Accessing More Time

Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia, Mr. Sullivan.

Dan: Yes.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: We're. We're almost through with another year.

Dean: I know. Isn't that amazing?

Dan: Yeah. Yeah.

Dean: This year, Dan, seemed like it really went fast. I mean, lightning fast.

Dan: Yeah, I've been noticing. Well, it's a great topic to talk about because I think that time is unique for each individual.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: More and more, I get a feeling that the way that people think about time, how they structure time, you know, how they look at time in the past, how they look at time in the future, more and more, I'm beginning to believe that everybody's time system is uniquely constructed.

Dean: Yeah, I think you're right in that. I look at it, I think it's definitely looking back with not much variation in. I've heard that once, that why we have such great recollection of, like, earlier times in our life, because we, you know, when you're experiencing things new for the first time, they create peaks and valleys in your. If you're thinking about it as looking at a sound wave, that recording of your, you know, seismic activity in the new experiences category. And what I heard was that as you get when you're looking back on the landscape, you know, you're looking for to compare those differences, those peaks and things are all the experiences that you've had. But it reads routine as one thing. So there's no. It's just smooth all the way back to the last novelty that had in there. So more than ever, my routine this year was even more, you know, cemented than my year before. So the, you know, the number of locations and the number of very variable input was very low. And that's an interesting. I'm just surmising. But I mean, it seems like, yeah, that's a. You know, I do experience it, that it feels like this. I just blinked. And this year is. I've had. Yeah. I have been thinking.

Dan: We have a thinking process, you know, that I pull out every once in a while, called the experience Transformer. And what I. When I first did it, which is about 20 years ago in strategic coach workshops, I'd say I want you to think back and just to zero you in a bit. I'd like to go to teenage years, and I'd like you to pick an experience from your teenage years. Any area of your life that when you think about it, it still irks you there. You know, there's still negative attached to this experience. Okay. And I said, and, you know, you know, you don't have to share this with anyone else in the room. But I would like you to go back and look at this. And I said, the first thing is kind of just picture yourself in that situation. And then I'd like you to spend a couple minutes now of telling yourself what was good about it, what was good about that experience. And immediately they said, well, you know, it's a negative experience. There isn't anything good about it. I said, yeah, I know that, but kind of went by and, you know, you had left it. Left a negative imprint. But I'd like you to go back now and walk around the experience a little bit. Who was there and what was there and. And anything in your later life that you did better because that experience was worse. And all of a sudden somebody will say, yeah, you mean, like, I didn't marry her? And I said, that might be. That's it. That might be a good. That might be a good start, you know, and once I can get them to put down one or two positives, all of a sudden they start writing down, you know, things. Well, I did this, and compared to where I am now, you know, and everything. So it's all. They're actually applying measurements to this experience that they've developed as a kit. You know, like, we all have measurement tools.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: To improve our lives, you know, as we, you know, we make decisions, we take actions, we choose these kind of people rather than those kind of people. And they're all part of our kit for improving our life. So they'll get through five, you know, and I take. You know, might take five minutes, but I take five. I said, okay. Now, with that in mind, write down everything that was negative about it, and zip. They just write down everything that was negative about it, but they don't seem to be negative while they're doing it. Okay, right. So I've got two columns. I've got five positives, five negatives. And I said, now, life doesn't exactly repeat itself, but what did you learn from this situation, which may now be 30 or 40 years in the past, which sets you up in a positive way, in an advantageous way for a similar type of situation that might happen in the future? Similar. Not the same, but kind of similar. And they. They start writing down all sorts of things. So. And now once we're finished, I say, okay, so write down your insights about going through this, you know, this experience. You. You thought it was just a negative. You didn't like thinking about it, but you just spent more time thinking about it than probably any other experience you did from your teenage years. This is now, the most looked at experience of your teenage years just in terms of what we just did. And then they come. And I said, so was that a really negative experience? And they said, not anymore. It doesn't irk us anymore. And I said, okay, so. But an insight that you draw from this is that you hold on to experiences as painful until you get the lesson. But as soon as you get the lesson, then you can leave the experience go. Because you've got something valuable from that experience that you can. That you can use in the future. And that's really. No, there's huge. There's usually a general agreement about, you know, there's usually general agreement about it. Yeah. And I say, now, you picked on one. Could you pick on others? You know, I said that was just one. And so my sense is that we can change our past at will.

