every company right now has to appoint a chief AI officer. A chief AI officer Ooh Dean, where would this person be? You know, I mean, where would this person? I mean, I mean, do you even have room or space for a chief AI officer? Okay, and I said no. I said why don't you just bring in somebody smart who shows your entire team how they particularly, and what they're doing can do this or that or this and this and let them lose, you know, and see what comes out of it and see what comes out of it? And why don't you just have self-empowered you know, self-empowered team members, you know in person or virtual, you know, or remote, and just have them say, you know is, where could, what's the 20% that if you could get rid of it, which is it still needs to get done, what would it be? And then say, well, there's an AI program that can do this, or is an AI program do this. They get that 20% done. They say, well, what's the next 20%? And just keep them going for 50 years. Dan: Yeah, and that's what. That's the approach. Dean: We don't have a chief AI officer. First of all, we don't have anyone who's called chief and we don't have anyone who's called officer, because that sounds like had chief officer, you know, I think the Gestapo had chief something officer, you know, you know, and everything. I don't like cheap something officer, I just don't like the sound of it. Dan: That's not good for anybody. Dean: Oh, you know, right off the bat I get the willies. Dan: That's funny. Yeah, let's say so. How? What are you doing in that, then? Do you have someone whose role is helping the team become a no, we brought in Evan Ryan. Dean: He did a six module course how to think it through and then he's off and running, you know, and he checks in and you know with the latest stuff of if they're doing this and they can look at that. So we have. You know, we have a already operating system in the company that's called unique ability teamwork. You know, everybody's in their unique ability and everybody's doing a different aspect of necessary activity in the company and they're all coordinating with each other. So it's virtually impossible for us to have a chief something officer, because that's not the way the company works. Dan: Right, not a hierarchy. Dean: It's not a hierarchy, it's a network. Dan: Yeah, that's interesting, I mean. Dean: I'm not even. I'm not even chief. It's just that Dan has certain unique abilities. He's really good at coming up with new stuff. So where do you get, you know, any, especially new stuff that's offered to the public and we get paid for it, you know. Right so you know, you know, I'm not a boss in any meaningful way, except I'm the one to define what the next projects are. Yeah, but oh hefe Right, yeah, I think corporations are going to have real hard time with this. I think anything that's a hierarchy and because there's one person at the top and there's a lot of middle people down to the bottom and I get a sense it's useful at the very top and it's used at the very, but in the middle I think all those jobs are fair game to get rid of. Dan: Have you been following Salim? Well, not new, but kind of expansion on the exponential organizations, like you're seeing. Dean: Yeah, I spent two days with him and you know, 100K? Yeah, because we were out to dinner on Friday night and we were sitting together and talking about it. But you know, the model is from my standpoint. It's a big organization model. It's not really. I mean because you got about 13 things that you have to check off and you and I personally are done after three. Dan: Right, yeah, it requires somebody who's like it almost feels like just achieve an exponential. That's what I was just going to say. Yeah, yeah it almost needs to be, I mean. Dean: I like Salim's a great guy to talk to. Yeah great thing. But I think he gets the big bucks from the big corporations. I don't think he gets the. You know he doesn't get the money like we get the money at the, not from entrepreneurs right, we're street level. Dan: We're street level. Men are the people really? Yeah, we're house lawyers. Oh, my goodness, it's so fun again. You know I get such joy out of that. You know, like the I've been. You know I go to a cafe here called Honeycomb Bread Bakers and they you know one of you learn the crowd and the people there was. There used to be a coffee shop called N plus, one which was the yeah yeah, so I would go there all the time and N plus, that was pre COVID, wasn't it? Dean: That was pre COVID. Dan: And yeah, and during COVID. Dean: Yeah, let's say kind of hit the wall during. Dan: They didn't really recover from that in terms of it being a profitable business. They were attached to their bike shop, which was the main, and the idea is invite. Yeah, the idea was N plus one is the equation, for you know how many coffees should you have, which is N equal the number of coffees you've had today Plus one. That's how many. Dean: And so I got to know the owner, Peter Zion, was saying that when you lived on a farm you had as many children as you could plus one. And somebody asked him well, what's the plus one for? To know that you've had too many. Same thing with coffee, I think. Dan: You know, the fun thing is that riding a bicycle is a decidedly mainland adventure and they serve an area and the 15 mile zone. What are you calling it? The bubble. Dean: you know, and do they have like bike paths and everything? Dan: Oh, there's like paths all over Winterhaven. Yeah, lots of great places. But, so over coffee a couple of weeks ago he was asking for some marketing advice. Like think I mean to ramp things up. I went through this concept of you know the before, the during and the after unit and you know largest check and I could ask you know what's the best if I could just line people up the door right now? Who would you want? What would what's the highest margin thing? And it was eBikes is the thing. Yeah, I said so. I have a learning that I've had from working with a bathroom boutique client in Miami and I've learned from doing this that putting a catalog together is a really great lead generator. Right Objective data is all, rather than trying to convince people that they should buy a bike and put there because they were running ads that were like, hey, where's the bike shop? Here we are, we're in Winterhaven and you know bikes are great kind of thing. Getting their name out there and I shared with him the concept of and value of getting their name in here rather than getting your name out there. Let's get the names, let's gather the names of everybody who's interested in e-bikes and I proposed putting together this e-bike catalog with them, and so we did that. We put that on my Facebook. I put up the ads forum and we're generating e-book our e-bike catalog downloads for $1.66 each. So he said to him like you put this in the thing it's like for let's just give some room for improvement for our cost of the ads to go up. But let's say that we can get 100 people to metaphorically raise their hand and say, hey, I'm interested in an e-bike for $150. We can get 100 of them to raise their hand and his average margin on an e-bike is around $600 to $700. And so it doesn't take many of those to engage with and them to buy a bike. It's kind of funny. It's like that I still I get as much joy out of that as doing something with a big national company that's got. Dean: I think the big thing that I'm getting and this is not going cloud landing discussion is you're growing understanding of exactly who you want to talk to and the continual evolution of people knowing exactly who they want to hear Actually, who they want to hear and that bypasses an incredible amount of bureaucracy, I mean if you think about the sheer amount of bureaucracy In my sense, is that the current extreme polarization in what's called polarization, political polarization and cultural polarization, is that I think that the probably three or four generations who took the root of high education, so in other words, starting in nursery school, they were competing to get into a great kindergarten and compete to get into a great primary school, to get into a great university, to get into a great high school which got you to the university and the graduate school, that they're imperiled. I think that they're imperiled. On the other hand, an 18 year old who, after graduation with no thought of university at all takes a 10 week welding certification course, is making anywhere between 60 and 100,000 at the end of the, and he's the buyer or she's the buyer. She's the buyer because and probably you know within 10 years they're making a million. They're making a million and they're bypassing the higher education. All because the higher education is about abstractions, but AI is about extreme specificity. It's about extreme specificity and I think that a lot of the uprising on universities and the polarization and the cancel culture is they don't want to hear news about anything else except what they've been promised lies at the end of the rainbow the abstraction rainbow, and it's just a general unsettling. You know and and I mean think about it you were in school from four years old to, let's say, 26 years old and have run up. I mean it cost you an incredible amount if you could pay for it, or it cost you an incredible amount and you know loans and you're a quarter million, or 400, a quarter million, or you're $400,000 in debt when you graduate. Dan: Yeah, yeah. Dean: And then you learn that there's a new technology that's just going to make everything you did for the last 22 years irrelevant, including you. Dan: Yeah, yeah, right, right, right. Dean: So my sense is that it's the middle white collar, you know the whole middle white collar, part of the economy that's going to get clobbered but not at the high end, where people are really creative, or at the end, where people are really handy. You know where people are really handy. Dan: I think that they're completely safe, even things like you know legal associates, like people who are, you know, in big law firms. You know the first session year both the involved do, slaving away in the library looking up case law. Dean: Yeah, or contract contract, you know, yeah, and I mean there's somebody that a test of a particular deed on a particular property in another state that required about inputs from about seven different things, which generally takes about three and a half to four weeks to get the whole three, and the AI program did it in like 15 minutes start to finish and it was completely accurate and I mean it was really really sort of had involved and it's blessed entry. Dan: Very well. So what do these have? Like the Pretty amazing, isn't it? I mean well, like we're living in the future, it's we're normalizing that. Dean: Well, we're normalizing it on an individual basis, we're not normalizing it on a group basis. Dan: Yeah, yeah, I think that it's only the front runners you mean that are Seeing that? Dean: no, it's just an alert, curious, responsive, resourceful individual who's got a particular thing in mind. And they found those new way of multiplying their Productivity, multiplying their profitability you know and you know. So yeah, but see, everybody I had, I was, we were in Chicago last week and we have a G, you know, in general practice she's an internist and she's our. Chicago doorway to any kind of specialty that we need, you know, specialty medicine. And she's going concierge November oh nice tonight and and Because we've been with her for about 15 years, you know and. I can tell that the weight of the Disease management Industry is weighing down on her. Dan: We don't have a healthcare system. Dean: What we have is a disease management. Right you know and and so, and I could tell she was lighter. I mean, she's had this light, energetic feel about her and welcome to the entrepreneurial world. You know, welcome. I said you get paid for what you ask. You know you get paid for what you asked. And she says well, you know, I'm really worried about the fact that the people who Don't have the access to you and I said you were worried about that before, I said 99.9% of you didn't have access to you you know, before this happened, including you didn't have access to you before this. Now you get access to you and I said that's the only change here. And I said there but You're going to get pickier and pickier about who gets to see you and everything. And I said it's just very natural. And she says yeah, but the whole system, I mean how? I said her name's on me and I said I mean there is no system, the biggest, there are 10 million systems and you're one of them. You're a planet, planet, I said. The biggest fallacy is this is industrial thinking from 1900 to 1950, that there's a system, there is no system. You know, and I said there there are no systems, there's just. There's just connected local neighborhoods. Dan: So you're what you're saying really reminds me of of Ray Dalio's you know understanding of the market and saying how you know the way we talk about the auto market, what that really is just an aggregate Construct of all the individual micro transactions. Oh yeah one person buying one car, and you're saying the same, that I feel that Same way that there's no system. The system is just made up, yeah, of this aggregate of the individual micro transactions between one person with Very precise medical needs, seeking them from one person. Dean: Yeah. Yeah, yeah and the it's like climate. There is no climate people said yeah, and I said the climate is just a 360 day average of what the temperatures were. You know, yeah, and what the precipitation was and what the wind was, every day being entirely different from the other 364 and in order to get some sense of it. You call it, you average it and we got to have a name for that, so they call it climate. There is no climate, there's just a lot of temperature, right right right. There's just a lot of weather. I've only experienced weather. I've never experienced climate. Dan: Climate is this. Dean: System weather is reality. Yeah, so I think the whole notion of systems, you know, you know, I mean there's some big tools which are being used in common, but you know, like, the dollar is the reserve currency rate you know, and and everything else, but everybody's using dollars differently. They're using dollars for different reasons. You know and, and or English, the English language, and there's no uniparty around the world. There's about a hundred different versions of English. You know because it's it's the one language that you can get along Extremely well-speaking, badly. Dan: That's funny. Yeah, yeah, true, can't do that with can't do that with French. Dean: I can tell you, you can't do that with French. Yeah, but that's the language of romance. Yeah, so why did you get out of this? I mean, we windered a bit today, which is our favorite activity Absolutely. Dan: I think that's. I think that's fantastic. I haven't thought about the relationship between the system and the market in that parallel way that Ray Dalio and I think that really, you know it does come down to you know, being able that's really what it is being able to use whatever means to get an outcome for People. You know I'm bullish about the future here. Dean: Yeah, now I'm just trying to think I can do it next week, because, no, I can't do it next week. I'm on my way to Nashville next week. So I but I can do it two weeks from now and I'll be in Buenos Aires, argentina. Dan: Okay. I will be here and I will be anxious to hear about your Buenos Aires experience. Will you have had the experience? When we talk? Dean: No, will you? Dan: be there. Dean: We got an overnight flight on Saturday Okay, weeks from now and and then it starts on Monday, so I'll this would be the. We're two hours ahead of you, so time-wise, buenos Aires is two hours ahead of where you are future and, yeah, all of South. Here's an interesting thing about you know where London Ontario is. Of course, because yeah lived halfway there. But anyway all of South America sits east of London, Ontario. Yeah wild right, you think it's underneath. North, I know it isn't it that goes way to the east? Actually, brazil is only a thousand miles from Africa. That's crazy. Yeah, two-hour flight from. Africa to Brazil. Dan: Yeah anyway, well then, I will be here with bells on and I will look forward to it. Dean: You know what? And we're both ten quick starts. We're both ADD. And that's a prescription. That's a prescription for no system. That's exactly right. Dan: They're like holy so all right. Okay, two weeks for me. Okay, okay, bye, bye, bye you.

In today's episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we discuss some intriguing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our lives and businesses. We explore the shift to virtual platforms like Zoom and the concept of "Cloudlandia," drawing comparisons to changes brought about by historical pandemics. Dan and I consider opportunities that can emerge from unexpected times. Our discussion ranges from societal shifts driven by technologies in the past to possibilities of the future.   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dean talks about the transformative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including transitioning from live events to digital platforms, and the potential opportunities arising from these changes. Dan brings historical context to the discussion, comparing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to historical events such as the Black Plague and the Roman Empire. We explore the power of technology and how it has reshaped society, from cars to cable TV, and the upcoming "golden plateau" in technological advancements. We delve into the world of virtual coaching and how the pandemic has highlighted its untapped potential. Dan discusses the human nature and how it remains constant throughout history, reflecting on significant technological changes in the 20th century and their effects on society. We consider the concept of a "golden plateau" in technological advancements, discussing the impact on our lives and how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected our reliance on technology. Dean shares his experience with transitioning to virtual workshops and how Zoom meetings might herald a new era in history. Dan shares a fascinating narrative about twin sisters born in Germany before the Berlin Wall, exploring their life choices, and their adaptation to a rapidly changing world, underscoring the intersection of history, capitalism, and technology. We discuss the concept of normalization, how individuals adapt differently to new situations, and how we've navigated the trials and triumphs of life during the pandemic. Dan offers insights into how the shift from serfdom in England during the Black Plague led to a greater appreciation of workers' value, and how this historical perspective may shed light on our current situation. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan. Dan: Do you realize that the recordings of everything we say are being analyzed right now at the National Security Agency? Dean: I bet that's true, don't doubt this for a minute. Dan: It's the best part of their week. Dean: Hey guys, they're back Down the road. That's funny. Dan: They don't think it's funny. Dean: Oh man. Well, how are you after our absence last week? Dan: Yeah, yeah, it's been great. You know things are company-wise. It's our best year ever, top line and bottom line, oh look at you Congratulations. That's exciting. Given where we were two, three years ago, this feels good. That was a long time underwater, yeah boy, oh boy. Dean: Me too, I mean. Much like you, the majority of a lot of my income came from live events, like during my break through the blue 20 events and stuff like that. So yeah, it's weird, I'm just talking about it the other day that you know what was kind of this last year. It's almost coming up on 2021, 22 to almost four full years, right, yeah? Dan: next. Dean: If you think 20 was when it started, right. So yeah, almost all yeah, here almost all of 2023. But I look at the last three, it's been a blur. This last seems like just yesterday. We were in Phoenix at the Free Zone Summit. Dan: At the Boulder, yeah, at the Boulder, it wasn't shut down. Dean: But I think what was really, what really threw me off was we nobody knew how long this was going to last and every I just felt like, okay, well, we'll just kind of flatten the curve, this will go out through the summer and then by the fall we'll be back and everything should be fine, but I'm sure you were thinking that same thing and then, as soon as we flattened the curve, then we kept getting the new you know the new waves, and that went on, like you know, three, three or four times. So weird. Dan: So let me ask you a question what's the biggest idea you've had? Only because you went through what happened over the last three years, three, four years. Dean: I think the whole idea of Cloudlandia really formed then. Because that when I realized that the key is that we could just as easily gather in Cloudlandia and that I shifted everything from being kind of a mainland in-person business to being 80% mainland in-person, 20% on the phone or otherwise, and that was a big realization, and now realize, like I really I haven't been North of I4, interstate 4. I've been North of I4 in four years. I haven't had to. I've 100% migrated to Cloudlandia with invitations and you know people coming to. If they want to spend time in the mainland they come to. But so that was a big that was a big shift. And we're back now to. So I'm back now, you know, revenue wise, back to pre-COVID days, you know. But then we got. You know, I think that the future is a hybrid, you know, I think there's still lots of mainland opportunities, I think, that line of thinking, that realization of mainland in Cloudlandia, and you know the roles of each. Dan: You know it's really interesting. I did a lot of in-person workshops because I was doing the 10 times program beforehand, but this year I'll do 64 coaching sessions. Okay. Dean: Live days, you mean. Dan: Well, live events, so they're not days, sorry. So I'll do 64 this year, and only eight of them will be in person. Dean: Oh, okay, that's what I was saying, that's what I meant. So you're counting like connector calls Connector. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Okay, yeah. And the thing about it I think are a nice suite. Those are two hours. Two hours yeah. Dan: Yeah, those are the perfect suite spot. Yeah, and it was forced upon us only because we had no. There's nothing as decisive as no alternative, absolutely. Dean: Yeah, I hear you, I'm really excited. Dan: But once we created this alternative when we came back to full-time, I mean, the company as a whole is back to full-time live sessions, yeah, and. But we've added these two-hour sessions, which were only possible because our clients at nightbase got on to Zoom willingly or not, they got on to Zoom. And it was so useful creating these little two-hour sessions. That's a huge plus, that's a huge gain for us to have them and they're an entity into themselves. You know they have their own value and would not have gone there for two reasons. One there was no reason to. And secondly, there was no, there was no ability to, but we acquired this capability because of what happened. I was reading the history of the plague, which was not a single thing. It was a series. Of this is I'm talking about the 1200s and 13-legs, right, yeah? On the Black Plague and it hit in the early part of. It hit worse in England of all the European countries and got hit worse. And England was a feudal country. They had warlords and they had serfs. They had peasants, the king was warlord and there were lesser warlords, but each of them had their serf universe around them, and these were the worker bees. They did all the work and the plague was an equal opportunity killer. It killed from top to bottom. There was no class in England that was immune to the plague, because it was infectious, because they intermingled all the time. Everybody was densely populated and it was so devastating that a lot of estates just folded up, a lot of warlord estates folded up because they didn't have workers. They didn't have workers. They had lost so many workers. So what happened is that the workers realized suddenly that they had a value, in other words, that you can't run the place without us. And so they started wandering the field to the highest buyer, the person who would pay them the most and give them the best deal. So in history. it's probably the biggest shift of servants becoming three agents and where they went off the land and they went into the towns. They went into the city and they became hired workers. But they could name their price, because if they didn't like the price, they could go to somebody else and say would you offer me a higher price? And what happened is that the merchant classes suddenly became more important than the landed aristocrats. Okay, because they had business coming in. Where the land has one economic system, it's the crops. And they just decided you know, I couldn't do that. But previous to the plague they were condemned to the land, they were condemned to their occupation. They were condemned to the land, they didn't move. But after the plague they did. And so England which got hit the worst I think they had five plagues in a period of 50 or 60 years and all equally devastating. But they gained the most of the country because they got rid of serfdom in the 1200s where, for example, by comparison, in Russia it didn't happen until the beginning of the 20th century and Germany didn't happen until 1850. Okay, and it was just because of the peculiar geography and the peculiar density of the British population. And then they started talking about rights. They started talking about individual rights and everything along with employment, and freedom follows money. But I was just thinking about that, what it must have been like the year before the first plague and the year after the fifth plague. What had happened to people's lives back then? Dean: I mean it's so fascinating to me, Dan, because I remember in college and high school Western civ classes were like get through that and write your Gordon Rule essay and we've gone with it. And here it wasn't really like figuring out of the supply to you. To me as a college kid, that's what you're thinking, but now it's. The thing that fascinates me is this whole history of Western civilization, of how we kind of came into this thing. There's a funny meme going around on TikTok right now where women ask their husbands or boyfriends or whatever how often do you think about the Roman Empire? The meme is to turn your camera on and just ask your husband or whatever how often do you think about the Roman Empire? And it's pretty interesting because the answers that they're giving like a lot of them, are think about it all the time and you think about how much it came from. You know, came from. Dan: And they didn't know, and the way they didn't know. Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly. That's what are they thinking? About they're thinking about the Roman Empire. That's the Roman Empire. Now, that shocks me actually. Dean: But you strike me as a guy who often thinks about the Roman Empire, you know. Dan: Yeah, I do. Dean: Not many people, dan, I don't know anybody else to have a conversation that starts up. You know I've been thinking about the Black Plague lately. Yeah, only here, welcome to the Blue Land, because you hear such a conversation, that is you know, we just had about five. Dan: We just had about five tripwires at the National Security Agency. But if we didn't know, that the majority of husbands were thinking about the Roman Empire you know, it's kind of like when have we been? We didn't pick up on this Right. What's that mean? Dean: Yeah, but you know the interests that they were giving was. You know one? A couple of the guys were engineers and they constantly thinking about you know the. Roman Empire thinking about others are the one guy's. They was a martial artist. Thinking about the Roman, you know gladiators and Like constantly thinking about all things. The Rome, you know and it's funny because you're, you know. You look at your Euclid, you know yeah, I'm before the Roman your foundational thing. Dan: Right, exactly, but I mean, I mean actually if there was any Civilization that benefited from Euclid, it was the Romans. They were great builders. Yeah, you know, yeah, and all that depended upon the books of Euclid, every everything that they did. Yeah, well, it's an interesting thing. You know, I have a constant belief that human nature is a constant in the. I mean, we tend to think that people are radically different because of the means that they use at one particular era of you know history from another side that well, that that means they were really different people, and I said I don't think they are. I think they have a constant. You know they have a constant motivation to kind of utilize whatever they have available to them, and Oftentimes that requires that they have to create an entirely new structures and new processes, and and so the so you know, I don't feel, you know like I was born in the 40s, I lived, you know, I was conscious beginning in the 50s and my sense is that, as far as how people were, you know what human nature was, I don't see much of a difference. I certainly don't see it in myself, you know, I just sample of one feel any different. Dean: I Think I still. Dan: I'm very much in touch who I was when I was eight years old. Dean: Yeah, me too. Yeah, I think about that a lot like that, because I have been and we've had conversations about the reflection on. You know, I think you know we've had to be the ages your 22 years older. Than me that you've had a whole mother. You know generation of, you know the experience from 1944 to 1966 with the pretty. That's a pretty, yeah, that's a lot of happen. You know, yeah. Yeah, and I look at the. You know the 22 years from 1966 to 88 were really. I marked 1988 as basically the end of the analog life. You know that that the beginning of the digital live, and though digital stuff kind of start happening in 70s, there was a real practical here. We started getting real practical applications of digital stuff. But that first 22 years of my life was Really analog and I'm thankful that I had that experience, because I think there's something you know to that. I don't know whether it, I don't know practically, whether what we you know the fondness that I feel for either Nostalgic or you know, but it was a different, it was a different world. Dan: It was a very different world yeah. Yeah, well, going on that book, the, you know the big change you know, yeah, from the book, wonderful book that you sent me, which I consume. You know the. I was born right at the payoff period of the first 50 years. Dean: You know yeah. Dan: That's it. Yeah and you know I've been talking to people decades older than myself who had gone through the real huge impact of the you know, the cars, the electricity, the you know light everywhere. You know movies, radio, movies, radio and the beginning of television. You know that and you know, you know I mean. I remember People gathering in rooms to watch this thing called television. You know, I remember you know it was like a big event. Dean: We just got our television. Dan: come on over, we're going to have a buffet dinner and we're all going to sit around and watch our. Dean: TV dinners and jiffy pop popcorn, yeah, yeah. Dan: It was rudimentary, I mean, but the big thing about it was it had a liveliness to it because the Programs were not recorded, they were live. No, everything was still live. And you know and think about where we are now. That Live TV. Well, first of all, I don't watch it in the heaven for a while. But I think a lot of people just said why should they schedule when I get to watch what I want? Dean: Well, it seems a little undignified. Dan: Yeah, it seems it seems feudal Feudal in both senses of the word. Dean: Yeah, what a feudal way of doing what I want to watch, you know, but you think about that was largely there was no change between the way you were watching television in 1948 and the way you were watching television in 1988. It was really the main. It was still as Scheduled you had to be yeah, you had maybe one more. Dan: You had maybe one more channel, you know I went to. Cnn start. Well then you had the cable. Yeah, that's what I mean. Dean: At the 80s you had more options for it. Yeah, but it wasn't until it wasn't until the late 80s that you had more option. I mean, the VCR brought a synchronicity and, yeah, freed you from at least you could shoot, gave you choice and Detached from the scheduling of it. But nobody could figure out how to Record stuff. Yeah it was a look. You know, 90% of the VCRs were still flashing 12 yeah, you know nobody can even program the clock for it, let alone Learn how to record Programs. You know so mostly. You had Blockbuster to go and give yourself some Choice, but that took from 1948 to 1988 to get to that point. And that big middle, that big Golden plateau, that I think that's a good term for it. Right, is that golden? Dan: plateau of. 0:18:39 - Dean: All of those things being in place. That happened in the big change. All those things you mentioned electric and on radio, tv, movies, flight, automobile, all of those things climb, climb, exponential improvement to 1950. And then we had that golden plateau where there wasn't much innovation on those things but it was really settled into a much improved life and life style Because of those things. You know now every I had electricity, air conditioning, telephone, car in the driveway, pv in the living room. You know All of those things were. That was like the basic, that was the basic amenity package for American life circa 1950 to 1980, you know, yeah, and that's bathroom bathroom is where there was no bath and no shower. Dan:Yeah, right exactly. Dean: Very funny that the thing now and this is where I firmly believe that period from 1975 to two-week years of AI, a couple more years to develop, with that same sort of climbing, climbing, exponential improvement in things. But I think that we're approaching level golden plateau, where the next thing is going to be settled into the benefits of using all the things that we have now, of really settling into those utilization of this new baseline, like every home. Now it's interesting that the basic amenity package for life now includes some sort of a smart phone, access to the internet and streaming smart television service. So all of that as the baseline package, though for the digital plateau here. Dan: Yeah. Dean: It's pretty exciting. Dan: Yeah, and I feel that, and I think that World Affairs are dictating that this is now going to be the only thing available for people to do, because my feeling is that COVID delivered a first stunning blow to both your ability and your desire to travel. I think people are much more at home or stay in place today than they were four years ago around the world. I'm not just in North America, but in the whole world. Dean: That geography does come into place, right, like your position, your outpost, your mainland outpost to Cloudlandia, like I think about I've just been watching you know, with just a perplexing. I can't even imagine what it's like to be living in Israel right now, like that entire, or Ukraine I mean you think about these things how insulated we are right now from the reality. Dan: Well, like there's one aspect. You know, israel comparatively has a very small population. That's why the equivalent of what happened with the first 24 to 48 hours was way beyond what 9-11 did to the United States. Dean: Absolutely yeah. Dan: Yeah, because it's the equivalent of 40,000, you know if you compare. Israeli population of the US. You know, the US's population is 45 times bigger than Israel. So the 3,000 out of 40, you know, 45 times it's significant, but it's, you know, it's not that big, it's like 40,000, I mean, if you wanted to translate it, it's like, you know, it's like 40 to 50,000 people have died. But the other thing is the call up to war, because it is a declared war. They've moved 300,000 working-age people into the military, now their full-time military. So what's that do to the economy? you know what's you know, and so my sense is that Israel, which is a very advanced technological country, is now going to go through an amazing period of artificial intelligence, dealt with everything that moves in their economy. Dean: Yeah, I mean when you amplify too, especially the proximity to it. When you look at the, you know it might be a 145th of the population, but it's also, you know, a hundredth or less of the geographic area of the. United States, you know. Dan: Yeah, it's basically New Jersey you know, I mean the land area of New Jersey is about equal to and they're comparable yeah, yeah and when you look at that and you realize that's not like even in Ukraine. Dean: As you know the size of the Ukraine, if you're you know kind of there's a place to distance from what's going on the eastern border of Ukraine. If you're on the western side you're kind of a little bit insulated from it. But you know, it's just. It's amazing to me, dan. I can't even imagine. Dan: Yeah, well, you know actually my experience of this because I was, you know, technically in a war zone when I was in South Korea. Dean: I was going to say you were in a war zone. Yeah. Dan: Well, south Korea, and we were maybe a hundred miles from the DMZ, okay, uh-huh, but you were conscious and we had five alerts in the year and a half that I was there and that meant there was an incursion on the DMZ, the demilitarized zone. I can tell you the demilitarized zone is very militarized, you know, and so there would be, you know, a squad of American troops or the other UN troops would be ambushed. You know they would ambush, and immediately the country you know, and this was the military, the US Park, you know 40, 45,000, and then you had. You know you had other troops, the Turks, the Turkish. The Turks had a big contingent there, but immediately you knew what to do, you would do that. So in Israel they've had the rocket attacks now going back seven or eight years. Okay, and they immediately the sirens go off. Everybody knows what to do. So there I was, that the closer you are to the danger, the less scary it seems, because it's normal, you've normalized anything. And three or four days, you've normalized the situation. Okay, you've normalized it. Seeing it from a distance, you know you're imagining what that situation would do to the Four Seasons, right, yeah? Dean: I'm sitting like I'm in my courtyard right now and it's just, it's the perfect temperature. It's so quiet, you know, because there's nothing around me. I just can't even imagine if bombs started landing or somebody started running through the neighborhood. Dan: Yeah, but on the other hand, I mean, you've been there for decades, you know in the area and you have. You know what? Two, three hurricane alerts a year. Dean: Well, people in people in Toronto. Dan: I mean a hurricane for people in Toronto, oh yeah. You know, actually almost the entire what I would say. The the water overflow situation in Toronto was hugely created because of a hurricane in the 1950s that killed 200 people in Toronto because of sudden rushing water in parts of the city where people were caught. It was like a riptide. You know it was like a riptide and they had to reconfigure their entire drainage system. You know when heavy rains and everything like that. So that's an example, you know, an example of someplace that doesn't have this kind of situation. When they get a big one, they have to rethink everything. You know. And but the type of a situation we had in Toronto in 1953, I wasn't here, but as a matter of fact, I'm not here today, I'm in Chicago. Dean: But just talking about it. Dan: You know I try to get some distance between me and any potential problem, but you know I mean it's a violation of normal and in Israel, my feeling when I was there it's been about two and a half weeks in Israel and I got a sense that everybody knew what to do with trouble. Okay, they knew what to do with. There was a kibbutz that we visited and these people had been in Gaza, that they had lived in Gaza before it was given back to the Palestinians 2005, 2006, I think it might have been somewhere around there and they were talking. The woman said that there was the start of trouble had started and there were bombings and there were shootings and she had three kids and they went out the front door and she heard the bombs, she heard the shooting and they all came rushing back in and they said they're shooting in the streets and she said, well, go out the back. No, out the back, wow and the reason is, I mean, they had already rehearsed it, but they had to go to school. Dean: Yeah, go help the back. Dan: Okay, yeah, she said well just go out, just go out. They had a back gate and no, there was a back route and everything like that so what it says is that having something like this happened was the normal part of their experience Right, yeah, that's just and they were all tacking every. We were up at the Lebanese border and we just visited this community. That's the furthest northern, most Israeli settlement town. You know, it's not big, you know, a couple hundred people. Everybody was packing, everybody had a six-quat, you know. And so funny because there was a UN troop between them and the Whoever was on the other side of the border and and he said aren't you scared? He says I'll tell you who's scared, as the UN people, they're really scared. Okay, because we kind of believe that they favor the Terrorists. You know, our belief is that the UN protects the terrorists, you know. But if you went to the northern, above the border and you asked the Lebanese, they said we feel that the UN Favors the Israelis. You know, uh-huh. So I said if trouble starts off, who gets shot first? I? He says, well, the UN troops. And he says I even got a guy on the shoot. Dean: Oh my goodness I've got a guy I know the guy right Normalizing no I don't know how to yeah no, normal is normal. Dan: Yeah, we're great normalizing species. Humans are a normalizing species. You know that. Dean: Reminded me of. There was a cartoon where the, the Cheap dog and the wolf were, you know, clocking in for their job. Today, fred, they ask each other at the clock in, and then they did work. He tried to steal the sheep and he tried and foil them. Dan: You know, yeah what'd you do last time? What'd you do tonight? Last night, you? Dean: know, you know what are you gonna do what? Dan: what are you gonna do today? Oh, you know the usual, yeah. And so people, you know you, you know real, realize that we were standing in line. We came through the Toronto security yesterday and and if you were, if you had nexus or you had what's the general term for nexus is where they yeah, yeah. I get global entry. I just look, you know, and they're really. The Machines are really sophisticated. Use, come up the machine yeah it has an arrow going upwards and said look into the camera. And I looked into the camera and there was about a five seconds. Say your identity, you know, you're confirmed. Yeah, and see the an art, you know. And that's become normal. Yeah, but in the not because we find business class and we have nexus and the other thing people were having to take off their shoes. Okay, yeah, this is 2024, and they have to take off their shoes to go through, you know, to go through the machine and and I said this was because one guy, one guy. Yeah, 25 years he was fine from London to New York and he was trying to detonate his shoes. And and he was a clutch, and so they caught him and they took him away, and immediately, because of one guy not two in two different situations, but one guy in one situation he had immediately. Everybody has to take off their shoes. It's just one guy. You know why don't you have a little area where you have to walk across? You know it's on the floor and it can detect explosives you know, and it's a trapdoor, so they immediately drop you into the. The cleaner, the cleaner who was that? Dean: Land security right, yeah, yeah who was that guy? Dan: I said we'll never know. We'll never know. Yeah, but it's interesting and you know it's a pain, you know, and that's why we have nexus and that's why we've adapted cloudland via Bypass. You know, the machine knows me. Yeah, that's it's really important is that the machine knows you. Yeah, but there's a thing about normalizing, you know, and but my feeling you know the famous, you know it's the adaptation curve, you know it's a yeah, you know it starts at one end, then there's a big bulge and then it goes down the other end my sense is that people's ability to normalize is unequal. I think you and I are pretty fast to normalize. Dean: I think the two of us and that and it's a reward for being a DD you think, yeah, I think so too, you're probably right. Dan: Yeah, yeah, that's an interesting thought. Lon, lon, quick start, lon, quick start a DD. I think you normalize really fast. You know, I normalize really fast yeah. I remember it was Friday, the 13th of March, when I was in Chicago, and it's funny because Friday was the 13th. This is. Sunday, but we're talking, yeah, and, and I was coaching a workshop, but it was about 60% of what its normal numbers were. You know, I think we normally had 50 and I think we had maybe 30. And then when we got together After the workshop, before Babs and I went home to flew back home to Toronto, she says we've had a powwow all the leadership in the company and we've decided we're gonna have to close down All workshops for three months. Okay, it's March, we're gonna close down all workshops until, because we're people just aren't going to be showing up and I need to put the word out that we're not gonna do it that time and. I was tired, I'd done four workshops a week, and so we went to the airport, we got on the plane and I'm Halfway home and I said zoom, we're gonna switch over to zoom. This is the opportunity switch over, zoom. And I hit the ground the next morning. Well, it was Saturday, but by Monday I said okay, what will it take to turn everything we do 100% into zoom? Yeah, yeah. I and we have clients today who we haven't seen Since early 2020, who still haven't made the adjustment right. Yeah, I think they can't normalize and what it? Dean: was. I think that when I first started doing zoom I Was doing, I was trying to do the same thing as the break through blueprint, but by zoom, like three days, same thing. We're just, instead of being in the boardroom, you're in your home, you know, and I think we realized about Zoom fatigue kind of thing. It's sitting three days in zoom Full day is a long with a big ass, and I think that you and I both have come to the realization that like two hours more frequently is the is a better Two hours is the right amount of time and I found this beautiful time zone From three o'clock to five o'clock Eastern time. He gets me. I go to Hawaii on one end, even to the you know, this side of Australia where it's six am, you know, at three pm in the afternoon, all the way to Lichtenstein on the other end where it's, you know, ten o'clock at night. That Swap of the Western world is really what's available in yeah, and. Yeah, that's our. Dan: Yeah, our stretches from Pakistan, Well, stretches from Mumbai, because Mumbai is further to the east and Pakistan to New Zealand, and I'm just saying people who show up for zoom cults. You know the? Yeah, yeah yeah and everything. Yeah, lichtenstein, that's really interesting. Dean: Do whites, do well often they're husbands. Dan: That's perfect. Nsa that's a money laundering. We have the very first space. Dean: So I started doing this specific like I do a lead conversion workshop and a lead generation workshop, which are four sessions specifically about that micro topic, two hours each four weeks in a row and the very first one that I did. We had someone from Hawaii and Lichtenstein and all points in between. It was really the perfect thing. Dan: Yeah, I mean we adjusted throughout the day depending on our, you know. I mean I'll have six free zones, six free zone, two hour free zone. Dean: I'd love quarter. Dan: Connector calls are amazing and if they're big you know they have a lot of people they take on one quality, and if they're like a handful of people, they take on another quality. They're different for you. You don't have to have breakout groups if you have five people, you know, because the group is the breakout group, yeah, and everything like that. But I think this we're in for one of those periods and I agree with your thesis that we've had sort of a 50 year move to the new game period of history. Dean: Okay. Dan: And I think the politics and the economics of the end of the 50 years are radically different than the politics and the economics where you started the 50 years. That would have been true from 1950, from 1900 to 1950. Dean: And that was something. Let's talk about that for a minute, because there might be some clues into what happened. Dan: Well, there were no empire in the 1900, the whole world was organized according to empires. There were six or seven major empires by 1950. They were all gone. All those empires had gone away. Okay, I mean, great Britain still retained a global reach that used to be their empire, but it was now called the Commonwealth. Okay, and it wasn't British troops being stationed in those places. Dean: You, know it was this that they. Dan: What held it together was British law and British political structures, and English language and the pound, you know the. Dean: I mean franchise basically. It was a franchise, ideological, political. Dan: Yeah, and the US changed the least of all those countries. I mean from a lifestyle standpoint. It changed a lot of technological, but it's basic structure and process of how the country is run stayed exactly the same. It was the Constitution in 1900. And it was the Constitution in 1950 and then 2020. And it was designed as a franchise nation right from the beginning, because each of the states is like a little fractal copy of the federal government, you know so and each of the states gets to adjust to the way that they deem important. You know, it's, it's everything. So I think, of all the people on the planet who have had to change the least over the last 50 years, I think Americans are the number one. Dean: You say well, what do you mean? Dan: I mean I had to do this and I had to do this and I said, yeah, that's yours, you know, I bet you have more conveniences, you have more comfort, you have more capabilities, but I would say your day to day life is not that much different, because it's so there's a guy on YouTube who has a channel where for years he's branched off into other areas now, but his main thing was, as a solo guy, just going with a GoPro camera to explore former Soviet territory and right Dean: it was just the guy on YouTube. His channel is called Bald and Bankrupt oh the guy. But he goes around and he gives you. He just goes and sees, like what is life like in Uzbekistan right now? You know like he goes and tours the areas and he's fascinated by the you know, soviet mosaics and the all the remnants of, you know grander times for Soviet it's all ruined, it's all ruined, absolutely. And so you see the day in a life of people because he goes and sort of, he speaks Russian well enough to get by. Dan: Get along. Dean: Yeah, and he'd be friends he'd be friends, locals and gets invited into their homes. And you know, you just see like what? What an amazing contrast to life in America. You know a capitalism life, then life after you know communism, where capitalism hasn't fully sunk in, even though it's an option, it hasn't sunk in. You know, in that way, and how desolate you know it's. The landscape is just bleak. You know, I mean everything is in this and and the roads and the infrastructure and everything is just crumbling and the bar resilient, I guess, in a way, right, yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of. They're living normal life. Not I wouldn't say normal, but I mean normal. To that normal, no, normal, they consider it normal. They consider it normal. Yeah, yeah, normal life, yeah yeah, yeah, the. Dan: there was an article I read about twin sisters born in Germany, born before the wall went up, so this would be and, and one of them said, you know, we've got to get out. And they were. You know, they were young, very young at that time. And so the one with a lot of initiative did it and she was leaving behind her twin sister, who she was unusually close to, that close to, and she moved to the West Germany and other sister stayed in East Germany and they would correspond and they're under, you know, under very difficult conditions. They were able to visit with each other. The sister in East Germany couldn't go to the West but there was provisions that, you know, families could reunite for half a day or something like that. So, anyway, and then then the sister, who was, you know, more motivated, then got a chance to move to the United States and she moved to Iowa. Okay, and at a certain point, when the wall fell, you know, which was 1989, the sister, they made this. It took a year to plan it and everything else, just practically, because the sister in Germany just wasn't used to going anywhere. And they finally they flew to. She flew to Chicago and then to Iowa, and so they picked her up at the airport and she they were just driving from the airport to wherever the woman lived in Iowa the now American sister and they were going through just a normal supper and she said you're taking me through the wealthy section, Now you take. And they said this isn't the wealthy session, this is just no, this is just, this is just the way everything normal, yeah this is normal and that more or less paralyzed the sister because she had no mental structure to take in that this was just the way that Americans lived. And then they went to a supermarket, you know which was probably the land size of two football fields, you know, and just a normal, super, nothing special. I mean, yeah, and so they walked in, they says we've got a lot of shopping to do and everything. And she says, well, is there anything I can do? And she says, well, look about the aisles there, you see. You know, there's aisles one through 20, and just go to aisle number 11 and just turn the corner, you know, and take string with you, so he or lead, lead, bread, breadcrumbs, and so she says, but we're looking for corn flakes, some, of course, like. So anyway, and they agree, and they're both punctual, they're German. And so she says you know, in 20 minutes let's just meet right back here. And so the American sister is there, but the German sister, the East German sister, isn't. So she goes down to aisle 11 and her sister is right where the corn flakes were standing, mute. You know just looking at the corn flakes and she said there's 10 different kinds of corn flakes. How can I possibly choose? And she said I just grab one of them. And she said I can't comprehend. How do you make decisions here? How do you make? Decisions yeah yeah, it's a collision of two normals. Dean: Yes, you want. I mean Lupa talked about that coming to. America and going to the grocery store as you know like going just seeing all the things that were available. It's amazing. It's really interesting to hear her talk about her awakening to capitalism you know like as a because she came to America at 18, you know, or you know 20, I guess she was 20. Dan: And yeah seeing having her life Anying. Other siblings followed her yeah. Dean: Oh, she brought everybody, yeah, everybody over, but that yeah, she just well, I think, I think you have a different level of well, she's really the you know she's the. Dan: You know the great exhibit here of someone, the adaptation curve, you know. I mean she just like it was like when she had the chance. She didn't miss the chance to get out. Dean: But what I? Dan: remember most about her story because we were out to dinner a couple of times at the last free zone in Palm. Dean: Beach. Dan: And what I remember most was that the person who most protected their rather odd family in the Ukraine in Ukraine, was a KGB agent. Dean: Oh yeah. Dan: And you know so you know everything. You know what makes people normal is who they're connected to. You know what, who, are you? connected to, and you know, the more you're connected to people who have wider perspective than have greater capabilities, I think it's the faster you're able to adapt. Agreed, I think that's what I mean, since I talk to you all the time. What am I going to do? Wying about COVID? Yeah, I mean, regardless how I'm picking, you know, I've got a certain status to get to maintain. You know, reputation to maintain, yeah, yeah. Dean: I love it. I think the interesting thing, about MacCamp. We to think about this week is this in the context of the golden plateau that we're reaching here, and how to thrive in that golden Well, I think things are going to fall down, you know my my military money, energy, labor and transport you know, I think things are definitely. Dan: I can sense that things are slowing down. Like you know, the predictions in the high tech industry everything's going to get bigger and better, and that's you know, it's a straight upward line. Yeah but I too in infinity, and I says I don't think so, I think the mouth. Things really slowed down when they hit 1950. Oh, you know, I remember it as being a fairly tranquil period of 1950s, 1960s. You know, I agree, that's what I mean is very until you were born, and then, of course, things started to get in line and things shifted Right. Yeah, but I know I agree with you 100%. Dean: That was a. You know that all of that leveled into a stage of, you know, a plateauing of advancement. I mean, it wasn't, it was. You know, all those things you read about in the big change, those things were revolutionary. I mean, so all these baby boomers born into this plateau, that plateau, really didn't know a world before those big things, before electricity, television, all television, air conditioning, cars, roads, all of that. And then they grew up in brand new schools all the way up. You know the whole thing. Dan: Whole new neighborhoods. You know, they grew up in whole new neighborhoods, yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah, yeah, I think we're into that period again. I think we're going to you know go. And I was thinking that when people say bold things like cars, use an example of cars, of classic old time cars. You don't notice many classical cars that were produced too much after the fifties up until the eighties, you know right. You really to pick up on the late forties the forts were beautiful, the Chevy's were beautiful, the Lincoln's were beautiful and everything else, and they are saved because they didn't really they stylized, they certainly did not approve. I can think of only maybe two cars. I'm not a car guy, so your thing, but you know, and one is the Chevy Corvette which has maintained a certain classic look for 70 years, and the other one is the Camaro, both the Chevy and the Camaro, the Camaro is you know, is a hot car, but I can't think of any other. you know again, I'm not a car person, so I'm basing my confidence on ignorance here. But anyway, but the big thing is, but the fort thirties and forties is just full of these old classic cars. You know, and I think it was a high design period and you know, and I mean we certainly don't save any technology that much from that period of time. You know well it was not over. Tonight I've got, I still got my 19 Motorola television and oh, yeah, no exactly Six, six inches. And you know and everything like that. You know, nobody does that, but they do have radios from the forties. You know, people do have radios from the thirties and forties, you know, yeah, yeah, anyway. So how would we sum up today? Because we've shot through an hour and record time. I can't believe it. Dean: Well, I think my reflection right now is really going to be, I think, drawing the parallel, looking at who and what were the conditions for thriving in the period from the fifties to the eighties, you know, and on that, on the back of all of that advancement, and I think, if we're going to start doing some guessing and betting about what's going to thrive in the next 25 years, you know that we've reached this thing and I'm going to let it ride out to 20 as the peak of the plateau kind of, and see that period from, I think the period from 25 to 50, that 25 years is going to be. There's going to be a lot of parallels, I think, yeah, yeah, my sense is. Dan: I can just end with one little example from a 10 times connector I had. On Friday I was in a break up with three people. One of them was a marketer, one of them was a podcaster, and I'm just. The other one was an online educational company two women and a man and half their sharing was the progress they've made with AI during 2023. Okay, yeah. And I was very struck by their reports because they just talked about it and they were just talking normally about something that literally did not exist before November 30th last year. Dean: Okay, yeah. Dan: They were just talking as well. We're doing this with AI, we're doing this with AI, we're doing this with AI, and it was like yeah, we're saying, yeah, and we did this, we're doing this with electricity. We're doing this with electricity Right, right, exactly. And now I said I've gotten a keen insight just by your reports. Today you're sharing that this is what's going on in tens, hundreds of millions of places right now, and it's all subsurface, it's all below the surface. Okay. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And they're not talking about it as a big thing, they're just talking about it as a normal thing. Dean: Right. That's why I say by if we that and I think that's going to be expanded that if we that, by then this to 2025, that by then it's going to be, everybody's going to have a sense of what this is. You know, I think you're absolutely right Like we're literally just a year into AI. Dan: Yeah, I mean that's, I can see the report. I can just see the reports that are being written about our conversation today at the NSA. Oh, my goodness, people say we've got to have a meeting, we've got to have a meeting. Dean: They're on, they're on. Dan: They're not onto us. They're onto things that we didn't know about. Yeah, and what was the Roman Empire anyway? Is that an empire we should be paying attention to? Do we have contacts with Alrighty? Dean: Dean. Yeah, all right, I'll be here next week. I think I am. I'll be back in Toronto. Dan: I'll certainly be. I'll be in a position. Perfect, I will talk to you then. Thanks, dean, bye, Okay.

