Another Year

Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia, Mr. Sullivan.

Dan: Mr. Jackson, you sound a bit older.

Dean: I do. I actually, you know, I am one year older. 55 years old now.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Isn't that amazing? So we're. This is the one.

Dan: It happens, you know,

Dean: this is the one week out of the year when we are slightly out of sync in our 22 year age gap. Because you will be very, very shortly 77.

Dan: Yes, that's very correct. So that'll be on Wednesday. On Wednesday.

Dean: On Wednesday you'll be 77. And that will.

Dan: Mark.

Dean: I think that will remove the statute of limitations on my. The permanent record of my one occasion of lying to you.

Dan: Yes.

Dean: On your 70th birthday.

Dan: Yes, I.

Dean: So all is forgiven. I think after seven years, the record is obliterated. But I'm back to perfect record.

Dan: Yes. Yeah. So did you have a good time?

Dean: I had a great time. We went to Longboat Key and spent some time at the beach.

Dan: And that's on the Keys, is it? Is that on the Keys?

Dean: It's a key off of the coast of Sarasota. So it's a little key there. So it's about two hours from my house and just wonderful. We stayed at a place called the Longboat Key Beach Resort. And it was, you know, the beaches there are just so nice sand, the powder kind of sand. All the gulf beaches are really, really nice and the weather was perfect. It's nice to. Nice to have some thinking time and to just disconnect for a little bit.

Dan: Yeah. I was thinking, you know, I've been thinking recently about what determines people's feeling of aging. And I actually, I actually think is that they're. Well, the, the calendar of course, says that they're a day older or a week, month or a quarter older, but I think it's. They're not learning anything new, not developing any new capabilities, not discovering anything new. And I think that's what determines people's feeling of aging.

Dean: Like, I mean, I honestly, I say to people, I don't feel any different than I did at 22. You know, mentally. Curiosity, you know, joy and engagement and all of those, you know, positive things. Physically, I feel different than I did at 22, but. But mentally and my spirit, I feel this way, but I feel like so much more. You know, I've had way more experience now.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: And I imagine, you know, you're just your. Imagine at 77, you don't. Do you feel any different?

Dan: You know, it's really interesting. We have a new thinking process that I'm testing out on Our two hour. We have our two hour connector calls between quarterly workshops and I came up with one. Two or three weeks ago. And I don't think that you caught it because I think it's been within the last week or so. And it's called why you're a great who. And yeah, it reverses the thinking. I mean, since who, not how. By the way, we're at 120 now registrations because of who now that's so great into the program. Yeah. And 28 are just read the book, phone the click on the website and sign up with no, no discussion with the strategic coach.

Dean: It's one of those concepts that once it does what it says on the tin, once you get it, the insight is within the words, you get it and you understand what that means. And you say you understand immediately that I need that.

Dan: Yeah, it's really interesting. We're up over 900 with our Amazon reviews. So there's been a, you know, just a big bunch of reviews and we're at 4.6 out of, you know, possible total 5. We're at 4.6. And Robert Cialdini was at Genius Genius X two weeks ago and he, he was saying that reviews are kind of part of a whole vast universe, which is called Persuasion. That's his next book is called Peer Swage. It's. Well, it's sort of to kind of sum it up very shortly. It's that it's how you count with people who are kind of like you. Yes. You know, sort of resonate. You're, you know, in a network. And so he said the sweet spot with a review, like a book review is between 4.2 and 4.7. He discovered that. And so we're at 4.6. So we're at a higher level. The sweet spot. And. But it was very interesting because I have one review that's a one star. It's one star out of five. So I wanted to go see what this person had to say. And I found the person said, why do you even have to read the book? Everything you need to know is on the COVID

Dean: There it is, you see?

Dan: And I said, well, that wasn't such a bad review.

Dean: That's great. Exactly.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So anyway, I thought that was humorous because he was angry because now the question whether, you know, I think it was a he. The question was whether he does anything with the thought. You know, that's really whether it's.

Dean: That's like that Never eat alone book. You don't even need to read it just. There it is. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: And. Yeah, so. So anyway, it's, it's great. But the, the ones that, you know, I mean, you're. You and I are, you know, constant conversationalists ever since we've known each other about marketing.

Dean: How do you.

