Who's in Cloudlandia

Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia.

Dan: Yes. Are you the maitre d?

Dean: I am the welcoming committee. We are, you and I together, the official, self appointed. What do we call ourselves?

Dan: And you can do that, and you can do that today.

Dean: That is one of the foundational elements of Cloudlandia. Self appointment.

Dan: Yes, Self, self appointment for all. Yes, yes. And then your young people will see if you can prove it. Yes.

Dean: That's it. It's up to you. Now. You say you could do it, do it. That's right.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's very, very energizing. But I've been thinking this week about the in between zone between the mainland and Cloudlandia. And you remember about 25 years ago I talked about my Four Seasons lifestyle and yes, about that.

Dean: Adopted for myself.

Dan: Totally adopted. Totally adopted. Actually, probably literally change. And. But so just to fill in our listeners, back in the 80s when Babs and I started being successful with our coaching company, we would go to cities and, you know, I would have speaking engagements or we would go just for pleasure. And we started staying at Four Seasons Hotels, which is actually a Toronto company which started back in the 1970s and then gradually went worldwide. They just had a terrific customer experience. You know, they've got all sorts of rules for that that we could cover at another time. Because I think that a lot of the Four Seasons thinking about mainland experience actually crosses over and you could use some of it for Claude Landy experience. But anyway, so one of the things that became apparent to me that if you're an entrepreneur, you have much greater freedom to design your work life, obviously, and that's the first principle of entrepreneurism, is that you can design your work life, but if you're really successful, you can also do a better job of designing your personal life. And both you and I have, are probably a quarter century into this principle. And then I think that I have learned enormous amount from you, you know, with your partnership with Joe Polish. I love marketing because Cloudlandia is a marketing realm. The probably the greatest skill in Cloudlandia is really marketing. And you know, whereas you could be successful in the mainland by being a salesperson where you can, you know, you can actually be persuasive face to face with people. In Quadlandia, you can't be face to face in the same way so that marketing becomes the super skill in Quadlandia. And so right now, Dean, if you look at the last seven months, there's people who are just extraordinarily successful in Cloudlandia because they've grasped this marketing Principle and more so entrepreneurs are being very, very successful in the mainland because they can arrange their living environment the way they want to, because they can put, you know, high quality mainland lifestyle together with global reach. Cloudlandia skills.

Dean: Mm.

Dan: But.

Dean: Yes, but they're the best.

Dan: But the vast majority of humanity is somewhere in between those two worlds. They don't necessarily have their. They don't necessarily have their personal life at the quality that really makes them happy. And they don't have the new reach to use your vision capability, reach model. They don't have that. So they're in between. And my sense is that most entrepreneurial activity is allowing individuals who are in what I call the crossover zone that they can make progress in the crossover zone. And the crossover zone goes two ways. One is as you gain greater, greater virtual capabilities, you make more money and you're able to improve your mainland experience. So I think that'll, I think a lot of the, what we see as the greatest entrepreneurial activities going forward is helping individuals who are in the crossover zone.

Dean: And I think that's really the. It's wise that there's a lot of people that are getting tripped up in the straddling of it, deciding whether they're going to, you know, they kind of have to make up their mind whether they're going to make their home in the mainland or whether it would be better for them to bring their family and their business and their life into Cloudlandia that can harbor their future and make a home in Cloudlandia. Yeah, sounds like that.

Dan: Right. But do we, I mean, do we. I mean, you don't live in Cloudlandia.

Dean: You.

Dan: No, but you. Yeah.

Dean: Your business. Yeah, I mean, the reason I'm. The reason I'm.

Dan: I think you have a street. You have a street address, you know, and you own real estate. Yes.

Dean: So that's.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. So. But you have it the way you want it. I. I think the next thing is that you can have with Cloudlandia powers, you can really, really design your actual mainland to be just as you want it.

Dean: Yes. I'm laughing because, Dan, what I just said there, I was paraphrasing something that I found online that was a. In a pamphlet from 1917 written by an immigrant to America handed out to people coming on Ellis through Ellis Island. And it was convince or, you know, giving the argument for them of you've got to kind of, because a lot of people would come to America to check it out kind of thing to see whether this was the thing and this immigrant was Trying to say to people, just compare all the things of what was on what's in the old country compared to the new country kind of thing and to let their, you know, help them see what greater opportunities there are in America. And it was written,

Dan: I would love to get a copy of that if you can.

Dean: Damn it. Only somebody cared about you enough to do something like that. Of course I've got one for you. Yes. Yeah, but it is, it's something, you know, I was watching now are you

Dan: going to send it, Are you going to Send it by U.S. mail or you just going to send me a

Dean: link to send you through Cloudlandia? A PDF link? Yes, yeah, I'll send you the link right to it. But Dan, it was so funny.