In today's episode of Welcome To Cloudlandia, Dan and I explore Ontario, Canada, alongside a discussion of groundbreaking research on an immortality gene. A doctor shares insights into pinpointing this gene's phenomenal potential for humanity. Lightheartedly, we touch on frequent flyer miles and a Buenos Aires stem cell treatment trip. Shifting to business, we analyse the impactful Working Genius model's six elements - Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanisation, Enablement and Tenacity. There are a lot of nuggets in this episode that prompt us to reevaluate what truly enriches our world.   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We discuss the fascinating exploration of an immortality gene found by a doctor, that has the potential to revolutionize human life. We touch on the effects of altitude on our bodies and share some anecdotes about our trips for stem cell treatments. We delve into the Working Genius model and its six elements that foster successful collaborations in business. Mark Lechance and Babs share their experiences with the Working Genius model, emphasizing its practical benefits. We share the thrilling story of Matt, a man of Discernment and Tenacity, who successfully navigated domain name issues to set up a project in real time. We examine the dynamics of travel and connectivity, challenging the notion that convenience and comfort are sources of happiness. We discuss the importance of purpose and meaning in achieving true happiness and explore the future of transportation, including the possibility of human-carrying drones. We analyze the psychological limits of convenience in our modern era, and encourage listeners to reconsider the value of real experiences over convenience. We explore the future of travel convenience, discussing how modern technologies have reduced travel friction and predicting the future of transportation. We discuss the concept of convenience, how it is interpreted differently by different people, and reflect on the emotional experience of convenience. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan. Dan: Thank God, there we go. Dean: There we go. Thank God we're recording. Yeah, I don't like the sound. Dan: I don't like the sound. Dean: There was just an interruption, that's all I don't like the sound of that voice of yours. What's up? Dan: Well, I just got a cold, I got a head cold Friday, I think. And here I am. Here I am, though, and I'll use the capability that I have available to me to have a great podcast. Dean: There we go. I love it. Well, I missed you last week. I've had a great two weeks. Lots to catch up on. Dan: I'm sure you've had it in the last few weeks. Yeah, we did. We were at DaVinci 50 and Sundance. I've never been there before. Dean: How did you like? Dan: that. Yeah, it's a neat place, it's sort of a neat place, but Babs doesn't operate good at 7,000 feet. Dean: Oh, boy, okay. Dan: So she has some issues. But, she went and she got a. What's it called? It's an IV that you take that pumps your energy up. Dean: Oh, okay. Dan: I knew, yeah, so fortunately we had a lot of medical advice around us. A little bit, yeah and they were able to get right on it. She had it, but she wasn't sleeping well and I'm pretty good. I don't have that problem at altitude, but there was a lot of downhill climbing from our room to the. And my knee, which hopefully, and we're off to Buena Cerras, Argentina the first week of November to get stem cell treatment for my knee, so hopefully that'll be done. Yeah, yeah, we fly in overnight. They pick us up at the airport, take us right to the clinic and I get an injection in the first hour when I'm there and that's my stem cells coming back at me and the promise is that I will grow a new cartilage. Dean: And how long does it take for that to be noticeable? Dan: It's about six months until it grows back. That's what I'm told, and there's a protocol of not putting too much stress on it, not to go hog wild. Dean: Well, how perfect is that You'll have a new me for your AB of perfect I will Just about, and that's exactly right It'll be on. Dan: My birthday will be six and a half months and this will be six months. We go down twice more so that they can check on the progress, and so our frequent flyer miles are going to go up, and it's a long, long flight. Dean: Nine hours have you been to Plano Furniture before? I have not. Dan: I have not this is the first time and they're I think they're either an hour or two hours ahead of Toronto time. Yeah. Dean: One of the things. Dan: Yeah, no, they're an hour and a half Exactly. That's so funny, but it's sort of when you look at the map. It's always a shock to me how that, if you go to London Ontario, all of South America sits east of London Ontario. That's wild, isn't it? Yeah, it's amazing Because you think of South America being under North America but it actually curves around to the east and Ecuador. The west coast of Ecuador is the furthest point in South America and that lines up perfectly with London Ontario and, for those who are listening, it's sort of Columbus Ohio, if you think of Columbus. Dean: Right, right, right, there you go. Dan: Dream of Iowa. Yeah, and Americans, you know Ontario. Where's Ontario? Isn't that near Los Angeles? You? Dean: know they have an airport here. It's called Ontario yeah. Dan: Ontario Airport. You know. Well, that's great. Well, of course it's east of Ontario, california, but you know we're talking about a province that is basically the size of Western Europe. Dean: It's probably the size of Europe, but Ontario. Dan: Yeah, I was realizing the vastness. Dean: When I got to understand the vastness of Ontario I realized somebody pointed out that you could drive north in Ontario the distance between Toronto and Florida and still be in Ontario. That's pretty big right. Dan: And if you did east to west, from Cornwall to Canora, that's basically two cities in Ontario. It's the same distance as Washington DC to Kansas City. Dean: Wow, okay, yeah. Dan: Well, there we go. That is pretty much about all the Canadians huddled close to the border. 90% of the Canadian population is within 100 miles of the US border. Dean: That's great. Well, any big shares from Da Vinci. What's coming down the pipe? You got new me. Dan: Yeah, the biggest thing. First of all, richard is a phenomenally good chooser of great speakers. Yeah, and it's always very, very enlightening, if not shocking, some of the research that's being done, and I think we have a couple of doctors who were there. And one of the doctors, doctor doctor West, says that it's pretty clear now that there's a fundamental gene, if you will I'm not sure exactly what the terminology is- but, it's a gene, that's the immortality gene, okay, and they've been able to zero in on it because none of our genes die. I mean the body they're in dies, but none of the genes themselves actually die. They're immortal and because we all have them, so all humans have them, and every time a new human being is born, it's basically picking up on a couple of million years of genetic development. Yeah so they know that those are immortal. And but in each individual there's a turnoff, there's a series of turnoff mechanisms I'll just use a more understandable term here and they're zeroing in on this. For example, there are life forms that don't die flat, flat, flat, flat. Worms, for example, don't die. You know, they, they just never die. And you cut them in half and you can cut them in half, and doesn't matter which half, and they can regrow the other half back. So so you know, I mean, it's just really, it's just really interesting where all this is going. I mean, what's the time frame for this, to discover this? Well, they don't know that, you know. But the bare fact that they're they now think it's possible and that they're experiment way. I just find all that stuff interesting. Dean: Yeah, I find it very interesting too. Yeah, that's great. Dan: I mean, it's kind of the fact that we can know that DNA exists. Dean: I mean the fact that somebody discovered that and I mean it's just, how would you even know to look for something like that? Right, yeah, we take it, you know we're. It's so amazing, the things that I mean that's all happened in the big change from 1975 to 19. Dan: They're 2025, you know, I've been really thinking about that. Dean: That too, the you know the the biggest change If we take, if we extend out to 2025. I think that period of 1975 to 2025 is going to be, you know, civilization changing yeah you know scope of what's happened here. Dan: Yeah, but it's like yeah. Well, my redone it is, that it's the people who benefit from this. It's not going to be worldwide. The next 50 years let's say 2025 to 2075, I think that. I think what we're going to see is massive political and economic change, because there's a there's a point where you wanted to become a powerful technological country. And at this point not many have. I mean, if you think of all the countries in the world, the US is clearly, you know, in the lead, and the US has just so many other things going for it. You know, it's geography, for one thing, that's, it's really hard to invade the United States. I mean, first of all, 3000 miles of water one way and 5000 miles of water the other way, and then you have the Gulf of Mexico, and then you have Mexico. But Mexico in the 200 miles south of the US border is desert and mountain. It's not a it's not a populated area, and then the North North Canadians were always a threat, but now that they've nationalized pot, that's that's neutralizing that. Right and Canada. Weren't we going to invade the United? Dean: States. I think the US looks at Canada, the natural resource reserve tank attached to their northern border. Dan: You know well it's, it's. It's America's biggest gated community. Dean: You know right. Dan: You have to check in at the gate you know, they make you check in at the gate and you can't bring in guns and they want to know if you have any alcohol. They want to know if you have any tobacco. They're not interested in you if you have any new ideas. Dean: Yeah, so you'll love this. I've got four C's that I've observed here, looking for the next 25 years and the I observe that, but you're going to tell me about that in the next podcast, right? Oh, I can tell you about it right now. Here we go. Dan: All right. Dean: So the first is increase, and I love how you always say increasing, as taken this from you, but increasing connectivity with the farthest outposts of the mainland. That is going to be a big driver of the next 25 years. I think we can if we're guessing and betting. That's where that's what I was thinking about, if I'm guessing what's going to happen in the 25 years. What can I bet on? And I bet on increasing connectivity with the farthest outposts of the mainland and that I don't think you can go wrong and I think that, as the technologies are evolving, that will facilitate that connection. That's going to be a big thing. I saw something dance. You know I haven't really been so on board with the metaverse and then I saw and I don't know whether you saw it the most recent video of Lex Friedman and Mark Zuckerberg having a chat in the metaverse with the latest version of the Facebook Visual avatar development where it creates a photo, realistic version of you, three dimensional, in your inner three dimensional space, and you could tell I mean first watching it on the video it's stunningly realistic and impressive. But you could tell that that Lex Friedman even said he's having an emotional experience. This is so uncanny that he's got the you know, the new meta headset on, but his feeling is like he's 100% for real in the room with Mark Zuckerberg, like literally having a real conversation with a real person, and that I think that's the first I've seen of what potentially could be what comes here. You know, because it was really, it was really pretty stunning. When you're watching the video, I'll send you the, I'll send you the link, unless you've already seen it. Dan: No, no, I haven't. This is the first I've heard of it. Dean: Okay, so they have. They basically have a. They split the screen like a try screen where you can see Lex or Mark with the headset on, like where they really are talking and what they're saying. Then they show the middle version, which is kind of the digitized version of what's happening, like all the without the shell on it kind of thing, and then they show the final, the real thing, and it look, if you just look at the visual thing, you would never be able to detect that this is not real. And that's the first that I've seen where there's no latency, there's no, you know, telltale, you know mismatching of the mouth movements or the eye movements or anything like that. If you just saw the third version of it, you would think that's really Mark Zuckerberg in real time talking and that's really Lex Friedman, and so that was like that opened my eyes to and they were just kind of in a, you know, a black background kind of thing, like in almost this. They're in a black, like on the Charlie Rose show or something you know, just their things. But you can imagine in, you know, giving fast forward into 2025, the overlaid on any visual environment. You could place them in at table 10, at jocks, you know, or at the select bistro and they're surrounded and, having that experience, I literally. I would. I would put because you know what, I've said it and you've said it that I don't really have any interest in putting on the goggles because I haven't seen an environment that's real. You know, but if I could put on those goggles and have a real table 10 experience with you, I would put on the goggles. Dan: That was that impressive, you know so that means I have to agree. No, it's one of the things I you know I'm I'm taking your description of it as real, but yeah, I haven't had the experience so I don't really know, you know yeah. Dean: So, anyway, I'll check it, I'll check it out, and yeah so there's the first, that's the first C for guessing embedding connectivity, connectivity, that then that I think, if I'm guessing, embedding on the next 25 years our increasing capabilities, both on demand and on cap. You know, I think if we look at the capabilities that AI is going to provide for us, I'm starting, you're starting to see now the real applications of this. Where you take these, these avatar technologies of being able to create your own digital avatar. I fully believe, now that that is going to be in detect undetectable difference between the real, I mean a digital representation, the real video that I had performed, or a digital AI have done it. So those, all those capabilities on demand, along with and if those are not, capabilities on demand through connectivity with the farthest outreaches of the mainland to every other human that's out there, you know, for the special, for the special things you know well not every other human being, but just the one. You know, the ones the ones who are on the main, the ones who are connected in cloud land you know, because, because I believe in Dunbar's law, that we only have emotional capability for at most about 150. Dan: Yeah. I mean everybody. First of all, I can't comprehend what everybody means, you know. I know Dean and I know Joe and I know. And you guys use up all my time. You know I don't have time. Dean: I was just going to say thankfully, we're solidly entrenched in each other's top 150. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan: I mean the other, the other eight, you know eight billion plus right, I mean I, I'm told they exist, but they don't really have that much. They don't have a place in my future, that much. Dean: Yeah, right, right. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I love it. Dan: And then the number three. Dean: Number three, yes, yeah collaboration that's going to lead to better and better and better collaboration opportunities with both humans and technology. I can't wait to reach your how to treat technology like a well-trained dog or whatever. Dan: What is it like? Dean: Like a great dog Like a great dog. Dan: Yeah, I own owning technology like a great dog. Dean: When is that coming out? Dan: Oh, it's out. Dean: It's out, oh it is. Dan: Yeah, you should have gotten a notice in the email that you can download the ebook. Okay, I'll see you about that. Dean: Yeah, I think that's fantastic. I had on the collaboration front. I had a really amazing widget extension. I've had a great experience this past couple of weeks here. The widget, of course, the working genius model, I see how useful. This is now in collaboration. Dan: We've got three of our team members trained as facilitator or training other people to use working genius. The moment you told me about it, I looked it up. We have the same UNI or the same we have the same. We're inventors and we're discerners. Babs is an inventor, is that yours? Dean: No, I'm DI your ID. I mean, I imagine it's the same thing, but Babs is what? Dan: She's IG, she's a galvanizer. Okay, yeah, right yeah, and I'm proof of it. Dean: So that's great, that's the perfect thing. That's your secret formula, right there. Dan: Yeah, I'm proof of it. Yeah, she galvanized me. Dean: Yeah, and so I had a really great experience with Mark Litchett. Why don't? Dan: we explain to those who don't know what we're talking about Sure Okay. Dean: So Mark, of course, unless you want to Go? Ahead. Dan: No, go ahead. Dean: Okay, so this was introduced to me by James Drage and James introduced this working genius model and you can find it at workinggeniuscom and it's one of the most useful assessments that I've ever come across, right Right up there with Colby, because I think I would rank them. Probably I would rank widget at the top, colby second, and I also like I find Myers-Briggs very useful, but I know you're not as big a fan of Myers-Briggs as I am. But the way that workinggenius works is that we all have workinggenius, which are things that we find effortless, really coincides with our unique ability, really harmonizes with all the strategic coach concepts and the idea is that every team needs, every collaboration, needs somebody in each of the six elements and the six calls spell out the word widget. So W is for wonder, someone who can look at something and see all the ways that this could be improved or where could we go with this. Then I is invention, which is making stuff up. There's a lot of I's in strategic coach. It would probably be, you know. Also, they would correlate with being quick starts, I'm sure. G is for discernment, the ability to look at options and know what the right thing to do is, to have a highly confident ability in discerning that this is the right thing to do. G is galvanizing, which is someone who has a genius for gathering all the people and elements that are needed to get something accomplished. E is for enablement, which is someone who can support the people who are doing the thing to make sure that everybody has everything they need to complete the task. And T is for tenacity, and tenacity is someone who has a high follow through, who makes things happen and takes things all the way to completion, so fast forward. I'm in a boardroom in Boca Raton with Mark Lechance and some of his team and I had this amazing experience of Isn't that amazing. Dan: We just had a metaverse experience because I'm the one that started the call with the cold, but now you have the cold? Dean: Yeah, I think mine is. I'm out in my courtyard and I can tell that our pollen count is very high right now, but anyway, I'm sitting there and I noticed how there's one of the guys on well, there were six of us in the room, but Mark Lechance is a galvanizer with invention, a galvanizer invention and I'm starting to identify like the one sentence summary of what these things are. So, mark's like one word, one sentence, like super power is gathering people, gathering the capabilities that you guys are super smart. Here's what I think we could do, you know, like this inventing all the coming up with ideas or the things that could be done. Then there was a gentleman there, matt, who is a D, he's a, he's got discernment and tenacity and my observation of that is that he would see something and say that's a good idea, and then the next word out of his mouth were done and he, like we were talking about something, we, you know, I came up, I was, you know, discernment and invention is my thing and I came preloaded with this is what I think we should do. We were doing, we have a VCR, vision capability, reach opportunity with one of the projects that Mark runs, and I came in already preloaded with here's the ideas. Well, I think we should do, which was, you know, it's a really great, great idea and we, you know, came up with the domain name, the whole thing, and literally right there in the, in the meeting you know, matt went and bought the domain name, set up like all these things are happening in real time and getting making something real you know, and so it was really amazing to see that, that collaboration between you know, the widget experience there. And I see now, like I realized, galvanizing that I would have guessed that Babs is a galvanizer, because that has been. You know that. That's the, that's the main thing that drives your ability to get your ideas into real world things. It's galvanizing the unique ability, teamwork of everybody on your, on your team, yeah. Dan: Yeah, and she just knows how to create team. I mean she, she knows how to create team leaders, she knows how to create teams and the teams have their, you know, they have their projects and they have their goals. And you know they have their measure measurements and everything like that, but one of the one of the things I've noticed about Babs is that she doesn't really comprehend the impact that she has just by being in the room. Dean: Yeah, I mean, how do you observe that? Dan: How do? You see, no, no, things just happen when she's in the room. Yeah, and in any situation, if you were somewhere with Babs and they had to get something done and within about an hour or two hours she'd be, she would be chosen as the leader. Dean: Right. Dan: Without her saying anything. Dean: Right yeah, right, right, right yeah. Dan: I mean, I mean she's six foot two and that helps you know, because she has a core. But you know, often, frequently, she's the tallest person in the room, but she just has a, she has command in her strength. Yeah, Command is number one. Yeah, you know. She just basically says okay, let's get started, let's get something done here. And you know, and you know I mean that's my life is divided into two parts before I met Babs and after I met, after I was with Babs. Yeah, and you know, it's just real clear that I'm just always highly motivated when I'm around here. Dean: Yeah, what are you looking at? Yeah. Dan: I'm looking at you, I remember you telling me and we're in the 42nd year of AAMD. Oh, that's funny, yeah, yeah. Dean: Okay. Dan: You've done you've. You've gotten three. What's number four? Dean: Okay, so the fourth is convenience that we're observing less and less friction in day to day interactions and mainland to Plumlandia, you know communication. So convenience, you know. I remember I think in 2016 or something, I read that article that I've shared about the tyranny of convenience and how we start to see it's a never ending, you know, desire to make things easier and better and ratcheting those advancements without going backwards. You know, and that's really I think, if I were to guess and bet on things being more convenient, increasingly convenient, over the next 25 years, I think we're going to be. I think that's a good bet and you know, you start to see that. I think that, as we're, we're already seeing things like you know, one click ordering from Amazon. That's now gotten into. You know, apple Pay and Google Pay and Amazon Pay you never there's no need to ever type your credit card into anything to buy online. But I see how that's going If we chart out where the room in convenience is. I also see, I see companies like Rocket Mortgage, you know, foreshadowing where we're headed, that when we start seeing everybody's got access to all of the data we're all going to be, you know, pre-underwritten in background. For anything we're going to have some, you know, available capital or available credit, you know pre-assigned already. You know that we literally will be able to push a button and get approval instantly for whatever we want, and I believe that the blockchain and smart contracts and all of these things are going to make things more and more convenient over the next 25 years, and that's where I've gotten so far. Those, so the connectivity yeah Well, I think they're good. So connectivity- Number one ��로 liability Number two. Elaboration number three. Elaboration and convenience, convenience. Uh-huh, it's good, I think those are, and there's probably more. Well, you know those are the first, uh, first four. Dan: Yeah, I wouldn't push it beyond four. Make the others be servants of the first four. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah, yeah, you know. One of the things is. So what's the role of uh? Travel that takes time, it's the uh. I'm asking you a question here. Dean: Yeah, I think it's the. Uh, what's the? What's the? Dan: what's the role of travel that takes time? Dean: The physical, First of all. It happens? Dan: Travel happens in the mainland because if I can just, of course, if I can just click or have a thought and I'm so yeah and I'm meeting somewhere else, then it hasn't required travel. And it doesn't, it doesn't take time. So, and I think that that's where? Dean: Yeah, so the you know the inconvenience of travel is what is? Two things. That's inconvenient and it happens at the speed of reality. You have to move your, your, your meat puppet from one out. Dan: Yeah, I, I'm going to call you that. I think that's. I think that's a bad term. Dean: The meat. Dan: And I think it diminishes your body and the one thing I want to tell you about, about virtual reality. You're only using sight and sound. You're only using sight and sound. You're not using touch, you're not using taste and you're not. You know, and my sense is that actually, sight and sound make up about less than 10% of what the body actually uses to function. Okay, so, I can understand why my Mark Zuckerberg wants to be in another realm because he can't be speed. He's trying to find a place where he can't be subpoenaed. Dean: You know so. Dan: Right, right, yeah. And I understand that because he doesn't look like a human being who does well in terms of relationship and you know, and everything else, and I can understand why he wants to find another realm to do it, but we've got a million years of actually creating value out of things that take time and things that you know you have to travel over distance. Okay. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I don't think there, I don't. I can't sum up all that just as inconvenience, Right yeah. I mean learning doesn't. Learning doesn't happen instantaneously, learning happens over time. Yeah, so I'm just the American as you put the four things. As you put the four things together, I'm saying, yeah, but you know, when I go on a long trip, you know, for example, it takes two and a half hours for us to drive to the cottage. Okay, yeah, and I've been interested in plots during those two and a half hours that I wouldn't have if I just touched a button and I was in the cottage. Dean: Right, yeah, you think that part of the experience of it is the fact that it took a long time to get there. Dan: Yeah there was a price. There was a price for it. Dean: Yeah, you know yeah. Dan: And if I agree, yeah. So yeah, I'm, I'm. I don't have the answer to this. I'm asking the question. I don't have the answer. I have the answer to it yeah. But I'm noticing that convenience and comfort don't necessarily make people happy. Uh huh, I think purpose and meaning make people happy. You know achievement combined with purpose and meaning. Dean: And my experience is. Dan: That takes a bit of time. That takes a bit of time. Dean: And so yeah. Well, that makes a lot of sense. I mean there's so, um, yeah, that does it makes a lot of sense. And these are just uh. So I do, I'm looking at, no, I think they're they're available. Dan: I think what you're saying is that actually they all come under the heading of capability. You know it's obviously a huge jump in capability, because connectivity and um and uh uh, collaboration and uh and uh and convenience are great capabilities, you know, and I think people are always striving for greater capabilities. Dean: I agree, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's something there's always going to be real. There's always going to be a higher value on on real. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I believe that we're definitely missing out. You know, and it's not by an order of just a small percentage, I mean, it's exponentially different. I think you know um say say what? what I think in the convenience, yeah when I was going to convenience things is that I think that the ability to make that travel, which is still highly valuable, being present in in a place is still highly valuable, um, but the elimination of friction in in doing that To the extent that you can, is going to be, I think, a safe bet. Uh, when you look at I it was, it was funny, we were, I was having a conversation with someone about the the newest travel trend. Uh, in mainstream travel is the private terminals that are popping up now, like at LAX there's was the first one that I heard of where you can bypass the, the main terminal. You go to a private terminal where you pull up, they valet park your car, you go into a suite that's got, you know, just a food and whatever you allow Comfortable for you to wait for your flight. You go through security, everything that's necessary, checking in the whole thing, and then, when it's time they drive you in, you know a BMW or an SUV, they drive you to on the ramp, to those where the plane is, take you up and put you on your on your seat and off you go, and that level of friction, skipping from the curb to the gate, that's what everybody is. That's where all the the hassle of of mainland travel is once you're on the plane. Nobody's mad at the first class cabin of any airliner. It's comfortable, it's. The seats are great, the food is great, the you know the environment. Everything about it is is fine. You get to your, your destination. It's just all the inconvenience from the curb to the gate. You know that we're all the we're all the thing is now. Now, and I also think, like recently, as you start seeing, I think it's pretty clear we're going to end up in a human carrying drone world where that, you know, drone flight is going to be, you know, for shorter, and it's going to be a two hour drive into a 20 minute, you know, taxi, drone, taxi type of environment. I think we'll see that in the next 25 years. I think that's a that'd be a pretty safe bet. Dan: I'll let you bet that it doesn't happen, okay, yeah. Dean: Good and that's interesting. So why? What makes? You think that, that, that it won't happen. Dan: Well, first of all, I don't think the capital is going to be there over the next 25 years, because capital money is getting very, very expensive and it's a function of the fact that transportation is getting very, very expensive. So when you have transportation very expensive, it makes money really expensive, it makes energy really expensive and it makes labor really expensive. Dean: And I don't think. Dan: First of all, I've never you may be the first person I've ever talked to had that as an aspiration or as a future thought, and my sense is that the next things to get invented is where there's like an 80% aspiration in the marketplace. We'd like to have this, you know, and you know, and I think the Amazon has done well, because there's an 80% wish that last minute purchasing or last minute shopping could be eliminated. Dean: Yeah, there's, there's something. I think that's true. Dan: Yeah, but one of the ways I've gone in the opposite direction, I've just eliminated all need for meetings that require travel. Dean: Yeah, me too. How is the travel industry doing? So I would say that that's more of an aspirator. Dan: I would say that's more of an aspiration than making travel comfortable. I would say not traveling at all is more of an aspiration. And, yeah, traveling with the least amount of friction. Dean: I agree and that's what I think would fit in with convenience. Well, I think we started going down that path. That was, I think that in every, in every way, in every element, I think convenience is really a driver right. That that's kind of we're definitely looking for things to be here and less friction. Dan: Let's look at the word convenience, because I think everybody's got a different notion of what constitutes convenience. You know, and I think it's is entirely defined by your situation in the mainland. I mean it only has been in relationship to the, to the. To the mainland I mean that my Apple computer comes on. It takes me, you know, five seconds to get on and I could do it in a second. I really don't care. I really don't care, you know right the five no five seconds. The five seconds seems good enough for me, you know I don't, I don't need it. So first of all, I think there's a point where convenience, or the striving for convenience, has a diminishing return. You know, because even at your personal airport, you know your private personal airport let's say that pretty soon there's going to be a desire on the ideal jet that there's a first class and the second class Right, and people, people say, well, why are they up there and we're, we're back here and you've got every convenience in the world. But because it's all psychological I mean all everything we're talking about here is psychological. You know, pricey psychological. Dean: And. Dan: I just feel that my notion of convenience may be different from your notion of convenience, you know. I mean if we went down step by step and we took our daily life and we went through, and everything like having food delivered to my house doesn't interest. Well, first of all, by all, my food is delivered by house by one person. You know we have a caterer and yes, but, but I can name on two hands. A number of times we've ordered in from a you know a restaurant, you know so that doesn't fall in my area of convenience, right yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: The other aspect about it is that traveling not under compulsion, in other words, I'm not compelled to travel, but just getting out and driving around. I find that interesting. Dean: Yeah, even like going up to the cottage or going. Dan: yeah, yeah, I find it interesting and you know, we have a halfway stop at Tim Hortons where we've never eaten, but we've always peed. The restroom is always in the same place. It's always clean. It's great. My definition of Tim Hortons in Canada is where white people go to get whiter. Dean: Have you ever experienced webbers? No, we go up to 404. Dan: We're heading to the east. We're not heading to the east. We've been on 400 and I've passed it, but the line up looked inconvenient. Dean: Well, you know it was quite a thing that they did was because that was kind of like the official stopping point of the way up to Muscova. That everybody would, you know, friday night stop and get a burger at Webbers. And then they brought in a great extent an overpass. They bought the land across before the oh no yeah. They brought in a great expense on an overpass that you could. Dan: Well, they could put in another parking lot. That's why they did it. Dean: Yeah, it's now convenient to stop on your way home, because it was super inconvenient. Dan: It's really interesting the I just want to zero in on the idea that convenience is uniquely defined. I think you're right. So I think a lot of the technology people make a guess that everybody is going to enjoy a new level of convenience that they're creating and they're generalizing they have to generalize human nature, that everybody's going to like this. I think it's a form of projection on the part of the inventors that, because they find it convenient to everybody else, only 16% of technology startups succeed. The thing, so it means that 84% of them. Yeah, I would say that most technologies are created to satisfy some form of convenience. Yeah, I would say. Dean: There's some definitions of convenience. I would love to go to the source here and see. So. Convenience is the state of being able to proceed with something with little effort or difficulty. Dan: Well, you and I are great believers in that. Dean: Yeah, the quality of being useful, easy or suitable for someone. And then the third is a thing that contributes to an easy and effortless way of life. Yeah, and so? I think, that that's going, no matter what you're doing, to making. I would argue that the virtual division of Strategic Coach has made it, through convenience, a possibility for people in what would otherwise be inconvenient parts of the world to participate. Dan: Yeah, and I think that you may. Zoom has, zoom has. Zoom has Zoom has. Yeah, my sense is that they Do. They need much more than Zoom. Do they need to actually have the feeling that they're? Dean: there. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, we're not going to be able to. Dan: I mean to be tested, yeah, to be experiment, tested. Dean: I was just like you know. You know just at what appeared to be what was literally appearing in this thing. So that was. I'm just reporting the news. Dan: Yeah and yeah, I know he seemed real, but is he real? Dean: Yeah, and I was only seeing a 2D. I'm only seeing the 2D example of it, right? So, yeah, I can't imagine what it would be like. If you Like Lex Friedman's response to it I don't know who he- is. Dan: by the way, I don't know who this person is. Dean: Lex Friedman is a very popular podcaster, similar in popularity as Joe Rogan, like that level, one of the top interview podcasters, very smart, intelligent guy. But yeah, this was His visibly, you know the visible reaction that he was having to. It was like he was having a hard time really describing the impact, the emotional experience that he was having of this and he's a pretty non-emotional guy. That's part of the you know the term he's of. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah, well, I'm going to have. Dan: I'm going to have to have the experience I'm going to have to. The experience you know yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: By the way, that whole. Dean: You know us being able to. It's just so funny to think now of all of these things, like I just see the layering, of this constant improvement in understanding of both our unique abilities and the unique capabilities that are being presented to us and the convenience of collaboration. Did you watch 60 Minutes? Yeah, you don't watch any TV, so there was. Dan: I am innocent of the experience. Dean: Do you know who Rick Rubin is? He's a music producer. He's regarded as maybe the oh, no, no. Dan: I've watched his YouTubes. I've watched his YouTubes. Yeah, he's a great guy, yeah. Dean: Really, he plays guitar. Dan: He plays guitar right. Dean: No, he doesn't. He doesn't play anything, which is really. Dan: Which is really impressive. Somebody else that I'm thinking of he does a really great job of telling you why a song works or how a song works and everything. Dean: Yeah, yeah. Dan: Yeah, he's a white hair. Yeah, I'm looking at white hair. Dean: Looks like Nafuzela. He's the no. You're talking about Rick Beato. Dan: He's the guy you're talking about yeah, that's who I'm, that's what. Dean: I'm talking about. Yeah, no, rick Rubin looks like Nafuzela, he's got a beard and long hair, real zen kind of guy. But he was on 60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper and it was pretty. There's some great sound bites from it. Because Anderson Cooper was asking him well, what is it that you do? Can you play instruments? And Rick said barely Could you work a sound board? And he said I have no technical ability and I know nothing about music, like actual music things. And Anderson asked him well, what do you get paid for? And he said he thought for a second and said the confidence that I have in my case and my ability to express what I feel has proven helpful for artists. And I thought there's a guy, if we were to do a widget on him, I'm sure he's a GI, I'm sure he has discernment and invention as his two things. You can see, this is a good idea, this is the big idea here, and this is what I think you should do. Dan: You have a visitor in the recording. Dean: It's a crow. I think it's funny. Dan: Don't you know that you're sitting. Don't you know that you're occupying his space? I? Dean: must be. Dan: Yeah, he's trying to tell you to get out. This is my space, Anyway it's all interesting. I keep coming back to the whole concept of the difference between convenience and comfort, and purpose and meaning. Yeah because my limousine company that I have in Toronto oftentimes has these sort of elite lifestyle magazines that advertises places to go and none of the people look happy. Yeah they look true. They look like they look like they've got everything they want, and that hasn't made them happy. You know, they look. They look sophisticated, they're obviously wealthy and they have this, but it hasn't done the trick. You know, it's like models. It's like models you know like in Vogue magazine. Babs gets some of the magazines and the Wall Street Journal once a month has a style magazine that comes with one of the additions and they all look well. First of all, I could draw a thought bubble above all their heads and say what I would give for a burger and fries, right, I mean, they look just, you know, they just look so unhappy and yeah, but they're representing the top of the world in fashion. You know, the elite living there are the top and I said, yeah, but they're, it's absent. It's absent meaning and purpose. You know, you've achieved something but and and people will sacrifice enormous amount of inconvenience for purpose and meaning. So it's an interesting discussion, isn't it? No, I mean, I take it may. I'm not a cutting edge guy with technology, but when I hear enough of other people talking about things that seems to work, I said why don't we just include this? And you know, and. I'm really driven by productivity. I like getting a lot of stuff done easier and faster, you know. But it's the thing that is being achieved, that has meaning and purpose. It's not the means of getting there. So yeah. Dean: I think there's a good, no, it's an interesting this thing is you know, yeah, and we live in totally a lot of the world. Dan: We do. Dean: I think that's part of the thing is maybe the, the harmonizing of that is pointing convenience at the end of comfort or out of purpose and meaning. Yeah, to make speaking purpose and meaning more convenient there, there's a new special on Netflix called Blue Zones and it's yeah observation of Okay talk about it. Yeah, and those things, those people, inevitably. They live very simple lives about much adornment. They've got the if you guy, as the Japanese would say, the purpose, you know the meaning that, the thing that brings them joy, connection to people. They love Community, but that's all. Dan: But if you think of your six Right. Dean: Yeah, they're very simple. Dan: They get rid of the eye. They'd wipe out the eye people really fast. Dean: Exactly. A mill that's 150 years old. Dan: I found from their great great grandmother you know, yeah, yeah, there's a famous temple in Japan. This will be. I have to jump right now afterwards, but there's a temple in that every 20 years it's totally torn down and rebuild again. Okay, and this has been happening now for 2000 years. So every 20, that's 100 times, 100 times, wow, and, and, and they have to find wood that's exactly like the wood you know that, the original or the existing one they have to replace with the same kind of woods. There's no mechanical parts of the temple, it's all done with drilling, with ancient yeah and everything they use now. The light screws, yeah, everything like that, and and an American coming into contact with this experience would say why? Why do you do it? Why don't you do it the next time? Why don't you build something different? You know, and, and I said because they have created enormous meaning and purpose out of something that's always the same. Dean: Yeah. Dan: So you know, convenience is a capability, but it's not the really purpose. It's not the ruling me. Right, convenience is not the ruling me. That's a discussion I like you yeah, I really, of course. Let's have a four C's dual. Let's have a four C's dual one, okay, when you do your first free zone with you and I will have a dual in the front of the room between your four C's and my four C's. Dean: Okay, there we go. I like it. Dan: Well, one of them is the same because we have capability and common, and I think capability is the master one. Dean: Yeah, and you're not. You don't think collaboration there. You're putting collaboration as a capability. Dan: Yeah, yeah, I think the other three are actually, I think capability is the center of your four C's and the other three are enhanced capabilities. Connectivity, collaboration and convenience are always being developed new in the world. I love it All right. Dean: Okay, thank you. Well, always great, dan. I'll look forward to next week. Dan: Yeah, and I'll be on the way home from the cottage next Sunday, so I won't be able to so to be the Sunday after. Dean: Okay, no problem, two weeks Okay yeah. Dan: Okay, okay, okay, thanks have a great time, bye-bye. Okay, bye. Dean: Bye.

