Connections

Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia.

Dan: Well, welcome to the Cloudmaster.

Dean: How are you, sir?

Dan: I'm good, I'm good. Back in the swing of it. So we're back in full workshop schedule as of last, last week and feels good. I have to tell you, I was two and a half weeks at the cottage and yeah, and I've read a lot of articles about people suffering from Zoom fatigue and I've got the opposite, I've got the opposite problem. I'm suffering from when I'm away for two and a half weeks, I suffer from Zoom addiction.

Dean: Oh, yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it. It's the new connection. We, I just watched a. I really

Dan: find it, I just find it energizing, you know, the fact that, I mean, you know, we, the two of us actually have a mindset towards this because, you know, the response to this that happened in March and April, you know, when things did not allow us to travel. I felt it as a big jump forward. It wasn't like, oh, wow, we've been set back here. We haven't been set back. We've been, we've jumped forward and now there's, now there's people on the other side of the line, you know, I mean, yeah, I've always, I've always wanted to communicate, but they didn't, they didn't choose to have this capability.

Dean: Yeah, Yeah, I agree 100%. I was watching, we watched a documentary a couple of nights ago called the Social Dilemma and it's about how it was. These high level people at Google, Facebook, Twitter, all the high end developers who've left those places out of like the fear of that it's, it's bad, you know, for society kind of thing and realizing how manipulative it is and how they're really, you know, shaping our addictions to it. And there was an interesting insight that one of the things that they said is people are concerned about AI and are we going to reach a point where AI is more intelligent than, than humans, like where it's going to have better capabilities than us? And they said that's the wrong approach to think about because what's more important is when will AI become more powerful than our weaknesses, which it already is. And it's already running our lives because of that. And that's an interesting thought that because of our addiction to this, you know, constant dopamine hit of new update, new, like it's really the infinite scroll was on the phone was really just this amazing thing where every time you swipe your thing down, it's like a brand new. It's constantly refreshed. There's always new stuff. And their whole goal is to manipulate what you see on those refreshes that will keep you engaged long enough to get to the next. To the next ad. And, yeah, it's pretty. They're trying to optimize that. That whole thing.

Dan: So, yeah, you know, the thing that I was thinking is whether you're passive or active in relations to incoming information, you know, and what I think that it's doing is that it's creating a division in society between those who only consume and those who actually use the incoming information to create.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: What do you think about that? What do you think about that? There's a. There's a gap, there's a divide.

Dean: Yes, I think that's true. That you. If you can be in control of it. I think you're right. That there's something about letting it happen to you or proactively kind of seeking it out. We're definitely doomed with over choice and over supply and infinite supply. I was thinking about the difference, like, if we looked back at when television first started, there were three stations that were only broadcasting, really, prime time. Right. That there were at. The entire country would gather around and watch whatever was on the three shows last night. That's why I Love Lucy and the Honeymooners and shows like that, where Everybody in the 50s had a homogenous programming experience, you know, that they all saw. When you were growing up, what was your household?

Dan: You're talking to one of those. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we got television as near as I can figure, probably around 1953. I think that was the year. So I was nine years old. And, you know, and I've been a radio. I've been, you know, I grew up on radio, you know, listening to radio all the time. And, you know, and it was. It was neat. You know, some neighbors got it before we did and you'd go over and watch something on television and, you know, I guess my siblings and I kind of put pressure on my parents to get a, you know, to get a tv and we got a tv and. Yeah, I think it was great. You know, I mean, I don't remember those conversations about how this was, you know, possibly a danger or possibly negative, you know.

Dean: Right. You kids don't sit so close to that tv. Right.

Dan: Yeah. The big problem was, did you have an antenna that could give you actually a clearer program for a solid hour? You know, like, there was a lot of issues about antennas, whether they good antennas and you know, the weather had an impact on that. Thunderstorms and everything else. And. And so, you know, it was a gradual process. It was something new. And as far as I can tell, it was enjoyable, you know, like. Yeah, I think, I think, you know, it did change the pattern of your day because, you know, every night had something. I didn't watch daytime, you know, daytime TV at all. So I did.

Dean: Right.

Dan: That wasn't that we were on a farm and there were things to do during the day and. But I remember sports. Senior team was a big deal, you know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: You know, I grew up near Cleveland, so the Indians and the Browns were based. Baseball and football. And I thought it was a great treat that you could actually watch them. Yeah, watch them. Watch them play. So do you remember the.

Dean: Watching what you would watch in the evenings? Like, do you remember what.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, you named them, you know.

Dean: You know, Yeah, I Love Lucy and the Honeymooners.

Dan: Yeah, the Honeymooners. Yeah, definitely. Those were two big ones. And for me, one of the big things. And this was after school. This was probably about 4 o'.

Dean: Clock.

Dan: 4 o'.

Dean: Clock.

