Welcome to Cloudlandia Ep163: The Phone-in-the-Box Experiment and the Speed of Truth
In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, Dan and Dean explore the intersection of personal transformation and rapid global change in our technology-driven world.
Dean reveals the profound results of his eight-week phone-in-the-box experiment, sharing how reclaiming 14 hours daily has restored his ability to read for extended periods and revolutionized his creative process. He discusses developing systematic approaches to manage ADHD, including mastering 50-minute focus sessions that consistently produce two fully-formed thought pieces. With Charlotte, his AI partner who can read his handwriting, Dean has created a sustainable rhythm for generating hundreds of insights annually.
Dan shares unexpected breakthroughs from his stem cell treatments—while the 50-year-old knee injury heals slowly, his cognitive testing has improved 90% and his reflexes have returned to levels he hasn't experienced in decades. He discusses upcoming book launches, including The Greater Game with John Bowen, featuring original entrepreneurial research and interactive dashboards, plus the innovative four-by-four casting tool being developed as their first licensed internet product.
The conversation shifts to examining how individual action amplified by technology can expose truth at remarkable speed. From Venezuela's Maduro being extracted to a Brooklyn jail cell to a lone citizen journalist uncovering $112 million in daycare fraud with just his phone and one day of investigation, we explore how Cloudlandia enables rapid revelation of hidden realities.
We close by reflecting on the philosophical nature of AI use—how billions of people are each creating entirely unique cognitive signatures with their AI tools, as distinctive as fingerprints yet largely invisible to the world. It's a fascinating look at how technology simultaneously democratizes capability while making individual creative processes more private than ever.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
Links:
WelcomeToCloudlandia.com
StrategicCoach.com
DeanJackson.com
ListingAgentLifestyle.com
TRANSCRIPT
(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)
Dean Jackson:
Welcome to Cloudlandia.
Dan Sullivan:
Mr. Jackson. How are you? Good, good. Had a great trip to London for-
Dean Jackson:
I didn't know you were going to London.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. We just decided at the last moment, unfortunately, we got good flights and good rooms and some friends of ours from the DC area, they went and Steven Palter and his family were there. Oh,
Dean Jackson:
Nice.
Dan Sullivan:
So lots of great meals, lots of great place. Two out of three, which is good batting average. That gets you into Hall of Fame if you get two out of three. Exactly. Actually, if you get three out of 10, you've got a good chance.
Dean Jackson:
That's right.
Dan Sullivan:
If you play 20 years and have a 300 batting average, probably you're in consideration depending on
Dean Jackson:
Venture capital.
Dan Sullivan:
When the hits actually happened.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. I got Babs texted on New Year's Eve and you guys were back from ... I didn't realize you were gone. Were you there for Christmas or after Christmas you went?
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, we left on Christmas day night and flew overnight to London. And then boy, it was buzzing. London downtown doesn't matter what day it is, it's buzzing. Yeah. I just saw a video last night and it's one of these new AI films, which I think is really great where they'll take a sketch that was made of London 2000 years ago and then they'll animate it. And
Speaker 3:
It's
Dan Sullivan:
Really terrific. It's really terrific. For history buffs, it's terrific. I think this AI thing has uses. What do you think? I mean, are you noticing things that you wish you could have done five years ago more quickly? They're happening more quickly.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. I'm working today on creating a better past. And the better past involves AI. Yeah. That's a really interesting thing. I watched over Christmas, there's a new series called Pluribus.
Dan Sullivan:
You described it on a previous session.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. I was just fascinated. It wrapped up Christmas Eve.
Dan Sullivan:
What is it? A final six or a final 12? What's the numbers of humans?
Dean Jackson:
Oh yeah, there was 12 humans that were- Weren't taken
Dan Sullivan:
Over. We're not taking over.
Dean Jackson:
In the joining. I thought what a really interesting ...
Dan Sullivan:
In my lifetime, I've discovered about five of them. You're one of them.
Dean Jackson:
Okay. Yeah. The interesting thing is it was a really interesting ... If you think about the joining the many at Pluribus as the physical embodiment of AI, the large language model, that was what was very interesting. What I found really was that one of the 12, one of the people who was unaffected by it very quickly learned on that anything is possible. And so they were Carol, the lead character, she summoned ... The many are responsible for delivering whatever Carol wants kind of thing. They're at her service. And so she arranges a meeting. She wants to meet the 12. And so they set it up for South of France or somewhere. And one of the gentlemen realized that he has access to everything. So he insisted on being flown on Air Force One, that that's available to him, that whatever is available is available to you.