Dan: How do you attract someone's attention and then engage with that person in the most economical way, you know, in other words, the most productive way.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: And my, my sense is, you know, that the book is written through a collaboration, not requiring much time on my part, and the book is out there. You know, it's a note in a bottle, really. You know, we've got more than 100,000 bottles floating around and. And then the person reads the book and is persuaded enough to go to our website and not only find out about us, but to actually sign up at the widget. And that's, that's very economical from start to finish. That's a very economical idea.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And. And then we put up the COVID on Amazon. We put up the COVID for the Gap and again, which is for. For this October and in the first week we had a thousand orders already, so that's great. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that's my story.

Dean: Things are shaping up. This is awesome. I love to hear all of that.

Dan: Yeah. But the idea of why you're a grade who, what I do is I simply have you identify from your past activities that clearly indicated at a much earlier age why you're such a great who now, activities that you're doing right now that would represent why you're a great who. And then possibilities for the future that would even expand why you're a great who. And you write 3, 3 and 3. And then under the past column, I have you write down what are the lessons that you got from these past experiences doing the past experience that you're presently using lessons and then what are the best projects in the present, but where you're using the most of why you're a great who. And then what are the three possibilities in the future that would even up the game? You would even be more being a great who? And then insights. And then they talk about it and it's very emotional. I was kind of surprised. I tried it last Monday, last Tuesday, and one of our 10 times connectors. And the thing that it did, if I can sum up what I think was the strongest response to it, was that all of a sudden people began to see that when they were children, they were actually heading in the direction of, you know, what makes them a great who. Right now.

Dean: Right.

Dan: So you were talking about 22. So probably at 22, you were well on the path to being a great group.

Dean: Yes. Yeah, I think that's great because that's the great. That was the great awakening, you know, learning about. I'd always been attracted to entrepreneurship and, you know, the results economy, because that's, you know, by only ever one job at the bowling alley cured me of, of working per hour, you know, for a regular job in favor of the results economy of selling coupon books door to door. That was just. That was a great lesson. And the ability to overcome, you know, to develop the ability to go and knock on people's doors and talk to strangers. Well, money.

Dan: I think one of the, I think big changes in your lifetime, in my lifetime compared to today is that, you know, children and teenagers are not getting the same amount of possibility. It's true. Even having. Even having a normal job, they're not. They're not able to have even a normal job in many cases. And so, you know, I mean, I forget who I was talking to. One of the clients, but he said that. Oh, he was talking. He was. He's got a son in college, and the son, they were visiting and they had sort of a hangout with the son and a number of the other students. And. The. He. He just noticed that they were, you know, they seemed to be clueless about how money was made, how money was created, and. Yeah, you know, how the, how the economy grows and everything else. And it was very interesting because he got talking to them and he said that, you know, that he said they've got all sorts of magical thinking about how things actually happen. You know, they don't have a. They don't really have a sense that value has to be created. And the value is in the eyes of the, you know, the person who's paying for it. And they'll pay a little. They'll pay, or a lot, depending on how valuable it is. And it hadn't gotten across to them that that's fundamentally what's involved for your personal finances, but also just, you know, billions of people. This is how things actually move. This is how things are actually created. And yeah, maybe that's why. Maybe that's why there's an upswing in UFO sightings right now.

Dean: You know, that's so funny.

Dan: There's absence. There's an absence of real understanding how things work. So, you know, you know, so your, Your thinking goes very far afield.

Dean: If you don't really understand, it's pretty interesting. Like what is happening right now, if you see the. The UFO files, you know, if you're observing, it feels like the. The Navy and the government is getting. And I don't know what. I think the media is portraying it as admitting that there's things that they don't know. All this. The recent activity seems to be around

Dan: these

Dean: orbs that splashed into the ocean just recently. Yeah, we've seen about those.

Dan: Yeah, I actually saw. I saw a video. Yeah, that's about an hour before I came on this morning. I was looking at one. So what was. I mean, it's gotta qualify on three counts. Is it unidentified? Yep, it's unidentified.

Dean: Is it flying?

Dan: Yes, flying. Yes, it is. And is it an object? It seems to be an object that.

Dean: Right there is an unidentified flying object. Yes.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. People said, you know, I mean, aliens. I said, oh, no, they didn't say it was aliens. They said it was an unidentified flying object. And I told them.

Dean: That's what you got there. Yeah,

Dan: I don't know. And, you know, they interviewed. Apparently they interviewed Navy pilots who spotted things and actually taken photos. And yes, the one this morning that I saw was from Shipboard. Yeah, they were taking a video of that. And I said, well, if. If what shows up on their video is what they saw, there's definitely, I have to say, that was an unidentified flying object.

