From Childhood Snow to Cutting-Edge Networks

Dean: Mr. Sullivan.

Dan: Mr. Jackson.

Dan: Fresh from the frigid north.

Dean: Oh my goodness. Dan. I. You know. Yeah, I'm just happy to be back. It's sunny and warming. Gonna say it's warm yet because it was only got up to like six three or something yesterday. But it's warming up and it's warmer than it was. I did escape without defaulting my snowflake. I didn't get a cold this time. That's true.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: And I didn't get any snow on me. So that's good.

Dan: Yeah. Well we're actually in Chicago today and it's 49 so it's.

Dean: Oh my goodness.

Dan: Wow. It's deciding to see if it can upset or Orlando the area. We're gonna a last valiant attempt before the total freeze sets in.

Dean: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, Dan, what a great couple of workshops we had this week. They were really.

Dan: I know about one of them. I know. That's it. That's actually a good thing to say, you know, when you're developing a company, you know.

Dean: Absolutely. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. I was telling people that in 1994, fifth year of the program, I did 144 workshop days that year. And the reason being I was the only coach. So then in 95 we started adding associate coaches and we're up to 18 now. We just had our 18th one come on board. And this year the total coaching team will do 600 coaching days compared to 144 back in 1994. And I will do 12 of them.

Dean: I was just going to say. Yeah, 12. You got three groups times four. Right?

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dean: That's great.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. The connector. The connector calls which I. Which I. Which I absolutely love. I just think those two are coaching calls are superb.

Dean: I do too. Two hour zoom. Two hour zoom calls are the perfect. That's the perfect length. Anything more is too much.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. So if you add those up, that would. Using eight hours as a workshop day, that would be 4096.

Dean: Six.

Dan: Sixteen more. Sixteen more days. Days of coaching in a year. But that's right. Significantly fewer than. Than my 144. The problem with the 144. You didn't have much energy for creating new stuff.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: And you were. Yeah, I guess that's true. Right. And some of it you were having to. The good news about the position you're in right now is you really only. You really only do the same workshop three times. Right. Like you do a quarterly workshop. But even that by the third time you've learned.

Dan: Yeah. Well, even they actually change, you know, I mean, they're probably. They're 90. In other words, number two is 90% brings forward. 90%, number one. And number three brings forward. Because you've economized. You know, you've. Yes, I can do this quicker. I can do this. Add some new things, you get some new ideas and you see what landed.

Dean: But how things land.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the time you get to number three, you've probably. In my case, I've certainly created some new material that just came out of the conversations. It's a nice. It's a nice setup that I have right now.

Dean: Yeah. I love that. If these. You know, you're already. You're booked out for 20, 25, as am I now. This is a great. This is the first year going in.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: That I'm kind of embracing the scaffolding. We'll call it

Dan: my sense. By 26, we'll have a fourth. We'll have a fourth quarterly workshop. Just because of the. Just because of the growth of the membership. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what. That is more choice for the participants during any quarter. You know, they can now they'll have four opportunities. Yeah. And. Yeah.

Dean: So anyway, I'm really enjoying being back in Toronto. That's such a great. And our group is growing. That's nice. We're gonna. It'll be the. The place to be. Before we know it.

Dan: It will be. It'll be. There will be a certain cachet that you have that, you know. I don't know how we'll signify this, but do it at the mothership. I do this program.

Dean: Oh, that's the best.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah.

Dean: That's so funny. I've gotten. I've got. The Hazelton is fast turning into the official hotel, too, which is great. I've got.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Chad hooked over there and Chris. Those there. And so that's good. We get the whole.

Dan: So is she thinking about coming into Free Zone?

Dean: We're working on her for sure. I think that would be fantastic. Yeah. And same. Norman's coming back in March, so that's great.

Dan: Oh, good.

Dean: He'll be in Toronto. That's.

Dan: Is he doing anything new besides the multitude of things he was doing before?

Dean: Well, you know, he sold his. Sold his main business, so he's now, you know, a new. New chapter, but he's still the ambition. The ambition didn't go with the sale.

Dan: Yeah. The waste management company.

Dean: That's right. That's right.