And I thought it was a really interesting thing of how some people put limits on themselves, even when everything is available to you. That this guy was thinking without limits, like, "What's the thing? I want Air Force One to come and why me to meet with them." And it was really ... I thought it's the same. It's very interesting to see
Dan Sullivan:
How- So are they immortal too?
Dean Jackson:
That's a great question. I don't know that whether they're immortal, but ...
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah, because if not, then they're limited by time.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. It's unclear to me right now whether they are immortal.
Dan Sullivan:
Well, you can only push a plat so far. It's like metaphors. Metaphors are very useful up to a point. Yeah. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Unless you're a self-miller.
Dan Sullivan:
I mean, is it driving them crazy or what's happening to
Dean Jackson:
Them? Well, it's very ... So Carol is set on undoing the joining because she feels that everybody has this right to be an individual with their own autonomy and agency and whatever it is, rather than just blending in and becoming the group mind. And so there's another gentleman from Ecuador or somewhere in some Spanish speaking he is, and he
Dan Sullivan:
Wants to- Not Venezuela.
Dean Jackson:
Not Venezuela. He wants to do the same thing. No, not Venezuela, luckily.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because Nicholas Maduro's ... Things were just normal on Saturday and on Brooklyn. And then 24 hours later, he was in a jail cell in Brooklyn. And I mean, that's quite a shift in one day.
Dean Jackson:
So tell me the ... I know all those words that you just said, but I don't know the actual ... Can you give me the synopsis of-
Dan Sullivan:
Well, it would happen when your phone was in the box.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. First of all.
Dean Jackson:
Overnight.
Dan Sullivan:
So Trump couldn't call you to let you know because check your back calls. Maybe Trump maybe Trump dropped a call. Yeah. In 30 minutes, they got in and got out. They went in and they found him and his wife in his bedroom and they packed him up and brought him by helicopter to a carrier in the Mediterranean ... Not Mediterranean, in the Caribbean. And then they flew him to New York and he's now in a jail cell in Brooklyn. Yeah, the two of them. Yeah. Yeah. And that's because he said he wouldn't stop sending drugs to the United States.
Dean Jackson:
Okay. Okay.
Dan Sullivan:
They brought him to the United States.
Dean Jackson:
Okay. There you go.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
And how do people in Venezuela feel about that?
Dan Sullivan:
Apparently there are celebrations all over. I mean, first of all, there's two types of people in Venezuela, those who are joyous and celebrating, and those who are confused and pissed off. And I mean, you never get complete consensus on something like this.
And so anyway, it's apparently really well planned, really well executed and really well. No American lives lost, no equipment left behind. They went in with 120 planes, knocked out all the power and Karakas, knew exactly where to go, flew in. Now, there's no report of casualties. I suspect there's some casualties because he had Cuban security pretty troops because Cuba depends upon Venzauela for its oil. And so that stopped about two weeks ago. They stopped the oil to Vince or to Cuba just by stopping the ships and now just decided that to move things forward, they just put him in a jail cell in Brooklyn and then see how the negotiations go after that.
Dean Jackson:
Wow. And now, so that will affect the South American stuff. Wasn't he the nexus for funding?
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shows you how far a bus driver can go.
Dean Jackson:
Was he a bus driver?
Dan Sullivan:
He was a bus driver, yeah. And then this was Chavez who was the dictator before him. And he became a very loyal follower of Chevez, and he got promoted to dictator when Chevez is dead. Yeah. So they have a memorial for Chevez and the Americans bombed that blew it up. Oh my goodness. That was symbolism. Yeah, this is the end of communism. Just a little bit of symbolish. But bringing him to New York, probably he feels more comfortable because there's a socialist in charge in New York now. So maybe
Dean Jackson:
It's ... Right.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. I mean, Mandani, I have to think about it when I say his name. He says he's going to bring everybody into the warmth of collectivism. Oh
Speaker 3:
My goodness.
Dan Sullivan:
I think that includes Nicholas Maduro. He's now within the warmth of collectivism in New York.
Dean Jackson:
Wow. That's really ... Yeah, that's something. Really good. I mean,
Dan Sullivan:
That can change that. They pulled it off like they do in the movies. I mean, apparently there was flawless. They sent him in, brought about.
Dean Jackson:
Oh, that's the Delta force, right? Is that who did that? Delta
Dan Sullivan:
Force. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Delta Force.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, they had police officers with him because he had to be arrested. So they took some ... Delta Force is not exactly a law enforcement group. They're a force informant. They're a forced informant group, violence enforcement, but yeah. And Hollywood is going crazy because they could cut off their drug supply.