Dean: Yes. And it's interesting how the media now, they're turning that into, are there aliens? You know, like, that would be. They're saying that. So the thing I thought was, if that is, it would be the most profound event in human history.

Dan: I think that would be true.

Dean: I think that would be true. I think, like, that is stating the normity of it and yet understating it at exactly the same time. The most profound outcome in human history. I mean.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. But I wouldn't, you know, I. I actually wouldn't turn on my television set to watch it because, you know, I've got my. No, you're on my campaign going. So I would, you know, I. I'd probably go on to, you know, go on to the Internet to see what's actually happening there.

Dean: Well, that.

Dan: Yeah, I was just watching the. Watching. I mean, talk about incredible. The. The barrage of rockets that were fired at Israel and how the Iron Dome technology was, you know, Picking. Picking them off, you know, and you just see, you know, hundreds. Hundreds of these rockets in the air. And then Israeli defense, the Iron Dome defense thing, they shoot them up. And so they said that they were about 90% good this time. They able to knock the rockets out. And anyway, we had clients, we, we had clients about 10 years ago from Alabama and they worked on components of that system. They actually, you know, they were, you know, I mean, things like that. There's probably technology of nature. Byron Bowman if no one knows what I'm talking about. It's a defense missiles. So that if a enemy launches a rocket through satellite technology, they can detect the launch and immediately they can calculate the trajectory of the rocket, the enemy rocket, hostile rocket, and then they determine where that's going to land. And it's just going to land in an empty space. They don't. They let it just explode. But if it's looking like it's going to hit a populated area, then they send a rocket up and their rocket knocks out the other racket.

Dean: Wow, this is just, I mean, where would you even start to create stuff like that? Like sort of you just realize there are people just intellectually on a whole nother level.

Dan: Well, it's because there was, I think probably humans who were better at other humans in calculating trajectory. In other words. Yeah, they were actually in the, you know, they. It's like baseball players that always still to this day amazes me that, you know, the pitcher will pitch and let's say, you know, looks like it's going to be a home run or it looks like it's going to be a hit and one of the fielders, center fielder, whichever fielder runs, just runs straight and arrives just as the ball comes down. And, and. But apparently, you know, first of all, they've done it before. That's true. You know, they have the experience. But the other thing is they've done it so often that they know from doing it a thousand times or 2,000 times, you know, that right off the bat they knew about 95% where it's going to land. And then they have to speed up and then they have to calculate and then they catch the ball. So if you think of human abilities that we develop all these enormous abilities and we do them over and over and over again, it looks like magic at a certain point because your brain has calculated the odds and it's got the odds pretty good of exactly what's going to happen here. And then at a certain point, this can be documented and it can be programmed into computer and you know, into a technological system. And, and one of the things that I put an emphasis on, you know, the. There's always been this discussion, you know, with entrepreneurs and genius network at abundance360 and you know, in Our own workshops where people say, why do you have so many people? I mean, you know, why do you have so many people in your company? And I said, well, I said, first of all, I like having a lot of people. And I said, and I said, if they're always growing and taking on new skills, then it's not really a cost, it's an investment. You know, it's really an investment. And you know, and when something unexpected happens or something brand new happens, if you've had people who have successfully taken on and completed, you know, dozens of new projects in, in the past, they just treat it like a new project.

Dan: Like, you know, switching to Zoom backstage so that everybody was working from home. That was just a new project. And, you know, it was done and it was done in three days. And then we have to switch. We have to switch. And you know, now instead of in person, we're doing it by zoom. But that's just a new project. So we're doing this new project. New project. So if you have teams of people who are just always used to improving their skills and taking on new challenges, then there's not a great negativity to the new thing. It's just, it's just a new thing that you're doing.

Dean: Right? Yeah, this is,

Dan: we're bigger. I mean, we're, we let go 23 people right off the bat, like within first two days. And they had all been hired within the previous six months. And they weren't, they weren't engaged yet. They were still in their training period. So they won't really engage because we weren't, we weren't losing productivity. And we let them know. And the reason is that we wanted to have a company wide meeting on the fourth day. And you had to, if you're going to let people go, you had to do it in the first two, three days. And so it was really interesting. And then we went from 130 down to 107 and now we're back up to about 119. So during the past year we've. And some have left, some people have left over the, you know, but what I'm noticing is just this very, very high skill level. And, you know, we have 70 people been with us for more than 10 years.

Dean: You know, that's what's great, isn't it like that level of inside knowledge, you know, specialized knowledge about both as a teamwork and as the culture and everything. That goes a long way.

