Utilizing Imagination

Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia. Welcome to Cloudlandia.

Dan: Yes, indeed. And for you. Yeah, it expands. Cloudlandia expands no matter where you go.

Dean: Here it is.

Dan: Yeah, well, there's, you know, it's one of those things that every time we talk, there's a period of time when more people, for their own reasons, take advantage of Cloudlandia, and then they connect with each other. So new connections are made, new possibilities are created, new capabilities emerge. So it goes.

Dean: It's like, are you back safely on the.

Dan: We got back on Wednesday or late Wednesday and beautiful weather. We were there for two weeks in Arizona, and it was a repeat every day. It was high of 80, and during the night it went down to 46. 46, 47. Really just terrific.

Dean: I love it.

Dan: And.

Dean: Yeah, Canyon Ranch.

Dan: Yeah, we were at Canyon Ranch for eight. Eight nights and, you know, and did our usual enjoyable things. They changed ownership about four years ago and they were purchased by a company out of Texas, I believe. And first couple years I found ragged, you know, with the transition, but I was very happy where things have gotten and. Yeah. And so. So, you know, terrific.

Dean: And they marvel every year at what a younger and younger specimen you're becoming.

Dan: Well, I did. I did one thing and that was noteworthy, and that is that I've increased my body and bone density by 5% over the last two years. Not that easy to do when you're.

Dean: What do you attribute that to?

Dan: Oh, weightlifting, you know, squatting. I really. Zero dynamic squats. And here's my logic, just to explain my logic, because there's a lot of talk now and around the threshold to actually being able to reverse age, aging, you know, and that is taking your fitness and health measurements backwards today. You measure at this and they establish a baseline, but then you do certain things. You exercise and you look at yourself, look after yourself in other ways. And a year from now, they measure. And the. The one for this year, they take at year this age, and then the one next year they take that you're an age earlier, you know.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: And it's based on a big, you know, this is big. Based on a big database of.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Millions of people that they've measured compared to one cohort. Yeah.

Dean: Right. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. So one of the things I thought about, I said, is there a way of picking one area of your body that you can work on every day? And it's pretty. It's a pretty known thing that if you work on this every day, your measurements will return back to what they were at a younger age. And the one I hit on was bone density, because bone density, there's a direct. You know, if you lift heavy things, your bones strengthen, you know, it's okay. It's not like there's, you know, it's. It's not a Harry Potter trick here, you know.

Dean: Right.

Dan: It's a pretty straightforward trip. It's just that it's hard work. And, you know, maybe that's the trick a lot of people have, aren't really into that trick of hard work. And so I did it, and so I'm. Now it's not just that I'm back to where I might have been in my 30s or 20s. I'm back to the best you can possibly be. So I'm about 1.411 being here. You have really great bone density, and I'm at about 1.41, you know, and, like, I'm bonier than

Dean: big bone.

Dan: Yeah. And so, you know, there's no point in my life where I was as great as I am right now. So I'm at that. So I just use that as sort of an area of my body that I could do. And what that does, it just tells you that I'm not at risk of, you know, fractures and not at risk of.

Dean: Well, that's what happens is. It seems like that's the. The downhill spiral is you hear it so many times, people, they fell, they broke their hip, they went in the hospital, they got pneumonia, and they died.

Dan: That's the knees and hips. Yeah, knees and hips are the. And I guess ankle, I think ankles, too.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: But the real truth of it is that while their bones were getting more fragile, you know, in other words, brittle.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: They were losing muscle at the same time. And it's actually the loss of muscle that put them in a dangerous situation, because our muscles are really supposed to support our weight. It's not our bones. Our bones are there for flexibility, actually.

Dean: Under girding. Right.

Dan: Yeah. Well, they're there to, you know, to the skeleton. I mean, people. I sometimes just do a little quiz because I have inside knowledge here. I said, how much do you think your skeleton weighs? You know, all your bones plus your skull, how much do you think that weighs? And people said, I don't know, 25, 30 pounds? And I said, no. And they said, more. And I said, well, what, you think no is the right answer for my question?

Dean: Oh, really?

Dan: It's not 25 or 30. 25 or 30 pounds? And I. I said, no. Average person is about 7 pounds. Your total bone structure weighs.

