Increasing Focus

Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia. Welcome to Cloudlandia.

Dan: Welcome to my secret domain where I make very crucial decisions and also involve myself in very crucial discussions with those who know. I don't have crucial discussions with those who don't know.

Dean: Dan. I have been. I've read now one and a half times, your attention, your property. Take that complete control of your attention for the rest of your life by one Dan Sullivan with cartoons by Hamish McDonald. Are you familiar with this piece of work?

Dan: I am. I. I am. And I know people who are on the inside of that project.

Dean: Wow. So it's fascinating, Dan. Like, really. It's one of those things that we've had discussions about, but for some reason, seeing it collectively all put into this one frame of equating your attention to property. It's your property and you do with it what you want. Is a. It's pretty. Pretty profound.

Dan: Yeah. I think the. What I'm taking advantage, as I do pretty close almost right up front, is that when people check out their past experience in terms of what experiences really mean the most to them and they remember most, it's probably where they gave the experience their full attention. In other words, they weren't abiding or thinking with a lot of other things while they're having the experience. So that's one. That's a big, positive thing. And the other thing is that everybody I know, if you get them talking, they have property that really is dear to them. You know, they really love certain aspects of their property. And just generally I'm talking about physical property. And so I said, what if you just took these two positives and put them together and just basically said that your attention is your property, but that you. Frequently. I'll use my assets. I have frequently in my life blank property. Because I've let it be taken up and taken over by things which really weren't all that good for me.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Mm.

Dean: And that's your launch. My thinking is that it really changes the frame of it because there's time as one thing. Time is passing by. But it's the most important thing are these. I've been using the word attention units. That's really what the.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Is being. Because the attention is the. We've said it.

Dan: Jackson for that.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: You know.

Dean: Exactly. But there.

Dan: Yeah. 10 minutes full concentrated attention on a single thing.

Dean: Yeah. Of directed attention. That's really. That's what I realized is the crown jewel of it all is the tippy top laser focus of the primary attention on one thing. And when you get that. I Do see that there are many. There's different levels. I would say even either you can give something full something attention while listening to something else in the background and watching something else out of your periphery and being in an environment that's competing for other attention around there. But there's nothing like this sort of 3D attention where it's the full.

Dan: Yeah, you and I. And. But there's. Typically people say ADD are people who can't pay attention because they have too many distractions going on. But that's. That's. That's only half.

Dean: Right.

Dan: That's only happening. In fact, there are certain activities where people with ADD hyper focus. And they are able to focus in a way that people who aren't distractible can focus. Okay. And it's been one of my great pleasures to discover that. Doing workshops on Zoom Palm invites me to be in hyper focus for the entire. For the entire period of six hours at least. The actual. The actual coaching part and then.

Dean: And participate in the breakout.

Dan: It's hard for me to do that in person situations. To be hyper focused.

Dean: Mm. Yeah. That's interesting because probably in person workshops during the break things, you've got team members that are coming up to you and other things that are going on.

Dan: Not if I'm in the. Not if I'm in the. Not if I'm in the actual discussion with the clients that wouldn't. That wouldn't be interrupted. But the basic thing is that people are not as organized in focusing in four chairs in the lobby and things are going on around them and everything like that.

Dean: I agree.

Dan: And. But when they're simply in a very comfortable. Very comfortable place in their own home or their own office and they're taking part in a digital event, they tend to be much more present and much more focused than they are when they're.

Dean: My big realization from the beginning about the breakouts are improved. Yeah.

Dan: When you break, you're moving to someplace else where you. Where you. Right. And. And you say, I'm. Oh, I'm just gonna get in a short call here. I'm just gonna leave a message.

Dean: So that's finished up. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. And every. If everybody added to that, it would be five minutes before you start the discussion group and somebody say, what are we supposed to do?

Dean: Yeah, I wasn't really. Yeah, I didn't really do the exercise right. That's exactly what happened.

Dan: I didn't really get that. And you know, I don't think we

Dean: realized you were on to us with that. Dan. There.

Dan: There's Two responses. You know, there's two responses to that. One is don't they know this is important? Why don't they? That's one response. The other response is now improve them. We've got to really double down and improve their taking of their. Yeah, that doesn't work either.

Dean: Right.