Dan: Right. Yeah. And I remember him coming. I forget when it was, but they they had just had hurricane that especially affected the Carolinas, South Carolina. And he came in for a party, you know, for before, free zone. And I said, how you. How you doing, Norm? And he says, well, you know, he said, I don't. I can't talk about this everywhere, but I certainly do enjoy a hurricane every once in a while because. Because he's in the waste management. Right, exactly. And also in the plywood business. Also in the plywood business. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Both before and after the. Both before the hurricane and after the hurricane, people buy plywood. So. Yeah. You know, that's an interesting thing. I'm reminded of what I'm going to tell you because I grew up in Ohio and Ohio is two very distinct states. There's the north and the south. And I grew up in, you know, way up in the north and middle of Ohio. But we always considered the people who were down by the Ohio river part of the Confederacy. You know, the Southern. I don't know if they put in great new flood controls since I was growing up in the 50s down there, but every, you know, every couple of years there was just a massive. The Ohio river, which is a mighty river. I mean, it's one of the major rivers and it's one of the misses, you know, flows into the Mississippi. It goes all the way up from Pittsburgh. It goes all the way from Pittsburgh to the Mississippi that's covering a whole number of states. And. But, you know, there are people who would live there, they get completely washed out. They'd rebuild and then three or four years later, they'd get washed out and, you know, they'd rebuild and, you know, and everything like that. And often wondered what the thinking process is around that you're in a disaster zone and you keep. You keep rebuilding in the disaster zone. Is it short memory or.

Dean: I think that's probably true.

Dan: Or you just like the opportunity to build again?

Dean: Yeah, it's built back better. Yeah, the whole. Yeah, yeah. I think it is true. Right. Like people.

Dan: But a lot of people say, I wouldn't do that. You know, I wouldn't live there where they do. But I'm not saying people are stupid about this. I'm just saying I'm just. I'm not comprehending. But I live in a place that gets frigid every year, and people say, I couldn't understand how you would continue living in a place. So what do you think it is?

Dean: Well, I have been struggling with that question since I was a little child. I remember we, you know, grew up in halton Hills. And I remember, you know, my. My father's family is from Florida, and my dad worked with Air Canada, so we used to fly. We used to come to Florida quite a bit over the winter. And I remember just. I remember like it was yesterday, the time when I realized I must have been, like, you know, four or five years old when I realized I had the experience of being out playing in the yard in the morning with my snowsuit on. And then we got on a plane and went to Florida. And in the afternoon, I was swimming in the pool. And that just, like, baffled my brain. Like, why don't we just live here? Why don't. Why doesn't everybody live here? My parents are explaining that it's summer all year, you know, and I'm like, I couldn't understand. And so in my mind, that was kind of like before I knew about, you know, I learned about immigration and, you know, two different countries and the people can't just live. Even though I'm a dual citizen, that's why most people don't.

Dan: Right.

Dean: And in my mind, I still remember that, to me, didn't explain. Why would people live in Buffalo? That was an option. You know, if you're in the United States, you can live anywhere you want. Why would somebody choose Buffalo over Florida? I. I don't get it. I don't know. And this is all pre Cloudlandia, you know, where now it's like we're really seeing this. The relevance, you know, less and less.

Dan: Yeah. What you're telling me is that when you were the age that you described, Florida had a great deal of meaning and Canada didn't. Toronto didn't. It didn't. And so for me. So for me, for example, I just loved winter, you know, I grew up loving winter, you know, And I used to go. I mean, you know, I was fields and forest, and the woods were just magical when it snowed, you know, and you'd go, it was an entirely different world. I mean, they were four times a year, they were different woods because each of the seasons, the trees and the. You know, the trees and the terrain are really radically different. And so. So that. That's why I like it. And, you know, I've been to San Diego, you know, and San Diego is just about the most temperate. Certainly in the United States, it's the most temperate place. 72, very low temperature all year, it's 72. And I said, God, I couldn't stand living here alone.

Dean: Oh, man, that's something.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah, I know. Mike. Mike loves it.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And I can understand. And I can understand why. I mean, I like it when I'm there.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: I said. You mean. You mean next season. When the next season comes, it's going to be exactly the same, and then the second, third season is exactly.

Dean: Well, Dan, you know, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. They have June gloom. That's the. That's the weather that comes in every morning in June. You get this fog, marine layer fog that comes in and see, I would

Dan: find that really interesting.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Like, I. I would find the fascinating fog. Yes, I would.

Dean: That's it.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know. It's really interesting, but it depends. There was just such meaning for me in those early childhood winters, you know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And sometimes, you know, and then. Yeah. You could imagine you were an Arctic explorer. You know, you could also the, you know, you had the. You had the tobogganing and sledding and tobogganing, and our neighbors had horses with a sleigh, you know, and everything. Yeah.