In today's episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we unpack the fascinating story of how Toronto transformed over the decades thanks to the pivotal work of urban theorist Jane Jacobs. As we debate whether our growing dependency on virtual spaces like "Cloudlandia" is weakening local connections, we ponder journalism's evolution from its regional roots. We reminisce about bygone media eras over a nostalgic lunch at Table 10 and trace how universities and ideological factions shaped radio's founding. As always, we aim to provide a balanced look at technology's ability to bring people together globally while potentially distancing them locally.   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS The episode begins with a discussion about Jane Jacobs' significant role in preserving Toronto's neighborhoods in the 80s and how it has shaped the city to this day. There's an exploration of the shift to Cloudlandia and how this virtual universe could be curbing our desire to travel and reinforcing local areas. We rewind to the 80s and trace the evolution of regional media landscapes, debating the impact of Canadians having links to Florida and the emergence of new franchise models. Dan and I discuss the rise of Cloudlandia and its impact on our lives, connecting us to the world like never before. The power dynamics in radio broadcasting, specifically AT&T's control of the AM spectrum are examined. We delve into the ideological divide in radio before the advent of the internet, discussing how universities pioneered FM radio, while AM radio was seized by the right-wing. We contemplate the implications of geographical shifts and changing economic patterns triggered by our migration to the cloud. The future of communication and travel is questioned, and whether our lives continue to be dictated by Newton's laws or if we're slowly transitioning into a world governed by Moore's Law. The episode concludes with the hosts suggesting that as the virtual world expands, people may start reinforcing their local areas more, indicating a balance between global and local influences. Overall, the episode offers a thought-provoking journey through changing times, digital landscapes, and the very fabric of our lives. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan. Dan: Never gonna leave you. Never gonna leave you. Well come here I am. That's one thing about Cloudlandia Once you're in there, you can't leave. Dean: It's so convenient you know it's addictive. It really is. How was your week? Dan: I had a really super week, I have to tell you. I mean it was a four day week because of the holiday. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And it's not so much what I'm doing, that's what the company is doing, and there's just all sorts of independent projects which have been more or less under the surface. You know, there's kind of an interesting woman from the 80s and economist by the name of Jane Jacobs have you ever heard that name? I haven't. Dean: No. Dan: Yeah, and you know, in Toronto, when they stopped the Spadina Expressway. Yeah, I don't know if you remember that. What seems like yeah, well, you know the Allen Expressway. Dean: I do know the Allen. Dan: Expressway. Yeah, that was supposed to be the Spadina Expressway and it went off. It's gonna go all the way down to the center of the city Right, right, right. Right through the center of the city and it would have gone to the Gardner, it would have hooked up and then they would have traded clover leaves down at the bottom. Dean: And they would have had to remove. Dan: They would have had to remove all those neighborhoods. It would have gone right through Forest Hills actually. I think that was part of the reason why it got stopped, because wealthy people have more votes than poor people. I don't know if you've noticed that Not in my backyard Right exactly. And then the other one was the Scarborough Expressway, which you know, the Gardner extension that went out to the beaches. Dean: You know it went out and it was just called the. Dan: Gardner yeah, it's completely gone. They tore that down one night, basically, oh my goodness. We were away for two days and we had it when we left and when we got back it was gone, you know and but that whole area of Lake now from basically charity, erie Streep, actually, you know where the Gardner goes up the Don Valley. Dean: Yes, exactly. Dan: Yeah, well, that's where you took the extension off and they just tore it down. They tore it down in two, two stages, once about 10 years ago, and then they tore it down again, and so, but this was all the 40 year impact of Jane Jacobs, okay, and she said that she had to preserve your neighborhoods if you're going to have a great city and to tear down I mean, and it's turned Toronto into a congestion madhouse. I mean, that's the downside of it, but on the upside of it, toronto you know, toronto tries to call itself a world class city. Have you ever come across that? And what I noticed is that world class cities don't call themselves world class cities, they just are. Dean: New York. Dan: New York doesn't call itself a world class city, it just is. London doesn't call itself a world class city, it just is you know. So if you're still calling yourself a world class city. That means you're not, oh man it's a Toronto life syndrome. I mean Toronto Life Magazine. Dean: Yeah, and they're Toronto, by a magazine. I'm very intrigued, I'm very, I am very intrigued by these micro you know economies, or micro you know global lenses. I guess that we see through and you're not kind of talked about the whether that is. Dan: I'm talking about mainland. This is mainland stuff. Yeah, that's what I mean. Dean: Yeah, and I wonder if that is. I wonder if that sense is diminishing now that we've fully migrated. Dan: No, I think it's okay, I think it's coming back with, with the vengeance actually you know, and my sense is that the week that COVID started in March I think it was March 13th, friday the 13th I remember when it visited itself upon us, when clients were saying you know, we were seeing 50% drop-offs in future attendance for workshops because of COVID and it was partially, you know, but it was the lockdowns, it was the dropping off of airline flights and everything else I remember I mean all our cash flow got taken away in about a month, right Right and we had to switch. We had to switch to Zoom, you know, and and we had about a three month period where we just had to rework our entire you know, our entire business model to take all the in-person workshops and turn them over to Zoom workshops, you know. So, that's the upside of Cloudlandia, is that if they take away your mainland existence, you have to switch to Cloudlandia to compensate, and it's a bigger opportunity, bigger, broader everything. Yeah, but one of the downsides of this is that people don't feel like traveling anymore. Dean: I mean are you talking about me? Dan: No, I'm talking about us and you know. Dean: I know, yeah, exactly. Dan: I'm talking about everyone you meet, you know. Dean: I know exactly. Dan: You know, our only time when we have full attendance during the week, where we have people in the office, is Wednesday, monday and Tuesday, thursday and Friday, or when there's a in-person workshop. You have to be in the, you have to be in the company on workshop days. Okay and so, but the thing, the Jane Jacobs, the people who really got involved with the number one person in Toronto was Cromby, mayor Cromby, and he was one of the forefront leaders in stopping the Spadina Expressway and the Scarborough Expressway. Okay and so I'm just showing you the interrelationship between mainland and Cloudlandia. My feeling is that the more that Cloudlandia expands, the more people go back and start reinforcing their local areas. That's what I wonder about the whole cycle. How's that for a topic that we didn't know about five minutes ago? Dean: Well, exactly, but I think that I think there is something to that. You know, like I look at the, I think I've been I've mentioned before, like without having moved away from Toronto, like coming into Florida and yeah, when's the last time? Dan: when's the last time you flew to Toronto? Yeah, no, it's been three years, and three years, yeah, the next time will be whenever, april, if you April, if you decide you're coming to Toronto 12th of April is the first Toronto oh it's already set, yeah, it takes us about a year, because we've got to guarantee that we've got a date when people can also do their 10 times workshop in person. I got you, okay, yeah, so you know, I mean pre-zoners, double duty, you know, they double. Dean: Yeah, yeah, okay. Well, this is very exciting. So April 12 is on my calendar then, okay. Dan: I'm pretty sure you're taking a statistic from Dan Sullivan here. So yeah, we better double check on this Well, april 12 is Friday, yeah. It's in the calendar and I think the pre-zone is on or the 10 times is on the Thursday. Dean: Okay, so the 11th and 12th. Dan: All right. Dean: Well, now we're talking. Dan: Dan, and then Dan is on the Saturday and that's what I'm most excited about. Dean: Yeah Well, this will be for those who aren't listening. Dan: Table 10 is Dean and I met meeting for lunch on a Saturday, which really got everything we're doing together started was the table 10. Dean: Exactly right. Dan: Yeah, but that's a mainland, that's a mainland reality which may be possible. Dean: Yes, that's exactly right and I think that this now this is where I can, as I've reflected, I look at where I've been spending time, taking snapshot comparisons this week of today and 25 years ago and seeing where we are. You know, if I look at 25 years and 30 years ago kind of thing, I look back at when I started my you know sort of being in the result economy or launched my entrepreneurial career in 1988. So I look at that as coming up on, you know, 35 years. Dan: this year, 35 years, yeah, yeah, and I just want to look from there Well, it's 35 years. Right now it's 35 years. I mean, we're in the 35th year. Dean: So yeah. Dan: And, what's really interesting, our program where we have workshop programs, started in 1989. Dean: So next year is our 35th year you know it's year 35. Dan: So it's the 35th year of the program and I'll be 80 in May and I've been coaching for 50 years in August. Okay. So it's sort of an anniversary year Nashville in May we're going to have our first worldwide conference in Nashville. Coach Coach Con yeah, coach Con, coach Con, yeah, yeah you can take that in two ways. Coach Con. You can take Coach Con in two ways. Yeah, you can. It's the coach conference, or it's just shows you what 35 years of counting people will do for you. Dean: Oh, that's so funny. Well, I'm very excited about both of those. I'm very excited about both of those things. So where I was going was, you know, in 1988, looking back at the things, it was very much a Toronto-centric kind of lens because I had spent. I left Toronto in 1984 to come down to Florida and finish up. I've been spending a lot of time down there. I spent, you know, I spent those years and driving through this I remember the first time driving down on my own. I had a friend with me. But driving down going through the different cities, like going through Dayton, ohio, and going through Cincinnati. Dan: Ninety-five hits in 75. That's what we took. Dean: That's the main route to Florida. That's the main route, exactly, yeah, yeah, you crossed over at. Dan: Detroit. You probably crossed. Did you cross over at Detroit? Dean: We got a tip to cross over at Port Huron, so up further, which was Further north yeah. Dan: Yeah, but then once you were across it was a straight shot superhighway all the way to Florida, and the reason is that Canadians Florida is part of their Canada. Yeah, I mean Ontario. My Florida includesmy Canada includes Florida. Dean: Yeah, exactly that's true, isn't it? It's like the Southern Extension. You've gotten places in or things in Canadians. Have, you know, links to Florida? You're absolutely right, yeah. Dan: Half the Canadian adult population from around November to April. Well, let's say October to April includes Florida, Scottsdale. Dean: I was just going to say that Calgary you look at the other side, then Calgary is. Yeah, calgary is connected to Palm Springs and Phoenix. Dan: Yes, and then Maui, because I don't know what the situation is now, but I suspect they'll go to the part that didn't burn down. Dean: Yeah, but what struck me was the newspapers. So this is, what struck me is the newspapers and television stations, because we would stay, you know on the road. We would Hotels. Yeah, you would stay, yeah, we would stay in a hotel. And so I don't always, you know, get the newspaper. I've had a long time love for USA Today, which I've always kind of loved as just getting a overview of everything. But it struck me how I had grown up with the lens newspaper, lens being the globe and mail, the Toronto Sun and the Toronto Star and looking that, you know, without any sense of left and right leaning. You know, I didn't understand at that point, you know, the bent of and how that shapes things. But, it was amazing to me that I learned I got kind of on that deep level, these regional kind of markets you know I don't know how to fully describe it, but it was an awakening that I knew that, hey, if you've got something you know that worked in, it was kind of like this franchise. I'd be seeing franchise thinking in place, you know, in different places and seeing the Cracker Barrel restaurant. You have the same exact Cracker Barrel experience at any drop off point along Highway 75, you know, and so yeah. Dan: And that was. Dean: Yeah, at the time the thing was I mean in those days it was the new model. Yeah, yeah, for young college students traveling abroad. Right, but it was so great and that level of you know you wouldn't have any window into Louisville, kentucky, unless you're passing through Louisville and you tune in to the Louisville Echo Chamber or ecosystem where you're seeing the. Louisville anchors and the news and the local things, and you're reading the Louisville newspaper, you know. Dan: And then Macon Georgia. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Macon and everything. Dean: Because you usually made. Dan: I always remember that we shot for Louisville or Lexington on the first night. Yeah, lexington, yeah yeah, but we never saw any of the horse farms. Well, you did I mean because 75 went past the. But you never got off. Dean: Yeah, yeah. Dan: You had Oasis which were franchise Oasis. Dean: Yeah, exactly, and that way you know what you're going to. You know what you're going to get you know, but now I see now how those things are like with the rise of Cloudlandia, the access to what's going on a national scale and global scale kind of thing, is what direct to the individual. You know, now you've got access to everything, and I've been. Do you follow or is on your list of news outlets? Do you come to Daily Wire? Is that part of your routine or? Dan: are you familiar with. No, that's not one of my. Dean: Do you know? Dan: about the. Dean: Daily Wire. Dan: I've heard of it, but that's not really what I it's not. Dean: No, I mean I'll look at it. Dan: now that you're talking about it, I'll look at it. Dean: Well, Ben Shapiro is the one who basically I know Ben, he's the guy that started the Daily Wire. Dan: Yeah. I'm a Breitbart guy, I'm a Breitbart guy. I check daily caller town hall Breitbart, you know. Dean: Yeah well, the Daily Wire is now a $200 million. They do $2 million a year now and they just Last year. If you think about the VCR formula. And the reason I'm bringing up the Daily Wire is that is a cloudland-centric, a media empire that was started 100% to be online and took advantage of one. They tapped into Facebook's reach and they funneled those people into get readership and get subscribers to their news service and use that money to buy more attention on Facebook. That was the whole very simple model and they executed it flawlessly. And so they built this huge reach and they had a relationship with Harry's Razors. Do you remember? Dan: Oh yeah, Like Dollar. Dean: Shade Club and Harry's Razors. So Harry's Razors was a big advertiser on Daily Wire, doing very successfully, and then Harry's took exception to some content on the Daily Wire that suggested that men are men and women are women and that would Whoa, whoa, whoa. Dan: That's like touching the third rail of the subway, absolutely. Dean: And they dropped it. They stopped advertising, but what Jeremy Borencher, I think, is the president, who's the CEO of the company what they did was they started on the backs of that company called Jeremy's Razors and they built this whole. They did a whole ad launching the process because it's their own audience. They were already very successfully selling Harry's razors to their audience by letting Harry tap into their reach, and so when Harry's left, instead of looking for somebody to replace Harry's as an advertising partner, they said, well, we'll just make the razors ourselves. And they started Jeremy's razors and now Jeremy's razors is a huge subscription-based company speaking directly to the reach that they've built with the media company. And it struck me that now we're getting to where these very specialized. I don't think we're separating geographically as much as we're ideologically now that there's brands for the right and there's brands for the left and there's you know, there's woke brands and there's I won't say successful brands. Now. Dan: But the. Dean: I mean the writings on the wall. I'll tell you. Dan: I'll tell you. Can I tell you an earlier crossover that? Dean: set that up. Dan: Yeah Well, actually FM radio was technologically possible in the 1930s and 1940s but it was never approved by the FEC until the 1970s. Actually, there was about a 40-year thing where the federal what's the FEC, federal communications they couldn't get it passed for, even though it was available and and but FM is strictly a local radio reach. You know, during the day you can get about maybe 30 miles. You lived in Georgetown, I think, when you lived in. Toronto right. Well you could get CJRT, which was an. FM station and you could, but once you got, let's say, up to Orangeville or Newcastle, you couldn't get CJRT anymore. Okay, Because, FM is gets interrupted by solar energy during the day. Am we? When I was growing up, I could listen to New York, I could listen to Chicago. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Remember you put on a clear night, real clear nights. I could get New Orleans, philadelphia was easy, boston was easy on. Am because it's a different bandwidth, okay, and it doesn't get interfered with by the sun, but the sun won't let FM go further than about 30 or 40 miles. It's not true anymore, because all the FM stations now go on the internet you know, so I have an internet delivery so I can get Los Angeles Jazz Station on, you know, on the internet and they're taking advantage of the internet. But what happened was it was AT&T really controlled the AM spectrum. At&t, yeah, I mean they talked about the dominant technologies. You know Google and Meta and you know and everything they talked about it today. You know Amazon, that nobody, they didn't get up to the knees that the type of control that AT&T had. Okay, and. AT&T didn't want any competition for its AM networks and they came in and the. But because FM is a local, it's you know, it's a region, it's where you are, you get a real. The universities are the ones who started it all. Okay, so in you know, cjrt was Ryerson and the Toronto and everywhere you went, like if you went to Louisville it would be the University of Louisville you know, and and everything else. And so, right off the bat, the ideology of the universities by that time was left. You know, that was where the left wing people you know symphony music and it was, you know, the various FM stations, and they abandoned. Am got abandoned and the right took over AM radio, you know, and Ross Limbaugh was the first person who really took advantage of that, and this was strictly the right side of the political spectrum. Dean: Okay so. Dan: AM talk radio. Am talk radio. The left tried to get into talk radio and nobody would listen to it. Dean: Okay, Nobody so the you know. Dan: And so what happened? You already had that ideological split at the radio stage. Okay, so if you were left wing and you were driving to Florida, you would go from university town to university town and pick up the FM station, but you weren't less than the AM radio anymore. So that was the first split. Before you ever got to, you know, you got to the internet with. That split had already happened in the radio spectrum. Dean: Yeah, amazing. Dan: That was before you were born. Dean: Right, right, right, that's something. Dan: But I mean, imagine something happened in the world before you were born. Dean: It is so funny. But I look at that, you know, and it is like it's amazing to see how this is going, and certainly club Landia is enabling that and my, to bring it all, we're back around to the. What we started talking about with the local, saving the neighborhoods kind of thing is, yeah, I wonder if we're starting to see geography kind of shaping up here, that Florida and Texas are becoming like sort of you know conservative, you know safety and some kind of thing that they're gathering all the people there, yeah, yeah, and they've surpassed New York, they've surpassed New York state, they've surpassed Illinois, they've surpassed California. You know the states. Dan: People are leaving those states and going to Florida and they're going to Texas and so, but I believe in Moore's law, which essentially is the you know, the technological formula that's created Cloud Landia is Moore's law, but mainland is controlled by Newton's law and. Newton's third law I mean Moore's law is that every 18 to two years the computing power of the microchip will double and the price of it will get in half, that's the we've lived in that world for the last 50 years. Dean: And but. Dan: But Newton's law is for every action there's an opposite and equal reaction. Yeah, so if you yeah, so so you got to look at both laws. Dean: And I wonder, you know one law triggers the yeah. Yeah, it is interesting to see the like. I wonder if you were to you know, are we bringing back now? The importance of the local infrastructure, the local like. What is the role of the community now in our lives, in our world? I mean, I feel like I'm it's getting narrower on less and less like inclined to have to travel to other places, and it's funny, you know, I don't know. Dan: Well, I won't travel, I mean, except for my own workshops. I won't travel to business, I won't travel for anything. And you know and I mean all my speeches what I used to give speeches for. Now you know where I would be invited to a big conference and I cut that off in 2013. I just you know, you can have me as a speaker, but it's going to be a podcast at the conference. Dean: Yeah right. Yeah, that's kind of the way I've been doing. Dan: Things too is zooming in as opposed to traveling and flying in yeah, yeah and it's easy because you know you're doing whatever you're doing at the Four Seasons Valhalla and then you're someplace else in the world. Dean: Yeah yeah that's so true right. Dan: Yeah so, but people think that because there's a new realm available that eliminates all the previous realms, but actually just the opposite happens. Dean: Yeah, I posted and it's so. I think about how we really have the ability to be a beacon. You know I'm Jamie Smart. I don't know if you've ever met Jamie? Dan: Yeah, well, I know of him. I know of him, yeah. Dean: Yeah, wrote clarity, just like when we were doing all the big seminars. You know when we stopped doing that in 2009,. That was a big, you know, big shift in our world. You know, in terms of having spent 15 years every single month doing a big event somewhere new. Joe was having a conversation with Jamie about that and he was like because for him it had been even longer, you know, doing that with his identity of being a speaker, going to town and being on stage. And Jamie talked about it as a transition from going from being a torch bearer, where you have to take the torch and go city to city to spread the message, switching to being a lighthouse, where you stay in there and be your light from when everybody comes to you and that was a big shift. And even then, 2009, the Internet was here and all the infrastructure and everything was here, but it certainly wasn't the same place as it is now. Zoom and all that stuff was not yet. Now it's just. I look at it and you start to see, man, there's just so many ways to reach the world from your Zoom room. You can really have a global. There's nothing stopping you from having a global broadcasting center in a 6x6 room in your house. Dan: Yeah, it's interesting. You were very helpful to us because we had that flood in our Fraser Street building. Then we were knocked out. I mean, we had just come back from lockdown, from COVID lockdown, and we got three months in and we had the city water main next to our building when Underground just destroyed our my recording studios, our tech team, where our tech team was, where all of our materials were. But they closed the building down because the city inspectors had to come in and they had to check out. Maybe the whole building had to come down because the support structures may have been weakened and they'll just condemn the building, but we were out for eight months before we could get back in, you know. But, in destroying our recording studio we had a company. Toronto is a great post-production center for the film industry. So it's dependent upon the Canadian dollar. If the Canadian dollar is really weak, film studios in the United States ship their post-production work you know of editing and everything and there's about 15 movie studios, tv and movie studios in the Toronto area, all the way from Pickering to Hamilton. You know these are big studios but they do all their inside. They bring all their inside work to Toronto. And now they're creating actual virtual towns with CGI. So did you catch any of the Jack Reacher series. Dean: I did not. Dan: It was a huge hit. But the town that's depicted where Jack Reacher is, it's a small town in Georgia. The first season was the small town in Georgia. It was one Lee Child book, Jack Reacher, and that entire town was created in CGI, doesn't exactly? That's crazy, right, but when you look at it. And then all the inside scenes were constructed in the film studios. You know the homes and everything like that. But that shows you the relationship between Cloudlandia and the mainland. Okay, because once you cross an international border, you're in a different currency system. Yeah even though I mean digitally. Dean: I mean so many things are possible now. I posted up a video. Dan: The one thing that remains constant is the US dollar Okay. I mean the US dollar. And people say, well, why does everybody use the US dollar? And I said you just answered your question. Dean: It's right there Back up to the first part of your sentence. Why does everybody you know that's like yeah, I mean it's like English. Dan: Why does everybody speak English? I said you just answered your question. Dean: That's like the Yogi Berra Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded right. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah. And so the big thing is that since 1989, the differential the average differential, between the Canadian dollar and the US dollar has been 26% in favor of the American dollar. So we get 80% of the US dollar, it's dollar 36, dollar 36 right now Are you crazy? Dean: Well, that's crazy. So I checked the number. Dan: I checked the number no no, because in 19, it was $5.55. Dean: Oh, wow, yeah, but it's been hanging around in the mid 30s. Dan: 30% now for, I would say, last three or four years it's been you know could be as low as 30% and it got up to 42% per hour, but that so we didn't plan it this way. It was just a lucky break for us that we started in. Toronto, and so 80% of our income is in US dollars, but 80% of our expenses are in Canadian dollars and basically can buy the same thing with a Canadian dollar in Canada as you can with a US dollar in the United States. So we've got we don't have 26% because it's 80%. It's not 100, but we've averaged 20% for the four years we've averaged. So every dollar that comes across it's worth a dollar 20 if it comes across from the United States. Dean: Yeah, right Wow. And that's kind of where we're talking about the infrastructure, you know the infrastructure thing of being able to now, you know, build with a main or a Cloudlandia audience to reach with all the but with the capabilities or the expenses and physical delivery stuff happening in the most favorable, you know, mainland place. And I wonder if that's the opportunity that geographically you know places will get, will become sort of specialist in certain things. Dan: Well, that has been the case actually for the last 30 years. Okay, because of one factor that 90% of global trade, 90% so every day, the all the transactions in the world, it's, like you know, it can be like 4 trillion to 6 and a half trillion every day. The total value of it, well, 85% of it is in US dollars, okay, is in US dollars and all of that is. 90% of all global trade happens on water Is that right 90% of all global interactions and you know the, if you just take a look that it's water travel and that's only safe because of one factor, and that's the US Navy. And since you know since and that was. That wasn't for economic purposes for the US, it wasn't at all for you at. You know the everybody says well, the Americans, you know they just did this for their economic that actually the US. You know how much 10, how much percentage of the US economy is actually involved in cross border trade? 10%. Wow the other 90% is just Americans making stuff and selling it to Americans. So the US really doesn't isn't really that involved in the world but they had a problem after the Second World War and it was called the Soviet Union. And so what they did after the war said you know, we don't want to fight the Russians head on, so what we'll do? We'll just create a great economic deal with every other country in the world that's not communist and we'll promise them that we'll guarantee all their trade routes by water and they can sell anything they want into the US without any tariffs. And it was a great deal. Modern China only exists because the US guaranteed all their trade, and now the US has decided not to guarantee their trade, their water transportation and that's why. China's hit a wall, you know, and, and so I mean. But it's really interesting, dean, you're the one who came up with the cloud land idea on the podcast, and. But what I've been examining more and more is what happened if the cloud, if cloud land idea changes your ability to communicate and travel. You know, physically it's not like the mainland is going to be the same after that. I mean, if you make a change in one realm, it's going to make changes. I think this localization is now the, so if you're globalizing on the one hand, you're localizing on the other because you got a balance. That's what I wonder now, and I don't see. Dean: I'm starting to see like there's some shifts in the way that you know. I think that cities or towns I'm not, I can just speak about for winter, what I'm noticing a lot of development in is winter haven is sort of focused on the downtown, on making that kind of a more vibrant gathering center. It's not, you know, spread out like within strip plazas, like it was in the 70s, and it's not about the mall. Now it's about the downtown and they're taking kind of this ghost kitchen or you know model, but building it around social spaces. So there's two or three now of these developing areas where they've got multiple restaurants in one gathering place, right, so it becomes like a social hub where you can go there and they have live music and people gathering but you can eat at whatever, whatever type of food you want. Dan: So it's not like going inside to ask you a question I mean winter haven is a fairly small geographic area, but are there are there new residents buildings? Going up where these social centers are. Dean: Yeah, see, that's the thing? Dan: yeah, because the internet, you know the interstate highway system had bypassed all the downtowns. Dean: You know back in the 50s the right. Dan: You know the. The interstate highway system in the United States is the greatest public works project in the history of the world. It's about 63,000 miles now and they add about another 500 miles every every year. You know bypasses and connectors and everything like that, so it's a never ending project. But in the 50s it just bankrupted almost every small town in the United States when it. You had to go through the small. We went to Florida in 1956 and it was small town after small town after small town. There was no interstate. 75. Dean: Yeah, wow, yeah, that's kind of like Route 66 was going the cross. Dan: Yeah, yeah, you can still take Route 66, but it's small town after small town, you know yeah yeah, just listen to the words of the, the song you know, route 66 and tell you all the small and none of them were big cities. They were small towns you went through, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, so we're creating an interesting model here that Moore's Law is expanding, you know one realm. But the Moore's Law or Newton's Law says, yeah, if you do that in Cloudlandia, then that there's going to be a decentralization that goes on in the mainland. So winter I mean, you'll probably have people you know more or less spend their life in winter. Hey, winter haven't, because anywhere they want to go else, wise, they'll do it in Cloudlandia. Dean: Yeah, that's what I'm seeing. I just looked up the winter haven in the population right now it's 57,000. Dan: So yeah yeah, and I see you know yeah, yeah, and the interesting thing about the malls, that Mark Mills wrote a great book. Mark Mills is an economist in the Manhattan Institute. I think it's the Manhattan Institute, which, as you the name suggests, is a think tank in New York. City and he writes about the malls. He's got a whole chapter on the malls and he says the malls are going to, they're being abandoned. There's about a thousand failed shopping malls in the United States at any given time. There's about a thousand that have been abandoned. You know they just go bankrupt. And he says they're going to be turned into factories or they're going to be turned into warehouses shipping centers and they're beautiful because they they've got parking for all the work they've already got all the. You know the delivery sites like they have the, the delivering docks you know loading docks, right, the loading that. They've got all the loading docks. They got massive amounts of space and he says that they're going to be robotic and automated factories it's amazing, it's so. Dean: It's such an amazing time to be alive right now. You know, I mean, you think about where, the things that are ready to implement that are all here right now. You know, I don't know that. The next thing, like, as I mentioned, I was doing snapshot comparisons of you know day to day 1988 versus today and, as I said to Stuart Stuart, my operations guy, was with me, we were going, we went to the movie studio movie grill here in about 30, 40 minutes away and I started recounting the day with him, like as we were. I was in these comparisons. I'm saying, okay, so here's how the day started. I him in the morning and said you know, let's go to the movie. I forget what movie was out, but it was a great movie that was had just come out that day or whatever. And so we were going to go for lunch and go to the movie there, because they have Studio Movie Grill is like a dining theater, so you go and they bring food and everything. So started out with the text of that. Then I went to the studio. My video studio recorded a video that I, stuart, and I left. From there I bought the tickets for the movie online through Fandango and, you know, bought the tickets in advance. So we all we had to do was scan the barcode. They just scanned it on my phone when we got there, but the Tesla drove us there using the autopilot function, so we were driven to the movie. We got in our seats without having to go to the thing. We scanned a QR code for the menu of what to get. We pushed a button. They came and took our order, brought us the food. We got back in the car, had the coordinates. The car starts driving us. We were listening to a podcast on the way back and it just in that moment, just that little thing. There's not a single element of that day. That was possible in 1988. Dan: Yeah. I will remind you that in 1988, you probably said what an amazing time to be alive. Yeah, you're probably right. Dean: I mean the dot was like what I got. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I mean look at this. Dan: The fact are you kidding me. Dean: We can send a piece of paper over the telephone. What a relief it comes back. Dan: Yeah, now I'm going to. We've got a mainland collision happening in about five minutes, Okay, okay, and that is from when we started today, the one we finished, because I'm visiting Winterhaven from. I'm in Chicago today, so I'm visiting Winterhaven, florida, from 10 o'clock to two minutes to 11. But in 11,. I have to go to Vienna, Austria, and have an hour's talk with Kim White. Dean: Okay, right, right, right. Yeah, I got to get on the flight to Vienna, right. Dan: Yeah Well, it's a click actually. Dean: Yeah, the zoom I got to get in. Well, I have to switch over. Dan: I have to switch over from my phone to my computer because it's on zoom and anyway, but that I mean what we're seeing here, is you and I are. You know we're early adapters. You know you and I are early adapters, so I say, okay, the world's changed, so how do I have to change? You know, that's my basic response and and all of us got sent to bootcamp for two years during the COVID lockdown. And we might not have chosen the route that we're on right now, but we were forced to. You know we were forced to, right, yeah, you know, I have a goal of never being on welfare during the rest of my life. Okay, yeah, I like to make my own money and everything, but it's an interesting thing. But, more and more, I think that you have to take both Moore's law and Newton's third law into account, because one of them explains the virtual world and Cloudlandia world, but the other one explains what happens to the mainland. When the Cloudlandia keeps getting bigger and bigger, the mainland keeps getting more and more local, like winter. Yeah, so yeah but you gotta you gotta be good at operating in both worlds. Dean: Yeah, you're right. You know I'm staying off welfare, that's well, you know, Dan, there's this little thing. There's a thing called cash confidence, and most people think it's about having an amount of money, but what it's really about is having the ability to create value for other people. So as long, as you keep focused on that, you're going to be just fine. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: This is really yeah, and I'm feeling very good going down 80, that I'm starting to get good at living yeah. Dean: So amazing, isn't it? What a world, yeah, the journey. Dan: Yeah. Yeah, Actually you know, the most amazing part of being alive being alive. Dean: Yeah, that is part of it all. That is exactly right. Dan: That is exactly right. Dean: It beats the alternatives you know, and it's funny. Dan: The answer. The answer is in the question. Yeah, I just heard Dion Sanders was talking about how the whole body everything about us is oriented for moving forward and it would be neat if Colorado ends up in the playoffs and the 14 playoffs, oh. Dean: I mean, well, they just beat Nebraska yesterday, so they're two and oh, right now. Yeah, I mean, it's just. It's the most amazing thing to watch. But do you ever think we're meant for moving forward Our eyes, look forward Our ears? Are perfectly positioned to bring us all the sound and everything from in front of us. Our mouth are meant to project forward. There's only one part of our body that points backwards. Dan: And that's the exhaust. That's where, all the way you leave all the way behind you If you keep moving forward. I guess the evolution figured this out a long time ago. Dean: Yeah, a lot of problems. Don't worry about what's happening behind there, don't look back, just keep moving forward. Dan: You know that's in our years of doing the podcast. I think that's the greatest closing statement we've ever had. Dean: Well, it struck me as this that's the first time I've ever heard it explained like that, but it's absolutely true. So that's why it's even more important, to be the lead guy in the line you don't want to be that. Yeah, it's like sled dogs. Dan: Yeah, if you're not with sled dogs. If you're not the lead dog, the future always looks the same. Dean: Oh man, what a day. All right. Well, you have my best. We've got a date, we've got a date next. Dan: If you're up to it, we've got a next Sunday. Dean: Oh yeah, I'm in Chicago today. Dan: So I'm in Chicago today, so I'll be back in Toronto next week. No, it's a permanent fixture in my calendar. Dean: All right. Dan: Thanks a lot, Dean. Dean: Thanks. Dan: bye, bye.

Dr. Daniel Zingaro and Dr. Leo Porter are co-authors of the book Learn AI-Assisted Python Programming. Leo will teach an introductory computer science course this quarter at UCSD using this book. We discuss how tools like GitHub Copilot let people new to programming focus on breaking down problems instead of language syntax. Dr. Zingaro is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at University of Toronto Mississauga and Dr. Porter is an Associate Professor at University of California San Diego. This episode was originally posted on Software Engineering Radio. Topics covered: Making programming more accessible Teaching problem decomposition instead of language syntax The importance of reading and testing untrusted generated code The rise of throwaway or one-off code Concerns about relying on commercial tools Rethinking how to assess students Related Links Learn AI-Assisted Python Programming Leo Porter Daniel Zingaro GitHub Copilot Transcript You can help edit this transcript on GitHub. Note the timestamps and audio for this transcript will not completely match. Intro [00:00:00] Jeremy: Today I'm talking to Dr. Leo Porter. He's an associate teaching professor of computer science at the University of California San Diego, and he co-founded the computing education research laboratory there. I'm also joined by Dr. Daniel Zingaro who is an associate teaching professor of computer science at the University of Toronto. And he's also the author of the book, learn to Code by Solving Problems and the Book, Algorithmic Thinking. They are co-authors of the book, learn AI Assisted Python programming. Leo and Dan, welcome to Software Engineering Radio. [00:00:37] Leo: Thank you for having us, Jeremy. I really appreciate your podcast, so thanks. Great to be here. [00:00:41] Dan: Thanks Jeremy. Writing a book for Leo's CS1 class [00:00:43] Jeremy: The first thing we could start with is, is why this book? And, and why now? How did you decide on like, okay, this is the thing we need to do now. [00:00:51] Leo: So, uh, this is Dan. Uh, so Dan, um, like really early when LLMs first kind of were coming out and being seen on the scene for programming, uh, he started playing with them, uh, for programming projects. And I think Dan really quickly realized that they'd had this, a big impact on how we teach programming. so he reached out to me, uh, and said, I really need to give em a try. And, uh, after I played with them for a little while, I had the exact same realization that this is gonna change, uh, how we teach programming, uh, in a pretty dramatic way. So having realized that, having realized that we had to change our, uh, introductory CS1 courses, we knew we needed to do that, but in order to teach that class, we'd have to have a book that we could assign our students that that would go along with the class. And so we knew we had to change the class, but we also knew we had to have a book for it. And given the, the timeline to write books, we started in the book first. Um, and so that's how it got started. LLMs for Syntax, Humans for breaking down problems [00:01:45] Dan: I guess we figured out that our course had to change first, before we knew exactly, um, how it had to change. One thing we, um, learned early on was that the kinds of assignments we give in our introductory courses, they're just solved by, by these tools like ChatGPT and copilot. So, uh, we knew something had to change, and then it is just a matter of figuring out what. And so we spent, um, quite a bit of time with these tools and we started to realize that what's gonna change is the skills that our students need to learn, uh, to be effective using these tools. So like b before these tools, we would spend a lot of time teaching syntax. Um, and students struggle quite a bit with learning syntax, which I mean, it's very, it's, it's very frustrating, right? Cuz you can't even do anything until you get the syntax right? And you're getting all these errors like missing colons and, you know, mismatched braces and stuff like that. Uh, so it's actually good, that, the LLMs are doing the syntax for the students. But you know, just because that skill's, uh, not needed as much, uh, doesn't mean that there aren't still skills for students to learn. So instead of syntax, other things become more important. Uh, so for example, uh, Leo and I, realize that reading code is gonna be extremely important even more so than before. I think if, if that, if that's even possible. Uh, and that's because sometimes you're gonna get back code that just doesn't work. And so we realized that students are gonna need to be able to read, the response that they get to see if the code looks reasonable, or not, right? And then if the code, uh, I is unreasonable, then they need to read more code, uh, and look at other solutions, right, that they get from the, uh, LLM. Uh, there are other, uh, things they can do as well, like messing around with the prompt and so on. But they're gonna need to be able to read code, uh, throughout the process. And then, so we just kind of kept on using these tools and documenting the skills that students are gonna need. And we just kinda realized that all the skills students are gonna need are skills we would want to teach anyway. So like, uh, one more example is testing, right? So, students may now not have, uh, an understanding of every last detail of, you know, the Python language like they would before. And so then that makes testing even more important, right? Than it was they need to verify that the code they're getting is correct. And so they have to be very good at writing test cases. and, and, you know, similar, similar for debugging, we need our students to have strong debugging skills, again, even potentially stronger than before, right? Because if the code isn't working, they need to first determine what the code is doing to be able to fix it. And then I guess one more I'll mention is problem decomposition. And this is a big one. I think this is gonna come up a couple times probably in our talk today, but LLMs struggle when you give them tasks that are too large and students need to know how to break problems down into small components so that, that, LLM can solve each one and, you know, have a good chance of getting it right. [00:04:56] Leo: Yeah, I, I think, um, kind of to, to piggyback off of that, you, you may be hearing these skills and saying, oh, these are absolutely essential skills. Every software engineer should know, uh, these are being taught right now. Right? Um, and the answer is not really, like these aren't core topics in a lot of introductory CS classes because so much time is spent on syntax. And so fairly early on when we kind of realized these skills would be so essential, Uh, we got really excited because these are skills we want to teach in our classes, and the LLMs are now giving us the ability to do that more. [00:05:27] Dan: Mm-hmm. [00:05:28] Jeremy: I think that's interesting about the syntax comment because you were saying how reading is gonna be more important than ever because you have LLM generating the code. Um, and you need to understand that code that's being generated and understand that it does what it, uh, you think it does. And so I wonder if when you say you spend less time on syntax, is it because you feel like they're gonna generate this code and they're sort of organically gonna pick up syntax that way versus having to focus on it at the start? I'm just trying to picture what you see changing there. [00:06:05] Dan: Yeah, Jeremy. So, uh, I, I was, I guess speaking specifically about syntax errors, which don't generally happen when you're using LLMs, and I also agree with you, you need to know what the code is doing, but, um, you can do that without worrying about each specific piece of syntax. Like, um, you're gonna need to know what the keywords do for sure, but, missing, you know, brackets and colons and, uh, oh, there needs to be like a blank line here. indentation, uh, a lot of this kind of thing. Is done for the most part, correctly by the LLMs. So yeah, I agree with you. You need to be able to identify the structures. So in our, in our book actually, Leo and I have, um, a couple of chapters on reading code and, I don't think we ever break breakdown, a line of code into its individual tokens. We do talk about the main structures, like ifs and loops and functions and all that. but compared to other books, I, I think or other, uh, other ways of teaching where you would focus on the micro level, we try to focus on the line level now, cuz we want our students to be able to grasp what each line is doing, I guess more than each token. [00:07:27] Leo: Yeah, maybe to, to add to that a bit, it's almost, uh, if you think about the advent of block-based languages, it was to make sure that the, essentially the, the author can't make syntax mistakes, right? Is the whole purpose of kind of block-based languages. And they're, they're huge for introductory programming, especially in like K through 12. in a sense, LLMs do this because they'd never give you back wrong syntax, or they almost, almost never give you back wrong syntax. And so it takes away that kind of cognitive burden of making sure you handle the, the token level. as uh Dan was saying LLM generated code needs test cases to catch logical errors [00:08:00] Jeremy: I, I'm curious, so you said the syntax is correct, but what are the, the typical mistakes you see coming back from these LLMs? Is it a, a logical mistake or is it ever something that. Actually doesn't compile. I'm, I'm kind of curious what your experience has been. [00:08:19] Leo: I think the, uh, more common errors that we've been seeing are logical. So it misinterprets the prompt that you're giving it. It essentially tries to solve a problem that's different than what you're trying to solve. It may have bugs in it, so it is in fact trying to solve the right problem, but it, it's off by one, um, is maybe replicating some mistake that it found in, in the large code base. And so most mistakes are gonna be you need to write test cases, run it. That mistake is then gonna show up when the test cases catch it, and then you'll have to try to fix it. if the students can read the code, uh, if we train them well to read the code, often you'll look at the response. And if the response is just not even trying to solve the right problem, you can usually pick that up pretty quick. Uh, and I think, I think the students will be learn to do that and then they can just say, okay, this is clearly not the right answer. And, and use the different tools in say vscode to find another answer, and then pick one that's right or change their prompt to get a response that's right. Go through that whole flow. But then some point or other it will give an answer that looks right. And then I think all of us as software engineers know that even the code looks right, it may not be. And so then they have to actually write the test cases, get some level of confidence that's actually working right before they'll know. And so sometimes, sometimes, you know, really quick is that it's just clearly wrong at solving the wrong problem. And sometimes it looks right, but it actually has some bugs that need to be fixed. [00:09:49] Dan: I guess one thing that struck me is how much a change in the prompt can, can matter. Uh, Leo, you know, um, we've, we've seen this over and over again where we'll write a prompt. It seems fine to us. And then we'll realize, oh, there are actually two different ways of interpreting this. and, uh, the ambiguity of, of English strikes again, right? And so it's just amazing to me how clarifying the prompts, how many times that fixes the code. Not always. We've definitely have examples where that's not the case, but, um, more, more often than not, in my experience, changing the prompt, uh, appropriately has a bigger than, than, um, anticipated effect on the, on the code. It's amazing. [00:10:36] Leo: And for thinking of the prompt, uh, in terms of like doc strings for functions, uh, adding the test cases certainly help. Um, sometimes it is, surprising sometimes that you can add the test cases to the prompt and it'll still give you back code that does not actually pass that test case because it, vscode and copilot doesn't actually run the code that comes back from the LLM. Uh, but I do find the test cases do tend to help with the quality response you get back. [00:11:01] Jeremy: As a part of your prompt, you're asking it to implement some functionality, and you're also asking it to write these tests for that same functionality? [00:11:11] Leo: Oh no, sorry. I, I, it's more the, um, doc test kind of format. So it, it, um, you're writing, let's say you, you've written your function signature and then you have the description of the function in a doc string. And then at towards the end of the doc string, I'm articulating the test cases that I intend to use. Um, and the articulating the test cases that I intend to use helps it come with a better prompt. Um, I haven't found it to be great at writing test cases. I haven't spent a ton of time with this, but the time that I have spent, it tends to want to do almost like a brute force search of all possible inputs, uh, as opposed to doing, okay, well here's a couple common. Here are the edge cases. Now I can feel fairly good about it. It doesn't seem to have that, um, intuition yet. [00:11:55] Jeremy: [00:11:55] Leo: For the most part, we're writing the test cases our ourselves, and we're gonna be teaching the students how to write the test cases themselves [00:12:01] Dan: Yeah, Yeah. So Leo and I have actually made a conscious decision to have students write test cases from scratch. Even though you could play around with the LLM and have it, you know, try to generate test cases, whether it's flawed or not, we still want students to do this from scratch. We think that writing test cases is a skill we want our students to have. [00:12:23] Jeremy: Sometimes what these models will generate, like you were saying, has logical errors. And hopefully if you're writing the test cases, you've put some thought into 'em, and your test cases are actually checking the correct behavior. So then you have the LLM generate the implementation. It's running against tests where you know what the correct answer should be. And so if it generates something that's incorrect, you've, you've kind of caught it. You're not totally relying on it. Telling you everything is, is good, you know? Um, It's confidence in something that's like you personally can't see. It's just what the machine gave you. [00:13:05] Dan: Maybe it takes away one layer of uncertainty too, Jeremy, right? Like, so the code could be wrong, right? And then if it generates test cases, okay, the test cases could be wrong too. And maybe you get unlucky and two wrongs make a right and then your test cases pass for the wrong reason. So yeah, we really wanna hone this skill in our students. And, and like Leo said earlier, these intro courses used to be so full of low level syntax concerns that we, we didn't do testing properly. I mean, you know, we all try to cover testing, but I think we're gonna be able to cover it a lot more, detailed now. LLMs could encourage students to test more since their output is untrusted [00:13:41] Leo: And I, I think we're enthusiastic about, uh, how students will approach testing when you're working with the LLM is what we. This is fairly anecdotal, but uh, when they interact with us talking about testing, often students aren't testing their code because they wrote it. And so of course it's Right. Right. This is like this really famous, uh, kind of bug in human thinking, right? Is that if you write it, of course the computer's gonna interpret what you're saying, right? Um, and so students tend to trust their code in a way that professional software engineers never would. and I think because it's coming from this third party that you know is wrong, it's coming from the LLM that can, that can often make mistakes. I think they're gonna be more inclined to actually engage in those testing practices. Uh, kind of knowing about the fallibility of the LLM, [00:14:27] Jeremy: You're shifting the order. I mean, there is test driven development that some people practice, but I feel like probably what's most common is you write the implementation yourself and then, then you'll go and see like, oh, did this thing I, I wrote. Did it do what I thought it should do? Um, whereas this is kind of flipping it, where it's the large language model is gonna write my code, so I'm just gonna start with the test and then I'll ask it to, to write me the code. And maybe that will kind of make test driven development be the default. [00:15:02] Leo: So yeah, I, I, I think that students may wanna engage more in kind of test driven development because they wanna think more about, uh, what exactly should this function be doing? Uh, how should behave, what kind of inputs and output should it expect? And then it can kind of write the prompt to co-pilot or whatever LLM is using, uh, to express those inputs and outputs. Well, they're more apt to get good answer from the LLM and they've kind already got their test cases worked out as well, so they can immediately just go right into the testing agency if the prompt came back right. Using LLMs at the function level instead of a broader scope [00:15:35] Jeremy: And you mentioned writing a prompt to implement a specific function. Have you found that they work well at the function level? But if you try to ask it to build something more broad, that that's kind of when it has problems? [00:15:53] Dan: So, I think in general, LLMs do work best at the function level. We have tried to get it to generate bigger apps, collections of functions, and it can work, but sometimes it does, uh, it does do worse. But also we want students to do the problem decomposition for themselves and break up the problem into individual functions. Even though maybe the LLM could work, uh, with, uh, bigger chunks of code, we want students to do it. And one reason is so that they can customize what they get from the LLM. So, in the book, we have a bunch of examples where you could probably just throw it at the LLM and get an answer and, you know, eventually get it to work. But I think at that point, making changes to it might be trickier than it would be if you knew, uh, the architecture of what you were, what you were building. So in the book, we have a bunch of top-down design diagrams, and we want students to understand what they're building at that level, like at the function level instead of, like we said earlier, instead of like at the token level or the line level. Potential issues with outsourcing high level design to an LLM [00:17:03] Jeremy: And so like in this example, you're thinking more from a, a learning perspective. You want the student to look at the big picture, figure out, okay, what are all the different functions or parts of my application? Break that down and then feed those individually. To, um, these large language models. I, I'm wondering from like, let's say you're a, a professional software engineer and your interest is more in I want to make the thing and less so, in I want to learn how to make the thing. in that case, do you feel like you could feel confident in, in giving the large language model a larger piece of the design, or do you still feel like it's good to have that overall structure done by the, the developer and then just be very targeted about how you use the large language model? [00:18:03] Leo: I think that's a tricky question because we haven't worked with these tools heavily in a professional programming setting. I think often when we're thinking about large design of software, you're gonna be working on teams, talking with other members of the team about the interfaces and things like that. And so I'd be pretty hesitant to to outsource that, that thinking to the, the l lm cuz you, the communication between the teams still has to happen. Uh, even if it weren't for that. Um, I kinda think of it as a probabilities. So essentially whenever you ask co copilot or any of these LMS to, to do a task, the more it has to right, get the kind of more likely it's gonna make a mistake. Um, and so, uh, that's kind of why I like the functional level. It