The Most Important Piece

Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia, Mr. Sullivan.

Dan: Mr. Jackson, this conference is being recorded by the organizer. You know, it wouldn't happen any other way. I have time before you come on sometimes to listen to the actual words to the sun. And it's kind of almost like a pledge of allegiance, you know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: When you think about the words, it's a pledge of allegiance. Yeah. You know, that I'm going to be. I'm going to be true to you. I'm not going to.

Dean: I'm never going to give you out. I'm never going to let you down. Yeah, that's.

Dan: That's.

Dean: I'm never going to run around and hurt you.

Dan: It's like renewing your marriage vows almost.

Dean: Oh, it's so funny.

Dan: So did you enjoy your Free Zone Day?

Dean: I did. It was really great. It was like, hi. It went fast, too. What was your take?

Dan: Yeah, that's. Yeah, well, the six hours, you know, it's. If you're, you know, if you're engaged, six hours really goes really quickly.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. It's kind of a proof of relativity in one way or not, you know. You know, so. Yeah. Well, I was really pleased by the response to vcr, your vision capability and reach, because people came at it from a lot of different angles that first

Dean: I had a big insight.

Dan: Go ahead.

Dean: Yeah, I had a big insight on that, that I observed what you observed. And it's funny that people who are, you know, reach centric were crystal clear that reach is the most important thing and that people who were vision centric were like, yeah, vision is the most important thing and capabilities are the most important thing.

Dan: And it's.

Dean: It's funny to see, but it's absolutely true. That's what you want, is you want somebody who thinks this is the most important piece.

Dan: Well, and that. That also tells you why it has to be teamwork, you know.

Dean: Yeah, that's what I mean. On the team.

Dan: One person. Yeah, I've been reading. It's very, very interesting. I really come across one of those rare authors that you want to read everything the person has ever written. And his name is Tim Wu, and he's a professor at Columbia University in New York City. Yes. And he writes on his base basic topic is antitrust laws. You know, where can corporations, you know, industrial and that anti. The whole antitrust legislation developed as a result primarily of, you know, primarily standard oil and AT&T. So, yes, late 19th century, early 20th century, most of the 20th century. And what it is, can an industrial organization become so big that it begins to dictate economic and political policies and actually starts creating the structures in which people live, that the corporation has more to say about how people live their lives than the country that they live in. You know, that's his point. That's his point. And he said that generally speaking, antitrust has said that if a corporation gets so much control of the marketplace, it has monopoly control that it can then raise prices. And basically we don't live in a world where that's really happened. Except funny, funny. Funny enough it's only happened in, in the monopoly world that's controlled by governments. So health care prices have gone up and education prices have gone up, costs have gone up. But in the commercial world, just the opposite. You know, Amazon is certainly an example that, you know, prices can go down. Yes, but, but then when that same corporation who makes things cheap for you starts censoring what can be on their platform or not, then you're crossing over into another, into another dimension. You know, that's not about prices, that's not about, you know.

Dean: Yeah, that really struck me as, as weird. Like you're talking about the Amazon web services deciding to shut down a whole website and apps service which really. Boy, that's a. Yeah, that seemed to open up a whole can of worms for them.

Dan: Well, yeah, yeah, I think already has. And his, you know, it's a British statesman in the 19th century, 1800s, Lord Acton and Lord Acton's law is power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely that. You know that when you get really big and you have people only saying yes to you, you start, you start having visions of grandeur about yourself and what you're doing that probably aren't good for you and certainly aren't good for a lot of other, other people. So yeah, it's an interesting world we live in and I'm happy to read this because I think things were a lot worse a hundred years ago than they are now in relationship to this huge corporations more or less controlling people's daily lives.

Dean: Yeah, I wonder like where. Because I think about that. So let's say that somebody decided that

Dan: Google, I want to bring this back to be. I want to bring this back to vcr because you've given people a tool to always be free. In other words, you can always be creating new, you know, a new future for yourself that's bigger than your past, which is my definition, a certain definition of happiness anyway. But go on with your, your.

Dean: Well, I was thinking about, you know, you talk about how Monopoly, like everybody's talking about Google As a monopoly as an example. And maybe in a lot of ways you wonder, you know, does, does life get, does it ever get to a point where because it's a monopoly it's so it's good for, for us that it would be worse if it wasn't a monopoly. Like you wonder, do you, you know, you can go to Google and you know that they're organizing of all the world's information so you can go to, to get it there, but does it, you know, would it be, would we be better if there were other competitors? And I guess you could, you could argue there are other competitors. Nobody's stopping anybody from being a, in there. Just they have a functional preference monopoly like an earned monopoly. I would think.

Dan: Yeah, well you know, you'd have to ask someone who doesn't think it's a good idea. You know, I mean for me, you know, I find convenient, I find, I find Google great in the sense that I'm always kind of amazed at what you can find out on Google. You know that that always is kind of a feeling I have when I'm working with Google and then, but if I, because the way I use Google is I'll think of a question and I just go and I punch it in and then all sorts of articles come up in response to my question and I'm just. Sometimes I wonder if I put into question 10 ways that Google is destroying the world, whether they'd find any articles for that or they'd be on page 87.