Dan: But you know, that's the thing that we're immigrants, you know, I've often talked about that. Immigrants, when they arrived in a new place generally do better than people who were born in that place and took it for granted right from the beginning. Because the immigrants arrived has to leave almost all their symbols of status and oftentimes they have to leave advantage behind. They have to leave a relationship behind. The capabilities that got them paid in where they were don't get them paid in the new place. And they have to start over. And as a result of that they're much more alert and curious and responsive and resourceful. The native born people who have advantages that they were born with but don't realize that they're advantages.

Dean: And it's so, it was just so parallel. I've been watching at lunch time. Philip is as I mentioned, home schooling now at lunchtime. So we've been watching great like historical series to kind of give him some perspective thing. And so this one that we're watching now is called the Story of Us and it's basically the whole history of America. And that was one of the things that struck me as I heard them say we're up to around 1917 now in Ellis island and the whole thing. And they were reading from something that, you know, pamphlet that was handed out for how to, you know, kind of be successful in the new land. And I, I went, I did some why didn't do it. I had Magic do the little research to see if they could find some stuff. So there talk about who not how as an experience there. We've, we've mentioned before in our, our Joy of Procrastination podcast the Get Magic as a, the Get Magic app as a, you know, a little who in your pocket to be able to say to Them, Hey, I was just watching this documentary and I heard them talk

Dan: about

Dean: information that was given out.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: So she spent an hour and found the. Found this great archive of stuff. Yeah, yeah, very exciting.

Dan: Can I share another thought? Because it really relates to what you're talking about right now. I had another thought and it has to do with technology. Just say technology going forward. And because of Cloudlandia, I have a thought. You know, I'm just playing around with this thought. And it is that going forward, unless the technology enables greater teamwork, it's probably not a very useful technology. And certainly a technology that interferes with teamwork is a loser. You know, it's a. It's a loser. And simply because of the who not how concept, that in Cloudlandia is who not how in mainland, people still are doing how to get what they want, but in Cloudland, it makes no sense whatsoever to do the how when. There's a who can do the how.

Dean: Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah. It's so funny. On my, you know, the other. Some of the other podcasts that I do, I do a. I do a podcast called More Cheese, Less Whiskers, which you were. Yes, guest number two on, which was great.

Dan: Yes, yes, yes, indeed.

Dean: Yeah. And I do one for real estate agents called the Listing Agent Lifestyle. And this week I'm simulcasting to, you know, to celebrate the launch of your new who not how book, a three part series.

Dan: Yeah. Can I ask you something about the who Not Outlook? What's the first printed part of that book? What does the first printed part of that book say once you get inside

Dean: the COVID There we go. Exactly. That's. The first part is to Dean Jackson.

Dan: Dedicated to Dean Jackson. To Dean Jackson.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: No other name on the page, just Dean Jackson. Dean Jackson. And you know, and you know, first of all, it was real pleasure to do and of course I'm very, very grateful. But I think that what I'm demonstrating there, I mean, quite apart from whether you know, that it's between you and me and it has to do with our relationship and everything else, my sense is the first principle that really, it's kind of like the Golden Rule of Cloud by India, is that you. You recognize, acknowledge and thank the who, who actually put you on. On this road.

Dean: Yes. Well, I appreciate that. Yeah. And that I think you're. You're absolutely right. So Joe Polish and I did a series, you know, three episodes where I was introducing the concept of the self milking cow, which was the sort of where this all happened. Came From So over the next three weeks, we're playing that series simulcasting on More Cheese, Less Whiskers and the Listing Agent Lifestyle, all directing people to get the who, not how book to see how it all comes full circle. So very excited about that. And it doesn't mean every. The reception of the. The book that you and Ben have written is. Is amazing. So that's all.

Dan: Yeah, well, you know, we went through the first 10. We went through the first 10,000 in about a week. And you know, I mean, and Hay House, the publisher really had to hustle because they.

Dean: There's.

Dan: Strangely enough, or not strangely enough, there's a paper shortage for publishers for two reasons. One, people are reading more during the downturn and 70% of it is actual books. It's not ebooks.

Dean: Right.

Dan: And that's been constant now for about six years. It's 30. 30% ebook and 70% paper. But the other thing is a lot of the paper mills and the people dealing with paper were shut down too. They were in lockdown. So, yeah, there was a backlog.

Dean: Backlog.

Dan: But, you know, we have the next 10,000 coming in this week, so that's good. And you know, and we had this wonderful session yesterday that Joe organized. You and Joe, I guess you and Joe organized about actually using Cloudlandia skills now to get the word out to, you know, contactless and everybody about who, not how. And it's an instant, you know, in my entire life, it's the most instant understanding, understandable new thought that just hits people. You know, here's the goal. Great goal. You know, be passionate about the goal. Enjoy the goal. But don't discourage yourself by thinking you have to do all the hows to get the goal. Do the house that you actually have that are good house, but get who's to help you out, you know?

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: People say, oh my gosh, yeah. And you know what it is, Dean? I think it's giving people permission for something they've always wanted to do, but they thought it was cheating.