Dan: I'm going to, I'm going to start with. I'm going to improve the human race and I'm going to start with these people right here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, good luck with that. No, I really thank you very much. Thank you very much on the feedback on that talk. But it's just I notice when I go in and out, I'm pretty conscious and that, that it's our own fault in a certain way because we have so many interesting experiences that are on file and that, that we can pull anyone, if we're the least bit bored in the present, we can pull one of those other stored up experience and think about a stored up experience more than about what's actually happening to us right now.

Dean: Yeah. One of my favorite quotes is the difference you feel between being owned and being the owner is dramatically energizing. And that's an interesting. I hadn't heard you talk about that before, but what is. Can you explain that a little?

Dan: Yeah, that for me, I guess just to use an experience where at some point people in their past, their time wasn't their own. Like they were in class and they had to pay attention during class and to a certain extent the time wasn't there their own during that hour. So maybe you can go back and say you're the one who chose to be here. But that certainly wasn't true to 1st grade through 12th grade. And when I was going through school, not really my choice. And a little kid doesn't like first grade. So was your decision to go. Well, not really.

Dean: Right, right, right.

Dan: And, and anyways that was owned, you know, and so the experience, and my attention to the experience was not under my ownership during the time of a class. And. But on the other hand, somebody. I was reading an article here, this is really interesting. And I was reading an article about the word the Enlightenment, which is roughly 17th, 18th, 19th century intellectual movements largely in Europe. And the author was using it as if this Enlightenment was a consensus that everybody involved in the Enlightenment was in agreement with each other and that they were all the same type of people, they were all in agreement with each other. And, and when you go into it deeply, you realize that in fact there were two parts to the Enlightenment and they were in Bitter opposition to each other. And one of them turned into kind of what I would call Anglo American, Dutch Anglo American capitalism and democracy. And the other one turned into European totalitarianism like the Nazis, the communists and everything. Where both of them started was our human brains are good enough that we can figure out what we're supposed to do. Okay. When we have truths in quotation mark that are passed down from antiquity, we don't have to accept them right out. We can use our brains to think, do we really want to accept these truths? And that's where it started. But one of them went. And there was a fork in the road and one of them went to the left and right. So I just spent about two hours going through this and making notes. And I said everything in coach really agrees with this Dutch angle being British American Enlightenment and it's opposed to everything. So I felt that I was owning my time. I was using Google for good purposes and I was going deeper on something I was keenly interested in. And I feel armed, I feel armed for future discussions about this idea of the Enlightenment. And then I got some proof for what I think is a fundamental philosophical impact of strategic coach concepts and tools. So there's. Yeah, that was our. Well owned.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Yeah. And you do that all the time with your new VCR models.

Dean: I do.

Dan: You're passionate about the topic. You have a way of very quickly reviewing what you've established as first principles for what's a vision, what's cap, what's capability, reach, what's capability and what's reach. And I've just added to my understanding of that. That's your attention well used. And you own that on that. Nobody else in the world owns that because nobody else knew what you were doing.

Dean: That's right. Yeah, that's.

Dan: And I think.

Dean: Yeah, I see that all the time now that, that you're right, that there's a lot of those things. But that requires a little. Yeah, it requires some awareness of that. Is that you're doing this in the pursuit of something. But then there's a lot of those hours where my. Because you're consorting with evildoers who are. Don't have the same intention for your attention as you do. You often get sucked into hours spent not well invested attention hours.

Dan: Yeah, that's like the gravitational pull. One of the reasons I abstained from television now in my fourth year now, haven't watched any television now over that time. Babs watches television. She's got one in the gym and when she's exercising, she'll she's been watching things and she'll tell me about them. She'll tell me about them. And it's very clear to me from her reports that there were some things on television during the more than three years that I've not been watching television that probably, I would have. Probably enjoyed. I probably would have enjoyed that. But that's true about anything in life if you decide to go to New York for three days. Did you know that same time in Los Angeles, there were really neat things going on in Los Angeles that you missed because you chose to go to New York.

Dean: I had a great swim in the ocean, Dan, but I sure missed a lot of it.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it's a scarce. I think it's a fundamental scarcity.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: At the very bottom of how people experience themselves. It's either abundance or scarcity. And I think it's binary. Okay. And that is that great things are happening and I don't. I'm not included in them. And there's Joe Polish, coined the term Tom Syndrome. Terrified of Mission Missing shit, you know, and he said that he has it. He brought it up. He says, but I have a feeling that the things that I'm doing are not as interesting as what's going on somebody else. And I said that. Is that a good thought for you to have inside your head, you know? And he said, what do you mean? I didn't put it there. And I said, yeah, but at a certain point you knew it was there, so, yes, it stays in your head. Then it's with your permission.