Dean: I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. Did you mean 10 ways Google's making the world better? Yeah,

Dan: yeah. So you know, I mean I'm really skeptical about where I'm skeptical that people who have total power also have nothing but good intentions. Uh huh. You know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And so, so but it comes down

Dean: to, then it comes down. I always think about, you know, Milton Friedman to Phil Donahue when he was talking about greed and you know, wouldn't it be better if things were fairer? And Milton Friedman said to him, where do you propose we find these angels to come and organize society without regard to self interest? I don't even trust you to do that. Which I was the best. You know, I don't even trust you to do that, Phil. I mean, yeah, that's part of being human.

Dan: I think the big thing, the big thing that I, you know what I like, you know, but basically my understanding of how the US is constructed going to the Constitution, that it doesn't trust anybody. You know that the basic document of the United States doesn't trust the President, doesn't trust House of Representatives doesn't trust the Senate, doesn't trust the Supreme Court, doesn't trust the states. But it gives each of them power. Each of them has power to do certain things, and then it has very, very specifically defined rules about just how far they can go with their power before they run into a check, things get balanced and everything else. And my sense is that's why it's gotten so big and successful. And yet you and I, you know, we can pretty well go about our life without too much about how the whole system works, right?

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: But the thing I love about your vision, capability and reach is that any individual who takes the time to inventory what the various components of their vision are, both personally and business wise, and then short range, medium range, long range, and then we'll inventory all the capabilities they already have access to their own personal, organizational and things, they have collaborative capabilities, and then thinks about all the networks and systems and platforms for multiplying their impact out in the world. My sense is that every 90 days, you could get a bigger bang for your buck out of that exercise.

Dean: Mm. Constant. I agree. Yeah, 100%.

Dan: As a framework, that kind of tells me that. That tells me you have, you know, pretty well, constantly expanding freedom. Freedom as an individual.

Dean: Mm. Yes. It's one of those elegant, bedrock contexts that is durable. It's equally going to be true going forward. It's been true when we back test it. There's always been winning examples of collaboration between vision, capability and reach, and it's going to continue going forward. And I think that what I'm finding is as we, as I really explore more the, the lanes, what these are, I'm really getting, I get completely energized in the vision lane. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. Well, it strikes me, because you've brought it up on previous, previous podcasts that we've done together, Dean, that you have a guinea pig living with you that you can test this out. You know, someone who's in his teen years.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: You can actually test this. Test this out. And I mean, you taught him the basic formula for, you know, for ebay and doing all sorts of other things like that. But it seems to me that, and I brought this up during our free zone day just a couple days ago, that it seems to me, if you were thinking about education for the 21st century, I mean, it seems to me that the last year where there's been such colossal failure of basic education, where teachers refused to show up and you Know, whole, you know, whole jurisdictions just locked down. The children can't go to school. This is really an opportune time to actually rethink education right from the beginning. Maybe the reason why all the schools are shut down is because even if they were open, even if they were open, they weren't actually preparing people for the future. So maybe they're being shut down as an inconvenience to parents. We've basically been using the public school system for daycare purposes. Not necessary.

Dean: That's really what it is more than anything. Right. That's what the. I think you're right. And that's why there was, I think, such a eagerness to get back to regular school.

Dan: Yeah, well, it's either, it's either. At best it's daycare and at worst it's just warehousing. I just need somebody to warehouse his body for eight hours, you know.

Dean: But it's also, I think, though, if I'm playing both sides of it, it's also an important dynamic in growing up, being part of that ecosystem. Yes, yes, yes. The navigating the social situations in, in middle school and high school and finding your way

Dan: that way.

Dean: You know, it's really interesting to see, I don't know whether you have any contact with people that you went to, you know, middle school and high school with, if you've ever seen or whatever became of them kind of thing. And it's really interesting to see that there's not many surprises in middle school. Like, not many. I don't think anybody really surprised me in a sense of, wow, that person really turned it around and made it, or that person, wow, they didn't really pan out. They were such a star in middle school academically or, you know, emotional intelligence wise. I think you can really tell emotional intelligence at that age. And if I line up like the people that if I were to pick them out of a lineup, the ones that, that you thought were not going to amount to anything. Didn't really amount to anything. You know that they're, they're. That was show there were symptoms of that early on.

Dan: Yeah. It's an interesting thing. There's a British recurring British film series called 7up. Have you ever seen. Seen it?

Dean: No.

Dan: And there's been seven of them so far and they're done every seven years and they follow the same, same group of people. So it was done, you know, somebody had an idea of, hey, let's go to the zoo. And it was either a zoo or it was a. Yeah, I think it was a Zoo. And it was a middle school, it was a school of 7 year olds and they were on a day trip to the zoo and they interviewed them. Okay. And they're about half and half girls and boys and they seem kind of like each other, you know, like 7 year olds. They kind of each other. And then they went back and they interviewed them again when they were 14 and you could see they weren't like each other at 14. And then they did it at 21, 28. I think they're up to 49 now, some of them.