Dean: Is that right?

Dan: Yeah. It's mostly air. It's mostly air, you know, and that kind of tells you you have that

Dean: after you take out the marrow, you

Dan: know, you're, if you're a full weight human being, you know, you're up in males in the hundreds, 200, all that. I mean, so you got seven pounds of bone in there, you know, the muscles that really have to do the job and you know, it all works together. But anyway, I was really. And they were very surprised by that because they don't remember someone my age, you know, with that. And then the doctor who did it as a body comp. It's, it's sort of like a camera. You lay down on the spot and, and then a scanner comes over you, you know, from toe to up to head and does it backwards. And then it calculates your body mass in terms of fat, muscle and bone.

Dean: Is that the DEXA scan?

Dan: DEXA body count, yeah. Right, yeah. And it's the best of the, there's a lot of different ways of doing this, but the DEXA body count and I have, you know, scans going back 20 years, least once a year for 20 years. And this is tops. I'm, I'm, I'm at the top.

Dean: And that's the one there? Yeah, yeah, that's the one with the color coded. This is where the fat is in the. Where's hiding. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, there it is, look.

Dan: Yes. So anyway, just in terms of what could have happened over a two year period of COVID I had this as one result where things got better. I mean lots of things have gotten better, but that was certainly one. And now I'm just going to hold and I don't have to, you know, I don't have to double down now. I can just maintain because now I'm going to go for more flexibility.

Dean: Oh, that's great. That's the, that's really the limber ness. Right. That's what really. Do you do any yoga or you know, limber things like that like stretching or.

Dan: Well, there's a set of stretches I'm going to start doing now using bands, you know, like, okay, rubber band. So that, that's on the schedule. The other thing is the basket machine, which I had, you know, per five, six years ago. What I noticed when I came back, because I was starting my knee, which is an injured knee from 45 years ago, I tore my meniscus. And in those days they took it out, you know, they took the meniscus out, the torn meniscus. They wouldn't do that today? No, but I'm solid up.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Well, you know, we're. I guess, you know, we're. We're in almost at the point now where two or three years from now they'll be. Be able to take that. They'll be able to take DNA from my cartilage.

Dean: Right.

Dan: And they'll be able to grow me a new one.

Dean: Yeah. Stem cells or whatever. The starter pack.

Dan: Yeah. Well, it'll be a brand new, you know, perfect.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Cartilage. And they'll put it back in and then I won't have that. And I've not taken the route of getting a replacement knee.

Dean: No.

Dan: Which they do. And I'm trying to keep foreign object sets out of my body

Dean: if at all possible. Yeah, I get it.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. It seems. It seems that would be an invasion of the machines. That would be like a machine inside me. And I'm trying to think.

Dean: You're already ahead of the game on that. I mean, it's an interesting thing. You must have seen. How long have you been going to Canyon Ranch now?

Dan: 32 years.

Dean: Yeah. So what's the difference in 32 years of what you've seen at Canyon Ranch? What was the, like, things that they were focused on 32 years ago that are different than what they're focused on today?

Dan: Yeah. Well, you know. Well, first of all, they were using a comparison, I would say, 32 years ago, not only at Canyon Ranch, but right across the medical and health world that you want to be equal to the average for your age. And I think that that's kind of. That doesn't strike me as a useful goal, you know, and so I would say that's. That's very different. And Canyon Ranch in its day, so I would say nineteen 1980s, early mid-1990s, was the world's model for a luxury health spa. You know, where they combined, you know, a medical facility with real doctors with real science and luxury accommodations like luxury hospitality. Okay. And they spun off a lot of copiers, and at a certain point, the copiers could surpass, you know. And the other thing is that I noticed was that the owners, the prime owner, Mel Zuckerman, was a real estate developer whose father had. I think his father died. And it was jolting because he realized that he was on the same path towards early mortality that his father was. And he, you know, he reversed himself. He started really working out at local gyms and getting, you know, getting good coaching and good input from doctors. And he decided that there was a. Possibility to take over a Failing dude ranch in Phoenix. And he did, and it was called the W Ranch. And you know, it's one of those, you know, they're everywhere in the west dude ranches. And then decided to bring in, you know, all these specialties from outside and consolidate them in one place. And that grew and grew and grew and it became a major enterprise. But the problem was they picked out, they picked up a certain client base in the 80s that were more or less the same age as they were. And they just moved forward with this client base and they never got younger, you know, so every year you'd go there, their average client base was getting older and they weren't replacing at a younger age. And that happens a lot. You know, you get used to customers or clients who are within a certain age group and then you simply go forward. And there were other luxury spouse now who were appealing to teenagers, 20 and 30 year olds probably.