Dean: Mm. Well, that's. I thought about when you were mentioning it, the experience transformer as a useful tool for that. Yeah. To use it, to recreate it and then bypass and continue on. That's a really. Because in your memory, if you've got the insight from it, that's the most important. That's the most important thing, even if you didn't get it at the time. I heard Jerry Seinfeld said one time that pain is just information entering your body very quickly. New information to you that you didn't

Dan: know, that you weren't prepared.

Dean: You weren't prepared for what you didn't know. You didn't. When you stubbed your toe, you just got some serious information there that you didn't know that that was there.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Now, you know,

Dan: toes are especially a good place to remember bad experiences.

Dean: Yes, exactly. That's funny. Yeah.

Dan: I mean, we were at a hotel once that these big, solid four corner. Four corner posts, you know, And I got up in the night and I took a shortcut and I just slammed my toes, big toes, and into it and, you know, and it just hurt so much. But I didn't want. I didn't want to wake up. So I just went in the bathroom and, you know, held my hand to my mouth, and he says, oh, God, it must have taken me five or 10 minutes to, you know, get past the green part of it.

Dean: Right, Exactly.

Dan: And we were at that hotel for about five days, and I get up in the middle of the night and I remember, make a big circle.

Dean: Now you've got the insight. That's. Yeah,

Dan: yeah, yeah. But stubbing your toe really. Stubbing your toe really seems to be one of the best Teachers for future behavior.

Dean: That's so funny. Yeah. This whole Homer McDonald, when we were doing stop your divorce, used to talk about that, about doing, you know, thinking back on, you know, that you'd been, you've been in a relationship before and you had felt like this for someone else and said, aren't you glad that you don't love them anymore? Like, aren't you glad you're free of that? Right. So they can't imagine being free of the relationship that they're so wrapped up in right now. And his job, one is just to get them to think differently about it. And it was so funny because he would tell, he would. We did some role playing things and in one of the audio programs that we did and, you know, he said he was telling the story of a gentleman who came in and said that his wife is so, you know, know, she never changes her mind. She's never gonna, like, come around on this. Like, she's very. She's determined to get this divorce and the relationship. And Homer's like, so she never changes her mind. And he's like, no, not on important things like this. And he said, well, it seems to me that just six years ago she stood there in front of everybody and your family and the minister and said that she'd love you forever till death depart. So it seems like she has kind of changed her mind about that. And it was just so. Yeah. So you think.

Dan: I think, yeah. And I think part of that. And I just had a conversation with. I have really quite good relationships at my grand niece and nephew level. And so these are grandchildren of my siblings. Okay.

Dean: Okay. Yeah.

Dan: And I have, with 12 of them, I paid for half their tuition going to university. So if anybody, you know, if they approach me and they, you know, they send me the, the bill, you know, for that, they're actually applying to university or college or anything. So over the years, I've paid for a dozen so far, and there's probably twice that number still to come.

Dean: Still. Oh, that's great.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. And you know, not real, you know, close relationships, but I get notes from them and.

Dean: Right.

Dan: You know, and I send them my little books and they listen to podcasts and everything like that. But I was talking to one of them the other day and going through the 30s decade, which I think the decade from 30 to 40 is a tough decade for most people that I talk to. Including myself. Including myself. And that's when you decide whether you're just going to be a carbon copy of where you came from or you're actually going to strike out and explore new territory. You're going to be a different person than could be accounted for by your, you know, your childhood and your 20 year old.

Dean: Oh, I just got, I understood. I was thinking you were saying the decade between 1930 and 1940, but you're saying the decade.

Dan: No, no, for anybody's life. Yeah, any person's life between their 30s and 40s. Part of the reason is that whether you know it or not, society actually invests a lot in young people. It may be impersonal, it may be impersonal. You know, it's just general things that available for you and you know, and you know, adults do. The adults, your parents, if they're not mean people, and your teachers, if they're somewhat competent and you know, and early employers, they kind of invest in that. But there seems to be a cutoff at 30 that now it's up to you to make something of yourself or not, you know, like, like you don't.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And so this person, the grand niece, is going through this period right now and really tough. I mean, really tough, like marriage breakup and, you know, and, you know, being fired for being, you know, for lots of reasons. And I said, you know, it's really, it's a tough decade, but if you know what the project is, it makes it easier. So the, the 10 years are given to you to prove that you're actually going to be an individual that stands on your own two feet. And one of the things you have to do is not hold anybody accountable for bad things that are happening to you. You have to take, you have to take 100% responsibility just as a strategy, because then you get all your power back. You get all your power back. If you're not holding other people accountable for what's happening to you, then you don't have to convince them to fess up. You know, they don't have to, they don't have to acknowledge what they did and everything. You're just letting everybody free and you get all the experience for yourself and then you can do what you want with the experience. You can learn whatever lessons you need to work. And it was good. I don't know if it made any difference or not, but it was. She needed someone to talk to. And I was on the phone with her for about an hour, you know, and, and you know, she said, I got a lot to think about. And I said, yep, we all do.