Dean Jackson:
Oh my goodness. Yeah. I saw somebody to put in perspective how much drugs is actually coming into the country from Venezuela.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Anyway.
Dean Jackson:
Well, I hope it doesn't affect my vitamin A.
Dan Sullivan:
I don't think so. I don't think so. I think that's domestically produced. Okay,
Dean Jackson:
Good. There we go.
Dan Sullivan:
I don't think that comes from anything. I don't think there's some natural part of- No, I don't think so either at all. Vitamin A. I think- It never struck me that it was a natural drug that was taking ... Yeah. Anyway, you're deep into it now. If I count correctly, you're eight weeks into the phone in the box, phone in the box? Yes,
Dean Jackson:
That's right. I'll tell you, Dan, it's like fundamentally changing my DNA, I think. I think I notice it at a deep level. I noticed that my sleep scores, my readiness scores, my-
Dan Sullivan:
Activity scores?
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. All of this is-
Dan Sullivan:
Fundamentally changed. Yeah. Well, you change 14 hours out of a 24 hour day. That's a
Dean Jackson:
Big deal. What I really notice is just my ability to be focused in ... I think I mentioned what I ... I used to love reading and would read for hours at a time uninterrupted. And what I noticed was before I started doing that, putting the phone away is that my attention span was very limited, that I was constantly like just my eyes darting and my attention, like looking for something else. But now that having trained myself that the phone is not there gave me that you cut off, that you cut off that as an option and that allows me to double down on just focusing on the reading. And it makes such a big difference in my ability to do that. One of the things about every third book I'm reading right now, I'm really embracing developing my, let's call them compensation skills for managing behaviorally, my ADD, that I realized that one of the things that was pronounced for me is what I've learned is called time blindness, that I don't have a sense of how long things take or how long ... Having any sort of sense of depth, I guess, of being able to say, "Okay, I need to space this out like this.
"
Dan Sullivan:
You're talking what the problem was before?
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Yeah. The only time I would take action on something is when it was right upon me. I think Ned Hollowell talks, I read again, ADHD 2.0, his book from a few years ago, and he talks about it that it is one of those things that our ... It's either now or not now. That's the only two times that exist in the ADHD mind.
It's not like no real sense of the context of something. If something's due 90 days from now that, "Oh, that's forever away." I don't need to do anything about that now, because what our brain says is, "Oh, that's not due now. I don't have to do that now." And so this, I'm adding these skills and one of the things that I've used for years, of course, is my 50 minute Focus Finder. I know that I can ... And I called it playing golf, where I've set a goal and an optimal environment with limited distractions for a fixed timeframe. Those are things that I can win. And so I know that I can ... At the most, I can accommodate three of those in a day, but two would be a win, right? Two 50 minute golf sessions, right? And so learning now, what's really helping me is learning what is possible in those 50 minutes, like how long things take.
So I'm adding to my repertoire of things that I can do in those 50 minutes. I know with certainty now that I can brainstorm 10 ideas for thoughts. That's what I'm calling these, the things that turn into the emails or blog posts or whatever. I'm just calling them thoughts that I know that I can identify 10 thoughts in one hour or in one 50 minute session. And then I know that in another 50 minute session, I can write two of those thoughts in one 50 minute session by setting the timer for 22 minutes.
And I know that perfectly in those 22 minutes, it's going to be between four and six pages in my remarkable of my handwriting, which works out to be about 350 words. And that's the perfect size for those thoughts. I just write them in my ... I write them in my remarkable and then Charlotte can read my handwriting and she transcribes them and they're ready to distribute.
Dan Sullivan:
And
Dean Jackson:
It's such a great ... So getting into that rhythm of ... I know that I'm always going to want to develop those thoughts, and I know that there's a formula for me for doing them now. And when I look at the ... If we take the next 10 years of them, the way you've done your quarterly books, that I think having 250 or 300 of those thoughts a year, five, five a week, is going to be a really nice anthology of having ... So setting up that durable context really makes such a big difference.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, I think one of the ... I mean, you were mentioning ... I think Ned is in a deeper part of the ... Ned Hallowell is in deeper part of the pool than I am ... I've always had a good 90 day time since. And that's one of the reasons ... Yeah, one of the reasons I have a pretty good quarterly ... I've always had a pretty good quarterly since. And so what I've had to learn is don't set goals and projects that can't be achieved within 90 days because
If they weren't, then they just wouldn't get done. I would lose interest, lose energy in them, and they just wouldn't get done. So I mean, there's a history to my 100 books and a hundred quarters is from a time management sense, I know when I set the goal that I could do it. And then the question is, can I do it? Yeah. I mean, from the standpoint of maintaining focus and maintaining commitment, I know I can do it within 90 days. The only question is, do I have the available time during that 90 day period to actually get it done? And that's what I've really worked on. And I've just kept reducing my time role in the project and added other people, who not how, other people's-
Dean Jackson:
Your own personal pluribus.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. So that team is one of my capabilities.