Dan: Yeah. And, you know, there's a feeling that we as a company did it really well, you know, because, you know, there's companies that didn't do it well and you know, they, they get the news, they watch the news, they listen to what their friends are saying and everything. But the interesting thing is that our global program, our virtual global program, which we started in September of last year, so we're. What's that, seven months? I'm trying to think. Yeah, it's about seven months and we've got 390 signed ups.

Dean: That's great.

Dan: Yeah, yeah.

Dean: See, that's the. Really. I just saw a great article I was reading this morning. I start out, I wish I could remember where I found it. I did bookmark the article, but it started out with a New York Times article about Mr. Beast that I found. And then it was through linking out to these. But somebody had done the landscape of what their calling economy, which is the new word to describe what we've created now in the last 10 years. It's really only 10 years old. And that's what Mr. Beast is part of this creator economy, meaning people who are making things on YouTube, creating content. I would call under that definition, I would be in the creator economy. You would be in the creator economy. All of these things Right. Where we're creating content that we share with a global audience. And they did a estimation of the landscape of the creator economy, and there's about 50 million people in the creator economy. They guesstimate, not guesstimate. They went. There was very specifically formulated by the number of people, the number of YouTube accounts that are over a certain amount, that have a hundred thousand, a hundred thousand or more subscribers kind of thing that those are what they're calling the professional creator economy. And same with Instagram and, you know, all, all of that.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: And so when you look at that, it's very neatly. The, is very neatly 1% of the global online community of 5 billion people. And so there's something, you know, it's, it's, it's. It was really interesting to see because the. We start to look at that it's really only been possible the last. It's really only been possible over the last 10 years that this is all evolved. Mm Mm. Which, you know, that's pretty, it's pretty great. And you know, to think about that, there's so much where it's essentially alchemy. You know, that's really what I was describing it as years ago that when we talked about. Eben Pagan and I had a really great discussion one time, we were talking about how, you know, currencies and things used to be on the gold standard where it was, you know, attached to physical, you know, something to a physical asset. And I was kind of taking the side that because everybody was saying how when we switched to a fiat currency, that was the beginning of the end kind of thing. But the fact that the economy itself, the world itself is moving or at the time was moving into a situation where we could create money from nothing. You know, this was 20 years ago we were having this discussion and, you know, I was making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year selling a digital book, which is literally like selling a picture of a book. Right. It's not even selling a physical book. And yet that money was being exchanged with no physical impact on that would ever show up. GDP or trade deficit or, you know, it was all, yeah, physical goods, you know.

Dan: Yeah. You know, it's really interesting. There was a book written probably about 20 years ago and it just got updated. And I don't know both the authors, but one name is Mark Mills. And Mark Mills is a thinker about energy related matters. And he's with, he's with an institute called the Manhattan Institute, which is sort of an entrepreneurial think tank. So they're very definitely geared towards value creation, innovation and everything like this. And, and I've listened to Mark mills, I've seen YouTube and, and, and, but there's a fascinating book and the,

Dean: the

Dan: thesis, the name of the book is the Bottomless well. And he said, and the, his thesis is that you can tell how advanced a, you know, a civilization is or a society is by the sheer amount of energy that they can waste.

Dean: The sheer amount of energy they can waste. I love that. Yeah, yeah.

Dan: For example, if you think of a laser beam, there's just a phenomenal amount of energy that has been essentially wasted to actually, you know, go through all the research and the development and the tech, you know, the buildup of technology to the point where you could get a laser beam. Laser beam. And it just uses up a phenomenal amount of energy and most of it is wasted energy in the sense that it's just thrown off as heat, you know, I mean, you know, starting with either coal or natural gas that's required to produce the electricity. And then, yeah, all the, all the, all the energy that's required to even manufacture, manufacture the technology. And he said that the US is the number one country in the world. And he says surely on the basis that, that the US wastes more energy than any other country on the planet. And I thought it was a really, really Interesting. He says this would be sort of an indicator, you know, an indicator of where we are right now. And you know the story, the article that you just Talked about, the 50 million who are in the new economy, they're in the part of the. That exists because of the incredibly high waste of energy.

Dean: Yeah, that is true. So here's. I found the article, it was from the Signal Fire blog and this was an interesting.

Dan: So I'd appreciate if you send it on to me.