Dean: Oh really?

Dan: And some of them refused to, you know, be part of the project. But the three that, three that surprised me the most were the three. Two of them who moved to the United States and one who moved to Australia. And they seemed a lot happier than the ones who stayed in Britain.

Dean: Wow, that's really interesting. Is that, would that be on Netflix or. Where would I find that?

Dan: Yeah, yeah, just punch it. Well, here's my suggestion, Dean. There's.

Dean: Oh yeah, Google.

Dan: Google,

Dean: that's right.

Dan: Go to this. That's G O O G L E. If you go to that service and punch in, you know, where can I, you know what's what, where can I get the videos for the 7up series?

Dean: It's called number. Is it the 7 or.

Dan: I think it's, I think, you know, I don't know. Yeah, I mean you could do some testing. Rick. Right in the moment. Right in the moment.

Dean: Free. It's free to.

Dan: Free, yeah.

Dean: Oh, man. Dan, have you seen, have you seen. Let me google that for you. No, there's a website, there's a website with. And it's the, it's the initials of. Let me Google that for you. So lmg, you know that dot com. And you type in seven up in the British series in the search bar and then you press search and it records the thing and brings to the answer and you can send that video to me. It's like. Let me Google that for you. It's the perfect thing.

Dan: Yeah, I mean that's, that's. That's really entering into the dimension of sloth.

Dean: Oh man, it's just so funny.

Dan: How little do you actually want to do in life?

Dean: Yeah, right, exactly.

Dan: But anyway, I think, you know, I mean, you'd have to kind of be into it, you know, because they ask them all, but you know that it's very, very. They just ask them what about what their lives are like and what they thought their life was going to be. But it's a very fascinating lawn. What's called a lawn study because they've stayed with it. And I suspect it's been taken up by other movie makers because some of the original makers may be, you know, they may have died, but they, but they kept, they kept it up. And it's fascinating, you know, they've got something going and probably the interest in it would get renewed at a certain point and. But it was very definitely that, you know, you could see the class divisions. Very, very, you know, as you went from one seven year period to the other, you could see the class divisions and the occupation divisions. Yeah, certainly. And certainly the, you know, the wealth divisions and the people. But I thought it was a very fascinating series just to watch. And, you know, here's an interesting. You're bringing up an interesting topic when you mention, you know, that I think that at age 38. Okay, so age 38, I would have been. So that was 1982. That my life up until 1982 would have been fairly predictable to people who had grown up with me. Mm. And in 1982, I created the Strategy Circle and I met Babs. And I don't think. So that was my first 38 years. Now I've lived another 38 years. And I don't think what's happened since 1982 would have been predictable.

Dean: Mm. That's true, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, that's really. Yeah. I think this is.

Dan: I think I was going along the normal highway with intersections, and then in 1982, I got an on ramp to something.

Dean: Ah. That gave you a. Yeah, yeah.

Dan: And so I think it would be very, very. And it was kind of interesting because I had a lot of contact with my family, my siblings up to 1982 and then not so much since 1982. And when I'm with them, it's all my effort to ask them questions about what they're doing. There isn't much on my side that's understandable to them.

Dean: Right. I remember you saying that one of them had come to your office and what. They were shocked by what they saw.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dean: Little Danny.

Dan: Yeah, that was. Yeah, there's a little Danny. You know, look at my little Danny's up to. And, you know, not still, you know, I mean, not only am I still working where none of them are, but I'm, you know, I mean, what lies ahead is incredibly bigger my imagination than anything I've done up until now.

Dean: Well, you're, you know, that. I guess this is where you could say your vision met capability in. In 1982, I guess, right? I mean.

Dan: Yeah, totally. Yeah, totally.

Dean: Because you would call Babs a capability for sure for you.

Dan: Wow.

Dean: Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: And, you know, and you know, I mean, it didn't really take off. Probably, you know, I would say things grew. Things were good things, you know, things

Dean: were looking great, but probably as a one on one. As a one on one coach.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. Ten years after 1982, then things really started to take off.

Dean: Yeah, right.

Dan: You know, we're, you know, I've just been, you know, going back and forth on our numbers and this is an interesting thing that some. Someone who had been in the program for 15 years, I talked about this, I think on Thursday got a hold of the book who not how, and immediately signed back up for the 10 times program and brought another person who had not been in the. Had not been in the program since 20 years. He had not been for 20 years. And he's coming back.

Dean: Wow.

Dan: That's just because of the book.

Dean: Just because.

Dan: And I was just looking. So you could pretty well. You could pretty well consider them new registration, you know.

Dean: Sure.

Dan: They're not like renewals, because 10 years and 20 years.

Dean: Right? Yeah, yeah.

Dan: And. And the one who came back, I know within a year will be. Will be in Free Zone program just because of what he's doing. And, and I was just thinking of the economic value of the book in terms of bringing people to the strategic Coach program. Just in terms of two people who had been in coach are coming back, you know, so.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: And that's the reach of the deck.