Dan: And it got older. It got older. I mean, it was older in terms there was nothing new and it was older in terms of who was there. And yeah, the industry won't buy them fast.

Dean: Yeah, it's an interesting, it's an interesting brand because it's got a legacy brand kind of thing, you know, about Canyon Ranch, what it stands for, but it's not really. I don't think of it as like a progressive thing as much. You're right.

Dan: Yeah. But you know, I mean, we have, you know, we have specialist there, physiologist, doctor, sleep doctor. That's where I really got my best coaching personally, who was there. So those two individuals were still there. And you know, life is based on relationships. So you go, yeah, you have the relationship. So that's. And I've recommended clients, getting there and they have a great time. I mean, it's a very peaceful place. I mean, when you walk on the grounds, you arrive and you walk on the grounds, there's a buildup of a particular very tranquil, very peaceful kind of atmosphere that they have. And I think that. And it's for a lot of people who are type A's, who are, you know, sort of out of control, but just walking around and you know, doing massages and, you know, there's classes and that you notice an effect after about three or four days. We were there eight days and about halfway through I could, you know, I could just, I was chilling out, I could feel myself chilling out. And you know, I'm not headed the line as a buried, you know, rushed kind of person.

Dean: Right. Yes,

Dan: you either.

Dean: I know, exactly.

Dan: I get, I Do what you, you are not the poster child for a anxious override person. Yeah, no, that's true. But even the kind of the hassle flying and traveling and being in hotels I notice has impact. This time we stayed at the Royal Palms.

Dean: It's a beautiful place.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. Nice place and everything like that. But the you know, guess being in active restaurant life and you know, conference life with other people, I noticed. I said well this is jolting this, this is jolting me here.

Dean: Yes, absolutely. That's the funny. My favorite, my new place in Scottsdale is the Andaz, which I love. That's my new place there.

Dan: I don't know that. I don't know that one.

Dean: It's very nice. They've got like casitas kind of spread out through, around and it's very.

Dan: What's the name of it?

Dean: Andaz. A N D A Z

Dan: A N D A. Yeah. No, yeah. But it's near old Scottsdale. Is it? It's sort of in that area.

Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's. I, I get there even going to Genius Network or whatever just because I love to go to the Henry too. And so it's like close to close to there and I just love that possible. I don't want to stay at the Sweets, you know.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. We were twice, twice at the Henry and I, I remember that you like the Henry. Yeah. But it was a good event. I really enjoyed the event. Yeah, we had a. Had a great time there and. Yeah. And just, just a little report on progress. On the 19th of November, one month after we launched the new book, we were across a hundred thousand sales.

Dean: That's so great, Dan. Yeah, that's awesome. And who know how it's still.

Dan: It's a, it's a self selling book. Yes. Every week comes in, you know, it does, it does good work and reports in. It shows up on time. That's what it says it's going to be.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And so now that's really good. And the other thing about the gap in the game is that 87% of the reviews that were. I checked the day before Yesterday, it was 141 reviews which is good for the first month. And we were at 87% of them were five star. Five star, which is really good. So it was about 4.8 and Punat House about 4.62, which is very good. You know, it's a very good.

Dean: And I think a lot of that Dan, is just there they can't figure out or that can apply to them. That's Probably a big thing. It's a. Yeah, I think the gap

Dan: in the game is. I think the gap in the game is, you know, I mean, our contention, you know, that every human who's ever existed is confronted with this choice of how you measure your progress, you know, so, yeah, it's more of a. It's more of a general human thing. Who. Not how. I think you have to be a fairly high level of achievement before you grasp the possibility. I was funny, because we're just Ben Hardy and, you know, my collaborator. We're just in the. Getting the first draft all structured for next year, which is 10 times as easier than two times.

