The World In Your Headset

Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia.

Dan: Good morning, Mr. Jackson.

Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia 2022.

Dan: I'm never gonna lie I'm never gonna say goodbye I'm never going to make you cry so that's what I say for 20 another year.

Dean: That's right. We'll renew.

Dan: Yeah. It's important. It's important for the listeners on this podcast to actually listen to the wording of the opening sun. It's very important. You know, the. This wasn't just by happenstance.

Dean: It's so true.

Dan: Yeah. So because most, most podcasts in the world live a very short life. They're almost like mosquitoes, you know.

Dean: That's true.

Dan: They die within days of their first thing. So we're.

Dean: Some live on it. And then they take on other forms with the. With other names. Yeah.

Dan: They adjust themselves to changing circumstances. That's what they do. Which I think Darwin wrote about. I think Darwin, you know, the, you know, as far as we know, the sort of the originator of evolution, the concept of evolution. And it wasn't the survival of the fittest, it was the survival of the most adaptable. Mm.

Dean: That's what we have really seen. Like, I'm, you know, you look, I look back now, you know where we are right now. I did a little reflecting on this is certainly the biggest transition that we've made as a society into Cloudlandia, that this is like, you know, complete game changer that we've been witness to in the last 20 years. But, you know, I still, I look at the things that are, you know, what is the, the role now of the mainland and what is the thing that is how it integrates? Like, I'm noticing now I have far less of a local, far less of a local sort of footprint or local network and support system or social group, all of that than I've ever had, I think. And because I'm thinking now coming into this year, how this, it's, it does. It definitely feels a little Groundhog Day ish, that my life is very contained now. You have very little movement and you're about to get into more interaction with real humans as you're actually not.

Dan: Actually not. We made a decision on Friday that no in person workshops for January.

Dean: Okay. That's what I wondered. It's like.

Dan: And, and you know, it's. When you look at the various jurisdictions and where people are coming from, and already the people who said they're coming, half of them called to say they're not coming. So that's. Yeah. So that kind of, you Know, Yeah, it was an indicator to us to pay attention because that's what happened with the original lockdown in March of 2013. Is that between a Thursday. Well, between a Monday and a Friday, half the people who said they were coming the following week said they wouldn't be coming the following week. So we.

Dean: Right. And that's what I wonder now, like, where does that leave us for February?

Dan: Well, I think February is going to be okay. February. Yeah. Florida. February's in Florida. So lots of. No, first of all, Illinois is just a swamp, you know, it's just a swamp of regulations and. And so is Toronto. So is Toronto, you know, so these are our two main centers. And what, we want somebody to come up here and spend 14 days in quarantine, Right? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, and, you know, our team is worried. You know, our team have come down with this really bad cold which they call Coga Micron. You know, it's. It's actually a really bad cold. I've had really bad colds. You've had really bad colds. And. But they didn't. They weren't packaged correctly, you know, all those colds that I had throughout my life, they weren't packaged correctly, you know.

Dean: Well, apparently now, Dan, the Israelis have figured that they've got the most fearful one now. The flu. Rona flew.

Dan: Rona.

Dean: Flu. Rona is the new omicron.

Dan: It's come now we're getting out of. Now we're getting. Now we're getting closer to the reality, actually. Yeah, yeah. Flu, iPad, you know, flu I've had. So I haven't had flu Rona, but I did. I had flu and I knew a person called Rona, but I don't think they. They were part of the same experience.

Dean: Isn't that something like I, over Christmas had just general. And I still have a general malaise that's not as bad as it was right over Christmas. But, you know, coughing and just really tired and. Yeah, that kind of thing.

Dan: You probably had it thought, well, I had.

Dean: I got a test. I didn't have Covid. I got a COVID test, did not have that. But it was. What was the precursor to. It is. You know, we're looking at the. We're all kind of faced with booster choices here now. And I went to get a test, antibody test to see if I. If my, you know, vaccine had created any antibodies. And so I got that, but I had no. No detectable antibodies. So my vaccine had completely worn off. And I was here. I was basking in this False sense of protection, you know. Yeah.

Dan: Isn't that what cloud. Isn't that what cloudlandy is generally, though, an antibody cloud?

Dean: It is absolutely that, you know. Yeah.