Dean: Yeah, damn. Of course I will. Yes. So here's an infographic that shows that there are 50 million content creators serving our 5 billion community. So 1% is feeding the 99% bottomless well of attention to be wasted. Right. And so they're estimating that there are 46.7 million amateur creators and 2 million professional creators. Meaning which that's kind of an interesting. Here's how they break that down

Dan: of

Dean: YouTube has 31 million channels on YouTube and 1 million of them have over 10,000 subscribers.

Dan: I see.

Dean: So on Instagram, 1 billion accounts on Instagram and approximately 500,000 have over 100,000 followers. And it's interesting that there are. Approximately 200,000 musicians, writers, illustrators, podcasters. So we fall into that category there. And that's a pretty, I mean, that's a pretty interesting. Well, some pretty interesting stats, you know.

Dan: Well, think about, you know, I mean, go back to your starting number of 50 million.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: You know, think of, think of the. Those individuals have been essentially freed up from having to do things for survival for the most part.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: You know, and you know what, it's kind of like the, the entire global society right now is capable of 50 million. So if you measured 10 years from now and it was up to 100 million, that means that you've had an enormous growth of your global economy and in a ten year period.

Dean: Yeah, I look at the, I've been contemplating like thinking about the. How much of what we do. How much of the economy. Because you heard the words when we were. These were quarantine thoughts. I was having that essential workers.

Dan: Right.

Dean: What are essential workers? And I thought about how much of what we do is really at the tippy top of Maslow's hierarchy.

Dan: Yes.

Dean: You know, I mean that the, the, the majority of what we're doing is non essential. Seems like, you know, like when you take, if you look at just all of the, the people that you come into contact with and what their,

Dan: what

Dean: their business is or what their job is or how they're employed, there's a lot of stuff that is,

Dan: you would

Dean: deem non essential like that are not like, you think about the whole like entertainment world. You know, all of this. And none of YouTube is essential. None of this whole, the, you know, the creator economy is not essential. Right. It's kind of a. And it's funny how.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like, you know, in the health insurance market, you know, what is insurable and what is considered elective surgery, for example, in other words, your surgery will be covered by insurance, but if you're doing plastic surgery that would not be covered by insurance, that's elected. And you could use the same words for.

Dean: That's a good idea. It's actually elective economy. That's great. That's a good, that's a really good distinction actually.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. It's not an essential economy, it's an elective economy.

Dean: Yeah. And that's pretty interesting. Like when we look at the, you know, when we surround ourselves, we look at the people that we work with even, you know, like we're, we're. I wouldn't say we're. We're in the elective economy. That's. Yeah. For sure. Being an entrepreneur as an elective.

Dan: Yeah. And you know, one of the things I was thinking, Peter Diamantis and I had a conversation about two weeks ago, we did a number of podcasts and he had just interviewed Elon Musk. He had an hour long interview that went out on his.

Dean: I saw part of it.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. And we were talking about Elon and I said, you know, my suspicion is that his, you know, his, the value of. He puts it all. I think he puts everything under Tesla. It's called the Tesla. And you know, and that, you know, it's very, very highly rated. And his portion of it makes him the number one or number two wealthiest person in the planet, just going on stockholdings. And I said to Peter, yeah, I said, you know, I think that 50% of the value of what people are investing in is the man himself. I said, because if you really take Tesla apart as a car company and you know, you don't know the name of the car company, but they're selling this many cars, it shouldn't be as high. It is. You know, they don't. Yeah, they sell, you know, they're getting them near the half million, half million mark a year. But you know, Toyota sells nine, you know, they sell nine million a year. You know, like they're 18 times as big. And I said, there's some, there's something that is Extra. About Elon Musk, that it's. People are actually not so much investing what Elon says he's working on, it's that they'll invest in anything that Elon is working on. Because he's Elon.

Dean: Mm.

Dan: And. And because it seems to me that, you know, if you take somebody who's working on things, you know, are they essential or they're elective? I think they're all elective. I think everything he's working on is elective. And my sense is that he's developed a whole way of thinking about that, and he's put together how you fund it and how you package it and how you present it and, you know, and, you know, and how you get the word out and everything like that. So he's really created an entire system. And I said the number one message that I think comes across from Elon and. Yeah, and there's others that's true. Is that he would bet his life on a really big idea. And that's totally elective to bet your life on a really big idea. Yeah. And if he fails. If he fails, he doesn't care because, you know, I'm sure he cares, but what I'm saying is he's not asking

Dean: because we're living in a simulation anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan: He's not asking anyone to bail him out. You know, I mean, if he fails, he's not asking anyone to bail him out. But, you know, but I've got this exciting idea, and you think it's worth betting that, you know, that's. Yeah, that's really. That's really what he's. What he's done. And you and I, I mean, we're just 2 out of 8 billion on the planet, and if we screw up and we don't anything, it doesn't really matter.