Dean: Right.

Dan: And so I said, you know, one thing we have to do if we're true to our principles here, is that we have to validate all, you know, the years that people have put in, working harder and longer in order to double their results. You know, and so the one thing you don't want to say is, you know, you've been approaching it the wrong way. I don't think it's ever useful. I don't think it's ever a useful approach when you're trying to introduce something new to tell people that the way they've been doing it is all wrong.

Dean: Right. Yeah. That's much better. When they understand it, when they come to that conclusion, that's the best.

Dan: Well, not only that, but you tell them, look, there's a point of being an entrepreneur where you just have to really work hard and long. There's no substitute for this. And the reason. The reason is that you've got to learn the territory. You know, you're, you know, your feet on the ground. Entrepreneurial activity. You. Dean Jackson was real estate and, you know, you have to. You really have to put in the hours. You really have to put in the time. You have to, you know. Yeah. You have to put in the mileage.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: To, you know, to just get a sense of what this is all about. And I don't think there's any substitute for that. There's no. There's no bypass that turns ignorance into knowledge.

Dean: Let me think about that. There's no bypass that turns ignorance into knowledge. That's interesting.

Dan: Well, you don't know anything, so there's no bypass available to you.

Dean: Oh, that's true. Yeah, that's true. That's. You need data. You need something.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Data comes in two forms, good and bad.

Dean: Right. That's right.

Dan: You have to have pleasure. You have to develop a very keen understanding of the difference between pain and pleasure, you know.

Dean: Yeah, well, that worked or that didn't work, right? Yeah.

Dan: And so I'm more and more, you know, I mean, both you and I can look back at the vantage point of things we did in our first formative state careers and say, God, you know, that was really stupid. That didn't make any sense. And I said, yeah, but, you know, you can only say that from the vantage point of having been through it.

Dean: Yes, yes. Understanding. And it is lessons that you understand. When you get the lesson and understand it. That's the depth right there. That's the. That's a really good distinction. I talked to the.

Dan: That really shows the difference between who not how, because I think who not how is a breakthrough that you. Would have had from years of doing really painful house. And every once in a while. Every once in a while, having the experience of teaming up with them just suddenly open doors for you. And so on the one hand, you've been told, you know, do the house, do the house, do the house, do the house. And then periodically, halloo would come along and doors would open, and you were on the express elevator for five floors. And after a while, you start putting those two experiences really hard. Work on your own. This possibility of meeting someone. Someone has a skill that suddenly pushes you forward and said, maybe I'm supposed to make a choice here.

Dean: Right. Yeah, that's something. And I'll tell you, that's a. That is wise. I talked with Ben a couple of days ago, actually. He's hard at work on wrapping up his new book, too. In between thing. His own book, which is your future, be your future self now. So that's an interesting concept that he's put a lot into. I can't wait to see that one too.

Dan: Well, it's an ability, I think. It's really an ability. You know, I think the greatest inequality among human beings is really imagination.

Dean: The greatest inequality. Is that what you said? Yeah, yeah.

Dan: In other words, between the most unimaginative person and the most imaginative person. I think twice. The greatest. Greatest inequality that separates human beings.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Well, that's really. Imaginative individuals. Yeah, imaginative individuals. You got to come equipped with other skills to go along with that. But let's say a fully skilled, very imaginative person can picture themselves in the future in a way that seems totally real. Mm. And they can use the reality of that future picture to actually make decisions today.

Dean: Yes. Yeah. Imagine is one of those words I was saying to Ben. You have been talking about that, parsing out all the words of imagine. If you Applied yourself and as a recipe, you know, because imagination is the beginning of it. The reason that we don't apply ourselves is because we don't have a vision. We haven't imagined a vision of a future self that we are willing to apply, meaning, you know, request, make a formal request of ourselves. And it's a really. It's an interesting thing to break down the formula of that we had a great, we had a great conversation about it. I love to bounce things off of Ben, but that's a. It's been right there in the whole statement. It's not been a. If you look at it and take it on as not an accusation but a blueprint. It's right there in the statement imagine. And if you apply. And it's really. It's an interesting. Because if is a great, A great conditional precedent for the. You can't do it unless you imagine.