Dean: So do you know what's so funny is.

Dan: And I see the thing I can remember, you know, I certainly know that Santa's dressed for winter. Santa's not dressed for Florida.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Well, he's just not dressed for Florida.

Dean: That's true.

Dan: I mean, he must get hardship pay going to Florida.

Dean: That's a. Take off that top layer. Gotta get down. He's gotta get his shorts on underneath all of that.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: So funny. You know, I heard you brought up toboggan and you know, Chad Jenkins, I heard for the first time he referred to his toque as a toboggan. And I had never heard that before.

Dan: Yeah, of course, it was a stocking cap. I mean, exactly. Everybody knows. Everybody knows it's a stocking cap, you know.

Dean: Right, right, right.

Dan: Yeah. I never heard that word. I never heard that word. I thought it was sort of some sort of elitist word. You know, you get that after you get graduate degree. Oh. You never become so. Tooth cursive. We never called the Canadian.

Dean: That's the Canadian term for it, everybody, so.

Dan: I know.

Dean: Yeah. I.

Dan: About that.

Dean: You really. Your childhood was in Ohio. But a stocking. Yeah.

Dan: Huh? Yeah. Yeah.

Dean: A beanie.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: As they say. So funny.

Dan: No, a beanie is something else. A beanie is just. It's like a. It's like a yarmulke for, you know, for the Jewish people that. But it sort of resembles. It sort of resembles that. Yeah. Anyway, these are. These are deep subjects that we're talking about.

Dean: What was your big. Chad and I were talking about the, the workshop days and you had mentioned that it's one of the best workshops that you had in memory. I would love to hear what you're Certainly.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. What I remember about best workshops is that generally the, the afternoon, previous best workshops were by lunchtime, you were setting up for the, you know, the real punchline in the afternoon. But this one, by lunchtime, it had been a great workshop. Up until that time, it almost had like, it had two complete shows. There were like two complete shows when we, when we did. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's a qualitative thing. You just, you know, I don't have a scoring system for saying it, but you just have a feeling. Feel for it. And everybody was, Everybody was totally engaged.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Pretty quickly in the morning. Yeah. And. Yeah, but it was, I mean, that thing about leadership, you know, the. I hadn't pulled back that diagram, the pyramid and the network diagram, I hadn't pulled. I hadn't referred to that in about 25 years, you know, and I just brought it back and I didn't know I was going to use it until I actually walked in the room to start the workshop, you know. Oh, interesting. I said, I think there's something about this diagram that'll create a context. And more and more, as I've been thinking about it, you know what the greatest entrepreneurial resource is in the 2020s, and that's probably what Trump brought in Elon and Vivek, you know, for their Doge. Their DOGE department. Anyway. Is that the greatest source for entrepreneurial growth is the obsolescence of bureaucracy?

Dean: Yes, yes.

Dan: Big systems falling apart, Big system is falling apart. That's the greatest resource for entrepreneurial growth.

Dean: The thing that struck me too, is that the triangle, the pyramid method that you showed there, that the difference in the network thing is the absence of a border around stuff, you know, like I, that's what really stood out for me was when. And maybe we should explain. Can you visual. Verbally explain what you're doing?

Dan: Yeah. This comes from a book. It was actually my first book. It's called the Great Crossover. And I was starting to talk about this in presentations I was making. I think the first one is 1987. 1987. I gave a talk on this and what I said is that growing up in the 40s and 50s, it was entirely a big pyramid world. Big corporations, big government and big unions. And, and, and even, you know, well, I'll just stick to those three. And, and it was because of industrialization, that industrialization takes on a certain form. And then part of industrialization is the administration offices that go along with factories. And what they are is that, you know, when you have a big plant, a big factory, and it runs on the assembly line, in other words, things move from station to station. And, you know, the people at each station just do a single task, and then they pass it on to the next person. To have an administration that takes what the factory produces and gets it out into the world, they also have to create a. They also have to create a. An assembly line of information. And the reason why it becomes very stiff and static over time is just the sheer cost of amortizing the factory. I mean, like a steel mill, you know, a steel mill, you build. Steam mill. It takes you about 50 years. In the early 20th century, it took you about 50 years to pay back the cost of the steel mill, the amortized cost of it. Well, you couldn't be fooling. You had to get it right in the first place. And, yeah, you couldn't be fooling around with it. So everything was kind of fixed. And that's why people could be hired, you know, at 18 years old, and they didn't really have to learn that much in the job they were doing. Once they got it down, it was good for life, you know. Steel worker. Yeah. I mean, they might have modernization somewhere along the line, but it was still fundamentally the same activity. Okay. So society kind of took over that, you know, and you had some big events. You had the big.