Dean: Mm.

Dan: That's the reach of, you know, having those little bottles with messages and spreading. World's ocean.

Dean: Yeah, yeah.

Dan: Every beach connected to literally the ocean of bottles coming up with a message.

Dean: That's right.

Dan: Time to come back. Time to come back.

Dean: Oh, man.

Dan: Oh, man.

Dean: A beacon.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. And this, you know, here's, here's the thing that I'm projecting for you as you go forward with the vcr. Okay.

Dean: I like this.

Dan: This will become a. A way of talking about things, you know, that you won't talk that. I've got a really big goal here. You won't talk about, you know, we have a tremendous capability or talk about, hey, I've got this new system. You'll talk about all three as a single unified. As a single unified approach.

Dean: Well, it really creates. And what Free Zone is really creating is an open source, you know, multiplying environment. That's really what, you know, especially if we get to the point where everybody

Dan: is speaking that common language yeah. That nobody's biggest success is anything but enjoyment for anybody else's. Biggest.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Like, there isn't a. Oh, well, if he's getting there, then I'm not. There isn't that competitive thing, you know.

Dean: No, no, no, no.

Dan: Yeah. And I think. And I think it's only. I. I think you can only even talk about that in 2020. You couldn't have talked about this in 1990.

Dean: Right. Yeah. And that's. I think you're right because it's. Now it's so much easier, too. Seamlessly collaborate, you know. It's easier now, I think, to be able to just provide one portion of that information.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. You can really specialize.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Based on your unique ability, you know, I mean, based on your passion, your unique ability, you can really specialize and know almost not. Not out of hope, but with total confidence. I know there's, you know, if I have a vision like this, I know the C and the Rs are out there, you know.

Dean: Yes. Yes. That's exactly right.

Dan: And you didn't know and you did not know that in 1990.

Dean: Yeah. Yeah. And I find it now, like, I have total freedom on realizing that I don't have to develop the capabilities on my. On my own or even on my behalf. It's really. The latest. I've been thinking is that it's so much, you know, it's really good for me. It was kind of like. Like Charles Koch, like, the idea of. Of developing my vision, my. You know. Yeah. My ability to deliver results through other people's capabilities. And that's a. It's good. I feel free, Dan, in this. Like, I feel like a weight has been kind of lifted in a way of not having to feel like I need to, you know, buckle down and develop the capabilities to build my.

Dan: Or the organization or that you're deficient in some way, because.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Yeah. You know, that. Yeah, that's the big thing. I mean, we're doing the book the Gap and the Game, and I had a great. Do not. Do not, you know. You know, do not measure who you are against some sort of ideal. You know, measure against. Here's where I was three months ago. Here's where I am today, you know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: You know, it's the only thing that keeps you safe. And.

Dean: Yeah, I had a great. Had a great conversation with Ben here in Winter Haven a couple of weeks ago, and then we talked again the other day on the. On the phone. But, yeah, he's. He's got the first draft done.

Dan: Yeah. He's almost finished. He's almost finished with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's, you know, he's, I mean, he's, he really goes as deep as he possibly can. He really, really wants to know what's at the bottom of this, bottom of this whole thing, you know, and so, but I'm seeing this right now that the gap in the game. So for those of you listening who don't know what this is, that there's two ways of proceeding in life and both involve achieving goals. But the question is, when you've achieved a goal, what do you measure your achievement against? Do you measure it against an ideal that you have for yourself or do you measure your achievement from where you started? If you measure it against an ideal, you'll have a feeling that you haven't accomplished anything because it's like measuring distance against the horizon. You're always the same, you know, the horizon is always the same distance away. So no matter how far you went, it seems like you didn't do anything. But if you measure from where you went, you feel like you've achieved a lot. And what if you're going to do this for a whole lifetime? Which of these two methods would you choose?

Dean: Yeah, right.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: It's so great.

Dan: I choose. Happy.

Dean: Yeah. Did you. Do you remember ever reading or hearing in the 90s, there was a guy, Bob Beale, wrote a book called Stop Setting Goals, but he would talk about the idea of being a problem solver.

Dan: I don't remember him or the book.

Dean: Okay, well, that was an interesting. That there's, you know, there's some dynamic that some people, myself included, are not really not as much goal setters as get more energized by solving problems. And that's kind of, it's, it's an interesting thing when you talk about, when you think vota, when you think about vision, obstacle transformations, that's a, A, it's one key component of solving. But it's just people get embracing whichever one is your situation. If you can frame something in a way that's empowering,

Dan: you know, you know what I've come to. So, for example, you know the difference between the goal, goal achiever or problem, problem solver. And I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that if you have a hundred human brains, they each come to grips with their environment in a uniquely different way and that there isn't, there isn't a single path to how a human being should live their life. You know, first of all, there's no way of checking it out to begin with, but right that I think what we have, I think we do have an innate sense of what getting bigger and better means. You know, like I think an individual now we get a sense probably very early in life when there's all these big creatures walking around, you can't walk, and then one day you can walk. I think you consider this as, you know, bigger and better when you go forward. And then there's all the rest of life where you see things outside of yourself and you strive to gain greater capability and, and you know, you probably, you probably have a picture of yourself in the future doing something that you can't do now. You gain a capability and then, you know, and then, and then you, you know, you get a sense that you can multiply. There are certain things that you can multiply in life if you, if you use your capabilities with other people. Capability. But I was just reading a really in depth article on just what the brain is. And you know, that synapses are where every, you know, neuron in the brain is connected to everyone, every other neuron in the brain and it's totally unpredictable which ones will be connecting in which. Where they're going to fire, in which order. And it adds up to like, it adds up to about 86 trillion possible interactions at any given second.