Dan: It's anti your body.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Well, I don't know if it's anti. We have to find another Latin word that will express the true difference here. But it's really interesting. I've come to a general decision about this whole thing that it's not. It doesn't have anything to do with the virus, doesn't have anything to do with. Of sickness. It has to do with the concept of lockdown. Okay. So if you shift your thinking away from disease and everything, it's. What we've really experienced is a worldwide, worldwide imposition of lockdown in thousands of different ways and as thousands of different ways because it's all triggered by political and bureaucratic authorities. Lockdown, you know, and lockdown is like martial law. This is where you're saying normal life cannot go on, and we're putting a form of martial law into place. And it actually clarifies things a great deal. If you think of things from a lockdown standpoint, you know, what is the biggest problem of the last 20, 20 months? Was it that you were sick? I wasn't sick. I haven't had any symptoms whatsoever. But I have been enormously affected by lockdown. So I think lockdown is what I would call a bureaucratic virus. It's a bureaucratic virus. Okay. And here's my thesis. This is fresh for the pod waves. That's what I'm called. There's pod waves going out.

Dean: Breaking news.

Dan: Breaking pod waves here. And that is that I think that the emergence of Cloudlandia over the last 20 years, especially with the emergence of being able to do it on your phone, having the Cloudlandia experience on your phone, has overwhelmed all bureaucratic regulatory organizations in the world. And that's not just government bureaucracies. That's corporate bureaucracy. It's nonprofit bureaucracies. The British have a wonderful, wonderful term. It's called quango. You know what a quango is a wonderful.

Dean: What did you say?

Dan: They have a wonderful quango. They have a wonderful word which is called quango. And I love the sound of the word quango. You know, it's just a qua q, U, a, n, G, o, quango.

Dean: I've never heard that.

Dan: Quango. A quango is a quasi autonomous, non government organization. Okay, okay. And what it means is it's a body that kind of gets tax money, but it's not subject to any kind of political oversight. So it's a independent body that can do what it wants, but it uses tax money to do that. And it's not actually part of the government. It's quasi government mental. But. And it's. It's actually like the dark free zone. The dark free zone, in other words, quangos are designed to be perpetually and eternally parasitic. They create no value, but they extract value from taxpayers. Okay. And if you go through any governments, you know, you take any government, for example, and look through all the programs, all the jobs, all the agencies and organizations, 50% of them are probably not creating any value at all, but they're. They're there. And I would say most corporations, not as much as government, because corporations, by nature of being a corporation, are probably public corporations, and therefore they're being scrutinized every single day by, you know, people. Is this a good. Well, they're being scrutinized by the stock market, and the market doesn't care about anything except is value. If I bet on this, will my bet pay off? And they look at a corporation and they say, no, pull all the money out of that corporation. And that's what keeps the marketplace quite a bit more honest than the government. But I'm believing that when the virus, which I believe originated in Wuhan, China, when it broke out worldwide, my sense is that every bureaucratic organization in the world said, this might be an opportunity to slow things down. This might be an opportunity to stop things. This might be an opportunity to extend our regulatory control. And that's what I think we're in right now. We're in a regulatory control lockdown.

Dean: Yeah, this is. It feels like. But it feels like they're more, you know, the ability to shout about it is the uniqueness of Cloudlandia right now that everybody. The resistance is large and bigger than the government. And it was really. I don't know who. Who said it or where I saw it. There was somebody talking about back in the day, you know, Caesar or some, you know, big emperor, thought it would be a good idea to have slaves or people, you know, who were servants or whatever, wear the same color to distinguish them from the, you know, the elite kind of thing. So everybody would do. And then they voted. They decided against it because he was afraid that if they saw how many of them they were, that they would realize that they could overpower the elite.

Dan: Yeah. And we're. All of a sudden, we're noticing our common view.

Dean: That is exactly right. Yeah. Yeah, I see that the voices of that are really like, this is a big like important. It's the megaphone change. Right. And you look at the. What's. I just, it's. It's an interesting how we look at things. I saw a funny. Whether it was a video or it was a picture photo meme that was saying imagine if you're a major telephone carrier data company and you just decide that you're going to print a book with everybody's personal data in it, give one to everybody who is a customer. Imagining the phone book. You're going to print the phone with your name and your address and your telephone number and we're going to print this book and distribute it to everybody with a telephone. Well, imagine. I mean that's just so like, you think about it now. That was. That's a lot of books that's considered so helpful back then. But imagine it now. It's like, you know, having your data out there is.

Dan: If I'm a tree, I'm worried.

Dean: Yeah, exactly.

Dan: If I'm a tree, I'm really worried. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dean: Like we. Such privacy. We don't want anybody to know our.