seems like I. Partially because it's not that much code that tends to write. Um, so you help to avoid kinda the probabilistic problem, but also because it's learned on a huge code base that has lots and lots of functions that have been implemented. It tends to do well at that, that solving the function kind of task. [00:19:10] Jeremy: Yeah. And I, I think the way you put it as outsourcing that designer, that decision is, is interesting because yeah, if you are working on a team and whether it's in code review or just in a discussion, often people will ask, well, well, why did you do it this way? Or Why, why is this the, you know, the good way to design it? And if you kind of handed that off to an l l m, maybe your answer is, I don't know. It's just what it it told me, which (laughs) [00:19:39] Dan: Yeah. [00:19:42] Leo: That isn't an answer I want to u use talking to my boss. Right. Well the chat GPT told me I should have it this way. That doesn't seem like a good answer. Choosing GitHub Copilot for CS1 [00:19:50] Jeremy: I think we, we've kind of been talking in more a general sense of working with LLMs and you've mentioned how you're gonna be teaching introductory computer science courses this coming, quarter or semester. And so when you teach these classes, what tools are you gonna recommend your students use? And yeah, maybe you could go into that a bit. [00:20:13] Leo: Absolutely. So we're gonna be recommending, um, At least, at least for my class, I'm gonna be recommending that they use, uh, vs code with copilot. Um, I just like the integration of the IDE with the, uh, interactions with the LLM uh, I think it avoids just a whole bunch of copy pasting from another interface into your IDE to then, uh, run it. I think it also reduces the barrier of them kinda immediately getting the code and then testing it right there in the environment. I'm sure any of the other tools would work, it's just, that seems to have worked well for us, uh, when we were writing the book. And that's, that's actually the technique we recommend in the book as well. Um, so that would be the primary tool for the students writing the code. In addition to having them using copilot with, uh, in the IDE for a lot of the code generation, depending on where things are at with copilot x, um, which is right now, um, available through wait list. Uh, if that's, that's available publicly, I think we're gonna be recommending that because it has a copilot chat feature, uh, which can be really nice to interact with. And, uh, the main use that, that we're gonna be encouraging students to use, whether it be co-pilot chat or a ChatGPT is in just a conversation with the LLM about, particularly modules and libraries. So if you are diving into, merging PDFs, which, uh, Dan did a great job in one of the chapters in our book talking about, if you wanna dive into that, well, what libraries should we be using in Python for that. Uh, and we found that the LLMs do a really good job at this, of actually saying, here are the different libraries you could use. Here are the pros and cons of them. These are the ones that, uh, need to be actually have additional install done. Or these ones that come in with, vanilla Python. they're actually really good at kind of giving you the what you should use for the various libraries. Um, and so that's, that's one other way that we were gonna be encouraging the students to use the LLM. Types of questions to ask the LLM [00:22:07] Dan: Yeah. So whenever the students or the junior programmer, doesn't know how or doesn't think they can, uh, do something in base Python, we have them interact with the chat and, and ask. So another example that comes to mind from the book is we have a chapter writing some games. And so for most games, including the two that, uh, we've got in the book, you need to be able to generate random numbers, right? So how do you do that? And so in the past you would've used a search engine stack overflow or something, and you would've found, some sample code and you would've pasted it in to your file and made variable name changes and things like that. And so what we do now is we ask chat, okay, I need to generate some random numbers. How do I do it? And then it will come back to you with a few options, and then you can systematically work through those options if you like. Uh, and you can ask, okay, is this one built into Python or not? And then it will tell you, oh, this one's not. We don't need to memorize API docs [00:23:11] Dan: And you say, oh, well, okay, so like, how do I install this? And then no, does it work on all OSS or just Windows? Right? So, uh, we guide the reader through these questions that you could have, uh, to help you make a decision. Um, and I think what I like the most about this is not having to learn. APIs, like yet another api. Like I don't, I don't think I have room, you know, in my, like, brain for any more APIs. And, and what's cool is I, I've forgotten like every API that, uh, we've used in the book. So we have like examples of emerging PDFs and, uh, removing duplicate images from directories, uh, from like people's phones, and, and stuff like that. And I don't know, I don't know which library it's using. Uh, and I'm, I'm totally okay with that, right? Like I just, I, I wanted to get the job done. I wanted to write a tool, and the tool got written and it used some sort of library and it worked great. And I didn't have to look through the documentation for that library and figure out like, which functions do I have to call and things like that. So, I, I know it, it can be fun, you know, it could be fun to really learn an API well, but a lot of people, they don't want to program for programming sake. Like, they just wanna get work done, right? So, you know, while I, I, I fully admit to, enjoying programming just for the sake of programming. I do a lot of competitive programming problems just for fun. You know, it's like Sunday morning and it's like, Hey, yeah, I got like an hour and I got an hour to work on something. Let me work on this little competitive programming problem. But, uh, a lot of people, they're not motivated by that. They're motivated by consequences of code. And this is one thing about LLMs that I'm very excited about, is you can just, make a lot more progress, without having to learn what these, people may believe is just useless knowledge, right? Like, does it really matter how I should invoke this api Right, to merge PDF files? I mean, the answer for many people is no. Like, they just want the result to happen. And I love how we can kinda match what they, uh, deem important, right? With the LLMs, it's like a new level of abstraction, for for many people. LLMs make building software possible for more people [00:25:28] Leo: There's a couple of audiences that come to our introductory classes, and what Dan's talking about here is one of the things I'm most excited about with this, and that's the students who come and take just one. Programming class. I know it's probably a different audience than, uh, a lot of the people listening right now. Um, but the people who just take one programming class, it's required for, for their major. They, I just wanted to explore it a little bit, but they, they don't go into this as a, as a career. I think a lot of those students right now, uh, if you ask them a year later to program something, do any of these tasks that we're talking about right now, I doubt they're able to, even if they did really well in that class. Uh, and that's really disappointing, right? If they've taken a programming class, they should be able to, to do something with that, a year or even five years later. And I really believe that if you teach them the skills of interacting with these LLMs, they'll be able to do these tasks later. They'll be able to come back and go, you know, I don't remember any of the Python syntax. I don't remember, uh, even how to get started with this. But you know what, I'm just gonna ask, uh, copilot, how do, how do I go about merging these PDFs, having this directory? And then, uh, the copilot chat comes back and says, oh, you might use this and that. And then they go, oh, I remember, I remember how to, how to write these functions. And I just said, you have to go over a prompt. I think they could really do it. And that, that's a bit of a game changer, right? That means a larger portion of our society will be able to, uh, write code and using a useful way. And I'm just really excited about that. I think it's gonna be really nice, uh, after the changes happen. More people might stick with Computer Science [00:26:58] Jeremy: I can totally see in the context of someone who's, not seeing it as a career, or someone who is like, hasn't done it in a while. It could be. These tools can be incredibly useful, right? Or it can even get you interested in this field at all, right? Like a lot of people, they, they struggle through the syntax and then they decide like, oh, this is not for me. Even though like they had something really cool they wanted to build and, and maybe these kind of tools can, can get them over that hump. [00:27:31] Leo: Exactly. I think there's a population of students, um, and it varies a bit by demographics, who come to computer science, with really the best motives in mind, right? They wanna make their goals in their life are to make the world a better place, and they want to achieve those goals. And if you spend the first three quarters or three semesters working with them and all they're seeing is syntax and they're not actually solving anything meaningful, um, it starts to create this disconnect of what their goals are for their life and what they think the goals of are, are career are. Of course as, as, as a computer science, I wanna say, stick it out. You know, if you, if you go into the fourth, fifth class, you'll start seeing how these are really useful tools that can make society a better place. But it'd be really nice to front load that and have them solving useful problems much earlier and seeing that, uh, computer science, uh, can be used in really nice ways. Efficency can be taught later [00:28:26] Jeremy: And, and so within the, the context of. People who are studying computer science will eventually, who may become professional software developers, things like that. Something more long term where it becomes more of a craft, the, the code that comes back from these large language models. Sometimes it could be something that's like not maybe the most easy to read or it may be doing something inefficiently. And I'm wondering from your perspective how users of these tools should, should think about that and, and recognize when that's a problem. [00:29:06] Dan: We in, in, in the first couple of courses, typically in the CS program, um, we don't spend much time on efficiency. the reason is that there's just so much to learn early on, and, um, we worry about overwhelming people with, know, too much, for them to, to process it at once. And we don't wanna prevent students from becoming interested, by. Giving them all of these requirements early on. So typically we, you know, we push efficiency, down the, down the road into like a data structures course, for example. But your question points to another reason why, we've decided to teach some of the skills we teach early on. So if, if a student, you know, came up to Leo or, or me and said, Hey, you know, like I wanna generate efficient code, how do I do it? My answer would, would be, so like, get, get familiar with programming first, but you are learning the skills necessary where you'll be able to look at code later because you know how to read it still, right? It's not, uh, something that you don't understand. You're gonna, you're gonna know it. We're gonna spend lots of time on code reading, and so later I think we can just teach efficiency the way we always did. Um, so, you know, doing, uh, time complexity analysis on, on the code and they're still gonna understand what the code is doing. So, um, I, I, I don't think this is going to, this is going to change much in, in the earliest courses. LLMs can expose students to different types of code [00:30:35] Leo: To the, to the point about code readability, I might add that, uh, certainly they're gonna get back some, some code that's maybe not the best style and it may not be as readable. Uh, but what's kinda interesting is that students aren't exposed to a lot of different styles kind of in our existing courses, right? They, they see the code that they write and they see the code that the professor writes and gives them, and there's not much else. And so, I mean, we're gonna need data and we're gonna need research to, to, to know this for sure, but it, it, I suspect them seeing lots of different code styles and having to read those different code styles may actually inform them better than we do now about what makes code more readable. Uh, and then they might be able to employ that as they go forward. [00:31:21] Jeremy: And, and when you're saying they're gonna read different styles and things like that, are you referring to code they're gonna see from the LLM or are you talking about them reading just other code bases in their classes or their professional work? [00:31:39] Leo: Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I was referring to the code. They'll see from the LLM Right [00:31:43] Jeremy: Oh I see [00:31:43] Leo: LLM will come back in all these different ways. They'll have different styles and they'll, uh, have different approaches to solving it. Right? Sometimes they'll, uh, come back with like this one line Lambda expression thing that solves it, and they'll have no idea how that works. And they'll, they'll ask for a different answer and they'll get, uh, a much more, uh, user-friendly first, uh, first programing experience kind of code back. And they'll be able to understand that and go, okay, this is the kind of code that I wanna see. Not this thing that was completely non-readable. [00:32:11] Dan: Yeah, Leo, I just thought of something. So, uh, so you know, by default you can get it to give you 10, uh, code segments to solve the problem, right? So it'd be kind of cool, if we ask students about each of them, right? Each of the 10, which ones are right, which ones have bugs, which ones have good style, which ones have bad style, it's like a built-in learning opportunity right there. So yeah. [00:32:34] Leo: Oh, it's true. Yeah. And, and so the 10 things that, uh, Dan I was referring to is if you do control, enter in vs code when you're working with a copilot, it'll give you back 10. Possible responses. And you're totally right Dan. You could just say of these 10, how readable are they? Are they right? Um, there's lots of fun things you can do to ask students questions. [00:32:51] Dan: and often many of them are right with just subtly different ways of, of, of, of solving the problem. I mean, I'll, I'll admit to having some fun looking through all of the suggestions just to kind of see what the variability is and when there's a lot of variability. I really like it because, uh, like Leo said, it exposes people to different styles they may not have seen before. And, um, may it may, it may, um, encourage you to ask questions, right? Like, why does this one work? Right? I've tested it. It doesn't look like it should work. Why does it work? I feel like that's the beginning of a pr pretty powerful learning experience right there. [00:33:30] Jeremy: Yeah, that makes sense to me because I, I think about how when a lot of people are doing software development before all these LLMs, they will search on the internet and go, okay, what's an existing answer for this thing I'm trying to do? They'll find a post on Stack Overflow and they'll find the accepted answer and it'll be like, okay, this is it. This is the solution. Whereas, at least in this case, it seems like you can go like, okay, well here's, here's 10, 10 potential solutions, and at least you get a little bit more exposure to, um, what are the different ways you could do it. [00:34:06] Leo: Exactly, and, and it's nice for 'em to see these different options. And I think there is, for professional software engineers seeing that stack overflow post, like, here's the accepted answer, integrating that into your code isn't a big jump for, for a lot of us. Um, but I do wanna stress that for the intro students, it often is a really big jump. Uh, just the, oh, how do I change around this? Oh, this was the interface for this function, but I'm been asked to have this other interface with a function and, and they really can struggle in that domain. And so I think copilot and these LLMs are nice in that they give back answers that are more tailored to the existing code that they're working with, um, and will reduce that barrier of them trying to incorporate the answer. Optimization can come later, most code is straightforward [00:34:50] Jeremy: So it seems kind of overall, when you're talking about people who are using programming in a more professional capacity, the code style and efficiency that will probably be taught very similarly to however it is now, where you basically have to get exposed to different styles and types of code, get exposed to the algorithms and and that will allow you to read the answers you get back better. So the answers you get back from the LLM with the knowledge you gain from these later courses, you'll be able to tell like, oh, okay, this is, this. Level of complexity, or this has like, you know, exponential, performance implications, that kind of thing. [00:35:43] Leo: So I think the performance piece is really important. Um, and I appreciate your, you bringing it up. I think, I'm, I'm kind of curious, uh, uh, what percentage of the time professional programmers are really spent, uh, are spending optimizing, uh, the code that they write? Um, I suspect a lot of the code that's written, uh, is pretty straightforward. Uh, you, you already know how to work with the database you're working with. You already know how to write the queries for that. You're, you're, you're just, uh, you're still doing something that, that's certainly thought provoking, but it's not the hard work of, oh, how am I gonna write design the right algorithm for this to get the exact best runtime? And so I think there are some times that that does matter, but those may be the times that the LLMs aren't as helpful and there's still gonna be a, a pretty big need for programmers who know how to do that, uh, themselves. [00:36:33] Jeremy: Yeah. I mean, I, I think that of course this is gonna vary from industry to industry, but Dan, you were talking about learning APIs and I feel like a lot of jobs are learning APIs and gluing them together. [00:36:49] Dan: Yeah. Um, I would agree, but I wonder what can happen if some of that's automated. Right? So maybe, people who are gluing APIs together will be able to. Get even more done, right? Incorporate even more, APIs in the same amount of time that they've been doing it. Now, I don't, I don't know if that job changes as dramatically as it, it seems, um, I guess there's this tension between people, having to change jobs or become more efficient in the current job. And, you know, obviously I, I hope it's the latter and there is some recent evidence that it could end up being, the latter, just more productive people overall, building, know, bigger software in incorporating more APIs than, than before and, and not overloading yourself. So, we'll, we'll see, you know, how it, how it all, um, how it all turns out. But I'm, I'm hopeful that we'll just be doing our jobs better. Reading code as a skill [00:37:51] Jeremy: In that, that context, sometimes people will say that the, the reading of code and comprehending code can sometimes be more difficult than writing the, the code. And in fact, can sometimes take you more time, like, let's say you've built out a project and now you need to add new features. Well, to add the feature, you have to understand the, the code base that existed before and so. When we talk about LLMs and the context of not programming, but just general writing, people talk about the fact that it's easy to generate more writing, right? We can generate more documents, blog posts, more articles, that sort of thing. And with code, it sounds like it'll be similar, right? Where it'll be easier for us to write more code, generate more code. Um, but I wonder if either of you have thought or, or think it's a concern that we'll be generating so much code that now we'll have so much we won't be able to even have the time to understand all of it, [00:38:55] Leo: I haven't thought much about the generating so much code that you can't understand. I mean, I think if, if we're generating code, I, I'm really hoping someone's testing and making sure it works right and stuff. And so I guess it depends on what kind of, uh, what level of the interface are we, we looking at. Um, but I have thought about a fair bit about the, the, what you described early on in your question, which was. Diving into a big code base, figuring out what needs to be changed and changing it, that is a really common task, especially for like new software engineers, uh, in their, their first jobs. Right. And it is also one that's really well documented in the, the education literature, uh, education literature, uh, that we aren't teaching them to do. Like we almost always are giving them, uh, right, these functions are really well defined or, uh, write the code all from yourself, but we rarely ever give them large code bases to learn from. Now I don't think diving into a large code base and trying to understand how it works is the right thing for like an intro class. And then we're mainly talking about, uh, students first learning your program here. Uh, but I am encouraged that we are teaching code reading as kind of a first level skill when I think current programming courses teach code reading right? In parallel with writing. So a lot of the writing's happening very early before they even know how to read well. Um, and so I think there's some optimism here that if we teach code reading first and make it a core skill, they'll be better set up in the later classes to maybe take on those large projects where they tackle the exact problem you're describing, which is also the exact thing they're gonna have to do when they get to, to their jobs. The amount of code we throw away may increase exponentionally [00:40:37] Jeremy: Yeah, it, it also kind of, I wonder sometimes when you're writing code, you'll write it in a certain way because it's tedious to write a lot of code, right? Like you'll, you'll make something generic in such a way where you can reuse it, and maybe reduce the amount of lines of code. But then when you have something, generate that code, maybe it'll be a solution that. Is a lot more code than you would've written personally, and it works. But, by nature, the fact that it was easy to generate, you chose that solution versus one that, that maybe was more generic and um, had less code. I, I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I'm kind of curious if the use of these models will sort of change maybe how we write code [00:41:30] Dan: I'm kind of wondering if the amount of code we throw away is going to increase exponentially. Because, because, um, you spend time working on something, you're probably gonna keep it. But I, I wonder because, uh, Jeremy, like what you said, it's, it's so easy to generate code now. so I, I've had this thought where, what, not sure how, how, um, how much I believe myself here, but, uh, should we be storing the, the prompt, like not the dot py file, right? Like just store the prompt and then if you do have to regenerate the code later, maybe you gotta make some tweaks or something. You just change the prompt and then, and then rerun it. So, because, because, because code is, um, It's not there yet, but it's, it's becoming free, right? It's becoming, you can generate as much of it as you want. And so I, I wonder how much, how much of it is, so there's, there's a lot of code already that you write once, and you run it once and then, and then you get rid of it or lose it or whatever. And I wonder if that, that practice will increase. So it's like, okay, you know, I wanna do this data analysis. Okay. So you write a prompt, you get some code, you generate some graph, and then you just don't even think about it. You just get rid of it, and then maybe later you want another similar analysis and you just do it again. Right. So I kind of wonder, because there's maybe less ownership now of code, right? You didn't like sweat as much to write the code. So maybe, maybe more of it gets thrown away. [00:43:03] Leo: I, I completely see what you're saying, Dan. So you have the prompt and you had it perform some form of data analysis and you wanna tweak it to do a slightly different data analysis. Uh, I wouldn't go into the, I mean, right now if I wrote the code from scratch, I would go into the code and find that one spot that I need to change and I would tweak it. But if I'm just generating the code, I would just tweak the prompt and then get a new piece of code that does exactly what I want there without having to, to [00:43:26] Dan: yeah. You know, how, how, it can take a, a long time to re-familiarize yourself with a program that you wrote six months ago. You know, it's like, oh, I, I called this variable temp one. Like, what's this for again? Right. you know, maybe, yeah, [00:43:41] Leo: Wait, I think we've all been there. Keeping the prompt instead of the code [00:43:43] Dan: Uh, but yeah, I don't know. It's just, just a thought I've been having. It's like, it, so, so when, when, now when, when I hear people talking about code maintenance, for example, like using, you know, good variable names and consistent style and stuff, in my head I'm thinking, well, you know, is, is the code the artifact now? Is it still the artifact? And right now, you know, of course it is. But, um, but, you know, fast forward a little while, maybe, maybe some of what I just said, uh, sort of becomes true eventually. [00:44:11] Leo: That's getting to perhaps kind a larger issue about what is the interface that we're, we work with as programmers. I've been thinking about this a lot, uh, just because I, I teach my, my background's. I have a PhD in computer architecture, and so I teach the classes that do machine code and assembly code, and they're, they're, they're core classes for computer scientists because you need to know how computers work. And, um, I think that's a core component, understanding that, But we don't start by teaching the students machine code. Like no one wants to learn how to program a machine. Um, at least I can't imagine anyone wanting to learn that. Um, and we've kind of cognitively picked Python or Java right now, the most common two programming language to learn from. Because they're easy to learn, they're easy to, to read. The code tends to be more understandable when you read it. It tends to be a little bit more forgiving when you write it. Um, and so we picked these because we think they're nice interfaces. They're, they're convenient for programmers and they're convenient for, for new learners. And it just seems to make sense that the LLM may be that next step of interface that we start choosing. The, the catch is because it can be wrong. It's not like a compiler. A compiler is deterministic. It's gonna be, uh, shy of that. Maybe one time in your career you find a compiler bug, like the compiler's always right. This time the LLM isn't always right and so I, I'm not sure how this is all gonna play out. Um, you can imagine the LLM as the new interface and all we ever store is, is code prompts and we don't ever even see the code, perhaps as one scenario. And the other is we, we do in fact still interact with the LLMs and still interact after the code. Um, but I think it's too early to kind of know where this is all gonna fall. But, um, we could see some big shifts, I think, in the field over the next few years. [00:45:52] Jeremy: Yeah, I think that's pretty interesting to think about what, what Dan had mentioned where yeah, you could check in your prompt and maybe a set of test cases for the app that's supposed to come out and yeah, maybe that's your alternative to the actual source code. Um, especially for things that, like you were saying, are, are used not that frequently or maybe you only use it once and so the, um, the quality of the actual code is. Maybe less so important in terms of readability and things like that. And as long as you can reliably reproduce that thing, yeah, maybe, maybe that does make sense. [00:46:39] Leo: The reliable reproduction could be the tricky part. And you there may be even saying that you, you start doing where you tag don't, don't try to reproduce this. Like, we actually spend a whole bunch of time on this. It's super optimized. Like, don't think the LLMs gonna give you this answer again. So, uh, keep the code along with the prompt. Keep the code too. Don't, don't scratch that because the LLMs not gonna do better. Um, and then in some cases you're like, yeah, the LLM's gonna do a pretty good job on this and [00:47:07] Dan: Yeah. Leo, maybe we have to Maybe we have to distinguish between code that you can just get out of an LLM no problem. And code that people have spent time working on. I like that. Yeah. Yeah, [00:47:21] Leo: some you're like, hashtag don't change. [00:47:23] Dan: Humans were here. [00:47:25] Leo: exactly. The concerns about relying on commercial tools [00:47:27] Jeremy: Yeah. this is the 30th iteration of this code we generated and we verified that this one's good. So just, just, it's a interesting, interesting future. We, we might be heading into, so, so one thing you, you mentioned a little bit earlier is that the tools that you're gonna recommend to your students, it sounds like it's primarily going to be GitHub copilot and GitHub copilot X for the, the chat interface. And one thing about these tools is these are tools by commercial companies, right? These are tools by OpenAI and Microsoft. They're tools that you have to pay a subscription fee to use. You have to send your code to a commercial server. And I wonder if that aspect concerns you at all. The, the fact that the foundations that our students are learning on is kind of reliant on these companies and these cloud services. [00:48:31] Leo: I think it's an amazing question. Uh, I think to some degree these are the tools that professional software engineers are using, and so we need, there's, there's a bit of an obligation as instructors to teach them the tools that they're gonna be using as professionals going forward. I think right now they're free. Uh, to use for, for education's sake. and so as long as that stays the case, I'm a little, more comfortable with it. If it started to move to a pay model for education, I think there could be some really big problems with equity. and I think it's not just true for, for computer science, but I'll start with computer science. I mean, if it's computer science and we start making it where you would have to pay to get access to these models or use these models, then whether we tell the students they can use it or not, they still can use them. And so there's gonna be some students that, the wealthier students who may have access to these, who are being able to learn better from these, being able to solve better homeworks with these, that's super scary. And you could imagine the same thing for even just K through 12 education, right? If you're thinking about them writing essays for homeworks or anything else, if it's a pay model, then the students who have, uh, the money will pay for it and get access to these tools. And the students who don't, won't. You could imagine the, all these kind of socioeconomic, uh, divides that already exist, only being exacerbated by these tools if they switch to this pay model. Um, so that has me very worried. Um, and there's some real ethical issues we have to think about when we're, we're using them. Yeah. Um, the other ethical issue I kinda wanna mention is just the, the copyright and the notion of ownership. Um, and I think it's important for us as instructors to engage students in the conversation about what it means to create content and intellectual property and how these models are built and what they're building off of. Um, and just engage in that ethical conversation with the students. I don't think we as a society have figured this out. I don't, I think there's gonna be some time both legally and ethically before we have the right answers. but at the very least, you need to talk to the students about, uh, these challenges so they know what's going on and they can engage in the debate. [00:50:45] Dan: Yeah, just to underscore that, Leo, this is the reason we're doing research on the first version of the course that Leo's teaching. We need research on the impact of LLMs, on students. especially, we need to know if students benefit from this, in what ways they benefit. How are these benefits distributed across demographic groups? We have a long and sad history in, computer science of inequities, in who takes our courses, who succeeds in our courses. we're very aware of this and it's, uh, unacceptable to make that situation, uh, worse than it already is. So, um, we're, we're gonna be carefully doing our research on this, uh, first offering of the course. A downside is students might bypass fundamentals [00:51:30] Jeremy: So we've mostly been talking about the benefits of using these tools in classes and in education. we just mentioned the possible inequities if you don't have access to those things, I, I wonder if from either of you, if there are negatives you see to this technology, whether that's the impact on what people learn or in anything else. Like are there downsides you see to the use of this technology? [00:52:04] Dan: Yeah. So in addition to, uh, the important, uh, inequity concerns that, uh, we just talked about, I have a concern about students using the tools in ways that. Don't help them learn the skills we think they need. So it's a, it's a, it's a power tool and you can, uh, you can get pretty far, I think with, without, um, being systematic in, in how you work with it and without testing, without debugging, um, it's, you know, it's, it's kind of magic right now. And so I can imagine, a lot of students just taking off at, you know, a hundred miles an hour. and so I'm one, one of, one of, uh, the things we have to worry about in these initial courses is, convincing students that there really are principles to using this technology. You can't just type something and get an answer and then go party. and, and, and so that, that is one of my concerns. That's one of the negatives. It's super powerful. And, like, like, so before you, you can't just type some Python and make it work and, but now you can sort of type in whatever you want and kind of get something back. and so part of our job as educators is to help students use these tools, in in a way that. Will ensure their long-term success with, with these tools, right? So, I, I'm not saying that they can't just do whatever they want and, and make some of their first assignments work. I, I think they could, I think they could be like un principled with the prompts and just throw it in there and get code and, you know, submit that, submit that code. But, uh, we're, we're going, you know, we're going for longer term, uh, effectiveness here, right? We have students who may not take another CS course. We need to keep them in mind. We have students who are gonna wanna eventually be software engineers, uh, security experts, PhDs in computer science, right? So we have a number of audiences that we're talking about, and we think they all need to know the fundamental skills of programming still. Even though, you know, they have this, this power tool at their expense now. [00:54:07] Leo: Speaking of the fundamental skills for programming, I, because of my, my hardware background, I'm this huge fan of teaching mental models in classes. Like what is the mental model of computation? Like, how, how do you imagine the computer is executing as you write the code? And, uh, ideally a professional computer scientist should be able to take, okay, well this is kind of the, my interpretation, this is my mental model for when I'm working at Python. If I really, really wanna drill this down, I can turn that into assembly. And if I really had to and turn to machine and even think about how this is working within the cash subsystems and virtual memory and all these things, I want 'em to be able to play those things out. We are changing the first class, and I think the first class is gonna be doing some things much better than before, like teaching problem decomposition and things like that. I'll, I'll mention that in a second, but, we are doing some things better. but we may not be teaching at how is the computer working as well. And so you can't just change one course and think the rest of the curriculum's gonna work. And so I think the entire curriculum's gonna need to adjust some, um, in, in a way of just adapting to these LLMs. Rethinking how to assess students [00:55:10] Leo: Um, the second piece for things getting potentially more challenging, uh, is instructors, we're in a good place right now as instructors, uh, in terms of how we assign and grade homework. Um, so grading, uh, this probably isn't gonna be a shock, is not one of our favorite things to do as faculty. I mean, it's actually really important. Uh, it's, it's central to us understanding how our students have learned, but it's generally not the most favorite thing that we do. And what a lot of instructors have done, myself included, is for much the introductory sequence. We have created assignments that can be entirely auto grade. So we define functions incredibly well. Like, write a really good description, this is exactly what it needs to do, and the students write that one piece of code and, uh, whether we like it or not. That is exactly when copilot does very well, and the LLMs do really well. And so the LLMs are gonna solve those very easily already. So we have to fix our assignments just like it, it's a given. Um, but it means that we're probably gonna have to rethink how we do assessment. Um, and so we're probably gonna be writing assignments that are much more open-ended and we're probably gonna have to be grading those, uh, putting more care and time integrating those potentially by hand. Uh, but I think these are all good things for the community and for the field. Um, but you can imagine how it's gonna be a bit of a, a shift for faculty and, and may take some time, uh, to be adopted as a result. [00:56:41] Jeremy: And, and so if you're shifting to homework that is more broad in scope, has more code, needs more human eyes on it, how how does that scale within the educators side? Right. You were, you were talking about how you've got, um, things that could be auto graded before and then now you're letting somebody generate this whole project. How does that work from your end? [00:57:09] Leo: I, I think there's a few things that are at play. Um, we, at, at large institutions like Dan and I are at, we have kind of armies of, uh, instructor assistants, instructional assistants that help us, uh, and so we can engage 'em in, in various tasks. And so, uh, one of the roles they heavily have now is helping students in the labs solve these auto grade assignments. and so you can imagine they will still be in the labs helping the students with these creative assignments, but now they're gonna have to have potentially a larger role in assessing the success of those. Um, there's been some really creative work, uh, in, in assessment and so I'll, I'll, I'll mention a couple of the ones, but there's, I, I'm sure I'm gonna be omitting some. But, uh, one is, Students could complete their project, and then they have to record a short video of them explaining the code that was in their project and how it worked, and you actually assess them on that video and their explanation of the code and how it works. Right? Because those can be perhaps shorter than trying to go through a really big project and, and see how it works. Um, there's a tool out of a UIUC, um, called Prairie Learn that helps with, um, uh, these are still auto graded, but uh, it helps with the, the test setting where you can write questions and have them, uh, graded kinda in a, in a exam or homework setting. the, the neat feature of that is that it can be randomized and so you don't have to worry as much about students kind of leaking information to each other about, test content from quarter to quarter. And so, because the randomization, they have to learn, actually learn the skills, and so you can, um, kinda engage with 'em in these test centers. And so right now a big grading burden on, on faculty is exams. And so you can actually give more exams, give more frequent feedback to the students and with, without the same grading burden. and so that, that's the other kinda exciting assessment piece. [00:59:01] Dan: Current assessment is not effective [00:59:01] Jeremy: In the different types of assessments, like the example of the video you gave, I'm just thinking to myself, well, the person could ask copilot or ChatGPT to give 'em a script, right? And they can rehearse that when they, um, send you a video. [00:59:18] Leo: I think, but I think that's, um, I think this is a philosophical shift in assessment that's kind of been gaining momentum over the years and that's that the assignments are all formative and they should all be. Pretty low stakes and the students should be doing them for the process of learning. and then, and, and it's unfair in some ways. There's a, there's a lot of things right now where you kind of grade them on, were you present at this time? Did you, did you meet this deadline at this time? Which if you're thinking about the, a diverse population of students, like you can imagine like a, a working mother who's also trying to do this, grading them on where you here at this time doesn't feel very equitable to me. And so there's this whole movement for grading for equity that shifts much of the assessment onto the exams. And so, yeah, the students could, uh, find multiple ways to cheat on the homeworks, but that's not the point of the homework and the homework's just to learn. It's a small scale, the grade, so. But you still then have those kinda controlled environments where they're taking these tests and that's where the grade actually comes from. Um, it's gonna take some time to make that shift, at, at, at least at a number of schools, my own included assess that those ho take home assignments are a huge portion of the grade. And students will love that because they can get all this help. And they can, especially with the auto graders, that they don't even write their own test cases. They just use the auto graders, the test cases. Right. Um, which is really depressing. Um, and they go to the, the, the instructional staff. The instructional staff tends to, to give away the answers. That's actually a paper that we, uh, published a few years ago. Um, and so the students love this high stakes, but tons of help version of assessment, but that may not actually measure their, their level of knowledge. And so it's gonna take a little bit of adjustment, for students and for faculty to do the shift, uh, to where the, as assess the, the exams are the Give students something interesting to build and don't worry about cheating [01:01:09] Dan: Yeah. Also, I'm, I'm not convinced that cheating is gonna be a problem here. it's very possible, for example, that students cheat on our previous assignments because the assignments were not authentic. Um, you know, in industry you're never going to, no one's gonna come up to you and say, Hey, like, from scratch, you know, write this exact function, takes two lists and determines, you know, how many values are equal between them. It's like, it's like, that's not gonna happen, right? You're gonna be doing something that has some sort of business purpose. And I kind of wonder, um, and this, this will, you know, this will play out, um, one way or another in the next, in the next, uh, few months. But I kind of wonder if we give students authentic tasks. Now you're cheating yourself right out of doing some, some something of value, right? Like before you were. You were probably cheating yourself out of a learning opportunity, but how, how can, you know, how can students know that? Right. The assignments boring, right? It's like, write all these functions and then something, something happens because of the magic, you know, starter glue code we wrote. So I

This week, I'm running back an interview with another one of the most popular episodes we ever did with KevOnStage from early 2022. KevOnStage (Kevin Fredericks) is a comedian, producer, director, and entrepreneur behind KevOnStage studios.  Today's episode talks about how he built an independent brand that really paid off his hard work. He established a solid fan base, had millions of followers on social media, and monetized these platforms by producing his hilarious viral content, a total blast in the mainstream.Listen as we talk about what's going on in his business and his independent success, turning rejection into a massive opportunity to be where he is now.Episode Highlights[01:56] What KevOnStage is currently working on[04:49] His take on more black content going in the mainstream[06:53] KevOnStage's motto, his marketing strategy, and business goals[11:57] What it's like to have autonomy in his brand[19:08] His thoughts on artists knowing their audience and dealing with critics[21:30] What's the process from the stuff put out on socials versus onstage[25:24] How does he approach his game using different social platforms[32:38] What's something beyond just the monetary gain that makes him want to continue to feel inspired to create content[35:13] His opinion on creators who are a one-platform-dominant[38:21] Where does his most lucrative income come from [41:57] How he diversify his content to own the media and make his brand stand out[45:51] What would he like to be doing more of[51:28] KevOnStage's new content to watch out forListen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuest: KevOnStage StudiosThis episode is sponsored by DICE. Learn more about why artists, venues, and promoters love to partner with DICE for their ticketing needs. Visit dice.fmTrapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop's biggest players by reading Trapital's free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPTKev: So, sometimes partnering is great, sometimes licensing is great, sometimes selling is great sometimes. A good business person takes the best deal for what they need to get done.(intro)Dan: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. Today's guest is KevOnStage, the comedian, producer, director, and entrepreneur behind KevOnStage Studios. I've been following KevOnStage for years now. I think he's one of the funniest people on the internet so it was so good to have this conversation. We talked about how he's built his business and everything that he has done from how he creates content, how he thinks about what platforms he prioritizes, how that then provides insights for what he creates for his longer form content, what gets created from KevOnStage Studios, and, ultimately, the type of opportunities that he can offer for other creators and other entertainers that want to do, in many ways, largely the type of thing that he's done. And we talked about where his streaming service sits in this ecosystem of the Netflixes and the Hulus and, in a lot of ways, even though those streaming services may have their black voices tabs, that's not quite the type of content that is what Kev is making so he's really finding his niche, doubling down there, and how he uses the insights from that to infer what gets made, that is how many creators have been very successful so so much of that is very relatable. This is also probably one of the interviews I've laughed in the most. He's hilarious, like I said. This is a great conversation. I really hope you enjoy it. Here's my chat with KevOnStage.(interview)Dan: All right, we got my guy KevOnStage here. Kev, you are one of the busiest people that I'd seen from 2021. Now we're next year, man. How you feeling? Fresh year, how is it?Kev: I'm excited, man. We've got a lot of new things we're working on. I'm really excited, man. It's always fun to be at the beginning of a project, not knowing where it's going or how far it may go and that's kind of where I am now. All the things I'm like, “Oh, soon as I get back, soon as I get back, I'm gonna start working on that.” That time is here now so I'm really excited.Dan: That what's up. Because I feel like for you, you got a few things that are already in motion that have been working well. Your content's good. You got that machine going. But the Studio, I feel like that's the really exciting thing that's been growing.Kev: Listen, man, I'm working on my own flywheel, okay? Westbrook, they got their flywheel, fast IP, that was the best graphic I've ever seen that you made. Dan: Oh, thank you. Kev: I was like, “This is what I wanna do. I wanna do everything from Instagram videos to selling shows.” So, you know, and they all have their own value so that's what's exciting. I have the same amount of joy from making a funny reel like I posted of Angel falling in the challenge show, it was just — I spent 20 minutes on that, really just getting the fall right. And then I came here, you know, I went on location scout right before I came here to this new show we're working on and then this podcast, like they're all exciting for different reasons so I'm trying to enjoy it all. Dan: Yeah. I think the cool thing with that, you get to wear multiple hats and I know, with this, there's a number of things that interest you about this, right? Like you enjoy comedy, you have that piece, but I also know that you like to put people on. You wanna use your platform to do that. So I feel like you being able to wear each of those hats and do those things gives you that opportunity to provide all of that.Kev: Absolutely, man. I think there's the old saying of the church, “We're blessed to be a blessing,” and that's kind of what I wanna do. People have given me opportunities, partnerships with, you know, people have helped lift me, and I just wanna pass along the same thing. For me, my platform isn't about me shining alone, you know what I mean? I tell my friends all the time, I want us all in the gated community. One things I used to do at all deaths that I found a lot of joy in was give people their first great reel or first time directing or whatever and I found that I had as much joy doing that as making somebody laugh. And KevOnStage Studios is really just a more expensive version of that. So, we wanna give people their first time PA-ing or help you get into the wardrobe union or makeup union. It's hard for black people to get into those places but we need black people in those spaces so that's kind of what we're working towards doing. And then even simple things like our editor, one of our editors likes improv so it's like, “Hey, you wanna be in an episode?” Things like that are great too because I want people to be able to scratch their own creative itch and that's kind of what my passion is. Dan: What I like about KevOnStage Studios is that, sure, I think there's a lot of attention right now with, “Oh, there's so much black content out there on your Netflix,” your this and this, but what you're doing is like you're saying, that's true to an extent but it really isn't true for a lot of the people that I think could have the opportunities to be put on in this era.Kev: Yeah. I was just watching Abbott Elementary this morning where I was shaving and I was just like, man, this show is amazing, and to see somebody like Quinta Brunson who — my first time seeing her was on Instagram. Her “Girl who's never been on a nice date, a large, he must got — he got money. He could —” like from that to a network sitcom. And even shows like South Side, which I don't know their story as much, but the show is amazing, that's great. But then there's a lot of creators who have those similar ideas and absolutely no path to HBO, Comedy Central, ABC, Netflix. Even me, like I've pitched to a lot of people and I had a lot of, “Uh-huh, we'll circle back.” And, you know, that was 2018, '19, you know, pandemic killed off anything I had going in Hollywood so I want to be that same network for people who can't get all the way to Hollywood, you know, like here's your chance to get to, you know, Hollywood adjacent — North Hollywood, if you will. You're right over the hill, you just — you know, it's cheaper in North Hollywood. You know, there's more taco trucks, you know? And your number 15 minutes of real Hollywood, you know, that's what KevOnStage Studios, it's the North Hollywood of Hollywood. We're right there. We're right there. But it's a one-bedroom washer and dryer stacked, you know?Dan: Exactly. Kev: That's a leg up from having to go to a laundry mat. Dan: Yes, that's true. It's true.Kev: Stackable's good, man. I'll take a stackable.Dan: Right, right. It's one of those things, right? It's like location and all that, you can't pick everything with these things. You can pick two, and, Kev, you're gonna give them two.Kev: Laundry is a huge plus. Location and a stackable, I'm like, “Bet, let's do it.” Dan: Well, I think the good thing with it is that — because I know in past interviews, you've talked about, hey, with this model, this is something you wanna provide the opportunity. But from a business perspective, I know that it's not something that you necessarily need like a ton of subscribers to reach some point or you're not trying to reach like Netflix scale necessarily, it's something that can sit beside that. But with that, I'm sure you also have goals from the business side as well as the impact side with the service. So, what does that look like from a streaming service perspective?Kev: Yeah, that's a great, great question. It's like — I heard this example somewhere. They're like, you know, somebody's saying you're not gonna beat Walmart at selling everything at a low price, right? They're gonna beat you if you're starting out. What you can beat them at is selling a lot of one thing, right? Because they sell so many things for a low price, they can't sell a lot of any one thing so they're gonna have, you know, maybe one or two black shaving kits, maybe Bevel and maybe one other thing. If you have a black beauty supply store, people are gonna be like, “Well, Walmart doesn't have what I'm looking, here I can go get some weave, you know, a do rag, I can get Bevel, I can get seven other, I get essential oils, I can get Dixons,” you know?So that's our motto, like we're not — Netflix has an $8 billion content budget. They made Squid Game to Red Notice with the Rock — we can't compete with that, right? But they don't have black people learning how to play spades. They don't have that video. They don't have, you know, the Real Comedians Challenge Show, they don't have things like that, right? So we wanna over serve a population that is being served by Hollywood but it's not the primary focus, you know what I mean? Right now, we're in an area of, we're sorry, black people Hollywood, like, man, we really discriminate against you guys for a long time and you guys caught us out on it. So we're reaping the benefits of all that, you know, time where we weren't, you know, getting our just due. But even then, there's still so many other shows that can't be made to this audience and that's kind of what we wanna fill. We wanna make stuff for black people who don't see themselves on Netflix, you know? This church show that we're working on, you know, is for black people who grew up in the church from a point of view of somebody who also grew up in the church and worked in the church, like if you grew up in the church like me, you know, there's never really been a true church show from people who grew up in there. There's people who attended but not people who like worked in ministry, and Netflix might not see the value in making a show like that and that's where we come in, and we wanna serve that audience. All that content where they can't get it on Netflix. And also I'm not even saying you don't have to have Netflix, like I ain't gonna lie to you, Dan, I watch my Netflix, I watch Hulu, HBO Max, like as a consumer, there's stuff that I wanna watch too, like Game of Thrones one through four. Dan: Yeah, one through four. One through four.Kev: One through four. Insecure, like all those shows. Of course we're not even here to say “Don't watch Netflix” and “Boycott Netflix” like I won't even ask you to do that because I'm not gonna do that. But, you know, sometimes you want a nice steak dinner at a five-star restaurant, sometimes you just want a taco truck, you know, and you can't get that experience. When you really want a street taco or the corn man selling elotes, you know, a big steak dinner is not gonna do it. So that's all we wanna be, man. We just a little taco truck on the street, man, just pull up real quick, get you three little tacos, you know what I'm saying? Some Jarritos and a little elote and go on about your way. You're not gonna bring your wife here to propose to her. But if you're in between work, you know, this Kevin taco, that's KevOnStage Studio, just a little street taco place on the side.Dan: Right. And then with Netflix too, that's the place that has all the good ratings of the people that know what's up.Kev: And that's the thing. You know, somebody gotta tell you about this place. “Hey, man, you gotta go over there. Trust me.” And when you — and that's kind of how we're growing, right? We don't have the marketing budget like Netflix, right? When Netflix came out, yet get three months free, a year free. They had billboards and buses in Times Square. We don't have that.Our thing is like, “Yo, there's this funny show on this network called KevOnStage Studios, you gotta check it out.” Or you see a funny clip on TikTok and you wanna see the rest of the video, that's our marketing right now. Word of mouth, your boy telling you, your girl telling you, or you seeing a clip and you wanna see more.Dan: Right. I think I heard you made the analogy once of the Sally's Beauty Supply as opposed to, you know, what you may see at the traditional place like a Walmart, right? And I think even with that, it's like, you know, from a haircare perspective, you know what, yeah, Walmart may have that can of Sportin' Waves but I may want something a little more serious if you wanna make sure the wave's spinning, right? You gotta get something a little —Kev: Absolutely. They might just have Sportin' Waves but they're not gonna have Murray's, they're not gonna have Sulfur8, Just For Me, they might just have one thing. And that's kind of, yeah, that's exactly what we wanna do here, man, and we're having a good time doing it.Dan: That's great, man. That's great. I think that, in a lot of ways, like we were saying before, that's how you identify the elements of your flywheel and where everything sits and how you're able to foster not just your platform but the other opportunities and what I think it does at the end of the day, it narrows in, okay, what is the KevOnStage brand? What does it stand for? And what type of opportunities you can create from that? Because I feel like with you specifically, you've now kind of hit this mode where I know you mentioned that, you know, you were knocking on the door of many folks in Hollywood or anywhere else and they weren't necessarily letting you in, but now I feel like you're kind of at this stage where you are doing well for yourself given everything you've built up independently.You're now able to leverage things. As you mentioned yourself, you got that Maserati, like you're — like you're showing from that perspective, right? But you got those things. I'm curious, though, because I know that — and as you know, definitely you have broken down a lot of the levels of what creators are and the creator economy and all those things, at this stage, you really do have the autonomy if you wanted to, okay, at this stage, would I wanna ever do some type of partnership or deal with one of these bigger distributors that are always trying to offer comedians or creators like yourselves the serious bag, but I'm curious from your stage right now, like is that something that would still entertain you? Like is that something that you would ever do?Kev: I thought about it and it depends and I'll tell you why. One of the best parts about being at KevOnStage Studios and not having to answer to a network is not having to answer to a network. If I wanna make a show, if I wanna cast whoever, no name or whatever, I don't have to have anybody else say yes, you know, or no, right?One thing is, you know, I learned when I shot my first pilot that a network paid for, when they pay for it, what they say goes, right? So in this instance, they were like, “Take this joke out and this joke out and this joke out,” during the notes process and then when we shot it, they're like, “This isn't funny. This is not landing. We don't think black people are gonna get this” so we took all that stuff out, even though we were fighting for it, at the end of the day, they won because we were small and we didn't have as much power in the room, and at the end of the day, they passed on it because they said it wasn't funny enough. We were like, “Well, you took everything funny out. How could it be funny?” So, you know, when you're first starting out, the network has all the power because I'm not Denzel or Shonda Rhimes. If I got