And I just used it because we have two books, major books coming out this year, one in May, which is called The Greater Game, and that's with John Bowen. And John took care of almost all the major writing on it. I mean, he's a good writer, and he used a lot of AI to take my frameworks. I created all the frameworks for the book, and then he took the frameworks and developed them, and it came out great. It was really great. With the second book, Casting Out Hiring, which will come out in November, that's with Jeff Madoff. It turns out that there was a whole part that was his, the whole part that was mine, and then we're working on the joint part right now. Our deadline is the 31st of January, and it looks good. But then I had to do the middle section, which turns out to be about typewritten.
If you're talking about typewritten pages, it's probably about 80 pages. And what I did is I just gave it another name, which is called Casting Your four by four company, and I just used my team. I just used my team to write that part of it. And then it was 90% good, and then I had to modify it and
Bring it into alignment with the book. But I had about two weeks and I said, "Geez, this is tough just sitting down and doing this, doing this. " And I said, "Well, you have a capability of nine other people who can help you with this if you translate it into a quarterly book," which I did. And so that was great, and it came out and it was beautifully done. And I just took the copy from the book and put it into the format of the major book. And there was about 10% of it that had to be altered and adjusted and brought backward, and that worked out really great. But the big thing is to see a whole team as your individual capability. I had never really thought in those terms before. And I said, "Wait a minute, I've got a capability. All you have to do is obey the deadlines for the team and the team gets it done.
The team gets it done." So that worked out really well. There
Dean Jackson:
It is. Imagine if you applied yourself, your SELF, your sphere, the S in yourself is your sphere of the people and services that are already available. And
Dan Sullivan:
The rest is elf. And the rest itself. Exactly. Easy lucrative. Yeah,
Speaker 3:
Exactly.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's really not good. And I think we've created a unique book. It's got a unique message and I think it's going to be fine.
Dean Jackson:
That's great. Yeah, I can't wait. What's the book with John Bowen, The Greater Game?
Dan Sullivan:
The Greater Game.
Dean Jackson:
Big idea.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, it's actually, it's a combination of three things. John, about three years ago, bought a research company, and what he's discovered is that there's no good research in the world on entrepreneurism. There's lots of theories about entrepreneurism. There's lots of stuff that's done at university studies on entrepreneurism, but there's actually no in depth how do entrepreneurs actually operate. So he's created really, really in depth research studies where we practice, we send it out. He had about 2,000 entrepreneurs that were part of his networks, and we had a thousand that we could go to and get a result, get a response. And so we've done about three surveys now, and so a lot of that information is going to go into the book. And then that's one part of the project, and this research study will be ongoing as the book gets out there. And then the second thing is a dashboard.
And so this is a laptop tool which takes the 10 frameworks that I created for measuring yourself against where you were and where you are now. So it's really gain principles. So you grade yourself,
First of all, and then you put your grade in, and then you continually work on the 10 characteristics and every quarter you give yourself another grade, you up your grade, not competing with other people, but competing with yourself. So we're going to introduce that John is coming in next week. We have our free zone in Chicago, and so he's going to introduce the book idea, the research project, and the dashboard. He's going to introduce, then he said," Would anybody like to sign up now? "That's also coming to the summit in February, the Free Zone Summit. So we'll get about 10 people, and then they'll use the tool for ... They'll use the tool for three weeks or so, two weeks, and then just have them report on it when we get to the summit.
Dean Jackson:
Nice. Oh, that's great.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. We'll see where it goes. I've done enough books and I've put enough stuff out into the world to know that don't get into predicting how the world's going to respond to this. It'll respond the way or not, it'll respond. And I talked to Jeff about that and Jeff says," Well, once we get out there, we can do this and this and this and this. "And I said," Yeah, but what if nobody wants to do this and this and this and this? "So I've learned not to Canadian praise, not get ahead of your skis, just stay where ... You're moving downhill, you got a nice run going, just don't look around the next bend before you get to the bed.