Dan: And it was. The Mickey Mouse Club. Came in in 55. Oh, yeah, yeah, that was good. And I actually, much later, 10 years later, I actually spent about three days traveling with one of the original Mouseketeers, Doreen Tracy. And, you know, and it was, you know, it was kind of interesting because she was about 23 when I met her and she, she had her. She had a good grip on who she was and, you know, what kind of life she had. And she said, you know, I was at the peak of my talent when I was 13, and that's why I made it into the Mickey Mouse Club. But she said, I haven't gotten really any better. And she told me that she was on a uso, this is for the military in Korea. She was doing a show and she said, you know, this is actually my last entertainment gig. She said, I have to go back and now get serious about what I'm going to do. And she became a talent. She became a talent manager at Warner Brothers. And one of the acts that she brought along was Frank Sappa. You know, she. She was the talent manager for Frank Zappa, this recording, you know, for recording in those days. Yeah. But, you know, the news became important. Like the six o', clock, right? Yeah, yeah. Huntley and Brinkley, my parents were Huntley and Brinkley people. So there were two of them and, and you know, they had the six o', clock, six o' clock news. And. Yeah, yeah, it was great.

Dean: Yeah, that's. And you know, it's interesting because that for that whole period, like largely that experience that you had was basically unchanged for if, you know, TV really got kind of mainstream in 1950, let's say that it was really 25 years before anything really changed in television. I mean.

Dan: Yeah, I think. Yeah, yeah. The only exception was the public. The public network came in. You know, the television came in. So that was a fortune. And then we were on the north shore of Lake Erie. So really clear, clear days and clear nights. We could pick up the Canadian broadcasting from Windsor.

Dean: Oh, wow.

Dan: Yeah, we pick up Windsor, so we could pick that up.

Dean: That was the interesting thing.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, but I didn't have any sense. And there was long stretches when I was out on my own after I graduated from high school, you know, and when I was at college and when I was in the army and so on, that I didn't really watch television. You know, I didn't. I probably went through about a 25 year period where I just really didn't watch television very much. And, and then, and then by that time my, you know, CNN had come on board and.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: And. And then you began noticing that television did not shut down at 12 o' clock or 1 o' clock and take the night off and things started going 24 hours, you know, and, and yeah. So anyway, it was interesting, but we're kind of in the early stages of zoom right now. I mean. Yeah. You know that it's no longer odd. People who do teleconferencing or anything like that, you know, that someone would stick out. No, I, I don't travel anymore. I do teleconference. I was sort of an odd person. Everybody traveled and, and then all of a sudden people didn't travel.

Dean: Yeah. And now I think it's.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: How are you, how are you enjoying now? The. You're back to the regular workshops. Are you doing like full days?

Dan: Six hours. Six hours, yeah, six hours, yeah. It's, you know, it's basically 53 minutes and then we have a break and 53 minutes we have a break. 53 minutes we have a break, then have a 45 minute lunch break and then we have two more sessions. So there's about five, 50. You know, think about it as 50 hour sessions and every session has a thing to think about. You know, it's questions or it's a form which I try to get over in about six, six or seven minutes. And then have men breakouts and then come back and share. Share, you know, share the thoughts that came out during the breakout session and questions, everything like that, you know, and I love it. You know, I mean, I just. I just really love it. And.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And, you know, and we get, you know, we've got some hard liners, you know, they say, well, it's. I don't care what you say about this. It's not the same. And it's not the same. And they're going to wait until, you know, it's. They're free to do what they want to do and then we'll know what. When people are free to do what they want to do, what do they do?

Dean: Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: And I don't know that, you know, people keep asking me, what do you think? I said, you know, I am the foggy, you know, because I said, I think people are, you know, rearranging their lives, rearranging their clans, you know, rearranging their activities. I said, I can't predict how it's going to, you know, when the choice is back fully. That you can do. But I do know on Tuesday, we're starting our first global Zoom workshop from the start.

Dean: So this is a total innovation right here now. So that. Tell me about that. So that's a signature program.

Dan: Yeah, Signature will be Eastern New York, so it'll be Eastern time, Us, the first one and then. And then we have. The next one is standard time for Greenwich. Greenwich Mean Time. So that. And we were pushing 30 for the first one. So I thought that that was really good. I mean, anything you get for the first thing is good because.

Dean: Right, of course. Yeah, yeah.

Dan: And it's learning that pays for itself, you know, so. And I think out of the 30, it's 20, 28 or 29. But they're pushing, you know, because it's easy to sign up for Zoom, because all they do is make a decision and set aside the day.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Where they are. They don't have to pack and go to the airport and travel and get a hotel.

Dean: When you think about the savings of that, I mean, the. The people who normally wouldn't be able to. Yeah. Fit that in. Or people who. Now there's no time. No time impact of it. Are you the same price or is it different price?

Dan: We haven't. No, no, we haven't changed the price and.

Dean: Right.

Dan: You know, and we say, look, the people who pay this price, income also pay for travel, also paid for overnight, also paid for this and that. And I said, so this is less.

Dean: Yeah, it is, yeah. We don't yeah, that's exactly right.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Yeah. You don't charge anymore for all the convenience. Right.

Dan: That's just the opposite. Was it Estella or Traff, you know, the belt.

Dean: Right.

Dan: You know.

Dean: No, that was, I always put that on the thing. Whatever you embrace.

Dan: Yeah, we use, we use, we use the most expensive ingredients. Pass the cost on to you.