Dean: Right. That's true.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Yeah. I've been thinking about the elective.

Dan: So my sense is your amount of freedom, you know, I have the full freedoms. Freedom of time, money, relationship, and purpose. Your. Your elective score is really a function of how much freedom that you've been able to create for yourself.

Dean: Huh? Yes, I agree with that.

Dan: In other words, if you drop back, We've just named a new economy. If you drop back and look at yourself, how much freedom of time do you have compared to 20 years ago? Much, much greater freedom of time. Same thing with money. Same thing with relationships. Same thing with purpose.

Dean: Yes, but that's the thing.

Dan: It's all.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: All those freedoms you've elected to have. You know, yeah. And your formula. No, I'm successful when feeds into those four freedoms and those four freedoms makes your, makes what you do more and more elective.

Dean: Yeah. And it's, I mean, yeah. I'm amazed by how durable my desires are. You know, when I look back even at my old journals that, you know how that's the right word. I think durable. My list has been, you know, it's,

Dan: it's, you know, the Nissan Taleb, if you ever read any of his books, the Black Swan and you know, antifragile. And he says what, you know, he said that he got, he says that bet on things that are anti fragile. In other words, that, that you don't know what kind of disruptions there's going to be in the future. So bet on things today that you think doesn't matter what kind of disruptions, you know, this bet will still work out.

Dean: That's like, that's Warren Buffett's durable advantage. Durable moat of certainty around something that, that's what he said. Other. He doesn't know which technologies are going to win, but he's certain that 50 years from now men are going to wake up with whiskers and King Gillette is going to be there to save the day. Yeah, yeah. And we're gonna love hamburgers and want Coke.

Dan: And I think, you know, I think about that every morning that I have a zoom, zoom call, you know, public zoom call, you know, where I'm doing a thing and when I come around shave, I say to myself, don't nick yourself now. You're going to be on camera.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And I appreciate, I, I use, I don't use Gillette. What's the other one

Dean: use? Gillette is that chick.

Dan: Well, it's one of those that's, you know, it's electric and it's got five blades, you know.

Dean: Oh my goodness. Norelco.

Dan: No, no, no, no, no. It's not an electric shaver. It's a regular shaver. It's just got battery, battery operated. Oh, I just vibrates.

Dean: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan: And yeah. It tells you right now that, it tells me right now that their advertising has been a complete failure because I love the product but I can't remember who makes it.

Dean: That's so funny. I used that same one and I

Dan: can't remember but I noticed that I'm really, really careful. I'm really, really careful, you know. And I said, you know, 30 years ago this would have been really, really dicey. I, I mean I, you know, I, I first shaved at age maybe 13, 13, 14, something like that. And you know, it was a razor blade that you put in and. But you could, you could cut yourself.

Dean: Yeah, the safety blade.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, well, they were safety. I guess I think they were safety blade because it wasn't a straight razor. You know, you weren't using. Right. You know, you weren't using a knife. Form of knife and everything else. But I just appreciate the progress that they've made in the technology over the years and yeah. And as you say, I mean pads will come and go regarding facial hair, but probably the majority of people will,

Dean: you know, at least trim it around. Yeah, yeah. So Dan, I thought of a great. Have you had any more thoughts or anybody brought anything up about NFTs for you? Non fungible tokens?

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean there's a constant buzz about it, you know and you know, some people are, you know, I can notice, are really looking into it and Joe is spending.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: His elective time during sabbatical year. He sent a kit, sent a kit over to us of things that he thought were useful to read. And I'm going to go through those this week because I have a free week this week and I'm just going to, you know, read them, watch them and. Yeah, I mean every quarter, it's a forever project. Every quarter. You want to know more about this?

Dean: Yeah, I think I thought of a great idea for an NFT for is a digital passport to Cloudlandia. Digital citizenship in Cloudlandia.

Dan: That'd be a good one.

Dean: I think so too.

Dan: So you're in the sense that they're going to receive some curation about this. Right?

Dean: Say more about that. I haven't thought that through.

Dan: Well, a passport. What I got from that is what are they actually investing in? You know, they're putting money down today for something that's going to be more valuable as it, as time goes by. What's going to become more valuable about their passport?

Dean: Oh, see, there we go. I hadn't thought that part through.