Dean: Right?

Dan: Yeah. And, and thinking is the issue. You know, I mean, thinking is really the issue. And that is that learning that you can think, you know, and therefore anything that other people tell you, it's this way you can think about it and decide for yourself whether it's that way for you.

Dean: And so much exposure to thinking now and so many different ways of thinking. I just. I look at the. I'll tell you what I've had, like, on reflection this year is the sense that this, you know, we've basically two years of outlier, like Black Swan outlier years in history and in my lifetime, certainly that these are, you know, so totally. This is not the path that anybody had in their mind for the twenties shaping up. Everybody went into the twenties very optimistic, very. Like, this is gonna be the roaring twenties kind of thing. I think that's what everybody felt right going into it. And then, you know, struck with this. It certainly made. It's changed so much, but it made me also realize that the life is long. It feels like, I guess you. It's your perspective, any way you look at it, as you said. But when I look back on the different. I really try and look at the chapters of things as, you know, I've had a lot of chapters, a lot of things in my life. And you. It's a really interesting and comforting thing to see you as 22 years ahead. And it just struck me when I saw William Shatner going on the, you know, the rocket to the. To space at 90 years old, that that's another, you know, out of that is your perception of what the next 30 year, 30 or 40 years looks like. You know, and knowing that we're certainly in a world where anything is. Anything is. Is possible now. The world's definitely getting more accessible in Cloudlandia. In the Cloudlandia version. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. And one of the things. I don't know if you've thought about this, but we have this sense that the, you know, the world is very centralized and very unified, and I think it comes from the application of technology and especially bureaucratic organizations that are connected to technology, like transportation, bureaucracy, communication, bureaucracies, you know, and. But actually that's what. In other words, there's a need for people to believe that somebody's in control and, you know, something's in control. You know, we may not like what's in control, but we. We have to have this belief that there is somebody in control and more. I believe that there actually isn't.

Dean: Interesting. Say more.

Dan: Well, like, you know, in conspiracy theories, you can. Zero. Yeah. And there's a room somewhere where four or five people are got Their fingers on all the buttons that control things. And they kind of have a vision for what they're doing. And my sense is that those people don't exist. That room doesn't exist, the buttons don't exist, and the people don't exist. Actually, there's a set of rule which we learned as a human race to more or less cooperate, you know, on a daily basis. And for all the talk about turmoil and disruption in the world, I bet 95% of the global population gets up every, every day and makes their way from morning till night, basically following a set of cooperative rules that lets them get along okay with the people that they're going to meet that day.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: And that's true anywhere you want to look. And then there's a 5% who are, you know, they're trying to disrupt things and they're complaining about things and they're upset about things. And the stubbed toe gets all the news for the body. Like, you may have a lot of things going on in your body, but the stubbed toe is the one that can keep. Yeah. Pain goes right to the top. It takes the express. Elevate.

Dean: That's right. New report from the toes. Pain.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, so. So my sense is that there's people who badly need to. That there's actually individuals in control and that. And the individuals, what they fervently hope for are people like them. And these people represent their view, use, and, you know, they're going to control. And more and more I just get a set that it's a set of rules that we've kind of established as being better than other rules. And that here we are with 8 billion people and yet, you know, things. I mean, the news media is the pain reporter. So the news media wants to report on pain. Okay. So if you can say that the news media is reporting on the 5% of what's going on in the world that's related to pain. The other 95% is not reported.

Dean: Right.

Dan: And it's basically the other 95% that keeps things going.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Anyway, that was just a thought.

Dean: No, but it's amazing. I had an interesting thought that. Because I've often said this, I find it amazing that people always do things in this, like, whistleblowery way about how manipulative the media is. And they show them how I got on this morning television show posing as something. They're making it to show how easy it is to fleece the system and to present yourself as an expert and to be on television and. But they're saying that as if it's a, you know, a mark on the, on that system. But it, to me it's like such the system is fragile and it is, it's not like meant to be for that. It's not meant to weed out stuff. Feels like it's like nobody. We live cooperatively with probably millions of these like unspoken cooperation things that go on that you don't even have to really formalize. But we all agree if we're driving on a two lane highway with a, you know, with our vehicles and there's our vehicles coming on the other side, that we're all kind of fundamentally agreeing that we're gonna stay on our side of the road and you stay on your side of the road. And by and large people do that. But it's so easy. You could easily poke your finger at that system and say this system isn't protecting us. Watch. I could easily drive over here and knock this whole way and that if that. Now we need to change system because of the inherent ability to bypass it. And the same thing retail, you could, you know, we all agree we're going to go into the store and we're going to put stuff in a basket and then we're going to pay you for it as we walk out the door. Right?