Dean: That's exactly right, yeah.

Dan: Yeah. Well, we've taken away a lot of the expenses and you're the beneficiary for that.

Dean: Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah, that's great.

Dan: First of all, I am not a discounter, you know, and I was talking to Peter Diamandis about that because Peter, there's not going to be any live event in January in Los Angeles. Right. And now he's starting. It's actually very, very beneficial because now he's creating two hour modules and everything. He's got one. Yeah, well, he's got one called the Longevity Mindset. You know, it's a series of workshops and how you develop a longevity mindset and artificial intelligence mindset and you know, and, and everything like that. And I think he's very excited about it and I'm very excited for him because those are actually quite a bit easier to sell, you know, and he's got a price for them. And, and I said don't, don't go low, don't go low with your price. I said, there's somebody out there who will pay whatever you want because they're passionate about the topic.

Dean: Right. I said too. So I had a great conversation with Joe yesterday, Joe Polish, talking about the annual event, the Genius Network annual event. And one of the things that we have now, like I, you know, I've said for a while, just in my observation, that what we've been doing collectively with virtual events is using the virtual technology to replace what we've traditionally been doing in person. So just a one to one analog of that. It's a six hour day with sessions and it's mirroring what's happening there. But I said to Joe that looking, what you actually now have the capability to do is have some much more specific sort of content or breakout that you could do with this in the same time footprint, you know, because the space is there. And it reminded me of. Do you ever remember 15 years ago when Burger King launched a new chicken sandwich? They, their, their advertising agency created a website called subservientchicken.com and what you would see when you went to subservient chicken is just a video screen. A screen of a guy in a chicken outfit standing in an apartment, just looking at the screen like it was a webcam kind of thing, right? And there was one line, one bar underneath, like the Google, you know, search bar. And it basically said, you know, have it your way. What would you like the chicken to do? Basically, right? And you can type in your command for the chicken and press submit. And the chicken would. Then it was as if the chicken would see what you've asked it to do, and it would do that thing and then come back to its mark sort of thing and stand there waiting for its next instruction. And it felt like it was live, right? It felt like you say, jump up and down, and he would look at the thing and give you a thumbs up, and then he would jump up and down, and then he would come back and stand on the mark again. Right? It looks like then you're typing, do the chicken dance. And he would do the chicken dance and come back to the mark. And so it felt like you were committed, demanding.

Dan: Like it was interactive.

Dean: Yes, like it was interactive.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: What they did, what they were doing was essentially stitching together all these video loops that they created. And how they got the info was they printed up a sheet of paper with a big picture of the screen with the chicken on it, and then 10 boxes on the page where. And they handed them out to a thousand people and said, you know, put in your command for the chicken there and they cook all of the, you know, the 10 things that people commanded the chicken to do and entered them into a spreadsheet and put them into, you know, drew out all the keywords kind of thing. And, you know, 80% of the things were all the same things that people jump up. There was this. Yeah, there was this short little, you know, yeah. Chase your tail, hide behind the couch, you know, and then they would. There were some outliers that they could combine and stuff like that. And so they got all the vignettes that they needed to do, and then they just shot all of these 30 seconds clips in one. In one session. And it was such a magical, simple thing. So I was saying to Joe that, you know, imagine what you've got the capability to do is create an event, because this is an event of discussion of being connected to your genius network of other people who want to talk about the same things to get to almost do the subservient chicken level of, you know, research, asking people to fill in their. Their top three sessions under Health, wealth and elf and see, you could really build the, you know, breakout sessions, the discussion groups around exactly what people. What people really want.

Dan: Subservient genius.

Dean: Subservient genius dot com. That's exactly right. Oh, man. So that's.

Dan: Yeah. Well, the, you know, there's a kind of. Again, I think that there, you know, I tend to think that there's kind of polarizing mindsets. One of the things that digital does is it kind of polarizes. You know, you're a one or you're a zero. I mean, by the. Yeah. Very nature. Nature of digital code, there's no. I mean, I think that what quantum computing is is that they're taking account for what exists between the 1 and 0 of the computer code. Yeah. You know, like. Like it's more probability than it is. Exactly. But I think the response to digital. Being in the digital world seems to be kind of polarizing, that you sort out what your mindsets are and you're looking for reinforcement for your mindset, and you very, very definitely find the opposite mindset sort of irritating. You know, it's kind of like. Yeah, they're kind of irritating. But the thing is that I think that the, you know, there's a belief, and I think it's. It's partially because everything else in society has become connected to the digital technologies. And by that, I mean psychology has become connected, psychiatry has become connected, politics has become connected, culture has been connected. So all the existing dimensions that are in a society get disrupted and then reordered if something. A new way of communicating actually comes in. And that was thoroughly the case. I've read, you know, books and books and books and articles about the impact of mass printing from 1450 onward. And it was as disruptive as what we're experiencing right now, except it was a lot more violent. You know, there was much more violence connected to it than we're experiencing drinking.

Dean: I'm sure that's been.

