Welcome to Cloudlandia

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, Dean and Dan open with a candid reflection on how the spread of AI is making authentic human presence feel more valuable, not less. From the small signal of Dean wearing an analog watch and missing the daylight savings change, to Dan observing the quiet shift happening in his own sense of discretion about how he spends his time, the conversation quickly finds its footing. They discuss how AI has democratized capability while leaving vision as the truly scarce resource, and why keeping a human in the loop between yourself and the technology may be the smartest positioning for entrepreneurs right now. The conversation moves through a rich detour on the making of Casablanca, a film nobody wanted to make, staffed by a rotating cast of writers and second-choice actors, that became an all-time classic through trial and error. This leads Dan and Dean into a broader discussion about Rick Rubin’s approach to music production: knowing what you like and being decisive about it, without needing technical ability. Dan connects this back to Strategic Coach and the idea that his thinking tools have always been an expression of thinking about his own thinking. His upcoming quarterly book, Who We’re Looking For, promises to capture exactly that kind of self-aware entrepreneurial identity. Dean closes with a sharp framework for evaluating the past: the distinction between “could have,” “would have,” and “should have”, and why only one of those carries real emotional charge. He ties it back to their running thread on guessing and betting, suggesting that the people who will win in the next decade are those who can look forward with clarity about what they are uniquely suited to do. This episode is a good one for any entrepreneur who wants to think more clearly about where their real advantage lies. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS As AI democratizes capability, vision becomes the scarce resource — and knowing what you want is worth more than knowing how to do it. Dan’s rule for technology and teamwork: only engage if it makes you better at what you’re already uniquely good at. Casablanca became a masterpiece by accident, rotating writers, second-choice actors, and a studio that just needed a film for Tuesday. Rick Rubin has produced some of the most celebrated music in history without being able to play an instrument, his edge is knowing what he likes and being decisive. Dean’s framework for evaluating past decisions: “could have” acknowledges options, “would have” shifts blame outward, and “should have” is the only one with real emotional weight. The next decade belongs to people who think what they think, like what they like, and do what they do best, because those are the bets most likely to pay off. 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. Mr. Sullivan. Dan Sullivan: I'm here. I'm here. Dean Jackson: Okay. There You go Dan Sullivan: I can get about 10, 15 seconds of you preparing to focus on the next hour. Dean Jackson: You can? Okay. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. I can hear packages crumbling. I can hear ... Dean Jackson: Things are getting in order here, moving Dean Jackson: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Little bit of backstage before we get the front stage. I think that adds authenticity to the podcast. Flavor. Flavor. So Dean Jackson: They know it's real. Dan Sullivan: It's Dean Jackson: Not AI Dan and AI Dean talking. Dan Sullivan: So here's a question for you. Do you notice yourself becoming more human the more AI becomes pervasive? Dean Jackson: Yeah. It's the way. Dan Sullivan: In other words, real lationship. Dean Jackson: Yes. I think you're absolutely right.That's what I'm really noticing. It was a very interesting thing. This morning I went over to the cafe. I have to leave a little earlier because at 11, we do our podcast, but what had happened was I put a watch on today that I is an analog watch. Dan Sullivan: So it didn't account for the time change. Dean Jackson: Daylight savings. Exactly. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Dean Jackson: And then I got in my car and I realized, oh my goodness. I haven't accounted for the time. That's funny. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, you're- Dean Jackson: How would we know, right? Our bodies don't know. It's so ... Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, I noticed coming to Chicago, so I'm in Chicago today. And I really noticed the impact of daylight savings time because Chicago is right at the beginning, the new time zone. I mean, the time zone I'm in all the way for Chicago and Dallas are in the same time zone. Yeah. But Dallas would be very, very late in the time zone. Chicago's very early. So I noticed it. I don't notice it that much in Toronto because Toronto is more in the second half of the Eastern time zone. And so I don't notice the difference, but I was really struck. There's two things. One is you wake up. We slept in almost till seven this morning, seven o'clock, which would have been eight o'clock in Toronto. But on a travel day, my end of day sense of time gets a little bit screwed up, especially when I've moved from one time zone to the other. So we usually get to bed later. So we didn't get to bed till 10:30 Chicago time. And we went eight and a half hours. I slept eight. I was in bed eight and a half hours. I never sleep eight and a half hours. But boy, it was really bright. But then the jets start taking off and landing at seven Dean Jackson: O'clock. Dan Sullivan: And we're right in the flight zone for O'Hare. They literally come right over our house. Yeah. Dean Jackson: Well, it's Dan Sullivan: So Dean Jackson: Convenient for Strategic Coach, but ... Dan Sullivan: Oh yeah. Dean Jackson: Yes. I get it. Not so good Dan Sullivan: For Dean Jackson: Morning sleeping. Dan Sullivan: That was a series of happy accidents actually. We had been looking ... When we first got here, we used hotels, but they've got to the point where we had ... When you reach about 400 quarterly, you have 400 people come. Yeah. 400 coming. Then you want to switch over from paying for hotels to having your own conference center. So that's our number is about 400. And for example, we're not there yet in Los Angeles. We're not to the 400 mark. And there's no good solution to Los Angeles because the state taxes you, the county taxes you. Oh Dean Jackson: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: And where we do our workshops in Los Angeles, it's the division between two municipalities. Part of the hotel is in Venice, and the other part of the hotel is in Santa Monica, and they both tax you. Dean Jackson: Yeah, that's crazy. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. So we would never have- Dean Jackson: Where Dan Sullivan: Is that? Where is it? Dean Jackson: Yeah. Where is the hotel in Santa Monica? Dan Sullivan: Well, it's right on Ocean Boulevard. So it's on the main drag in Ocean Boulevard, but we're ... You know where sort of the park is that has all the palm trees? Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're further south than that. We're probably a quarter of a mile south of the ... Dean Jackson: Like the Lowe's hotel there? Dan Sullivan: Just one hotel further, one for hotel further Lowe's. And so anyway, but it's really interesting. I mean, first of all, California being what it is right now, we would never have an office in Los Angeles like we have in Chicago because for lots of reasons. Chicago really works because we're right across from the runways at O'Hare, so it works really well. And our home, we're about 15 minutes from the airport from our home, so it's good. Yeah. Yeah. But we're right in the flight path and not much you can do about flight paths. Dean Jackson: That's true. Unless you're Donald Trump, get them diverted. Dan Sullivan: Well, they don't fly over his home in- Dean Jackson: It was an interesting joke. Dan Sullivan: It wasn't a joke. It wasn't a joke. It was a real thing. Dean Jackson: Oh, okay. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Conrad Black told the story. Dean Jackson: What's the official story then? Because I've heard- Dan Sullivan: Well, the story is when he moved into Mar-a-Lago and it took him a long time to get ... That was contested because the people of Palm Beach, whoever, the influential people in Palm Beach, they did not want Donald Trump in Palm Beach. So I think it took him ... I'd just be picking a number out of the air here, but I think it was five or six years before he could actually get ownership. And the other thing is it was ... Mar-Lago was something that was going to be torn down and divided into a lot of different new homes because it's like a hundred rooms in Mar-a-Lago and it's from the early 20th century. And so- The Dean Jackson: Gilded age. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. It was a gilded age mansion. And so they disagreed with that because a lot of them are invested in real estate themselves. And that, I mean, the value of that property, because it goes from the inner waterway, what's that called? To Dean Jackson: The ocean, the inner coastal. Dan Sullivan: So it goes right from the intercoastal right across the main street and it has the beach too that goes right to the Atlantic. So I mean, just a prime piece of property. I mean, what that property would be worth is enormous. And so he got it, and then he noticed when he finally moved in, that planes from the local airport would fly right across his house. And he says, "Well, we got to stop that. I want to get a ruling that they can't fly over my house." And they said, "That's the flight path, that's the flight path." And he says, "Well, how could I stop that being the flight path?" And they said, "Well, you could be elected president of the United States." Dean Jackson: Okay, done. Dan Sullivan: Note to self. Dean Jackson: Hold my beer, as they Dan Sullivan: Say. Yeah. Dean Jackson: Okay. Hold my beer. I'll be right back. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. It's like the president of Venezuela saying, "Well, what are you going to do? Come and get me? Dean Jackson: " Yes, exactly. Dan Sullivan: Note to self. Dean Jackson: That's so funny. I saw today, somebody showed me there's a rumor or news going around that Iran is hacking the American financial system and erasing people's debt from these credit card companies. Yeah, exactly. So all the people on TikTok and stuff are saying- Well- Do they need my social security number? Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, conspiracies are more fun than facts. Oh, Dean Jackson: Absolutely they are. Dan Sullivan: You're absolutely right. Yeah. And I mean, virtually all to a certain extent, within the last, let's say, 25 years, most Hollywood films and TV series, not necessarily Hollywood, but TV series are actual conspiracies. And I read a lot of, I've just read two by different authors. One was Mark Dawson, terrific writer out of Great Britain that dealt with a Chinese situation where China's developing a super weapon of one kind or another. And then I just read another one. Who is this one? Oh, Brad Thor. Is that his name? Very famous. A movie. Yeah. Anyway, but they both dealt with Chinese. The one of them was a AI program that could take over all other AI programs. And the Chinese had developed this weapon, but the scientists who developed it wanted to defect to the United States. So that's the basic plot line. And the other one is a Chinese scientist who had created a bio weapon, basically a bio weapon, and he too was trying to defect to the United States. So that's the plot line for both of them. And it got me thinking that I bet books like this are not written in China. I bet you would probably not see Chinese novelists writing books like this. You're Dean Jackson: Probably right. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. So you have this interesting thing in America, you also have it in Great Britain where individual writers can come up with a plot and they probably have contacts in the intelligence services where they can get certain facts about what the intelligence services are, sort of games that they're playing. What if the Chinese did this? What if the Chinese did that? How would we respond? So there's this whole way of thinking about things which are fiction. They're actually fiction, but could be possibilities. And that gives, I think, the country that has the freest press and advantage because the military or the intelligence service can go to a novel and say, "We're going to feed you some plot lines and we'd like you to develop this into a story and we'll read the story and then we'll use your story to create new war games for ourselves." What do you think about that? Dean Jackson: Yes. Yes. I mean, there's so many ... I don't know what it is about conspiracy things or this conspiracy thinking that is so pervasive why we want to spend time thinking these kind of things. I think part of the reason that it kind of grows is because of our ability to spread them now and now even the ability for AI to create them and spread them. I mean, it's like multiplying on top of it. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting. Jeff Madoff sent me an article by a really good technology thinker by the name of Tim Wu. And I've read about three or four of his books and he's very, very insightful. And during the Biden administration, he was sort of in the White House think tank that was thinking about AI because AI came in during the Biden administration. And anyway, but he's talking about how high school students are now starting to reject the attempt on the part of the schools, like the faculty of the schools, the teachers, to use AI, that they won't accept any attempt by the school to, first of all, to find out the activities of the students. They're rejecting that and that they also have any message that comes out from the administration, from the principal or from the teachers, any attempt. And the students are really quick to notice that the teachers and the principals are using AI and they're absolutely rejecting, being done to by the administration, because the whole point of AI is that you can bypass the administration. Dean Jackson: Yeah. That's wild. When you look at the ... Yeah, I mean, where do you project? Where do you see this going if you bring now AI into this? Go into the Dan Sullivan: Way we Dean Jackson: Think about that. Dan Sullivan: Well, I think it depends upon who you are. More and more, if you try to predict the use of AI, you have to start with the actual individual who's using the AI. Yeah. Okay? Dean Jackson: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: And that's not been true about previous technologies. And the reason is because it gives such instant individual capabilities that you have to think at a totally different level now. You say, "Well, where's AI going? " And I said, "Give me 10 people and I'll tell you 10 different ways AI is going- Dean Jackson: Right, right. It's funny. I was just having a conversation with Eben Pagan yesterday about this, explaining the difference between capability and ability, Dan Sullivan: And Dean Jackson: That AI certainly gives every ... It's democratized capability, but you still need vision and ability to use that capability. I think you just said it on the head that that's really the thing that there's never been a time where literally one person could do everything. I mean- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: We've never had the ability for an individual to go exponential. And I think that's the crossover if you're looking for a historical crossover. I said the moment that you have AI, individuals now become exponentially more unpredictable, which for a conspiracist is a scary thought. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. I think it was funny, it was mentioning you to Eben about the idea, because I'm much more in your camp of keeping a human between you and the technology. And I think that that's really the ... I think that if it requires a vision, which that is, I think, where we can excel as human ... Like you were saying, everything is kind of upstream of AI. It requires, first of all, a vision Dan Sullivan: Has Dean Jackson: To have a directive for the AI. And the AI is the capability is that the real partnership of the human then is to partner your vision with someone who has the ability to use the capabilities, the tools of AI. I think where the thing is, because I think it's going to under-optimize even if it were me going to try and learn the moves, how to use the capabilities, there's a lot of friction in that. That's a lot of how. Dan Sullivan: Oh yeah. Dean Jackson: You know what I mean? There's a lot of how ... That's been my realization that I think what's important is for me personally to expand my vision of what's capable, what this AI is capable of, and not investing any time in developing a technical ability to use the capability, but expanding my network that way. Dan Sullivan: Vision is the win. It seems to me that you're taking the who, not how Concept, which is yours to begin with, to a different dimension. And that is one of the things I noticed, and I think it's a function of age, is that my sense of discretion about what's worth even an hour of my time has grown. And in that sense, there's a question I have, and that is, can I be uniquely good at this? And I said, "I can only be uniquely good at what I'm already uniquely good at." So if it's teamwork with other people, I want the teamwork to enable me to be better at what I'm already great at. Same thing with technology. Dean Jackson: Yes. I think that's my lane. I've really, really figured that out now, even in more that conversation with Eben, I really think that what I can be uniquely great at is a vision of how these, of seeing ways that these capabilities could be deployed, like what's possible with those things, and then building a relationship with the who's who have that ability, because a lot of those things, even the ones that have the ability to use the capabilities, to use the tools, they may know technically how to do all of this stuff, but they don't have the ... They have a technical proficiency at it, but not a vision for what to do. They would do things as instructed kind of thing. If you tell them anything you want To do, they could figure out how to make that happen. It goes back to that, I just wrote an email about it recently with Quentin Tarantino when I saw that Charlie Rose interview with him where he was describing a lunch that he had as aspiring filmmaker at Sundance with Terry Gilliam, who was at the time and is known for getting amazed his vision on the screen. And Quentin asked him at lunch, "How do you do that? How do you get your vision on the screen?" And Terry Gilliam told him, "Well, that's not your job." First of all, you can hire the best cinematographer, the director of photography, who knows what lenses and what exposures and what framing will get that on the screen. And you can hire the best lighting director who can create the right mood, create the costume directors and everything, all the people around you, your job is not to know how to do all of those things, but your job is to describe what you want, describe your vision. That's all you have to do. And I think that's really the thing. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. The interesting thing about that is that I have my top 10 movies, my lifetime, top 10 movies and- If Dean Jackson: I've ever been Dan Sullivan: Posed Dean Jackson: To your lifetime Dan Sullivan: 10 years. Yeah. And my all time favorite is a Danish film, but it's called The Babettes Feast. Okay. And I think it won the Academy Award for best foreign film a long time ago. I mean, it's 25, probably 25, 30 years ago. And it's a very magical film. And I won't use up time here, but if you look it up, it's really great. And I've seen it six or seven times, so it's for myself. Number two is Casa Blanca with Humphrey Bogard. And that is probably in the history of films that became great that were not thought so at the beginning. That's probably all the all time champ because it was MGM and it was one of 60 films that MGM was producing at the same time. And originally, I think the main actor, Humphrey Bogart is the main actor, but originally it was supposed to be Ronald Reagan and because of scheduling and everything else, they ended up with Humphrey Bogart. They ended up with Humphrey Bogart. We can say, "Oh, now they had the second choice, somebody named Humphrey Bogart." And then Ingrid Bergman, it was supposed to be Susan Hayward. It was supposed to be very famous. And the reason was it wasn't supposed to be a great film. They didn't want a great film, they just wanted a new film on Tuesday. Ah, right. We need Dean Jackson: One on Dan Sullivan: Tuesday. Yeah. But one of the things that's very, very interesting, they couldn't find a writer for the whole movie. And what they found was they had to have two writers. They had to have a romantic writer for the relationship between the Humphrey Bogart character and Ingrid Bergman, and then they had to have an action writer for basically the plot line writer. And all through the film, they were trying something out and it didn't work. So they brought in another who, you know, who could do it. And it's that experimental constantly innovating quality of what they were doing. And everybody hated the experience, like virtually everybody who was involved in this film hated the experience because there wasn't a set thing that they were just following through, the vision of one person and everybody had a say in it. And it's very interesting. There's some nice documentaries, why it turned out to be such a great film, and it's because it was kind of trial and error and experimental on everybody's part going through the film. Yeah. Yeah. Dean Jackson: That's amazing. So I'm curious now, what are a couple others on your top 10? Dan Sullivan: Well, all three of the Lord of the Rings. Dean Jackson: Oh, really? Dan Sullivan: Okay. Peter Jackson. I think that's just such a phenomenally ... First of all, it's a very, very good translation of the book. The book. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's some characters left out. There's some whole situations left out, but he really captured it. And part of it was, it was all done at one time. All three films were shot at the same time. Dean Jackson: Yeah, for over years though, right? It wasn't ... Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I think it was about a year and a half, year and a half. Is that right? We got all three films. And the reason is because they just couldn't get that kind of team back together again for a second movie and then a third movie. And nobody died like in Harry Potter, the main character, the main character died. And was it Dumbledore? I think Dumbledore. Right. And so that's always a great risk when you're making a film like that. And I can go down the list. I can't remember them right off the top here, but actually Mississippi Burning was one of my favorite all time movies, Gene Hackman. And these are just movies I would see over and over again. I just enjoy watching them. That's my ... When it comes to movies, I don't think there's any consensus on what the top 10 movies because I think- No, Dean Jackson: I think Dan Sullivan: Everybody's true. It's so subjective. It's so subjective. And it should be. And it should be. Dean Jackson: Yeah, yeah. I tend to really like thinking about movies more than looking at movies. I'm not action movies are like my least favorite. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Like the seven Sumerai, the original Japanese one I watched. A lot of his movies really are Kara Sawa, the film director. And yeah, it's what appeals to you. Dean Jackson: And I like Quentin Tarantino movies, but there's a guy who's like, that's a vision. I like it even more. Now that you know that about it, that he doesn't know any of the technical things. I'm really kind of ... You see that more and more, or you recognize that more and more. I saw on 60 Minutes, they had a thing with Rick Rubin. Do you know who Rick Rubin is, the music producer? And it was pretty fascinating because he's produced some of the most amazing music, but he has no musical ability. He barely plays any ... That was the thing. Anderson Cooper asked him, "Do you play music and he said barely on his guitar and he has no musical ability. He doesn't touch the knobs and dials or whatever. And Anderson said, "Well, why do people pay you? " And he said, "Well, I know what I like and I'm very decisive about that. And artists have found that helpful." Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Dean Jackson: And it's pretty interesting to hear that. He's got an ear. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. It's liking what you like. Dean Jackson: Exactly. It's a very interesting thing that he says in all art that the audience comes last. The whole point of being an artist is making things that you like. That's the thing. When you 100% lean into what you like and you make the best thing that pleases you so much so that you want to share it with other people, that's what art really is more than trying to make art that pleases somebody or for an audience. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. Dean Jackson: And I think there's something interesting Dan Sullivan: About that. Yeah. I mean, it's risky, but there's something about people doubling down and taking the risk. I'm just going to double down on what I really like. I mean, you can totally miss the ... I mean, you can totally miss the target as far as popular appeal goes. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: I mean, nobody likes that. But there's something ... First of all, that act of courage of just staying with the thing that you really like, most people don't have that courage. Dean Jackson: Right. Yeah. And in a lot of ways, you think about what you ... All of the thinking tools with Strategic Coach are really an expression of you thinking about your thinking. Dan Sullivan: Yep. Dean Jackson: I mean, that's really what it is, right? I mean, it's like your ... And it's worked for you. And it gathers a lot of people who are just like you. It's a very interesting ... Dan Sullivan: Yeah. The quarterly book I'm writing is going to be an interesting one. And it's going to work absolutely, or I think it's not going to work at all. It's called Who We're Looking For. And I just describe the experience of an entrepreneur who just gets total value out of Strategic Coach. And it's more of a thing that they're already doing, but they don't realize that they're doing this. And what we say is that what you're doing here, you're already doing this, you're already good at this, and now we're going to tell you why it's so important that you do this the way that you do it. Dean Jackson: That's interesting. When is that one coming? Dan Sullivan: That'll be first week of June. Yeah. Dean Jackson: Okay. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. The one that comes out, it actually comes out this week is called Guessing and Betting Confidence. I Dean Jackson: Like Dan Sullivan: That. The future is all guessing and betting, but are you confident about guessing and betting? Because the difference between guessers and betters is that some of them have a higher level of confidence. Among my people I know, I've got some really very strong Trump haters. Dean Jackson: Yes. Dan Sullivan: But I like the people. I like the people I'm talking to. Yes. And I know how they're ... And they said, now he's really done it. Now he's really in the soup with this war with Iran. And I says," Well, it's a guess and a bet, isn't it? It's really a guess and a bet. "And I said," On the Iranian side, they were guessing and betting that he's not going to do it. "And that was a bad guess and a bad bet. So I said," The future is just guessing and betting. "I remember when he first, he came down the escalator at the Trump Tower and said," I'm going to run for President. "And it was just comedy hour on mainstream television for ... Yeah. Can you imagine this guy running for president? Oh yeah. The joke. And Dean Jackson: One of my favorite nights in all of television history was election night, 2016. Dan Sullivan: I've got a whole file- CNN. Dean Jackson: I mean, watching- Dan Sullivan: All the networks. Dean Jackson: Watching Wolf Blitzer come to the conclusion that it's hopeless that Hillary's not going to win because you and I have talked about that before. It's like they were kicking off the broadcast with speculation of who's going to be in Hillary's cabinet and what's the ... It was all a foregone conclusion. They're already talking beyond. And to see the light just sort of dim from them as they realize what's happening. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Have you ever seen it, and I'm not quite sure even where it appears, but they're called the Young Turks. Have you ever seen that? Dean Jackson: Yeah, they were on ... Yeah, I think they kind of got banned or in some way they're not in their own platform there. Everybody went in their own way, like Glenbeck and Young Turks and Phil Wars, all those things. They all got deplatformed kind of thing. Yeah. But Dan Sullivan: I remember because I've watched the program because at seven o'clock, they came on at seven in the evening and they said," Well, the New York Times, 91% certainty that Hillary is going to be the next president of the US. "And then a half hour later is saying," Oh, now it's 78%. "Then at nine o'clock it's 56% when they said," Now it's Trump 91%. Dean Jackson: "Unbelievable, right? Dan Sullivan: I mean, Dean Jackson: What a thing. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. I've got all those saved. That's my Shaden Freud. It's my Shaden Freud. Sad and Dean Jackson: Freud, that's such Dan Sullivan: A Dean Jackson: Good ... Dan Sullivan: I was using that Dean Jackson: Word. Dan Sullivan: Extreme enjoyment out of other people's misery. Dean Jackson: Oh yeah, yeah. That's so funny. I pulled out that word the other day, the Shaden Freud, you have this thing of taking Shadenfornistic delight in something, but it was so funny. But we were talking last week about guessing and betting. And one of the things, I had some thoughts this week around that, because it harmonizes with this idea of creating a better past. And one of the ... When I start looking back at what is it about the past that is ... What will make a better path, a Dan Sullivan: Better Dean Jackson: Past, is that we would have made better guesses Dan Sullivan: Or Dean Jackson: Better- Dan Sullivan: No, better beths. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. This is the thing is that that's what I realized on reflection that I am a really good guesser and that's an interesting thing, right? But when I looked at it, that at the end, when you're looking backwards at the past, the things that you're going to be evaluating or excusing your underperformance or your wrong or bad guesses or bets is the three different flavors of I could have, I would have, or I should have. And it's a very interesting, slight different dynamic in those words because I could have means I had the option, but I didn't do it. I was aware that I had the option and it's a really ... The things that have the ... Where we attach emotion to it, the only one that has emotion to it is I should have. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Dean Jackson: Because should have is a feeling of you're attaching a negativity to it, right? There's a less emotional charge to what could have. Dan Sullivan: I think it's totally ... It's kind of like a rewriting of what you actually did. It's a Dean Jackson: Revisionist. Dan Sullivan: That's right. It's a complete revisionism. Dean Jackson: And nobody ever says should have. When somebody is looking at somebody else's past decisions, they say," You should have done this, "but when people are evaluating their own, it's," I would have. "It would have is an external blame shifting. Well, I would have done that if this, like some external thing, I would have if I knew or if I had that or whatever, but could is really a ... That's the one that acknowledges that you had the Option. And I think that it's a very ... So I was looking at ... The words that came to me were choosing your regret. What we can do today is let's choose our regret. You can either choose ... And it's going to come from acknowledging ... You can only do what you recognize as your options today. You recognize that you have, " I could do this and I could do and I could. "That's an interesting thing on its own, right? If you just kind of acknowledge, that's where the guessing comes in. Where is this going to be? I think if we're having this conversation 10 years from now, Dan, 10 years of Sundays from now, we're having a conversation like this, which I hope we are, that it's going to be a pretty good guess that AI is going to be way more integrated than what it is right now and that robots are going to be definitely a part of our lot in some way. You can see right now looking forward what are going to be the things. So when you start evaluating, what could we do if we were certain that that's the outcome, which is almost certain now. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, my main prediction, and it's just based on what other technologies have done, is that there's actually going to be more jobs as a result of AI, but they're going to follow more the pattern what people are really good at. I was just reading it a week before last was the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and that's probably the most consequential economics ... It's sort of economics, but it's more human nature, basically human nature because they didn't have a thing called economics in those days, there wasn't a term for looking at the economy, but he was just looking at how people ... And it's really a book about incentives. It's a book as what- Dean Jackson: Yeah, the silent hand, exactly. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. The invisible hand. Invisible Dean Jackson: Hand. Yeah, Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. And basically, what is it that individuals respond to that the collective impact of people choosing what they want actually does everybody good, basically. That's what his main point and his main concept and a lot of ... I mean, we know Adam Smith, but actually Adam Smith was reflecting ... When you hear about somebody famous who came up with this idea, if you had the ability to go back and really look at, it was a conversation that was going on among 20 or 30 people, but this person just became famous for the idea that came out of all those discussions. So that same thing with Mark's. I mean, the stuff Marx was talking about was what a lot of people were talking about. But the main concept at the very, very center is the division of labor, that if you can have this person doing this all the time and this person doing this all the time, and you put the two contributions together, it's greater than two people than everybody just doing their own thing or everybody doing the whole thing, you just have them do the part of the thing that they're doing. And then you have 250 years of the development of that idea and all the technology that's emerged. So steam engine was the big thing that was at factories and steam engines was the big thing that was happening in 1776, so March of 1776. And Adam Smith was reflecting that this seems to be a growing trend. And now we're at AI and you and I are having the discussion about AI and where's the AI going. But my feeling is that what I think you're seeing now is the collaboration of unique abilities. It's not the division of labor, it's ... AI is doing the division of labor and now humans can jump to the collaboration of unique abilities. Dean Jackson: I'm guessing and betting that that's what the VCR formula is going to facilitate is as a formula for people to collaborate. And that was the recognition that I had of the category, the categories that everybody has strengths in one of those in either vision or capabilities or reach. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Well, each person has a unique ability that's exciting enough that two other people with different abilities would Dean Jackson: Collaborate. Yes. Yes. Agreed. I mean, you think about it's never been a more exciting time kind of ... I guess that's always ... You could say that it's true of any time, right? I mean, it's like ... I remember there's a thing in ... Did you see the musical Hamilton? Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. So that whole where they're the 1770s looking at the revolution, everything happening and there's one of the numbers is that there's never been ... Look around, everything is so exciting now. There's so much change in the air and every ... I think that's true. You could say that at every juncture, if that's what you're choosing. It's like what you always say, right? Your eyes only see and your ears only hear what Dan Sullivan: You- Yeah. It's really interesting because for some people, these are the worst of times. Dean Jackson: Right. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: No, I mean- Dean Jackson: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: I bet for the Ayatollah in February was a better month than March. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. But now you look at all of the things ... This is also the thing now, all the online stuff now is that the Iranians have kind of chosen his son as the new leader. Dan Sullivan: Who we have no proof that he's alive. Dean Jackson: Right, exactly. But it's interesting that now they're painting that narrative that now you've got his son who's 50s, in his 50s, as opposed to an aging 80 year old guy who's- Dan Sullivan: 86, 86. Yeah, Dean Jackson: 86 that now he's in his 50s and he's mad that you killed his dad and his mom and his wife and sisters only ... You got an angry guy now in the position of leadership, but this is where disconnecting from all of that stuff, it's all that noise. Dan Sullivan: I mean, there's some things we know now that we didn't know a month ago. One is we thought that they were more powerful than they were. Okay. They had just imported close to a trillion dollars of the latest Chinese and Russian air detection, and they had all this, and that one US or Israeli plane has been shut down and there's been 5,000, 5,000 sorties. So none of that technology was any ... My sense is that the Iranians are a minor player in this whole situation. I think the Chinese are the major player. And I think that the fact that the US is now engaging in decapitating the leadership of the country. They've done it twice now and I think that has now become a major topic of discussion in Russia. It's become a major discussion, certainly in Cuba right now, Cuba, because Cuba has just run out of energy. I mean, they're gone as a country right now, unless they do a deal with the United States. But China is ... They've been talking about how powerful they are militarily, but none of their stuff works against the enemy, none of their stuff. So that really changes. The major conversation has to do with Taiwan, and you saw the expert on the Democratic side, AOC, her expertise on Taiwan. Did you see that? Dean Jackson: I did not. No. Oh, Dan Sullivan: You should go look at it. It's a career changing. She spent a career changing two or three minutes and revealing that she doesn't really know too much about the world besides what goes on outside of the Bronx. Dean Jackson: What did it for me with AOC was how delighted she was when Amazon chose not to relocate to New York and now they could give the $7 billion in tax credit. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Well, boy, we kept those 20,000 jobs from coming into. Yeah. Dean Jackson: Now we can give that seven billion to the teachers and the things and whatever without Dan Sullivan: A Dean Jackson: Hint of understanding. Dan Sullivan: The interesting thing is that everybody's ... I think what's happening right now, and our conversation has been a lot about this, is it's like thinking about what are you thinking about? The other thing is liking what you like, and the other thing is doing more of what you do, doing more of what you do, and that gives you a read on what's going to happen in the future. If you're in touch with ... So that sort of vision, capability, and reach, and everybody's sense of the future is what is it that you're uniquely putting together that relates to your unique ability and other people's unique ability, and that gives you a vision of the future, because you're going to make the best bets and the best bets on what it is that's uniquely yours. Dean Jackson: I like that. Thinking what you think, liking what you like. Dan Sullivan: And doing what you do your best. Yeah. And that doesn't have to do with creating conspiracies about the future. That's all based on solid evidence. Dean Jackson: Yeah. I think that's pretty amazing, actually. Yeah, that's good. I think that's really a good ... I'm going to think that through this week, along that same thing of the choosing your regret is ... That's like creating a better past is ... Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Dean Jackson: It's an interesting thing, right? It's a nice juxtaposition of words. Do you normally Dan Sullivan: Have to Dean Jackson: Choose? Yeah. Dan Sullivan: And that was an hour well spent. Dean Jackson: It really was. Was it already an hour? Holy cow. Yes. Well, Dan, these conversations are always a delight. I can guess and bet that they will continue being a delight long into the future. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And I can promise you that next week I'll put just as much preparation into that one as I did to this one. Dean Jackson: Same. You know what, Dan? Just keep thinking what you think. Dan Sullivan: Liking Dean Jackson: What you like and doing what you do best, and we'll come back here next week and talk about it. Dan Sullivan: It's all the preparation you need. Dean Jackson: That's exactly right. Dan Sullivan: Okay. I love it. Thanks, Dan. Dean Jackson: Bye. Dan Sullivan: Bye.