Dan: Yeah, no, yeah. So. So anyway. And I don't think this is any exercise of strength on the part of the bureaucrats. I think it's a last ditch, last, you know, maybe kick at the can of the bureaucratic class to kind of stop what we don't like, get a, get control over what we, you know, we want to control and everything else. But I think that they. I have a sense and it has to do. Has to do with a phrase which has entered the language in the United States. It's a phrase and it just goes and goes and it infuriates one side of the political spectrum and it kind of kind of pleases the other side. And it's the concept of. Let's go, Brandon. Okay, it's right.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Okay. And it's four, you know, four syllables. And the way it was initiated started with college football crowds in August of this year where all of a sudden there was this sort of chant that would sweep the stadium. And it was in reference to the current occupant of the Oval Office, the President of the United States. And. And it was a very rude word. It started with a rude word and then his name, his full name. And. And so a driver at a not particular, you know, unique NASCAR race by the name of Brandon Brown won a race and he was being interviewed by a reporter for one of the major networks. And as he was being interviewed, the Crowd behind this interview in the stands nearby was shouting out the very rude comment about the President of the United States. And the reporter who. Whose name will go down in history now, she became instantly famous for, as she said, isn't that great? They're saying, let's go, Brandon. You know, let's go, Brandon.

Dean: Let's go, Brandon.

Dan: Yeah, let's go. Let's go, Brandon. And it instantly entered the English. Yeah. I won't say the language, but as a phrase, very, very, you know, very proper. And now it's just sweeping the country.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And very famous. The president was on the phone on Christmas Eve and was interviewing various families. And that person was very nice on the interview, but said at the end, let's go, Brandon. And he got the President of the United States to say, yes, let's go, Brandon. And. And that became news. But the other thing is, the more that it's got enormously negative backlash from the left wing media. Left wing media, I mean, on all levels of the left wing media, you know, that this is an insurrection, that even saying this means that you're trying to tear down the United States, which is only gasoline for the fire. You know, it's. It's really interesting. And what it is that it's a very safe phrase that you can say. And everybody knows what the second meaning of it is. And my sense is, the second meaning isn't so much about the person of the United States. It's about government bureaucrats and politicians in general who have screwed up.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. And that's what I think. And, you know, it's kind of an interesting phenomenon and a language phenomenon. You know, it's actually a mainland phenomenon. It's a. Something that's being passed down in the mainland that the Cloudlandia picks up and amplifies.

Dean: But a lot of this stuff is so. But it does get amplified in Cloudlandia and people have, you know, false confidence. Right. Because it's Avatar confidence. Your avatar is saying these things, and it's easy to hide behind that in every way. Like you look at. Nobody would say the things that they say, even if you take it in local things and Yelp.

Dan: Well, yeah, it's troll. It's troll bait. Right. I mean, it's really. I mean, it's. Trolling is where you're, you know, you're essentially being a negative person in Cloudlandia in a way that you probably went in the mainland. You went right that way in the mainland, but you can be that way in Cloudlandia, and generally you're Anonymous, you know. Yeah, yeah. You can't be identified as the source of this. And. And it's fair game, you know, I mean, it's kind of like fair game, but it just happens to be that this phrase went right to the center of things, and it sort of does what it needs to do. It makes one side of the political spectrum feel good and makes the other side of the political spectrum feel furious. And the only way that the left, you know, and it's left and right. The only way that the left can actually make a disappearance by not responding to it. But it's impossible for them because their whole way of life is being triggered, and they're being triggered by this, and you can trigger them forever.

Dean: So imagine if. Could you imagine, Dan, if you think

Dan: about

Dean: this, personalizing things like you're trolling, you're hiding behind things. But imagine if. Imagine if Twitter or Facebook decided to publish right there on your page, your address and your home phone number. So you're not really hiding anonymously behind things.

Dan: Well, here's the thing about that, though.

Dean: The.

Dan: The. Let me ask you, who's got time to look through the book that's related to Dean Jackson?

Dean: Well, you know, I don't even have that kind of time.

Dan: Dean Jackson doesn't even have time to look at.

Dean: That's right.

Dan: I mean, I've written. I have roughly about 20 fairly large files of everything I've drawn and everything I've said since 1985. Babs, when she met me, she said, you know, I'm gonna just save everything that. Dan, anything I've written on a sheet of paper or it's been transcribed, you know, from audio or video is in a file, and it goes back 35 years. 30. 35 years. I think it was 86 when it started. And ask me how many times I've gone to the files that. Look at what I said 10 years ago, 15 years ago. 20.

Dean: Well, yeah, I had a really interesting. I told you I had that same thing. And now I make it a part of my. My weekly kind of reading. I go and I look at these things and I came across this treasure trove of. Just two days ago, I found a small notebook. It was one of the Moleskine pocket notebooks, like the ones that I use that I had set aside as to keep the notes and thought process on one particular project. This was with just. Joe and I were working with by referral. They were doing big seminars. Big.