Dean: I think it's true. And I think that the way I've been. I shared with you yesterday the. You know, I had this realization in my journal yesterday, yesterday morning, thinking that this is really what it leads to when you really understand who, not how. It really takes the ceiling off what you view as your capabilities. And it gives you a word I've been using is capability, confidence, which kind of totally fits with your idea of cash confidence. But having capability confidence is that you realize I imagined it like those how they, you know, Train the elephants to stay in a tight circle by you know, putting, tying them to a big

Dan: post right when they were little.

Dean: They could only go, yeah, when they were little. And then at the end all it takes is a little like ring, tent, tent thing. And the elephant doesn't think it has the strength to pull away from it. And when you realize that it doesn't have to be my capabilities now my vision can expand to include not only what I can do, but what the world can do. And I start thinking about like going deeper into that thing is like I think it really. This collaborative mindset is, is different than this competitive mindset of feeling that I used the example of Nick Nanton. Nick Nanton is a 16 time Emmy winning documentary filmmaker. And I started saying what could I do? What would my vision be? What could I do if I was a 16 time Emmy winning director or I had the access to the capabilities of a 16 time.

Dan: It's very, it's very interesting. I've got a really great, great in our client base and I just got a request for a podcast which I did on Friday with him because he's going through a process where somebody's offered him a large amount of money for his dealers, which is a, is a luxury car dealership. So it's not, you know, it's not mid range, it's luxury car dealership and exclusively, exclusively plus service, you know, everything related to that because he, two things. He's only in his 30s, but he's got a, you know, he's got a, already a growing family, quite a large size growing family and he's very, very committed to, very committed to Israel and he wants his kids to grow up in Israel and The oldest is 10. And I said, well, this is your last year where you're a hero to that one. So you know, he should probably do it pretty quickly. And he's, but the thing that he's torn with, he says, I'm really passionate about the, you know, the team I put together, the system I put together. And he's been in coach for about six, seven and. But he's second generation. His father actually created the dealership to begin with, but he's really brought systems to it and, and he's not, he's, he's not really a front stage person, but he's a really great backstage person. He understands teams, he understands how to put teams, anything. So. But here's the problem, you know, and I've seen it a lot with entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs. He said it'll be great we'll have the money. We can have the lifestyle we want. We have a lot of connections. Everyone is totally supportive of us doing this. As, you know, his, you know, his partner, his wife is totally. The kids are excited about it. Everybody's excited about it. But he said, on the other side of the sale, I just see a hole from the standpoint of working. And he said. And he said, this is the thing that stops me. There's a hole on the other side. And so I immediately thought, yeah, but what are the transportable capabilities that you have? You know? And he said, well, you know, I mean, I run a car dealership.

Dan: And I said, well, that's how, you know, I mean, that's how the newspapers would report you on you. But that has nothing to do with, you know, that has nothing to do with why you've been so successful. And I said, are you really? Oh, yeah. He says, we've been the number one dealership in Canada for the last three or four years. He said, and not by a little, by a lot. And I said, okay, so here's. Here's an exercise for you. Draw a circle. And inside the circle, write down everything that would make you a great luxury car dealership that falls in the area of known best practices. In other words, that there's. I said, there's other good dealerships selling your type of car and other places, and actually who's buying them out as a large network of dealerships, you know, in western Canada. And, you know, and they're paying him. You know, they're paying him a bonus for it. They really want his dealership. You know, they. And they don't have anything where he is, and they want to get that. So anyway, I said, just draw a circle. What everybody in your industry knows that makes them good. Okay? And then outside the circle, everything. Write down everything that you've done that makes you unique. In other words, other people don't know what you don't. And write that because, first of all, to give you an understanding why they pay, why they made you such a great. They didn't make you a great offer because you can do what they do. They made you a great offer because of what they can't do. Okay?

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Does that make sense?

Dean: Yeah, absolutely.

Dan: And then I said, did they approach you directly or was there an intermediate? And he says, well, in the auto business is how it works. There's agents, there's transit. You know, they buy and sell dealerships. They're the interim. And I said, have a long conversation with this person. Or short, if it's useful. And say, what were the three things that. That made you stand out in his eyes? It was a man, his eyes, that made it easy for him to do, you know, to draw the attention of this other, you know, this other, the buyer, you know, the person who wanted to buy it, and add that to your circle exercise, and then I'll set up another call and you tell me what you found out. I said, you know, you've been playing a great game, but you haven't been observing yourself while you're playing the game and you don't have an appreciation of your uniqueness. And I said, the hole that you have to fill on the other side will come not what everybody knows about this business, but it's what you know uniquely.

Dean: That's.

Dan: And I said, those are the transportable skills. And I said, you have to get a handle of your unique transportable skills or. And. And I said, look, I'm not saying sell, I'm not saying keep it. I'm saying that this exercise will do you good, whichever one you do. Mm.

Dean: And that's something you learn that the things that are outside of the circle of most things are totally transferable. You take that now and apply it to a high end furniture store or to anything. Right. A hotel. I mean, it's really all the things that you. That you learn. That's true.