Dean: Wow.

Dan: And I said, and you're trying to create an artificial intelligence that can get a handle on this. I said, I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think it's going to happen. So what it means is that there's a high degree of unpredictability about each of our getting up in the morning.

Dean: Right. Well, there's a lot of, you know,

Dan: I mean, we have habits and we have, yes, yes. Preferred grooves that we've dug for ourselves. But I still think that, you know, that it's not entirely predictable at, you know, early morning. What's going to happen to this person by the end of the day.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And the one and the thoughts are going to think and the things they're going to remember and, you know, the aspirations they're going to have. I think it's highly unpredictable.

Dean: Yeah. There's a lot of variation of one

Dan: of our podcast, Dean.

Dean: Yes. There's no. Who knows where it's going to go. That's fantastic though. The, you know, this is where the internal game like the you're thinking about your thinking is truly the thing that distinguishes your, your life experience. Right. I mean, when I was, when I was in London, I can't I keep coming back to this. I don't know whether it was insight or whatever I had, but sitting in the Shangri La hotel, looking down at the London streets packed with people, and it all struck me that what we do, if you turn off the sound and just observe us from a little bit up, were all mechanically doing the same things and you realize the importance of what, you know, the story machine that we're playing out in our heads to realize. Like, it struck me when we, when I looked even from the perch at the Shangri La, you know, you've seen those videos where they sort of take off from, you know, a busy. From the city center and then they go out and then you're above the whole city and then they back out and there's your state in the whole thing. And then it keeps going out into the universe and you lose sight of where you are in the big picture, you know, meant to show you really how in the big scheme of things, insignificant, the drama and the life story of what we've got going on in, in our heads is in the big picture. It's, it's.

Dan: Yeah, that's an interesting thing because I, I notice that as the knowledge of, let's say, knowledge of the solar system and actually even being away from the planet, you know, the first time they shot a photo where somebody could actually shoot a whole photo of the planet, that was a big, that was a big deal, you know, that was. Yeah, I think it was, what was it, Christmas 1967 or something like that. I think it was two years before the moon landing, right where they circled the moon right at Christmas time, and they came around one side of the moon and the Earth was in complete sunlight, you know, the big blue marble. The big marble. And, you know, and I think it had a huge impact. First of all, it's the first time we've ever seen it. Nobody had ever seen it before. You know, nobody lives at that level. You know, I mean.

Dean: Right.

Dan: I think the problem that people have is because their mind can grasp that or see that, they say, well, what am I in comparison to that? You know, what am I. Yeah, in comparison to the planet? And I said, well, you don't live there. Yeah, you've got. Yeah, you can see that and you can have this image in your brain. But guess what? You got to get right back down here today and you got to play out, what are you going to do for the day? And I think that's where a lot of the confusion is coming in modern day of People feeling, well, life doesn't have any meaning. I don't have any meaning. You know, what can I do? And everything like that. I said, you're misunderstanding the difference between what you can think about in your brain and what you can focus on to actually get done with what's available to you today. And you know, and you know, and. And that, you know, people. That's why I think your VCR is so important, is because VCR is your inventory.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: This is a practical. And this is a practical inventory. You can actually put anything from column one together with anything in column two and anything in column three, and guess what? You'll produce something that's bigger and better.

Dean: Yes, anyone's. Yeah, anyone. And the combination of them. Yeah. How are you thinking about this? What have you observed, or what's your thoughts for how this applies to you?

Dan: Well, first of all, I'm. I'm, you know, I did the exercise for, you know, the sample copy for the exercise on Thursday, and I went through and I said, you know, and one of the things I've realized is that I just don't have kind of like, Dan Sullivan goals, you know, like, you know, what I have is a lot of goals that a guy named Dan Sullivan is part of a team who's doing this, and we're doing it, and we've got these capabilities. And last year has been a great. It's been a great demonstration of that, of just me with the team, plus Zoom and how much we've achieved out in the world.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: So it's. I have a vision. I have a. I have a team, then I have an organization. We have a program, we have coaches, we have, you know, a couple thousand entrepreneurs. Yeah, we have. And everything's gotten better by putting those three things together. Two of them were great before, but the addition of Zoom has made everything better.

Dean: I would agree with that.

Dan: And that's why when people, you know, I said, I don't know about you and all this talk about going back, but I'm not going back anywhere. Right.