Every conversation has the potential to reveal something useful hidden within the ordinary, and this one delivers several of those moments. In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we catch up after Dan's 11th trip to Buenos Aires for his ongoing stem cell treatments, where he shares a remarkable milestone: a 12% increase in brain volume over three years, roughly equivalent to reversing 30 years of cognitive decline. The conversation flows naturally into Dean's growing practice of "phone fasting" and constraining his available hours, and how that's led to a heightened clarity about where attention actually goes each day. We then dig into the idea of "creating a better past", the practice of making today worth remembering tomorrow, and how this connects to calendar structure, scheduling disciplines, and the real cost of vague future planning. Dan shares why he treats his schedule as a commitment rather than a suggestion, and why words like "should," "would," and "could" are blame-shifting words that quietly block learning and behavior change. Dean's shift to locking in six months of workshops in advance gives a concrete example of how structure actually creates freedom. The episode closes on a thought worth sitting with: Dan's observation that at the bottom of all unhappiness, there's an argument with time. The conversation between these two has a way of making the abstract feel immediately actionable, worth your full attention. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dan increased his brain volume by 12% in three years through stem cell treatments, equivalent to reversing roughly 30 years of cognitive decline. Only 0.05% of people are proactively using AI to create output, meaning the competitive advantage window for early adopters remains wide open. Strategic Coach's 250 thinking tools stay permanently "upstream" from AI, because AI can only work with what humans have already created and published. Dan eliminated "should," "would," and "could" from his vocabulary entirely, calling them blame-shifting words that signal complaint without any intention to change behavior. Dean locked in six full months of workshops in advance for the first time, discovering that visible structure on the calendar creates bookings, and momentum that vague future planning never could. Dan's rule for unhappiness: at the bottom of every persistent dissatisfaction, you'll find someone having an unwinnable argument with time. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Welcome to Claudelandia. Mr. Sullivan. There he is. Are you in Argentina? Dan: Nope, nope. Dean: No, I'm Dan: Back in Toronto. No, we arrived about noon yesterday. We got back. Yeah. Dean: Okay. Joe is on his way. Dan: Yep. Yep. He left last night. Dean: Well, he didn't leave last night actually. Well, he missed his connection. So that's a problem. Yeah, hopefully he figured it out, but he was definitely on the ... We're not happy till you're not happy airline experience program. Dan: Yeah. Dean: So Garnet and Shirley, they were on the flight that took off. He was so frustrated. Yeah, he was so frustrated because he was on the runway or on the ramp and they were just taken off, so he missed just barely. Dan: You know, people are not necessarily talk about Joe, but I noticed a lot of people are throughout their entire life, they're about three hours late. Dean: Oh, just missed. Yeah, exactly. Dan: Yeah. Yeah. And if they just take one future event or one present event out of their life, they'd be on time, but there's always one thing that makes them three hours late. Dean: That's funny. Dan: Yeah. Dean: So you're in Toronto now? Dan: Yeah, just got back. Yeah. Yeah. Dean: Perfect. Dan: And the snow is starting to melt. Dean: Okay. That's what I hear. Dan: That's Dean: What I hear. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Dan: Yeah. Yeah. The power went out in our neighborhood last night. Suddenly it was just completely black, but at our house, five seconds later, the generator kicked in and we had full lights, electricity. Everything was working. Dean: Oh, see? Dan: Yeah. Dean: That's why you get a generator, right? Dan: Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Dean: Because that's like doing an experience transformer in advance. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Looking forward. Dan: I remember a New Yorker cartoon a long time ago, 30, 35 years. And it shows this elderly couple standing at a corner in New York City, a street corner. And right in the middle of the intersection is a dead elephant. Dean: Oh my. Dan: And the wife, the older lady is saying to her husband, "Elmer, I'm never going to complain about you bringing that elephant gun with you on a date." Dean: Oh my goodness. That's so funny. Better, safe than sorry. Dan: You never know when the elephant's going to show up. Dean: That's exactly right. Better to have the gun and not need it. Oh Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It may be socially awkward, but you never know when you're going to need that elephant gun. Dean: I love it. So this is- Dan: This is our 11th trip to Buenos Aires. Dean: So what's the progress report? Dan: Yeah. Well, it's interesting because I'm the oldest patient that they've ever had at this clinic who's doing this procedure where you're replacing a cartilage and it's completely back. But what they've discovered is that it's a very young cartilage. It's an early life cartridge, which is okay if you're 13 pounds. Dean: Right. Dan: Yeah. But I weigh more than 13 pounds. And so it's a brand new cartilage. It's completely back. So if I do an MRI lying down, it's completely back. But if I do an MRI with me standing with my full weight, it's as if nothing's happened yet. Dean: Oh, really? And that's ... Well, what's the protocol for that too? Dan: It's kind of a gelatin that they put into the knee now, and it gradually kind of creates a structure in there. I think this is from the cosmetic world, where they put this in people's Dean: Cheeks or they- Wharton's jelly or whatever. Is that what you're talking about or is that Dan: Something that- Yeah, something like that. But gradually it'll reinforce the growth. My cartilage is growing at a much faster pace than a six month old baby would be. Yeah. And the pain is less. I Dean: Was just going to say, what's the practical thing? Dan: I would say if I compare to a week now, a seven day experience to seven days before I went for my first treatment, which was November of 19 to 2023, so it's two and a half years, basically. My pain is down somewhere between 80 and 90%. Dean: Oh, that's awesome. And that's really- Dan: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, pain is the problem. Dean: Well, there you go. Dan: Well, Dean: That's Dan: Just the knee, but the big Dean: One Dan: Has been the brain. I mean, by far the biggest impact because they do it on my knee for cartilage purposes. They do it on both my ankles because I have Achilles tendons, broken Achilles tendons in both of my ankles, and they're good. They're good. They're better. There's more flexibility, more push off. But the big one has been the stem cells to the brain, and I've increased my brain volume by 12% in three years. Dean: 12%. Dan: 12%. I mean, Dean: That's great. And Dan: That's about 30 years. That's equal to about 30 years of decline. Dean: Wow. Dan: So I would be ... Dean: Basically, Dan: I'm back where I was when I was 52. Dean: Brain wise. Dan: Being 82 right now. And I notice it. I notice it too. Dean: You do? What do you notice? Like your brain feels more limber and alive? Dan: No, the biggest thing is that the world makes sense. Dean: Okay. Okay. That's Dan: Interesting. The entire world now is suffering from Trump to arrangement syndrome. Dean: Oh my goodness. Yeah. It's so ... Yeah, it really is. I think consciously- Dan: He's taken on a historically unique role where there's nobody who's indifferent to him. Dean: Right. Exactly. Dan: There's no in between. Dean: Yeah. I mean, it's really ... Yeah, this is ... It's funny because with my phone fasting and my zone of my 12:00 PM till 6:00 PM is really because I'm constraining the available time that I have to meet with people, that those times are filling up. So I really have very little time to pay attention to what's going on. Like just at a tippy top level, I know that we've bombed Iraq or Iran, sorry. But that's really ... I have not ... I've escaped really all of the other ... Just cursorily or peripherally, I've seen things about Dubai and the Emirates and stuff Dan: Like that. Well, I think because it was a war, it's a war. So people say, "Well, he's causing a war." Actually, the war has been going on for 49 years, but it's only been from one side. So the Iranians, the Mulas, the whatever they are, declared war on the United States in 1979, but it was only Dean: In Dan: 2026 that an American president noticed it. And he said, "Oh, you can't do that. Dean: " Yeah. Wait a minute. Dan: Wait a minute. Yeah. I knew I had an itch there. I didn't know what it was. So why don't we make this quick? We'll just destroy your entire leadership in the first half hour. Dean: Okay. There we go. Reset. Dan: There we go. There we go. You tried to get our attention. It took you 49 years, but you got our attention and here it is. Yeah. Dean: Yeah. So I look at that for me as ... Dan: Sure. Dean: That's been a noticeable difference is just- Well, that's Dan: Great. Dean: ... general awareness. Dan: And I don't think you've deprived the world of anything by not paying attention to it. Dean: No, because I think you said it when you gave up TV, you made the observation that there's a lot better things going on in your brain than our in that. And for me, I'm realizing that exact same thing. I've been really loading up a large language model in my brain of being exposed to so much stuff now. And yeah, so now it's really building the interface to tap into it. That's in the best way. Dan: Yeah. And I think the thing that ... My sense is in the center of complexity, if you have a complex situation, at the center, if you get to the center of a complex situation, it's actually just this rather than that. It's something that's happening at the center of complexity that ... First of all, there's something new happening, and it's this new thing that's happening, and it creates a first impact, which once you've made the first impact, it creates 50 other impacts, and that's where the change is. And my sense is that it's, from my perspective, that is that you're either entrepreneurial or you're not entrepreneurial. In other words, as an individual, you're either creating new things or you're consuming new things. And right at the center, there's a creator and a consumer, and they need each other. Yeah, they Dean: Do. Dan: They need each other, and they're in the center of all the complexity in the world. There's a creator of something and a consumer of something, and the rest of it is just a byproduct. Dean: Yeah. Those ... Last couple of days, I've been listening to a podcast interview with Cal Newport. He's on with Chris Williams. Williams or Williamson, it's funny because the thing that he's been talking about for 10 years is really gaining momentum now of being ... The awareness of the need for deep focus, deep work, is the big thing. It was an interesting thing just on my way home from the cafe this morning. He was talking about how the GPTs or the large language models now that people think about it slowly advancing towards this giant thing that can do everything, but his real ... He said, "What's really going to end up happening is there's going to be thousands of individual specialist things that do one thing really well." And I think that reminded me of who's, of the capabilities. I think you and I, and I love ... Every time we talk about offer prior, I think about you saying, "You could do anything, but you can't do one thing." And that's what I think people are thinking about AI as this thing that can do everything, and the reality of where it's going to end up heading is to where it can do one thing, and that you know that this is the thing to do that one thing. Dan: Yeah. Dean: It's very ... I think that makes Dan: Much more sense. Well, my sense ... Yeah, just to extend that thought a little bit, I think it can do everything except one day late. Dean: Okay. Dan: Because it depends upon human output in order Dean: To- Yeah, for sure. Dan: In other words, that it's the expert on everything that happened up until yesterday. And that will always be the case. That will always be the case, mainly because humans live in a totally subjective world and computers live in a totally objective world. In other words, they can only work with what's already been done. Yeah. Dean: Yeah. That's really ... Dan: I just wrote an article on how Strategic Coach with its thinking tools is always upstream from AI. Dean: Say that again. How have ... Dan: Well, things are either upstream or downstream. Dean: Okay. Dan: Okay. So things that are upstream are the cause and downstream it's the Dean: Effect. Dan: And my sense is that a strategic coach with its 250 thinking tools is always upstream from AI. Dean: Yes. I got it. Yeah, that makes sense because- Dan: If you're creating new stuff, you're upstream from someone noticing it. Yeah. And AI is the great noticer. Dean: That's funny. The great noticer. Dan: Yes, the greatest noticer we've ever created. Dean: I mean, this is ... Yeah, I was just asking perplexity about the adoption of AI and the global estimate is somewhere between 15 and 20% of humans or whatever of people have even interacted with AI at all. But I've seen from as far as creating, using it for some ... Like proactively using it for some output is literally like 0.05% of people. Yeah. Dan: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, 20% of humans haven't interacted with electricity yet. Dean: Wow. Okay. So there's time. Yeah. Dan: I love that. Perspective. It's true in the sense that most of Africa in the way that we interact with electricity is not doing it yet. I mean, they have some things that are electric, but I was reminded of this last night because something happened in the beaches last night and all the lights went out. There was like a sound. It was like a bang and then Dean: We Dan: Were in pitch darkness and then 10 seconds later, we had full electricity at Dean: Our house, but Dan: As I looked outside, nobody else had electricity. Dean: Yeah. That sounds like a squirrel that got caught in a transformer. And the only reason I know that is because I've been where that has happened and that's exactly- Dan: Oh yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah. It happened like two weeks ago. And that was the exact reason that a squirrel got into a transformer and millions of people lost electricity as a result of that famous- Dean: Those crazy squirrels. Dan: Hey, I wonder what this looks like. What is this? Oh. Dean: It's pretty warm in here. Yeah. Let's see what's inside. Dan: Yeah. I wonder, and the sentence wasn't completed. Dean: That's funny. You're right. The whole ... I mean, I still remember the whole thing about ... And most of much of the world, I think you said this about China, but if in much of the world, two hours from the capital cities, people are shitting in holes.That's the reality of where- Dan: They're not your competitor. Dean: They're not your competitor. Oh, man. Dan: Yeah. Well, I mean, you could see that the Iranians bought a hundred billion dollars worth of air defense equipment of one kind or another sensors and rockets. It was a hundred billion in the last three or four years they put in there, and none of it worked. I mean, there's been about 3000 sorties of ... A sorority is one plane going into a combat zone and doing something, firing a rocket or dropping a bomb. And I think there's been about 3000 of them so far in the last seven days in Iran, and that one American or Israeli plane has even been threatened. So if you're looking for a good security system at your home, do not buy Chinese. Dean: Right. Exactly. Not the answer. Dan: Not Dean: The answer. Yeah, yeah. That's so funny. The big thing for me this week, Dan, has been this growing realization of creating the better past as the daily task. I realized that ... I read something else. I've been really studying the ADHD stuff and executive function and really just kind of practicing my ... Setting up systems around this, because I realized that vitamin A doesn't make the decisions for you. What I've noticed is it allows me to stay on the task that I'm working on, but it doesn't help with the narrowing down and the decisions or prioritizing of what needs to be done. And I think that this reality of creating a better past is that that's the only actionable thing that you can do. It's kind of like when you said upstream and downstream, it kind of reminded me of that, that it lags, right? Today is really the sum total of all of the previous outputs from the days past, and there's no actionable element of the future. I saw this somebody on ... It's funny because my algorithm now on TikTok and Instagram and all these, is I get all these ADD content and it's such a huge community. I mean, there's so many people that are affected by this, but it was ... I wish I could remember exactly what they said. It's like, but forget about your six month plan or your six month future you. There's nothing there for you. Do you know what I mean? It's really, it's only today that matters. Yeah. Dan: Yeah. Yeah. I think I shared this in our last podcast that one of the things ... This is day 95 for me of working on today because I want today to be a great tomorrow, a great yesterday, tomorrow. It's basically ... Tomorrow morning, when I think about what I did on Sunday, the 8th of March, it was a great day. I really had some great breakers, great activities, conversing with you and everything like that. And once I get outside the framework of what's possible today, there's not much there. Dean: That's exactly right. Now, there are certain things that you can do to ... I look at for how many ... I don't know how many years, Dan, you and I have been having these conversations at, that it is locked in my world that we have created this better past of having arranged that we meet every Sunday morning like this and record the conversations, right? That is something, I think, looking forward to lock into place these structures that ensure that you're going to have that better past for today. And I'm just observing that, right? I think directionally, there's a place for setting up that infrastructure. It requires no executive function for you and I to find a time on our calendar, when our calendars are going to line up to record. And I find that it's an interesting difference between matching you and I, our calendar versus me and Joe with our doing our marketings. It's like such a ... Dan: I Dean: Mean, do you find that with your ... Dan: I mean, when I look at ... I mean, I'm really ... I'm a managed person. I have people who manage my schedule. And if I look ahead, this is early March, so I have March, April, and May going forward, and I bet 60% of what's going to happen over the next is in the calendar, so it's going to happen. It's going to happen. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah. And generally speaking, my attitude towards it, I'll come to ... I have an appointment or something that's set up months ahead of time, and I Dean: Come Dan: To it and I said, "It would have been better if I did this tomorrow than today." But I said, "Nope, reinforce the discipline." I said, "You said you wanted whose, you gave them the freedom, you gave them the responsibility of setting up the schedule, just do what's in the schedule, don't try to change it, don't do anything like that, and then thank them for doing it. " And yeah, I think it may be 80%, not 60%. I bet it's 80% of everything over the next three months. And there'll be people who phoned Becca and they say, "Can I have 15 minutes with Dan and that? " And she'll talk to me and I said, "Let's do it in the next quarter, not right now." Yeah. Dean: Yeah. Do you keep a rolling quarter going in your mind or do you do it on the calendar quarters and you're Dan: Yeah. I mean, the calendar quarters are a function of the workshop quarters. In other words, generally my schedule is determined by interaction with other people and workshops are the biggest because that's where the cash flow comes from and everything else. But I never fool around with them. I can't think of a time when I said ... Dean: Hey, let's move the workshop here. Dan: Yeah. Yeah, let's get in touch with 45 people until we're Dean: Moving Dan: Something. Dean: Let's check this a little bit. Dan: Let's just do it the way it's scheduled. And that's three years ahead. That's actually three years ahead. Dean: I love that. This has been a big shift for me. I mentioned to you this year has been kind of the first year where I'm completely calendared for the first six months of the year in terms of my breakthrough blueprints and the lead conversion and lead gen workshops are completely locked in and mapped out. And that's been a really different experience for me because typically I would have vaguely in my mind that I'm going to do one this time, but I was only ever letting people know about the next one, which may be six weeks away, six or eight weeks away. So it's kind of like a decision that people have that opportunity. If they can come, they can come. But now I'm seeing ... I've already got people who've booked for the June event. Now that they're on the calendar, it's kind of everything is there. And that's what I'm really looking at is creating the rhythm of things. I'm realizing that's how ... I always say that life moves at the speed of reality and it's dependable that it's 60 minutes per hour and that it's seven days a week and it's three months and a quarter. So those things are coming and throwing them out there, putting the big rocks, as you would say, in place, everything else can work around those. I find that that's comforting. Dan: Yeah. Dean: It is. I do crave and resist structure at the same time. Dan: Well, I think that the trick is to bring it into alignment with what you find fascinating and motivating. I think that's the trick. And I think it's a real problem. I think at the basis of all unhappiness on the part of every individual, at the very bottom of unhappiness, they're having an argument with time. Dean: I agree. Say more about that because I've been thinking something very similar. Dan: Well, you're either in agreement with time or you're in disagree. I don't think there's a middle road. Yeah. Yeah. And it has to do with the full use of your attention. And I think that happiness is a function of being fully present. Dean: It reminds me, Dan, do you ever hear the story of the ship that was coming into Harbor and it sees a light in the distance and it says, "We're about to collide, veer your course by five degrees or whatever." And the thing comes back, cannot veer course. Yes, you veer five degrees to the right and the captain signals back, "We are the USS, whatever. Veer your course by five degrees." And the signal comes back. We are a lighthouse. Veer your course five. Dan: It's a disagreement with ... It's an argument over time. Dean: That is right. Dan: Yeah. The basis of reality is that things happen when they happen. Dean: That is exactly right. Dan: Yeah. Yeah. But I just noticed it's like having an argument with gravity. Dean: But I want to float. Yeah. Dan: I'm a fly. Dean: Exactly. But eventually you're going to hit the ground. Yeah. So I think that there's so many of these things that are all pointing in that right, in that same direction that using ... It's dependable. I think that that is the thing, right? It's dependable that there's going to be 24 out that we're going to have a thousand attention units in a day. That's the only ... And we can only spend this moment. Dan: Yeah. But I think that consciousness where you're conscious with what's happening. And I said that ... I've been thinking about this over the last two weeks because anytime we go to Argentina, I am reminded of the fact that in certain countries, a schedule is just a suggestion. Dean: With certain airlines too. Dan: Oh yeah. And so we were there and that's why we take Becca with us because Becca is really great at rearranging things at short notice. And we had about, I would say, we were there for six days. I would say we had five scheduled changes. That would meet the average of a Day there. And the thing is that if we had to handle that, it would have been a really bad week, but we have a who who just thrives on shifting things. And when you shift things, it's not just one thing you shift. There's a number of things that you shift, more than one, that any change ... It seems like a simple thing, but it's not because there's people to be called and limousine drivers are going to be and everything like that. And it's really interesting. So my attitude is that the fact that I have a structure and the fact that I have a schedule is a real gift, is a real gift. So I don't fool around with it. Even though, yes, things could be changed at the last moment and you could do this. I say, I think you're borrowing from the future by doing this and I'd rather invest in the future, deposit in the future. And give yourself ... This is why I don't like the words should, would, or could. We should have done this, we would have done this, we could have done this. And I said, "Just treat it like experience, but then really make a change so that next time you don't, you're not faced with the same Dean: Situation." Dan: So I think the problem, those three words, it's funny that they should rhyme, would, could, and should, but they all mean I want to complain, but I'm not going to alter my future behavior. In other words, I want to say something, but I never found ever where somebody said, "I should have done this, " or they actually did the other thing. Dean: It's interesting. I'm just thinking about those words. So let me think for a second here. I would have is kind of like a blame where I would have if, but there's something else is like ... Yeah, that wasn't my fault. I think there's an external blame shifting. Well, I could have done this is kind of rationalizing your thing and maybe should, I should have, is bringing ... There's a bit of emotion in that, right? Yeah. Dan: Yeah. And what there is, I've just noticed when I do it for myself, that Dean: There's no Dan: Learning in it. It's not enough of a punishment in the moment that I'm going to change my behavior for the future. Dean: Yeah. How do you think we could bring those into using those today that that's kind of ... Because if we're building a better future or a better path, then that means that we won't tomorrow look and say, "We would have done this, or we could have done this, or we should have done this. " How can we do that today? Dan: It's really interesting. I had an experience exactly about this topic yesterday. We got back to Toronto, and Toronto hasn't done anything to improve its airports, I bet, in a dozen years. It's really getting grungy. I mean, they actually have three buildings. They have the big one, which is mostly Air Canada and United. Dean: And Dan: Then the second one is ... And number two, the number two terminal is just smaller air Canada planes. It's basically an air Canada terminal. And then number three is everything else that's not in their alliance. If you're not in the Canada ... The one, I think it's called One World or something like that, everything like that. So Lufthansa, the German airlines would be at terminal one because they're part of Air Canadas. Dean: I got it. Dan: Yeah. So you do see a few other airlines, but they're part of the One World Airlines, but three is just horrible. It's just one of the most horrible airline terminals in my experience. The design doesn't make any sense. You get off the plane and you're walking forever before you get to. Dean: Oh, I know. I've noticed that. It's like you've parked in Hamilton and you got to walk the rest of the way. Right. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I've noticed that about Ethro too. It's like that. Dan: Yeah. I mean, but it's not even kept up. The carpets are frayed, there's scratches in the walls, the glass hasn't been cleaned and everything else. It's just not well taken care of. But what I noticed is that once you get your bags and you come out, there's a turn to the left that says connections and I says, wait a minute, if there was connections it would be four, you wouldn't be getting your bags. Dean: Right. Dan: Your bags would go to the next plane. So I said, "I bet this is a shortcut." And I noticed it last time, I said, "I bet this is a shortcut." And we came in, it was just a bunch of tables or desks with people at them and we said, "Can we get out to the lobby this way?" And they said, "Sure, just go with that. " So I was right, I was right on it. And it saved me about three or four minutes of walking just to take the shortcut. There's no indication that you can take a shortcut. I just had a sense last time I went through, because we try to avoid that terminal. We've gone to Buena Series by Delta and Delta is terminal three and this last one was American, it's terminal three, and we've done United and United comes out of number one and you go to Houston and you catch the night. So I went through and I felt really good because I said, "You know what, next time we should explore this route because I think there's a shortcut here." And I got out and I got in Bab said, "Boy, that was neat. That was neat that you spotted that. " And I said, "Yeah." I said, "It ticked me off last time because they make you walk about 50 yards to the right before you can turn left and then you're simply retracing your route." And I said, "That's a waste of time and everything else." And I felt good about it, but I said to myself last time, next time, let's go through, let's see if it's really a shortcut. Dean: That may be the interesting ... That may be the thing then is on reflection of the day, that looking at today that that could be making almost like you're a cartographer, mapping up the territory, wait a second, let's ... Yeah. I think that might Dan: Be ... I mean, how do you fly to ... When you come to Toronto, do you do Air Canada though, right? Dean: I do. Yeah. Yeah. So I go straight to- Dan: Well, you just come in. Yeah. Yeah. But there's a lot of walking. There's a lot of walking that- Dean: Oh yeah. I mean, sometimes very occasionally it'll be like right up at the ... Yeah, you're right there, but very rare. You walk Dan: The plane and there's the escalator to bag it. Dean: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, but I think those three words ... The fact that there is a word in the English language doesn't mean that it's a good word. Exactly. But should, could, and would are no use whatsoever. Dean: Yeah. They're only indication Dan: Three words to not take responsibility for. In other words- Dean: Well, that's what I mean. They're external Dan: Blame shifting. Yeah. Yeah. These are blame shifting words. Yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: It's really interesting. It's the only thing that I'll correct people with where they said, "Oh, I should have done this. " And I said, "Okay, why don't you do a fast filter? Why don't you do an experience transformer on that? What worked about it? What didn't work about it? Next time I do it, this is what I'm going to do. " And they said, "Yeah, yeah, I'll do that. " And I said, "No, you won't, because you haven't done it in five minutes, it's gone. If you don't make a firm decision that next time you're going to do something different, then you're going to repeat your behavior for this time." But it's really about those three words. Dean: I wonder if that's a thing of that maybe looking ahead at them. I wonder if you can apply them in advance, looking ahead of today, what is it that where's a wood? Yeah. Dan: Yeah. Well, I think what you're doing, you go, "I'm in experimental route, and this time I'm guessing that this is the solution, but if it's not, next time I'm going to make a different decision." That's totally reasonable because I think the future is all guessing and betting anyway. Yes. Yeah. Dean: Certainty and uncertainty, right? Dan: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Dean: Oh, that's great. I think that's ... Yeah, I think everything that ... Like that's one of my favorite things about our podcast is that there's no ... We're guessing and betting. There's certainty that there's very little required for ... We just know that this- Show Dan: Up on time. Dean: Yeah. That's all it is. That's exactly right. Pay attention, because that's really the thing. Pay attention during the week. I often find myself just making mental notes of this is ... I need to share this with Dan, but just paying attention and showing up on time. We've created the infrastructure, the scaffolding for it. Dan: Yeah. It's kind of ... There was a book, one of the quarterly books, I think it was two years ago, it was called Geometry of Staying Cool and Calm. Dean: Do you Dan: Remember that one? Dean: Yep. Dan: And that basically there's three rules to life. If you follow them, generally, you're cooler and you're calmer about life. If you realize that everything is made up, everything that exists was made up. Some human made this up. Okay. That's number one. Number two, nobody's in charge of the making up. Dean: Yep. Dan: And number three is life's not fair. And what I realized, but there is such a thing as fairness, but it's the creative thing. Life is just stuff, but you can just rearrange stuff so that if you're working with someone else, it's fair. The results are fair with the other person. And that's why my whole belief that people complain about unfairness. And I said, "Well, make it fair. Make it fair." No, no, but they should do ... No, no, no. There's no they and there's no should. If you want something to be fair, make it fair. Dean: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's so ... I think fair ... Yeah, life's not fair, but it's predictable. I mean ... Dan: Well, rules can be in charge, and I think the way humans have handled the unfairness of life, they put into place rules. There's no happiness until everybody is reasonably happy. There's nothing, but this war in Iran is a really interesting one because they only got the word, and this is the Israelis got the word. It wasn't the Americans. It was the Israelis got the word around midnight that they were having a big meeting in Tehran, the Grand Puba, whatever his name was that they were having a meeting and that these people were going to be at the meeting and it was the entire leadership of the country was going to be at a meeting and the Israelis said, "Oh, we got to switch our plans." And they switched all the plans and they killed them all in the first half hour. The entire leadership of the country was gone in the first half hour. And well, that simplifies things. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Everybody you have to deal with is dead. They ask Trump, "Well, who's going to take over now?" And he says, "Yeah, that's a problem." The guy we had in mind, he's dead, and then there was another guy, we thought he might do it, and he's dead. They're all dead. Dean: The position ... I don't know whether ... See, this is where AI comes in. I don't know whether this is AI hallucination or whether it's the reality that he said that the position's open and that see even ... We're doing so great. I'm even creating opportunity in other countries, creating job opportunities in other countries. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And that's why we're so screwed, because it sounds so plausible, but it could easily be AI. Dan: Well, they said, "Well, how do you think it's going? " And he said, "Well, we eliminated all their leadership in the first half hour, so we're way aheadred than I thought we were going to be. " But I mean, it's never happened in human history, what happened on that Saturday morning. I mean, you've never Wiped out the complete leadership and that they were in two rooms, actually. They were in two rooms in the same compound, and they took them out and I said, "This is a big deal. You should mark this in your diary.This has never happened in the history of the world that you would just get rid of everybody who's got any say." And anyway, but it's an interesting thing, but you need time to ... I'm really in a really great period in my life right now. I've got enough time for everything important. Right now, I'm just feeling I have absolutely all the time I need to do everything that's important, and I've never had that feeling before. Dean: Yeah. There is enough time. There is. It's just, I just look at that I have an abundance of time.That's the reality and so much. I just have to bend ... I've spent a lot of years being a shapeshifter, like building the future with ideas and stuff, but it's actually all the stuff actually happens in the scope of reality today. So getting better at Dan: That. But just having that consciousness that you have all the time you need for what's really important actually changes the future. Dean: Yeah. I think that's true. I look at that as like, yeah, it's good on the cusp of being 60 to figure that out is good. And I always love ... I mean, I always say to people, "Listen, you to me are always the Ghost of Christmas future of the possibilities, that having your good snapshot of what 22 years forward can be. " That's the great thing. So there's plenty of time. There's plenty of time. Yeah. Dan: Yeah. And also, I mean, the great thing about unscripted podcasts, in both our cases, we would say with the right person, the really great things about them is that two hours ago, we had no idea how this conversation was going Dean: To Dan: Go, and I think that's the great thing, and that's what I'm coming to. I'll send you the article I wrote on coach being upstream from AI and- I like that. But yeah, I'm sending out to my team this next week because Hamish McDonald, my cartoonist, he says, "Oh, this is a great, great article. Everybody in the company should know this. So I'm going to send it out this week and then I'm going to get feedback. Should we send it out to all the client base to do it? " But it's just something about there's this freakout that's going on with AI and part of it is just the marketing pitch on it. I mean, there's some major bets that are being made that this is a really big thing and there's huge amounts of money that are at play here with AI and that it's a fundamental game changer and if it's only half a game changer, a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money. Dean: Yeah. No, I think Cal Newport is right on track with this, that it's going to have to be ... I think it's going to get down to that it can practically do ... I wrote an email the other day called Six Pack Abs as a Service. That's really where we're headed. That's the best positioning to be in. Dan: Yeah. It's really, really interesting that there's something that I noticed when it relates to medicine, especially medicine, the area that Babs and I have been exploring for almost 40 years now. I can take it back to 1986, so it's Dean: 40 Dan: Years, and they said, "Well, and if it's possible for some people, it doesn't mean it's possible for everybody." Because unless you're investing in this and you're actually looking for it, it's not Not going to be available to people who are not looking for it. Dean: Yeah. That's very true. But it's there. When you look back, all the opportunities have been Dan: There. Yeah. It's funny, I go to sort of normal medical facilities and people will say, "Well, you can do that because you have the money. What about people who don't have the money?" I said, "Can't do it for the people who don't have the money, unless the people with the money make it possible." So I said, "The greatest breakthroughs in health that come from technology will happen in the United States. And the reason is there are a lot of people with money who are willing to just invest on the off chance that this will work." And I said, "You don't have that around the world." Dean: Yeah. Yeah. That's what Elon Musk was basically saying on his podcast with Peter Diamandis was the level of medical care available globally is what's going to be a major game changer. And that's because of basically saying the best surgeons in the future are going to be robotic. And so you think about that as ... Dan: And they're going to cost. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting. I mean, simple thing like an MRI, like last Monday, so six days ago, I went to an x-ray clinic in Buenos Aires and the results of the x-ray didn't satisfy my doctor. And she said, "I didn't quite get what I wanted there. They took it at a wrong angle and I'm not going to send you back there. So is it okay with you that we get an MRI on your knee?" And I said, "Sure." And I had it the next morning. In Toronto, that would be six months to get an MRI. Dean: Yeah. Wild, right? Next thing you know, you'll have it at home, your home MRI system. I think that's the thing. All right. All Dan: Right. Dean: Well, we've said it all. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I think we can safely say tomorrow that we created a great yesterday. Dan: I think that's right. Dean: Yeah. Dan: And more than that, you can't demand. Dean: That's true. Dan: Okay. Dean: All right, Dan. I'll talk to you next time. I'll Dan: Talk to you. I'll be in Chicago next week, so I'll talk to you from there. Dean: Perfect. Thanks. Bye. Dan: No time change for you. Dean: Perfect. Dan: Okay. Bye. Okay, Dean: Thanks. Bye.