Dan: Yeah. And, you know, and it's like the golden age of Broadway music were essentially European immigrants who came over, largely Jewish. You know, they're Jewish because they had to get out of Europe. But they came over and they were classically trained. You know, their dream was to write symphony orchestras. And they got to the United States, and the United States couldn't care less about symphony orchestras except a certain wealthy class of people or intellectual class. What Americans really like is entertainment. And they like a good tune and they like great lyrics. And so the 1920s, 1930s, 40s, 50s, probably up to the 60s, those 40 years were dominated by classically trained immigrants or first generation. You know, they were born. You know, they either came here very young or they were born here, but they had this tradition, this classical music. And they really, really know, they knew. Knew how to, you know, compose. They knew how, they knew lyrics and everything, but they had to relate themselves to popular music. And, you know, and it's oftentimes people born somewhere else that master some skills and then cross over to another world and the skills they're bringing into that world, none of the people who are born and raised in that World have those skills because they just got the skills that you would have from being born there. And so these are entirely new skills.

Dean: And.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Wow. And see, you know, it's. So much of it is recognizing capability confidence.

Dan: You should. You should really develop that one Capability confidence. That's a great one.

Dean: Yeah, I think it. Well, I think it is.

Dan: Well, the vt. The VCR is capability comp. The VCR that you created is vcr.

Dean: That's an element of it, for sure.

Dan: Well, it's how to know. Totally. Because your capability is that you can have a big vision. It's that you have capabilities available to you and those capabilities give you reach. I think all three of those make up the capability confidence. Yes.

Dean: And that's something when you look at. Did you get the email I sent you with that link to the Elon Musk article about when he first started pursuing rockets? Yeah, it was a cold outreach email or message that he left for someone who's like a rocket. Yeah, you know, scientists

Dan: looking. Looking for rock. Looking for people who are rocket sciences. Yeah, scientists, yeah. And I don't care if you're staying at Holiday Inn Express.

Dean: Right, Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was funny that there's a guy who had a big vision and he had cash confidence because he was an Internet Internet billionaire and thought, I don't want money. I want to use my money to really do something worthwhile. And I've got this vision for us being an interplanetary species. And that's. So I want to move forward on that. And there you go. That's how. That's the beginning of SpaceX. And now.

Dan: Yep.

Dean: Next thing you know, we're heading to Mars.

Dan: Yeah, I was right. I saw a neat idea that he had the other day and that is he said, you know, maybe the first thing we should do with Mars is take the satellite networks that we're building here on Earth. You know, they're putting in massive so that there's Internet everywhere on the planet. And he says maybe we should do it for Mars. You know, rather than going there and trying to, you know, create a development, why don't we just start putting satellites? And it's a tricky business because gravitational pull on Mars is only 1/6 on Earth. So there's some. There's some phenomenal physics that you gotta conquer, you know, to do it and anyway. But it's kind of interesting, you know, because he knows how to put satellites up, you know, I mean, he uses the rockets to put satellites up and he says maybe, maybe we should just put 100 satellites above Mars. And, you know, with, you know, all the thermal technology, thermal photography technology and that, we should really map out Mars. Maybe we should do that first. And you know, when we go, let's make sure that of all the places we could land, this is in the top 1% of places where we should land for everything that we discover from the satellites. Right?

Dean: Super smart. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. I mean, one, one, one rocket could put up 40, 50 satellites. I mean, that's, it's, it's not like one satellite per trip. You can put up a lot of satellites.

Dean: I didn't realize that.

Dan: Yeah, when they put them up like a rocket, you know, with a thing will put up now because the rock, you know, the satellites are putting up are, you know, not much bigger than a basketball. You know, a lot of them are, you know, they're, they're small bass and they just release them. You know, they just release them. And in Earth you can, you're having them at a certain speed. And they have solar, you know, they have solar energy. You know, they can, they can, you know, they can energize themselves just from, from the sun. But it's very, very, very interest. And I would say that in the last four years, they probably made more progress towards spaceflight than in the previous. Since the 70s.

Dean: Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty awesome. And I've been collecting a vision. I've been sort of. It's on my radar now that I see these things, that there's another gentleman who is about to launch supersonic travel again since the Concorde. This, this guy's got a new venture where they're making, you know, commercial airliners that will, that will be supersonic. And again, his strategy was he didn't know anything about it really what he would spend. He would fly out to, you know, Nevada and Utah or some. Wherever the, you know, these pilots would hang out and he would kind of get to know them. And all the aviation, all the jet aviation guys, he would just be in proximity to them, learn and befriend and ask questions and get to know and then really put himself. So he found the right, who's. Who can, who can help put it together. So. It's amazing.

Dan: Yes. Yeah, it's really, I mean, it's really interesting, you know, and of course, there's a lot of free agents today because of the lockdown and that, you know, all the airline companies right now are startups, you know, because they, they gotta start over with their scheduling model, their service model, everything. Everybody's Back to square one now with the, you know, with the airline industry and, you know, and, you know, I, you know, I'm more and more convinced that Zoom as a transportation system.