Dean: Exactly.

Dan: Oh, it'd be so good when things are back to normal. I said, well, we might as well say goodbye right now.

Dean: Don't you love your little. Your. I mean, your commute now is just, you know, walk next door. There we go.

Dan: Yep. Yeah, I just have to be careful not to trip on the stairs, but outside of that, there's no problem.

Dean: Oh, that's so funny.

Dan: Do you know what, you know, talking about, which, you know, I. There's that funny photo of the President falling down three times on his way up the stairs.

Dean: I saw that.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. And I, I sent a Tucker Math Matt, Max and I talk a lot about that topic. And I said, and I said, battery life less than 50 hours.

Dean: Oh, my goodness.

Dan: And I, because I sent him one about two, two weeks ago, and I said, battery life less than a hundred hours. And I said, battery life less than 50 hours.

Dean: Oh, boy.

Dan: And I said, there's making a mistake, and then there's making a mistake. President, President of the world walking up Air Force One. That's a more serious mistake.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Tucker had a grandfather, and he said, it's almost like watching his grandfather. He said, well, one of the things that happens with dementia is that you lose a sense of where your feet are.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: And, and you lose your balance, you lose your sense of, you know, you start drawing back in because the brain, you know, I mean, what happens when, you know, you start losing your cognitive, your cognitive abilities? The brain kind of pulls back everything, you know, you know, it's sort of, it sort of abandons the forward forts and starts retreating back to the inner forts, you know. Yeah. So you don't have the same use of your outer limbs and your sense of balance, I mean, and everything like that. And, you know, I mean, people say, I feel so sorry for him. I, I said, well, you know, you're not drafted to be President of the United States. You know, you gotta, you gotta have, you gotta have some agreement that you want to do this. And, you know, and the evidence was already out there a year ago that he wasn't the person he was four years ago. This is a tough job. I mean.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And so anyway. But it's very really interesting, but I don't think it's really about him. I think big changes are happening and he just happens to be a symbol of that probably isn't going to be the future.

Dean: No, they all, I mean, that's so. Did you see the Oliver Stone interview series with Putin?

Dan: No.

Dean: Oliver Stone did a documentary where he just did in depth interview with Putin and he mentioned how he's seen many presidents come now while he's been in power. He said, talking about Barack and talking about the whole George Bush, all these guys think that they're going to make change, that they're good men and they've got good intentions, and then when they win, when they're elected, they get in the office and then the men with the suits come and tell them how it really is, and that's the end of any change. That's really what's happening, you know?

Dan: Yeah. Well, the other thing is that they were kind of bought into the system before. See, I think that the thing that scared everybody about Trump. Trump is probably the only person who got to the White house without any IOUs at lower levels. He never had a lower level, you know, and I think that's why it was so disturbing to the men in suits.

Dean: Yes, exactly. That's pretty funny, though, right? I mean, that's.

Dan: Yeah. You know, somebody. Somebody said that it's hard to know when Trump ever had a supervisor.

Dean: Right, right, right.

Dan: Okay. Looking back, so he was just kind of, you know, he was just a. He was. What would you call that? A rogue. Rogue something.

Dean: Rogue.

Dan: There's. I mean, a guy, like, first of all, they. I mean, the kind of deals that someone has to be to be president or to be. Like, he. You know, he became. It was like a senator at 29, I think, like 29 or. Well, no, he couldn't have been at 29. I think you have to be at least 30 to be a senator. So. But he was, you know, and then, you know, and then he gets elected president, so that's 40. He was vice president for eight years. So. Yeah, he had 34 years. And I don't know if you. Have you ever been to Delaware? Have you ever been to Delaware?

Dean: No, I have not.

Dan: Well, it's a corporation that looks like a state.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: It's dupont.

Dean: Is that what it is? Okay.

Dan: Really? Yeah. I mean. Yeah, it's. I mean, it wasn't formed that way there. You know, there wasn't. Right. Dupont literally controls the whole state. I mean, nothing moves into. And it's not a big state. You know, it's maybe a million.

Dean: Yeah. No, I was. You know, it's like, I haven't thought about it in so long. I don't think I've even said the word or heard the word Delaware in years. And the only time you do hear about it is a Delaware corporation, Like. Yeah.

Dan: Well, the thing is, mainland, they've got. Yeah. They've got, like, three industries. They've got beach. You know, the Delaware has beef on the Atlantic, so. And then they've got dupont, and then they have this thing that you can form a corporation in Delaware and you get. You pay a yearly subscription for it, but you don't get taxed as a corporation.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Yeah. So that. Those are the three things, plus they're a suburb of Philadelphia. Trust, everything like that. But if you're a senator there for like, 40 years. I bet you've done some deals with Dupont.

Dean: Ah, I bet.

Dan: And. And the people that Dupont does deals with, I bet you've done deals with them, too. So, you know, and, you know, like, so. And a lot of that information, you don't want to come out when you're running for President of the United States. So, yeah, men in suits come in and inform you of what you can say and what you can't say.

Dean: Wow.