Dan: You had the, you know, the huge growth of government administrations during the Great Depression when Roosevelt came in with the New Deal, and there was just these huge. They had never, you know, and I was reading article Theodore Rose. Rose. In the first decade of the 20th century, the executive branch had about 60 employees. You know, the presidency, you know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Now, it's. I mean, it's not the biggest, but it's got thousands. The executive branch, you know, just the White House plus the executive building next to. It's got. You know, it's got thousands of people in it, you know, and there's layer after layer after layer, and. But they were really huge in the. And then the Second World War, everything got massively big. But they were all pyramidal. Everything was pyramidical. You know, you had a person on top and then maybe 10 layers down. General Motors in the private sector, it was the biggest. That was the end of the 50s, you know, 1959, they had 21 layers of management, from the CEO right down to the Factory floor, you know, and so. And there wasn't much leadership. There was a very few people at the top leadership. The rest of it was just managing what the leaders wanted. So that's the setup for the story that persisted. And things were. You know, there was great productivity from around 1920-19 and then starting around 1960, there was enormous cost. There was enormous. There was even enormous growth. But there wasn't much increase in productivity because they basically maxed out what you could do with that kind of structure. And then because of re. And that they. The change maker is the introduction of the microchip.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Especially when it gets along to being a personal computer.

Dean: Yes, that's what I was. That. That really fits in with the. You know, by the 1950 to 1975. Ish. That's what we're talking about. That was kind of the staple of the. The hierarchy system. And then you're right, that's where some of the. You know that the microchip at its greatest thing really was the beginning of being able to detach from physical location. Like I remember even, you know, where this is part of the advantage that the microchip gave us. If you look at what were the things that were kind of the first mainstream, you know, beneficiaries of our ability to electronify things that it was. The answering machine gave us freedom from having to be on the. It literally provided the first opportunity. Fact check me on this. I mean, just think I'm just making this up, but could that be the first time that we had the opportunity in.

Dan: You're asking a two fact finder to fact check.

Dean: Just gut check me on this. Is that.

Dan: That seemed like a. Oh, got checked.

Dean: Yeah. Gut check. I forgot who I was talking.

Dan: That's an entirely different animal.

Dean: Is that the first time. Like the answering machine gave us the first opportunity to be in two places at once. We could be there to answer the phone and not miss anything. But we could also be away from the phone. The VCR gave us the chance to record something to not miss it. So we could be somewhere else. The pager, the cell phone, these things were all sort of our. This was.

Dan: Yeah, well, you're moving in a particular. You're moving in a particular direction. If you say where. What do all these things have in common? You've just identified it. You know that. Yeah, yeah. I was thinking. I remember the. To be in the 70s. The Selectric, the IBM Selectric typewriter, you know, was a real precursor of word processing, you know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Because you could first of All. They weren't keys. It was just a ball that revolved. It was just a. A little ball that revolved. And, you know, and so there was no jamming. I mean, there was no jamming. And of course, it was electric. It was an electric typewriter. But the big thing is that you could get it right. You know, you could program it, and then you just put in a sheet of paper and you press the button and it typed out the entire page and everything like that. I remember that was. That was. That filled me with wonder. Right. You know, when I said, wow, that's really amazing, you know. You know, as a writer, I Sometimes I have. This is the sort of fantasies that writers had. And I said, if I had been a copywriter back in the 1970s, but I had a Mac at home, I had my.

Dean: Oh, my goodness. You were one of those.

Dan: Okay. And, you know, I do all the writing. You know, I do all the writing on it. You know, I do spell check and everything else. And then I would hire somebody to type it on a typewriter. I don't know how I do it. I would have it typed out, but with lots of mistakes, because a writer shouldn't be. You know, a writer shouldn't have perfect typing, but, you know, and I'd look busy during the day, but the first thing in the morning, I would just unload an enormous amount of stuff, you know, and I'd be so far ahead. But I'd never. But I'd never tell anybody about my Mac.

Dean: Yeah. That's funny.

Dan: Now, how my Mac would have been invented only for one person. I haven't really worked that out yet.