Dean: That's it. Yeah, this is. And you're. You're absolutely right that the. When you have a lens like this, when I'm looking through things and I see them in light of the. In Plotlandia or in light of the VCR formula and seeing things in action, there's. It's. I feel good like that. I've uncovered a gem kind of thing. Just. It was just announced that Barstool Sports is going to pair with virtual dining concepts to do the same kind of arrangement as Mr. Beast called Barstool Bites. And you think about what an amazing. Of course, it makes all the sense in the world that eating and having stuff while watching sports is like the perfect combination. And these guys have a rabid, amazing story as well. Are you familiar with Barstool Sports, Dave Portnoy? No. So they're relatively like they're a new world kind of media company, and it's a pretty, pretty amazing story. They're just like they took over the sports commentary world. Just real sports fans reporting on real sports. And that's why they call it barstool sports. Like all the guys that would be die hard fans sitting at the bars, never missing a game and knowing how with encyclopedic knowledge of everything.

Dan: Bars generally, like on NFL Sunday, they'll have all the games on different.

Dean: That's right.

Dan: You know, and you can position your bar stool in your drink to watch the game that, that you're interested in.

Dean: That's exactly right. And so that's the crowd, that's their audience and they've built an amazing thing. Sold. Sold their a big piece of the company to a major betting company and they are, you know, poised to become a billion dollar empire. And all happened fairly quickly. But now with.

Dan: I love it. I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a very famous. He actually won, I think he actually won a Nobel Prize about five years ago. Joel Moker, M O K Y R. He's an economist. He'll spend a lot of his time near University of Chicago and the basically put substance to like mathematical substance formula to that new capabilities. Like hanging out with new capabilities.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Yeah, I'm putting it in layman language, but that. Yes, that's the essence of what he did. And they had a mathematical formula to actually show the desirability of capabilities to other desirable. To other desirable capabilities. And I've been very influenced. I read things that people do and I don't try to apply their ideas, but it resonates. Like my idea of coach resonates with his Nobel Prize winning idea. So my idea resonates with his idea. I let that be. I let that be. People say, well, once you call that person and talk to him. I said, other than that, I don't think we have much to talk. I said my prior roots for the. I root for the Browns and that's going to be a bummer right off the bat. And so anyway, people think, you know, oh, you should really get emphasis being on should. Any word where somebody uses at me has the word should in it. I know. That's loser right there.

Dean: Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, that's. Yeah. Do so, you know, think there's story after story of that.

Dan: But you know why you're seeing why you're seeing them, Dean.

Dean: Because I'm giving my attention to them.

Dan: Because that's what, because that's what your brain's looking for.

Dean: Yes, exactly.

Dan: So it's. It's told your eyes don't think. Right.

Dean: Ah, Damn, there's another book. I see it coming. I don't think.

Dan: Your eyes don't see. Your eyes don't think and neither do your ears.

Dean: Right?

Dan: Yeah. They are directed. They, they report to higher executives. Yeah.

Dean: There's data gatherers. They're data gatherers.

Dan: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. And they're told today, I want you to look for this. And the eyes look for that. They ignore everything that they looked for yesterday and look for this today.

Dean: Yeah. And then you get a pattern of. Sometimes they do create a pattern of what they're looking for. You start to see that evidence. I love, I love things like that. I start to see the. What I'm really starting to figure out what this. Your attention concepts here put in my mind is that's really where we are right now, is that we have more than any other time in history, things to attract our attention. And not only that, we also equally have the greatest opportunity to direct our attention more than ever. Like before up until the sort of streaming and the Internet searching for, going out and finding the things aside from the Dewey decimal system at the library, the card catalog. The only opportunity that most of our attention was taken up by things that were being thrown to us on someone else's schedule. Like the television lineup was what the television lineup was.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: There was no sidestepping that if you wanted to watch certain shows you built your week around or your day around that time, that's when it was happening. So your attention was being gathered there. And luckily there was a balance of it that we had more attention units to give. Cause there was less competing for it. Like back even the days of cable in the 80s when it was like that was the big joke. Now there's so many channels but nothing's on.

Dan: You know, the other thing, I just got a thought sitting there and I said, oh, I remember when the TV stations, and this is abc, cbs, NBC. Yeah. Your local version of them signed off at midnight. They signed off and they didn't come back till 6 o'. Clock.