Dan: Well, yeah, well, here's the thing that your teacher know because I think there was more than one who yeah. Bought into the Dean Jackson formula, you know, that you were imagining yourself and it didn't show up as doing what. It didn't show up in any form that they would go find yourself.

Dean: Right. Imagine they were thinking. Imagine if you were mixing my vision of being quiet.

Dan: Imagine if you were applying yourself to. To my goal.

Dean: That's right.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, there's a lot of that goes on in the world.

Dean: Yeah. There's a big.

Dan: How did you like the Iceland worse?

Dean: The.

Dan: Which I sent you a video of Iceland worse.

Dean: Oh, I didn't watch that yet, sorry.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. Well go and get it. It's a. It's a troll that the country of Iceland did on Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse.

Dean: Oh, I love it. Okay. I can't wait.

Dan: And the guy, you know, the guy who presented is, you know, very mean and he's got a long sleeve T shirt on and his hair is made that. And. But he speaks in English with a nice Icelandic accent.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: I thought. I want you to imagine a completely new universe and. And funny about. It's already here, you know. And he points to this ice covered world, you know, and everything like that. So it's just a complete trolling takeoff on script. Yeah. He says and he, he walks out and you know, he's got his shorts on like Mark Zuckerberg does and he reaches down, there's a pool there, sort of steaming a little bit. And he pulls out the water and he says and we have water and it, you can feel it. It's Wet. It's wet. And it was just beautiful. And it was put together, you know, by the, you know, the Icelandic tourist Tourist Bureau and everything. But they just took the exact script and just changed little words and just said that. And he said, the other thing is it's been here forever and it will be here forever. And you can come today or tomorrow or whenever. It'll be here, anything. And you don't have to put on goggles to. To sing it, you know? Yeah. So anyway,

Dean: so funny.

Dan: Now the question is. The question is whether the Wilwyn class at Facebook laughed at that. Because if they laughed at it, then I have hope for them. But if they were pissed off at it, then I feel that there's no hope for them.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Because if you can't laugh at something, then you've gotten yourself into a corner.

Dean: What's your take on getting back into the world now? You've been.

Dan: Well. And we're having Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the entire teams, Chicago and Toronto. We're doing it by teams. So our company has 12 different teams. Operationally, we're broken down into 12 different teams. So I think we're doing four per day. So for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. And Babs and I are in on the third day, so we're going in for the whole day and, you know, just walking through the routine, just noticing things and everything else. And the thing is that we use the brake to really improve things. And we upgraded to the new Mac laptop. The laptop desktop. Yeah. Boy. Apparently I haven't seen it yet. I haven't actually done it, but it's incredibly fast.

Dean: Wow.

Dan: It's just like, you know. Yeah. And they have created a new chip. They've spent the last 12 years creating a new chip that allows the systems. I'm not quite sure of the principle here, but I understand the chips kind of operated that there was priorities and what got activated first, you know, in other words, a chip would activate 10 systems, but there was a priority in which got activated. Of the 10, there was number one and there was number 10. And there was the time difference separating the different, you know, this time difference. Yeah. Before or five seconds. Now it's instantaneous. Now it's instantaneous. So where something took five seconds, now it's. And there's going to cause a real disruption in the laptop market.

Dean: Wow.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Amazing. So that'll be in Toronto. You're going to be at the.

Dan: Yeah, Toronto and Chicago. Yeah, the two. Okay, the two. Yeah, we have about, you know, we have about 80 in Toronto and 25. 25 and Chicago and then 15. Well, we have about, we have seven operate virtually in the UK and then we have others who are virtual about one hundred and twenty. We're about one hundred and twenty right now.

Dean: Right on. Yeah. So what was your take though on being back out in the world? How did it, did you feel like the friction of the mainland entering the atmosphere and.

Dan: Oh yeah, oh yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, you know, you're hoping you can make your travel time at least a little bit pleasurable.

Dean: Right.

Dan: And the air, the trips to and from are really, they really wore you down.