Dan: Oh, by the way, Joe is working.

Dean: Joe. What?

Dan: Joe is working.

Dean: Joe Stump.

Dan: Oh, I. I didn't realize you were talking about Joe Stump. No, I was talking about Joe Polish.

Dean: He's working now.

Dan: Yeah, his sabbatical year is over.

Dean: Okay. Oh, I thought it was gonna be till February, but that's.

Dan: No, no, no, no.

Dean: Okay. He's working. All right.

Dan: He's working.

Dean: Well, I talked to him a couple of days just before Christmas. I haven't talked to him since, but Joe. So Joe Stumps and I were working on this and the project that I was working on was from the beginning we would, we were doing half day workshops where we would do. We had a great email campaign and great direct mail to get people to register for the workshops. And then when they came to the workshops, we would routinely convert. 20% of the people that came to the workshop would buy the main event, the three day training. And then 40% of the people that came to the main event would join our $5,000 coaching program. So we had a machine that was like marching across the country every month doing this thing. And the project that I was working on was we calculated out how much it would improve if I could bump up the number of people who actually attended the workshop from the moment they said, yeah, I'd like to come. And the workshop is two weeks later that they actually show up at the workshop. And so the difference between say a 30% attendance rate of people who say they're going to come to a physical location. This is sort of before webinars were even possible. And this, walking through this whole process, I had a whole notebook narrating the thought process, narrating the changes that we made, the scripts that we used. And you know, I looked it through and at the end of this little thing, I had a documented, documented project that yielded about 4 to 5 million dollars in increase in the year by working on just that from the moment they press yes, the moment they say yes, I'll come. And it was such. Yeah, such a gem to have. Like, I was just, I was blown away by my. The thought process and the clarity. And even looking at now, I hadn't looked at it in years. So it would be fun for you maybe to, to just do a selection like fun curate. Just a fun thing. Looking back and knowing what you know now about.

Dan: I mean the whole point is that you can look at anything. My sense is anything that look at in a concentrated fashion with the goal to, you know, what new things will I learn from this old day? You'll come up with something because your brain wants to do that. Your brain really doesn't care what you focus.

Dean: I know.

Dan: That's.

Dean: That was a great freedom for me. Yeah.

Dan: Doesn't really care. Your brain just wants to work on something.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: And. And that explains Hitler and it explains, you know, it explains the greatest saint in history. You know, the greatest saint just focused on something and their brain goes to work whatever they focus on. That's why you have to get kids on the right, you know, get them on the right focus when they're young, you know, because their brain, well,

Dean: their

Dan: brain really doesn't care what. It focuses on something that a lot of people don't understand. Your brain doesn't care.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: The brain is not a caring. It's not a caring capability. It just wants to focus on something.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And do something. It wants to do something with what it's focused on.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: That's important. I think that's an important consideration.

Dean: Yeah. Yeah. That's what that was. What I was really loving was the. Really. The thinking through. I could see that. Fortunately, it led me to believe. Let me. What you were saying. When I discovered that my brain doesn't care really what we're thinking of it, it was really freeing in a way, because then I really got it down to what is the. I think I mentioned you about the verbs. Right. The mechanical positions that you're in. And, you know, I think about where I'm sitting in my courtyard right now and I'm in a comfy white couch, is beautiful outside. It's. It's perfect temperature and I've got my headset on and my iPhone and that mechanical outcome, no matter what, where. What you are doing this for, having a conversation like this is one of those things. This is the same position I do podcasts or conversations or coaching calls or anytime I'm talking to somebody on the phone, the good chance this is the position I'm in. And there's only, you know, there's only a few power positions that I have, but is the content. I love to have. I love to have stimulating conversations. Love. And all of not even knowing. That's. I think what's so joyful to me about the podcast with you is we neither of us know what the conversation is going to be about. We just know it's going to be delightful for us and it's going to happen at exactly the same time every week without fail. Yeah.

Dan: And the other thing is that no matter what we talk about, neither of us has any obligations to. To do anything afterwards.

Dean: Right. Exactly. That's the greatest thing.

Dan: Yeah. We guarantee each other you're off the hook.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: You know, it's like this is not going to. Whatever we do over the next hour is not going to encumber each of either of our futures with any homework right now. No homework from this class.

Dean: That's right.

Dan: It's all in class. All the work is in class. Now I just want to capture that thought. Wouldn't that be generally true about the move? I think that the mainland. The problem of the mainland that's becoming more and more is that any kind of communication in the mainland tends to entail some sort of obligation after the encounter. Whereas in Kavlandia, that's not true.