Dean: Oh, boy. But that's, you know, it's. So what struck me when you were somebody?

Dan: This is. Yeah. Somebody asked me a couple months ago, you know, the conversation. If you had a superpower, what superpower would you want? And I said, you know, I've given this a lot of thought. I've tried out a lot of possibilities, but the one that I think I could just stay with for the rest of my life is tomorrow. Tomorrow's Wall Street Journal yesterday. I could stay with that for the rest of my life.

Dean: Oh, okay. That's even great. Tomorrow's yesterday. So you would get a full 24 hours with it.

Dan: 48 hours. You get a day. You get a day in between for activity, you know, like. Yeah, yeah. But I probably moved to Las Vegas.

Dean: Oh, that's so funny. Yeah, that would be a really good. That would be a really good one. That'd be a fun movie.

Dan: Actually the prognosticator.

Dean: The thing that struck me, Dan, about the difference between the pyramid with the layers of people, the circles, the one person at the top, the two leaders, the managers, the supervisors and the workforce was the boundary of the pyramid itself. Right. Like prior to when that was brought up, the only efficient way to communicate to everybody was to have them all within the borders of the wall the same, you know. Yeah. Everybody in the same place. And what struck me when you drew the circles all just connected to everyone without any borders. That's really. We're at the fullest level of that right now where there's never been a better time. And this is where this is the whole free zone opportunity of only be only having to do the thing that you uniquely are the best at doing and be able to plug into, you know, a who, not how network with VCR collaborations. I mean, that's really the.

Dan: A great, A great example of that is the connector call we had on. We had a Friday, I had a connector call and I tested out a new tool which is called sunk cost Payoffs is it's. You look at everything that you'll always be paying for. Okay, so in our case, we have, you know, we'll have a. We have more than 100 team members. We'll always be paying for our hundred. More than 100 team members and then all of our production costs for material and then our complete operations. Because we're always going to be an in person, you know, workshop come, you know, we're not going to be anything else. Taxes and regulations, you know, and everything you have. And I said, we're always going to be, we're always going to be paying for these, you know, so the question, what are the top three? And the, you know, the, you know, I just picked the top three are, you know, our team, including our coaches. Absolutely. And then the creation of the thinking tools and, you know, so we have all that. And, and then I said, so that being the case, I'm just going to accept that I'm only going to pay. Now what are the strategies for just multiplying the profitability that I get out of the things that I'm always paying for? And it was very interesting because a lot of people said, you know, I. This has always bothered me. The sunk cost has always bothered me. And I've often thought, is there any way of getting rid of the sunk cost? But now I'm thinking maybe I'm not investing enough in my sunk costs. I'm not investing enough. And I'm about 10% more spending away from getting a 10 times return. If I just put a little bit more emphasis here, for example, of training and education of staff. Training, education of staff. It might cost you 10% more for your team members, you know, but you probably get a much bigger return than the 10% because it already exists. It already exists. You don't have to create it. Anyway, that's just a setup. So we were just. One person said, you know, I should link up with Lior because Liora was on the call.

Dan: He said I should link up with Liora and, and you know, it's Alec Broadfoot actually. He said I should link up and we should do this. And I said, why don't you do a triple play? Who would be the, who would be the third person? And everybody in the room said Chris Johnson. Oh yeah, like that. And it was immediately there was a three, three, three way. I think I'm suggesting what happened there is exactly. What you just said before is that there's no spatial restrictions on the new organization you just put together. It's just three capabilities. And, and they're in Cloudlandia. The reason why they can do it is that they're in Cloudlandia.

Dean: Yeah. There's no borders and there's just the connections between the modules, you know, that's really the capabilities. Yeah, well, it's the vision capability.

Dan: I'm going to go back to the pyramid network model that we started talking about. So you had to have a, you know, enough leadership. You had to have this huge structure that was all management. There wasn't leadership from the bottom, there was leadership from the top. Right. But in the network, if you think of three circles and they're connected. So they're connected. They're in a triple play. Okay.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: So you have the three circles, the connections. You have three, three circles and then you have the lines in between the connector lines are the management. But what happens in the middle is the leadership.

Dean: That's a much. That's great. And the things can all go out

Dan: like in three dimensional and they can. Yeah, well, not only that, but any one individual can have a multitude of threes.