Dan: Well, that's what drove the monks into making beer. Well, first of all, beer was what people drank because water was suspect.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And what. I mean, it was hard to get really clean. Water could be contaminated and, you know, and there wasn't delivery systems for fresh water and beer and. Yeah. So I'm reading this set of novels about Jack Aubrey, ship captain in 1800, fighting the wars against Napoleon, and each sailor got a gallon of the other day.

Dean: Yeah, well. And your British sailor knew that if you put a lime in your beer, that you could stave off scurvy. Yeah,

Dan: Well, beer was one of the main delivery systems of limes. But even without the limes, the delivery system was there, you know, and. Yeah, just a sheer amount of alcohol. I mean, he's just describing life on ship over days, weeks, months, and everything else. And the one constant from day to day is alcohol. Yeah. And, you know, probably, you know, probably was necessary. It was a harsh life. And this put a little softness around the edges. I. I think, anyway, but the thing that I. Here's what I would call a polarized position that people are reordered from the outside by the information that is sent to them. Reordered from the outside. And this is predictable how they'll be reordered, you know, and of course, this is the, you know, this is the marketing pitch for any kind of marketing, any kind of selling and everything is that if you do this and this and this, they will respond in this way. And it could be with some people, that's true. And so if you have a bell curve and you in the medium, they're half and half. They're half influenced by what they get, and they're half. They do something with it that's not predictable. And then one end of the bell curve, you have people who are just utterly, you know, utterly controlled by outside messaging and outside information. And at the other end of the bell curve, you have people who are. Who take all the information that's come in and they transform it into something that's totally unpredictable. So, yeah, you can give them this information, but you have no. There's really no predicting what this particular group of people are going to do with the information. I'll give you an example. Peter Diamantis and I both watch the news. You know, I mean, I watch it on the Internet. I watch, you know, I read the news, I read articles, I watch short clips and everything like that. It's very edited news. I'm not turning on and watching a couple hours of news and everything else. And he watches it and he says it's just all doom and gloom. It's all negative. And my read on it is that there's a portion of the public that is really, really scared of the future.

Dan: And the news media is one of these. And one of the reasons people on the news media put a lot of emphasis on doom and gloom, because their whole industry is doom and gloom. In other words, they're losing advertising like mad. You know, there's layoffs, there's firings, and there's syndications now where, you know, the jobs are going down, the number of jobs in the news media proper. I'm talking about the Actual industry, the number of people working in that industry goes down every year. But actually the amount of news goes up because of social media. You know, you know that somebody with their phone can now become a news broadcaster. And news.

Dean: Well, also, you get the. Yes, that's exactly right. But also they know what you actually engage with, so you amplify more of the same. It's like, yeah, Deming's experiment on red beads. They keep adjusting the sites. Right. To what you're most responsive to. You know, what you. When you hate something, I mean, even the emoticons that you can use to express your pleasure or displeasure with some idea is marked in your system, you know, in your profile.

Dan: Yeah. And, you know, and. But my sense is that there's a sufficient amount of human beings who transfer, transform information rather than, you know, responding passively or. Yeah, yeah. They're kind of happening to the information rather than the information happening to them. Okay. And I think you're. I think you're one and I think I'm one. Okay. I'll look at something. I'll say, isn't that interesting? You know, that's really, really interesting. You know, and I'll bounce it off. A lot of other, you know, interesting concepts I have in my mind. You know, like to give you an example of an intellectual shortcut is more cheese, less whiskers. More cheese, less whiskers is an intellectual shortcut. Okay. And. But it sums up perhaps a hundred years of marketing wisdom. You know, like, it's one phrase, but you took in a lot of information. You said, you know what? I've noticed that people who seem to be manipulative don't really make the sale. They might get the attention, but they don't really make the sale because people are worried that if they go along with the sale, something bad. First of all, the sale is not for them. It's for the seller. Everything. But if somebody really creates benefit, then, yeah, well, then that's. That's a nice piece of cheese. And. And so my sense is that more cheese, less whiskers is something that you've done with a vast amount of information and you've summed it up in one sentence, and it mutes. It mutes the efforts of manipulative salespeople, manipulative markers who say, yeah, a little bit too much. I'm seeing a little bit too much whiskers there. Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Dean: Yeah, that's. It's a really. Yeah, that, you know, you and I both have that sort of. I look at things and I'm very, like, detached from. I take the idea and kind of look at it from different angles. I just notice it now, like I've been watching even something simple like what's happening with the fires in. In California or in. In Oregon. And all of this that you're seeing. There's a, you know, a lot of. A lot of fires.

Dan: And you're.

Dean: Now you're starting to see videos of people are showing almost like they've caught people in black hoodies setting the fires. Right. Running through the forest setting the fires.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: And so you immediately see, aha, this is eyewitness video of their setting those fires. Right. And then your brain immediately goes to. Well, if that was your agenda that you wanted to think that that's what's going on, then who's to know whether that guy in the hoodie didn't jump out of the backseat of the car that these guys are in that caught them doing that to stage this whole thing of catching them. See, they are setting these fires, which could be the perfect misdirection for the people who actually are setting the fire fires. If there's people setting the fires, it's this infinite loop of in inconclusive evidence, you know, that you're. It causes you to think, yeah. Amplify whatever your natural.