Dean: Yeah. When I was doing the year 2008, right. Where at the peak, the very end of when we were doing the big real estate events every month, I had the friction free travel program down to a science. I mean I had the duplicates of things that would travel with all the travel gear that would go event to event. So I didn't, I had a laptop that traveled with, with the gear. I had, you know, my case of things that I would have while I was there. My, I would have Courtney pack my bag and ship it to the hotel ahead of time where I was valeting the car at the hotel at the Hyatt Hotel attached to the airport. So I would valet walk straight up just with my laptop bag, no, no baggage, no carry on, no anything. And then straight, I had the clear path. So it was, you know, straight up the elevator, right to the right to the TSA pre arranged ticket or whatever, right to the lounge, onto the plane, off the plane with a pre arranged limo that would meet me at the be at coming off the plane and straight to the hotel where they would have my bag already preloaded in my room as I arrived. And it was just complete friction free travel because it was no, no schlepping is what really is the, the drain in, in all of that traveling. And I would like you, I would go early because I'd rather have, I'd rather be there a half an hour too early. Well, just sit.

Dan: The way I found is that there's going to be a time in the calendar or time, you know, on your clock when it's three hours before your flight leaves, right. So you're going to spend those three hours somehow and somewhere before the fight leaves. And I said, yeah, why don't we, why don't we spend the majority of those three hours actually at the airport already check in rather than spending them at home and then rushing, right. To try to make sure that you're not late at the airport. I've never understood the logic. You know, Canada, the United States has in the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Everybody knows that. But in Canada, the actual saying from the British North American act of 1867, which essentially launches Canada in 1867, is for the purpose of peace, ordering good government. Okay. So my experience coming back both times is hassle, confusion, and bad government. Not peace, order, and good government, but hassle, confusion, and bad getting it. You know, and just give you an example. We arrived, you know, more or less on town from Phoenix, and then we get to the gates and they say, we're sorry, we're gonna have to wait. Another plane is pushing back. And then they start moving. Then they start moving. Okay. And instead of dropping us where it's maybe two minutes from the Jetway until you.

Dean: Oh, I know. That's the thing about Toronto. Oh.

Dan: Oh, yeah, it was. I. I said, I wonder how long the longest walk you can make from the plane to the arrival is in Toronto. It was 23 minutes. It took us 23 minutes of walking to get. Get there. And. And then Health Canada has actually changed the application that says you can just get off. So we were delayed for 45 minutes to fill in new forms by hand. And not only that, didn't give us a new form that just allowed us to actually leave the airport that night. Wow,

Dean: that's crazy. You're there over an hour just walking and filling out forms.

Dan: Yeah. And then the third thing is that the city of Toronto decided to tear down the connector from the Gardiner Expressway to Lakeshore. And the beaches, they just dried down.

Dean: Oh, my goodness. How do you get there now?

Dan: Well, you have to get off at Jarvis. You have to get off at Jarvis and drive along the traffic lights. Yeah. I feel taken advantage of. I feel disadvantaged by large systems with no detectable blame.

Dean: Wow. And meanwhile, I don't miss. I don't miss it at all. I mean, I'm enough. You know, this has been. I've been just blissfully, delightfully, you know, stationary here in my, you know, my Cloudlandia perch stationed in the mainland here.

Dan: Yeah. Let me ask you a question. What do you make of the statistic? Don't know what space, John, but there that there's 10 million jobs going unfilled in the United States. What do you make of that? What do you think? I mean, there's probably 50 different things going on, but.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: What. What strikes you as maybe one or two of the more important.

Dean: Well, I don't know. I'm not. I'm not on top of. Are there still. Are there? Like everybody's kind of said that a large portion of that is the enhanced unemployment payments. That that's almost just as good to stay home and get money than to go back to work.

Dan: Well, that's pretty well ended. I mean, in Cannon. Okay, that's ended. I mean, but virtually every store, I mean, if we were to drive from our house by Normal street, let's say we just took Green street all the way to the center. Virtually every store, you know, job we want people, you know, please supply it. So it's. It's everybody, you know, whether it's the big chain chain stores or whether it's a small retail shop.

Dean: Right.

Dan: And I. Here's just a suggestion of what's happened before COVID People were so rushed and harried just doing their jobs that they didn't have time to actually think how bad it was.