Dean Jackson:
You have a proposition. Yeah. That's what you have. There's a proposition that this might be a
Dan Sullivan:
... You have a proposal. You have a proposal, but it's like a battle plan. There's many people who've said this one way or another, the plan is good until the enemy responds. What
Dean Jackson:
Was that? The Mike Tyson thing. Everybody's
Dan Sullivan:
Got
Dean Jackson:
A plan for the punch in the face.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Everybody's got a plan until I hit them and everything
Dean Jackson:
Like that. That's right. That's
Dan Sullivan:
Funny. Yeah. Yeah. But I think we've got unique ideas in there. I think we've created a really nice tool and we'll see where it goes. But the other thing about the second book, the Casting Out Hiring book is that I think it's going to be our first license tool that we've ever done on the internet, and it's the four by four casting tool. And so I've got about eight months talking to people who know something about licensing to get it into a simple form where one is that we can keep track of people using it for interest wise, just to see if people are really interested in it and see where that goes. This is like a little first experiment in licensing because we got lots of tools, but I really like experimenting with things and not getting gun hole about, oh, this is going to be big and everything else just to see ... We're giving the tool away in the book.
You just download the tool. So it's already there. We did that with Who Not How with the impact culture. You could download the tool, but we're just experimenting, see how that works and you never know.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Well, you will know at some point.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
That's it. We're going to find out. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
It's all like all of our healthcare investigations at Babson and I I do. Some people have said, "Well, I wouldn't want to know all that stuff you're finding out.
Dean Jackson:
" Yeah. Well, you're going to find out.
Dan Sullivan:
And that's why I tell them. I said, "Well, don't you worry. You will find out.
Dean Jackson:
"
Dan Sullivan:
The only question is whether the timing suits you.
Dean Jackson:
Right. That's exactly right. Yeah. I remember when you said that the first time how that was really like ... It was a thing because I think there was some ... I've used that in a lot of different
Dan Sullivan:
Ways.
Dean Jackson:
Ways that there's a specific genetic expression. I think it's APOE or whatever. The thing is that shows your propensity to Alzheimer's and that if you have this particular gene expression, you're more likely to be susceptible to ... Not that it's saying that you will get it and not having it doesn't mean that you won't get it, but you're much less likely to get it without gene expression. And a lot of people, that's the thing and they don't want to know. "Oh, I don't want to know whether I have that or whatever. "I've shared that with many people, your thought that, " Well, you're going to find out. You're going to find out. Wouldn't it be to find out ahead of time?
Dan Sullivan:
"It's kind of in another realm of sort of saying," I don't really know what my tax situation is with the government. "I said," Oh, don't you worry.
Dean Jackson:
"Yeah, you'll find out. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Oh yeah. They will notify you. Yeah.
They will notify you. Don't you worry. They're keeping an eye on things. Anyway. Yeah. Well, actually your reference to the Alzheimer's, we met a very interesting doctor at Richard Rossi's Vinci 50 in September, a woman from San Francisco, Gloria or Kristen Glorioso. And she's a doctor, but she's also a scientist, specifically Alzheimer's, because of family history. She has grandparents and uncles and aunts and everything else who developed Alzheimer's. So she wanted to know what her own situation was, which a lot of people do. But long story short, she's worked on this for about 20 years and she's come up with a way, if you get a brain MRI, send it to her, she will analyze it and she will tell you what your brain age is.
Dean Jackson:
Oh
Dan Sullivan:
My. Different parts of the body age at different ...
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
The whole body doesn't age at the same level. We got lots of moving parts and some parts age more quickly than others. And she came up with a general rule that if she gets your brain MRI, she'll send you back and tell you what your brain age is in relationship to your chronological age care. So, and if you're six years younger brainwise, then you're good. You're good. Oh, interesting. I'm 81 and I did the MRI about a month ago, and so I'll get it back within this month probably. And then she's got a deal for a strategic coach, anybody from strategic coach. And then she's secured contracts with 300 MRI labs across the United States.
Speaker 3:
So
Dan Sullivan:
Usually there's one pretty close to most people. And you go in, you get the MRI sent it, and then you get it back. And then she's got a whole coaching program depending on the result of ... If you're too close or you're ahead of your chronological age, then there's a lot of things you can do which are epigenetic. Main ones, of course, being nutrition,
Diet, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and everything else. And these all have a positive impact on reversing or slowing down your brain aging, which is ... And it really solved a problem for me because Babson and I have been at this research, our own personal research for 40 years. We started in 85, our first foray, the first actual go away and investigate something happened in 1985. This is 40 years. And people always say," Well, how do I get started with this? "And I could never ... It's kind of hard to know with someone that you don't know their situation, you don't know anything about them. It's kind of hard to point out, " Well, this is where you should start because it's 90% you would be wrong. That's not where they start. "But I think what this scientist has done, this is a really great starting point from the standpoint that everybody's interested.