Dean: Yeah. With the American flag.

Dan: Right. So I went on YouTube and I said, I want to see, I want to see TV sign offs. And they didn't all sign off with the, with the national anthem. Some of them it was, you know, a little self promotion on the part of the local studio, you know, you know, why we're such great contributors to Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And I say I was a little, you know, that was a little, you know, positive affirmation for themselves before they went off the air and we will be very. We're signing off now, but in six hours we will be very disappointed if you don't sign back on with us.

Dean: Yeah, don't change that dial.

Dan: Yeah, don't change. Yeah, you gotta know. Yeah, you got us where you need it. You don't know about that antenna. If you. The other guys, it's not the same. It's a bit fuzzy. Ye. But. But it was a different time that here you have six hours of black and blank.

Dean: That's how Kevin Harrington got started with the infomercial he was watching when cable started. The Discovery Channel was on channel 32 or whatever it was for him, and he was home late and was flipping through, but there was no signal. Nothing was coming through on channel 32. And he called the cable company, said, hey, channel 32 is broken. It's not going through on me. And they said, oh, no, they only broadcast till. They only broadcast till midnight. And then they start again at 8am and he was.

Dan: I'll buy every.

Dean: Saw that. That's what he said. That's exactly what happened. Can you rent me that? Can I provide content for that? And it was basically, they would look at it that they were looking to make $7,000 for a half hour of the show, the airtime. And he was happy to provide that. And that built the. Built into empire around that. He had it to himself quite a time.

Dan: Yeah, it was found money. Always a great pleasure. It's very interesting if you, if you look at the micro, starting with the microchip revolution, a lot of people don't realize that the microchip revolution was essentially not possible without sand. Wow.

Dean: That's it. Silicon. That's the silicon.

Dan: Silicon, yeah. And that's the most readily accessible mineral on the planet, is the basis for this. And not every. They had the preference of different kinds of sand. You don't want. You don't want sand with poop in it. You know, that would not produce great microchips. But anyway, the thing. So that was free and it took a huge jump, essentially it was free.

Dean: You paid for it.

Dan: And it got more expensive when fracking started because frackers use a lot of sand because that gets blown down through the pipes to crack the crack, the rocks, the fracturing of the crack. So you have to fill it in with sand to keep the cracks open so that the fluid of the gas will come through.

Dean: Oh, I didn't know that. Yep.

Dan: And then the, the other thing that became free was people's attention. If they're not aware, their attention Was free.

Dean: Yeah. It is true, isn't it? And I wonder. Yeah. The whole. That's where I was going with that up until now. There's zero chance that we could keep up with the pace of what's coming.

Dan: Oh.

Dean: And yeah, so this is where that. It becomes even more important to. I think that curation is going to be a good. It's going to be a good thing

Dan: in terms of, I mean, my big thing. And I think Mark Zuckerberg can feel it coming. He's got spidey senses of something's coming over the attention issue. Because Israel, look, we're giving it to you for free. Facebook's free. Yeah, we're giving it to you for free. And like Raven. Yes, definitely free. Yes. Facebook is free. Free and everything like that. And. But if you make the connection that intention is actually property, then.

Dean: Okay. Yeah.

Dan: So much back. Minute of my attention. You using a minute of my attention for the purposes that you sold my attention to someone else. The transaction, how much money was generated and what do you think is my. For my fair portion of my attention.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: That you claimed was free for you to use the way you wanted to, but you sold my attention. So it wasn't free.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: A check out written for my attention. So let's start talking about the check.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And how much of that check is mine? I mean, it's coming because fundamentally all issues of law, if you talk about laws protecting people, all issues of love, you go right back. Is based on property law, who owns what.

Dean: That's interesting because right now, if you look at your. Your news feed on Facebook, every, every fourth post is an ad, which is. So that means that three of them are your friends or your things that you're interested in getting. And the fourth post that you scroll to is an ad somebody. They've made money trying to selling your attention. So they've made roughly 3 to 5 cents every. Every time you. Every time you scroll past an ad.

Dan: This is based on total averages.

Dean: Well, I'm saying like as an advertiser myself, and you are too, in. In your. The organization strategic coach.

Dan: Well, I mean, we'll take Facebook fans, you know.