Dan: Well, predisposition is. And the whole thing is, you know, that we have clients who are from the big cities that are burning.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And quite a part whether it's, you know, you know what the reality of it is, you realize that the closer you are physically to something that's dangerous, actually, it has less. It has less imaginative effect on you than if you're watching it from 3,000 miles away or.

Dean: I think you're right. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. And we noticed that on 911 because we had 100 clients in Chicago on that day. Two workshops, I had 60, and one of the other coaches had 40. And it was an hour later in Chicago or it was an hour earlier. So they were just arriving when, you know, the first teller. I think both tellers had already been attacked. New York. And one of our staff members had brought a little television out to put on concierge desk. And he said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, we can't be watching that. No, no, no, take it away. Don't. You're not going to want to do this, you know. And then the workshop came in. And I started off the workshop and I said, you know, my mother described to me what the shock was of Pearl harbor in 1941. And I said, well, yeah, it's kind of like a 19. This is like a Pearl harbor day. We're obviously.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Something. But I said, here's the thing. You have to make a decision right now whether you're going to be here for the day and doing what you came for, or you're going to make a decision in the next 10 minutes that you're on your way home, because that's going to be the best strategy. But you got to do it in 10 minutes. And if you decide that you're not going to be here, then just pick up your stuff and go out into the lobby and our team members are going to work with all of you to see that you get transportation to where you're going. Okay.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: So, long story short, in about four hours, they had a solution for everybody who wanted to leave. And we were left with maybe 35, 35 out of the hundred in the two rooms. So I said, okay, now really focus today, because this may be the last day this quarter when you can just focus for yourself. And we've got a structure for you to focus. But be here. I don't want anyone in between. I don't want anyone kind of in the workshop, but kind of on the way home. I want you 100% on the way home, or I want you 100% here. And a lot of people have remarked on this over the time. So our team was just run wild in Chicago and what they weren't doing is watching the news, you know, so for probably three or four o' clock, and, you know, and. And, you know, we had to get ready for things. We knew that, you know, airlines had already been shut down, so people weren't. So there were workshops that week. We had to get on the phone and, you know, and arrange with people, you know, whatever. In Toronto, there were no workshops and a large number of our staff were in the cafe watching the whole thing on a big tv when we. The next day we had a meeting with our Chicago team and we just went around and said everything and they were fine. They were fine. We brought in some Krispy Kreme, you know, big box of Krispy Kreme. And they ate and they talked their way through and they told about all the things they had done during the day before to help people. When we got back to Toronto, they were still frozen with fear. They were still frozen with fear by what had happened and everything. And I've noticed this in other situations that if you're ever actually physically close to where something's happening, it's a totally different experience than if you're watching it through the channel of someone else directing you what to think about, directing you to what to watch and think about. And so you're much more active if you're closer because first of all, it may be too close and you're going to have to take some action to get away from it or.

Dan: Yeah, but when you're thousands of miles away, you're in a state of passivity because you have, you have no firsthand experience to say, is this right, is this wrong? Is this what's actually happening? That's just what what's happening. And so that's just an experience, you know, I mean, and I'm sure this is true about the, the fires in the West Coast.

Dean: And it's interesting, Lupa's, Lupa's whole family is in Portland and so she's been sending, showed me videos that her sisters are sending from their, their decks, you know, of all of this apocalypse looking stuff. But you know, it's one of the things that was interesting about the, this whole discussion, all the speculation of whether somebody's setting these fires or whether it's because building evidence of global warming is, you know, it's interesting that the fires are having such a impact. But I said to Luba, you know, then you look at hurricanes, is that our basically unchanged? And it may be because you can't start a hurricane, You can't amplify start a hurricane. It's got to happen naturally, you know, so there's no, no doubt that when hurricane activity is up that something's going on or when it's unchanged, that there's something.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Anyway, that whole. Because you look at the whole. Who benefit. Whenever you look at something, you have to put it through a filter of, well, who benefits from this politically or otherwise. Like if you're going into any election, if you are a, you know, climate change activist, it would really help your case if it appears that there's way. Look at the fires, unprecedented numbers of fires happening and you know.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: And you don't know. There's always that there, whoever, whatever it's happening, any of those things of showing the mysterious black hooded people. It's building a shadow of doubt on both sides. Is it?

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Are they, is somebody starting these fires or does somebody want you to think that somebody's starting these fires? Yeah, they're both equally.

Dan: But they're equally val. Yeah, it's really interesting because, you know, the creation of news, you know, in other words. Yeah. Something that you're touching on here is the. It's almost like performance art, you know, like you're.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Terrorism as performance art or arson as performance art or looting as performance art. Yeah. And. But it's. I think that they really don't have that much control over how it's being taken in. And I know there's been for about six or seven weeks in one political party, there was no mention of it. There was no mention of the, you know, the nightly burning and looting and arson. And then all of a sudden a set of polls came in and it showed that, you know, the one side was actually being disadvantaged from this, and it wasn't the side that the news media thought would be disadvantaged. It was the other side that was being disadvantaged from it. And all of a sudden all them, in unison started saying, no, peaceful demonstrations are good, but looting, arson, and everything is wrong. And so they, you know, and now there's an investigation. They're going to invest. Investigate as their organization and funding for these riots. And now they're, you know, they're. They're digging deeper into, you know, one thing is who benefits, but the other thing is who pays, you know? Yeah, yeah.