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: But now you're getting in a situation where teams of people like NASCAR pit crews are training to go to the highest end stores with a team of people, knock out the front door, go in coordinatedly, grab everything from the stores and get out and gone. That as a smash and grab. Now let's go. And that's.

Dan: Yeah, very interesting though. You know, these aren't that much different from normal human beings is they have a sense of risk. They have a sense of risk that they've calculated and worked out and they have a sense of work that they've calculated. And the only thing that they're bad is sense of consequence because they find generally that criminals don't have a future that's much longer than 24 hours. And, and so one thing, they may steal something that's worth $10,000, but they're not going to get $10,000. Right, right. They might get $2,000 for a $10,000 item. You know, in other words, when they try to, you know, what's it called? Screen. I forget what it's called. What's that? Fence. Yeah, yeah. The fence also knows the rules too. And they know that something that 10,000 retail, $2,000 stolen from the actual thief, you know, and then, then it goes up. Then it goes up. So, so the whole point is, the other thing is that, and this does not want to be reported on, but every city where this is happening has also had a political, has had a political movement to defund the police.

Dean: Right.

Dan: And so thieves say, if you're checking places, check cities that are defunding the police, and then where's the luxury shopping center? You know, so they zero right in and they said, now you can't do it alone. So we, we're going to have to go in with a group of 50 and we have to have the cars already and we have to plan out a team and everything like that. Yeah. And so they're getting. This is like, you know, this is like Newton's third law. That's the action is defund the police. And this is the reaction if you defund the police, you know. Yeah. And. Yeah. So anyway, but on the other hand, what happens is that those cities are experiencing a loss of population where people are selling their houses and moving to some place that funds the police. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's an interesting thing. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. It's an interesting thing. And yeah, I would say it's really interesting. The other thing is the stock market. You know, this has been, you know, these last 20 months have been as tumultuous and disruptive as I can remember in my entire life.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: And as a, you know, like a 20 month period, you know, I don't have anything in my life to match these 20 months for just disruption. And yes, the stock market has gone up, you know, during that period of time, the stock market.

Dean: Well, and you were born. I mean, you were, I guess the war was just over when you were born.

Dan: No, no, I was born two weeks before the Normandy invasion of Europe.

Dean: So you're, you didn't have any. You don't have any.

Dan: That's about no awareness. No awareness? No, no. Where I was aware when I got to be about 4 or 5 and, you know, heard stories, people talking about the, The Great War.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: You know, that we had been born. But. Yeah, yeah.

Dean: I mean, what is the official baby boom? Are you the, is it 1944?

Dan: I'm the end of the previous. The end of previous.

Dean: You're silent, so. Right.

Dan: That's called the silent. The silent. Yeah, yeah. My mom's 19. 1928-46. Generally in those years. Yeah. And. And also the wealthiest generation. And the reason is that enormous opportunity we had because the generation before us was really big and the Generation after us was monstrous. Okay. Yeah. So we came along as a smaller generation for a society that had planned and built for a bigger generation. So where there was. There was every. There was everything available. When we got to school, you got personal attention. When you went into the job market, there was any job. You wanted to have education available. So it's been a pretty easy ride, I would say, for my people in my age group, that's been pretty easy ride compared to. Yeah, our Generation X. Yours is actually right after the boomer, right?

Dean: Yes, I'm the beginning of the baby Bill. So I was born in 1960. I was born in 1966. And, you know, the bay. The Generation X is largely like 1965 to 1981. And so that our generation is. Yeah, and there was far fewer. We were the first. We were the first generation that our mothers had took actions to not have us, and it worked. There's far fewer. There's far fewer kids.

Dan: The benefit of frozen dinners.

Dean: Yes, exactly. That had already been worked out.

Dan: You had a key to the house and you knew how to warm up a frozen dinner.