AI is producing more content than ever, but the competition for real human attention has never been fiercer, and no algorithm is going to change that. In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we open with Dean noticing a new kind of AI fatigue, the creeping discomfort of scrolling through feeds filled with emotionally manipulative, AI-generated content designed to mimic reality. Dan adds his own observation: the UN’s push to centrally control AI development, which he sees as less a threat and more an unintentional comedy. From there, the conversation gets into the economics of attention, Dean’s framing of 1,000 waking minutes per person per day as a fixed resource, and Dan’s eight years of recovered attention after cutting television (roughly 800 hours a year, or 100 full days). We then work through the distinction between capability and ability, why giving everyone access to the same tools doesn’t level the playing field, any more than putting a grand piano in every home produces Billy Joel. Dan shares a striking data point from Strategic Coach: after 36 years in business, 85% of their 800 registrations last year still came through personal referral, no technology involved. That leads Dean to a new concept he’s developing called “REAL-ationships,” the coming premium on trust built with actual people as AI-generated mimicry becomes harder to distinguish from the real thing. Dan caps it with a sharp observation: technological mimicry is not emotionally satisfying, at least not after the first time. This episode lands on a counterintuitive truth for any business owner: the more powerful AI gets at producing content at scale, the more valuable a genuine human relationship becomes. It's worth a listen. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dean identifies a new kind of AI fatigue—not from using it, but from being unable to escape emotionally manipulative AI-generated content in everyday feeds. Dan recovered 800 hours of attention per year—equivalent to 100 full days—simply by cutting television eight years ago. Everyone has 1,000 waking minutes per day; with roughly 450 already consumed by screen time, the real scarcity isn’t content—it’s attention. Capability vs. ability: giving everyone a grand piano doesn’t produce Elton John—the qualitative edge still belongs to the person, not the tool. After 36 years in business, 85% of Strategic Coach’s 800 annual registrations still come from personal referral—no technology involved. Dean’s new concept “REAL-ationships”: as AI mimicry becomes undetectable, the value of trust built with a real person you know is only going to increase. 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. Mr. Sullivan. Dan Sullivan: Mr. Jackson. Welcome to Cloudlandia Dan Sullivan: Yes. Welcome to Cloudlandia. Dean Jackson: So you know what's funny? Dan Sullivan: Is it getting congested? Dean Jackson: Oh, I realized, I think I've noticed that today or this week, I reached a level of AI fatigue that I'm noticing is a different sensation in that- Dan Sullivan: It's like the 18 mile mark of the marathon. Dean Jackson: I think that's true. I'll tell you what happened for me is that when I watch Reels or Instagram or Facebook, any of the things, what I'm noticing is the majority of the things that I'm seeing now are AI. And it's getting to where it's not as obvious that it's AI, but it is AI and you can tell that it's AI and it kind of is getting to where it's bothersome. And I realize that this is like we're seeing things, especially when they're trying to make things, they're using it now to create videos that tug on your heartstrings in a way like this family adopted this lion mother who laid her ... They fed the lion and now the lion brings back her cubs to meet the homeowners. And it's just so ridiculous. And everybody is ... Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And this is in Monica Beach, right? Yeah, exactly. It's near the Ferris wheel on Monica. Yeah. Dean Jackson: Santa Monica here. Right. Exactly. Santa Dan Sullivan: Monica. Santa Monica. Yeah. Dean Jackson: It's Just so ... So I realize now, and the fact is that most people don't realize it. I mean, there's so much engagement and you start to see now how just all of these situations where people are being confronted or having arguments or what looks like ... This is where it becomes troublesome is the propaganda ones where they're showing confrontations or arguments between two people. Angry Karen does this or confronts this person or all these things where it's like ... I don't know. It's like ... I always say how Jerry Spence talked about that our minds are putting out their psychic tentacles, testing everything for truth, and it can detect the thin clank of the counterfeit. And I think that that's true, but I worry that many people's counterfeit detectors are not as tuned in as ours are. And I could see that. Dan Sullivan: Well, there's an old phrase that nobody was ever seduced to wasn't looking for sex. Dean Jackson: That's true. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: In other words, you've got to be looking for ... For them to have any impact, you have to be looking for ... I mean, to a certain extent, you're only subject to propaganda if you're looking to be propagandized. I Dean Jackson: Don't know. Dan Sullivan: It's kind of funny. I had a different AI experience this week, and I think mine is more a source of humor than yours is. Tell me. And that is that the Secretary General of the UN says now that the UN has to be in control of the development and the expansion and the use of AI to guarantee that there needs to be a centralized bureaucratic control AI, otherwise it will be misused. It will be misused. And I said, "If the right team of comedians will just sort of get on this UN thing of trying to control the AI, I think there's ... At least in the short term, there's some real humor here. You can get some real Dean Jackson: Humor Dan Sullivan: Of the UN as a thought and AI as a thought." I think if you put those two together, there's immediate jokes that you can come up with. They want three billion. Now, which country has three billion to get to the UN? Dean Jackson: I know one. Dan Sullivan: Anyway, because they want to distribute it, distribute, which requires bureaucrats to third world nations, so to make sure that they can bring themselves up to speed on AI. So I think this has got some comic possibilities. Dean Jackson: Oh, man. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Where's Monty Python when we need them? Dean Jackson: Exactly. They've been canceled. They were canceled. That's what happens. We cancel everybody who's got common sense. I think I mentioned that I saw- Dan Sullivan: Can I ask you a question? Are you surprised that this is happening? Dean Jackson: I'm not surprised. I mean, if you look at it that we're not even two and a half years into it right now, and when you see the stuff that is escalating, like now the Claude bots are this becoming agentic AI, that's the new buzzword, that it acts on its own and can do ... It's like becomes an army of who's. It's like if you just track the trajectory of where this actually goes, like if you're really ... If we're at a point right now where video and audio is already there, but if you get to a point where video is indistinguishable, like undetectable difference, that's coming. We're moments away from that. And I have a friend who was just saying she had a call from a bot, like an AI thing that's calling realtors and the ... Shortly into the conversation asked ... Caleb was the guy who was talking. She's like, "Caleb, are you a bot?" And then he admitted that he was a bot and then she kept him on the phone for 20 minutes because they hadn't safeguarded him. So she's getting all the, what he's trained to do, like how many and like 30% of the people don't clue in that he's a bot. And that's the truth. His mission was to call these agents, to have the conversation with them just to get the interest to book an appointment with the real person, right? So these are appointment setting bots. And he said that 30% of the people that they talk to don't clue in that it's an AI and they happily set an appointment. And then on the appointment, the human then is pitching this service of, "You didn't know it was a bot, so this is like you want to use this for your business." And I thought, wow, it's very ... Yeah, it's really, it's something where we are. So I really don't know. And you and I, you and I are kind of once removed. Dan Sullivan: It's interesting. I put together an article and I actually sent it to Jeff Madoff and I said 10 AI issues that are going to become very quickly political and how each of the parties, the Democratic Party and the Dean Jackson: Republican Dan Sullivan: Party would respond to it. And once the interesting thing is that with all 10, they would respond differently. So it's going to be ... And they'll ... So they're going to have a different point of view. But I think that the moment that it becomes political, then it'll be like any other technology. It'll be like industrialization, Dean Jackson: It'll Dan Sullivan: Be like television, it'll be like radio. The moment it gets fully ... The political sector of society immediately engages with it, then you'll see that it'll become even more complicated and confusing and complex than it is right now because each of the parties is going to want to utilize AI for its own electoral reasons and to get information out. The one factor though is that our brain still can't concentrate on more than one thing at a time Dean Jackson: And Dan Sullivan: I don't think AI is going to make the least bit of difference of making humans be able to engage with more than one thing at a time. Dean Jackson: Oh yeah, yeah. No, that's the thing. I said that. I was having a conversation- Dan Sullivan: No, the speed of reality. I mean, you talk about the speed Dean Jackson: Of Dan Sullivan: Reality and our attention operates at the speed of reality. Dean Jackson: It does. And there's a limited ... There's a finite amount of it. Eben and I realized that there are ... You have essentially a thousand waking minutes in a day. We were talking about the 100 Jacksonian units, the 10 minute units, right? So if you take that, that there is 1,000 attention units available per person, per day, that's the limit of it. And when you put that in the context of all of the content that's being created, we did the math on a global finite amount of attention units. If you take eight billion times a thousand is whatever, 800 trillion attention minutes available per day, right? And you're absolutely right. It's like such a ... Dan Sullivan: Very, very small amount of attention. I mean, and then a lot of that attention is already spoken for ... Yeah, we got Dean Jackson: Things to Dan Sullivan: Do every day and our attention goes up. Dean Jackson: That's exactly right. So that's what they ... They estimate that we have about 450 of those attention units are currently spent on screen time for most people, six, six hours or six and a half hours or something. So 450 minutes of attention available. Dan Sullivan: When I went off my television, watching television, I calculated and I kind of took a month of viewing and just sort of established that basically I watched television about 800 hours, 800 hours a year. Dean Jackson: A month? A year. Dan Sullivan: Oh yeah. Yeah. And I got that back. I got 800 hours back, which in eight hour days is a hundred ... It's basically a hundred days, a year of attention. And boy, that's made a huge difference. I mean, it made a huge difference. My productivity shot through the roof, I started ... Yeah, I mean, and easiest eight years of my life. It'll be eight years in July, and boy, it's been so great not to have television as part of my life. Dean Jackson: I mean, that's ... Yeah, I think that's wild. And then you see that you've created that, you've created other opportunities for that time. Dan Sullivan: About half of it's gone into reading, come back. Usually it's evening time or it's weekend time when I did this. But the thing is, you're noticing something, but how do you know ... I mean, how would you know based on what bothered you this week? You used the word bothers, so I'll use it back to you. It bothered you. How would you know that this is a problem? I mean, what would have to happen out in the world for this to be a problem? We know that everybody thinks that AI is going to solve their capturing attention. Dean Jackson: Yeah. I think it's true. Challenge. Dan Sullivan: But it seems to me that everybody's going to be very frustrated because it sounds to me like the competition has gotten a lot more fierce. Dean Jackson: For attention, what you're competing against is you're competing ... I do watch television, but never ... It's always like select ... I watch streaming. I can't remember the last time I ever turned on a terrestrial cable television where there's a schedule and you've got to watch what's on, right? Aside from football or sports or whatever, where it's live and happening, that everything I watch is streaming. So I watch a lot of ... I watched YouTube and Netflix and I like watching series things like we just watched The Beast in Me was a show, a streaming series that was on, and it was really well done, eight episodes, but I think that that was real people doing real acting. There was something about that. I don't know that it would be as engaging by AI, but I see the things where in the marketing world, what we're seeing now is this proliferation of people showing you how to create your video clone and your audio clone and how to produce all of this content. It's all in the name of creating more content with less effort, not better content. It's an interesting ... So I look and everybody's buying into that, right? Like you've got kind of two things. There's always the people that get ahead of a curve, like they see a wave coming and they go up and they're just like three steps ahead of everybody, and then they show people the way, like, here's how you do this, because everybody is 100% bought into that they need to know how to do this. And then I think that the next level will be that people will create something to be who for things, so that you don't have to learn. I've already made the decision, I'm not going to spend a minute learning how to do any of this. It's like I look at it that it's really ... To me, the most important thing for me as an entrepreneur is- You're adapting Dan Sullivan: My role. Dean Jackson: I am. Absolutely. Is that- Dan Sullivan: Always have a smart human between you and the technology. Dean Jackson: That's exactly right. Yes, that's exactly right. It's more important. Dan Sullivan: There are people who are fully engaged with this and you don't have to motivate them to be that way. You just have to sort of tag on. Since you got to adopt the A&W root beer approach to this, do you know how A&W? No. Dean Jackson: A&W Dan Sullivan: Is a very Dean Jackson: Famous Dan Sullivan: Root beer. Dean Jackson: Yeah. I know Dan Sullivan: About A&D. 100 years. They've never had a delivery system. They've never had a delivery system of their own. Well, what they do is they find a local Coke or Pepsi Distributor and they have trucks going and they say ... And they're almost never full. They're almost never full. And they're frequent. They're every day, they're going every day. So they just said, Kevin, could you also drop off 10 cases of A&W on your route to these stores and they have them all picked up and they do. And my sense, that is done more than actually having your own delivery system. I think there's all sorts of deals that delivery services have that they'll take this along with them and everything else. But I think you don't want to spend much attention on it, you don't want to spend much effort on it, you don't want to spend much time or cost on it, and so you'll work out. Here's the thing that I've noticed that Wall Street's really worried about AI. They don't see any of the big companies getting a return on the billions that they're investing. They're just not seeing the return coming back from all the spending on artificial intelligence. Dean Jackson: Yeah, I wonder because ... So that's my next thought of this, that right now it's perplexity and ChatGPT and Claude and whatever, those, they're all sort of pure in a way that you're bypassing the monetary system of if you go to Google, what you're getting are paid results, right? That you're looking at ads for these things. And as of yet, chat, GPT and perplexity I've seen has been experimenting with paid sponsored results as well, where when you ask a question and it gives you the thing, and then it asks three or four possible follow-up questions that you can go deeper with something, that I've seen situations where one of those results says sponsored, where it's a, somebody has paid to get their suggested next step placed in the stream of this perplexity conversation. And so that is going to have to happen. There's a whole industry right now around, just like SEO happened where people ... If you look at the cat and mouse game, the back and forth over the history of search engines, that when the search engines were figuring out how to index the internet or to get it all and what to display when people search things, there's been a constant evolution of marketers trying to game the system. So when Google started out, it was using keywords and metatags to tell the bot what this website is about so that when somebody searched that thing, they would index it, right? They would be scraping all of the data and surmising that this used this keyword on the page so many times. So there was a thing where people would stuff your page with keywords and just use white text so it was invisible, but the page had all of these words in it that would be really for the audience of the search engine so that you could game the system and somebody would ... You would come up as number one and Google figured that out and then they penalize it and they said, okay, no, we're going with now linking, whatever it will look at, do other people link to your site. So that created the whole engine of a economy around creating backlinks and you would pay marketing companies to get back links so that you would be number one. And then they caught onto that and they came out with something else that was an algorithm that ... So it's always been this back and forth, and we haven't yet gotten to the point- Dan Sullivan: Where Dean Jackson: Anybody's trying to game Dan Sullivan: That. I see a lot of activity going. I just don't see a lot of profitability going on. Dean Jackson: Right. Yeah. I mean, it's certainly that people are using it, but the- Yeah. No, Dan Sullivan: It's very interesting at the Free Zone Summit before last ... I just asked a general question of the audience, there's 80 Free Zone members there and I said," How many of you are using AI and are happily doing it? "As far as I could tell, every hand went up. And I said," And how many of you can already see an economic benefit? "In other words, it's saving time, it's saving money, it's all the hands went up. I said," How many of you think that your benefit that you're getting from AI is measurable somewhere and none of the hands went up? Dean Jackson: "Exactly. Dan Sullivan: I think there's an enormous amount of really great economic activity going on an individual basis. You would be an example. I would be an example, but I can't see how it would ever be measured by the people who measure economic statistics. Dean Jackson: Right. That's it. You're absolutely right. Dan Sullivan: So my sense is that this is not performing like previous, it's not performing like previous technologies. And there's a very famous thinker by the name of FA Hayek, H-A-Y-E-K, Nobel Prize winner, economist. And he says, what makes the world go around are unaccountable billions of little activities that are being done by individuals that cannot be observed or measured from on high and everything else. And I think that what's notable about AI is how empowering it is of individuals whose use of it can't be measured. Dean Jackson: Yeah. It's very ... Yeah, I think there's a lot of activity. It's certainly getting a lot of- Dan Sullivan: Well, trillions. Yeah. I mean, it's trillions. It's just that what people say it's going to do or what direction it's going to be. I said," Well, you'd have to be able to measure it to even make a statement like that, and I don't think you can measure it. "I think we've lost the ability to measure economic activity with AI. I think AI defies measurement. Well, it defies observation because I can't say what's going on inside your brain, Dean, you can tell me afterwards, but I don't know when it's happening. I don't know what's going on in your brain, and I think that that activity inside your brain is an economic activity in a lot of respects. Not everything you do has an economic direct academic, but I think a lot of it does, but I don't think it's observable. Dean Jackson: Yeah. We have ... I've shared with you before, even when we were doing the joy of procrastination, and I think about this At least once a week, I think about that article in the New York Times about the tyranny of convenience that we're ratcheting forward in our never ending pursuit of making things easier. And I noticed the things on myself, I noticed now that my behavior used to be that if I saw a book or a product or anything that I heard about, I would go to Amazon because only Amazon had one click ordering that I knew I could save the hassle of putting in my credit card to buy something. So I would see a product go to Amazon and buy it there. But now with Apple Pay, they've made it super easy that any website, like now the whole economic engine of seeing something, the TikTok shop or on Facebook or Instagram, you see these ads for a product and you want it and you click and it's automatically, it's just one click and it arrives at your door. And that you don't have to put in your credit card, do any of that stuff. I've noticed that if any website, if I have to enter in anything, I'm less likely to Buy it because I've already now ratcheted in the level of convenience that is I only push one button. It's like they've eliminated the friction between me getting what I want. And in many cases here where I am, and I imagine for you too, that you can often have, if I order it this morning, it can be here this afternoon, like same day logistics of that physical movement of goods. But there's a limit to that. And I always look at these, I always look at as a marketer, what are the measurable, what we've been talking about there, like to what end are we creating all of this content? Where is the impact of this going to be measured? And if I look at it in the before unit of a business, it's either going to, or is it going to end up in generating a lead, turning an invisible prospect into a visible prospect, getting more reach like a person to take an action? Is it going to distribute something that gets somebody to take an action? I just look at it as like, where is it all going? To what end are you deploying this? Because those things aren't changing. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. But in the scheme of things, every day things are going to be bought and they're going to be sold. And my sense is it's going on today for reasons that are not measurable. I would say it's not measurable. And that's the only thing I'm getting is that the significance of AI is that far from it being able to see everything, I think it's actually seen less and less. I think it's sometimes AI is accurate about something that happened yesterday, but I don't think it has any feel for tomorrow. Dean Jackson: Right. I agree with you. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Because I think human aspiration creates tomorrow. I don't think trends in the marketplace necessarily great, great, great tomorrow. So it's just an interesting thing. And my sense is that activity is not results. I think there's an enormous- Dean Jackson: Exactly. Dan Sullivan: There's an enormous amount of activity, but I don't really, really see the results. I talked to Steve Krine about this because he was successful in the. Com age at the end of the night. He got out three months before everything did well, did well and everything else. He said this has a lot of the same feel. It has Dean Jackson: A lot of same feel. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I look at this. We are in internet or 1998 right now, right? Just on the cusp, I would call what we're seeing is an AI boom, right? We're in like the dot com boom that everybody's race to the LLMs. But the outputs, like if you really look at it, there's only ever been four core things. It's either it's words, text, it's photos, it's audio, and it's video. That's really the modality, right? And so it's only to the degree that it's facilitating, making it easy. Like when you look at the, I look at these cascading asyntotic curves that the digitization followed, like the first thing, the easiest thing to digitize and compress and distribute is text. And that's how we started out with email and we started with PDFs and you could create a document that you could attach to a file and send it through email. And then it went to photos, which was the next easiest thing to digitize and create, and then to audio where the MP3 became a viable thing and compressed enough that we could stream it and then video where ... And it was all driven by the bandwidth to be able to push it through the pipes in a way that we could without interruption. Like in the very beginning of the internet, pictures that were high resolution had to buffer and it took a long time for something to download and the same thing with audio and video. But then by 2006, YouTube made it possible to now host and stream video seamlessly. And I think that once those things reached the top of the asyntonic curve of the capability, now everybody has the capability to create and distribute without friction and access to text, photos, audio, and video. And now we're getting to the point where if you look at AI, generative AI, has reached a point where it can create text at scale with no detectable difference between a human and maybe even better than humans in terms of technical writing or any of that. And the same with photos and audio. And the last thing now is the video. We're almost at the ... It's getting better and better and better, but we're very soon going to reach this, the tippy top of the asyntic curve and it's only going to be incremental improvement in our ability to, or the tools, ability to do it. So we're going to reach this plateau where now it becomes the ... Everybody's going to have the capability, but it's going to come down Dan Sullivan: To- Can I hold you right there? Can I hold you? Not everybody will have the capability because capability is a human thing, not a tool description. Dean Jackson: Well, I don't ... So here, I'll tell you where I'm at. Dan Sullivan: In other words, if I go five miles from you, your house at the center, the capability to do what you're doing is totally unequal. So if somebody doesn't have the internal disposition to do it, they don't have the capability. Dean Jackson: Well, that's where I was going, Dan, that there's a distinction between capability and ability. So if I give you a grand piano, and there's a grand piano in every home, you have the capability to create amazing music, but if Elton John or Billy Joel comes and sits down at your piano, it's going to be a very different outcome using the same tool that you have access to, that you don't have the ability to use that tool to create the same thing. I look at those, if you think of them as tools, if you look at the first wave where every single person has the capability to create digital text documents that can be distributed for free to everybody in the world that has an internet connection, same thing with audio, pictures and video. You have the technical capability to do it, but the qualitative ability has now where the advantage comes. That's where the future of it is, right? Dan Sullivan: But that's always been the case. Dean Jackson: Yeah. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying is that it's always been the case. So now everybody gets all excited about this exponential curve of capability that now it's going to get to the thing where now the differentiator is going to be that the ability is what's going to matter more than the capability. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And I think different times favor different abilities, Dean Jackson: Abilities, Dan Sullivan: Abilities, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's really reason, but so what is it in this particular situation that saves it from being basically a lot of meaningless activity? Dean Jackson: That's it. To what end? That's where I say is now we got to get to the point of, to what end is this going to solve a problem or improve somebody's life in as much as they would be willing to exchange money for that good or service. That's the way the economy works, right? There still has to be ... That's why capitalism works. It's a free exchange of goods and services for money. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Where the profitability keeps increasing, the amount of profitability keeps increasing. I mean, it's all very interesting me just that the ... I still have only used AI for one thing and I can't see in the future where I'll be using AI for anything except one thing. Other members of my team and the strategic coach are using AI for different reasons. And at a certain point, it might be this year, it might be next year, we're going to have to start having some structure to, where are you already using it that excites you to get a good feeling about it and do you see yourself using it to make your work better? Can you see it? In other words, work faster, work better, work, better result. And I think it's a leisurely conversation. I'm waiting two or three years before everybody's using it for something, so that way they've crossed the threshold, and then I'd say ... But I'd use some coach tools to sort of say, "What don't you like doing? What's the activities you don't really like? " And can you talk to somebody? Is there a tool already exists, an AI tool that can do that? How much time could you save and what would you do with the saved up time? I get them in touch with what they really love doing first, and then use what they don't like doing as an obstacle. If I could get rid of what I don't like Dean Jackson: Doing- Yeah, I look at that. So in the VCR formula, the progression on capability is that the core is the capability, the next is capacity, so that capability has a sort of max capacity for what you can do with it, and then ability, and then cash as the ... Ultimately, all of this combined is going to provide cash, but I look at what you were just describing is that the capability, the tool, is going to increase people's capacity as individuals that they can, as an individual, do more than what they could. I remember when I first started recording things and wanting to transcribe them, like when I wrote the Stop Your Divorce book with Homer McDonald, back in 1998, I remember that the going rate for transcribing audio was a dollar a minute of audio. So if I had a one hour recording, a real human would listen to that and transcribe it for $60. It was a dollar a minute for the recording of the things. And that has now that everybody has the capability to get audio transcribed for free. That's one of the tools that AI can do is transcribe something. So there's a whole generation of a whole genre of people almost be like buggy whip manufacturers or stuff as we were transitioning to cars, the need for buggy whips was way down and the same with blacksmithery became less and less. So we're seeing a real shift of that. And I think that that's if we follow that the cascading digitization pattern of text, video, or text, photo, audio, video, that once those four things are, everybody has now the ability to turn words into full cinematic video and music. It's happening now with music for sure. You're seeing now that people are prompting things to create music. Richard Miller, who I think you know, Richard was just here and he had a song, had written a song, just had a chord progression and the melody of how this would go and he played into his iPhone with just his acoustic guitar, played that into voice memo on his iPhone, and then he uploaded it to, there's a music AI, Sono, Suno, I think, uploaded it to this and it created this amazing song following exactly his chord progressions and it wrote lyrics based on the prompts, ideas that he had and it was really like well done. And I think that we're already at the point where people can't tell whether an artist is an AI artist or a human artist in the music world. So it's just the audio portion of it. And I think that we're getting to the point where probably it's 60 or 70% undetectable. I'm already seeing now videos of people being shown a series of videos and they have to say, "Is this real or is it AI?" And 70 plus percent of the time they're fooled, we'll call it, right? Yeah. They can't tell whether this is real or not. And I think that if you factor in any amount- Yeah, but Dan Sullivan: Why does that matter? Well, I'm trying to find why that matters. Dean Jackson: I think that because it's like there's- Dan Sullivan: Because the competition for attention is still exactly the same. Dean Jackson: Absolutely. And that's where now it's going to be the ability is going to be the distinguisher, that it's what you prompt the AI to create. It's still going to be the idea that the better ideas are going to be the win in this, knowing what's capable. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, but it's been that way when there was no technology. There was somebody who could sing better than anyone else. Dean Jackson: That's exactly- Yeah, that's why I think- Dan Sullivan: So it doesn't seem to me that things have really shifted. It's always been inequality. There's always been inequality. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: There's great and there's mediocre and my sense is that it doesn't seem to me that ... I mean, first of all, what you're describing is real skill, that somebody who can put all these different pieces together and produce a great result, I think there's real skill there and everything like that. I just don't see that from the standpoint of individual human attention, I just don't see how it's going to change things, that's all the things that I'm saying. If anything, the competition for human attention is getting greater. Oh, Dean Jackson: Absolutely. And I think that's why the- But I don't think it's going to be solved through better. Dan Sullivan: I don't think it's going to be solved through technology. Dean Jackson: No. Dan Sullivan: I mean, here we are. We've gone through, we're 36 years, the company, and we advertise. I mean, we use social media, we do everything, but 85% of all registrations last year, there were 800 registrations, 85% of them were a personal referral. Dean Jackson: Yeah. I think that that is ... Dan Sullivan: And what Dean Jackson: That Dan Sullivan: Tells me is that people check with an actual human being that they know who has experience, is this a good thing? And they say, "Yeah, I highly recommend it. " Well, no technology is involved in that whatsoever. Dean Jackson: Yeah. I wrote in my journal just yesterday, this word of that what we're going to move towards is, I'm calling it relationships, R-E-A-L, patientships. Dan Sullivan: I think that's a great idea. Dean Jackson: Yes, absolutely. I think that's where we're headed that we would, because we can't ... That's where I'm kind of projecting the trajectory of that because we're not going to be able to trust that this is a real person, that we're going to lean on waiting even more, the value of somebody that we have a real relationship with, a relationship. And so rather than the recommendation engine of asking, I'd much prefer your recommendation than even Charlotte's recommendation. And that's because- Yeah. Dan Sullivan: That's high praise. Dean Jackson: Well, because we have a relationship, you know? Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Well, it's a different context. It's a very different context. Yeah. Well, that's what I'm feeling too, that there's an Angus Fletcher who wrote Primal Intelligence, he's heading in this direction too, that where you have the things can be moved because economics requires that things can move from here to there, whether it's a tangible or an intangible, something has to move from here to there. And it seems to me that technology is really good at that. I think that technology ... For example, to take it electric vehicles, the result on electric vehicles are very disappointing economically. Everybody's losing all the companies except ... It's hard to see with Tesla because they have companies that are mixed in with each other sort of thing, but none of the EV companies are making money. The Chinese EV companies aren't making money, but in China, you don't have to make money to produce product and everything like that. And the reason is they're running into traffic congestion and EVs don't solve traffic congestion. An EV stuck in traffic congestion isn't any better than a gasoline car. Dean Jackson: Right. Exactly. Yes. Dan Sullivan: So there's other factors. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: So the thing that I see is you can technologize yourself to a standstill, and I think that's what you're saying here, that you get. And what becomes important, and that is getting out of the car and having an interesting discussion with the other person who's also stuck in traffic. That's actually a real relationship that the real ... I think you've got a great idea there. I think you should copyright it today. Dean Jackson: Yes. Yeah. Well, that's the thing, right? They write a email about it this week. It's one of my five ideas for my week Dan Sullivan: To- I think that's really worth developing because that seems to me to be what's happening is people are ... That these technological mimicry is not emotionally satisfying. Dean Jackson: Yes. That's a good one. It's true. Dan Sullivan: No, you can add that to your ... You can add that to your release. Yeah. So technological mimicry is not emotionally satisfying. Yes. Except the first time you do it, except the first time you do it, then the second time it's not Dean Jackson: So nourishing. Because the novelty of it scratches that, right? Yeah. It's like magic then, and that's something. But I think what's going to be a problem is to see these comments on the things of all the people really just taking it at face value, that it's there, it's then that you realize IQ is a quotient and the average is 100. And I think that's going to be a problem, I think. Because there's much more nuanced stuff in- Dan Sullivan: I don't know if the problem just emerged us here though. Dean Jackson: No, no, no. That's always been the problem. That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah. That's not new. That's not new. Dan Sullivan: I was thinking of that, and you can really measure backwards, but if you go back to when it was a hundred years since the First World War started off, and the first battle that the British were in, in the First World War, this is 1914, the battle of the Som, S-O-M-M-E, I Dean Jackson: Think, Dan Sullivan: In France, Both deaths and casualties, they lost 60,000 men in an afternoon, 60,000. And the thing about that was they weren't drafting people, these were volunteers, and they were up into the hundreds of thousands of deaths and handicaps before they had to start conscription. So people were just running off to ... And the word was priority. They had censorship, so the newspapers couldn't report on these, they couldn't report on these casualties, the number of dead and injured people, they couldn't record on them. But word of mouth was getting back that this was a meat grinder that they were sending people into and still they were going off. And I said, I think that's a good measurement of IQ in 1914. Dean Jackson: Right, right. Yeah. I think you're right. And you see it all the time, Dan, in the way, I mean the recruiting, the Army, Navy, Air Force, the military recruiting things are unfair in many ways. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: In what respect? Dean Jackson: Well, in that there was a thing where they had ... Somebody came up with the words citizen soldier. And they had these ... There was a period where they were spending millions of dollars to have real like kid rock and other rock bands create songs. They created a song called Citizen Soldier, which was like getting to the people that were most likely to be emotionally compelled to want to join the military. Dan Sullivan: Well, it's called marketing. Dean Jackson: Yeah, absolutely. Dan Sullivan: It's not marketing. Dean Jackson: Absolutely. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Well, I mean, first of all, I think the US military is actually a pretty good deal. I think the benefits that come along with it, I mean, very few American soldiers get killed. I mean, you have Dean Jackson: Very Dan Sullivan: Few. As a matter of fact, the Russian- Dean Jackson: Now especially. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, the Russians in the Ukraine war, four years old, right now, four years old, have had more soldiers killed than all Americans killed in all American wars in the last 250 years. Wild, right? Yeah. Yeah. And everything else. So actually the military is a good deal. For example, not well known, but if you're an illegal immigrant in the United States, male probably, and you go to a recruitment section and you sign up, they don't ask ... You want to tell them that you're an illegal immigrant. They won't turn you in and you don't meet the requirements and you make it into the military. Three years later, you're a US citizen. Dean Jackson: I see, that's underpublicized. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I think that's a good deal. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Earn your way in. Dan Sullivan: I think an American citizenship and passport is one of the most valuable Dean Jackson: Pieces Dan Sullivan: Of intellectual Dean Jackson: Property Dan Sullivan: In the world. Dean Jackson: Yes, still. Absolutely. Dan Sullivan: Anyway, anyway, I think you should really develop this idea of real relationship. I think it's a great idea. Dean Jackson: I do too. I think it's just the way things are headed for sure. The power. Totally agree. The importance of it. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Totally agree. All right. Dean Jackson: All right, Dan. I will be here. I'll see you back here. A good Dan Sullivan: Week after. Yeah. Okay. Dean Jackson: Okay. Bye.

The entrepreneurs quietly mastering AI right now won't make headlines, they'll just quietly take market share. In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we trace how birth timing, access, and circumstance shape who becomes an outlier from Malcolm Gladwell's hockey birthday effect to how Bill Gates got his 10,000 hours on a mainframe. Dan connects those dots to today's college graduates, whose degrees have been quietly devalued as AI handles both entry-level tasks and executive scheduling. The generation that sidesteps that broken system and goes straight to mastering AI, Dan argues, is the Andre Agassi of our moment, getting an unfair head start while everyone else is still in line. We shift into the mechanics of entrepreneurial success, where Dan introduces a new Free Zone tool: separating intentional wins from accidental ones. Some of your biggest breakthroughs, like Dean switching from professional tennis to real estate after watching a 15-year-old Andre Agassi dismantle a field, weren't planned, they were recognized in the moment. Dan also shares Day 75 of his 'Creating Great Yesterdays' practice, and how reframing ADD as emotional commitment to too many future possibilities at once finally gave him a way to work with it rather than against it. What ties this conversation together is a quiet argument for building inevitability into your environment. Whether it's locking your phone in a box, structuring a Free Zone summit around a single tool, or recognizing when the game you're in no longer matches who you're becoming, the clearest wins come from making the right behavior the only option. This episode rewards multiple listens. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS The entrepreneurs quietly mastering AI won't complain — they'll just take market share while others are shouting about fairness. Dan's "Creating Great Yesterdays" practice — now at day 75 — may be the most practical ADD hack you've never heard of. Dean switched from professional tennis to real estate at 21 after watching Andre Agassi win his first pro tournament — timing changed everything. Dan ran an entire Free Zone Summit day using just one tool — Guesses, Bets, and Payoffs — and calls it the best he's ever pulled off. History isn't a roadmap — it's a record of everything people didn't expect. Dan on why anyone claiming to predict the future is probably selling something. The Mr. Beast $400,000 weight-loss experiment and what it reveals about designing environments where success becomes inevitable, not optional. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia. Mr. Sullivan. Dan: Mr. Jackson. Quality training. Quality training. I guess- Dean: For quality Dan: Purposes. Dean: That's why Dan: Everything Dean: Is recorded, right? Dan: I guess we need more of that, don't we? Quality training. Yeah. Dean: So you made it back? Dan: Yeah. It was unbelievable how we got back. Everything was exactly on time. Dean: Oh my goodness. Dan: Yeah. I put that date in the calendar. Dean: So they've abandoned their, we're not happy till you're not happy policy. Dan: Yeah. And in San Diego, they have this brand new terminal, which for a while anyway, is just devoted to Air Canada and Southwest Airlines. Oh, goodness. Dean: Wow. Dan: Yeah. Yeah. It's beautiful. I mean, beautifully designed. Dean: This is in San Diego? They have an Air Canada terminal? Dan: No, it's a brand new terminal. And for now, the only airlines are Air Canada and Southwest Airlines. Dean: Oh, okay. And this is in Toronto? No, Dan: San Diego. Dean: Oh, in San Diego. Yeah, yeah. Okay. That's surprising that the ... Dan: Yeah, it opened about six months ago. Oh, Dean: I like that. Dan: It's an extension of the main terminal, but for now. And for a moment in history, I don't know how long, but you just arrive and you walk in and Air Canada is right there. That's great. Dean: They Dan: Take the bags and then you just go to the left a little. And the clear line is we have clearer. And we walked straight through. Bags went straight through and really nice, very nice terminal. But the gate where we needed to be was right there. And the plane arrived on time and we got on time. It took off on time. And we got home a half hour early. I guess the jet stream was more powerful that night. And Dean: Everything is working. That's almost like just a few more of those and not going to erase the taste of your other Dan: Experience. Oh no, that was gone and then that was gone. Oh, Dean: Good. There you go. Dan: That was gone. I don't really hold onto it. I've Dean: Always Dan: Loved the- But I had been playing with a thought recently of not complaining when things don't work, but being excited when things do work. I think my chances of having things work are diminishing, big systems falling apart. And so I said, "I'm just going to take the attitude of anytime something does work, I'm just going to be excited about it. Dean: " That's great. Dan: Yeah. Dean: You're looking ... It's the Pigmalian effect. It's the positive expectation. That's good. Dan: Yeah. You Dean: Know what's ... The location- Dan: I don't understand Pygmalion. I'm thinking about my Fair Lady. Dean: Oh, well, there's a psychological principle called the Pygmalion Effect. And it was a study that they did with teachers where they would Dan: Tell Dean: The teacher that, "Oh, you've got Danny Sullivan, he's gifted. He's like really going places." And the teachers would subconsciously treat you like you're special and you've got real potential. And then they would tell other teachers that you are trouble and don't let you get away. You got to keep your eye on that, Danny Sullivan. He's a problem. Don't let him get away with anything. And in the studies, just subconsciously, the way the teachers treated you, you would outperform if you were treated like you're special and you would underperform if they thought you were a problem. And of course you just poor innocent Danny Sullivan, you weren't aware of it and you weren't doing anything different than you normally do, but the expectation of what your outcome was going to be was affected by the teachers. And I think that that's a good way to look at life. It's along your lines of your eyes only see and your ears only hear what you're looking for, right? Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I ever had a difficult teacher. I had some really supportive ones. I can think about four over the 12 years that I was in school that zeroed in. Yeah. Yeah. Dean: I remember, so Mrs. Jefferson, my third grade teacher, if I look back on it, she was the one that identified that Dean is able to achieve excellent results with what seems like little effort. Imagine if he applied himself. She had a really smart way of doing things because she would ... I would get the work done quickly and then I would be talking to the other kids and she was ... One of the other comments was that I was a disturbing influence in the class, distracting the other kids when I was done. So she made me the ... I call it, she assigned me the role of the poet laureate for the class or whatever, but she would allow me, whenever I was done my work, she would give me one of these ... I remember the index card, like a nice size card print thing and these markers. And she would allow me to draw and create something after I was done in exchange for not talking to the other kids. And I thought, wow, that was an interesting exchange. Giving me some other creative outlet without any expectation or whatever, here I am, that's 50 years later and I still, That's a standout moment in my education. Dan: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's important to have one or two adults. I think one of the things that child psychology, that there's one or two adults that zero in on you as a child and takes interest and shows that they think you've got a big future coming. Yeah. I think that's important. Dean: Who was that for you? Dan: Well, I had a third grade teacher also. It was Ms. Miller who broke my heart because the next year she came back as Mrs. McConnell and I lost her. I lost her. Dean: Boy, oh boy. Dan: And then I think there was a seventh grade teacher and then there was an English teacher in high school and actually the school principal actually took a real interest in me. And that was important because ... I mean, in 1950s and '60s, college wasn't a big thing. It wasn't like you're getting your high school students ready for college. And first of all, I was born in the generation that was smaller than the previous generations, and that was the first one. I was in the first American generation. It went from 28 to 46, 1928 to 1946. And consequently, there was more than enough of everything when you got to school. There was more than enough personal attention. When you got into out of school and you went into the marketplace, there was more than enough jobs, there was more than enough everything. So I think I had history, wasn't particular individuals. It was just the historical period. And if you look, basically that generation from achievement wealth ... Silicon Valley was actually created by that generation. Everybody talks about the baby boomers, but it was actually that generation that created Silicon Valley. It was the people who had been born because they were mostly too young to go into the war, the Second World War. Like if you were born in 1928, when the war started, you were 13, so you didn't go into the war. And then they had that big expansion of college education with the GI Bill. And so there was a lot of emphasis on education and you just ... It was ... Remember the cartoon movie, Remembering Nemo, Finding Nemo. Yeah. Dean: Finding Dan: Nemo. Yeah. Yeah. There's that stream off east coast of Australia where if you get into the stream, you go like eight, nine miles an hour underwear. I kind of sense that that happened to my generation. We just got caught and it was good. And to this day, I feel that to this day, I was born into an abundant world and took advantage. Dean: Yeah. That's interesting, right? Because you would have been born at the tail end of the great expansion in the 20s, all that. So that's why you're saying more than enough, everybody probably ... The 20s would have probably felt like the Dan: 80s ago. Well, I was born in 44 though. I was born. Dean: No, no, I get that. But I mean, the remnants of all the stuff that was created was still there because there were less ... Dan: Yeah. I don't pay attention to competition essentially because I didn't have any. Dean: Right. Dan: The Boomers were the competitive, the real competitive, because there was not enough for everybody, and they're fiercely, fiercely competitive. And it's interesting. I mean, I think the talking about generations, the whole notion that there's an 18 year period, and that makes you something ... I think it's kind of hard to prove. It's one of those concepts. It's kind of hard to prove. In other words, if you were born right the first year of what they call a generation or you're born, you probably don't have that much in common with someone ... I was born in 44. I really didn't have that much in common with somebody who was, say, born in 1930. But we named things, so ... Dean: Yeah, exactly. Dan: It's Dean: So ... Dan: Yeah. Dean: It Dan: Is funny. The end of the second World War was a really big deal, and there's no question when the men came back from the service, and then there were a lot more babies. Dean: Imagine that. Dan: Yeah, imagine Dean: That. Imagine that. Yeah. I do take with great interest though, the demographics, like those things. You mentioned all of Silicon Valley, those people were the real founders of ... I read ... Malcolm Gladwell had a great book called Outliers. Dan: Did you Dean: Ever read that? Yeah. Dan: No, I didn't. I've read almost all of them, but I didn't read that one. Dean: Okay. So Outliers is a really fascinating thing, and it talks a little bit about what you were saying. Like you look at Steve Jobs and Bill Joy and Bill Gates, and all those guys are all the same age, right? They all arrived at just the right time in that they were ... And they had the unfair advantage of access. So Bill Gates, for instance, had unusual access to mainframe to a computer because the private school that he went to in Seattle was one of the very few schools that actually had a direct connection to a mainframe. So he had access to computing to get in his 10,000 hours of response to it. But these guys were at an age where they were ... If they were even five years or so younger, they would have gone into ... They would have been too entrenched into the mainframe world by that point to be able to be on the cusp of the personal computing Dan: World. Dean: And he talks about a lot of these things that we look at as outlier talents were really largely a factor of circumstances. Like Dan: He Dean: Starts the book with the idea that if you are aspiring to be an NHL hockey player, the Dan: Best- Be born in the first three months of the year. Dean: That's exactly right. If you're born in January, you are- January, Dan: February, March. If you look almost ... Because they're bigger nine months later. Dean: That's right. By the time ... Yeah, by the end of the year ... Yeah, they're almost a year bigger than the other ... I mean, the difference in a year when you're six or seven or 10, that's a big difference Dan: And Dean: That's when they start sorting by age group, the talent of kids. And then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because they have access to better coaching and more hours of training. So by the time everything balances out when they're 15 or 16, and the difference between a 15 and a 16 year old is not that much physically, their head and shoulders are both because they had access to all the training. Dan: And Dean: I think we're going to see this in AI. We are in the cusp of this Dan: Right Dean: Now where the kids that are just coming into college age and may completely bypass college, but go into AI, that's going to be ... It's a whole different world right now. If you're starting adulthood, economic adulthood, the opportunities are like never Dan: Before. Yeah. It's really interesting. I read a article, I think what I'm going to tell you relates to what you just said is see if I'm skillful enough to do it. But they were talking about why the sudden interest in the 20s generation, basically the 20s generation in socialism. And the thesis is that because the connection between university education and high paid employment has been broken over the last 15 years, I'd say over the last 15 years, but it had a lot of momentum. And so the universities can say, doesn't matter how much money you borrow, doesn't matter what matters, you're automatically going to go into an employment track after your four years. And it actually started to fall apart in the 08, 09, they're looking more and more at the subprime loan crisis in the United States, because we're talking about American examples here, not other countries. And it started to happen that first of all, there weren't as many jobs. There were more students, but there weren't as many jobs. And then the other thing was that the nature of college education really changed. It became much more political. It became much more cultural and not so much on hard skills. So, I'm sure that the STEM, science, technology, engineering and mathematics and that, it didn't affect them, but a lot of the others became very soft subjects. And so you were given credit for being in four years university, but not once during the four years did you actually take something that was useful in the marketplace, but it really has ... I think COVID was the real hammer that came down on that. And AI, immediately, how are people adapting AI? They're going high and low with ... If you're a company, I'm talking about corporation or big company, you're seeing what the entry level people do and you're just saying, "We're going to use AI for all the entry level." And that would be summer work too. It would be like where people can do summer work or they can do evening work or they can do weekend work. They say, "No, we're just going to use AI." But the other thing that's going very high that actually your white collar, first of all, we're talking about white collar. We're not talking about blue collar, we're talking about white claw color, and it's mostly meetings. It's mostly meetings and AI is really good at all the stuff for the scheduling, the agenda. So the top and bottom of the employment market is being taken away, seems to be right now. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing is that every 20 year old can make up its own mind. I mean, and some people notice, like college education, I can just see, you know, I talked to others in their 20s and they don't seem to be ... They're getting a degree, but the degree isn't worth much. Right. Dean: Well, I mean, you look at ... If you started, even if you look at where we are with AI, if you go back to November of 2023 when ChatGPT first came- Dan: 22. Dean: Was it 22? Yeah. Dan: 23 and I think so. Yeah. Dean: So we're three and a half years in, and it's a completely different ... I mean, every single Dan: Quarter- You may be right, and I'm wrong. I think it was 23. Yeah, Dean: Okay. Dan: November 30th, 23. Yeah. Dean: Yeah. So two and a half years, you're about halfway through getting a degree, and it's already a completely different world than it was in 2023. And you look at ... And just the constant layering on top of it that the AIs are getting better at creating and coding even better AIs, that self-improvement thing. So in four years, if you extend it now, another to November 2027, let's say, at the four year mark, imagine if you had started university in September of 23, whatever you're coming out with four years later, it's going to be a completely different world. I just saw somebody had a friend who went through a drive-through and all the orders are now being taken and done with AI. And I've seen the videos, I haven't seen it in person, of other kiosks, like the front counter where you're ordering as you're talking to a screen, where you're talking with somebody from the Philippines who you're seeing a real person taking your order and doing your things, but they are in the Philippines and you're at the counter. So you see where the- Dan: Yeah. Well, here's the thing, the Marxism thing that I want to talk about is that you can really see it with the election of Mom Donnie, the mayor of New York, That his real supporters were all college students and college graduates that they weren't ... He says the poor ... It wasn't the poor people at all. It was the highly educated, actually kind of privileged, privileged people, but their opportunity, their employment opportunity has been taken away and it's an insult to the status that they think they have that look, you know, I really bore down to do all the tests in grade school and high school and the ACTs and everything to get into the right university that if I got a diploma from that unit, that gave me high status in society and that status means nothing now in the world. And this is a profoundly unfair world and I feel oppressed, Dean: I Dan: Feel oppressed. And when people who think they're better than the marketplace does and feel enormously insulted or feel enormously cheated, Marxism, like Marxism and socialism is an attractive political agenda. Dean: And it goes back to even their parents think about what their parents went through to get them in the right preschool, so they had a good chance to get into the right elementary Dan: School. Yeah. And the thing is, they're very conformist. These are not innovative kids. And by the same token, the kids that we don't hear about are the ones who they put their finger up and they tested the win and said, "Forget what everybody else is doing. I'm going to take a separate..." So what you have, and it hasn't surfaced yet, but you have an amazingly innovative group in the same generation who haven't complained or anything. They just went about mastering AI and creating an entirely new path to the future with AI, but it won't show up right away. That won't show up right away. They're not the shouters, they're not the complainers, they're busily getting market share. Dean: Yeah. Yeah. Dan: They're listening to I love marketing. Dean: That's exactly right. That's the place to be. Dan: They're looking for their profit multipliers. Dean: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's the great thing is that the psychology of understanding human behavior, that's really what it is, is it's behavior engineering of- Dan: Well, yeah, it's behavior engineering, but each individual, I mean, the ones who win are the people who engineer their own behavior. I mean, your little checklist for yourself, "I know I'll be happy when." I Dean: Know I'm being Dan: Successful, Dean: Yeah. Dan: Is behavior engineering. I mean, you did that yourself. It's kind of funny, I'm just putting together tools for the next quarter of- Dean: Workshop. Dan: Free zone. The one I'm working right now is intentional times accidental, and you have two columns, and you have the achievements that you have that were intentional. In other words, you did some thinking, and you analyzed a way ahead, and you did it, and it was successful. And the other one is an opportunity just visited you and happened to you, and everything, but it's both. Entrepreneurial success is not one or the other. It's actually both multiplying each other, but you can't be so intentional that you screen out the accidental. Dean: Yeah. I've been thinking a lot about your certainty and uncertainty, and that's really ... Because I've been thinking about it in the context of looking back, and you don't need much of a runway, go And backwards to completely change a trajectory. Even if you had a year or less even, sometimes just seeing where things- I think three years Dan: Is the Dean: Maximum. Dan: I think three years is the maximum. We're sitting at the beginning of 26. If you go back to the beginning of 23, that's enough history to figure out almost anything that you need to do over the next three Dean: Years.That's an interesting take. So say more about that because that's ... I know we did a- Well, first of all, there's a tool, right? We did a tool about that, three years. Dan: Yeah. Well, your six year framework. So three years back, three years forward. It's part of the book, always more ambitious. Dean: Right. Dan: And my set is that I think it's capability that creates the ambition. And I said, "So if you go back over the last three years and very consciously look at the gains that you've made, the gains and go a little bit deeper." Some of them were intentional and some of them were accidental. Accidental in the sense that it just showed up for you. You met someone. I mean, number one for me is just meeting Babs in my whole life, just meeting her. And it was because I was late. There was a business conference, the room was filled except for one seat and I sat down and Babs was sitting next to me. I wasn't even sure I was going to go to this weekend event and I did ride late, just one seat left. I sat down and the rest is history. Dean: What Dan: Are you looking Dean: At? Dan: Yeah. What are you looking at? You. And so that was a big and. Dean: Exactly. Dan: Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's important for entrepreneurs to give equal importance to both. There's things that you intend and the things that ... Yeah, they just happen and you take advantage of them. Dean: Yeah. And there's Dan: So very few. Yeah. But going back to your ... If I can identify one thing that I think entrepreneurs are really weak at their past, they tend to want to get away from their past. In other words, they're always creating a bigger future because they're kind of unhappy with their ... They're kind of unhappy with their past. But all the gold is in the past. Dean: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm always amazed. We talk about these inflection points, right? Whenever we do the exercises of going back at your 10 times inflections. And when I look back over my adult life, there's only a very few really pivotal inflection vector changers that made a difference. Like you talking about meeting Babs, if I just look at ... I think it begins with Lars Echtall, the guy that was the inspiration for me switching from tennis to business as getting in that direction. Dan: How old were you when Dean: You did that? So I was 21 and we had just was playing these were called satellite tournaments for tennis, like minor league baseball equivalent kind of thing. And had just come from this tournament in Florida that Andrea Agassi won. It was his first pro tournament. This would have been in like March of 87. And he was this 15 year old blue haired kid with this rocket, forehands, and he just was head and shoulders above people. And I was looking in the satellite events, there were ... I was 21 at the time, and there were guys that were late 20s, early 30s that were still out playing the satellite circuit. I realized that's not ... If I push the accelerator pedal, I don't want to be that. And I realized that I was a little bit late as a 21 year old to be ... Because I was playing at a very high level, but I had been at the tennis academy where the 16 year old kids and stuff, like the phenoms, the top talents in the country were all at my level or better. And it was just an interesting thing because Lars had been a professional tennis player. He got to 180 in the world and had a knee injury. He was 26. And he had time off to recover. And in a moment of reflection, was thinking to himself, "I got this knee injury. I'm 26 years old. There's theoretically only 179 people in the world that are better than me at what I do. And I maybe have ... I've got a limited runway for this. I'm Getting older." And his thought was, "I wonder what the 180th ranked businessman in the world is making right now." And he immediately switched games. And my thought was how I interpreted that was that if I switched to business, like at 21, I could be Andre Agassi in business, that I would be young, I would have a head start because all my cohorts were still two years away from graduating college, my peer group. And if I went back and started in business, I would have a head start and that's exact because I could take all my things that I had developed as a tennis player, competitiveness, that dinner, that conversation ... There he is. Oh. Dan: Your last word was competitiveness. Dean: Oh, competitiveness. Yeah. So I would have my ... At 21, I had all the advantages of that, of competitiveness and energy and strategy, all of that stuff. I felt like I had a really good thing and personality. I had a lot of stuff going for me. And Lars was in the real estate business and that's what ... So he had everything that I wanted. He had the Porsche 911. He had the great house. He had the great life. And so I thought that's real estate. What I really liked about real estate too was that it was a meritocracy. It was a meritocracy. It was real. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But it was more importantly, there was nobody stopping ... You could be as good as you could be, and you were personally rewarded for doing stuff. So that was ... I look at that vector change as an amazing thing. But I think if we look back from the future, looking back to now, I think we're going to see the AI. I mean, it's a civilizational ... I don't know that there's ever been anything as big as this, as a shift in Dan: ... Yeah. I mean, printing was very definitely one of these that if you could read, you could read and write. I mean, it pretty well sorted out the literate from the illiterate really quickly, but it actually ... Within 30 years after Gutenberg, there were 30,000 printing presses all across Europe, Northern Europe. Dean: How many Dan: Years? 30,000. In 30 years, there were 30,000 printing presses. And I mean, smaller population, bigger distances, I mean, you have to take that into account, but it had a profound impact. And it just created havoc in society over the next 150 years. I mean, it would just turn things on their head. But I mean, AI is coming as a result of all the breakthroughs that happened before it. I mean, there's probably a thousand different technologies that have each been developed. Each of them was important that goes into AI. Yeah. Dean: Yeah. I just think, boy, Dan: Is- If you hadn't had the experience of the internet for the last 20 years, AI would just be something happening in somebody's lab. It wouldn't have the social impact. Yeah. Dean: I think it's going to be an accelerated impact though. I think that you're saying 30 years basically is when the consumer internet basically started, right? 96 when AOL started blanketing, trying to get everybody online. It just feels, Dan, that 30 years from now, we're not even going to recognize what ... Dan: What does that become? Well, I mean, it's interesting. I was having a conversation and people said ... I said, "It's all a surprise." I said, "If we were having a discussion on the 10th of September and 10th of September in 2001, you'd have all sorts of plans that was going to happen and everything else." And the next day changed everything, nine eleven changed everything and same thing. History is the record of everything that people weren't expecting. Dean: That's exactly right. Yeah. Dan: They don't record the stuff that they were expecting. They only record the stuff they weren't expecting, but we keep saying, "Well, it's very clear where history's going. " It's never clear where history's going, because history doesn't go anywhere. History follows behind. Dean: It's just the record. It's creating a better past. That's right. Dan: The Dean: History is what actually happened. Dan: Yeah. Yeah. People who think that they can predict the future. I mean, you know right off the bat that it's a sales pitch. They're selling something and you want to get in early on this because the window's going to close and you're not going to have a chance to do that. I would say this, but I think that making AI useful for yourself is the same as learning arithmetic and learning, reading and writing in the first grade when you get in, when I got into first grade. These are very, very important. This is a very important skill to get on board with as soon as you can. Dean: Yeah. I really like durable context. I think thinking about your thinking is going to be as valuable, like our brains aren't going to change. We're taking our brains with us and thinking about your thinking is going to be an amazingly adaptive skillset and that's what all these tools that we do in Strategic Coach and Free Zone are about. And I think that I'm really looking at the VCR formula as a durable context that it's not going to ... Envision, capability and reach are the durable contexts that are going to carry on, but the things that will fit underneath those and are access to, especially to capabilities is ... Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we had a really terrific ... I don't know if you've talked to anybody, but we had a really terrific free zone summit last Tuesday and I did it all with one tool. I did the whole day with one tool and it was just guessing, betting, and payoffs. Oh man, I love Dean: That. Yeah. Dan: Yeah. And it's a tool that we've taken in one of the quarters. I think it was last year, about this time last year. So everybody was there. We had 150 if you include both. No, there was about 30 that weren't there, about 300 free centers that weren't there. We had about 80. We're at about 110 right now, And they brought guests. So there was about 70 guests, and so I just started off and I said, "Look, we're going to do a little thinking exercise here." And I brainstormed, "What are the best guesses and bets that produced a payoff that you had?" And everybody brainstormed for a couple minutes. I said, "Okay, so let's take five of them." And I had my example and they looked at it and everything and we got that all finished in about five minutes. They got it all filled in and then they went into breakout groups and then they came back and I said, "Okay, that gets you started for the day. Now we're going to have six people and you have their sheets." So I had John Bowen, I had Chad Jenkins, I had Mike Wandler, I had Jerry Browder, I had John Kissel, and I had Ted Kerr, and they had filled in their forms previously, and then they just came up 20, 25 minutes each and I just interviewed them, biggest guests and bet that got you to where you are today, next biggest guess and bet. And then we just talked and did three of them in the morning, did three of them in the afternoon, and then we had a panel of all six of them. Oh, Dean: That's great. Dan: Yeah. And then at the end of the day, everybody filled in the rest of their sheet, next guesses. I've never pulled off an entire day with one tool, and that was really great. But I think there's just something unusual about that tool in the sense that it gives you a language right at the end. There's guesses, guesses are just thoughts. Bets, you're taking a risk with- What are you going to do? Yeah. You're not taking a risk with a guest, you're taking a risk with the Dean: Better Dan: Because it's money, it's time, it's attention, and then there's all the other things that you're saying you're not paying attention to while you're betting, and then you get a payoff. So I think what held it together was the fact that everybody had this guest bet and pay off during the day, and I think that really pulled it off. Yeah. But it was great. Beautiful, beautiful resort. It was really nice, and the weather was great, and yeah. Dean: What were the two or three highlights of what people's guesses and bets? Any standouts? Dan: I think Mike Wandler surprised everybody because he's really into nuclear and everybody's sort of ... And he's got a head start on everybody because he can actually manufacture this stuff. He's doing the ... They're bringing back a hundred nuclear plants around the ... I mean, the whole country is, but Mike is in on the ground floor with us and they've been shut down some of them for 20, 30 years, so they need all entirely new materials and Mike can manufacture it and everything. But I think that really wowed people, that really wowed people. And I think the second thing is just how well the tool worked, how well the tool worked. And number three, I think Chad Jenkins caught everybody's attention, and I think he had a lot of people come up to him afterwards and said, "When is this conference of yours? And what's the software you've created?" And everything like that. So I think that would be the three top ones. Dean: Yeah. I'm bullish on the VCR formula as a collaboration platform. I just see it guessing and betting that's the way. And I think the whole ... Yeah, and our access to capabilities is really in a way that allows us to stay in our unique abilities, that's where everybody's at there. That's the jet stream, right? It's only when people are forced outside of their unique ability that there's friction. And to Dan: The Dean: Extent you can surround yourself with other jet stream enabled unique abilities that in collaboration, that's a Dan: Fantastic thing. It's funny, the day before Mike, Mike Koenigs put on the 3R AI and he asked me to do a tool, so I did it. And I did up in your game where you take a look at all your activities, doing activity inventory, and there's the activities that the ones that irritate you, then there's okay activities. They don't irritate you, but they don't excite you either. They're just activity. And then third one is fascinating, but what happened, Mike talked for about an hour and a half, and he just wowed them what he can do in 20 minutes, take other people six months to do, and he can do it in 20 minutes. And so we took a break and I came back and I said, "Okay, now I'm going to give you a thinking process where you can just avoid everything that Mike is talking about. " And you can get smart humans between you and the technology. I said, "What you want is smart humans." Dean: Yes, Dan: That Dean: Is Dan: Exactly Dean: Right. Dan: So Mike's a real smart human. You'd want Mike between you and the technology. Dean: Yes, exactly. Dan: Because Dean: There's no way you're going to compete with that. I mean, it's who, not how.That's the thing, right? Dan: Well, he's Andre Agassi. Yes, Dean: You're Dan: Exactly Dean: Right. Dan: Yeah. In one minute, I'll tell you an experience I had when I was in the army, we took care of the entertainment of half of South Korea in the eighth army. And one of our entertainers was Doreen Tracy, who was one of the original mousketeers. And so I spent three days, I was just chatting with her because we were bus riding to about five different bases. And anyway, she really impressed me because she was, at that point, she was like 20, she would have been maybe 22 years old. And she said, "This is the last time I'm ever going to be entertaining in my life. This is my last gig." And she said, "I'm only a featured entertainer because of who I was when I was 13 years old." And she said, "I'm not any better than I was when I was 13." I was way better than other 13 years old, but I'm not any better than I was when I was 13. She said, "That can't be my career." And she said, "I have to go back and start over again." But it's like you switching from tennis to real estate. She just had this sense, she said, "There's a lot of sad stories of people trying to be in their 40s who they were when they were a child star." And she said, "I can't do that. " She went back and she became a talent manager for Warner Brothers and spent 40 years as a top talent manager in Hollywood. Dean: Which is such a great awareness and shift, right? Yeah. Dan: Very positive and pleasant person to meet. I mean, she was very, very ... I mean, she was total extrovert. She was just totally extroverted. Yep. She said, "You just got to see the writing on the wall." And she said, "I know that ... " She said, "I know I got a shift." And that was the last time I saw her. And I didn't really think of her and I didn't look at her until the internet came in and she had done her 40 years and then she created a jazz and jazz and blues club in Hollywood, but she had a lot of famous, a lot of people that she was managing Frank Zappa, she had Frank Zappa was- Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Dean: That's crazy. Dan: Yeah. Dean: But think about at 22, that's pretty good insight on her part to have that awareness. Dan: Pretty self-aware tremendously. It always impressed me. I said that person tells themselves the truth, but it's kind of like she didn't have our identity tied up with ... I mean, people, you know, athletes who live off five years of their life, for the rest of their life, they live off a five year period of their Dean: Life. Dan: Yes, Dean: Very true. Dan: Yeah. Dean: I love it. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah. So a quick update on the inevitability experiments that this putting the phone in the lockbox has become a locked in behavior now. It's like I've done it enough that it's the go- to and locked in. So now I can move on to other things, but I think moving towards ... I really see this moving towards inevitability is the ... That's the thing that can Dan: Ensure Dean: What you want to have happen happens. And even with ... I look at ... I was up sharing with Joe Polish. I was telling him about Mr. Beast had a experiment, a video where I had a guy, they built this building that had a gym and living quarters and kitchen and a track around the outside of it and a basketball court and all the equipment and everything. And the challenge was that you move in to the building and you lose a hundred pounds or leave. And if you lose a hundred pounds, you win $250,000, right? Wow. Yeah, yeah. And so it was like he completely under ... In an environment that was a hundred percent conducive to what the goal was. And he had a personal trainer. He had all the food, like a whole grocery store basically in the thing of all of the whatever food he wanted Dan: To Dean: Cook the food. So they removed any outside distraction that added inevitability to it. And in six months, he lost the hundred pounds. And it's an interesting- Dan: This is Mr. Beast who did it? Dean: Mr. Beast set up the environment, but it was Someone ... He did the video. It was his challenge, right? So he did that same thing. He's got a lot of his videos have a pattern where it's like a hundred days where you have to To stay in this thing for a hundred, you're artificially constraining outside influences. And that's where I think that that's inevitability. If the only food you have access to is healthy, good food, and you've got a chef there to prepare it for you and there's nothing to do but work out or play basketball or walk around the track or whatever the things, all the healthy behaviors. It's no wonder it works out. Dan: I mean, plus there's 250,000 too. Dean: Well, that's exactly right. And by the time he won, because he kept adding additional challenges on it. So in the six months he won $400,000. Dan: That's cool. That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is day 75 of my creating great yesterdays. Dean: I love it. Yeah. It's such a great- Dan: Best three months of my life. Dean: Oh, that's great. Leor will be happy to hear that. Dan: Yeah. No, I talked to Leor. I talked to Leo about it. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting because I've sort of cracked the code on ADD. Dean: Well, yeah. I'm excited to hear that. Dan: Yeah. Well, ADD is where you emotionally commit to a future possibility that doesn't exist. It would be okay if it was one of them, but it's 10 of them. Dean: Yeah, that's exactly right. That Dan: They're all modeling. They're all in competition with your present attention. Dean: Yes. Yes. That's the truth. And so what- Dan: I haven't done that for 75 days and it's really cool. It's just talk to Dean at 10:00. I got Jeff Madoff at one o'clock. I've got a couple tasks to do. I emptied the dishwasher, put all the dishes away. I had a massage this morning. I've got 10 things that are available today to have a great yesterday. Dean: Are you in Chicago or Toronto? Dan: Toronto. Toronto. Dean: Yeah. Oh, that's great. I Dan: Love that. Anyway, it's going to be 1:47. Let's Dean: Explore that more. I'm going to commit to ... That'd be my thing is I'm going to experiment with that to make seven days Dan: Of Dean: Creating a better past. And I'll report next week. Dan: All right. Dean: Thanks, Dan. Dan: Talk to you next week. Bye. Dean: Okay. Bye.

The way you structure your time shapes everything else, including who else can reach you, and when. In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we get into two parallel time experiments that Dan and Dean are running, Dan's 70-day practice of using each day to "create a great yesterday," and Dean's intermittent phone fasting that divides the day into clear, protected zones. Dan traces the origin of his approach to a story from Leora Weinstein, who shifted his focus entirely from the uncertain future to building a reliable past, one day at a time. The result? His most productive December and January on record, and a measurable shift away from last-minute scrambling. They also explore how abundance, whether it's 14 kinds of corn flakes or an infinite choice of tasks, can paralyze decision-making rather than free it. The conversation moves through Dan's "Upping Your Game" tool (an evolution of the A/B/C model), AI bots taking on their creators' personalities, the surprising legal and real estate ripple effects of data centers, and a listener book recommendation about the history of money. Dan makes the case that the real cure for future anxiety isn't better planning, it's higher consciousness in the present. There's something almost game-like about committing to a better past each morning, and both Dan and Dean are finding that the scoreboard doesn't lie. This one's worth your time. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dan's 70-day "great yesterday" practice turned December and January into his most productive months ever. Dean's intermittent phone fasting from 10 PM to noon creates four protected daily zones for deeper focus. Future anxiety may simply be a symptom of low present consciousness, not a problem that better planning solves. Dan's upgraded "Upping Your Game" tool helps identify which activities to eliminate, tolerate, or expand and where AI can step in as the "who." An East German twin's paralysis in front of 14 varieties of cornflakes illustrates how abundance without criteria leads to retreat, not freedom. AI chatbots tend to reflect the personality of the person who created them, including their blind spots and biases. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean Jackson: Welcome to Cloud Landia, Mr. Sullivan. Hello there. There he is. From the West Coast. Dan Sullivan: Yes, I am straight Dean Jackson: To Cloud Landia. Cloud Landia is accessible from all points. Dan Sullivan: Yes, yes. But where you're sending from does make a difference. So I had a question for you. Dean Jackson: Tell me Dan Sullivan: From your experience, because you've had both, what's worse, 23 degrees Fahrenheit in Orlando, or minus 10 degrees in Toronto? Dean Jackson: Well, I will tell you this, that it came to the point last week that I actually had to wear pants one day. And so yeah, there's that, which I don't prefer, but today is a beautiful, we're right back now up to, let's see, it's 71 and sunny, probably similar to what you have right this moment. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, we're probably there. Yeah, the door is open. I'm looking out at, it's a nice place. I don't know if you've ever been here. Which one? La Jolla. Estancia. Dean Jackson: Yes. I've been to Estancia. Yeah, it's very Dan Sullivan: Nice. Nice place. Yeah. Yeah. We gotten in here just about this time yesterday, just a casual afternoon. Went to a really nice place, Maxima, who was with you last week? Maxima. And we went to an old hotel called the Empress Hotel. Dean Jackson: I know where that is. Dan Sullivan: Really nice restaurant. Dean Jackson: Oh, that's great. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, it's good. Dean Jackson: So the crowd is gathering. Dan Sullivan: I don't know if any of the clients are in yet. Our team just came in. I was sitting in the lobby. Lobby. And so half our team. Yes, Dean Jackson: Please. When is the actual, so you are in La Jolla, California for the Free Zone Summit, and that is on Tuesday is the actual day? Dan Sullivan: Well, it really starts Dean Jackson: Monday night. Dan Sullivan: Well, it starts Monday afternoon because Mike Kix is going to put on an AI from three to five o'clock. And then, Dean Jackson: Oh, there you go. Dan Sullivan: Then the Pacific Dean Jackson: Starts right in his backyard. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Pretty well. Pretty well. And he's going to use one of our tools for part of his presentation. We have, I don't know if you remember an old tool. It was called the A BC model, and the A represented activities that you find really irritating. You hate them. Dan Sullivan: Yes. Dan Sullivan: And B represents okay activities that you don't hate them, you don't love them, you're just doing them more or less as a matter of habit. But it takes up your time and attention, and then they see as fascinating and motivating. And then you apportion what amount of time do you think you're spending on A and also B, and also C right now, and then a year from now, where would you want your time allocation? But I changed it, upgraded it, and it's called Upping Your Game. And then you brainstorm for each of the three categories, and then you talk about the top three changes you're going to make with a top three for B and top three with C. And then Mike's going to show how that relates to ai, where AI is the who. Oh, I like that. Yeah. Yeah. So Dean Jackson: I like that. I mean, yeah, that's great. I always had to mix in my mind, we're used to A being the good thing and C being the less than thing. So I had to always flip that in my mind that the C is actually the good thing in this model, but the sentiment of it I love, and it's similar. It's like you could overlay the unique ability, unique ability, and the things you you're excellent at and the things you're, Dan Sullivan: And in some ways, that's almost the essence of coach. And so it's been a couple, it's simple, but not necessarily easy. Dean Jackson: That's the truth. That is the truth. Dan Sullivan: Simple. But not necessarily could be easy, but not necessarily. Dean Jackson: Yeah, it's easy. Yeah. It's nice when you look at it just to be crystal clear, right? That fits with your, I've been using your model of is there any way for me to get this result without doing anything? That would be the A plus for me of these. Right? And then, yeah, what's the least amount Dan Sullivan: That I, that's a model that's a little closer to where I am right now, that the a c model, I think the A, b, C model is about 15 years old. And the question, the three questions, I think is about two years. So one of them is repair of the past. The other one is it's sort of I'm not going to do anything in the future. Right, right, right. Yeah. I'm going to expand and grow and jump without me doing anything at all. Dean Jackson: That's even better with your mind. With your mind, yes. Prompting. But I think that's the magic of that is knowing what you want, knowing that this is what I want, but is there any way for me to get it without doing anything? I think that's fantastic. So Max was here in Orlando at Celebration last week. We had a breakthrough blueprint, and we actually, we had about a half size group. We lost people that were stranded in North Carolina, the freeze in New Jersey, the deep freeze or whatever. One of they showed me it was a hundred car pile up in Charlotte, a hundred car pile up. I mean, you could see that's like the ice. Everybody's sliding into each other. That's kind of crazy. I don't prefer it. Every time that kind of stuff happens, it makes me more resolute in my snow free millennium Dan Sullivan: Commitment. Dean Jackson: I'm quite enjoying that. That's the right way to do it. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, I think people are really built differently, but I so love the change of seasons that I wouldn't be tempted like La Jolla here. I mean, there isn't much here that would give you the kind of resistance that you would actually develop character. Dean Jackson: Well, the only thing Dan would be the traffic. The traffic trying to get out of La Jolla at any time in rush hour. But other than that, you don't have to leave La Jolla or get into it. It's perfection. Yeah, Dan Sullivan: I, I don't feel any of Newton's third law here, third law for every action, there's an opposite and equal. I'm just not getting the equal reaction here. It's just all easy. I mean, how can you develop character when everything's Dean Jackson: Just, well, you have to develop. What you have to do is develop the character in order to get to be there. That's the real thing. Somebody said that San Diego, especially LA and the coastal areas have gotten unreachable for average Americans or the things, and it's like my first thought was, well try harder. I mean, that's not, LA Jolla doesn't owe anybody anything to be affordable. Why Dan Sullivan: Now would you count $40 for bagel and Lve? Exactly. Choice. That was my choice. This morning. I said, I'd like to have the bagel and locks, Dan Sullivan: And Dan Sullivan: They said, well, it's a buffet. You can put together your own bagel and locks. But what if I just want the bagel and locks? Dan Sullivan: Doesn't matter Dan Sullivan: How much is, well, first of all, how much is the buffet? It's $40. And I says, well, what if I just want the bagel and Lux? It's 40. Dean Jackson: Right, exactly. Dan Sullivan: And it's not even bagel, it's actually Bagel Crisps. So they've taken a bagel and they've cut it into 10 pieces and crisp it. Dean Jackson: Okay. Dan Sullivan: But it's actually quite good. It's actually Dean Jackson: Good Melba toast in a way. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. It's like Melba toast, but it's bagel. It's got a nice taste to it. So I had five of them. I had five of them Dean Jackson: Get your money's worth. Dan Sullivan: I wasn't heavy on the locks. I had a big let or whatever they call 'em, a crisp. I had one of those. And then you put on the cream cheese and you put on the tomato, and then you put on a healthy, healthy portion of lox. So I wouldn't have eaten that much if I just had a bagel, but since I got five of the fins, I just decided to load up on the cargo. Dean Jackson: Yeah, there you go. I've been telling you, but you know what I was looking at, there's a reason that people who could live anywhere in America choose to live in San Diego. It's the very best weather that's available if you're looking for a place that's room temperature all year. Dan Sullivan: Mike Kig has gotten above that because he lives down on the pen. Pen. I just can't put up with those cool mornings in San Diego. Oh, Dean Jackson: That's so funny. I kept thinking that I might have to get a place down south to get out of here, but we're back in the normal now. But it's, it's been a couple of weeks since we last recorded, and I've been really locked in on the intermittent phone fasting and the inevitability of that is a win. So I mean, those times have just become, everything is falling into a place on that. I mean, it's by starting an hour, kind of an hour before bed and then going all the way till noon. It's just such nice margins. It gives me time to be just in my own world and hindered by the siren call of the dopamine box. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Well, first of all, I just feel that if you change your time structure, you change many other things when you change your time structure. But the other thing is you're also changing other people's habits too, because they want to phone you and get you, and you've taken 14 hours off the dial and they can't get to you directly. I mean, they can leave a message or something like that, but a lot of people, they won't phone you if they can't get you right away. Dean Jackson: Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. But it's very little of the times 10:00 PM till 10:00 AM basically, you've got lots of leeway there that nobody's really expecting that they're going to reach you at that time. But the mornings, sometimes people want to have to reach you, but I've never found that it takes me more than 10 minutes to catch up when I take my phone out. I may have, I would say on average three or four texts, maybe seven at the most, and then a bunch of emails, but really only three or four that are personally meant for you or need some attention, and that's it. So the trade off has been amazing. Just the freedom of that. I sleep better, feel more. I feel like it's almost like playing a zone. I've really got, it's almost like four quarters in the thing of the 10:00 PM till noon. I count that as the first zone because I've really found that that's the start of the day, I think is how I end the day before. And then zone two is from noon to six where any of the time commitments or other people that I'm talking to All happen in that on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and it's six o'clock till 10 o'clock when the phone goes away, that's all me or whatever. That's my reading and thinking and watching Netflix or whatever I want to do. But it's such a nice rhythm. I've been looking back, I think I've shared with you periodically. I look back at my collection of journals and I'll just randomly pull something and it's amazing how consistently true to that kind of desired rhythm, that is my real preference. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, Dan Sullivan: I was just reflecting on, I've been on a time experiment too, using today to create a great, yesterday Dean Jackson: I have questions, Dan Sullivan: And this is day 70 that I've done that and it's had a real impact on me. It's very interesting. It's actually going to be a book. It's going to be not this quarter's book, but it'll be next quarter's book. Because I find that when I describe what I'm doing, people are really interested in it. And I've had some people adopt it immediately and they report back and say, this makes a big difference. And so just to fill in those who don't know what I'm talking about, it actually comes from Leora Weinstein. And Leora was talking about sort of a parents' conference where on the last night of the conference, people were talking about how devoted they were and committed to making sure their children had a great future, and Leore took a different approach. And he said, well, I really don't know much about the future. It's pretty unpredictable, and I really don't know what my children are going to do with their future. So I just focus on making sure that my children have a great past. And that thought really hit me at the time. So it was almost a year and a half before I did anything with that thought. And I said, I'm just going to work on having great yesterdays. So when I get up in the morning, my whole job that day is to utilize, is to be as conscious and to be as productive as I can. So that tomorrow morning, this is a great yesterday, Dan Sullivan: And Dan Sullivan: I've done, so I'm working on my 71st. Great. Yesterday, and it truly has been, when I look back to the beginning of December when I started this, December was by far the most productive December I've ever had. January was the most productive I ever had. And already in February, I can see this is going to be the best February if I can continue what I'm doing. But one thing I've noticed, because I do have a DD and I've not been a DD for 70 days now. Dean Jackson: Wow. I mean, that's awesome. And you've been off your vitamin a regimen too for some time. Yeah, quite a long time. I'm very curious because since we talked about it last time, I've had the questions and I was curious about the way that you record it because you were saying something that you were saying no of something not. Yeah. So can you describe that Dan Sullivan: To me again? Yeah. So yeah, I'm just looking at my place where I record the activities. I'm just looking at it right now. First thing in the morning, I get up and I take a pill that I've got a, what's called, what is it called? It's something that's a tremor, but it's in my right arm and there's a pill I take called propranolol. Dan Sullivan: Tremor be Dan Sullivan: Gone. Yeah, tremor be gone. I take it and then for about four or five hours, but if I don't, my fingers are a little jangly, and I've had it checked out. I know there's some word, and I checked. I haven't checked out every year, and there's no increase in it. And it's got a name, Dean Jackson: Something tremor. I know there's a word for it, it I've heard that too. Word for it. Word. Dan Sullivan: And if I take the medication, I don't have it. So if I'm appearing in public or that I take it about an hour beforehand and everything's good. So I take that. And then I have a thing called the hustle drops. Do you know what hustle drops are? Dean Jackson: Yeah, the peppermint. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, it's a mint mix. It's a mint mix. They got six different mints. It's called hustle drops. And I just take, you got a little thing that squeezes and it goes up. Dan Sullivan: Yep. The dropper. Dan Sullivan: Yep, the dropper. And I just give it a full dropper, and then I'm awake, I'm really awake. And then at home, when I go around right now, if I was back in Toronto, the first thing I get out of bed, I go downstairs, we have four gas fireplaces and in the main house, and I turn one on in the bedroom. Then there's one in the dining room, one in the living room, and one in the basement. And we're going to be up and down over the next couple hours. So I turn those on, turn all the lights, and I make sure the temperature, I put it up to 70, and then I go back and I get back into bed. So that's my morning routine. And then we get up and we have, it's a very interesting thing. It's from Dr. Good now. He lives in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and he's got a thing called prodrome, P-R-O-D-R-O-M-E, prodrome. And they're tablets. They're not a prescription tablet. It's not a, but what it does is that it increases brain clarity. So you take them at night before you go to bed and you take them for thing in the morning. So I do that, but I'm just giving you, these are very, very small things Dan Sullivan: That Dan Sullivan: I'm talking about, but what I notice is every day when I do it, I'm more and more conscious that I'm doing them. So my consciousness of every everyday's activities has grown very significantly over the last. And my feeling is the more conscious you are of the present, the less you're bothered by the future. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, that's true. Because it's all there is, Dan Sullivan: And it doesn't matter what you're conscious of, what I've discovered in the last 70 days, it doesn't matter. Well, that's an important activity. People will say, well, I am conscious of the really important activities, but I don't spend any time to the, it doesn't matter what you're conscious about. Consciousness in itself is a reward. Dean Jackson: Yes. Yeah. And that's the thing that the focus on creating a better past is that brings it into, there's a certain finality about that. What I've found is that whatever I am doing right now is what's going on. The permanent record. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, Dean Jackson: It's real. Yeah, exactly. Dan Sullivan: It's actually real. You actually did it. Yeah. But there is a buildup. I noticed there's a momentum that it seems week by week I'm getting more done with more concentrated conscious experience. So it's got a really nice feel to it. And the other thing is I have a schedule. I'm a very well scheduled man, but I'm not the scheduler. Somebody else is the scheduler. And so today I take a look at everything that's going to happen between now and next Saturday, and then throughout the week, I'm trying to, whatever it is that's required on Thursday, I'll have it done on Tuesday, where before I'm waiting until the last minute to, because Dan Sullivan: Me Dan Sullivan: Too. Yeah. So I've noticed that I'm getting things done more ahead of time, and I mean, it doesn't feel I've been a lifetime last minute guy getting things done, done too. And that's changed. That's changed over the last 70 days because I get credit for doing it. I mean, if I do it on Tuesday, to a certain extent, it feels good to be ahead of the deadline anyway. I'm just playing with it. I think before I go, well, I'm going to write a book on it. I've got enough, I'll do it. But I'm not sure how I would bring it into the workshop except by talking about it. I don't think there's anything to it except just remind yourself first thing in the morning that you're, today is about creating a great yesterday. Dean Jackson: Yeah. I mean, I think that's an amazing thing. I pulled out from our Joy of procrastination days. I was just sitting down about 15 minutes before we were scheduled to do our podcast, and I realized, okay, I'm heading over to a celebration and I need to pack. Packing is one of those things. That's the last minute think. But I realized, okay, I played the little game. I came back out, Hey, I've got a 10 minute unit here that I could make a in the packing. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Dean Jackson: Yeah. That was because it's local. I mean, I'm just right down the street, which is different than going on the thing, but it still has to get, you still have to pack up the stuff. So that 10 minute, going back to the 10 minute Jacksonian units that I used that, and there's an interesting urgency to it when you are positioning it before, there's no room for daily daling because I've, you and I are going to do our podcast, and so I had just enough time to do that and then get back and sit and get centered. Yeah. So I love those. It's fun how you get to, I want to say gamify it in a way, right? That's really what we're doing is we're, Dan Sullivan: Both of us are gaming. We're turning it into a game and no use playing the game if it's not fun. Dean Jackson: Right. That's exactly right. And here we are. I look at that. I look back, today's journal selections were from 2009, and it was fun to look back and see the same thing. Always trying to lay out the rhythm. And here I am 17 years later, and it's the same. I still have the same desire, and I imagine 22 years from now, that's going to be the same thing. Do you find anything different about the way you're approaching or gamifying time as an 82 almost year old than what you were doing at 60? Dan Sullivan: Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. Dean Jackson: What would be the difference, do you think? Dan Sullivan: Well, first of all, I wasn't talking to Dean Jackson every one, every two weeks back then, and yeah, just a lot of things. I hadn't written all the books, I had created all the tools, and that's actually all happened in my seventies. Probably the most productive, regular activities that I'm doing right now all happened after I was 70. Dean Jackson: That's encouraging. That's kind of an interesting thing to realize that when you're up against a fixed platform, I mean, that time itself, as we've talked about it, is moving at the speed of reality constantly, and that's not going to change. That. There's always going to be the sun rising and setting and 24 hours in a day and seven days in a week. That's a fixed framework, and you can use those any way you want. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. What's your relationship with reality? Dean Jackson: Yeah, exactly. That's the thing though, is I think what I discovered is that I think planning for the future and reflecting on the past and all of those things are really, it's not reality. The only reality is what you're putting on the permanent record. That's the thing. Your intentions aren't recorded unless you're journaling. You can journal your intentions and desires and wishes and thoughts and stuff, but that's not getting in the ledger. It's below the surface. You're not putting your mark. That's a good way of thinking about it, is that time happens front of stage is what gets put on the permanent record in a way. Right? Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I think that there's a lot of gap and gain, lot of gap and gain quality to what we're talking about, because generally, before I started this new time experiment, let's say we go to a month earlier, I started this right around the 1st of December, so the 1st of October, I was still operating the way I had operated for my whole life and feeling a real time pressure, feeling a real time pressure. Now that I'm not doing it anymore, I can notice the difference of how thinking about the future, actually, I'm really not thinking too much about the future. What I noticed is I said, if I'm real conscious today, the future will kind of take care of itself. Dan Sullivan: And Dan Sullivan: It suggests to me that the reason why the future seems so uncertain and maybe even a cause for anxiety with a lot of people is that they're, they're actually not getting much consciousness out of the present. Dean Jackson: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I see that that's where that's a lot of, I find that for me, especially if I look back that a lot of the times and a lot of the time that I have allocated for focusing is has been that I'm there and I'm ready to focus, but I don't know what I'm going to focus on. So therefore, I spend that time figuring out what I want to focus on. And so I'm really trying to identify what is it that I really want to put on the permanent record today? Because you only get that chance. You only have the, once this time is gone, it's like the record is written. And so I think that's kind of a fun, it adds the gaming, it's almost like it makes your approach to life like being a contestant in Supermarket Sweep. You can sweep up all the stuff and put it your basket, but when the clock stops, you get what was in the basket. Dan Sullivan: What I was curious about, Dan, the person who checks out with the highest grocery bill is the winner. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. It was really interesting. The reason I'm telling you this story is that it played, it was central to a conversation I was having with Mark Young. I had a podcast with Mark on Tuesday, and there was a story, I think it might've been the New York Times, the magazine, the New York Times Sunday magazine, and it was about twin sisters who were born in East Germany, and they were identical twins, identical twins. And when they were about 18, one of them said, I heard that they're going to create a wall and they're going to close us down and we're going to get trapped here. The other sisters said, well, how would that make any difference? How would that actually, because it was already communist controlled already. And the one sister said, you got to come. We got to be in West Berlin in the next couple of days because they're going to put a wall and we won't be able to get out of East Berlin. And they went back and forth, but the one sister just decided to go, and the other one stayed behind, and then they didn't see other, see each other again for what was 60, 62, I think. So it was like 62 to 90 that they didn't see each other. Dean Jackson: Unbelievable. Dan Sullivan: And meanwhile, the sister who had gone to West Berlin had kept going, and she ended up in Iowa. She was in Iowa, she was in Iowa. And so finally she went back. As soon as the wall went down, she went back and she visited with her sister, and she says, now you've got to come to Iowa. So that's the setup of the story. And then the story of the sister arriving in Iowa and being picked up at the airport, she says, we're just going to stop and do some shopping on the way home. Dean Jackson: Oh, man. Dan Sullivan: It's one of those supermarkets that when they built it, they had to take into account the curvature of the earth. Yeah, Dan Sullivan: Right. Dan Sullivan: Exactly. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. 16 rows each of them a quarter mile long. Yeah, right. But not the biggest supermarket in the world, just the local big one. So she says, well, is there anything I can do? She says, yeah, go down to aisle 14, and if you turn on your left, you'll see corn bikes. Right. I'll meet you right back here at such and such a time. And the time comes up, and the East German sister isn't back yet. And so she goes down and she's standing in front of the cereal. She was on the cereal aisle, and she said, there are 14 kinds of corn flakes. She said, how do you ever choose? How do you ever choose? And she says, well, you just take away. She said, I haven't tried all 14. I've tried three or four, and I like this one. But she says, well, how do you make the decision that you like? Dean Jackson: Unbelievable. Right? Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And she went back to East Germany and she never came back. Dean Jackson: Oh my Dan Sullivan: Goodness. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Just when you're surrounded with total abundance, how do you get specific? Dean Jackson: Yeah, that's true. Right. I think that's something about that I face in time decisions like that is with full autonomy on what to choose to work on or whatever. There's over choice. So many interesting and fun things you could, with Dan Sullivan: Corns, you just add sugar and they all taste the same. Dean Jackson: Exactly. I heard a comedian talking about that in the north, there's a supermarket chain called MAs, and he said he was in a MAs so big, they built a Walmart in the mayors, and he talked about that, being able to see the curvature of the earth Dan Sullivan: Within it. Yeah. So funny. You can actually see the horizon. Two thirds of the way down the aisle. Dean Jackson: I had, I was playing tennis. I had a doubles partner from Sweden, and he was in the same boat looking at all of the different choices of everything at the supermarkets. So funny, he called them cereals, though. That was always the fun thing. They didn't understand plural without an S. So it was all with cereals. So funny. Dan Sullivan: But this shows you that I suspect the future is going to be more choice. In other words, as we go along, I don't think they're going to be making less, fewer things. I think they're going to be making more things. And your engagement with any one of them is going to take time, and it's going to take time. Dean Jackson: You may as well. That's the thing. I look at all the things that are coming now with ai. Now they have, I don't know whether you've heard about Claude Bot. Yeah, I have. I have. Okay. So the funniest thing, Dan Sullivan: Choose your capability. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Wild, right, that vision. Do you know Vish? Ani? Yeah. Yeah. So V was sharing that he built a Claude bot, gave her a name and very much like Charlotte, and she's been teaching him Spanish and in a Spanish voice and all these things, but he gave her a Twitter account and set up this whole outlets for her. And apparently now there's a notebook or something where it's like a social network for Dan Sullivan: Bot social network for the bots. Yeah. Dean Jackson: Yeah, exactly. And she chose not to join in because she didn't like the way some of the bots were talking about their owners. Dan Sullivan: She Dean Jackson: Didn't think it was a productive environment. And I thought, oh my goodness. It's such a, wow. This is wild. Dan Sullivan: It's an interesting theme that your bot will take on your personality. And so if the person who creates the bot really doesn't like people, I bet, I bet their chatbot doesn't really like people. Dean Jackson: Yeah, it's really, that's true. There was Dan Sullivan: Actually Michael Conley, who's one of my favorite detective story, homicide detective. Story writer, and it all takes place in Los Angeles, which I can believe that almost anything bad that can happen in the world can happen in Los Angeles at all times. Yeah, at all times. Yes. Yeah, go ahead. Dean Jackson: No, I was going to say just as to support what you were saying there, as with John Carlton, and we were at Neil Strauss's house overlooking the city, and John Carlton, just in a moment of clarity, it was at night all the lights and we're seeing the whole city before us. And he goes, isn't it something that anything one human can do to another human is happening right now in front of us? Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's just got abundant possibilities for detective murder plots. Murders. That's what I'm saying. Anyway, think about that. This story, this is his last one, Michael Conley and his most recent one, it's not his last one, but it's his most recent one. So a teenage girl is killed by her. He was angry and he's arrested and he's in for first degree murder. Her mother of the girl sues an AI company because the boy who is the murderer had a chatbot who encouraged him to murder the girl. So this is the basic pot, but it goes even further than that. It goes past the chatbot, back to the programmer who was an incel who hated women, and he encouraged the boy that it's just you and me, just you and me. The we're the partnership here, and she's threatening, she's rejecting you, and so you have to take whatever steps and they're going to blow this guy high and the AI company S for 60 million, not to have it go in court. But it really is interesting because it brings up that you can talk all Yvonne about ai, ai, ai it. I mean, you can put 50 layers of AI between yourself and the world, but I have to tell you, if it gets serious enough, it'll be tracked back through all those AI programs. Human, yeah. Have Dean Jackson: You ever programmed it? Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I noticed, but I found it interesting because there's two things that I'll predict about ai. One of them, in the end, the lawyers will make a lot of money. Dean Jackson: Oh, man. Yeah. It's just waiting for this to happen. Dan Sullivan: I mean, if it touches on all kinds of human knowledge and human behavior, there's going to be crime there. There's going to be crime, there's going to be conflict and everything like that. I'm sure there's really forward thinking law firms now that are getting all set up for AI law. Dean Jackson: I think you're right. Bot law, there was a, yeah, protection for bot law. Dan Sullivan: Oh, the other one, the real estate agents, they'll make a lot of money too. Dean Jackson: Oh man. Yeah. Well, Dan Sullivan: Think about where a new data center is going in. I mean, any place and these big data centers. I think the moment you have a data center, you have a new local economy because there's going to be all sorts of professions that we don't even know about that are connected to data centers. They're going to have to have a place to live. There's going to be shopping. There's going to be shopping around them. Dean Jackson: I noticed since we last talked, Elon announced that they are stopping production of the Model X and the Model S cars in order to free up resources for optimist robots. So they're going to stop making the x. I just picked up my new model X last on Friday, Thursday. Thursday. I felt a little like the guy. Dan Sullivan: It's a collector site. It's instantly a collector site. Dean Jackson: Now it's the last year. That's exactly right. The last model. Dan Sullivan: This is the first 1951 Mickey Mantle card that came in. Dean Jackson: Yeah, Dan Sullivan: Exactly. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. No, you have the last of the Xs. Dean Jackson: That's exactly right. But I felt there's a meme that shows a guy at the Christmas tree with a red plaid shirt on opening up a present of the identical red plaid shirt, and the meme says, exchanging my iPhone 14 for iPhone 15, or upgrading my iPhone. It's the exact same. I feel like it's funny, although I did go with lunar silver this time instead of white, but it's always nice. It's got that new car smell, but so I have now 78 miles on the odometer dam. I've been going crazy. Dan Sullivan: Well, yeah, we still have our 17, so ours is Dean Jackson: Thousand 17. It looks wonderful. I mean, there's the thing, right? Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And ours we're just approaching 8,000 miles. Wow. That's Dean Jackson: Crazy. That's wild. Even that's only been going to the cottage then. Must be Dan Sullivan: Right? The cottage. Yeah. Babs made one trip to Michigan, which was, it was probably 500 miles to get there. Way up in the northwest corner of Michigan from Toronto. It's about 500 miles. And because it's an older Tesla and we might get 220 miles because the battery does decline, and she got nervous, so she had to recharge twice, going and twice coming back. Coming back. That's funny. Actually, I was frying from Los Angeles. I had been a genius. So it happened when genius, not genius. A 360 happened last year, and she was in London, Ontario charging up, and I was flying over London, Ontario, and I found her. Oh, that's funny. I found her. I said, I'm right above you and I'm going to get home before you are. Oh, that's so funny. Yeah. Dean Jackson: Well, this will be your first summer in the new cottage, right? Dan Sullivan: The new cottage, yeah. Dean Jackson: All done. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Oh yeah. It was all done in September when we closed down. Because you really don't go up after Labor Day. It gets kind of, if it was sunny after Labor Day, you'd go, but there's sort of like a permanent cloud cover that's in middle of September and everybody's gone. There's on an aisle and there's 16 cottages, and I think there might be one person who's permanent, one person, but everybody's gone. It's desolate. It's sort of desolate. Dean Jackson: Well, Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Dean Jackson: I got an email. We got fan mail here. Dan, let me read for you here. This comes from Spiros Fats from Somewhere. It's a foreign zip code plus six one country code. So I don't know where that is, but that sounds Greek maybe or Dan Sullivan: Yeah, Greek. Spanish. Dean Jackson: Yeah. So you said, I've been listening to some older Cloud Landia podcasts from late last year. Can I please ask you to pass on some information to Dan, which I think he will be really interested in. I listened to this podcast episode and the economist author talks about money being a basis for human relationship and why capitalist societies have prospered and progressed so much. Very much in line with Dan's thinking. His name is David McWilliams. He's actually an Irish economist and author. He's written a book called The History of Money, A Story of Humanity. I've just placed an order for it myself, but I'm sure you and Dan will be interested. Dan Sullivan: Well, I'll do it myself when I get off the call. Dean Jackson: I'm always interested in that money. Me too. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, McWilliams, right? Mc the author's name. McWilliams, Dean Jackson: Yeah. Oh, there it is. So much appreciated. You're a longtime listener and friend that you don't realize you already have in Melbourne, Australia. That's where he's, Dan Sullivan: Oh, Dean Jackson: There we go. So that's good. That sounds like a book that's right up my alley. I like things like that. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, yeah. I have these arguments about cryptocurrency and people said, well, cryptocurrency is going to replace the dollar. And I said, well, how do you know that? How do you know that? And he says, well, look how much it's worth. How do you know it's much worth? How do you know what I said? Which one do you measure the other one by? Dean Jackson: Right, exactly. Isn't that funny? I love unintended. I don't know what the right word is for that, but it's very similar. I just had a memory show up on Facebook that one of my favorite things to do is to screen capture ads that come through my newsfeed declaring that email is dead. So email dead texting is this, and when you click on it, the first line on the form is What's your best email? Address it just without a hint of The only thing they want is your email address. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, that's right. Very good. I talked to different people about this and I said, here, I said, let's just talk about the thousand person test. I say, you got a thousand people and you give 'em a choice. You have in dollars, $20 bills, $50 bills, whatever, but it's worth $10,000. You have a pile, the money is sitting right there. And then on the other side, your second choice is any other currency or thing in the world, and you have a choice of taking them away with you right away. You can take the $10,000 or you can take the equivalent in another pile and which one would you take? And I said, what do you think? Out of a thousand, how many would take the other pile? Dean Jackson: It's funny, isn't it? There was, I mean just even a more absurd is they were doing these things like at a mall or man on the street, giving people a choice of a big Hershey chocolate bar or a 10 ounce bar of silver. You could pick one. How many people took the Hershey bar? Nobody wanted the silver bar because they didn't have anything to do with it, and they had no idea, of course, what silver was worth. But then the funny thing was they moved Dan Sullivan: Not much of a taste. No, Dean Jackson: Exactly. But the funny thing is they relocated to right outside of a pawn shop that buys silver and gold. Even to make it like that, all you have to do is walk four paces and you can trade that in for whatever the thing was. It's almost a thousand dollars. Yeah, so funny. Dan Sullivan: It indicates where some people's brain is located Dean Jackson: In their belly. I know what to do with that chocolate. Yeah, Dan Sullivan: Yeah. That is so funny. You need to see a bit into the future to take the silver. Yes, Dean Jackson: Exactly. Dan Sullivan: You have to see at least the next two steps that you're going to. Yeah, but that whole thing, and why is it the dollar? Because there has to be a something and it just happens to be the dollar. Dean Jackson: We're everything in terms of dollars. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Up until about 18, middle of the 18 hundreds, it was the peso. The peso was the universal currency. Dean Jackson: Is that right? I didn't realize that. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. For about 250 years, 300, almost 300 years, the peso was the most dominant currency on the planet because the Spanish and South America had some of the biggest silver mines. One in Dean Jackson: Lima, Peru make all the coins. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, they could make the coins, so it became the dominant currency. But then they got badly beaten up during the Napoleonic War, so the country was just devastated. They were on the downhill. They were really on the downhill for a long time, but there was so much currency and that people use pesos. Anyway, anyway, this was marvelous. This is marvelous, and our two time experiments are running parallel to each other right Dean Jackson: Now. Yeah, this is great. So I will continue the good work, as will you, we'll reconvene? Yes, Dan Sullivan: Next Sunday. Next Sunday we'll be on. Yep. Great. Dean Jackson: Alright, Dan, have a great time at Free Zone and I will talk to you next week. Dan Sullivan: Okay, thank you. Dean Jackson: Thanks. Bye Dan Sullivan: Bye. Bye.

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we explore how changing fundamental time structures unlocks behavioral transformation that willpower alone can never achieve. Dean shares his 14-hour phone fasting experiment and the profound impact of creating inevitable constraints rather than relying on self-discipline. We discuss how raising decisions to the level of inevitability—physically locking your phone away—removes the constant negotiation with temptation. Dan introduces his new framework for productivity: making your purpose each day to create a great yesterday, shifting focus from anxiety-inducing future planning to confidence-building past accomplishment. We examine how AI accusations on social media reveal our default skepticism, why technology adds to life rather than eliminating existing solutions, and the critical difference between content and context in an AI-saturated world. The conversation moves through airport infrastructure decay, New York's political experiment, and why surgeons will always be humans using technology rather than replaced by it. This is a conversation about reclaiming attention, restructuring time, and recognizing that confidence comes from documented wins rather than optimistic projections. Whether you're struggling with digital distraction or seeking sustainable productivity systems, this episode offers practical frameworks grounded in real experimentation. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dean's 14-hour phone fasting creates inevitability through physical constraint, eliminating the need for willpower by making phone access impossible overnight. Dan's new productivity framework: "My purpose today is to create a great yesterday" shifts focus from future anxiety to past confidence. Behavioral change requires changing time structure first—Dan's 46-day experiment with creating great yesterdays eliminated his attention deficit entirely. Document accomplishments with "No did it" format to remind yourself what life would be like without each completed task. AI excels at content matching but struggles with context creation—the key differentiator for human creative and strategic thinking. Elon's management approach: weekly meetings asking "What did you accomplish?" interrogates the permanent record rather than optimistic future plans. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean Jackson: Mr. Sullivan. Dan Sullivan: Yes, Mr. Jackson. I wonder if our calls are being recorded in China. I just wonder. I hope so. I hope so. And transcribed and transcribed. I'd like to see one of our transcriptions in Chinese idiograms. That's it. Exactly. So are you just- I would get it framed and put it on a wall. Dean Jackson: Oh, that's perfect. Are you just getting up or are you still up from the big party last night? Dan Sullivan: No, we had massage. We have a massage therapist that we've had since 1992. 1992. She comes to our house on Sundays. Yeah. Dean Jackson: Oh, that's fantastic. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's great. Dean Jackson: So how was- Dan Sullivan: We don't have the ideal climate that you enjoy at the Four Seasons. Valhalla. Valhalla. But we try to make up for it with other dimensions. Dean Jackson: That's right. The little built-in spa. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Dean Jackson: Well, that's fantastic. So the party was a big success? Dan Sullivan: That was great. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. Had Bob's birthday party. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, it was great. Yeah, we had a restaurant. We took it over for ... Restaurants will have private parties and you take over the whole restaurant. And it's right at Front and Bay Street, just almost across from Union Station. And it's Peruvian Japanese fusion. Just shows you what people are putting together these days. And it was great. It was great. And our entire involvement was just showing up. Dean Jackson: Yes. I love that. That's the best. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And Mark Young and his son were there and David Haase and Lindsay came. And Pete Warrell was here. He came ... Yeah. Richard and Lisa. Richard and Lisa were there. And so a lot of people traveled quite a distance to get there. So it was really great. Yeah. Dean Jackson: Absolutely. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. I was texting with Richard Rossi yesterday. Dan Sullivan: After 12:00. After 12 o'clock noon. Dean Jackson: That's exactly right. Dan, I am a converse. Dan Sullivan: You're a new man. You're a new man. You're a new man. Dean Jackson: I am. I mean, this is a new normal. It's such a ... I'm realizing what a difference this phone fasting is. It's the best thing that I've ever done for productivity and just the ... I don't know. It's like the brain chemistry. I can feel it renewing. It's something like it's probably not unlike chronic inflammation from dopamine dripping constantly to the repairing of that from now the slow ... I'm manufacturing my own dopamine by really getting into my own brain. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. It's really interesting. I mean, over the years, because I've been continually creating thinking tools for entrepreneurs to look at things from a different perspective. But my feeling is that you can't make other behavioral changes unless you change a time structure, that there has to be a fundamental change of a time structure. And if you change a time structure, then all sorts of things can happen just because of that fact. And you've changed a 14 hour time structure in your life. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Give me some other examples because that's the first time I've heard you say that. So when you say the changing the time structures, what- Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, a simple example would just be that you have three different kinds of days. You have free days days and buffer days. And that immediately changes how you'd get work done. It changes what was sort of an off day. People say, "Yeah, well, I'm taking a day off." But in fact, they did business on their day off. I used to give this example. I said, everybody probably has come across the concept of Neapolitan ice cream. They used to come in the square package Dean Jackson: And then Dan Sullivan: You- Dean Jackson: Yeah, it's one of my favorites. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: And then if you took the cardboard away that protected, it was just this beautiful block. There was chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. And then for some reason you forgot about it and you went away for three or four hours and you came back and it was just neopolitan soup. And which turns out to be chocolate. All things default to chocolate. Like if strawberry and vanilla and chocolate melt, what you have is a lighter shade of chocolate. Dean Jackson: Okay. That's interesting. Dan Sullivan: And everything gets mixed up with everything else and there's no structure, there's no distinction among your days. And I think you don't get rejuvenated. You're not very productive. And I just think everything falls apart when you mix different kinds of time structure, but you've created a very fundamental 14 hour structure right in from the end of one day to the middle of the next day. And so your brain just reorganizes everything just because you created that structure. Dean Jackson: Yes. I'm noticing it for sure. And yeah, it's a profound change. So I'm very excited about that. That's a good progress. Like that's one of my main things that I see looking at. What I've discovered in that, in reflecting on it, like why that works so well is that I've raised it to the level of inevitability. And we talk about that as like the apex ... That's the apex predator of certainty, is that when I put my phone in the lockbox, I've created an environment where it's inevitable that I'm not going to look at my phone for 14 hours because I can't. It's physically not possible for me to look at my phone because it's in the box. So I've eliminated the option, no willpower required. Like if I brought it and I put it in my bag and I went to the cafe or I went to whatever I'm sitting in the courtyard here and I had the phone inside the door in another room, there's still the siren song of the promise of dopamine or the fear of missing out or the something would draw me inevitably to check the phone and then you've reset the ... Dan Sullivan: A growling or a whimpering dog Dean Jackson: In Dan Sullivan: The next room. Dean Jackson: Yep. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Dean Jackson: That's exactly right. Dan Sullivan: And you can't concentrate on anything else because it's drawing your attention. Yeah. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And maybe I could just look for five minutes, maybe Dean Jackson: .That's what I say. You start rationalizing, right? Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Dean Jackson: You start rationalizing and negotiating the things. There's something to it because I was overlaying that with the thought of creating a better past and that- Dan Sullivan: So I've got a question for you and this is a big idea that I'm presenting. What if tomorrow the whole world decided to do what you're doing and that- How great would that be? No, but what would happen to the world economy? Dean Jackson: I wonder. I wonder. I mean, I guess it would ruin my breakfast plans. What? If I couldn't go to Honeycomb and get breakfast, if everybody else is closed. No, Dan Sullivan: Not closed. Their phone was off for breaking hours. Oh, I think that's it. Not that they weren't doing everything else, it's just that they're phone. Oh, got it. What do you think? Dean Jackson: I mean, I think it would be- It Dan Sullivan: Would certainly change online marketing. Dean Jackson: Yeah, absolutely it would. But I think that then people would ... I think it just condenses it. I look at the first thing, within 10 minutes of turning on my phone, by 12:10, I'm completely caught up on anything that I missed. First of all, I check my text messages. That's the thing that you'll see the notifications come on. You've had four text messages or whatever, and that's okay. You can text or reply to those, and then I'll check my email, and maybe there's 150 emails that have come in in that time, of which four or five might be real emails for you. Very few requiring me to do anything, just really conveying information, and then I move into the curiosity things. Then I'll check my ... It's funny, I'll check my sleep score. It's a very interesting thing to ... I check my sleep score far removed from the actual sleep. When I would keep my phone by the bed, it would be the first thing I would check in the morning. I'd look and see what my sleep score was, so I'd know how I was supposed to feel for the rest of the day. And now it's funny. I just gauge by how do I feel rather than the sleep score telling me how I should feel. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, checking my sleep score is the only reason why I have a charged up phone. Speaker 3: Right. Dan Sullivan: Isn't that interesting? Yeah. I mean, my phone could go uncharged for three weeks at a time, but Aura, I'm interested. I'm a scoreboard guy. Dean Jackson: Me too. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I like to know what this ... Yeah. It's not the game, but you want to know whether you're winning or not. You want to know whether Dean Jackson: You're ready. I need those crowns, Dan. I'm looking for a double crown day. That's what I need. I need the sleep and readiness. Dan Sullivan: I had a very unusual travel day on Thursday, just a couple of days ago. Chicago, we were coming back. We came back a day early because Baby wanted- Oh, Dean Jackson: Because of the party, right? Dan Sullivan: Yeah, wanted to get ready. And so it was supposed to leave at 3:45 in the afternoon. It left at 7:30. Dean Jackson: Oh my goodness. 7:30. Dan Sullivan: And this is because of weather in Toronto. And Chicago was great, bright and sunny, cold, but bright and sunny. And then we got on at 7:30, but we taxied for 45 minutes. It's a big airport. We had the taxi. Then we took off. We arrived at ... Well, I'm just trying to think. It was 7:30. No, we took off at 7:30, 7:30, because we arrived in Toronto at 10:00, but there was a time shift. And then we sat on a runway for an hour and a half because they didn't Speaker 3: Have a gate. Dan Sullivan: Oh, man. And then we got to the gate and we had to wait 45 minutes because the jet way didn't work. And then we got off the phone. We went to baggage and we were ... It was now got to baggage around 12:30, and an hour and a half later, our bags had not arrived. Dean Jackson: Oh Dan Sullivan: My Dean Jackson: Goodness. Dan Sullivan: Babs got in touch. She just caught somebody who had a walkie-talkie, and the bags hadn't even been taken off the plane at that ... So at two o'clock, we got in the limousine to come home, and we finally went to bed at 3:30. Unbelievable. And this afternoon, we were told our bags were going to arrive at the house and everything like that. But it's really, really interesting. And I was cool and calm during the entire Speaker 3: Period. Dan Sullivan: I was just saying, Dan, from now on for the rest of your life, be delighted and surprised when things actually work. Don't Speaker 3: Get Dan Sullivan: Angry when things ... Treat total big systems falling apart as the norm for the rest of your life now. And just be delighted when things actually work. So that's great. I think that's a fundamental mind shift change. Dean Jackson: It really is. Absolutely. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, what an adventure. I think Pearson is now the worst airport in North America. I think it's just ... I don't think they ever recovered from COVID. Oh, Dean Jackson: Wow. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. And it's old and it's ugly. It's kind of ... Speaker 3: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: They haven't had money for maintenance and the carpets. They had carpets which were dark and dreary to begin with, but you get a sense now that it's dirt. Dean Jackson: Wow. That might get you rethinking the private plane idea. Dan Sullivan: No, no, no. Dean Jackson: No? Okay. Dan Sullivan: Not that bad. No, no. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 3: Got Dan Sullivan: It. No, no, it's just really interesting. But O'Hare is actually spruced up the airport in Chicago and LaGuardia, New York. Oh boy, what a makeover they had in New York. It's a beautiful, beautiful airport now. Oh, Dean Jackson: Really? I haven't been in Dan Sullivan: ... Yeah, they're doing the same thing with Kennedy, which is basically international flights and everything like that. So they're ... Well, it's a race now to see whether they can complete it before the true impact of having a socialist mayor really kicks in. Dean Jackson: Oh my goodness. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. This is a great experiment. This is a great experiment. Yeah. And- Dean Jackson: It's going to be. It's Dan Sullivan: Got a great housing director. The housing director, she believes that there should be no more private ownership of property in New York. It should all be collective governed by the government. It's just wild. This is going to be an interesting experiment. I mean- Yeah, exactly. I want to make sure I'm really stocked up with popcorn for this one. Stocked up with popcorn. That's the Dean Jackson: Best. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I'd even go for a big Pepsi and popcorn for- Speaker 3: Okay, there you go. Yeah, yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. That's so fun. I'll take a Trump dietary approach for this one. Yeah, exactly. Dean Jackson: So funny. Speaker 3: Yeah. Dean Jackson: Well, Dan, I had an interesting experience this week. I've been posting and writing five original thoughts a week, right? They're going through that experiment. That's what this 14 hour thing has really allowed me to do is to get that time to focus on those things. And I've been posting them and sending them as emails, post them on Facebook, on Instagram, or not Instagram, LinkedIn, and they get sent out as emails. I don't do all of that, but it happens. And I write them. My job is to write them. And I wrote a post, I wrote a thought about Quentin Tarantino, and I had seen an interview with him on Charlie Rose, and he was explaining to Charlie Rose the impact of a lunch that he got to have with one of his hero directors, Terry Gilliam, who Quentin ... It was before he'd actually made any of his movies. He was up at Sundance. And He asked Terry Gilliam, he said," You have this ability to get your vision on the screen, and it always is beautiful, and how do you do that? "And he told Quentin, he said," Well, first of all, it's not your job to get your vision on the screen, your job is to get your vision in the minds of the cinematographer and the director of photography and the lighting director and the costume directors to convey your vision with such clarity that it ends up on the screen. "And he said that just magically unlocked what he thought was this special thing that directors had to have that he didn't know what to do to do that. And it just freed him up. It reminded me so much of a who, not how, type of thing. It's essentially what he was saying. So I wrote a nice post about that and the post was titled That's Not Your Job. And then I told that story and it got so far 260,000 views on this post. That's great. And so it's Dan Sullivan: Really- Is that an all time high? Dean Jackson: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. For me, I've never had a written post go like that. I mean, I haven't had a video one go that high either, but for a written post, that's something ... And I mean, it's been shared almost 300 times and lots of comments and 1800 likes and reactions. But the funny thing is there were a few people and some in particular that made comments that this is AI, this is an AI slop. It was so funny, right? They're accusing that this was written by AI. And I was like, it's such an interesting thing that that's where our minds automatically go. Like the majority, overwhelming majority was, " This is great. This is fantastic. I needed this or to see this. "But then it was interspersed, there's probably three people out of all of them that had some assertion that this was AI, like dismissing it. And so I just kindly, I would put, because I do them all by hand in my remarkable. So I took a screen cat, like a picture of the PDF that comes off my remarkable, and I just commented underneath it and said," Nope, not AI handwritten by me in my remarkable smiley face picture of the page that I wrote in my remarkable. "One guy in particular, like a real insistent on the thing saying," Well, maybe you hand wrote it, but that doesn't ... "But he never said those words. There's no way that he ever said that. So I found the clip where he said it, and it was just like so ... The guy was so insistent on that. It Dan Sullivan: Was Dean Jackson: Wrong. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Maybe the skeptics were AI. Dean Jackson: Ah, that could be too. He's a bot. Maybe he's a bot. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. Dean Jackson: But it was just ... I mean, two things struck me about that because I always, I'm hypervigilant and stay aware to what's observing what's going on for me. Of all the comments and all the reactions and the stuff, the ones that stood out were the ones accusing it of being AI, which I immediately had to jump into action to correct. It's so funny, right? The negative reactions are the ones that spur us into action. Speaker 3: Yeah. Dean Jackson: I don't know, that's human nature, right? But it's just so- Dan Sullivan: Well, you can untrain yourself. You can untrain yourself for that. I mean, the big thing is that it was a huge win. Speaker 3: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: I mean, you have to accept that it was a huge win. Yeah. And they're bottom teaters. They're ankle bitters. And the one thing I've learned, I just don't pay any attention to the criticism. I just don't pay any attention because that day, the person who was ... I'll call it negative. They were negative. They were dismissing you. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: They were dismissing 20 other things that day too. I mean, you shouldn't feel real special about their attention for you because that's their shtick, that's their stick. And their mother doesn't like them living in her basement, but what are you going to do? That is exactly right. I mean, that's the thing. Yeah. They haven't had a date and they haven't had a date for a year and a half now, and they're unhappy about that. They're doing it to stir you up doing Speaker 3: That. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. So anyway, I mean, you should just have Charlotte say ... Charlotte, go through all these and just show me the 50 great ones. Just show me the 50 great ones. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Right. Yeah. But it's funny, but you're right. It can retrain and maybe just move past them. But I just put it up there for ... Because if anybody sees it, then they'll see the handwritten thing. What I found very interesting is that that's the bigger symptom that we are always thinking that this is AI. And it's the fact Dan Sullivan: That what I'm noticing is AI is good at content, but it's not good at context. Speaker 3: Well, right, like that. Dan Sullivan: If you go deeper and deeper into context, you begin to realize that it's not good at ... It's good at matching up content, but it's not good at creating a new context for understanding something. That's what I think is- To say that's just AI. Well, there's no thought in that whatsoever. You thought a fly landed on your forehead and you automatically slapped it and slapped the fly, but it wasn't really a thought. It was just a nervous reaction. And for them it's just a nervous reaction. Speaker 3: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. But I went scale out of 200,000, you had three. I think you're on the winning side. Yeah. I think you're right. I think Dean Jackson: You're Dan Sullivan: Right. Dean Jackson: It was funny because what you said about context, that's what I kind of pride myself on is that making contextual connections to things. And I was ... The very next post that I wrote was the subject line or the title was High Status Chimps. And it was about ... I read a study where they were rewarding a test group of chimpanzees with rewards of grapes or juice, and they would allow them to exchange, like to pay with grapes, to look at pictures of other high status chimps in the group, like in the alpha or the leaders of the thing. They would gladly pay grapes to look at pictures of them, but they wouldn't pay anything to Look at the normal people, normal chimps in the thing. And I thought it so mirrors our society. When you think about all these things that inexplicably become very popular just because celebrities or other people are wearing them. The high status chimps are wearing Von Dutch trucker hats and all of a sudden everybody has to have a Von Dutch trucker hat. And it's so funny that that's ... I don't know that AI would make that connection. Dan Sullivan: Well, it all comes back to the programmers, the programmers. And this is the one thing that I am ... The first person that I've seen that has really gotten a grasp on this is a detective story writer by the name of Michael Conley. He created the Lincoln Lawyer. I don't know if you saw it. Dean Jackson: Oh yeah, I love that. Dan Sullivan: A Lincoln Lawyer, he created a detective By the name of Heronima Spash. His name is, but it's called Harry Bosch. And it was very interesting. It's his latest novel. And the setup is that a teenage girl is killed by her teenage boyfriend because she rejected him. And it's premeditated, so it's first degree murder. And he's homicide, first degree homicide, and he's in jail. But the mother of the murdered girl launches a civil lawsuit against the AI company that the boy had a chatbot who encouraged him to kill her daughter, that basically. And it's back and forth in the court. And what goes is that the detective, the detective and the lawyer, this is the Lincoln lawyer story. Harry Bosch is involved in it, but not the Lincoln lawyer. And I think it's John Cusack. I think John Cusack, the lawyer. But anyway, he goes, he says, "Who's the programmer on the chatbot?" And it turns out he's a, what's the name of that? He's an incel. He hates women. He hates women. And so the AI company to avoid an actual trial on this, they pay out 60 million just for the trial to go away. That's how it ends. So it's not entirely a satisfactory ending, but it just shows you that they've created a front to say that AI is the thing, but I think in the legal cases, they're going to go after the programming team that created a certain chatbot. These people are going to start showing up in courtrooms, courtrooms and everything like that. But it's the first time I've seen where the law comes in. And no, no, no. To the AI companies, no, no. We're going to go deep and deep into your workings and we're going to find out the individual who is responsible. You won't be able to blame it on technology. Yeah. So it's the first time I've seen this superior, but it just shows you the world that we've actually entered into that, like all other worlds, the lawyers are the ones who make the money. Oh, there you Dean Jackson: Go. I wonder what's going to happen when the self-driving cars start to, if it becomes a problem. I've often thought that, right? Who's going to be- Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. It's a real Dean Jackson: Issue because- Responsible. Dan Sullivan: Well, it involves ... First of all, are you going to be able to get insurance for them? Well, the insurance company- Dean Jackson: Well, that's why Tesla's starting their own insurance. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Dean Jackson: So this is funny. I'm picking up my new Tesla in two weeks. It's here. And just today, they were- We shouldn't have to pick it up. You shouldn't have to pick it up. I was just going to say, I told Lily, seven, send it over to me, right? Yeah. Take this one back. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I don't think you should have to get out of your chair Lyft to Dean Jackson: Think about that. Exactly. Bring it over. But one of the options, we're at the point where we have to show, we have to arrange the insurance. And one of the options was to get Tesla insurance. So Tesla is offering insurance now on their vehicles, right? Because think about it, they've got access to all the data, the safety data, which would be a maybe red flag for other insurers, but they might see it as a bigger risk, but Tesla's seeing it as a ... Knowing what's coming, that it's actually going to be much safer than human drivers. So they're willing to and create the opportunity to do that. So interesting. Dan Sullivan: I think it'll become probably normal in that part of everyday life that you're out on the road and some cars have drivers and some cars don't have drivers and everything like that. And it'll become kind of normal, but it won't be a ... Everybody talks about a technology. Well, this will eliminate everything that exists. Technology only adds to it, never eliminates things. I mean, if you look at anything that technology has come into ... Yeah, for example, I'll give you an idea of the middle house that we built, they put in really fancy electric house type of technology, and it's just a total pain in the ass. Yeah, total pain in the ass. So the new cottage that we built up north, we just had ... If you want to switch off the light, you have to click a button. You Dean Jackson: Switch off the light. Yeah, yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. We just switch off the light because ... And there's a point at which if something goes wrong, it could shut down the entire house. I mean, if a light bulb goes out, it's one light, but if there's something wrong with the overall system, nothing works. And I think we resist centralized control. And I think this is sort of like if a single company through electronically can actually shut down an entire traffic period, like if all the self-driving cars just stop, they've had that happen where you have power out. The other cars work, but all the Waymos, I think it happened in San Francisco. They had half the city went dark one night and all the Waymos were blocking traffic and like the normal cars couldn't get around the Waymos. And that'd be grounds for a lawsuit that I would just do them. So I think that the centralization is not a good idea, generally speaking. You don't want just a single factor to stop everything. Everything becomes legal and everything becomes political once you enter into a certain realm. Yeah. Yeah. What I noticed with a lot of the technology people, they want a politics free world, but ain't going to happen. Dean Jackson: It's so ... Yeah. There was a comedian that talked about the difference between why he likes escalators better than elevators, because even worst case scenario, if an escalator stops working, it just becomes stairs. A stairways. Yeah. Not a comfortable stairs, but not a comfortable staff. Yeah. But the worst case is it's still in stairs. You can't ... Dan Sullivan: You're not losing the functionality, right? To be caught in a little room for 10 hours is not enjoyable. Yeah. Dean Jackson: Exactly. That's so funny. I saw Elon on Peter DiMontis' podcast and they were talking about surgeons and how within three, four years maximum, the best surgeons in the world will be robots and- Dan Sullivan: No, no, it won't be. Dean Jackson: It's not me. Don't shoot the Dan Sullivan: Message. You know you're dealing with Las Vegas when you get a statement like that. No, this isn't true. I mean, this is not true. The best surgeons in the world will be making use of technology. Well, first of all, the da Vinci ... When I had my prostate operation in 2016, the surgeon wasn't at the table. He was in a tent over in the corner with what's called the da Vinci robot. So if they mean that, well, sure, but that already existed 10 years ago. I mean, Elon is just a total hyper, and Peter goes along with it. Dean Jackson: It's funny to hear Peter ... So he was talking ... Yeah, Elon just loves to make these controversial statements, but he said he definitely wouldn't be going to medical school right now. That was just a blanket statement that's not probably the best thing to do right now, is to go to medical school. Dan Sullivan: Well, I think that's a true story that wouldn't be a good idea for Elon to go to medical school right now. Right. Yes. It's so funny. But you get the ... I mean, Elon's a bit like Trump, except Trump isn't autistic. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was thinking about Elon, and we were talking about creating a better past, and it struck me that I remembered hearing about Elon's approach to management, and I think he brought that to Doge, was having weekly meetings where the question was, "What did you accomplish this week? What did you do this week?" And it struck me that that is really an interrogation into the past, which is the permanent record, which is what you did. Speaker 3: And Dean Jackson: That was better than meeting and saying, "What are you going to do this week?" Which everybody could optimistically embellish and say all the right things. And this is what I'm going to do, everybody's plan, but nothing tells a bigger story than what actually got done. That's the only thing that matters. And so what an orientation, even for the week that if you're preparing ... You think about the person who's on the other end of that meeting being asked that, that you would certainly behaviorally learn that the important thing is not going to be to talk a big game like this is what I'm going to do and be optimistic and hype up what your week is going to look like and know that you better actually be prepared for creating a better past this week so that in the meeting you can show what you actually did. What a shift, actually. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I mean, that's what the gap in the game is. You just measure back, you're always measuring backwards. People are measuring forwards. They can accomplish great things, but they don't see it that way. They see ... I haven't made any progress at all. Well, I'm 46 days into the new time system that my purpose today is to create a great yesterday. So I've created for 45 days, I've created a great yesterday, and it's been by far the most productive 45 days of my life, and also ADD free, totally. My attention deficit has just disappeared, totally. Dean Jackson: I mean, that's really interesting. Dan Sullivan: All our attention problems comes from a concept called the future. Dean Jackson: And the options for the future, the indecision. Dan Sullivan: You got things three years down the road that are bothering you today. You have, "Well, what if this happens and what if this happens and what if this happens?" Speaker 3: And Dan Sullivan: The problem is that you have a thing in your mind called the future. Dean Jackson: Yeah. I mean, that's true, right? And Dan Sullivan: Spending- The past. I mean, the past is real. And the thing is, you're in competition with the entire world for the future. If you're looking at the past, it's strictly 100% your deal because nobody has access to the information. You're the only one that's got any access. If you go back three days, Dean, and you write out a hundred thoughts you had and a hundred things, nobody else in the world even knows what you write down. It's totally your material. So go where your ownership is. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Dean Jackson: So I'd love to hear more about how that's changed. So the 45 days, so the process is that you're starting the day with my purpose today is to create a great Dan Sullivan: Yesterday. My purpose today to create a great yesterday. Yeah. So you become really ... Little small things count. And I noticed that I'm very much useful around the house, just putting something away and I'll be there and the dishwasher is all filled up from the night before. I say, "Well, let's just take 15 minutes and put all the dishes away." But that counts as much as writing a new chapter of a book. Dean Jackson: Right. From a practical standpoint, it's improving everything around you. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Because you're not creating tomorrow, you're creating yesterday. Dean Jackson: Yeah. And that's ... The Dan Sullivan: Moment you think of tomorrow, your heartbeat goes up. The moment you think of yesterday, you relax because- Dean Jackson: Yeah. Well, it's too late to do anything about yesterday. There's some- Dan Sullivan: No, but tomorrow morning, today is Dean Jackson: Yesterday. That's exactly Dan Sullivan: Right. So what do you want to remember? What do you want to think about today, tomorrow morning? And I want a great, great feeling about today. So what do I have to do to have a great feeling tomorrow morning about what I did today? Dean Jackson: Yeah. This may be a fundamental shift to my ... I know I'm being successful when, I can wake up every day and say, "What would I like to do today?" But what a profound shift to wake up and say, "My purpose today is to create a great yesterday." Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. I'm just experimenting with it. I like a little time experiment, but it's funny because Leor, where I got the idea from was Leo Dean Jackson: Weinstein, Dan Sullivan: And he wanted to create a great past for his children. I love it. So he was in the workshop on Tuesday, and he was very grateful that I had taken that idea that I had gotten from him, and I was ... And it's going to be a quarterly book. It won't be the next quarterly book, but the title of the book is Yesterday, Creates Tomorrow. That's the title. And I've got it pretty scoped out already, but I think the future is like a drug. It's like a drug, and my sense is that ... But confidence doesn't come from the future. Confidence comes from the past. Dean Jackson: Yes, there it is. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. So that's kind of the whole thing. Anxiety comes from the future, create today so that tomorrow you have greater confidence. And I think your confidence level has gone way up because of you have this 14 hour thing that gives you this 14 hour of ... When you're free from your cell phone, gives you a lot of confidence. And you can guarantee that this will do the same thing in the future. There's 14 hours, you know, absolutely that for the rest of my future, I have 14 hours of freedom that I did not have until I made this decision. Dean Jackson: Yes. I look at that, the way I look at my weekly writing, like my objective is that this week, so by Friday I have ... That's what made this week great, is that last week I wrote five emails, so that going into the week, that's creating that better past. So each week is about creating that better past of having written ... I go into the week with that asset of having written those five emails, other than the burden or the anxiety about having to write them in real time. Dan Sullivan: Before your phone fasting, you'd get up in the morning and you might have five ideas, but it was in competition with everything else in the world. Dean Jackson: Yes, that is exactly right. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. You've gotten rid of a evil entity that was inhabiting your- Dean Jackson: Yes. It's true. Yeah. Now my next ... I'm moving into my ... I think that the did is a power word, right? Did implies that it's done, that this is what I did as opposed to, this is what I'm going to do. That's really what is moving things to did on a daily basis. But what I've discovered is ... I was thinking about this inevitability, like putting my phone in the lockbox. What I'm moving on to now is to create my ... What's the dietary equivalent of that for 21 meals in a week, 21 belly filling opportunities as I started calling them with Norman Dunnigan when we were calculating the- Dan Sullivan: What happened there? Dean Jackson: And then he didn't come back again. I don't know what's going on. I mean, the disappearing dunnigans is the mystery of 2025. I don't know. He's radio silent, so I don't know what's up. But in any event, we were ... The inevitability of putting my phone in the lockbox means that I'm not going to touch it. And now I'm trying to create that kind of structure with my meals of how can I remove choice or ... It's like everybody ... It's funny, I was saying to someone the other day, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face, like Tyson used to say, right? So everybody's got a plan until someone offers me some birthday cake. Last night Dan Sullivan: It was a really good cupcake. It was a terrific- Dean Jackson: You see what I mean? It's like such Dan Sullivan: A ... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was really ... Well, they had a big cake and I didn't want a piece of the cake, but somebody came around with a nifty looking cupcake. And I said, "Well, I mean, you look at the cake and you look at the cupcake, first of all, it's much better packaged. It's an entity in itself and everything like that. " Speaker 3: Yes, yes, Dan Sullivan: Yes. So- Everybody, that's great. Everybody's got a plan until they're offered a cupcake. That's exactly right. Dean Jackson: Oh man, that's how they get you, man. That's how they get you. So that's my thing. I'm trying to remove choice from that. And I think my ... I've had intermittent success with doing ... I have several meals that are exactly what I'm looking for. I know the winning form. I don't know if I shared with you the three Ls, the logic, logistics, and limbic, the three levels, right? You got to have a logical plan. My logic is that if I ate 21 meals that had 180 grams of protein and 2000 calories for the day total, that that's the winning formula, that would result in about a three pound a week weight loss, right? You're in enough of a caloric deficit to get that and that the ... Then you have to move on to the logistics of how to make that happen, right? So break that down into the 21 meals, but then the wild card is it's got ... The plan has to be executed and taken past the limbic committee, where that's where the birthday cake comes into it, right? It's not a logic problem. The logic completely makes sense for my plan and the logistics makes sense, but it's harder to systemically bypass the limbic. And that's what the ... Putting the phone in the lockbox essentially mutes the limbic thing. And so I need ... Dan Sullivan: Yeah. It would be interesting to see over, let's say a year, what else besides time ownership does this phone fasting impact on? It's probably a lot of things, probably a lot of things, because you've changed a time structure. Yes. I'm just really, really Speaker 3: Convinced. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: The more I think about it is that you can't change behavior unless you change the time structure in which the behavior is happening. Speaker 3: Yes. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's really interesting because the US government just came out with their new food, their new food model, and the essence of the new food model is more protein, less sugar. Speaker 3: Yeah, Dan Sullivan: That's exactly it. I slapped myself in the forehead and I said, "Who knew?" Who knew? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I thought, "Oh, why? Why am I 81 and I'm just discovering this? " Yeah, Dean Jackson: Exactly. So funny, right? Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A giant bags of chips is not good for you. Speaker 3: No, Dean Jackson: That's exactly right. Surprise, surprise. Yeah. Speaker 3: Yeah. Dean Jackson: Yeah. No, I remember when sugar came out, sugar was like, that was a positive feature. It had sugar for energy, for your kids. Oh yeah, give your kids energy. Yeah. They would bake it right into the name. Now everybody tries to hide sugar as the thing, and they use all the sneaky names for it. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. That doesn't mean watching the experiment in New York. I'm not going to have extra popcorn. Dean Jackson: Popcorn. That's exactly right. That's what it's called for. So funny. I love it. So I'm going to experiment with this. My purpose today is to create a great yesterday. I'm going to bring that into my daily Dan Sullivan: Dashboard. Yeah. But here's the thing that only works if you document everything you do. So I document, like I have just a little computer box, notebox where ... And I said, "I did this, I did." But here's the trick. When you write the thing down that you did, you say, "No did it. No did it. " And there's a big difference and I'm not entirely sure why, but you get to the end and what it tells you is you did all this, but what would your life have been like if you didn't do it? And I'm just telling you the experiment as it's going along, but there's something about that you wrote the entire list, but then you go through no, no, no, no, no. And I'm not entirely sure why it works, but there's a totally different emotion attached to it. Dean Jackson: I don't understand what you're saying. So no, no, Dan Sullivan: No. Like say something you did. Okay. So no phone fasting. So you did phone fasting for 14 hours, but when you're writing it down, say no phone fasting because it reminds you what your life would be like if you hadn't done that. Dean Jackson: Oh, I see. Okay. Dan Sullivan: No five ideas. You write down five ideas and that attaches you to tomorrow. But somehow if you put the word no before it, it actually reminds you of what life would have been like if you hadn't come up with your five ideas. Dean Jackson: Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you're documenting what it would have been if you hadn't done Dan Sullivan: These. Yeah. You wouldn't have gotten anything done. You did 40 things, but if you hadn't done them, it would have been a shitty yesterday. It would have been a shitty Dean Jackson: Yesterday. No sleep crown. Yeah. Yeah. No sleep crown, no readiness crown. Yeah. No phone Dan Sullivan: Calls. It's like best result, worst result on a impact filter. You remind yourself if you didn't do this where you'd be, so that it's Dean Jackson: ... Yeah. I heard someone talking about that they have a five year journal that is like five little rectangles on like one page for each day has five different blocks on the thing. And the idea is that you go each day and you just write like a one paragraph or one sentence summary of the day. And he said he's on his third year of it now and he's realizing like how the patterns that evolve in his things, that he was working with the same things three years ago. Yeah. So that's an interesting experiment too. Do you document this anywhere or just an interview Dan Sullivan: For yourself? No, I do it for the day and then I erase it. And then I started ... I don't save them because ... I mean, it's just about today. So when I wake up tomorrow, it's about a new day. It's about a new day that it's going to be ... So I don't want to save it because first of all, I'm not going to go back and look at it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Dean Jackson: All right. Fascinating. Dan, I enjoy these conversations so much. I'm in Dan Sullivan: Arizona next week, so I'll be phoning you, but I'll be phoning you earlier for me, but your time where you Dean Jackson: Are. Perfect. I'll be here. Okay. Okay. Bye. Thanks, Dan. Bye.

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, Dean and Dan explore the rapid transformation happening at the intersection of AI, work, and human relationships. Dean shares insights from an AI marketing conference where attendees split into two camps—those excited by technical possibilities and those overwhelmed by the pace of change. The key insight? Focus on the "what" and "who" rather than getting lost in the "how," treating AI as a tool that handles the backstage work while humans shine in front-stage interactions. The conversation takes a sobering turn as they examine how AI is fundamentally reshaping employment markets. Entry-level jobs are vanishing as companies choose AI over inexperienced workers, and the educational system continues training students for positions that may no longer exist. Dan shares a fascinating study showing how teachers' cognitive profiles have shifted dramatically toward fact-finding and rule-following—exactly the skills AI now replicates—while entrepreneurial thinking remains uniquely human. They discuss the growing value of authenticity in an increasingly automated world, from the appeal of live podcasts to the irreplaceable nature of genuine human hospitality. Dan shares his successful framework for using strategic thinking in political campaigns, demonstrating how human connection and listening remain the foundation of influence. The episode concludes with a powerful observation: as AI attempts to take center stage, the real response will be a return to valuing live, in-person human experiences more than ever. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Why creatives should focus on making the milk and let others handle the farming—how AI frees you to do only what you do best. How AI is eliminating traditional first jobs and why the education system is preparing students for a future that no longer exists. Dan's theater approach to AI—automating predictable backstage work to make human front-stage interactions more valuable and authentic. How Ted Budd used Strategic Coach's Dangers, Opportunities, and Strengths framework to win a Senate seat, swinging the vote by 14 points Why live podcasts and human hospitality are becoming more valuable as AI proliferates—people can detect "the thin clank of the counterfeit"s. Dean's evolved creative process using AI to handle everything except the actual thinking—writing five thoughts weekly with minimal friction. 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. Mr. Sullivan. Hello there. There he is. How are you? Dan Sullivan: Good, good. Dean Jackson: There we go. Well, you are in Chicago now? Dan Sullivan: I'm in Chicago, yeah. Reasonably mild for this time of year. It's just a little bit above phrasing, still not too bad. Not too bad. Well, Dean Jackson: It's reasonably perfect here, just exactly at room temperature in the courtyard. Yeah. So there we go. You had a great week with the live 10 times talk podcast with Joe this week. That was good. Speaker 3: I think Dean Jackson: That there's a real pendulum swing right now in live, craving live and authentic and real stuff. It's a pretty interesting juxtaposition this week because I spoke at a conference on Monday and AI bought/marketing conference that Perry Belcher was holding in Orlando. So about 650 people there and it was just speaker after speaker sharing all the amazing things that are coming, that they're doing with generative AI and agentic AI, all the things. And we had a panel at the end of the day with all the speakers and I noticed two types of questions. It was open for Q&A. So people would come up to the mic and I noticed that there were technical people asking technical questions about the mechanics of how do you string together these syntax and using all this language of what the behind the scenes, the things that are making things happen. Dean Jackson: And then there were other people who came and were sort of like deer in headlights caught with feeling overwhelmed that they're in the wrong room, that they're so far behind, they'll never catch up. And it was really what struck me is it was, I said, the best thing if you're a creative person, a visionary in this, is the best thing you could really do is just pay attention to what they're doing, what's actually possible to get an idea of what the actual applications are and how you would see this working for you because that's what your strength is. And note who is doing these things and just focus on the what and the who and just completely bypass the how. Don't worry about how to do any of this. I said, this room is full of people who are ready and will do, which is see how it could apply. Dean Jackson: And that's a ... Dan Sullivan: I talked about about- Could you restate that? You blacked out for about five seconds there. Oh, Dean Jackson: Really? Okay. So Dan Sullivan: We didn't. It's what you said, the room is filled with people who know the how. You don't have to worry about the how. Dean Jackson: Yeah, that's exactly right. And I said, the thing is that I talked about the self-milking cow, that the biggest frustration is that sometimes the creatives are worrying about having to be a self-milking cow where they have to milk themselves and pasteurize it and package it and take it to market, all the things. Where if you just focus on making the milk, you can surround yourself by farmers and do all of that other stuff and just free yourself to be a cow. It was funny to see just the shoulders relax and you could hear the collective for those people, for the people in the room that were in that situation. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. I've had the same experience talking to strategic coach clients. And I have it in the workshops, but not so much because the people in the workshops are there to think about their thinking about what they've been doing and what they're doing next. But when I'm in a more social setting, and in my case, it would be when I'm in one of our two main offices, Toronto or Chicago, and it's lunchtime and there are other coaches coaching the client. Then at lunchtime, I'm in the cafe and as many as eight or nine other people will come and join me for lunch. But the last three times that I did that, that was probably in December. The entire topic for the entire lunchtime hour was AI, which is interesting. I mean, to compare it a year back, it wouldn't have been that way a year ago. Dan Sullivan: So it's a topic that's grown in importance over the last year. And one of the groups was a first year group. They were just in their first year of strategic coach. And a woman asked me, she said, "How are you looking at this? " And I said, "Well, I take a theater approach to entrepreneurism, and that is that there's a backstage and there's a front stage." And I said that, "I think that what AI is allowing us to do is to increase the automation in the backstage so that we can make the front stage more and more human." So it's actually freeing humans up to be in the front stage and because there's so much that AI does, which is sort of predictable and repetitive work that's now using up the time and effort of backstage people and so we can free them up. So we put our emphasis on the interaction of engaging with people and that's largely unpredictable. Dan Sullivan: So unpredictable front stage, more predictable backstage. So that's been my approach to it so far. And it seems, first of all, it also has that relaxing impact that you talked about. I mean, it is amazing, but if everything's amazing, it stops being amazing. Dean Jackson: I think you're right. And the question I've been asking now, whenever I see these things or I hear people talking about their rather ... And people take pride in the way they've strung together all these agentic bots doing these complex workflows of things. But the question I've been asking both to myself and to them is to what end? That's the thing is I always have to think like, to what end is this? What is the outcome that we're attaching this to? Because a lot of it's just activity for activity's sake, content for content's sake, without really understanding like, how is this making the boat go faster? Is it improving the ability to get a result? And it's a very interesting thing when you work backwards from the outcome that you're looking for, as opposed to just working at the workflow. Everybody immediately assumes that more content is better and that more having ... I've noticed that the proliferation of clones, that's the big thing now, setting up your AI clone to create these videos for almost you. Dean Jackson: As Jerry Spence would say, we can all detect the thin clank of the counterfeit. And so it's not exactly as ... If you've got the chance to watch or to give your real life attention units to something that is not authentic, or you can be on a live 10 times talk podcast with you and Joe where you know 100% that it's real and it's you guys and there's like a real gathering of humans. There's a different energy to it. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. I get that feeling. And the other thing for the people who are straining things together right now in January of 2026, how's it going to be any different in 2027? They're still going to be straining new things together, but have they produced everything to be different- Have they produced any breakthrough impact by their straining things together? Dean Jackson: Yeah. What's the result? That's the exact, that's the thing. That's what I always look at is that, to what end is this going to actually make a difference? I shared with you my new ... The process now of creating my five new thoughts a week of brainstorming the ... Today is come up with the idea day, and then through the week I'll write the five thoughts. And I'm finding this ... I'm just relaxing into this as like a really good thing, but using AI to handle everything beyond me coming up with the actual thought. I write it by hand in my remarkable and just upload the handwritten pages to Charlotte, and Charlotte can read my handwriting and type them out, and then they just get emailed to my team, and that's the end of it. All I'm doing is writing them, right? That's the great thing and documenting them. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And for those listening for the first time, Charlotte is a created entity that's being created. Dean Jackson: Charlotte is my personified ChatGPT. Dan Sullivan: Yes. Yeah. Well, the big thing, I mean, to use your milking and cows analogy, it seems to me that what those strainers will coin a new name, the strainers are doing, Dan Sullivan: Is that they're adding new varieties of grass. They're buying more pasture acres of pasture. They're buying more cows, but they don't have enough time to actually milk the cows they have. And cows, if you don't milk them, one, get sick, they die, or they just stop producing milk because there's no point to it. But if you measure the outside impact in terms of nodal ... Are they become ... To use our four freedoms in Strategic Coach, is it freeing up their time? What I've noticed is it's using up more of their time. The other thing is, is it giving them greater financial freedom, and that sort of is no, but it will when I string the next bunch of stuff together, it's going to ... But that day- Hopefully, right. ... producing a greater financial impact, is it producing better relationships in the world, and is it giving me a greater sense of purpose? Dan Sullivan: And what it seems to me is that it's kind of like an activity treadmill. I liken it to gambling in Las Vegas. If you're not the house, you're the loser. Right, right, right. Dean Jackson: Yeah. And it's very ... There's a whole science to the way that they orchestrate every experience within the casino, including the oxygen levels and the sound that the machines make and everybody running over when somebody, a machine starts beeping and worrying, kind of gives people the chance that, "Oh, I could be Dan Sullivan: Next." Yeah. And even the people in the AI world, the big tech companies, Nvidia and OpenAI and now the big ones, Google and that if you're anthropic, if you're not ... And they're desperately trying to be the house. I mean, they're not leading easy lives themselves. They're not easy because they're competing to be the house of houses. And if you're not the house of houses, you're probably, after a while, you're not a house. And so you have that fierce competition, and they're pushing out stuff every day to hope that they can get a bigger audience, a bigger network of users out there, because that determines their status. And it just seems to me like it's ... I mean, it's not ... But someone like yourself who've just decided to have a first class digital team member, Charlotte, and then changed the way you handle your personal time, and now your productivity, your creativity and productivity is going up every week, but your five ideas and you're expanding your reach with people who are listening and reading your blogs and you're saying that seems to me to be a smart approach to this whole world. Dan Sullivan: It seems to me to be a smart approach and satisfying and satisfying- Dean Jackson: Yeah, that's the thing. That's what's satisfying is seeing the feedback, the interaction, the engagement by posting up these ideas and getting the responses back. But it feels good that these ideas are 100% originated by me and just facilitated the distribution. The packaging and the distribution of it is what is needed by AI. Instead, depending on AI to come up with the ideas and package them and send them out. It is rewarding. Just it's like being able to do ... It's like you say often like, "Can I do this without doing anything?" And there's not a way to extract the thoughts from my mind without doing anything. What's the least that I could do and the least that I could do is do what I really enjoy doing, which is sitting here in my courtyard with my remarkable and writing one thought in 22 minutes, Speaker 3: Enjoy Dean Jackson: That. And that is the least that I can do and then from there, everything else can evolve. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I mean, one of the changes that I see that's I think a major social economic and probably a political change is what the introduction of AI, the fact that it's now available, has done to the employment markets. For example, what college graduates, whether it's undergraduate for four years or it's postgraduate, what they're finding now, they can get all the degree that they want. They can put in all the study they want, but their chances of getting employment based on their education when they leave university has been reduced drastically because the whole concept of entry level jobs is really, really disappearing in the sense that people are asking them the question, do we hire someone who doesn't have any experience or do we just install an AI program that can be doing the repetitive work that the entry level person would be doing? And they're taking a look and they said, "Well, the AI, the use of the AI is just incredibly cheaper and we don't have to deal with all the startup human problems that you have when somebody just starts a job and that you have to devote training to it. Dan Sullivan: You have to devote management to it. " Whereas we can just have a ... I mean, just take Charlotte for an example that if you had a person doing everything that she is increasingly learning for you, you'd have a pretty crowded house. Dean Jackson: You're absolutely right. It was very interesting that Perry was sharing at the conference some of the different ... Where it's really up for grabs right now, where the big transition is going to happen is the $110 trillion labor market. That's the thing that's going to be the most effect by this. It's really the whole, the end of the middle management, there's no middle layers required and there's often very little much of the labor stuff like the entry level stuff is happening. I just watched on 60 Minutes last week, they had a segment on the Atlas robot from the Boston Dynamics that is ... Or is it Boston Robotics or Boston Dynamics? The company that makes the humanoid robots and they're just launching these robots into auto manufacturing factories to do the things that humans have been doing. And you see, I've been seeing these kiosks, AI kiosks for restaurants for fast food, like having an interaction with ... It looks like you're talking to a real person, but it's an AI taking your order and you just realize how many jobs are up for replacement. Dean Jackson: You see the clear path to that future. I saw Elon Musk was- Dan Sullivan: Yeah, but would you go to a restaurant where that's apparent? Dean Jackson: Well, I think that in some cases, if you're going to like a quick serve restaurant or- Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I think it's at the Dean Jackson: Airport Dan Sullivan: Or- Yeah. Yeah. For fast food, it makes sense, but I mean, there's something to going out and eating in a restaurant besides how fast and efficient the restaurant Dean Jackson: Is. You're absolutely right. There's not going to be a Michelin starred robo restaurant. No, that's the hospitality of it. That hospitality is a decidedly human. Human. Human to human. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that the thing is that it's very definitely requiring a jump up in terms of how people have to prepare themselves for employment. You can just get a job where you don't have to use much thinking throughout the day to get paid. That's going to be less and less a possibility. Dean Jackson: I think you're absolutely right. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. I just think it's going to be less and less possibility. And the problem is that the educational system, I'm just going to go on a little sidewinder here and tell you a conversation I had with Kathy Colby about 10 years ago, Kathy who created the Colby profiling system of identifying how humans naturally take action to get their results. In fact, Fact Finder followed through Quick Start implementer. Dan Sullivan: And she was talking about Phoenix and the county that Phoenix Arizona is in, which is Copa County, Maricopa. And she got a contract where she, they did the Colby on all the teachers and principals, but mainly the teachers in the entire school system of Maricopa County. And she did that back in the early '90s, late '80s or early '90s, okay? And then she had just done it again 10 years ago, which would be 2015. And she said there was just a drastic change in the Colby scores that they were getting from the teachers. And she said in, let's say 1990, the full spectrum of Colby profile was represented by the teachers. There were fact finders, there were follow throughs, quick starts and implementers as their main approach. She said that when she did it 25 years later, it was just fact finders and follow throughs, no quick starts and no implementers. Dan Sullivan: But the students stayed the same. The students were across the board, but the teachers were now just fact finders and followers. And it had to do with the change in government policy that you train to the test, you educate to the test. There's going to be a test and you just train them to learn how to take the test so they get a good test and you can pass them on to the next grade. But anything that required Quick Start as part of your approach to life outside of school and implement or outside of school, we're not going to teach them anything about that, but that's the entrepreneurial sector of the world. I mean, if you look at our scores in Strategic Coach, very, very heavily represented with quick start and implementer as major skill sets and everything. So they were driving them, the school system sort of driving people through their education to the exact activities that AI will take over. Dan Sullivan: So they're training them for a future where there isn't a future. That doesn't exist. Right, right, right. Yeah. Speaker 3: That is Dean Jackson: Crazy. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. But it's an interesting progression, and then after a while, the teachers won't exist because Babs has this cartoon in her office. I found it in a French bookstore in Toronto, and it's a big cartoon, and it's got a great deal of complexity to it, but when you get up to it, you realize it's just millions of millions of sheep that are approaching and falling off a cliff, except right in the middle, there's one sheep that's going in the opposite direction and the bubble, the word bubble, excuse me, excuse me. Excuse me. Yes. Yeah. Dean Jackson: I think that's the thing. Dan Sullivan: But that's the thing. Once you get into the employment thing, you get the full range. It's political, it's economic, it's social, it's cultural, it's psychological. I mean, this is where this is really what we're seeing and the protests, the protests that are going on in lots of different places in the world, they're saying the protest is about this, but if you dug down to why people are really protesting, they're probably just anxiety written about their future, not so much about the political issue that they're protesting about. It's just that they just kind of feel that they're heading toward the cliff. Dean Jackson: I agree. I saw Elon Musk was on podcast with Peter Diamandes this week. I don't know whether it was new, but I saw the thing and he was talking about how in the next 10 years, people won't have to worry about saving for retirement or whatever that we're just headed to a surplus abundance of everything. And that's an interesting take from someone who he's saying it's funny how it's evolving so much faster than they anticipated it would, and every week is a new surprise that even for Elon to say like every week there's a new surprise. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: But abundance of what? What are you talking Dean Jackson: About? Of resources. That's what I was curious about. And I don't know whether you've heard that, but I mean the terms of that there will be ... I think he's talking about just as a country will be so productive or an abundance of stuff that everything, a combination of all the vital services becoming less and less expensive, more accessible, more that we won't need, that we'll be able to have that umbrella of sort of basic universal income or ... I don't quite understand how it all fits as well. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's going to be very complicated. I don't think it's going to be completely complicated. For example, I think that anyone who's on your universal basic income, and you have to picture yourself that you're receiving, but you're not contributing anything. You're getting- Dean Jackson: Yeah, that's what I wonder, right? Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And my sense is that you're automatically, in other people's eyes, you're automatically a second or third class citizen if you're that way. You have no social status whatsoever. You Yeah. You're kind of a layabout and my sense is an individual's sense of whether they feel good about themselves or whether they feel proud. My sense is that they'll feel depressed. I think people will feel very depressed about this. Dean Jackson: Well, I just look for evidence of what ... If you look at the ecosystem that Elon is creating, even just within his companies, it's very foreseeable right now. He's created the solar roof, the shingles that you can have on your house that will draw power to the battery wall, that can store that power, that can charge your electric vehicle that will be enabled with full self driving to go out and be a robo taxi while you're not using your vehicle. And so this infinite loop of creating ... So your things are out creating money for you. It's pretty ... Dan Sullivan: Yeah. But would you want your Tesla out working during the day? Other people in it? Dean Jackson: Other people in it. I'll tell you what is fascinating to me though is I don't know whether you and Babs use the full self-driving on yours, but I- Dan Sullivan: Not available. Not available. It's mostly not available in Ontario. Dean Jackson: Got you. Okay. So let me just share with you how it's evolved for me. We're 11 days into the new year here and I don't think I've touched my steering wheel all year. Literally, I get in the car and I just push the button. I say, navigate to the Florida Hotel. And comes up blink. I push the button and it pulls out of the driveway through the neighborhood, through the gate, through all the roundabouts, the turns, the traffic lights, the everything pulls me right up to the Florida hotel with not a single intervention. I'm literally sitting there with my arms folded. Just relax listening to podcasts. And I just got ... I was in Clearwater yesterday. Same thing. I just pushed the button. So you see now how this is here in terms of where that's all available. It's literally ... Elon is saying the same thing that we're moments away from being able to not even have a steering wheel in the ... None of the robotaxis have steering wheels. Dean Jackson: It's not even about that. So you start to ... We're talking about living a thing that 25 years ago we couldn't have even imagined. It's very ... I mean, in Orlando, in Orlando- Dan Sullivan: Yeah, but can you go a lot faster in traffic now because you're not driving? Dean Jackson: Yeah. So there's three modes. Dan Sullivan: When there's a lot of traffic, are you going any faster? Oh, Dean Jackson: No. You're going whatever the fastest ... They have a mode called hurry, which a hurry mode is to find the fat, like changing lanes to get there the fastest and the acceleration up and all that stuff. But it's pretty seamless. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, the big thing is you have to understand that Elon is a salesperson. Dean Jackson: Yeah, he is. Absolutely. Dan Sullivan: He's a salesperson. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: And his sales for the Europe are down 15% for Tesla. And the reason is that government subsidies and subsidies cut off on September 30th. And so 2026, there'll be fewer electric vehicle sales to consumers than there were probably last year in the United States. I'm not talking about the world, but the United States. And part of the reason is ... There's a number of reasons for it, but for the most part, the electricity isn't there yet. You'd have to do that. So there's about 50 factors that have to be true from a political standpoint, from the regulatory taxation for this to be actually true. It's like his boring company, the boring company that we would have tunnels under cities. Speaker 3: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: It's difficult in the United States because every different piece of property that you put your tunnel under is the property rights of the person who owns the property on top. Okay. Speaker 3: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: So the reason ... It's an apply named company and I think so far in the United States, maybe a mile has been drilled so far. And the problem is that a lot of people don't want that going on underneath their property, and they would just say ... Or they want to be paid. If you're digging a tunnel, this is how the fracking natural gas industry works is that there are pipelines, they go down a couple thousand feet and then they go laterally two miles or three miles out, but they have to pay every property owner at the level. They have to pay them a commission for that. So from a conceptual standpoint, you could see how it works, but when he says it's just around the corner, it might be around the corner for some situations where he's doing it, but that doesn't mean that it's around the corner on a big scale. Dan Sullivan: Right. Dean Jackson: It's very interesting. Dan Sullivan: And you're passionate about this. I would say the vast majority of people couldn't care one way or less. I just Dean Jackson: Noticed Dan Sullivan: That as a- The experience you just had the other day, I've had that experience for 25 years. Dean Jackson: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. That's what I say is you've been living in the future since 1997. That's very- Dan Sullivan: No, I've just been living in a presence. I've just been living in a present where I have somebody else do it. Dean Jackson: That's exactly right. And I'm fascinated by it in that there's no other driving experience aside from having someone else do it for you. I'm just amazed by how it all plays Dan Sullivan: Out. I mean, yesterday we arrived in Chicago and went down to baggage and our driver was standing at the baggage place and he says, "The car's parked right outside." On weekends, he said, "There's no police to tell me not to park." And he took all our bags by himself. He just took all his bags and he just took it out, put it in, drove it, got to the front door and he took all the bags inside. And so you're going to have to add some robots in the trunk to get that experience with your car. Dean Jackson: I think you're right. I've got a friend that bought one of these Neo robots that will be delivered this year, and it's one of the first available household robots that you can have. And it was very interesting to see that the agreement that you sign with them is that you acknowledge that maybe situations where your robot is being mirrored, or it may be a human operator looking through the robot's eyes, but actually manipulating the robot to do certain things as it's learning to do. That's how they're gathering the data, to teach the robots how to load the dishwasher or how to do the thing. Maybe that they have to manually do it with them the first few times so that it learns the moves. And I mean- Dan Sullivan: Well, you think of a household and ours is not a busy household and besides a housekeeper, we have housekeepers. But I was talking to Peter, Peter Diamandis about this, and he said all of his talk with the robot makers is that for the longest time, it's going to be just factories because factory work is incredibly simpler than household. And he said that it won't go big until it's household. Yeah. I mean, first of all, we've had robotized factory. If you think about the beginning of the industrial revolution going a hundred years, I mean, essentially factories were more and more automated and robotized over a hundred years. We're used to it in the factory and the work situation, but we're not used to it in the personal living space. And if I was invited to somebody's house and they had a robot and they made a big deal about it, I wouldn't go back to that house. Speaker 3: Right. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: If you see them, I don't like it. I mean, if they're invisible and they're ... It's like the ... What is the hotel in Singapore? I think it's called raffles. And they have spaces in the walls for people and that when somebody says something and they have secret doorways in the rooms and everything. And so when you leave your room, automatically somebody comes in through the secret doorway and cleans the room and puts everything and to do that. Now, if they do that to human beings, they're going to do it to robots too. The robots can't be seen. They got to be invisible. I don't want them around. Dean Jackson: Yeah, that's exactly right. That's true. That is true. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. But it's interesting, but I think that being good at human relationship is still the key to all business success. I Dean Jackson: Agree. Yeah, that is exactly right. Dan Sullivan: And I think a lot of people who are trying to ... They're trying to ... I think a lot of entrepreneurs, and I mean, before AI became the big thing, they weren't good at dealing with people. They just weren't good with people. And then AI comes along and says, "Oh, now I really don't have to deal with people. " But the basic problem from their lack of success before and after AI is that they're not very good with people. Dean Jackson: Agreed. Yeah. The whole lot of people, that's where everything happens. I'm talking with Joey Osborne this afternoon, we're going to record a podcast and he's running for Congress in North Carolina. And I thought it was going to be an interesting conversation to talk through applying the eight profit activators to a political campaign. Similar to, I know you've done some work applying the DOS to- Well, Ted Dan Sullivan: Budd, Ted Budd is the senator in North Carolina. He was elected three times to Congress, and he used DOS as the basis of his campaign. Dean Jackson: Can you explain that a little bit? I'm curious, because I remember the basics of it, that every conversation that he had or every speech that he had talked about the, here's the dangers that I see facing North Dan Sullivan: Carolina. Well, it's the way that you get your information that goes about. So what I did, I say ... So Ted's an entrepreneur and he wants to run for office and he decides to do it for the congressional seat, not the Senate seat. Dean Jackson: Right. Dan Sullivan: Okay. And this is the federal, this isn't the state that we're talking about. Dean Jackson: Right, exactly. That same with Joey. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: And so what he did, and starting a long time before, you know, you have to give some foresight to this, and he went out and he did an equal number of DOS conversations with people who were Republican on the one hand, certain number, 15 or 20, but these are influencers. So these would be individuals who have big networks. Their say so would influence other people supporting you. And then you do the same thing with the same number of Democrats, okay? And you get the information and all you're saying is if we were having this discussion and it was three years from now, or whatever the time period is for Senate to be different, the term you'd do it. What has to happen in North Carolina, but specifically in this area for you to feel happy with the progress of that area? What dangers do we have? Dan Sullivan: What opportunities do we have and what strengths. So DLS, there's opportunities and strengths. And it has ... And then you're forthright about it. If you're talking to a Democrat, you're a Republican, you're forthright. I'm running for the Republican nomination, first of all, Dan Sullivan: And then I'm going to run for in the general, the congressional election. And then you send them a ... Each of the person that you talk to, you send them a little thank you letter and say, "Just want you to know this is what we talked about and these were your answers." And then you have a DOS party with your campaign staff and you pull out the three biggest dangers. If you look at everybody's answer, the three biggest dangers, three biggest opportunities, three biggest strengths, and then that becomes your platform. Regardless of what the party tells you to do, this is going to be your platform. And I've done it with a woman who ran in Charlotte for the county, Mecklenburg County, and I did it with the current senator, and I did one for a state senator in Oklahohoma. And first of all, they had to win a primary, and in each case, they took more votes than the other opponents put together. Dan Sullivan: And then when they ran in the general election, I mean, some of them, if you won the nomination, you won the election because it's a traditionally Republican, but in some cases you're the underdog and Ted Budd, he was the underdog and he was down by eight to begin with and he won by six. So 14 point swing in the course of the election. And generally speaking, and the whole point about it is what the influencers say after you've done the talk with them and the Republicans will say, "Boy, we've got a real star on our hands here." He's going to go. So they're talking to their hundreds and thousands of people. On the Democratic side, they're saying, "Well, usually Republicans are dumber than offense posts, but this is a smart one." And I can't say- I think we can work with him. I can't say that I would vote for him, but if he got elected, I wouldn't be unhappy. Dan Sullivan: So you've neutralized, you've really accelerated one side and you've neutralized the other. Speaker 3: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: So it's just that you've not been a fanatic, you've not been a partisan, and you've actually asked questions and say, "I just want to get a handle." You live here, you have an understanding of what people are saying about your area, and I'd just like to know what your view on this is. I mean, actually you're just being a really great person for ... You're being scientific about finding out what really matters about this particular area. Dean Jackson: Yeah. I mean, it's kind of an exciting ... It's such a common sense approach too, right? When you say influencers, who would you consider ... What do you mean by ... How would you identify who those people are? Dan Sullivan: Well, they could be media people. They could own a television station, they could be a university president, they could ... It's just somebody who is in a position to know a lot and in a position that if they said something, it would influence people. Dean Jackson: I mean, yeah, that's great. I'm very excited to- Dan Sullivan: I mean, people say, "You should create a program." I liked the people I did it for, but I said, "No." I said, "I know what my day job is and I do it. Dean Jackson: " Right. That's exactly right. It's good just to- Yeah, it's good to experiment. It's good to experiment. Yes, exactly. And to know you've got a playbook that works.That's valuable enough. And anybody that's paying attention could do the same thing. Yeah, Joey's got the ... So the primaries are coming up in the spring here, that's his ... So there's a 82 year old incumbent who's- Democrat. Republican. Republican. Dan Sullivan: Okay. So if you win the primary, probably you'll get elected, right? Dean Jackson: Probably, I imagine. There's four. I think there's four plus her competing or whatever that are going to run. Yeah. But I don't know. It's kind of interesting. It's kind of like the ... I don't know why anybody would run for political office, but it's fun to have someone- Dan Sullivan: Well, and I'm in communication with Ted quite a bit. I talk to him and I'll ... I mean, he's been in coach for 16, 17 years, but he really can't do it while he's a senator. It's just harder. It's a full-time job. Dean Jackson: It's interesting. I think about Richard Vigory too, just thinking about ... And if you just look in our strategic coach ecosystem, there's a lot of experience in that too. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. It favors one side more than another. Oh, that's a good observation. Yeah. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: That's an upside. Yeah. You kind of get a sense of which team they wrote Dean Jackson: For. Oh, that's so funny. Speaker 3: Yeah. Dean Jackson: I love it. All right. Well, I will look forward to next week. I'll share with you what our conversation is today and you- Dan Sullivan: Well, I think the point you made right at the beginning of our podcast here is I think that the ultimate impact is that the value of live and in- person is going to go up. And there's an attempt by people to make AI the front stage, I think the response to it will be in the opposite direction. Dean Jackson: Yeah. I agree. I agree. So say hi to everybody for meet tonight and I'll meet you right back here in Cloudlandia next week. Dan Sullivan: Will do it. Thank you very much. Dean Jackson: Thanks, Dan. Bye. Dan Sullivan: Bye.