Dean: Well, I think you could have those kind of conversations on the mainland and not have that. But. Yeah.

Dan: Well, we had them before lockdown, so.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And everything. But my sense is that.

Dean: I'll tell you, Daniel, I would give.

Dan: Things get attached in the mainland in a way, it's like barnacles. It's like barnacles. You're a ship and in the mainland you pick up barnacles. And in Cloudlandia, there's something about your using Cloudlandia that says all we're going to do engage with each other on this level and the only way there will be an obligation is if we agree to the obligation afterwards.

Dean: Do you know, I take. I'm testing that. I'm going all the way back now that the actual. The most. The most wonderful barnacle that came out of a mainland conversation was our Table 10 conversation about procrastination. Yeah. Turned into. We left with homework and came on the next day.

Dan: Well, yeah, we carried through both fest. Carried through the next day. And then my contribution was to that. Let's put it in the schedule. 12 months ahead.

Dean: Right.

Dan: And that was. That was something.

Dean: Now you look at this as been. It's one of the most. I think there's zero friction around it for either of us. There's zero wondering or, you know, if gonna happen or we schedule anything. I think there's a freedom in just knowing that it's gonna happen. And that's the only time we think about it. I think it's positioned in a sweet spot in the week that is like a perfect position for it. And every conversation is wonderful. And I think they shape big things, but it's not with any. They certainly shape the way I think about things without any, like you said, barnacles or obligation or any intentional.

Dan: Yeah, it's very, very interesting. You know, you introduce. You just introduced a concept called friction. And we know from the mainland that the things that escaped friction in the mainland tended to prosper, while the things that didn't escape friction tended to fall behind and gradually fail. And what, what I mean by that is that, you know, if you could get somebody else to do what you wanted done and you had the power to get them to do it, that was a reduction in friction for your life. It may have been an introduction of tremendous friction in their life. But, you know, we call it slavery, you know. Yeah, we call it, we call it slavery. And then we found out that there was certain things that could facilitate, like animals. We could use animals instead of human beings, we could use fire instead of animals, we could use wind, we could use water power. And then we had the great breakthrough which I think happened in. Actually it happened in 1776. The best steam engine, James Watt is in 1776 and he said this has the power to multiply our efforts with no increase in friction. And my sense is that as individuals, let's depart from the world I've just described is that we have a certain amount of energy and we sense how much energy we have for things and we would like to get the biggest return on our available energy with the least amount of friction.

Dean: Yes, I agree. That's 100%.

Dan: Yeah, yeah.

Dean: And that's what I think.

Dan: And I think, I think that this is really what the movement of Cloudlandia from the mainland to, why it will increase in momentum is that we see friction as things that make us unhappy and we see we as we see escaping friction as things that generally make us feel better.

Dean: Yes. And a lot of that fits with our unique abilities and our who, not how. Yes, that's exactly right. You know, I read vcr. Vcr, Yeah, I heard a term, Dan, that is I think gonna be a big piece of going forward here, free zone collaborations that there's. Have you ever heard the term dao? Dao which you were talking about, that quandro or whatever. Well, it reminded me of what a DAO is, a thing that's in the NFT world now, the smart contract world of decentralized autonomous organizations that come together with specific outcome in mind for this particular smart contract that allows people to collaborate together under a transparent, trust based situation.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: And I think that's really opens up the world for the free zone.

Dan: Well, and I think there's a general movement towards this because there's always, and you know, for each of us, there's a limited amount of energy, there's a limited amount of time, and there's a Line of, you know, we're measured on result over time. You know, that's what productivity is. How much results did you produce and how much time did it take you to produce it? And I think there's a general sense of movement towards that. I think it's mostly unconscious, and I think it's mostly intuitive. You know, in other words, I don't think that there are many people, when they do their new year resolutions yesterday or the day before, said, you know, over the next year, I want to increase my amount of results in the 365 days. I want it to be twice as much as last year. I don't think they put it in those terms. I don't think people are that close to. To understanding what it's about. But it's really, you know, and I'm really looking at it because one of the ways that I deal with the, you know, the increase of my chronological years is to be getting done more next year at age 78, you know, on my way to 79. So about half the year I'm 77, and half the year I'm 78. I want to compare at the end of this calendar year, which would be a year from now, looking back over the year, I got twice as much done during this year with the available time than I did when I was a year younger.

Dean: That's interesting. That's a really. Do you have a sense, Dan, how many hours do you have, like this concept of who'd up hours or, you know, that was such a great concept of there. And when I started looking at the hours as investable asset blocks, like a thousand hours as a thing, do you have a sense of how many hours you deploy?