Dean: Yeah, of course. Yeah. You're big and you're big advertisers.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Yeah. So based on that, what it typically means is that to show your ad to some. To one person typically is in the 3 to 5 cents per impression range. So that means that anytime somebody scrolls through, let's say they scroll through 20 posts, they've just racked up five ad exposures. That is 25 cents every time somebody logged on. And maybe they do that, maybe they do that 10 or 20 times a day. So you could be making. You're generating, you're generating that much. It could be a couple of dollars or more every day of that revenue just for. Just for your. They're stealing your property.

Dan: Yeah. I mean we're as a species really gifted in creating new dimensions, thinking about things that we can tempt other people's attention and attract their attention and focus their attention. It seems infinite to me. I don't see any upper limit or outer outer limit to creating new things that people, once it's available, give their attention to.

Dean: Mm, that's interesting. I just did a quick little Google search while we were.

Dan: I have figured out the thing they're going to get the social media on. I've been trying to figure because Tim Wu, I been reading this guy Tim Wu and the antitrust is the thing that brought down standard oil and AT&T. Microsoft got hit with the antitrust and the. But it got very narrowed in its application. You're so big that you're now you've got control of something that people are buying a commodity. It's always a commodity. And now that you're a monopoly, you're raising the price of your commodity. That's how almost all the antitrust was on the price. So very cleverly the social media and I swing there include Google and Twitter and Facebook in the same bunch. That said, well, clearly that's not us because we don't charge anything.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: And what they're going to get them. It just came putting a couple articles together that they will be deemed not monopolies but common carriers. There's common carrier law. So for example, airlines are a common character. Common carrier. Yeah. And none of them's got a monopoly. None of them's got a monopoly except maybe on a particular route or a particular airport. They've got a monopoly, but that's not disadvantaging the whole world. And but they're all deemed common carriers and they can't get a license to operate or fly unless it's equal opportunity to anybody who can pay the money and be on board and which is fine. So for example, the Air Canada cannot have a super search engine which goes through all of its potential customers and decides that anybody who voted for this political party, they can't fly on our plane.

Dean: Yeah. That's going to be interesting though. When they try to make that about

Dan: facts, they lose their common carrier status. They lose the regular. Like the electric company finding out who voted against the Hoover for a proposition that. Against the electric company. Anybody who voted for this proposition are cutting their power up.

Dean: No juice for you.

Dan: Yeah. So that's violation of your common carrier license. Okay. If you have a common carrier, you can carry everybody, but you can't. You can't not carry them because you don't like something about what they're doing. What the. Where they're going to. Where they're going to get. Where the use Facebook is. Where they're going to get Facebook. Okay. Is that Facebook says it just exists on our platform. Okay. We're not doing anything to it. We're not doing anything that just exists on our platform.

Dean: That's not true.

Dan: They are doing two things with it. They are selling your existence on their platform to other or selling it to advertisers. But the other thing is they are promoting. They are promoting some things on their platform over other things. And I'll give you an example that they have banned one of the candidates who ran for President of the United States. They banned him. Banned him for two years. And. Which means that they were promoting his rival. They were. Yeah. They picked a horse. And therefore they were promoting in an unfair way. They were promoting in a prejudicial way. So if you censor someone, you are promoting the opposite view.

Dean: Yes, that makes sense.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. And that's. So they put their common carrier. If you're a common carrier, you can't prejudicially promote one of your passengers. 1. One of your passengers over another one of your passengers, you know, and everything like that. So it's coming down to that. And it's not really about economics, but it's really about freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and Anyway, but I'm just putting it together. This is why he wants to go get everybody into the metaverse.

Dean: Right. Hey, let's try again. Let's go on over here. Yeah.

Dan: Hey, come on in here. We're going to show you this. You're never going to want to leave once you get here.

Dean: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Dan: Yeah, you never gotta go look at that picture over there and watch this little promotional. Oh, no, look at the picture here, which by doubt, it's a total Facebook advertising metaverse.

Dean: Yes, that's exactly what it's going to be. It's integrated product placement,

Dan: A world where you and everybody else is a product placement.

Dean: What do you think the. How's this going to play out if we say the. The future of Attention. If we take like the lesson. I think that what you're saying in the book is to. Is this idea that when you look at your attention and there was something interesting you said that I struck. That reclaiming your attention sets your apart. Oh, no, that's not the one. There was. It was interesting. There we go. When it comes to your attention, the moment you realize it's yours, you get all of it back.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: And that's an interesting thing that it's almost like as soon as you decide to shut off the spigot, shut off the thing of what's getting your attention, you're now completely in ownership of. It's almost. There's another level. Even when you think something quiet. Have you been in. I'm sure you have. And you back this up. When you're in your house quietly and then the power goes off, there's another level of stillness and quiet that comes over when there is no power.