Dan: Men in suits. That's a really great line.

Dean: That's what he said. Yeah. The men in suits come. It's funny, but that's. You can imagine, like, it just had such a ring of truth to it, too, you know? Yeah. Because we deep down think that that's exactly what's. What's happening. Have you seen the band?

Dan: I mean, if you look at the Bushes. The Bushes go way back. I mean.

Dean: Yeah. You know, the Skull and Bones, the

Dan: Walkers and the Bushes.

Dean: The Yale. The Yale Secret Society.

Dan: Yeah, the Secret Society. And who all those people were and who they were connected to. Yeah, yeah. You know, in most of the world, that's the rule. It's just that the U.S. you know, and the U.S. has this thing that gives kind of like a possibility for outsiders to get to the top. And, you know, that someone. Biden is actually an extraordinary exception in American presidential politics. It's someone on the inside for that lawn who gets to the top. Usually it's somebody who comes. I mean, Obama was from the outside. When you think about it, Obama was from the outside. Reagan was totally from the outside. There's a lot of presidents who are totally from the outside. And I think that that's, you know, that's kind of a. You know, it's kind of a thing about the United States that for this one office, there's a chance to get some fresh thinking and fresh life and fresh personality. Couldn't happen in Canada. Couldn't happen in, you know, the parliamentary governments, because you have to pay your dues as a member of Parliament for long period of time before you can ever get to the leader of the party.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And. Yeah, but it's really. It's really, really interesting. But, you know, going back, you asked me the question of what the VTR for me is. I said, well, first of all, it's just such an excellent simplification of what you pay attention to. What am I improving over the next 90 days? I'm going to improve my vision. What else? Well, I'm going to add more capabilities. What else? I'm going to Explore where I can have greater reach.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: What besides that? Rinse, re, lather, repeat.

Dean: Yes, yes. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like looking at. It's been. It's an interesting switch, you know, just a mental shift of looking not. You said something interesting is, you know, adding capabilities, not sort of developing capabilities. In a way, there's something, you know, for me, unless it is capability. But my thing is, I look at, you know, it's a really interesting opportunity now to observe and seek out capabilities, but then apply from the side my vision to. With those capabilities. Like if I had access to those capabilities or. Yeah. What could you do? I look at, like, I'm looking at my role in a lot of these things now as a producer kind of thing, putting them together, looking at.

Dan: Well, I think, you know, what a really. What a really good model does is that it depersonalizes in a really good way.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: In the sense that, you know, that it's not about, you know, Dean Jackson or Dan Sullivan, it's just that each of them has certain currency. You know, it's a form of the VCR there. It's a form of currency.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: If you have sort of currency, you can involve yourself in these type of activities with these type of players, you know, because you have this type of currency. And even having said that, it's not predictable exactly what's going to happen. It's just that you've got, you know, you. You've got what it takes to be in a game like that.

Dean: Yeah, yeah, it's. And it's. It's energizing because now it allows, you know, you can. You don't have to. You don't have to ramp up to the certain part. You can jump right in to whatever level you want. Just like what Mr. Beast just did.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: You know, jumped right to 300 restaurants because he was doing alternative capabilities. He didn't have to go and build one and then duplicate it and do it again. And there.

Dan: I think the other thing. The other thing, as big a deal that as that would be for someone else.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: That was like the project for the quarter for him, you know. This is you. Yeah, his YouTube project for the quarter.

Dean: Well, they've passed a million. They've passed a million burgers now, right? Yeah.

Dan: How long did it take? A lot. Yeah. To do that. Yeah. I remember exactly when they used to post the number, you know.

Dean: Yeah. Isn't that funny?

Dan: So now.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. And I wonder how many McDonald's franchises wish they could pull in the Mr. Beast menu.

Dean: But you look at now the layers of collaboration here. Like you, you look at Mr. Beast just doing his thing, which is making his videos and nurturing his reach, his audience, but all the collaboration. So his management company, Night Media, in collaboration with Robert Earl's company, Virtual Dining Concepts, all firmly in that capability column that keep Mr. Beast out of having to worry or do any of it. He just, he just, it doesn't have any other impact on him.

Dan: Keeps him out of the muck.

Dean: It keeps him out of the muck. He says, hey, what do you want to serve at your restaurant? Well, I want cheeseburgers and I want this kind of cheeseburger and this chicken sandwich. And what kind of fries do you want? Well, I like crinkle fries with some seasoning on them. And what kind of look, you want your logo on there?

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: All he has to do is check, check, check, sign off on the vision and not get involved in any of the capability. Just like, just like Kylie Jenner with her. It's almost like the, you know, we've lovingly called my, you know, we keep. My whole organization is around embracing my divinity and allowing me to just be the cow that makes the milk. And we call this, you know, we call the. The interaction between me and the processing plant. The mid. The middle step is the, the milking shed. So they just need to, you know, they just take Jimmy, Mr. Beast, they just take him into the milking shed and extract his vision, his mill.

Dan: Yes.

Dean: And then they take it into the processing plant and make it all happen. And if there, if his organization's like mine, he's not even allowed in the processing plant, you know.