I think everybody would be interested in maintaining their cognitive health. I think everybody's ... Yeah. I mean, they may not be able to get up out of the chair, but their brain is good for most
Dean Jackson:
People.
Dan Sullivan:
If the rest of their body was okay, but their brain was bad, that wouldn't be a good deal. I think that everybody will hold out for brain health as the last thing to hold out for.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. I think, and that's true, isn't it? As long as everything else is crumbling around them, but brain health is there. Yeah, that makes so much sense. I think all of those diagnostic
Dan Sullivan:
Things- It's one thing to have other people not remember who you are, but it's really serious when you don't remember who you are. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
Or maybe not. Maybe it's like you talk about the test pattern. Maybe it's like that. If you don't remember, you don't remember
Dan Sullivan:
That
Dean Jackson:
You don't remember.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, I think it would be positive. It would bother me.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Yeah, me too. So if you look back now on the year, do you have benchmarks that you ... How would you rate the stem cell experiment? Because you've made four trips to this year?
Dan Sullivan:
No, we've completed eight actually since we started. Oh, this year it was three. Yeah, right. This year, but eight since we've started. And well, interestingly enough, the progress where I've made the slowest ... It's been the slowest is actually the reason for why we went, which was the knee. So the standpoint is that the cartilage is completely
Speaker 3:
Restored,
Dan Sullivan:
But what it's revealed is that it's a 50 year old injury and there was a lot of damage to bone. There was a lot of damage to bone. There was a lot of damage to tendons, ligaments. And so, I mean, they laid out the odds before I ever went down the first time and they said," We've never dealt with someone with such an old injury who's so old themselves. "It's different working on this kind of problem where you had the injury three months ago and you're 45 years old.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. I had the injury in 1975, which is 50 years ago, and since 1975, I'm 50 years older.
Dean Jackson:
Yes.
Dan Sullivan:
See how good my math is?
Dean Jackson:
That brain age, you've got the brain of a preteen Swedish boy. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. But the one area where the results have been unexpected and really major is actually the brain cells, the brain cells.
My cognitive tests are up by 90% every quarter, well, three times a year in Nashville, we take what's, I guess, sort of the central cognitive test that's used in the medical and scientific world to measure cognitive ability. And I'm up 90% where I was in November of 22. I'm up 90%. And I can feel it. I can tell. I can tell that. And one of the things that's really changed, and I've had about three situations where I surprised myself that something was falling and I grabbed it, or something was thrown to me and it was- Yeah. And the whole room stopped. I had once in Chicago where the person sitting at the table right in front of me had a pile of stuff and it started going and I just grabbed out and stopped it and returned it. And I tell you, Dean, I didn't think about it.
I just did it. It wasn't something ... It wasn't like I had a conference first before.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah,
Dan Sullivan:
Like reflexes,
Dean Jackson:
Right?
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. And where was ... It was about a month ago, I was in a gym and somebody was like a band or something. They threw it at me and really odd angle and I just reached out and picked it up like that. So that's really good. That's a good sign because I can say that I played sports when I was young, catching things was part of the normal day, but I haven't done it for 30 or 40 years. And I noticed that my reflexes have gone down and those three proofs indicate that my reflexes have come back up now. So anyway, this is-
Dean Jackson:
Maybe we should call Bob Castellini and get you on the reds here before I can fill in at shortstop.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like watching that thing. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. But anyway, work is easier. Coming up with new things is easier than it was three years ago. And that's the single most important measurement for me is how fast does it take to get the work done?
Dean Jackson:
Do you separate the ... I found it very helpful that I'm separating the brainstorming from the doing. And like for instance, I find it very comforting that if all I do is take 50 minutes to come up with 10 ideas, that's very ... I know that I can do that. Do you have a method of how you come up with ideas for tools or for your quarterly books? Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
What do you- Yeah. Well, first of all, I have a goal of coming up with a new tool a week. And I have various formats that my computer artist and I have created. They're all one page. All the tools are just one page. And so I come up with the idea, but then I don't think I have a tool until I've actually created the tool and tested it on my own information. I never give somebody a tool that, one, I haven't done completely for myself and things, is it useful? You know what I mean? I mean, does it make a difference, this kind of tool? And then I have a handoff that has to go to the artist to finalize, has to go to the end, and then it has to be placed into the schedule for either it's going to go into ... And now nothing goes right into the workshops, into the free zone.
They go to our connector calls. Okay.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah, smart.