an opportunity, they're gonna tell me what it is, and fight as I may, it's gonna be what they say. But here, we can make what we want to make and I think that autonomy is very freeing and it allows me to make what I know is good and funny. Like one of the things that I pride myself on is knowing my audience and what they will like and all that stuff. And, you know, even when I do like brand deals, you know, especially early on, I would have less power and I would have to basically say whatever the brand said and it would come out corny, and I'd be like my audience would hate it and they could smell the fakeness from a mile away. As I've grown. I've been like, “Hey, I'm gonna tell you right now that's not gonna work. Trust me, let me do it this way and it always goes over better.” So, in that instance, I love the autonomy. However, if we were able to partner with someone, it allows us to make things at a greater scale and provide more opportunities for other people and do things a lot easier. You know, everything we do now, we gotta figure it out, you know, when your mom came home, the kitchen bare, the cupboard's bare, she's like, okay, we got two chicken thighs, some corn, you know, some breadcrumbs, make something work. That's where we're at, you know what I'm saying? At the end of the day, you're like, “Hey, low key, that was kind of fire for what we had,” but you'd also love to just go to the grocery store and get everything you want. So, right now, I'm loving the freedom, but as we grow, I wouldn't say no to an opportunity to do more and maybe employ more people for certain projects. I don't think there's ever a world where everything I do, I answer to somebody. I always want to be able to create something that I want to create without having to answer to anybody. But, you know, if Warner Brothers said, “Kev, we're gonna offer 140 million to develop some stuff,” well, yes. Yes, I would — I'll take a little 140 mil, yeah.Dan: Right, right. And that's the thing, right? It's like you have the clear strategy and from an overall perspective, it sounds like, hey, I know that overall deals are the wave, that's not necessarily what I'm looking for. However, if that number is right, I'm not gonna not have the conversation. We're going to talk about itKev: Absolutely — like look what Tyler Perry did, right? And I've watched his career and tried to mimic it to the best of my ability, which I haven't done that well yet. But, you know, still working. But, you know, he leveraged the early Lionsgate deals into his own pocket, like, you know, he partnered with them and they were able to finance those movies and he did X, Y, Z, boom, boom. And then the capital that he got from that, he was able to finance his own shows. So sometimes, partnering is great sometimes, licensing is great sometimes, selling is great sometimes. A good business person takes the best deal for what they need to get done, right? So I wouldn't say that, you know, part of our business model is if I can make a show, you know, at our margins and I can license it to you in the first window, I can make a great margin there and now I've done two things, I've made the show and I made the show I want and I might, you know, right now, there's a lot of, you know, places that have more distribution than we do so if you wanna take it off our hands, we made our money back and you wanna, you know, stream it, then you've just introduced a lot more people to KevOnStage Studios and they can come back to the app and watch the other stuff we've made. So that's definitely part of our plan and that would help us make more shows. So even if we sold that one and they own the rights to it, I wouldn't cry because we can make eight more shows with what we sold that one for. So it's about making the right business, you know, choice at the right time and not being like, “I wanna own it all,” like, I mean, obviously, I wanna own it all but that also comes with its own risks, which means you have to finance it all. And if it sucks, you've lost everything, you know? Everything you spent. So that's a risk that you don't want to have to take every time, you know? Sometimes, you wanna take it when it's near and dear to your heart, but not — every time? You wanna reach into your own pocket every time? You know? Not every time. So, yeah, we're always keeping our options open to the right partnership whenever that may come.Dan: Yeah, I think that's the healthy and best way to look at it, because as both of us, people that spent a lot of time on Twitter, we know how big — everyone wants to own everything, right? But until you're actually in it, you don't realize how much nuance there is with all of that and I really look at these things as a spectrum, as you do, and I think the best people have a mix of both of these things. And like you said, I know that, you know, you mentioned Tyler Perry as a model, the same way that you know how to create this content and do it at a way it's affordable, that's essentially what he did with like Meet the Browns, right? Boom, let me go sell this to TBS and now we got cable distribution for however many years, you know, he's been doing that.Kev: Absolutely, and hardly anybody in Hollywood could shoot at the rate he shoots at. So his margins are much lower than a traditional network or even cable. So I mean, you know, Tyler, you see articles, they shot 20 episodes in six days —Dan: Wild.Kev: — nobody would even attempt that, you know? And BET was like, yeah, we'll take more. We'll take whatever you got. So, for him, he knows his audience, he knows his business model, he knows it works. Critics don't stop what he's doing. And the numbers reflect that he's doing the right thing. People criticize, come what may, but when them numbers come out, people are watching. So that's one thing I've been thinking a lot about is like, especially if you're on Twitter a lot, everything sucks, everybody hates everything, there's nothing good, everybody's wrong. But at the end of the day, somebody is watching that. So, you know, we'd be on Twitter trashing everything but somebody likes that show and they're watching it weekly. So, Tyler's learned to focus on those people who are enjoying it and tuning out people who don't enjoy because they're not — they don't help his plan and that's kind of what we're doing here. Like we're not trying to make everything for everybody. We're trying to make a lot of stuff for the people who want to watch it. And then you grow, the same thing Tyler did, you have your base, you cater to that base, and you grow that base.Dan: Yep. Kev: And if you do that, I mean, that's tried and true. Like we were talking about earlier, you don't need a lot of followers, you don't need a whole bunch of people. You need people who are really excited and who want to come to your live show and buy a t-shirt, to support your Patreon, and get your app, you know? There's so many creators with millions of followers but not a lot of active fans so when they try to go on tour or sell a t-shirt, people are like, “No, man, we don't — we're not — you know, post the thing on Instagram I like.” Dan: Right.Kev: But I wanna do this. No, no, no. So I learned a long time ago, it's better to have 500 really active fans than 5 million people who kinda like your stuff.Dan: Definitely. And I feel like, with you, you've been able to see that in real life, like you are going on tour, you're seeing these people in person, you're getting all those reactions too. And you mentioned earlier about just insights and you being able to see what works and what doesn't and I wonder, how much of that is based on just the feeling of, “Okay, this piece or this post really took off and then I'm gonna try to incorporate that into something,” or how much of it is also, you know, data driven as well where you're looking at things, you know, precisely and you're like, “Okay, like if I'm spending this much time here,” what's that process like, you know, from the stuff you put out on socials versus what you may do on stage?Kev: That's a great question. For socials, the one thing I've learned about the internet is I don't know anything about the internet. What goes viral? What works? Man? My best TikTok is me holding my son's dog and talking about how black people —Dan: Oh, does your dog know if you're black? Kev: Does your dog know you're black? If you're Mexican, does your dog know you're Mexican? If you're white, does your dog know you're white? That didn't take a lot of thought. I literally was at home and he was about to get into something, I was like, and then I was like, I wonder if he knows that means stop in black, you know what I mean?And then I wondered if a Mexican family has their own version of that. I just threw that up and it had — it's got like 2.6 million views on TikTok. That is not the funniest video, it's not the most relatable, it didn't even do that well on Instagram or Twitter or whatever. I just throw it up against the wall. I let the internet decide what's funny or not and I know some things tend to do well more than others. Any culture messing with black food in a way that's not traditional, you mess with macaroni and cheese, it's gonna get a lot of views, right? But, you know, I was making a lot of those food videos and then people were just — like I was getting every food video so I was like, okay, as a creator, even if it does get a lot of views, I don't wanna be the food guy and I don't wanna keep making the same video. So, part of my strategy is I make something that is funny, make something that's relatable, or make something that I just think is funny. Or if I got nothing of that, then I'll share another creator who's funny. There's been some days where I'm like, “Man, I don't feel funny today,” and I'll see somebody else's video, I'll be like, well, let me just share their stuff because there's nothing I can do that's as funny as this. So, you know, and I share and tag them and then I'm like, even if I didn't make something funny, I fulfilled my promise to introduce you to new creators. So that's kind of my strategy. And I just also am very consistent. Even if I don't think the video's great, I still post it because what's great to me and what's great to somebody else is very different. I've had a lot of videos that I think they're hilarious that did absolutely nothing. And a lot of them, like my dog video that I didn't think nothing of and just threw up, that went viral. Like I made this waffle house video probably four or five years ago, I mean, I was on my way to work, I was like, you know, I saw this article, it said Waffle House is dirty. And I'm just like nobody who eats at Waffle House cares about that. Dan: Right.Kev: We know. That video went stupid viral. I mean crazy. And I didn't even — it took less than 5 minutes total. Shoot, edit, post. And I did it — I wouldn't advise this but I shot the whole thing on the freeway. I was driving to work, I always had my phone in my rearview mirror thing, hit record, said what I had to say, turned it off. When I got out of my car, I edited it, put the article next while I was walking to work. That thing went crazy. Didn't think nothing of it. Just threw it up and so many people, that's how they got introduced to me. So, you know, what do I know? I've been doing this 10 years now pretty consistently. So many things went viral that I would have never done. And, you know, that's the nature of the internet.Dan: Right, it's like you know that there's generally a type of content you put out that's going to work, you put it out there and you just know that something's gonna hit. It may not always be what you think is gonna hit, but you put it out there, for sure.Kev: Absolutely, man. Let the people decide what's fun. I mean, I did one video where I was yelling at my son, I use the term loosely, 'cause he had gotten good grades. It did like 7 million views on Twitter, 6, 7 million views, and I was just like, kids, puppies, they're gonna work every time. So, you know, I try to exploit my dog while he's still small. I don't exploit my children as much. But the dog, he don't even know how many videos. He does well. He's earning his keep in the Fredericks household. Dan: One of the things I also, you know, like about how you approach your game is that you look at each social platform differently and you also know how to move to things, right? Like you know that Twitter is quick. You're gonna — that's gonna be the one that's most current about things. But I know you've also put a lot more time into TikTok and just given, I think we saw the recent stats that TikTok, people spending more time on that now than Google, you know, you gotta be early on a lot of these platforms to rise. But there's also things like Clubhouse, for instance, where, you know, I think things rose and then, you know, it dipped and I'm curious, how do you approach that? Like do you know that there's certain ones where you're like, “Okay, there's something here, let me double down here,” like what's your method for that type of thing?Kev: You have a lot of good questions, man. This is why you — you should do a podcast, maybe a newsletter as well about hip hop and entertainment. What I try to do, one of my, you know, things that I've noticed works well is using a platform how that platform was designed to be used. So Twitter, the best thing is tweeting, like writing, like writing out funny tweets, whether you're trending, relatable, whatever. I post my videos — the only reason I post my videos on Twitter is because people would rip my videos and post — because videos didn't do well on Twitter for me for a long time and the only reason I posted on there now is because people would rip my videos and post them and they'd do better on Twitter than I ever would have thought,so I was like, well, nobody's gonna be getting them if I'm not gonna get them. But as far as TikTok, I always try what's new incoming. I've tried, I mean, Vine. You want to talk about the worst creator ever on Vine? Kevin — I mean, I couldn't get Vine to work for nothing. I made a Vine one time, Dan, and I'm lucky you can't find it. And I was like making toast and I put a piece of bread in the oven and then the Vine cut and I had like half a second left and I was like, “Burnt,” and it was just a piece of burnt bread. And I was like, I don't — I'm gonna stop doing this. This is literally the worst Vine ever. I tried Socialcam, Periscope, Clubhouse, spaces, Fleets, Stories, Snapchat. I've tried everything. Part of it for me is like, let's talk about TikTok, for example. TikTok was a new — there were so many fun ways to edit on there, editing was more seamless, they had all those backgrounds. So, as a creator, it was just fresh. But anytime children are using something, the user base is gonna grow. And I think TikTok used to be Musical.ly and I remember my niece was on Musical.ly a long time ago so my strategy is always dip my toes in the water, see what works, find out how that platform works specifically. I realized what I learned about TikTok is you gotta be even quicker than other places on TikTok. I'm talking about people are scrolling like almost like this. You got like maybe 6, 7 seconds on Instagram, you got like 2.3 on TikTok and you can buy 3 seconds if you put the caption. It took me a long time to realize you had to write the caption on the video because people are not looking down to, I believe it's the left to see what you're saying so you gotta figure out, stop their system for one second and say when this be like or baby like or whatever. That's step one and now you might have their attention. Using whatever trend is popping or whatever music is popping, now that's step two. Now, you got them for 7, 8 seconds, now you may have a chance. But almost all of these platforms are, “Is it funny? Is it entertaining? Is it educational? Or is it relatable?” If you're doing one of those of the four, you'll be better off, but like I was a long winded person so I was on Periscope early and I stayed for a long time and I have so many of the people who are now on the Stage Crew is what we call our group of fans are — I used to go on Periscope every day while I drove to work. I was stuck in traffic for an hour and a half, I'd be on Periscope for an hour. And I just chopped it up. I've seen video ideas. And so many people loved it and they stuck with me for a long time. And another thing I do, I know I'm just rambling, I test out concepts on platforms, right? So I'll tweet something and if that tweet does numbers, then I'll be like, “Bet, I'll make a video of that.” Like, for example, Uberfacts tweeted, “What's —” This is a trend maybe last week. Uberfacts tweeted, “What's a company's secret you can spill now that you don't work there anymore?” and I was like, oh, I worked at the bank. I quote tweeted, “The bank does actually overdraw you on purpose,” like a lot of people used to accuse us of that and we would have to lie but they actually do it on purpose. It had like 26,000 retweets so I'm like, okay, that's great, that means people are interested. Now let me screenshot that, go to TikTok, and make the talking version of that. And then I put that video on TikTok, did well. Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, did well. And then a couple of days later, I put the video version of a tweet that went viral right back on Twitter with my own tweet and it also went well. And I'll do that all the time. If I'm not sure video work, I'll post it on my stories and I'll check the engagement. If I get over 50 shares or 100 shares, I'm like, “Oh, I'll take that off and put it on the main grid.” Sometimes I'll make a full video. So I'm kinda like seeding out content and seeing what people respond to and then deciding if I wanna make a full video after that. I have to do that now because I'm doing other projects. I used to just scour the internet for videos all day but because we're making stuff for the app and stuff, I don't have as much time so I'm kinda like throwing stuff against the wall, seeing what works, and then making full versions of that. And that's kinda how I continue making content consistently while I'm really spending more time creating long-form content, where I'm on set 10, 12 hours a day. I just don't have the time to be on the internet like I usually was so I've gotta like be more strategic about doing it.Dan: That's your fastlane IP model right there. You just broke it down.Kev: Yeah. Absolutely, man. I'm just always moving in there. And my hope, one day, I wanna be like — do you remember, DC Young Fly early? He used roasting to rise him to fame and then he leveraged that into other stuff. Now he can use social media just to remind you of what he's doing. One day, I'll be able to be like, “Oh, my social media is just to remind you of what's coming and going.” Or like Kevin Hart, like he'll still come on every once in a while and remind you he's hilarious on social media but he doesn't need it as a vehicle as much as he used to. That's my goal, when I can go a week or a month without making something funny, and people still are checking in. But I'm probably a little ways away from that.Dan: What do you think that would look like to get there? Like is there a particular number or do you feel like it's like a feeling of where you are in your career?Kev: I think — what it really will probably be is when I'm shooting so many things that take up my full day, when I'm shooting 10, 12 hours on set, it's really hard to make a great internet video that day, because I'm not on the internet because I'm shooting. When I'm on break, I might be scanning but, you know, the lunch on set is 30 minutes, if that, feels like. By the time you sit down and eat and then you're back on set for 6 hours. If I was doing that for three months, it'd be tough to make the same amount of content that I'm making. So if I was basically doing those kinds of projects back to back, then I know my social media will suffer in the sense of creating at the pace I usually did. My only hope is that the monetary benefit from my other projects will, you know, keep me afloat. I mean, obviously, I don't make crazy money, well, relative, from the actual platform, it's all about leveraging them to make money off the platform. But, you know, we still get paid from Tik— I mean, not TikTok, I mean, technically TikTok but I make no money off that. Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube so my hope is that I've got so many projects that I'm making, either from my own distribution service or for somebody else or a partner or something we've sold, that I'm like, “Man, I'm making too many things, I don't have time to like see what the TikTok trend is.”But, honestly, Dan, I like making videos so much. If I was on my lunch break, scanning through TikTok, I will make a video, because it doesn't take me that long. My best skill isn't funny, isn't being hard working, it's efficiency. When I'm inspired, I can download, shoot, and post in no time. And TikTok, God bless them, so happy you can just click download for most videos. Don't make me go through screen recording and down— that's too much. You want people to share these anyway, make it easy. So, I can do a whole thing in less than 5 minutes so as long as I got 5 minutes, I'll probably make something.Dan: Yeah. I feel like that's what drives it at the end of the day, right? Like there has to be something beyond just the monetary gain to make you wanna continue to feel inspired to create and that's great that you have that still with the videos. I mean, I definitely sense that from the joy and passion that you share out of it, but I think for a lot of people that do create content on the internet and then that is the awareness they build to sell elsewhere, they ideally would just love to sell the other thing but the internet feels like this thing that they have to do. So the fact that you don't feel that, I mean, I'm sure it's still exhausting, for sure. But the fact that you don't feel that naturally, I think, is what helps that longevity.Kev: Absolutely. I think, you know, we all deal with like burnout or not feeling funny or feeling like I'm never gonna come up with any other idea. But I see the value in using these platforms but also leveraging them to your own stuff, like being an early YouTube creator when adpocalypse happened and Logan Paul did that suicide forest thing and everybody's monetization was punished, that's the first time I was like, “Oh, snap. I didn't even have nothing to do with this. I never been to Japan. I would never. Why am I getting punished?”That's the first time I was like, “I can't rely on these platforms,” and then when Vine came and went, even though I sucked at Vine, there was a lot of people where they depended on Vine and, luckily, most of the creators who were big leveraged that to Snapchat or Instagram or YouTube but some of them never even got close to the heights that they had on Vine. And the same thing happened on Instagram or TikTok or whatever. You know, a lot of people are one platform dominant, killing it on TikTok but nowhere else big. I would rather be five platforms doing okay than one platform dominant because now I can go from TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, into my own platform, Patreon, which is fantastic. It's very important to what we do here. If I only had Patreon, I'd be okay. So, you know, I've kind of like made my exit strategy because the Internet changes too quick, you know? One day it's popping — Clubhouse, man, people were — it was the thing for like 5 months and then everybody — it felt like everybody was just like, “Nah,” like one day, and it's still there, it still have great stuff going on there, but during the pandemic, man, it launched — or not launched but it popped at a perfect time when everybody was at home. Dan: Right. Kev: But then people just got sick of people talking and Facebook came up with their own one and Twitter came up with their own one and then Clubhouse didn't have, you know, that exclusive thing anymore. I mean, that's — you talk about a quick pivot. Dan: Yeah.Kev: You know, Clubhouse, how quickly Twitter jumped on that, that was fast. It took Instagram a long time to copy Snapchat. Dan: Yeah, and —Kev: It took Twitter, it felt like 2 months before they had —Dan: Yeah, Spaces was quick.Kev: I was like, Jesus, and the thing that Facebook did really well is kind of what Twitter did too. They said, “We're not gonna beat Snapchat's market share, and we don't have to. All we need to do is slow their growth and get somebody who was never gonna go to Snapchat to do what they would have done on Instagram.”My wife is that person. She never went on Snapchat ever. But they took that idea and that, you know, Stories, put it in Instagram, and she was like, “Oh, I'll do this.” And I was like, “Girl, I've been telling you about Snapchat.” She was like, “I'm not downloading no more apps.”And that's the same thing. So you — that's why I never wanna be one platform dominant because the winds, they blow and change too quickly and you could be caught in the cold, you know? Like YouTube, man, YouTube decided on a whim, it felt like, family content, if it looks like it's geared towards kids, you're not gonna be able to monetize that. People went from making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month to zero. When they decided they didn't want pranks anymore, people went from making 50 grand, 150 grand a month to like literally zero, I'm not even exag— I know people who had to give up their house in the Hollywood Hills when YouTube was like, “We're not doing that no more.”And that's when I was like, “Oh, this is too dangerous to be only on one platform.” You gotta use them all but you also have to have an exit strategy. To me, you know? Everybody doesn't have to do that but, to me, you gotta have an exit strategy.Dan: Yeah, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. And I think the way you structured it makes sense too. I mean, yeah, you mentioned you're still getting some income from those platforms but the majority is outside of it. And I'm curious, what do your splits and breakdowns look like from a percentage perspective of, you know, like how much does come from those platforms versus how much comes from your other content or your stand-up or any of the other ticketed type of things?Kev: So, the most lucrative by a mile is live events. Touring, live events is the most lucrative. That's why when the pandemic happened, I was like, “Oh my God,” because that — before the pandemic, that was foolproof. As long as people wanted to come see you, you will be able to eat forever, and then all of a sudden, no. So, for me, the most important thing is touring. The second most important thing probably is my Patreon, because that's a group of people who really believe in what we're doing here and support me and if I lost my other platforms, they would still be there. Outside of that, YouTube and Facebook, YouTube was really consistent monetarily. Facebook can be a blow up, for me at least, a blow up and then nothing. You have some months where it's, you know, 2 grand and some months it could be 10 grand, you know what I mean? So it's like, you really can't build a business off of that, you know, wave of, you know, unpredictability. But for me, I probably say 60 percent is live, 40 percent is — or I'm sorry, 20 percent is Patreon, and the other is like podcasting. Podcasting can be really lucrative with the ad revenue. It's also platform agnostic. Like I don't need to be monetized on YouTube because I'm monetized through the ads that are baked into the podcast, you know? So, for me, those are what I focus on and everything else is gravy. Whatever Instagram pays me, gravy. Whatever Facebook pays me, gravy. Whatever YouTube pays me, gravy. And those are the things I have the least amount of control over anyway so, yeah.Dan: That makes sense, yeah, and I think like that split too, honestly sounds like what it's like for a lot of artists as well. I mean, so much comes from live performances, more than half for most of them, but that other chunk, you know, whether it's through their branded partnership or any of their influencer revenue that they may have but also what they get actually selling their music through streaming or the publishing revenue that comes in. So there's definitely a ton of similarities there, which is why I like the model of what you all, and what you specifically have done to build it up. But I think the difference though is that I probably see a little bit more creativity on average from some of the more successful independent comedians than maybe some of the more, you know, successful artists.I feel like there's been more of like a standard path but whether it's you or some of the others that have, you know, risen up, especially in the past 5 to 7 years, there's definitely, you know, I think a bit more variety and, you know, especially whether they're building their own studios or they're trying to do a few more creative brand partnerships and deals, I've always been fascinated with that piece about how comedians and stand-ups are able to monetize and use the internet.Kev: Absolutely, and I think like look at any 85 South, man, like they have — their live event is huge. And then they can just put that exact video on YouTube or their app and they sell merch and even if they did nothing else but live shows and merch, they'd probably be okay, but now, they're building their own app out. It's already out there, the Channel 8, and they're expanding that.So, you know, another smart thing, like let me diversify what we're doing and own the media aspect of it. But, for me, that's merch and brand deals like, to me, it's hard to be good at everything, you know what I mean? So I don't try to be. I'm like merch, I'll focus on the road, if I have a great idea, but it's not my strong suit, because fashion and design aren't my strong suits so I'll just really make stuff for the Stage Crew who loves it. And I'll focus on live events, video content, and podcasting and I'll be strong there. I mean, you got people like Kountry Wayne who like master of Facebook and Instagram, like he knows the amount, you gotta be at least 3 minutes to get really paid. His sketches are 3:01. They're gonna be over 3. On Instagram, they start really quick so he's mastered that and he's also on the road. So everybody has their skill set and it's kinda like, to me, basketball players, like LeBron's the greatest player to me, ever, and he's good at a lot of different things. Steph is the best shooter ever so he doesn't have to be a rebounder like LeBron because he's gonna shoot threes from the logo so you won't be able to guard him. And that's kinda how I think of creators, like very few people are as well rounded as LeBron but you can have a long career being really good at one or two things and that's fine too.Dan: Yeah. And as long as the platforms that are there are still aligned to like where your skill set is the better.Kev: Yeah.Dan: Because it's one of those things where Steph also was really good at something that he was able to set a trend with and, you know, just gotten more and more favorite too as the game went on. But it's like if you're really good at, you know, like that Charles Oakley, you know, old school right? This next game, you might not have as long of a career is you may have had in '93.Kev: That's a fantastic point. Charles Oakley wouldn't know what to do in this game, like he's still gonna be big and strong but he's gonna be guarding Luka or Kevin Durant and they shooting from three, they're driving around, the game has changed so that's a good point as well like the game changes so you have to be able to, you know, change with the game. The internet changes. The same thing with comedy, like what was funny and tweetable 10 years ago isn't funny or tweetable this year, and I'm not one of those who complains about cancel culture. As a comedian, our job is to know where the line is. Know what society thinks is funny and stay there and not to be like, “Well, this was funny 12 years ago.” Yeah, The Nutty Professor was hilarious before but it wouldn't be as funny if it was made now. People would call it fat phobic or whatever. But if you watched it then, it was great, you know what I'm saying? Pepé Le Pew, hilarious as a kid. Now you're like, “Yo, what's was he on, man? Where's the consent? Leave her alone, man. Let her go,” you know?So I think comedy and everything is similar. Everything is changing. Fashion, language, music, all of that stuff. So, you know, as a creator, you have to be aware of that change or you get left behind.Dan: Yeah. And to bring it full circle, what you brought up with Vine is a great example of this. You yourself may not have been the most successful on that platform, like you said, but there are many people who had some of the most popular Vines that were like winning and spread everywhere. And, unfortunately, I just haven't seen them as much because there's something about that 6-second storytelling that they did so well with that just didn't translate as well to where things are right now.Kev: Absolutely. 100 percent. That's what I was saying, like some people translated but for some people, that was it. They never reached the heights they had on Vine ever again, you know? And some of the same trends on Vine probably would work on TikTok but not exactly. So, you know, you gotta get in where you fit in and fit for as long as you can. And then, as the world changes, you gotta fit there too. And that's, to me, the only way to survive.Dan: Definitely. So, for you, just because you are wearing, as we talked about, all these different hats, all these different roles, 5 years from now, 10 years from now, of course, we don't know where things are going, but in the ideal scenario, what would you like to be doing more of or what would you like to be doing less of?Kev: More of helping other creators create their content. That's actually one of the things we wanna do at KevOnStage Studios. It's the hardest part though. Much harder than I realized, you know, to even maybe make somebody else's show, to even go through the legal process of trying to make it is already expensive. So I found that that part was a lot harder than I realized. If somebody comes in and is like, “Yeah, whatever deal is fine,” it's very easy. If somebody is like, “I've got these ideas and stuff,” talking to their lawyer, our lawyer, it's tough. And to do development, you need somebody who can focus on that, you need the resources for legal, you need the production staff to be able to go and make that. So I would hope that we could grow enough to be making more of stuff for other creators and creating those opportunities. Right now, we're kind of focusing on building the foundation with the team we have. But in order to do that, we'd have to scale out a little bit so that would be our goal.I would also love to be making independent movies. That's always been a dream of mine. I just love the experience of movie, either in theaters or at home, I don't care. I'm not like one of those creators, like, “It's got to be in a movie or it ain't real,” like I was poor so we couldn't go to the actual movies that much so all my dreams and memories are watching them at home. So I don't care if you're watching it on your phone or TV or whatever, but I'd love to be doing those two things, if nothing else. Creating content with others and then creating movies and creating stuff that I would love to create and hopefully distributing it to a lot of people. The one thing about the KevOnStage Studios app right now, it's still very small so, you know, to the viewer, that's fantastic, but the other streamers and distribution sites, they have a lot more access. If I tell you to go watch a show on Netflix, the chances of you having Netflix are very high. Or HBO Max, something like that. If somebody tells you to go watch something on KevOnStage Studios, the chances of you already having that app are not as high as you having Netflix. So our goal, our hope would be that, “Oh, yeah, man, I'm gonna check that out. I didn't even know we had that.” But you gotta have the show that breaks through. Like if you think about Apple TV, as much money as they have, people didn't really click in by and large until Ted Lasso. Like I watched See, they had a lot of stuff. Nobody cared, by and large, until Ted Lasso. So even — and they have trillion dollars in cash. People were like, meh, you know what I'm saying? So it's not just unique to what we're doing, it's a lot of places that struggle. Peacock and Quibi. Quibi had all the money in the world, access to every A-list star in the world, people were like meh, so it's not easy, man. It is not easy. It's not even unique to being small. It's just not an easy business to be in. So I would just hope to still be here, in fact. Low key, to still be able to do this for a living in 5 years, I will be happy with just that.Dan: No, man, I think you will. And I mean, I'm not just saying that as someone that's been a fan of your content following you for a while. I mean —Kev: Thank you, thank you. Dan: I really do look at you as one of the success stories when we think about this era of the Internet and what creators were able to do in this phase. I feel like we've seen folks in, you know, past eras and eras before that and the Internet has always been so nascent but I think your focus and consistency. Wait, which one?Kev: I really don't know. Nascent, what's that?Dan: Oh, in terms of like just being early on a trend and just being, you know, like quick with it. Like I think that, you know, for you, oh, man, lost my train of thought —Kev: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.Dan: No, no.Kev: When people use a word that I don't know, I always ask because then I'll be like, you know, “That was nascent,” and then people would be like, “What did that mean?” Oh, you know, what it means is early on to the trends and whatnot, you know what I'm saying? So I didn't mean to get you off track but I was — that's a good word that I don't know so I had to ask you real quick. I could have Googled it later but —Dan: Oh, no, no. I appreciate that. I know, people appreciate this too, just from like, you know, the conversation, for sure. No. So, normally, some of these things, editors, I'm like, “No, can you all take that out?” They're like, “No, we're leaving this in here,” because —Kev: Leave it in, editor. Dan: They'll learn too. But, yeah, man, I mean, like I said, you, the focus that you had with so much of the content that you put out and also just how you continue to enjoy it, I feel like that is the model. And I'm really excited for you and where you continue to grow and the fact that you're leveraging your platform the way you have to put people on, I mean, that's the dream. I mean, I know that, you know, I'm definitely, you know, in the days of it, it could likely feel like a lot of work but, hey, man, you're doing the work, man. And it's much appreciated.Kev: Thank you, man. That truly means a lot, Dan. I appreciate you even saying that. And I'm glad that you think, you know, I'll still be here in 5, 10 years because I hope too, you know? But if not, you know, I own a house in this small town. If you see me living in South Carolina, just figure out that it didn't work.Dan: Hey, man.Kev: But I'll still be happy. I'll still be making videos or doing podcasts or something.Dan: And joy will be there. The joy will be there. For sure. Regardless. But, hey, man, Kev, this was great. I really appreciate you for making the time. Kev: Thank you, man. Dan: But before we let you go, anything you wanna plug the audience, let them know some of the content you got coming out with the streaming service?Kev: KevOnStage Studios. man, go to your app store, whether you're on Apple, Android, Roku, Amazon, go to KevOnStage Studios, download that. Go ahead and subscribe for the year. Don't worry about what's on there. Just subscribe for the year. Trust me, it'll be worth it. We've got a lot of amazing things on there. We got the Real Comedians Challenge Show, which is just knockdown drag out funny. We've got What's Good?! which is a food show with comedians and comedians are more like regular people than chefs so you're gonna feel like it's you and your friends going out to eat in a different city. We got Love On Stage, which is a dating show my wife created and produced. That's fantastic. You can stream that whole season in there. Just fun stuff like Get Your Black Card Off Layaway shows, Keon's All Stars, Crafts and Cocktails, just fun stuff, man. Just go on there, check it out. Destination Evrywhr is an amazing travel show that, you know, has a musician who went all the way to Cambodia to make music with Cambodians. We have stuff like that. I mean, just go over there and check it out, man. Just don't worry about the monthly fee. Don't pay monthly. Pay by the year. You get two months free when you pay by the year. Just go ahead, go from here, wherever you're listening, right to KevOnStage Studios and pay for the year. You won't regret it. And even if you do, we already have your money.Dan: We'll make it easy for people too. We'll put the link in the show notes.Kev: Perfect. Thank you so much, Dan. I really appreciate it. I'm a big fan of yours. I've been watching your podcast and be like, “How does Dan get these guests?” And then you tweeted like I just be asking, I was like That ain't no secret. That's just —He's like you just know somebody or just shoot your shot. I'm like, you had Rick Ross though, man. You had Issa Rae. And you're like, “Yeah, just ask.” I'm like, “Okay, we'll see how that works, Dan. I'm gonna just ask too, see what I can get on my podcast.”Dan: I will say, I mean, there's something a bit more nuanced to that and I was like, you know what, I could have added more because I made it seem like, “Oh, y'all could do it. Why don't you just DM Rick Ross?”Kev: Yeah. I was like, “Dan, it is not that easy.” It is not that easy and you know that. I just believe all we got to do is DM him and he'll be like, “Yeah, I'm gonna be on there.” You know it took more than that, Dan.Dan: Oh, man. Well, no. So 'cause I think people probably appreciate this for the folks that do listen. So the Rick Ross one, real quick, so the Rick Ross one, I had had his attorney, Leron Rogers, on the pod. Him and I had had a good conversation and, you know, stayed connected afterward and I saw that Ross was putting out a book and I was like, “Alright, if someone's put out a book, they're gonna be on the tour,” and then I was like, “Okay, hey, you know, I know that Rozay is gonna be on the tour, would love to have him, he's writing about business. This literally is the avenue to do that.” And he was like, “Alright, send me some details, let me see what I can make work,” and then we made it work after that. Kev: See?Dan: Yeah.Kev: It is more than just DM-ing. It's timing, it's relationship, it's an audience people care about and a podcast that people actually watch and download. So, sorry, guys, it's not as easy as Dan made it seem.Dan: No, you're right. If someone has to be, “Oh, hey, how did you get KevOnStage on your pod?” I'd be like, “Oh, I just DM-ed him. Y'all could do it too.” You gotta get all these people flooded. They will be like, “Oh, KevOnStage, can you come to do my thing? Oh, KevOnStage —Kev: Guarantee you it's not gonna be that easy. 'cause if I don't follow you, I don't even really see your DMs. I'm a fan of Dan so I saw his and I already wanted to be on this show so when he asked, I was like, “Finally, my time is now.”Dan: It's funny, man, because I so remember, it's like one day on Twitter and, I mean, like I said, I've been following you on, you know, all the other platforms. And then, one day, you just quote tweeted something I said and you were like, “Y'all should follow this guy.” And I was just like —Kev: Yes.Dan: Yo, KevOnStage — I was just like, okay, all right, we hear this.Kev: 'Cause you're really smart, man, and you take stuff that is like out there and you make it so digestible. Like what Westbrook is doing, I've been following them but when you made that graphic about the flywheel, it's like, “This is exactly what they do,” but it makes so much — I sent that to so many of my friends. I was like, this is what KevOnStage Studios has to become and the way they did The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reunion, all of the stuff they did with that and then they ran that same thing back for King Richard, genius. And then with Will's Best Shape of My Life, I watched that, get YouTube to pay for it, boom, use it to actually lose weight and promote your book.Dan: Brilliant.Kev: I said what the heck? I wanted to get the book because of that. Genius level marketing and even somebody as big as Will Smith, everything they do is not behind the paywall. They gotta use YouTube and Instagram just like regular people. So I know I'm on the right track. And I also met Will Smith, I don't know if you know that. I don't like to talk about it. Dan: Oh, no, you only post a photo, what? Every month or so.Kev: I haven't posted in a while. I should bring it up again today.Dan: If he wins this Oscar for Best Actor, you gotta be part of that campaign.Kev: He might thank me from the podium. He might be like, “This wouldn't have worked without KevOnStage's dad joke to help promote the film. I'm so glad that he did that and that's why you heard about King Richard,” and I'm gonna be like, “Thanks. You're welcome, Will. And you're welcome, world.”Dan: Oh, man. I'm kind of waiting for that moment, that will be dope.Kev: Oh, man, I'll be so happy for him. I'll be so happy. And he was great in that, like it was an Oscar-worthy performance so I really do hope he wins.Dan: Yeah, no, definitely. No, he does too. But, hey, man, this was great. I really appreciate you coming on.Kev: Thank you so much for having me, Dan. I appreciate it, man. (outro)If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating, and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Everybody's got something to say about Cash Money Records and the brothers who co-founded the label —Bryan “Birdman” Williams and Ronald “Slim” Williams. To paint the full Cash Money full picture, good and bad, I brought on Zack O'Malley Greenberg who has interviewed the brothers at-length while working at Forbes.Cash Money has one of the deepest catalogs in the game with several classics. And unlike some other upstart hip-hop labels, Birdman and Slim maintained control as they rose up. Their 1998 distribution deal with Universal is hip-hop's Louisiana Purchase.But we can't ignore Cash Money's lows either. There is a long, long list of artists who claim they were not compensated fairly by Birdman and Slim.Zack and I go through 30 years of Cash Money as a business, its competitive advantage, and what comes next now that Drake and Wayne are gone from the label. [1:44] Is Cash Money the greatest hip-hop record label of all time?[7:34] What people sleep on about Cash Money[11:01] Cash Money's history of not paying artists [16:52] Did Cash Money succeed because of Birdman and Slim or despite them? [19:29] Biggest signing? [20:29] The 1998 Universal-Cash Money deal [25:31] Lil' Wayne's mixtape run[29:03] The benefit of partnering with Republic Records[31:49] Bidding wars for Lil Wayne, Drake, and Nicki Minaj[33:21] Connection with New Jack City [40:56] Cash Money catalog valuation ?[43:00] Lil Wayne's beef with Birdman [45:48] Can Cash Money strike platinum again? [50:44] Birdman's love for music [56:08] Hopes for a Cash Money reunion tour and biopic [58:24] Who “won” the most in Cash Money's history?Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuests: Zack O'Malley Greenburg, @zogblogEnjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapitalTrapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital's free memo.Transcription[00:00:00] Zack: You know, some of the subsequent deals that they worked out with Universal, you know, maybe some of the deals where they were able to get universal to, to tackle some of the back office stuff. I mean, it's very unsexy, but you know, that's clearly an area where they needed to improve. So, let's say,to give some cash in terms of like higher distribution fee in order to have Universal, you know, cover some of this stuff. It's kinda like a boring, dark horse candidate, but you know, I mean, you could say that, that's probably useful in terms of buttoning things up.[00:00:37] Dan Intro: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level.[00:00:57] Dan: All right. Today's episode is all about the one, the only cash money records. I got the one and only Zack Greenberg here who has reported on this company many times before we ran to this company and the business moves they did in our Top 10 Revolutionary list last year. So Zack, welcome back. I'm excited for this one.[00:01:18] Zack: Always good to be here with you, Dan. [00:01:19] Dan: Yeah. So for the folks listening, we are gonna do this in a few ways. We got a bunch of categories here that we're gonna run through, just evaluating Cash Money as a business, some of the highs, some of the lows, and just where they stand overall. But I think it'll be great to kick it off with the question that we often hear from folks is Cash Money, the greatest hip hop record label of all time? What's your point? What's your take?[00:01:44] Zack: How, man, you know, I mean, I think it's sort of like, any of these greatest ever are you talking about, overall body of work or sort of like, you know, The label at its peak. But you know, I think you gotta take it in an overall body of work, you know, type of thing. You know, it's hard to top Def Jam, I think, you know, if you were gonna go with an overall body of work, hip hop, legacy. But, you know, I don't know other than that, I mean, it's hard to say that there's anybody who you'd put above cash money, I'd say. Especially something that is, you know, really artist founded in that same way. I mean, you could talk about Bad Boy, you could talk about Rockefeller. But I think that, you know, Cash Money has staying power. You know, through Drake and Nikki and Lil Wayne and so forth, you know, in a way that, you know, I would argue that a lot of these other labels haven't, and, you know, who else can say that they've had Drake for that long? And I guess he's not there anymore. But man, that was pretty recent development and it's been a pretty great run. So, you know, to go all the way from the early nineties, you know, through basically now being relevant, stacking up all that catalog, you know, it's certainly, if not number one, it's, you know, gotta be top three, if not top two.[00:03:00] Dan: Yeah. So my answer is Def Jam as well, and we'll get to Def Jam in a minute. But, the case for Cash Money is this, and I know a few people have said it. Irv Gotti recently said it. Russell Simmons himself said that Cash Money was the greatest hip hop company that has come through. But the case for cash money, you mentioned it earlier, the fact that they did it while owning the core asset and the music and still doing that moving forward says a lot. Not something that can be said about Def Jam, many of the others that would be even in the conversation. I think even with a newer label at Quality Control, they've still done it while owning it. Well, at least up to this point from some rumors that are happening. But I think that's one case for Def Jam. But then I think of the continued run of success from everything that happened in the nineties from I guess we could start with like juvenile drop in HA in 98 and then pretty much everything from Drake's last Cash Money album, which I believe was Scorpion. So if you're looking just at like that run from everything there, that is such a strong hit rate. And I think that's the thing too that I would give them over Def Jam is the hit rate of who were the artists we signed and what was their likelihood of success and they were just able to do it. Even with the imprints, I mean, I think major record labels. So wrong with so many imprints. I just never worked out and for them to have, whether it's Young Money or even the smaller moments with the best music or with Rich Gain, there was always something there. And even though there was some conflict, and we'll get to that, I think that's the Cash Money case. The Def Jam case though, I think this is where I think of course Def Jam did end up becoming a major record label, so it's a little bit nuanced there, but I do think you have that eighties run Beasties LL Public Enemy. You got the nineties run with all those artists too. Especially looking at what Red Band met the man DMX. I feel like they had New York on Locke and then two thousands, the Rockefeller partner. Murder Inc. The video games, I mean, it's, I know the last decade hasn't been there, but it would be tough to not put Def Jam up top, but I understand if some people would consider Def Jam a major as opposed to, you know, an independent. So, I get the nuance there. [00:05:10] Zack: right, right. And, and being, you know, fully owned by a major as opposed to Cash Money, which really has distribution agreement. You know, and you could look at, you know, I guess Def Jam was sold in chunks, but the total amount that sold for, you'd have to adjust for inflation and stuff. But I wonder how that would stack up against the current value of cash money today, which, you know, it's incredibly driven by the copyrights that they still control and, you know, definitely hundreds of millions of dollars. You know, if you look at, Lil Wayne kind of quietly sold his The Young Money, Cash Money Partnership for a hundred million bucks a couple years ago, that was before the catalog boom, got really crazy and then kind of died down again. So, you know that that's valuing what Birdman and Slim Own, you know, just on the Young Money, Cash Money side of the business, you know, at nine figures. So there's, you know, there's a lot more to the company than that, although that's, you know, that's kind of the gold line. But still, you gotta think that, you know, this is still, you know, sent a million dollar business and, you know, I'd be curious to see what a proper valuation, you know, what it would look like against the total value that Def Jam got, you know, in terms of dollars over the years. But, you know, when you think about who was hottest and what record label was hottest at any particular point, Yeah, I think probably the peak was there was that year that Def Jam was, you know, getting sold or the second half of it was getting sold. And, Lyor basically said to Jay and D M X, like, let's have two albums this year. And, you know, because the valuation is gonna be based on revenues, not earnings. And like, the more you can sell, the more we get. And so, you know, that moment at D M X at his peak, and you know, Jay, I think, I'd say at least at his commercial, you know, record Sales Peak, you know, as an individual artist, you know, that was about as hot as, as it could ever get for, for any record label, I think. [00:07:08] Dan: That's a good point. So I guess if we were to compare Def Jams 98 and 99, like that run to Yeah. Cash Money, and I know there's a few runs you could put in there, but from an overall commercial perspective, it would have to be 0 8, 0 9 20 10, I would probably assume, because you get. Carter three, and then you get, you know, Drake's debut, Nikki's debut. I feel like it would probably be somewhere in there. [00:07:34] Zack: Yeah, that's probably pretty close. I mean, that was a lot, you know, that was a lot of concentration within a couple year period as well. You know, and I think the other thing about Cash Money, that maybe people sleep on to some extent is, you know, just like the efficiency of the label, especially in the early days. And, you know, of course we can get into some of the issues with paying producers and so forth, but, you know, they really had a system and you know, it was going and finding artists that were bubbling up, you know, first in the New Orleans area. I mean, this is in the nineties, and, you know, and then kind of just plugging them into the machine. Right. You know, put them with stable producers in-house, get Manny Fresh on there and, you know, it was not like a, you know, high expense kinda situation. Like maybe you would've seen with Def Jam or, you know, some of the New York, LA labels, it was just like, you know, you know, probably low, low cost, high output. You know, like there's a high margin business, low overhead, you know, it's lean and mean. So I think from, in that regard, Cash Money, you know, it might have been, it might have been the best business, you know, out of any record label. Right. In terms of sort of like efficiency and profitability and stuff like that.[00:08:47] Dan: That's a great point because if you look at that vibe, I think that was the vibe for the South overall. We saw that with no Limit as well, just with in-house production sheep, that production does almost everything and the music videos aren't flashy and the fact that I think they stuck with what they do and what they work with well, and eventually I think collaborations came, but that was something that they were hesitant about as well. Just thinking about juvenile dropping 400 degrees, and I'm going back to that just because that's the first album that comes after that 1998 Universal deal, which we'll talk about soon, but, that album, I'm pretty sure the entire production value for those music videos probably costs less than one of the suits that Puffy and Mace wore in the music videos. or, yeah, Jay-Z's Sunshine Music video, which I know has been talked about for years on end, but that's what the vibe was. There were no Hype Williams music videos coming through Cash Money. Right. At least at that point. I know they came later when Wayne blew up further, but that's what they did. They stuck to what they did and it worked. It worked so well. [00:09:55] Zack: Warren Buffet would love Cash Money. [00:09:59] Dan: Oh yeah. He loves little cost.[00:09:59] Zack: Cash Value. Value, cash value investor. Right. Early cash money would be the Warren Buffet play.[00:10:06] Dan: Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. And the thing is too, you talked about it earlier, just some of this things leading up to the big deal that they had, but even back in those early days, even before the Universal deal, Birdman and Slim, the co-founders of Cash Money Records had a history of legal issues with artists and not paying artists on time. And I actually have a list here, and it's probably an incomplete list, but artists that have had some type of dispute or issue with Cash Money records when it comes to payments. So I have Lil Wayne, Pharrell, Clipse, David Banner, Bangladesh, the producer, at least five or six artists before 1998, Wendy Day, who's not an artist, but one of the attorneys and people that helped make this deal happen. Behi Turk and Shal and Jazz Prince, of course himself. Tiger, Manny Fresh, and I'm sure I'm missing people from that list. [00:11:01] Zack: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a long and storied list of people to have disputes with and, you know, it really is something that goes, you know, hand in hand with success.You can't ignore that history. So, you know, I think it is important to remember some of the context. You know, these guys were coming out of a completely different world. You know, and they were hustlers. They were legit hustlers in New Orleans. And, you know, in doing some reporting, you know, I verified it. I mean, you know, they were the real deal. They moved things over. They went legit. They became record moguls and Bird Man's Case became a rapper himself. And, you know, they were not people who had dealt with, you know, sets of books, right? There was not really necessarily like bookkeeping apparatus in their form of business. So, you know, I think there was an adjustment period that, you know, let's say perhaps went on for too long in terms of, you know, getting things papered up and straightened out. But, you know, I wrote a big story on them in 2019 for Forbes, where I went down to Miami and spent some time with Birdman and Slim. I talked to their lawyers a lot. I talked to Wendy Day. Spend some time in the studio with them and you know, I mean, everybody of course has, if you ask people in the Cash Money camp, they're gonna have their side of the story. If you ask whoever they're having the dispute with, you know, they're gonna have their side of the story too. And you know, obviously when there's smoke, there's fire, there's a hell of a lot of smoke when it comes to not getting paid on time. But… [00:12:29] Dan: What would you say is the Cash Money side of the story, though? The Cash Money is this it?