Dan: Kind of in that my sense is pretty constant from one year to the other, and it has been for 25 years.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: And because it's based the breaking of things down into free days, focus days, and buffer days.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Okay. And pretty much the number of the amount of work I put in this year will be equal to the amount of work I put in 10 years ago. Just because Babs at the beginning of the year lays out the entire year in terms of how many free days we're going to have, and then how many focus days do we have and then how many buffer days we have. So it's. It's constant enough to be that the number of hours I'll have for productive activity this year is the same as 10 years ago. I can say that. But the results will be easily 10 times greater. And that makes me Feel terrific.

Dean: Yeah, I bet.

Dan: Yeah. It's kind of interesting. Ben Hardy just sent me a little note, and he said, I want you to know, he said, and this may not seem like a big deal, but our book is holding steady at book number 2,700. Okay? And I said, 2,700. And then I talked to him about this, and he says, against. Against 5 million books, we're 2,000. So we're in the top 1%. We're in the top 1/10 of a percent of all. All books that are for sale in the world this year. He said, this is pretty terrific. He said, this is pretty terrific. And we're not doing any marketing. He said, you know, hay House cuts off marketing after, you know, three or four months. They kind of, you know, they cast the bottle into the sea with a message and see how many beaches it comes out on. He said, and it just. He says, every week about same number of books are sold. You know, it's roughly about a thousand a week get sold. And he says, just constant. And. And so it's very interesting because I didn't have that number. I didn't have that context or anything before he told me, but I said, you know, that's. That's almost like compound interest. Yeah, it just works, you know, it just works.

Dean: Exactly right.

Dan: Yeah, it just works. You know, last year was the worst year. 2020 was the worst business year we've ever had in terms of how much of a loss from the year before. I mean, there was no comparison. But we broke even. We broke even from a revenue standpoint. And our net worth went up. Our net worth went up significantly, and that's because of real estate prices of Toronto residential property.

Dean: Oh, you're saying. Oh, yeah. Personal net worth. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow.

Dan: Some guy came and knocked on our door and he said, I'm going to give you a number here. I got it on a sheet. I'm just going to show you through all three of your places. He said, I'll give it to you in cash.

Dean: Oh, really?

Dan: Yeah. And Bab said, no, no, we like it here.

Dean: Right, right. Where are we gonna go? Yeah.

Dan: What are we gonna buy?

Dean: Right, exactly.

Dan: What are we going to buy that gives us more pleasure? It's like your. It's like your. Your oasis, your celebration oasis. What would I could get? What could I get with the money I couldn't get? I don't care how much money you pay me, I couldn't get what matches. My pleasure.

Dean: Well, Dan, you know, you're 77 years old now. It's probably time to start thinking about maybe downsizing to a nice little condo so you don't have to do all the maintenance. Yeah.

Dan: We could move to the Hazleton. We could buy one of the condos. By the way, the one restaurant close down on December 31st.

Dean: Yeah, well, of course it did. I mean, what do you. I mean, this is. It's a tough time to be in a restaurant.

Dan: Business is really tough. Yeah. First of all.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: I mean, just to get people to show up for work.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And then not knowing how many customers are going to show up.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And then the prices of food have gone up.

Dean: Yeah. We had it. We had interesting. Like. So last year was kind of a fit and start year. Like, I come into 20, 21 thinking, okay, I think that's all gonna. Kind of, by the second half of the year, will be ready to go. Right. And for, you know, a large portion of our revenue comes from live events. And that was, you know, going from doing 10 live events a year to doing. I did two live events last year, but I got them timed in the perfect trough, you know, like on the downslope. In June, I got in right at the.

Dan: It was kind of like August to the end of October.

Dean: Yeah, I got in June. And then in December, I got right before the Omicron, you know, thing hit in. And now, you know, this year seems. Who knows now where this. Where this goes? But it's really. It's been interesting things because I look back at where my. My role. Like, look, it's been 10 years ago now, Dan, this year, 10 years, was the first breakthrough blueprint event.

Dan: Yeah. I remember. Yep.

Dean: From a conversation that you and I had about.

Dan: Yeah. I remember the. The stool I was sitting on in my kitchen when I talked.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. I can remember the exact conversation.

Dean: I was thinking about that.

Dan: What would you do, Dean, if you could spend the rest of your life just doing what you love to do?

Dean: Yeah. That's what it was. And as I'm thinking about that now, I really. I was saying to Luba, we were having a conversation that one of the things that I find sort of mildly dissatisfying about what I do is that I. If you just take it down to the essence, is essentially, I am. People are giving me money to show them how to convince other people to give them money.