Dean: Yes. Yeah. That gets pretty exponential pretty quick.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dean: Anyway, I was just on a zoom with, with Eben Pagan and Salim Ishmael and yeah, we were talking about this, you know, because Salim, of course is exponential. Organizations book and framework is really. That was certainly a playbook that fits with this, you know, or a, you know, expandable workforce. And it really is. The ideas are what's at the central. That's the vision, right? That's really the thing. The visionary is the can see the connections between but there's never been. It's never been easier to. To have all of these connections. And that's what I really think like if you're able to look at what people's capabilities are. I did a zoom at for with Chad Jenkins with his group about the VCR formula, the vision capability and reach and talked about the step one for everyone just recognizing and doing an assessment of their, their VCR assets and seeing what you have. Almost look at it as like everybody having playing cards, you know, like baseball cards with your stats on the back that show your. The things, you know, the things you can do and the people you can reach is a pretty, you know, good framework for collaboration. Chad actually building a, building a software kind of or an app tool around that which is.

Dan: I think that's great.

Dean: That whole collaboration community, you know, is really what the future is. I just get excited about it because it allows you to be like in that world, you know, the. You don't need to ever get slowed down by the inability to execute on capabilities, you know, because you don't have to anymore. You can tap into any capability which is kind of a great thing. It's like any capability with capacity is a, you know, is a great thing. And even if you have limited capacity.

Dan: Yeah, that's fixable. Interesting. It's really interesting because you know, I was talking about the sunk cost payoffs. Our 120 team members is just such an incredible, you know, incredible capability. And, and all of them are in their unique ability. Everybody goes through the complete unique ability identification. And starting in we started already but 2025 will be the first year where four times a year they all update their 4x4 for themselves. So the you do it the first time with them, in other words that you say this is, you know, this where I want you to be alert, curious, responsive and resourceful. And this is. I want you to produce results that are faster, easier, cheaper, bigger. If you choose. You can be a hero in these four areas. And by the way, these are four ways that you can drive me crazy. If you really want to drive me crazy, just do any of these and you probably won't have to update your 4x4 next quarter Quarter because you'll be somewhere else. Okay. Always give them a choice. Always give them a choice. You know, you can do this or you can do this. Yeah. And, and anyway but that's going to produce massive results over the in 2025, I. I could just feel it. And I have a team, a loose team, just 16 members that I just hang out with in the company, and we're doing it every quarter, and you can just see the excitement as. As they go forward. I'm just writing the book right now with Jeff. So we're in grading. We're in our first. First edition, the first draft of, you know, casting that hiring. But it's really interesting. And then, you know, the weird thing is that we're always going to be having increasingly the majority of our dollars being American dollars and more and more of our expenses in Canadian dollars, and that just multiplies. That just. It's $1.41 this morning.

Dean: That's great. Is that up or down?

Dan: Oh, no. Two months ago, it was $1.34.

Dean: Oh, my goodness. Okay, so it's getting better.

Dan: Well, it's like 7 cents, you know. 7 cents. Yeah. On every dollar. And being who Trump is and being who Trudeau is, I don't see the Canadian dollar getting any stronger.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: At least until next October. Until next October. I mean, I mean, you know, it's dangerous to be a charismatic person. Okay. And. Because, you know, you know, people's hearts just melted. He was the son of Pierre, and he came along and he's this handsome, you know, he's handsome and, you know, and he's, you know, he's. He knows, you know, he knows he's handsome and he's. And everything like that. And they went along and he said such beautiful things, but for nine years, never did anything, you know, just he spent a lot of money and he hired a lot of government employees, but as far as actually increasing productivity, increasing profitability, nothing over nine years. And everybody's just made up. Everybody's just made up their mind about him, and there's not. And you. It's really almost enjoyable watching them struggle. That there's nothing that he used to be able to get away with, he can get away with now. And you can just see the strain on. He's still, you know, he's still very young looking. You know, he's. And lucky man. And, and, yeah, he hasn't.

Dean: He didn't really age like Obama, Clinton, others before him in the presidential role, you see the aging of the, the, the weight of being the president. But he's kind of thrived. When I was there last, it was,

Dan: you know, third of time. He's got. Third time with. He'll always be like 40. He'll. He'll always be like 35. You know, he'll be. Yeah. And, you know, and anyway, interesting. And everybody's just sitting on their hands, you know, the entire country is just sitting on their hands until, you know, the elections next October. Has to be next October. Could be sooner, but I don't think it will be. And, you know, and he'll be out. I mean, he'll be out. And he. He's lost five. Five points of popularity since Trump got elected.

Dean: Wow.