Dean: Yes. Well, you know, there's an interesting thing that there's a couple of things that Zoom is a good illustration of. Number one, Zoom has, I don't know, I haven't seen the numbers, but, I mean, huge growth over the last.

Dan: Yeah, well, it's 40 times 40 times 40.

Dean: But what that. Also, what that was a. What had to happen was that they already had traction and were already there and saw this future that not everybody was on board with yet, but they were there. And I think I shared with you about the, you know, these TikTok people that they were in the water already, paddling with, on their board, pointed in the right direction so that when the tsunami came, they were already able to. They were positioned to really take advantage of that rather than all the other people now who are trying to circle in behind and really catch up to this tsunami. You know, so there's an element of leaping before you're seeing at the early signs is being there ahead of time. This, this story of us. Yeah, it's a story right now.

Dan: Yeah, no, no, it's. It's very, very true. And, you know, in our free zone, we have a financial advisor who, you know, who has been, you know, had as clients the lead people in Zoom for, you know, for, you know, number. You know, he's one of a number of people. But he said that they were totally ready for this. He said that, you know, he said that if anything, they had the vision, they had the capability. What they didn't have is the reach. And what I mean by reach, they didn't have hundreds of millions of people suddenly said, what are we going to do now that we can't go to work now that we can't fly? You know, so that's what gave them the reach. But they had the vision and capability before, you know, before they did it. And it's a perfect example for me that the most disruptive force in the world is unpredictable consumers with a new capability.

Dean: Yeah, well, here's. So that's where I was thinking about this. They're at the stage in this documentary about the transcontinental railroad where we go from opening up the west, right? And the government didn't have the money to pay the railroad, you know, to build the railroad, but they gave them. They paid them in land. And have you mentioned that? Do you know how. How far on Each side of the.

Dan: Well, I think it varied, but it was like a quarter mile or something or you know, I mean, I think it varied.

Dean: Quarter mile. A quarter mile on each side or whatever.

Dan: Yeah. So you're getting basically a half a mile cord or you know. Yeah. And you know, so you know, and then, you know, everybody who wants to use the railroad, then you put in stations and all the land.

Dean: Every, every eight miles there's a new station and. Yeah, that this led to the standardizing of time with the four.

Dan: Yep. First four Canadian, by the way. A Canadian, by the way.

Dean: Yeah. Which from.

Dan: From Brant. I think from Brantford somewhere, you know, where you used to live. Yeah, yeah. Well, the big problem was you, you were having trains were using a single track, but.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Going both ways. So you had a.

Dean: Okay, that's a problem.

Dan: You had a real, you real problem. So they had to put in sightings all the place because before the universal time went in, mainly 24 hour time.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: You could have noon in Toronto, but it wasn't noon in Hamilton. You know, I mean think about where you were living. Yeah, you had, you had trains moving in both directions but on the same track. And you know, they had. One year they had like 40,000 people killed in train. Train wrecks. And it was usually because of that. Yeah, that was as high as automobile, you know, because.

Dean: Wow.

Dan: Wow.

Dean: As automobiles now. Wow.

Dan: Trains were colliding, you know, and, and or they were doing repair. They were doing a repair on the bridge. And you know, and that's why the telegraph came in. You couldn't do universal time until you had the telegraph because you had to have as close as you could have instantaneous time. So if I'm in Toronto and I'm telegraphing to Chicago 500 miles at the most, it's a microsecond difference from when I hit the thing until the click happens on the other end. So it was good enough. It was good enough technology.

Dean: Yeah. But then, you know, Sears, I didn't realize this, but Sears and Roebuck was built on the on station rail.

Dan: Station station masters.

Dean: Station masters needing pocket watches. And that was really the beginning of it. And then the railroad, he saw the railroad as what it truly was, a distribution network. Now they could have goods that could be distributed to the entire country from capability and reach. Yes, but the vision of seeing it. Yeah, there's so many parallels. This is why, this is why it's so, you know, exciting to look back at these, you know, these historical junk dams. Like we're at, like that was A big one where we're all of a sudden at a place where we have a new capability called. You can get anywhere in the country now. You can go from Boston to Sacramento, all the way across. On the railroad.

Dan: Yeah. Well, the whole point. Other than that, you know, it was my wagon train. It was like two months. Very, very risky, you know.

Dean: Six months. Six months.

Dan: Six months. And if you wanted to take a boat ride around South, Americ can come up.

Dean: It was. Yes.

Dan: You know, it was equal amount of time. I mean, the time saving was phenomenal.

Dean: Yeah. Six days, I think, is what it went down.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: On the railroad. Yeah.