Dan: Yeah. You just filtered. Filtered out the buzz in a Bubba. Yeah, yeah. The pervasive low level home. Well, it's just every piece of electricity just went off. Your radio, your clock radio, the time, the timer on your refrigerator. Yeah. And everything else. And those noisy light bulbs.

Dean: Yes. But it is amazing, isn't it? The difference between.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Level.

Dan: It actually happened to me about. It actually happened to me two weeks ago. And it happened for a split second. It happened for a split second.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: It was just a blink. We had lights on and there was a blink. But the Internet, the Internet went down. The Internet went down on our. It didn't go down on my phone and it didn't go down on my computer. But we have a computer that just hosts and Pandora went down. And so Babs had to ramp up the computer and everything else and get it back. And it was just a second.

Dean: We had to wind up the Victrola.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: So we took turns.

Dan: You want to get, you want to hear the latest about supply chains that's being devastated is there's been this big swing back to analog records and they're screaming because they can't get enough of their really good fossil fuels at the right kind of fossil fuels to make records. But they have orders going six months into the future, people who want their analog records and they can't get them. So I, I don't know why I haven't quite put together why that's ironically funny.

Dean: It is funny.

Dan: When they were declared dead 25 years ago or they declared 40 years ago, you know, and yeah, there's so much demand for this dead technology. And.

Dean: Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. This whole where I'm curious, like, as I think about it now, like where. Because it's only going to start accelerating more. Our ability to access everything is the

Dan: interesting thing about that, the attention things. So there's a fundamental human. There's the laws of physics, and I think there's a law of human attention that kind of corresponds to a law of physics. And that is. And that is you can only pay attention to one thing at a time. And there's this somehow, this belief that if we plug our brains into a supercomputer, we'll be able to think about everything at the same time. As a matter of fact, probably the only thing you'll be able to think about is that your head is attached to a computer. You won't get any benefit whatsoever of the thinking that computer is doing. Nobody comes by and sees what I'm doing here. Shame and embarrassment thoughts when they attach their headset to the computer. The reason is any input from a computer to your head is, is gonna. You can only think about one input at a time.

Dean: I agree. And, and the corollary to that, of course, is that you are constantly, it is 100% engaged at all times. Yeah, that primary.

Dan: Yeah, we're fully plugged in. Yeah. And yeah, first of all, we're plugged into a vast infinite library, if I can use that word, library of experiences that we've had, which if we wanted to, we could access and they would come back to us. Okay. That they've done tests where they just get us, someone thinking about a day when they were 14 years old, that they remember something that happened. There was a key experience on that day and they get the calendar out and they, they say, what day was that? What month was that? What time of the day was that? Where were you? And everything else. And then if they keep going back to that over a day about they, they remember another 20 or 30 things that happened during that where they only had one memory. All of a sudden one starts pulling back the other memories of that, of that time when the person was there. So basically that every experience we had is theoretically, theoretically we can pull it back. It won't come back the way we remembered it because it's got a lot of bruises on it from other experiences.

Dean: Right.

Dan: You know, why'd you choose him? Why'd you choose that memory? Hey, hey, where do you think you're going?

Dean: Yeah, right.

Dan: All the memories would say, yeah, right. Why do you always choose that memory? Why do you always choose in that memory. He never does anything around here and you always choose him. It's not fair.

Dean: That's funny. I'll tell you what's been. I mentioned to you that I had been each night drifting off to thinking about one year specifically since 1980. And it's been a really interesting thing to direct my attention like that because there's a lot of like I found the 80s was very. There was lots of new flag areas to new new territory to mark. And because it was in a different place each year and doing different things, what I found is that the period from 1988 to 2000 until 97 was a little. I had to really dig in to get the distinctions because it was largely the same experience in that period of time that like it amazing to me to think about it now that it was eight years because it was in the same geographic location and roughly doing the same thing. And so it was just the distinctions were a little more subtle than big changes. Then 1997, when I moved back to Florida, then it became clear again there were some, you know, things there. But yeah, the, the sort of last 10 years has been a read as one thing in a lot of ways.