Dean: That is exactly right. And it's amazing that the things that we. What was standard practice in my childhood, and it would be considered neglect in today's standards. I mean, no parents are letting their kids, you know, walk or ride their bikes and anywhere. I mean, our general rule, as my friend group, was in the summer, you're out, you're outside, you're gone. Wherever you're gone, you'd be home when the street lights are on. That's the rule, basically. And we were everywhere. I mean, exploring the sewers and it was crazy. But no, there was never that much freedom for anybody. For any kids today, it'd be interesting to know. I wonder if there's more or less like child abductions or things like that are actually happening more or less now than they were then. Whether it's really any more of a threat.

Dan: But I don't know.

Dean: I don't either.

Dan: Yeah, I don't. I don't know. Well, my guess is. I guess there's statistics, but. Yeah, The. The other thing is that you were still in the. Where kids were cheap.

Dean: Oh, yeah. You mean that it didn't cost much to have kids?

Dan: I didn't. Yeah, it didn't really cost much. And now they're really expensive now. I mean, kids are just.

Dean: Yeah, because you need their. Their life coach and they're all there. Yeah.

Dan: Oh, yeah. Well, when I was born, you were free labor. You were an asset. The children Were I grew up on a farm and you know, there's no question. No children, no farm. I'll tell you.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: I mean, if you didn't have child labor, you didn't have it. Yeah. But the thing about it is you kind of knew what your role was. So, you know, you knew you were valuable and you knew. Yeah, yeah. And everything like that. And I think children today, it's hard. It's harder for them to figure out.

Dean: I don't think I've ever asked you this. And there is. It's funny now that Philip here is going to be 14 in January, Luba's son, who lives with us here in Florida. So it's amazing for me to observe his journey here, to see this because he's living a completely. A complete Cloudlandia life and. Yeah. And that he's now going to turn 14 and his ability to. He wants to look at getting a job. And I'm not sure that I've ever asked you your sort of, you know, relationship with money growing up in terms of when you started realizing that money would be a good thing and what were. Did you have traditional sort of jobs growing up or did you.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Work. Were you immune to money?

Dan: Not really when we were on the farm because, you know, everybody had to pitch in and used up all your time. I had a whole bunch of house duties and shopping duties and things like that. My brothers, older and one sister were field hands, you know, so they were, they brought in the crap, they packed the crop, went off to the, you know, went off to the market. And two younger than me, they. They were just trailing behind, you know, I don't have any idea what their thoughts are about that. But as soon as I hit the city, not city, but moved into a town when I was 11, I started a whole series of jobs cutting grass, paper root. I think those were the two main ones was paper root. And. And if you wanted something, you had to get a job and make the money. So I pretty much were these.

Dean: Was your lawn service. Was it like a self employed style? I'll cut your lawn for X. Oh, you were working. Okay. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. There were five or six homes. Five or six homes. Yeah. You know, and you had a weekly schedule. You know, weekly or two weekly, whatever the schedule was. And yeah. Paper route. You had to collect, you had to buy the papers from the newspaper. So you had to purchase the papers from the newspaper and then you sold them. So it was pretty. Pretty. I'm pretty entrepreneurial, you know. And you had to get new Customers, you know, and. And then When I hit 14, I started caddying. Caddying was the big money, big when I was a teen, you could make a lot of money as a caddy and you also, you know, shine shoes and in the club you delivered drinks and you know, everything like that, you know, so it was all around. You couldn't do it today. First of all, at 14 you couldn't be hired. And you know, and they have all sorts of laws now which prevent children from learning what life is all about.

Dean: Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna find that out there. They will. Some places Publix will hire at 14 and Lowe's will hire at 14. He wants to have the job experience. I keep trying to explain to him the theory of your umbilical cord, you know, looking for a place to plug it in when really if he can, you don't self fill, that would be the big win, you know, but it's interesting to see that.

Dan: Yeah, but the thing about time, you know, I mean, you started off the discussion today talking about time. I can't think of a period, a 20 month period where I could shine as much as I've done in terms of my company that I have.

Dean: Right.

Dan: This is a great period to be a hero. This was really a terrific period to be a hero.

Dean: Well, you think. I think what's really happening with us in everybody. The opportunity to specifically and only shine with your portion of something. It's more like when we get into this, the real who, not how, collaborations and the real free zone collaborations where we're coupled with the blockchain and smart contracts where everybody can. I heard a term that. I just heard it yesterday for the first time, a dao. Do you know what a DAO is in relation to NFTs? It's a. It's a decentralized autonomous organization. So that's the. It's a decentralized autonomous organization that you could, and you could put. You could use it as a descriptor for what a free zone collaboration is like. I think if you could say that with, with you and Tucker and Ben. Hey, Ben.

Dan: And have.