Dan: And then they started building luxury towns. So the railroads, you know, would. They would take you to one city and then you were up for the night. They had the big railroad hotels, you know, in that.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And, you know, and I think I've told the story. When I was about. I think I was about 9 years old, and my mother and sister went into Cleveland and the big department stores. One of them was called Higby's, another one was called May Company, and these were department stores. And so they parked underneath what's called the Terminal Tower. And the terminal tower in 1950s was the highest building in the United States west of New York. You know, still, you know, I mean, it's 50, 60 stories, and it's a beautiful building. Beautiful building. But that was on top. It was like Grand Central Station. It was on top. And three or four railroads came into Cleveland, and they were passenger railroads. And, you know, and I. We came up through the lobby from the parking lot, and I just saw the glamour of this hotel. So I told my mother, if I can just sit in the lobby while you're shopping, I won't move.

Dean: Oh, I love it.

Dan: And I just sat there and I said, yep, yep, yep, yep.

Dean: This.

Dan: This. I see my future.

Dean: This is great. I love that.

Dan: Yeah. No, no, I did. I. It was like a winch for me. Like, I winched myself into the future, and I said, this is my standard for where I'm gonna. That. Well, it's my Four Seasons lifestyle, you know, basically, that was an early taste of the Four Seasons lifestyle.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And my feeling is this is how human beings work. The only question is, do you take it seriously or not? You know, I mean, do you. Do you see yourself? It's not that you're. This is a destination. You're seeing yourself as one of the people who can live in split. You're like this, you know.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Oh, I get so excited about those things. Though, because I start to see the, the arc of it. Like, I think, you know, it's amazing when you think about the actual chronological evolution of it. Like when the railroad was really, you know, going in in 1880s, I guess, is when the, when it was really starting to go across the country.

Dan: Yeah, it was part of the Civil War, you know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Right after that, you know. Yeah. Because the Union. The Union, the winning Union side in the Civil War built up enormous industrial capabilities. Capabilities partially for the war. I mean, the manufacturing standardized clothing was created because of uniform, standardized shoes, you know, like different size shoes and everything. Yeah, that was all done for because you had mass armies. It was the first time you really had mass armies. They were drafted arm, you know, I mean, armies up before that were like you know, three or 4,000, but you had armies of 1000-001500-00200,000 armies, and you had to manufacture things and our armaments had to be standardized. And so, yeah, and the railroad was

Dean: a big competitive advantage for them. They had a much more built out railroad network than the south did, and. And they were able to conserve energy and position troops much better and quicker.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. And Sherman, who was one of the three most prominent Union generals, you know, still hated because of what he did. But he, you know, went down through Tennessee and Georgia. He went through Georgia and then came up through South Carolina and North Carolina. And it was very interesting because he avoided battles. He actually avoided battles, but he went after infrastructure. So he went after all the telegraph lines came down, all the poles came down, and he pulled up all the tracks and they would have huge bonfires and they would put the tracks in these fires and when they were red hot, they would twist them and they would twist them around trees. They were called Sherman pretzels. Sherman pretzels. And today there's some parts in the south, like in Georgia and South Carolina, you know, and, you know, abandoned places where they've, you know, it's been rewooded. You can find these train tracks that eat Sherman pretzel. And the hatred, the hatred that, you know, people in the south who have hatred, George, Yankees, the one they hate the most is Sherman. Because killing people, that's okay, because that's war. But destroying infrastructure, that's because it made them poor afterwards, because all their rail lines, he said, I'll see that they don't recover for 50, 60 years.

Dean: He said.

Dan: He says, you know, it's not, you know, it's not the fighting troops across this war, it's the people who were the Wealthy people. But, you know, he destroyed the plantations and he says, and we'll make. We'll make all the, you know, all the people who started this look like cowards. Cowards in their family's eyes. And, you know, I mean, he had a totally different attitude towards Florida, you know, and he was. But. But it's very, very interesting going after that infrastructure, you know, and it's infrastructure, you know, it's capabilities that you can totally depend upon, which allow people to have vision. Allow to have vision.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: I mean, and so you see that. Just think about your expansion of vision, Dean, since pandemic and the lockdown started. Just think about your expansion of vision because of capabilities that are suddenly parent.

Dean: Yes. Yeah. I'll tell you what that's been. I just wrapped up a breakthrough blueprint on Thursday and Friday this week, and it was really. It was a great one. And really, I just. That. That capability of being able to be at home, but have people, you know, join in from. From wherever and the ability to do, you know, I introduced the new. A new workshop just specifically focused on lead conversion spaced out over. Over a few sessions. And that one is, you know, is a great. Is a great thing as well. So I just love these.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: I love the efficiency of this capability, you know?

Dan: Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, what's there not to like?

Dean: What is there not to like? You're absolutely right. So good.

Dan: Yeah. I mean, I said, come on, come on, come on, come on. We're not getting hugs. I said, well, good. Put a hug list together and make it. Make it special in the future, you know, I.

Dean: Right.

Dan: You're just going to delay your. Your. Your increased appreciation for hugs. I said, just.

Dean: Yeah, right.