Dan: No, no. I wonder how you're gonna. I just wonder how you're gonna. No, I just wonder how you're gonna hook them with nine words, that's all.

Dean: I wonder too. Just gotta point me in the right direction and then the words will come to me.

Dan: Because my interest in it is that not so much NFT as such, but that blockchain is.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Very, very fast. Very, very cheap. New form of intellectual property protection.

Dean: Yes. Yeah.

Dan: And I think the, and all the IP lawyers. And all the IP lawyers. I've talked to think it's nonsense. And that tells me it's really important.

Dean: Well, because they're invested. That'd be like. Imagine if you go to the register land registry office, they'll probably tell you the same thing that. Yeah. But, you know, it could certainly see a time when.

Dan: Well, I mean, what I am. Is that it's verified trustworthy, you know, statement of ownership. Yes, that's what I mean. I don't know, you know, if it looks like a UFO and it's like, you know. Right. That damn thing that they're film there, that is. That is, you know, proof of ownership, you know.

Dean: Yes. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. And that's, you know, because I'm sitting there and I'm just noticing, you know, all the work and process and complexity that we've gone through since 1989 with, you know, using one of the intellectual property tools, whether we have one that's a patent, the strategy circle is a patent, and that's the only patent we have. And then we have registered trademarks. We have registered copyrights. But my sense is that for what seems to be like a very, very nominal amount of money, you can register something as a smart contract on the blockchain. And that's global. That's instantly global. It's not United States, it's not Canada. It's global because the blockchain is global. And I'm really intrigued with. I mean, you know, we would practice on ourselves. But what I'd like to do is to have some very enterprising entrepreneurs who would like to have this as a business that you can, you know, use their services because people still know somebody. You know, I'm not asking entrepreneurs to learn a new how. I'm simply asking them to consider that if they had a who. Who instantly took their new ideas and logged them as in as smart contracts on the blockchain, that they might be interested in using that service. And I already have a couple of people who are heading in that direction, so.

Dean: Huh. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. So anyway.

Dean: Well, that's interesting. Are you.

Dan: Tell me about your passport. Tell me about your.

Dean: Well, the idea was. No, just that because I don't know enough about what the NFTs are, but I know, like, I was thinking about just collectibles, you know, like a way a people are collecting trading cards or, you know, LeBron Dunks. I wasn't thinking about it as a contract with. With, you know, adding things up to it, but just to literally have a. Almost like an art piece made of a digital image. Image of a of a Cloudlandia passport and have them numbered, that you could. That you could be a registered kind of Cloudlandian.

Dan: Yeah. And how would that, you know? You know, from what you know about it.

Dean: What do you think?

Dan: No, let's, let's, let's go for it.

Dean: Yeah. Because I was thinking. Yeah.

Dan: The, the only thing we're in danger of is learning something new.

Dean: That's what that was. My point is, that's what I think it was. Yeah. Fun thing to learn and it could be a good platform for anybody to learn along with us because it could be a fun. It could be a fun way for people to get, you know, access or updates to what's going on.

Dan: The other thing is that we can promote it. Shame. I say.

Dean: Yes, exactly. We're. Because we're part of the self appointed creator economy.

Dan: Yeah. We're part. We're part of the self elected.

Dean: Yeah. And I mean citizenship in Cloudlandia, which we named and created out of our imaginations, is, you know, we could be the joint emperors of Cloudlandia.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Or

Dan: we're like the Guardians.

Dean: The Guardians of Cloudlandia. I was thinking about what would make a, like your American. Your good American checklist is. I wonder what it means to be a Cloudlandian.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm. I'm changing the name in July too, because July seems to be a good, good month in which to change the name of your podcast.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And it's going to be American Happiness. American reason is American Happiness. And the reason is that according to the Internet, doesn't matter which side you are. There aren't many that are.

Dean: Right.

Dan: I mean, seems like there's a lot of unhappy Americans.

Dean: That's true. Yeah.

Dan: And I said, so, you know, how's that working?

Dean: Right.

Dan: Yeah. So I said, let's just make it American Happiness. Let's just have a growing community of Americans who declare themselves happy and pass it on. You know, just, I mean, boy, you know, I mean, looks to me like Americans have it pretty good.

Dean: Yes. Is that what the. Is that what we are? That we are inalienable? The right to pursue life, liberty and happiness? Is that what it was?

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. But I think that it kind of made people crazy because. Pursuing happiness just seems like a how to me.