[00:12:33] Zack: They, you know, started out as people who had not had formal training in business, doing business with a lot of other people who had not had formal training in business, who were represented by people who had not had formal training in business. And so when you go back to some of these early documents, it was not properly papered over on either side. And so there's a lot of question over, you know, who owns what, you know, I don't know that anybody who was involved in some of those early deals really, you know, had a full grasp of sort of, you know, music copyright and publishing and, and master recordings and all that. I mean, you know, it's not like an intuitive business, you know, it's like, wait, what? There's two writes to every song. They've like, there's a publishing and a recorded music. It's separate. How does that work? So I think a lot of that was, you know, kind of like if you go back the nineties and early nineties, especially when they're getting started, you know, before the Universal deal there was just really like, you know, I would imagine a lot of handshake deals, a lot of just, you know, kind of like, let's see how, how it goes sort of stuff. A lot of, you know, here we're gonna give you a bag of cash and you do you give us this beat or you give us a verse or whatever. So, you know, it makes sense to me that it might not be papered up properly. But, you know, the fact that that's continued, you know, so far into the future, you know, that's another story. So, you know, what they did say was that, you know, after, and we can talk more about this Universal deal, but after the Universal deal started and then, you know, as it continued to evolve, you know, to where Universal got an even bigger cut of, you know, distribution fee or like an even bigger distribution fee than it had signed up for in the beginning. Universal took on more and more of sort of the back office function. And so, you know, some of the more recent stuff is, you know, a little bit more papered up properly. So that's the Cash Money side. But, you know, it's funny, I mean, when I did this story and I reached out to all these folks, you know, what I got was like a no comment, which says to me that, you know, things have been settled up and they kind of don't want to get into it anymore. Right. Or maybe there was an NDA involved. But yeah, a lot, a lot of smoke. A lot of smoke in that area, for sure. [00:14:42] Dan: Yeah, the NDAs are key. I remember there was one of the people that I had mentioned earlier that I was going to have on the podcast of Trapital, the interview timing didn't work out, but that was one of the first things they said. If you have any questions for us about Birdman and his relationship with this artist or anything like that. No, we're not answering it. And I was just like, all right, noted. Like, and I feel like that's kind of RANE with a lot of this, but I think they and Birdman and Slim specifically in an odd way. It wasn't even just to them alone. I feel like there was this ethos of, you could almost put Suge Knight into this same category as well, but these people that were cut throat with business folks that they were doing major deals with, whether it was Suge Knight with the folks at Interscope or Birdman with Universal, I'm like, Hey, I'm gonna take what's mine. And rightfully so. They kept ownership over what worked for them and they did that, but they kept that same energy with a lot of the people that like worked with them on the other side too. And that's the piece of it that while it was frustrating to see there are actually some other sides of this too, because even the fact that I think we can get into it in a little bit, but just some of the artists, they were able to sign how they went about that. As frustrating as it was about them not paying artists, like there not every aspect of the business was and is predatory. So that's one thing that you know started to come up more and more as once you get past the salacious parts of the details and stuff, you're like, okay, no and no different than why you went down there to report them. Right. There is nuance and there are a number of things to dive into. For sure, for sure. So shifting here, one of the other things that I've thought about, we talked a little bit about what set Cash Money apart. We talked a bunch about the backstory and the bad rep, but the next thing up here is about Cash Money itself and whether or not you think that it succeeded cause of Birdman and Slim or it succeeded despite them. So thinking about this hypothetical world, if it even is possible, other folks that would've had this label in their hands and what things would've looked like, what's your take there? If we're really isolating them as business leaders.[00:16:52] Zack: I absolutely think it succeeded because of them. I mean, did they get in their own way some of the time? Absolutely. But I think, you know, anybody who can run a business that goes from like the early nineties in an informal economy, you know, in like the Louisiana area to being this global thing, to this day that is still, you know, very much at the forefront of an industry. I mean, you know, like they gotta be doing something right. You know, 30 plus years on the staying relevant and, you know, from like the early days Hot Boys to like the late nineties and, you know, remember Big Timers and Oh yeah. Still flying, all that, you know, heyday as we were alluding to, and sort of like the late s apparently, you know, 2010s, you know, of Cash Money, Young Money with Nikki and Drake and Wayne. Even coming through to, you know, to you to say Scorp. I mean, that's a really long run of relevance and you know, have that, I mean, yeah, like I said, they gotta be doing something [00:17:53] Dan: Right. Yeah. I think it's because of them too. I will. Because as much as there are issues, and we've talked about a lot of them here, There's so much of this that would've succeeded with folks, other folks in charge, because there are a lot of record labels from the South that tried to do what Cash Money did as well. And a lot of them came and then most of them went. And the fact that we're having this conversation and not having it about them is part of it. And a lot of those record labels had talented people as well, but things just didn't carry over. They may have taken, you know, a bigger deal to get more money upfront, but then the hypothetical is, let's say it was in the hands of someone else that wouldn't have been able to push it forward, then it becomes part of the Island Def Jam conglomerate and then just kind of gets mixed and mixed. And then it becomes one of the many labels that you hear about where it's like, oh yeah, whatever happened to this one or that one. And I think it took what could have been easily, because there would've been enough meat on the bone if we just talked about Cash Money from the early nineties up until, let's say the mid two thousands. Right. And I think that's, inflection point that we can talk about in a little bit. Even that itself was a great run itself. And then you look at the second half of the career from like the mid two thousands on, that's a whole other historic record label. They have two of those under the same house. I think it's because of them and as much as it can be frustrating to hear and see and, you know, unlikely there's some critical things. But let's jump into that now though, because I think one of the questions we have here is the biggest signing that this record label has had. What do you think is the biggest signing for Cash Money?[00:19:29] Zack: Oh man. You know, I think probably easy answer is Drake, but you know, I would actually say Lil Wayne because if you don't have Wayne, I don't think the Drake thing happens, you know, and really Lil Wayne from such a young age going all the way back to the hot boys and, and you know, coming through. All those Carter albums, you know, like he's the backbone of this whole operation, you know, musically, sonically. And I think without him you don't get everything else that comes along. What do you think?[00:19:58] Dan: Yeah, it's Wayne too. That's who I have. I know that Drake is the highest commercial artist. If you were to look at all of the numbers and I think without him, the past decade would've looked very different. But we would still be having this conversation in some form. Likely if it wasn't for the past decade of Drake, it may be a bit more truncated. But we may not be having this conversation at all if it wasn't for Wayne. So I think it has to be Wayne there. What do you think is the best business move for Cash Money?[00:20:29] Zack: You know, I'm gonna go back to that first deal that they struck with Universal. I was in the early nineties at Wendy Day, who he mentioned earlier. It was sort of like a go be who helped, you know, really get them, you know, kind of set up properly with this deal. But you know, they negotiated it and they wouldn't take anything less than something that they felt was an incredible deal. And, I remember the story that Slim told me as they went in, they sat down some mid-level executive at Universal and low-balled them to straight up buy half the company. And so he and Birdman just got up to leave. Then Doug Morris walks in and he was the head of Universal at the time. Comes in with another colleague, Mel Lo winter and Slim members, you know, Doug saying, Hey, if I were you, I wouldn't sell my company. He comes in and offers him 30 million advance just for the privilege of doing business. And, what does Universal get a 7% distribution fee, which is not a lot. So kind of almost doesn't make sense from Universal's perspective unless you think about it in terms of market share. Market share is so important when you're the biggest record label because there are all these great things that happen when you have the most market share. There are all kinds of rights that are assigned based on market share. Like anytime there's, you know, a mislabeled song that gets played or gets spun,and this happens a lot, the metadata in music is a disaster. So if, you know, there are these huge pops of sort of like unresolved money and you know, what they eventually do is they get resolved down by market sharing. So if you're Universal, you know, you get the land share of that and there's a lot of other things, a lot of other places where calculations are done based on market share. You can also brag and say that you're the biggest stuff like that. So, you know, certainly it was worth it for Universal to come in and especially, you know, you think about at the time, You know, hip hop was still at a nascent stage and particularly hip hop in the South was like, not even really on the map for Universal to be able to come in and have this connection was really great for them. But, yeah, I mean, what a great deal. 30 million bucks. You don't have to give up anything. You just give, you know, just give a distribution fee and frankly, you would want your stuff to be distributed by this, you know, enormous record label anyway, so that you could expand and get bigger and better. So I think hands down, that's it. You know, that didn't stop, that there were rumors, you know, that they were even bootlegging their own music, like out the back or wherever, so that they didn't have to pay the 7%. But I, you know, I don't know. I mean, that's that talk about, you know, efficient business. But, you know, I think you go back to that deal that kind of laid the groundwork. Cause if they had given up half of their company way back then, I mean, you see what happened, Jay-Z he up, you know, a huge chunk of Rockefeller early on and. And I think was never really that incentivized, you know, to make that his main thing anymore because, you know, he'd given up such a big chunk early on.[00:23:29] Dan: Yeah, it's one of the best deals we've seen in music and one of the best deals we've seen in hip hop over the past 30 years without question. And the fact that they were able to get everything you mentioned, plus 2 million advance for three years. They kept ownership of the Masters too. And that's the thing that, as we talked about, Birdman and Slim are still collecting on that year after year. So it's up there. It's incredible. And I know that there were other labels that tried to do the same, but just couldn't. I think part of the reason is that this goes back to them focusing odd, what works for them. They had a unique sound. Universal saw this as their entryway to the south in an authentic way because back then, you know, the south was still vying for dominance. And I know that, you know, things were happening at LaFace, but this was different. The New Orleans sound was different from what was happening in Atlanta at the moment. And this gave you an entry path into that. So it was big time. [00:24:27] Zack: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, I think, you know, also 30 million back then, I mean, probably more like 50, 60 million when you talk about inflation. But you know, I would, to our earlier point, you know, did Cash Money succeed? You know, or despite Slim and Birdman, you know, that's situation where, you know, obviously I wasn't there and there wasn't a video of it, but, you know, when you sit down with Slim and Birdman, like you can get the sense that it would be tough to negotiate with that.You know? I mean, Slim's sitting there, he's like 10 feet tall. He doesn't really talk very much, you know, and Birdman, he can get pretty loquacious, but like, uh, he, you know, when he wants to, you know, be kind of stone based, you know, I mean, he can, he can have a great poker face. So I think, you know, if you're some executive, you're going in and you're trying to get them to sell, and they have really no incentive to sell, and they're sitting. Just like, Nope, we're good. You know? I think that that leads you to offer them some crazy deal, like the one that Universal offered and so I really would chocolate up to some very good negotiating, on their part as well. [00:25:31] Dan: Yeah. You need to be able to negotiate to pull off hip hop's Louisiana purchase. Got to at least one half. Absolutely. At least one half of it. Yeah. So, yeah. The other thing that I did have was a dark horse move and a move that doesn't get talked about as much, and as much as that move does get focused on the one dark horse that I did have is the, well, I guess too, but let me focus on this one. I would say that the mixtape strategy that they had with Lil Wayne in the mid to late two thousands, even though cash money had ownership of the music, even though this, I think that worked so well. One of the questions that we have is just how well did this company record label transition from different stages of music, whether it was from the CD era, ringtones or ringtones, to streaming it, Cash Money knocked it out of the park. With each of their albums sold, especially when they did this deal at the height of the CD era, when the music industry was struggling in the mid two thousands and they were trying to get people to buy CDs. They were just like, Hey, let's give away the music for free. And Wayne was rapping over other beats. He was in his bag more than anyone, and from dedications to Drought, all of those, just so many classics in there that I think real Hip Hop fans and folks that were following Wayne were following even more so than the next album. So all of that speaks. Lil Wayne being able to sell over a million albums in the first week when the Carter three drops in 2008, which is still a very tough time for CD sales to even happen. So that whole run and just the thought to do that. And granted, I think some of this may have been a bit more on Lil Wayne's push himself, especially because at that point he had his own young money imprint. But all of this is happening and you know, Birdman and Slim had a problem with it. They could have said no. But I think the fact that they leaned into the change that was happening, you already saw what 50 Cent did with his mixtapes in the mid two thousands. You get drama, you get the other folks in the south to be able to help make this happen. And I think it worked out well for them.[00:27:34] Zack: Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good point too. So, you know, I mean, I guess when you have a label that has been that successful, that long, Yeah, there should be a couple different options for what the best move was. Yeah, I like that as a sleeper pick. [00:27:47] Dan: Yeah. And Lollipop is the best selling ringtone of all time too. over 5 million ringtones sold, and I mean, ringtones, were selling for like three bucks each to that point. So I mean 15 million just from folks wanting to, you know, have, you know, that little jingle on there, Motorola razors or whatever the hell people were using at that point. But, what was your dark horse? Oh [00:28:10] Zack: Oh man, that's a really good question. I don't know. I mean, I guess it was just so clearly the Universal deal to me. But, you know, and Drake wouldn't really be considered a dark horse candidate, I guess you could say. As time went on, you know, some of the subsequent deals that they worked out with Universal, you know, maybe some of the deals where they were able to get Universal to tackle some of the back office stuff. I mean, it's very unsexy, but you know, that's clearly an area where they needed to improve. So, let's say,to give us some cash in terms of like higher distribution fee in order to have Universal, you know, cover some of this stuff. It's kinda like a boring, dark horse candidate. But you know, I mean, you could say that that's probably useful in terms of buttoning things up and you know, there was a lot of smoke, like we said, but you know, nothing ever, like the house never burned down. So, you know, maybe, maybe those kinds of arrangements really kind of help prevent something like that from happening.[00:29:03] Dan: And I think that back office piece also just makes me think about the broader partnership and the expertise that they were able to lean on. And a question that I actually didn't explore, but now I'm thinking more about it, is how different do we think that the Universal partnership would've been, let's say Cash Money had partnered with another label under the Universal umbrella? Because obviously part of this is very close. There was Universal Republic at the time and they've been hand in hand working with Monte and Avery Lipman ever since, and they are two of the most highly regarded executives in the game that have now being, year after year after year, the label with the number one market share. And part of that is because of Cash Money itself, but it's also because of all the other stars, even outside of that label, they have been able to bring it to, as opposed to many of the other labels in the Universal Umbrella or the umbrella of Universal Music group labels that have not had that consistency. So I also think there's a dynamic there where, let's say there's another world where cash money was under capital or cash money was under some of these other labels that have struggled to stay relevant, what that would've looked like.[00:30:10] Zack: Yeah. I mean, I think if you, if you kind of need to go back to Def Jam, you know, some of the back and forth that Def Jam has had over the years. It gives you an idea of, or even as like a top label, the kind of trials and tribulations you might go under. But you know, when you're coming in, you know, going directly to Doug Morris, you know that that gives you a lot of leeway, a lot of leverage. You got that line straight to the top. And, you know, even with somebody like Jay, it took him, it wasn't until, you know, I don't know, when he was dealing directly with Doug Morris, when Doug, this is, I think around the time of Blueprint three, and Jay had that line. I gave Doug a grip. I lost the flip for five stacks. He could have the album. They bet 10 million on a coin flip and like, you know, one way or the other. So, you know, but Birdman we're doing that like, you know, 15 years earlier, having that kind of direct line. So, you know, again, I think going straight to serve them incredibly well.[00:31:09] Dan: Definitely. Yeah. Another, another piece too. So, two other, like sonically three other dark horse candidates, I'll bring 'em, but they're all under the same thing, was Bird Man's ability to win bid wars and win huge bidding wars, I think is an underrated piece of this record label. So I'll bring up three of them. First one, go back to 2004. So this is around the time thatCarter came out and Wayne was considering to leave Def Jam, and this was around the time that Jay-Z had just became president and Jay-Z pushed hard, make that happen and couldn't leave cash money for Def Jam. That was the thought, right?[00:31:43] Zack: Yeah. Yeah. Carter boys, and there were all these, you know, kind of …[00:31:49] Dan: Yeah, they're trying to push the whole Carter board thing and yeah, Birdman was like, all right, come through. I'll give you your own imprint and you are the president of that imprint and let's continue this thing. And that obviously sets up young money and then the next 15 years after that, right. So he does that. Yeah. And I think that's huge because then that sets the stage for the bidding war for Drake, because Drake drops so far gone beginning of 2009. And this is like, you know, everyone is trying to, it's like when Yaba sweepstakes we're seeing in the NBA right now everyone wants this person and everyone is going after them. I mean, truly Greenwall Lior, everyone was trying to get 'em. And it was that connection that Drake had with Cortez, Brian and Jay Prince Ja Prince and that whole crew that I think eventually helped keep him on the cash money roster there. So that was a huge one. And I think we saw something similar with Nicki Minaj as well. A couple months later. Everyone wanted her to beat me up. Scotty the mixtapes were hot and he and Wayne, Wayne was like, no, I want her to be the, the first lady of the label. That was the whole thing in the two thousands, right? Everyone wanted to have the first lady. You saw it in the nineties, right? But like everyone wanted to declare and elevate this person and rightfully so, but like that's who we had. And then we obviously saw the beginning and the middle part of that next decade. Just go on one of the all-time runs. So Bird Band's ability to win against the biggest people in the industry for record label that his men, you know, his brother own is really impressive for sure.[00:33:21] Zack: And you know, it served Lil Wayne well in the end because Young Money became something that he was able to sell for, you know, about a hundred million dollars for his stake later on too. So, you know, keeping that ownership as opposed to just chasing the biggest advance time and time again we see in hip hop. You know, it's so important. But, you know, I was thinking the other night, it is funny, like everyone has watched New Jack City, and it had been ages, ages, ages. And if they reminded me, I mean, how much of the whole Young Money, Cash Money situation is modeled after elements of that movie. I mean, even just like, The name Cash Money or C M B Y M C M B. The shirts, like the shirts, are incredibly similar that, you know, a lot of the lines, even the Carter, you know, the albums are named. I mean, the Carter was the building, you know, where Wesley Stein's character was like running this whole operation you know, that's kind of like another interesting element to the whole, you know, to the whole narrative. Like, you know, these guys coming out of Louisiana, you know, had their eyes up on this very New York kind of, you know, almost role model, for a business. And, you know, they had been hustlers. They were kind of modeling themselves after these, you know, fictional hustlers in New York and, you know, and then in a way out hustled sort of like the New York record label establishment. So I thought that was kind of an interesting, you know, little side bit of color to the whole story. And, like a bit of irony as well, you know, when you talk about, South versus, New York kind of situation too. [00:34:59] Dan: And I think that also speaks to some of that mentality too, because here you have Birdman that was getting inspiration from a black crime movie. And I think a lot of the ways of him doing business are very much central on, okay, I wanna support and uplift the black community, do what I can here and grid. And I think, you know, part of how he was able to do that has, you know, been quite controversial just with certain artists he's had on. Yeah. But still, I think that ethos stems back from ownership in trying to keep things in-house as much as you can. And it took them a lot to even partner with other artists from other parts of the countries and stuff like that, that I think you saw with Dino Brown and how he was in that movie and how he carried versus I think someone like Jay-Z who record label Rockefeller named after one of the great white business magnets that you had in this country. Right. And so many Jay-Z bars, whether it's Black Axl, Rose Black, Kirk Cobain called me this. I feel like, you know, people always get on Kanye for some of that. Like always trying to like be okay. I'm, you know, the black version of whatever X person. But I think Jay-Z, you know, also had a lot of that too. And then I think also looking at his business mentality, a lot of his success came from his huge and lucrative partnerships with established companies in this space. So the inspiration I think also became kind of telltale sign for the type of businesses these types of folks ended up creating too. [00:36:23] Zack: Yeah. And you know, I mean, you know, brown was a really ruthless character. And you know, I think there's like the money and the success that's glamorized. But you know, it's a gritty movie. I mean it seems like he is not a likable guy in the end. You know, without giving too much of the plot, I'm sure everybody's seen it, but like, I was like, wow. Yeah. I don't know if I'd be wanting to model myself after this dude. You know, he's pretty brutal. But, you know, even on the, you know, kind of the lighter side, there's a scene where he's like giving out turkeys at Thanksgiving. Yep. And you know, the Cash Money guys always give out turkeys in New Orleans at Thanksgiving and I wonder if they got that directly from the movie. You know, cuz so many of you know, from the Carter. You know, the c n b kind of, kind of like whole, you know, ethos there. I wonder how much of that they just pulled directly from the movie, so…[00:37:16] Dan: Oh, yeah. I could definitely see that mentality too. And speaking about it, you know, full circle. I could also see Birdman having a bit of that cancel that bitch mentality too, in short situations.[00:37:28] Zack: Right, right, right, right. Exactly. So, yeah, I mean, and they won't talk about that part of it, the interviews maybe, but you kind of get the sense of like that's where the negotiation and the cash element of the Cash Money comes in. Yeah. [00:37:42] Dan: The aita literally held people over the balcony of a building to get what he wanted. Right. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of that came through to fruition. But next category up here. So missed opportunity. Is there anything that you look at that you're like, man, obviously it's an overall successful company. Is there anything you look back on about what if they did this differently or what if they did that differently?[00:38:02] Zack: I think the number one thing I wonder is what if they had sold the whole thing, you know? A year and a half ago, could they have gotten just an insane multiple? I mean, you know, you're seeing like Springsteen staying and all these guys getting hundreds of millions of dollars for their catalogs. So, you know, I get it. And there's, you know, catalogs, hip hop catalogs are valued differently from rock catalogs. And also one of the benefits of rock catalogs is they're usually, you know, written and owned by, you know, all the rights are with the band. There's not like a million different producers coming in. It's not as complicated. So like, you know, they can sell the whole thing, you know, a hundred percent of the rights and you don't have to, you know, it's not like you're just buying like, you know, I don't know, 30% of this and 50% of that and whatever. It's, it's not this complex web, let's say there may not be as many things that haven't been papered over as there were with Cash Money, but man, you know, there were some pretty insane, numbers flying around and I really wonder if, you know, if they had, been applying some of, you know, 20 or 30 x multiple. To whatever they were pulling in, you know, which is, you know, they can just sit there and make, you know, tens of millions of dollars a year, just off of this catalog. I mean, so what would the market have been if they had went and sold the whole thing at the peak of the catalog? Boom. That's what I really wonder. [00:39:21] Dan: That's a good one. So I guess some high level back of the envelope math on that. So let's say that the peak of the catalog boom was like December, 2020 maybe, and then like, you know, into the spring of 2021 and we definitely saw some 30 x multiples there and at least the last public number I saw, and I think you had this in one of your latest articles as well, but that Cash Money's Masters generated around 30 million annually, or 20 to 30 million. Was that the number?[00:39:49] Zack: Yeah, I think it was at least 30. And you know, cuz Bird, like most of hey Birdman, you know, has been making like close to 20 million a year, for a while, give or take. And you know, most of that is just, you know, the catalog. So yeah, I mean that's just his cut. And then if you figure you double that for Slim, yeah, probably, you know, it was around 30, 35, something like that, so, you know. Yeah. I mean, are they gonna get a 30 x value even at the peak? I don't think so because just hip hop wasn't getting that kind of valuation. I don't really understand that because everybody's like, oh, rock and roll music gonna stand the test of time. It's like if you ask the average 20 year old who Bruce Springsteen is, they're not gonna know. I mean, so I would argue that hip hop is actually gonna be more valuable down the line. But just the valuation, you know, that's not what people have been paying for. So even at the peak, you know, I, I don't know that I saw any valuations anywhere near 30. I think Kanye was shopping his catalog at one point and wanted a 30 x multiple, but, you know, didn't get any bites. So I think it comes down to like, yeah, what kind of multiple could they actually have gotten? [00:40:56] Dan: Yeah, because even more recently, so yeah, we're recording this now. January, 2023, there was a report that just came out about Dr. Dre selling a collection of music assets that I believe are worth different multiples. But the number that I heard from that was, They generate around 10 million per year and that he wanted 250 and he's getting just over 200 million or somewhere between that. So that's around a 20 x multiple for a deal. That sounds like it was still coming underway in 2022. So if you were to put that multiple on, let's call it 35 million for maybe what Birdman and Slim have collectively, then that is you're talking $700 million. So that's a pretty sizable number, not a billion. But maybe if there are some concerns about, maybe there's a bit more of a split of who owns what. We didn't even talk about publishing right now, but there may be a split too, especially if everything was captured. and even thinking about quality control, for instance, and I think they got around 400 million, 300, got 400 million, but this was last year. So I would assume that 500 to 750 sounds, if I heard a number there, I would be like, sounds about right. If I heard a number lower than that or higher than that, I would probably be surprised one way or the other. [00:42:15] Zack: Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think that makes sense. And it's not just one artist, you know, obviously it's a whole bunch of artists and a bunch of pieces of different artists. But I think another thing, and this is maybe one of the reasons why the hip-hop valuations are lower, is like when you have all those producers, it might not be as easy to get, you know, to get clearances for using stuff in commercials and that sort of thing. Whereas if you buy a hundred percent of the rights, there's no question. Right. And so I'm not even sure if somebody owned 1% of, of something, whatever. Like I don't think they would have some, like, veto right. About the song being played in a commercial. But, you know, when you start to have so many different parties owning bigger stakes, a particular song, it can get a little convoluted and, you know, I do wonder if that's a big part of it as well.[00:43:00] Dan: Yeah, no, that's a good point. Yeah. Cuz I think sampling also is a huge piece of that as well. The missed opportunity for me, this is a bit more of a specific one from like a timeframe, not like a specific move, but Birdman and Little Wayne not settling and squashing the beef, the issues that they had in the mid 2010s. I think we lost out on Wayne. I know Wayne was in prison during part of this, but we lost out on his momentum. We lost out on a lot there because I feel like a lot happened from the Carter four coming out in 2011 to the Carter five coming out in 2018. I believe. There was so much back and forth. There was so much drama. You know, Drake was going on his all time run at that point. Nicki was doing the same. And the fact that the signature biggest artist is literally tweeting out, I want off this label, but it's not that easy. Or sending these messages out in the middle of Wayne and Drake having their tours and him still being on albums and trying to figure out how to drop things.I think it was obviously a great decade in run, but I think it could have been even greater if they were able to solve some of that stuff and figure it out. [00:44:11] Zack: Yeah, a hundred percent, you know, that that was like, it's a long time to be going between, proper albums, you know, so, and I think that was a really interesting time in the music business. And, I mean, the music business changed completely right from, from 2011 to 2018 from being, you know, oh, this new streaming thing is gonna be important to like, you know, it is the entire business basically. So, you know, and I think that an artist like Wayne, you know, as somebody whose music translates really well to, you know, to that medium. And, you know, as we know, hip hop is a monster on streaming and, you know, tends to do really well. So I would've been really curious to see if he had been able to continue that momentum, you know, just how much bigger he could have gotten in that period of time too.[00:44:57] Dan: Yeah, definitely. The next piece we add too, I think we talked a little bit about this just in terms of how did the label handle the transitions? And I think you just mentioned it there. They were able to do a lot of it well, especially the mixed day piece and the ring toes. And then I think a lot of it laid the work for streaming and Drake is streaming, did a lot of that, the Cash Money labels. So I think that worked. But this next question is interesting though, because it's been around three years, I think it's been at least three years since you did your deep story, the Forbes cover story on Cash Money, where you went down and interviewed them. And then I know it's been four years since I had written a piece around the time that Drake had completed Scorpion and we knew that it was going to be, or at least I thought the future may be bleak. And I think the question that you pose into the piece was, can they strike platinum again? It's been three years since now. What do you think? [00:45:48] Zack: You know, I don't know. I mean, the rules for platinum, like what constitutes platinum have changed so much that, you know, all it takes is, you get, you know, one hot signing and they do really well on streaming and suddenly you have a platinum whatever. And, you know, it's like, okay, I think that, you know, Drake is gone. Wayne is gone. When I went down there, they were really big on blue face and Jack Reese, you know, I don't know what either of them are turning out to be like, I mean anywhere near Drake, Nikki, Wayne, et cetera. Jack Reese is the king of R&B though, right? That was the whole thing too. So what I'm gonna go with, no, I don't think they will begin Drake Platinum. But I would caveat that by saying it doesn't matter because they can just sit back, and collect these checks. And that's gonna happen. That'll happen even if, you know Drake and Nikki and Wayne retire. I mean, their back catalog stuff is still gonna be a gold mine. And you know, when I was down there, what they said was that they're forever in business with Drake. But they wouldn't get more specific. And so what I took that to mean was, you know, at the time, you know, he was kind of an ex extra kidding himself. But even once he's gone, they're still sitting on these, you know, their share of the copyrights that will be, you know, Drake is a streaming king and they have a big piece of that. So, yeah. Do I think they'll strike platinum again? You know, probably not, but I don't really think it matters. I don't think so, what are they gonna do? Like what are they gonna do? They're gonna sit back and collect those checks. Yeah. [00:47:26] Dan: Yeah. I came to the same spot as well. I guess platinum in the purest sense of having a chart hit. Sure. There could be a legacy hit that gets, you know, some viral thing on TikTok and then that becomes a hit. Like, I don't know, I don't know if I like slow motion singles, like juvenile when platinum, but I feel like that's the type of song I could see go viral and some TikTok thing and then bring new, that's one of my cat favorite Cash Money songs. And I feel like I could see something like that happen. But I feel like you were kind of posing it more so in the moment of looking at these runs of like late two thousand, late nineties, early two thousands, that Cash Money is like a platinum moment or mid two thousands. Wayne's mixtape ran late two thousands, early 2010 or to mid 2010s. Young Money rises to the highest of heights. I don't think we'll see that moment again. And it's crazy cuz I think there's times where maybe things could have happened. You had the rich gang moment where he looked like he was so close with Young Thug. And I feel like especially in 2014, people expected Thug to go on to that superstar level and still be very successful. But I think that the stock for Thug at that moment was a little higher than it may be actually reached. And I think some of Thug's proteges kind of reached the heights that we thought Thug would've reached at one point, just in terms of a commercial success perspective. But it just never quite happened. But again, they own this. It's not like they missed some opportunity. This is something that is literally generating tens of millions per year and that's not changing anytime soon.[00:48:54] Zack: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, it's funny, they have, I guess just to sort of like switch gears a tiny bit, but you know, last moment when they said when Birdman and some said they're forever in business with Drake. It wasn't in Miami, but I met with them for some follow-up questions in New York. and they have, like within Universal's building in Midtown, they have a Cash Money conference route. Like there are actually these, I mean I don't think it's diamond play, but the door handles are giant dollar signs, like the Cash Money logo. And, and it looks like they're diamonds in the dollar sign and whatever it is. But, you open up the thing and you go in and there's like all these plaques on the wall and it's just a conference room that's always there. And it's sort of like their designated conference room when they, when they cut the tat. And I remember, yeah, we sat down in that conference room and I really tried to press them on the Drake thing. And I mean, if you dig up the Forbes story, we did a video too. And there's this great kind of tense moment where I'm like really kind of pushing them about it and they're like, we're forever in this with Drake. And like, that's it. And it's clear that's all you're gonna get out of that. But, you know, so, in terms of striking platinum again, yeah, I mean, I could almost envision a scenario where Drake like does the Super Bowl and he plays some, you know, catalog hit that never went platinum. And just purely by the exposure of people hearing it be like, oh man, listen that again, it just suddenly goes platinum again. You know, or for the first time. But yeah, short of that, I know I'm gonna agree with you. I think probably not again, but that it doesn't matter anyway. [00:50:32] Dan: Yeah. So we have a couple questions left here. This one, and I think it's maybe similar to the fourth you're bringing up, but if you were in Birdman and Slim's shoes today, is there anything that you would be doing differently?[00:50:44] Zack: You know what, I think I go back to that question of like, would you sell the whole thing? Especially if the prospects are kind of dimming a bit and, you know, it's like, I don't know though. I mean, you know, it's like if you're getting up there in age, like would you sell you, you know, you got this great house that you bought, you know, you got this great penthouse apartment in New York that you bought. For like, you know, a hundred thousand dollars in, you know, 1982. And, you could probably get, you know, I don't know, 10 million bucks for it. And then you could just like rent and do whatever you want and you know, for the rest of your life. But like, you don't really need the money. Like, you're fine as it is, like you sell it. Like what would you even do with the money that you got? You really love living in that apartment. Maybe you just stay. And I think that's kind of the point. Like, just remember being in the studio with Birdman and he doesn't need to be doing this. Like, he doesn't need to be running around with Jack in Miami trying to make him the, the king of r&b or whatever. But he truly loves it. Like you, you can tell that he's passionate about it and. After the interview was over, and I wish I had this on tape, but we're just like a dozen of us sitting there in the room. And, Birdman, he goes, Zack, why do people think I'm scary? And I remember he said, he was like, really pointy moment. He's like, I'm respectful. You know, I'm not a clown. I don't turn tables over. I don't scream and yell. I'm respectful. Why are people so afraid of me? And I thought for a minute and I said, you know, as like, look man, like, to be honest, I think the base tattoos really are kind of like off putting some people who are not used to that sort of thing. And, he was like, yeah, I've been thinking of getting them removed. You know, I think it'd be better for business. So, you know, it's like there's still this element of, you know, even though he's made it and he's got everything he wants, there's still this part of him that came from a different world. That, you know, he's kind of like still stuck between two worlds, between the world that he came up in and the world that he can afford to live in. And, I think, you know, where he feels at his best is in the studio. So why would you sell that whole thing? Why would you, you know, I mean, why would you kind of give that up? And I think Slim likes it too. And you know, they have this really funny relationship and, you know, Birdman's in the studio and Slim does live the business. And that's kind of the breakdown of it. And I just remember, like after this interview, you know, after leaving the studio, I went and we were all supposed to have dinner together and I went off with Slim and we waited for like a half an hour in the parking lot for Birdman. And he just never showed up. And then we went to dinner and he just never showed up. And it's cuz he wanted to stay in.He just stayed in the studio all freaking night. Cuz that's what he really loves. So, yeah, I guess it's a long way of saying, what would I do if I were them? I mean, you know, probably like the financial advisor advice would be. Sell this big thing and then you're totally set for the rest of your life. But you know, if it's throwing off enough, more than enough money, tens of millions of dollars every year for you to live on, what's the point? You know, why not just do that and do what makes you happy?[00:53:59] Dan: I think that's a piece that often gets for guys and understands what some of this stuff is, that some people really just love the craft. It makes me think too about someone like Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg and these directors that are now in their seventies or eighties, they're not doing these movies to try to make more money. Well, granted, yes, I think they're bought into the financial success. They want fair terms. But this is what they enjoy doing. They've been doing it since they were kids and they wanna just find outlets to be able to do this in the best way possible. And I think the same could be said about Birdman of wanting to be in the studio and just wanting to have that energy. And if you sell that, then what do you do? I think especially for someone like him that's stuck to the thing that he does well. And you know, like he isn't out here like Jay-Z trying to be mogul in the sense of having different things. I mean, there's a mogul aspect in terms of media ownership, but not in the sense of like, yes, I own this, I do this, I do that as well. Sure. Maybe there's some smaller things that are in the, you know, new Orleans or, or the Louisiana area, but not in that same way. So I do think that speaks a lot to that. [00:55:06] Zack: Yeah. And I think they have dabbled in other stuff for sure. And you know, real estate, and I think there was some period of time where they had like some oil rigs or something like that.They had a vodka called G T V. They were trying to really build up Y M C M B as like, as a clothing line type of thing, rather than just merch. But, you know, none of that really kind of like ever went viral in the way that any of their artists did. So, you know, and maybe because it was that they just didn't have the passion for it that they have for music. Like that example of Birdman. So, you know, Jay clearly has the passion for the business. He clearly has the passion for, you know, doing the champagne thing or, you know, doing the VC thing. And you can tell cuz he's out there doing it. He's doing it cuz he loves it, and he makes money. But, I think it's hard for something to do well if you aren't truly passionate. Because consumers can kind of see through that. And also, you're not gonna go the extra mile for something if you don't truly care about it either. Definitely. [00:56:08] Dan: Definitely. And mine is a little different. And this may be more so from a selfish perspective of what I would do, but that's part of the question, right? Yeah. As someone that is such a fan of the vibe and the culture that they were able to create, I want to be able to relive that in different ways. I wish that Birdman and the team could patch things up and there could be a true Cash Money reunion tour that goes across the country. I know there's been different things here or there, but the same way that Didat did the Big Bad Boy Arena tour in 2016. I wanna be able to see that. I'd love to be able to do that. And I also wanna see a music biopic and the same style and the same budget and energy of Straight Outta Compton. I would love to see that about the Cash Money story. And to be honest, I feel like, I know there's a lot of energy around these biopics, but like I may be biased because it's the genre I like since Street Outta Compton came out, I just haven't seen one that's, you know, as good as that. And sometimes it's a bit frustrating when I see movies like Bohemian Rhapsody or Elvis, which I think they're fine, but I don't think they're as good as Straight Outta Compton and they're getting all these awards and stuff. And it makes me think that okay, I don&#

About DanDan Moore is head of developer relations for FusionAuth, where he helps share information about authentication, authorization and security with developers building all kinds of applications.A former CTO, AWS certification instructor, engineering manager and a longtime developer, he's been writing software for (checks watch) over 20 years.Links Referenced: FusionAuth: https://fusionauth.io Twitter: https://twitter.com/mooreds TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at AWS AppConfig. Engineers love to solve, and occasionally create, problems. But not when it's an on-call fire-drill at 4 in the morning. Software problems should drive innovation and collaboration, NOT stress, and sleeplessness, and threats of violence. That's why so many developers are realizing the value of AWS AppConfig Feature Flags. Feature Flags let developers push code to production, but hide that that feature from customers so that the developers can release their feature when it's ready. This practice allows for safe, fast, and convenient software development. You can seamlessly incorporate AppConfig Feature Flags into your AWS or cloud environment and ship your Features with excitement, not trepidation and fear. To get started, go to snark.cloud/appconfig. That's snark.cloud/appconfig.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Sysdig. Sysdig secures your cloud from source to run. They believe, as do I, that DevOps and security are inextricably linked. If you wanna learn more about how they view this, check out their blog, it's definitely worth the read. To learn more about how they are absolutely getting it right from where I sit, visit Sysdig.com and tell them that I sent you. That's S Y S D I G.com. And my thanks to them for their continued support of this ridiculous nonsense.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. I am joined today on this promoted episode, which is brought to us by our friends at FusionAuth by Dan Moore, who is their head of DevRel at same. Dan, thank you for joining me.Dan: Corey, thank you so much for having me.Corey: So, you and I have been talking for a while. I believe it predates not just you working over at FusionAuth but me even writing the newsletter and the rest. We met on a leadership Slack many years ago. We've kept in touch ever since, and I think, I haven't run the actual numbers on this, but I believe that you are at the top of the leaderboard right now for the number of responses I have gotten to various newsletter issues that I've sent out over the years.And it's always something great. It's “Here's a link I found that I thought that you might appreciate.” And we finally sat down and met each other in person, had a cup of coffee somewhat recently, and the first thing you asked was, “Is it okay that I keep doing this?” And at the bottom of the newsletter is “Hey, if you've seen something interesting, hit reply and let me know.” And you'd be surprised how few people actually take me up on it. So, let me start by thanking you for being as enthusiastic a contributor of the content as you have been.Dan: Well, I appreciate that. And I remember the first time I ran across your newsletter and was super impressed by kind of the breadth of it. And I guess my way of thanking you is to just send you interesting tidbits that I run across. And it's always fun when I see one of the links that I sent go into the newsletter because what you provide is just such a service to the community. So, thank you.Corey: The fun part, too, is that about half the time that you send a link in, I already have it in my queue, or I've seen it before, but not always. I talked to Jeff Barr about this a while back, and apparently, a big Amazonian theme that he lives by is two is better than zero. He'd rather two people tell him about a thing than no one tells him about the thing. And I've tried to embody that. It's the right answer, but it's also super tricky to figure out what people have heard or haven't heard. It leads to interesting places. But enough about my nonsense. Let's talk about your nonsense instead. So, FusionAuth; what do you folks do over there?Dan: So, FusionAuth is an auth provider, and we offer a Community Edition, which is downloadable for free; we also offer premium editions, but the space we play in is really CIAM, which is Customer Identity Access Management. Very similar to Auth0 or Cognito that some of your listeners might have heard of.Corey: If people have heard about Cognito, it's usually bracketed by profanity, in one direction or another, but I'm sure we'll get there in a minute. I will say that I never considered authentication to be a differentiator between services that I use. And then one day I was looking for a tool—I'm not going to name what it was just because I don't really want to deal with the angry letters and whatnot—but I signed up for this thing to test it out, and “Oh, great. So, what's my password?” “Oh, we don't use passwords. We just every time you want to log in, we're going to email you a link and then you go ahead and click the link.”And I hadn't seen something like that before. And my immediate response to that was, “Okay, this feels like an area they've decided to innovate in.” Their core business is basically information retention and returning it to you—basically any CRUD app. Yay. I don't think this is where I want them to be innovating.I want them to use the tried and true solutions, not build their own or be creative on this stuff, so it was a contributor to me wanting to go in a different direction. When you start doing things like that, there's no multi-factor authentication available and you start to wonder, how have they implemented this? What corners have they cut? Who's reviewed this? It just gave me a weird feeling.And that was sort of the day I realized that authentication for me is kind of like crypto, by which I mean cryptography, not cryptocurrency, I want to be very clear on, here. You should not roll your own cryptography, you should not roll your own encryption, you should buy off-the-shelf unless you're one of maybe five companies on the planet. Spoiler, if you're listening to this, you are almost certainly not one of them.Dan: [laugh]. Yeah. So, first of all, I've been at FusionAuth for a couple of years. Before I came to FusionAuth, I had rolled my own authentication a couple of times. And what I've realized working there is that it really is—there a couple of things worth unpacking here.One is you can now buy or leverage open-source libraries or other providers a lot more than you could 15 or 20 years ago. So, it's become this thing that can be snapped into your architecture. The second is, auth is the front door to application. And while it isn't really that differentiated—I don't think most applications, as you kind of alluded to, should innovate there—it is kind of critical that it runs all the time that it's safe and secure, that it's accessible, that it looks like your application.So, at the same time, it's undifferentiated, right? Like, at the end of the day, people just want to get through authentication and authorization schemes into your application. That is really the critical thing. So, it's undifferentiated, it's critical, it needs to be highly available. Those are all things that make it a good candidate for outsourcing.Corey: There are a few things to unpack there. First is that everything becomes commoditized in the fullness of time. And this is a good thing. Back in the original dotcom bubble, there were entire teams of engineers at all kinds of different e-commerce companies that were basically destroying themselves trying to build an online shopping cart. And today you wind up implementing Shopify or something like it—which is usually Shopify—and that solves the problem for you. This is no longer a point of differentiation.If I want to start selling physical goods on the internet, it feels like it'll take me half an hour or so to wind up with a bare-bones shopping cart thing ready to go, and then I just have to add inventory. Authentication feels like it was kind of the same thing. I mean, back in that song from early on in internet history “Code Monkey” talks about building a login page as part of it, and yeah, that was a colossal pain. These days, there are a bunch of different ways to do that with folks who spend their entire careers working on this exact problem so you can go and work on something that is a lot more core and central to the value that your business ostensibly provides. And that seems like the right path to go down.But this does lead to the obvious counter-question of how is it that you differentiate other than, you know, via marketing, which again, not the worst answer in the world, but it also turns into skeezy marketing. “Yes, you should use this other company's option, or you could use ours and we don't have any intentional backdoors in our version.” “Hmm. That sounds more suspicious and more than a little bit frightening. Tell me more.” “No, legal won't let me.” And it's “Okay.” Aside from the terrible things, how do you differentiate?Dan: I liked that. That was an oddly specific disclaimer, right? Like, whenever a company says, “Oh, yeah, no.” [laugh].Corey: “My breakfast cereal has less arsenic than leading brands.”Dan: Perfect. So yeah, so FusionAuth realizes that, kind of, there are a lot of options out there, and so we've chosen to niche down. And one of the things that we really focus on is the CIAM market. And that stands for Customer Identity Access Management. And we can dive into that a little bit later if you want to know more about that.We have a variety of deployment options, which I think differentiates us from a lot of the SaaS providers out there. You can run us as a self-hosted option with, by the way, professional-grade support, you can use us as a SaaS provider if you don't want to run it yourself. We are experts in operating this piece of software. And then thirdly, you can move between them, right? It's your data, so if you start out and you're bare bones and you want to save money, you can start with self-hosted, when you grow, move to the SaaS version.Or we actually have some bigger companies that kickstart on the SaaS version because they want to get going with this integration problem and then later, as they build out their capabilities, they want the option to move it in-house. So, that is a really key differentiator for us. The last one I'd say is we're really dev-focused. Who isn't, right? Everyone says they're dev-focused, but we live that in terms of our APIs, in terms of our documentation, in terms of our open development process. Like, there's actually a GitHub issues list you can go look on the FusionAuth GitHub profile and it shows exactly what we have planned for the next couple of releases.Corey: If you go to one of my test reference applications, lasttweetinaws.com, as of the time of this recording at least, it asks you to authenticate with your Twitter account. And you can do that, and it's free; I don't charge for any of these things. And once you're authenticated, you can use it to author Twitter threads because I needed it to exist, first off, and secondly, it makes a super handy test app to try out a whole bunch of different things.And one of the reasons you can just go and use it without registering an account for this thing or anything else was because I tried to set that up in an early version with Cognito and immediately gave the hell up and figured, all right, if you can find the URL, you can use this thing because the experience was that terrible. If instead, I had gone down the path of using FusionAuth, what would have made that experience different, other than the fact that Cognito was pretty clearly a tech demo at best rather than something that had any care, finish, spit and polish went into it.Dan: So, I've used Cognito. I'm not going to bag on Cognito, I'm going to leave that to—[laugh].Corey: Oh, I will, don't worry. I'll do all the bagging on Cognito you'd like because the problem is, and I want to be clear on this point, is that I didn't understand what it was doing because the interface was arcane, and the failure mode of everything in this entire sector, when the interface is bad, the immediate takeaway is not “This thing's a piece of crap.” It's, “Oh, I'm bad at this. I'm just not smart enough.” And it's insulting, and it sets me off every time I see it. So, if I feel like I'm coming across as relatively annoyed by the product, it's because it made me feel dumb. That is one of those cardinal sins, from my perspective. So, if you work on that team, please reach out. I would love to give you a laundry list of feedback. I'm not here to make you feel bad about your product; I'm here to make you feel bad about making your customers feel bad. Now please, Dan, continue.Dan: Sure. So, I would just say that one of the things that we've strived to do for years and years is translate some of the arcane IAM Identity Access Management jargon into what normal developers expect. And so, we don't have clients in our OAuth implementation—although they really are clients if you're an RFC junkie—we have applications, right? We have users, we have groups, we have all these things that are what users would expect, even though underlying them they're based on the same standards that, frankly, Cognito and Auth0 and a lot of other people use as well.But to get back to your question, I would say that, if you had chosen to use FusionAuth, you would have had a couple of advantages. The first is, as I mentioned, kind of the developer friendliness and the extensive documentation, example applications. The second would be a themeability. And this is something that we hear from our clients over and over again, is Cognito is okay if you stay within the lines in terms of your user interface, right? If you just want to login form, if you want to stay between lines and you don't want to customize your application's login page at all.We actually provide you with HTML templates. It's actually using a language called FreeMarker, but they let you do whatever the heck you want. Now, of course, with great power comes great responsibility. Now, you own that piece, right, and we do have some more simple customization you can do if all you want to do is change the color. But most of our clients are the kind of folks who really want their application login screen to look exactly like their application, and so they're willing to take on that slightly heavier burden. Unfortunately, Cognito doesn't give you that option at all, as far as I can tell when I've kicked the tires on it. The theming is—how I put this politely—some of our clients have found the theming to be lacking.Corey: That's part of the issue where when I was looking at all the reference implementations, I could find for Cognito, it went from “Oh, you have your own app, and its branding, and the rest,” and bam, suddenly, you're looking right, like, you're logging into an AWS console sub-console property because of course they have those. And it felt like “Oh, great. If I'm going to rip off some company's design aesthetic wholesale, I'm sorry, Amazon is nowhere near anywhere except the bottom 10% of that list, I've got to say. I'm sorry, but it is not an aesthetically pleasing site, full stop. So, why impose that on customers?”It feels like it's one of those things where—like, so many Amazon service teams say, “We're going to start by building a minimum lovable product.” And it's yeah, it's a product that only a parent could love. And the problem is, so many of them don't seem to iterate beyond that do a full-featured story. And this is again, this is not every AWS service. A lot of them are phenomenal and grow into themselves over time.One of the best rags-to-riches stories that I can recall is EFS, their Elastic File System, for an example. But others, like Cognito just sort of seem to sit and languish for so long that I've basically given up hope. Even if they wind up eventually fixing all of these problems, the reputation has been cemented at this point. They've got to give it a different terrible name.Dan: I mean, here's the thing. Like, EFS, if it looks horrible, right, or if it has, like, a toughest user experience, guess what? Your users are devs. And if they're forced to use it, they will. They can sometimes see the glimmers of the beauty that is kind of embedded, right, the diamond in the rough. If your users come to a login page and see something ugly, you immediately have this really negative association. And so again, the login and authentication process is really the front door of your application, and you just need to make sure that it shines.Corey: For me at least, so much of what's what a user experience or user takeaway is going to be about a company's product starts with their process of logging into it, which is one of the reasons that I have challenges with the way that multi-factor auth can be presented, like, “Step one, login to the thing.” Oh, great. Now, you have to fish out your YubiKey, or you have to go check your email for a link or find a code somewhere and punch it in. It adds friction to a process. So, when you have these services or tools that oh, your session will expire every 15 minutes and you have to do that whole thing again to log back in, it's ugh, I'm already annoyed by the time I even look at anything beyond just the login stuff.And heaven forbid, like, there are worse things, let's be very clear here. For example, if I log in to a site, and I'm suddenly looking at someone else's account, yeah, that's known as a disaster and I don't care how beautiful the design aesthetic is or how easy to use it is, we're done here. But that is job zero: the security aspect of these things. Then there's all the polish that makes it go from something that people tolerate because they have to into something that, in the context of a login page I guess, just sort of fades into the background.Dan: That's exactly what you want, right? It's just like the old story about the sysadmin. People only notice when things are going wrong. People only care about authentication when it stops them from getting into what they actually want to do, right? No one ever says, “Oh, my gosh, that login experience was so amazing for that application. I'm going to come back to that application,” right? They notice when it's friction, they noticed when it's sand in the gears.And our goal at FusionAuth, obviously, security is job zero because as you said, last thing you want is for a user to have access to some other user's data or to be able to escalate their privileges, but after that, you want to fade in the background, right? No one comes to FusionAuth and builds a whole application on top of it, right? We are one component that plugs into your application and lets you get on to the fundamentals of building the features that your users really care about, and then wraps your whole application in a blanket of security, essentially.Corey: I'll take even one more example before we just drive this point home in a way that I hope resonates with folks. Everyone has an opinion on logging into AWS properties because “Oh, what about your Amazon account?” At which point it's “Oh, sit down. We're going for a ride here. Are you talking about amazon.com account? Are you talking about the root account for my AWS account? Are you talking about an IAM user? Are you talking about the service formerly known as AWS SSO that's now IAM Identity Center users? Are you talking about their Chime user account? Are you talking about your repost forum account?” And so, on and so on and so on. I'm sure I'm missing half a dozen right now off the top of my head.Yeah, that's awful. I've been also developing lately on top of Google Cloud, and it is so far to the opposite end of that spectrum that it's suspicious and more than a little bit frightening. When I go to console.cloud.google.com, I am boom, there. There is no login approach, which on the one hand, I definitely appreciate, just from a pure perspective of you're Google, you track everything I do on the internet. Thank you for not insulting my intelligence by pretending you don't know who I am when I log into your Cloud Console.Counterpoint, when I log into the admin portal for my Google Workspaces account, admin.google.com, it always re-prompts for a password, which is reasonable. You'd think that stuff running production might want to do something like that, in some cases. I would not be annoyed if it asked me to just type in a password again when I get to the expensive things that have lasting repercussions.Although, given my personality, logging into Gmail can have massive career repercussions as soon as I hit send on anything. I digress. It is such a difference from user experience and ease-of-use that it's one of those areas where I feel like you're fighting something of a losing battle, just because when it works well, it's glorious to the point where you don't notice it. When authentication doesn't work well, it's annoying. And there's really no in between.Dan: I don't have anything to say to that. I mean, I a hundred percent agree that it's something that you could have to get right and no one cares, except for when you get it wrong. And if your listeners can take one thing away from this call, right, I know it's we're sponsored by FusionAuth, I want to rep Fusion, I want people to be aware of FusionAuth, but don't roll your own, right? There are a lot of solutions out there. I hope you evaluate FusionAuth, I hope you evaluate some other solutions, but this is such a critical thing and Corey has laid out [laugh] in multiple different ways, the ways it can ruin your user experience and your reputation. So, look at something that you can build or a library that you can build on top of. Don't roll your own. Please, please don't.