Dan: Yeah. I mean. I mean, treat it like Christmas, you know, and we're in January and it's like Christmas, you know, you're gonna have to wait for this, you know, it'll just. It'll just increase your appreciation for it when it comes back. You weren't appreciating that that much before. You know, you're taking it for granted before now. It's special things. So it's good.

Dean: Yeah, I love it. I love it.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's really, really interesting. It will be interesting, you know, afterwards to see various things like what entirely new companies got created during this period because of virtual, you know, because of virtual. Because of Cloudlandia. But there's no way of the news media to know about that right now. You know, there's. There's no way, because it doesn't fall into standard ways of looking at industries and companies. And I was talking, we have a. He's in Inc. Magazine in November. He's a intellectual IP lawyer who joined the. Joined the program. He's 10 times and very young. He's very young. I don't think he's 40 yet, but the article is he's the fastest growing IP firm in the United States right now. Wow. And anyway, I was asking him, I said, you know, do you think that the government, which, you know, the people who keep track of statistics, whether the economy is doing well or not doing now, do you feel after the last seven months that they have more of a handle on what's happening in the economy or less? He says, he says 40% of what's going on, they don't even have measurements for. They have, they have no way of actually seeing that. And my feeling is that that's happening in industry after industry. There's whole new industries being created, but they can't be seen right now because they're using mainland measurements to measure something that's happening because of Landia.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Like your two influencers, your two tick tock influencers. Is there any way for the government to measure the economic impact of a young woman who has 90 million followers and that her say so actually redirects economic activity from here to there?

Dean: Huh? Yeah, I mean, it really is. It's something. It really is. So it is fascinating when you look at zoom as one of the, you know, a new capability that was built on the back of all these cascading capabilities that got us to that point, you know, and now it's really up to us to see. It's all the visionaries. I'm, I'm so fascinated about Sears now. Just knowing that that was part of what, what drove it was really something, you know.

Dan: Yeah, he was, he was very crafty. I don't know if the program you were watching had time to really do it, but actually what happened. Yeah, you do know, because it was Pocket Watches that launched it.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: What is. He got a case of Pocket watches. It was by accident, and it was sent to an address that didn't exist in the town he was in.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: And so he went back to the sender, the manufacturer, and said, I'm sorry, you know, there isn't an address here. This is the story. This might be an apocryphal story. I mean, that's, it may be a story that is better than reality. Yeah. And, and, but he, you know, telegraphed back to the Manufacturer, he says, we'll send the back. And they said, it's not worth it to us to send it back. We'll give it to you for. We'll give it to you for 40 cents on the dollar. So this is the price. We'll give it to 40 cents. Why don't you sell them yourself where you are so we'll. You can make a profit on this. And his life changed. His life changed in that moment. And he said, wow. So the story goes, and I'm not saying this is true, but the story goes is that he then started purchasing pocket watches for manufacturers and sending them all the addresses in other towns. And he became sort of a middleman. And, you know, he would send them to, you know, from one station to another station. And the guy come up, you know, there's no address. He says, well, you know, here, could you sell them? You know, could you sell. You know, it's kind of like. It's kind of like, can I tell you, it's kind of like playing the system, in other words. And this is.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Big systems that are invented. Invented in some far away place can't control what's happening. These local area we had. Go ahead.

Dean: That is so funny because at one time, Dan, I got a listing when I was a real estate agent. I got a listing because some kids had taken my for sale sign from one property and they had gone and moved them. They were just being mischievous. They would take signs and move them and put them on other people's homes. And I got a call from this lady saying, you know, somebody put your sign on my. On my lawn and you should come pick it up. I said, well, are you sure you want me to pick it up? And we laughed about it. And it ended up that, you know, that the next spring, it put an

Dan: idea in her head, right.

Dean: She wasn't ready then. But I said. But that was funny that I said that in the moment to her. Are you sure you want me to pick it up? And we kept in touch. And she ended up. I ended up selling their house in the spring. Yeah.

Dan: So Babs and I, we have. Because, you know, we're in two medical systems. Chicago's the center of our US Medical system. And, you know, so we try to bunch them on a particular day. Babs has a couple and I have a couple. So there'll be about four appointments and downtown Chicago. So we had an Uber driver pick us up. And we were just going through our schedule in the back of the car, and he says, so he says, Are you going from place to place when you're, when you're downtown? Yeah. I said, we're going to be down for about six, seven hours. And he said, I'll tell you what, he said, when we get down there, I'll take you off Uber and I'll just charge you 60% of what Uber would charge and I'll just take you around. He said, I'll just, I'll just coordinate with you all day long. And then. So he also picked us up to take us back out to our home in the suburbs. And he said, anytime you want to do this, just let me know. He said, we'll do the same deal. He says, if you're going to, you know, bunch all your appointments, he said, I'll just take you off and I'll just charge you 60% rate. I'll take the Uber charge off the top. And I said, I bet he's not the only one who's doing this in the Uber, right?

Dean: Yeah. Oh yeah. No, you can. I get pitched that all the time on the.