Dan: Yeah, well, I'm, you know, I'm far up yet. Yeah. I'm just really appreciating the benefits of a lot of guessing and betting that I did 30, 40 years ago about the ways the world might go. No. And that I've been rewarded for guessing a lot of things. That entrepreneur is going to get really big and then entrepreneurs want to be coached, coached, they don't want to be managed. And that the personal computer was going to make a huge difference to the capabilities impact that entrepreneurs could make way beyond before that they could on many levels. They could outperform and out compete large bureaucratic corporations. And so there were all these things that they were guesses because you were putting together certain types of indicators from the news and not seeing them as a one off here, one up here. And you say, hey, these are all related to each other. These things are all related to each other. There's a movement here and everything like that. But it's funny because people say how do you get these ideas? And I said that's just the evidence that I'm collecting and putting together. And I said there's some new patterns here. And they said yeah, but how do you see that? And I said that's a really good question. I really don't know. But like the VCR thing, I mean the moment you the moment you said, I said, yes. That's so true. Boy, that simplifies enormous amounts of things. And it also tells you that generally speaking, people are better at one of the three than they are the other two.

Dean: That's true. Yeah.

Dan: Some people are really good with V, but not good with C and R. And same thing with the same thing with R that, you know. And, and. And probably the smartest people are the ones who. It doesn't. They said, when you're playing chess, is there any. And you're going first, is there any advantage to black or white with the chess pieces? And which would you rather spend your life as white or black? If you were a chess piece, which would you think? And they said, if I had my choice, I'd be the chessboard.

Dean: Exactly. Yes. Yeah, that's the thing. And that's really. I think.

Dan: Yeah. The one who owns the chessboard wins all the games.

Dean: Yes. That's what I look at is the VCR is the board. That's exactly right. Is to be able to see that and put those together. That's what I'm really like. That's what has my.

Dan: That's almost like. That's like business school in three letters.

Dean: Yeah. No need for an mba. I got my vcr.

Dan: Yeah, yeah,

Dean: yeah. That's really.

Dan: The vcr. What was that? That's an old piece of technology. What was it? Yeah. Video cassette. You got a video cassette recorder and you think that's. That's the future. That was my Billy Christmas.

Dean: That's good. No, it's one thing. Yeah, yeah. This is. We're breaking new ground here, Dan, get my mind.

Dan: Yeah. Maybe it can be an honorary degree for free zone collaborators.

Dean: Yeah. There should be.

Dan: They put together a collaboration that satisfies the criteria and the standards. Dean Jackson. Well, I do like the Dean Jackson when he's sitting quietly on his patio.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. I deem this person can now use BCR after his name.

Dean: Yeah, that's the. That's the official degree of Cloudland.

Dan: That's the official.

Dean: The vcr is the MBA of Cloudlandia.

Dan: Yeah. No, it's the PhD. It's really the PhD.

Dean: Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: She gave special awards to the lion and the Scarecrow, you know, and the Tin Man. Yeah. He's got a special reward. I think it was the Scarecrow was given special courage award. Yeah. Now that was the lion. The lion was a cowardly lion.

Dean: Oh, that's right.

Dan: He needed courage. Yeah. I think the. I think the Scarecrow, he just didn't feel he was Smart.

Dean: Oh, that's what it was.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Amazing.

Dan: Yeah. I think that's a whole other subject, like credentialism, that credentials used to indicate that you had a capability. A capability in the world. And I don't think that credentials indicate anything about you out in the world. It simply indicates where you spent your last three or four years.

Dean: Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. And now it's really. It's almost like you can't. There's such an amazing thing that we can't even imagine now what's potentially coming in the next. Because we don't know how these things are going to change.

Dan: No, no.

Dean: You know, but our attention will be right there with us.

Dan: But I think VCR is a useful set of lenses.

Dean: Yes, for sure.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: And because it was.

Dan: It tells you what's moving and what's not moving. It tells you what's getting bigger and. Or getting smaller.

Dean: You know, it also is back datable. You look at. If you. If it was around when Kevin Harrington was flipping through the channels and saw that hole in channel 30 with the VCR, thinking that was. You mean we've got the reach of being able to get to everybody watching this channel right now through the excess capacity of their capability to broadcast on channel 32. I've got the vision and the capability to put programming on that, Tom. Perfect.

Dan: Yep. A and W Root Beer has never had a delivery system in the history of the company.

Dean: Is that right?