Dan: Yep.

Dean: And I thought about the other thing, that if they're coaches or consultants or practitioners that teach other practitioners things, they're essentially giving me money to show them how to Give other people to give them money, to show them how to get real people to give them money. Yep. And what I really miss is the front line of this. Right. Like the. I realized within these collaboration things that my. And I've said this with Joe, with Joe Stump, that was a peak, both financial and, you know, professional and maximum use of my skill kind of thing in that collaboration of focusing on one part of the. Being one part of the team, you know, as opposed to being a full. And often it was an interesting thing when we were. When we were. We stopped doing the main events in 2009 and that was. It was perfect timing when of course, the collapse and everything and it was. We'd reached the peak of the model that we had and terryfeld was ready to go off and bird and so we all decided we just. Let's just go our separate ways, like go on our. Go have a new chapter now. And it was an interesting thing that Morai sort of was looking at then was I wanted my. The term I used was sovereignty, which was an interesting thing because I was still, you know, being part of a team like that was. It wasn't I felt at that point. And if I look at back as less of an entrepreneur kind of thing than being a sovereign entrepreneur who's running the whole show. Do you know what I mean by that? Yeah, like that.

Dan: I do, exactly. And I'll just throw out a thought that I have about that. That part of the sovereignty of being an entrepreneur is that you're betting your past on the future. In other words, that periodically you're taking in a lot of what you've gained, not everything you gained, because I don't know. And you're putting that on the table as a bet on a future possibility. And I think that the sovereignty of an entrepreneur is that you can do that continually throughout your life where somebody who is in the employment world, for example, has to bet on an education, has to bet on an organization, has to bet on a place, has to bet on the market. And then at only the bet is only good for about 20 or 30 years. And if you haven't won at the end of 30 years, you've lost.

Dean: Yeah, yeah.

Dan: And I think that's why there's a desperateness in the what I will call the media narrative that a lot of people are realizing that they were given a free pass to the future by where they were born, what kind of parents they had, what kind of neighborhood they grew up with, what kind of school system they went through, and who they got hired by. They thought that was a free pass to the future. And my feeling is that wherever there were guarantees backing that up, the guarantees aren't there anymore. You know, for example, I was looking at, you know, media people who are pretty well known, you know, like, they would show pictures of broadcast media. This would be, you know, the major tv. The major tv and, you know, five or six of them, including the networks. There's the three networks, plus fox, cnn, and msnbc. You know, those are the six. And I was looking at people who have hour. Like they have an hour in prime time, and they're getting paid $400,000 a year. Okay. And I said, boy, given, you know, where they are and how they had to work to get here, I don't think that's a very. And what they have to think about every day because they're nervous.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Tomorrow. They are always nervous about tomorrow. And I said, I. I don't know if this is such a great. I don't think that they bet on a great deal.

Dean: Yeah, right. Yeah. You think, you know that. I have to think about that.

Dan: I mean. I mean, people said 400,000. You know what I would do with 400,000? I said, I can tell you that where they live and what they pay for. Right. Buy a lot more. You could buy a lot more with 400,000 than they can.

Dean: Yes, exactly.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Yeah. You wonder, right? And it's all at the whim of other people, too. That's really. Yeah.

Dan: And not even the whim of other people. The whim, the latest meme, you know, the latest narrative. I mean, your whole career could be destroyed tomorrow because the new narrative has started and you were late.

Dean: I would think about Billy Bush, like, poor, you know, Billy Bush, all of these things. You know, guy had a great, happy, had a dream life, a dream job.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: I mean, that's just. It's something, isn't it?

Dan: No, no.

Dean: One guy becomes president, the other guy's off in obscurity.

Dan: Yeah. But here's the thing about that. You use two words. You use entrepreneurism, which I think is halfway to freedom.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: But the other halfway. Freedom. Is that the thing you chose to be an entrepreneur in? Is it something that is infinitely transformable?

Dean: Yeah. Yes, that's true.

Dan: In other words, that your entrepreneurial career is not tied to anybody else's product. It's not tied to anybody else's service. It's not tied to any marketplace. And, you know, I think that the breakthrough blueprint is sovereign. I think it's.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Doesn't matter if you went back 50 years. It would have been valuable if you go forward 50 years.

Dean: That's what I love about the, the model. The model, that's what I say.

Dan: It's a platform. The truth is, and I've recognized this with myself, is that you, you, the moment that you came up with the blueprint, the, the breakthrough blueprint, you, you established a free zone collaboration. And what I mean by that is that everybody who signs up for your workshop every year is a collaborator with you and improving the platform.