Dean: Are lumped together in a dao, a decentralized autonomous organization that is come together for the purpose of publishing big books to the marketplace based on your ideas. That's, I think what that goes. That everybody knows what their role is in that dao. And everybody is. Everybody is only doing their unique ability and everybody's clear on how people are getting, how people are winning in that. Right?

Dan: Yeah, yeah. And it is, you know, the very interesting thing because I'm thinking about before blockchain was here, there were still smart contracts and a will as a smart contract. I mean, if you think about a will, it's a smart contract where it's a, it's a design of actions that are going to take place in the future upon somebody's death. Okay. And the moment the person is dead, if they've done a good job with their will. Everything is specified in the will. There's no, you know, it's legally processed, it's got witnesses, the beneficiaries have been clearly identified. And you know, and it accounts for the whole estate, you know, everything that the person has that's accounted for. And, and so that's a smart contract. So if you think about a will or you think of, you know, a life insurance policy is a smart contract.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: You know, and, you know, and so I tell people, if you want to understand something new, it's only valuable if the new thing is doing faster, easier and cheaper. Something that's already been done in an old way. So just identify the old ways that have been done.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And, and what you'll see is that there was a lot of work to put in together a smart contract in the past. And, but with the blockchain, probably maybe 90% less work and effort and cost

Dean: for an account for. And in the future you could see, you know, an accounting element of it where the, you know, the revenue or whatever is, goes exactly where it's supposed to go. Those are all. Yeah, like the recording industry, they've got a really good set up for that where everybody.

Dan: Yeah. One of my clients, 30 year client, has just created a really successful fund for streaming, you know, for music, of music streaming. And you know, they buy part of someone's library and then that library specified by THON goes into the fund and you know, the fund has a certain time frame. It's a five year fund or.

Dean: Right. Something.

Dan: And you know, and he, he was a hedge fund. His thing was hedge fund. As far as I, as long as I've known him, he's been in the program 30 years. And, and he said it's, he says it feels so great. He says it's, he said I, I feel young again because of this new thing that I'm doing. And I said that's a very important part. You come across something which, you know, he's in his 60s, you know, late 60s. And he says, but I feel like I did when I was back in my 30s. And I said, that's a good. That's a good experience, I guess.

Dean: Right on. Yeah. Yeah. See, that's. So that's an exciting thing when you start to think about the, you know, all of these opportunities. Yeah.

Dan: I have a thought. And the thought came to me during the week, and I've told Babs the thought, but I said, I'm going to tell Dean. Tell me so that Dean later on will not. Will not accuse me of holding out on them.

Dean: Okay, good. Because this is. Well, some great things have come from these exact kind of moments.

Dan: Yeah. So the thought is, I've been thinking about the government, you know, the. Very uneven and from, you know, across the spectrum, from really terrible to some more enlightened approaches to them directing their public. So in Florida with your governor, compared to some other states in the United States with their governors, you know, about what we're going to allow people to do and at the same time kind of respond to the health, you know, the health threat. You know, in other words, we've got to. We got to balance something. We got an economy. Yeah. We want to keep the economy open. We want people to sort of go about their business. We want children to go to school and everything like that. At the same time, there's, you know, there's a health problem that we have to deal with. And I was thinking this thought that I don't think that Covid was deliberate. I don't. I don't really think Covid was deliberate. In other words, I read all the conspiracy theories about that the Chinese did this. And I said, well, it's not proven. I said, it's not provable. So even if you're on the nose with this, you don't have any information to back you up for whether it's right. But I said, here's what I think happened, is that the major bureaucratic structures in the world at all levels of government were already having a hard time dealing with the speed of change that had been brought on by technology over the. Over the last 30, 30 years. I think the real upshot of complexity for the bureaucratic organizations and this would be government bureaucratic organization and then corporate entrenched corporate organizations, unions, probably a lot of the charitable structure of society, you know, university structure of society. I think the real thing that really kind of spun it out of control for them was the cell phone when they. When the iPhone, when the phones started coming in. Oh, man. Up and up until that, people weren't carrying their computers in their pockets and looking at their computer every you know, every five minutes and communicating every five minutes. Yeah, everything. And I think the move over from personal computers to iPhones was a decisive moment and it spread very quickly around the planet so that about half.

Dan: Half the global population now has got a phone and they're getting up every morning and they're making all sorts of unpredictable arrangements and communicating all sorts of unpredictable stuff. That makes it very confusing for large organizations to know what to do next. And what I think is that although they didn't cause it, that the major bureaucratic organizations had said, hey, we've got a once and maybe forever possibility to actually slow things down and catch up with what's going on. And I got a feeling that the lockdowns and, you know, the restrictions on events and that is just a chance of really large bureaucratic organizations to try to see if they can catch up with what's going on.