Dean: Yes. Yeah. That is interesting.

Dan: I was wondering, why don't you just recognize, oh, I'm happy, you know, Yeah, I got. I'm happy. And tomorrow I figured out a way to be happier and like, you know, 90 days from now, I, I think I'd be Happier too. And be giddy. Yeah. And I'm making up the rules and I'm making up the measurements, so.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Yeah. I'm just going to self declare that I'm going to have a happy American.

Dean: That's awesome. By the way, I meant to ask, what, what is your. Are you going to do this as a quarterly book as well?

Dan: No, no. Yes, that's the plan. And I'll co author it with Mark. Mark Young, because. Yeah, the idea. Over three years. So it'll be Dr. Mark Young.

Dean: Doctor.

Dan: And you know, he's, he's a. He's got a doctorate in psychology in the area of hypnotism. Hypnotism. Hypnotism. Yeah. From the University of Toronto. From the University of Toronto. And. Yeah. But anyway, I think that, You know why I would like to do this, this passport, is that we'll be compelled to go deeper with our thinking about why this is a significant thing. Have fun.

Dean: Well, I know. I mean, this, the concept, this, these things that we're seeing here, this whole creator economy, that's really, it's all happening within this world of Cloudlandia. That's really the wrapper around all of it.

Dan: Yeah. I mean, to use a previous transformation of its kind, there's no question that the ability to read was a major jump forward, you know, you know that someone could look at a page with all sorts of marks on it and get total meaning out of it. Right. And think of, you know, all the technology that had to develop before there was even a page.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: You could put marks on it and everything like that. And I think that we're going through something very akin to. And that. It's not what I would say, intuitive. No, it's not really intuitive. Is that. It's a way of thinking that requires an extraordinary amount of pre development that you've been doing over the last 10 years before you kind of get what the significance of this new thing is.

Dean: And that's when you really realize it. I mean, I was doing some kind of time lining in my journal the other day that, you know, I came up with these, where I was thinking about how to focus like it's 1999, because it was easier to focus in 1999 for me. And part of the reason was because the Internet was still a place that you would go to. And in 2007 when the iPhone came out, now it was a place. Now the Internet was always with you. You always brought the Internet with you. And once you always had it with you, that's when this whole. That was the big bang for Cloudlandia.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was so funny because Mike Koenigs and I have done two podcasts, I think, on Blockchain and nft. And you know, and you know, I've definitely got some ideas about what I think is happening here, but Mike says, well, you know, why don't you just explain, you know, kind of how the cloud chain works. And I said, I just have to put out a warning to the listeners that I still haven't figured where the cloud is.

Dean: Right, right.

Dan: You know, I said, you know, and you know, they call it the cloud. I know where the cloud is. Where is it? You know, yeah, everything like that. And then where's this chain? You know, where's this chain? And black. And black and everything like that. But I do get a sense that the central issue here is establishing a foundation. Global foundation for trust.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Among strangers. That a stranger 12 time zones away from me sees that I have a smart contract on the blockchain that relates directly to what we're talking about. It's totally trustworthy then. And I don't even have to know this person.

Dean: Right. Yeah, that's. I mean, it's one of those things, you know, it reminds me of, you know, one of the famous, you know, television clips is Bryant Gumbel and you know, Hoda, what is Internet? What is Internet? Exactly.

Dan: I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think they're. We're doing that and you know, it's the sharp edge, you know, it's the sharp edge of the razor, you know, I mean, yeah, people that. There's a growing population of individuals who, number one, want this and they're, they're wanting, kind of creates it, you know, and they're making use. Use of it. So. So yeah, well, that was a very full go. And next time we. I will have caught up with that little advantage you had for about nine days.

Dean: That's right. There we go.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Yes. That's great. Have you got any plans?

Dan: Yeah. Peter Diamandis was born early hours of the 20th of May, but I was born at 9 o', clock, the 19th of May, 9 o' clock in the evening. So I always have about a. You know, I have a nine hour. I get this old nine hour spurt, you know.

Dean: Yeah, I love it. Yeah, yeah, I love it. Well, I will, I'll send you that article, Dan, that I found both the New York Times and the, and the Creator Economy article.

Dan: Well, I love it. I really love it.

Dean: And I'll put both in the show notes for everybody listening. Okay?

Dan: Okay.

Dean: Have a great week, Dan.

Dan: And I'm on for next. If all goes well, we'll talk a week from now.

Dean: Me too. Okay, talk to you soon. Bye.

Dan: Okay, bye.