Dan Sullivan:
Which is great, which I love that you can ... I mean, in a pinch, I could create the tool yesterday and I could be able to test it the next day. That's really great. Yeah. So you have to get ... I mean, my thinking and my doing are part of the same activity, doing my part before I hand it off to someone in the team.
Speaker 3:
Yes.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. And I have different things, books, and books and tools mainly are the two things. Yeah. Yeah. Cartoons, cartoons with Hayman.
Dean Jackson:
That's nice. I'm always curious about the thing. I'm finding it very nice to ... I ritualize the idea. I always do it on Sunday and I anchor it to 60 minutes. So after 60 minutes, I'm kind of percolating while 60 minutes is on and then doing ... And then just setting the timer. And I find often the 10 ideas come as fast as I can write. It's not like I'm having to rack my brain for one, because I've trained myself to kind of pay
Dan Sullivan:
Attention to- Sort of
Dean Jackson:
Brainstorming too, right?
Dan Sullivan:
It's a brainstorming activity.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So part of that is just reflecting on insights that I've had during the week even. So I know how to harvest them. Chad Jenkins has this IC3 idea of collecting the ideas, just like, look, seeing what the insights were, combining them with something that you already know and creating the new idea. And that's a very simple model for it. That's part of the thing is just recognize, turning on your collector, instructing the collector during the week.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. I think more and more, especially since AI came on the scene, I've been asking people, not in any formal way, but just anecdotally when I have a conversation, what do you find that you're using AI for? And is there one that you're always doing regardless if you're doing five, there's one that gets most of your attention. And I find it's pretty well true that there's one AI activity that gets more than its share of attention and use. And I said, I have a theory that if you interviewed nine billion people, well, let's say half of them, half of them, four billion people, you would find that people are working on four billion different things.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. I think you're right, right? That's the perfect-
Dan Sullivan:
And it's not detectable. It's really not that detectable. First of all, because I mean, if there's integrity in the AI apps and you say, don't share this, this is my thinking, don't share this, and there's actual integrity. I'm not entirely sure how you would prove whether that was true or not. Well, you wouldn't see your stuff showing up somewhere else would probably be some indicator. So I would say that the vast majority of what people are working on with AI is actually undetectable by AI.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. I think you're probably right, right? And I think that that's where you don't have ... I think there's something about that. It's like everybody, if you take four billion people, there's four billion different fingerprints. There's a unique, there's a unique- Signature. There's
Dan Sullivan:
Like a unique cognitive signature.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. I think
Dan Sullivan:
That's
Dean Jackson:
True.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
And I think it's like you said, I think I've shared with you the Jerry Spence quote of that we're constantly examining things with our psychic tentacles and we can detect the thin clank of the counterfeit. I mean, you mentioned that when you were talking about music, right? Like the thing of, is this AI or is this boch? Exactly.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, it's interesting. There's all these ads online right now. I'm seeing them on YouTube and that's a woman in a period piece, historical period piece, and she's talking about the great new AI course that'll bring you up to speed and no time with AI. And I saw her for about three seconds and I said, "Well, she's an AI creation. That's not a real person." I mean, what I'm saying is, I noticed right off the bat that she was AI, but I think if you asked a lot of people who conscious of the fact that AI is creating characters, they would say, "Well, there was this woman, series of women who were advertising AI." And I said, "Well, they weren't real, they were AI people. " I said, "No." And I said, "I don't think so. They looked real." And I said, "Well, that's the intention."
Dean Jackson:
There's a real-
Dan Sullivan:
But my sense is that to go back to your point and the Jerry Spence point is that if you're really interested in telling Real From Fake about anything, you will develop enormous intelligence about that, that one can't be learned by someone else, can't be taught by you and can't be learned by someone else.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah, the layers, right? The neural networks.
Dan Sullivan:
Yes.
Dean Jackson:
It's like those art, the people who do detect authentic versus forgery.
Dan Sullivan:
Oh yeah. Yeah. And I think one is they don't like being fooled and so they do a lot of homework and they do a lot of going back over situations where they were fooled. So they say, "Well, I won't be fooled that way again." They do that, but the brain is working on that even when they're sleeping. I mean, the brain is creating capability even when they're sleeping. So I think it's a really interesting thing. I think this whole thing is not developing in the way that the AI companies were hoping when they started doing their pitches to get investment money.
Dean Jackson:
Say more about, what do you mean by that?
Dan Sullivan:
Well, my sense is that when technology companies are making a pitch for investment money, they're predicting a radically different kind of future. Oh,
Dean Jackson:
I see what you mean. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. And there'll be you who can take advantage of this new thing and everybody else is going to be left behind. That's part of the pitch. I mean, seems like a religious pitch to me, you're not going to be saved, you're not going to be saved. But my sense is that humans improve in relationship to a new pitch.
Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Yeah. You know what it's like you said, you can't predict how humans are going to interact with something, right? It's all proposition level up to the time it actually meets. Somebody can anticipate how people are going to use it.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. No, I was just watching the response to this guy. I don't know if you caught up with this or not. About 10 days ago in Minneneapolis, he noticed that the Ethiopia, not the Ethiopia, the Somalian community, has an incredible number of daycare centers. Do you know anything about this at all? Have
Dean Jackson:
You followed it? I only know that it's a thing that the Somali daycare, there's a lot of memes around it, but I don't know the ...
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Well, he went around a whole day and it was very clear that none of the daycare centers were open because he'd knock on the door and nobody came. And the other thing was, they weren't in parts of town, there weren't playgrounds, there weren't anything, and one large building had 12 daycare centers and at 12 different businesses that were there day ... And then he met someone who's done deep research on this and has gone and checked out each daycare center against an official Minneapolis Minnesota government paper. And so they knew what all the addresses were. And it turns out that none of them are actually operating as daycare centers, but millions of dollars are going to them for that purpose.
Dean Jackson:
Really? Wow.
Dan Sullivan:
So on one day, he identified 112 million dollars that were going to supposed daycare centers that weren't open and no children had ever been seen going in or going out. Anyway, but the interesting thing is that he had a 42 minute ... He was doing it basically with his phone and very rarely was someone there and then they were very furtive. They were very, "I can't say anything, don't talk to me about this, " and everything like that. And then he just had a meter as he was going from a meter was adding up the millions of dollars and when he finished the day, it was I think 112 million dollars. Wow,
Dean Jackson:
Because he had access to see how much money went to this one.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. Yeah. He knew exactly because the government, the papers actually said a check had been written to the center for this mountain and everything. The big thing about it is that he's had 116 million downloads of that
Dean Jackson:
Video. Wow, that's crazy.
Dan Sullivan:
And then the small business administration in Washington has cut off all daycare center funding to the state of Minnesota.
Dean Jackson:
Wow.
Dan Sullivan:
Now they've identified it in Maine, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Same thing, same scheme. So it's really, really interesting how ... I mean, if you put together an investigation group to go around and investigate this, it might take you six months to put the group together to get the proper paywork. But this one guy just got the idea, "I wonder how many of those centers are actually open." And he had the addresses and he just wandered around, knocked on the door and no answer to the door, then made a whole, put it together in a video crip and sent it out there. And it just really strikes me of if you have a focus and you have a very, very simple approach and you can get it out on reach, he had the vision, he had the capability and all he had to do is give it to the internet that was out there, 116 million downloads.
And now the FBI has made its big project for the 2026 is to investigate every government spending where a state receives money from Washington to see what happened to that money.
Dean Jackson:
Right. Wow. We're going to be rich.
Dan Sullivan:
Get all that money back. Yeah. Well, I don't know if you'll get it back. You'll know you don't have it anymore.
Speaker 3:
All right, exactly.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. But it just strikes me the speed with which things can happen in this Cloudlandia world.
Dean Jackson:
It's the truth, isn't it? The speed of Cloudlandia.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah.
Dean Jackson:
I love it. Well, Dan?
Dan Sullivan:
Yes, we've-
Dean Jackson:
That was enjoyable. That was a great two toddlers of the
Dan Sullivan:
Paper. You're doing a great, great cognitive research project with the reuse of 14 hours of your day.
Speaker 3:
Yes.
Dan Sullivan:
It's very scientific. It's very scientific because there's no variation from one day to the next. It's always 14 hours.
Dean Jackson:
Well, this is part of why I wanted to isolate the six months is reducing variation in that I'm in the same play. That I think is going to give me the best out because it's like we said that life moves at the speed of reality. We know you know that there's a new quarter every quarter, like clockwork, and it's exactly 13 weeks.That's the rhythm- Never varied. Never varied. You can't fight it. It's like gravity, right? You know these things are happening. You can't argue. Reduce variation and optimize what we actually have available.
Dan Sullivan:
It's a great scientific project.
Dean Jackson:
Alrighty. Imagine if you applied yourself, Dan, that's the project.
Dan Sullivan:
Phoning you next week. I'll be in Chicago next week, but I'll be phone you at your hour. It won't be my hour, but it'll be your hour.
Dean Jackson:
Perfect. I'll talk to you then. Good.
Dan Sullivan:
Thank you. Bye. Bye.