Dan: So, I mean, the.

Dean: The thing they were.

Dan: You know, it's really obvious. Trump is governing.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: I mean, he's not been inaugurated yet, but it's like he's the leader.

Dean: Everybody's already. There were emergencies being held for. I saw that Trudeau was gathering all the premiers, getting ready to address the possible tariffs, you know, the response to the tariffs. It's kind of. You're right. Everything's kind of. Everybody's.

Dan: Yeah, he was. Did you see that? I don't know if you saw any of the videos, but he went to the opening, the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, and I did not. Looks beautiful. Have you seen any pictures? Oh, it's beautiful. No, I mean, I never liked it. I, you know, when I would go, I went there a couple of times, it was dark and dingy and everything else. It's spectacular. It's spectacular. I mean. Yeah. Yeah. And. But everybody. All the leaders in Europe who were there, like, everybody was there from Africa, from the Middle east and everything, all the leaders, and they were all running up and they were holding his hand in two hands, you know, smiling at him, and they said, don't terrify us. Don't terrify us.

Dean: Yeah, let's go be friends.

Dan: Let's be friends. Let's be friends. Talk about. Talk about your VCR formula being the US Economy is a hell of a capability.

Dean: Holy cow.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: I just saw Peter Zion was talk. I watched some of his videos, and he was talking about why he doesn't worry about the United States geopolitically, You know, because we're miles away from anybody, you know, physically being. We're not. We're in physical advantage, away from anybody that would cause us or want us harmed. We are energy independent. We have the reserve currency, the. It's so much stuff.

Dan: It's half the arable land in the world.

Dean: Yes, exactly.

Dan: Half of the ocean. Half of the ocean going ports in the world. Yeah. I don't know if you knew that, but you have. You count all the river systems, the lake systems, the, you know, the ocean coasts and Everything. They have half of the navigable, the ocean going point part. You leave this place, you. You can go to the ocean. They have, you know, plus the military. I mean, the Navy, the US Navy is seven. Seven times. Seven times bigger and more powerful than all the other navies in the world combined. It's just enormous things. Yeah. But it's the economy that really matters. It's the, you know, that's that. Yeah. Did you see the one he did? Well, I don't think Peter Zion did one. He did one on why there won't be a replacement for the US currency. It's the reserve currency in the world, you know, and he said, first of all, it's so big, the dollar is so big that America doesn't really even have to pay attention with what other people are doing with the dollars. As a matter of fact, there's more dollars in use around the world than there is far more dollars in use in around the world than there is in the US economy, which is the biggest economy. And. But the US isn't a export economy. It's, you know, only about, maybe up to 15% of the GDP has anything to do with foreign trade. Importer export. It's about 15%, 85% is just Americans making stuff that other Americans are buying. Right. So. Yeah, And Canada is an export country. I mean, it's totally an export country. Mexico is an export country. China is an extreme export country. And. Yeah.

Dean: Anyway, what do you think? I haven't heard Peter Zion talk about Bitcoin or how that, you know, a crypto.

Dan: I can't remember ever saying anything. I've never seen it.

Dean: That was big news, that it just passed. A hundred thousand.

Dan: Well, you know, there's only so many of them.

Dean: Well, what. When did you. Do you remember when you first heard about bitcoin? Was it prior to Peter Diamandis introducing it to us?

Dan: No, no, I never heard about it before.

Dean: Me neither. Yeah. And when he introduced it to us, it was at about $500.

Dan: But it's not a currency. It's not a currency. It's a speculative investment. You know, it's a speculative investment because it's not fungible. Do you know what the word fungible. You know, word fun. I didn't know what the word meant, but one of my.

Dean: I've heard the word exchangeable for value. Right. But it's not.

Dan: Yeah. The easiest to exchange for value. Easiest thing to exchange for value in the United States. I was talking to somebody that was very clear to me that cryptocurrency is going to replace the dollar. And I said, why is that? And I said, well, first of all, it doesn't have all the expenses of the dollar and everything. I said, well, I'll do the thousand. I'll do the thousand person test.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: And you offer a thousand people a choice between one or of two piles, US$10,000 stacked up, or that thing in another currency. What do you think? The. If you gave it, gave the choice to a thousand people, what would it be?

Dean: Right. Yeah. They would want the US Currency, of course.

Dan: Yeah. I don't know who it is that would choose because it's instantly fungible for anything in the world. The other thing. Yeah. You know, some of the cryptocurrencies are like a ton of oats.