Dean: Right. And now once they've had a taste of they've had to make other arrangements or they realize. I think a lot of times people get shaken into realization that it's an illusion, this security that they think that they have and that I wonder if those. How many of those have taken on have joined the results economy even, Because I would still consider the gig economy has certainly increased with all these opportunities for grubhub driving and those kind of things where you are in control of a little bit more control of what you're doing. You can turn it on tap into the money when you need it or want it. And I think that it's the, you know, I think when you kind of uncouple the employment from the act of money getting. I don't think people who. I don't think a large portion of those people who are. Have left the employment situation have opted out of the money getting. They've just reached some alternative solutions.

Dan: Yeah. And I think one of the things that I think has probably happened is that the cash economy has gone up. People are getting paid with cash. So they don't. They're not showing up on the official books.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Official ledgers. And my sense is that there's probably, you know, people will do something for 80%, but they get cash right away. So it's not tax, it's not taxable. The, you know, it's personal services, a lot of it. So there's no cash advantage to the person paying because it's just expense and would be anyway. And you know, that's what I'm having. I know one of the things I've done is on the trip, I really noticed it is that I increased my tips.

Dean: Me too. Just everything in general.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. I just increased my tip level, you know, I mean, you know, the people who clean your room at the two hotels I was at, I made sure I tipped the individual, you know, because I didn't know whether they would be there every day. And, you know, and I just tipped the individual and, you know, and I prefer tipping to charity because the money tends to go through five other people before it gets to its purpose. And with tipping, it goes directly to the person.

Dean: Yeah. Yes, agreed. Yeah, agreed. And that's something. You know, I'm sitting out here in my courtyard and I've got this little growing collection of these little rocks that one of our grubhub drivers, she paints these rocks like just, you know, like Easter egg kind of, you know, painting kind of nice ornamental designs on them. And each time she delivers, she drops in a little baggie with a rock and a thank you note appreciating. I'm sure she does that for all of her. All the people who she delivers for. But it's just a nice. It's a nice thought. And you think. I always find it interesting to see the different people that show up at my house here with the different that are making things better for me, you know, And I appreciate it. The who's. Because when I look at it, I would. It's so much more valuable for me to be here talking with you than driving to go and pick up salad, you know, when I can have somebody have a. Who bring us the salad and we get to continue our conversation.

Dan: And then everybody's got an alternative because, you know, there's going to be a zoom makeup call for people. And there we are, you know.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: And the world goes on.

Dean: And then February. It's funny, a perfect loop because that'll be. That was the last live.

Dan: Yeah, it was. Yeah.

Dean: The last live event was in. In Scottsdale.

Dan: Yeah. And we're doing that this very close to you at Palm Beach.

Dean: I appreciate it and love that. I'll be there. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. And so the. Yeah, this is all good. And you'll do, of course, your regular update on vision capabilities.

Dean: The VCR files.

Dan: The VCR files, yeah.

Dean: Yes. Okay. Lots going on in that right now.

Dan: Yeah, Yeah. I think. I think we've broken into two economies so in the last few years, and one of them is invisible, is an invisible economy.

Dean: The free zone frontier.

Dan: Yeah. Well, it's just, you know, that first of all, I think that people who are, in other words, they're skilled at productivity, they're skilled at creativity, and they're skilled at accountability have really taken advantage of the Zoom advantage, and they aren't. People would have talked that much anyway before, before this because they were busy being productive, creative and accountable. But now Zoom has just rewarded them for that. And I think, you know, it's certainly half a billion people probably have probably shifted without telling anybody that they shifted.

Dean: I think you're right.

Dan: And I think a lot of the turmoil in the mainland with the supply chains and that is just what the economy looks like without those people.

Dean: Wait a minute. That's. I think you're right. You know that.

Dan: Yeah. It's just that all the connectors. They just took all the connectors out of the system. Doesn't work. What do you think about.

Dean: That is a brilliant observation right there.

Dan: Yeah. See this? See how it works? We'll show you what it looks like without power.

Dean: Yeah, right, exactly.

Dan: It doesn't work. It doesn't work. Yeah. And they just. They just disappeared, you know. Yeah, yeah. It's like. It's like the technological rapture.