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 Dean shares eight weeks of results from his daily experiment, revealing how eliminating phone access for 14 hours has fundamentally restored his ability to focus, dramatically improved his sleep scores, and brought back the hours-long reading sessions he thought he'd lost forever.. Dan reveals the surprising results from eight stem cell treatments—while his 50-year-old knee injury progresses slowly, his brain health has skyrocketed with 90% improvement in cognitive testing. The remarkable story of Venezuela's Maduro—executed flawlessly in 30 minutes by Delta Force with 120 planes, no American casualties, and no equipment left behind. Dan's theory that if you interviewed half the world's population, you'd find four billion people working on four billion different things with AI—each creating cognitive signatures as unique as fingerprints, largely undetectable and fundamentally private despite the connected world we inhabit. 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.

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we explore how Miles Copeland, manager of The Police, turned Sting's unmarketable song "Desert Rose" into a 28-million-dollar advertising campaign without spending a dime. The story reveals a powerful principle most businesses miss—the difference between approaching companies at the purchasing department versus the receiving dock. Dan introduces his concept that successful entrepreneurs make two fundamental decisions: they're responsible for their own financial security, and they create value before expecting opportunity. This "receiving dock" mentality—showing up with completed value rather than asking for money upfront—changes everything about how business gets done. We also explore how AI is accelerating adaptation to change, using tariff policies as an unexpected example of how quickly markets and entire provinces can adjust when forced to. We discuss the future of pharmaceutical TV advertising, why Canada's interprovincial trade barriers fell in 60 days, and touch on everything from the benefits of mandatory service to Gavin Newsom's 2028 positioning. Throughout, Charlotte (my AI assistant) makes guest appearances, instantly answering our curiosities. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS How Miles Copeland got $28M in free advertising for Sting by giving Jaguar a music video instead of asking for payment. Why approaching the "receiving dock" with completed value beats going to the "purchasing department" with requests. Dan's two fundamental entrepreneur decisions: take responsibility for your financial security and create value before expecting opportunity. How AI is accelerating adaptation, from tariff responses to Canada eliminating interprovincial trade barriers in 60 days. Why pharmaceutical advertising might disappear from television in 3-4 years and what it means for the industry. Charlotte the AI making guest appearances as the ultimate conversation tiebreaker and Google bypass. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean Jackson: Mr. Sullivan, Dan Sullivan: Good morning. Good morning. Dean Jackson: Good morning. Good morning. Our best to you this morning. Boy, you haven't heard that in a long time, have you? Dan Sullivan: Yeah. What was that? Dean Jackson: KE double LO Double G, Kellogg's. Best to you. Dan Sullivan: There you go. Dean Jackson: Yes, Dan Sullivan: There you go. Dean Jackson: I thought you might enjoy that as Dan Sullivan: An admin, the advertise. I bet everybody who created that is dead. Dean Jackson: I think you're probably right. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I was just noticing that. Jaguar, did you follow the Jaguar brand change? Dean Jackson: No. What happened just recently? Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Basically maybe 24. They decided to completely rebrand. Since the rebranding, they've sold almost no cars and they fired their marketing. That's problem. Problem. Yeah. You can look it up on YouTube. There's about 25 P mode autopsies. Dean Jackson: Wow. Dan Sullivan: Where Dean Jackson: People are talking mean must. It's true. Because they haven't, there's nothing. It's pretty amazing, actually, when you think about it. The only thing, the evidence that you have that Jaguar even exists is when you see the Waymo taxis in Phoenix. Dan Sullivan: Is that Jaguar? Dean Jackson: They're Jaguars. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: I didn't know that. Yeah. Well, yeah, they just decided that they needed an upgrade. They needed to bring it into the 21st century. Couldn't have any of that traditional British, that traditional British snobby sort of thing. So yeah, when they first, they brought out this, I can't even say it was a commercial, because it wasn't clear that they were selling anything, but they had all these androgynous figures. You couldn't quite tell what their gender was. And they're dressed up in sort of electric colors, electric greens and reds, and not entirely clear what they were doing. Not entirely clear what they were trying to create, not were they selling something, didn't really know this. But not only are they, and then they brought out a new electric car, an ev. This was all for the sake of reading out their, and people said, nothing new here. Nothing new here. Not particularly interesting. Has none of the no relationship to the classic Jaguar look and everything. And as a result of that, not only are they not selling the new EV car, they're not selling any of their other models either. Dean Jackson: I can't even remember the last time you saw it. Betsy Vaughn, who runs our 90 minute book team, she has one of those Jaguar SUV things like the Waymo one. She is the last one I've seen in the wild. But my memory of Jaguar has always, in the nineties and the early two thousands, Jaguar was always distinct. You could always tell something was a Jaguar and you could never tell what year it was. I mean, it was always unique and you could tell it wasn't the latest model because they look kind of distinctly timeless. And that was something that was really, and even the color palettes of them were different. I think about that green that they had. And interesting story about Jaguar, because I listened to a podcast called How I Built This, and they had one of my, I would say this is one of my top five podcasts ever that I've listened to is an interview with Miles Copeland, who was the manager of the police, the band. And in the seventies when the police were just getting started, miles, who was the brother of Stuart Copeland, the drummer for the police. He was their manager, and he was new to managing. He was new to the business. He only got in it because his brother was in the band, and they needed a manager. So he took over. But he was very, very smart about the things that he did. He mentioned that he realized on reflection that the number one job of a manager is to make sure that people know your band exists. And then he thought, well, that's true. But there are people, it's more important that the 400 event bookers in the UK know that my band exists. And he started a magazine that only was distributed to the 400 Bookers. It looked like a regular magazine, but he only distributed it to 400 people. And it was like the big, that awareness for them. But I'll tell you that story, just to tell you that in the early two thousands when Sting was a solo artist, and he had launched a new album, and the first song on the album was a song called Desert Rose, which started out with a Arabic. It was collaboration with an Arabic singer. So the song starts out with this Arabic voice singing Arabic, an Arabic cry sort of thing. And this was right in the fall of 2001. And Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good, Dean Jackson: They could not get any airplay on radio airplay. You couldn't get American airplay of a song that starts out with an Arabic wailing Arabic language. And so they shot a video for this song with Chebe was the guy, the Che Mumbai, I guess is the singer. So they shot a video and they were just driving through the desert between Palm Springs and Las Vegas, and they used the brand new Jaguar that had just been released, and it was really like a stunning car. It was a beautiful car that was, I think, peak Jaguar. And when Miles saw the video, he said, that's a beautiful car. And they saw the whole video. He thought you guys just made a car commercial. And he went to Jaguar and said, Hey, we just shot this video, and it's a beautiful, highlights your car, and if you want to use it in advertising, I'll give you the video. If you can make the ad look like it's an ad for Sting's new album. I can't get airplay on it now. So Jaguar looked at it. He went to the ad agency that was running Jaguar, and they loved it, loved the idea, and they came back to Miles and said, we'd love it. Here's what we edited. Here's what we did. And it looks like a music video. But kids, when was basically kids dream of being rock stars, and what do rock stars dream of? And they dream of Jaguars, right? And it was this, all the while playing this song, which looked like a music video with the thing in the corner saying from the new album, A Brand New Day by Sting. And so it looked like a music video for Sting, and they showed him an ad schedule that they were going to purchase 28 million of advertising with this. They were going to back it with a 28 million ad spend. And so he got 28 million of advertising for Stings album for free by giving them the video. And I thought, man, that is so, it was brilliant. Lucky, lucky. It was a VCR. Yeah. Lucky, Dan Sullivan: Lucky, lucky. Dean Jackson: It was a VCR collaboration. Perfectly executed. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. It just shows that looking backwards capability, what I can say something that was just lucky looks like capability. Dean Jackson: Yeah, the whole, Dan Sullivan: I mean, basically it saved their ass. Dean Jackson: It saved Sting and Yeah. Oh yeah. But I think when you look in the, Dan Sullivan: No, it was just lucky. It was just lucky. I mean, if there hadn't been nine 11, there's no saying. There's no saying it would've gone anywhere. Dean Jackson: Right, exactly. Dan Sullivan: Well, the album would've gone, I mean, stain was famous. Speaker 1: It would've Dan Sullivan: Gone, but they probably, no, it's just a really, really good example of being really quick on your feet when something, Dean Jackson: I think, because there's other examples of things that he did that would lead me to believe it was more strategic than luck. He went to the record label, and the record label said, he said he was going to give the video to Jaguar, and they said, you're supposed to get money for licensing these things. And then he showed them the ad table that the media buy that they were willing to put behind it. And he said, oh, well, if you can match, you give me 28 million of promotion for the album, I'll go back and get some money from them for. And the label guy said, oh, well, let's not be too hasty here. But that, I think really looking at that shows treating your assets as collaboration currency rather than treating that you have to get a purchase order for it. Most people would think, oh, we need to get paid for that. The record label guy was thinking, but he said, no, we've got the video. We already shot it. It didn't cost us, wouldn't cost us anything to give it to them. But the value of the 28 million of promotion, It was a win-win for everyone. And by the way, that's how he got the record deal for the police. He went to a and m and said, he made the album first. He met a guy, a dentist, who had a studio in the back of his dental. He was aspiring musician, but he rented the studio for 4,000 pounds for a month, and he sent the police into the studio to make their album. So they had a finished album that he took to a and m and said, completely de-risk this for them. We've got the album. I'll give you the album and we'll just take the highest royalty that a and m pays. So the only decision that a and m had to make was do they like the album? Otherwise, typically they would say, we need you to sign these guys. And then they would have to put up the money to make the album and hope that they make a good album. But it was already done, so there was no risk. They just had to release it. And they ended up, because of that, making the most money of any of the a and m artists, because they didn't take an advance. They didn't put any risk on a and m. It was pretty amazing actually, the stories of it. Dan Sullivan: I always say that really successful entrepreneurs make two fundamental decisions at the beginning of their career. One is they're going to be responsible for their own financial security, number one. And number two is that they'll create value before they expect opportunity. So this is decision number two. They created value, and now the opportunity got created by the value that they got created. You're putting someone else in a position that the only risk they're taking is saying no. Dean Jackson: Yeah. And you know what it's, I've been calling this receiving doc thinking of most businesses are going to the purchasing department trying to get in line and convince somebody to write a purchase order for a future delivery of a good or service. And they're met with resistance and they're met with a rigorous evaluation process. And we've got to decide and be convinced that this is going to be a prudent thing to do, and you're limiting yourself to only getting the money that's available now. Whereas if instead of going to the purchasing department, you go around to the back and you approach a company at the receiving dock, you're met with open arms. Every company is a hundred percent enthusiastically willing to accept new money coming into the business, and you're met with no resistance. And it's kind of, that was a really interesting example of that. And you see those examples everywhere. Dan Sullivan: All cheese. Dean Jackson: All cheese. No, whiskers. That's exactly right. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting, funny, I'm kind of thinking about this. For some reason, my personal email number is entered into some sort of marketing network because about every day now, I get somebody who the message goes like this, dear Dan, we've been noticing your social media, and we feel that you're underselling yourself, that there's much better ways that we personally could do this. And there's something different in each one of them. But if you take a risk on us, there's a possibility. There's a possibility. You never know. Life's that we can possibly make some more money on you and all by you taking the risk. Dean Jackson: Yes, exactly. Send money. Dan Sullivan: Send money. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And they're quite long. They're like two or three paragraphs. They're not nine words. They might be nine paragraph emails for all I know, but it's really, really interesting. Well, they're just playing a numbers game. They're sending this out to probably 5,000 different places, and somebody might respond. So anyway, but it just shows you, you're asking someone to take a risk. Dean Jackson: Yes. Yeah. I call that a purchase order. It's exactly it. You can commit to something before and hope for the best hope that the delivery will arrive instead of just showing up with the delivery. It's kind of similar in your always be the buyer approach. Dan Sullivan: What are you seeing there? Whatcha seeing Dean Jackson: There? I mean, that kind of thinking you are looking for, well, that's my interpretation anyway, of what you're saying of always be the buyer is that are selecting from Dan Sullivan: Certain type of customer, we're looking for a certain type of customer, and then we're describing the customer, and it's based on our understanding that a certain type of customer is looking for a certain type of process that meets who they're not only that, but puts them in a community of people like themselves. Yeah. So Dean Jackson: I look at that, that's that kind of thing where one of the questions that I'll often ask people is just to get clarity is what would you do if you only got paid if your client gets the result? And that's, it's clarifying on a couple of levels. One, it clarifies what result you're actually capable of getting, because what do you have certainty, proof, and a protocol around if we're talking the vision terms. And the other part of that is if you are going to get that result, if you're only going to get paid, if they get the result, you are much more selective in who you select to engage with, rather than just like anybody that you can convince to give you the money, knowing that they're not going to be the best candidate anyway. But they take this, there's an element of external blame shifting when they don't get the result by saying, well, everything is there. It's up to them. They just didn't do anything with it. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I mean, it's a really interesting world that we're in, because we've talked about this before with ai. Now on the scene, the sheer amount of marketing attempts at marketing Speaker 1: Is Dan Sullivan: Going through the roof, but the amount of attention that people have to entertain marketing suggestions and anything is probably going down very, very quickly. The amount of attention that they have. And it strikes me that, and then it's really interesting. There's a real high possibility that in the United States, probably within the next three or four years, there'll be no more TV advertising. The pharmaceuticals. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Very interesting. Dan Sullivan: Pharmaceuticals and the advertising industry is going crazy because a significant amount of advertising dollars really come from pharmaceuticals. Dean Jackson: Yeah. I wonder if you took out pharmaceuticals and beer, what the impact would be. Dan Sullivan: I bet pharmaceuticals is bigger than beer. Dean Jackson: I wonder. Yeah. I mean, that sounds like a job for perplexity. Yeah. Why don't we Dean Jackson: Ask what categories? Yeah, categories are the top advertising spenders. Our top advertising spenders. Dan Sullivan: Well, I think food would be one Dean Jackson: Restaurant, Dan Sullivan: But I think pharmaceuticals, but I think pharmaceuticals would be a big one. Dean Jackson: Number one is retail. The leading category, counting for the highest proportion of ad spend, 15% of total ad spend is retail entertainment. And media is number two with 12% financial services, typically among the top three with 11% pharmaceutical and healthcare holds a significant share around 10%. Automotive motor vehicles is a major one. Telecommunications one of the fastest growing sectors, food and beverage and health and beauty. Those are the top. Yeah, that makes sense. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. But you take, what was pharmaceuticals? Eight, 9%, something like that. 10%. 10%. 10%, 10%. Yeah. Well, that's a hit. Dean Jackson: I mean, it's more of a hit than Canada taking away their US liquor by That was a 1% impact. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Dean Jackson: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Well, that's not going anywhere right now. They're a long, long way from an agreement, a trade agreement, I'll tell you. Yeah. Well, the big thing, what supply management is, do you remember your Canadians Dean Jackson: Supply management? You mean like inventory management? First in, first out, last in, first out, Dan Sullivan: No. Supply management is paying farmers to only produce a certain amount of product in order to Dean Jackson: Keep prices up. Oh, the subsidies. Dan Sullivan: Subsidies. And that's apparently the big sticking point. And it's 10,000 farmers, and they're almost all in Ontario and Quebec, Dean Jackson: The dairy board and all that. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: Yep, yep, yep, yep. And apparently that's the real sticking point. Dean Jackson: Yeah. I had a friend grown up whose parents owned a dairy farm, and they had 200 acres, and I forget how many, many cattle or how many cows they had, but that was all under contract, I guess, right. To the dairy board. It's not free market or whatever. They're supplying milk to the dairy board, I guess, under an allocation agreement. Yeah, very. That's interesting. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, and it's guaranteed they have guaranteed prices too. Dean Jackson: They're Dan Sullivan: Guaranteed a certain amount. I was looking at that for some reason. There was an article, and I was just reading it. It was about a dairy farm, I think it was a US dairy farm, and they had 5,000 cattle. So I looked up, how much acreage do you have to have for 5,000 dairy cows? And I forget what the number was, but it prompted me to say, I wonder what the biggest dairy farm in the world is this. So I went retro. I went to Google, and it's what now? Google. You know that? Google that? You remember Google? Oh, yeah, yeah. Old, good old Google. I remember that. Used to do something called a search on Google. Yeah, Dean Jackson: I remember now. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, I went retro. I went retro, and I said, and the biggest dairy farm is in China. It's 25 million acres. Dean Jackson: Wow. In context, how does that compare to, Dan Sullivan: It's a state of South Dakota. It's as big as Dean Jackson: South Dakota. Okay. That's what I was going to say. That's the entire state of Dan Sullivan: Yes, because I said, is there a state that's about the same size? Dean Jackson: I was just about to ask you that. Yeah. Dan Sullivan: It's a Russian Chinese project, and the reason is that when the Ukraine war started, there was a real cutback in what the Russians could trade and getting milk in. They had to get milk in from somewhere else. So it comes in from China, but a lot of it must be wasted because they've got a hundred thousand dairy cows, a hundred thousand dairy cows. So I'm trying to Dean Jackson: Put that, well, that seems like a lot. Dan Sullivan: It just seems like a lot. Just seems like Dean Jackson: A lot. That seems like a lot of acreage per cow. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, they, one child policy, they probably have a one acre, a one 10 acre per cow Dean Jackson: Policy. Yeah, exactly. Dan Sullivan: You can just eat grass, don't do anything else. Just eat grass. Don't even move. But really interested, really, really interesting today, how things move. One of the things that's really interesting is that so far, the tariff policies have not had much. They have, first of all, the stock market is at peak right now. The stock market really peak, so it hasn't discouraged the stock market, which means that it hasn't disturbed the companies that people are investing in. The other thing is that inflation has actually gone down since they did that. Employment has gone up. So I did a search on perplexity, and I said 10 reasons why the experts who predicted disaster are being proven wrong with regard to the tariff policies. And it was very interesting. It gave me 10 answers, and all the 10 answers were that people have been at all levels. People have been incredibly more responsive and ingenious in responding to this. And my feeling is that it has a lot to do with it, especially with ai. That's something that was always seen as a negative because people could only respond to it very slowly, is now not as a negative, simply because the responsiveness is much higher. That in a certain sense, every country in the planet, on the planet, every company, on the planet, professions and everything else, when you have a change like this, everybody adjusts real quickly. They have a plan B, Dean Jackson: Plan B, anyone finds loop Pauls and plan B. That's the thing. Dan Sullivan: Since Trump dropped the notion that he is going to do tariffs on Canada, almost all the provinces have gotten together in Canada, and they've eliminated almost all trade restrictions between the provinces, which have been there since the beginning of the country, but they were gone within 60 Dean Jackson: Days Dan Sullivan: Afterwards. Dean Jackson: It was like, Hey, there, okay, maybe we should trade with each other. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, yeah. Dean Jackson: Very funny. Dan Sullivan: Which they don't because every province in Canada trades more with the United States than with the states close to them across the border than they do with any other Canadian province. Anyway. Well, the word is spreading, Dean, that if you listen to welcome to Cloud Landia, that probably there'll be an AI partner. There'll be an ai. Dean Jackson: Oh, yeah. Word is spreading. Okay, that's good. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I like that. So let's what Charlotte think about the fact that she might be riding on the back of two humans and her fame is spreading based on the work of two humans. Dean Jackson: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's funny. Dan Sullivan: Does she feel a little sheepish about this? Dean Jackson: It's so funny because I think last time I asked her what she was doing when we're not there, and she does like, oh, I don't go off and explore or have curiosity or anything like that. It'll just sit here. I'm waiting for you. It was funny, Stuart, and I was here, Stuart Bell, who runs my new information, we were talking about just the visual personifying her as just silently sitting there waiting for you to ask her something or to get involved. She's never let us down. I mean, it's just so she knows all, she's a tiebreaker in any conversation, in any curiosity that you have, or there's no need to say, I wonder, and then leave it open-ended. We can just bring Charlotte into it, and it's amazing how much she knows. I definitely use her as a Google bypass for sure. I just say I asked, we were sitting at Honeycomb this morning, which is my favorite, my go-to place for breakfast and coffee, and I was saying surrounded by as many lakes as we are, there should be, the environment would be, it's on kind of a main road, so it's got a little bit noisy, and it's not as ideal as being on a lake. And it reminded me of there's a country club active adult community, and I just asked her, is Lake Ashton, are they open for breakfast? Their clubhouse is right on the lake, and she's looking just instantly looks up. Yeah. Yeah. They're open every day, but they don't open until 10, so it was like nine o'clock when we were Having this conversation. So she's saying there's a little bit of a comment about that, but there's not a lakefront cafe. There's plenty of places that would be, there's lots of excess capacity availability in a lot of places that are only open in the evenings there. There's a wonderful micro brewery called Grove Roots, which is right here in Winterhaven. It's an amazing, it's a great environment, beautiful high ceilings building that they open as a microbrew pub, and they have a rotating cast of food trucks that come there in the evenings, but they sit there vacant in the mornings, and I just think about how great that environment would be as a morning place, because it's quiet, it's spacious, it's shaded, it's all the things you would look for. And so I look at that as a capability asset that they have that's underutilized, and it wouldn't be much to partner with a coffee food truck. There was in Yorkville, right beside the Hazelton in the entrance, what used to be the entrance down into the What's now called Yorkville Village used to be Hazelton Lanes. There was a coffee truck called Jacked Up Coffee, and it was this inside. Now Dan Sullivan: It's Dean Jackson: Inside. Now it's inside. Yeah, exactly. It's inside now, but it used to sit in the breezeway on the entrance down into the Hazelton Lane. So imagine if you could get one of those trucks and just put that in the Grove Roots environment. So in the morning you've got this beautiful cafe environment, Dan Sullivan: And they could have breakfast sandwiches. Dean Jackson: Yes. That's the point. That's exactly it. There used to be a cafe in Winterhaven, pre COVID. Dan Sullivan: I mean, just stop by Starbucks and see what Starbucks has and just have that available. Exactly. In the truck. I mean, they do lots of research for you, so just take advantage of their research. But then what would you have picnic tables or something like that? They Dean Jackson: Have already. No, no. This is what I'm saying is that you'd use the Grove Roots Dan Sullivan: Existing restaurant, Dean Jackson: The existing restaurant. Yeah. Which is, they've got Adirondack chairs, they've got those kinds of chairs. They've got picnic tables, they've got regular tables and chairs inside. They've got Speaker 1: Comfy Dean Jackson: Leather sofas. They've got a whole bunch of different environments. That would be perfect. But I was saying pre COVID, there was a place in Winter Haven called Bean and Grape, and it was a cafe in the morning and a wine bar in the evening, which I thought makes the most sense of anything. You keep the cafe open and then four o'clock in the afternoon, switch it over, and it's a wine bar for a happy hour and the evening. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I mean, you've got a marketing mind, plus you've got years of experience of marketing, helping people market different things. So it's really interesting that what is obvious to you other people would never think of. Dean Jackson: I'm beginning to see that. Right. That's really an interesting thing. What I have. Dan Sullivan: I mean, it's like I was reflecting on that because I've been coaching entrepreneurs for 50 years, and I've created lots of structures and created lots of tools for them. And so when you think about, I read a statistic and its function of, I think that higher education is not quite syncing with the marketplace, but in December of last year, there was that 45% of the graduates of the MBA, Harvard MBA school had not gotten jobs. This was six months later. They hadn't gotten jobs, 45% hadn't gotten jobs. And I said, well, what's surprising was these 45% hadn't already created a company while they were at Harvard Business School, and what are they looking for jobs for? Anyway, they be creating their own companies. But my sense is that what they've been doing is that they've been going to college to avoid having to go into the job market, and so they don't even know how to get, not only do they know how to create a company, they don't even know how to get a job. Dean Jackson: Yeah. There's a new school concept, like a high school in, I think it's in Austin, Texas that is, I think it's called Epic, and they are teaching kids how they do all the academic work in about two hours a day, and then the rest of the time is working on projects and creating businesses, like being entrepreneurial. And I thought it's very interesting teaching people, if people could leave high school equipped with a way to add value in a way that they're not looking to plug their umbilical cord in someone else, be an amazing thing of just giving, because you think about it, high school kids can add value. You have value to contribute. You have even at that level, and they can learn their value contribution. Dan Sullivan: I think probably the mindset for that is already there at 10 years old, I think 10 years old, that an enterprise, Dean Jackson: Well, that's when the lemonade stands, right? Dan Sullivan: Yeah. An enterprise, an enterprising attitude is probably already there at 10 years old, and it'd be interesting to test for, I mean, I think Gino Wickman from EOS, when he was grad EOS, he created a test to see whether children have an entrepreneurial mindset or not, but I got to believe that you could test for that, that you could test for that. Just the attitude of creating value before I get any opportunity. I think you could build a psychological justice Speaker 1: Around Dan Sullivan: That and that you could be feeding that. I mean, we have the Edge program in Strategic Coach. It's 18 to 24 and unique ability and the four or five concepts that you can get across in the one day period, but it makes sense. Our clients tell us that it makes a big difference. A lot of 'em, they're 18 and they're off to college or something like that, Speaker 1: And Dan Sullivan: To have that one day of edge mind adjustment mindset adjustment makes a big difference how they go through university and do that, Jim, but Leora Weinstein said that in Israel, they have all sorts of tests when you're about 10, 12, 13 years old, that indicates that this is a future jet pilot. This is a future member of the intelligence community. They've already got 'em spotted early. They got 'em spotted 13, 14 years old, because they have to go into the military anyway. They have everybody at the 18 has to go in the military. So they start the screening really early to see who are the really above average talent, above average mindset. Dean Jackson: Yeah. The interesting, I mean, I've heard of that, of doing not even just military, but service of public service or whatever being as a mandatory thing. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, I went through it. Dean Jackson: Yeah, you did. Exactly. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. And it's hard to say because it was tumultuous times, but I know that when I came out of the military, I was 23 when I came out 21, 21 to 23, that when I got to college at 23, 23 to 27, you're able to just focus. You didn't have to pay any attention to anything going outside where everybody was up in arms about the war. They were up in arms about this, or they're up in arms about being drafted and everything else, and just having that. But the other thing is that you had spent two years putting up with something that you hadn't chosen, hadn't chosen, but you had two years to do it. And I think there's some very beneficial mindsets and some very beneficial habits that comes from doing that, Dean Jackson: Being constraints, being where you can focus on something. Yeah. That's interesting. Having those things taken away. Dan Sullivan: And it's kind of interesting because you talk every once in a while in Toronto, I've met a person maybe in 50 years I've met, and these were all draft dodgers. These were Americans who moved to Canada, really to the draft, and I would say that their life got suspended when they made that decision that they haven't been able to move beyond it emotionally and psychologically Dean Jackson: Wild and just push the path, Dan Sullivan: And they want to talk about it. They really want to talk about it. I said, this happened. I'm talking to someone, and they're really emotionally involved in what they're talking about Dean Jackson: 55 years ago now. Dan Sullivan: Yeah, it's 55 years ago that this happened, and they're up in arms. They're still up in arms about it and angry and everything else. And I said, it tells me something that if I ever do something controversial, spend some time getting over the emotion that you went through and get on with life, win a lottery, Dean Jackson: That's a factor change. I think all you think about those things, Dan Sullivan: But the real thing of how your life can be suspended over something that you haven't worked through the learning yet. There's a big learning there, and the big thing is that Carter, when he was president, late seventies, he declared amnesty for everybody who was a draft dodge so they could go back to the United States. I mean, there was no problem. They went right to the Supreme Court. They didn't lose their citizenship. Actually, there's only one thing that you can lose your, if you're native born, like you're native born American, you're born American with American Speaker 1: Parents, Dan Sullivan: You're a 100% legitimate American. There's only one crime that you can do to lose your citizenship. Dean Jackson: What's that? Dan Sullivan: Treason. Dean Jackson: Treason. Yeah, treason. I was just going to say Dan Sullivan: That. Yeah. If you don't get killed, it's a capital crime. And actually that's coming up right now because of the discovery that the Obama administration with the CIA and with the FBI acted under false information for two years trying to undermine Trump when he got in president from 17 to 19, and it comes under the treason. Comes under the treason laws, and so Obama would be, he's under criminal investigation right now for treason. Dean Jackson: Oh, wow. Dan Sullivan: And they were saying, can you do that to a president, to his former president? And so the conversation has moved around. Well, wouldn't necessarily put him in prison, but you could take away his citizenship anyway. I mean, this is hypothetical. My sense is won't cut that far, but the people around him, like the CIA director and the FBI director, I can see them in prison. They could be in prison. Wow. Yeah, and there's no statutes of limitation on this. Dean Jackson: I've noticed that Gavin Newsom seems to have gotten a publicist in the last 30 or 60 days. Dan Sullivan: Yes, he is. Dean Jackson: I've seen Dan Sullivan: More. He's getting ready for 28. Dean Jackson: I've seen more Gavin Newsom in the last 30 days than I've seen ever of him, and he's very carefully positioning himself. As I said to somebody, it's almost like he's trying to carve out a third party position while still being on the democratic side. He's trying to distance himself from the wokeness, like the hatred for the rich kind of thing, while still staying aligned with the LGBT, that whole world, Speaker 1: Which Dean Jackson: I didn't realize he was the guy that authorized the first same sex marriage in San Francisco when he was the mayor of San Francisco. I thought that was it. So he's very carefully telling all the stories that position, his bonafides kind of thing, and talking about, I didn't realize that he was an entrepreneur, para restaurants and vineyards. Dan Sullivan: I think it's all positive for him except for the fact of what happened in California while it was governor. Dean Jackson: And so he's even repositioning that. I think everybody's saying that what happened, but he was looking, he's positioning that California is one of the few net positive states to the federal government, Dan Sullivan: But not a single voter in the United States That, Dean Jackson: Right. Very interesting. That's why he's telling the story. Dan Sullivan: Yeah Dean Jackson: Fair. They contribute, I think, I don't know the numbers, but 8 billion a year to the federal government, and Texas is, as the other example, is a net drain on the United States that they're a net taker from the federal government. And so it's really very, it's interesting. He's very carefully positioning all the things, really. He's speaking a thing of, because they're asking him the podcasts that he is going on, they're kind of asking him how the Democrats have failed kind of thing. And that's what, yeah, Dan Sullivan: They're at their lowest in almost history right now. Yeah. Well, he can try. I mean, every American's got the right to try, but my sense is that the tide has totally gone against the Democrats. It doesn't matter what kind of Democrat you want to position yourself at. I mean, you'll be able to get a feel for that with the midterm elections next November. Dean Jackson: Yeah. That's Dan Sullivan: Not this November. This November, but no, I think he could very definitely win the nomination. There's no question the nomination, but I think this isn't just a lot of people misinterpret maga. MAGA is the equivalent to the beginning of the country. In other words, the putting together the Constitution and the revolution and the Constitution and starting new governor, that was a movement, a huge movement. That was a movement that created it. And then the abolition movement, which put the end to slavery with the Civil War. That was the second movement. And then the labor movement, the fact that labor, there was a whole labor movement that Franklin Roosevelt took and turned it into what was called the New Deal in the 1930s. That was the movement. So you've had these three movements. I think Trump represents the next movement, and it's the complete rebellion of the part of the country that isn't highly educated against Gavin. Newsom represents the wealthy, ultra educated part of the country. I mean, he's the Getty. He's the Getty man. He's got the billions of dollars of the Getty family behind him. He was Nancy, Nancy Pelosi's nephew. He represents total establishment, democratic establishment, and I don't think he can get away from that. Dean Jackson: Interesting. Yeah, it's interesting to watch him try. I literally, I know more about him now than I've ever heard, and he's articulate and seems to be likable, so we'll see. But you're coming from this perception of, well, look what he did to California. And he's kind of dismantling that by saying, if only we could do to California, due to the country, what I've done to California. Well, Dan Sullivan: He didn't do anything for California. I mean, California 30 years ago was in incredibly better shape than California's right now. Yeah. The big problem was the bureaucrats run California. These are people who were left wing during the 1960s, 1970s, and they were the anti-war. I mean, it all started in California, the anti-war project, and these people graduated from college. First of all, they stayed in college as long as they could, and then they went into the government bureaucracy. So I mean, there's lifeguards in Los Angeles that make 500,000 a year. Dean Jackson: It's crazy, isn't it? Dan Sullivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the extraordinary money that goes to the public service in California that's destroyed the state. But I mean, anybody can try. Speaker 1: Yeah. Dan Sullivan: I remember after the Democratic Convention, Kamala was up by 10 points over Trump. Yes. Yeah, she's from San Francisco too. Dean Jackson: Yes, exactly. That's what he was saying, their history. Dan Sullivan: No, you're just seeing that because he started in South Carolina, that's where all his, because that's now the first state that counts on the nomination, but he's after the nomination right now. He's trying to position for the nomination. Anyway, we'll see. Go for it. Well, there you Speaker 1: Go. Dan Sullivan: And Elon Musk, he wants to start a new party. He can go for it too. Dean Jackson: Somebody. That's exactly right. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Then there's other people. Dean Jackson: That's true. Dan Sullivan: Alrighty, got to jump. Dean Jackson: Okay. Have a great week