Dan: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because I have a sense that. And this from experience, but things I've read that actually things that happen before 40, before you're 40 years old,

Dean: You

Dan: wouldn't see them the way that we can see certain things now since we're know beyond. And the same thing with Kylie Jenner and. Yeah, but what each of these individuals does after 40 is of extreme interest to me because there's, you know, there's great parenting, there's great family fortunes, there's great connections, there's great role models, there's great things and everything like that. And I notice, especially with the entrepreneurs that usually the decade of between 30 and 40 is your toughest decade. And it has to do with the fact that are you just a really great product of where you came from or are you actually going to be something on your own? You know, and so I Mean, I'm interested in this because I'm just about twice that age and I 70s were the shits as far as I'm. I mean, my. That was the decade when I was in my third. Between 30 and 40. And it was just. It was. I mean, hands down of all the bad things have happened to me in my life by far. Yeah, sure. Happen between ages 30 and 40. And.

Dean: Wow.

Dan: After 40. After 40, you know, I'd held out. You know, I'd held out tough times, but I had held out to be me. And then on the other side, I got the rewards of me and.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And so it'll be interesting to see, I mean, with these super successful phenoms. Yeah. You know, in their late teens, early 20s and everything. To see.

Dean: See where you're going to be. You're going to be 77 this year.

Dan: 77 in May. Yeah.

Dean: Yeah. Yep. And I'm gonna be 55. So this is our. Yep.

Dan: Yeah. I think you're a little younger. I think you're a little closer to me for a week or two. And then I pull ahead again.

Dean: Right, that's right. That's right. That's right. That's funny. Yeah. The whole. I've quite enjoyed.

Dan: I think the VCR is timelessly good.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: I think it's timelessly good.

Dean: It's good to. I'm gonna.

Dan: I think it only gets my hat on it. Yeah, I think it only gets better.

Dean: Yeah, I'm gonna hang my hat on that one and trace everything that I do going forward on increasing, you know, competence of combining the VCR formula.

Dan: It was so funny the other day. I don't know if you noticed the little kerfuffle between me and Kathy Davis. And I. No, I said at the bottom it should say copyright and trademark, Dean Jackson. And it came back and I had specifically stated that and my editor had looked at it and called and talked to our legal thing, said, no, no, no, it's got to be strategic edge. You know, we're in trouble. You know, we've gotten in trouble with this. And the problem was I. Everything was at the last moment. You know, if I had gotten the materials in a couple days early, I could have talked it through. And I said, this is a special. This is special. Special. You can. I said, it isn't going any farther than, you know, free zone and everything. The other coaches aren't going to be coaching this and, you know, and we're not publishing this out outside, so you do it. But it was so funny because I got overruled by my own team.

Dean: You know, that's interesting. Right. Like, I get it that that's. But I get that that's an important thing. Like, I don't imagine that there's been other situations like that. So I'm. I feel honored by that. That's great.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. But I think at the bottom of the blank one that just had sort of had it. Right. But on the official one with my, you know, my sample copy and everything that. And so I got over. I got overruled. And anyway, but we're getting close to the conclusion of my major litigation adventure, so we're probably within a couple months of that being over. So anyway.

Dean: Oh, good.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. And it's. But it's sharpened me up about the. This, and I'm very, very interested. And I was talking to my intellectual property lawyer, and after the conversation, I said, you know, I know more about the importance of this regarding intellectual property law than he does when talking about non fungible tokens.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: I think non fungible tokens is the ultimate intellectual property law protection.

Dean: Mm. Yeah, certainly. Because they're. The minting process is. Is digitally, like, timestamped. So that's certainly the first. Yeah.

Dan: And I think why all, you know, you get a sudden flurry of this is that this kind of protection was required if you're going to maintain maximum incentives for people to be creative and innovative and. And to be profitably rewarded for being innovative. And.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: If you. If you don't have protection for. For this, it's a disincentive, not a motivation.

Dean: Yeah. Anyway, still, I'm paying attention to it. But this will be a good. This will be a good thing.

Dan: These are my. These are my thoughts about that.

Dean: But. But that's the dispatch from Cloudlandia today.

Dan: This is. This is my data packet for today.

Dean: Yes. I love it.

Dan: Okay.

Dean: Awesome.

Dan: Dan, I'll have to let you know next week because we may be going. We may be going up north to our cottage, but that doesn't really matter. Yeah, that doesn't really matter because we have really good. We have really good Internet up there now, so.

Dean: Perfect.

Dan: We actually have Elon Musk up there. It's new.

Dean: Oh, satellite. Nice satellite.

Dan: Yeah. Somebody. Somebody I know up there said it's really great. It's really very great. So they're already getting the. You know, they're already getting the. I forget what it's called. Skylink or what.

Dean: Yeah. Wow. The world's getting smaller, isn't it? This is great.

Dan: All right.

Dean: They're bigger okay, Dan.

Dan: Have a good week.

Dean: You too.

Dan: Bye.

Dean: Bye.