Dean: Yes, exactly.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. So anyway, it's interesting watching the Peter Zion stuff, you know, because I've sort of. I sort of structured, you know, what he was predicting and it's books and I just have, you know, five or six point checklist and things are definitely, very, definitely moving in the direction that he predicted in his. Especially the Disunited Nations. You know, it's very. Yeah, it's very much there. And if you don't have that framework, it looks like it's doom and desolation coming, but it's very. Definitely a shift that's going on.

Dean: Yeah. Like they were talking about now even that if you think about NATO and you think about the things that, you know, who. If you were reforming it now for the real reality of what the global landscape is, would. Is France really that relevant in this whole, you know, the whole. It's an interesting.

Dan: Well, you know, France is kind of unto itself. I mean, they're nicely located because they have lots of water. Yeah. You know, countries that have lots of water are advantage. So they've got the Mediterranean part south of France, and then they have the whole Atlantic English Channel, and then they have great river systems. They have, you know, they have quite a number of really good river systems. And I think it's. I mean, it's. I don't know how you would prove it, but there's. There's a distinction that this isn't just kind of like a normal disruption of business. It's that some fundamentally important element of the economy has gone missing.

Dean: And now we're. And I mean, that's going to be. That's all ripe for this transition. We're definitely in a period of uncomfortable transition to where I heard a great podcast. I forget the gentleman's name, but he was on with Tim Ferriss this week and they were talking about, you know, in the past, cryptocurrencies are not cryptocurrencies, but fiat currencies were backed by countries with guns. You know, that's what maps them. And that the new, you know, this whole blockchain bitcoin world is really about sovereignty of being independent of all of that. And that's. That's an awkward transition when there's a lucrative middleman infrastructure for things, you know.

Dan: Mm. Yeah.

Dean: The.

Dan: The big thing that the use of the word currency with crypto may be a future reality, but it's not there right now because.

Dean: Right, exactly.

Dan: All of them are speculative investments. There's only. In the world. There's only one actual currency, and it's the US Dollar. Even other currencies like the Canadian dollar is a speculative investment. And my sense is that there can be only one currency if currency has any useful meaning. And that is you've got to have one thing in the center that you can relate everything else to. Okay.

Dean: Relative.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's shifted. I mean, US currency has been the main currency since 1944. 1944, changeover. And. And it's a lot of different factors. And the biggest factor is the reason why everybody uses the dollar is because everybody uses the dollar.

Dean: That's true. And yeah. And there's nobody.

Dan: And until you get to a point where there. There's, you know, like, you know, I mean, there's countries, China, China, every trade but they have with an outside power, much as they dislike it has to be in US Dollars. Nobody will trade with China unless the trade is in the US Dollars, you know, so that's the second largest economy in the world. And the same would go for, you know, same would go for the U.K. you know, the European Union and everything else. Other dollar, other trades with, you know, the world markets. On the world market, everything's in US Dollars. And that's because there has to be one where it's. It's the same. It's like English. English is the dominant language. And the reason is because having one language is more efficient than having five you know?

Dean: Yes, very true.

Dan: Just ask Canada. Yeah. But my sense is that the thing that we're heading towards is a complete change of game. It's a complete change of game, you know, and we're not there yet, you know.

Dean: Right. That's what I mean by this transition. Yeah. And nobody knows what. Where it's headed yet, I guess.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. And it's. And the other thing is, I don't think it's possible to actually predict it. Like, it's one of those things that's absolutely unpredictable. Like it's predicting what the Internet's going to be like in 1970.

Dean: Yeah. Who know? Even knew that it was possible. Right, Exactly.

Dan: Well, it was being talked about, you know, I mean, the. I mean, there were a lot of people saying that, you know, when the Internet comes, it's going to be like this. And, you know, and that's all guesses and debts to guess. It's not based on knowledge and it's bad. There's a high risk factor. And so anyway, but, you know, I will tell you this. Ontario real estate is good guess and a good bet.

Dean: I think you're right. The little compound, you know, Expand your compound there.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. It's really. I think we're up 40% since the

Dean: start of COVID Isn't that amazing?

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Wow.

Dan: Okay. I think we have to. Have to jump.

Dean: Okay, Dan. Well, nice to be back in the saddle and. Yes, I'll be right here. I'll talk to you then.

Dan: Okay, thanks.

Dean: Bye.