Dan: You know how they get delivered? No. They go see the local Pepsi distributor and I say, I bet on every truck you're not filled.

Dean: Oh, really?

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Is that true? I don't know that.

Dan: Yeah. So we'll bring this stuff over. It'll be all ready for you. And anytime you got room on one of your trucks, take it along with you and tell the people you got some A and W Root Beer, too. The distributors are independent businesses.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: They're not corporate. They're not Pepsi corporate people. So A and W for years is just. And they do the same thing with Coke.

Dean: They're.

Dan: They're not prejudicial.

Dean: Oh, man. Equal opportunity. Yeah.

Dan: And all they see is empty space. Empty space on empty space on a Coke delivery truck isn't any different from TV having eight hours length.

Dean: Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. I'm gonna have to read up on that because I love that kind of stuff.

Dan: Yeah. That's a perfect example. Perfect example of something's moving where I want it to go.

Dean: Why.

Dan: Why can't I just put my thing on top of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's your. Yeah. And it's the interesting thing about it that it's probably a side deal for the coke delivery person. First of all, probably won't want to have his accounts audited by the head company saying, what's this A and W root beer thing that showed up here? So they probably have a co. Completely separate contract for A and W.

Dean: That's awesome. I love it.

Dan: I love it. Yeah. That's when you get right down to it. Humans at their best or sneaky

Dean: at their best. I love it. And the worst.

Dan: They're snake. They're sneaky. Yeah. And I love it. Yeah. And my favorite political troll, one, Donald J. Trump. So they banned him on. They banned him, you know, on social media. So he's figured out that during the college season, when it starts in September right through to January, there's these huge stadium parties before and after football games.

Dean: Yeah, Tailgate parties. Right.

Dan: Yeah. Like a hundred thousand. And he says, I'll just show up. I'll just show up and organize. You know, game starts at 3 in the afternoon. We'll be there at 11. We'll put stands and everything like that. And all he's doing and that. Now there's this chant. I don't know if you've been watching it, but it's vulgar chant. So I can't say it. I'm proudly on the radio here. But the last two words are the names of the present occupant of the White House. And the first. First word starts with F and ends with k. And crowds. 30, 40,000 people chant this and everything. And then it's gone all around. These are big stadiums.

Dean: Can you imagine? I saw that.

Dan: I saw college stadiums way bigger than pro stadiums. I mean.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Yeah. I bet the one in, you know, like Miami down there, I've got a. They probably have about 100,000. Alabama, all those things and everything like that. So it's. Yeah, it's just really interesting that if you cut off one way of doing things, the human brain will find a go around.

Dean: Yeah. Sneak around. A bypass.

Dan: Yeah. So this is. You're doing a service for free Zone by. I brought up the Macy's and brought it up. And people aren't quite getting that yet. They aren't quite getting it yet. Because the Macy's, Toys R Us is the perfect corporate one. Because they're both dead about each other. Each of them is dead without the other.

Dean: Yes. And that's what I was pointing out, that it could be the survival thing. It could be this thing that breathes new life into both of them. And there could be a third.

Dan: Equal lack of cash confidence is also good. But you can't have one with total cash confidence and the other one with no total cash confidence.

Dean: Right, exactly.

Dan: That's either called seizure or charity. I don't know which one. Right. But it's no moment. You believe in vcr, you see it everywhere.

Dean: Yes, True.

Dan: Or you see the inability to do it. You're either seeing it. You're either seeing why it works or you're seeing why it isn't working in this particular situation.

Dean: And I think people. It's really amazing if we can get people to recognize the things in their own VCR asset columns. You know what. The visions that they have, the specialized knowledge, information, access to data, things that they know that other people don't know, the capabilities that they have with excess capacity of the core thing that they do and the reach that they have with their own customers, with their own distributors, their own suppliers, their own. All of that stuff is. I think it just makes the collaborations that much more.

Dan: Oh, yeah. And the other thing is that it reinforces who, not how.

Dean: That's the. Really. That is exactly what it does. You're right. That's the only way it works. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. It curbs that. That immediate thought that follows after you see a possibility and you say, oh, I'll do this and I'll do this and I'll do. And I said, no. First question is, can you achieve it without doing anything? Yeah. And who has. What's the least possible thing I have to do to get started? And who's the person that I talk to?

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. So anyway.

Dean: All right, let me know. Whatever. One. Just one. All right, thanks.

Dan: Okay, thanks.