Dean: Wow. Do you think? Wow. There's so anything is possible now, isn't it? I mean, yes.

Dan: My feeling is if you were a bureaucrat and you're feeling that things were just out of control and now there was this emergency where you could, you know, you could catch up with what you're supposed to be doing, you know, a braining order and structure to things, would you be for or against restricting?

Dean: Yeah, I heard somebody. Yeah, I just remember something came to light that Google was gifted, that the, you know, DARPA or whatever, the government gave Google their search, you know, capabilities in exchange for some, you know, quid pro quo type of thing. And there was something else that had that same sort of head start of doing those things.

Dan: And you, I mean, from the outside, you interpret this as nefarious, you know, another thing. But actually the guy. There's one individual or a group of individuals who are just under the gun to produce something that looks like progress so that they can keep their jobs. And they said, oh, let's just do this deal, let's just do this deal. And I think that most people, most people, the number one thing that they're trying to do in their life is buy themselves some time so that they don't get overwhelmed by change.

Dean: Mm. Well, that's. Velocity of change is upon us for sure. You gotta change quickly now.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, that and my sense is that you have to. You can only. You can't, you can't, you can't catch up by having more data.

Dean: I mean, it's an interesting thing of that, that the data and the stuff would be what some would describe as the invisible hand of the market. Right. Moving it, having its way on the things. A lot of people seem to think that this is. That there is some invisible people behind a physical hand that's making these things happen. Did you see that? Did you see Oliver Stone's interview series documentary that he did with, with Putin?

Dan: No, no.

Dean: He interviewed Putin at his, at the, you know, one of his palaces. And it was a very, you know, thoughtful, like full several hours of interviewing and things within that, some interesting discussions. And this was maybe 2,000 before Donald Trump came in, I believe, and because Obama was the, was the thing, or it may have been that. It may have been. It may have been right after Donald Trump, but I don't think so for some reason that, you know, he. One of the most interesting things that Putin said was because he's been around for all of these presidents, right? He's been the constant. And he said that they're all good men, they all have optimistic hopes for change. And he talked about Barack specifically, that he does not doubt that Barack had big hopes for change, as they all do. But inevitably, what happens is they get elected on this change. They ride this wave into the office and then they take the office and then the men in the suits come and tell them how it really is and that there will be no change. And that's the kind of defeating thing, you know, and you wonder, like, how much of the actual underpinnings of all the things that are going on are unchangeable, you know, that you really can't. We're talking about, I don't know what it takes to all the things that go into keeping everything afloat or whatever.

Dan: Yeah, well, the, the thing that I feel, you know, we had, we have this discussion group that I've had on a quarterly basis. We're approaching 20 years, I think in June, that'll be 20 years since we started. And we have about four or five people who've been there for the complete 20 years. And, and, you know, we were. There's inevitably articles about energy, you know, and, and I said, I think that there's a rule of energy that' like one of Newton's law, that every year human beings want more energy. Every year more human beings want more energy for more things. And preferably they'd like the energy abundant, reliable and cheaper. And I said, now you put those two things together and politics is strictly a byproduct of whether you're pulling that off or not. You know, like, if you're a country. And my sense is that all politics everywhere in the world Takes its orders from the desire for greater energy, you know, and so. So, yeah. And, you know, I mean, they're talking about Putin selling. Got one trump card. They've got energy that they can sell to Europe. He has no other trump cards as a leader. You know, and. And, you know, there isn't anything else the Soviet Union, the Russia create that anybody really wants. You know, they're not noted for their manufacturing excellence, and they're not.

Dean: Right.

Dan: You know, they're known for weapons. They're good. You know, they produce, you know, kind of, you know, nefarious, you know, really interestingly destructive weapons and everything like that. But on the positive side, I think the only thing they really have, and they've got tons of. I mean, they've got unlimited amounts of it. They don't have a good system for actually extracting it, but they. They have lots of energy and, you know, and Europeans have none. I mean, you know, the. What we call, you know, modern Europe really doesn't have any. They don't have oil, they don't have gas, they don't really have coal.

Dean: Yeah. And you got some windmills in another one.

Dan: Yes, they do.

Dean: That's right. They got that going for them.

Dan: Yes, they. Yes, they do. And there's lots of nice iPhone pictures that are taken. That's exactly energy. But the energy required for the iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, photos is much greater than the amount of energy that the windmills produce.