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by Honeycomb. When production is running slow, it's hard to know where problems originate. Is it your application code, users, or the underlying systems? I've got five bucks on DNS, personally. Why scroll through endless dashboards while dealing with alert floods, going from tool to tool to tool that you employ, guessing at which puzzle pieces matter? Context switching and tool sprawl are slowly killing both your team and your business. You should care more about one of those than the other; which one is up to you. Drop the separate pillars and enter a world of getting one unified understanding of the one thing driving your business: production. With Honeycomb, you guess less and know more. Try it for free at honeycomb.io/screaminginthecloud. Observability: it's more than just hipster monitoring.Corey: So, tell me a little bit more about how it is that you folks think about yourselves in just in terms of the market space, for example. The idea of CIAM, customer IAM, it does feel viscerally different than traditional IAM in the context of, you know, AWS, which I use all the time, but I don't think I have the vocabulary to describe it without sounding like a buffoon. What is the definition between the two, please? Or the divergence, at least?Dan: Yeah, so I mean, not to go back to AWS services, but I'm sure a lot of your listeners are familiar with them. AWS SSO or the artist formerly known as AWS SSO is IAM, right? So, it's Workforce, right, and Workforce—Corey: And it was glorious, to the point where I felt like it was basically NDA'ed from other service teams because they couldn't talk about it. But this was so much nicer than having to juggle IAM keys and sessions that timeout after an hour in the console. “What do you doing in the console?” “I'm doing ClickOps, Jeremy. Leave me alone.”It's just I want to make sure that I'm talking about this the right way. It feels like AWS SSO—creature formerly known as—and traditional IAM feels like they're directionally the same thing as far as what they target, as far as customer bases, and what they empower you to do.Dan: Absolutely, absolutely. There are other players in that same market, right? And that's the market that grew up originally: it's for employees. So, employees have this very fixed lifecycle. They have complicated relationships with other employees and departments in organizations, you can tell them what to do, right, you can say you have to enroll your MFA key or you are no longer employed with us.Customers have a different set of requirements, and yet they're crucial to businesses because customers are, [laugh] who pay you money, right? And so, things that customers do that employees don't: they choose to register; they pick you, you don't pick them; they have a wide variety of devices and expectations; they also have a higher expectation of UX polish. Again, with an IAM solution, you can kind of dictate to your employees because you're paying them money. With a customer identity access management solution, it is part of your product, in the same way, you can't really dictate features unless you have something that the customer absolutely has to have and there are no substitutes for it, you have to adjust to the customer demands. CIAM is more responsive to those demands and is a smoother experience.The other thing I would say is CIAM, also, frankly, has a simpler model. Most customers have access to applications, maybe they have a couple of roles that you know, an admin role, an editor role, a viewer role if you're kind of a media conglomerate, for an example, but they don't have necessarily the thicket of complexity that you might have to have an eye on, so it's just simpler to model.Corey: Here's an area that feels like it's on the boundary between them. I distinctly remember being actively annoyed a while back that I had to roll my marketing person her own entire AWS IAM account solely so that she could upload assets into an S3 bucket that was driving some other stuff. It feels very much like that is a better use case for something that is a customer IAM solution. Because if I screw up those permissions even slightly, well, congratulations, now I've inadvertently given someone access to wind up, you know, taking production down. It feels like it is way too close to things that are going to leave a mark, whereas the idea of a customer authentication story for something like that is awesome.And no please if you're listening to this, don't email me with this thing you built and put on the Marketplace that “Oh, it uses signed URLs and whatnot to wind up automatically federating an identity just for this one per—” Yes. I don't want to build something ridiculous and overwrought so a single person can update assets within S3. I promise I don't want to do that. It just ends badly.Dan: Well, that was the promise of Cognito, right? And that is actually one of the reasons you should stick with Cognito if you have super-detailed requirements that are all about AWS and permissions to things inside AWS. Cognito has that tight integration. And I assume—I haven't looked at some of the other big cloud providers, but I assume that some of the other ones have that similar level of integration. So yeah, so that my answer there would be Cognito is the CIAM solution that AWS has, so that is what I would expect it to be able to handle, relatively smoothly.Corey: A question I have for you about the product itself is based on a frustration I originally had with Cognito, which is that once you're in there and you are using that for authentication and you have users, there's no way for me to get access to the credentials of my users. I can't really do an export in any traditional sense. Is that possible with FusionAuth?Dan: Absolutely. So, your data is your data. And because we're a self-hosted or SaaS solution, if you're running it self-hosted, obviously you have access to the password hashes in your database. If you are—Corey: The hashes, not the plaintext passwords to be explicitly clear on this. [laugh].Dan: Absolutely the hashes. And we have a number of guides that help you get hashes from other providers into ours. We have a written export guide ourselves, but it's in the database and the schema is public. You can go download our schema right now. And if—Corey: And I assume you've used an industry standard hashing algorithm for this?Dan: Yeah, we have a number of different options. You can bring your own actually, if you want, and we've had people bring their own options because they have either special needs or they have an older thing that's not as secure. And so, they still want their users to be able to log in, so they write a plugin and then they import the users' hashes, and then we transparently re-encrypt with a more modern one. The default for us is PDK.Corey: I assume you do the re-encryption at login time because there's no other way for you to get that.Dan: Exactly. Yeah yeah yeah—Corey: Yeah.Dan: —because that's the only time we see the password, right? Like we don't see it any other time. But we support Bcrypt and other modern algorithms. And it's entirely configurable; if you want to set a factor, which basically is how—Corey: I want to use MD5 because I'm still living in 2003.Dan: [laugh]. Please don't use MD5. Second takeaway: don't roll your own and don't use MD5. Yeah, so it's very tweakable, but we shipped with a secured default, basically.Corey: I just want to clarify as well why this is actively important. I don't think people quite understand that in many cases, picking an authentication provider is one of those lasting decisions where migrations take an awful lot of work. And they probably should. There should be no mechanism by which I can export the clear text passwords. If any authentication provider advertises or offers such a thing, don't use that one. I'm going to be very direct on that point.The downside to this is that if you are going to migrate from any other provider to any other provider, it has to happen either slowly as in, every time people log in, it'll check with the old system and then migrate that user to the new one, or you have to force password resets for your entire customer base. And the problem with that is I don't care what story you tell me. If I get an email from one of my vendors saying “You now have to reset your password because we're migrating to their auth thing,” or whatnot, there's no way around it, there's no messaging that solves this, people will think that you suffered a data breach that you are not disclosing. And that is a heavy, heavy lift. Another pattern I've seen is it for a period of three months or whatnot, depending on user base, you will wind up having the plug in there, and anyone who logs in after that point will, “Ohh you need to reset your password. And your password is expired. Click here to reset.” That tends to be a little bit better when it's not the proactive outreach announcement, but it's still a difficult lift and it adds—again—friction to the customer experience.Dan: Yep. And the third one—which you imply it—is you have access to your password hashes. They're hashed in a secure manner. And trust me, even though they're hashed securely, like, if you contact FusionAuth and say, “Hey, I want to move off FusionAuth,” we will arrange a way to get you your database in a secure manner, right? It's going to be encrypted, we're going to have a separate password that we communicate with you out-of-band because this is—even if it is hashed and salted and handled correctly, it's still very, very sensitive data because credentials are the keys to the kingdom.So, but those are the three options, right? The slow migration, which is operationally expensive, the requiring the user to reset their password, which is horribly expensive from a user interface perspective, right, and the customer service perspective, or export your password hashes. And we think that the third option is the least of the evils because guess what? It's your data, right? It's your user data. We will help you be careful with it, but you own it.Corey: I think that there's a lot of seriously important nuance to the whole world of authentication. And the fact that this is such a difficult area to even talk about with folks who are not deeply steeped in that ecosystem should be an indication alone that this is the sort of thing that you definitely want to outsource to a company that knows what the hell they're doing. And it's not like other areas of tech where you can basically stumble your way through something. It's like “Well, I'm going to write a Lambda to go ahead and post some nonsense on Twitter.” “Okay, are you good at programming?” “Not even slightly, but I am persistent and brute force is a viable strategy, so we're going to go with that one.” “Great. Okay, that's awesome.”But authentication is one of those areas where mistakes will show. The reputational impact of losing data goes from merely embarrassing to potentially life-ruining for folks. The most stressful job I've ever had from a data security position wasn't when I was dealing with money—because that's only money, which sounds like a weird thing to say—it was when I did a brief stint at Grindr where people weren't out. In some countries, users could have wound up in jail or have been killed if their sexuality became known. And that was the stuff that kept me up at night.Compared to that, “Okay, you got some credit card numbers with that. What the hell do I care about that, relatively speaking?” It's like, “Yeah, it's well, my credit card number was stolen.” “Yeah, but did you die, though?” “Oh, you had to make a phone call and reset some stuff.” And I'm not trivializing the importance of data security. Especially, like, if you're a bank, and you're listening to this, and you're terrified, yeah, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying there are worse things.Dan: Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think that, unfortunately, the pandemic showed us that we're living more and more of our lives online. And the identity online and making sure that safe and secure is just critical. And again, not just for your employees, although that's really important, too, but more of your customer interactions are going to be taking place online because it's scalable, because it makes people money, because it allows for capabilities that weren't previously there, and you have to take that seriously. So, take care of your users' data. Please, please do that.Corey: And one of the best ways you can do that is by not touching the things that are commoditized in your effort to apply differentiation. That's why I will never again write my own auth system, with a couple of asterisks next to it because some of what I do is objectively horrifying, intentionally so. But if I care about the authentication piece, I have the good sense to pay someone else to do it for me.Dan: From personal experience, you mentioned at the beginning that we go back aways. I remember when I first discovered RDS, and I thought, “Oh, my God. I can outsource all this scut work, all of the database backups, all of the upgrades, all of the availability checking, right? Like, I can outsource this to somebody else who will take this off my plate.” And I was so thankful.And I don't—outside of, again, with some asterisks, right, there are places where I could consider running a database, but they're very few and far between—I feel like auth has entered that category. There are great providers like FusionAuth out there that are happy to take this off your plate and let you move forward. And in some ways, I'm not really sure which is more dangerous; like, not running a database properly or not running an auth system properly. They both give me shivers and I would hate to [laugh] hate to be forced to choose. But they're comparable levels of risk, so I a hundred percent agree, Corey.Corey: Dan, I really want to thank you for taking so much time to talk to me about your view of the world. If people want to learn more because you're not in their inboxes responding to newsletters every week, where's the best place to find you?Dan: Sure, you can find more about me at Twitter. I'm @mooreds, M-O-O-R-E-D-S. And you can learn more about FusionAuth and download it for free at fusionauth.io.Corey: And we will put links to all of that in the show notes. I really want to thank you again for just being so generous with your time. It's deeply appreciated.Dan: Corey, thank you so much for having me.Corey: Dan Moore, Head of DevRel at FusionAuth. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry, insulting comment that will be attributed to someone else because they screwed up by rolling their own authentication.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

In this episode of Art of the Kickstart, we spoke with Daniel Huynh and Dominic Madden, Creators of Baby Ninjas. As a game designer and game developer duo, Huynh and Madden created a card game that draws out the competition among players, or as they like to call them, ninjas. The idea for Baby Ninjas came from changing baby diapers during quarantine and has grown into a physical card game that launched on Kickstarter. Listen to learn more about the team's process as they developed and designed the game. Short on time? Here's what we talked about. One of the biggest hurdles the Baby Ninjas team faced was designing the physical playing cards. What started as scribbles on a piece of paper evolved into what Baby Ninjas is today. The team refined their design through gameplays. Baby Ninjas marketing received some initial backlash from a Facebook ad. Although the team quickly handled the comments and worked to rectify their designs, they encourage others to learn from their mistake and double-check everything before it's published. Marketing the card game was difficult to navigate since their product isn't in the hands of consumers. The team effectively used images of the card deck, individual cards and lifestyle shots to market Baby Ninjas. Links Baby Ninjas' Kickstarter Page Pre-Order Baby Ninjas Note: As an Amazon Associate, Art of the Kickstart may earn a commission from qualifying purchases. Sponsors Art of the Kickstart is honored to be sponsored by ProductHype, the leading crowdfunding newsletter. Publishing weekly, ProductHype showcases five of the best, most innovative and exciting crowdfunding projects in an absurdly unique way. Their audience of more than 300,000 crowdfunding fans regularly back featured products and eagerly awaits the newsletter to learn about the new ideas that creators are bringing to market. Learn more about having your project featured in ProductHype, or join the HypeSquad today! Transcript View this episode's transcript Roy Morejon: Welcome, entrepreneurs and startups to Art of the Kickstart, the show that every entrepreneur needs to listen to before you launch. I'm your host, Roy Morejon, President and Founder of Enventys Partners, the world's only turnkey product launch company. From product development and engineering to omnichannel marketing, we've helped our clients launch thousands of inventions and earn more than $1 billion in sales over the past 20 years. Roy Morejon: Each week, I interview a startup success story, an inspirational entrepreneur, or a business expert, in order to help you take your launch to the next level. This show would not be possible without our main sponsor, ProductHype, the weekly newsletter that goes out and shows you the best inventions that just launched. Make sure to check out producthype.co and join the Hype squad. Now let's get on with the show. Roy Morejon: All right, welcome to another edition of Art of the Kickstart. Today, I am joined by Dom and Dan. These guys are the creators of an amazing game called Baby Ninjas. So, Dom, you are the game developer. Daniel, you are the game designer. You guys, well, Dom specifically, you enjoy games of all sorts, right? And love friendly games of competition like us all during this pandemic. We've definitely gone after that. But Dan, you have a variety background and experiences, including practicing dentistry, which is amazing. And owning an escape room and pastoring a small church. Man, you are the Swiss army 007 guy of everything. Roy Morejon: But super excited to have you guys both on the show and super excited that both of you guys have now combined your interests and abilities to put out this game, Baby Ninjas. This campaign is about to launch March 7th. So, Dom, Dan, super excited to have you guys on the show. Thank you for joining me today. Dan: Yeah. Thank you, Roy, so much. It's definitely a privilege to be here,

It's time to shoot for the stars with Dan Isla, VP of Product at itopia, to talk about everything from astronomical importance of reliability to time zones on Mars. Dan's trajectory has been a propulsion of jobs bordering on the science fiction, with a history at NASA, modernizing cloud computing for them, and loads more. Dan discusses the finite room for risk and failure in space travel with an anecdote from his work on Curiosity. Dan talks about his major take aways from working at Google, his “baby” Selkies, his work at itopia, and the crazy math involved with accounting for time on Mars!In this episode, we cover: Introduction (00:00) Dan's work at JPL (01:58) Razor thin margins for risk (05:40) Transition to Google (09:08)  Selkies and itopia (13:20) Building a reliability community (16:20) What itopia is doing (20:20) Learning, building a “toolbox,” and teams (22:30) Clockdrift (27:36) Links Referenced: itopia: https://itopia.com/ Selkies: https://github.com/danisla/selkies selkies.io: https://selkies.io Twitter: https://twitter.com/danisla LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danisla/ TranscriptDan: I mean, at JPL we had an issue adding a leap second to our system planning software, and that was a fully coordinated, many months of planning, for one second. [laugh]. Because when you're traveling at 15,000 miles per hour, one second off in your guidance algorithms means you missed the planet, right? [laugh]. So, we were very careful. Yeah, our navigation parameters had, like, 15 decimal places, it was crazy.Julie: Welcome to Break Things on Purpose, a podcast about reliability, building things with purpose, and embracing learning. In this episode, we talked to Dan Isla, VP of Product at itopia about the importance of reliability, astronomical units, and time zones on Mars.Jason: Welcome to the show, Dan.Dan: Thanks for having me, Jason and Julie.Jason: Awesome. Also, yeah, Julie is here. [laugh].Julie: Yeah. Hi, Dan.Jason: Julie's having internet latency issues. I swear we are not running a Gremlin latency attack on her. Although she might be running one on herself. Have you checked in in the Gremlin control panel?Julie: You know, let me go ahead and do that while you two talk. [laugh]. But no, hi and I hope it's not too problematic here. But I'm really excited to have Dan with us here today because Dan is a Boise native, which is where I'm from as well. So Dan, thanks for being here and chatting with us today about all the things.Dan: You're very welcome. It's great to be here to chat on the podcast.Jason: So, Dan has mentioned working at a few places and I think they're all fascinating and interesting. But probably the most fascinating—being a science and technology nerd—Dan, you worked at JPL.Dan: I did. I was at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California, right, after graduating from Boise State, from 2009 to around 2017. So, it was a quite the adventure, got work on some, literally, out-of-this-world projects. And it was like drinking from a firehose, being kind of fresh out to some degree. I was an intern before that so I had some experience, but working on a Mars rover mission was kind of my primary task. And the Mars rover Curiosity was what I worked on as a systems engineer and flight software test engineer, doing launch operations, and surface operations, pretty much the whole, like, lifecycle of the spacecraft I got to experience. And had some long days and some problems we had to solve, and it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot at JPL, a lot about how government, like, agencies are run, a lot about how spacecraft are built, and then towards the end a lot about how you can modernize systems with cloud computing. That led to my exit [laugh] from there.Jason: I'm curious if you could dive into that, the modernization, right? Because I think that's fascinating. When I went to college, I initially thought I was going to be an aerospace engineer. And so, because of that, they were like, “By the way, you should learn Fortran because everything's written in Fortran and nothing gets updated.” Which I was a little bit dubious about, so correct folks that are potentially looking into jobs in engineering with NASA. Is it all Fortran, or… what [laugh] what do things look like?Dan: That's an interesting observation. Believe it or not, Fortran is still used. Fortran 77 and Fortran—what is it, 95. But it's mostly in the science community. So, a lot of data processing algorithms and things for actually computing science, written by PhDs and postdocs is still in use today, mostly because those were algorithms that, like, people built their entire dissertation around, and to change them added so much risk to the integrity of the science, even just changing the language where you go to language with different levels of precision or computing repeatability, introduced risk to the integrity of the science. So, we just, like, reused the [laugh] same algorithms for decades. It was pretty amazing yeah.Jason: So, you mentioned modernizing; then how do you modernize with systems like that? You just take that codebase, stuff it in a VM or a container and pretend it's okay?Dan: Yeah, so a lot of it is done very carefully. It goes kind of beyond the language down to even some of the hardware that you run on, you know? Hardware computing has different endianness, which means the order of bits in your data structures, as well as different levels of precision, whether it's a RISC system or an AMD64 system. And so, just putting the software in a container and making it run wasn't enough. You had to actually compute it, compare it against the study that was done and the papers that were written on it to make sure you got the same result. So, it was pretty—we had to be very careful when we were containerizing some of these applications in the software.Julie: You know, Dan, one thing that I remember from one of the very first talks I heard of yours back in, I think, 2015 was you actually talked about how we say within DevOps, embrace failure and embrace risk, but when you're talking about space travel, that becomes something that has a completely different connotation. And I'm kind of curious, like, how do you work around that?Dan: Yeah, so failing fast is not really an option when you only have one thing [laugh] that you have built or can build. And so yeah, there's definitely a lot of adverseness to failing. And what happens is it becomes a focus on testing, stress testing—we call it robustness testing—and being able to observe failures and automate repairs. So, one of the tests programs I was involved with at JPL was, during the descent part of the rover's approach to Mars, there was a power descent phase where the rover actually had a rocket-propelled jetpack and it would descend to the surface autonomously and deliver the rover to the surface. And during that phase it's moving so fast that we couldn't actually remote control it, so it had to do everything by itself.And there were two flight computers that are online, pretty much redundant, everything hardware-wise, and so it's kind of up to the software to recover itself. And so, that's called entry descent and landing, and one of my jobs towards the end of the development phase was to ensure that we tested all of the possible breakage points. So, we would do kind of evil Gremlin-like things. We actually—the people in the testbed, we actually call Gremlins. And [laugh] we would—we—they inject faults during the simulation.So, we had copies of the hardware running on a desk, the software was running, and then we'd have Gremlins go and say like, “Hey, flight computer one just went out. You know, what's going to happen?” And you watch the software, kind of, take over and either do the right thing or simulate a crash landing. And we find bugs in the software this way, we'd find, like, hangs in the control loops for recovery, and we had to fix those before we made it to Mars, just in case that ever happened. So, that was like how we, like, really stressed test the hardware, we did the same thing with situational awareness and operations, we had to simulate things that would happen, like, during launch or during the transit from Earth to Mars, and then see how the team itself reacted to those. You know, do our playbooks work? Can we run these in enough time and recover the spacecraft? So, it was a lot of fun. That's I guess that's about as close to, like, actually breaking something I can claim to. [laugh].Julie: Well, I have to say, you've done a good job because according to Wikipedia—which we all know is a very reliable source—as of May 9th, 2022, Curiosity has been active on Mars for 3468 sols or 3563 days, and is still active. Which is really amazing because I don't—was it ever intended to actually be operational that long?Dan: Not really. [laugh]. The hardware was built to last for a very long time, but you know, as with most missions that are funded, they only have a certain amount of number of years that they can be operated, to fund the team, to fund the development and all that. And so, the prime mission was only, like, two years. And so, it just keeps getting extended. As long as the spacecraft is healthy, and, like, doing science and showing results, we usually extend the missions until they just fall apart or die, or be intentionally decommissioned, kind of like the Cassini project. But yeah.Julie: Well, you've heard it here first, folks. In order to keep funding, you just need to be, quote, “Doing science.” [laugh]. But Dan, after JPL, that's when you went over to Google, right?Dan: Yeah, yeah. So, it was kind of that transition from learning how to modernize with cloud. I'd been doing a lot with data, a lot with Amazon's government cloud, which is the only cloud we could use at JPL, and falling in love with these APIs and ways to work with data that were not possible before, and saw this as a great way to, you know, move the needle forward in terms of modernization. Cloud is a safe place to prototype a safe place to get things done quick. And I always wanted to work for a big tech company as well, so that was always another thing I was itching to scratch.And so Google, I interviewed there and finally made it in. It was not easy. I definitely failed my first interview. [laugh]. But then try it again a few years later, and I came in as a cloud solution architect to help customers adopt cloud more quickly, get through roadblocks.My manager used to say the solution architects were the Navy Seals of cloud, they would drop in, drop a bunch of knowledge bombs, and then, like, get out, [laugh] and go to the next customer. It was a lot of fun. I got to build some cool technology and I learned a lot about what it's like working in a big public company.Julie: Well, one of my favorite resources is the Google SRE book, which, as much as I talk about it, I'm just going to admit it here now, to everybody that I have not read the entire thing.Dan: It's okay.Julie: Okay, thank you.Dan: Most people probably haven't.Julie: I also haven't read all of Lord of the Rings either. But that said, you know, when you talk about the learnings, how much of that did you find that you practiced day-to-day at Google?Dan: In cloud—I've mostly worked in cloud sales, so we were kind of post-sales, the experts from the technology side, kind of a bridge to engineering and sales. So, I didn't get to, like, interact with the SREs directly, but we have been definitely encouraged, I had to learn the principles so that we could share them with our customers. And so, like, everyone wanted to do things like Google did, you know? Oh, these SREs are there, and they're to the rescue, and they have amazing skills. And they did, and they were very special at Google to operate Google's what I would call alien technology.And so, you know, from a principles point of view, it was actually kind of reminded me a lot of what I learned at JPL, you know, from redundant systems and automating everything, having the correct level of monitoring. The tools that I encountered at Google, were incredible. The level of detail you could get very quickly, everything was kind of at your fingertips. So, I saw the SREs being very productive. When there was an outage, things were communicated really well and everyone just kind of knew what they were doing.And that was really inspiring, for one, just to see, like, how everything came together. That's kind of what the best part of working at Google was kind of seeing how the sausage was made, you know? I was like, “Oh, this is kind of interesting.” [laugh]. And still had some of its big company problems; it wasn't all roses. But yeah, it was definitely a very interesting adventure.Jason: So, you went from Google, and did you go directly to the company that you helped start, right now?Dan: I did. I did. I made the jump directly. So, while I was at Google, you know, not only seeing how SRE worked, but seeing how software was built in general and by our customers, and by Google, really inspired me to build a new solution around remote productivity. And I've always been a big fan of containers since the birth of Docker and Kubernetes.And I built the solution that let you run, kind of, per-user workloads on Kubernetes and containers. And this proved to be interesting because you could, you know, stand up your own little data processing system and scale it out to your team, as well as, like, build remote code editors, or remote desktop experiences from containers. And I was very excited about this solution. The customers were really starting to adopt it. And as a solution architect, once the stuff we built, we always open-source it.So, I put it on GitHub as a project called Selkies. And so, Selkies is the Kubernetes components and there's also the high performance streaming to a web browser with WebRTC on GitHub. And a small company, itopia, I met at a Google conference, they saw my talk and they loved the technology. They were looking for something like that, to help some of their product line, and they brought me in as VP of Product.So, they said, “We wanted to productize this.” And I'm like, “Well, you're not doing that without me.” [laugh]. Right? So, through the pandemic and work from home and everything, I was like, you know, now is probably a good time to go try something new.This is going to be—and I get to keep working on my baby, which is Selkies. So yeah, I've been itopia since beginning of 2021, building a remote desktop, really just remote developer environments and other remote productivity tools for itopia.Julie: Well and, Dan, that's pretty exciting because you actually talked a little bit about that at DevOpsDays Boise, which if that video is posted by the time of publication of this podcast, we'll put a link to that in the show notes. But you're also giving a talk about this at SCaLE 19x in July, right?Dan: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so SCaLE is the Southern California Linux Expo, and it's a conference I really enjoy going to get to see people from Southern California and other out of town, a lot of JPLers usually go as well and present. And so, it's a good time to reconnect with folks. But yeah, so SCaLE, you know, they usually want to talk more about Linux and some of the technologies and open-source. And so yeah, really looking forward to sharing more about selfies and kind of how it came to be, how containers can be used for more than just web servers and microservices, but also, you know, maybe, like, streaming video games that have your container with the GPU attached. The DevOpsDays Boise had a little demo of that, so hopefully, that video gets attached. But yeah, I'm looking forward to that talk at the end of July.Jason: Now, I'm really disappointed that I missed your talk at DevOpsDays Boise. So Julie, since that's your domain, please get those videos online quickly.Julie: I am working on it. But Dan, one of the things that you know you talk about is that you are the primary maintainer on this and that you're looking to grow and improve with input from the community. So, tell us, how can the community get involved with this?Dan: Yeah, so Selkies is on GitHub. You can also get to it from selkies.io. And basically, we're looking for people to try it out, run it, to find problems, you know, battle test it. [laugh]. We've been running it in production at itopia, it's powering the products they're building now.So, we are the primary maintainers. I only have a few others, but, you know, we're just trying to build more of an open-source community and level up the, you know, the number of contributors and folks that are using it and making it better. I think it's an interesting technology that has a lot of potential.Jason: I think as we talk about reliability, one of the things that we haven't covered, and maybe it's time for us to actually dive into that with you is reliability around open-source. And particularly, I think one of the problems that always happens with open-source projects like this is, you're the sole maintainer, right? And how do you actually build a reliable community and start to grow this out? Like, what happens if Dan suddenly just decides to rage quit tech and ups and leaves and lives on his own little private island somewhere? What happens to Selkies?Do you have any advice for people who've really done this, right? They have a pet project, they put it on GitHub, it starts to gain some traction, but ultimately, it's still sort of their project. Do you have any advice for how people can take that project and actually build a reliable, growing, thriving community around it?Dan: Honestly, I'm still trying to figure that out [laugh] myself. It's not easy. Having the right people on your team helps a lot. Like, having a developer advocate, developer relations to showcase what it's capable of in order to create interest around the project, I think is a big component of that. The license that you choose is also pretty important to that.You know, there's some software licenses that kind of force the open-sourcing of any derivative of what you build, and so that can kind of keep it open, as well, as you know, move it forward a little bit. So, I think that's a component. And then, you know, just, especially with conferences being not a thing in the last couple of years, it's been really hard to get the word out and generate buzz about some of these newer open-source technologies. One of the things I kind of like really hope comes out of a two-year heads-down time for developers is that we're going to see some, like, crazy, amazing tech on the other side. So, I'm really looking forward to the conferences later this year as they're opening up more to see what people have been building. Yeah, very interested in that.Jason: I think the conversation around open-source licenses is one that's particularly interesting, just because there's a lot involved there. And there's been some controversy over the past couple of years as very popular open-source projects have decided to change licenses, thinking of things like Elastic and MongoDB and some other things.Dan: Yeah. Totally.Jason: You chose, for Selkies, it looks like it's Apache v2.Dan: Yep. That was mostly from a Google legal point of view. When I was open-sourcing it, everything had to be—you know, had to have the right license, and Apache was the one that we published things under. You know, open-source projects change their license frequently. You saw that, like what you said, with Elastic and Mongo.And that's a delicate thing, you know, because you got to make sure you preserve the community. You can definitely alienate a lot of your community if you do it wrong. So, you got to be careful, but you also, you know, as companies build this tech and they're proud of it and they want to turn it into a product, you want to—it's a very delicate process, trying to productize open-source. It can be really helpful because it can give confidence to your customers, meaning that, like, “Hey, you're building this thing; if it goes away, it's okay. There's this open-source piece of it.”So, is instills a little bit of confidence there, but it also gets a little tricky, you know? Like, what features are we adding the add value that people will still pay for versus what they can get for free? Because free is great, but you know, it's a community, and I think there are things that private companies can add. My philosophy is basically around packaging, right? If you can package up an open-source product to make it more easier to consume, easier to deploy, easier to observe and manage, then you know, that's a lot of value that the rest of the free community may not necessarily need.If they're just kind of kicking the tires, or if they have very experienced Kubernetes team on-site, they can run this thing by themselves, go for it, you know? But for those, the majority that may not have that, you know, companies can come in and repackage things to make it easier to run open-source. I think there's a lot of value there.Jason: So, speaking of companies repackaging things, you mentioned that itopia had really sort of acquired you in order to really build on top of Selkies. What are the folks at itopia doing and how are they leveraging the software?Dan: That's a good question. So, itopia's mission is to radically improve work-from-anywhere. And we do that by building software to orchestrate and automate access to remote computing. And that orchestration and automation is a key component to this, like, SaaS-like model for cloud computing.And so, Selkies is a core piece of that technology. It's designed for orchestrating per-user workloads, like, remote environments that you would need to stand up. And so, you know, we're adding on things that make it more consumable for an enterprise, things like VPN peering and single-sign-on, a lot of these things that enterprises need from day one in order to check all the boxes with their security teams. And at the heart of that is really just increasing the amount of the productivity you have through onboarding.Basically, you know, setting up a developer environment can take days or weeks to get all the dependencies set up. And the point of itopia—Spaces is the product I'm working on—is to reduce that amount of time as much as possible. And, you know, this can increase risk. If you have a product that needs to get shipped and you're trying to grow or scale your company and team and they can't do that, you can slip deadlines and introduce problems, and having a environment that's not consistent, introduces reliability problems, right, because now you have developers that, “Hey, works on my machine.” But you know, they may have—they don't have the same machine, same environment as everyone else, and now when it comes to reproducing bugs or even fixing them, that you can introduce more problems to the software supply chain.Julie: I mean, that sounds like a great problem to solve and I'm glad you're working on it. With your background being varied, starting as an intern to now where you personally are being acquired by organizations. What's something that you've really learned or taken from that? Because one thing that you said was that you failed your first Google interview badly? And—Dan: Yes. [laugh].Julie: I find that interesting because that sounds like you know, you've taken that learning from failure, you've embraced the fact that you failed it. Actually, I just kind of want to go back. Tell us, do you know what you did?Dan: It was definitely a failure. I don't know how spectacular it was, but, like, [laugh] google interviews are hard. I mean—and that's just how it is, and it's been—it's notorious for that. And I didn't have enough of the software, core software experience at the time to pass the interview. These are, like, five interviews for a software engineer.And I made it through, like, four of them. The last one was, like, just really, really, really hard and I could not figure it out. You know, because this is, like, back in the day—and I think they still do this, like, where you're, like, coding on a whiteboard, right? Like, okay, right, this C code on a whiteboard, and it has to work. You know, the dude is, like, right, there compiling it, right? Like, “Okay, [unintelligible 00:23:29], boy.” [laugh].So, not only is a high stress, but it has to be right as well. [laugh]. And so, like, it was just a very difficult experience. And what I learned from that was basically, “Okay, I need to, one, get more experience in this style and this domain of programming, as well, as you know, get more comfortable speaking and being in front of people I don't know.” [laugh].So yeah, there's definitely components there of personal growth as well as technical growth. From a technical point of view, like, my philosophy as being an engineer in general, and software developer, is have a really big toolbox and use the tools that are appropriate for the job. This is, like, one of my core philosophies. Like, people ask, you know, ‘what language do you use?' And I'm like, “Whatever language you needed to solve the problem.”Like, if you're writing software, in a—with libraries that are all written in C, then don't try to do that in, like, Java or something, in some other language that doesn't have those language bindings. Don't reinvent the language bindings. You follow the problem and you follow the tech. What language, what tool will best solve this problem? And I'm always working backwards from the problem and then bringing in the right tools to solve it.And that's something that has paid off in dividends because it's very—problem-solving is fun and it's something I always had a passion for, but when you have a toolbox that is full of interesting gadgets and things you can use, you get excited every time you get to use that tool. Like, just like power tools here, I have a—I don't know, but it's like, “Yeah, I get to use the miter saw for this thing. Awesome. I don't have one? Okay, I'm going to go buy one.” [laugh].Julie: That's actually—that's a really good point, one of the talks that I gave was, “You Can't Buy DevOps.” And it was really all about letting developers be part of the process in choosing the tools that they're going to use. Because sometimes I think organizations put too many constraints around that and force you to use these tools that might not be the best for what you're trying to accomplish. So, I like that you bring up having the ability to be excited about your toolbox, or your miter saw. For me, it would be my dremel. Right? But what tool is going to—Dan: [crosstalk 00:25:39] cool.Julie: Yeah, I mean, they really are—what tool is going to be best for the job that you are trying to accomplish? And I think that that's, that's a big thing. So, when you look to bring people onto your team, what kind of questions do you ask them? What are you looking for?Dan: Well, we're just now starting to really grow the company and try and scale it up. And so we're, you know, we're starting to get into more and more interview stuff, I try to tell myself, I don't want to put someone through the Google experience again. And part of that is just because it wasn't pleasant, but also, like, I don't know if it was really that useful [laugh] at the end of the day. And so, you know, there's a lot about culture fit that is really important. People have to be able to communicate and feel comfortable with your team and the pace that your team is working at. And so, that's really important.But you know, technically, you know, I like to see a lot of, you know—you got to be able to show me that you can solve problems. And that can be from, you know, just work that you've done an open-source, you know, having a good resume of projects you've worked on is really important because then we can just talk about tech and story about how you solve the problem. I don't have to—I don't need you to go to the whiteboard and code me something because you have, like, 30 repos on GitHub or something, right? And so, the questions are much more around problem-solving: you know, how would you solve this problem? What technology choices would you use, and why?Sometimes I'll get the fundamentals, like, do you understand how this database works at its core or not? You know, or why is it… why is that good or bad? And so, looking for people who can really think within the toolbox they have—it doesn't have to be a big one, but do they know how to use the tools that they've acquired so far, and really, just really, really critically think through with your problems? So, to me, that's a better skill to have than just, you know, being able to write code on the whiteboard.Julie: Thanks for that, Dan. And earlier, before we started the official recording here, you were talking a little bit about time drift. Do you want to fill everybody in on what you were talking about because I don't think it was Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness?Dan: No. [laugh]. I think there were some—we were talking about um…clocks?Julie: Clocks skew.Dan: Daylight savings time?Julie: Yeah.Dan: Clock skew, clock drift. There was a time at JPL when we were inserting a leap second to the time. This actually happened all throughout the world, where periodically that the clocks will drift far enough because the orbits and the rotation of the planet are not, like, perfectly aligned to 365 days in a year and 24 hours in a day. And so, every so decades, you have to insert these leap seconds in order to catch up and make time more precise. Well, space travel, when you're planning, you have to—you're planning to the position of the stars and the planets and the orbital bodies, and those measurements are done at such a large scale that you have—your precision goes, like, way out, you know, many, many decimal places in order to properly plan to the bodies up big.And with the Mars Rover, one of these leap seconds happened to come in, like, right, before we launched. And it was like, oh my gosh, this is going to be to—change all of our ephemeris files—the data that you use to track positions—and we had to do it, like, synchronize it all, like, right, when the leap second was going in. And we tested this extensively because if you get it wrong with your spacecraft is traveling, like, 15,000 miles an hour towards Mars, and a one-second pointing error from Earth means, like, you missed the whole planet, you won't even get there. [laugh]. We're not talking about, like, missing the landing site of, like, a few kilometers. No, it's like thousands of kilometers in pointing error.So yeah, things are astronomical [laugh] in units. Actually, that's why they're called AU, astronomical units, when you're measuring the distance from the Sun. So yeah, it was a pretty fun time. A little bit nerve-wracking just because the number of systems that had to be updated and changed at the same time. It's kind of like doing a rolling update on a piece of software that just had to go out all at the same time. Yeah.Jason: I think that's really interesting, particularly because, you know, for most of us, I think, as we build things whether that's locally or in the cloud or wherever our servers are at, we're so used to things like NTP, right, where things just automatically sync and I don't have to really think about it and I don't really have to worry about the accuracy because NTP stays pretty tight. Usually, generally.Dan: Mm-hm.Jason: Yeah. So, I'm imagining, obviously, like, on a spacecraft flying 15,000 miles a second or whatever, no NTP out there.Dan: [laugh]. Yeah, no NTP and no GPS. Like, all the things you take for granted, on Mars are just not there. And Mars even has a different time system altogether. Like the days on Mars are about 40 minutes longer because the planet spins slower.And my first 90 sols—or days on Mars—of the mission, the entire planning team on earth that I was a part of, we lived on Mars time. So, we had to synchronize our Earth's schedule with what the rover was doing so that when the rover was asleep, we were planning the next day's activities. And when it woke up, it was ready to go and do work during the day. [laugh]. So, we did this Mars time thing for 90 days. That was mostly inherited from the Mars Exploration rovers, Spirit and Opportunity because they were only designed to live for, like, 90 days.So, the whole team shifted. And we—and now it's kind of done in spirit of that mission. [laugh]. Our rover, we knew it was going to last a bit longer, but just in case, let's shift everyone to Mars time and see what happened. And it was not good. We had to [laugh] we had to end that after 90 days. People—your brain just gets completely fried after that. But it was bizarre.And there's no time. You have invent your own time system for Mars. Like, there's no, it was called LMST, or Local Mars Standard Time, local mean standard time. But it was all, like, relative to, you know, the equator and where you were on the planet. And so, Mars had his own Mars time that counted at a different rate per second.And so, it was funny, we had these clocks in the Mission Control Room that—there was this giant TV screen that had, like, four different time clocks running. It had, like, Pasadena time, UTC time, Mars time, and, like, whatever time it was at the Space Network. And I was like, “Oh, my gosh.” And so, we were always doing these, like, time conversions in our heads. It was mental. [laugh]. So, can't we just all be on UTC time? [laugh].Jason: So, I'm curious, with that time shift of being on Mars time and 40 minutes longer, that inherently means that by the end of that 90 days, like, suddenly, your 8 a.m. Mars local time is, like, shifted, and is now, like, hours off, right? You're waking—Dan: Yeah.Jason: Up in the middle of the night?Dan: Totally, yeah.Jason: Wow.Dan: Yeah, within, like, two weeks, your schedule will be, like, upside down. It's like, every day, you're coming in 40 minutes later. And yeah, it was… it was brutal. [laugh]. Humans are not supposed to do that.If you're actually living on Mars, you're probably okay, but like, [laugh] trying to synchronize those schedules. I thought you were going from East Coast to West Coast time, working remote was hard. And, like, [laugh] that's really remote.Julie: Dan, that's just astronomical.Dan: [laugh].Julie: I'm so sorry. I had to do it. But with that—[laugh].Jason: [laugh].Dan: [laugh]. [unintelligible 00:33:15].Julie: With that, Dan, I really just want to thank you for your time on Break Things on Purpose with us today. And as promised, if I can find the links to Dan's talks, if they're available before this episode posts, we will put those in the show notes. Otherwise, we'll put the link to the YouTube channel in the show notes to check for updates. And with that, I just want to thank you, Dan, and wish you a wonderful day.Jason: Before we go, Dan, do you have anything that you'd like to plug? Any projects that people should check out, where they can find you on the internet, stuff like that?Dan: Yeah, thank you guys very much for having me. It was a great conversation. Really enjoyed it. Please check out our new product, itopia Spaces, remote developer environments delivered, powered by Selkies. We launched it last fall and we're really trying to ramp that up.And then check out the open-source Selkies project, selkies.io will get you there. And yeah, we're looking for contributors. Beyond that, you can also find me on Twitter, I'm @danisla, or on LinkedIn.Jason: Awesome. Well, thanks again for being a part of the show. It's been fantastic.Dan: You're very welcome. Thanks for having me.Jason: For links to all the information mentioned, visit our website at gremlin.com/podcast. If you liked this episode, subscribe to the Break Things on Purpose podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform. Our theme song is called, “Battle of Pogs” by Komiku, and it's available on loyaltyfreakmusic.com.