Dean: That's where you have to go.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: And all those. And sometimes all you have to do is cast that shadow of doubt or that little spark of. Of a thought about it. And really the reason that that stuff catches fire in our minds so much more is that pessimism is the winning genetic trait. That's the thing that has, you know, the optimism is great, but the pessimism has kept us alive sort of thing, you know, like going down the trail. A optimist, you know, they hear something in the jungle and they go, do you hear that? Oh, it's nothing. Let's keep going. That's the optimist thinking. And the pessimist says, no, no, no, I'm getting out of here. And the pessimist runs away and survives. The optimist keeps going and gets eaten. And so genetically getting weeded out as well. That optimism is the survival trait, you know.

Dan: Yeah, well, I've been thinking about that and, you know, and I'm an. I'm an optimist for myself. Yeah. I'm not necessarily an optimist for others people, in other words, that I like. I have pretty good spidey sense, you know, like in most situations. And I think I've done a lot of, you know, early thinking and early preparation on a lot of things in my life, but it hasn't been true for people that I Know, you know, like, you know, like, what I'm saying is my optimism about that I would be able to respond to this did not extend. Did I think that other people could respond to this, you know, so it depends on, you know, because you and I are very connected. We talk to a lot of people and I mean, on average day. And I think pessimism really requires, on the individual basis, a certain amount of feeling of isolation. Yeah, yeah. Where an optimist said, you know, entrepreneurs

Dean: are optimists in general, higher level than, you know, I mean, if you take like, just like, if you look at our Colby's, where disproportionately quick start. I think they're also disproportionately optimist because you have to be an optimist to take the risk in the first place. Right. To go out.

Dan: Yeah. And we're disproportionate. I think both of us are disproportionately. Oblivious to what other people consider important facts.

Dean: Right. I think that's true. Yes.

Dan: I mean, the important facts are the facts that support my optimism.

Dean: Right, Exactly. That's the best.

Dan: Huh?

Dean: And now we've got access to them.

Dan: Yeah. People said, well, why do you think that way? I said, jennifer, walk up the front steps at our office in Toronto or walk in the, you know, the lobby of our office in Chicago. And they say, yeah. I said, do you ever see a saying on the wall? Remember there's a series of words on the wall and it's got my signature under them? And they said, yeah, yeah. I said, our eyes only see and our ears only hear what our brain is looking for. I said, what do you think that means? What do you think that means?

Dean: Yes.

Dan: And that's how can I control what my brain's looking for? And I said, train it.

Dean: Yes, exactly. That's funny.

Dan: Take it to brain training school.

Dean: And that's what happened. Then the algorithm learns. You're training the algorithm to only show you the things that you are interested in. That's. Yeah, that's pretty. It's funny how, you know, we're in the grips of that. I'm trying to figure out the balance. You're probably, you know better than anybody I know you're probably doing the best job of being, let's say, in it, but not of it, in Cloudlandia, but not of it. You know, that you're taking advantage of all of the good things, but it's on your terms. And we're all admiring the people who can withdraw from it.

Dan: I mean, Figuring out what your terms is a lifetime activity, you know, because you're, you're, you know, you're going forward in a world that's changing, you know, changing. And so your terms have to be updated all the time. What constitutes your terms? Like, like one of the things, I'll give you an example. I was noticing for a long time into Covid that if it said the zoom meeting started at 9 o'. Clock. It started at 9 o'. Clock. Okay. Yeah, okay. And you know, and if the meeting to get ready for the zoom call was at 8:30, it started at 8:30. And I said, you know something, I'm really finding this kind of irritating that things start exactly when they say. And I said because at the, in the in person workshops, both for the team preparation before the workshop and the workshop itself, people come early. Yeah, like, like people come early. And I said, so I put in a rule. That meeting for the team has to start 10 minutes before the scheduled time and that. And I said that when the clients are going to have, the entrepreneurs are going to arrive at 9 o' clock, the first time we have one person in the waiting, whatever they call it, the waiting, the waiting room. Yeah. I said bring them in, bring them in. Yeah, you came in five minutes early and let's chat with them. And, and they said well, you know, they'll expect that. And I said well that's good. Let them all show up, Let them all show up early.

Dean: Right? That's a great insight. That's a great, yeah. And I said, because so much of, I was gonna say so much of the value of being at the in person events is the in between stuff is just, that is the. Because when I get, when I come to the live events, I always try and arrive at 8:15 or you know, I'm leaving, I leave my hotel at 8:00 clock to get there at 8:15. So I'm 45 visiting, have breakfast, 47.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. And everything else. And I said, you know, we've got a, there's some parts from the mainland that are actually good. They're. Yeah, you know, there's kind of like mainland lubrication, you know, in terms of it's not this sharp, you know, sharp machinery on machinery. I said, and, and everything like that. And I noticed this week it was a lot better. You know, it's like, yeah, meetings at 8, 8:30, but the word goes out open at 8:20. And then we'll just let the clients, you know, we're not going to put out any general Announcement about it. But if they get there 10 minutes early and they're there. Yeah, bring them in, let's have it. Let's have a chat with them, let's talk to them and everything else and. Yeah, yeah. And I think it would be great

Dean: if Zoom offered a, you know, if you could have a cocktail party mode where everybody is there, but you could go and invite somebody into a bubble. So you could. Yeah, there's.