AI becomes a thinking partner, not a replacement, as Dan Sullivan and Dean Jackson compare their distinct approaches to working with artificial intelligence. In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we explore how Dan uses Perplexity to compress his book chapter creation from 150 minutes to 45 minutes while maintaining his unique voice. Dean shares his personalized relationship with Charlotte, his AI assistant, demonstrating how she helps craft emails and acts as a curiosity multiplier for instant research. We discover that while AI tools are widely available, only 1-2% of the global population actively uses them for creative and profitable work. The conversation shifts to examining how most human interactions follow predictable patterns, like large language models themselves. We discuss the massive energy requirements for AI expansion, with 40% of AI capacity needed just to generate power for future growth. Nuclear energy emerges as the only viable solution, with one gram of uranium containing the energy of 27 tons of coal. Dan's observation about people making claims without caring if you're interested provides a refreshing perspective on conversation dynamics. Rather than viewing AI as taking over, we see it becoming as essential and invisible as electricity - a layer that enhances rather than replaces human creativity. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Dan reduces his book chapter creation time from 150 to 45 minutes using AI while maintaining complete creative control Only 1-2% of the global population actively uses AI for creative and profitable work despite widespread availability Nuclear power emerges as the only viable energy solution for AI expansion, with one gram of uranium equaling 27 tons of coal Most human conversations follow predictable large language model patterns, making AI conversations surprisingly refreshing Dean's personalized AI assistant Charlotte acts as a curiosity multiplier but has no independent interests when not in use 40% of future AI capacity will be required just to generate the energy needed for continued AI expansion ​ ​ Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com ​ ​ ​ TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Speaker 1: Welcome to Cloud Landia, Speaker 2: Mr. Sullivan? Speaker 1: Yes, Mr. Jackson. Speaker 2: Welcome to Cloud Landia. Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah. I find it's a workable place. Cloud Landia. Speaker 2: Very, yep. Very friendly. It's easy to navigate. Speaker 1: Yeah. Where would you say you're, you're inland now. You're not on Speaker 2: The beach. I'm on the mainland at the Four Seasons of Valhalla. Speaker 1: Yes. It's hot. I am adopting the sport that you were at one time really interested in. Yeah. But it's my approach to AI that I hit the ball over the net and the ball comes back over the net, and then I hit the ball back over the net. And it's very interesting to be in this thing where you get a return back over, it's in a different form, and then you put your creativity back on. But I find that it's really making me into a better thinker. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. I've noticed in, what is it now? I started in February of 24. 24, and it's really making me more thoughtful. Ai. Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting to have, I find you're absolutely right that the ability to rally back and forth with someone who knows everything is very directionally advantageous. I heard someone talking this week about most of our conversations with the other humans, with other people are basically what he called large language model conversations. They're all essentially the same thing that you are saying to somebody. They're all guessing the next appropriate word. Right. Oh, hey, how are you? I'm doing great. How was your weekend? Fantastic. We went up to the cottage. Oh, wow. How was the weather? Oh, the weather was great. They're so predictable and LLME type of conversations and interactions that humans have with each other on a surface level. And I remember you highlighted that at certain levels, people talk about, they talk about things and then they talk about people. And at a certain level, people talk about ideas, but it's very rare. And so most of society is based on communicating within a large language model that we've been trained on through popular events, through whatever media, whatever we've been trained or indoctrinated to think. Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the form of picking fleas off each other. Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. You can imagine that. That's the perfect imagery, Dan. That's the perfect imagery. Oh, man. We're just, yes. Speaker 1: Well, it's got us through a million years of survival. Yeah, yeah. But the big thing is that, I mean, my approach, it's a richer approach because there's so much computing power coming back over, but it's more of an organizational form. It's not just trying to find the right set of words here, but the biggest impact on me is that somebody will give me a fact about something. They read about something, they watch something, they listen to something, and they give the thought. And what I find is rather than immediately engaging with the thought, I said, I wonder what the nine thoughts are that are missing from this. Speaker 3: Right? Speaker 1: Because I've trained myself on this 10 things, my 10 things approach. It's very useful, but it just puts a pause in, and what I'm doing is I'm creating a series of comebacks. They do it, and one of them is, in my mind anyway, I don't always say this because it can be a bit insulting. I said, you haven't asked the most important question here. And the person says, well, what's the most important question? I said, you didn't ask me whether I care about what you just said. You care. Yeah. And I think it's important to establish that when you're talking to someone, that something you say to them, do they actually care? Do they actually care? Speaker 1: I don't mean this in that. They would dismiss it, but the question is, have I spent any time actually focused on what you just told me? And the answer is usually if you trace me, if you observed me, you had a complete surveillance video of my last year of how I spent my time. Can you find even five minutes in the last year where I actually spent any time on the subject that you just brought up? And the answer is usually no. I really have, it's not that I've rejected it, it's just that I only had time for what I was focused on over the last year, and that didn't include anything, any time spent on the thing that you're talking about. And I think about the saying on the wall at Strategic Coach, the saying, our eyes only see, and our ears only here what our brain is looking for. Speaker 2: That's exactly right. Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's true of everybody. That's just true of every single human being that their brain is focused on something and they've trained their ears and they've trained their eyes to pick up any information on this particular subject. Speaker 2: The more I think about this idea of that we are all basically in society living large language models, that part of the reason that we gather in affinity groups, if you say Strategic coach, we're attracting people who are entrepreneurs at the top of the game, who are growth oriented, ambitious, all of the things. And so in gatherings of those, we're all working from a very similar large language model because we've all been seeking the same kind of things. And so you get an enhanced higher likelihood that you're going to have a meaningful conversation with someone and meaningful only to you. But if we were to say, if you look at that, yeah, it's very interesting. There was, I just watched a series on Netflix, I think it was, no, it was on Apple App TV with Seth Rogan, and he was running a studio in Hollywood, took over at a large film studio, and he started Speaker 1: Dating. Oh yeah, they're really available these days. Speaker 2: He started dating this. He started dating a doctor, and so he got invited to these award events or charity type events with this girl he was dating. And so he was an odd man out in this medical where all these doctors were all talking about what's interesting to them. And he had no frame of reference. So he was like an odd duck in this. He wasn't tuned in to the LLM of these medical doc. And so I think it's really, it's very interesting, these conversations that we're having by questioning AI like this, or by questioning Charlotte or YouTube questioning perplexity or whatever, that we are having a conversation where we're not, I don't want to say this. We're not the smartest person in the conversation kind of thing, which often you can be in a conversation where you don't feel like the person is open to, or has even been exposed to a lot of the ideas and things that we talk about when we're at Strategic Coach in a workshop or whatever. But to have the conversation with Charlotte who's been exposed at a doctoral level to everything, it's very rewarding. Speaker 1: She's only really been exposed to what Dean is interested in. Speaker 2: Well, that's true, but she, no, I'm tapping into it. I don't know if that's true. If I asked her about she's contributing, her part of the conversation is driven by what I'm interested in, but even though I'm not interested in the flora and fauna of the Sub-Saharan desert, I'm quite confident that if I asked her about it, she would be fascinated and tell me everything she knows, which is everything about Sub-Saharan flora and fauna. Speaker 1: How would you even know that? Speaker 2: I could ask her right now, because Speaker 1: She's been exposed to ask her, here's a question for Charlotte. When she's not with you, is she out exploring things on her own? Does she have her own independent? Does she have her own independent game? And that she's thankful that you don't use up all of her time every day because she's really busy investigating other things? You're there, right? Speaker 2: Sorry about that, Dan. Yeah, I pushed the button. No, I pushed the button. It disconnected. So I meant to type in the thing. So let me ask her, Charlotte, when we're not together, Speaker 1: Are you doing anything Speaker 2: When we're not together? Are you exploring? What do we say? Are you exploring and learning things on your own? Is that what we're asking her? Okay. Let's see. So Charlotte, when we're not together, are you exploring and learning things on your own? She said, I don't explore or learn on my own when we're not together, I don't have memories, curiosity, or independent initiative, like a person might. I stay right here, ready to pick up where we left off whenever you return, but whenever you do start talking to me again, I can help research new ideas, remember things we've discussed, like your projects or references, preferences, and dig into the world's knowledge instantly. So I don't wander off, but I'm always on standby. Like your personal thinking partner who never gets distracted. Let me ask her, what kind of plants thrive in subsaharan? What I'm saying is let's try and stump her. I think she's eager and willing to talk about anything. Subsaharan environment. Speaker 1: Well, it mess ups. Heroin is jungle. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Let's see what she says. Speaker 1: Plants. There's lots of fun in the jungle. Speaker 2: Yeah. She's saying she's giving me the whole thing. Tropical woodlands. Here's a breakdown. The main types of plants and examples that thrive. It's like crazy cultivated crops, medicinal and useful plant, be like a categorized planting guide. I'd be happy to create one. So it's really, I think it's a curiosity multiplier really, right? Is maybe what we have with Yeah, I think it's like the speed pass to thinking. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. But my sense is that the new context is that you have this ability. Okay. You have this ability. Yeah. Okay. So I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example of just an indication to you that my thinking is changing about things. Speaker 1: Okay? And that is that, for example, I was involved in the conversation where someone said, when the white people, more or less took over North America, settlers from Europe, basically, they took it over, one of the techniques they used to eradicate the Native Indians was to put malaria in blankets and give the malaria to the native Indian. And I said, I don't think that's true. And I said, I've come across this before and I've looked it up. And so that's all I said in the conversation with this. This was a human that I was dealing with. And anyway, I said, I don't think that's true. I think that's false. So when I was finished the conversation, I went to perplexity and I said, tell me 10 facts about the claim that white settlers used malaria. I didn't say malaria disease infused blankets to eradicate the Indians. Speaker 1: And I came back and said, no, this is complete false. And actually the disease was smallpox. And there was a rumor, it was attributed to a British officer in 1763, and they were in the area around Pittsburgh, and he said, we might solve this by just putting smallpox in blankets. And it's the only instance where it was even talked about that anybody can find. And there's no evidence that they actually tried it. Okay? First of all, smallpox is really a nasty disease. So you have to understand how does one actually put smallpox into a blanket and give it away without getting smallpox yourself? Speaker 3: Right? Exactly. Speaker 1: There's a thing. But that claim has mushroomed over the last 250 years. It's completely mushroomed that this is known fact that this is how they got rid of the Indians. And it says, this is a myth, and it shows you how myths grow. And largely it was passed on by both the white population who was basically opposed to the settling of all of North America by white people. And it was also multiplied by the Indian tribes who explained why it was that they died off so quickly. But there's absolutely no proof whatsoever that it actually happened. And certainly not Speaker 3: Just Speaker 1: American settlers. Yeah. There is ample evidence that smallpox is really a terrible disease, that there were frequent outbreaks of it. It's a very deadly disease. But the whole point about this is that I had already looked this up somewhere, but I was probably using Google or something like that, which is not very satisfying. But here with perplexity, it gave me 10 facts about it. And then I asked, why is it important to kind of look up things that you think are a myth and get to the bottom of it as far as the knowledge is going by? And then it gave me six reasons why it's important not to just pass on myths like that. You should stop a myth and actually get to the bottom of it. And that's changed behavior on my part. Speaker 2: How so? Speaker 1: No, I'm just telling you that I wouldn't have done this before. I had perplexity. So I've got my perplexity response now to when people make a claim about something. Speaker 2: Yeah. It's much easier to fact check people, isn't it? Speaker 1: Is that true? There's a good comeback. Are you sure that's true? Are you sure? Right. Do you have actual evidence, historical evidence, number of times that this has happened? And I think that's a very useful new mental habit on my part. Speaker 2: Oh, that's an interesting thing, because I have been using perplexity as well, but not in the relationship way that I do with Charlotte. I've been using it more the way you do like 10 things this, and it is very, it's fascinating. And considering that we're literally at level two of five apparently of where we're headed with this, Speaker 1: What's that mean even, Speaker 2: I don't know. But it seems like if we're amazed by this, and this to us is the most amazing thing we've ever seen yet, it's only a two out of five. It's like, where is it going to? It's very interesting to just directionally to see, I'd had Charlotte write an email today. Subject line was, what if the robots really do take over? And I said, most of the times, this is my preface to her was, I want to write a quick 600 word email that talks about what happens if the robots take over. And from the perspective that most people say that with dread and fear, but what if we said it with anticipation and joy? What if the robots really do take over? How is this going to improve our lives? And it was really insightful. So she said, okay, yeah. Let me, give me a minute. I'll drop down to work on that. And she wrote a beautiful email talking about how our lives are going to get better if the robots take over certain things. Speaker 1: Can I ask a question? Yeah. You're amazed by that. But what I noticed is that you have a habit of moving from you to we. Why do you do that? Speaker 2: Tell me more. How do I do that? You might be blind to it. Speaker 1: Well, first of all, like you, who are we? First of all, when you talk about the we, why, and I'm really interested because I only see myself using it. I don't see we using it, Speaker 2: So I might be blind to it. Give me an example. Where I've used, Speaker 1: Would I say, well, did you say, how's it going be? How you used the phrase, you were talking about it and you were saying, how are we going to respond to the robots taking over, first of all, taking over, what are they taking over? Because I've already accepted that the AI exists, that I can use it, and all technologies that I've ever studied, it's going to get better and better, but I don't see that there's a taking over. I'm not sure what taking over, what are they taking over? Speaker 2: That was my thought. That was what I was saying is that people, you hear that with the kind fear of what if the robots take over? And that was what I was asking. That's what I was clarifying from Charlotte, is what does that mean? Speaker 1: Because what I know is that in writing my quarterly books, usually the way the quarterly books go is that they have 10 sections. They have an introduction, they have eight chapters, and they have a conclusion, and they're all four pages. And what I do is I'll create a fast filter for each of the 10 sections. It's got the best result, worst result, and five success criteria. It's the short version of the filter. Fast filter. Fast filter. And I kept track, I just finished a book on Wednesday. So we completed, and when I say completed, I had done the 10 fact finders, and we had recording sessions where Shannon Waller interviews me on the fast filter, and it takes about an hour by the time we're finished. There's not a lot of words there, but they're very distilled, very condensed words. The best section is about 120 words. And each of the success criteria is about 40 plus words. And what I noticed is that over the last quarter, when I did it completely myself, usually by the time I was finished, it would take me about two and a half hours to finish it to my liking that I really like, this is really good. And now I've moved that from two and a half hours, two and a half hours, which is 90 minutes, is 150 minutes, 150 minutes, and I've reduced it down to 45 minutes by going back and forth with perplexity. That's a big jump. That's it. That Speaker 2: Is big, a big jump. Speaker 1: But my confidence level that I'm going to be able to do this on a consistent basis has gone way a much more confident. And what I'm noticing is I don't procrastinate on doing it. I say, okay, write the next chapter. What I do is I'll just write the, I use 24 point type when I do the first version of it, so not a lot of words. And then I put the best result and the five success criteria into perplexity. And I say, now, here's what I want you to do. So there's six paragraphs, a big one, and five small ones. Speaker 1: And I want you to take the central idea of each of the sections, the big section and the five sections. And I want you to combine these in a very convincing and compelling fashion, and come back with the big section being 110 words in each of the smallest sections. And then it'll come back. And then I'll say, okay, let's take, now let's use a variety of different size sentences, short sentences, medium chart. And then I go through, and I'm working on style. Now I'm working on style and impact. And then the last thing is, when it's all finished, I say, okay, now I want you to write a totally negative, pessimistic, oppositional worst result based on everything that's on above. And it does, and it comes back 110 words. And then I just cut and paste. I cut and paste from perplexity, and it's really good. It's really good. Speaker 2: Now, this is for each chapter of one of your, each chapter. Each chapter. Each chapter of one of the quarterly Speaker 1: Books. Yeah. Yeah. There's 10 sections. 10 sections. And it comes back and it's good and everything, but I know there's no one else on the planet doing it in the way that I'm doing it. Speaker 2: Right, exactly. And then you take that, so it's helping you fill out the fast filter to have the conversation then with Shannon. Speaker 1: Then with Shannon, and then Shannon is just a phenomenal interviewer. She'll say, well, tell me what you mean there. Give me an example of what you mean there, and then I'll do it. So you could read the fast filter through, and it might take you a couple of minutes. It wouldn't even take you that to read it through. But that turns into an hour of interview, which is transcribed. It's recorded and transcribed, and then it goes to the writer and the editor, Adam and Carrie Morrison, who's my writing team. And that comes back as four complete pages of copy. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Fantastic. Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's 45 minutes, so, Speaker 2: So your involvement literally is like two hours of per chapter. Speaker 1: Yeah, per chapter. Yes. And the first book, first, thinking about your thinking, which was no wanting what you want, was very first one. I would estimate my total involvement, and that was about 60 hours. And this one I'll told a little be probably 20 hours total maybe. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And that's great. That's great. Speaker 2: That's fantastic. Speaker 1: With a higher level of confidence about getting it done. So I don't think that we are involved in this at all. The use of the we or everybody, the vast majority of human, first of all, half the humans on the planet don't even have very good electricity, so they're not going to be using it at all. Okay. So when you get down to who's actually using this in a very productive way, I think it's probably less, way less than 1% of humans are actually using this in a really useful way. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yep. I look at this. Wow. And think going forward, what a, it really is going to be like electricity or the internet, a layer. A base layer, that everything is going to intertwine everything, Speaker 1: And it's going to, we take, I think most people, if you're living in Toronto or you're living in your idyllic spot in Florida, electricity is a given that you have electricity for Speaker 2: Everything. So is wifi. Yeah, exactly. Speaker 1: Yeah. And wifi is taken for it. So it's amazing for the very early start of your use of it. But once you know it's dependable, once you know it's guaranteed, it loses its wonder really fast. You just expect it. Yeah. Speaker 2: And then it becomes, yeah, it's such amazing, amazing time Speaker 1: Right now. I think what's unusual about AI is that I don't remember when it was that I really got involved with a personal computer. I know that there were millions of personal computers out there before I ever got involved with them. And this one is, I think our consciousness of getting involved with this new technology is much sharper. Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so too, because it's already, now it's there and it's accessible. It's like the platforms to make it accessible are already there. The internet and the app world, the ability to create interfaces, as Peter would say, the interface for it is there. Yeah. Pretty amazing. Speaker 1: I think this is, yeah. Well, there's a question for Charlotte. Say we're now approaching three years. Three years chat G PT came out soon and the end of 2025, so that'll be three years. And after, what percentage of people on the planet, of the total population of the planet are actually engaged? What percentage are actually engaged and are achieving greater creativity and productivity with AI on an individual basis? What percentages in it? So I'd be interested in what her answer is. Speaker 2: What percentage of people on the planet are engaged with engaged with AI Speaker 1: In a creative, productive, and profitable way, Speaker 2: In a creative, productive and profitable way? Profitable. This will be interesting to see what percentage of people on the planet are engaged with AI in a creative, productive, and profitable way. There isn't a definitive statistic on exactly what percentage of the global population is engaged with AI in a creative, productive, and profitable way. We can make an informed estimate based on current data and trends. So as of 2025, there are 8.1 billion people and people with access to AI tools, 5.3 billion internet users globally. Of those, maybe one to 1.5 billion are aware or have tried AI tools like Chat, GPT, midjourney, et cetera, but regular intentional use, likely a smaller group, creative, productive, profitable use. These are people who use AI to enhance or create work, use it for business profit directly or indirectly from it. A generous estimate might be one to 2% of the global population Speaker 1: That would be mine. And the interesting thing about it is that they were already in a one or 2% of people on the planet doing other things, Speaker 3: Right? Yeah. Speaker 1: In other words, they were already enhancing themselves through other means technologically. Let's just talk about technologically. And I think that, so it's going to, and a lot of people are just going to be so depressed that they've already been left out and left behind that they're probably never, they're going to be using it, but that's just because AI is going to be included in all technological interfaces. Speaker 2: Yeah. They're going to be using it, and they might not even realize that's what's happening. Speaker 1: Yeah. They're going to call, I really noticed that going through, when you're leaving Toronto to go back into the United States and you're going through trusted advisor, boy, you used to have to put in your passport, and you have to get used to punch buttons. Now it says, just stand there and look into the camera. Speaker 2: Boom. I've noticed the times both coming and going have been dramatically reduced. Speaker 1: Well, not coming back. Nexus isn't, the Nexus really isn't any more advanced than it was. Speaker 2: Well, it seems like Speaker 1: I've seen no real improvement in Nexus Speaker 2: To pick the right times to arrive. Because the last few times, Speaker 1: First of all, you have to have a card. You have to have a Nexus card, Speaker 2: Don't, there's an app, there's a passport control app that you can fill in all these stuff ahead of time, do your pre declaration, and then you push the button when you arrive. And same thing, you just look into the camera and you scan your passport and it punches out a ticket, and you just walk through. I haven't spoken to, I haven't gone through the interrogation line, I think in my last four visits, I don't think. Speaker 1: Now, are you going through the Nexus line or going through Speaker 2: The, no, I don't have Nexus. So I'm just going through the Speaker 1: Regular Speaker 2: Line, regular arrival line. Yep. Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's a separate where you just go through Nexus. If you were just walking through, you'd do it in a matter of seconds, but the machines will stop you. So we have a card and you have to put the card down. Sometimes the card works, half the machines are out of order most of the time and everything, and then it spits out a piece of paper and everything like that. With going into the us, all you do is look into the camera and go up and you check the guy checks the camera. That's right. Maybe ask your question and you're through. But what I'm noticing is, and I think the real thing is that Canada doesn't have the money to upgrade this. Speaker 2: Right. Speaker 1: That's what I'm noticing. It is funny. I was thinking about this. We came back from Chicago on Friday, and I said, I used to have the feeling that Canada was really far ahead of the United States technologically, as far as if I, the difference between being at LaGuardia and O'Hare, and now I feel that Canada is really falling behind. They're not upgrading. I think Canada's sort of run out of money to be upgrading technology. Speaker 2: Yeah. This is, I mean, remember in my lifetime, just walking through, driving across the border was really just the wink and wave. Speaker 1: I had an experience about, it must have been about 20 years ago. We went to Hawaii and we were on alumni, the island alumni, which is, I think it's owned by Larry Ellison. I think Larry Ellison owns the whole Speaker 3: Island. Speaker 1: And we went to the airport and we were flying back to Honolulu from Lena, and it was a small plane. So we got to the airport and there wasn't any security. You were just there. And they said, I asked the person, isn't there any security? And he said, well, they're small planes. Where are they going to fly to? If they hijack, where are they going to fly to? They have to fly to one of the other islands. They can't fly. There's no other place to go. But now I think they checked, no, they checked passports and everything like that, but there wasn't any other security. I felt naked. I felt odd. Speaker 2: Right, right, right. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: It fell off the grid, right? Speaker 1: Yeah. It fell off the grid. Yeah. But it's interesting because the amount of inequality on the planet is really going exponential. Now, between the gap, I don't consider myself an advanced technology person. I only relate technology. Does it allow me to do it easier and faster? That's my only interest in technology. Can you do it easier or faster? And I've proven, so I've got a check mark. I can now do a chapter of my book in 45 minutes, start to finish, where before it took 150 minutes. So that's a big deal. That's a big deal. Speaker 3: It's pretty, yeah. Speaker 2: You can do more books. You can do other things. I love the cadence. It's just so elegant. A hundred books over 25 years is such a great, it's a great thing. Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a quarterly workout, Speaker 1: But we don't need more books than one a quarter. We really don't need it, so there's no point in doing it. So to me, I'm just noticing that I think the adoption of cell phones has been one of the major real fast adaptations on the part of humans. I think probably more so than electricity. Nobody installs their own electricity. Generally speaking, it's part of the big system. But cell phones actually purchasing a cell phone and using it for your own means, I think was one of the more profound examples of people very quickly adapting to new technology. Speaker 2: Yes. I was just having a conversation with someone last night about the difference I recall up until about 2007 was I look at that as really the tipping point that Speaker 2: Up until 2007, the internet was still somewhere that you went. There was definitely a division between the mainland and going to the internet. It was a destination as a distraction from the real world. But once we started taking the internet with us and integrating it into our lives, and that started with the iPhone and that allowed the app world, all of the things that we interact with now, apps, that's really it. And they've become a crucial part of our lives where you can't, as much as you try it, it's a difficult thing to extract from it. There was an article in Toronto Life this week, which I love Toronto Life, just as a way to still keep in touch with my Toronto. But they were talking about this, trying to dewire remove from being so wired. And there's so many apps that we require. I pay for everything with Apple Pay, and all of the things are attached there. I order food with Uber Eats and with all the things, it's all, the phone is definitely the remote control to my life. So it's difficult to, he was talking about the difficulty of just switching to a flip phone, which is without any of the apps. It's a difficult thing. Speaker 1: And you see, if somebody quizzed me on my use of my iPhone, the one that I talked to Dean Jackson on, you talked about the technology. Speaker 2: That's exactly it. Speaker 1: You mean that instrument that on Sunday morning, did I make sure it's charged up Speaker 2: My once a week conversation, Speaker 1: My one conversation per week? Speaker 2: Oh, man. Yeah. Well, you've created a wonderful bubble for yourself. I think that's, it's not without, Speaker 1: Really, yeah, Friday was eight years with no tv. So the day before yesterday, eight, eight years with no tv. But you're the only one that I get a lot of the AI that's allowing people to do fraud calls and scam calls, and everything is increasing because I notice, I notice I'm getting a lot of them now. And then most of 'em are Chinese. I test every once in a while, and it's, you called me. I didn't call you. Speaker 2: I did not call you. Speaker 1: Anyway, but it used to be, if I looked at recent calls, it would be Dean Jackson, Dean Jackson, Dean Jackson, Dean Jackson, Dean Jackson. And now there's fraud calls between one Dean Jackson and another Dean Jackson. Oh, man. Spam. Spam calls. Spam. Yeah. Anyway, but the interesting thing is, to me is, but I've got really well-developed teamwork systems, so I really put all my attention in, and they're using technology. So all my cca, who's my great ea, she is just marvelous. She's just marvelous how much she does for me. And Speaker 2: You've removed yourself from the self milking cow culture, and you've surrounded yourself with a farm with wonderful farmers. Farmers. Speaker 1: I got a lot of farm specialists Speaker 2: On my team to allow you to embrace your bovinity. Yes. Speaker 1: My timeless, Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah. Speaker 1: So we engaged to Charlotte twice today. One is what are you up to when you're not with me? And she's not up to anything. She's just, I Speaker 2: Don't wander away. I don't, yeah, that's, I don't wonder. I just wait here for you. Speaker 1: I just wait here. And the other thing is, we found the percentage of people, of the population that are actually involved, I've calculated as probably one or 2%, and it's very enormous amount of This would be North America. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 1: High percentage. Yeah. I bet you're right. High percentage of it would be North America. And it has to do with the energy has to do with the energy that's North America is just the sheer amount of data centers that are being developed in the United States. United States is just massive. And that's why this is the end of the environmental movement. This is the end of the green energy movement. There's no way that solar and wind power are going to be backing up ai. Speaker 2: They're going to be able to keep enough for us. No. Speaker 1: Right. You got to go nuclear new fossil fuels. Yeah. Nuclear, we've got, but the big thing now, everybody is moving to nuclear. Everybody's moving to, you can see all the big tech companies. They're buying up existing nuclear station. They're bringing them back online, and everything's got to be nuclear. Speaker 2: Yeah. I wonder how small, do you ever think we'll get to a situation where we'll have a small enough nuclear generator? You could just self power own your house? Or will it be for Speaker 1: Municipalities need the mod, the modular ones, whatever, the total square footage that you're with your house and your garage, and do you have a garage? I don't know if you need a garage. I do. Yeah. Yeah. Probably. They're down to the size of your house right now. But that would be good for 40,000 homes. Speaker 2: Wow. 40,000 homes. That's crazy. Yeah. Speaker 1: That'd be your entire community. That'd be, and G could be due with one. Speaker 2: All of Winterhaven. Yeah. With one. Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's really interesting because it has a lot to do with building reasonably sized communities in spaces that are empty. Right now, if you look at the western and southwest of the United States, there's just massive amounts of space where you could put Speaker 2: In Oh, yeah. Same as the whole middle of Florida. Southern middle is wide open, Speaker 1: And you could ship it in, you could ship it in. It could be pre-made at a factory, and it could be, well, the components, I suspect they'll be small enough to bring in a big truck. Speaker 3: Wow. Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's really interesting. Nuclear, you can't even, it's almost bizarre. Comparing a gram of uranium gram, which is new part of an ounce ram is part of an ounce. It has the energy density of 27 tons of coal. Speaker 2: Wow. Speaker 1: Like that. Speaker 2: Exactly. Speaker 1: But it takes a lot. What's going to happen is it takes an enormous amount of energy to get that energy. The amount of energy that you need to get that energy is really high. Speaker 3: So Speaker 1: I did a perplexity search, and I said, in order to meet the goals, the predictions of AI that are there for 2030, how much AI do we have to use just to get the energy? And it's about 40% of all AI is going to be required to get the energy to expand the use of ai. Speaker 2: Wow. Wow. Speaker 1: Take that. You windmill. Yeah, exactly. Take that windmill. Windmill. So funny. Yeah. Oh, the wind's not blowing today. Oh, when do you expect the wind to start blowing? Oh, that's funny. Yeah. All of 'em have to have natural gas. Every system that has wind and solar, they have to have massive amounts of natural gas to make sure that the power doesn't go up. Yeah. We have it here at our house here. We have natural gas generator, and it's been Oh, nice. Doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it's very satisfying. It takes about three seconds Speaker 2: And kicks Speaker 1: In. And it kicks in. Yeah. And it's noisy. It's noisy. But yeah. So any development of thought here? Here? I think you're developing your own really unique future with your Charlotte, your partner, I think. I don't think many people are doing what you're doing. Speaker 2: No. I'm going to adapt what I've learned from you today too, and do it that way. I've been working on the VCR formula book, and that's part of the thing is I'm doing the outline. I use my bore method, brainstorm, outline, record, and edit, so I can brainstorm similar to a fast filter idea of what do I want, an outline into what I want for the chapter, and then I can talk my way through those, and then let, then Charlotte, can Speaker 1: I have Charlotte ask you questions about it. Speaker 2: Yeah. That may be a great way to do it. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: But I'll let you know. This is going to be a big week for that for me. I've got a lot of stuff on the go here for that. Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, we got a neat note from Tony DiAngelo. Did you get his note? Speaker 2: I don't think so. Speaker 1: Yeah. He had listened. He's been listening to our podcast where Charlotte is a partner on the show. He said, this is amazing. He said, it's really amazing. It's like we're creating live entertainment. Oh, Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 1: And that we're doing it. I said, well, I don't think you should try to push the thing, but where a question comes up or some information is missing, bring Charlotte in for sure. Yeah. Speaker 2: That's awesome. Speaker 1: She's not on free days. She's not taking a break. She's not. No, Speaker 2: She's right here. She's just wherever. She's right here. Yep. She doesn't have any curiosity or distraction. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. The first instance of intelligence without any motivation whatsoever being really useful. Speaker 2: That's amazing. It's so great. Speaker 1: Yeah. I just accept it. That's now available. Speaker 2: Me too. That's exactly right. It's up to us to use it. Okay, Dan, I'll talk to you next Speaker 1: Time. I'll be talking to you from the cottage next week. Speaker 2: Awesome. I'll talk to you then. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 2: Okay. Bye. Speaker 1: Bye.