About DanDan is CISO and VP of Cybersecurity for Shipt, a Target subsidiary. He worked previously as a Distinguished Engineer on Target's cloud infrastructure. He served as CTO for Joe Biden's 2020 Presidential campaign. Prior to that Dan worked with the Hillary for America tech team through the Groundwork, and contributed as a founding developer on Spinnaker while at Netflix. Dan is an O'Reilly published author and avid public speaker.  Links: Shipt: https://www.shipt.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/danveloper LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danveloper TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: It seems like there is a new security breach every day. Are you confident that an old SSH key, or a shared admin account, isn't going to come back and bite you? If not, check out Teleport. Teleport is the easiest, most secure way to access all of your infrastructure. The open source Teleport Access Plane consolidates everything you need for secure access to your Linux and Windows servers—and I assure you there is no third option there. Kubernetes clusters, databases, and internal applications like AWS Management Console, Yankins, GitLab, Grafana, Jupyter Notebooks, and more. Teleport's unique approach is not only more secure, it also improves developer productivity. To learn more visit: goteleport.com. And not, that is not me telling you to go away, it is: goteleport.com.Corey: Writing ad copy to fit into a 30 second slot is hard, but if anyone can do it the folks at Quali can. Just like their Torque infrastructure automation platform can deliver complex application environments anytime, anywhere, in just seconds instead of hours, days or weeks. Visit Qtorque.io today and learn how you can spin up application environments in about the same amount of time it took you to listen to this ad.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud, I'm Corey Quinn. Sometimes I talk to people who are involved in working on the nonprofit slash political side of the world. Other times I talk to folks who are deep in the throes of commercial businesses, and I obviously personally spend more of my time on one of those sides of the world than I do the other. But today's guest is a little bit different, Dan Woods is the CISO and VP of Cybersecurity at Shipt, a division of Target where he's worked for a fair number of years, but took some time off for his side project, the side hustle as the kids call it, as the CTO for the Biden campaign. Dan, thank you for joining me.Dan: Yeah. Thank you, Corey. Happy to be here.Corey: So, you have an interesting track record as far as your career goes, you've been at Target for a long time. You were a distinguished engineer—not to be confused with ‘extinguished engineer,' which is just someone who is finally—the fire has gone out. And from there you went from being a distinguished engineer to a VP slash CISO, which generally looks a lot less engineer-like, and a lot more, at least in my experience, of sitting in a whole lot of executive-level meetings, managing teams, et cetera. Was that, in fact, an individual contributor—or IC—move into a management track, or am I just misunderstanding this because these are commonly overloaded terms in our industry?Dan: Yeah, yeah, no, that's exactly right. So, IC to leadership, two distinct tracks, distinct career paths. It was something that I've spent a number of years thinking about and more or less working toward and making sure that it was the right path for me to go. The interesting thing about the break that I took in the middle of Target when I was CTO for the campaign is that that was a leadership role, right. I led the team. I managed the team.I did performance reviews and all of that kind of managerial stuff, but I also sat down and did a lot of tech. So, it was kind of like a mix of being a senior executive, but also still continuing to be a distinguished engineer. So, then the natural path out of that for me was to make a decision about do I continue to be an individual contributor or do I go into a leadership track? And I felt like for a number of reasons that my interests more aligned with being on the leadership side of the world, and so that's how I've ended up where I am.Corey: And correct me if I'm wrong because generally speaking political campaigns are not usually my target customers given the fact that they're turning the entire AWS environment off in a few months—win or lose—and yeah, that is, in fact, remains the best way to save money on your AWS bill; it's hard for me to beat that. But at that point most of the people you're working with are in large part volunteers I would imagine.So, managing in a traditional sense of, “Well, we're going to have your next quarterly review.” Well, your candidate might not be in the race then, and what we're going to put you on a PIP, and what exactly you're going to stop letting me volunteer here? You're going to dock them pay—you're not paying me for this. It becomes an interesting management challenge I would imagine just because the people you're working with are passionate and volunteering, and a lot of traditional management and career advice doesn't necessarily map one-to-one I would have to assume.Dan: That is the best way that I've heard it described yet. I try to explain this to folks sometimes and it's kind of difficult to get that message across that like there is sort of a base level organization that exists, right. There were full-time employees who were a part of the tech team, really great group of folks especially from very early on willing to join the campaign and be a part of what it was that we were doing.And then there was this whole ecosystem of folks who just wanted to volunteer, folks who wanted to be a part of it but didn't want to leave their 9:00 to 5:00 who wanted to come in. One of the most difficult things about—we rely on volunteers very heavily in the political space, and very grateful for all the folks who step up and volunteer with organizations that they feel passionate about. In fact, one of the best little tidbits of wisdom the President imparted to me at one point, we were having dinner at his house very early on in the campaign, and he said, “The greatest gift that you can give somebody is your time.” And I think that's so incredibly true. So, the folks who volunteer, it's really important, really grateful that they're all there.In particular, how it becomes difficult, is that you need somebody to manage the volunteers, right, who are there. You need somebody to come up with work and check in that work is getting done because while it's great that folks want to volunteer five, ten hours a week, or whatever it is that they can put in, we also have very real things that need to get done, and they need to get done in a timely manner.So, we had a lot of difficulty especially early on in the campaign utilizing the volunteers to the extent that we could because we were such a small and scrappy team and because everybody who was working on the campaign at the time had a lot of responsibilities that they needed to see through on their own. And so getting into this, it's quite literally a full-time job having to sit down and follow up with volunteers and make sure that they have the appropriate amount of work and make sure that we've set up our environment appropriately so that volunteers can come and go and all of that kind of stuff, so yeah.Corey: It's always an interesting joy looking at the swath of architectural decisions and how they came to be. I talked on a previous episode with Jackie Singh, who was, I believe, after your tenure as CISO, she was involved on the InfoSec side of things, and she was curious as to your thought process or rationale with a lot of the initial architectural decisions that she talked about on her episode which I'm sure she didn't intend it this way, but I am going to blatantly miscategorize as, “Justify yourself. What were you thinking?” Usually it takes years for that kind of, “I don't understand what's going on here so I'm playing data center archeologist or cloud spelunker.” This was a very short window. How did decisions get made architecturally as far as what you're going to run things on? It's been disclosed that you were on AWS, for example. Was that a hard decision?Dan: No, not at all. Not at all. We started out the campaign—I in particular I was one of the first employees hired onto the campaign and the idea all along was that we're not going to be clever, right? We're basically just going to develop what needs to be developed. And the idea with that was that a lot of the code that we were going to sit down and write or a lot of the infrastructure that we were going to build was going to be glue, it not AWS Glue, right, ideally, but just glue that would bind data streams together, right?So, data movement, vendor A produces a CSV file for you and it needs to end up in a bucket somewhere. So, somebody needs to write the code to make that happen, or you need to find a sufficient vendor who can make that happen. There's a lot more vendors today believe it or not than there were two years ago that are doing much better in that kind of space, but two years ago we had the constraints of time and money.Our idea was that the code that we were going to write was going to be for those purposes. What it actually turned into is that in other areas of the business—and I will call it a business because we had formalized roadmaps and different departments working on different things—but in other areas of the business where we didn't have enough money to purchase a solution, we had the ability to go and write software.The interesting thing about this group of technologists who came together especially early on in the campaign to build out the tech team most of them came from an enterprise software development background, right? So, we had the know-how of how to build things at scale and how to do continuous delivery and continuous deployment, and how to operate a cloud-native environment, and how to build applications for that world.So, we ended up doing things like writing an API for managing our donor vetting pipeline, right? And that turned into a complex system of Lambda functions and continuous delivery for a variety of different services that facilitated that pipeline. We also built an architecture for our mobile app which there were plenty of companies that wanted to sell us a mobile app and we just couldn't afford it so we ended up writing the mobile app ourselves.So, after some point in time, what we said was we actually have a fairly robust and complex software infrastructure. We have a number of microservices that are doing various things to facilitate the operation of the business, and something that we need to do is we need to spend a little bit of time and make sure that we're building this in a cohesive way, right? And what part of that means was that, for example, we had to take a step back and say, “Okay, we need to have a unified identity service.” We can't have a different identity—or we can't have every single individual service creating its own identity. We need to have—Corey: I really wish you could pass that lesson out on some of the AWS service teams.Dan: [laugh]. Yes, I know. I know. Yeah. So, we went through—Corey: So, there were some questionable choices you made in there, like you started that with the beginning of, “Well, we had no time which is fine and no budget. So, we chose AWS.” It's like, “Oh, that looks like the exact opposite direction of a great decision, given, you know, my view on it.” Stepping past that entirely, you are also dealing with challenges that I don't think map very well to things that exist in the corporate world. For example, you said you had to build a donor vetting pipeline.It's in the corporate world I didn't have it. It's one of those, “Why in the world would I get in the way of people trying to give me money?” And the obvious answer in your case is, federal law, and it turns out that the best outcome generally does not involve serving prison time. So, you have to address these things in ways that don't necessarily have a one-to-one analog in other spaces.Dan: That's true. That's true. Yes, correct to the federal law thing. Our more pressing reason to do this kind of thing was that we made a commitment very early on in the campaign that we wouldn't take money from executives of the gas and oil industry, for example. There were another bunch of other commitments that were made, but it was inconceivable for us to have enough people that could possibly go manually through those filings. So, for us to be able to build an automated system for doing that meant that we were literally saving thousands of human hours and still getting a beneficial result out of it.Corey: And everything you do is subject to intense scrutiny by folks who are willing to make hay out of anything. If it had leaked at the time, I would have absolutely done some ridiculous nonsense thing about, “Ah, clearly looking at this AWS bill. Joe Biden's supports managed NAT gateway data processing pricing.” And it's absolutely not, but that doesn't stop people from making hay about this because headlines are going to be headlines.And do you have to also deal with the interesting aspect—industrial espionage is always kind of a thing, but by and large most companies don't have to worry that effectively half of the population is diametrically opposed to the thing it is that they're trying to do to the point where they might very well try to get insiders there to start leaking things out. Everything you do has to be built with optics in mind, working under tight constraints, and it seems like an almost insurmountable challenge except for the fact where you actually pulled it off.Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We kept saying that the tech was not the story, right, and we wanted to do everything within our power to keep the conversation on the candidate and not on emails or AWS bills or any of that kind of stuff. And so we were very intentional about a lot of the decisions that we ended up making with the idea that if the optics are bad, we pull away from the primary mission of what it is that we're trying to do.Corey: So, what was it that qualified you to be the CTO of a—at the time very fledgling and uncertain campaign, given that you were coming from a role where you were a distinguished engineer, which is not nothing, let's be clear, but it's an executive-level of role rather than a hands-on level of role as CTO. And then if we go back in time, you were one of the founding developers of Spinnaker over at Netflix.And I have a lot of thoughts about Netflix technology and a lot of thoughts about Spinnaker as well, and none of those thoughts are, “This seems like a reasonable architecture I should roll out for a presidential campaign.” So, please, don't take this as the insult that probably sounds like, but why were you the CTO that got tapped?Dan: Great question. And I think in some ways, right place, right time. But in other ways probably needs to speak a little bit to the journey of how I've gotten anywhere in my career. So, going back to Netflix, yeah, so I worked in Netflix. I had the opportunity to work with a lot of incredibly bright and talented folks there. One of the people in particular who I met there and became friends with was Corey Bertram who worked on the core SRE team.Corey left Netflix to go off and at the time he was just like, “I'm going to go do a political startup.” The interesting thing about Netflix at the time—this was 2013, so, this was just after the Obama for America '12 campaign. And a bunch of folks from OFA world came and worked at Netflix and a variety of other organizations in the Bay Area. Corey was not one of those people but we were very well-connected with folks in that world, and Corey said he was going off to do a political startup, and so after my non-mutual departure from Netflix, I was talking to Corey and he said, “Hey, why don't you come over and help us figure out how to do continuous delivery over on the political startup.” That political startup turned into the groundwork which turned into essentially the tech platform for the Hillary for America campaign.So, I had the opportunity working for the groundwork to work very closely with the folks in the technology organization at HFA. And that got me more exposure to what that world is and more connections into that space. And the groundwork was run by Corey, but was the CEO or head—I don't even know what he called himself, was Michael Slaby, who was President Obama's CTO in 2008 and had a bigger technical role in the 2012 campaign.And so, for his involvement in HFA '16 meant that he was a person who was very well connected for the 2020 campaign. And when we were out at a political conference in late 2018 and he said, “Hey, I think that Vice President Biden is going to run. Do you have any interest in talking with his team?” And I said, “Yes, absolutely. Please introduce me.”And I had a couple of conversations with Greg Schultz who was the campaign manager and we just hit it off. And it was a really great fit. Greg was an excellent leader. He was a real visionary, exactly the person that President Biden needed. And he brought me in to set up the tech operation and get everything to where we ultimately won the primary and won the election after that.Corey: And then, as all things do, it ended and the question then becomes, “Great, what's next?” And the answer for you was apparently, “Okay, I'm going to go back to Target-ish.” Although now you're the CISO of a Target subsidiary, Shipt and Target's relationship is—again, I imagine I have that correct as far as you are in fact a subsidiary of Target, so it wasn't exactly a new company, but rather a transition into the previous organization you were in a different role.Dan: Yeah, correct. Yeah, it's a different department inside of Target, but my paycheck still come from Target. [laugh].Corey: So, what was it that inspired you to go into the CISO role? Because obviously security is everyone's job, which is what everyone says, which is why we get away with treating it like it's nobody's job because shared responsibilities tend to work out that way.Dan: Yeah.Corey: And you've done an awful lot of stuff that was not historically deeply security-centric although there's always an element passing through it. Now, going into a CISO role as someone without a deep InfoSec background that I'm aware of, what drove that? How did that work?Dan: You know, I think the most correct answer is that security has always been in my blood. I think like most people who started out—Corey: There are medications for that now.Dan: Yeah, [laugh] good. I might need them. [laugh]. I think like most folks who are kind of my era who started seriously getting into software development and computer system administration in the late ‘90s, early thousands, cybersecurity it wasn't called cybersecurity at the time. It wasn't even called InfoSec, right, it was just called, I don't know, dabbling or something. But that was a gateway for getting into Linux system administration, network engineering, so forth and so on.And for a short period of time I became—when I was getting my RHCE certification way back in the day, I became pretty entrenched in network security and that was a really big focus area that I spent a lot of time on and I got whatever the supplemental network security certification from Red Hat was at the time. And then I realized pretty quickly that the world isn't going to need box operators for very long, and this was just before the DevOps revolution had really come around and more and more things were automated.So, we were still doing hand deployments. I was still dropping WAR files onto a file system and restarting Apache. That was our deployment process. And I saw the writing on the wall and I said, “If I don't dedicate myself to becoming first and foremost a software engineer, then I'm not going to have a very good time in technology here.” So, I jumped out of that and I got into software development, and so that's where my software engineering career evolved out of.So, when I was CTO for the campaign, I like to tell people that I was a hundred percent of CTO, I was a hundred percent a CIO, and I was a hundred percent of CISO for the first 514 days of the campaign or whatever it was. So, I was 300 percent doing all of the top-level technology jobs for the campaign, but cybersecurity was without a doubt the one that we would drop everything for every single time.And that was by necessity; we were constantly under attack on the campaign. And a lot of my headspace during that period of time was dedicated to how do we make sure that we're doing things in the most secure way? So, when I left—when I came back into Target and I came back in as a distinguished engineer there were some areas that they were hoping that I could contribute positively and help move a couple of things along.The idea always the whole time was going to be for me to jump into a leadership position. And I got a call one day from Rich Agostino who's the CISO for Target and he said, “Hey, Shipt needs a cybersecurity operation built out and you're looking for a leadership role. Would you be interested in doing this?” And believe it or not, I had missed the world of cybersecurity so much that when the opportunity came up I said, “Yes, absolutely. I'll dive in head first.” And so that was the path for getting there.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle HeatWave is a new high-performance accelerator for the Oracle MySQL Database Service. Although I insist on calling it “my squirrel.” While MySQL has long been the worlds most popular open source database, shifting from transacting to analytics required way too much overhead and, ya know, work. With HeatWave you can run your OLTP and OLAP, don't ask me to ever say those acronyms again, workloads directly from your MySQL database and eliminate the time consuming data movement and integration work, while also performing 1100X faster than Amazon Aurora, and 2.5X faster than Amazon Redshift, at a third of the cost. My thanks again to Oracle Cloud for sponsoring this ridiculous nonsense.Corey: My take to cybersecurity space is, a little, I think, different than most people's journeys through it. The reason I started a Thursday edition of the Last Week in AWS newsletter is the security happenings in the AWS ecosystem for folks who don't have the word security in their job titles because I used to dabble in that space a fair bit. The problem I found is that is as you move up the ladder to executives that our directors, VPs, and CISOs, the language changes significantly.And it almost becomes a dialect of corporate-speak that I find borderline impenetrable, versus the real world terminology we're talking about when, “Okay, let's make sure that we rotate credentials on a reasonable expected basis where it makes sense,” et cetera et cetera. It almost becomes much more of a box-checking compliance exercise slash layering on as much as you possibly can that for plausible deniability for the inevitable breach that one day hits and instead of actually driving towards better outcomes.And I understand that's a cynical, strange perspective, but I started talking to people about this, and I'm very far from alone in that, which is why people are subscribing to that newsletter and that's the corner of the market I wanted to start speaking to. So, given that you've been an engineer practitioner trying to build things and now a security executive as well, is my assessment of the further higher up you go the entire messaging and purpose change, or is that just someone who's been in the trenches for too long and hasn't been on that side of the world, and I have a certain lack of perspective that would make this all very clear. Which I freely accept, if that's the case.Dan: No, I think that you're right for a lot of organizations. I think that that's a hundred percent true, and it is exactly as you described: a box-checking exercise for a lot of organizations. Something that's important to remember about Target is—Target was the subject of a data breach in 2012, and that was before there were data breaches every single day, right.Now, we look at a data breach and we say that's just going to happen, right, that's the cost of doing business. But back in 2012 it was really a very big story and it was a very big deal, and there was quite a bit of activity in the Target technology world after that breach. So, it reshaped the culture quite literally, new executives were brought in, but there's this whole world of folks inside of Target who have never forgotten that, right, and work day-in and day-out to make sure that we don't have another breach.So, security at Target is a main centrally thought about kind of thing. So, it's very much something that is a part of the way that people operate inside of Target. So, coming over to Shipt, obviously, Shipt is—it is a subsidiary. It is a part of Target, but it doesn't have that long history and hasn't had that same kind of experience. The biggest thing that we really needed at Shipt is first and foremost to get the program established, right. So, I'm three or four months onto the job now and we've tripled the team size. I've been—Corey: And you've stayed out of the headlines, which is basically the biggest and most accurate breach indicator I've found so far.Dan: So far so good. Well, but the thing that we want to do though is to be able to bring that same kind of focus of importance that Target has on cybersecurity into the world of engineering at Shipt. And it's not just a compliance game, and it's not just a thing where we're just trying to say that we have it. We're actually trying to make sure that as we go forward we've got all these best practices from an organization that's been through the bad stuff that we can adopt into our day-to-day and kind of get it done.When we talk about it at an executive level, obviously we're not talking about the penetration tests done by the red team the earlier day, right. We're not calling any of that stuff out in particular. But we do try to summarize it in a way that makes it clear that the thing that we're trying to do is build a security-minded culture and not just check some boxes and make sure that we have the appropriate titles in the appropriate places so that our insurance rates go down, right. We're actually trying to keep people safe.Corey: There's a lot to be said for that. With the Target breach back in—I want to say 2012, was it?Dan: 2012. Yep.Corey: Again, it was a wake-up call and the argument that I've always seen is that everyone is vulnerable—just depends on how much work it's going to take to get there. And for, credit where due, there was a complete rotation in the executive levels which whether that's fair or not, I—people have different opinions on it; my belief has always been you own the responsibility, regardless of who's doing the work.And there's no one as fanatical as a convert, on some level, and you've clearly been doing a lot of things in the right direction. The thing that always surprises me is that when I wind up seeing these surveys in the industry that—what is it? 65% of companies say that they would be vulnerable to a breach, and everybody said, “Oh, we should definitely look at those companies.” My argument is, “Hang on a sec. I want to talk to the 35% who say, ‘oh, we're impenetrable.'” because, spoiler, you are not.No one is. Just the question of how heavy is the lift and how much work is it going to take to get there? I do know that mouthing off in public about how perfect the security of anything is, is the best way to more or less climb to the top of a mountain during a thunderstorm, a hold up a giant metal rod, and curse the name of God. It doesn't lead to positive outcomes, basically ever. In turn, this also leads to companies not talking about security openly.I find that in many cases it is easier for me to get people to talk about their AWS bills than their InfoSec posture. And I do believe, incidentally, those two things are not entirely unrelated, but how do you view it? It was surprisingly easy to get Shipt's CISO to have a conversation with me here on this podcast. It is significantly more challenging in most other companies.Dan: Well, in fairness, you've been asking me for about two-and-a-half years pretty regularly [laugh] to come.Corey: And I always say I will stop bothering you if you want. You said, “No, no. Ask me again in a few months. Ask me again, after the election. Ask me again after—I don't know, like, the one-day delivery thing gets sorted out.” Whatever it happens to be. And that's fine. I follow up religiously, and eventually I can wear people down by being polite yet persistent.Dan: So, persistence on you is actually to credit here. No, I think to your question though, I think that there's a good balance. There's a good balance in being open about what it is that you're trying to do versus over-sharing areas that maybe you're less proficient in, right. So, it wouldn't make a lot of sense for me to come on here and tell you the areas that we need to develop into security. But on the other side of things, I am very happy to come in and talk to you about how our incident response plan is evolving, right, and what our plan looks like for doing all of that kind of stuff.Some of the best security practitioners who I've worked with in the world will tell you that you're not going to prevent a breach from a motivated attacker, and your job as CISO is to make sure that your response is appropriate, right, more so than anything. So, our incident response areas where today we're dedicating quite a bit of effort to build up our proficiency, and that's a very important aspect of the cybersecurity program that we're trying to build here.Corey: And unlike the early days of a campaign, you still have to be ultra-conscious about security, but now you have the luxury of actually being able to hire security staff because it turns out that, “Please come volunteer here,” is not presumably Shipt's hiring pitch.Dan: That's correct. Yeah, exactly. We have a lot of buy-in from the rest of leadership to build out this program. Shipt's history with cybersecurity is one where there were a couple of folks who did a remarkably good job for just being two or three of them for a really long period of time who ran the cybersecurity operation very much was not a part of the engineering culture at Shipt, but there still was coverage.Those folks left earlier in the year, all of them, simultaneously, unfortunately. And that's sort of how the position became open to me in the first place. But it also meant that I was quite literally starting with next to nothing, right. And from that standpoint it made it feel a lot like the early days of the campaign because I was having to build a team from scratch and having to get people motivated to come and work on this thing that had kind of an unknown future roadmap associated with it and all of that kind of stuff.But we've been very privileged to—because we have that leadership support we're able to pay market rates and actually hire qualified and capable and competent engineers and engineering leaders to help build out the aspects of this program that we need. And like I said, we've managed to—we weren't exactly at zero when I walked in the door. So, when I say we were able to quadruple the team, it doesn't mean that we just added four zeros there, [laugh] but we've got a little bit over a dozen people focusing on all areas of security for the business that we can think of. And that's just going to continue to grow. So, it's exciting; it's a challenge. But having the support of the entire organization behind something like this really, really helps a lot.Corey: I know we're running out of time for a lot of the interview, but one more question I want to ask you about is, when you're the CISO for a nationally known politician who is running for the highest office, the risk inherent to getting it wrong is massive. This is one of those mistakes will show indelibly for the rest of, well, one would argue US history, you could arguably say that there will be consequences that go that far out.On the other side of it, once you're done on the campaign you're now the CISO at Shipt. And I am not in any way insinuating that the security of your customers, and your partners, and your data across the board is important. But it does not seem to me from the outside that it has the same, “If we get this wrong there are repercussions that will extend into my grandchildren's time.” How do you find that your ability to care as deeply about this has changed, if it has?Dan: My stress levels are a lot lower I'll say that, but—Corey: You can always spot the veterans on an SRE team because—when I say veterans I mean veterans from the armed forces because, “No one's shooting at me. We can't serve ads right now. I'm really not going to run around and scream like, ‘My hair's on fire,' because this is nothing compared to what stress can look like.” And yeah there's always a worst stressor, but, on some level, it feels like it would be an asset. And again this is not to suggest you don't take security seriously. I want to be very clear on that point.Dan: Yeah, yeah, no. The important challenge of the role is building this out in a way that we have coverage over all the areas that we really need, right, and that is actually the kind of stuff that I enjoy quite a bit. I enjoy starting a program. I enjoy seeing a program come to fruition. I enjoy helping other people build their careers out, and so I have a number of folks who are at earlier at points in their career who I'm very happy that we have them on our team because I can see them grow and I can see them understand and set up what the next thing for them to do is.And so when I look at the day-to-day here, I was motivated on the campaign by that reality of like there is some quite literal life or death stuff that is going to happen here. And that's a really strong presser to make sure that you're doing all the right stuff at the right time. In this case, my motivation is different because I actually enjoy building this kind of stuff out and making sure that we're doing all the right stuff and not having the stress of, like, this could be the end of the world if we get this wrong.Means that I can spend time focusing on making sure that the program is coming together as it should, and getting joy from seeing the program come together is where a lot of that motivation is coming from today. So, it's just different, right? It's a different thing, but at the end of the day it's very rewarding and I'm enjoying it and can see this continuing on for quite some time.Corey: And I look forward to ideally getting you back in another two-and-a-half years after I began badgering you in two hours in order to come back on the show. If—Dan: [laugh].Corey: —people want to hear more about what you're up to, how you view about these things, potentially consider working with you, where can they find you?Dan: Best place although I've not been as active because it has been very busy the last couple of months, but find me on Twitter, @danveloper, find me on LinkedIn. Those—you know, I posted a couple of blog posts about the technology choices that we made on the campaign that I think folks find interesting, and periodically I'll share out my thoughts on Twitter about whatever the most current thing is, Kubernetes or AWS about to go down or something along those lines. So, yeah, that's the best way. And I tweet out all the jobs and post all the jobs that we're hiring for on LinkedIn and all of that kind of stuff. So, usual social channels. Just not Facebook.Corey: Amen to that. And I will of course include links to those things in the [show notes 00:37:29]. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I appreciate it.Dan: Thank you, Corey.Corey: Dan Woods, CISO and VP of Cybersecurity at Shipt, also formerly of the Biden campaign because wherever he goes he clearly paints a target on his back. I'm Cloud Economist, Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an incoherent rant that is no doubt tied to either politics or the alternate form of politics: Spinnaker.Dan: [laugh].Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

About DanAfter earning his CPA in New York, Dan dedicated his early career to education, helping to build eight schools across two continents. Three of those schools make up the charter school network Coney Island Prep, a 160-person, $20mm+ organization where Dan served as both CFO and COO.  He has served as CFO of many fast-growth start-ups, is a recurring guest lecturer at Harvard Graduate School of Education, and is an avid adventurer and musician.  But most importantly, he's a dedicated husband and an enamored father who, at this point, knows the lyrics to each and every Raffi song ever created.Links:Duckbillgroup.com: https://duckbillgroup.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Redis, the company behind the incredibly popular open source database that is not the bind DNS server. If you're tired of managing open source Redis on your own, or you're using one of the vanilla cloud caching services, these folks have you covered with the go to manage Redis service for global caching and primary database capabilities; Redis Enterprise. Set up a meeting with a Redis expert during re:Invent, and you'll not only learn how you can become a Redis hero, but also have a chance to win some fun and exciting prizes. To learn more and deploy not only a cache but a single operational data platform for one Redis experience, visit redis.com/hero. Thats r-e-d-i-s.com/hero. And my thanks to my friends at Redis for sponsoring my ridiculous non-sense.  Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by Honeycomb. When production is running slow, it's hard to know where problems originate: is it your application code, users, or the underlying systems? I've got five bucks on DNS, personally. Why scroll through endless dashboards, while dealing with alert floods, going from tool to tool to tool that you employ, guessing at which puzzle pieces matter? Context switching and tool sprawl are slowly killing both your team and your business. You should care more about one of those than the other, which one is up to you. Drop the separate pillars and enter a world of getting one unified understanding of the one thing driving your business: production. With Honeycomb, you guess less and know more. Try it for free at Honeycomb.io/screaminginthecloud. Observability, it's more than just hipster monitoring.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud, I'm Corey Quinn. A common myth that has sort of permeated the entire ecosystem is, when you associate a single person with a company, they're the only person is really there. It turns out that with AWS, Jeff Barr is writing an awful lot of blog posts, but I have it on good authority that there are at least three services he didn't personally create himself. Similarly here at The Duckbill Group, there are a lot of folks who aren't necessarily in the public eye as much as I am because they don't have the overriding personality flaws that I do. One of those people is my guest today. Dan Shapiro is our CFO, and I guess the closest thing you could consider to us having adult supervision. Dan, thanks for joining me.Dan: Thanks for having me, and I appreciate you considering me an adult, even though I don't always feel that way.Corey: I always assume there's someone else out there who knows what's going on and how life works, and one day they're going to bother to explain it to me because the alternative is that none of us know and we're making it up as we go along, and I'm not sure I can wrap my head around that fear.Dan: Yeah, my job is to allow you guys to have the vision, some wild ideas, try to put data to ideas, tell you if I think it's a good idea. I think, you know, I'm the balloon string to your guys' balloon is the way I think about it.Corey: It's funny, given that we fix the AWS bill and deal with customers, who are in many cases themselves working in finance, that for the first year or so that we were doing this as The Duckbill Group, and never back when I was independent did we really have anyone in a CFO position. What we were doing made sense to me from a very simplistic naive point of view. Okay, well, how is the company doing? Well, I have an app that tells me that. No, it's not QuickBooks, it's I'm going to pull up the banking app and see how much money is currently sitting in the company accounts.And that would inform things like can we hire new people, can we afford this piece of equipment, or embark on this project? And it was sort of Fisher-Price finance, from our perspective. And when you came in, you were very good at this in that you did not make us feel like the naive hayseeds we very clearly were. You were excellent at hiding your contempt, which is great. But before we dive into the specifics, let's ask the big question that I didn't know the answer to back when we first started working with you, which is, what does a CFO do?Dan: CFO does a lot of tactical things, but ultimately, I think that they have two main 30,000-foot view functions. One is to safeguard the assets of the company, and two is to ensure that those assets are employed in the best way possible for the best outcomes that the company is after. And that doesn't always necessarily have to be financial; it could be operational successes. But whatever the goals of the company are, the CFO's role is to utilize the assets to help approximate those goals as best as you can, get the most out of your resources. So, I think that, you know, you play a little bit of defense in trying to make sure that you're protected and you play a little bit of offense in trying to make sure that when you put your chips on the table, that they're in the right place.Corey: So, please take this in the spirit of which it's intended, but if I'm starting out my career today, I can attend a boot camp, learn how the ins-and-outs of software programming work, get a job somewhere, and if I manage my career right, in two or three years I'll get a job somewhere as a senior engineer. So, from that perspective, are you more or less an accountant with title inflation? What's going on? What is the difference between finance and accounting?Dan: Yeah, so to define those two words, I think of the delineator being time, right? So, today backwards is accounting. It's a historical record of everything that has happened, well categorized. And I think of finance as today forward. It is the strategy and planning and potentially analysis of what you think is going to happen in the future.So, those two buckets are delineated by time in my mind. Am I an accountant? Yes. Do I think that the best financial people have an accounting background? I do. I think accounting is the alphabet of finance and I think it's hard to really fully understand or be effective without, you know, at least some baseline accounting information. So yeah, I think accounting is super important. It's a codebase to an engineer, except there's really only one code.Corey: I will say that once you started working with us, it enabled me to understand things in a way that I hadn't before. And on some level, I feel… a little embarrassed, I'm in my mid 30s, here—which annoys the hell out of my wife because I'm 39—but I've gotten this far in my career without understanding a lot of the basic literacy of corporate finance. Now, let's be clear, I'm very good at handling personal finance aspects to my life. I can quote chapter and verse in some cases, from ERISA requirements around 401(k)s and how much I'm allowed to put in in a given year. And that's great, but business finance looks very different than personal finance in a few key ways. And I'm curious as to what your impression is of those key differences because I have thoughts, but I don't generally invite experts in areas onto this show and then explain their field to them.Dan: [laugh]. I will go into that but I am curious what you think. You know, or what you perceive in your experience in working with me, what you've seen—maybe one or two differences that you've seen between personal finance and corporate finance. I certainly feel like there's differences, but I actually don't feel like there's a tremendous differences, I just think it's much greater scale with a lot more people involved. But I'm curious what your experience has been, and then I can kind of jump off of that.Corey: Sure. From my perspective, it is—and this is probably heresy, but I tend to view finance in many ways as being more psychological than it is mathematical. And if I were to pick a random person off the street, and give them a choice of you need to come up with a thousand bucks: you can either make another $1,000 or you can save another $1,000—and let's be clear, I'm talking about someone who is in a technical-style career track; I understand the margins, this becomes a very different thing in either direction and I want to be sensitive to that—but if I ask most people, their answer is almost universally going to be to save the money because if you look at folks who are in a salary job, if they want to make more money, they need to either come up with a side project and start moonlighting, they need to petition their boss for a raise, they need to do a few other things here and there and okay, it becomes a pain. And well, I haven't updated my resume in years, I'm not great at interviewing for jobs, I don't really want to leave and upset the applecart. Whereas saving a thousand bucks when you're making six figures a year is not necessarily that hard. Eat out less, cancel Netflix, et cetera, et cetera, and you can get there by saving.Companies philosophically are the exact opposite. Because there's a theoretical upper bound of one hundred percent of a company's AWS bill that I can cut, either by moving them to another provider—which is cheating—or flying to Seattle and taking hostages—which is not particularly something we'd like to do, and it doesn't generally work more than once. And that's fine, but they can earn a multiple of that by launching the right feature or product to the right market at the right time, faster. That's always going to be more compelling for a company because they're after growth, not protecting the baseline that they have, in most cases. When that shifts, they tend to be companies in decline.Dan: Yeah, that's a great point. And I think to add onto that, when you're running a company, almost every company is going to have something like 60 to 70% of their expenses tied up in their people. So, cutting discretionary spending at a corporate level is not always going to yield the impact that you might need it to. And if you actually need to cut expenses, you're talking about very serious decisions about reducing your workforce, which happens in big steps, right? You can't just find, you know, 5k here, 10k there; you're talking about, you know, reducing your org chart, which is a very serious decision that a lot of companies take very seriously, which is great.Versus there's a lot of avenues to increasing revenue, you know, new product streams, growing your team, investing in your team, raising prices, follow-on sales with these existing customers. You know, there's just a lot more opportunity to generate revenue because companies, by definition, have a lot more opportunities to create revenue than just, you know, like you said, somebody who has a salary job.Corey: One of the things that really woke me up to what our customers are going through is I take a look at the finances of The Duckbill Group—as pointed out and categorized and [aligned 00:09:09] by you, which first, thank you, it's extremely helpful, and two, it helps me contextualize things. You raised a flag on things being out of bounds, where they had been historically. At one point, our AWS bill was a little over $2,000 a month, and your question was, “What's up with this?” It is not the sort of thing that was going to make or break the company; our payroll is six figures a month and compared to that the AWS bill is irrelevant.But given what we do, and given that it's always a good idea to be good financial stewards of the money that has been entrusted to us, “Great, let's take a look at that.” And it was dropped down to 700, 800 bucks. I think it [crested 00:09:47] at $950 last month, as of the time of this recording because I was doing some fun experiments. And sure it's annoying in that I want to keep it as low as possible just given the nature of what we do, but from a business perspective, it does not fundamentally matter. Now, that is not the case for most of our clients, it matters; it's a large expense, but payroll is still bigger.In many cases, depending on the company, real estate is bigger. And Netflix, one of the larger AWS customers, has publicly stated that their biggest expense is content. Yeah, they've built a bunch of studios, they have to get rights to all the content that they stream, they pay people through the nose, and their AWS bill is reportedly massive—it would have to be given what they do—but it's never the number one driving focus. And, on some level, it feels like a company deals with two classes of problem. There's the side that we're on of cost control, risk mitigation, et cetera—insurance hangs out here, too—and the other is speeding up time to market or growth and expansion. Our class of problem is a good diligence thing, but it isn't usually ‘summon the board in the middle of the night because of an opportunity' territory. If I look at those as the two great problems, it is more lucrative as a business to be targeting the former.Dan: Yeah. I mean, so just to go back to that AWS example for a second, right, it's contradictory, right, because on the one hand, are you really going to win the day by shaving, you know, $500 off your AWS bill a month if you're a $3 million company? You know, is that going to move the needle? Not necessarily.But I believe in hygiene and habits, and I believe as you're a growing company, that it's a lot harder to put in good financial process and good financial hygiene, the bigger you get. And so if you start doing these things early, you know, if you have a quarterly review of your subscriptions, your SaaS products, you have some kind of budget versus actual process in place where you have—even if it's wrong, right? I mean, you just take a stab at what you think, you track your actuals, and at least now you have some data to rally around from a financial perspective, as opposed to saying, “Oh, look, we spent X on Y. That's interesting.” Or, “Does that feel right? Or”—And so you have a baseline and you have a measuring stick, and then you have a process in place for figuring out what happened, and then how to better guess in the future. And so yeah, I think that hygiene is important and I think the hard part—and I think it was exhibited by you guys early on—is when you're starting a company, this is the last thing that you want to focus on, or even think you need to focus on because it's not on fire, right? Finance is never on fire until it's absolutely on fire, and it's going to kill you. And I think a lot of founders sweep finance and accounting to the back of the closet because a client is upset, or an employee quit, or their code broke, and those things are on fire today, and if they don't get fixed, the company can't move forward.And so finance, it doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter; it kills your company. So, I think it's not that the founders don't know about it, aren't smart enough for it, don't care about it. It's just that it's not on fire, and when you're starting a company, all you can do is pay attention to the things that are.Corey: It's easy to look back and beat myself up for my lack of understanding or lack of focus on things. The similarly I talked to technical people all the time where the first DevOps hire into an environment. It's been application engineers or developers building the environment so far, and it's easy to look at it in a condescending way of, “Oh, our entire field knows not to build things this way. What's wrong with you fools?” Well, it worked well enough to get to a point where they could afford to hire you, so perhaps show some respect when you're in an environment like that.This is something that most business folk, like I don't know, a CFO intrinsically understands, but many engineers still don't seem to have fully wrap their heads around just because it's easy to over-index on the area that you're focusing in. You almost certainly view companies, start to finish, through a lens of finance. A lot of engineering folks I spend time with—and used to be one of, myself—view it through a lens of well, what's their stack look like? What's their technical debt? How are they actually architected?Which is interesting, but usually not the indicator of whether a company will succeed or fail. There are other broader focuses that are important to look at, and being able to view our own company through a lens of something other than dealing with just the technology or just the sales aspect of it, or, “All right, time for me to go shitposting again because that's our substitute for marketing.” Instead, we're focusing on what the larger picture is through a finance lens. It introduces a level of rigor that I hadn't expected, though, clearly, we do still put our own stamp on it. I suspect we are probably the only company you have ever worked with that has an explicit line item in the budget labeled ‘Spite' for example, from which we make our ridiculous parody videos and other assorted nonsense, for those who are unfamiliar with the Spite Budget.Dan: That was a new one for me. I've seen, I think, every other chart of account line item before and Duckbill Group was the first one that I had to type in ‘Spite Budget' for. I didn't even really understand what it meant, and then as I, you know, got to know you a little bit better, I knew exactly what it meant. And it is—Corey: Yeah, this is what passes humor with his set.Dan: [laugh].Corey: Got it. Okay, I'll smile, nod, and continue to keep the finances in order.Dan: Yeah. So, when you leave, I just cross it out and I write marketing. But [laugh] it is what makes you you and what makes this company successful. But in all seriousness, it's an outstanding financial investment because our business is—like every business—is driven by eyeballs. And whether you're a media company or you're any other company, you need people to know about you.You need people to want to believe that your services are valuable, and want to engage in your services. And the Spite Budget brings eyeballs. And the other thing is, I think it's always wrapped up in farce, but there's always an underlying truth to it which is why people find it compelling. I think if you were out there actually, slinging shit to us, you know, [laugh] you're parlance, I think you wouldn't get 100 Twitter followers. But I think because the undercurrent is truth, you don't give yourself credit for this but there's an immense amount of knowledge behind the truth that people find it compelling. So yeah, from a serious financial perspective, I think it's one of the best investments that we make. [laugh].Corey: It's definitely a lot of fun. And it always bothered me when I would walk around re:Invent or travel for client trips and whatnot to see billboard ads in airports because I've priced out what those things cost, and for those who are wondering, it's not a small number. And okay, so you're going to go to all of the expense of buying out ads in multiple airports doing a country wide brand saturation campaign, and with all of that space, and all of those millions of dollars you're spending on this to get your message in front of folks, you fill it with something that is so anodyne, something that is so… I guess, droll, that no one notices or cares. You wind up getting all of these eyeballs and then have nothing interesting to say. And to me, that's the cardinal sin.I can build an audience, and the way I built it is by having something interesting to say. But take a look at any brand awareness billboard for a large consultancy. I mean, Accenture had one years ago in airports that I still haven't stopped making fun of them for, even more so since they blocked me on Twitter. And it said, “The new isn't on its way. It's here now. New, applied now.” So yeah, I guess they're bringing the new and it's… okay, they spent how many millions of dollars on that campaign and then wound up effectively building the tagline and the phrasing just by, I don't know, having some analyst in some junior role bang their head off a keyboard a few times? I don't get it. I just don't get it.Dan: Yeah, without being a marketing expert, I think that's the product of risk tolerance being a directly inverse relationship to the height of an org chart. I think the higher you grow in your decision-making capability and potency, the more responsibility you have on your shoulders, the less willing you are to do anything that's interesting, fun, risky, and that's why we have a lot of the marketing that we have today. We're lucky to be a small company, we're lucky to be a small company that has creative founders. I think a lot of founders for their marketing go, they use a lot of external folks, and you know, they—sometimes it works, but a lot of times they lose the actual, like, heart and soul of the company because they just aren't in it, they don't understand it. And I think it's fun, a lot of the stuff that, you know, we get to do.But I think we're fortunate that we are in a unique spot in the sense that—you know, we talk about this a lot—we're a company that has a services arm and we're a company that has a media arm. And where many companies in services have to think about marketing and sales in a very straight up and down way, we get to play in our media space, which is a revenue-generating arm of our business, in a lot of experimental ways that other companies are spending thousands, millions of dollars on marketing expenses, we get to do it and make money doing it, via media. And it's really this incredible, bifurcated business where one serves the other and vice versa. And, you know, it's fascinating.Corey: I still don't pretend to understand how we got to the place that we did. When you look back, it's easy to see a sense of plodding inevitability, where, “Oh, yeah. You did this, that led to that, and it led to this, and here you are now.” But at the time you're making the decisions, you are throwing darts blindfolded. Professional advice for those in bars, don't do that. They do not find it nearly as amusing as it sounds.Dan: I think that's how it feels, but I don't actually believe that story that you like to tell. You and Mike are—[laugh] you enjoy the self-deprecation but you're very bright guys and I think you are always fiscally responsible. You just didn't have the language that I have to show how you're fiscally responsible. And I think you really were conservative founders in the fact that you made very short-term decisions and always made conservative short-term decisions, and that puts you in a good place. I think what I have brought to the table is an ability to look a little bit further out and think about, you know, okay, it's not just next month, right? It's not just two months from now. What are we building here? What are the long-term goals, and what are the intermediary goals that will be true if we're on the right path?And that's some planning, that's using historicals, that's using some good analysis tools to try and get there, but it's also a matter of time. When you're a founder of a company, you can't spend all of your time on finance and accounting. It's just the reality. You have 8 million things to do, and so you do exactly what you guys did, which is you look at your bank account, you try and make a decision in a vacuum. But you don't have time to really grind over the details, or the strategy of the next 6, 12, 18 months because you've got people to hire, and you've got clients to appease, and you've got work to do that will generate the revenue.And so there's a whole world of fractional CFOs, some who are good, some are not good. There's a world of bookkeepers out there that are competent. And I think, even though it's not a great use of cash, or revenue-generating use of cash, which I think a lot of startups, you know, are reticent to go down that path, I think having good hygiene and good strategy on your financial front early on is necessary for the future planning of a lot of these startups. And also probably peace of mind, right? I mean, I'm not sure—Corey: Oh, I sleep way better now than I did before.Dan: [laugh]. Yeah, I hope so. I mean, I think just the not knowing creates such an undertone of stress that, you know, may or may not be recognized by founders. And I think being able to look at a document and say, “Okay, this makes sense to me, I know what the future probably holds.” And I hope it allows you to think about other things than money.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle Cloud. Counting the pennies, but still dreaming of deploying apps instead of "Hello, World" demos? Allow me to introduce you to Oracle's Always Free tier. It provides over 20 free services and infrastructure, networking, databases, observability, management, and security. And—let me be clear here—it's actually free. There's no surprise billing until you intentionally and proactively upgrade your account. This means you can provision a virtual machine instance or spin up an autonomous database that manages itself all while gaining the networking load, balancing and storage resources that somehow never quite make it into most free tiers needed to support the application that you want to build. With Always Free, you can do things like run small scale applications or do proof-of-concept testing without spending a dime. You know that I always like to put asterisks next to the word free. This is actually free, no asterisk. Start now. Visit snark.cloud/oci-free that's snark.cloud/oci-free.Corey: One challenge we had was that a lot of the advice for first-time founders—since there's a lot of those in our space—is not applicable to us. The way that Mike and I built this place, we provided the initial investment personally; we're the only investors in this place, we don't have outside funding, we don't have investors, and we've given no equity away, so it is all us. And the way that most companies in tech tend to work is I would go and debase myself in front of a bunch of investors, and some VC would absolutely bite on my Twitter for Pets idea and give me $50 million to go and build the prototype.And at that point, I'm not making money. I have $50 million in the bank that I am burning through every month as I hire, as I build the MVP, et cetera, et cetera, and there's a ticking clock–it's called a runway in our space—and if we don't wind up hitting a certain milestone of being able to raise more money by the time that we've crossed a certain point, it's time to begin an orderly shutdown of the company. And that's a ticking clock hanging over the head of many founders. In our case, I was looking at it like that originally, but we are profitable, we are actively closing deals, and one of the things you taught me, for example, was when we have accounts receivable, money that is owed to us that has not yet been paid, we can count that and use that as in many ways an asset because it is. It also helps the fact that we are in a market where businesses do not generally decline to pay us money that they owe us.This is very much an understood thing in business, but my question was always, “Well, yeah, but what if they don't pay? What does that mean for us?” And that's really been a non-issue, which at first I was really grateful for and thought, “Wow, we have great customers.” It turns out that this is expected. This is like running a store and being super ecstatic because most of the people in your store aren't shoplifting.It's, yes, that is the baseline expectation for people doing business in the modern era. That was an eye opener. But it also kept me up at night because it was, “Oh, if suddenly this money in the bank is all that we're going to get in, then we only have enough runway to go two, three, four months and then we have to shut the company down.” Yeah, but we're profitable every month, so what's the concern here? It doesn't work that way.Dan: Right. We look at two key metrics as a company every single week, right? We look at a metric called months of cash.Corey: Which is pretty self-descriptive. It's in the title.Dan: Yeah, [laugh] just, you take your bank balance and you divide it by your, you know, average monthly burn, you know, total expenses out each month. And that will give you some number. You know, we really like that number to be at least two, closer to three, but I think something like having, like, six months of cash—now this is for a company that has not raised a bunch of money, right? So, if you've raised $5 million, your months of cash is going to be well more than that because you're investing in your—Corey: And the goal should be to lower that months of cash because it's designed to be used to hire and grow, not sit there, and you should not be turning a profit on that interest; you should be spending through it at a reasonable clip.Dan: Right. And for companies who have not raised money, right, even if you have a month's of cash, you know, five, six, that's probably not right either, right? I mean, there's probably opportunities for investment where you want to get your chips on the table for growth, right? Because you don't always have to be after hypergrowth. But typically, if a company's not growing, it's declining, and that's not a great thing, right? So, some amount of growth is always important for a healthy company.So, months of cash is one metric that we look at every week. And the other is what I call an adjusted quick ratio. But essentially, it's taking current assets over your current liabilities. Now, many startups are going to be debt free, short-term debt free, and so what we do is we try and talk about cash plus accounts receivable—so invoices that are out that have not been paid—and that gives you your numerator, over any outflows that you should experience over the next 30 or so days, right, we think about that as, like, our current liabilities. Because there's no real debt.In larger corporate finance, you have big, big balance sheets, quick ratios are more formulaic corporate formula, but in this case, we look at cash plus accounts receivable, over 30 days of liabilities. And that gives us a number that we're tracking constantly. And we have our own benchmarks for internally for what that number is, but that's a really great tracking of liquidity; that's more than just what's the cash in the bank, right? You're looking at your cash, you're looking at your receivables, and you're looking at your upcoming payments, you know, whether that's payroll or big vendor payments or any other, you know, non-recurring expenses that you know are coming down the pike.Corey: Yeah, a lot of things can impact that number. And that means, oh, that number is out of kilter. It's time to dig a little bit into why, but it's not itself a diagnostic, it's just an indicator that gives a snapshot of overall financial health.Dan: That's right. There are also ratios that you can track on a weekly basis and not just wait month-over-month because you can actually start to see trend lines up and down and start to ask questions about, “Hey, what happened this week?” “Oh, we sent out a big invoice, you know, we just haven't been paid on it. That's why we saw our AQR go up.” Or, “Hey, we just took in a big invoice for redoing the website. We owe $50,000 to x vendor and that's why the denominator of that equation went up. And so our AQR went down a little bit this week, but we expect it to climb back up in the coming weeks.”And so it's a really good way to track liquidity. On a longer-term, we're talking about things like margin analysis, right? Gross margins is an important thing we talk about. You know, revenue, minus the cost of goods to deliver that revenue, want to make sure that we're delivering products with efficiency. And, you know, we talk about net margin or EBITDA, or, you know, however, you want to describe the bottom line, and that's obviously your profitability.So, those are sort of the things we rally around internally. We try and look at them at least weekly, or monthly, depending on the metric. And this just goes back to hygiene and habits. You don't have to do a tremendous amount of work here. And you also—I think, people can get wrapped up in esoteric formulas that they've read in books, right, but I think if you're looking at cash, you're looking at cash and receivables over expenses, you're looking at your margins, and you're looking at your bottom line, those four metrics tracked well, you know, weekly or monthly over time, should really protect you, and should also give you great insights about your business.Corey: This is another example of viewing personal and company finances through a different lens. If I were to come home and tell my spouse that I had just dropped $50,000 on a website for example, the conversation would not be pleasant immediately afterwards. But it's not personal money. Conversely, an awful lot of business owners that I've heard stories about get into trouble by treating the company as their personal piggy bank, which Mike and I are very clear never to do. If you're listening to this from tax authority, I want to emphasize, we keep our noses remarkably clean.And again, it comes down to one of those, I don't want to lose sleep at night over things. That's why you're here, Dan. I don't want to lose sleep over the idea that we're going to run out of money, or that I'm going to get audited and my great fraud will be discovered. It's no, I don't want to get audited because it's a pain in the neck, and I have to wind up providing a whole bunch of receipts and whatnot, but everything's legitimate. That's the type of fear and paperwork thing that I just want to be able to avoid, by and large.Dan: Yeah, we do keep clean books, and there's probably things that we could be expensing that we're not, right? More than the tax gray area that exists there is the difficulty with partners and equity—and I don't mean equity on the balance sheet; I mean, like, fairness amongst partners, right? So, if one partner is going out more often than the other for dinners, is that really fair for that person to get their meals paid for more than the partner? Vice versa, if one person lives in a city and the other person doesn't and their car runs through the business. You know, how do you deal with those differences with multiple owners of a business? And I think those complexities are sometimes more difficult to deal with in the tax gray area of what is deductible and what is not?Corey: Oh, yeah. That's why I've always been such a big fan of making sure that when you have a business partner that your values are aligned. Mike and I are incredibly dissimilar in a bunch of different ways. He loves spreadsheets, I love shitposting on Twitter. But when it comes to values in how we approach these things that was laid out at the very beginning in our partnership agreement.And it's never been something that we've had cause to even visit, like, “Well, let's see what the partnership agreement says.” Just because it makes sense. It's, yeah, Mike doesn't spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on travel—in non-pandemic years—just because he's not constantly out there doing the things that I have been doing, historically. Now, post-pandemic that might change it, if he winds up traveling a lot and I'm sitting at home, I'm not sitting there upset because he gets to expense dinners out. It doesn't work that way. Whenever you start seeing that type of breakdown that feels like it's a proxy for something that's deeper.Dan: Yeah, I would agree with that. I think also just not like a marriage, you know, it comes down to communication and expectations. I mean, like any management in company, right? I mean, you have to be clear about what is expected of your partner. Ideally, you're measuring those things, and you're making sure that everybody's in line with those expectations, but yeah, I would say you and Mike have always been aligned in that sense, and I think you're right, the instance—or examples where it goes south, it's not because someone spent $600 more than the other, it's because there's a lot more going on there.Corey: Yeah, it's the proxy for things. So, at some point it's, “Okay, why do you have a $4 million yacht that just parked in your driveway? And yeah, what's the deal here?” One last area I want to cover because this is probably relevant to folks who I imagine most of our listeners are, who are employees elsewhere. I always was extremely bothered by the fact that I had remarkably little financial wiggle room when it came to expensing things.Like, “Let me get this straight. I have root in production, but you're going to question me over a $15 expense?” That always sat very strangely. And I carry that with me to the point where even now at the time of this recording, we're going through one of our periodic exercises that you put us through of, yeah, here's a list of all the recurring expenses on your credit card. Is this something that we still need? And how do I categorize it if so? If not, let's cancel it.And it's weird because instinctively, I hear that, even now, as you saying, what's up with this $9.99 a month thing? And I'm sitting here going, “Wait a minute.” Like, I'm trying to justify, like, “Is that really worth $10 a month to me? Should I—wait a minute, I don't work for you.”Dan: Right. [laugh].Corey: It was a bit of a different moment here. Like, I felt like I'm being called to the carpet by my boss, but that is absolutely not what's going on. So, my question for you, as someone who has a storied career in finance, is that what's being asked in most companies by management when they question expenses? Is that about, “Help me understand what this is,” or is it in fact what I'm hearing, a, “Justify why you think a $10 monthly expense is worthwhile?”Dan: I think it really depends. I mean, in my case, in our case, I am genuinely trying to understand how to categorize most things so that when I do my reporting, I can tell you where we spent our money. So, you know, if I see a charge that I don't know what it is and I ask you for clarity on it, it is a hundred percent so that I understand is this COGS? Was this part of delivering our revenue? Is this, you know, a sales and marketing expense that at the end of the year, I could say, “Hey, we spent x percent on sales and marketing for y revenue,” and I want that to be an accurate number.If you're talking about big corporate bureaucracy and they have expense policies and a lot of rigorous rules that were derived from the head of HR who doesn't know the 500 people that this rule is going to impact, I think there's probably a different motivation for those questions. And I think it's tough; it's not to say that you shouldn't have policies, you need to have policies, but you know, the bigger you get, the harder it is to have the right policies for the right people and you end up making blanket decisions to try and get to an average lau that nobody's probably happy with, instead of empowering your people and trusting your people, that they're going to spend their money on things that are good for the company. At Duckbill, I know, it's not even a question. Everybody here has a corporate card, and I don't think I've once seen you question somebody about an expense that they had. The only questions they get are from me in terms of how to use it for accounting purpose, but the underlying current there is we hired these people; we trust these people; they're our employees and we're all swimming in the same direction, so if they spent money on something, I would assume it's because it's good for the company.And I think that goes a long way. I would always prefer to have better tracking and reporting metrics to spot the bad apples than to have a policy that turns the good apples, the 95% of good apples into sour apples. Not to have a terrible analogy on this recording. But I [laugh] would much rather convey to my employees that I trust them and then do a little bit of extra work on the back end to ask questions about, you know, the expenses I think are a little funny, versus writing a policy that says, “Here's x. Here's what you can spend on y.” And now everyone is dissatisfied. Someone was telling me just because someone wore shorts to the office, don't write a policy, “No shorts in the office.” Just talk to that person and say, “Hey, pants might be a better choice.”Corey: Right. You should not need a list of policies that are organically built every time someone does something they shouldn't. And at some level, it's one of those ideas where collective punishment never works. I wound up getting an email from my boss once to the entire team of, “We have to start at nine or there's going to be problems.” And I'm sweating bullets because I came in at 9:03, a couple of days this week.Meanwhile, the person next to me has slowly started drifting from coming in at 10:45 to 11:30. And it's one of those I think I'm going to get fired. No, no, no, it's really you have one particular person and you're just being chickenshit as far as approaching them and telling them that there's an issue.Dan: That's right. Yep. Totally agree.Corey: Dan, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. If people want to learn more, where can they find you?Dan: I don't have a huge footprint on the interwebs, but I'm always here at Duckbill, you know, serving the company, and if anybody has specific Duckbill questions, they can always reach out and I'm happy to converse. But I really appreciate you having me, and happy to talk Duckbill anytime.Corey: No, it's appreciated. Dan Shapiro, CFO at The Duckbill Group. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry comment talking about how as an accountant, you are annoyed by this episode because you will never be depreciated in your own lifetime.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.