Dean: That is so funny. How's our friend Alex? How's other friend Alex Epstein?

Dan: Alex is doing good. He just came out with his latest book and, you know, he's. First of all, his side is winning, you know, his winning. And he's been out there on his own for about 10, 15 years.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And he's been a key player in reminding everybody, you know, the realities of energy and everything like that. So. Yeah, so I think he's feeling good now because there's a lot more very intelligent people coming along and saying, let's get a grip, you know, let's get a grip and ain't gonna be so. Or it isn't gonna be when. And we have to give some consideration to nuclear, because nuclear ultimately is the trump card here.

Dean: Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah.

Dan: It's gonna be, you know, overall, where I suggested where the breakthrough was going to come through on nuclear. Some. Some major corporation who needs a server farm, you know.

Dean: Yes. Right.

Dan: Name it. Through the grid. Yeah, screw the grid. We're just going to put a nuclear plant right in the middle of our operation. And we're going to supply our own energy.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And once one of them does it, it'll cascade. It'll cascade. It'll be somebody that's just going to say, we got these nukes that are, you know, nuclear plants that are as big as a small house.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And they can deliver it to site. And we can be up and running on your Westinghouse, Toshiba, whoever, you know, whoever does it. And we're not going to argue or anything. We don't care about the backlash from the public or anything. We're going to guarantee our electricity because we can't flow around with this stuff. And one of them will do it, and then it'll just cascade. And they're decentralized, so they're not attached to the grid guarantees. Yeah. So that's where I think it's going to happen.

Dean: That feels like very viable. Yeah.

Dan: And they're up and running. I mean, the US Navy's been using them for 53 years. I mean, all their aircraft carriers, all their, you know, the vast majority of their. They've been using nukes for. Since 1953. No accidents, you know, so. Yeah. So.

Dean: Yeah. What will this week hold for you here between Christmas and New Year's? Here, the last heading, all your stuff is already. Seems like your calendar is long set in stone for. For 2022.

Dan: So I'm getting ready because we are going back to in person in both Chicago and Toronto for January. And so I'm just getting ready for the experience because I can't really learn too much until I actually have the experience. Right. What kind of adjustments we have to make. But, you know, there seems to be an eagerness on the part of people to come back. And. And, you know, and I keep my opinions about it very low because I really did love this zoom period. You know, I really love the workshops and everything like that, but we'll see. And I'm very excited about the new program, you know, that we're starting in May, which is the lifetime extender program. So we go full bore for marketing. And I figure it'll. Three weeks would be pretty well build up with that one. So that starts on January 7th. January 7th. And it's really interesting because people say, now which experts are we going to bring in to talk to that workshop? And I said, no experts. You're the experts. I said, this is about entrepreneurial thinking, about the fact that there's any experts that you want out in the world to deal with your particular thing. And so we're not Going to bring in experts where you're going to identify things that you would like to work on. And then, you know, through the grapevine, you'll find experts to go out and help you and then you'll come back and report on progress. And that's how everybody else is. They're going to learn it. But we had our first meeting a week ago, Monday of last week. We had nine people free zone, and they were talking about, well, this is the way we want the program. You know, what kind of experts in which I said, you're the experts, you're the experts. I said, we're not going to have any guests coming in and talking about their technology or anything like that. You're going to find out what you need, go out and export and bring back reports.

Dean: There you go. There you go. Yeah. If it didn't help you, if it

Dan: didn't help you, we don't want to know about it.

Dean: I just spent the day with Nick Danton last week and we were talking about just coming back to a live to live event. Yeah, well, there you go.

Dan: Yeah. I mean, you know, there's. I don't know how many people in the marketplace who just went through a profoundly positive change and they will distance themselves from everyone else simply because of how they performed over the basically the last two years. And, you know, and you're just getting on with it, making use of the advantage that got picked up over the last two years. So I think there's going to be a great inequality in the marketplace between people who use the two years to best advantage and those who resisted and wanted to retain as much of their pre Covid existence as possible. And in the course of resisting, they didn't take advantage.

Dean: That's it? Yeah, that's it.

Dan: You know, you gotta know when the train is leaving.

Dean: You gotta get on it. That's exactly right.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. You may want the next train, but this is the only train you have.

Dean: This is the one. Get on this one. At least you'll be further ahead.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. You never know when that next train is going to show up.

Dean: That's it. All right, Dan.

Dan: Well, all right.

Dean: Exciting. I will. I'll be here.