Dan: I think some of the, Some of the food services and alcohol services could probably cash in on that is have a wine party. And we'll deliver. We'll deliver the food and the wine.

Dean: You just. Right.

Dan: You know, if it's local, one company can do it and it's not local. But my sense is like for the, for the free zone, you know, you have the first day for free zone and which is 10 times and then you have the pre zone, but that night's a party. So we're going to have a party in between, you know, a Zoom party in between. Yeah, we'll take about, you know, we'll take about. Well, it'll end at 3:00', clock, Chicago time, the workshop, and 10 times, and let's say at 4, we're going to have a party 4 to 6 or something like that. And you know, and one of the things we're going to experiment this time, if there's a group you want to get together with, just send a note. Could you, could you put us in a private, you know, breakout group? Yeah, and we'll do it. We'll do it. Because you do that in a party anyway. You get a group together and you're.

Dean: That's what I mean. You could like hand. Somehow have a thing where you could hand select a, A little bubble of four.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Say, hey, let's go. There's, you know, like to imagine, hey, I want to talk with, With Nick Danton and Joel Zadak and Alex Epstein. That would be.

Dan: Yeah, I mean, we have a party.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: You know, if we have a party for 40 at one of our houses, you know, when I think about the evening afterwards and I reflect, I said, I talked to about 12 people in depth, you know, where you.

Dean: Right. Yeah.

Dan: 5, 10, 15 minutes. I said, well, we can do that electronically. And, you know, and, you know, even

Dean: if I had randomized, where you're random. Randomized, random foursomes, you know, where you're. You could do it in a group of four.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. You could do a random. I mean, it's two hours, you know, and there's no breaks. I mean, you take your own break and so on. But my sense is that you're going back and forth. You know, the main. The main. The mainland has an advantage that the Broadlandia doesn't have. And it's called the law of gravity. Gravity. It's called the law of hunger. It's called the law of hunger. I mean, there's a lot of physical things that the mainland still rules. And my sense is, can we do an agreement? You know, in other words, there's this negotiation going on between the mainland. And I said, you know, probably some of the most powerful new products, new experiences, is where it's actually a collaboration between the mainland and Cloudlandia. Not a competition. Not a competition between them, but a collaboration.

Dean: Yeah, I think that's. I think that's pretty amazing. This whole.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Where you're really embracing that. It's not just the alternative. It can be an answer. You know, I like this idea. I've been saying that the. This is the time to bring back the Learning Annex. You know, this would be the kind of thing. Do you remember in Toronto, they were.

Dan: Oh, yeah.

Dean: Oh, yeah.

Dan: The city was really rough. That came out of. What's that big tall building that's on Forest Street West? It became sort of the radical building.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: Yeah, it was like at. I think it was before. Yeah, it was before Spadina, but it was on the south side of Forestry, but. And it was where drugs took place. It's where everything. But I think the Learning Annex came out of that building originally. You know, it was.

Dean: Wow. Interesting.

Dan: Yeah. I have to. I'll have to recall. Call that.

Dean: Yeah. But, you know, imagine now that that's the kind of thing where you could literally have, you know, small sessions like that.

Dan: Well, well, take a look at your closing leads. Closing leads.

Dean: I mean, my lead conversion workshop. Yeah.

Dan: No, Paul and you know, you know, and Rachel, they just loved that. They just thought it was wonderful, you know, like. Yeah. And my sense is I'm going to do one. I'm giving you advanced warning on this. I'm going to do a discussion group that will put the dates in the calendar where we're going to talk about zoom. And anybody who's got zoom, bypasses, zoom tricks, zoom, things can come on. And Nick Natten is going to come on and. Because Nick has adjusted his entire filmmaking to zoom. And he said, you know, if you take some time ahead of time and get some good cameras and send the cameras to people and tell them, look, don't be sitting in front of A window. When you take your, you know, when you take your. Right. I mean, there. I still notice some people, you know, they never look at the screen. They never look at the screen. They're looking off. And I said, I said, yeah. I'm trying to figure out why they don't get that they're the only one on the screen that's not looking at the screen, you know. Right.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Why don't you just look right into the screen that everybody else is looking at, you know? But I don't want to be the person correcting people Zoom behavior, you know, like.

Dean: Right, right, right.

Dan: Yeah. And I'm not going to do it, you know, I'm not. I'm not going to do it in public anyway. But, you know, some tips. There's just some very basic tips that, you know, if you are wearing something dark, it actually works better if you have good lighting, you know?

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Like, like you and I. You especially. And then I imitated you. But you. The. A, you know, a crew neck. Crew neck sweater or sweatshirt that's dark.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Is actually perfect Zoom attire.