Dean: A ton of oats, yeah. That's what I've understood about. I've never understood that about gold as a. You know, the people buy that as a hedge against things because of its inherent value and the scarcity of it or whatever. But it seems so impractical to have a bunch of gold.

Dan: It's really interesting is that gold holds its value forever. And that's the reason why, for example, the value of gold in relationship to the dollar right now is the same as gold was in relationship to the Roman currency in the year one.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: If the currency gets really inflated, the value of the gold goes up. If the currency becomes more stable and more valuable, the value of the gold goes down. It's a perfect hedge. But it never has a value in itself. It only has a value in relationship to the currency.

Dean: Okay, that makes more sense then. That makes more sense.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. So if you had, you know, if you had the Roman terms, if you had $2,000. 2,000, whatever their dollar was, whatever you called it back then, if you had $2,000 worth in that time, it would be worth $2,000 today. It's just a constant value thing. It never goes up. It only goes up or down to where the currency is.

Dean: Yeah, that makes sense.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dean: So, Everett, I wonder, you know, I've heard somebody talk.

Dan: I mean, the real hedge for us has been the Canadian dollar. Right?

Dean: Exactly.

Dan: And that it's been an average of 26% for 35 years. That's great.

Dean: Which offsets the tax burden, you know, in some ways, right? I mean, that's.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. It fixes us. I mean, that's why the US People say, when is Coach going to go global? I said, I have to tell you something. It's the United States.

Dean: Yeah. Yeah, that is global. That is right, Exactly.

Dan: Yeah, yeah.

Dean: Amazing. Well, how long are you in Chicago now? Just this week.

Dan: Well, our workshops this week are on. My workshops on Thursday. So we come in because we like spending time with our team.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And so. Yeah, so we want to make sure. Because we have a pretty good sized team. I think we have 22, 23 now in, in Chicago. So it's, you know, we like hanging out with them and. And also Chicago's our standard medical center. You know, it's Northwestern University Hospital. I have three or four meetings this week. And so this is where we come. You know, this is the second tier of the Canadian healthcare system is Air Canada. Chicago.

Dean: I gotcha. I gotcha, I gotcha.

Dan: That's funny. You live in the second tier of the second tier of the Canadian healthcare system.

Dean: Just skip the whole first tier and go right to the second.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I. This, except for getting my certain couple of prescriptions okayed at the pharmacy, that's my entire extent of my contact with the Canadian healthcare system this year. Oh, wow.

Dean: Yeah. You're going, you're going into the Cloudlandia

Dan: healthcare system and Nashville and Buenos Aires. Yeah. Chicago, Nashville and Buenos Aires. Yeah. Yeah. So what you, what idea popped up during our one hour talk for you?

Dean: Well, I like, I think this thought of the understanding that the microchip was what really gave us the. The freedom to be in two places at once. The time travel. And it gives us now in its fullest thing here, it's giving us the ability to collaborate outside of the pyramid, you know, in a way that is seamless and much more expansive. It's just completely understanding that, I think that really helps in projecting that forward. If even as we see now, like you could see a time when Charlotte, my Charlotte will be able to be more proactive and engaged other as long as she knows what her mission is to be able to reach out and collaborate with other. Other Charlotte, you know, it's. I think it's.

Dan: I think it's great. Yeah, I think it's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's great. Yeah, that'd be great. When you have Charlotte as an active member of the next pre zone workshop.

Dean: Yeah, yeah, I've been thinking about that. I can't wait. That'll be fun.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Although it was really, it was, it was really great. Dan too. I did the two workshop days, you know, I was joking.

Dan: You did it a 1989 version?

Dean: Exactly. Yes. No phone, no contact with the outside world. And it was actually very it was

Dan: very, very liberating, isn't it?

Dean: It really was. And the fact that I didn't really miss anything, you know, that's kind of the. Except I had my focus 100% in the building, you know, that was. Yeah, it was valuable. Do that. Yeah, absolutely.

Dan: Buildings are still useful. Yeah, absolutely.

Dean: All right.

Dan: Well, okay.

Dean: Your Chicago Saturday after Sunday afternoon.

Dan: And. Yeah, I will talk to you. I'm excited now. And I'm fixed. I'm fixed now on Sundays for. Till. Till January.

Dean: Perfect. Me, too. Good.

Dan: Back in Toronto. Good.

Dean: I'll be here.

Dan: Bye. Okay, bye.