Dan: So they're taking advantage of Uber's marketing. Yeah, they're, you know, I mean, they're letting Uber create a capability for them, but they're saying, Because when they go off Uber, when they go off Uber, I mean, Uber doesn't really know what they're. I guess Uber probably has some ways of keeping track of people, but. But they were growing so fast. I bet they didn't have the ability to do quality control or anything like that.

Dean: Yeah. But then, you know, the part of the thing about it is that even then I never call those guys to come in and get me to take me back to the airport because then I've got to make a call and I've gotta. Then pay them and all this stuff where I can just hit a button and three minutes later it's gonna be a perfectly great black car in my. At my feet and I can just get out at the end. I don't have to go ahead and pay or anything. Yeah, yeah, it works so well, you know.

Dan: Yeah, it could be, but he became our driver, you know, he was like. And I always like that, you know, and he was good, he was smart, you know, and he was always wanted to be. And you know, he had a day and. But here's where your, your, you know, here's where your statement is absolutely true. The next two times when we had that he was busy so he couldn't do what he did. So that defeated the ongoing value of it, you know, Right.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Anyway. But, you know, when you have a big system and you think that you take. You're taking the world by storm, everybody figures out how to get. Everybody figures out how to game your system for their own purposes.

Dean: That's the truth. Welcome to Cloudlandia.

Dan: Yeah, well, it's true. On the mainland, too.

Dean: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Dan: On the mainland too. I mean, you know, if anybody sees an opening to that, that's for their advantage, then they, you know, there's always, you know, people who take advantage of the system. Yeah.

Dean: Yeah. Amen.

Dan: Yeah. We covered a lot of territory.

Dean: I was just gonna say this was a really delightful conversation. I have homework. I'm gonna send you this link up to the.

Dan: The little pamphlet that I was talking about, 1917. Yeah. I'm really fascinated with that because, you know, because, well, you know, I don't know if you remember when I was first changing the name of the Upward program from Game Changer to Free Zone.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: I gave the traffic of the United States from 1620 to 1895.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: First settlement on the Atlantic to the complete surveying all the way to the Pacific. So it took about 275 years. But the two things that they had to work with were essentially free land and free people, you know, that they could offer free land to people who didn't cost them anything to. Immigrants are a lot cheaper. Immigrants are a lot cheaper than raising. Having your own children. Boring.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Okay. Because children today, children are a. An expense till about age 36 in the American system right now, so.

Dean: Oh, wow.

Dan: So it takes, on average, it takes newborn people 36 years before they become a plus to the country. They're. They're a drain on the country, certainly a drain on their parents and. But an immigrant who is skilled and eager and enthusiastic and hits the ground running, no cost whatsoever.

Dean: Wow. Well, that's. I think that's great. Yeah, I remember that some. I remember watching Far and Away, that movie with Tom Cruise about the Irish perspective.

Dan: Oh, yeah.

Dean: Of coming to America during the great land giveaway. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan: Very, very cheap way to get that. And the thing is, the U.S. i would say there are three countries that still have this as a capability where nobody else has, and it's the U.S. canada and Australia, and still both of them just massively underdeveloped in relationship to their size, you know, and the available land available. And. Yeah. I have a client from Singapore. I know we're at the end here, but I have a client for Singapore who comes over every quarter for his workshop, and he's Got investors. He runs an investment firm. And about. About his name, you know, his name's Roy and Roy is from Singapore. And it's really, really interesting. He comes over and I think he's bought about 1200 properties on his trips over. He comes over, he buys 15 properties, 10 properties, US properties. Commercial? No, not really residential, mostly commercial properties. And I had him explain what he was doing to a workshop and he said, well, Dan, you know, Americans sometimes think that property is expensive.

Dean: But he says, I will tell you,

Dan: compared to the price of real estate in Singapore, what you think is expensive is almost free.

Dean: Right, Exactly. Almost free.

Dan: Yeah. And so that the interesting. But an immigrant would see that somebody native born wouldn't see that.

Dean: Yeah, that's really.

Dan: I mean, he's kind of like an immigrant. I mean, he's like a. Certainly a commercial immigrant. You know, I mean, he's. You're not. Now let me hear. So that's the thing that when you come from another place, you do a comparison with. As the pamphlet you're going to send me says, compare where you were, what the opportunity was. And I'll tell you about the opportunity

Dean: here

Dan: and ask yourself, if you just didn't make. As hard as it's been so far, didn't you make the best decision of your life?

Dean: Yes, that's exactly right.

Dan: Yeah. And I think the same thing from going to Cloudlandia now.

Dean: I do, too.

Dan: You get a chance to. You get a chance to be an immigrant.

Dean: Yes. I love it.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Okay, Dan, this was.

Dan: And I'll talk to you on Friday and thank you for. Yeah, you know, thanks for your help on this. You know, on this we're going to. Getting the word about who not. Thank you for the word far and wide.

Dean: Okay, thanks.

Dan: Okay, bye.