Dean: Right. That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. It makes such a difference. Like having my little Zoom room. My Zoom studio is like. I call it my private jet, you know, having my jet is a big. It's a big thing. Perfect lighting, perfect background. It's. Yeah. Well, here.

Dan: Here's something that we can talk about on a future episode.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: That the experience of traveling and, you know, all the different steps of travel. Let's say a trip from Toronto to Chicago or from, you know, Winter Haven to Chicago. There's. It's not one thing. It's about five or six different experiences and unexpected things can happen during those six stages. You might have a long, like, even with Nexus, you know, going through.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Zoom happened. I was still. We were still waiting in line for 45 minutes, you know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: You know, the whole purpose of Zoom is not to wait in line for 45 minutes, you know, so there's that and, you know, there's all these, like, after 9 11, you were waiting for an hour and a half to get through security, you know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And everything like, that takes a lot of energy out of the. You. One of the things I know, it just takes a lot of energy out of you, so that by the time you actually get to the experience, you actually used up 40% of the anticipated energy reserve that you had set aside for the experience. So you only have 60% left, huh?

Dean: Yes, yes. That's absolutely. I agree with you a hundred percent. I think about that whole thing like literally that, all of that in between, stuff that happens there, you know, so much of it.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dean: And you know, so zoomer for life.

Dan: Well, yeah, I think we were born zoomers for life. What did your, what did your second or third grade teacher. What was the comment?

Dean: That's right, that well, Dean is able to achieve excellent results with what seems like little effort. Imagine if he applied himself.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. You just didn't want to apply yourself to things that were not in your favor.

Dean: I think that's true. I think I've thought about that. That would be a nice book title. Imagine if you applied yourself but then scratch out applied yourself and said quit trying so hard, did only the things you really love and still did great and still get everything you want. I mean that's great. That would be a great book title because that's really what I've ended up doing, you know.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. Well, it was interesting. We were at almost at the closing time here. But one of the things over the six months I've had conversations with people who are very worried about their children's education and what was going to happen. And they were saying this and they were saying this and this and everything else. Yeah. But I says here's the bright spot. Just think of who isn't talking to them for the six month period.

Dean: That is exactly right. Do you know what I summed it up for Philip? 1212 years old, seventh grade. I given him now the core of the thing that's only give you the secret to 80% of life is number one, show up on time. Number two, do what you say you're gonna do. And number three, say please and thank you.

Dan: Start your start. Yeah.

Dean: Finish what you start and.

Dan: Yeah. And finishing with your. Finishing what you said also includes deciding not to finish it.

Dean: Yes, I'm finished with that coming. Putting it to it.

Dan: In other words, people say, well what if I committed myself to this and now I've decided it's not any good and I don't want to finish it. I said, well tell yourself that I thought this was going to be a right thing. I got going. I've learned something. And now I declare the project finished because. Because I've learned something and I don't have to go all the way through the end. I said it's not, it's not a straight jacket. I said it's actually just to keep you from, you know, wasting your time on what you don't have to waste your time. Yeah, but the I Just have to say, I. Well, here's the thing. We were in Halliburton for our cottages near the town of Halliburton, and we're in an area called Halliburton and we were at a restaurant which was open, you know, spaced, but open. And waitress that we know, she's a regular there, was talking about going back to school in the Halliburton School Board. She was talking about the school board. And in January, I think that they. For. I don't know if it was for the whole region or what, but they had. They had basically a thousand children and it was 1 to 12. One. Yeah, 1 to 12. And in September it was 1300. Oh, where'd the other 300 come from?

Dean: Yeah, that's.

Dan: They came from the city and they're not going back to the city.

Dean: City.

Dan: What it means is that the household has moved. That's.

Dean: And you see, we're seeing, you know, headlines everywhere, people fleeing the city.

Dan: Yeah, yeah.

Dean: Suburbs are winning and now soon are winning. Harry Dent may have been right about one thing.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But finally, yeah. I think that the city got pushed to an extreme. In other words, cities have an advantage. They have an advantage. But at a certain point, what it takes to live, what it takes to get to the city is now in the range of disadvantage. And quite frankly, if you're spending a half hour more getting to work now than you were 20 years ago, you've been slowly accumulating disadvantage, you know. Yeah. And now it's even worse because the big office hours are open, but there can only be two people in an elevator at a time. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Which is probably less a problem going up than it is going down.

Dean: Yeah. Probably less of a problem going up than going down. Oh, yeah. Because at least we have a sense of how long it's going to take to.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: You don't know how long.

Dan: In lobby, you're in line, but. Right. Standing on your floor, there's no line.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Yeah. And you can see the cars going right by you, you know, like, you can see the cars, you know. 50.

Dean: That's another win. There's no elevators in Cloudlandia.

Dan: You're in 47. You know. You know what they'd need? They'd need pole shafts. Yes. You have a chap.

Dean: You can just take the pole down.

Dan: It's just a pole.

Dean: Fat polls. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: That's funny. I love it.

Dan: Yeah. Okay, great talking with you. Talk to you next Sunday.

Dean: I love it. Thanks, Dan.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Okay, talk to you soon. Bye.