Dean: Yes, that's true.

Dan: And they pay you so many dollars to come and contribute to the durability in the expansion of your platform.

Dean: Yeah, I think about now like that's an interesting, yeah, it's an interesting debrief for me thinking about 10, 10 years that June of this. June of this year will be the ten year anniversary. Yeah. So it was June 2012 was the very first, the very first spike flu blueprint. And that was, you know, that I'm thinking now like looking back at what's the wisdom, the things that have evolved from that, like it all, it helps the, it's been an interesting, you know, pattern of what's happened because out of this, you know, one of the things that we have evolved are all of the ancillary things that we do to support people in implementing the breakthrough blueprint. Because we've got the, I always say to people, our profit activator too is compelling people to raise their hand. Right. Getting generating leads using books is the best way that we have of doing that. And of course that, that led to the 90 minute book business which is a thriving business that's been helping thousands of people write books and use those lead generators. We just had a, I always get a joy out of these things like our, you know, Dr. Chris Milkey, one of my clients also that we did a book with him called the plantar fasciitis solution and run ads on Facebook to general, you know, within a radius of where his practice is in Wisconsin. And he texted me a couple of months ago saying, you know, his patients are up 26% this year with. And some of it directly attributable to the book itself, but a lot of it from the, going from the book to the Facebook page to his website, calling him with him. Same thing with the bathroom boutique in Miami and seeing all of these. So knowing what I know now compared to what I knew then, it's a really interesting thing. And the dynamic now that we have is that it's definitely, we definitely are in an age where it's. It's increasingly easy to be. To provide a who service for those things rather than show somebody how to write a book or how to do this thing is, we're doing more. We're moving into more free zone collaboration.

Dan: Yeah. And I think. I think the big thing is that technology is free, freeing up human beings from the need to be machines.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: I mean, you can look at it, you know. You know, I mean, the. I. I'm reading an interesting book, and it's worth a read on your part, too. It's called what Tech Calls Thinking. So what Tech T E C H calls Thinking. And the author's name is, I think, Adrian A D R A N Baum B A U M German, teaches at Stanford University. So he's right in the heart of Silicon Valley. And he said, you know, here's the thing that you don't understand about the communication platforms. And he says, we're starting to get some distance that we can actually get. Look at the. So we're looking at Facebook and Twitter and, you know, Instagram and, you know, you know, Google. He said, they're not selling. They're not selling information. They're selling triggers. And you notice something about them because you just got triggered. You just got triggered. And they then. And they say, who gets triggered the most by what we just showed? And how long do they get triggered? And where do the triggers create other triggers? Okay. And it's not about information at all. It's simply about triggers. And he said, what they're trying to do is they're trying to match up a machine algorithm with a human algorithm, that if we repeat this machine algorithm, the human algorithms will all get triggered. And he said, that's their business model. So. Yeah, and so the whole point is. But you said you have to understand their platforms. So they couldn't care less about anything except that their platform is getting better at matching human algorithms or machine algorithms up with human algorithms. You know, and so I noticed, because I cut off television. You know, I'm in my fourth year of cutting off television.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And I just noticed I don't get triggered by four years later. I don't get triggered by very much. Any. Somebody send out a, you know, really, you know, the world is falling apart. You know, get ready to take the bunker. Make sure you have enough food to last a year. And I was watching this, and I said, I bet he's watching television.

Dean: I bet you're right. And of course, new television.

Dan: And I bet he's on I bet he's on, you know, two or three social media platforms. I bet he's getting triggered. And I said. And so he. And so. And the other thing is that his getting triggered actually gets him to buy all sorts of stuff that he's never bought before. You know, I mean, right. You know, he's buying a year's worth of emergency food, you know, and emergency water and, you know, medical supplies, and he's taking training and first aid, and he's going to the firing range with more guns than he used to go to and everything like that. And I said, you know, this guy is really a kind of an ideal consumer.

Dean: That's great. Yeah, yeah.

Dan: I said, capitalism doesn't really care what you buy. They just want you buying.

Dean: That's all that makes it all go around. Yep, yep.

Dan: Yeah. A customer can show up in any possible people for him for any possible reason.

Dean: It doesn't matter what you buy.

Dan: It doesn't matter what you buy. That's true.

Dean: Yeah. Very funny.

Dan: Anyway, well, this is a pleasure, and we opened up some themes here that are worth pursuing.

Dean: Absolutely.

Dan: In the future one.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: All right.

Dean: Love it. Thanks, Dan.

Dan: I'm all set for next week because I'm locked down.

Dean: Me too. Okay. Okay.

Dan: Okay, bye.